December 20, 2014

steve laidlaw

2014-12-20

Tough debut for Bryzgalov, Getzlaf running hot, the Senators are picking up steam and more…

What a miserable debut for Ilya Bryzgalov conceding six goals to the Senators. I expect better from Bryz in the future. Not that he's great but the Ducks are a strong club so if you thought Bryzgalov made a good better before last night, the performance shouldn't dissuade you.

And hey, maybe Bryzgalov is just in a giving mood. He did notch an assist on top of all the goals he gave up!

I didn't catch the game but I'd imagine the Ducks didn't really give a full team effort skating the second half of a back-to-back at the tail end of a five-game Canadian road swing. There's an argument that this was a scheduled loss. Freddie Andersen owners should count themselves fortunate that Bryzgalov was available for sacrifice as this would have been the second time he wasn't nicked up this week.

The only scores for Anaheim came from Ryan Getzlaf who has somewhat surprisingly been scorching hot since Corey Perry went down. Getzlaf has four goals and 11 points in seven games since the injury.

What hasn't been surprising is how little consistency there has been in the linemates for Getzlaf both at even strength and on the power play. Bruce Boudreau is the ultimate tinkerer. He never found a lineup he didn't want to shuffle.

For that reason and because of the Ducks' light schedule (just one game between last night and next Saturday) you might want to dump your fringe Ducks for some players who will see more action. I'm talking about the Matt Beleskey, Patrick Maroon, Jakob Silfverberg, Devante Smith-Pelly options who are questionable owns in all but the deepest of leagues.

It's early but it looks like we can chalk up another win for the mid-season coaching change. The Senators are now 3-2 under Dave Cameron with 17 goals in those five games. It's a small sample to be sure with a third of that scoring coming from last night's game alone but it's still a positive sign for those of us vested in the Senators.

For instance, Erik Karlsson, Bobby Ryan, Kyle Turris, Mike Hoffman and Mika Zibanejad each got two points last night. That's huge.

Turris has scored in every single game since Cameron took over with seven points in that five-game stretch.

Ryan, hasn't been quite as consistent but he had already started heating up before Cameron and now has eight in the last seven.

As a linemate of Ryan's Zibanejad's production is closely linked to the star forward and sure enough Zibanejad has had a similar hot run with 11 points in his last nine games.

And look if you want to argue this as a chicken and egg situation I'm not saying Zibanejad is mooching off Ryan. I just think that if one of these two isn't playing well then neither one is going to be scoring much.

Craig Anderson has won back-to-back games in impressive fashion having stopped 66 of 68 shots. It will be interesting to see how Cameron handles his goalie duo as Anderson lost Cameron's debut opening the door for Robinn Lehner who won his first game earning another start. Lehner then lost that second start (in a shootout mind you but he did allow four goals.) So then it was back to Anderson and here we are.

It's likely that Lehner goes tonight considering this is a back-to-back but if Cameron goes with Anderson again he's tipping his plans of riding the hot hand. Win and you're in. Lose and the other guy steps up. Can't say it's all that different from the schedule under MacLean. It's just nice to know what you are dealing with.

Does Keith Kinkaid know that not all NHL games end in a shootout? I only ask because Kinkaid has participated in three full games in his career and they've all ended with the skills competition. Fortunately, he finally won one for the first NHL win of his career. (Yes, that means the Devils won a shootout. Crazy, I know.)

Not that Cory Schneider has been bad this season but let's get this Kinkaid guy a few more games.

My Adam Henrique pickup finally paid some dividends with a couple of points last night, including a score on the power play. Henrique now has nine points on the power play so far. That's a little concerning to me because he has never been a big power play scorer and nothing has changed about his power play usage to indicate that his scoring should go up.

Henrique is skating about two minutes per game on the second power play unit, same as last season when he scored a career high 12 PPP. He'll eclipse that by New Year's at this rate.

Anyways, what's concerning is that if Henrique is producing at too strong a rate on the power play then it'll be a rude awakening when the puck luck dries up. I really believe that Henrique can be a 60-point scorer but probably not this season. Not with where his production is coming. He's currently on pace for 56 points.

No Tyler Johnson for the Lightning last night as he was ill. Valtteri Filppula centered the second line with Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov in his stead. That left room for Jonathan Drouin to jump onto the top line where he has been experimented more frequently of late.

Drouin also skated on the top power play unit receiving 6:18 with the man advantage. No power-play scores for the Lightning however. Drouin did notch an assist on a Steven Stamkos goal and has looked good in the cameos he's made on the top line of late. He has a three-game point streak going. I'm not ready to push all in on Drouin for the second half but things are on the upswing.

The Islanders got Travis Hamonic and Johnny Boychuk back in the lineup and put forth a stout defensive performance limiting the Red Wings to just 18 shots in a 2-1 win.

I don't think you can question the Islanders' bonafides at this point. They are legit, which is excellent news for Jaroslav Halak owners. Halak has now won 14 non-Blues games in a row!

Jimmy Howard left last night's game after the first period with a lower-body injury. The Red Wings are claiming it was precautionary but then they called up Thomas McCollum. Seems fishy to me.

McCollum makes an all-AHL tandem for Detroit as Jonas Gustavsson has been out for a while now. Petr Mrazek stands to run with the starting spot as long as Howard is out, which probably won't be for long but it makes for a short-term boost especially with the Red Wings up again on Sunday against the Avalanche.

Dustin Byfuglien was injured at the tail end of the Bruins game and sat in visible pain on the bench. No word on the severity of the injury as Paul Maurice says they won't know until later today. Can you imagine the devastation losing Byfuglien would cause for this team? For sheer karmic reasons this can't be a serious injury. The Jets have suffered enough on the blue line.

The Jets did snag a hard-fought 2-1 win last night with Byfuglien snagging an assist on the winner by Mathieu Perreault. It was mostly right place, right time for Perreault who had the puck bounce off of him and in. Still, it was good enough to extend his scoring streak to six games.

I like what I've seen from Perreault up on a line with Mark Scheifele and Michael Frolik. Frolik has probably been the most dangerous member of that line from what I've seen, which is a bit of a brain-wrinkler. This is a second line comprised of 40-point threats, which isn't bad. It's just a shame it leaves Evander Kane out on the third line.

Kane did score a goal, skating with Adam Lowry and Matt Halischuk. He does have goals in back-to-back games now but it sure doesn't seem like Kane's going to emerge any time soon given this deployment.

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You really shouldn't look at split stats for goalies with just 15 games under their belt but former Bruins prospect Michael Hutchinson appears to have Boston's number with a 2-0-1 record and a 0.961 save percentage against his former team.

UPCOMING GAMES

Dec 23 - 13:12	N.J	vs	NYR
Dec 23 - 14:12	TOR	vs	WPG
Dec 23 - 19:12	DET	vs	STL
Dec 23 - 19:12	CBJ	vs	MTL
Dec 23 - 19:12	BOS	vs	WSH
Dec 23 - 19:12	FLA	vs	T.B
Dec 23 - 19:12	PIT	vs	PHI
Dec 23 - 19:12	NYI	vs	BUF
Dec 23 - 20:12	NSH	vs	CAR
Dec 23 - 20:12	MIN	vs	CHI
Dec 23 - 21:12	UTA	vs	DAL
Dec 23 - 21:12	VAN	vs	S.J
Dec 23 - 22:12	VGK	vs	ANA