February 24, 2015

steve laidlaw

2015-02-24

Schneider’s quiet excellence, pondering the end for Doan, Bryzgalov waived and more…

Quiet Monday in terms of on-ice action with only two games being played.

Arizona took their anemic offense on the road to New Jersey getting shutout by Cory Schneider on 38 shots. This was Schneider's first shutout in over three months. That being said, Schneider has been remarkably consistent over that stretch. Since his last shutout Schneider has allowed three goals or fewer in all but two contests and in both of those he allowed just four goals, a span of 32 appearances of remarkably solid goaltending. Only a 13-14-3 record in those games, however.

I took a flyer on Mike Cammalleri this week given the Devils' nice off-night schedule with Monday, Wednesday and Friday games. Two goals and five shots have me looking pretty smart right about now. Cammalleri has four goals and five points on a mini three-game scoring streak. Cammalleri is skating with Travis Zajac and Jordin Tootoo right now, which is far from ideal so don't count on this being a season-ending run for the ages.

Back to Arizona. They never had a ton of offense to begin with but I am just so disinterested with this team now that Mikkel Boedker and Martin Hanzal are potentially done for the year. Keith Yandle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are still interesting but they can only do so much to buoy such a dismal forward group.

Antoine Vermette and Shane Doan have turned into vapid corpses, at least as far as fantasy value goes, when once they were highly intriguing veteran producers. At least Vermette has the upside of potentially being dealt. Doan and the Coyotes have agreed to continue on in misery together.

Makes you wonder how much fight Doan has left if he's sticking it out with this team. We all know Doan's reputation as a fierce competitor. Just has me thinking that maybe he won't be revitalized when all the young talent like Max Domi finally makes it to the squad.

By the way, the London Knights can't get eliminated from the OHL playoffs soon enough. I know they don't even start until the last week in March but the sooner they get put out, the sooner we get to see Domi in an NHL uniform, which is all the excitement that's left for this Coyote team. I want to see if Doan skates with him and what kind of chemistry they demonstrate if they do.

Pavel Datsyuk never really stopped being productive but he has been extra productive these past few games. Two more goals last night gives him six goals and 10 points in the last five contests to get him back over the point-per-game mark. The only issue with Datsyuk at this point is the frequency with which he plays because it's never going to be 82 games in a season. Whatever you do get, however, will be genius.

No Henrik Zetterberg for the Red Wings last night meant Riley Sheahan stepping onto the second line with Justin Abdelkader and Gustav Nyquist. Sheahan scored a goal and could be in for a little run of relevance. Check out the Wings' lines from last night courtesy of FrozenPool:

22.65%	EV	13 DATSYUK,PAVEL – 43 HELM,DARREN – 21 TATAR,TOMAS
19.74%	EV	8 ABDELKADER,JUSTIN – 14 NYQUIST,GUSTAV – 15 SHEAHAN,RILEY
15.21%	EV	41 GLENDENING,LUKE – 26 JURCO,TOMAS – 20 MILLER,ANDREW
9.06%	EV	11 CLEARY,DANIEL – 56 PULKKINEN,TEEMU – 90 WEISS,STEPHEN

Kyle Palmieri has a four-game scoring streak since the Ducks split up Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf sticking Palmieri alongside Getzlaf. He'd make a nice waiver claim in deeper leagues.

Hampus Lindholm hasn't really experienced a minutes increase since the All-Star break but his scoring has shot up with nine points in 12 games. It probably has something to do with the return of his veteran partner Francois Beauchemin from injury.

It's true that Beauchemin returned just before New Year's but it's possible that it simply took them a little while to get back in sync, especially with Beauchemin needing some time to shake off the rust post-injury. Or this is all random, which can't be ruled out.

By the way, Beauchemin has goals in each of the past three games. This pairing has it going on.

Martin St. Louis talks about his recent cold streak and the mentality behind trying to snap out of one:

"For an athlete, the mind-set can be fragile; confidence comes and goes, and that doesn't have anything to do with age," St. Louis said. "When you have confidence, you want to hang on to it as long as possible and when you lose it, you want to get it back as quickly as possible.

"The difference when you're younger is that you pay more attention to goals and assists, instead of putting that aside and concentrating on doing whatever is necessary to help the team win, which is where I am now. A lot of times, by focusing on goals or points, you can lose sight of the big picture.

"The big picture is the team winning games."

A couple of weeks ago I was talking about bailing on St. Louis. I ultimately decided against it. Further proof that you never want to sell low if you can avoid it.

In a similar line of thinking, I had a question on Twitter about trading Jaroslav Halak for Devan Dubnyk in a one-year league. I suggested that Dubnyk would be a decent buy if only because Minnesota has a couple of extra games down the stretch.

It's true that Dubnyk has been KILLING IT since arriving in Minnesota and Halak has been less than average since a November hot streak but we all know how things ebb and flow. Wouldn't shock me at all if Halak went ballistic down the stretch, nor would it surprise me if Dubnyk went supernova. Always some risk of a reversal when selling low and buying high.

Partially torn MCL for David Krejci puts him out for four to six weeks. Not that he was scoring at a blistering pace but this has serious implications. First and foremost, poolies lose Krejci for what amounts to the remainder of the regular season. So it's off to the waiver wire for those folk.

Milan Lucic and David Pastrnak owners will also feel a bad tickle. Check out Boston's lines from their most recent game:

Frequency	Strength	Line Combination
20.79%	EV	21 ERIKSSON,LOUI – 23 KELLY,CHRIS – 34 SODERBERG,CARL
13.98%	EV	17 LUCIC,MILAN – 88 PASTRNAK,DAVID – 51 SPOONER,RYAN
13.26% 📢 advertisement:	EV	37 BERGERON,PATRICE – 63 MARCHAND,BRAD – 18 SMITH,REILLY
11.47%	EV	11 CAMPBELL,GREGORY – 38 CARON,JORDAN – 68 FERLIN,BRIAN

I like Ryan Spooner, he could have relevance down the stretch, but any hope of getting Lucic going these final few weeks just got squashed.

It'll be interesting to see how this impacts the Bruins as deadline buyers. On the one hand, this really hurts the team's playoff hopes. On the other hand, with all the intense pressure on the coach and GM to make the playoffs, including rumours of firings should they fail to do so, this might inspire a greater sense of urgency to make moves.

This injury also opens up a little more cap flexibility for the Bruins to go shopping with, which could mean multiple additions instead of just one. That possibility intrigues me a great deal because I still see the notion of getting moved to the Bruins as a positive even if they haven't performed to their normal standard.

Ryan Miller is headed back to Vancouver for an MRI and Jacob Markstrom has been recalled. The Canucks aren't home again until Sunday so we could be looking at at least a week-long absence for Miller.

I'd be more excited about Markstrom getting called up if Eddie Lack hadn't been performing so well in February. Lack has a 3-1-0 record this month with just 11 goals allowed across six appearances.

Interesting note about Markstrom though, apparently the Canucks can keep him up as long as they wish without waivers becoming a factor. Waivers only come into play if Markstrom plays 10 or more games. At that point waivers would be in play if they want to send him back down. Can't see them risking losing Markstrom even if Miller's injury is serious and Lack plays poorly enough that they get desperate.

Three-game suspension for Jared Cowen. Not much fantasy relevance there.

UPCOMING GAMES

Mar 18 - 19:03	MTL	vs	OTT
Mar 18 - 19:03	WSH	vs	DET
Mar 18 - 19:03	NYR	vs	CGY
Mar 18 - 19:03	PIT	vs	NYI
Mar 18 - 20:03	DAL	vs	ANA
Mar 18 - 20:03	NSH	vs	STL
Mar 18 - 20:03	CHI	vs	SEA
Mar 18 - 21:03	EDM	vs	UTA
Mar 18 - 22:03	VAN	vs	WPG