January 4 2015

Thomas Drance

2015-01-04

The biggest hockey news of the night, in my opinion, is the shutting down of NHL salary information database Capgeek.com. In an announcement on his site, Matthew Wuest cited health reasons for the permanent cessation of operations effective immediately.

Capgeek.com was a site I visited multiple times a day for a variety of information, and I was particularly reliant on his buyout, salary cap recapture, and qualifying offer calculators. Not to be lost in this is that Wuest regularly broke his own news, particularly minor offseason signings (and even Dmitri Kulikov‘s contract extension this summer – if I remember correctly).

As a work of journalism, Capgeek.com was the most important piece of hockey journalism from the last five years – in any format. I honestly feel like we’ve been cast into the dark ages.

More importantly though, I wish Wuest all the best, and hope his health recovers soon. Making my job as a hockey journalist and peeling back the curtain on the business side of hockey and the complicated NHL/NHLPA collective bargaining agreement isn’t small stuff, but in the big picture, it’s peanuts compared with the health and wellness of a young, extraordinarily talented journalist. Keep him in your thoughts and your prayers.

Highly recommend Greg Wyshynski’s take on Capgeek’s impact, by the way.

In terms of the on-ice action on Saturday night, it was a brutal evening for goaltenders with Jonathan Quick, Darcy Kuemper, Ray Emery, Michal Neuvirth, Antti Niemi, and Sergei Bobrovsky all getting the hook on Saturday night.

In the aggregate, NHL goaltenders have been winning the war against shooters for the past decade. On Saturday night, for one brief shining moment, the shooters pushed back.

In the early game, the Ottawa Senators defeated the Boston Bruins, and now have the ability to move past the Bruins should they capitalize on their two games in hand. It’s not inconceivable that Boston could be sixth in the Atlantic Division in the next week or two, which is insane…

Overall I remain pretty high on the Bruins bouncing back. They remain a formidable side at five-on-five, even if they’ve been unable to drive the percentages this year in quite the same way they’ve managed in the past. With the Toronto Maple Leafs likely to fade, and the Metropolitan Division still awash in relative mediocrity, I don’t think the Bruins are going to miss the postseason. They’re running out of time to make a run and cement themselves as more than just another bubble team though.

Mike Hoffman scored his 12th goal of the season for the Senators and continues to tear it up in a supporting role in Ottawa. I feel very comfortable suggesting to you that his production isn’t a blip, based on his sky high shot rate, his solid AHL production, and the eye test. To the eyes, it doesn’t look like there are many NHL defenders who can comfortably deal with his speed one-on-one.

By the numbers, Hoffman is currently 17th in the entire NHL in shot rate. He’s in the same basic wheelhouse as players like Alex Ovechkin, Patric Hornqvist and Claude Giroux by five-on-five shot rate. It’s a very different thing – in terms of actual hockey ability – to do that against top of the roster competition, as opposed to managing it in 10 to 12 minutes per game; but for fantasy owners: it’s a good sign that his production is at least somewhat sustainable.

Another surprisingly productive player who has shown very well by shot rate in the early going this season? Tobias Rieder, who now has five goals for the Arizona Coyotes. He might be worth a look in deeper leagues.

The Los Angeles Kings ultimately lost in overtime, but it’s a good sign that they’re all but unkillable once again.

The Kings managed two late goals to seize victory from the jaws of defeat on Thursday night against the Vancouver Canucks, and on Saturday did even better to eliminate a three goal deficit in 121 seconds and earn a point against the formidable Nashville Predators.

Much was made of the Kings losing their fastball in November, but it would seem that their reported demise has been vastly overstated. Since November 3rd (or for the past two months) they’ve been comfortably the league’s best puck possession team by score adjusted Corsi For differential. Since December first the Kings have been Corsi’ing at a rate better than 58 percent.

In other words: they’re baaack.

Though his team lost and looked poor for large swaths of Saturday’s matinee, Kings center Anze Kopitar had a beast of a game. Nearly the hockey equivalent of a perfect game, really.

With Kopitar on the ice at even-strength on Saturday the Kings managed 21 shot attempts while he Predators took just three. That’s insane stuff. His three assist, +2, one shot, two hits fantasy line will play also…

The ageless Jaromir Jagr became the oldest player to ever score a hat-trick when he and the New Jersey Devils lit up the Philadelphia Flyers 5-2 on Saturday. He’s now just three goals shy of catching Phil Esposito for fifth on the all-time NHL scoring leaderboard.

In terms of Devils lineup notes: Adam Henrique was moved to the wing on Saturday, and managed two assists while flanking Jagr and Scott Gomez. Based on that lines success on Saturday night, we’ll presumably see this again for a spell.

The Philadelphia Flyers looked brutal without Claude Giroux, who was presumed to be available to go Saturday, then was downgraded to a game-time decision, then ultimately didn’t even take the warmup skate.

Giroux sustained a gruesome cut on the leg this week, and was thought to be out long-term. Based on the initial prognosis, it seems likely that he won’t miss much time, but it’s a bad sign that the messages coming from the Flyers regarding his status were mixed to this extent. Hopefully it’s all just precautionary.

Remember that brief shining moment when people fooled themselves into thinking that the Buffalo Sabres weren’t awful? It’s amazing what a run of stellar goaltending can do for the popular perception of a club, right Calgary Flames fans?

📢 advertisement:

Rick Nash scored his 24th goal of the season, and added an assist. He remains the league’s most efficient point producer at both even-strength and at five-on-four. Alain Vigneault may know a thing or two about how to handle star-level talent…

The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins convincingly on Saturday night, by a final score of 4-1. With the regulation victory they moved past Pittsburgh and into sole possession of first in the East (at least for 24 hours, the New York Islanders still have a better point percentage and play the Oilers on Sunday).

UPCOMING GAMES

Apr 10 - 19:04	CBJ	vs	BUF
Apr 10 - 19:04	FLA	vs	DET
Apr 10 - 19:04	BOS	vs	CHI
Apr 10 - 19:04	NYI	vs	NYR
Apr 10 - 19:04	WSH	vs	CAR
Apr 10 - 20:04	DAL	vs	WPG
Apr 10 - 21:04	UTA	vs	NSH
Apr 10 - 21:04	COL	vs	VAN
Apr 10 - 22:04	L.A	vs	ANA
Apr 10 - 22:04	VGK	vs	SEA