1. Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins. Crosby had 8 (5+3) points in 4 games last week, including his 4th career hat trick and second of the season plus two assists against the New York Rangers (41 points in 30 career games against the Rangers).
2. Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils. Three games, three wins. In those 3 games, Brodeur only allowed one goal per game. Brodeur ended the week with a .963 save percentage and a new record. Marty broke Patrick Roy’s minutes played record Friday night, achieving 60,235 minutes played in his career. Not a bad week.
3. Jean-Sebastian Giguere, Anaheim Ducks. Giguere won the starting job off of Jonas Hiller and has been solid for the Ducks. In 4 games last week, he won 3 and lost another in overtime and had a .943 save percentage.
Injury Report:
-Pascal Leclaire (OTT), fractured cheek, 4 weeks.
-Wade Redden (NYR), shoulder, 1 week.
-Brent Burns (MIN), concussion, indefinitely.
-Pierre-Marc Bouchard (MIN), concussion, indefinitely.
-Martin Havlat (MIN), hamstring, indefinitely.
-Milan Lucic (BOS), high-ankle sprain, 4 weeks.
-Chris Neil (OTT), knee, 2 weeks.
-David Clarkson (NJD), fractured bone above ankle, 4-6 weeks.
-Ales Hemksy (EDM), shoulder surgery, done for the season.
Notable returns:
Daniel Sedin (VAN), Marc Savard (BOS), Chris Drury (NYR), Eric Staal (CAR), Marian Hossa (CHI, two goals in debut game), Zbynek Michalek (PHX), Kris Letang (PIT), Alex Goligoski (PIT), Tyler Kennedy (PIT)
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Discussion: NHL's Best/Worst Offseason Signings
Brandon Femia: Best signing was Craig Anderson by Colorado Avalanche. When the Avs signed Anderson this past July, no one really thought twice about it even though Anderson had a solid season last year for the Panthers. However, his impact has been greatly noticed as he is 3rd in the league in save percentage and tied for the league lead in wins with 12. The Avs knew they had to shore up their goaltending situation but I don't think in their wildest dreams they would have expected Anderson to step in and play as well as he has. Anderson has filled the #1 role nicely and has made himself an early candidate for the Vezina trophy, which is not bad for a guy making under $2 million a year.
Worst is Marian Hossa by the Blackhawks. This is sort of a to be continued type of thing, since Hossa has only played one game as a member of the Blackhawks. However, on a team thats already going to be right up against the cap, many have to wonder if this signing was even necessary, especially since the Blackhawks were one of the final 4 teams remaining in the playoffs last season. Chicago is almost definitely going to be forced to trade one of its core players because of the Hossa deal. They better hope that the injury he had/has is not something that will stick with him long term because he will be around for awhile
Pat Andrzejewski: Well thanks Brandon for basically saying exactly what I was going to say, haha. If I had to choose 2 others:
Best: Vinny Prospal, New York Rangers. Prospal was signed for dirt cheap ($1.1m) and has developed instant chemistry with Marian Gaborik.
Worst: Martin Havlat, Minnesota Wild. Havlat's contract may not actually be that terrible, but I don't think he fits that system in Minnesota and his numbers are suffering because of it.
Andrew Harvey: Taking value into account I think you have to look at Prospal as the most bang for your buck right now. Martin Biron for the money is really good too because of how movable his contract is and how many teams will likely overpay for a competent and proven goalie. Derek Morris is also proving to be a very good signing by Boston, he is a guy that was kind of an afterthought the last few years but is quickly regaining his form and he is legitimate first pairing dman.
Martin Havlat is overpaid and underacheiving (its not a contract year) as is Francois Beauchemin who has been dreadful for the Leafs.
The best off season move belongs to the Flyers bringing in Chris Pronger. If the season was over today Id give him the Norris and he instantly turned Matt Carle into a reliable player instead of the defensive disaster he usually is.
Tim Daily: I agree with Harv, Prospal is definitely looking like the best value...but the addition of Pronger to that Philadelphia blueline was a huge boost. There were some other great signings though, like Mike Knuble to the Caps. Knuble brings net presence to an already potent power play and makes the team better because he creates traffic for Washington's snipers. You also have to throw Gaborik into the discussion as well, despite the expectation that he will inevitably go down. He produces and is usually the best player on the ice. The skating is what is most impressive, and he has one of the premier shots in the game.
I'm not a big fan of either the Kovalev or Havlat signings, although at the time a $5m hit for a player with Havlat's potential seemed worth it. Kovalev seems like he'd rather fly planes than play hockey.
Corey Sznjader: Best is either Craig Anderson and Chris Pronger. I also think Brendan Morrison was a really good signing for the Capitals. He played the point very well while Ovechkin was injured. He's also been great on faceoffs and given us more depth to our top 6.
Mike Knuble was a good one as well with how he generates pressure in front of the yet and along the boards. The Rangers bringing in Marian Gaborik and Vaclav Prospal has also helped them out a lot. The Jackets bringing in Garon to backup Mason was a really good signing, too.
Worst: Right now, I'd say Francois Beauchemin. He's been awful for the Leafs. Not playing with Niedermeyer and Pronger has affected his play a lot. Havlat is also showing to be a major bust in Minnesota considering what they're paying him. Also, what about Saku Koivu? I (and many others) was expecting him and Selanne to put up a lot of points this year.
Beth Krumholtz: For best signings, Gaborik was one of the first to pop into mind. He has only missed one game so far this season when players are getting hurt left and right and has been amazing for the Rangers. Also, I agree with Craig Anderson. Can't really give an opinion on the worst off-season signing because I haven't really watched that many games, but I agree with Havlat.
Nate Wells: I agree with Pat on the two snapshot choices, although it'd probably be more the Prospal/Gaborik combination than just Prospal. I still don't think Havlat was a bad deal and believe it will pay off in the long run once the team gets built around him and Fletcher/Richards' philosophy [it also doesn't help when you're a playmaker to have most of a top-six sidelined with injuries and don't mesh with the only other top-forward left]; however for someone who was paid to replace Marian Gaborik in scoring goals, only having two goals at this point in the season is unacceptable. It really wouldn't have surprised me if he's been injured since the beginning of the year and hopefully taking off these next couple games will help.
Dara Heaps: Best signing: Craig Anderson. He has been the main reason the Avs are where they are. Marian Gaborik has also been great for the Rangers. He's providing the offense they've been sorely lacking so they're no longer relying on Lundqvist to steal games.
Worst signing: Marian Hossa. Even though he has yet to lace up the skates, it was an unnecessary signing by the Hawks. He's eating up cap space they could be giving to Kane, Toews, Keith and eventually Versteeg.
Worst is Marian Hossa by the Blackhawks. This is sort of a to be continued type of thing, since Hossa has only played one game as a member of the Blackhawks. However, on a team thats already going to be right up against the cap, many have to wonder if this signing was even necessary, especially since the Blackhawks were one of the final 4 teams remaining in the playoffs last season. Chicago is almost definitely going to be forced to trade one of its core players because of the Hossa deal. They better hope that the injury he had/has is not something that will stick with him long term because he will be around for awhile
Pat Andrzejewski: Well thanks Brandon for basically saying exactly what I was going to say, haha. If I had to choose 2 others:
Best: Vinny Prospal, New York Rangers. Prospal was signed for dirt cheap ($1.1m) and has developed instant chemistry with Marian Gaborik.
Worst: Martin Havlat, Minnesota Wild. Havlat's contract may not actually be that terrible, but I don't think he fits that system in Minnesota and his numbers are suffering because of it.
Andrew Harvey: Taking value into account I think you have to look at Prospal as the most bang for your buck right now. Martin Biron for the money is really good too because of how movable his contract is and how many teams will likely overpay for a competent and proven goalie. Derek Morris is also proving to be a very good signing by Boston, he is a guy that was kind of an afterthought the last few years but is quickly regaining his form and he is legitimate first pairing dman.
Martin Havlat is overpaid and underacheiving (its not a contract year) as is Francois Beauchemin who has been dreadful for the Leafs.
The best off season move belongs to the Flyers bringing in Chris Pronger. If the season was over today Id give him the Norris and he instantly turned Matt Carle into a reliable player instead of the defensive disaster he usually is.
Tim Daily: I agree with Harv, Prospal is definitely looking like the best value...but the addition of Pronger to that Philadelphia blueline was a huge boost. There were some other great signings though, like Mike Knuble to the Caps. Knuble brings net presence to an already potent power play and makes the team better because he creates traffic for Washington's snipers. You also have to throw Gaborik into the discussion as well, despite the expectation that he will inevitably go down. He produces and is usually the best player on the ice. The skating is what is most impressive, and he has one of the premier shots in the game.
I'm not a big fan of either the Kovalev or Havlat signings, although at the time a $5m hit for a player with Havlat's potential seemed worth it. Kovalev seems like he'd rather fly planes than play hockey.
Corey Sznjader: Best is either Craig Anderson and Chris Pronger. I also think Brendan Morrison was a really good signing for the Capitals. He played the point very well while Ovechkin was injured. He's also been great on faceoffs and given us more depth to our top 6.
Mike Knuble was a good one as well with how he generates pressure in front of the yet and along the boards. The Rangers bringing in Marian Gaborik and Vaclav Prospal has also helped them out a lot. The Jackets bringing in Garon to backup Mason was a really good signing, too.
Worst: Right now, I'd say Francois Beauchemin. He's been awful for the Leafs. Not playing with Niedermeyer and Pronger has affected his play a lot. Havlat is also showing to be a major bust in Minnesota considering what they're paying him. Also, what about Saku Koivu? I (and many others) was expecting him and Selanne to put up a lot of points this year.
Beth Krumholtz: For best signings, Gaborik was one of the first to pop into mind. He has only missed one game so far this season when players are getting hurt left and right and has been amazing for the Rangers. Also, I agree with Craig Anderson. Can't really give an opinion on the worst off-season signing because I haven't really watched that many games, but I agree with Havlat.
Nate Wells: I agree with Pat on the two snapshot choices, although it'd probably be more the Prospal/Gaborik combination than just Prospal. I still don't think Havlat was a bad deal and believe it will pay off in the long run once the team gets built around him and Fletcher/Richards' philosophy [it also doesn't help when you're a playmaker to have most of a top-six sidelined with injuries and don't mesh with the only other top-forward left]; however for someone who was paid to replace Marian Gaborik in scoring goals, only having two goals at this point in the season is unacceptable. It really wouldn't have surprised me if he's been injured since the beginning of the year and hopefully taking off these next couple games will help.
Dara Heaps: Best signing: Craig Anderson. He has been the main reason the Avs are where they are. Marian Gaborik has also been great for the Rangers. He's providing the offense they've been sorely lacking so they're no longer relying on Lundqvist to steal games.
Worst signing: Marian Hossa. Even though he has yet to lace up the skates, it was an unnecessary signing by the Hawks. He's eating up cap space they could be giving to Kane, Toews, Keith and eventually Versteeg.
Monday, November 23, 2009
NHL Players of the Week: 11/15 through 11/21
1. Joe Thornton, San Jose Sharks. Thornton has been on fire as of late. He and winger Dany Heatley have found a great chemistry together and its showing up on the score sheet. A lot. Thornton scored 2 goals (one game winner) this week and 7 assists (4 of them coming against the Flyers Friday night where he was 68.4% on faceoffs). Thornton is leading the league in assists with 25 and second in points with 32.
2. Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens. After coming off a 53 save performance against Nasville, Price continues to be one of Montreal’s best players. Price went 2-0-1 this week with a .940 save percentage and allowing only 2 goals per game. Price won the starting job back (for now) from back-up Jaroslav Halak and if he continues performing the way he is, Halak won’t see the net any time soon.
3. Dany Heatley, San Jose Sharks. Heatley is leading the league in goals (18), power play goals (9) and game winning goals (4) this season. Three of his goals this week came in the form of a hat trick. Heatley scored the first at even strength, the second short handed and finished it off on the power play. All three goals were assisted by Thornton. Heatley’s hat trick is his second of the season and 9th career.
Honorable Mentions
The Carolina Hurricanes got their first win in 14 games Sunday against the Minnesota Wild in a shootout. The Canes have now won 3 of their past 4 games and have points in 5 straight. … The Devils 9 game road winning streak came to an end Monday as the Flyers beat the Devils 3-2. Claude Giroux had 2 assists and Ray Emery made 33 saves in the win. … Corey Perry didn’t have any goals this week but his 4 assists helped extend his career-high point streak to 14 games Linemante Ryan Getzlaf‘s point streak ended at 11 games on Monday against the Penguins. … Jarome Iginla notched his first hat trick of the season and 9th of his career Saturday against the Kings. Iginla has 11 goals in the past 9 games. … The Predators are on a hot streak winning 5 in a row after getting a shootout win Saturday night against the Blue Jackets. Pekka Rinne has been in net for all 5 wins. … After choosing Ryan Miller as my #1 player last week, he puts on his worst performance of the year, allowing 5 goals on 23 shots against Florida. The Sabres gave up 6 goals total, the most they’ve allowed all season long. Keith Ballard had 3 assists, Michael Frolik scored twice and Tomas Vokoun made 26 saves in the 6-2 romp of the Sabres. After a 2-7-1 start, the Panthers have on 8 games in their past 11, including back-to-back wins Friday and Saturday against the Red Wings and Rangers. … Marian Gaborik continues to be the Rangers’ best player, scoring 3 goals in 2 games. Gaborik has 9 points (5+4) in his last 6 games. … Fedor Tyutin had 5 assists in 3 games for the Blue Jackets. … Vincent Lecavalier has been off to a slower start. He scored 2 goals and an assists in a 4-1 win over the Coyotes. … Tomas Plekanec has been fantastic for the Habs this season. He has 22 points in 23 games and 8 points in his last 5. … Mike Fisher scored 2 goals in a fight-filled affair against Toronto Tuesday night and added 3 assists in a 6-2 win against the Penguins Thursday night. … The Sharks saw their 12 game point streak come to an end Tuesday against the Predators in a 3-2 loss, their first since October 22nd. David Legwand and Joel Ward each had a goal and 2 assists for Nashville. … Miikka Kiprusoff suffered his first loss in November at the hands of the Avalanche on Tuesday. Tuesday marked only the 5th time all season the Flames didn’t score first. … Brian Boucher started his second game of the season and made 37 saves for the Flyers win against the Kings. Anze Kopitar was held pointless for the 5th time this season. … Thursday saw a wild game in Carolina as the Canes beat the Leafs in 6-5 in a shootout. Ian White gave the Leafs the lead by scoring with 29 seconds left but Erik Cole tied it with 2.9 seconds remaining in regulation. Tuomo Ruutu had 4 assists in the Canes win.. … Kristian Huselius had 2 goals and an assits in a 4-1 Jackets win against the Stars. James Neal was handed a 2 game suspension for his hit on Derek Dorsett in the second period. … Michael Ryder scored 2 goals for the Bruins in a 4-3 shootout win Thursday night. Ilya Kovalchuk scored a goal and two assists and Ondrej Pavelec made 39 saves for Atlanta. … Keith Tkachuk scored his first goal in 14 games for the Blues and Erik Johnson netted the OT winner in a 3-2 win against the Coyotes. … Zach Parise is currently riding a 7 game point streak. He netted 2 against Nashville in a 3-2 shootout loss. Jason Arnott had both goals for the Predators. … The Blackhawks routed the Flames 7-1 Thursday night. Duncan Keith had 3 assists, Kris Versteeg scored 2 goals and Cristobal Huet made 27 saves. … Scott Niedermayer scored his 13th career OT goal against Tampa Bay. Niedermayer hold the NHL record for most OT goals by a defenseman. Ryan Getzlaf and Teemu Selanne each had a goal and two assists in the Ducks win. … Scott Clemmenson got his 4th win in 5 games by making 39 saves and only allowing oen goal against the Red Wings. … The Leafs got their first win in extra time with a shootout win against the Capitals. Semyon Varlamov made 38 saves for the Caps. … Filip Kuba scored a goal and 3 assists against Buffalo Saturday night. Daniel Alfredsson added 2 goals and an assist for the Sens in a 5-3 win. … Montreal lost their first game in extra time Saturday. The Red Wings beat the Habs 3-2 in a shootout. … David Perron scored 2 goals against the Islanders for the Blues. Chris Mason made 23 saves, allowing one goal. … Stephane Robidas and Brad Richards led the Stars to a 5-3 win over the Devils who have lost the past 3 games on the road. Robidas had 2 goals and 2 assists and Richards had 4 assists for the Stars. … 2009 Calder winner Steve Mason seems to be regaining his form. In 2 games for the Jackets this week, Mason stopped 70 of 74, good for .946 save percentage. … Hawks winger Pat Kane is on a 5 game goal streak and 9 game point streak.
Milestones:
-Robbie Earl scored his first NHL goal for the Wild.
-Jussi Jokinen scored his 25th career shootout goal, most in the NHL.
-Tuomo Ruutu notched his 100th career assist Sunday.
-Jason Demers scored his first career NHL goal Sunday night against Chicago.
-Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau got his 100th career win Tuesday against the Rangers. He’s the 4th fastest to reach 100 wins.
-Mike Pyorala scored his first NHL goal.
-Chris Phillips played in his 800th career game Thursday against the Penguins. He also had his first career 2 goal game.
-Milan Michalek scored his 100th career goal.
-Travis Zajac scored his 100th career assist.
-James Wisniewski played his 200th career game, but left with a bruised foot.
-Joe Thornton reached 600th career assist. He’s the 73rd player to get 600 and 26th fastest.
-Claude Giroux has his first multi-goal game, scoring 2 against San Jose.
-Christian Ehrhoff scored his first 2 goal game, scoring two against Colorado.
-Stephane Robidas’ 4 points Saturday night was the first of his career.
Injury Report:
-Scott Walker (CAR), upper body, unknown.
-Ryan Smyth (LAK), upper body, out 4 weeks.
-Rob Scuderi (LAK), lower leg injury, day-to-day.
-Alex Semin (WSH), sore wrist, day-to-day.
-Brian Gionta (MTL), broken bone in left foot, out indefinitely.
-Jay McKee (PIT), finger infection, 2-4 weeks.
-Fabian Brunnstrom (DAL), shoulder injury, unknown.
-Adam Foote (COL), jaw, unknown.
-Dainus Zubrus (NJD), fractured right patella, 4-6 weeks.
-Cory Stillman (FLA), knee injury, “quite a while.”
-Scott Gomez (MTL), lower body, unknown.
-Blair Betts (PHI), separated shoulder, up to 4 weeks.
-Ed Jovanoski (PHO), lower body, unknown.
-Niklas Kronwall (DET), MCL damage due to knee-on-knee hit, 4-8 weeks.
-Jarrett Stoll (LAK), lower body, unknown.
-Shean Donovan (OTT), MCL/ACL damage, 8 weeks or more.
-Derek Dorsett (CBJ), concussion, unknown.
Sheldon Souray (EDM), Alex Ovechkin (WSH), Drew Stafford (BUF), Chris Osgood (DET), Max Talbot (PIT), Sergei Gonchar (PIT), Milan Lucic (BOS), Ryan O’Byrne (MTL), Georges Laraque (MTL) and Brooks Orpik (PIT) all returned from injury or illness.
2. Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens. After coming off a 53 save performance against Nasville, Price continues to be one of Montreal’s best players. Price went 2-0-1 this week with a .940 save percentage and allowing only 2 goals per game. Price won the starting job back (for now) from back-up Jaroslav Halak and if he continues performing the way he is, Halak won’t see the net any time soon.
3. Dany Heatley, San Jose Sharks. Heatley is leading the league in goals (18), power play goals (9) and game winning goals (4) this season. Three of his goals this week came in the form of a hat trick. Heatley scored the first at even strength, the second short handed and finished it off on the power play. All three goals were assisted by Thornton. Heatley’s hat trick is his second of the season and 9th career.
Honorable Mentions
The Carolina Hurricanes got their first win in 14 games Sunday against the Minnesota Wild in a shootout. The Canes have now won 3 of their past 4 games and have points in 5 straight. … The Devils 9 game road winning streak came to an end Monday as the Flyers beat the Devils 3-2. Claude Giroux had 2 assists and Ray Emery made 33 saves in the win. … Corey Perry didn’t have any goals this week but his 4 assists helped extend his career-high point streak to 14 games Linemante Ryan Getzlaf‘s point streak ended at 11 games on Monday against the Penguins. … Jarome Iginla notched his first hat trick of the season and 9th of his career Saturday against the Kings. Iginla has 11 goals in the past 9 games. … The Predators are on a hot streak winning 5 in a row after getting a shootout win Saturday night against the Blue Jackets. Pekka Rinne has been in net for all 5 wins. … After choosing Ryan Miller as my #1 player last week, he puts on his worst performance of the year, allowing 5 goals on 23 shots against Florida. The Sabres gave up 6 goals total, the most they’ve allowed all season long. Keith Ballard had 3 assists, Michael Frolik scored twice and Tomas Vokoun made 26 saves in the 6-2 romp of the Sabres. After a 2-7-1 start, the Panthers have on 8 games in their past 11, including back-to-back wins Friday and Saturday against the Red Wings and Rangers. … Marian Gaborik continues to be the Rangers’ best player, scoring 3 goals in 2 games. Gaborik has 9 points (5+4) in his last 6 games. … Fedor Tyutin had 5 assists in 3 games for the Blue Jackets. … Vincent Lecavalier has been off to a slower start. He scored 2 goals and an assists in a 4-1 win over the Coyotes. … Tomas Plekanec has been fantastic for the Habs this season. He has 22 points in 23 games and 8 points in his last 5. … Mike Fisher scored 2 goals in a fight-filled affair against Toronto Tuesday night and added 3 assists in a 6-2 win against the Penguins Thursday night. … The Sharks saw their 12 game point streak come to an end Tuesday against the Predators in a 3-2 loss, their first since October 22nd. David Legwand and Joel Ward each had a goal and 2 assists for Nashville. … Miikka Kiprusoff suffered his first loss in November at the hands of the Avalanche on Tuesday. Tuesday marked only the 5th time all season the Flames didn’t score first. … Brian Boucher started his second game of the season and made 37 saves for the Flyers win against the Kings. Anze Kopitar was held pointless for the 5th time this season. … Thursday saw a wild game in Carolina as the Canes beat the Leafs in 6-5 in a shootout. Ian White gave the Leafs the lead by scoring with 29 seconds left but Erik Cole tied it with 2.9 seconds remaining in regulation. Tuomo Ruutu had 4 assists in the Canes win.. … Kristian Huselius had 2 goals and an assits in a 4-1 Jackets win against the Stars. James Neal was handed a 2 game suspension for his hit on Derek Dorsett in the second period. … Michael Ryder scored 2 goals for the Bruins in a 4-3 shootout win Thursday night. Ilya Kovalchuk scored a goal and two assists and Ondrej Pavelec made 39 saves for Atlanta. … Keith Tkachuk scored his first goal in 14 games for the Blues and Erik Johnson netted the OT winner in a 3-2 win against the Coyotes. … Zach Parise is currently riding a 7 game point streak. He netted 2 against Nashville in a 3-2 shootout loss. Jason Arnott had both goals for the Predators. … The Blackhawks routed the Flames 7-1 Thursday night. Duncan Keith had 3 assists, Kris Versteeg scored 2 goals and Cristobal Huet made 27 saves. … Scott Niedermayer scored his 13th career OT goal against Tampa Bay. Niedermayer hold the NHL record for most OT goals by a defenseman. Ryan Getzlaf and Teemu Selanne each had a goal and two assists in the Ducks win. … Scott Clemmenson got his 4th win in 5 games by making 39 saves and only allowing oen goal against the Red Wings. … The Leafs got their first win in extra time with a shootout win against the Capitals. Semyon Varlamov made 38 saves for the Caps. … Filip Kuba scored a goal and 3 assists against Buffalo Saturday night. Daniel Alfredsson added 2 goals and an assist for the Sens in a 5-3 win. … Montreal lost their first game in extra time Saturday. The Red Wings beat the Habs 3-2 in a shootout. … David Perron scored 2 goals against the Islanders for the Blues. Chris Mason made 23 saves, allowing one goal. … Stephane Robidas and Brad Richards led the Stars to a 5-3 win over the Devils who have lost the past 3 games on the road. Robidas had 2 goals and 2 assists and Richards had 4 assists for the Stars. … 2009 Calder winner Steve Mason seems to be regaining his form. In 2 games for the Jackets this week, Mason stopped 70 of 74, good for .946 save percentage. … Hawks winger Pat Kane is on a 5 game goal streak and 9 game point streak.
Milestones:
-Robbie Earl scored his first NHL goal for the Wild.
-Jussi Jokinen scored his 25th career shootout goal, most in the NHL.
-Tuomo Ruutu notched his 100th career assist Sunday.
-Jason Demers scored his first career NHL goal Sunday night against Chicago.
-Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau got his 100th career win Tuesday against the Rangers. He’s the 4th fastest to reach 100 wins.
-Mike Pyorala scored his first NHL goal.
-Chris Phillips played in his 800th career game Thursday against the Penguins. He also had his first career 2 goal game.
-Milan Michalek scored his 100th career goal.
-Travis Zajac scored his 100th career assist.
-James Wisniewski played his 200th career game, but left with a bruised foot.
-Joe Thornton reached 600th career assist. He’s the 73rd player to get 600 and 26th fastest.
-Claude Giroux has his first multi-goal game, scoring 2 against San Jose.
-Christian Ehrhoff scored his first 2 goal game, scoring two against Colorado.
-Stephane Robidas’ 4 points Saturday night was the first of his career.
Injury Report:
-Scott Walker (CAR), upper body, unknown.
-Ryan Smyth (LAK), upper body, out 4 weeks.
-Rob Scuderi (LAK), lower leg injury, day-to-day.
-Alex Semin (WSH), sore wrist, day-to-day.
-Brian Gionta (MTL), broken bone in left foot, out indefinitely.
-Jay McKee (PIT), finger infection, 2-4 weeks.
-Fabian Brunnstrom (DAL), shoulder injury, unknown.
-Adam Foote (COL), jaw, unknown.
-Dainus Zubrus (NJD), fractured right patella, 4-6 weeks.
-Cory Stillman (FLA), knee injury, “quite a while.”
-Scott Gomez (MTL), lower body, unknown.
-Blair Betts (PHI), separated shoulder, up to 4 weeks.
-Ed Jovanoski (PHO), lower body, unknown.
-Niklas Kronwall (DET), MCL damage due to knee-on-knee hit, 4-8 weeks.
-Jarrett Stoll (LAK), lower body, unknown.
-Shean Donovan (OTT), MCL/ACL damage, 8 weeks or more.
-Derek Dorsett (CBJ), concussion, unknown.
Sheldon Souray (EDM), Alex Ovechkin (WSH), Drew Stafford (BUF), Chris Osgood (DET), Max Talbot (PIT), Sergei Gonchar (PIT), Milan Lucic (BOS), Ryan O’Byrne (MTL), Georges Laraque (MTL) and Brooks Orpik (PIT) all returned from injury or illness.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Fantasy Hockey Friday: Injury Madness
On Yahoo!, if you go to your Hockey ’09 mainpage, there will be a list of trends happening within fantasy hockey. Who’s hot, who’s not, and it will usually list reminders about your own teams, either letting you know you have an injured player on your starting roster, or letting you know you own a guy that thousands of other teams have dropped. That statistic usually ends up being my absolute favorite, because it’s guaranteed that no matter who the player is, how good they are, if they get injured, the next day, tens of thousands of teams in Yahoo! hockey will have dropped that player. Thomas Vanek out for a week? Drop him. Ilya Kovalchuk out for 2-4? Peace out. Ryan Smyth maybe out for a month? 663 teams can’t be wrong!
This year has been a pretty remarkable one for injuries, with people who take care of important things like statistics saying that at one point this season, 18% of NHLers were either injured or sick enough to miss a game. There’s never been a better time to be in the AHL and teams have been forced on a nightly basis to dress 5-7 minor-league players. So what does this mean for your fantasy team? How should you deal best with injured players?
The most important statistic to consider is points-per-game. The fact that guys like Thomas Vanek and Ilya Kovalchuk got dropped while injured speaks more to the fact that poolies tend not to understand that even if your pool doesn’t have an IR spot to stash injured players, a player like Ilya Kovalchuk, who averages over 1.0 PPG for his career is simply worth more to your fantasy team over the length of a season than a guy on a hot streak, say maybe Tomas Fleischmann(a popular waiver-wire add in recent weeks) who averages less than 0.5 PPG. So that essentially means that were Ilya Kovalchuk to miss HALF the regular season and Tomas Fleischmann played all 82 games, they would score roughly the same number of points. Now, of course trends can change and guys can take off(I’m a huge Flash backer, personally), but before your trigger finger gets itchy, take a look at long-term stats and make the smart decision, not the snappy one. I know as well as anyone that it can get extremely frustrating to look at a guy not playing on your roster every night and to watch guys on the waiver wire rack up points(Eric Staal JUST got put on the injured reserve by Carolina today and he was injured NINETEEN DAYS AGO), but these players are simply too valuable to let go for the shiny new toy on the waiver wire.
When you’re looking at replacing an injured player(if your pool allows you the luxury of IR spots), it’s important to look at the needs of your team, and not simply replacing the player straight-out. For example, a lot of teams will have an offensive defenseman go down, and then see the need to replace him immediately with another offensive stalwart. It makes sense, one offensive guy out, one offensive guy in. However, that might not be what your team needs most at the moment and if you’re picking up a guy for only 2-4 weeks, you want to make sure you can maximize your use of that extra roster spot by picking up someone that may boost certain categories for you. If you need +/- help, PIM help, these are places you can look to get short-term boosts without damaging the core of your team because hey, the core of your team is injured anyway. Players who are on your roster for a short period of time aren’t going to win or lose you a pool and especially when it comes to big-time stats like goals/assists or in the case of goalies wins/shutouts, because they’re on the waiver wire for a reason: they don’t accrue enough of those points anyway. So pick up the guys who can make the most impact in a short period of time by focussing on guys who are very solid in one or two categories and who won’t hurt your team in the interim while your main guy is out.
Be patient, ride the injury wave as best you can, and make smart decisions, particularly when it comes to dropping an injured player. Those sorts of decisions can lose you a pool and impatience is the key reason why guys win and lose pools. The injury bug has been especially tough this year and I’ve likely had one of my fantasy seasons ruined by having some major players injured, but it’s one of those things that’s bound to happen and you may as well set yourself up for a strong run at the end of the season by IR’ing guys or saving a roster spot for them than ditching them for a short run when the season’s not even one-quarter over yet.
The Saturday Slate
Your weekly guide to goalie sits and starts. If my “start” goalies record a win and a peripheral statistic of either 2.00 GAA or less, or .920 save % or higher, I take one point. If they record one of the two, I take a half-point. If my “sit” goalies take a loss and post either a 3.00 GAA or higher or a .900 save % or less, I take one point. If they take either one of the two, I take a half. For the year, I have 16.5 of a possible 24 points, recording at least a half-point in 20 of 24 games thus far. In the event of a starting goalie not playing the game, I will assume their backup’s stats.
Last week: Sorry to those who starting Craig Anderson on my advice. Vancouver picks the one time all year to spark it up(on the ROAD no less) and Andy takes the brunt of it. I was 3 for 4 otherwise, making smart decisions on Varlamov and Hiller(5 and 7 GAA, respectively) and Ryan Miller was his usual brick-wall self against Philly.
START
Henrik Lundqvist v. Florida: The Rangers have gone 4-6 in their last 10, but 7 of those games have come on the road and both Lundqvist and the Rangers have had bursts of their old self in their last two games against Ottawa and Washington. A home date after a few days off against one of the most anemic offenses in the NHL seems like a recipe for a solid performance from the King.
Antero Niittymaki @ Carolina: It seems too easy to keep picking on the ‘Canes but this speaks more to Niitty’s great play than it does Carolina’s poor play. The Tampa netminder has turned his back-up position into at least a 1-B situation with his stellar play of late and I don’t see that changing against a team that has struggled to score this season and is without Eric Staal indefinitely, who was added to the team’s IR this week.
SIT
Gustavsson/Toskala v. Washington: This is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Washington is averaging nearly 4 GPG(3.75, to be exact) and the Leafs are hemorrhaging goals at the same clip. Gustavsson has been a sexy pick in pools as of late, picked up by a lot of teams and he posted some decent numbers during the Leafs’ points-in-seven streak of a few weeks back. Washington always plays well against the Leafs and the games are almost always high-scoring. Bench the Buds.
Marc-Andre Fleury @ Atlanta: There’s always a certain amount of pressure involved when you recommend that poolies sit one of the top goalies in fantasy. That said, Atlanta’s been lighting the lamp on a regular basis this season, averaging 3.75 goals-per-game(up there with league-leaders Washington and San Jose) and have scored 15 goals in their last 3 games, including torching the usually solid L.A. defense and Jon Quick for 7 last Saturday. This one should be a high-scoring affair and even if the Pens win, I like Atlanta to find twine multiple times against the Pens’ defense which is currently missing between 4-6 regulars on a nightly basis.
This year has been a pretty remarkable one for injuries, with people who take care of important things like statistics saying that at one point this season, 18% of NHLers were either injured or sick enough to miss a game. There’s never been a better time to be in the AHL and teams have been forced on a nightly basis to dress 5-7 minor-league players. So what does this mean for your fantasy team? How should you deal best with injured players?
The most important statistic to consider is points-per-game. The fact that guys like Thomas Vanek and Ilya Kovalchuk got dropped while injured speaks more to the fact that poolies tend not to understand that even if your pool doesn’t have an IR spot to stash injured players, a player like Ilya Kovalchuk, who averages over 1.0 PPG for his career is simply worth more to your fantasy team over the length of a season than a guy on a hot streak, say maybe Tomas Fleischmann(a popular waiver-wire add in recent weeks) who averages less than 0.5 PPG. So that essentially means that were Ilya Kovalchuk to miss HALF the regular season and Tomas Fleischmann played all 82 games, they would score roughly the same number of points. Now, of course trends can change and guys can take off(I’m a huge Flash backer, personally), but before your trigger finger gets itchy, take a look at long-term stats and make the smart decision, not the snappy one. I know as well as anyone that it can get extremely frustrating to look at a guy not playing on your roster every night and to watch guys on the waiver wire rack up points(Eric Staal JUST got put on the injured reserve by Carolina today and he was injured NINETEEN DAYS AGO), but these players are simply too valuable to let go for the shiny new toy on the waiver wire.
When you’re looking at replacing an injured player(if your pool allows you the luxury of IR spots), it’s important to look at the needs of your team, and not simply replacing the player straight-out. For example, a lot of teams will have an offensive defenseman go down, and then see the need to replace him immediately with another offensive stalwart. It makes sense, one offensive guy out, one offensive guy in. However, that might not be what your team needs most at the moment and if you’re picking up a guy for only 2-4 weeks, you want to make sure you can maximize your use of that extra roster spot by picking up someone that may boost certain categories for you. If you need +/- help, PIM help, these are places you can look to get short-term boosts without damaging the core of your team because hey, the core of your team is injured anyway. Players who are on your roster for a short period of time aren’t going to win or lose you a pool and especially when it comes to big-time stats like goals/assists or in the case of goalies wins/shutouts, because they’re on the waiver wire for a reason: they don’t accrue enough of those points anyway. So pick up the guys who can make the most impact in a short period of time by focussing on guys who are very solid in one or two categories and who won’t hurt your team in the interim while your main guy is out.
Be patient, ride the injury wave as best you can, and make smart decisions, particularly when it comes to dropping an injured player. Those sorts of decisions can lose you a pool and impatience is the key reason why guys win and lose pools. The injury bug has been especially tough this year and I’ve likely had one of my fantasy seasons ruined by having some major players injured, but it’s one of those things that’s bound to happen and you may as well set yourself up for a strong run at the end of the season by IR’ing guys or saving a roster spot for them than ditching them for a short run when the season’s not even one-quarter over yet.
The Saturday Slate
Your weekly guide to goalie sits and starts. If my “start” goalies record a win and a peripheral statistic of either 2.00 GAA or less, or .920 save % or higher, I take one point. If they record one of the two, I take a half-point. If my “sit” goalies take a loss and post either a 3.00 GAA or higher or a .900 save % or less, I take one point. If they take either one of the two, I take a half. For the year, I have 16.5 of a possible 24 points, recording at least a half-point in 20 of 24 games thus far. In the event of a starting goalie not playing the game, I will assume their backup’s stats.
Last week: Sorry to those who starting Craig Anderson on my advice. Vancouver picks the one time all year to spark it up(on the ROAD no less) and Andy takes the brunt of it. I was 3 for 4 otherwise, making smart decisions on Varlamov and Hiller(5 and 7 GAA, respectively) and Ryan Miller was his usual brick-wall self against Philly.
START
Henrik Lundqvist v. Florida: The Rangers have gone 4-6 in their last 10, but 7 of those games have come on the road and both Lundqvist and the Rangers have had bursts of their old self in their last two games against Ottawa and Washington. A home date after a few days off against one of the most anemic offenses in the NHL seems like a recipe for a solid performance from the King.
Antero Niittymaki @ Carolina: It seems too easy to keep picking on the ‘Canes but this speaks more to Niitty’s great play than it does Carolina’s poor play. The Tampa netminder has turned his back-up position into at least a 1-B situation with his stellar play of late and I don’t see that changing against a team that has struggled to score this season and is without Eric Staal indefinitely, who was added to the team’s IR this week.
SIT
Gustavsson/Toskala v. Washington: This is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Washington is averaging nearly 4 GPG(3.75, to be exact) and the Leafs are hemorrhaging goals at the same clip. Gustavsson has been a sexy pick in pools as of late, picked up by a lot of teams and he posted some decent numbers during the Leafs’ points-in-seven streak of a few weeks back. Washington always plays well against the Leafs and the games are almost always high-scoring. Bench the Buds.
Marc-Andre Fleury @ Atlanta: There’s always a certain amount of pressure involved when you recommend that poolies sit one of the top goalies in fantasy. That said, Atlanta’s been lighting the lamp on a regular basis this season, averaging 3.75 goals-per-game(up there with league-leaders Washington and San Jose) and have scored 15 goals in their last 3 games, including torching the usually solid L.A. defense and Jon Quick for 7 last Saturday. This one should be a high-scoring affair and even if the Pens win, I like Atlanta to find twine multiple times against the Pens’ defense which is currently missing between 4-6 regulars on a nightly basis.
Monday, November 16, 2009
NHL Players of the Week: 11/8 through 11/14
By Dara Heaps
1. Ryan Miller, Buffalo Sabres. Miller has been nothing short of fantastic for the Sabres this year. He’s 12-2-1 this season and leading the league with 12 wins (tied with San Jose netminder Evgeni Nabokov and Devils goalie Martin Brodeur), 1.77 GAA and .939 save percentage. Miller ended the week with 3 wins and a .954 save percentage. He’s been leading the Sabres to the top of their division and locking up the starting position for the United States Olympic team.
2. Henrik Zetterberg, Detroit Red Wings. The Wings got off to a bad start but have turned things around, thanks in part to Zetterberg. Zetterberg had two assists in a 9-1 thrashing of the Columbus Blue Jackets, a goal and assist against the Vancouver Canucks and topped that off with a hat trick and two assists against the Anaheim Ducks. Zetterberg ended the week with two game winning goals, a plus-6 and 12 shots on goal.
3. Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim Ducks. Perry and Getzlaf have been doing the heavy lifting for the Ducks. They each have an 11 game point streak going and Getzlaf has a franchise-record assist streak with 17 assist in 10 consecutive games. Despite losing 7-4 to the Red Wings Saturday night, Perry had a goal and assist and Getzlaf also had a goal and three assists. They’ve been a dominate force in every game they’ve played in.
Honorable Mentions
St. Louis routed the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday 6-1, their first six goal game since January 2006. Brad Boyes had a goal and three assists, David Perron scored his first career hat trick and Andy MacDonald had a goal and two assists. … After starting the season 10-1-2, Colorado is 2-4-1 in their last 7, including their first home loss to the Edmonton Oilers allowing 4 power play goals. … After a rocky start, Miikka Kiprusoff has been stellar for the Calgary Flames. He stopped all 25 of Montreal’s shots for his first shutout of the year. Kiprusoff ends the week with a .969 save percentage and 2-0-1 road trip. … Zach Parise has been solid all season long for the Devils. He has scored in 4 consecutive games, had 5 points in 3 games and ended the week a plus-7. … Mike Modano scored two goals and added two assists in two games this week for the Stars. … Ilya Kovalchuk returned from a broken foot on Thursday and scored a goal and two assists. Kovalchuk added another 4 points (2+2) in a 7-0 thrashing of the visiting Los Angeles Kings. Ondrej Pavelecmade 38 saves. … The San Jose Sharks have points in 11 straight games after winning 3-1 in St. Louis. … Jonathan Toews scored a goal in his first game back after sustaining a concussion Oct 21st against Vancouver. … Mikko Koivu had a goal and two assists to lead the Wild past the Maple Leafs 5-2 Tuesday night. … Carey Price was outstanding for the Canadiens in a 2-0 loss Saturday night, stopping 53 of 55 shots the Nashville Predators threw at him. The goaltender at the other end of the ice, Pekka Rinne, earned his second shutout in 5 games. … Tim Thomas started the week out well with a shutout (27 saves) against a slumping Penguins team, but ended the week by playing the puck badly and Penguins forward Pascal Dupuis got his second goal of the night by putting the puck into an empty net. … The Carolina Hurricanes continued their slide last week (0-10-4) but did earn a point in an overtime loss against the New York Islanders. Wednesday marked the first game goaltender Cam Ward and center Eric Staal have been out simultaneously since March 19, 2004. … Anze Kopitar has points in 17 of 21 games this season. … Detroit thumped the Blue Jackets 9-1 Wednesday night, handing them their worst home loss in franchise history. Nick Kronwall had a goal and two assists and every Detroit skater was a plus. … The Oilers are 1-7 when they don’t score first this season. … Danny Briere had 2 goals in his first game back from having the flu and a groin injury in a 5-1 win against Ottawa. Jeff Carter, Kimmo Timonen and Chris Pronger all had two assists each. … Ruslan Fedotenko scored for the Pens at 11:32 in the first period to end Pittsburgh’s goal drought at 160:41. … Tomas Vokoun made 40 saves for his 3rd shutout in 4 games against the Boston Bruins Thursday night. The Bruins have been shutout in 3 of their past 7 games. … Tomas Plekanec continued to be one of the Habs best players by assisting on 3 of Montreal’s 4 goals against Phoenix Thursday night. … Kristian Huselius had a goal and an assist in his first game back from injury as the Blue Jackets beat the Ducks 3-2 in the shootout. Rick Nash won the game for the Jackets with a sick one-skated shootout goal. … John Tavares notched 2 goals for his first multi-goal game in the NHL in a 4-3 OT win against the Canes. … Evgeni Malkinreturned after missing 7 games with a shoulder strain and assisted on 3 goals. He also got his 200th career assist. Bill Guerin scored the tying goal against Boston with 0.4 seconds remaining on the clock. … It took 667 games but Henrik Sedin scored his first career hat trick in an 8-2 rout of the Avalanche. 11 different Canucks had assists and Roberto Luongo made 32 saves.
Notes:
The New Jersey Devils started the season 3-3. Now they’re riding a 8 game win streak, aiming for 10 consecutive wins on the road and they’re boasting a top-4 penalty kill (84.8%). Despite having their top defensemen out (Paul Martin, Johnny Oduya) the Devils winning. The Devils have the lowest goals allowed average at 2.06. Their best players have been their best players. Zach Parise is riding a 4-game goal streak. Rookie Niclas Bergfors has 6 points in his past 4 games (including a goal and two assist against Pittsburgh). David Clarkson is adding in offensively to go with his physical style. The Devils are getting the best from all of their players. Martin Brodeur is tied for 1st in wins and chasing Terry Sawchuk’s shutout record. All of this play can come down to the return of head coach Jacques Lemaire. He’s getting the best of out his players which is what a coach is supposed to do. Before allowing Tomas Fleischmann’s power play goal on Saturday night, the Devils killed 20 consecutive penalties. The Devils are aiming for their 10th road win tonight against the Flyers to tie the NHL record set in 2006 by the Buffalo Sabres. With the way they have been playing, there’s no reason why they won’t get it.
Milestones:
-Mark Recchi got his 900th career assist on Daniel Paille’s goal Tuesday night.
-Niklas Backstrom got his 100th career win Tuesday night against Toronto.
-Columbus head coach Ken Hitchcock coached his 1,000th NHL game Wednesday. Unfortunately his team lost 9-1.
-Don Brashear played his 1,000th career game Thursday.
- Paul Bisonette scored his first career goal Thursday against the Montreal Canadiens.
-Scott Niedermayer played his 1,200th game of his career Friday night against the Blue Jackets.
-Ben Lovejoy got his first career point assisting on Pascal Dupuis’ first goal Saturday night.
-Tyler Ennis scored his first career goal Saturday.
-Pascal Dupuis scored his 100th career goal in overtime against the Bruins.
-The Devils won their 1,000th game since moving to New Jersey (1,000-852-248).
Injury Report:
-Brooks Oprik (PIT) 2 weeks, lower body.
-Mike Komisarek (TOR) 3 weeks, quadriceps tear.
-Dave Bolland (CHI) 3-4 months, back surgery.
-Ed Jovanoski (PHX) unknown, lower body.
-Brandon Dubinsky (NYR) 3-4 weeks, broken hand.
-Chris Drury (NYR) indefinitely, concussion.
-Mike Knuble (WSH) 3-4 weeks, broken finger.
-Petr Sykora (MIN) indefinitely, concussion.
-Saku Koivu (ANA) day-to-day, groin strain.
Devin Setoguchi (SJS), Shea Weber (NSH), Radek Dvorak (FLA), Domenic Moore (FLA), Kamil Kreps (FLA), Henrik Lundqvist (NYR), Roberto Luongo (VAN), Victor Hedman (TB), Milan Hejduk (COL), Evgeni Malkin (PIT) and Boyd Gordon (WSH) all returned from injury or illness.
1. Ryan Miller, Buffalo Sabres. Miller has been nothing short of fantastic for the Sabres this year. He’s 12-2-1 this season and leading the league with 12 wins (tied with San Jose netminder Evgeni Nabokov and Devils goalie Martin Brodeur), 1.77 GAA and .939 save percentage. Miller ended the week with 3 wins and a .954 save percentage. He’s been leading the Sabres to the top of their division and locking up the starting position for the United States Olympic team.
2. Henrik Zetterberg, Detroit Red Wings. The Wings got off to a bad start but have turned things around, thanks in part to Zetterberg. Zetterberg had two assists in a 9-1 thrashing of the Columbus Blue Jackets, a goal and assist against the Vancouver Canucks and topped that off with a hat trick and two assists against the Anaheim Ducks. Zetterberg ended the week with two game winning goals, a plus-6 and 12 shots on goal.
3. Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, Anaheim Ducks. Perry and Getzlaf have been doing the heavy lifting for the Ducks. They each have an 11 game point streak going and Getzlaf has a franchise-record assist streak with 17 assist in 10 consecutive games. Despite losing 7-4 to the Red Wings Saturday night, Perry had a goal and assist and Getzlaf also had a goal and three assists. They’ve been a dominate force in every game they’ve played in.
Honorable Mentions
St. Louis routed the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday 6-1, their first six goal game since January 2006. Brad Boyes had a goal and three assists, David Perron scored his first career hat trick and Andy MacDonald had a goal and two assists. … After starting the season 10-1-2, Colorado is 2-4-1 in their last 7, including their first home loss to the Edmonton Oilers allowing 4 power play goals. … After a rocky start, Miikka Kiprusoff has been stellar for the Calgary Flames. He stopped all 25 of Montreal’s shots for his first shutout of the year. Kiprusoff ends the week with a .969 save percentage and 2-0-1 road trip. … Zach Parise has been solid all season long for the Devils. He has scored in 4 consecutive games, had 5 points in 3 games and ended the week a plus-7. … Mike Modano scored two goals and added two assists in two games this week for the Stars. … Ilya Kovalchuk returned from a broken foot on Thursday and scored a goal and two assists. Kovalchuk added another 4 points (2+2) in a 7-0 thrashing of the visiting Los Angeles Kings. Ondrej Pavelecmade 38 saves. … The San Jose Sharks have points in 11 straight games after winning 3-1 in St. Louis. … Jonathan Toews scored a goal in his first game back after sustaining a concussion Oct 21st against Vancouver. … Mikko Koivu had a goal and two assists to lead the Wild past the Maple Leafs 5-2 Tuesday night. … Carey Price was outstanding for the Canadiens in a 2-0 loss Saturday night, stopping 53 of 55 shots the Nashville Predators threw at him. The goaltender at the other end of the ice, Pekka Rinne, earned his second shutout in 5 games. … Tim Thomas started the week out well with a shutout (27 saves) against a slumping Penguins team, but ended the week by playing the puck badly and Penguins forward Pascal Dupuis got his second goal of the night by putting the puck into an empty net. … The Carolina Hurricanes continued their slide last week (0-10-4) but did earn a point in an overtime loss against the New York Islanders. Wednesday marked the first game goaltender Cam Ward and center Eric Staal have been out simultaneously since March 19, 2004. … Anze Kopitar has points in 17 of 21 games this season. … Detroit thumped the Blue Jackets 9-1 Wednesday night, handing them their worst home loss in franchise history. Nick Kronwall had a goal and two assists and every Detroit skater was a plus. … The Oilers are 1-7 when they don’t score first this season. … Danny Briere had 2 goals in his first game back from having the flu and a groin injury in a 5-1 win against Ottawa. Jeff Carter, Kimmo Timonen and Chris Pronger all had two assists each. … Ruslan Fedotenko scored for the Pens at 11:32 in the first period to end Pittsburgh’s goal drought at 160:41. … Tomas Vokoun made 40 saves for his 3rd shutout in 4 games against the Boston Bruins Thursday night. The Bruins have been shutout in 3 of their past 7 games. … Tomas Plekanec continued to be one of the Habs best players by assisting on 3 of Montreal’s 4 goals against Phoenix Thursday night. … Kristian Huselius had a goal and an assist in his first game back from injury as the Blue Jackets beat the Ducks 3-2 in the shootout. Rick Nash won the game for the Jackets with a sick one-skated shootout goal. … John Tavares notched 2 goals for his first multi-goal game in the NHL in a 4-3 OT win against the Canes. … Evgeni Malkinreturned after missing 7 games with a shoulder strain and assisted on 3 goals. He also got his 200th career assist. Bill Guerin scored the tying goal against Boston with 0.4 seconds remaining on the clock. … It took 667 games but Henrik Sedin scored his first career hat trick in an 8-2 rout of the Avalanche. 11 different Canucks had assists and Roberto Luongo made 32 saves.
Notes:
The New Jersey Devils started the season 3-3. Now they’re riding a 8 game win streak, aiming for 10 consecutive wins on the road and they’re boasting a top-4 penalty kill (84.8%). Despite having their top defensemen out (Paul Martin, Johnny Oduya) the Devils winning. The Devils have the lowest goals allowed average at 2.06. Their best players have been their best players. Zach Parise is riding a 4-game goal streak. Rookie Niclas Bergfors has 6 points in his past 4 games (including a goal and two assist against Pittsburgh). David Clarkson is adding in offensively to go with his physical style. The Devils are getting the best from all of their players. Martin Brodeur is tied for 1st in wins and chasing Terry Sawchuk’s shutout record. All of this play can come down to the return of head coach Jacques Lemaire. He’s getting the best of out his players which is what a coach is supposed to do. Before allowing Tomas Fleischmann’s power play goal on Saturday night, the Devils killed 20 consecutive penalties. The Devils are aiming for their 10th road win tonight against the Flyers to tie the NHL record set in 2006 by the Buffalo Sabres. With the way they have been playing, there’s no reason why they won’t get it.
Milestones:
-Mark Recchi got his 900th career assist on Daniel Paille’s goal Tuesday night.
-Niklas Backstrom got his 100th career win Tuesday night against Toronto.
-Columbus head coach Ken Hitchcock coached his 1,000th NHL game Wednesday. Unfortunately his team lost 9-1.
-Don Brashear played his 1,000th career game Thursday.
- Paul Bisonette scored his first career goal Thursday against the Montreal Canadiens.
-Scott Niedermayer played his 1,200th game of his career Friday night against the Blue Jackets.
-Ben Lovejoy got his first career point assisting on Pascal Dupuis’ first goal Saturday night.
-Tyler Ennis scored his first career goal Saturday.
-Pascal Dupuis scored his 100th career goal in overtime against the Bruins.
-The Devils won their 1,000th game since moving to New Jersey (1,000-852-248).
Injury Report:
-Brooks Oprik (PIT) 2 weeks, lower body.
-Mike Komisarek (TOR) 3 weeks, quadriceps tear.
-Dave Bolland (CHI) 3-4 months, back surgery.
-Ed Jovanoski (PHX) unknown, lower body.
-Brandon Dubinsky (NYR) 3-4 weeks, broken hand.
-Chris Drury (NYR) indefinitely, concussion.
-Mike Knuble (WSH) 3-4 weeks, broken finger.
-Petr Sykora (MIN) indefinitely, concussion.
-Saku Koivu (ANA) day-to-day, groin strain.
Devin Setoguchi (SJS), Shea Weber (NSH), Radek Dvorak (FLA), Domenic Moore (FLA), Kamil Kreps (FLA), Henrik Lundqvist (NYR), Roberto Luongo (VAN), Victor Hedman (TB), Milan Hejduk (COL), Evgeni Malkin (PIT) and Boyd Gordon (WSH) all returned from injury or illness.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Fantasy Hockey Friday: Everyone Into Position
By John Cullen
Very few pools pay no regard to position. Even my mortal enemy, the “select ‘em and forget ‘em” pool will often divide its players into their respective defensive and offensive roles. So it’s a wonder that position often doesn’t get discussed when we look at fantasy hockey. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what works and what doesn’t, and I’m not sure there’s any one right way, but there are some general things you should keep in mind when considering positional players’ roles on your fantasy squad. This column is going to look at a few different ways you can get the most effectiveness out of your squad in a number of different positional formats, both working with the team you have and how to play the wire effectively.
1. If your pool employs a bench, keep an even number of players from each forward position. I think this should mostly go without saying, but unless your pool has a maximum games played for each position, you shouldn’t keep more than one extra at any given position on your bench. So for example, if you have a bench of 3-5 players, you shouldn’t have 2 of those 3-5 be left wingers. The best way to accrue points is to maximize the number of games played by team, and you simply can’t afford to leave that many man-games on your bench at the expense of an extra position. The only position I allow for two bench spots to be taken by(in the case of 5 bench spots) is goalie, which brings me to...
2. If your league has 4 or more bench spots, seriously consider benching two goalies. I know that quality goaltenders can be few and far between especially now that teams are putting up 4-6 goals a game pretty regularly. That said, if you aren’t benching two goalies, someone else will. And so will someone else. And probably a few other guys. While keeping three very good goalies might allow you to solidify a place among the statistical categories(GAA/save percentage) leaders, you will have a very small chance of placing in the top half of both wins and shutouts, and that’s to say nothing of injuries. If you have a key goalie go down and only one on your bench, I can guarantee you won’t find much on your wire if the pools I’m in are any indication, and again, we’re talking about the difference between a winner and a loser.
3. If your pool starts 3 or more defensemen, don’t bench any. Defensemen are a common argument in fantasy: some guys swear their victories come from a strong defensive core, others will wait until the 10th round before they even consider drafting a rearguard. My personal belief is you can’t win a pool without an elite d-man**, but after one main one, the need for any more is suspect. That said, some guys will go so far as to put defensemen on their bench, and unless your pool only starts 1 or 2 d-men, statistics show this isn’t justified. Typically you can’t expect a D3/D4 to get you more than 25-30 points and either a decent collection of PIMs or a solid plus-minus, particularly if there are 10 teams or more in your league. Right now on your waiver wire, I guarantee you can find a winger that can offer you at least 40-45 points and some solid auxiliary statistics as well. I think guys feel like they can’t have a bench without putting every position on it, but you’re wasting time switching d-men in and out of your line-up. And if you have a d-man you feel is worth benching and that will score 40-45 points, then I feel bad for the rest of your team because you drafted wrong my friend. Way wrong.
4. Really utilize your utility position by drafting/picking up an extra winger. For the last 4 or 5 years, centre has been the deepest position in fantasy, and the prevailing thinking has been that if there’s a utility position available, it allows you to draft an extra centreman, since there are often quality centres left late in drafts. I’d like to see that mode of thinking shift, and here’s why. Left wing has been the shallowest of any fantasy position in recent years but with the emergence of some elite LW(Ovechkin, Morrow, Kovalchuk, Parise, etc.) I think both LW/RW are equally tough spots to fill. Why not, if you have a utility position, draft a winger who might score 5-10 points less than that solid centreman left for some security? If you have a LW or RW that goes down with injury or is slumping, you could end up in some real trouble trying to scour the wire for an available player at either of those positions. Quality centremen are available almost year-round, even in deeper pools. It also allows you more flexibility when it comes to making trades. Generally speaking, most poolies are happy with their centre group, and it’s hard not to be when there are so many very good centremen in the NHL right now. Most won’t feel they need to upgrade there and you very rarely see centre-for-centre trades in fantasy. To make deals, you need to be flexible at the wing positions, so some smart drafting or free agent pick-ups will allow you to maximize your utility position in case of injury, or to make that key trade later in the season.
5. Always check position eligibility changes. Most people I know pool at Yahoo!, but no matter where you pool, there will be somewhere that updates position eligibility, for example, if a guy regularly plays both wings, or plays centre and a wing, he will gain the ability to be plugged in at either spot. Find out where this list is, and check it religiously. To have someone on your team you can swing at more than one position is a huge asset to your team and your ability to maximize your number of games played, which as we know is extremely important.
**--a couple shocking statistics about elite defenseman:
1. Each year, Yahoo! tracks which players are most common to winning teams. These MVPs are available to look at under the “Research” tab. Last year, Shea Weber was most common to winning teams, belonging to a whopping 37% of winning teams. This year, you’ll find three defensemen in the top 10, Dan Boyle at #6(owned by 21.4% of top teams), Drew Doughty at #9 and Chris Pronger at #10(both with 17.2% ownership). The number of forwards in the top 10? Also 3. You’ll find 5 more D in the top 25. Think an elite d-man isn’t important?
2. Last year, Alex Ovechkin was the #1-ranked fantasy player with his absurd goal and shot totals. The leader the year before? Dion Phaneuf. That’s right, of every player in the NHL, Dion Phaneuf’s 60 points, 182 PIMs, and +12 rating(along with a ridiculous 263 shots on goal from the point) made him the most valuable player in all of fantasy(using the standard categories of G/A/plus-minus/PIM/SOG/PPP). So think twice before you wait til the 10th round to draft that first d-man.
The Saturday Slate
Your weekly guide to goalie sits and starts. If my “start” goalies record a win and a peripheral statistic of either 2.00 GAA or less, or .920 save % or higher, I take one point. If they record one of the two, I take a half-point. If my “sit” goalies take a loss and post either a 3.00 GAA or higher or a .900 save % or less, I take one point. If they take either one of the two, I take a half. For the year, I have 13.5 of a possible 20 points, recording at least a half-point in 17 of 20 games thus far. In the event of a starting goalie not playing the game, I will assume their backup’s stats.
START
Craig Anderson v. Vancouver: While Anderson’s been having a few struggles, the match-up for him on Saturday looks all in his favor as Vancouver has been struggling--both on the scoreboard and in the standings. Vancouver’s earned its reputation as a team that will struggle to score over the last few seasons and averaging just over 2.5 goals/game should bode well for the NHL’s leading goaltender.
Ryan Miller @ Philadelphia: Earlier in the year I wrote about playing streaks, and that sometimes playing the end of a streak is just as important as playing the middle of one. The Flyers are on a 5-game winning streak, but playing their 5th game in 8 days has to catch up eventually. Ray Emery will experience a letdown after hosting his old team the Sens and facing one of the best goalies in the NHL right now could be a recipe for disaster for the Flyers.
SIT
Varlamov/Theodore @ New Jersey: Washington’s piled together a series of very inconsistent results in the wake of Ovechkin’s absence, and with Ovie looking like he’s out for another Saturday Slate, neither goalie can be considered a great play here. New Jersey is on a torrid pace right now behind some excellent play from their stars and even if Washington ekes out a win, it will be at the expense of some bad goalie numbers from their struggling goalie tandem.
J-S Giguere @ Detroit: With Anaheim playing back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday, it’s likely Giguere will see his first action of the year Saturday, and his first coming after comments made this week where he said he would rather retire than serve as incumbent Jonas Hiller's back-up. I can’t say a start at Joe Louis Arena with all that self-made pressure put on Giguere would be the dream for the goalie or the struggling Ducks. Detroit’s beginning to find their scoring touch, particularly when it comes to scoring at key times, and I'd leave Giguere on the bench until his play starts doing the talking, rather than his mouth.
Very few pools pay no regard to position. Even my mortal enemy, the “select ‘em and forget ‘em” pool will often divide its players into their respective defensive and offensive roles. So it’s a wonder that position often doesn’t get discussed when we look at fantasy hockey. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what works and what doesn’t, and I’m not sure there’s any one right way, but there are some general things you should keep in mind when considering positional players’ roles on your fantasy squad. This column is going to look at a few different ways you can get the most effectiveness out of your squad in a number of different positional formats, both working with the team you have and how to play the wire effectively.
1. If your pool employs a bench, keep an even number of players from each forward position. I think this should mostly go without saying, but unless your pool has a maximum games played for each position, you shouldn’t keep more than one extra at any given position on your bench. So for example, if you have a bench of 3-5 players, you shouldn’t have 2 of those 3-5 be left wingers. The best way to accrue points is to maximize the number of games played by team, and you simply can’t afford to leave that many man-games on your bench at the expense of an extra position. The only position I allow for two bench spots to be taken by(in the case of 5 bench spots) is goalie, which brings me to...
2. If your league has 4 or more bench spots, seriously consider benching two goalies. I know that quality goaltenders can be few and far between especially now that teams are putting up 4-6 goals a game pretty regularly. That said, if you aren’t benching two goalies, someone else will. And so will someone else. And probably a few other guys. While keeping three very good goalies might allow you to solidify a place among the statistical categories(GAA/save percentage) leaders, you will have a very small chance of placing in the top half of both wins and shutouts, and that’s to say nothing of injuries. If you have a key goalie go down and only one on your bench, I can guarantee you won’t find much on your wire if the pools I’m in are any indication, and again, we’re talking about the difference between a winner and a loser.
3. If your pool starts 3 or more defensemen, don’t bench any. Defensemen are a common argument in fantasy: some guys swear their victories come from a strong defensive core, others will wait until the 10th round before they even consider drafting a rearguard. My personal belief is you can’t win a pool without an elite d-man**, but after one main one, the need for any more is suspect. That said, some guys will go so far as to put defensemen on their bench, and unless your pool only starts 1 or 2 d-men, statistics show this isn’t justified. Typically you can’t expect a D3/D4 to get you more than 25-30 points and either a decent collection of PIMs or a solid plus-minus, particularly if there are 10 teams or more in your league. Right now on your waiver wire, I guarantee you can find a winger that can offer you at least 40-45 points and some solid auxiliary statistics as well. I think guys feel like they can’t have a bench without putting every position on it, but you’re wasting time switching d-men in and out of your line-up. And if you have a d-man you feel is worth benching and that will score 40-45 points, then I feel bad for the rest of your team because you drafted wrong my friend. Way wrong.
4. Really utilize your utility position by drafting/picking up an extra winger. For the last 4 or 5 years, centre has been the deepest position in fantasy, and the prevailing thinking has been that if there’s a utility position available, it allows you to draft an extra centreman, since there are often quality centres left late in drafts. I’d like to see that mode of thinking shift, and here’s why. Left wing has been the shallowest of any fantasy position in recent years but with the emergence of some elite LW(Ovechkin, Morrow, Kovalchuk, Parise, etc.) I think both LW/RW are equally tough spots to fill. Why not, if you have a utility position, draft a winger who might score 5-10 points less than that solid centreman left for some security? If you have a LW or RW that goes down with injury or is slumping, you could end up in some real trouble trying to scour the wire for an available player at either of those positions. Quality centremen are available almost year-round, even in deeper pools. It also allows you more flexibility when it comes to making trades. Generally speaking, most poolies are happy with their centre group, and it’s hard not to be when there are so many very good centremen in the NHL right now. Most won’t feel they need to upgrade there and you very rarely see centre-for-centre trades in fantasy. To make deals, you need to be flexible at the wing positions, so some smart drafting or free agent pick-ups will allow you to maximize your utility position in case of injury, or to make that key trade later in the season.
5. Always check position eligibility changes. Most people I know pool at Yahoo!, but no matter where you pool, there will be somewhere that updates position eligibility, for example, if a guy regularly plays both wings, or plays centre and a wing, he will gain the ability to be plugged in at either spot. Find out where this list is, and check it religiously. To have someone on your team you can swing at more than one position is a huge asset to your team and your ability to maximize your number of games played, which as we know is extremely important.
**--a couple shocking statistics about elite defenseman:
1. Each year, Yahoo! tracks which players are most common to winning teams. These MVPs are available to look at under the “Research” tab. Last year, Shea Weber was most common to winning teams, belonging to a whopping 37% of winning teams. This year, you’ll find three defensemen in the top 10, Dan Boyle at #6(owned by 21.4% of top teams), Drew Doughty at #9 and Chris Pronger at #10(both with 17.2% ownership). The number of forwards in the top 10? Also 3. You’ll find 5 more D in the top 25. Think an elite d-man isn’t important?
2. Last year, Alex Ovechkin was the #1-ranked fantasy player with his absurd goal and shot totals. The leader the year before? Dion Phaneuf. That’s right, of every player in the NHL, Dion Phaneuf’s 60 points, 182 PIMs, and +12 rating(along with a ridiculous 263 shots on goal from the point) made him the most valuable player in all of fantasy(using the standard categories of G/A/plus-minus/PIM/SOG/PPP). So think twice before you wait til the 10th round to draft that first d-man.
The Saturday Slate
Your weekly guide to goalie sits and starts. If my “start” goalies record a win and a peripheral statistic of either 2.00 GAA or less, or .920 save % or higher, I take one point. If they record one of the two, I take a half-point. If my “sit” goalies take a loss and post either a 3.00 GAA or higher or a .900 save % or less, I take one point. If they take either one of the two, I take a half. For the year, I have 13.5 of a possible 20 points, recording at least a half-point in 17 of 20 games thus far. In the event of a starting goalie not playing the game, I will assume their backup’s stats.
START
Craig Anderson v. Vancouver: While Anderson’s been having a few struggles, the match-up for him on Saturday looks all in his favor as Vancouver has been struggling--both on the scoreboard and in the standings. Vancouver’s earned its reputation as a team that will struggle to score over the last few seasons and averaging just over 2.5 goals/game should bode well for the NHL’s leading goaltender.
Ryan Miller @ Philadelphia: Earlier in the year I wrote about playing streaks, and that sometimes playing the end of a streak is just as important as playing the middle of one. The Flyers are on a 5-game winning streak, but playing their 5th game in 8 days has to catch up eventually. Ray Emery will experience a letdown after hosting his old team the Sens and facing one of the best goalies in the NHL right now could be a recipe for disaster for the Flyers.
SIT
Varlamov/Theodore @ New Jersey: Washington’s piled together a series of very inconsistent results in the wake of Ovechkin’s absence, and with Ovie looking like he’s out for another Saturday Slate, neither goalie can be considered a great play here. New Jersey is on a torrid pace right now behind some excellent play from their stars and even if Washington ekes out a win, it will be at the expense of some bad goalie numbers from their struggling goalie tandem.
J-S Giguere @ Detroit: With Anaheim playing back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday, it’s likely Giguere will see his first action of the year Saturday, and his first coming after comments made this week where he said he would rather retire than serve as incumbent Jonas Hiller's back-up. I can’t say a start at Joe Louis Arena with all that self-made pressure put on Giguere would be the dream for the goalie or the struggling Ducks. Detroit’s beginning to find their scoring touch, particularly when it comes to scoring at key times, and I'd leave Giguere on the bench until his play starts doing the talking, rather than his mouth.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Discussion: Media Outlets - Should Players/Agents/Management Use the Media to Get Points Across?
John Cullen: This comes during a week where both a player agent and a player have used the media to insult or criticize the play of their team(or their players' team). Are the effects harmful?
Pat Andrzejewski: I'm for it. Walsh was just trying to do his job, and in this new age to media, what better to get the word across then to use a very popular media outlet while making a shot at the hockey world's most sensitive fan base. Guaranteed it'll get your name and client out there.
Tim Daily: Walsh was trying to do his job, yes, but his number one responsibility is to his client. The goaltending situation in Montreal is precarious and under constant pressure from media outlets. Confidence is a major part of succeeding between the pipes and Halak will have to prove that he can carry the Habs in the face of these personal distractions.
Eric Kveton: I think suspension is excessive, unless you pull a Larry Johnson and make your message obscene or offensive. At times it proves to be a major motivation. But it makes a lot more sense for a coach or agent to do it, simply because calling out your teammates in the media is a great way to lose teammates' respect. Take care of that business in the locker room.
Nate Wells: It depends a lot on the situation and who is doing it. For example, it's in the agent's best interest to get their client out into the limelight any way possible as long as it's done in a way that the negative hit is on the agent and the player ends up coming out smelling like roses. There are also times when it's much better for a player to use the media in order to get a message across to management [i.e. trade demands] or fans [using Twitter and social networking sites], but for the most part it's a last resort due to the hit they'll take in reputation and by the team.
Management on the other hand is better off taking a cynical view of the media. Unless you are making a point that needs to be made, commenting on something that doesn't involve your team [also known as the Brian Burke special] or debunking a rumor [which is more damage control], it's best to keep your cards close to the vest.
As far as suspension/fines, I agree with Eric.
Dan Husko: Players' and even recently agents' actions through social media outlets show how naive they are in understanding how much of an impact the new age media has these days. Walsh's recent example in Montreal shows how much an impact a message less than 140 characters can make. It is one thing for an agent speak glowingly of his client. It is quite another to speak about your client at the expense of one of his teammates. Actions like this aren't going to win many friends in front offices around the league, nor will it gain popularity amongst potential clients for Walsh as it smacks of unprofressionalism.
One of the major components lost in this argument is how present agents are these days around the internet. People would be surprised how many agents, from all sports, are now routinely frequenting message boards and using outlets such as Twitter to communicate to mass audiences. With this developing trend comes a new form of etiquette that must be followed and upheld.
Nate: Very true, although this is a problem throughout the business world and not just limited to professional sports.
Dan: Yea. I think one of the most interesting things I'm learning through a lot of these stories is how unprofessional people who pull in big money can be. Trying to justify acts to anonymous masses on the internet just seems like a lost cause, yet many engage in it.
Not that it should come as a surprise that a lot of the business is built on lies and put downs, but we hear so much more of it now with how many outlets there are.
Mike Rogers: I don't have a problem with it. Agents don't have any friends in the front office, that just comes with people who are always going to be arguing opposite sides of the player because of their jobs. These comments don't really even put a dent in the relationship at all when agents in other sports (like baseball) have taken the offer sheet from a team and shown it to a more desirable team to get a better deal -- and those agents still have jobs and are representing clients. That sort of seedy "negotiations" are much more damaging. I think the media and fans make more of this type of situation than actual front offices or players do.
Dan: Most of the time the agents don't need friends in front offices. They just need someone to negotiate. But, to go to a cross sport reference here, the Red Sox won't even deal with Rob Plummer, an agent who represents many top Latin American talent. His clients are continually losing out on a top money team in bidding.
Obviously thats an extreme case and much different circumstances. If a team is truly interested in a marquee free agent, it will do business with the agent regardless. However, there is a chance that a player will lose money due to the mistrust of his representative. Its hard to fully grasp since everyone has a different story about how negotiations played out (on the rare occasion that stories do come out).
Mike: In a league where Andrew Raycroft is getting starts, Halak won't be missing out on money.
Dan: It might not affect Halak, but I doubt Carey Price will put Walsh on his speed dial. And really if I'm a fringe goalie looking to make more money, the last thing I would want is an agent mouthing off creating more potential distractions and potentially decreasing my value a little.
Chris Mitchell: I just don't see how Walsh's comments could have benefited Halak in any way. Surely he couldn't be naive enough to think that someone within the Canadiens would agree with him and say "Hey, this douche bag agent is right, maybe we should be starting Jaroslav Halak every night instead of Carey Price."
Tim: Yeah, I agree. The only people I can see benefiting from this are the fans that have been calling for Price's head, because now their favorite advocacy is being brought to the forefront of Habs' discussion.
Nate: Easy. We're talking about it, the media's talking about it, if there wasn't a goalie controversy before this fuels the flames and makes Halak out to be the better goalie even if he doesn't play as much as Price. Walsh doesn't need the Canadiens to agree with him [and in fact it's better if they don't], he just needs the masses to have it in the back of their mind when Halak's playing well or Price is playing poor.
Mike: But it doesn't hurt Halak either. The Habs aren't going to make Carey Price a Luongo the rest of the way and start 65 straight games to punish Halak for his agents statements.
Any pub is good pub (save for run-in's with the law or something of that nature), so if you're a marginal goalie getting your name out there will help getting you noticed. I just don't believe things like this really affect a player's financial gains moving forward.
And if Carey Price doesn't want to hang out with Halak because of what his agent said, that speaks volumes more about Carey Price, his mindset and personality, than it does anything else. To me at least. That would really make me question if Price is the guy to shoulder being the starting goalie in a place like Montreal.
Pat: I agree with Mike 100%. This comment is just a way an agent can get his client's name out there, and whether it throw gas in the fire for the goalie controversy or whether it's a way to get other people interested in Halak, via trade.
If Carey Price is affected by comments like this, especially while being the "goalie of the franchise" in one of the harshest hockey cities, he doesn't and shouldn't deserve to be there.
Andrew Harvey: I just hate the way of thinking that instead of pushing your own clients attributes and abilities instead you put down a teammate. Because Price has poor numbers does that automatically mean Halak is good? Halaks save percentage is as bad as Price's.
Usually when you know your own product is inferior you go this route because clearly making a twitter post about how good Halak has been isnt really feasable.
John: I agree, it's the mentality that a lot of Canucks fans have because they don't know hockey as well out here. If the Canucks are playing poorly or I make a comment about something they're doing I don't like, the common comeback is, "well, what are the Leafs doing?" which is just about the worst argument ever because the Leafs have nothing to do with the discussion.
How Carey Price is playing should have very little to do with Halak--Halak will get the starts when he gets them and his play should be allowed to do the talking. Winning a job should be the result of on-ice performance, not comparative statistics and internet back-talk.
And again, I hate to keep beating a dead horse here, but wins are a TERRIBLE goalie stat. A lot of Price's losses came at the end of last season when the Habs were absolutely awful, were swept by rival Boston in the first round after dragging their rusty carcass into the playoffs, and not only was Price rushed back from injury(largely because Halak wasn't playing great either) but the team defense was downright deplorable. It would be an interesting stat to track, determining just how many losses are actually a goalie's fault. Without knowing how to calculate that stat, I would say 9 out of every 10 losses are a team loss, not a goalie loss, and yet goalies take the credit. It's such a bad stat I'm sick of talking about it.
Corey Sznajder: Yeah, aside from wins and GAA, Halak and Price's stats don't differentiate that much. They have roughly the same save percentage and Halak's GAA isn't terribly impressive. Like a lot have already said, Walsh was probably just trying to get Halak's name out there with that Twitter comment, and it's working.
Andrew: Though its a complete bitch to figure out after the fact even strength GAA is something thats used to measure junior goalies performances.
Power play goals are thrown out the window as are shorthanded because they are usually caused by a defensive lapse.
Mike: I know most advanced analysts on goalie numbers like even strength save % because save% is usually a better number to look at that GAA, even.
Dara Heaps: I don't think public comments should be suspendable unless they're truly obscene. Sean Avery shouldn't have been suspended for as long as he was after the sloppy seconds comment but that's the NHL for you. Walsh is doing what he can to get his player's name out there but I'm personally not a fan of him putting down Halak's teammate to do it. Like Mike said, if Price is going to quit being friends with Halak because of it, it speaks volumes about Price not Halak.
Chris: I guess I'm just in the camp that if Halak's agent is looking to get Jaro some more money, then let his on-ice performance show that he's worth it. If Halak is playing well, teams will take notice. GM's don't need to have an agent remind them (moreso through the media) that their client is playing well.
These comments may get Halak the fans' support, but that won't factor into the team's decision on when he gets to start.
Pat Andrzejewski: I'm for it. Walsh was just trying to do his job, and in this new age to media, what better to get the word across then to use a very popular media outlet while making a shot at the hockey world's most sensitive fan base. Guaranteed it'll get your name and client out there.
Tim Daily: Walsh was trying to do his job, yes, but his number one responsibility is to his client. The goaltending situation in Montreal is precarious and under constant pressure from media outlets. Confidence is a major part of succeeding between the pipes and Halak will have to prove that he can carry the Habs in the face of these personal distractions.
Eric Kveton: I think suspension is excessive, unless you pull a Larry Johnson and make your message obscene or offensive. At times it proves to be a major motivation. But it makes a lot more sense for a coach or agent to do it, simply because calling out your teammates in the media is a great way to lose teammates' respect. Take care of that business in the locker room.
Nate Wells: It depends a lot on the situation and who is doing it. For example, it's in the agent's best interest to get their client out into the limelight any way possible as long as it's done in a way that the negative hit is on the agent and the player ends up coming out smelling like roses. There are also times when it's much better for a player to use the media in order to get a message across to management [i.e. trade demands] or fans [using Twitter and social networking sites], but for the most part it's a last resort due to the hit they'll take in reputation and by the team.
Management on the other hand is better off taking a cynical view of the media. Unless you are making a point that needs to be made, commenting on something that doesn't involve your team [also known as the Brian Burke special] or debunking a rumor [which is more damage control], it's best to keep your cards close to the vest.
As far as suspension/fines, I agree with Eric.
Dan Husko: Players' and even recently agents' actions through social media outlets show how naive they are in understanding how much of an impact the new age media has these days. Walsh's recent example in Montreal shows how much an impact a message less than 140 characters can make. It is one thing for an agent speak glowingly of his client. It is quite another to speak about your client at the expense of one of his teammates. Actions like this aren't going to win many friends in front offices around the league, nor will it gain popularity amongst potential clients for Walsh as it smacks of unprofressionalism.
One of the major components lost in this argument is how present agents are these days around the internet. People would be surprised how many agents, from all sports, are now routinely frequenting message boards and using outlets such as Twitter to communicate to mass audiences. With this developing trend comes a new form of etiquette that must be followed and upheld.
Nate: Very true, although this is a problem throughout the business world and not just limited to professional sports.
Dan: Yea. I think one of the most interesting things I'm learning through a lot of these stories is how unprofessional people who pull in big money can be. Trying to justify acts to anonymous masses on the internet just seems like a lost cause, yet many engage in it.
Not that it should come as a surprise that a lot of the business is built on lies and put downs, but we hear so much more of it now with how many outlets there are.
Mike Rogers: I don't have a problem with it. Agents don't have any friends in the front office, that just comes with people who are always going to be arguing opposite sides of the player because of their jobs. These comments don't really even put a dent in the relationship at all when agents in other sports (like baseball) have taken the offer sheet from a team and shown it to a more desirable team to get a better deal -- and those agents still have jobs and are representing clients. That sort of seedy "negotiations" are much more damaging. I think the media and fans make more of this type of situation than actual front offices or players do.
Dan: Most of the time the agents don't need friends in front offices. They just need someone to negotiate. But, to go to a cross sport reference here, the Red Sox won't even deal with Rob Plummer, an agent who represents many top Latin American talent. His clients are continually losing out on a top money team in bidding.
Obviously thats an extreme case and much different circumstances. If a team is truly interested in a marquee free agent, it will do business with the agent regardless. However, there is a chance that a player will lose money due to the mistrust of his representative. Its hard to fully grasp since everyone has a different story about how negotiations played out (on the rare occasion that stories do come out).
Mike: In a league where Andrew Raycroft is getting starts, Halak won't be missing out on money.
Dan: It might not affect Halak, but I doubt Carey Price will put Walsh on his speed dial. And really if I'm a fringe goalie looking to make more money, the last thing I would want is an agent mouthing off creating more potential distractions and potentially decreasing my value a little.
Chris Mitchell: I just don't see how Walsh's comments could have benefited Halak in any way. Surely he couldn't be naive enough to think that someone within the Canadiens would agree with him and say "Hey, this douche bag agent is right, maybe we should be starting Jaroslav Halak every night instead of Carey Price."
Tim: Yeah, I agree. The only people I can see benefiting from this are the fans that have been calling for Price's head, because now their favorite advocacy is being brought to the forefront of Habs' discussion.
Nate: Easy. We're talking about it, the media's talking about it, if there wasn't a goalie controversy before this fuels the flames and makes Halak out to be the better goalie even if he doesn't play as much as Price. Walsh doesn't need the Canadiens to agree with him [and in fact it's better if they don't], he just needs the masses to have it in the back of their mind when Halak's playing well or Price is playing poor.
Mike: But it doesn't hurt Halak either. The Habs aren't going to make Carey Price a Luongo the rest of the way and start 65 straight games to punish Halak for his agents statements.
Any pub is good pub (save for run-in's with the law or something of that nature), so if you're a marginal goalie getting your name out there will help getting you noticed. I just don't believe things like this really affect a player's financial gains moving forward.
And if Carey Price doesn't want to hang out with Halak because of what his agent said, that speaks volumes more about Carey Price, his mindset and personality, than it does anything else. To me at least. That would really make me question if Price is the guy to shoulder being the starting goalie in a place like Montreal.
Pat: I agree with Mike 100%. This comment is just a way an agent can get his client's name out there, and whether it throw gas in the fire for the goalie controversy or whether it's a way to get other people interested in Halak, via trade.
If Carey Price is affected by comments like this, especially while being the "goalie of the franchise" in one of the harshest hockey cities, he doesn't and shouldn't deserve to be there.
Andrew Harvey: I just hate the way of thinking that instead of pushing your own clients attributes and abilities instead you put down a teammate. Because Price has poor numbers does that automatically mean Halak is good? Halaks save percentage is as bad as Price's.
Usually when you know your own product is inferior you go this route because clearly making a twitter post about how good Halak has been isnt really feasable.
John: I agree, it's the mentality that a lot of Canucks fans have because they don't know hockey as well out here. If the Canucks are playing poorly or I make a comment about something they're doing I don't like, the common comeback is, "well, what are the Leafs doing?" which is just about the worst argument ever because the Leafs have nothing to do with the discussion.
How Carey Price is playing should have very little to do with Halak--Halak will get the starts when he gets them and his play should be allowed to do the talking. Winning a job should be the result of on-ice performance, not comparative statistics and internet back-talk.
And again, I hate to keep beating a dead horse here, but wins are a TERRIBLE goalie stat. A lot of Price's losses came at the end of last season when the Habs were absolutely awful, were swept by rival Boston in the first round after dragging their rusty carcass into the playoffs, and not only was Price rushed back from injury(largely because Halak wasn't playing great either) but the team defense was downright deplorable. It would be an interesting stat to track, determining just how many losses are actually a goalie's fault. Without knowing how to calculate that stat, I would say 9 out of every 10 losses are a team loss, not a goalie loss, and yet goalies take the credit. It's such a bad stat I'm sick of talking about it.
Corey Sznajder: Yeah, aside from wins and GAA, Halak and Price's stats don't differentiate that much. They have roughly the same save percentage and Halak's GAA isn't terribly impressive. Like a lot have already said, Walsh was probably just trying to get Halak's name out there with that Twitter comment, and it's working.
Andrew: Though its a complete bitch to figure out after the fact even strength GAA is something thats used to measure junior goalies performances.
Power play goals are thrown out the window as are shorthanded because they are usually caused by a defensive lapse.
Mike: I know most advanced analysts on goalie numbers like even strength save % because save% is usually a better number to look at that GAA, even.
Dara Heaps: I don't think public comments should be suspendable unless they're truly obscene. Sean Avery shouldn't have been suspended for as long as he was after the sloppy seconds comment but that's the NHL for you. Walsh is doing what he can to get his player's name out there but I'm personally not a fan of him putting down Halak's teammate to do it. Like Mike said, if Price is going to quit being friends with Halak because of it, it speaks volumes about Price not Halak.
Chris: I guess I'm just in the camp that if Halak's agent is looking to get Jaro some more money, then let his on-ice performance show that he's worth it. If Halak is playing well, teams will take notice. GM's don't need to have an agent remind them (moreso through the media) that their client is playing well.
These comments may get Halak the fans' support, but that won't factor into the team's decision on when he gets to start.
Monday, November 9, 2009
NHL Players of the Week: 11/1 through 11/7
1. Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose Sharks. Nabokov was simply phenomenal this week for the Sharks, winning 3 games and losing another in a shootout. Nabby faves 117 shots this week, stopping 113 of them and earning a shutout against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
2. Jonas Gustavsson, Toronto Maple Leafs. Last week, Tomas Kaberle was the Leafs best player. This week, its been “The Monster.” Gustavsson won 2 of 3 games this week, the only loss coming in overtime to Tampa Bay. Gustavsson stopped 99 shots of 104 in 3 games, good for a .951 save percentage. Thanks to Gustavsson, Kaberle and the debut of Phil Kessel (who scored his first goal as a Leaf Saturday night in a 5-1 blowout of the Red Wings), the Leafs have points in 7 straight games.
3. Andrew Raycroft, Vancouver Canucks. Raycroft has shined in the absence of starting netminder Roberto Luongo. Raycroft started 3 games and won all 3, including a shutout against one of the hottest teams in the league, the Colorado Avalanche.
Honorable Mentions:
Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist earned his 150th career victory against the Boston Bruins Sunday in a 1-0 shutout win. … Raffi Torres scored 4 goals this week for the Blue Jackets. … Mike Richards and Jeff Carter each scored 2 goals and an assist against Tampa Bay on Monday. … Chris Osgood earned his 50th career shutout against the Boston Bruins stopping 29 shots. … Rich Peverley continues to shine for the Atlanta Thrashers. Peverley notched a goal and 2 assists in a 5-4 win against the Montreal Canadiens. … Sidney Crosby made a fantastic save against Scott Niedermayer, stacking the pads late in the game to help the Pens to a 4-3 victory. … Tomas Vokoun and Ryan Miller each earned shutouts Wednesday night, stopping 32 and 24 shots respectively. … Nicklas Bergfors scored 2 power play goals and Travis Zajac had 2 assists for the New Jersey Devils Wednesday. The Devils improved their road record to 8-0-0 this week. … Milan Hejduk (2+1), Paul Stastny (0+3) and Peter Budaj (playing his first game after having the H1N1 virus) helped the Colorado Avalanche to a 4-1 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes. The Avs are undefeated at home this season. … Patrice Bergeron scored with 18 seconds left against Montreal to break their 192 minutes and 6 seconds goal drought Thursday night. Carey Price made 42 saves in regulation and overtime then went on to stop all 3 shots in the shootout for the Habs. … Jonas Hiller made 40 saves against Nashville for his first shutout of the season. … Logan Couture (SJS) scored his first NHL goal against the Red Wings Thursday night. … Anze Kopitar added to his point total by scoring 3 goals and 3 assists this week. He leads the league with 27 points. … Jason Spezza returned from injury to score his first goal of the season in overtime to help his Senators beat the Lightning. He also had 2 assists. … Cory Schnieder made 45 saves against the Dallas Stars Friday night in his first start of the season. … Ryan O’Reilly scored 2 goals against the Blackhawks but the game needed 8 rounds in a shootout to decide a winner. The Avs came out on top. … Mike Knuble scored 2 goals and had 2 helpers and Tomas Fleischmann had a pair to lead the Ovechkin-less Caps to a 7-4 victory over the Florida Panthers. Dmitry Kulikov (FLA) scored his first NHL goal in the loss. … Columbus scored 3 goals in 2:41 Saturday night to extend the Hurricanes winless streak to 12 games. The Canes lost Eric Staal to injury Sunday night and then lost starting netminder Cam Ward Saturday night when Rick Nash cut Ward’s leg. … Antero Niittymaki has been solid for the Lightning this week after coming in relief of Mike Smith against Philadelphia. Niittymaki has 2 wins and an OTL in 3 games with a .951 save percentage. … Dan Boyle (1+1), Manny Malhotra (1+1) and Joe Pavelski (1+1) helped the Sharks beat the Pens 5-0 Saturday night. Pavelski made his return to the lineup after missing 5 weeks with a broken foot.
Notes:
The Carolina Hurricans haven’t won in 12 games. Their luck seems to be getting worse, not better. Number one center Eric Staal went down with an upper body injury Sunday and saw his 349 consecutive games streak come to an end. To make an awful situation even worse, starting netminder and 2006 Conn Smythe winner Cam Ward had his leg sliced open by Rick Nash’s skate Sunday night. For the Canes, it seems they can do no right. They’ve been shut out 3 times this season and they’ve lost by 3 or more goals 6 times. Things don’t look like they’re going to get better anytime soon with their top-2 players out for an unknown amount of time. After a spectacular run to the Eastern Conference finals last spring, Canes fans expected big things this season. Unfortunately, they’re digging themselves into one very large hole.
Injury Report:
Alex Ovechkin (WSH), upper-body, week-to-week.
Eric Staal (CAR), upper-body, will miss “some time” according to GM Jim Rutherford.
Kris Letang (PIT), upper-body.
Cam Ward (CAR), leg laceration, 3-4 weeks minimum.
Radek Martinek (NYI), torn ligament in his right leg, out for the season.
Jason Williams (DET), fractured right fibula, out 6-8 weeks unless surgery is required.
David Krejci, diagnosed with H1N1 virus, out until fever and symptom free for 24 hours.
Patrick Elias (NJD), Jason Spezza (OTT), Phil Kessel (TOR) and Joe Pavelski (SJS) all returned from injury this week.
2. Jonas Gustavsson, Toronto Maple Leafs. Last week, Tomas Kaberle was the Leafs best player. This week, its been “The Monster.” Gustavsson won 2 of 3 games this week, the only loss coming in overtime to Tampa Bay. Gustavsson stopped 99 shots of 104 in 3 games, good for a .951 save percentage. Thanks to Gustavsson, Kaberle and the debut of Phil Kessel (who scored his first goal as a Leaf Saturday night in a 5-1 blowout of the Red Wings), the Leafs have points in 7 straight games.
3. Andrew Raycroft, Vancouver Canucks. Raycroft has shined in the absence of starting netminder Roberto Luongo. Raycroft started 3 games and won all 3, including a shutout against one of the hottest teams in the league, the Colorado Avalanche.
Honorable Mentions:
Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist earned his 150th career victory against the Boston Bruins Sunday in a 1-0 shutout win. … Raffi Torres scored 4 goals this week for the Blue Jackets. … Mike Richards and Jeff Carter each scored 2 goals and an assist against Tampa Bay on Monday. … Chris Osgood earned his 50th career shutout against the Boston Bruins stopping 29 shots. … Rich Peverley continues to shine for the Atlanta Thrashers. Peverley notched a goal and 2 assists in a 5-4 win against the Montreal Canadiens. … Sidney Crosby made a fantastic save against Scott Niedermayer, stacking the pads late in the game to help the Pens to a 4-3 victory. … Tomas Vokoun and Ryan Miller each earned shutouts Wednesday night, stopping 32 and 24 shots respectively. … Nicklas Bergfors scored 2 power play goals and Travis Zajac had 2 assists for the New Jersey Devils Wednesday. The Devils improved their road record to 8-0-0 this week. … Milan Hejduk (2+1), Paul Stastny (0+3) and Peter Budaj (playing his first game after having the H1N1 virus) helped the Colorado Avalanche to a 4-1 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes. The Avs are undefeated at home this season. … Patrice Bergeron scored with 18 seconds left against Montreal to break their 192 minutes and 6 seconds goal drought Thursday night. Carey Price made 42 saves in regulation and overtime then went on to stop all 3 shots in the shootout for the Habs. … Jonas Hiller made 40 saves against Nashville for his first shutout of the season. … Logan Couture (SJS) scored his first NHL goal against the Red Wings Thursday night. … Anze Kopitar added to his point total by scoring 3 goals and 3 assists this week. He leads the league with 27 points. … Jason Spezza returned from injury to score his first goal of the season in overtime to help his Senators beat the Lightning. He also had 2 assists. … Cory Schnieder made 45 saves against the Dallas Stars Friday night in his first start of the season. … Ryan O’Reilly scored 2 goals against the Blackhawks but the game needed 8 rounds in a shootout to decide a winner. The Avs came out on top. … Mike Knuble scored 2 goals and had 2 helpers and Tomas Fleischmann had a pair to lead the Ovechkin-less Caps to a 7-4 victory over the Florida Panthers. Dmitry Kulikov (FLA) scored his first NHL goal in the loss. … Columbus scored 3 goals in 2:41 Saturday night to extend the Hurricanes winless streak to 12 games. The Canes lost Eric Staal to injury Sunday night and then lost starting netminder Cam Ward Saturday night when Rick Nash cut Ward’s leg. … Antero Niittymaki has been solid for the Lightning this week after coming in relief of Mike Smith against Philadelphia. Niittymaki has 2 wins and an OTL in 3 games with a .951 save percentage. … Dan Boyle (1+1), Manny Malhotra (1+1) and Joe Pavelski (1+1) helped the Sharks beat the Pens 5-0 Saturday night. Pavelski made his return to the lineup after missing 5 weeks with a broken foot.
Notes:
The Carolina Hurricans haven’t won in 12 games. Their luck seems to be getting worse, not better. Number one center Eric Staal went down with an upper body injury Sunday and saw his 349 consecutive games streak come to an end. To make an awful situation even worse, starting netminder and 2006 Conn Smythe winner Cam Ward had his leg sliced open by Rick Nash’s skate Sunday night. For the Canes, it seems they can do no right. They’ve been shut out 3 times this season and they’ve lost by 3 or more goals 6 times. Things don’t look like they’re going to get better anytime soon with their top-2 players out for an unknown amount of time. After a spectacular run to the Eastern Conference finals last spring, Canes fans expected big things this season. Unfortunately, they’re digging themselves into one very large hole.
Injury Report:
Alex Ovechkin (WSH), upper-body, week-to-week.
Eric Staal (CAR), upper-body, will miss “some time” according to GM Jim Rutherford.
Kris Letang (PIT), upper-body.
Cam Ward (CAR), leg laceration, 3-4 weeks minimum.
Radek Martinek (NYI), torn ligament in his right leg, out for the season.
Jason Williams (DET), fractured right fibula, out 6-8 weeks unless surgery is required.
David Krejci, diagnosed with H1N1 virus, out until fever and symptom free for 24 hours.
Patrick Elias (NJD), Jason Spezza (OTT), Phil Kessel (TOR) and Joe Pavelski (SJS) all returned from injury this week.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Fantasy Hockey Start/Sit
Fantasy Hockey Friday took a break this week. Sometimes real-life gets in the way of fantasy, and this week was absolutely that week for me. I sincerely apologize, but sometimes when you’re not being paid to do something, other things have to take precedence.
Look forward to next week when I’ll be discussing positions and roster depth. I’m looking forward to it, so should you! And of course I can’t leave my faithful readership in the dark, so I still present.......
The Saturday Slate
Your weekly guide to goalie sits and starts. If my “start” goalies record a win and a peripheral statistic of either 2.00 GAA or less, or .920 save % or higher, I take one point. If they record one of the two, I take a half-point. If my “sit” goalies take a loss and post either a 3.00 GAA or higher or a .900 save % or less, I take one point. If they take either one of the two, I take a half. For the year, I have 11.5 of a possible 16 points, recording at least a half-point in 14 of 16 games thus far. In the event of a starting goalie not playing the game, I will assume their backup’s stats.
START
Jon Quick v. Nashville: Nashville was having trouble scoring anyway, and then subtract their leading goal-scorer and overall best player Shea Weber from that equation and you end up with even less. While they managed to pepper Jonas Hiller with 40 shots, Hiller stopped all of them for the shutout, and with Nashville having no one outside Weber having scored more than 3 times this season in 14 games, you can’t see the hot-handed Quick having too much trouble here, can you?
Semyon Varlamov v. Florida: Washington to Florida overnight is no short trip for a back-to-back set and with the anemic Panthers struggling to score(2.7 goals/game), you can’t imagine they’d do too much better after a long flight against one of the NHL’s best teams. Varlamov has looked much better in his last 2 starts and still has lots to prove to earn the #1 chair in Washington, so I love this play.
SIT
Cam Ward @ Columbus: Carolina sucks. Ward’s great but has been let down time and again by his porous defense, and Columbus has started to find their scoring touch, which is never good for the opposition. Not only that, but Ward may not start here in a B2B situation. Rick Nash seems poised to have the season of his life in the run-up to the 2010 Olympics and Derick Brassard is finally coming around, which leaves this an easy decision.
Tim Thomas v. Buffalo: Boston and Buffalo are playing opposite right now, with Buffalo playing really hot and Boston playing really......not. Derek Roy got his first goal of the season this week and Thomas Vanek is finally playing with some consistency, and man-of-glass Tim Connolly is leading the team with some great performances. I know Boston is an easy target, but it’s hard to vote against the Sabres right now.
Look forward to next week when I’ll be discussing positions and roster depth. I’m looking forward to it, so should you! And of course I can’t leave my faithful readership in the dark, so I still present.......
The Saturday Slate
Your weekly guide to goalie sits and starts. If my “start” goalies record a win and a peripheral statistic of either 2.00 GAA or less, or .920 save % or higher, I take one point. If they record one of the two, I take a half-point. If my “sit” goalies take a loss and post either a 3.00 GAA or higher or a .900 save % or less, I take one point. If they take either one of the two, I take a half. For the year, I have 11.5 of a possible 16 points, recording at least a half-point in 14 of 16 games thus far. In the event of a starting goalie not playing the game, I will assume their backup’s stats.
START
Jon Quick v. Nashville: Nashville was having trouble scoring anyway, and then subtract their leading goal-scorer and overall best player Shea Weber from that equation and you end up with even less. While they managed to pepper Jonas Hiller with 40 shots, Hiller stopped all of them for the shutout, and with Nashville having no one outside Weber having scored more than 3 times this season in 14 games, you can’t see the hot-handed Quick having too much trouble here, can you?
Semyon Varlamov v. Florida: Washington to Florida overnight is no short trip for a back-to-back set and with the anemic Panthers struggling to score(2.7 goals/game), you can’t imagine they’d do too much better after a long flight against one of the NHL’s best teams. Varlamov has looked much better in his last 2 starts and still has lots to prove to earn the #1 chair in Washington, so I love this play.
SIT
Cam Ward @ Columbus: Carolina sucks. Ward’s great but has been let down time and again by his porous defense, and Columbus has started to find their scoring touch, which is never good for the opposition. Not only that, but Ward may not start here in a B2B situation. Rick Nash seems poised to have the season of his life in the run-up to the 2010 Olympics and Derick Brassard is finally coming around, which leaves this an easy decision.
Tim Thomas v. Buffalo: Boston and Buffalo are playing opposite right now, with Buffalo playing really hot and Boston playing really......not. Derek Roy got his first goal of the season this week and Thomas Vanek is finally playing with some consistency, and man-of-glass Tim Connolly is leading the team with some great performances. I know Boston is an easy target, but it’s hard to vote against the Sabres right now.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Discussion: NHL Hits and Suspensions
Nate Wells: Not enough consistency, although this has been a major problem for Colin Campbell and the NHL in the past. The league needs to clean up the grey area.
Mike Rogers: The NHL is completely inconsistent in not just what gets dubbed as suspension-worthy, but also as to how severe they should dole out the punishments. Until the NHL shows a concerted effort to take hits to the head out of the league (as much as it can, given it's a collision sport), and become more consistent, nothing fruitful will come of it.
Tim Daily: My problem with NHL suspensions is that they've always seemed results oriented. I understand that it's tough to judge whether a guy seriously intended to hurt somebody. There have been clear cases in the past where a guy has gotten a ridiculous amount of games just because the hit he delivered ended up seriously hurting somebody, and I understand that. Sure we need to punish the severe hits but a lot of times we miss punishing players that dole out severely dangerous hits just because they didn't result in injury.
Nate: I agree with that. Even something like a fine after the fact [a la the NFL] would be a good deterrent and give the league a better idea who the real "repeat offenders" are.
Dan Husko: Tim - the NHL openly admits that whether the player is hurt or not goes into disciplinary decisions.
Tim: Yeah. I'm not saying it shouldn't. In a fast paced game like hockey it's often tough to make distinctions between whether or not a guy intended to do anything...but in today's age of high definition video, the NHL is more equipped than ever to make good decisions on suspension-worthy plays. I'd like to see the league do that and get better at issuing punishment.
Dara Heaps: The NHL really has to make an effort to clean up the game. Maybe something like a suspension based on the hit and if there is an injury (like the Richards hit on Booth), a fine reguardless if the hit was legal. If there's a clean hit but the guy ends up injured like Booth, maybe there should be a fine. Its not like these players can't afford it and the money would go to the players assistance fund.
Mike: I don't see how a $10,000 fine is much of a detriment as guys still hit high in the NFL. And given the NHL's track record with punishments, them identifying "repeat offenders" is pretty, shall we say, suspect.
Nate: It's true that players will make borderline dirty hits in the NHL barring any drastic action like placing the stop sign on back of their jerseys like Pee-Wees. However, the number of repeat offenders go down [for on-field hits - off-field activities is a different story]. It's the same thing with suspensions - you don't see many people getting suspended for the same thing multiple times.
Mike: You don't see many people getting suspended in the NHL, period. Let alone suspended for the same thing multiple times. The fact that the NHL continually lets guys like Denis Gauthier run wild on the ice year in, year out is a testament to the joke of a job that Colin Campbell has been doing. I don't expect that to change anytime soon, either.
Nate: No I agree with that, which as I said earlier is one of the reasons why there is such a large grey area of questionable hits and questionable suspensions/non-suspensions.
Eric Kveton: There's no excuse for the NHL's missing the boat on the punishment of head shots. But in defense of the NHL, it's definitely tricky to standardize some of the more borderline hits. We saw it with the Scuderi and Ott hip checks, which obviously weren't head shots but both could be considered dangerous. Do you punish a guy for hitting a couple inches lower than he is supposed to (or arguably meant to)? And yes, Ott is an infamous "repeat offender."
But then Colin Campbell makes Tim's point for him:
"Scuderi went really low and I felt it was a clip," Campbell said Hockey Night in Canada Radio.
"Fortunately, he didn't injure the guy. He did hurt him on the play, as far as receiving a cut. But he came back in the game, Chimera, so I didn't think it was a fair play and we fined him."
That's ridiculous.
Andrew Harvey: I'd like the players to police themselves but they seemingly only care to retaliate on clean hits. I still dont have a real problem with hits to the head as long as the guy stays on his feet and uses shoulder. Once the forearm is up (like the Wisniewski hit) Im all for suspensions.
Dan: I still dont have as much of a problem with the Wisniewski hit as I do the Richards or Ladd hits. Standing guys up at the blue line like that happens a lot. Seems like it wasn't a hit aimed for the head. Regardless, he made contact with the head with a forearm, so he deserved a couple games.
I still don't see how that's more dangerous than two guys putting so much force into high hits that they leave their feet after contact. Personally I'd probably prefer to be hit by a forearm rather than a guy skating full speed and putting all 200 lbs behind one of his shoulders. There's also scientific proof that blindsiding someone and surprising him with a head hit is a lot more dangerous and more likely to produce a serious concussion.
Regardless, whether its a forearm, shoulder, or elbow, the head should be off limits. Complain about wimping the game, but there's enough history of guy's having long term effects from head injuries to warrant this change. Obviously, you'll never take all concussions out of the game since they do occur on clean hits (Willie Mitchell on Toews was a great, clean hit). I also think it says a lot that a guy like Keith Primeau came out heavily in favor of outlawing these types of hits.
John Cullen: The problem you end up with when you begin to try and limit hits to the head is that you put another huge amount of pressure on referees to make the right call every time, and we saw how well that went with the obstruction calls. For example, what do you do if a guy appears to be lining up to hit a guy in the head but misses? In a close game, if a guy turns his head into the hit a la David Booth, do you still call it? And I would find the entire thing really ironic if they allow fighting(which is punching a guy in the face) but outlaw hitting guys to the head.
It's hockey and these guys are physical specimens, they hit to hurt, they've all been taught that way, and guys who are unwilling to play physical hockey often see a decrease in ice-time, which is why stars are now expected to have that physical edge to their game and you see "faces of the game" like Ovechkin and Crosby start to take liberties. Gretzky never hit anyone in his life and Lemieux certainly didn't go out of his way either because they didn't have to, but the game has changed significantly since then and there's very few guys getting top minutes who are unwilling to give a hit and be physical.
I agree with Harv, Don Cherry, and a slew of others that the game has to start policing itself. This trend of fighting guys on clean hits is getting ridiculous and is absolutely not at all in the nature of the game. Can the instigator penalty (which is still one of the worst rule-changes the NHL has ever made) and start holding guys accountable. Guys didn't wear helmets 25-30 years ago and there were very few guys coming out of that era with concussion issues, so why now? I can guarantee that if Derek Boogaard is going to beat the piss out of you for hitting a guy on his team, you'd think twice about doing it as opposed to a fine for some pocket change.
Mike Rogers: The NHL is completely inconsistent in not just what gets dubbed as suspension-worthy, but also as to how severe they should dole out the punishments. Until the NHL shows a concerted effort to take hits to the head out of the league (as much as it can, given it's a collision sport), and become more consistent, nothing fruitful will come of it.
Tim Daily: My problem with NHL suspensions is that they've always seemed results oriented. I understand that it's tough to judge whether a guy seriously intended to hurt somebody. There have been clear cases in the past where a guy has gotten a ridiculous amount of games just because the hit he delivered ended up seriously hurting somebody, and I understand that. Sure we need to punish the severe hits but a lot of times we miss punishing players that dole out severely dangerous hits just because they didn't result in injury.
Nate: I agree with that. Even something like a fine after the fact [a la the NFL] would be a good deterrent and give the league a better idea who the real "repeat offenders" are.
Dan Husko: Tim - the NHL openly admits that whether the player is hurt or not goes into disciplinary decisions.
Tim: Yeah. I'm not saying it shouldn't. In a fast paced game like hockey it's often tough to make distinctions between whether or not a guy intended to do anything...but in today's age of high definition video, the NHL is more equipped than ever to make good decisions on suspension-worthy plays. I'd like to see the league do that and get better at issuing punishment.
Dara Heaps: The NHL really has to make an effort to clean up the game. Maybe something like a suspension based on the hit and if there is an injury (like the Richards hit on Booth), a fine reguardless if the hit was legal. If there's a clean hit but the guy ends up injured like Booth, maybe there should be a fine. Its not like these players can't afford it and the money would go to the players assistance fund.
Mike: I don't see how a $10,000 fine is much of a detriment as guys still hit high in the NFL. And given the NHL's track record with punishments, them identifying "repeat offenders" is pretty, shall we say, suspect.
Nate: It's true that players will make borderline dirty hits in the NHL barring any drastic action like placing the stop sign on back of their jerseys like Pee-Wees. However, the number of repeat offenders go down [for on-field hits - off-field activities is a different story]. It's the same thing with suspensions - you don't see many people getting suspended for the same thing multiple times.
Mike: You don't see many people getting suspended in the NHL, period. Let alone suspended for the same thing multiple times. The fact that the NHL continually lets guys like Denis Gauthier run wild on the ice year in, year out is a testament to the joke of a job that Colin Campbell has been doing. I don't expect that to change anytime soon, either.
Nate: No I agree with that, which as I said earlier is one of the reasons why there is such a large grey area of questionable hits and questionable suspensions/non-suspensions.
Eric Kveton: There's no excuse for the NHL's missing the boat on the punishment of head shots. But in defense of the NHL, it's definitely tricky to standardize some of the more borderline hits. We saw it with the Scuderi and Ott hip checks, which obviously weren't head shots but both could be considered dangerous. Do you punish a guy for hitting a couple inches lower than he is supposed to (or arguably meant to)? And yes, Ott is an infamous "repeat offender."
But then Colin Campbell makes Tim's point for him:
"Scuderi went really low and I felt it was a clip," Campbell said Hockey Night in Canada Radio.
"Fortunately, he didn't injure the guy. He did hurt him on the play, as far as receiving a cut. But he came back in the game, Chimera, so I didn't think it was a fair play and we fined him."
That's ridiculous.
Andrew Harvey: I'd like the players to police themselves but they seemingly only care to retaliate on clean hits. I still dont have a real problem with hits to the head as long as the guy stays on his feet and uses shoulder. Once the forearm is up (like the Wisniewski hit) Im all for suspensions.
Dan: I still dont have as much of a problem with the Wisniewski hit as I do the Richards or Ladd hits. Standing guys up at the blue line like that happens a lot. Seems like it wasn't a hit aimed for the head. Regardless, he made contact with the head with a forearm, so he deserved a couple games.
I still don't see how that's more dangerous than two guys putting so much force into high hits that they leave their feet after contact. Personally I'd probably prefer to be hit by a forearm rather than a guy skating full speed and putting all 200 lbs behind one of his shoulders. There's also scientific proof that blindsiding someone and surprising him with a head hit is a lot more dangerous and more likely to produce a serious concussion.
Regardless, whether its a forearm, shoulder, or elbow, the head should be off limits. Complain about wimping the game, but there's enough history of guy's having long term effects from head injuries to warrant this change. Obviously, you'll never take all concussions out of the game since they do occur on clean hits (Willie Mitchell on Toews was a great, clean hit). I also think it says a lot that a guy like Keith Primeau came out heavily in favor of outlawing these types of hits.
John Cullen: The problem you end up with when you begin to try and limit hits to the head is that you put another huge amount of pressure on referees to make the right call every time, and we saw how well that went with the obstruction calls. For example, what do you do if a guy appears to be lining up to hit a guy in the head but misses? In a close game, if a guy turns his head into the hit a la David Booth, do you still call it? And I would find the entire thing really ironic if they allow fighting(which is punching a guy in the face) but outlaw hitting guys to the head.
It's hockey and these guys are physical specimens, they hit to hurt, they've all been taught that way, and guys who are unwilling to play physical hockey often see a decrease in ice-time, which is why stars are now expected to have that physical edge to their game and you see "faces of the game" like Ovechkin and Crosby start to take liberties. Gretzky never hit anyone in his life and Lemieux certainly didn't go out of his way either because they didn't have to, but the game has changed significantly since then and there's very few guys getting top minutes who are unwilling to give a hit and be physical.
I agree with Harv, Don Cherry, and a slew of others that the game has to start policing itself. This trend of fighting guys on clean hits is getting ridiculous and is absolutely not at all in the nature of the game. Can the instigator penalty (which is still one of the worst rule-changes the NHL has ever made) and start holding guys accountable. Guys didn't wear helmets 25-30 years ago and there were very few guys coming out of that era with concussion issues, so why now? I can guarantee that if Derek Boogaard is going to beat the piss out of you for hitting a guy on his team, you'd think twice about doing it as opposed to a fine for some pocket change.
Monday, November 2, 2009
NHL Players of the Week: 10/25 through 10/31
By Dara Heaps
1. Tomas Kaberle, Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs got their first win of the season (finally) on the road against Anaheim this week and Kaberle has instrumental to the Leafs . In 4 games, all on the road, Kaberle has 2 goals and a whopping 10 assists. The Leafs picked up points in all but one game on their 5 game road trip (and deserved at least a point in their loss against Vancouver). With winger Phil Kessel expected in the lineup Tuesday when the Leafs face off against the Tampa Bay Lighting and the return of their top-2 netminders in Vesa Toskala and Jonas Gustavsson, Toronto should start winning more consistently.
2. Craig Anderson, Colorado Avalanche. People keep questioning when the Avs will be the bottom feeder most analysts expected. With Anderson playing the way he is, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. Anderson shut out the Edmonton Oilers Tuesday, allowed 2 goals on 32 shots for a win against Calgary and only allowed 3 goals against 46 shots in a loss to San Jose. Anderson finished the week with a sparkling .951 save percentage.
3. Players with Hat Tricks. Four players had hat tricks this week, all of them worth mentioning. First was Nicklas Hagman of the Toronto Maple Leafs, netting 3 goals on the power play against Anaheim. His hat trick propelled the Leafs to a 6-3 win. Next to score three was Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby. Crosby scored 3 goals on 9 shots, all at even strength. Friday night saw Steven Reinprecht tally 3 for a natural hat trick against the Dallas Stars. Reinprecht also added an assists in a shootout win. Jeff Tambellini notched 3 goals on 5 shots against the Buffalo Sabres Saturday night for his first career hat trick. The Isles won 5-0 thanks to Tambellini’s offensive output.
Honorable Mentions
A few goalies threw up the ol’ goose egg this week. Roberto Luongo became the Canucks shutout leader Sunday before going down with a rib injury, stopping 27 shots the Oilers threw at him. Thursday saw a pair of goalies with shutouts. First was Pekka Rinne who stopped 22 shots against Chicago followed by Phoenix’s Ilya Bryzgalov, stopping St. Louis’s 32 shots. Tuuka Rask stopped 19 shots for his shutout against Edmonton Saturday afternoon. Later that night, Martin Biron stood tall for the Islanders, not allowing a goal on 38 Buffalo shots. Like Bryzgalov, Tomas Vokoun shutout the Blues. Vokoun stopped 34 shots. … Alex Ovechkin added to his goal total this week by netting 5 goals in 3 games. Ovechkin with his linemates Nicklas Backstrom (1+3) and Alex Semin (1+2) combined for 4 goals against Philadelphia on Tuesday. … Pat Marleau continued his great start by scoring a goal and 4 assists. Marleau was also good in the faceoff circle, particularly against Colorado, winning 72.2% of his draws. … Detroit has been bitten by the injury bug, but since coming back from his own injury, Pavel Datsyuk has been solid. Datsyuk lead the Wings to a win over Vancouver scoring 2 goals and an assist. Datsyuk added 2 assits against Edmonton and another in Calgary. … Zach Parise’s 6 game point streak (Oct 16 through Oct 29) came to an end Saturday. The Devils are 7-0 on the road after beating the Lightning in a shootout Saturday afternoon. … Nathan Horton assisted on all 3 of Reinprecht’s goals for his hat trick against Dallas. Horton ended the week with a goal and 6 assists. … San Jose’s Thomas Greiss allowed 1 goal on 37 saves against the Flyers for his first NHL win. … Marian Gaborik turned in a fantastic performance for the Rangers against the Coyotes before getting injured late in the game. Gaborik scored 2 goals on the power play and an assist. … Lee Stempniak had a goal and 3 assists in Toronto’s win over Anaheim. … Chris Kunitz assisted on Crosby’s hat trick and added a goal of his own against Montreal. Linemate Billy Guerin assisted on 3 of Pittsburgh’s 6 goals. … The Phoenix Coyotes have been playing some solid hockey (even if no one in Glendale is watching). Jason LaBarbera made 31 saves, allowing only 1 goal and Keith Yandle hade 3 assists on the power play against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday night. … The Islanders went 3-0 last week, thanks in part to the effort of Dwayne Roloson, allowing 4 goals on 75 shots, good for a .960 save percentage. … Steven Stamkos put on quite a show against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday, scoring 2 power play goals and an assists. … 'The Savior' Zach Bogosian had 3 goals this week, 2 against the Washington Capitals. … Bobby Ryan and Corey Perry each had 2 goals and an assist in a 7-2 rout of the Vancouver Canucks. Ryan Getzlaf chipped in 2 assists. … Colorado Rookie Matt Duchene scored his first career short-handed goal against the San Jose Sharks. … Atlanta netminder Ondrej Pavelec made an astounding 50 saves in a 3-1 win over the Senators on Saturday. … Matt Carle continues to put up points for the Flyers, scoring a goal and 2 assists along with Scott Hartnell in a rout of the Carolina Hurricanes. Brayden Coburn scored 2 goals, the first of his career and David Laliberte scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game.
Notes
Chances are no matter what team you cheer for, you’ve got a few injuries. According to Kevin Allen of USA Today, 110 NHL regulars are either injured or sick which is roughly 18% of players. A fair few of these injured are major injuries. Detroit’s Johan Franzen is out 4 months (if not longer) with a torn ACL. Chicago’s Marian Hossa has yet to play a game due to off-season shoulder surgery. Philadelphia’s Simon Gagne needs surgery to repair two small hernias in his right groin. Andrei Markov lacerated his ankle and will be out for four months. The list goes on.
Sickness has also been a problem. Colorado’s Peter Budaj and Edmonton’s Ladislav Smid both have swine flu. One of the most injury-ravaged teams is the Boston Bruins. First left winger Milan Lucic broke his right index finger, requiring surgery. Not long after Lucic’s injury, his linemate center Marc Savard went down with a broken left foot. Both are expected to be out 4-6 weeks. The Bruins have now lost the whole of their top line from last season with Phil Kessel being traded to the Leafs.
Arguably the biggest lost belongs to Montreal. Markov is not only key to their power play and penalty kill, but Markov is akin to Pittsburgh’s Sergei Gonchar (also injured with a broken left wrist, out 4-6 weeks), the silent leader. There’s no real replacement for Markov on the Habs roster. These players will eventually return but its an interesting phenomenon this season.
1. Tomas Kaberle, Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs got their first win of the season (finally) on the road against Anaheim this week and Kaberle has instrumental to the Leafs . In 4 games, all on the road, Kaberle has 2 goals and a whopping 10 assists. The Leafs picked up points in all but one game on their 5 game road trip (and deserved at least a point in their loss against Vancouver). With winger Phil Kessel expected in the lineup Tuesday when the Leafs face off against the Tampa Bay Lighting and the return of their top-2 netminders in Vesa Toskala and Jonas Gustavsson, Toronto should start winning more consistently.
2. Craig Anderson, Colorado Avalanche. People keep questioning when the Avs will be the bottom feeder most analysts expected. With Anderson playing the way he is, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. Anderson shut out the Edmonton Oilers Tuesday, allowed 2 goals on 32 shots for a win against Calgary and only allowed 3 goals against 46 shots in a loss to San Jose. Anderson finished the week with a sparkling .951 save percentage.
3. Players with Hat Tricks. Four players had hat tricks this week, all of them worth mentioning. First was Nicklas Hagman of the Toronto Maple Leafs, netting 3 goals on the power play against Anaheim. His hat trick propelled the Leafs to a 6-3 win. Next to score three was Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby. Crosby scored 3 goals on 9 shots, all at even strength. Friday night saw Steven Reinprecht tally 3 for a natural hat trick against the Dallas Stars. Reinprecht also added an assists in a shootout win. Jeff Tambellini notched 3 goals on 5 shots against the Buffalo Sabres Saturday night for his first career hat trick. The Isles won 5-0 thanks to Tambellini’s offensive output.
Honorable Mentions
A few goalies threw up the ol’ goose egg this week. Roberto Luongo became the Canucks shutout leader Sunday before going down with a rib injury, stopping 27 shots the Oilers threw at him. Thursday saw a pair of goalies with shutouts. First was Pekka Rinne who stopped 22 shots against Chicago followed by Phoenix’s Ilya Bryzgalov, stopping St. Louis’s 32 shots. Tuuka Rask stopped 19 shots for his shutout against Edmonton Saturday afternoon. Later that night, Martin Biron stood tall for the Islanders, not allowing a goal on 38 Buffalo shots. Like Bryzgalov, Tomas Vokoun shutout the Blues. Vokoun stopped 34 shots. … Alex Ovechkin added to his goal total this week by netting 5 goals in 3 games. Ovechkin with his linemates Nicklas Backstrom (1+3) and Alex Semin (1+2) combined for 4 goals against Philadelphia on Tuesday. … Pat Marleau continued his great start by scoring a goal and 4 assists. Marleau was also good in the faceoff circle, particularly against Colorado, winning 72.2% of his draws. … Detroit has been bitten by the injury bug, but since coming back from his own injury, Pavel Datsyuk has been solid. Datsyuk lead the Wings to a win over Vancouver scoring 2 goals and an assist. Datsyuk added 2 assits against Edmonton and another in Calgary. … Zach Parise’s 6 game point streak (Oct 16 through Oct 29) came to an end Saturday. The Devils are 7-0 on the road after beating the Lightning in a shootout Saturday afternoon. … Nathan Horton assisted on all 3 of Reinprecht’s goals for his hat trick against Dallas. Horton ended the week with a goal and 6 assists. … San Jose’s Thomas Greiss allowed 1 goal on 37 saves against the Flyers for his first NHL win. … Marian Gaborik turned in a fantastic performance for the Rangers against the Coyotes before getting injured late in the game. Gaborik scored 2 goals on the power play and an assist. … Lee Stempniak had a goal and 3 assists in Toronto’s win over Anaheim. … Chris Kunitz assisted on Crosby’s hat trick and added a goal of his own against Montreal. Linemate Billy Guerin assisted on 3 of Pittsburgh’s 6 goals. … The Phoenix Coyotes have been playing some solid hockey (even if no one in Glendale is watching). Jason LaBarbera made 31 saves, allowing only 1 goal and Keith Yandle hade 3 assists on the power play against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday night. … The Islanders went 3-0 last week, thanks in part to the effort of Dwayne Roloson, allowing 4 goals on 75 shots, good for a .960 save percentage. … Steven Stamkos put on quite a show against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday, scoring 2 power play goals and an assists. … 'The Savior' Zach Bogosian had 3 goals this week, 2 against the Washington Capitals. … Bobby Ryan and Corey Perry each had 2 goals and an assist in a 7-2 rout of the Vancouver Canucks. Ryan Getzlaf chipped in 2 assists. … Colorado Rookie Matt Duchene scored his first career short-handed goal against the San Jose Sharks. … Atlanta netminder Ondrej Pavelec made an astounding 50 saves in a 3-1 win over the Senators on Saturday. … Matt Carle continues to put up points for the Flyers, scoring a goal and 2 assists along with Scott Hartnell in a rout of the Carolina Hurricanes. Brayden Coburn scored 2 goals, the first of his career and David Laliberte scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game.
Notes
Chances are no matter what team you cheer for, you’ve got a few injuries. According to Kevin Allen of USA Today, 110 NHL regulars are either injured or sick which is roughly 18% of players. A fair few of these injured are major injuries. Detroit’s Johan Franzen is out 4 months (if not longer) with a torn ACL. Chicago’s Marian Hossa has yet to play a game due to off-season shoulder surgery. Philadelphia’s Simon Gagne needs surgery to repair two small hernias in his right groin. Andrei Markov lacerated his ankle and will be out for four months. The list goes on.
Sickness has also been a problem. Colorado’s Peter Budaj and Edmonton’s Ladislav Smid both have swine flu. One of the most injury-ravaged teams is the Boston Bruins. First left winger Milan Lucic broke his right index finger, requiring surgery. Not long after Lucic’s injury, his linemate center Marc Savard went down with a broken left foot. Both are expected to be out 4-6 weeks. The Bruins have now lost the whole of their top line from last season with Phil Kessel being traded to the Leafs.
Arguably the biggest lost belongs to Montreal. Markov is not only key to their power play and penalty kill, but Markov is akin to Pittsburgh’s Sergei Gonchar (also injured with a broken left wrist, out 4-6 weeks), the silent leader. There’s no real replacement for Markov on the Habs roster. These players will eventually return but its an interesting phenomenon this season.
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