April 3, 2015

Bobrovsky with another late-season run, Carlson threatening the top five, Mark Stone’s Calder push and more…

 

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Sergei Bobrovsky is making a great late-season push for the third straight season. His numbers since returning from injury in early March:

 

11-2-0 – 2.44 GAA – .924 Save%

 

Not quite as gaudy as his March/April numbers from each of the past two seasons but a crazy trend none the less. It's only a three-year sample so it's not exactly a large data set but it's still incredible to see. I'd be quicker to dismiss it if I wasn't talking about the possibility of a third straight eruption all year in the ramblings.

 

The question is, why is this happening? The simple answer is that the Blue Jackets were banged up all year and now that they are getting healthy again they are suddenly playing competitive hockey. We've seen something similar play out in the past couple of seasons. They've got a really nice set of hockey players in Columbus when everyone is available. They play fast, heavy hockey.

 

The problem I have is that this isn't very predictive. Just because I talked about Bobrovsky making a late-season push all year doesn't mean that he is a warlock whose abilities are unlocked by the shifting of the equinox. That would be as ridiculous as if I claimed that I had "the sight" just because I discussed this possibly happening once again.

 

What you can do, however, is treat Bobrovsky like a top-10 goalie going into next season. He definitely has that kind of talent. The Blue Jackets (when healthy) have the talent to support such a projection. Whether or not he puts it together and the team stays healthy is another story. But let's say Bobrovsky and the Blue Jackets stumble early on next season. Seems like there's a good amount of evidence that suggests you should buy low. Not because Bobrovsky always blows the doors off come spring but because Bobrovsky's a talent who you want on your team when push comes to shove.

 

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Just a horrific game for fantasy owners of Braden Holtby and Carey Price. A 4-4 shootout game with only 46 shots combined between the two teams? Gross. I own both in the Dobber Experts League. Even though this is a rotisserie league and we are DEEP into the season I suspect this game will cost me.

 

John Carlson with three assists, for the Caps, all coming on the power play. He has crept into sixth in scoring among defensemen just three back of Kris Letang. Given Letang's injury status, Carlson has a legitimate shot at a top-five finish. The only thing in his way is time.

 

It certainly tool some injury luck to get Carlson to this point. No way Carlson gets top-five if Letang, Mark Giordano, Kevin Shattenkirk and Victor Hedman don't miss time but health is also a part of the game and Carlson certainly has it. Carlson hasn't missed a game since joining the league full-time. At this point, you have to treat him like at least a top-10 defenseman in points-only formats simply because of his health, not to mention his status on the elite Capitals power play.

 

What's crazy is that Carlson hasn't even produced that much on the power play. Only 15 of his 51 points have come with the man-advantage. That's less than a third. Not bad. It tells you that there may be some yet-untapped potential waiting to get brought to the surface. That's especially true when you consider that for the first few months of the season Carlson was battling it out with Matt Niskanen and Mike Green for power play minutes. Not so much any longer. A full season worth of big power play minutes could kick Carlson's scoring up another notch. Maybe he sniffs 60. That all hinges on Ovechkin continuing to be a supernova but at this point who is betting against him?

 

The consequence here is that Green either needs to find a new home (best for his agent and his fantasy owners) or takes a massive pay cut (best for his off-ice stability). I don't know what the answer is but I know that I don't like Green in a Caps uniform for fantasy purposes any more.

 

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Tyler Johnson and Victor Hedman were absent from the game last night and aren't expected to play on Saturday either. Vladislav Namestnikov remains a real asset for at least this weekend. While he continued to center the second line he was cut to under 10 minutes of ice time so don't go out of your way to push Namestnikov into your lineup.

 

These injuries also put the Lightning goaltenders in a bad spot.

 

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Do I need to keep trumpeting the virtues of Mark Stone or am I beating a dead horse? Most of the teams he would have helped are probably eliminated and the teams that are still alive either don't have room for him or are winning because of him. He's at 56 points now. Crazy how well this rookie class has turned out. I wouldn't have guessed anyone for 60 points this season and we might have three get there. Awesome.

 

One rookie who has slipped is Mike Hoffman, Stone's teammate. He started hot but his shooting percentage is slipping hard. He has also been dropped to the third line which doesn't help matters.

 

Wild fact on this rookie class: of the top 10 rookie scorers five were drafted outside the top 100 picks in their respective drafts including four of the top five rookie scorers. Of the other guys in the top 10 all were first rounders and four were lottery picks. Technically Victor Rask, a former second-round pick is tied for 10^th but he doesn't fit my narrative.

 

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Brett Connolly made his Bruin debut and it was a good one with two assists. He ping-ponged about the lineup so it's hard to peg where he will see time going forward but he skated only 12:44 with 2:52 on the power play suggesting a smaller role than his productive debut would otherwise indicate.

 

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No Pavel Datsyuk for the Red Wings once again but he is hopeful that he can play Saturday.

 

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I have to admit that I did not see things working out so well for Jaromir Jagr in Florida. Some of it is the result of a high shooting percentage (13.5%) but the difference between that and his average the past few years (~9%) is like one goal, which is mostly inconsequential.

 

Most important is the impact Jagr is no doubt having on the young players in that locker room. It's leading to some tremendous optimism about the Panthers as a team for next season. I want to dump so cold water on that. Not that I don't like the talent on this team but when you skew young development isn't always linear.

 

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The Kings dropped the hammer on the Oilers last night lighting up former teammate Ben Scrivens for five goals on 21 shots before giving Tyler Bunz a warm welcome in his NHL debut for three more goals. What a pounding. This is the type of game where you don't even want to draw conclusions because of how out of hand it got. The Kings did pull into the final Wild Card slot in the West due to owning the tiebreaker over the Jets.

 

Jarret Stoll returned to the lineup for the Kings, which meant zombie Mike Richards took a seat in the press box.

 

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Check out this beauty by Jaden Schwartz: