February 25, 2014
Dobber Sports
2014-02-25
If you’re a Drew Doughty owner you are probably hoping Los Angeles Kings head coach Darryl Sutter was watching the Olympics. Doughty’s 59-point season in 2009-10 seems to be a distant memory as the Kings continue to employ him in a shutdown role more regularly. In Sochi, however, Doughty proved he can still provide significant offensive contributions when necessary.
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In the Olympics Doughty was clearly at his most effective when firing shots from the point, but sadly that hasn’t translated to as much offensive success with the Kings, likely because LA has a dreadful 29th ranked power play. One has to wonder if there is something with the man advantage that Sutter could tweak to make Doughty more of a threat points wise. He had points in three-of-four games before the break, so let’s see if his strong play overseas helps him keep it going.
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Someone else who really stood out on Canada’s blue line was Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and by standing out I mean he was very responsible defensively and didn’t make many mistakes. If you have a deep roster with blocks as a category, he’s a good one to have around.
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Dallas Eakins said recently that he wants to know if Ben Scrivens is for real. This could be a hint the Scrivens is in for a string of starts so Eakins can see what he is really made of, but in that same piece he also said both Scrivens and Ilya Bryzgalov would get a chance to play when things resume this week. Eakins did add though that he wants to 'ride the hot hand' which should signify he is hoping to at least figure out a No. 1 goalie at some point.
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Mikael Backlund lost a bet and was forced to wear a Team Canada t-shirt. The second part of his punishment was that he had to remain on the Calgary Flames.
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The New York Islanders have placed Frans Nielsen on injured reserve because of his broken hand. Long Island was once a fantasy gold mine this year, but soon it's going to look very bleak. John Tavares is done for the year, Thomas Vanek will likely be dealt shortly, and now Nielsen is out for an extended period of time. Kyle Okposo looks to be the last man standing.
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PA Parenteau is hoping not be dealt by the Colorado Avalanche before the deadline. It's hard to blame him as the Avs are clearly a team on the rise with a plethora of young talent. With that being said, it's probably not going to take long for Parenteau to really struggle to get minutes there, if it hasn't already happened. The future of the team is with Duchene, Landeskog, O'Reilly and MacKinnon, so Parenteau's $4M cap hit could be something the team wants off the books to free up space.
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Sticking with Avs news, Milan Hejduk announced his retirement on Monday. He was a feared scorer in his day and I didn't realize how consistent he was over his career. In addition to a 50-goal and 41-goal year, he had 11 straight campaigns with at least 20 goals. Not too shabby.
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Katie Baker says goodbye to Sochi.
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Great news for Logan Couture owners. The San Jose Sharks forward has declared himself ready to return after a hand injury. He had a shot to make Team Canada before he went down, and now let's see how long it takes him to get back into the swing of things. Couture had 35 points in 43 games before he got hurt, so keep an eye on who loses minutes when he checks back into the lineup. Patrick Marleau was playing a fair bit with Couture, but then saw time with Joe Thornton and Brent Burns after the injury. It will be interesting to see how they use Couture now that he's healthy.
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The idea that the Rangers tried to gauge Tampa Bay's interest in taking Ryan Callahan for Martin St. Louis makes a lot of sense, well….. from New York's standpoint at least. It wouldn't be logical at all from Tampa's end as St. Louis is clearly the superior player. Callahan can make an impact in your lineup there's no question about that, but he doesn't have nearly the offensive talent of St. Louis. Not to mention that Callahan is a rental and apparently wants a massive raise. The Lightning have a lot of young talent and look to be one of the up and coming teams in the league, so Steve Yzerman, who just built a Gold Medal winning team, is clearly going to be smarter than that.
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This was more competitive than the Semi-Final game between Canada and the United States, and the most personality you are ever going to see out of Jonathan Toews.
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Pekka Rinne has been cleared for increased activity in his recovery from a hip issue. The story goes on to say that Rinne could get into some AHL games with Milwaukee shortly for conditioning purposes. I still say there is a strong chance they shut him down for the season if Nashville slips out of the playoff race completely. Carter Hutton owners don't panic, he's still going to have some value down the stretch.
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David Krejci pretty much confirms what we were all thinking about the Czech Republic's men's hockey team at the Olympics.
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"We didn't even know what we were doing at some points."
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The Montreal Canadiens have reportedly extended a contract extension offer to defenseman Andrei Markov of one year at $6M. This is actually kind of surprising as I thought they might let the 35-year-old walk and use that money towards a new P.K. Subban long-term deal. I still say Montreal blew it by playing hardball with Subban on that short bridge deal. He is going to be an RFA again and they could have locked him up long-term at a lower yearly amount prior to the lockout shortened campaign. Now he has a Norris Trophy under his belt and is going to command way more money.
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Detroit Red Wings forward Johan Franzen is optimistic about returning to the lineup on Wednesday after having played just one game since December 15 because of a concussion. Detroit needs all the help they can get with Henrik Zetterberg hurt, but temper your expectations for Franzen in the immediate future, as concussions are tricky to come back from.
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Speaking of returns, it looks like Steven Stamkos won't be back any earlier than March 6th. At the very least he should be back in time for a fantasy hockey playoff run.
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Michael Amato is an Associate Editor for DobberHockey and a News Editor for theScore. You can follow him on Twitter at @amato_mike