January 8, 2015
steve laidlaw
2015-01-08
Fehr’s streakiness, Abdelkader building up steam, Vatanen’s slump and more…
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Big win for the Bruins over the Penguins despite getting hammered 39-25 in shots.
Patrice Bergeron scored a couple of goals including the overtime winner. He was skating with Milan Lucic and Daniel Paille in this one and it looked like a good move to get Lucic going. Lucic notched a pair of assists.
The Bruins did end up calling up David Pastrnak after his trip to the World Juniors. They just had him do a couple of games in the AHL first. Unfortunately he was a scratch last night so it remains to be seen what role he'll play. I remain thoroughly optimistic that he can have some relevant moments this season.
As a Tuukka Rask owner it was great to see him get an overtime win after five overtime/shootout losses in the past month including in each of his three previous games. I still have confidence that Rask will put together a second half to remember. He's too good not to. I've heard some rumblings about Rask's elite-ness coming into question again, which I just don't get. Sure, Rask's numbers have been extremely mediocre this year but if that's him playing poorly, I think that says all we need to know about his skill level.
Remember, Rask is the top starter in the league the past four years in even-strength save percentage, which many consider the best measure of goaltender ability. He has been merely average by this measure so far this season but I prefer to take the larger sample even it doesn't actually defeat the argument that his numbers in previous seasons were the result of the excellent play ahead of him.
***As an aside, how about embattled starters Steve Mason and Jonathan Bernier ranking in the top-10 for even-strength save percentage so far?***
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We're looking at two straight scratches for Derrick Pouliot and now Paul Martin has returned to the Penguins lineup. Looking like the next stop is the AHL for Pouliot. Not the worst fate as it was always going to be tough for him to get the minutes he needs to succeed.
Martin, by the way, skated 20 minutes in his return so it's right back into the thick of it.
Beau Bennett was up on the second line with Evgeni Malkin last night scoring a goal. Bennett has had a nice little run with four points in four games since returning to the lineup. We'll see how long this lasts as top-six forwards Patric Hornqvist and Blake Comeau (not really a top-sixer but he's meshed well enough with Malkin to give him credit for it) will return eventually, which should help normalize the lineup. Also, Bennett might get hurt brushing his teeth this morning so nothing is guaranteed.
Chris Kunitz owners are certainly hoping the lineup normalizes soon as he's been stuck on the third line for a little while longer than expected.
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The Leafs named Peter Horachek their interim head coach and he made his debut last night. I'll get to the game in a minute but first, I meant to link to this yesterday but here's an interesting article demonstrating that there isn't necessarily much value to changing coaches in the NHL:
To determine if firing the head coach makes any difference, I compared teams' year-over-year performance to whether or not they fired their coach during the offseason. Teams that fired their coaches performed exactly the same on average in the following season as teams that kept their coaches. Notably, teams that were sub-.400 performed 20 percent better on average the following season regardless of whether they fired their coach or not. Often all a team needs is a little regression to the mean, not a shakeup.
I remember doing a study a few years ago on mid-season coaching changes and noting that teams would often improve but that gets to the point above about regression to the mean. There's a selection bias when looking at teams that fire coaches in that most of those teams are really bad so naturally they would improve under a new coach if for no other reason than that they couldn't get worse.
I also looked at things like whether or not there was improved scoring, defense, power play efficiency and penalty kill efficiency but there wasn't much consistency. Each situation is team/coach dependant so you can't make blanket generalizations about how a new coach might improve things.
What I would say is that when a team makes a change take a look at what they do really well or really poorly and factor in some regression. Whether it's because of the change or simply things evening out over a larger sample outliers tend to come back to earth.
In this specific case, the Leafs were the second best offensive team in the league and the sixth worst defensive team, both scoring and allowing more than three goals per game. Sorry to say for fans of offense but look for those numbers to take a dive on both sides.
Obviously that didn't really happen last night as the Leafs got crushed by the Capitals but let's not base our opinion on one game.
Here were the lines for last night's game:
|
Frequency |
Strength |
Line Combination |
|
15.19% |
EV |
43 KADRI,NAZEM – 81 KESSEL,PHIL – 26 WINNIK,DANIEL |
|
12.01% |
EV |
71 CLARKSON,DAVID – 47 KOMAROV,LEO – 23 SMITH,TREVOR |
|
10.6% |
EV |
42 BOZAK,TYLER – 25 SANTORELLI,MICHAEL – 21 VAN RIEMSDYK,JAMES |
|
6.71% |
EV |
42 BOZAK,TYLER – 18 PANIK,RICHARD – 21 VAN RIEMSDYK,JAMES |
|
6.01% |
EV |
42 BOZAK,TYLER – 81 KESSEL,PHIL – 21 VAN RIEMSDYK,JAMES |
|
5.3% |
EV |
20 BOOTH,DAVID – 53 CARRICK,SAM – 18 PANIK,RICHARD |
|
2.83% |
EV |
81 KESSEL,PHIL – 25 SANTORELLI,MICHAEL – 26 WINNIK,DANIEL |
As you can see there was some big-time line shuffling taking place. I didn't catch the game so I couldn't tell you how each line worked out but I am intrigued by the notion of speed demons Daniel Winnik and Phil Kessel together with Nazem Kadri at center.
Winnik took advantage of the minutes scoring a goal and firing six SOG. Kessel was held off the board for the third straight game (OHMYGOODNESS THE SKY IS FALLING!) but did fire five shots of his own.
No shots for Kadri who is on pace for a career best 175 this season. It will be interesting to see if his shooting falls off if top line minutes become more common.
Horrific start for Jake Gardiner under the new coach going a minus-four.
Obviously not a good night for Jonathan Bernier either ceding five goals on 25 shots. I'm extremely interested to see how Horachek handles the goalies from here on out. You'd think that James Reimer gets the next one but you never know.
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Eric Fehr continued one of his vintage hot streaks with a three-point night including a shorthanded goal. He now has six goals in five games since Christmas and eight points in that span. Taking things back a little further, Fehr has 19 in 16 since the start of December. That's some hot streak.
Fehr has put together similar runs in the past and still has a career high of just 39 points. Maybe he breaks that this year but I'd bet on an injury or a slump knocking him out before he gets the chance. He's the worst combination of Band-Aid Boy and Windex Wonder.
Andre Burakovsky has been back in the lineup for a couple of games now and has been skating on the top line with Alexander Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. No points last night but that group was held off the board all night until Ovechkin managed an empty-netter. Burakovsky scored in his last game though and will need to remain productive or he'll be shuffled down the lineup.
Tom Wilson was shaken up by a hit and left the game. Apparently he passed the concussion protocol but by the time he was ready to return the game was already out of hand so he did not get back in.
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Solid game from the Flames in a losing effort outshooting Detroit 30-22 and damn-near tying things up late even coming as close as having a couple of goals waived off by correct but frustrating technicalities (goalie losing his mask and an offside by inches.)
We saw a lot of what the Flames do best, which is generating chances off the rush using their excellent puck-moving defense to get it to their forwards with speed. Unfortunately, we also saw a lot of what the Flames do worst, which is conceding extended possessions in the offensive zone to an excellent cycle team like the Red Wings.
I wouldn't normally go into a discussion about the game dynamics since there ultimately isn't much fantasy relevance in the above two paragraphs but I get the feeling like Flames fans are feeling hard-done by the coverage of their team here and I wanted to sprinkle some love their way. The way the Flames play is not a way that I suspect will consistently yield wins but it's an exciting brand of hockey.
As an Oilers fan, I would way rather have your roster than whatever Edmonton has going on. At the end of the day both fan bases are cheering for the development of some young forward groups. The difference is these Flames have a backbone on defense to feel good about going forward.
On to the fantasy stuff.
Mikael Backlund and Mason Raymond made big splashes for the Flames in their returns to the lineup. They even lined up together for an intriguing bit of serendipity.
For Backlund this was his first game since late October and he got right back to business with a shorthanded goal and an assist.
For Raymond it was his first game back after being a healthy scratch the previous two games. He scored a wicked goal early on and then was never heard from again.