March 23rd, 2014

Dobber Sports

2014-03-23

Though they lost 4-1 to the Flyers on Saturday, the St. Louis Blues became the second team to qualify for the postseason (the Bruins were first, which isn’t a surprise seeing as how they’re the best of the three Eastern Conference teams that are passable defensively) when Phoenix lost to Boston in regulation.

The Blues outshot the Flyers and controlled the game handily (although the Flyers were narrowly better at evens with the score tied). Really Ken Hithcock’s side got at least a bit unlucky in Philadelphia on Saturday, and I’d doubt that the game tells us much about the Blues’ relative strength as a contender headed into the postseason.

But (and there’s always a but after a sentence like that) I might suggest to you that the Blues do lack an extra gear offensively, and that it showed somewhat in the third period on Saturday. The Blues control games at a super elite rate, but they do it by playing conservative, low event hockey (Breaking News Alert: Hitchcock-coached team play potent brand of Hitchcock hockey).

So although the Blues prevent shots against at a top-5 rate, they also generate shots for at a bottom 10 rate. That’s in stark contrast to clubs that dominate play and generate a lot of opportunities – teams like Los Angeles and Chicago, who St. Louis will have to go through to earn a Stanley Cup Finals berth. Even more concerning, is that recent developments like the loss of winger Vladimir Tarasenko to injury, and the deadline deal with Buffalo that upgraded St. Louis marginally in goal but also saw Steve Ott replace Chris Stewart up front (a significant downgrade offensively), have weakened the Blues offensively.

This St. Louis team has a lot of talent and will leave any opponent battered and bruised in a playoff series. Goals will certainly be hard to come by. But that’ll be true at both ends of the ice – both for the Blues, and against them. This is a team that has scored only 15 goals in their past 30 playoff games and has been extraordinarily reliant on the percentages (they’ve shot 10.7% on the season in all situations, a mark that leads the league easily).

Put it this way: I have a lot of time for the Blues, they’re an excellent team with a bevy of quality two-way pieces and a mobile defense corps well suited to doing the Spanish national soccer team thing (except with a lot more violence), and just grind out wins in low-scoring games. Team toughness and dominant defensive game aside, however, there are significant enough question marks about the Blues’ offensive chops that I’m still not comfortable putting them in the same tier as a Los Angeles, San Jose, Boston or Chicago.

Wayne Simmonds had an empty netter to ice Saturday’s Flyers v. Blues game and added an assist on Brayden Schenn’s second period insurance marker. That was Simmonds’ 30th assist of the season, by the way.

Kudos to Simmonds who is crushing it this year for the Flyers (54 points!) – and for fantasy owners. He’s a top-20 skater in a Yahoo! H2H league that counts G, A, Pts, PPP, +/- and Hits – which is nuts. To top it all off he had a big three goal, one assist, +3 week in the first round of the playoffs.

The Bruins defeated the Phoenix Coyotes – who I really can’t see making the postseason ahead of Dallas, honestly – by a final score of 4-2. Beloved veteran winger Jarome Iginla was front and center in Boston’s third period rally, scoring his 27th and 28th goals of the season.

The Red Wings are charging hard and Gustav Nyquist is leading that charge. For the week Nyquist has continued his tear with 3 goals, 1 assist, 1 PPP, and 12 SOG; he scored a high leverage third period goal to help defeat the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night. He also led the Red Wings past the flagging Maple Leafs earlier in the week, and now has 21 goals and 38 points in 45 games this season. Think he starts next year in Grand Rapids against (Nope).

I was really impressed by the way the Dallas Stars rallied back to throttle the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. Ottawa went up early thanks to an Erik Karlsson goal, but the Stars just kept generating looks by the bucketfull and ultimately overwhelmed Robin Lehner (who was excellent) and the hapless Sens defense.

Then once they built a third period lead, the Stars looked solid without the puck as they went out and held it. Ottawa has a lot of talent, but Lehtonen wasn’t seriously tested late. If one question about the Stars lingered, it was their play without the puck. They’re beginning to put those concerns to bed.

I’d bet lots and lots on the Stars outlasting the Coyotes to secure that eighth seed – they’re very much legitimately good, and will only get better going forward. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were able to cause a top-seeded team some headaches in round one.

The Rangers shutout the Devils 2-0 on Saturday, and I think are right up there with St. Louis and Pittsburgh in the “serious pretender” tier of teams. Actually I might argue that they’re the best of those three teams.

Ryan McDonagh is having a whale of a season, and has really stepped up his game offensively under Alain Vigneault. I knew McDonagh was skilled – he’s got a quality shot, and moves the puck calmly in the offensive end – but he’s looked legitimately dangerous in transition of late, which I’d never really seen from him previously.

Moreover the Rangers can come at you with three dangerous lines, and I think that makes them a brutal matchup for teams like the Bruins and the Lightning who rely on a dominant top pair. I don’t think they should be favoured or anything, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Rangers could come out of the East…

Jonathan Quick shutout the Panthers during L.A.’s 4-0 win over Florida on Saturday, and in doing so Quick singlehandedly ended my fantasy season (very probably).

Alright so the biggest story in hockey for the rest of the regular season is obviously going to be the Toronto Maple Leafs and whether or not they can make the postseason (they’re down below 50% according to sportsclubstats.com).

I tend to think that this Toronto team is pretty talented, more talented than their underlying numbers would suggest. But they’re just too permissive defensively under Carlyle, and boy do they look it. You really just shouldn’t need to rely on the numbers or a basic understanding of how ratios in hockey work to know that, at this point.

At least Dave Bolland is back and looked pretty good on Saturday. He’ll help. But it doesn’t look to me like Dion Phaneuf – who has clearly been battling through something that can’t get worse, but is causing him a lot of pain – can move particularly well. That hurts this team, and it hurts them a lot.

With Detroit streaking and Columbus being legitimately a better team, the Leafs are in trouble. Their entire season has been fascinating to watch, so why should their final ten games be any different?

UPCOMING GAMES

Dec 27 - 19:12	DET	vs	TOR
Dec 27 - 19:12	BUF	vs	CHI
Dec 27 - 19:12	CBJ	vs	BOS
Dec 27 - 19:12	N.J	vs	CAR
Dec 27 - 20:12	DAL	vs	MIN
Dec 27 - 20:12	STL	vs	NSH
Dec 27 - 21:12	UTA	vs	COL
Dec 27 - 22:12	S.J	vs	VGK