Big Suspension for Big Buff? Thoughts on Kuznetsov, Namestnikov and more …

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Hope you enjoyed my dummy Ramblings posted in celebration of April Fool’s Day. If you missed them, you can find them here. Bonus points for you if you found the real Ramblings through a link in the dummy Ramblings. And if you can name me the three topics that were posted, as well as the language used at the bottom to link to the actual ramblings, then you win a wink-and-a-gun courtesy of me. I’ll even make a trigger noise while doing it.

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First, let’s review the tight race in the West which is obviously going to be decided in the last game of the last day. Vancouver plays at 10 ET in the final game of the NHL season. You know that’s going to be the one to decide it. Why? Because it means I can’t finalize my Playoff Draft List in advance, and the hockey gods rarely allow me to do that.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re familiar with the situation, but to save you from bouncing back and forth between two tabs, here:

2P- VAN 93 with six GR

3P- CGY 91 with five GR

w- WPG 90 with five GR

out- LA 88 with six GR

The Jets giving up a goal in the waning minutes to lose the game was a real heartbreaker. But that’s not why they’re in trouble. Not even the fact that they’ve lost two in a row. No, they’re in trouble because they’re probably going to lose Dustin Byfuglien for a whole whackload of games because of a Bertuzzi-esque cross-check to the back of the neck of J.T. Miller. Nine second mark:

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Tyler Johnson is still on the shelf with a UBI and I get the sense that he’ll miss another one. I don’t think it will go much longer than that, and I’ve noticed that Johnson has the tendency to return from injury earlier than you’d expect. Marty St. Louis was like that too.

In the meantime, Vladislav Namestnikov has slid into his spot on the Palat – Kucherov line seamlessly. Namestnikov’s three points on Monday really hurt me. In the Forecaster league that I’m trying to “four-peat” I ended Monday 14 points out of first. Had I dressed Namestnikov, that number would be 10. And I had intended to dress him, but missed the Monday deadline. I have no excuse – I just hope that if I lose, I lose by more than Namestnikov’s point total for this week. I had a big night Tuesday and the deficit currently sits at nine points.

James Reimer shut down the mighty Lightning last night though and he has two wins in a row. With the win, the Leafs almost completely killed their chances of finishing third-last. I think they’re safe in terms of rising to fifth-last. Understanding this, they now know that winning won’t make much difference to their draft position. I suspect they’ll continue winning now, and I also think Reimer gets a big chunk of that. Just a hunch.

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The Hamburgler Andrew Hammond was back in net for Ottawa and boy did he stand on his head. Okay, well actually he faced 17 shots. But when you’re reeling as he was, an easy game like that really helps with the confidence.

It was Petr Mrazek who stood on his head, stopping 33 of 34 in the loss. It was good (and surprising to me) of Mike Babcock to see him come back with Mrazek after he got blown out in his prior start. I spoke on Monday as though Mrazek blew one of his first windows of opportunity.

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Alex Ovechkin scored his 50th and Trotz still has him playing with rookie Evgeny Kuznetsov. The youngster has nine points in his last 10 games. As I noted in the forum here, I’d like to compare his progress under Trotz to Radulov’s. Over time, Trotz loosens the reins a bit more. I’ve never wavered from my belief that Kuznetsov will be a star. Next year I think he could be a 50+ guy. And then have a Tarasenko-like breakout the year after that.

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Also, thought I’d mention that I had my keeper league baseball draft this past Saturday. I won’t bore the hockey readers with the details, but for those into baseball I posted what I did here. And tell your friends about our awesome and insanely cheap updated Cheat Sheets.

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Alex Ovechkin scores his 50th (video):