Fantasy hockey ramblings recapping a jam-packed Thursday night of NHL action…

 

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Oh My Gosh… the first Thursday night of hockey. Such a jam-packed night. I must have caught bits of 8 different games. What fun. These ramblings are loaded so grab a cup of coffee and strap in.

 

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The Canadiens should feel really fortunate to escape last night's game with a tie. They played a terrible first period at one point getting outshot 14-0. It took until a late power play to get their first shot on goal. At the end of the period the shot differential was 15-2 and the scoreboard read Washingon 1 – Montreal 0. That's two games in a row where the Canadiens got off to a poor start. One more and we can call it a trend.

 

There were some positives to take away here. The Canadiens did pick things up as the game went along, including making a great push in the third period to tie things up.

 

They also did a good job shutting down the Capitals' vaunted power play, which went 0/5. It's not hard to tell what the Caps want to do – setup an Alexander Ovechkin one-timer – but it's still much harder to stop than it would seem. But the Caps' lethal power play unit was held off the board, keeping the Canadiens in the game.

 

The Capitals' top power play unit consisted of Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Marcus Johansson, Troy Brouwer and John Carlson.

 

Capitals fans surely lamented the presence of Johansson on this unit after the miserable shooting season he had last year. Johansson score just eight goals last year but six of those came on the power play where he was largely effective. It was at even strength where he managed just two scores and struggled mightily, helping to drag down assist totals for Ovechkin.

 

The good news on this front was that Eric Fehr was skating up on the top line with Ovechkin and Backstrom in Johansson's stead.

 

Carlson drew onto the top unit with Mike Green sitting out injured.

 

This is just habitual for Green who is a notorious Band-Aid Boy. Still, he can get you 40 points even if he only skates 60 games. A frustrating own for sure but still a top defenseman even with the injuries factored in. He posts great numbers in SOG and Hits categories for those of you in multi-cat leagues.

 

I wonder if having Carlson on the point didn't make things easier for the Canadiens' penalty kill. He's proven to be inconsistent as a shooter at this level. He did score career highs in goals (10) and power-play goals (5) last season and has never scored fewer than six goals in a full season as an NHLer but I still don't respect him on the level of Green and I suspect neither do opposing defenses. I'll be interested to see where Carlson slots in while Green is in the lineup.

 

Also worth mentioning, Matt Niskanen was on the second power play unit. His power play ice time could vanish when Green returns, which is the big reason why he is projected to regress this season.

 

The lone Capitals score came on a brutal turnover by PK Subban. Just inexcusable. Caps rookie Andre Burakovsky was the one to score it, his first NHL goal.

 

Burakovsky had an impressive debut even outside of the goal. I really liked the speed and creativity with which he played. Right now, you'd have to favour him to Evgeni Kuznetsov in the Calder race. He has a bigger role in the lineup, though both are skating on the second power play unit.

 

Final Capitals thought: you can expect Ovechkin to be the first one called out by the new diving judges. I score this one a 6.5.

 

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The Canadiens also struggled on the power play in this one. As I said in yesterday's ramblings, I hate their second unit with Tomas Plekanec, Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk. The top unit with David Desharnais, Max Pacioretty and PA Parenteau just moves the puck so much better.

 

It was that second group which eventually tied the game however. Well, they tied it at even strength where they are much more effective. It was Plekanec's third goal of the season. He looks like their MVP so far. Probably deserves to where the "C" if they were to give one out. I'm still putting him down for 50 points because that second power play unit is no good.

 

Dustin Tokarski played a really good game in this one. You could definitely say he stole them this victory. Looks like the Canadiens made the right choice dealing Peter Budaj.

 

Alexei Emelin left the game late in the third and did not return. No word on his status yet.

 

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The Penguins-Ducks game was really fun. Just two strong, fast teams playing a wide-open affair. Not a game for goaltending.

 

The Ducks power play was absolutely humming in this one, which is a great sign for the Ducks who struggled with the man advantage last season. It's pretty obvious that Ryan Kesler is a huge boon to that unit. The threat of his shot is another weapon to go along with Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf.

 

Also a good fit on the top power play unit, Sami Vatanen. He looks so much more composed out there than he did last season. He could be this year's Krug/Barrie defensive breakout. He's a power play specialist who is finally ready to perform. He notched two power play assists in this one.

 

Perry scored a hat-trick in this one. Partly because of the dominant power play where he scored two goals but also because the line was simply dominant, period. He and Getzlaf had Patrick Maroon riding shotgun in this one, filling in for the injured Dany Heatley's corpse.

 

I don't see Maroon as a long term fit here. He was just okay and doesn't offer much of a weapon other than being huge. He did register an assist on Perry's first goal but that was more because of Marc-Andre Fleury's secondary assist. Maroon was also on the top power play unit as a net-front presence but again, I don't see him there long term, even if the power play did click on three of six chances.

 

By the way, Kesler got a goal and two assists in an impressive debut. All three points came on the power play. I think we can expect a good portion of his scoring to come on the man-advantage, his line at even strength is nice but not really a scoring unit. His linemates were the speedy Andrew Cogliano and Jakob Silfverberg. This is good company for Silfverberg is he's going to start scoring at this level.

 

It's also worth noting that Cam Fowler skated in this one despite some injury concerns. That's a positive but with Vatanen looking so good we should probably lower expectations for Fowler. It'll be hard to score more than 35-40 points if he's not on the top power play unit.

 

John Gibson got lit up in this one for his first career NHL loss. Hard to fault him though as the Penguins were dangerous all night. Still, it's not a good sign if you were hoping for Gibson to steal some starts.

 

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Patric Hornqvist is obviously going to be a hit in Pittsburgh. He scored a goal and an assist in this one skating on the top line and top power play unit. That unit looked fairly impressive scoring on one of four tries.

 

Joining Hornqvist were Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz and Kris Letang. So he basically joins the second best power play in the league, filling in for James Neal. He may not be as strong a shooter as Neal but being a righty shot helps make one-timers easier for him so he's a really good fit.

 

I still don't like Letang on the point of that top unit and would rather see Christian Ehrhoff there but the Rolling Stones had some important advice about that.

 

Malkin skated in this one despite missing all of training camp with an injury. It was pretty clear that he wasn't up to speed with the Penguins' new systems. He skated on the wing to help ease his transition. He may have looked a bit lost but he wasn't without his usual creativity.

 

Malkin helped Pascal Dupuis come back with a bang. Dupuis had a goal, three assists and had another goal disallowed. Not bad for a guy with a bionic knee. Obviously Dupuis only has so much upside seeing only second unit power play time but he proved that 60 points is a possibility with the linemates he gets.

 

I was really impressed with the patience showed by the Penguins defensemen on their breakouts. Olli Maatta got three assists in this one at least partially because of some impressive breakout passes. He also showed good proactivity jumping into the rush. I still think he'll be one of those guys who is more valuable in real life than in fantasy but 35 points is possible just off strong breakout passes with the horses up front.

 

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Last night was an excellent display of the two separate faces of the Philadelphia Flyers. On one hand, they've got some horrible defense and shaky goaltending, which was on full display last night. You could argue that there wasn't much Steve Mason could do to keep the puck out with some of the high percentage chances the Flyers' porous D was giving up but I won't make that argument. Mason is a guy I won't touch in fantasy.

 

The pairing of Luke Schenn and Michael Del Zotto was abhorrent last night, going a combined minus-nine. That doesn't say it all since Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux went a combined minus-eight but the latter two suffered from having to be on the ice with the former two. These two might want to make a Happy Gilmore-esque transition to golf.

 

The Flyers also displayed how prolific their offense can be. After going down 3-0 they stormed back to tie the game with three goals in the final five minutes of the second period, including two goals in the final seven seconds by Wayne Simmonds.

 

Ultimately the Flyers lost the game because they are just a terrible defensive team but this team will be good to fantasy players as they should be playing in some high-scoring games just like this one. Even Vinny Lecavalier's statue got in on the scoring with a goal and an assist.

 

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Not the start to the season Cory Schneider owners were necessarily hoping for. Last season he was a save percentage dynamo. The Devils did give up 39 shots so Schneider's numbers weren't horrible but we expect a lot more from the stingy devils and their star netminder.

 

I'm afraid that the offensive explosion by the Devils might give away some unrealistic expectations. Jaromir Jagr, Michael Cammalleri, Michael Ryder and Adam Henrique all had multi-point evenings.