February 7, 2015

steve laidlaw

2015-02-07

Patrick Kane grabs a share of first, Lundqvist to miss a month, Larsson rolling and more…

There were some interesting stats floating around on Twitter regarding James Reimer vs. Jonathan Bernier since such and such a date. Total cherry-picks. In any case, they showed Reimer as having been more effective of late than Bernier. Sure, but does anyone actually think that Reimer's the better goalie? How about the rest of the season that shows Bernier is way better?

Reimer did not put up good numbers last night conceding four goals on just 17 shots. His goals-against average for the season is above 3.00 and his save percentage is below .910. I don't care if he had a nice little post-New-Year run. I don't trust him. Not with this team ahead of him. I don't think it matters who is in net right now.

The Leafs did double the Devils in shots last night but it just doesn't seem to matter at this point.

I cannot wait for Cody Franson to get dealt. I hypothesized that getting traded probably wouldn't help him moving from one of the highest scoring teams in the league where he gets all the best minutes to anywhere else couldn't really be all that positive, could it? Well it can be positive now that the Leafs offense is drowning in a pit of despair. Franson has just three points in his past 11 games and I'm just begging for a trade.

Seriously, the Leafs were once ranked second in the league in goals per game at over 3.00 per. Now their 14^th at 2.74 per game. What a fall. I'd take Franson getting dealt to a defense rich team just to get him off this sinking ship. Fourth defenseman on a contender? It has to be more productive than this.

Minor Leaf trade to report on. They dealt Carter Ashton and David Broll to Tampa Bay for a seventh round pick. No that did not warrant a trade reaction article.

A couple of assists for Adam Larsson last night and the kid is suddenly rolling. He has eight points in 13 games since New Year's. That's some cherry-picking on my part, which I railed against earlier but the difference is that at New Year's we saw a big change in Larsson's usage. Since then he has skated over 20 minutes in every single game. Before then he'd done so just twice all season. It's little surprise that he's suddenly producing now that the minutes are there.

I am a little bit skeptical if Larsson can keep it up though. This is a small sample size, which is always concerning. It's both a positive and a negative sign that Larsson's run has come with little in the way of power play time and absolutely no power play production.

It's positive that he can put up points without needing the man advantage to do so but it doesn't bode well for him continuing to produce in the future if he doesn't start getting some more power play minutes. I should mention that Larsson led all Devil defensemen in power play time last night so we could be trending up here. Of course, he could just as quickly lose that whenever Damon Severson returns from injury.

Severson is due to start skating again next week so we could see the puck-mover back soon.

Don't thrust your chips in on Larsson. Great sign that his minutes are up and that he's producing but I'd wager on Marek Zidlicky, Severson or Andy Greene being more productive than Larsson the rest of the way. Heck, I'd even wager on Eric Gelinas escaping the dog house before Larsson sustaining this rate of scoring. But again, I love that he's reviving his career.

Some interesting speculation that Michael Ryder may have asked for a trade out of New Jersey after a recent string of scratches. I don't know how much Ryder has left in the tank but he's normally produced when given minutes. If he sees the post-trade boost and some favourable deployments he could sneak back into relevance down the stretch here.

Some wild happenings with the Capital lineup last night.

Philipp Grubauer was called up to start so Justin Peters watched from the press box. Grubauer played well allowing two goals on 25 shots and winning in the shootout. Seems to me that this was a case of the team wanting to give Braden Holtby a rare break and Grubauer (a better goalie than Peters) was available so they took advantage of the situation to get a better tender in.

An unfortunate consequence was needing to send someone down to call up Grubauer and they needed not have to clear waivers. Thus Andrei Burakovsky was sent down. He is expected to be back up for Sunday.

Mike Green missed last night's contest with a lower-body injury. He is questionable for Sunday's game.

John Carlson owners will like this. With Green out it was Carlson, not Matt Niskanen who jumped onto the top power play unit. They went 0/1. Carlson did score a goal at evens, however.

27 ADAMS,CRAIG – 40 LAPIERRE,MAXIM

7.14%

13 SPALING,NICK – 16 SUTTER,BRANDON

7.14%

26 ARCOBELLO,MARK – 23 DOWNIE,STEVE – 14 KUNITZ,CHRIS

3.57%

87 CROSBY,SIDNEY – 23 DOWNIE,STEVE – 71 MALKIN,EVGENI – 39 PERRON,DAVID

3.57%

27 ADAMS,CRAIG – 38 SILL,ZACH

3.57%

26 ARCOBELLO,MARK – 23 DOWNIE,STEVE – 14 KUNITZ,CHRIS – 71 MALKIN,EVGENI

3.57%

87 CROSBY,SIDNEY – 13 SPALING,NICK

Big win for the Patric Hornqvist and Perron camps as the Penguins have indeed elected to set those two righties up on the left side while Crosby and Evgeni Malkin operate on the right side as lefties.

Kunitz, despite the big three-point night, is a loser here. He can still be extremely productive but point-per-game is probably off the table at this point.

The Blues meanwhile, they got hosed down by the Blue Jackets 7-1. All the Blue Jackets' usual suspects got in on the action with Nick Foligno and Ryan Johansen refusing to slow down scoring three points each.

What really tells you that it was a special night was the goal that Cam Atkinson scored. Only on a blue moon do you see that. Actually, it was Atkinson's 10^th of the season, which isn't that rare but considering his status as an annual threat to breakout that never actually does I think it's worth mentioning him. Plus how crazy was the goal? Off Scott Hartnell's head, off the top of the net and then Atkinson bounces it in.

Elliott got chased halfway through the game after allowing four goals on 14 shots. Jake Allen wasn't much better in relief. Just total annihilation. The only Blues who escaped the game without a minus rating were Marcel Goc and Ryan Reaves and David Backes and Alexander Steen each went minus-four.

The Blues power play has been rough since they lost Kevin Shattenkirk having gone 1/7 the past three games with a short-handed goal allowed last night. Small sample size of course but losing the point man can often lead to these hiccups.

Promising news for Kyle Okposo owners. There is some speculation that the six-to-eight-week timetable provided by the team may be on the long side. That report even suggests that he could be back within a month, which would be amazing. I'm skeptical that he could return that quickly but if he's able to get back by the six-week mark I'd be happy.

Rough news for the Rangers and fantasy owners. Henrik Lundqvist will miss the next month or more due to a neck injury.

Cam Talbot immediately becomes a valuable commodity even in the midst of the boom/bust season he's been having. The Rangers also have MacKenzie Skapski (read more on him here) called up but I don't have much optimism about him having an impact.

I would have been all over Cedric Desjardins here but he blew out his ACL playing in the minors earlier this season.

It will be interesting to see if the Rangers seek a trade to patch this hole or ride it out with Talbot. A couple of bad games might crank up the heat.

Matt Cooke is out five to six weeks after surgery to repair a hernia. Jordan Schroeder (read more on him here) has been up in his stead. Good opportunity for the young forward to get some meaningful NHL reps.

Reminder here that the Wild have until Monday to call up Darcy Kuemper from his conditioning stint. He'll be back and presumably becomes the backup while Niklas Backstrom becomes window dressing. Tough to see Kuemper usurping Devan Dubnyk at this point but the Wild are in do or die mode. If Dubnyk slips, Kuemper could be back in. The situation is that desperate.

Interesting tidbit on Mike Richards in the latest Dreger Report:

Those who have watched Richards since his demotion say he appears to be growing more comfortable with his environment, but still looks a tad embarrassed to be out there. Sources say Richards is investigating different training options to enhance his chances of returning to the NHL, but the Los Angeles Kings have no intention of bringing him back any time soon.

Anyone else read that and immediately have their mind jump to steroids? I can't read the word "enhance" any more without my mind making that leap.

NHL.com takes a look at the impact of empty-net goals in fantasy hockey.

Patrik Elias scores his 400^th career goal:

You can follow me @SteveLaidlaw.

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