December 30, 2014

steve laidlaw

2014-12-30

Bobby Ryan’s hat-trick, Koivu filling in for Granlund, Jordan Staal returns, Arizona’s home cooking and more…

 

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Fully loaded day of hockey with 12 NHL games, plus four World Junior games. I'll apologize now for whatever I miss. There's simply no touching on everything that took place yesterday.

 

UPDATE: For more on the World Juniors, check out the new Ramblings over at DobberProspects

 

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Huge night for Bobby Ryan as he notched a natural hat-trick on eight SOG and was a menace to the Sabres all evening. The opponent here matters some but Ryan has been hot the past few weeks with 12 points in his last 11 games now. That is damn good considering his second line/second power play unit usage.

 

Mika Zibanejad had been Ryan's centerman for much of this hot streak and had been rather productive himself but he was buried on the fourth line by the end of the night. Zibanejad did notch an assist on the empty-netter at the end of the night, however.

 

JG Pageau jumped onto the second line in Zibanejad's stead and recorded an assist with five SOG. We'll have to see if this was a one-time demotion or if Dave Cameron decides to experiment with this on a more permanent basis. I could not advocate against this more but I'm not sure my opinion matters here. Curious if Sens fans want to chime in on the reasoning for the demotion (if there was one.)

 

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After being a complete and total mutt for the first two and a half months of the season Chris Stewart is heating up with points in five straight and six of his last seven. Perfecting timing to juice his value for the trade deadline!

 

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Jordan Staal returned for the Hurricanes last night and was understandably sluggish but we caught a good glimpse of what to expect over the second half of the season. Jordan was out there with his brother Eric Staal on the top line and top power play unit, with Eric shifting over to the wing.

 

This is nothing new as the Hurricanes experimented with Eric on the wing at times over the past two seasons. Watch for some dual position eligibility for Eric if this keeps up, not that multi-position eligibility has much value now that virtually every player has at least two positions under some providers.

 

The brothers Staal combined for the lone Hurricane goal and do appear to have the makings of a very productive line, especially when Jordan gets back to full speed.

 

 

I am so fortunate to have dealt Kane over the weekend given the timing of this injury. That being said, it's probably worth buying low on Kane in all formats.

 

Kane had been skating on the third line for the Jets prior to the injury so not much changes here. Second-liners Michael Frolik and Mathieu Perreault stayed hot with the only goals for Winnipeg last night.

 

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More injury news, Mikael Granlund had surgery on his broken wrist and is expected to miss a month.

 

Wild lines without Granlund:

 

Games between 2014-12-29 and 2014-12-29

Frequency

Strength

Line Combination

25.18%

EV

9 KOIVU,MIKKO – 11 PARISE,ZACH – 29 POMINVILLE,JASON

14.03%

EV

21 BRODZIAK,KYLE – 18 CARTER,RYAN – 27 SUTTER,BRETT

12.59%

EV

3 COYLE,CHARLIE – 22 NIEDERREITER,NINO – 26 VANEK,THOMAS

12.59%

EV

24 COOKE,MATT – 14 FONTAINE,JUSTIN – 53 GRAOVAC,TYLER

 

It's jackpot time for Mikko Koivu who has spent much of his time with some combination of Jason Zucker, Jason Pominville or Charlie Coyle on his wings. Zach Parise should provide a significant boost for Koivu.

 

Huge win for Darcy Kuemper who gave up two early goals but held on tight while the Wild mounted a comeback. This marks his first win in almost four weeks with his last victory coming on December 3rd. Some of that is Niklas Backstrom coming on strong to steal some starts while Kuemper has floundered. We'll see if this win gets Kuemper back in the good graces.

 

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The Arizona Coyotes are in full-fledged ride-the-hot-hand mode. Dubnyk has started and won the past three games. He will almost certainly be back in against Dallas on Wednesday. He's earned it.

 

Thumbs up to the scorers in Arizona last night handing out credit for 102 hits for both teams combined. It's entirely possible that the game was that physical but that's a huge amount of hits. Martin Hanzal was credited with eight on his own, Michael Stone with seven and Connor Murphy with six.

 

Matt Read took the cake with nine hits for the visiting side. That's truly some indiscriminate scoring right there.

 

In case you think I'm making mountains out of molehills, the Coyotes have the second largest disparity between home hits and road hits in the league at 162 and have played exactly the same number of home games as road games.

 

Toronto has the single highest home/road disparity for hits in the entire league at 363 but a good chunk of that is driven by having played seven more games at home than on the road. In terms of per game bias, the Coyotes receive 9.0 more hits per game at home, while the Leafs receive 7.7 bonus ones. They are both certainly bad for the home-cooking but Arizona is the worst (or best if you are into extra hits!)

 

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The league's two highest scoring teams squared off last night with the Leafs visiting the Lightning. It was quite the wide open affair though the final score may not quite indicate that.

 

The Leafs scored on their first two shots of the game and damn near buried it early in the first with some close chances on the game's opening power play. But you just knew it was too good to be true.

 

You'll have to excuse the Schadenfreude. The Leafs are just such an easy target. The Lightning dusted the Leafs to the tune of a 41-20 shot advantage, eventually pulling out a 3-2 win. Dion Phaneuf even coughed up the puck on the winning goal. Classic Leafs!

 

James Reimer looked pretty good out there but has now dropped three in a row having allowed 12 goals in that span.

 

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A couple of assists for Victor Hedman last night. He has been surprisingly unproductive since returning from injury. That's a bit of a misrepresentation considering Hedman has nine points in 15 games in that span but those points have come in just four of those 15 games. I'll take the raw numbers but I expected more consistency.

 

Hedman really is a beauty though. I just love the intelligent decisions he makes. He has tremendous vision and has clearly mastered the art of high speed assessment. It seems strange to complain about nine in 15 but Hedman is genuinely capable of more.

 

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Let's talk a little World Juniors.

 

There were some solid NHL games on last night but none of the ones I watched topped the Canada-Finland game. That game was played at ludicrous speed.

 

Juuse Saros was solid for Finland consider the onslaught by Canada but there's really no denying this group in such a wide open affair.

 

Max Domi, Sam Reinhart and Anthony Duclair have been dynamite for Canada all tournament. They are playing on a whole other level than the opposition. Not just physically but mentally. They are thinking a step ahead of everyone. It's not really fair. That probably bodes well for those guys fitting in at the next level. We've already seen Duclair show flashes with the Rangers this season. Domi and Reinhart probably aren't that far from becoming genuine fantasy assets.

 

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David Pastrnak lit up Denmark yesterday with his best game of the tournament, including this beauty to win the game in overtime:

 

 

It's disconcerting that it took until the weakest opponent (no offense Denmark, you deserve to be there but let's be honest) to get the most out of Pastrnak. Given his pro experience, he should've been skating circles around every team. Still, you can see the speed and skill on display there.

 

Just a reminder, he's set to play with David Krejci and Lucic in Boston once this tournament is over. Could be some instant fireworks!

 

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I know very little of this Gustav Forsling character beyond the fact that he is a Canucks prospect drafted late this summer. He looks pretty darn good patrolling the blueline for Sweden, injecting himself into the offense. He's so off the radar that we don't even have a DobberProspects profile on him (hint, hint!)

 

Forsling is still a long shot in my books but he's suddenly worth owning in deeper leagues if for no other reason than he's a name in the spotlight right now. Also, the Canucks aren't exactly teeming with defense prospects.

 

Starting to hear some negative buzz about William Nylander. Apparently he is playing a bit too recklessly for some peoples' liking. Personally, I love it. If he's willing to take a hit to make a play, he'll score more. That being said, no one likes a Band-Aid Boy. Not saying that that's where we are headed but that's what the scuttlebutt is.

 

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Sid:

 

 

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You can follow me @SteveLaidlaw.

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UPCOMING GAMES

Mar 29 - 19:03 BUF vs N.J

Starting Goalies

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JURAJ SLAFKOVSKY MTL
AUSTON MATTHEWS TOR
NATHAN MACKINNON COL
JACK QUINN BUF
FILIP FORSBERG NSH

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IGOR SHESTERKIN NYR
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17.5 ALEX OVECHKIN T.J. OSHIE CONNOR MCMICHAEL
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8.2 BECK MALENSTYN NIC DOWD NICOLAS AUBE-KUBEL

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