Incredibly Random Numbers

steve laidlaw

2014-11-11

JakubVoracek

 

This week, the Eastern Edge will take a look at a potpourri of interestingly random numbers from several top Eastern Conference players.

 

The league’s second leading scorer has to come as a bit of a surprise. Jakub Voracek is playing lights out right now and is scoring at a ridiculous 129 point pace after 14 games (22 points). He’s currently on an eight-game scoring streak where he’s recorded six multi-point efforts. Voracek has only been held off the score-sheet once so far this season. The 25-year-old Czech has never had less than 38 points in any of his six NHL seasons, including the lockout campaign where he had 46 points in 48 games. He is a lock to improve on last year’s career best 62 points.

 

While everyone is gaga over Voracek, and rightfully so, another Flyer may also be in line to set a new career high. Last year, Claude Giroux got off to a pedestrian start with only 20 points in his first 30 games. He scorched through the remaining 52 games, scoring at a 104 point pace, recording 66 points. Giroux opened this campaign with 18 points in his first 14 games, a 105 point pace. We already know that he can sustain that rate for long stretches, so an improvement on 2011-12’s 93 point season should be in order.

 

One area where Giroux is well ahead of his usual pace is in shots on goal. His 65 shots have him tied atop the NHL with Alexander Ovechkin. Steven Stamkos is hot on their heels with 59 shots on-goal. The real interesting part is that Giroux’s career high of 242 shots was accomplished in the same year he hit 93 points. He is on pace for 380 shots and is only scoring on 6.2 per cent of his shots, well below his career average of 11.7 and last year’s 12.6. He has five shots on-goal or more in nine of 14 games this season.

 

2014-15

8

1.72

0.951

 

The moral of this story, don’t bet against Anderson in his up seasons.

Boston’s Tuukka Rask had a poor October, but he and the Bruins have predictably turned it around in November:

 

 

W-L-OTL

GAA

SV%

October

4-4-0

2.82

0.899

November

4-0-0

1.73

0.931

 

We all expected Rask to turn it around sooner rather than later, but no one and I mean no one, not even his mother expected the Hurricane’s Cam Ward to go 5-0-0 in November. He had a typically terrible start to the season, but once the calendar changed to November, bam, his numbers look more like what we would expect from a former Conn Smythe trophy winner:

 

 

W-L-OTL

GAA

SV%

October

0-3-1

3.95

0.840

November

5-0-0

1.38

0.946

 

His losses came against three hot teams at the time, the Islanders, Flames and Canucks, but he was also beaten by the lowly Sabres. Come November, his wins were against the Coyotes, Kings, the Blue Jackets twice and Flames. After pretty much a career of killing fantasy teams' goals-against averages, don’t look for this leopard to change his spots. 

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UPCOMING GAMES

Mar 28 - 19:03 OTT vs CHI
Mar 28 - 19:03 TOR vs WSH
Mar 28 - 19:03 MTL vs PHI
Mar 28 - 19:03 PIT vs CBJ
Mar 28 - 19:03 FLA vs NYI
Mar 28 - 19:03 CAR vs DET
Mar 28 - 20:03 MIN vs S.J
Mar 28 - 20:03 STL vs CGY
Mar 28 - 20:03 WPG vs VGK
Mar 28 - 21:03 EDM vs L.A
Mar 28 - 21:03 COL vs NYR
Mar 28 - 22:03 SEA vs ANA
Mar 28 - 22:03 VAN vs DAL
Mar 28 - 22:03 ARI vs NSH

Starting Goalies

Top Skater Views

  Players Team
TAGE THOMPSON BUF
JJ PETERKA BUF
ANTHONY DUCLAIR T.B
JORDAN GREENWAY BUF
JURAJ SLAFKOVSKY MTL

Top Goalie Profile Views

  Players Team
ALEKSEI KOLOSOV PHI
JOONAS KORPISALO OTT
UKKO-PEKKA LUUKKONEN BUF
KAREL VEJMELKA ARI
JUSTUS ANNUNEN COL

LINE COMBOS

  Frequency DAL Players
23.3 MASON MARCHMENT MATT DUCHENE TY DELLANDREA
21.3 JASON ROBERTSON JOE PAVELSKI ROOPE HINTZ
18.8 SAM STEEL CRAIG SMITH RADEK FAKSA

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