November 30, 2014

Thomas Drance

2014-11-30

Sunday thoughts on a pair of extensions, Buffalo’s hot streak, and the Dallas Stars’ defensive issues.

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The Montreal Canadiens announced a six-year contract extension for forward Brendan Gallagher on Saturday. The deal will carry a $3.75 million cap-hit, and is worth over $22 million in total. I guess Marc Bergevin learned his lesson regarding bridge contracts with P.K. Subban…

This is an absolutely fantastic deal for a secondary scoring forward. The deal only purchases two of Gallagher’s UFA years, but at $3.75 million he’ll provide good value if he’s just the Canadiens’ sixth best forward through his scoring prime. He’s likely to be much, much better than that.

A gritty forward who excels at the net front despite his lack of size, Gallagher is the NHL’s 13th most prolific volume shooter over the past three seasons. He’s also an ace play driver. All 12 of the skaters with whom Gallagher has spent at least 100 even-strength minutes skating alongside did better by Corsi For percentage with Gallagher than they’ve done away from him.

The contract breakdown is pretty interesting, in that it’s front loaded (likely for escrow protection), but also back loaded (in terms of signing bonuses). The signing bonuses serve as lockout protection, but it’s a pretty odd structure overall.

Anyway the Canadiens have some cost certainty for a very good top-six forward who will likely outperform the value of his deal significantly over the coming six seasons. Now Bergevin’s attention likely turns to Alex Galchenyuk.

He’s had a pretty decent fall.

Elsewhere the Minnesota Wild gambled that Marco Scandella’s impressive start to the season wasn’t a mirage, signing the 24-year-old defender to a five-year, $20 million contract extension.

While Gallagher celebrated his extension with a controversial goal, Scandella celebrated his with a controversial head shot on T.J. Oshie.

Scandella doesn’t have quite the track record that Gallagher does, but his deal buys out two UFA years and the market for capable defenders has exploded in recent seasons. In terms of his possession abilities, Scandella has improved in recent seasons and has improved the Corsi For percentage of nine of the 13 teammates he’s spent at least 250 minutes over the past two years. Those aren’t slam dunk results, but they’re decent.

This year Scandella’s shot rate has exploded (which is worth noting for fantasy owners). In fact he’s got a top-20 shot rate among regular NHL defenseman at five-on-five through the first 20 or so games of the year, which is good to see from a two-way guy. He’ll surely score 10-12 goals if he keeps getting pucks through at that rate.

Overall It’s a decent deal and Scandella could provide solid value over the life of this contract, but there’s some not unsignificant uncertainty here. I still consider Scandella to be something of an unknown quantity and the Wild had a few arbitration eligible RFA years remaining if they’d decided to grind him down a bit.

So I somewhat question the timing here, though perhaps the Wild just figured that extensions for Jakes Muzzin and Gardiner (among others) already set the market, so why not dive in?

Okay let’s move onto a Sunday ramblings staple: the quick and dirty injury news recap.

The Boston Bruins will officially be without captain Zdeno Chara and first-line center David Krejci on their upcoming, four-game West Coast swing. The trip takes them through California to face the three kaiju and finishes off in Glendale, Ariz. against a much less imposing opponent (more on that later).

I’m really high on the Bruins overall, but even I think they’re going to be in tough to manage four points on this trip. At least there’s some light at the end of the tunnel as Sportsnet’s Damien Cox reported on Saturday that Chara is targeting Dec. 11 as a potential date of return.

San Jose Sharks forward Logan Couture was admitted to the hospital with an illness (probably not the mumps) on Saturday morning. On Saturday night, he scored two goals in the first period to help the reeling Sharks flatten the Anaheim Ducks. Pretty impressive.

Penguins defenseman Kris Letang was a mysterious late scratch on Saturday night. That news was initially greeted by concern, particularly because of Letang’s medical history. Luckily it seems that the injury is minor and Letang shouldn’t miss too much time.

The offensive minded defender has managed 18 points in 22 games and is a top-25 fantasy player in a standard Yahoo league that counts G,A,+/-,PPP,SOG, and HITs as cats.

Worth noting: in Letang’s absence Olli Maatta and not Christian Ehrhoff took over Letang’s usual spot at the top of Pittsburgh’s potent umbrella power-play formation.

Toronto Maple Leafs grinder Leo Komarov was tagged by a David Steckel style accidentally on-purpose hit thrown by Alex Ovechkin on Saturday. Afterwards Ovechkin walked into the Leafs training room to apologize and give Komarov a hug, because everyone loves Leo!

Komarov is undergoing concussion protocol, so hopefully he’s not out for too long, but he certainly could be. Komarov isn’t a super valuable fantasy piece, but he’s third in the league in hits this season with 96 and has managed 12 assists. He definitely has some fringe value in deeper leagues.

Finally Tampa Bay Lightning No. 1 defenseman Victor Hedman returned to the lineup in the Lightning’s convincing 4-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. Hedman appeared to be getting eased into the lineup, as he played under 20 minutes in total (fewer minutes than Jason Garrison and Anton Stralman).

On the other hand maybe that’s just the new norm in Tampa Bay this year, after all Hedman was playing very sparingly at even-strength before his broken hand injury.

Whatever, at least Hedman was back to leading all Lightning defenders in power-play ice-time, finished a +2, managed three shots on goal and a pair of hits, and led all Lightning forwards in Corsi For percentage. Solid return, really, not that anything less is expected of the big Swede.

Let’s actually stick with the Lightning and the Senators, because there were some interesting things going on in this one. Like Brett Connolly, who I didn’t think would even be a member of the Lightning this late in the season, playing well over 18 minutes on Saturday night.

Connolly also appears to have got first power-play unit time, as he logged nearly four minutes with the man-advantage. Connolly didn’t manage any points, but five shots and five hits will play; particularly if we might reasonably expect his usage to remain consistent.

That’s a sucker bet though, but Connolly was playing on an intriguing forward line with Valtteri Filppula and Jonathan Drouin for mots of the game and they crushed by shot attempt differential (to the tune of a 65 percent Corsi For). The Lightning are embarrassingly deep and Jon Cooper has been shuffling players in and out of the lineup all year, not letting anyone gather cobwebs for too long, but surely he can’t ignore that level of success.

If that’s your third-line and your first is led by Steven Stamkos (he played with Ryan Callahan and Alex Killorn on Saturday), and your second is that killer Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov scoring trio, you’re, well, you’re probably a Stanley Cup contender…

Let’s back it up to the matinee game, in which the New York Rangers beat down on the Philadelphia Flyers 5-2.

Derick Brassard’s stellar season continued as he managed two goals, one on the power-play, four shots and three hits. Meanwhile J.T. Miller, who was called up from the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League to play in place of Chris Kreider whose grandfather sadly passed away this week, managed to score a goal, recorded an assist, finished a +2, took five shots on goal and threw a couple of hits.

Miller even got a brief look on the power-play, which when Alain Vigneault is your coach and you’re a young player, means he really, really likes you. That hasn’t always been the case in the past, you might recall.

It’ll be interesting to see if Miller can remain with the Rangers once Kreider returns early next week. Certainly the 2011 first-round draft pick has the sort of pedigree where we might reasonably imagine him developing into a very interesting secondary force, or even more. Certainly his return to the NHL got off to a solid start on Saturday night.

Jakub Voracek managed his 11th multi point game of the season, which is insane, because it was only his 23rd game played. Voracek remains sandwiched between Sidney Crosby and Tyler Seguin for the NHL scoring lead, but man, he’s just been completely dominant all year long.

Looking deeper into Voracek’s production paints a very impressive picture. The skilled Czech-born winger has the best on-ice shot attempt differential among Flyers forwards, and his personal shooting percentage (just a hair over 12 percent) isn’t insanely out of line with what he’s managed for his career.

There are some warning signs that his production might be something of a mirage though, in particular his elevated on-ice shooting percentage at even-strength (it’s well above 10%, so some regression is likely) and his sky-high individual point percentage (which sits above 94 percent).

Still we’re talking about the eighth most efficient even-strength point producer among all NHL forwards at the quarter pole, and the 12th most efficient power-play point producer among all NHL forwards. Put that together: you’ve got a super elite fantasy asset.

Want to know who the NHL’s most efficient even-strength point producer is (based on points per sixty minutes of five-on-five ice-time, minimum of 200 minutes of time-on-ice)? It’s Vancouver Canucks center Nick Bonino. Just a weird bit of trivia.

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The Washington Capitals got thrashed by the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-2 on Saturday. Tyler Bozak scored twice and managed a power-play point, while Joffrey Lupul – who recently returned from injury – recorded two power-play points (a goal and an assist), finished with a +1, threw three hits, took a shot on goal and added a couple of penalty minutes for good measure. Nice little fantasy game for him.

I’m more interested in talking about Tom Wilson though. Wilson is a possession drag who shouldn’t be playing top-line minutes, but he is (at even strength), and so long as he is, he has value. He had a monster fantasy outing on Saturday with a goal, five shots, four hits and 15(!) penalties in minutes. Absurd stuff.

The Buffalo Sabres defeated the Montreal Canadiens for a second straight game and are now on a hilarious hot-streak, having won five of their past six. Tim Murray’s collar is getting mighty, mighty tight around his neck, I’d imagine.

Don’t worry though Sabres fans (and don’t worry GM Murray!), Buffalo has not played well of late despite the winning results. Since November 14th when the winning streak begun the Sabres have received .958 save percentage goaltending, while still controlling 38 percent of shot attempt events (all strengths). They’re the only team in the NHL below 40 percent by shot attempt differential over that stretch by the way.

The New Jersey Devils are going in the wrong direction, and actually, are the fifth worst team by Corsi For percentage (five-on-five) over the past two weeks. It’s a small sample, but it’s a sign this team isn’t exactly trending in the right direction after a solid start to the year.

On Saturday they were flattened by the New York Islanders in a 3-1 game that was more lopsided than the score indicates.

Some relevant fantasy notes by the way, Severson continues to play top-pair minutes and is among the top 20 blue-liners in even-strength shot rate. He managed five shots on goal on Saturday and continues to provide significant value in this cat, particularly from a blue-line slot.

Nikolai Kulemin scored a goal on Saturday and was playing with the John Tavares/Kyle Okposo line. That line did pretty well despite a significant defensive bias to their territorial deployment, so we might expect them to get a longer look. Johnny Boychuk didn’t play on Saturday and neither did Lubomir Visnovsky, though neither player is expected to be out long-term.

The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2, and it was a pretty tight game. The Hurricanes have been much improved and are beginning to look like the real pretender to play themselves out of the Connor McDavid sweepstakes.

I’ve been particularly impressed with Victor Rask, who doesn’t have fantasy value yet, but has two-way skills to burn.

UPCOMING GAMES

Dec 27 - 19:12	DET	vs	TOR
Dec 27 - 19:12	BUF	vs	CHI
Dec 27 - 19:12	CBJ	vs	BOS
Dec 27 - 19:12	N.J	vs	CAR
Dec 27 - 20:12	DAL	vs	MIN
Dec 27 - 20:12	STL	vs	NSH
Dec 27 - 21:12	UTA	vs	COL
Dec 27 - 22:12	S.J	vs	VGK