Last night was the penultimate jam-packed Saturday night of regular season NHL hockey, and it was a doozy.

 

It was also championship week for most H2H leagues, and with only six games on the docket for Sunday, you very probably already know who won your particular league. So be sure to avoid any e-mails they send you for a week or so (unless they’re a colleague, or maybe especially if they’re a colleague – it really depends on what your work environment is like).

 

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To kick it all off, hockey fans were treated to an Eastern Conference afternoon grudge match – an entertaining game in which the Bruins needed 50 minutes to assert their will on a dangerous, albeit fatally flawed, Flyers team.

 

Once the Bruins inevitably cracked open Philadelphia at even-strength, however, they feasted unrelentingly on the delicious goo inside. The two teams were tied 2-2 late in the third period when Johnny Boychuk and Milan Lucic scored roughly thirty seconds apart to blow Philly’s doors off. 

 

The Flyers are a maddening side; weak at five-on-five, elite on special teams, loaded up front, shallow on the back-end, and shaky in net. It’s an eclectic combination of attributes to be sure, and one that could make them a tough matchup for some team in a seven-game series. But I don’t really think that team is the New York Rangers.

 

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There’s only a one-in-five shot that the Flyers don’t face the Rangers in the postseason (basically Columbus would have to get really, smoking hot), so that matchup is realistically set. The Rangers are excellent at everything the Flyers do well, pretty much, and also excel at even-strength, have a top-five NHL defense-corps, and employ a guy who still has a strong claim for being the best hockey goaltender in the universe…

 

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Anyway back to Saturday’s game: Lucic did work from a fantasy perspective with two goals, an assist, +2, two shots, two hits and two PIM. I’d imagine he played the role of fantasy MVP for a lot of general managers this weekend.

 

Wayne Simmonds also had a relatively strong fantasy game (despite a -2) potting a power-play goal and contributing six shots against the Bruins. Simmonds also added to his “net front ace” highlight reel with his work in front of Rask on the goal he scored. The Flyers forward has to be the runaway favorite to win the Tomas Holmstrom Trophy (awarded annually in my mind to the league’s most dangerous net front goal scroer in the regular season).

 

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Jarome Iginla has turned back the clock in Boston and has put together a marvelous season, but he didn’t play on Saturday and Loui Eriksson – who did – managed four assists and seven shots on goal in his stead. Will Iginla be back in Boston’s top-six come playoff time? I’d imagine he will be, but perhaps he should play on the third line. Iginla’s been a fabulous story this year but based on his two-way play the past several seasons I’d be very comfortable suggesting to you that the Bruins are scarier with Eriksson in their top-six in Iginla’s stead…

 

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In the Western Conference matinee, the pretender St. Louis Blues got roughed up by an Avalanche team that continues to defy the odds (and be hilariously over-rated). Meanwhile a frustrated David Backes mugged a teenager. 

 

My favorite part of the game, however, way the shots Ken Hitchcock fired at Patrick Roy after the contest. Roy and Hitchcock have been jawing ever since Roy’s debut, and it’s just fantastic. Two smart, passionate coaches at the helm of relatively good teams in the same division for the forseeable future? Sign me up.

 

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Fun stat to remember: the Blues were blown out on Saturday, sure, but they outshot the Avalanche 8-2 with the score tied at even-strength. The Avalanche seem to be a trendy pick to do some damage in the postseason, but so long as they’re hanging on like that I still don’t think they’ll annoy a team like the Blackhawks or the Blues in the playoffs much more than a single mosquito might bother you or I on a balmy summers night.

 

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If you’re in an H2H league that counts PIMs and were in the finals this week, I hope you had some Blues and Avalanche players in your lineup. Seven Blues skaters and five Avalanche skaters were assessed over 10 minutes in penalties on Saturday afternoon (at one point the referee just handed out 10 minute misconducts to all of the skaters on the ice). David Backes had a game-high 18 PIMs to go along with three shots and three hits.

 

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Seriously though, this is my favorite penalty summary of the year – and it isn’t even all that close:

 

 

(Courtesy NHL.com)

 

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Washington Capitals forward Evgeny Kuznetsov is just sick, and the super skilled Russian forward played a critical role in Washington’s shootout victory over the New York Islanders on Saturday afternoon. 

 

The Capitals are functionally eliminated from the postseason already (sportsclubstats.com gives them just a 2.6% shot of making it), but the shootout victory at least lets them treat their fans to an additional few intense periods of hockey before the long offseason.

 

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Ovechkin’s plus/minus is a hot topic (although he was even on Saturday, and actually filled the boxscore admirably), and one that I thought Terry Campkin nailed from a “fantasy hockey value” perspective last weekend. Campkin points out that Crosby surpassed Ovechkin in value this season because Ovy’s assists and +/- dipped significantly. Well, as some numbers shared by Tyler Dellow on Twitter would suggest, Ovechkin’s declining assist totals and +/- has very probably been shaped by factors outside the winger’s control…

 

Has Ovechkin struggled at even-strength over the past month? Yep. Is it a major reason the Capitals won’t make the playoffs? Sure. Does that mean Ovechkin lacks some sort of mystical winning gene and will continue to be a huge defensive liability at even-strength going forward? Nope.

 

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If the Capitals fire head coach Adam Oates, and it sure seems to be going that way, he’ll be out of work for all of ten minutes. Someone will hire him to run their PP as an assistant at the very least, and that team will have done very well for themselves.

 

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The Winnipeg Jets trounced the Toronto Maple Leafs at even-strength. Winnipeg’s convincing regulation victory all but ended any lingering playoff hopes for the NHL team in the centre of the universe. 

 

Nazem Kadri had another nice game for the Maple Leafs, managing five shots on goal and scoring a go-ahead goal in the first period. Meanwhile Andrew Ladd led the way for the Jets (the Jets captain had two assists, one PPP, finished +2, took a shot on goal and added four hits), while Jacob Trouba continued to flash “future first round pick” potential with a lovely goal and four shots on the night. 

 

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Evander Kane was a healthy scratch for the Jets on Saturday, and man does it ever seem like a divorce is imminent between these two parties. Trading a player like Kane, basically a 23 year old 30 goal scorer with a tonne of physical value, is a no-win situation for the Jets, but it’s hard to see this resolving any differently. The criticism surrounding Kane in Winnipeg has been prevelant and absurd for a long time – free meals, money phones, drinking beer, not showing up at the rink(?!) – and now the star power forward is facing a civil suit for good measure. Just seems like the ultimate “needs a change of scenery” guy.

 

If that does come to pass, expect 29 NHL teams to lineup competitive offers (which is all you need to know to understand that trading players like Kane is just bad business).

 

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The Montreal Canadiens offense is just humming of late, and they’ve been extraordinarily explosive since acquiring Thomas Vanek at the NHL trade deadline. Vanek went pointless against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night, as the Canadiens held off a furious Red Wings rally to win 5-3 in regulation; but he has 14 points since March 5th and that’s pretty good. 

 

The Canadiens as a whole have been better since the trade deadline, but a lot of Vanek’s success has been of the likely to prove ephemeral percentage variety (going into Saturday’s game, the Habs had shot over 16% with Vanek on the ice at five-on-five). Meanwhile the team’s overall five-on-five play has improved only marginally since March 5th.

 

The good news, however, is that a lot of PK Subban’s much publicized recent struggles have similarly been percentage based (and are therefore very probably unsustainable). Subban was benched in the first period of Friday night’s Habs wild victory over the Senators after scoring an own goal, and to the eyes has been playing some unfocussed hockey of late.

 

But the underlying numbers would suggest that Subban is still driving the bus in terms of territorial play, and that the biggest difference over the past month is goaltending (Canadiens goalies have saved fewer than 87% of the shots they’ve faced with Subban on the ice at five-on-five since the deadline), which obviously Subban can’t really control. In other words it’s not as if Subban’s play has actually fallen off, it’s very probably just a run of tough luck. That happens. Better it happens in March and early April than in May…

 

Anyway the Canadiens are a really interesting wild card team in the Eastern Conference. I generally rate the Lightning as a superior side, but Montreal has the better goaltender, and the raw offensive talent to hang with anybody in a seven game series…

 

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The Dallas Stars are 29th in the NHL in attendance this season (average attendance per game) and that’s a real shame because Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Valeri Nichushkin would be hockey rockstars if they were playing in, say, a Canadian market this season.

 

Benn went to work early and often against the Lightning on Saturday night, scoring twice in the opening six minutes of a critical contest and finishing with a nice line (two goals, an assist, +3, two PIM, three shots, two hits). 

 

That was a huge victory for the Stars, who are now a point up on the Phoenix Coyotes and still possess a game in hand…

 

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I legitimately think the Stars can give the St. Louis Blues a series. Obviously the Blues would and should be favored in such a potential matchup, and favored heavily; but I could see the top-end of Dallas’ lineup just over-powering St. Louis top group. Even if it played out like that, I’d imagine the Blues very probably have the depth to stomp Dallas anyway…

 

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Mika Zibanejad scored a goal on Saturday and according to reports in Swedish media is being chased in a major way by Par Marts and the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation (they want him to play at the Worlds in Minsk this summer). Zibanejad is a fine possession player with a high skill level, and is very probably Ottawa’s second best centerman already. I tend to think his fantasy value is due to explode next season…

 

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No points for Rick Nash on Saturday, but he managed seven shots. He also had less power-play icetime than Benoit Pouliot (and Derick Brassard). That’s sort of been the story of his season. If you look at Nash’s raw point totals on the year, you’d think he had an offseason. The fact is, he’s just being used as an even-strength ace by Alain Vigneault and is having one of the more effective seasons of his career (despite early season injury issues). In fact, Nash is leading all NHL players in even-strength shot rate, and is taking nearly additional two shots per sixty minutes beyond his career average.

 

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The New Jersey Devils – a playoff team if only they had made smarter decisions in goal, or converted on just a modestly below average number of shootout attempts – scored a key victory on Saturday over the Carolina Hurricanes. The Devils’ playoff hopes are dim but still very much alive, and they could push Columbus to the brink this week (while also eliminating the Maple Leafs). 

 

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Eric Gelinas played fewer than five minutes on Saturday, further cementing his bid for this season’s “most obviously useful fantasy player who never plays for no good reason” award. Former top-five pick Adam Larsson, also a healthy scratch.

 

Pete DeBoer is a fantastic coach, and his treatment of young defenseman who don’t have the most polished defensive game might make a lot of sense in real life. But it baffles and frustrates me as a fantasy hockey general manager…

 

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The Vancouver Canucks and the Nashville Predators defeated quality Pacific Division teams (the Kings and Sharks respectively) on Saturday night. I hate tanking as a general rule, incentivizing losing is insane to me, but the Predators and the Canucks are continuing to play hard and gut out wins against their rational self-interest at this point… 

 

Cool to see the Sedin twins have excellent games though, the league is better when players of that caliber are on top of their game.

 

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San Jose’s 3-0 shutout loss to the Predators is sure to prove costly. The Sharks are now a point back of the Anaheim Ducks for first in the Pacific, and the Ducks have two games in hand. If the Ducks can hold off the Sharks – and that sure seems likely now – then two of the top-five teams in the entire league (San Jose and Los Angeles) will meet in the first round. Almost seems unfair…

 

Thomas Drance is a news editor at theScore.