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Regardless of how the Pittsburgh-New York Rangers series finishes, it's hard to imagine what the roster could look like without the injuries. The loss of Kris Letang alone was huge, and compounded the problem left behind from losing Olli Maatta for the year. This was a team that finally rebuilt their bottom-six forwards with guys like Blake Comeau and Daniel Winnik, had a good defense corps from top to bottom, and were still as skilled as any team. The prime years for Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are going to start winding down here soon, and an opportunity like this year feels like another lost one.

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Chris Kreider had a fairly predictable breakout year in roto leagues, and watching him in the Rangers' win last night, it seems there's more offensive upside left. I do wonder if, in a way, his own team's success might limit that upside. With the balanced Rangers attack, the time on ice tends to be spread out a bit more evenly (something I think we see from more teams in the coming years). If Kreider doesn't get more ice time – he had 1257 total minutes of ice time in 80 games this past season, from Hockey Reference – it'll be hard for him to have that one monster year. Think of this: of the 15 players that scored at least 30 goals this year, 10 of them had over 1400 minutes of ice time, and the only player who had less than 1300 was Corey Perry at 1213. Surely, Kreider is not Corey Perry, so barring a shooting percentage spike, until he gets into the 17-18 minutes per night range, it seems his upside in rotisserie leagues isn't much higher than what he did this year.

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Can we marvel at Detroit's first goal last night off the deflection from Pavel Datsyuk? The way Datsyuk deflected it was what got me. It wasn't that he dragged the heel of his stick to redirect a shot along the ice; it was that he almost seemed to chop at the puck, which deflected it in the air and past Ben Bishop's blocker. It may have been the function of the puck on a slight wobble, but I'd like to think it was just another piece of absolute wizardry from Datsyuk.

I actually found a goal by Dan Cleary from 2011 that was similar to Datsyuk’s, in that he kind of chopped it on his backhand and it bounced over the glove of Nikolai Khabibulin. 

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Speaking of the Detroit game, it sometimes feels like Gustav Nyquist is the NHL star that gets little praise in popular media.  Watching him both with and without the puck is really a treat on a nightly basis. He's a player that uses his edges about as well as anyone in the NHL, and that helps get him into improved shooting or passing positions. I'm reminded of the Sports Illustrated piece on Detroit's European scout Hakan Andersson. When the idea of bringing Andersson in the organization was raised, it's curious they bring up the specific notion of using the edges of skates as being an important factor in scouting. That's fully evident when watching Nyquist. He uses his hands and his edges to his (and his teammates') benefit consistently, and it's a remarkable thing to watch in full flight. I'm sure there are Detroit fans here who watch the team a lot more closely at both the NHL and AHL levels than I do that might be able to chime in on this being something pervasive in their system.

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