January 11, 2015

Thomas Drance

2015-01-11

Injuries to Jimmy Howard and Steve Mason, All-Star rosters named, the St. Louis Blues are red hot and more…

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Let’s start out with a useful reminder: Dobber’s indispensible Mid-Season Guide comes out tomorrow. The Guide can be pre-bought by following this link here. It’s not too late to make a charge in your fantasy league (unless it is), so make sure you pick up a copy!

I wrote a quick take on Sergei Bobrovsky’s massive new contract yesterday, and though it’s yesterday’s news, the deal is massive, fascinating, and still worth discussing today.

Bobrovsky will go into next season as the second highest paid goaltender in hockey by the annual average value of his contract. Once you factor in that the first year of Bobrovsky’s new season is a restricted free-agent year, this essentially means that the Blue Jackets are betting that the 26-year-old Russian netminder is a bona fide, super-elite puck stopper.

It’s not an insane bet.

Bobrovsky is second among goaltenders who have started at least 100 games over the past three years in save percentage (only narrowly trailing Tuukka Rask). He’s also third in the league over the past four years in even-strength save percentage, behind only Rask and Henrik Lundqvist. That’s… Decent company.

I sometimes hear people say that Bobrovsky is an example of a goaltender who can have an elite season – sure – but isn’t likely to sustain that level of performance. Certainly for the past three seasons though, he’s been consistently lights out (though admittedly he’s been rather average through 30 games this year).

Not only do I like the bet that the Blue Jackets made on Bobrovsky from a hockey perspective, but I also think it’s worth overpaying a goaltender like Bobrovsky in money, if it results in a deal that carries less term.

As it stands Bobrovsky, 26, signed a contract extension that carried just one more year in term than 34-year-old Ryan Miller received from the Vancouver Canucks this summer. His deal carries three fewer years in term than the seven-year extension recently signed by Cory Schneider, 28.

On the one hand, Schneider’s deal carries a six-million annual average value – nearly 1.5 million less than Bobrovsy’s cap-hit – which provides the Devils a bit of additional flexibility to flesh out their team over the life of his deal.

On the other hand, goaltending performance is so variable that committing a mass of term to a guy is a risky proposition. Think of Roberto Luongo, or Rick DiPietro, or eventually Jonathan Quick – since the dawn of the salary cap era, these types of extended deals for goaltenders have proven more ruinous for teams and general managers than any other common mistake in NHL management.

Bobrovsky’s contract may seem a bit rich, but you have to give Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen a lot of credit for mitigating his long-term risk – even if he had to take on some short-term salary cap pain to do so.

Sticking with goaltenders, there were a pair of high profile goaltending injuries on Saturday: to Philadelphia Flyers netminder Steve Mason, and Detroit Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard.

Let’s start with Mason, who left Saturday’s matinee against the Boston Bruins mid-way through the first period after making a routine save on a long-distance shot. Mason was in obvious and immediate pain and it appeared to be a right knee injury, something a Tim Panaccio report later confirmed.

MRIs on Mason’s knee revealed no structural damage and he’s only expected to miss a week. In the meantime, if you need some starts, Rob Zepp is probably available.

Less is known at the moment about Howard’s status following a groin injury that caused him to be stretchered off of the ice on Saturday night.

The Red Wings are still awaiting the results of further tests and evaluations, with general manager Ken Holland telling reporters on Saturday night that they’re waiting for “pics.”

While Mason isn’t likely to miss a significant helping of starts and should be back by the end of the All-Star break at the very latest, in contrast: it seems like Howard may be out for a bit.

Despite an underwhelming blue-line, the Red Wings have performed at an elite level at even-strength this season and appear to be much more formiddable than anticipated. So get thee to the waiver wire and put in a claim on Petr Mrazek already…

The NHL announced the rosters for the 2015 NHL All-Star game, and somehow those rosters didn’t include P.K. Subban – which is ridiculous – but totally not worth getting worked up over.

Anyway you can view the full roster here. Nick Foligno is having a decent year, huh? Hopefully he plays on a line with Radim Vrbata and Zemgus Girgensons at the All-Star game, just for the sake of confusing casual fans: “Literally though, who are these guys?”

One final injury note is that the Kings are now down two members of That 70s line, as Tyler Toffoli is out indefinitely with mono, while Tanner Pearson sustained a leg fracture on Saturday night and will similarly miss a whole whack of time.

The principal beneficiaries of Toffoli and Pearson’s injuries appear likely to be Justin Williams, Dustin Brown and Marian Gaborik – none of whom are likely to be available in your pool. It’s possible that Jordan Weal or Nick Shore could get the call from Manchester though, and either player has the talent to produce if put in favorable situations with good players (like, y’know, Jeff Carter). Worth keeping an eye on.

Alright to the games!

Bruins rookie David Pastrnak, 18, scored twice on Saturday afternoon. In doing so he became the 8th player in NHL history to record a multi-goal game as an 18-year-old, and the first in over a decade.

Pastrnak skated with David Krejci and Brad Marchand at even-strength and logged a hair over 16 minutes in total on Sunday while being featured on Boston’s first unit power play. He only managed two shots (both goals) though, so perhaps don’t overreact to his big game yet. If he keeps getting prime opportunities, he’s good enough that he’ll likely produce though.

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Tuukka Rask hasn’t been himself this season fantasy-wise, but he had a big week with two wins, a 1.47 GAA and a .953 save percentage. That’s what the people who drafted him with their first pick were looking for…

The Minnesota Wild outshot the Nashville Predators on Saturday, but, in the story of both teams’ seasons: Pekka Rinne outplayed Niklas Backstrom in a 3-1 Predators victory.