January 18, 2011
Dobber Sports
2011-01-18
The Midseason Guide, you can buy it here, re-released just this past Friday. Get yourself organized and ready to go in the second half by picking up this great read.
The Wellwood signing pushes SJ over the cap limit, according to Cap Geek. This could mean a player like Ryane Clowe going on the IR. Stay tuned
St. Louis dodges another bullet. San Jose has claimed Kyle Wellwood off waivers. Now the Blues need to keep signing brutal players and suckering other teams into claiming them. Suggestions: Aki Berg, Ladislav Nagy, Miro Satan… sign as many as you can and stock up your rivals with these has-beens. I can see a playoff Game 7 where Wellwood gives away the puck and St. Louis scores to eliminate San Jose. (all tongue in cheek, of course)
Cam Ward got the hook after allowing two goals on five shots. For Ward, that’s his second loss in three games and he has given up 14 goals in just over three games (he was pulled after 11 minutes). I wonder if he’s playing hurt, or if this is a mere slump.
Slump or not, Carolina has been scoring a lot lately, so for them to be shutout was quite unexpected. They had 22 goals in five games heading into Monday.
With the hat trick, Zdeno Chara now has 10 points in nine games. Nothing like a run like that to put a guy back on his usual season pace..
In one of the better fantasy performances of the season by a player who nobody owns. Adam McQuaid had two points, 17 PIM and was plus-3.
Mattias Tedenby got back into the lineup and picked up two points for the Devils. If he’s bought into the system, he’s worth activating now. No PP time though.
It’s always good to be the coach’s pet and in the case of the Devils, besides the obvious stars, his pets are Rolston and Zharkov. The latter scored his first goal of the season and I think he’ll get 15 more points in the second half. Maybe 20. If the Devils have a bit of a firesale, I think he can be a second liner next season.
When I made that Moulson joke yesterday, I was only kidding. But I guess he’s in heavy trade rumors. Things really exploded yesterday. Anyway, think Jeff Hamilton. Moulson is an AHLer with some hockey sense and a pretty good shot and he works hard. But his 30-goal days are on the Island. Any other city and he’s a 20 goal man and part-time healthy scratch.
Those who have been asking if Andy Greene is going to turn it around – well he has now. He has five points in six games now, as the Devils slowly buy back into the new/old coaching system.
It seems like all of my blown calls from the preseason guide are starting to roll now and may end up making me not look quiiiite as bad. Greene, PK Subban (two points Monday), McBain, Tavares, Hall – these players were on pace to miss my guess by 25 or 30 points. It now looks like it will be 5-15 for most of them. Why do I get the feeling that the two guys who wrote angry hatemail will not be writing apology notes if this happens?
Yeah, it’s official, as hinted at yesterday – with McCabe out, Kulikov is starting to break out a little. McCabe is out for 4-6 weeks.
Guess who has points in 10 of his last 11 games? Mike Santorelli.
Olli Jokinen has 16 points in his last 18 games.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored his first career NHL goal
Dany Heatley has three consecutive two-point games. In fact, the last five games in which he picked up a point, he tallied exactly two.
A situation to keep an eye on, as warned in the preseason guide – Henrik Karlsson. He stole a point for Calgary after Kipper blew it. He has allowed just four goals on 65 shots in his last three appearances.
Kipper has allowed 13 goals in his last 72 shots faced.
Benoit Pouliot missed the game with the flu.
Sergei Shirokov has been recalled by the Canucks. He has 33 in 39 games for the Moose, including a 12-game points streak that is snapped thanks to this recall. He has 15 points in those 12 games. Shirokov is a potential Windex Boy.
How did that sound? I like it. Thanks for the idea 4T2!
With Chris Mason out with a sprained knee, Pavelec will obviously rack up the games for the next three weeks or more.
Jonathan Bernier had his second straight strong start after hitting a bit of a slump. He took the loss, but both of his goals allowed were on the power play.
Most of you remember the great new app that I introduced to you about a year ago – Pick’em First. Well, now they’ve upgraded a couple of features and are offering a premium subscription. Very handy for those with multiple fantasy teams. Info on the features can be found here. And to get the special discount that they are offering DobberHockey readers ($2.99 instead of $4.99) you can click here.
New server update. I’ve noticed a nice improvement in load time now that we’re on the new server. I’m not ready to say that current forum posts are 100% guaranteed to not be lost, in case we have to go back in time and run the site from an earlier time stamp – but I’m 99.9% certain you’re safe. The Frozen Pool feature is back online, but now we have to get some of the recent games in there, and there is something finicky with the “last game lines” link. But making progress…