Ryan Miller’s struggles, DJ Zbad cooking with oil, Tomas Tatar – 30 goal scorer? and more…

 

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It was a relatively injury free Saturday of NHL action, although Sidney Crosby didn’t play because he’s been drinking too much brain and nerve tonic (it’s like there’s a party in his cheek and everyone is invited). 

 

Jonathan Toews made it back from his apparent head injury to face the Islanders though, and while Shea Weber and Patrice Bergeron left their respective games with apparent injuries, both ultimately returned and seemed not too much worse for wear.

 

We’ll see if we learn more today or tomorrow, Bergeron in particular could be nursing a broken hand or something, so if you own either player I’d probably set up a google alert.

 

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William Foley, the leader of Las Vegas Hockey-Vision and a prospective NHL owner, really wants a potential Las Vegas NHL team to be called the “Black Knights.” That’s just truly awful.

 

I’m reminded that the original owner of the New Jersey Devils wanted that team to be called the Meadowlanders, which would have been a travesty. Hopefully the Black Knights nickname meets a similar fate.

 

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On Saturday afternoon, the Boston Bruins blew two one-goal leads before falling to the Ottawa Senators in a shootout. The weighted coin flip gave new Senators coach Dave Cameron – who made his mark on the Senators by scratching veteran defender Chris Phillips and replacing him with the much better Patrick Wiercioch – his first win as an NHL bench boss.

 

Mike Zibanejad scored one of Ottawa’s goals and added a shootout marker to remain scrorching hot. In his past six games, Zibanejad now has five goals and seven points, and perhaps more importantly has taken 19 shots. Until this latest stretch of quality games, the skilled two-way center was taking a couple shots per game. If he can maintain his new three-plus per game clip though, while continuing to drive play, the Senators could really have something here (and you could too, if he’s available on your waiver wire).

 

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Zdeno Chara had what I might describe as a tentative game, and he was benched in the overtime period. He doesn’t quite look like himself yet, but hopefully that’s just rust.

 

I tend to think that Chara *has* lost his fastball as an incomparable two-way force, and obviously the best defender of the post-Pronger era, but he’s coming down from a high-ceiling. Even if he’s not quite 2009-2013 Chara, he’s still likely to be a top-10 NHL defender, not to mention a useful fantasy asset.

 

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The Flyers steamrolled the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1 in the other Saturday matinee.

 

Sean Couturier picked up another goal and has now managed a point in every Flyers game this month, a six game point streak. Couturier’s shot rate and ice-time is flat, but he’s become a more prominent part of the Flyers’ typically dangerous power-play as the season has gone along. It’ll be very interesting to see if he can continue to be productive at a higher rate than he’s managed in his first few seasons.

 

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Flyers center Scott Laughton scored his first career goal. Laughton has aced the eye test in his rookie season, even though his underlying numbers are somewhat less than astounding (which isn’t unexpected for a 20-year-old player).

 

Anyway, I’m a huge fan of his game. I used to track the Oshawa Generals pretty closely when he was in the OHL – largely because I was blogging about the Canucks at the time, and Nicklas Jensen was on the team (later Cole Cassels). On a loaded Generals club that employed guys like Jensen, Boone Jenner, Lucas Lessio, Christian Thomas – Laughton’s game always stood out to me as particularly effective, and impressive.

 

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The Buffalo Sabres are 9-3 over the past month, which is preposterous. No wonder we’re beginning to hear rumors about Tim Murray being willing to trade a goaltender! Both Jhonas Enroth and Michal Neuvirth have been playing out of their minds during this stretch, so sell high young man!

 

Honestly, people love to make up reasons for a team starting to do well – confidence! Belief! Out-working opponents! – when sometimes it’s just blind luck (or a hot streak from a goaltender). That’s what’s happening to the Sabres right now, and don’t bother kidding yourself – it’s simply luck and insane goaltending. 

 

For all that the club is racking up wins, they’re also controlling a brutal 36.4 percent of Corsi events over their last month of games. These wins aren’t going to continue, the Sabres remain the worst team in hockey, and if you’re looking to explain what changed to allow Buffalo to start winning games, all you need to know is that .950 goaltending covers up a lot of hockey sins.

 

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Whether or not Buffalo’s wins are a mirage, it’s really cool to see former London Knights defender Nikita Zadorov score the overtime winner. The big Russian defenseman is one of those giant guys with a hilariously deep voice, and when I’ve interviewed him in the past he’s seemed significantly more curious than your average major junior player. Particularly, he’s always come off as very eager to chat, just to try and soak up more english.

 

Then he gets on the ice and he has that mean-spiritedness that every team in hockey wants in a defenseman…

 

Anyway, the heavy hitting defender has been logging insane minutes for the Sabres all year, and is regularly over 20 minutes recently. He’s also actually leading all Buffalo defenseman in shot attempt differential. His Corsi For percentage is below 40, but it’s the best mark relative to his overmatched teammates – which ain’t nothing. 

 

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Sean Bergenheim managed a goal and an assist in the Panthers loss, and also took five shots on goal. Bergenheim is a high-end volume shooter, whose posted auspicious peripheral numbers with a high degree of consistency over the past few seasons. It never worked out for him in Florida, and he particularly clashed with Kevin Dineen, but in the right situation I think Bergenheim could be an enormous help to a contender.

 

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The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Detroit Red Wings for the second time this week, and this time they legitimately deserved the victory! 

 

The Maple Leafs pummeled the Red Wings both on the scoreboard (they won 4-1) and on the shotclock, where they recorded over 40 shots on goal.