CAROLINA HURRICANESdownloads.hurricanes.nhl.com/clips/clips112517.pdf · The Hurricanes close out...
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CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Maple Leafs manage to hold off Hurricanes in third
By Chip Alexander
November 24, 2017 10:01 PM
RALEIGH The Toronto Maple Leafs scored four times in the second period Friday but couldn’t flatten the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Leafs had to hold off the hard-charging Canes in the third for a 5-4 win at PNC Arena.
The Canes trailed 4-1 after the second period and 5-2 in the third. But goals by Carolina’s Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin pulled the Canes within 5-4 in a tense final four minutes.
The Leafs took control in the second when Zach Hyman scored in the first minute of the period. Josh Leivo scored off the rush, former Canes defenseman Ron Hainsey had a goal and James van Riemsdyk picked up the Leafs’ fourth in an impressive period of hockey.
Only the work of goalie Frederik Andersen in the first kept the Leafs from possibly falling behind. The Canes dominated the period, getting off 14 shots to the Leafs’ four.
Andersen, once a Carolina draft pick, made all the plays, all the stops. He twice denied center Victor Rask, a healthy scratch for Carolina the past two games, and made a handful of strong stops to keep it a scoreless game after 20 minutes.
Derek Ryan scored off a Jeff Skinner pass in the second, and Jordan Staal scored early in the third on a delayed-penalty sequence. Patrick Marleau’s power-play goal-- after a questionable goaltender interference call against Skinner -- boosted the Leafs’ lead to 5-2 but the Canes kept pushing, outshooting the Leafs 47-25 in the ga,e.
The Canes were coming off a brutal 6-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Wednesday that led to a Thanksgiving Day practice, and Canes coach Bill Peters gave veteran goalie Cam Ward the start. The Canes had a lot of jump in the first period, but loose plays and missed defensive assignments in their zone were costly in the second.
By the third, Ward was out and Scott Darling in net. Marleau scored, but Lindholm’s goal came on second effort in front of the net and Hanifin’s score made for an exciting finish.
The Canes close their home stand Sunday against the Nashville Predators and then comes the real grind: 10 of 12 games on the road.
Canes' comeback falls just short against Toronto Maple Leafs
Toronto, Canada — The Carolina Hurricanes nearly erased a three-goal deficit in the third period but fell just short in a 5-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Four different players scored for the Hurricanes, but Patrick Marleau's power-play goal in the third period ultimately proved to be the difference.
Final 1 2 3 Tot
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Toronto 0 4 1 5
Carolina 0 1 3 4
Preview | Box | Gameview | Recap
Three Stars
1: James van Riemsdyk, Tor (1G, 1A)
2: Jeff Skinner, Car (2A)
3: Frederik Andersen, Tor (43 Saves)
Copyright © 2017 by STATS LLC.
All rights reserved.
Here are five takeaways from this post-Thanksgiving tilt:
One
A loss is a loss, and the result the Hurricanes got tonight equaled the exact number of points they earned against the New York Rangers on Wednesday.
"We've got to find a way to come out on the right side of those," Jeff Skinner said. "The results are the exact same: you miss two points that you could have had."
But, all losses aren't created equally. To properly judge this game requires a deeper assessment. Yes, the Hurricanes have given up too many goals in their last two games. Yes, the Hurricanes are digging themselves holes too big from which to escape. Tonight, though, the Canes showed a fight and a will that wasn't evident on Wednesday.
"We'll take the third period and try to build on the good things," Skinner said.
Two
Coming off Wednesday's discouraging 6-1 defeat, the Hurricanes wanted to respond strong. The team came out buzzing in the first period with numerous scoring chances and a 14-4 shot advantage, partially aided by two power-play opportunities. Frederik Andersen was undoubtedly the difference in the Canes taking a 1-0 or 2-0 lead to the locker room after 20 minutes.
"It was a good start. We created a lot," Jordan Staal said. "We have to keep pushing, keep playing that way and not have those lulls."
"I was happy with the period," head coach Bill Peters said. "There's no reason to get discouraged. You've just got to stay with it, keep playing and continue to generate those
types of quality chances. I thought there were good looks in the first."
Three
But then there was the second period, in which the Maple Leafs capitalized with four goals on 12 shots. Zach Hyman, Josh Leivo and former Hurricane Ron Hainsey turned a scoreless game into a 3-0 match in the first 11-and-a-half minutes of the period.
The Hurricanes got one back when Derek Ryan kicked a Jeff Skinner pass to his stick and scored five-hole on Andersen in the slot. James van Riemsdyk, older brother of the Hurricanes' Trevor, stretched the Leafs' lead back to three goals just prior to the second intermission.
"We gave up too many goals to start. There was a few too many defensive lapses," Staal said. "We've got to tighten up."
"We've given up too many goals," Peters said. "I don't think we're going to outscore our decisions and mistakes. That's probably the thing we need to clean up ASAP."
Four
Down three heading into the third period, the Hurricanes could have again folded until the sound of the final horn.
But, to the Canes' credit, that's not what happened.
"There are a few guys in the room between the second and third that said we're not quitting on this game. We did that against the Rangers, and we weren't going to do that again," Staal said. "We made a push in the third. It was good to see everyone working and battling but tough to come up short."
Staal got the Canes back within two goals with his seventh of the season just over three minutes into the third period.
An unfortunate sequence followed shortly after. With the Canes playing with some life, Skinner skated out from behind the net, crossing right above the crease. Andersen stepped up, leaned into Skinner and then flopped like a fish out of water, drawing a goaltender interference call on the Canes' incredulous forward.
"That's a big point in the game. I thought I was just skating, that's all," Skinner said. "I didn't hear anything. I was probably doing most of the talking there. I didn't get an explanation."
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
"I thought it was outside the blue paint. I didn't think there was much there, and I don't know if we were the actual ones who initiated the contact. I sure didn't think there was much," Peters said. "That ends up resulting in the game-winning goal, so that's a big call."
Sure enough, on the ensuing power play, Marleau banged home his ninth of the season, what turned out to be the game-winner.
"It's their winning goal. We did a good job getting a goal early in the period, and then they get one on the power play," Skinner said. "We come back, and we're just a goal short. It's tough. Those moments happen."
At the time, that goal wasn't what got the Canes into their 5-2 predicament, but it certainly loomed large considering the one-goal differential in the final score.
Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin scored goals about two minutes apart to make things interesting down the stretch, but the Hurricanes could not find the equalizer.
"I thought we did a good job of trying to come back and creating offense," Staal said. "We had some good looks right at the end, too."
"I was angry, but you've got to find a way to channel that. I think guys did a good job. Lindy got a big goal there for us, and then Hani followed it up. We were pressing there in the last couple minutes," Skinner said. "We had chances and opportunities to score, even in the last minute. … We just couldn't get that one."
Five
Victor Rask drew back into the lineup tonight after sitting out the last two games as a healthy scratch. It was a bit of a mental reset for the young Swedish center, whose production had gone a bit dry as of late.
Though he didn't factor in on the scoresheet tonight, he did a lot of good things. He was in the right places offensively and could have scored a pair of goals in the first period was it not for the play of Andersen.
Rask finished the night a plus-3 in 14:10 of ice time. He registered four shots on goal and three hits.
Up Next
The Hurricanes close out their four-game homestand when they face off with the defending Western Conference champion Nashville Predators on Sunday at 1 p.m.
"It's a big game for us, another big game. It's going to be a good challenge for us," Skinner said. "We'll be ready for it."
Second period dooms Hurricanes in 5-4 loss to Leafs
Carolina dominates the first and last period, but Toronto scores four times in the middle frame
November 25, 2017 Cory Lavalette
RALEIGH — As has been the case often this season, the Carolina Hurricanes controlled much of their game Friday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Hurricanes had a dominant first period in which they outshot the Leafs 14-4 and Toronto managed just one shot at even strength. But Toronto goalie Frederik Andersen — a one-time seventh-round pick of the Hurricanes who opted to re-enter the draft rather than sign with Carolina — was the difference, making several key stops to keep the opening period scoreless.
Then trailing in the third, Carolina pushed and scored three times to try and rally.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Toronto, however, did the bulk of its damage in the second period, scoring four times en route to a 5-4 win at PNC Arena.
“I think we maybe got a little bit impatient, is why we forced some things in the middle part of the game,” Carolina coach Bill Peters said. “But … you know it doesn’t work. You gotta stay structured, you gotta play the game the right way.”
Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin scored down the stretch to make it a one-goal game, but Andersen (43 saves) again answered the bell by making several stops when the Hurricanes had an extra attacker to close out the game.
The difference wound up being a third period power play goal by Patrick Marleau that came after a questionable goaltender interference call against Jeff Skinner.
Skinner and Andersen came together, with the latter appearing to be making the contact before falling. Skinner, who was visibly angry with the call and admitted so afterward, went to the box and watched as Auston Matthews found Marleau alone at the far post to beat Scott Darling — who relieved Cam Ward to start the third period — to push the lead to 5-2.
“It was a big goal for them. It was their winning goal, I think,” Skinner said while carefully choosing his words. “It’s … it’s a big point in the game. I thought, yeah, I thought I was just skating.”
Peters seemed less than thrilled with the officiating as well when asked about the Skinner call and a couple others during the game.
“I thought it was outside the blue paint,” he said. “I didn’t think there was much there and I don’t know if we were the actual ones who initiated the contact. I sure didn’t think there was much. So that ends up resulting in the game-winning goal, so it’s a big call.”
The Skinner infraction and subsequent goal came shortly after Jordan Staal had scored on a delayed penalty 3:08 into the third to make it 4-2 and bring to life the crowd of 15,241.
The Lindholm and Hanifin goals cut the lead to one, but Carolina — which outshot the Leafs 47-25, including 20-9 in the third — couldn’t get the equalizer by Andersen.
“Just a few too many defensive lapses,” Staal said. “Little plays, but they made us pay. When you let in five goals as a group, the odds of you getting a win are very slim.”
The lapses came early in the second and carried throughout the entire period.
First, after Cam Ward (12 saves on 16 shots) failed to clear the puck out of the zone, Jake Gardiner lured Ward out of the net and fed the puck to Zach Hyman in the goal mouth for a tap-in and a 1-0 lead just 53 seconds into the middle frame.
The Maple Leafs stretched the lead to two when Josh Leivo came blazing up the left wing and beat Ward in the glove side corner at 7:14.
Another ex-Hurricane stung Carolina when Ron Hainsey collected a loose puck off the boards and picked the stick-side top corner on Ward for a 3-0 lead just past the game’s midway point.
The Hurricanes finally cracked the Leafs and Andersen at 13:35 of the second.
Skinner ripped a shot that Andersen fended off, but the Carolina forward got his own rebound and found Derek Ryan alone at the doorstep. Ryan quickly went skate to stick and deposited the puck past Andersen for his fifth goal of the year to make it 3-1.
Toronto, however, had an answer for that goal. James van Riemsdyk shot a puck off the right post and it redirected off Ward’s skate an in for a three-goal cushion with 96 seconds left in the second.
That was it for Ward, who was replaced with Darling to start the third. Darling earned the loss because he allowed the power play goal to Marleau, which wound up as the game-winner.
Notes: Victor Rask returned to the lineup and had four shots on goal and three hits in 14:10. He ended up a game-best plus-3 despite not registering a point. … With an assist, Teuvo Teravainen extended his point streak to six games. Sebastian Aho’s five-game goal scoring and point streak was snapped. … Justin Faulk was credited with 15 shots attempts (four on goal) and eight hits.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Recap: Canes' Comeback Falls Just Short Against Leafs
by Michael Smith @MSmithCanes / CarolinaHurricanes.com
November 24th, 2017
The Carolina Hurricanes nearly erased a three-goal deficit in the third period but fell just short in a 5-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Four different players scored for the Hurricanes, but Patrick Marleau's power-play goal in the third period ultimately proved to be the difference.
Here are five takeaways from this post-Thanksgiving tilt.
One
A loss is a loss, and the result the Hurricanes got tonight equaled the exact number of points they earned against the New York Rangers on Wednesday.
"We've got to find a way to come out on the right side of those," Jeff Skinner said. "The results are the exact same: you miss two points that you could have had."
But, all losses aren't created equally. To properly judge this game requires a deeper assessment. Yes, the Hurricanes have given up too many goals in their last two games. Yes, the Hurricanes are digging themselves holes too big from which to escape. Tonight, though, the Canes showed a fight and a will that wasn't evident on Wednesday.
"We'll take the third period and try to build on the good things," Skinner said.
Two
Coming off Wednesday's discouraging 6-1 defeat, the Hurricanes wanted to respond strong. The team came out buzzing in the first period with numerous scoring chances and a 14-4 shot advantage, partially aided by two power-play opportunities. Frederik Andersen was undoubtedly the difference in the Canes taking a 1-0 or 2-0 lead to the locker room after 20 minutes.
"It was a good start. We created a lot," Jordan Staal said. "We have to keep pushing, keep playing that way and not have those lulls."
"I was happy with the period," head coach Bill Peters said. "There's no reason to get discouraged. You've just got to stay with it, keep playing and continue to generate those types of quality chances. I thought there were good looks in the first."
Three
But then there was the second period, in which the Maple Leafs capitalized with four goals on 12 shots. Zach Hyman, Josh Leivo and former Hurricane Ron Hainsey turned a scoreless game into a 3-0 match in the first 11-and-a-half minutes of the period.
The Hurricanes got one back when Derek Ryan kicked a Jeff Skinner pass to his stick and scored five-hole on Andersen in the slot. James van Riemsdyk, older brother of the Hurricanes' Trevor, stretched the Leafs' lead back to three goals just prior to the second intermission.
"We gave up too many goals to start. There was a few too many defensive lapses," Staal said. "We've got to tighten up."
"We've given up too many goals," Peters said. "I don't think we're going to outscore our decisions and mistakes. That's probably the thing we need to clean up ASAP."
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Four
Down three heading into the third period, the Hurricanes could have again folded until the sound of the final horn.
But, to the Canes' credit, that's not what happened.
"There are a few guys in the room between the second and third that said we're not quitting on this game. We did that against the Rangers, and we weren't going to do that again," Staal said. "We made a push in the third. It was good to see everyone working and battling but tough to come up short."
Staal got the Canes back within two goals with his seventh of the season just over three minutes into the third period.
An unfortunate sequence followed shortly after. With the Canes playing with some life, Skinner skated out from behind the net, crossing right above the crease. Andersen stepped up, leaned into Skinner and then flopped like a fish out of water, drawing a goaltender interference call on the Canes' incredulous forward.
"That's a big point in the game. I thought I was just skating, that's all," Skinner said. "I didn't hear anything. I was probably doing most of the talking there. I didn't get an explanation."
"I thought it was outside the blue paint. I didn't think there was much there, and I don't know if we were the actual ones who initiated the contact. I sure didn't think there was much," Peters said. "That ends up resulting in the game-winning goal, so that's a big call."
Sure enough, on the ensuing power play, Marleau banged home his ninth of the season, what turned out to be the game-winner.
"It's their winning goal. We did a good job getting a goal early in the period, and then they get one on the power play," Skinner said. "We come back, and we're just a goal short. It's tough. Those moments happen."
At the time, that goal wasn't what got the Canes into their 5-2 predicament, but it certainly loomed large considering the one-goal differential in the final score.
Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin scored goals about two minutes apart to make things interesting down the stretch, but the Hurricanes could not find the equalizer.
"I thought we did a good job of trying to come back and creating offense," Staal said. "We had some good looks right at the end, too."
"I was angry, but you've got to find a way to channel that. I think guys did a good job. Lindy got a big goal there for us, and then Hani followed it up. We were pressing there in the last couple minutes," Skinner said. "We had chances and opportunities to score, even in the last minute. … We just couldn't get that one."
Five
Victor Rask drew back into the lineup tonight after sitting out the last two games as a healthy scratch. It was a bit of a mental reset for the young Swedish center, whose production had gone a bit dry as of late.
Though he didn't factor in on the scoresheet tonight, he did a lot of good things. He was in the right places offensively and could have scored a pair of goals in the first period was it not for the play of Andersen.
Rask finished the night a plus-3 in 14:10 of ice time. He registered four shots on goal and three hits.
Up Next
The Hurricanes close out their four-game homestand when they face off with the defending Western Conference champion Nashville Predators on Sunday at 1 p.m.
"It's a big game for us, another big game. It's going to be a good challenge for us," Skinner said. "We'll be ready for it."
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Hurricanes vs Leafs Recap and Rank ‘em:
Canes drop 5-4 to Toronto The Leafs raked in the goals against the Canes in a wild
game.
by Justin Lape@LankyLape Nov 24, 2017, 10:13pm EST
The Carolina Hurricanes dropped a 5-4 decision to the
Toronto Maple Leafs. The Hurricanes have now allowed 11
goals over the past two games. Carolina outshot the Leafs
47-25 in Friday’s loss.
The Canes started the first period strong with an early
offensive push. Derek Ryan fed Sebastian Aho with a
smooth pass near the goal but Aho’s shot ended up in the
mesh. Carolina was gifted an early power play opportunity
after Zach Hyman tripped Teuvo Tervainen. Jeff Skinner and
Victor Rask both got off shots in close but were not able to
capitalize. Toronto Maple Leafs goalie and former Hurricane
draft pick Frederick Andersen made a stellar save on Victor
Rask at the 2:39 mark of the first period despite some great
offensive zone pressure. Soon after the save, Derek Ryan
was called for hooking but the Canes would kill off the
penalty after no shots by the Leafs. Carolina lead Toronto
14-4 in shots after the conclusion of the first period.
Toronto scored just 53 seconds into the second period on
their fifth shot of the game. Ward fell for a head fake and
ended up far out of position. Jake Gardiner fed Zach Hyman
in the crease who tapped it in for the game’s first goal.
Nazem Kadri earned the secondary assist on the goal,
extending his point streak to nine games. At 12:46 of the
second, Josh Leivo and fired a wrist shot over Ward’s glove
to put the visitors up 2-0. Former Hurricane Ron Hainsey
fired a wrist shot up high on Ward that found its way up high
with around eight minutes to go in the period to give the
Leafs a 3-0 lead. The Hurricanes responded with a behind
the net pass from Jeff Skinner that found Derek Ryan in front
who beat Andersen for his fifth goal of the season. With 1:36
in the period, James van Reimsdyk fired a shot from the
circle that went off the post and careened off the back of
Ward’s heel for the Leafs fourth goal of the game.
After Ward’s sour showing in the second period, Scott
Darling replaced him to start the third. Jordan Staal struck
early in the third period to bring the Canes within two after
the puck bounced to his stick after a bad shot attempt by
Justin Faulk. Teuvo Teravainen earned an assist as well on
the play, continuing the strong play of the TSA line. After a
questionable goalie interference call on Jeff Skinner, the
Leafs scored on the ensuing power play after a great slap
pass from Auston Matthews to Patrick Marleau who simple
tapped it in past Darling. After swapping chances back and
forth, the Canes added another goal to pull back within two
after Elias Lindholm wouldn’t be denied after multiple shots.
Noah Hanifin added another just 1:31 later to bring the game
within one goal. The Hurricanes pulled Darling with a little
over two minutes to go but to no avail. Despite some solid
offensive chances late, Andersen made a late steal to thwart
a chance at a Hurricanes comeback.
Carolina will look to end their four-game homestand on a
positive note as the Nashville Predators come to town on
Sunday afternoon. Coverage begins at 1 p.m. on Fox Sports
Carolinas.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Maple Leafs score four in second period,
hold off Hurricanes Carolina rallies but drops second straight
by Kurt Dusterberg / NHL.com Correspondent
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Toronto Maple Leafs scored four
goals in the second period, and Frederik Andersen made 43
saves in a 5-4 win against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC
Arena on Friday.
Ron Hainsey, James van Riemsdyk and Jake Gardiner each
had two points for Toronto (15-8-1).
Andersen made 14 saves in the first period to keep the game
scoreless, then held off Carolina's push in the final minutes.
"Obviously, we were holding on in the third," Hainsey said.
"He's been giving us all the goaltending we could ask for for
quite a while."
The Hurricanes (9-8-4) lost their second in a row despite late
goals from Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin that brought
Carolina within one.
Zach Hyman's fifth goal of the season gave the Maple Leafs
a 1-0 lead 53 seconds into the second period. After Nazem
Kadri held in an errant clearing attempt, Gardiner drew Cam
Ward out of the net, skated behind him and slipped the puck
to Hyman in front for a tap-in.
"We had a rocky first, and to come out and get us the lead
and get a roll going, it was important for us," Hyman said.
Toronto made it 2-0 on Josh Leivo's first goal of the season.
He chased down a long flip pass by Andreas Borgman along
the left side boards before cutting to the net and scoring
inside the far post at 7:14.
Hainsey made it 3-0 at 11:37 when he gathered a loose puck
at the top of the right circle and sent a wrist shot to the left
post.
Carolina cut Toronto's lead to 3-1 at 13:35 on Derek Ryan's
fifth of the season. Jeff Skinner followed his shot behind the
net and made a backhand pass to Ryan in the low slot.
The Maple Leafs went back up by three at 18:24 when van
Riemsdyk's shot from the slot hit the right post, bounced off
Ward's right leg and rolled back into the net to make it 4-1.
Scott Darling began the third period in relief of Ward, who
had 12 saves. Darling made eight saves.
Jordan Staal made it 4-2 when he gathered a loose puck and
scored into an open net at 3:08 of the third after Justin
Faulk's shot was blocked.
Patrick Marleau's power-play goal gave Toronto a 5-2 lead at
5:27 of the third. Auston Matthews made a hard pass to the
top of the crease, where Marleau redirected the puck for his
ninth of the season.
"I was hoping for it," Marleau said. "He made a great play
there. I just had my stick on the ice and he used me as a
backboard."
Lindholm went to the net to put in the rebound of Hanifin's
shot and make it 5-3 at 13:58. Hanifin made it 5-4 at 15:49
on a hard wrist shot from above the left circle.
Carolina pulled Darling for the extra attacker with a little more
than two minutes remaining in the third, but Andersen held
off the Hurricanes, making two saves on Ryan in close.
"Some nights are ugly. That's what it is," Toronto coach Mike
Babcock said. "They were quicker and jumped better than
us. Obviously, we scored some good goals, some timely
goals, but [Andersen] was the main event."
They said it
"It's always good to score in the NHL. I don't get any more
joy scoring against this team. I've got a lot of people over
there who helped me, and that's a team I'm rooting for. As I
said, scoring in the NHL is never a bad deal." -- Maple Leafs
defenseman Ron Hainsey, who played 300 games for
Carolina from 2013-2017
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
"We've given up too many goals obviously, six and then five.
Don't think we're going to outscore our mistakes. That's the
thing we need to clear up ASAP." -- Hurricanes coach Bill
Peters on consecutive losses, including 6-1 against the New
York Rangers on Wednesday
Need to know
Marleau scored his 102nd game-winning goal to pass
Jarome Iginla for seventh on the NHL list. Toronto is 8-0-0
when he scores a goal. … The Hurricanes made their first in-
game goaltending change of the season.
What's next
Maple Leafs: Host the Washington Capitals on Saturday (7
p.m. ET; NHLN, CBC, NBCSWA+, NHL.TV)
Hurricanes: Host the Nashville Predators on Sunday (1 p.m.
ET; FS-TN, FS-CR, NHL.TV)
Maple Leafs top Hurricanes in goal-
scoring affair RALEIGH, N.C. — The Toronto Maple Leafs started slowly,
and the Carolina Hurricanes finished fast.
Still, Toronto did enough in the middle of the game to pick up
a 5-4 road win over the Hurricanes on Friday night.
The Maple Leafs (15-8-1) got four goals from different
players in the second period to win for the seventh time in
nine games.
Patrick Marleau’s power-play goal at 5:27 of the third period
was the difference for the Leafs, who were outshot 47-25.
The Hurricanes (9-8-4) fell behind 3-0, 4-1 and 5-2 before a
late rally. They lost their second straight home game, but it
wasn’t for a lack of effort early or late.
Carolina had a 14-4 advantage in shots in the first period, but
Frederik Andersen, who had 43 saves, was strong early.
"If we didn’t have Freddie tonight, I don’t know what the
score would be," Toronto winger Josh Leivo said.
The Leafs have made it a habit recently to start sluggishly in
the first period.
"The beginning is really important," Andersen said. "We’ve
got to be ready to play. The last three games we haven’t
been."
The win Friday ended a two-game winless streak for the
Leafs, who return home on Saturday. Coach Mike Babcock
said the slow starts will be addressed.
"We’re just going to talk about it and fix it because the
players aren’t happy," Babcock said. "I’m not happy, so we’ll
fix that."
Remaining Time -1:32
Babcock hails ‘main event’ Anderson after win over
Hurricanes
The Hurricanes, coming off of a lacklustre performance in a
6-1 home loss to the New York Rangers on Wednesday
night, didn’t have anything to show for the strong start.
Andersen was that good, especially on a glove save on
Victor Rask near the end of the first period.
"That first period was an onslaught," Leivo said. "They just
kept coming at us."
The offence picked up for Andersen in the second period.
Zach Hyman scored 52 seconds into the period and then
Leivo, a fourth-line winger, added his first goal of the season.
Former Carolina defenceman Ron Hainsey gave Toronto a
3-0 lead.
Andersen stopped the first 22 shots, but Derek Ryan made it
4-1 before the end of the second period.
Jordan Staal scored the first of three third-period goals for
Carolina just over three minutes in. Marleau answered.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Carolina got to Andersen for two more goals, from Elias
Lindholm and Noah Hanifin, but Andersen was able to hold
off a late 6-on-5 flurry from the Hurricanes.
"Freddie was the man tonight for sure," Babcock said.
NOTES: Toronto winger James Van Riemsdyk had a goal
and an assist for Toronto to outdo his younger brother
Trevor, a defenceman for the Hurricanes. . Hainsey scored in
his first game back at PNC Arena. The veteran defenceman
played parts of four seasons for the Hurricanes from 2013
through ’17. . Cam Ward started in goal for Carolina for only
the second time in seven games, but was pulled in the third
period for regular starter Scott Darling. Ward allowed Toronto
to score on four of its first 14 shots.
UP NEXT
Maple Leafs: Host the Washington Capitals on Saturday for
their third game in four days.
Hurricanes: Host the Nashville Predators on Sunday to close
out a four-game homestand.
TODAY’S LINKS
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/nhl/carolina-hurricanes/article186446798.html
http://www.wralsportsfan.com/canes-comeback-falls-just-short-against-leafs/17139519/
https://nsjonline.com/article/2017/11/second-period-dooms-hurricanes-in-5-4-loss-to-leafs/
https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/recap-hurricanes-comeback-falls-just-short-against-maple-leafs/c-293335174
https://www.canescountry.com/2017/11/24/16697702/carolina-hurricanes-vs-toronto-maple-leafs-recap-canes-drop-5-4-to-leafs
https://www.nhl.com/news/toronto-maple-leafs-carolina-hurricanes-game-recap/c-293336856
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/van-riemsdyk-leafs-beat-brother-hurricanes/
1084954 Carolina Hurricanes
For Skinner, Williams as a wing man could be an answer
BY CHIP ALEXANDER
NOVEMBER 24, 2017 11:34 PM
UPDATED 3 HOURS 1 MINUTES AGO
Jeff Skinner seemed to be in the middle of everything Friday in the
Carolina Hurricanes’ 5-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at PNC Arena.
Whether setting up Derek Ryan for a goal, tangling with Leafs goalie
Frederik Andersen around the net, giving his opinion to the referees or
being a part of a big push in the final minutes of regulation, Skinner often
was front and center. Vocal, engaged.
More importantly for the Canes, 21 games into the season, Skinner might
have found the right line to be the most effective.
Canes coach Bill Peters has a found a lot of success — and winger
Sebastian Aho starting finding the net — in using Aho and Teuvo
Teravainen on a line with center Jordan Staal. The “TSA” line, it has
been called.
Skinner, after scoring a career-high 37 goals last season, has gone
through so many line permutations it’s hard to keep up with them. Ryan
has been his centerman much of the season and Skinner also has had
Victor Rask and more recently Elias Lindholm in the middle.
But there has been a growing list of wingers on the right side — Justin
Williams, Brock McGinn, Josh Jooris, Phil Di Giuseppe, Lindholm. In the
first three games of the season, Skinner played with Ryan and Janne
Kuokannen, a rookie.
If Skinner has any complaints, he keeps them to himself.
“It’s something I don’t really worry too much about because it’s not in my
control,” he said. “I can control how I play. That’s not always quite as well
as I’d like to, so that’s my No. 1 focus.
“When you’ve got guys sticking together it’s because they’re playing well
and they’re producing or you’re getting results. I’m not sure which comes
first, the chicken or the egg.”
On Friday, Canes coach Bill Peters had Skinner and Williams back
together, with Ryan in the middle. Williams and Ryan each had five shots
and Skinner three, and Skinner and Williams both had two assists.
Then there was the disagreements about Andersen. In the second
period, with the Canes buzzing around the net, the Leafs goal suddenly
became dislodged and play was stopped. It was hard to say if Andersen
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
or another Leafs player were responsible but no penalty was called
despite Skinner’s protestations.
It was a more dicey situation in the third. Trailing 4-1, the Canes picked
up a goal from Staal, but Skinner was called for goaltender interference
47 seconds after Staal’s goal.
Relays indicated Andersen was outside the crease and initiated the
contact with Skinner. But Skinner went to the penalty box and Patrick
Marleau scored what would be the deciding goal for the Maple Leafs.
“Those moments happen,” Skinner said. “There’s a lot of moments like
that in a game and obviously that one gets a little more magnified, given
the circumstances.”
Skinner called it a tough loss, and that it was for Carolina (9-8-4). But the
line of Skinner, Ryan and Williams might be one answer moving forward.
Peters had hoped to have Skinner with Ryan and Lee Stempniak this
season, but Stempniak has yet to play a game because of an unspecified
upper-body injury. With Stempniak out, Williams appeared to be the best
option at right wing and Peters has had the line together before this
season, including the Canes’ 6-3 win in Toronto on Oct. 26.
“It shouldn’t be very hard but at the same time it’s nice having continuity
and familiarity and knowing what your centerman’s tendencies are,”
Williams said. “But that only comes with winning consistently -- the same
lines. Hopefully we can do that.”
Skinner played with Jussi Jokinen and Tuomo Ruutu in his first NHL
game in October 2010, and maybe he’s not a hard winger to slot.
Whoever he plays with, he keeps scoring goals.
“It’s a long season and things are going to change,” Skinner said. “You’ve
got to be able to adapt and communicate with your line mates and try
and find that success and get on a roll.”
News Observer LOADED: 11.25.2017
1084955 Carolina Hurricanes
Maple Leafs manage to hold off Hurricanes in third
BY CHIP ALEXANDER
NOVEMBER 24, 2017 10:01 PM
UPDATED 3 HOURS 1 MINUTES AGO
RALEIGH The Toronto Maple Leafs scored four times in the second
period Friday but couldn’t flatten the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Leafs had to hold off the hard-charging Canes in the third for a 5-4
win at PNC Arena.
The Canes trailed 4-1 after the second period and 5-2 in the third. But
goals by Carolina’s Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin pulled the Canes
within 5-4 in a tense final four minutes.
The Leafs took control in the second when Zach Hyman scored in the
first minute of the period. Josh Leivo scored off the rush, former Canes
defenseman Ron Hainsey had a goal and James van Riemsdyk picked
up the Leafs’ fourth in an impressive period of hockey.
Only the work of goalie Frederik Andersen in the first kept the Leafs from
possibly falling behind. The Canes dominated the period, getting off 14
shots to the Leafs’ four.
Andersen, once a Carolina draft pick, made all the plays, all the stops.
He twice denied center Victor Rask, a healthy scratch for Carolina the
past two games, and made a handful of strong stops to keep it a
scoreless game after 20 minutes.
Derek Ryan scored off a Jeff Skinner pass in the second, and Jordan
Staal scored early in the third on a delayed-penalty sequence. Patrick
Marleau’s power-play goal-- after a questionable goaltender interference
call against Skinner -- boosted the Leafs’ lead to 5-2 but the Canes kept
pushing, outshooting the Leafs 47-25 in the ga,e.
The Canes were coming off a brutal 6-1 loss to the New York Rangers on
Wednesday that led to a Thanksgiving Day practice, and Canes coach
Bill Peters gave veteran goalie Cam Ward the start. The Canes had a lot
of jump in the first period, but loose plays and missed defensive
assignments in their zone were costly in the second.
By the third, Ward was out and Scott Darling in net. Marleau scored, but
Lindholm’s goal came on second effort in front of the net and Hanifin’s
score made for an exciting finish.
The Canes close their home stand Sunday against the Nashville
Predators and then comes the real grind: 10 of 12 games on the road.
News Observer LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085012 Nashville Predators
Predators blank Blues, improve to 9-2 in November
Joe Harris, Associated Press Published 10:25 p.m. CT Nov. 24, 2017
ST. LOUIS – Ryan Johansen had a goal and an assist, and Pekka Rinne
earned his second shutout of the season as the Nashville Predators beat
the St. Louis Blues 2-0 on Friday night.
Johansen’s scored his third goal of the season early in the first, and
Rinne made it hold up, stopping 34 shots as he shut out St. Louis for the
third time in his career.
Austin Watson added an empty-netter. Johansen earned his 200th
career assist on the insurance tally.
The Predators won their fourth straight game and improved to 9-2 in
November.
Carter Hutton made 26 saves for the Blues, taking his first loss in just his
sixth appearance as St. Louis was shut out for the second time this
season. Hutton made the save of the game, sliding across the crease to
rob Viktor Arvidsson midway through the third period.
The Blues went 0-for-3 on the power play, mustering just two total shots
as the Predators put up a wall on their own blue line. St. Louis entered
the game with the 24th-ranked power play in the league.
The Predators were held without a power-play opportunity for the first
time this season and the first time since Feb. 23, 2017, in a 4-2 victory
over Colorado.
It was the first meeting between the Central Division rivals since
Nashville eliminated St. Louis in the second round of the playoffs last
April.
Rinne won his eighth game in his last nine starts and improved to 20-16-
4 over the Blues. Rinne wasn’t tested much, but came up with glove
saves on chances by Vladimir Tarasenko and Chris Thorburn as the
Blues turned up the pressure in the third period.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Johansen ripped a one-timer from Filip Forsberg past Hutton to give the
Predators a 1-0 lead just 2:32 into the game. After scoring once in his
first 19 games, Johansen has scored twice in his last three.
Tennessean LOADED: 11.25.2017
1084963 Columbus Blue Jackets
Blue Jackets 5, Senators 2 | Atkinson, Foligno re-emerge in victory
By Michael Arace
The Columbus Dispatch
@MichaelArace1
Posted Nov 24, 2017 at 11:24 PM
Updated Nov 24, 2017 at 11:25 PM
The Blue Jackets stretched their winning streak to six games with a mid-
third-period crescendo and a crowd-pleasing coda in Nationwide Arena
on Friday night. Cam Atkinson and Nick Foligno reappeared as the
Jackets scored three goals in the final 11 minutes of regulation and beat
the Ottawa Senators 5-2.
There were 17,083 fans in attendance, and they were happy they didn’t
have to chew on what is left of their nails for the full 60. Each of the
Jackets’ five previous victories came by one goal, and three of them went
beyond regulation.
“We weren’t sure what to expect in the third,” Jackets coach John
Tortorella said.
What they got was a game-winning goal from Atkinson, a snipe off a rush
by Foligno and an empty-net goal by Tyler Motte. Atkinson, whose last
goal had come Oct. 27, had a pair of goals on this night.
“I felt like I hadn’t scored in a year,” Atkinson said.
The six-game winning streak is the Jackets’ longest since their epic, 16-
game streak last season. The Jackets (15-7-1) sit atop the Metropolitan
Division and are tied for the third-highest point total in the league.
They got off to a flying start against Ottawa, a nasty-trapping, wicked-
counterattacking team. Think: Jacques Lemaire’s old get-it-and-go
Devils, more than Ken Hitchcock’s old trap-and-dump Stars.
The Jackets dominated possession in the first, during which they outshot
the Senators 14-4. One of the Sens’ shots, though, was a simple finish of
a two-on-one rush: Derick Brassard saucered the puck to Tom Pyatt,
whose goal gave the visitors a 1-0 lead at 10:56 of the first period.
The Senators’ lead lasted 26 seconds — or the time it took Atkinson to
poke the puck off the stick of Alexandre Burrows, take off on a naked
breakaway, deke down Sens goalie Craig Anderson and tuck a wee
forehand inside the right post. Just like that, it was 1-1.
The Jackets took a 2-1 lead at 7:28 of the second period on a goal by
Markus Nutivaara, his first of the season and the third of his career. It
was set up by Josh Anderson, who circumnavigated the Senators’
defense.
“Nobody stops that guy,” Nutivaara said of Anderson.
The Senators answered in Senatorial fashion when they took a blue-line
turnover by Artemi Panarin and scored on a lightning counter by Mike
Hoffman. Just like that, it was 2-2.
In the third period, the Jackets had to show the kind of patience that is
becoming their hallmark. The Senators had the puck for minutes on end.
The Jackets had trouble getting past the red line. Sergei Bobrovsky —
who faced 12 shots through the first 40 minutes — finally got busy and,
as he did, he entered a Zen-like state of ethereal limberness. He was
particularly impressive during a penalty kill midway through the period.
“It’s hard to play that game as a goalie,” Tortorella said, referring to a
long stretch of quiet followed by a whirlwind of business.
Atkinson stepped out of the penalty box and clapped one in from the top
of the left circle at 10:40 of the third. A few minutes later, Sonny Milano
sprang a rush for Foligno and Atkinson, and Foligno finished it off with an
unhesitating wrist shot under the crossbar. That gave the Jackets a two-
goal lead, and the crowd exhaled.
Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 11.25.2017
1084964 Columbus Blue Jackets
Blue Jackets notebook | Amid issues, Tortorella likes potential for depth
By Josh Horton The Columbus Dispatch
Posted Nov 24, 2017 at 10:08 PM
Updated Nov 24, 2017 at 10:08 PM
With the Blue Jackets 23 games into the regular season, coach John
Tortorella describes his feelings on his squad as “half full.”
Sure, there are some worrisome things. Forward Nick Foligno has only
one point in his last 13 games. Center Alexander Wennberg is day-to-day
with an unspecified injury. Some of the Blue Jackets’ other veterans
expected to make a big impact on offense, such as Brandon Dubinsky,
Cam Atkinson and Boone Jenner, haven’t produced like many thought
they would.
But Tortorella’s optimism stems from some of the pleasant surprises that
have kept this team near the top of the Eastern Conference, along with
the stellar play of goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. Forward Oliver
Bjorkstrand, 22, entered Friday’s game second on the team with 13
points. Defenseman Markus Nutivaara has eight points in 17 games.
Pierre-Luc Dubois has recently emerged as the team’s top-line center.
Once the slumping veterans and those in the training room come back,
Tortorella hopes those who have stepped up already will provide
valuable depth.
“As we’ve always said, when another guy gets an opportunity, then your
team usually becomes a better team if they improve when they get
certain minutes they wouldn’t normally get when those other guys are
healthy,” Tortorella said. “Then when the guys are back, then you have
something.”
David Savard was a healthy scratch last Friday against the New York
Rangers, which allowed for the veteran defenseman to re-set his game.
Tortorella has liked Savard’s response since he rejoined the lineup.
“He has played better,” Tortorella said. “We want him to play quick. We
want him to make outlet passes. We felt like he was turning the puck
over too much. We felt the speed was catching up to him a little bit.”
Savard played alongside his usual partner, Jack Johnson, on Friday
against the Senators.
When it comes to 20-year-old defenseman Zach Werenski, Tortorella is
careful not to inhibit his playmaking ability.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
“There are no restrictions on his game,” Tortorella said. “We let him know
he’s not a defenseman, he’s no longer called a defenseman. I want him
to go. ... There are certain situations that he still has to learn and maybe
needs to slow down.
“I think there are situations that he might need to pull back, but you don’t
want to overcoach that. Because I don’t want hesitant. Just go.”
Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 11.25.2017
1084965 Columbus Blue Jackets
Cam Atkinson and Nick Foligno end long droughts in Blue Jackets win
over Ottawa
By Aaron Portzline 4 hours ago
Nick Foligno was sprung out of the Blue Jackets' zone by a nifty pass
from Sonny Milano late in the third period, giving him a rare chance
against tight-checking Ottawa to skate unabated with the puck through
the neutral zone and into the attack zone.
The only thing slowing Foligno was the voice inside his head, and when
you haven't scored a goal in nearly a month, there can be a lot going on
upstairs.
“The worst part was, I was looking to pass the whole time,” Foligno said
after a 5-2 win over Ottawa on Friday in Nationwide Arena. “Somebody in
my head was just like, 'If you pass this and it doesn't go through, you're
going to kill you. You better shoot this.'”
Foligno shot. Far corner, his favorite spot. It was an important goal that
finally extinguished the Senators, who hung in there all night despite
being badly outplayed for long stretches.
It was Foligno's first goal since Oct. 25 — way back in the ninth game of
the season — and it gave the Blue Jackets a 4-2 lead.
“I told him he should have passed there,” Cam Atkinson joked.
Atkinson, who hadn't scored since Oct. 27, already had two goals and
was skating to Foligno's right as they closed in on Senators goaltender
Craig Anderson. He was looking for a hat trick.
“I saw that the top corner was open, so … sorry Cam, but I'll take that
one,” Foligno said. “I'll get you a hat trick some other game.”
The Blue Jackets, the hottest club in the NHL, have won six straight
games and are sitting in first place in the Metropolitan Division.
They have forged a 15-7-1 record despite limited contributions and long
droughts by some of their top players. But maybe that's starting to
change.
“I'm half-full here,” said Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella, ever the
optimist. “I'm really encouraged by some of our younger guys … if they
can just stay with it, and some of our other guys can get going, I think
we'll have some more offense.
“You just never know if you can get all of that going together, but we're
going to try.”
This is the remarkable part:
The Blue Jackets are only one point behind the pace they set last
season, when they finished 2016-17 with 50 wins and 108 points, both
franchise records.
They were 14-5-4 (32 points) last season; they're 15-7-1 (31 points) this
season.
But last season, though 23 games, Nick Foligno (9-12-21), Cam Atkinson
(8-13-21) and Alexander Wennberg (6-15-21) were tied as the club's
leading scorers. That's a combined 23-40-63.
So far this season, Foligno (4-6-10) has been chilly after a strong start.
He ended a 12-game streak without a point on Wednesday and snapped
a 13-game streak without a goal on Friday.
Atkinson has just 6-3-9, though he missed four games with a hip injury
and infection.
Wennberg has only 1-8-9 in 18 games. He missed his fifth consecutive
game with an upper-body injury, and the club hasn't said when he might
return.
Total through 23 games this season? 11-17-28 from those three players,
less than half of last season's year-to-game pace.
But somehow the Blue Jackets have scraped by with secondary scoring
— Oliver Bjorkstrand, Josh Anderson, and Milano — and expert
goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky. Friday was the first time in nine
games the Jackets scored more than three goals.
“I felt like I hadn't scored a goal in a couple of years,” Atkinson said. “It's
nice to be a part of it and get back to my way of playing.
“It's good to finally rack up a couple of goals as a team and win by more
than one goal.”
Atkinson and Foligno have both said that during long slumps it's the
frequent scoring chances that help sustain some level of confidence. But
that's a hockey cliche.
The only thing that mollifies a goal-scorer is scoring goals.
“Cam was a little frustrated,” Tortorella said. “I know I'm watching him
pretty close (on Friday) just to see if we can get him to touch the puck
more. Three of four shifts in a row, he didn't even touch it 5-on-5. An
offensive guy wants the puck.
“It's nice to say you get chances, but goal-scorers want to score. Cam's
been a little bit stuck here. Nick has been stuck.”
NOTEBOOK
Atkinson's first goal was scored off a tough couple of bounces for
Ottawa's Alexandre Burrows. The puck hopped over his stick twice and
he struggled to control it at the top of the slot in the Blue Jackets' zone
midway through the first. Atkinson swatted at the puck, knocking it behind
Burrows and sending Atkinson alone on a breakaway. Burrows wasn't
charged with a turnover because off-ice officials saw the bouncing puck.
Atkinson was credited with a takeaway.
The Blue Jackets' forecheck was really strong from the start of the game,
smothering Ottawa. It was as crisp and exacting as I can recall this
season, right up there with the Oct. 25 game (5-1 win) in Winnipeg. At
one point, the shots were 23-7 in favor of the Blue Jackets. The Senators
didn't come unraveled, but they couldn't go two strides without getting
checked or hit in their own zone.
Maybe adding Matt Duchene wasn't the right move for Ottawa. The jury's
still out, but it's been a rough start. In seven games since the trade from
Colorado, he has zero points and a minus-10 rating. He was barely
noticeable tonight, except when Blue Jackets' forward Tyler Motte landed
a big hit on him in the third period, just before Atkinson's go-ahead goal.
Motte had a goal, a plus-3 rating, two shots and a club-high four hits in
only 9:42 of playing time.
Not a great night for Artemi Panarin. He had a turnover that sparked
Ottawa toward the 2-2 goal by Mike Hoffman. He also had no points, no
shots on goal, one giveaway, one blocked shot and only 14:32 of ice
time, a season-low.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
After the game, G Joonas Korpisalo and RW Markus Hannikainen were
sent to AHL Cleveland. They'll play for the Monsters on Saturday vs.
Texas, then be back in time for Sunday's practice in Columbus.
You'll note that when the Jackets sent players to Cleveland last week,
Milano was included on the trip. Not this time. Milano again played
significant minutes (15:00) made a couple of bright defensive plays and
had the really sharp pass to spring Foligno for his goal off the rush in the
third.
Former Blue Jackets center Derick Brassard played well against one of
his former clubs. He made a beautiful saucer pass off his backhand at
10:56 to set up Taylor Pyatt's 1-0 goal. He also won 10 of 19 faceoffs.
The Athletic LOADED: 11.25.2017
1084966 Columbus Blue Jackets
How the Blue Jackets weathered 75 seconds of penalty-killing chaos to
post sixth consecutive win
By Tom Reed 2 hours ago
One of the wackiest penalty kills of the Blue Jackets’ season almost
required a chalk outline Friday night.
Less than five seconds into the Senators’ pivotal third-period power play,
poor Bobby Ryan crumpled to ice like a 12-point buck after Seth Jones’
scorching clearing attempt from behind the net hit the Ottawa forward in
the lower leg.
Then, things got weird.
The Senators had all the momentum for 75 seconds in a tie game. Four
shots on goal. Multiple seam passes through the heart of the Blue
Jackets’ penalty-killing box. Weary Columbus players unable to get off
the ice.
But Sergei Bobrovsky just kept stopping pucks, giving his team and a
crowd of 17,084 fans inside Nationwide Arena hope they could survive
the onslaught.
“I thought they were going to score three or four times,” Blue Jackets
defenseman Ryan Murray told The Athletic. “Bob kept getting pieces of
shots. Huge kudos to him.”
The Blue Jackets’ 17th consecutive penalty kill — as unorthodox and
discombobulated as any in the streak — somehow swung the contest in
their favor. Forty-one seconds after Cam Atkinson stepped out of the
penalty box, he rewarded Bobrovsky and the penalty killers with the
game-winning goal at 10:40 of the third period en route to a 5-2 victory.
While most will remember Atkinson and Nick Foligno scoring in a three-
minute span, it was the wild work of the Blue Jackets’ special teams that
set the stage for the late-game heroics.
“Who knows where the game goes if (the Senators) get the go-ahead
goal?” John Tortorella said after the club registered its sixth straight win.
“Does frustration start to set in with the team? It was a really important
penalty kill and our goaltender (was) a big part of that. I thought we fed
off of it.”
It was a bizarre and frantic sequence that showcased the fortunes of two
teams going in opposite directions in late November. The Blue Jackets
did almost nothing right and skated away with the lead. The Senators,
winless in five games, did almost nothing wrong only to the hear the
Nationwide cannon erupt after a missed opportunity.
“That’s hockey,” Bobrovsky told The Athletic. “Momentum swings are big.
You must stay strong when the storm comes at you and then you look for
your chances.”
The Jackets were the better team much of the evening, holding a 27-16
shot advantage at the time of Atkinson’s tripping penalty.
Suddenly, the Senators had a chance to steal two points. Bobrovsky
made a point-blank stop on Ryan during the delayed call.
“We definitely could have got the go-ahead goal,” Ottawa coach Guy
Boucher said.
After a television timeout, Brandon Dubinsky won the defensive-zone
draw to Jones and it appeared the blueliner would have an easy exit. But
Jones’ blast hit Ryan and the puck fell to the stick of Ottawa forward
Mark Stone, the team’s leading goal scorer.
Chaos ensued.
“It was my time to step up and help my teammates when it was needed
for the win,” Bobrovsky said. “I stayed focused and did my best.”
The netminder, who entered the game leading the NHL in goals against
average (2.02), had the presence of mind to scoot out to the top of the
crease and cut down the angle on Stone. It allowed him to make a
comfortable blocker save.
“I was in pretty good position and got out pretty close to (Stone),” the
goalie said.
Tortorella marveled at Bobrovsky’s concentration level in yet another
game in which he had little work through two periods.
In a span of seconds, the goaltender need to shift from cruise control to
Vezina Trophy highlight mode.
After Jones cleared the zone, the Senators reloaded and spent the next
60 seconds buzzing the Blue Jackets’ net. Stone, Erik Karlsson, Dion
Phaneuf, Derick Brassard and a one-legged Ryan worked the puck
beautifully, delivering three dangerous cross-ice passes.
Meanwhile, Jones, Murray, Dubinsky and Boone Jenner were looking for
a stoppage that never came.
“We lucked out,” Murray said. “They had some ‘grade A’ scoring chances
and we got a little tired and ran around a little bit and some pucks popped
into some bad areas.”
Bobrovsky somehow stopped a Stone point shot through a Phaneuf
screen before denying Brassard from the right circle.
“We were pressing, but their goalie is at the top of the league right now
and you saw why,” Boucher said.
Bobrovsky registered four saves, but never could freeze the puck.
Finally, an errant pass hopped over Brassard’s stick along the halfwall
and Dubinsky cleared, enabling the exhausted penalty killers to head to
the bench.
At this point, a “Lets Go Jackets” chant rose from the nervous crowd. The
second unit killed off the final 45 seconds without allowing another shot.
Everyone in the building sensed a golden opportunity had been missed
by Ottawa. Particularly the skaters on the Senators’ bench.
“We did everything but score on that last power play,” Boucher said on a
night Ottawa went 0-of-3 with the man advantage. “It does get frustrating
for the players when you think you deserve it and it’s not coming.”
Bobrovsky has that affect on lots of opponents right now. Just ask the
Red Wings’ Andreas Athanasiou and Canadiens’ Jacob de la Rose.
The Jackets penalty kill hasn’t yielded a goal since the three scored by
the Rangers in the third period of a 5-3 New York win on Nov. 6. That’s a
span of eight games.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
The Blue Jackets left the rink praising Bobrovsky and celebrating the end
of goal-scoring droughts for Atkinson and Foligno.
The Senators left the rink ruing a glorious chance that went begging. At
least Bobby Ryan lived to tell about it.
The Athletic LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085026 New York Rangers
Henrik Lundqvist’s 40 Saves Lead the Rangers Past Detroit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSNOV. 24, 2017
The Rangers need goalie Henrik Lundqvist at his best to compete in the
Eastern Conference playoff race. Against the Detroit Red Wings on
Friday, Lundqvist was.
He made 40 saves — many of the acrobatic variety — and thanks to
Mats Zuccarello’s goal 37 seconds into overtime, the Rangers beat the
Detroit Red Wings, 2-1, at Madison Square Garden.
Zuccarello scored his fourth goal of the season, off assists from Brady
Skjei and J.T. Miller, and the Rangers improved to 12-9-2 with their third
straight victory and their ninth in 11 games.
“I feel really good,” said Lundqvist, who won for the 416th time in his
career. “There were chances both ways. To play the game was a lot of
fun, but it was also challenging.”
Zuccarello said Lundqvist’s playoff-level heroics were not a surprise.
“We expect him to be like that every game,” he said. “If we can help him
out, we know how good he can be.”
Chris Kreider also scored for the Rangers, who extended their home
winning streak to seven games. They are 9-4-2 overall at Madison
Square Garden. The Rangers also continued their trend of stingy
defense, allowing two or fewer goals for the fourth straight game and for
the sixth time in their last seven contests.
“A lot of people complain about low-scoring games, but for me anyway,
this was as entertaining as it could get,” Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault
said.
Tomas Tatar scored for Detroit, and Jimmy Howard stopped 29 shots as
the Red Wings fell to 10-9-4.
Lundqvist made 17 saves in the opening period, plus a sprawling game-
saver against Dylan Larkin at 11:58 of the third.
“I’m trying to be on my toes right now,” said Lundqvist, who improved to
11-6-2 for the season. “I’m aggressive but still patient. Right now I’m in a
nice flow where I don’t overthink things.”
New York Times LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085027 New York Rangers
Mats Zuccarello scores in overtime to give Rangers third straight win
JUSTIN TASCH
Updated: Saturday, November 25, 2017, 1:46 AM
For those who ever wonder how much athletes take losses home with
them or how much they affect their lives beyond competition, here is
Henrik Lundqvist admitting after his latest feat of strength, a herculean
40-save performance in the Rangers’ 2-1 overtime win Friday night
against the Red Wings, that losing does indeed negatively impact his
everyday mood.
“To me, there’s only one thing that makes me laugh a lot, and that’s
winning. It’s hard for me to enjoy anything away from the rink, at the rink,
when we’re not winning,” Lundqvist said after tying his season-high in
saves for the second time in eight days. “In our last 11 games here, 9-2,
it’s easier to relax. It’s important to me that we do well and that we’re
winning. That’s the best solution.”
And the Rangers (12-9-2) have been doing a lot of that lately after a
brutal 12-game start to the season. They’ve won three straight and nine
of their last 11 contests, this one sealed by a Mats Zuccarello goal 37
seconds into the extra three-on-three period, sending a Garden crowd
that was as loud as it had been all season into a frenzy.
The only puck to get through Lundqvist Friday came with two seconds
remaining on a power play at 4:05, which broke the donut deadlock
caused by a thrilling goaltending display between Lundqvist and Jimmy
Howard before Chris Kreider tied the game at 10:17. In the six games
Lundqvist and Howard have faced off in their careers, no more than four
total goals have been scored; two ended 2-1 and two ended 1-0.
Lundqvist has stopped all 70 even-strength shots he’s faced over the last
three games. In his last 10 games, Lundqvist has a 2.05 goals against
average and a .937 save percentage.
“He’s confident in there. Looks like he’s enjoying himself,” Marc Staal
said of Lundqvist. “It looks like he’s having some fun. He’s smiling and
competing really hard.”
The Rangers were outshot 17-6 in a rough first period before turning it
around in the second, when Howard stopped all of the Blueshirts’ 16
shots.
Mats Zuccarello potted the winner 37 seconds into overtime.
“I think the first period we played really bad and we weren’t into the
game at all,” Zuccarello said, before jokingly adding, “too much turkey
yesterday for some of the guys maybe.”
There was a feeling when the Rangers fell behind early in the third that
they wanted to get one back for Lundqvist, considering it took 35 shots
for Detroit to finally get on the board. “He did his job tonight, and we
owed it to him to do ours,” Kevin Shattenkirk said.
They ultimately did, keeping their run going and thus their goalie happy.
“To see me laugh,” Lundqvist said, “that’s what we have to do.”
BOO NOT HIP
Center Boo Nieves suffered a hip pointer in the first period, tried to play
in the second but left early and didn’t play the final 37:07.
Vigneault said it “shouldn’t be something serious.”
New York Daily News LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085028 New York Rangers
Rangers’ Boo Nieves forced to exit with ‘hip-pointer’
By Brett Cyrgalis November 25, 2017 | 2:51am
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Finally, the Rangers had a consistent fourth line, but it doesn’t seem like
it’s going to last very long.
The pivot of that group, Boo Nieves, was forced to leave Friday night’s 2-
1 overtime win against the Red Wings with what coach Alain Vigneault
called a “hip pointer” injury. It happened on a hit in the first period, and
despite trying to play early in the second, Nieves could go only two shifts
and missed the final 33:25, as well as the 37 seconds of overtime.
“Shouldn’t be something serious,” Vigneault said.
This was the third game that Nieves started between Jimmy Vesey and
Paul Carey, and the trio was creating an identity that was fast while
mixing skill and grit.
“They’ve given us real good zone time and have gotten good looks,”
Vigneault said after Thursday’s practice. “Jimmy had five primary
chances against Carolina [on Wednesday], Boo has the great speed and
is learning what it takes to be in the NHL, and Paul is a veteran depth
guy who is a good skater and works hard.”
Their success also kept David Desharnais as a healthy scratch for the
third straight game. Though Desharnais practiced on the wing Tuesday,
that’s not where he sees the veteran making the best contribution.
“I think he’s better for us at center,” Vigneault said.
With only one extra forward and no extra defensemen, a call-up from
AHL Hartford might be logical. The energetic Vinni Lettieri has eight
goals and 13 points in 17 games with the Wolf Pack, including five goals
in his past eight matches.
The Rangers released their jersey for the Winter Classic, to be played
outdoors at Citi Field on New Year’s Day against the Sabres. It is navy
blue with “RANGERS” across it in diagonal. There is a red “NY” in a crest
on the left shoulder, in tribute to this being an intrastate rivalry.
While discussing the merits of Pavel Buchnevich’s ascension to a more
valuable NHL player in his second season, Vigneault had to bring up one
of his growing pains. That was Nov. 4, when the 22-year-old Russian
was penalized for playing with a broken stick, which he apparently didn’t
know was a rule.
“We all knew about the skill set, [but] the skill set plus a more competitive
nature — plus understanding all the rules,” Vigneault said. “You can’t
play with a broken stick in this league, stuff like that. Once you pick up on
those, you can be a good player.”
John Amirante sang the National Anthem before the game, the second
time this season the longtime singer performed this season.
New York Post LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085029 New York Rangers
Rangers’ Brady Skjei much more than a jersey on an SNL skit
By Larry Brooks November 25, 2017 | 1:49am
This is some of what George McPhee saw when, as general manager of
the then-embryonic Vegas franchise, he scouted the 2016 World
Championships in Russia.
“That No. 76, I like the way he carries himself on the ice,” McPhee said
during a chat between periods of a Rangers game in Florida last season.
“He has skill and I like the way he skates, but what I liked the most was
his presence. I didn’t know a lot about him, but he played with a chip on
his shoulder; a little bit cocky. That stood out.
“He’s not going to be available [in the expansion draft], is he?”
McPhee laughed at his own little joke. No, Brady Skjei, No. 76, would not
be made available in the draft and he obviously would not have been
even if he hadn’t been declared off limits because of experience
requirements.
Everybody not only knows Skjei’s name now, but even how to both spell
and pronounce it following last week’s Saturday Night Live skit in which
his jersey was featured. Skjei as in Shea and wait a second, what was
Mets’ COO Jeff Wilpon doing at Friday night’s match at the Garden
against the Red Wings, anyway?
Well, he was presumably watching the Skjei-Hey Kid play with the same
swagger McPhee had seen when No. 76 represented Team USA at the
conclusion of his first (and only) season with the AHL Wolf Pack.
Presumably watching Skjei lead the rush in overtime of an entertaining
match in which chances were abundant, but goals were scarce in a
throwback goaltending duel between Henrik Lundqvist and Jimmy
Howard.
It was 1-1 when J.T. Miller, Mats Zuccarello and Skjei lined up to start the
three-on-three against Tomas Tatar, Dylan Larkin and Danny DeKeyser.
Just under a half minute in, a puck bounced loose, Skjei was on it and
led a two-on-one down the right accompanied by Zuccarello on his left.
The 23-year-old defenseman carried and went into a spin-a-rama in an
attempt to shake DeKeyser and feed Zuccarello.
“When I’m out in overtime, I know I need to play defense, but my mindset
is to go for it and try to make something happen if the chance is there,”
Skjei said. “And on that play, it was there.
“DeKeyser was able to stay with me, so I tried a spin-a-rama there. Good
luck on that. It didn’t work, but the puck came back to me, and I was able
to kind of chop it in front to Zucc, who made a great shot.”
Zuccarello held the puck for what seemed an eternity before picking a
corner to beat Howard, and the Rangers had won 2-1 behind a masterful
40-save performance from Lundqvist to pick up the extra point that may
come in very handy down the line against a potential competitor for a
wild-card spot.
“For a second I thought Zucc was going to give it back to me,” said Skjei.
“That probably wouldn’t have worked out so well.”
There were plenty of mistakes made by both squads in this one, and the
Rangers had more than their share in allowing 40 shots through the first
50 minutes. Without mistakes, though, games would not be worth
watching. But Lundqvist, at the top of his game, was beaten only by
Tatar’s bullet, sharp angle right-wing shot on the power play at 4:05 of
the third.
“I was aware that [Howard] has played some really strong games against
us here,” accurately noted Lundqvist, who has allowed one even-strength
goal on 106 shots (.991) and four overall on 136 shots (.971) over the
past four games. “And the way he was playing, after the second period I
thought that one goal could be enough. When they got that one, I knew I
couldn’t afford to give another one.”
Skjei, who played a team-high 22:16 as he and partner Kevin Shattenkirk
have become the de facto first pair in Ryan McDonagh’s absence, also
assisted on Chris Kreider’s tying goal at 10:17 of the third period in
carrying into the left corner before a centering pass to Pavel Buchnevich
triggered the scoring sequence.
It was another example of this second-year player’s skill and self-belief.
Another example of what McPhee had seen two years ago in this
emerging nation with No. 76 on his back and his name on the tip of
everyone’s tongue.
New York Post LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085030 New York Rangers
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Rangers ride Henrik Lundqvist to win old-fashioned OT nail-biter
By Brett Cyrgalis November 24, 2017 | 10:23PM
This one came through in sepia tone, an old-time movie with the familiar
star making for quite the evening on Broadway.
At the end, it was Henrik Lundqvist winning this terrific goaltending duel,
his Rangers able to just outdo Jimmy Howard and the Red Wings for a 2-
1 overtime victory Friday night at the Garden. And it was Lundqvist
smiling and laughing, lighting up as Mats Zuccarello won it 37 seconds
into the 3-on-3 extra period, finishing while alone in front after a great
individual play from Brady Skjei.
“To me, there’s only one thing that makes me laugh a lot, and that’s
winning,” said Lundqvist, who finished with 40 saves, stopping all 17
shots he faced in the first period as his teammates were fighting through
their Thanksgiving tryptophan hangovers. “It’s hard for me to enjoy
anything away from the rink, at the rink, when we’re not winning. Right
now, I think over the last 11 games we’re 9-2, and it’s easy for me to
relax. It’s important to me that we do well, that we win.
“That’s the solution if you want to see me laugh — that’s what we have to
do.”
It has been 11 straight starts for Lundqvist, as his game has been utterly
revitalized and he has carried the Rangers (12-9-2), winners of seven in
a row at home, with him. The 35-year-old said he feels “rested” despite
playing a lot of games over a spread-out schedule, and he’s “just excited
to get an opportunity to play a lot of hockey right now.”
Surely, the Rangers are excited to have him, because for as much as
they have cleaned it up in front of him, when there is a breakdown, he
has been there to make the big save — just like old times.
“Think the first period we played really bad,” Zuccarello said. “We
weren’t into the game at all. Too much turkey yesterday for some of the
guys.”
But that went away as the Rangers took over in the second period,
getting 16 shots on Howard, who had just been pulled Wednesday night
when he gave up four goals on 19 shots to the Oilers in Detroit. But he
always seems to rise to the occasion when facing Lundqvist, evident
when he made three great saves in a matter of four minutes in the
second period. The first was a diving left-pad stop on what seemed like a
slam-dunk goal for Rick Nash with just over 10 minutes remaining,
followed by one on Kevin Shattenkirk and one on J.T. Miller.
The Rangers knew they were going to need to do more if they wanted to
beat Howard, as the two teams entered the third period knotted in a
terrific scoreless tie. But they also knew they had Lundqvist in their own
net.
“Hanky is our best player, our leader on the ice,” Zuccarello said. “We
expect him to be like that every game. If we can help him out, we know
how good he can be.”
But first, things turned for the Red Wings, who took a 1-0 lead on a
power-play goal from Tomas Tatar 4:05 into the third as Lundqvist had a
rare occasion when his defensemen couldn’t clear a screen, this one
from Justin Abdelkader. But the Rangers pushed right back, and Chris
Krieder was able to tie it at 10:17 when he backhanded a bouncing puck
through Howard’s legs, the Rangers sending the Garden into an honest
frenzy for the first time this season.
Then into the extra frame, the Rangers went that extra step to reward
their goaltender. Skjei broke it out of the defensive zone himself, skating
up the right wing, spinning at the right post and finding Zuccarello alone
in front. He was able to beat Howard, and the script played itself out as it
had so many times before.
“A lot of people complain about low-scoring games,” coach Alain
Vigneault said, “but for me, anyway, this was as entertaining as it could
get.”
New York Post LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085031 New York Rangers
How the Rangers can survive without Ryan McDonagh
By Brett Cyrgalis November 24, 2017 | 6:42PM
Replace was not a word the Rangers were using when thinking of their
missing captain, Ryan McDonagh, set to be out for a second straight
game with a mild abdomen strain Friday night against the Red Wings at
the Garden.
But his loss has been softened somewhat by the Rangers’ versatility on
the back end, with numerous blueliners being able to play both sides.
That includes Brendan Smith, who returned to the lineup Nov. 17 against
the Blue Jackets after a six-game absence as a healthy scratch with a
renewed vigor in his game — which is now needed more than ever.
“I think I’m still getting better,” Smith said after a 6-1 win Wednesday over
the Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., his third game back and an individual
performance coach Alain Vigneault called his “best game of the year.”
“Think I’m still getting a bit of the rust off,” Smith said. “Every game is
getting a little better, and that’s to be expected after sitting for quite some
time. I think I like where my game has been going, and I just want to
keep improving.”
Smith is a left-handed shooter, but he has proven to be comfortable on
both the left and right sides. His most effective pairing in his short
Rangers tenure has been on the right with the quick-footed Brady Skjei
on the left.
But since McDonagh went down, Smith has paired with Nick Holden,
another lefty playing on the off-side right. They were an effective pair
against the Hurricanes, and hoped to keep it going against the visiting
Red Wings.
“I’ve said this many times, being able to play more than one position is a
bonus,” Vigneault said. “Being versatile is a big bonus for a team,
whether it’s up front, or on ‘D’ if you can play the left or the right side. It
helps you a lot of times get ice time, because you can play more than
one spot. And if you can play it well, it’s real good for team.
“So in Smitty’s case, I think he’s probably a little bit more comfortable on
the left, like all players are on their natural side. But we’ve asked him to
play on the right, he’s done a good job for us.”
The ability to play both sides — really, the ability to play the right, with
McDonagh, Skjei and Marc Staal all far more comfortable on the left — is
a big reason why the Rangers chose to sign Smith to a four-year, $17.4
million deal this summer just days before he reached free agency. They
first became enamored of him when Smith showed up as a trade-
deadline rental from the Red Wings last season and was one of the
Rangers’ most ferocious defenders during their run to the second round
of the playoffs.
And he did most of it on the right side.
“Sometimes it’s easier,” Smith said of playing the right, “making some
plays, keeping pucks in at the blue line. Or having your feet up ice
because you’re on your natural side. There are pros and cons to both
sides, and I’m comfortable either.”
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Yet it wasn’t quite there early in this season, when Smith played his way
into street clothes. Vigneault found him worthy to play in just 11 of the
first 19 games, while the Rangers had gotten off to a disastrous 1-5-2
start. But his benching was seemingly a wake-up call that made an
impact, and Smith began to show it at Carolina.
“His gap was good, his decisions with the puck were good, jumped in the
play at the right moment and he was a big part of quite a few scoring
chances,” Vigneault said, with Smith having a sweet cross-ice assist on
Chris Kreider’s game-opening goal. “And he defended real well all night
with his gap and his stick position, his body position. That’s definitely
what we need from him going forward.”
New York Post LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085032 New York Rangers
Mats Zuccarello’s goal in overtime wins it for Rangers
By Steve Zipay
Updated November 24, 2017 11:06 PM
The Rangers and the Red Wings are getting used to overtime. Seven of
the last 13 games between them have been decided in in the extra
period.
On Friday night it was yet another overtime game, and the Rangers
prevailed.
Mats Zuccarello, on Brady Skjei’s hard-fought assist, beat goalie Jimmy
Howard just 37 seconds into the extra period for a 2-1 victory at Madison
Square Garden, the Rangers’ seventh straight win at home. Henrik
Lundqvist, who has allowed just four goals in the last four games, posted
40 saves.
Being hounded by two defenders in the 3-on-3 overtime, Skjei’s first pass
to Zuccarello, standing to Howard’s right, was blocked, but it bounced
back to the Rangers defenseman. He swatted the puck a second time to
the wide open Zuccarello, who waited and waited until he saw an
opening and fired in his fourth of the season for the game-winner.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do, I thought he was going to give the
puck back to me. I said ‘no no, no, shoot the puck,’ ” said Skjei.
The Rangers trailed 1-0 before Chris Kreider’s backhander bounced off
Howard’s pad at 10:17 of the third to tie the score. It was Kreider’s third
goal in the past two games. Tomas Tatar’s power-play blast, with Michael
Grabner in the box, at 4:05 of the third had opened the scoring. The goal
followed a failed attempt to clear by Marc Staal when Justin Abdelkader
deflected his pass.
“We were getting our chances,” said Skjei. “You’re going to score a few
times if you keep playing like that.”
Said Lundqvist: “It was a great finish by us.”
After the scoreless first period, when Lundqvist was forced to make 17
saves, the Blueshirts “talked in the locker room that we had to get going.
(We were) coming off Thanksgiving, but that’s no excuse,” said Skjei.
Lundqvist, who was making his 11th consecutive start, had also faced 17
in the first period in Carolina on Wednesday. “I’m trying to be on my toes
right now,” said Lundqvist. “I feel the last three or four weeks I’m playing
the way I want to play, I’m aggressive but still patient. Part of that is to
read the shots well, but also just battle in front. People talk to me about
starting a lot of games (20), but physically, you never really get tired, it’s
mentally. Right now, I’m in a nice flow where I don’t overthink things.”
With the win the Blueshirts, playing their second straight without
defenseman Ryan McDonagh (abdominal strain), are 12-10-2 and 9-5-2
at home; the Wings are 10-9-4. The Rangers captain will miss Sunday’s
game as well.
In the first 20 minutes, the Blueshirts were hemmed in not only by two
Detroit power plays, courtesy of penalties by Brendan Smith, but at even
strength, and Lundqvist had to foil breakaways by Dylan Larkin, with a
right arm save, and Gustav Nyqvist, with his glove.
The Wings also missed the net with seven shots and six were blocked.
And they did it with 11 forwards, having dressed seven defensemen. The
Rangers had just six shots on Howard in the first, who finished with 30
saves.
But Lundqvist, in a vintage performance, controlled rebounds and kept
the Rangers in.
“He’s confident in there,” said Marc Staal. “He looks like he’s enjoying
himself. It looks like he’s having some fun, he’s smiling and competing
hard. Obviously, he gives us a chance to win every game.”
Newsday LOADED: LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085033 New York Rangers
With Boo Nieves injured, David Desharnais could be back in lineup
By Steve Zipay
Updated November 25, 2017 12:41 AM
Center David Desharnais, who was a healthy scratch for the third
consecutive game in favor of Boo Nieves, could be back in the lineup on
Sunday against the Vancouver Canucks.
Nieves — who essentially had edged Desharnais to street clothes in
taking over the fourth-line center role — played only 3:10 in seven shifts
in the Rangers’ 2-1 overtime victory over the Red Wings on Friday night
before leaving early in the second period with a lower-body injury. He did
not return. Nieves grabbed his left hip after a faceoff midway through the
first period. He had delivered two hits and won three of five faceoffs.
Unless the Rangers make a call-up from Hartford, Desharnais, 31, a free
agent who was signed to a one-year deal and is 2-6-8 in 20 games, will
dress. He has not played well defensively recently.
Nieves, 23, was playing his sixth straight game since recovering from the
flu, which sidelined him for three games. Since posting three assists in
his first game of the season on Oct. 23 against the Arizona Coyotes,
Nieves hadn’t produced any points but was adjusting to the NHL. In his
previous five games, he had won 54 percent of his faceoffs.
WINGS LOSE DALEY
The Red Wings also went down a man early. With 7:55 left in the first
period, defenseman Trevor Daley left for the trainer’s room after
appearing to injure his shoulder on an attempted mid-ice check. He was
in pain while lying on his back and did not return after being helped off.
Fortunately for the Wings, they had dressed seven defensemen.
ICE CHIPS
The Rangers will practice outdoors next Saturday at Central Park’s
Lasker Rink for the first time in at least 30 years. They have skated at
Wollman Rink in the past . . . Their blue jerseys for the Winter Classic
against the Sabres at Citi Field on Jan. 1 were unveiled Friday. In a nod
to their Original Six heritage, the word “Rangers’’ is diagonal across the
front of the sweater.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Newsday LOADED: LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085111 Websites
The Athletic / By the numbers: How much value have Peter Chiarelli's
trades cost the Oilers?
By Dom Luszczyszyn 15 hours ago
It’s been a miserable start to the season for the Edmonton Oilers, a team
that came into the season with a lot of promise. They sit 29th in the
league with an 8-12-2 record at American Thanksgiving, and while
they’re not at the point of no return, they’re dangerously close.
The season isn’t over yet – even if it feels like it – and their underlying
numbers suggest the Oilers aren’t as bad as they look, but it should’ve
never reached this point. Not when you’re building around the most
valuable asset in all of hockey, Connor McDavid. Edmonton is here now
because of all the missteps since he was taken first overall in 2015 and
are learning first hand that having the best player in the world (apologies
to the two guys lighting it up in Tampa, but it’s still Connor) guarantees
nothing for team success. Not in this sport.
He needs support, especially up front where the Oilers have only scored
2.68 goals per game, good for 25th in the league. They’re generating
chances and have had a lot of bad luck offensively, but they’re also a
team that’s low on finishing talent outside their star players. The worst
part is they had support up front, they had finishing talent — they just
traded it away.
Players that can actually put the puck in the net (or put it in a good spot
for someone else to do so) are the hardest players to acquire and that’s
what made most of Peter Chiarelli’s moves as a GM so baffling. He was
willing to give it all up so easily for the types of players that were much
easier to come by as he attempted to build the Oilers in his image: a
team that was “tough” to play against.
Looking back through his deals reveals that he placed a premium on grit,
compete, sandpaper and other buzzwords that fit his archetype while
shipping out “soft” skilled players who can actually play with the puck.
That was the team identity Chiarelli seemed to settle on and if it meant
moving players that didn’t fit, then so be it. They built themselves in the
mould of the Kings and Bruins of five years ago and it shows on the ice.
It’s no surprise the Oilers have turned into a heavy, slow, trudging mess,
especially compared to the rest of the league which has transitioned
toward speed, speed, speed after seeing the last three Stanley Cups won
in a similar fashion. That’s not to say the team can’t win with the style the
Oilers were after, it means the Oilers built this team while sacrificing
talent at the alter of identity and came out behind most of the time.
Here are my questions for Chiarelli’s tenure as GM: how much value has
he cost them on this quest to be “tough to play against” and how much
better would this team be if he hadn’t made some of his most
controversial moves?
Hindsight is 20/20, but not when it comes to some of the Oilers most
notable trades of the last few years. Most of the deals Chiarelli has made
were panned immediately as it was obvious the Oilers were generally on
the losing side. It was so obvious that all the Oilers needed was one
person to say “Don’t do that!” (and actually listen to him or her) and
they’d be in much better shape than they are today.
So let’s go to that alternate universe: the universe where the Oilers had a
“Don’t Do That” person, someone who could clearly see that what they
were about to do was not the right move and convince their higher-ups it
was, in fact, a bad move. And then let’s measure how much better (or
maybe worse? Just kidding, it’s not worse) off the Oilers would be if
someone just said “don’t do that.”
Here are the transactions the magical Don’t Do That wand is going to
reverse. To reiterate, the moves have to be ones that did not need the
benefit of hindsight to nix. Three trades stick out, and you probably know
which ones.
June 26, 2015: Edmonton trades a 2015 1st (16th overall) and 2nd (33rd
overall) for D Griffin Reinhart.
June 29, 2016: Edmonton trades LW Taylor Hall for D Adam Larsson.
June 22, 2017: Edmonton trades RW Jordan Eberle for C Ryan Strome.
Three straight years of franchise-altering trades in late June. I’d start
taking vacations around that time if I was an Oilers fan.
Those three were obviously the most egregious ones, as you may know
since we’re still talking about them to this day, but there are other
dominoes that fall if those moves aren’t made. Milan Lucic doesn’t get
signed if Hall is still an Oiler. Ditto for Kris Russell who was afforded
mostly off the savings from dealing Eberle. Without Larsson (or Reinhart)
the Oilers probably don’t deal Brandon Davidson last season. And with
the crowded forward group, it’s unlikely they’d give a three-year, $1.95
million per extension to a bottom tier player like Zack Kassian.
Those are the big changes made thanks to the Don’t Do That person and
it’s hard to not see the Oilers in a significantly better position as a result.
Now, that doesn’t mean Chiarelli hasn’t made some good moves as GM.
The Cam Talbot trade was a great gamble on a back-up that showed a
lot of promise and adding Patrick Maroon for cheap was a great value
add that’s worked wonders so far. But those few good moves don’t make
up for how far the team was set back with some of his other moves.
Financially, the Oilers are arguably in a worse position now, too. The
cap-hit for the alternate universe team, after including potential
performance bonuses, would be just under $4 million cheaper than the
current iteration. They would have a pretty large hole on the right side of
their defence, but they also would have had cap space and options in
free agency to fix it that didn’t include trading away their better forwards.
We can’t add them in hindsight, but it’s something to keep in mind when
comparing rosters as alternative options were available to make the team
even better.
Now, let’s actually compare those rosters.
To do so we’re going to use my model which we use for our daily
projections. It’s based on a player’s last three years (weighted by
recency) of context-adjusted Game Score to estimate player strength and
because it’s done at the player level it can be combined to estimate team
strength. This model isn’t perfect and will be missing parts of the
equation (you can read about it here), but generally speaking it does a
pretty decent job of quantifying player value, and in effect team value.
Before the season started, it said the Oilers were probably a playoff
team, but a flawed one at that, one that on average hits 93 points and
was far from the contender many thought they were. Now that we’re 20
games in, their forecast has changed to 85 points thanks to their poor
start, but their underlying strength has only been downgraded slightly to
about 91.5 points. Under the hood, not much has changed.
The forward group is average, the goaltending is average (with plenty of
room to regress once Talbot finds his game again), and the defence is
just barely below average at 21st. The front office has paid a lot to have
the Oilers look the way they wanted and still end up being just average.
Now, the team they could’ve had? That’s a different story and it’s
because the three forwards they could’ve had (Hall, Eberle, and let's
assume Mathew Barzal, who the Islanders took with that first round pick)
are miles better than the ones that replaced them (Lucic, Strome,
Kassian). They’re over five wins better according to this model and that
shouldn’t be at all surprising given the names involved. There’s caveats
to that to go over soon, but the gap is large enough that it wouldn’t matter
too much. And the trade-off on defence is minimal, if admittedly flawed as
my model isn’t as keen on Larsson (a very good, albeit, one-dimensional
defender who’s obviously better than Matt Benning) as it should be and
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tends to overrate depth defenders like Davidson, even after adjusting for
context.
This team would arguably be a true talent 100.5 point team, the best
team in the West and the second best team in the league behind Tampa
Bay. This is what a Cup contender looks like, even if the defence doesn't.
Alternate universe team would have the same average goalie, the same
bottom 10 defence, but by far the best forward group in the league,
nearly two wins clear of Tampa Bay and Toronto. When your forward
group is that talented, it’s a lot easier to overcome a weak defence corps.
Forwards are the ones driving the bus on most teams, they’re where
teams get most of their value from. There simply aren’t many teams that
can get by without a good group of forwards, and Edmonton could’ve had
the league’s best by a significant margin.
On each line they could’ve had an incredible duo and wouldn’t have to
worry about splitting up McDavid and Draisaitl to spread out the offence.
That’s because on line two it would have been Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
with Hall and on line three Barzal with Eberle, a line that's worked pretty
well so far in Brooklyn. It’s a set of six that no team could match-up
against, especially when they’re balanced out over three lines, and it
would’ve made their support guys look even better.
And if you’re thinking it wouldn’t work because the lineup would be too
forward heavy, you only need to look at the Maple Leafs to see this exact
strategy working in spades right now with Auston Matthews, William
Nylander, Mitch Marner, Nazem Kadri, James van Riemsdyk and a
decent forward support group carrying a bottom 10 defence group and
average goaltending.
Of course, there’s a few caveats to this analysis to iron out and they start
and end with Barzal.
Even if the Oilers did draft him, there’s no guarantee he’d look as good
with them as he does with the Isles. A lot of his value is because he plays
on a top power play with John Tavares that’s been red hot lately and
there’s no guarantee he’d get the same opportunity in Edmonton. And
that’s if the Oilers drafted him. He was a near consensus top 10 choice,
but considering they traded that pick for a defenceman, there’s a
possibility the team would’ve drafted for need and taken a defenceman
with the 16th overall selection, likely leaving them with the next defender
taken, Thomas Chabot. He’s a damn good prospect, but he’d be another
leftie on an already crowded left side. It’s also not exactly fair to compare
what Barzal is now to what Reinhart was, but even at the time it seemed
rather obvious who had the much higher ceiling as well as the probability
of reaching it. It wasn’t the guy the Oilers traded for who had already
shown plenty of signs he wouldn't be an NHL regular.
No one really wants to hear the coulda, shoulda, wouldas – especially
when it comes to this team as it’s a topic that’s been beaten to death
already – but there’s value in measuring just how much they’ve lost and
how much the front office has cost the team. My model thinks it’s about
five wins of value, and while there’s some margin of error to that (Larsson
is better than I give him credit for, Barzal likely wouldn’t be as good on
the Oilers) it’s not enough to overcome five wins. They have basically
given up a Connor McDavid's worth of value. Any way you want to slice
it, the Oilers still come out behind. Far behind. I can’t imagine anyone at
this point who could, should or would defend these moves and say the
Oilers are a better team for it. They’re not, and all their current problems
are a direct manifestation of the mistakes they’ve made along the way.
Unfortunately for Oilers fans, we don’t live in the alternate universe where
they still have Hall and Eberle and maybe Barzal. We live here, in the
world where they gave up a lot to get a little. But while there’s always
going to be harsh reminders of what could’ve been, what they have in
front of them is still very much worthwhile. Even if the present looks dim
and the path that got them here is even darker, their future is still very
bright with all the young talent they still have – as long as they don’t trade
them away.
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The Athletic / Dellow: Scoring is up, and increased effectiveness on
offensive zone faceoff wins is one reason why
By Tyler Dellow 11 hours ago
Life's hard when you work for a scrappy upstart media enterprise. You
don't get the press releases that the big dogs get (see Thought 14)
announcing that offence is up. You're forced to figure it out for yourself
through a complicated process of addition and division. Having done that,
I can confirm (I am new to the media game but understand that
confirming things that are well known to be true is part of how you add
value): offence is up. What's more, it's up for reasons other than simply
an increase in power plays: teams are scoring more goals at 5-on-5 than
they have in the past. (Well, most of them are.)
In the olden days of hockey analytics, those opposed to counting things
would say “You can't break down a hockey game with numbers! It's a
flow game! A series of fragmentary events wholly disconnected from
everything that has occurred in the past and will occur in the future!”
Even people employed in hockey would say this. For reasons that
escape me, these same people would also hire coaches. Who would
watch games and tell their players to do things that they thought would
bring success based on what they remembered from watching them.
They just weren't allowed to count things, as I understand it.
One of the amazing things you realize when you start to dig into
information that's recorded about the game is how much it's just a series
of repeating events with extremely similar outcomes that repeat over and
over and over. Individual players and teams have up years and down
years but there are numerical constants. In the big picture, it's the same
thing happening over and over. Change does occur — power plays are
getting ever more efficient as coaches get more aggressive — but it
tends to be pretty gradual.
There are a bunch of offensive indicators that are up this year at 5-on-5.
Teams are scoring 2.39 GF/60 at 5-on-5, which is higher than at any
point this decade. It's a significant bump from 2015-16, when teams
bottomed out, scoring just 2.16 GF/60 after drifting downward for years.
Unsurprisingly, shooting percentage bottomed out in 2015-16, too, with
teams shooting just 7.5 per cent at 5-on-5. (Obviously, this means the
league average save percentage was .925.) Shots and shot attempts had
been trending downward for years, too – they also bottomed out in the
offensive nadir of 2015-16, with teams averaging 28.8 SF/60 and 54.1
CF/60. Those numbers nudged upwards last year and moved up further
this year. Through games played Wednesday night, teams are shooting
7.8 per cent. Save percentage is down to .922. They're averaging 30.7
SF/60 on 56.7 CF/60.
Everyone has theories for stuff like this. A lot of people will point to this
year's slashing crackdown. I'm sure that doesn't hurt. I suspect that
something else plays a bigger role though — the Darwinian processes by
which coaching staffs identify things that work and discard things that
don't and by which general managers identify coaches who are good at
doing that and discard those who aren't. In order to illustrate this, I'm
going to focus on shifts that start with an offensive zone faceoff win.
Teams are doing better than ever after they win an offensive zone faceoff
this year. This is due to a bunch of things, some of which have been
building for a while, some of which are new this year. Goals are way up.
Shots and shot attempts are up too, a trend that's been building for a
while.
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Finally, shooting percentage is way up on shifts starting with offensive
zone wins.
We know that shooting percentage is pretty variable but a bump like this
is pretty large a quarter of the way into the season.
If we peel the onion back a little more, we start to find some interesting
things. In order to do this, I've contrasted what's going on this year with
2015-16, the low point for 5-on-5 offence.
Let's start with what it's not. It's not about point shots being more likely to
go in — in 2015-16, 3.1 per cent of shots from above the circle went in on
offensive zone win shifts. This year, it's 3.2 per cent. An extra goal per
1,000 shots.
It's not about more rebounds being created either. In 2015-16, 7.2 per
cent of saved shots on goal resulted in a rebound. This year, that number
is at 7.0 per cent. (Rounding makes this difference look twice as large as
it actually is, too.) It is a little bit about teams doing a better job of putting
away rebounds — 19.5 per cent of rebound shot attempts have turned
into goals this year, as compared to 15.6 per cent in 2015-16. The
shooting percentage gap is about the same — 25.5 per cent versus 21.4
per cent.
That doesn't really explain much though — the NHL is up 28 goals on
offensive zone win shifts this year and that would account for about four
of them. There's something else happening. It largely seems to consist of
teams being a heck of a lot more efficient from a 650 square foot patch of
ice. This patch of ice goes from seven feet above the goal line to
nineteen feet above the goal line, extending 25 feet in either direction. In
2015-16, teams shot 12.6 per cent on non-rebound shots from that area,
which is pretty consistent with what they've done in the past. This year,
they're shooting 18 per cent. Let's just refer to this area as the slot, even
though it's a bit wider than the traditional slot.
That's something. It's so weird that I wondered if I'd screwed something
up or if the league has some sort of data tracking problem. Of course, it'd
be a hell of a data tracking problem if they were inventing goals too and
goals are up, so I think that this is actually correct.
So what does that leave? I'm wondering if teams are starting to come up
with more effective tactics after they win an offensive zone faceoff. A
surprisingly well-kept secret about offensive zone faceoff wins is that they
historically have resulted in a pretty low shooting percentage relative to
other points in the game. It makes sense when you think about it, of
course — when you win an offensive zone faceoff, the other team has
five guys in position to defend. Even if you get a shot off, you're likely
pretty heavily defended while doing so. Historically, a lot of these shots
come from the point, which are low probability shots anyway.
My pet theory is that, in addition to the slashing crackdown, some teams
are getting smarter with what they do after they win an offensive zone
faceoff and it's starting to show up in the results. In particular, I've got a
suspicion that teams are trying to spread the opposing defence out as
opposed to simply winning the puck back to the defencemen and, as the
Brits would say, putting it into the mixer. Crashing the net sounds great,
but the puck doesn't discriminate between the legs of the attacking or
defending team — it will hit either of them.
Moreover, I'm not sure that having more guys in and around the net
actually helps your chances of getting a rebound and I suspect that it
hurts your chances of getting a good shot off. A goal that St. Louis
scored against Edmonton last week illustrates this. The Blues won a
faceoff to Vladimir Tarasenko, who got a shot on goal. The St. Louis
centre, Brayden Schenn, hadn't moved toward the net until the rebound
came out. As a result, Connor McDavid hadn't moved either.
The end result was a contest for a rebound between the left shot Oscar
Klefbom, whose stick is on the wrong side of his body to contest the puck
and Jaden Schwartz, whose stick is on the right side of his body to attack
the puck and who has the advantage of being able to see what's
happening.
Consider what would have happened if Schenn goes right to the net after
winning the draw. McDavid, who's been getting — this is a quote — “a
gentle tickle” (!) from the Edmonton media for his defensive play of late,
presumably goes right with him. If that happens, McDavid's in a pretty
decent spot to knock that rebound into the corner. Deliberate or not,
Schenn's delay seems like it upped the chances of the Blues getting that
rebound simply because he didn't drag a defending Oiler towards the net.
I gathered some recent examples of goals scored off offensive zone wins
in the area that I'm talking about. Pay attention to how the movement,
particularly that of a forward away from the net, is pulling the defending
team apart. You see it on this Ducks goal with Rickard Rakell pulling up
high after the faceoff, belatedly pulling a Sharks forward with him
This, along with the other two forwards crossing, confuses the Sharks
defence and leads to the goal.
Watch Justin Williams, the inside winger, here. After the Hurricanes win
the draw, he bolts toward the boards. Two Chicago forwards move out
toward the point. When the puck is passed to Williams, the third Chicago
forward comes to him, creating the 2-on-2 situation down low.
Brock McGinn is able to disappear by going around the net. He pops up
on the other side for the easy tap-in. Yes, the puck bounced around a bit
but the point is that the Carolina movement resulted in him being wide
open.
That's David Pastrnak on the left wing here. Patrice Bergeron wins the
puck back to Charlie McAvoy. Two Los Angeles forwards head out
toward the points. Watch how Pastrnak's movement drags Drew Doughty
out as well, creating more space in the middle of the ice.
One final example. This one's a little different than the others because of
how St. Louis spreads their defence. If you look carefully, you'll notice
that Colton Parayko isn't even visible in the shot when the puck's
dropped — he's way off to the right.
Klefbom seems to mis-read where the puck is going, which touches off a
series of errors that are not unlike a building collapsing. Milan Lucic
gravitates toward Tarasenko, who is otherwise uncovered and Drake
Caggiula seems to decide that's a good spot to be as well. I strongly
suspect that Klefbom was supposed to go after Tarasenko off the draw if
Tarasenko ended up with the puck because he wanders out there like a
man with a guilty conscience who knows it's probably not a good idea at
this point.
St. Louis ends up with Tarasenko holding the puck, with two options on
his flanks, neither of which is really covered. He passes to Parayko, who
used the space available off the faceoff and never ended up getting
covered. Matt Benning is forced to run to him. This leaves Ryan Nugent-
Hopkins all alone with two Blues and Schenn taps in the gimme putt.
Obviously, there's some blown coverage from the Oilers here. It was
created, in part, by St. Louis' use of space though.
My best guess as to why teams are getting so much more effective on
offensive zone wins is that they're getting more thoughtful about using
space and movement to put the opposition on their heels. You can't really
prove this from video clips — the clips I've provided above are intended
to illustrate rather than definitively answer the question — but it's a quite
large and broad-based change.
This is, I think: a good thing. Goals are fun. Scoring chances are fun. If
coaches are finding ways to create more in the offensive zone through
movement and space, it makes for a more watchable game. In time,
coaches might even shake the reputation that they're to suck the fun out
of hockey.
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The Athletic / Mirtle: The surprising rise of Andreas Borgman – and what
it says about where the NHL is headed
By James Mirtle 20 hours ago
It is a lesson that has stayed with Andreas Borgman every game these
last few years.
The coach was named Martin Filander, who at the time was the bench
boss of Vasteras in Sweden's second division, the Allsvenskan. And his
orders — with no exceptions — were that no player could dump the puck
out of the zone.
Borgman smiles remembering the edict.
“He actually said we couldn’t rim the puck (around the boards) or nothing
like that,” he recalled. “So we had to play it. We had to try to figure it out.
“He had a good influence on me. We still keep in touch sometimes. He’s
still watching me.”
Watching how he exits the zone, no doubt.
At the time, Borgman had just turned 20 years old. He had been passed
over in the NHL draft several times and bounced around several teams
and leagues in Sweden. The fact he is now playing a regular shift in the
NHL, with the Maple Leafs, stuns some of his former coaches overseas.
He came from a long way back to get this far.
“He has only one season in the SHL in Sweden,” said Thord Johansson,
the coach who first discovered Borgman as a 16-year-old and brought
him to Timra, a small timber town four hours north of his hometown of
Stockholm. “I’m very surprised he made it so far. But he’s always been
determined.”
Borgman's rise has been both unusual and under the radar. Few
undrafted Swedish defencemen make much of an impact in the NHL,
after all. But Borgman has seamlessly stepped in and played all but two
games for the Leafs this season on their third pair, logging an average 14
minutes a night and rarely looking out of place.
His underlying numbers — or analytics — also have stood out, with
positive marks in puck possession metrics like Corsi and scoring chances
right from his first game in the league, despite his unfamiliarity with the
ice surface and many of the very basics of the NHL.
That side of his success, apparently, is not by chance. Those were the
exact same metrics he excelled at in Sweden last season, when he was
named the league's rookie of the year with HV71.
“Borgman had fantastic numbers last year,” said Simon Brandstrom,
whose firm SBPL Sports Data Analytics AB handles data analysis for
HV71. “HV destroyed possession wise last year.”
This kind of analysis is still in its infancy in the Swedish Hockey League,
but it has so far mimicked the early days in the NHL, with a focus on
countable measures like shot attempts, zone exits and entries. According
to Brandstrom, Borgman was a 60.4 per cent Corsi player in the SHL and
closer to 62 per cent in situations when the score was close.
The biggest reason, he explained, was how he came out of his own zone
with the puck.
“He had really good exit numbers,” Brandstrom said. “Carried the puck
insanely well.”
Some of that information made it down to the players.
“I saw some statistics, but not all of it,” Borgman said. “But I didn’t focus
on that. I was just trying to play good and that would show up… On those
teams, we almost never chipped the puck out or anything like that. We
always tried to keep it and play through the middle (of the ice). We never
actually go the boards and out. We always have to play it out.”
Here come the Swedes
Andreas Borgman's story isn't really one about analytics. As he states
above, it's more about trying to play well and that showing up in the data.
What Borgman's quick rise to becoming a capable NHL defenceman
likely reflects, however, is how hockey is changing in North America. And
how the way Swedish defencemen are trained to play the game fits well
within a style that covets good skaters and puck movers above all else.
That push toward Swedish defencemen has been slow and steady in the
25 years since Nick Lidstrom entered the league as an unassuming third-
round pick.
But those numbers are on pace to take a big jump this season. Including
Borgman, the NHL currently has 29 Swedish defencemen on pace to
play 30 games or more this season — an all-time high.
Including Timothy Liljegren and Calle Rosen, two newcomers with the
Marlies, there are 27 Swedish D-men in the AHL right now, the second
highest total ever for that league.
Somehow, a tiny European country of under 10 million people is now
producing about 12 per cent of the defencemen in the top two North
American leagues.
Players who have come up in Sweden's development system credit the
way they are taught to play the game from a young age.
“Sweden’s doing such a good job of developing defencemen,” explained
Christian Folin, who along with Oscar Fantenberg is one of two undrafted
Swedish defencemen playing a regular shift with the L.A. Kings this
season. “It’s a combination of fundamentals of the game. Skating really
well. We have a lot of good puck-moving defencemen.”
“We focus on skating a lot when we grow up and start playing hockey,”
added Coyotes star Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who raved about Borgman's
“unbelievable” play in the SHL last season. “Most of the Swedes are
good skaters and skilled guys. It’s a matter of getting a chance over here
and getting used to the game over here.”
Sweden started to introduce a new nationwide training protocol for
defencemen about 15 years ago. Ekman-Larsson said he noticed it as a
teenager, in some of the new concepts that were being brought in by
coaches to his small club team in Tingsryd.
The Swedish Ice Hockey Association also developed what journalist Uffe
Bodin says is known as the “hockey bible for defencemen,” a training
manual specifically aimed at teaching players good routes for breakouts
and outlet passes.
“I haven't seen it myself, but it has become kind of legendary now that
they're basically producing the best defencemen in the world,” Bodin
said.
The Swedish hockey federation was kind enough to pass along a copy of
the defenceman's bible a couple weeks ago. I obviously can't read
Swedish, but the few passages that I translated online were pretty
interesting, especially when paired with some of the diagrams.
Below is one that was based entirely on what defencemen did during the
gold-medal game at the 2006 Olympics, Sweden's second triumph at the
Games.
“Overview of the modern defenceman's attack actions” reads the
headline in this section of the manual. Note the diagram features the
word anfall — or attack — in capital letters on the far glass.
“The diagram shows offensive technical skills performed by the Swedish
defencemen during the 2006 Olympics,” it explains. “Overall it describes
30 situations where different variations of these skills are used. By
training our young Swedish defenders in these skills, we can prepare
them for the challenges they will face.”
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If it looks like something out of a science textbook, that's because it
should. Using more scholastic methods to teach hockey has become the
norm in Sweden. They did it first with goaltenders and now have
implemented similar systems for every position in the game.
Some Swedish coaches now have considerable educational background,
as teaching hockey is tied in with teaching in a more general sense.
Pedagogy has become key.
“(Sweden's success has) always been about the education and having
Nick Lidstrom as a role model,” Bodin said.
“They must be good at handling the puck,” Johansson explained of the
philosophy being preached to defencemen in Sweden. “That’s something
that’s very difficult when you work with juniors, as I do, because they’re
afraid to make a mistake. But we let them do it.
“(We want) good skaters who are good with the puck. They’ve got to be
good at defending, of course, but they’ve got to set up the play very
quickly and have good hockey sense.”
Which relates back to Borgman learning not to clear the puck. And HV71
dominating Sweden's top league last season.
And, likely, all of the Swedish defencemen flooding into the NHL and
AHL at a time when the game is opening up and getting away from
relying on brute strength on the back end.
“It’s a good development thing, especially for D-men,” said Connor
Carrick, Borgman's regular defence partner with the Leafs. “Create that
poise with the puck. I think that’s where the game’s changed, too. That’s
why you’re seeing more European defencemen having success. There is
a skill element.
“The best black-and-white answer for me was when I played for U.S.
national teams. We played Sweden, and they’d go D to D, back to D,
hinge it back, go to the far forward, bring it back. It seemed like they did a
really nice job of holding onto it. It was certainly something that was
coached. Whereas we were more chip it in and go get it.”
What is Borgman's ceiling in the NHL?
A lot of the attention on Borgman initially in Toronto was on his physical
play and toughness. It was unmistakable right away in training camp how
fit he was off the ice and fearless he was on it.
“He’s kind of surprising,” teammate Jake Gardiner said. “You don’t really
see a lot of Swedish guys being that physical and aggressive.”
As the season has worn on, however, what the Leafs other defencemen
have gained a greater appreciation for is Borgman's play with the puck.
He has made some highlight-reel moves in traffic that few expected and
led breakouts with authority.
His adjustment to a new league and a smaller ice surface has also been
relatively painless, despite the fact he admits he knew almost nothing
about the NHL before agreeing to join the Leafs back in May.
“He’s a great skater,” Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly observed after
one recent practice. “Good first pass. When you look at his edges and
the way he can skate and forecheck, I think that’s one of his best assets.
The adjustment period has been pretty short. He looks right at home.
And I think the more he plays, the more comfortable he gets, the more
offence you’re going to see.”
“I think that's his identity as a player — he relies on his puck skills,”
Carrick added. “He sees the ice well.”
Johansson, Borgman's old junior coach, marvels at the progress his
young protege has made. When Borgman first arrived at Timra, he had a
bad knee and was overweight. His skills were also very raw, and he
wasn't big for a Swede.
The organization wasn't sure if he would last the season.
“We thought 'My god, what is this?' ” Johansson recalled. “Okay, we’ll
give him a chance until Christmas or something. But he improved. He
improved very quickly. The next year, he was already on the under-20
team. He moved very quickly up on the teams here.
“Andreas has got something on the ice that we call the ‘pondus’ in
Sweden. (Editor's note: It translates roughly to mean poise.) His body
language is very strong. He’s very intense. If there’s an attack against the
boards or something, he’s there 100 per cent. Doing the job right now.
He’s very determined. When you see him on the ice, he’s confident. I
think he’s very strong in his mind. Mentally strong.”
What remains an unknown is how good Borgman can be. At 22, he is the
youngest defenceman on the Leafs blueline and one of the youngest
playing pro in the organization.
He has been caught out of position or turned the puck over at times this
season, in part because his aggressiveness has gotten the better of him.
Given his quick progression over the last five years, however, it's
plausible he continues to make rapid strides in his game and earn more
ice time on Toronto's blueline.
It's possible that, as the NHL becomes more and more focused on speed
and skill, he will be the perfect fit.
“I didn’t know anything about any of the teams here,” said Borgman, who
was heavily pursued by Nashville and several other NHL clubs. “After
talking to some Swedish guys, I felt like Toronto was a pretty easy
decision actually. It feels pretty good. I like the city, too.”
“I’m very surprised he made the (top) six or seven defenders with the
Maple Leafs,” Johansson admitted. “I’m very impressed about that. I
thought maybe he going to start in the AHL or something. But he made
it.”
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The Athletic / The year that made Mike Babcock a coach: A season with
the Whitley Warriors in the British Hockey League
By Joshua Kloke 20 hours ago
Terry Matthews had many Canadian hockey players come and go over
the years. The Whitley Warriors coach knew it was customary for
talented players to head over to the British Hockey League and treat the
season as a holiday.
But when a 24-year-old defenceman named Mike Babcock arrived in
Whitley Bay in northeast England 30 years ago, Matthews immediately
knew he had someone different on his hands.
“He wasn’t here to enjoy himself and piss up like a lot of them do,”
Matthews said.
As the Warriors travelled north and south along the A1 highway, the team
would drink bottles of beer and play cards on the bus. The Canadian
players, who usually led the team in scoring, were no different.
Except for Babcock, who was already planning ahead.
“When we were on the buses and stuff, he was quite a studious type,”
Matthews said. “Always reading and studying.”
It was in Whitley Bay — a quaint, British, seaside town — that Babcock
discovered how to make the transition from player to coach and begin
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
one of the most illustrious careers behind the bench. Babcock had just
graduated from McGill University in 1987 after playing four seasons as a
defenceman and was originally drawn to England for a teaching job at
Northumberland College.
But Babcock's proposed teaching gig wasn't to be. The Warriors owner
caught wind he was coming over and immediately signed him.
Babcock knew he wouldn't be playing long.
“I had promised my folks by 1990 I'd get a real job,” Babcock once said in
an interview. “It was just one of those things. You've got to get on with it
eventually. Sometimes growing up isn't as much fun. The college life —
even being a pro hockey player and single — the responsibilities aren't
quite there.”
The BHL was then sponsored by Heineken, and the influx of cash meant
owners of the arenas decided which import players would be brought
over. Each team was allowed three imports.
British defenceman Terry Ord had been playing for the Warriors since
1983. He knew most Canadian players came to the league and didn't
give the local players the respect he thought they deserved.
“They thought they were the dog’s bollocks!” Ord said.
Matthews himself had little say in players arriving and, having coached
the team for 15 years, was getting to the point where he was beginning to
accept that any Canadians given to him would arrive expecting a walk in
the park.
In Whitley Bay, Babcock stood out immediately. He began to understand
how to effectively assert himself as a respected voice in the dressing
room and on the ice. But he would never talk down to players, according
to defenceman Dave Ross.
“He knew we all had to go to work the next day,” Ross said.
Babcock also had the talent to talk a big game, as his 132 points over 36
games proved. And those points were imperative to staying employed.
Babcock’s salary — estimated by teammates to be between £150 and
£200 a week — was much higher as an import player than that of the
locals.
It was the equivalent to between £400 and £540 today, or $35,000 to
$47,000 (Canadian) for a full 52 weeks.
“As an import, you’re expected to be better — and you're expected to
play a lot,” said Luc Chabot, an Ottawa native who was one of the three
imports playing for the Warriors that season. “You basically know you
have to get four or five points. Some guys would show up, they’d play
two games, they’d have a bad weekend, and they're sent back home.”
In order to shut down opposition forwards, Babcock spent his share of
time in the sin bin. He showcased a ferocity that garnered 88 penalty
minutes in 36 games.
That was just fine by his coach.
“Any defenceman that doesn’t get penalty minutes,” Matthews said,
“there’s something wrong with him.”
Back then, Babcock was a shell of the bullish coach the hockey world
has come to know. Matthews described him as “a quiet lad.”
“He didn’t have an outgoing personality,” said Ord, Babcock's roommate
on road trips. “He was definitely one of the more focused Canadians that
had come over.”
Instead of talking to British players about what he had done back in
Canada, as so many of the Canadians were prone to do, Babcock
instead tried to appeal to British players about what they could do.
“He gained the guys’ respect by talking to them in a more knowledgeable
way,” Ord said. “He brought a different dimension. He had this art of
making you interested in what he was saying.”
Babcock was originally brought to Whitley Bay just to be a player, but his
interest in the technical elements of the game spilled over. It was in his
nature to try to help the team improve.
At one point, he approached Matthews about running some of the team's
drills. His biggest influence ultimately came through the changes he
implemented in practices.
“We didn’t practice the way we should have,” Matthews explained. “It was
more scrimmaging and then pulling different players out during the
scrimmage and giving them advice.”
Matthews was more of a motivational coach than a technical one, a
master of the rah-rah pre-game speeches. Having only picked up what
he learned from other coaches and having never attended any hockey
schools, he was not a coach who could help improve a player’s
technique.
That didn’t suit Babcock. After a few weeks, he got to work implementing
drills that would help teammates improve their games. Babcock
immediately lifted the standard for the Warriors, using his own knowledge
and passion.
“He made the drills a lot more intense,” Ross said. “He didn’t expect
anybody to just coast through the drills. You had to be going 110 per cent
with Mike when you were going through drills.”
Still, Babcock made sure to respect Matthews and his role behind the
bench.
“He didn’t overpower the coaches,” Ord said. “He would run drills — but
you always knew Terry was the coach.”
Much like the Toronto Maple Leafs when Babcock signed on as coach in
2015, he viewed the Warriors as a project that required fixing. He couldn't
help himself. On the dodgy ice surface of Whitley Bay Ice Rink, Babcock
first learned how to master what has become a hallmark of his coaching
style: getting the most out of individual players.
While Babcock tried to lead by example on the ice — and regularly
played 45 minutes a night — he knew he couldn’t do it alone. If Ross was
going to be paired with Babcock, he was also going to learn from him.
The Warriors practiced twice a week, from 10 p.m. to midnight. Babcock
wanted more.
“Most of us had to go to work the next day, but when the team got off the
ice at 12 a.m., he would tell me, ‘You’ve got to stay on with me,’ ” Ross
said. “We’d do little drills because he was my defence partner. We’d do
extra drills for 20 minutes after practice with specific skills. He made me
become a lot more professional as well in my outlook.”
It wasn’t just Ross.
“He made me a more confident player,” Ord said, “through the support he
gave me while I was playing.”
In what should come as no surprise to anyone that’s watched Babcock
coach the Leafs or Team Canada, one of his top priorities was improving
the Warriors defensively. High-scoring games were a reality of the BHL
at the time, with double-digit outcomes not uncommon.
“Because of the amount of goals scored, the discipline among some of
the teams wasn’t what it should be in defensive zones,” Matthews said.
One of the first things Ross noted when Babcock began running
practices was that he was “very, very dedicated to defending the net.”
“That’s what he’d grown up with, and he was using these drills to improve
our positional play: how to defend correctly, man mark and how to take
players out,” Matthews said. “I learned a lot from him in that regard.”
Whitley Bay's arena could fit approximately 4,000 spectators, but even
back in 1987 it was a relic of a bygone time. The Warriors owner didn’t
believe in spending money to keep the rink — which was built way back
in 1955 — up to what it could be when Babcock played.
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
“He was a cheap bastard,” Chabot recalled.
The boards were crooked and the two teams’ benches were on different
levels. Everyone — players and coaches alike — described the ice
surface as “terrible.”
Still, fans packed the arena. The low roof meant that it felt as if
spectators sat directly on top of the players. For Sunday “Derby” games
against local rivals like the Durham Wasps, Ross said players would
enter the rink and be greeted by thousands of fans lining up around the
corner to get in.
Games were played on Saturdays and Sundays, with one home and one
road game. Late Sunday road games often saw the team returning by
bus at 6 a.m. Monday morning. Many players then had to head to their
day jobs.
Babcock lived in a three-bedroom Victorian house with Chabot and Scott
Morrison, the team’s other high-flying import, who led the team in scoring
with a ridiculous 224 points in 36 games. The imports' bills and housing
were paid for by the team, which meant Babcock could dedicate even
more time to studying coaching and pursuing his own interests.
To earn extra cash, Babcock would pile into a car with some of his
teammates and head north to Scotland, where they would buy used cars
at auctions and then sell them back in England.
By the end of his year in Whitley Bay, Babcock had become a
recognizable figure in and around the town. He often spent off days at a
variety of local golf courses.
“The year was a riot — the place was great, a lot of fun,” Babcock said
when asked about his time in the BHL earlier this week. “I would’ve loved
to have gone back.”
Though he played in England for just one season, Babcock changed the
perception of the Warriors. The club was a mid-level team when he
arrived, but they finished two points back of the league title that season.
As in European soccer, the championship is awarded to the team with
the most points at the end of the regular season.
Ord benefitted from Babcock’s direction, registering 62 points that
season, the most of his 14-year BHL career.
“He was always trying to find ways to open up the ice for us to get out of
our zone,” Ord said.
But toward the end of the season, Babcock began confiding in Ord his
desire to leave England and return to Canada. “He had said his heart
was in coaching,” Ord said.
In the playoffs for the league cup, the Warriors lost in the semifinals. The
small-town club suffered from stage fright. That marked the end of
Babcock's playing career.
The Warriors celebrated the end of the season by driving to the coastal
resort town of Blackpool for a two-night stay. They visited the local
amusement parks, played soccer on the beach and spent the evenings
blowing off steam at local bars and nightclubs.
“That was the first time I saw (Babcock) really let his hair down,” Ross
said.
Babcock returned to Canada soon after for his first head coaching
position at Red Deer College.
“Basically what it did for me is it gave me a chance to put on my resumé
that I’d coached,” Babcock said of his season with the Warriors. “I could
put it on my application for the job at Red Deer College.”
Babcock has kept in touch with some of his former teammates. He
returned to England four years ago for a trip with his family, visiting
Newcastle upon Tyne, just 16 kilometers from Whitley Bay. There, he
met up with Ross and some of the other former Warriors.
After dinner, Babcock invited the group back to his hotel to reminisce
about their one memorable season together.
Even though he was on holiday, Babcock still loved to talk hockey. The
conversation eventually turned toward Ross' recent role coaching Great
Britain’s youth teams.
Babcock wanted to hear about Ross’ experiences and, naturally, share a
few tips.
“When he came over,” Ross said, “he hadn’t changed at all.”
The Athletic LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085115 Websites
The Athletic / LeBrun: Shane Doan soaking up experience in hockey ops,
but future career prospects remain a mystery
By Pierre LeBrun 13 hours ago
The NHL GMs meeting had a fresh face in the room last week, one that
perhaps may join them in the same role some day.
For now, Shane Doan is acting like a sponge, trying to soak in as much
as he can from his senior colleagues in the NHL’s Hockey Operations
Department.
Doan, whose hire by the league was announced last month, jokes that he
just smiles and nods as he tries to take in as much as he can from
hockey ops vets such as Kris King, Mike Murphy, Rod Pasma and his
boss, NHL executive vice-president Colin Campbell.
“It’s an awesome group of guys, it’s like being on a team,” Doan told The
Athletic on Friday. “When you’re in that war room with them, they do an
unbelievable job. The way they manage and handle everything, I’ve
learned so much in a short amount of time. It’s been fun.’’
Doan is following in the footsteps of Brendan Shanahan and Rob Blake,
two other former players who tip-toed into their post-playing career by
joining the hockey ops group before eventually taking on bigger roles in
their executive careers.
“I think the experience of watching and listening to how the league works
from a different viewpoint, you see it as a player through one set of eyes,
and now you see it from a different set and hopefully you can get a better
understanding,’’ Doan said of what he’s got out of it so far. “I enjoy
working with Kinger and Collie and Murph and Rod, all the guys there,
they’re really good guys. I felt comfortable when I met and spoke with
them.’’
Doan actually spent some time in the Toronto war room with them at the
onset of the NHL season to get a feel and understanding of what the gig
would entail before deciding if he would sign on.
For the league, it’s a chance to bring in a player voice that has played
today’s game, something Campbell and King felt was important.
“Shane is fresh off the ice and the respect level that he gets is second to
none,’’ King, senior vice-present of NHL hockey ops, said. “He’s a real
good resource for us with today’s players because he’s respected and all
the players know him and like him. He understands the mindset of
today’s player.’’
That was King some 16 years ago when he retired. But the game has
changed and Doan gives the group a fresh perspective.
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
“To have a guy that can tell us what the players are thinking or be able to
pick up the phone and talk to some of the players and get their feelings
on different things, that’s important. It’s good for all of us,’’ said King, who
played with Doan in Winnipeg and Phoenix.
Long term? Who knows where this gig will bring Doan, he honestly isn’t
sure. He says both Shanahan and Blake reached out when his hiring was
announced and he appreciated their feedback.
Will he follow in their footsteps and one day run an NHL team? Maybe,
maybe not, but Doan isn’t hiding there’s a reason he’s doing this.
“Without a doubt, there’s a reason why you would do this, to have this
opportunity it’s because you have a desire to do something along those
lines,” Doan said. “But at the same time, the situation would have to all
line up for it to work. Really, to be honest, I’m just enjoying learning. I
want to learn and see a different perspective. If that leads to something
else one day, it might or it might not, I don’t know, but I enjoy the learning
side of it regardless of whatever happens. No one knows what you’re
going to do in the future.’’
Doan is able to mostly work from his Arizona home which was a very
important facet to the job, he wanted to stay close to his family. It’s
similar to how Blake first got going with the league, being able to work
from Southern California.
Aside from going to Toronto to see how the war room worked, and to the
GMs meeting in Montreal, Doan also took in some games in Anaheim.
King said Doan will join him for an outdoor game to see how that works
and perhaps Campbell will want him in Florida in two weeks for the Board
of Governors meeting when the owners gather Dec. 7-8.
Doan was front and centre in helping the NHL Players’ Association
negotiate the last collective bargaining agreement back in 2012, an
experience which he agrees probably planted the seed in him as far as
him seeking to learn the business side of the game after his playing
career was over.
And so there he was last Friday at his first-ever GMs meeting, another
learning experience.
“It’s unique and I am completely a fly on the wall because I just sit on the
outside and listen,” Doan said. “There’s some incredible guys in there
that have a lot of influence on the sport I love. So to just sit in there and
listen, that’s something you can learn a lot from; just the way they handle
themselves and talk among themselves. At the same time, it’s similar to a
dressing room and the way that it works. Probably that cross between a
corporate boardroom and a dressing room which makes it very unique.’’
And perhaps one day he’ll be one of those GMs. Or not.
“Either way I will have enjoyed this.’’
The Athletic LOADED: 11.25.2017
1085116 Websites
The Athletic / Duhatschek Notebook: Jets' improved schedule, giving
thanks for parity, Gerard Gallant already Jack Adams worthy
By Eric Duhatschek 10 hours ago
ANAHEIM – Scheduling is almost always a bone of contention with NHL
coaches and no one knew the ins and outs of his team’s schedule better
than the Los Angeles Kings’ Darryl Sutter. Not exactly a new age man,
Sutter still paid far more attention to rest and recovery than you’d think.
Sutter knew how demanding the schedule could be for a team dealing
with West Coast travel — and how playing tired could damage a team’s
playoff aspirations. Fatigue contributes to injuries. Fatigue contributes to
mistakes. Too much fatigue and a team just can’t be at its best.
Last year was the first time the NHL introduced the concept of the bye
week, a five-day, mid-season break nominally intended to rest and
refresh an overworked collection of players. A good idea, in theory. But it
was also the first time since 2004 that the NHL played the World Cup,
which meant that the 82-game 2016-17 regular season would be
crammed into a 179-day window, rather than the 185 days it took to play
the year before.
The net effect of trying to play a full season in 11 to 12 fewer days took
its toll everywhere around the NHL, but it was particularly acute in
Winnipeg, where the Jets found themselves playing 28 games in 50 days
from their outdoor game in late October until the 11th of December. In
that span, they played back-to-back six times and only once did they get
more than a single day off between games. In early November, one road
trip took them to the East Coast, brought them home to the Central time
zone for a single game (against the Dallas Stars) and off on the road
again to play the Coyotes in Arizona. It was like that all year – ping-
ponging back from one trip to another, rarely getting the opportunity to
practice.
“Our schedule was incredibly difficult last year,” said coach Paul Maurice,
in an interview with The Athletic. “I’d never been through anything like
that before. I’d never seen anything like it before. If you take that
schedule and put us on the East Coast, maybe it’s a little more
reasonable. But then you throw our geography in there. We have one
team that’s an hour away (Chicago). Everybody else is two hours-plus.
We have a team in our division that’s not even in our time zone. A lot of
times, we were playing an East Coast game, then playing one at home,
and then going to the West Coast, so we tried to factor in when we
travelled back home. We don’t even worry about a one-hour time
difference; that’s just standard operating procedure for us.
“We played six sets of back-to-backs in that block – and we did eight-
time zone changes and we banged out 130 man-games lost to injury in
that stretch. We were three games under .500 after we lost in Calgary
and lost in Edmonton at the end of it and we had nothing in the tank. It
was tough.”
Accordingly, this year, while the bye weeks remain (Winnipeg’s is
between Jan. 13 and Jan. 20, just past the mid-point of the season), the
schedule is far friendlier, according to Maurice, who said the Jets didn’t
do much lobbying to change the schedule. Just eliminating the World
Cup added six additional days back into the schedule. Compared to last
year, the Jets play only 14 games in November (not 16) and play only six
in the first 11 days of December (not seven). In that seven-week span,
they also enjoy one four-day break and one three-day break and only
play back-to-back twice, including this Friday and Saturday in Anaheim
and San Jose respectively. But Friday’s was an afternoon game, thanks
to the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, so there will be a few additional hours
of recovery time.
In addition to improvements in goal and special teams’ play, a more
reasonable schedule is a significant contributing factor to the team’s
early-season successes, which had them in second place overall in the
Western Conference standings through Friday.
“I would say ours is now normal,” Maurice said. “Relative to last year,
we’re happy with it. We still have a block of games, from the third week of
November until the third week of December, that’s really tough, but I
think everybody has their bad month.”
There is no way to quantify the impact of the schedule on a team’s
injuries, but Maurice believes there is a correlation.
“Dallas kind of went through the same things we did last year; they had a
difficult stretch and then they got beat up by injuries, and you saw what
happened to them,” Maurice said. “There was a quote from Jon Cooper
(the Tampa Bay Lightning coach) last year after they’d played 14 games
in 28 days and he said, ‘this is crazy.’ Well, do it twice. And they got beat
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
up by injuries and missed the playoffs. The schedule has a major impact
on results. It’s fairly even for a lot of teams. For some, it’s a little tougher
than for others. But for what we dealt with, I’d never seen anything like it.
“Maybe we’ve asked too much of these men.”
Ken Holland, the Detroit Red Wings’ general manager, probably didn’t
realize he was creating a monster when he innocently passed on an
observation to some of us many years ago: That in his research, the NHL
standings tended to move in tandem after U.S. Thanksgiving, which
roughly coincides with the end of the NHL’s first quarter.
Holland’s point was that if you were in the NHL playoff picture by this
week, the odds were good you would qualify for playoffs by season’s
end. Detroit made a habit of making the playoffs – 25 years in a row until
they finally lost out last year. Nowadays, of course, it’s possible to track
the veracity of practically every theory on a spreadsheet. Then, it was
mostly an empirical observation by a GM who’d discovered something
you’d intuitively think anyway – if you fell too far behind early in the
season, it is hard to make up that ground, even if there were 60 games or
so left to play.
In the last five years, Holland’s opus has been proven true just under 80
per cent of the time. Three times, 13 teams in the playoffs by U.S.
Thanksgiving held on. In the other two seasons, 12 teams did so. This
year, sorting out the Thanksgiving Day factor is further complicated by
the fact that as of Thursday, there were six teams tied for the final wild-
card spot in the Western Conference. Yes, Colorado, San Jose, Chicago,
Minnesota, Dallas and Anaheim all had 23 points. The Avalanche and
the Sharks had played the fewest games (20); had identical records (11-
8-3) and even had the same number of regulation and overtime wins
(10), which is the first tie-breaker.
But it’s a logjam, with 13 of the 15 teams able to assert they are actually
in a playoff position, if you ignore tie-breaking scenarios.
Over in the East, there was a tiny bit more separation. The three worst
teams all resided in the Atlantic – Montreal, Florida, and Buffalo – where
20 points separated first-place Tampa from the last-place Sabres,
practically a chasm by today’s standards. By contrast, the gap between
first-place Columbus and last-place Philadelphia in the Metropolitan was
just eight points. Currently, the two wild-card spots in the conference
were held by the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, Pittsburgh,
and last season's President’s Trophy winners, Washington, but even that
is a bit of mirage, given both had played 23 games, or three more than
seventh-place Carolina. And while the Rangers were on the outside
looking in, they were on an 8-2 roll in their last 10.
Accordingly, if the metrics of the past five years roughly hold true again, it
means three or four teams currently in the playoff mix will fall out by
season’s end. You pick. Logically, you’d have to think Vegas, slumping
Los Angeles and Vancouver are vulnerable in the West; while New
Jersey and Detroit would be the prime candidates to slip in the East. But
since there was nothing remotely logical – or predictable – about how the
first quarter played out, who knows what can happen.
Viva Las Vegas
To paraphrase my old friend Bob Johnson, Wednesday was a great day
for hockey in southern California because it gave me a chance to speak
with players and coaches on four teams in one day. I went to the morning
skates in Anaheim, where the Ducks were preparing to host the Golden
Knights; and then drove across town to see the Jets squeak out a 2-1
victory over the Kings at night.
The one thing that struck me was how remarkably similar the messaging
was from both Maurice and Golden Knights’ coach Gerard Gallant in
terms of keeping the focus narrow after both were off to unexpectedly
good starts.
“Really, we don’t talk about it,” Gallant said. “We’re not looking at it long
term. We’re looking at the next game. We know where we’re at in the
standings, but as soon as you start looking down the road, well …”
Gallant didn’t finish his thought, but the implication was clear. The minute
his hard-working, fast-paced team started thinking big-picture thoughts,
that’s when trouble might start. Divisional games, he acknowledged,
were more important. Vegas’s best chance of actually qualifying for the
playoffs will be to finish among the top three teams in the Pacific, which
is weaker in relative terms to the Central.
“The way I’m talking to our team, one game is not more important than
another one, but we all know it is,” Gallant said. “It’s a divisional game. I
don’t want to put any added pressure on our team. We just go out and
play the game, no matter who you play, and just play the best you can. If
you keep winning hockey games, the standings will take care of
themselves.”
The Golden Knights then went out and produced a wonderful effort
against the Ducks, spotted them a two-goal lead, didn’t panic, pushed
until they got back to even and then won it in the third. They are getting
unexpected performances from a number of different players, including
William Karlsson, who is getting a chance to play a top-six role in Vegas
and taking advantage of the opportunity. Karlsson’s 10 goals in 20
games is one behind team leader James Neal and already represents a
career high. The Golden Knights lost their three top goalies to injuries,
and while Malcolm Subban has been activated from injured reserve,
which has permitted them to return Dylan Ferguson to junior, they have
gotten five of their 10 wins with their fourth stringer, Maxime Lagace, in
goal. I’ve really never seen anything quite like it. No matter what happens
from here on in, it’s hard to imagine any scenario in which Gallant doesn’t
win the Jack Adams Trophy as the NHL’s coach of the year.
This and that
Marian Gaborik was tentatively scheduled to return to the Los Angeles
lineup Friday; he’s been out all season, recovering from off-season knee
surgery. You can expect Gaborik to start in a limited bottom-six role until
he gets his skating legs under him, but then coach John Stevens will
have a decision to make. Does he put Gaborik up on the top line, with
Anze Kopitar, where they’ve had chemistry in the past? Or leave
Kopitar’s line intact, with Dustin Brown and rookie Alex Iafallo? Iafallo has
brought speed and energy to the unit, but has managed just one goal in
22 games. It may well be that facing lower-level defence pairs, playing
further down the lineup, might help ease Iafallo’s NHL transition.
Stevens, meanwhile, has managed to resurrect Brown’s career by
playing him lots – on average, 20 minutes and 12 seconds per night.
Brown’s four power-play goals leads the team.
Gaborik scored 27 goals for the Kings back in the 2014-15 season, but
the last two years have been injury-filled disasters – 22 points in 54
games two years ago; 21 points in 56 games last year. Part of being a
successful NHL coach these days is being an organizational pragmatist,
which is why Brown has a new lease on life under Stevens. The former
Kings’ captain, Brown is signed for four more years at $5.875 million per
season – heavy coin for a player whose role was diminished under Sutter
last year. If a player can’t play, he can’t play, but from the Kings’
perspective, it made sense to give Brown a fair chance to demonstrate
what was left in the tank – lots by the looks of the early season. The
same strategy will logically apply to Gaborik, who is 35 and has three
more years remaining after this year at $4.875 million. Under the new
Kings regime – with Rob Blake in as GM, Stevens behind the bench –
the Kings have had eight NHL rookies play at least two games this
season. The decision to put Brooks Laich on waivers was presumably
made to create a roster spot for Torrey Mitchell, acquired from the
Montreal Canadiens Thursday.
Now in his fifth season as the Jets’ coach, Maurice tried one outside the
box move in training camp, that seems to be paying dividends, by
bringing in retired referee Paul Devorski. The Jets last year were
assessed 275 minor penalties, second-most in the league behind
Calgary (277), and gave up 62 power-play goals. Only Colorado and
Dallas surrendered more. The year before wasn’t much better. They
played a man short 282 times. Arizona, Anaheim, and Los Angeles were
the only teams that were penalized more often. Not only did the Jets take
too many penalties, but they didn’t do a good job of killing them off –
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
finishing 26th on the penalty kill two years ago and 25th last year.
Cumulatively, over that two-year span, the Jets lost the special teams’
battle by a wide margin, giving up 133 power-play goals and scoring just
86 times with the man advantage.
Turning that massive deficit into a plus, or simply having special teams
offset, was their objective and so far, matters have vastly improved.
Through Friday, the Jets had scored 15 power-play goals (on 66
attempts) and surrendered 16 power-play goals (on 74 attempts). In all,
11 teams have been penalized more than the Jets. They may not exactly
be choir boys yet, or have figured out what is and isn’t acceptable in this
era of increased vigilance, but they are improving.
Maurice explained to me that he came up with the idea of having an
experienced official at camp as part a three-pronged off-season plan to
reduce the number of penalties they took.
“It was clearly not a coach’s speech that was going to change it, because
we’ve had that a bunch of times,” Maurice said. “The first part was
considering a player’s original defensive position – and did your
positioning put you in a place to take a penalty or not? The second part
was developing the skill of defending one-on-one. And last was
understanding what the rules are and how they’re applied and why
they’re applied. We worked on all three.”
In training camp, Maurice said he ran one-on-one compete drills every
single practice, trying to teach “the skill of defending without getting your
stick up – and how do you change what you do. Part of that was
reviewing video on every players’ penalties that they took last year. We
went through that with them in the first week. All our repeat offenders, we
broke it down for them – because there’s a certain kind of player that
takes a certain kind of penalty; and so we saw all those.
“Then the last part of it was education. We are a really young team so we
needed a guy to come in, not to explain the rulebook, because that, we
get. But Paul (Devorski) has done 1,594 NHL games – and there are
certain tells. He’d say, ‘if I have to think about it, it’s not a penalty. You
know a penalty when you see it.’ He started talking about where your
stick is, where your free hand is – and can we eliminate the two or three
things that in his subconscious referee’s mind, means a penalty’s
coming?
“Having Devo on the ice, I thought was really good. I didn’t have him
running the practice, or blowing the drills. I just had him talking to the
guys. But I’d look over and see (Blake) Wheeler talking to him, or Buff
(Dustin Byfuglien). What we tried to do was break down all the factors
that led to the penalties we took last year and tried to address them. Paul
came in and he was great. He just talked to the guys and rolled around
the ice. It was good.”
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The Athletic / The Blues' line: How St. Louis defensemen are scoring
goals by the bunches
By Evan Sporer 19 hours ago
When the Blues jettisoned defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk prior to the
2017 trade deadline, St. Louis parted ways with one of the most
offensively gifted players at his position. On paper, St. Louis' blueline was
worse off, even with the flexibility to give more minutes and
responsibilities to younger players like Colton Parayko and Joel
Edmundson.
But what St. Louis lost in Shattenkirk has, in practice, not created a
black-and-blue line situation. The Blues defensemen lead the NHL in
goals scored, accounting for 21 through Wednesday's games.
In that specific area of the game, the Blues were certainly pegged to
suffer without Shattenkirk. From 2011 to 2017, Shattenkirk led all Blues
defensemen in goals and goal per-game, with him and Alex Pietrangelo
accounting for close to 58 percent of those goals.
And even with Shattenkirk for three-quarters of last season, the Blues'
blueline wasn't the gold standard in terms of producing goals. In the
2016-17 season, St. Louis' defensemen ranked 15th in the NHL,
combining for 35 goals, according to Hockey Reference. The San Jose
Sharks led the league with 49, and nine teams' bluelines recorded 41 or
more goals.
Yet here is St. Louis, tops in the NHL in goals scored from its blueline
this season, with the sum of the remaining parts sans Shattenkirk
carrying the load and then some.
So at this point it seems fair to ask: Are the Blues doing something
systemically that is conducive to their defensemen scoring goals?
First, one point of clarification: Of the 21 goals scored by Blues
defensemen, three have come on the power play, so it's not like that stat
is boosted considerably by special teams.
And now for some context: The majority of these goals, as is the case
with the majority of St. Louis' offense, were generated with the forward
line of Vladimir Tarasenko, Brayden Schenn, and Jaden Schwartz on the
ice. For example, four of Pietrangelo's five even-strength goals have
been scored with the Blues' top forward line on the ice. Four of the six
even-strength goals scored by Edmundsson were scored with those
three forwards deployed.
Though it manifests itself in a number of different ways, there's a
common thread to many of these goals scored by Blues defensemen.
The St. Louis blueline is opportunistic but aggressive in when it chooses
to attack, very much a mandate from the head coach. On a Mike Yeo
team, the philosophy is very simple: Pick your spots, and take those risks
200 feet away from your own goal, but by all means be aggressive when
you can.
And that mantra can be seen in how St. Louis plays, and how many of
these goals are being created. Whether it's sustained offensive zone time
that fatigues the opposition out of position, or a spirited forecheck that
creates a turnover and a quick counter-chance, these are expeditious,
workmanlike sequences that are putting the defensemen in fantastic
positions to score.
One thing the St. Louis blueline does is make great weak-side reads
when the other team is overloading in the vicinity of the puck.
On this Vince Dunn goal, Robert Bortuzzo joins and leads the rush, helps
win the puck back for the Blues, and in a flash, the Avalanche are caught
with five skaters inside the faceoff dot before Dunn sprints into an
excellent scoring position.
When the Blues gain possession following a Carter Hutton save, St.
Louis takes off in transition, with Bortuzzo joining the rush.
The play ends up deep in the Avalanche's zone and in the corner, and
Bortuzzo is still in deep, below the faceoff dot. Colorado has for skaters
below the circles, and three that are directly or pretty close in puck
pursuit.
And while Colorado wins the puck back, Bortuzzo is still engaged in the
zone, close enough to the level of the puck that he can quickly make a
play with his stick. Though the Avalanche were poised to break out of the
zone in one moment, in the next, an aggressive play by a Blues
defenseman puts Colorado in terrible position.
When the puck ends up back on Paul Stastny's stick, the Avalanche have
five skaters packed into a tight area, and a tarmac-wide passing lane
smack in the middle of the ice. Stastny picks his head up, and Dunn has
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
already identified the opportunity to crash the weak side and is in motion,
making himself a position target in the zone.
On the reverse angle, you can see how out-of-position the Avalanche
are. Because of aggressive plays by St. Louis defensemen — a joined
rush and forecheck by Bortuzzo, and a backdoor-cut by Dunn — the
Blues turn this play into a goal.
It would be one thing if this was an isolated instance, but this is how the
Blues defensemen have manufactured a handful of goals this season.
Instead of gaining the zone on a transition chance, this time St. Louis
skates it in and goes on the cycle. Because Alexander Steen ended up
making a play lower in his defensive end, Pietrangelo doesn't stay up on
the blueline, but rather roving around, almost like a free safety.
So when the Blues continue to cycle the puck around the wall and
Stastny gets in a board battle, Pietrangelo is close enough that he can
provide support from that middle-of-the-ice spot and get in on the play.
That aggressive pinch leads to another change in possession, at which
point the Canucks have all five in-zone skaters tilted from the left circle
in. Much like the Dunn goal, a quick, aggressive play on the wall with a
team over-committing to one side leaves a Blues defenseman all alone
on the weak side. When Edmundson recognizes this, he cuts toward the
slot, giving Stastny a clean look.
From the reverse angle, there is one other component to this sequence
that sets up the goal. Steen begins to creep down from the blue line
when Stastny comes out of the corner with the puck. Though he doesn't
factor into the scoring, because he puts himself in a shooting position,
Sam Gagner flips his stick into that passing lane. If Steen doesn't step
up, Gagner most likely occupies that space Stastny slips the puck
through.
One more similar Carl Gunnarsson goal, is this one against the Dallas
Stars. A Tarasenko chance that is initially stopped by Ben Bishop leads
to a change in possession, followed by a quick defensive regroup and
swarm by St. Louis, creating the weak-side counter opportunity.
The moment Dallas corrals the rebound and tries to turn up ice, Stastny
recognizes he can cut this play off on the near wall and create some
havoc. Behind him, Tarasenko is a secondary lane-plug, positioned to
create another speed bump.
This play isn't identical to the previous two, but you still have Gunnarsson
hopping into an offensive position on the weak side following a forced
turnover by St. Louis in the offensive zone (that's a lot of the same
criteria). Though the puck pinballs around and Gunnarsson's shot wasn't
on target, the gears to this machine are turning because the Blues make
the aggressive reads that catch the opposition off-guard.
The Blues defensemen are shooting 8.3 percent this season at all
strengths, not a remarkably high number, a testament to the shot quality
the unit and team are producing. These aren't lucky, fluke goals or
ridiculous individual efforts, but calculated, engaged moments that catch
teams in vulnerable moments.
And when it works, the Blues defensemen don't hesitate to jump into a
shooting lane and call for the puck, with an offensive mindset. The Blue
line very much has the green light when it sees red, and St. Louis is
manufacturing these opportunities through its structure and puck-hunting.
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Sportsnet.ca / Leafs’ Marleau continues to live up to contract
expectations
Chris Johnston
@reporterchris
November 24, 2017, 10:13 PM
RALEIGH, N.C. – There was no prolonged conversation after Mike
Babcock decided he needed to play Patrick Marleau out of position.
He simply called his Swiss Army knife in and said: “We’ve got you in the
middle. If you have any trouble with that let me know.”
Marleau hasn’t peeped up about it since. He’s played nine of the past 12
games predominantly as a centre, including Friday’s 5-4 victory over the
Carolina Hurricanes, and his coach expects to continue deploying him in
that manner when the road matchups make it advantageous to do so.
“I don’t have to sell him on nothing,” said Babcock. “He likes hockey.”
It’s an understated quality that has already made a big impact on his new
team.
There doesn’t need to be any cajoling with Marleau. He is as predictable
as the beat of a metronome and owns the coach’s implicit trust while
playing wing, centre, net-front on the power play and even killing the
occasional penalty.
In short order, Marleau has laid waste to much of the skepticism that
followed his $18.75-million, three-year signing over the summer.
He’s now on pace for 31 goals after picking up his ninth of the season in
Friday’s game, camping out at the edge of Scott Darling’s crease with the
man advantage and tapping home a nice feed from Auston Matthews.
“I was hoping for it,” said Marleau. “He made a great play there. I just had
my stick on the ice, he used me as a backboard.”
That goal allowed the Leafs to escape with two points on a night where
the ice was heavily tilted against them. They needed Frederik Andersen
to be terrific early – a noteworthy trend of late, with Toronto having been
outshot 65-38 in the first period of its last five games – before their
offensive skill eventually shone through.
This is a team capable of outscoring its problems thanks in large part to
Matthews, James van Riemsdyk, Nazem Kadri and Marleau.
Against the Hurricanes, there were no shortage of defensive issues.
Carolina applied significant pressure for long stretches and made it
difficult for the Leafs to execute controlled zone exits.
“Once we started flipping pucks behind them – as boring as that is – we
had some more success getting out,” said defenceman Ron Hainsey.
“They were on top us. We were trying to make plays and it just wasn’t
happening.”
Marleau’s line wasn’t immune from those issues, but it’s notable how
infrequently that’s been the case.
The 38-year-old has consistently managed to come out in the black
possession-wise even after being flipped back and forth between centre
and right wing. He started his career with San Jose in the middle before
eventually being shifted to make room for Joe Pavelski.
He played some games at centre for the Sharks in recent years when
Logan Couture was out injured, but wasn’t originally viewed as a viable
option there when the Leafs signed him. It was only after Babcock
noticed opponents using last change to get their best players out against
Tyler Bozak’s defensively challenged unit that he changed his mind on
where No. 12 belongs.
“I don’t control the matchups, so I can’t get mismatched in any situation
with him at centre,” Babcock explained. “He can play against anybody
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
and then I have more balance and I don’t have to spend my whole life
sitting guys on the bench [thinking] ‘Oh, did I miss that guy.’
“When their guy is waiting to hunt your guys – they always pick someone
to play against, right? And when they’re waiting for that guy and they
keep getting you, you never get out of your zone and it starts wearing
you out. You get tired of watching that so this way I don’t have to watch
it.”
The experiment should continue getting a good run with the Leafs facing
12 of their next 16 games away from Air Canada Centre. It’s arguably the
toughest stretch of the season and will require Babcock to lean heavily
on his most trusted options.
It says something about Marleau that the coach would rather not play him
as a centre but is choosing to do so for the betterment of the lineup as a
whole.
“I don’t know if he’d score as much if he played in the middle all the time,”
said Babcock. “And I want him to score and be putting the heat on D’s
because you’re behind the play and coming up later, he’s not as [active]
on the forecheck.
“His speed is so good you’d like to use that. So that’s the negative side.”
It hasn’t negatively impacted his ability to find the back of the net so far,
with Marleau now sitting at five goals in the nine games he’s played at
centre.
The one he scored against the Hurricanes made it 5-2 in the third period,
but wound up being the winner when Carolina’s furious comeback fell
just short. That moved him into seventh on the NHL’s all-time list with
102 game-winning goals – just seven shy of Brendan Shanahan, the
Hall-of-Famer turned Leafs president.
“He’s got to track Shanny down,” said Babcock. “I’m hoping he’s tracking
him down before the end of the year.”
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Sportsnet.ca / Struggling Oilers, Sabres search for answers to right
sinking ships
Luke Fox
@lukefoxjukebox
November 25, 2017, 12:08 AM
BUFFALO, N.Y. – The very idea of salvaging something worth keeping
from the east-west train wreck that is Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo
Sabres hockey right now elicits deep thought, blank stares, and laughter.
Yet we asked the young faces of these struggling franchises to pinpoint
something that’s gone right amidst all their squandered games and
shriveling expectations for 2017-18.
“Positives?” asked Connor McDavid, skeptically. Teammate Patrick
Maroon let loose a chuckle behind him. “Not many. We haven’t been very
good this year. I think everyone’s made that very clear. When I think
positives? Whew… I don’t know.”
A full 10 seconds of silence pass when the same question is passed to
Jack Eichel, who, you may recall, shares a draft year with McDavid.
Sunken in the stall of a pristine, expensive KeyBank Center dressing
room, a Sabres ballcap pulled as low over his eyes as the day’s
collective mood, Eichel thinks hard and sighs before pointing to an
improved penalty kill, to which he contributes.
Then he star-wipes wide to wrestle with the big picture and another draft-
lottery pace.
“We should stop feeling sorry for ourselves, complaining and making
excuses for what’s going on. We just need to come together and work
harder. That’s always the key to success,” Eichel says.
Sabres, Oilers: They suffer from the same disease. When the going gets
tough, they crumble. Following Friday’s near-joyless 3-1 Sabres victory,
the worst team in the East and second-worst in the West are a combined
2-20-1 when trailing after two periods.
“The severity of the momentum is too much. We get deflated as a team
or they score a goal,” Eichel explains. “We have to find a way to ride it
out when the momentum swings and the other team’s pressing and we’re
on our heels. We have to figure out a way to bend but not break.”
You’ll have to excuse them. They’re not at their best.
Heading into what was derisively titled the “Pissed-Off Bowl” by one
jerseyed-up fan with a drink in hand, the sides had a total of 13 wins to
rub between them at the season’s quarter mark. Eight individual teams
had that many or more, and one of those is the expansion Vegas Golden
Knights.
Ten minutes into a scoreless, jagged game, a lone fan booed loud in a
sold-out barn. Presumably he was unhappy with the level of play in
general.
Black Friday, indeed.
You can bet 29 GMs are wondering when the sales start.
“The character was questioned about the group,” said Todd McLellan.
The Oilers coach believes the dedication in practice is there and that all
the right things are being said in the room. It’s just the games where
things fall apart.
“We can’t go on the ice and play for them. We can push them, we can
prod them, we can poke them, but they need to make decisions that
aren’t always easy. They happen very fast.”
One could flip McLellan’s words with those of Sabres coach Phil Housley,
and they’d ring just as true.
“With our record, there’s a lot of questions out there about accountability
and trust,” Housley said. “They have to work it out together.”
That began in earnest Monday, after the Sabres lost to the Blue Jackets
but before they lost to the Wild.
Bit player Jordan Nolan called for more accountability in the press,
pointing the gulf in attitude and approach between this and his former
family, the championship Los Angeles Kings.
The doors closed for a players-only meeting. Kyle Okposo, who stayed
silent that night, believes veteran Jason Pominville’s message resonated
most. When the doors finally opened, the Sabres’ faces were a pall of
thousand-yard stares.
“We’ve got to grow up, mature,” Okposo said.
When Ryan O’Reilly isn’t on his game, he grows quiet and self-critical.
He’s trying to convince himself that, as the team’s best two-way centre
and highest-paid player, he needs to worry more about the group’s result,
not his own. Pick others up. Let them reciprocate. The mental valleys are
gruelling, more so when losing is what you know.
This isn’t even the worst feeling of losing O’Reilly has experienced.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
“It’s unfortunate, but I’ve been on some bad teams in Colorado. But the
expectations coming in here…” He reloads. “We were expected to be
fighting for a [playoff] spot. It’s going to take a lot to get out of this.”
Rolling over a slipshod Edmonton squad in decisive fashion on a jam-
packed but low-energy night is a baby step for a fan base that can easily
score hockey tickets below face value. (“I got friends giving them away
for free on Facebook,” one Buffalonian said.)
Core Oilers Cam Talbot and Oscar Klefbom sat with the flu. Leon
Draisaitl may as well have.
Buffalo got a jolt with the healthy return of its defensive horse, Rasmus
Ristolainen, who helped limit McDavid to three shots, zero points and a
44 per cent Corsi 5-on-5.
The Sabres ended a seven-game skid (trench?), the oft-ripped Eichel
excelled at both ends and scored for the second straight game, and the
Oilers — again — whiffed on an opportunity to link two regulation wins
together. They haven’t done it all season.
“Same story,” said McDavid, a dash-2 in loss number 15. “We get a win,
we come back and we don’t follow it up. I don’t think it was [lack of] effort
at all. We were just sloppy. It just felt like we were never really in sync,
anyone at anytime. Little passes that are easy to make, we didn’t
complete them. It’s just a group that’s out of whack. It is frustrating.
“We had high hopes for tonight, and we just can’t get it going.”
There are days, Darnell Nurse admits, when positivity is too slippery to
hold. That’s when he looks out, to McDavid, to the group that won a
playoff round last spring and appeared to the world like it would win a
bunch more soon.
“Games are gonna eat away at you. Plays are gonna eat away at you,”
Nurse says. “We believe in each other. As long as that belief stays within
this room, it doesn’t matter what’s going on outside of it.”
Outside, they’re already tabulating lottery odds.
Outside, the Pacific-leading Knights have won four games in a row. Ditto
the Bruins, Edmonton’s next opponent. The Oilers and Sabres
desperately need runs like that, yesterday.
Like Eichel, McDavid says it’s pointless to lick wounds and indulge in hurt
feelings.
“We’re the ones who got ourselves in this,” the captain said, “and we’re
the ones who are gonna get ourselves out.”
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Sportsnet.ca / Devils’ Cory Schneider continues to dominate Canucks
Iain MacIntyre
@imacSportsnet
November 24, 2017, 9:57 PM
NEWARK, N.J. – Daniel Sedin collected two points Friday night, and if he
gets two more under similar circumstances Sunday, you will see the most
joyless celebration of 1,000 points in National Hockey League history.
The goal and assist Sedin gathered against the New Jersey Devils hardly
mattered because the Vancouver Canucks fell 3-2, losing whatever
magic they had going when they opened their six-game road trip with 5-2
wins 24 hours apart against the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh
Penguins.
Actually, those points may be more meaningful in time if Daniel and
Henrik Sedin retire after this season because Daniel generated them
against an old friend and admirer, goalie Cory Schneider, who was
traded to the Devils 4½ years ago and has been crushing the Canucks
ever since.
The Canucks are happy with the trade, because it fetched Bo Horvat,
who has become Vancouver’s top centre and scored his team’s other
goal on Friday. They’re just not happy with it any time they play
Schneider, who is now 6-1-2 against them.
At least the Canucks scored on Friday – Sedin’s goal was a fluke – after
Schneider made 37 saves during a 2-0 shutout win in Vancouver on Nov.
1. The goalie, whose move was the most stunning twist in the Roberto
Luongo trade saga on the West Coast, had to make only 23 saves
against the Canucks on Friday.
"I think early on (after the trade) there was some extra motivation,"
Schneider said. "With where we are now and where they’re at, some of
that has been lost with a lot of guys moving on. I don’t know if we match
up well against them or I just happen to be hot or play well against them,
but they’re a fun team to play against. They shoot a lot of pucks and,
maybe, I’m a little more familiar with the twins. I seem to get up a little
more for these guys."
By allowing two goals, Schneider’s anti-Canuck numbers actually
diminished. Before Friday, he was carrying a 1.73 goals-against average
and .940 save percentage against his old team.
Even Canucks super rookie Brock Boeser was unable to score against
Schneider – and Boeser scores against everyone.
Boeser’s four-game goal streak ended, although the 20-year-old picked
up a second assist on Horvat’s power-play goal that halved the Devils’
two-goal lead at 10:37 of the third period and made the final nine minutes
interesting.
"We should have beaten him more than once, but that’s the way it is,"
Henrik Sedin said of Schneider. "He’s a good goalie. He suits their
system. I always saw him as a No. 1 for sure, even when we had Lou
and they were battling to be No. 1. I always knew Cory would be an elite
goaltender."
It was not lost on Schneider that this may have been his last time facing
the Sedins, who are 37 and have not decided if they’ll play beyond this
season, which has seen their roles reduced.
"To this day – I’m in my 11th year pro, which is hard to believe – when I
think of a consummate professional, I think of Henrik and Daniel,"
Schneider said. "Coming into the league, it was different than it is now.
Seven or eight years ago, you just watched and learned. You didn’t say a
whole lot, didn’t do too much and had to earn your way. Those two guys
were the best examples of that.
"They were the first guys in the gym, they were the hardest working.
They spoke up when they needed to and they took accountability. But
they never asked for anything in return. The way they went about their
business was crucial to my development."
Schneider said the Sedins should finish in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
"He thinks we’re good guys, but I don’t know that that makes us Hall of
Famers," Henrik, who has 1,031 points after an assist on Daniel’s bank-
shot goal in the second period, said with a smile when told of Schneider’s
remark. "I always enjoyed playing with Schneids. He’s just one of those
guys you respect. He comes in and works hard and he just wants to get
better. That’s been him from Day 1."
That sounds a lot like the Sedins.
The Canucks needed to work smarter in the second period, when the
Devils scored three times on Vancouver mistakes.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Taylor Hall found space between Canucks’ Derrick Pouliot and Sam
Gagner to shoot from the slot over goalie Jacob Markstrom’s shoulder.
Devils’ defenceman Will Butcher was allowed to streak unimpeded up ice
and embarrass Canuck blueliner Ben Hutton one-on-one before dishing
to Brian Boyle for New Jersey’s second goal.
And Damon Severson poked a rebound from the post into an unguarded
net for the winning goal after Sven Baertschi’s giveaway at the end of a
Canucks power play set up a breakaway for Hall.
"I liked how we pushed in the third," Canuck coach Travis Green said. "I
wasn’t crazy about some of our little details in the second period. When
you play a game like this where both teams play a structured game,
those little details are usually the thing that separates who wins and
loses."
A goalie may have something to do with it, too.
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Sportsnet.ca / Quick Shifts: ‘Terrifying’ Matt Martin talks Maple Leafs’
top-line cameo
Luke Fox
@lukefoxjukebox
November 24, 2017, 3:50 PM
A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious
and less so, and rolling four lines deep.
1. Matt Martin is a healthy scratch Friday at Carolina for the first time in
his Toronto Maple Leafs tenure, as the club’s forward-line roulette wheel
keeps spinning.
Ironically, Martin’s benching comes on the heels of his look-see
alongside Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner, who both rave about
how their big, tough friend has nicer hands than he gets credit for.
I sat this week for a little chat with Martin, who’s always generous with his
time.
SN: Does it ever bother you that you get slapped with the enforcer tag
and put into a box?
Martin: “It all depends what role you’re given. You see the same thing
when Team Canada plays in the Olympics. You see John Tavares go
from MVP-calibre player to a fourth-line checker that kills penalties.
When I’m on the fourth line, I obviously don’t get as much ice time, so
you’re not in the flow of the game as much. Up the lineup, you’re making
plays, you feel good, you know you’re getting other opportunities to make
plays. You want to make plays when they’re available, but as a fourth
liner, you want to get pucks in and be responsible. That’s what the
coaching staff wants and expects. Top lines are relied on to score.”
Did your half-game in Montreal on the Matthews-Marner line open eyes
to your offensive skills?
“I make that [backhand] pass to Mitchy — he picks it up. Not every player
in this league can pick up a pass that’s behind them. I know I struggle
with that. That changes the way you think. Those are smart guys. They
find positions where it’s easy to make plays to them. I wanted to make
the most of that opportunity.”
How were you used differently on the New York Islanders?
“We played 12 minutes even strength every night. Me, Casey [Cizikas]
and [Cal] Clutter[buck] often got matched versus the other teams’ top
lines. I don’t think here we’ve gained that trust yet [as a fourth line]. You
gotta think: That was something we earned over time on the island. We
were together for three years. That kind of comfort level takes time.”
Marner describes you as “terrifying to play against.” When did you realize
you could strike fear into your opponent?
“As a defenceman it’s not easy to go back for pucks. Even when I’m first
back for a puck, I’m looking around to see who’s coming and how I can
prevent myself from getting hurt. I’m aware if it’s a more physical guy or a
smaller, skilled defenceman who’s not gonna come at me.
“Once you start thinking about that as opposed to making a play to your
D partner or winger or centreman, that’s when turnovers happen. Your
mind’s on the wrong thing. That’s in the backs of their minds — they
always know when you’re on the ice. Look at a guy like Ryan Reaves in
Pittsburgh now. Everyone knows when he’s on the ice. Zac Rinaldo on
[Arizona] — he’s a physical player. So you communicate. You have to be
aware of who’s coming after you. I’ve caused some trouble for
defencemen who are aware they’re going to get hit. They try to avoid
being hit, or protect for being hit, or try to rush a play — it causes
confusion and that’s when turnovers happen.”
Over the course of a game, you know when you’ve gotten into a D-man’s
head, then?
“For sure. It’s a tough job for defencemen back there. They make a lot of
great little plays that go undervalued. It’s never easy being last man
back, retrieving a puck, staring at the end boards and making a play the
other way. Sometimes they slow up and let you get the puck first. A lot of
times you’ll see them rim the puck when they’re not under pressure.
There’s a lot of things going through your mind at once, and to solve that
equation is not easy.”
If it’s not necessary to crush a guy, I’ve seen you use the bear hug. Is
that something that was taught to you? Or is that just staying loyal to the
code?
“I came in the league at an interesting time where they’re were still a lot
of the old-school tough guys. There was still touch icing. It’s made a huge
transition over the past eight years. No more touch icing, which is a lot
safer. When I hear the whistle, I’m never out there to hurt anybody,
especially on an icing play. It’s a dangerous situation, and on a dead play
there’s no reason for it. So I just grab him like that.”
2. The pre-tax salaries of NHL players are public knowledge, but
calculating the dollars skaters actually pocket takes work. Thankfully, the
good folks at Gavin Management did the math.
The results tweak the way you perceive the league’s top earners.
The first table below lists the 15 most handsomely paid players in 2017-
18, ordered by gross salary; the second ranks them in terms of actual
take-home pay.
Florida man Steven Stamkos, who’s earning every penny this season,
jumps from 14th to seventh after you consider his state’s soft tax hit — a
factor well publicized as he approached free agency in 2016.
Dallas star Jamie Benn leapfrogs Chicago’s twin gross leaders, Patrick
Kane and Jonathan Toews, for top spot in the net chart. Don’t mess with
Texas’ capitalism.
Florida’s Aaron Ekblad, Chicago’s Brent Seabrook and Pittsburgh’s Phil
Kessel ($9 million cap hits, all of ’em) don’t make the top 15 gross but fly
their way into the top 15 net.
The only player on a Canadian team cracking the top 15 net is Montreal’s
Shea Weber, who falls from fifth to eighth due to taxes, and he signed
that deal when he was with Nashville.
Difficult to scan this list and not wonder if tax rates will become a small
factor on the decision of an impending free agent like John Tavares. New
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
York’s state income tax for those hauling more than $1.06 million
annually is 8.82 per cent.
3. A trip through Eastern Canada is just what the Arizona Coyotes team
doctor ordered. The NHL’s last-place team beat Montreal, Ottawa and
Toronto back-to-back-to-back.
This teaches us that the Yotes aren’t as bad as you thought. It also
reminds us that the Atlantic Division is the weakest. Here are the four
divisions’ combined head-to-head records:
Central vs. other three divisions: 64-31-13 (.653 PTS %)
Metropolitan vs. other three divisions: 71-49-18 (.580 PTS %)
Pacific vs. other three divisions: 60-57-11 (.512 PTS %)
Atlantic vs. other three divisions: 55-54-17 (.504 PTS %)
Combined, the Atlantic clubs sport a minus-29 goal differential. That
figure drops to minus-70 when you remove top seeds Tampa Bay and
Toronto.
If the Lightning and Maple Leafs don’t finish 1-2 in a division where the
Detroit Red Wings’ playoffs chances are real, it’s a blown opportunity.
4. A very brief oral history of the Toronto Maple Leafs attending the CFL
East final, which featured Marner’s Toronto Argonauts defeating Mike
Babcock and Tyler Bozak’s Saskatchewan Roughriders 25-21.
Auston Matthews: “I was pretty tired so I went home [early]. Morgan
[Rielly] and Freddie [Andersen] and I, we all went home and then the
game turned into an absolute barnburner … probably should have stayed
around for that last quarter.
Marner: “When I walked in today, Babs and Tyler were together at the
table, and I walked in wearing my Argos hat, hands up celebrating.”
Matthews: “Mitch and Bozie made a bet. I don’t know if he made a bet
with Babs. I wouldn’t make a bet with Babs.” [smiling]
“I still haven’t gotten my bottle of wine from last year’s world juniors [bet,
in which Team USA defeated Canada]. You’re out of luck if you’re betting
with him. I don’t think he pays up.”
5. “I love that fast, north-south style,” says Rick Tocchet.
A portion of Arizona’s early struggles can be attributed to goaltender Antti
Raanta’s injury, but another portion rests with a complete systematic and
philosophical overhaul in how to play the game.
I’ve asked a few NHLers how long it takes to adapt to a new coach’s
scheme, and they say at least a month. You want it to sink in faster, but
with rest so valuable and practice time so limited over the 82-game grind,
some times it can take even longer.
“[Dave] Tippett had us playing a more defensive game. Tocc wants us to
defend, too, but it’s more about playing with speed and going the other
way,” Oliver Ekman-Larsson explains.
“It’s more straight-up with Tocc than Tip. We played with the puck a little
more under Tip’s system. This is more north-south. That’s the big
difference.”
6. A change of scenery doesn’t always equate to an uptick in
performance, but when does Matt Duchene’s lack of productivity in
Ottawa become a concern?
Through six games, the assumed “best player in the deal” has zero
points and is a minus-8. Nashville’s Kyle Turris has five points in the
same number of games.
Ottawa tinkered with chemistry. Let’s see Duchene partnered with the
red-hot Mark Stone to get him rolling.
7. Legendary Sabres enforcer turned analyst Rob Ray spoke highly of
Evander Kane during a radio interview on Calgary’s Sportnset 960 this
week.
Buffalo is in disarray, but Kane has raised his rental stock through the
roof with his performance: 12 goals and 21 points through 22 games.
That the 26-year-old winger can finish is no revelation, but Ray went off
on Kane’s excellent leadership skills and responsibility. That’s new.
With Jack Eichel’s contract kicking in at the beginning of 2018-19 and
four other forwards — Jason Pominville, Kyle Okposo, Matt Moulson,
Ryan O’Reilly — already making $5 million or more next season, Buffalo
cannot justify keeping Kane even if he wants to stay.
8. Keith Kinkaid is the closest facsimile the NHL has to The Emoji Movie,
except he’s funnier. (The nine per cent Rotten Tomatoes rating is
generous.)
After each victory, the New Jersey Devils backup goaltender tweets a
happy game summary so flush with emoticons, you may need a decoder
ring:
Kinkaid was recently gifted with a locker full of plush emojis from the
Devils mascot. Fittingly, his thank-you tweet included more than just text:
9. The Coyotes have a good room of talkers, which is all a reporter can
hope for. I was blown away by and appreciative of Ekman-Larsson’s
candor Monday. He didn’t back away from discussing sensitive and
personal subjects in the midst of a loud, crowded game-day visitors’
room.
With the Argonauts having just advanced to the Grey Cup hours earlier,
Max Domi got chatting about father Tie’s cameo as an Argos placekicker.
10. Following Monday’s skate and ahead of his team’s 4-1 upset of the
Maple Leafs, Domi made a Clayton Keller prediction: “You guys are in for
a treat watching him tonight.”
Bang on.
Of all the young, stud forwards in that game, Keller was easily the one
who drew your gaze. He drew two penalties — and should’ve drawn a
third when his summer golf partner, Matthews, got away with a trip. He
set up two goals while running the point on the top power-play unit, and
was generally creating every shift.
“He’s got the puck a lot, right? He wants the puck. He doesn’t throw it
away. That’s what I love about the kid — he doesn’t throw pucks away,”
said Tocchet, explaining Keller’s knack for drawing minors. “He’s in the
corner, he comes out with it, and then someone will get a stick on you
and you get tripped up.”
Keller is listed at 5-foot-10 and 168 pounds, measurements likely taken
when he was soaking wet on stilts, but he plays a huge game.
“Spectacular. I mean, what he can do with the puck and the confidence
he has as a young player is remarkable,” Domi said. “He wants to make
a difference. Whether we’re down a goal or we’re going into the third
period and it’s a power play, he wants to be the guys hopping over the
bench. It’s rare to see a guy like that. We’re really happy to have him.”
Ekman-Larsson all but stopped short of anointing Keller A New Hope.
“He’s already a top player in the league, and he’s going to get even
better. That’s the best thing about it,” Ekman-Larsson said. “When you
struggle as a team, you look around this room and you feel you have
enough players to turn this thing around.”
The question is, considering his size and penchant for offence, can Keller
develop into the No. 1 NHL centre so sorely needed on this team (real
talk: Derek Stepan is a No. 2 on a contender) or will he always be an
excellent winger?
11. One of the main reasons I believe the Maple Leafs will try to add a
defender before the trade deadline passes is because Ron Hainsey and
Nikita Zaitsev are being relied on too heavily to kill all the penalties. The
duo has logged 210:55 of combined short-handed ice time, which
projects them to finish the season at 719:52.
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NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Curious where that would rank historically, the kind folks at SN Stats did
the math for me.
In the past decade, no duo has put in that kind of kill time. Look back 15
years, and only two PK duos spent more time on ice than the Hainsey-
Zaitsev pace.
Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom and Chris Chelios logged 851:05 on the PK in
2002-03 and 863:39 on the Babcock-coached 2005-06 team. The two
Hall of Famers bolstered a top-six PK unit in both those seasons.
The Islanders’ Brendan Witt and Tom Poti logged 748:13 in 2006-07.
That PK finished 18th overall. The Leafs’ PK ranks 14th at 80.8 per cent.
12. As much as the Coyotes bungled their goodbye to franchise icon
Shane Doan — there is still no jersey retirement ceremony on the
calendar — the club was wise to keep healthy its relationship with career
grinder Paul Bissonnette.
In his first season as Arizona’s local colour analyst, BizNasty still travels
on the team plane and lives the NHL life, minus the bag skates. He’s also
started a fun, personality-driven series of videos to help showcase the
current Yotes. Check out Road Trippin’ with Biz….
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Sportsnet.ca / Canadiens excited to have Carey Price back, but need him
at his best
Eric Engels
November 24, 2017, 3:46 PM
BROSSARD, Que.—The guessing game is over.
Carey Price is coming off a three-week absence, caused by a lower-body
injury, and he’s stepping in front of the Montreal Canadiens’ net for a
game against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
Now the question is, which Price are we going to see? Will it be the one
who built up a reputation over the past five seasons as the consensus
best goaltender in the world, or will it be the one who put up the worst
numbers of any starter with at least 10 games under their belt this
season?
The 8-12-3 Canadiens need the Price they expect to see—the guy who
they signed to an eight-year, $84 million contract extension this past
summer—and can’t settle for anything in between. If he at all resembles
the man who collected just three wins in 11 starts and posted a ghastly
save percentage of .877 and a nightmarish 3.77 goals-against average,
they’re in even bigger trouble than they already appear to be.
The team has lost five consecutive games and could be as many as six
points out of a playoff spot by the time they wake up on Saturday
morning. They’re getting set to play seven of their next eight games at
home and four of their next five against divisional rivals. It’s fair to say
they need a major boost.
“Just having his calming presence back there will make a difference” said
Canadiens defenceman Jordie Benn after Friday’s practice. “He’s as
good as any of us at moving the puck. He saves us from having to go
back and get it half the time.”
Price’s ability to do that is critical, but him stopping and smothering pucks
is what’s of utmost importance. All the better if he can do it without sliding
around his crease with as little control as he displayed through the first
few weeks of the season.
“Over the time he was injured, Carey did not stop working,” said
Canadiens coach Claude Julien. “When I say that, [I mean] he had
treatment, he watched video with [goaltending coach] Stephane [Waite],
and he kept working to improve his game for when he came back.”
Price also discarded the pads he was using up until the moment of his
injury and has been wearing a new pair in practice over the past week.
He went back to an old pair of skates, too.
“It’s just something you’re familiar with,” Price said of the change.
“Technically, I think it gives me more of an advantage.”
Whatever works, right?
One of the other things that might help Price regain form is having a bit of
a different look to what’s been a beleaguered defence unit since the
season started.
David Schlemko, who suffered a hand injury on the first day of training
camp, is finally ready to start playing games again. He’ll dress for the
AHL’s Laval Rocket on Friday, as part of a brief conditioning stint, and
he’ll probably be ready to go for Monday’s Canadiens game against the
Columbus Blue Jackets.
Jakub Jerabek came up from Laval to play his first NHL game in
Nashville this past Wednesday and performed admirably. He’s a sound
decision-maker and a capable puck mover who can chip in with some
offence, and his addition brings a new element to the team’s back end.
And Shea Weber, who missed the past two games with a lower-body
injury, is nearing a return. Julien said he could play Saturday after
receiving treatment on Friday.
Antti Niemi will back Price up for the time being, with Charlie Lindgren
going back down to Laval after posting a 3-4-1 record, a .924 save
percentage and a 2.43 goals-against average.
“(Lindgren) played great,” said Price. “It’s not an easy position. It was
good to see his enthusiasm, he was having a lot of fun.”
Julien said one of the reasons Lindgren went down was because Niemi
could be lost on waivers. We suspect the concern over losing Niemi to
that process has more to do with making sure Price doesn’t suffer a
setback over the next coming days than it does with anything else.
The nature of Price’s injury—coupled with his recent injury history—
requires Montreal to proceed with as much caution as possible.
“We can recall Charlie at any point,” said Julien.
He just might want to do that as soon as Price needs rest for a game.
With backup Al Montoya sidelined by a concussion for an indeterminate
amount of time, Lindgren unquestionably gives them a better chance to
win than Niemi.
It can be argued Lindgren does that regardless of Montoya’s health,
considering he’s put up better numbers than any other Canadiens
goaltender this season.
Price getting up to Lindgren’s level—and exceeding it—gives this team
the best chance of getting back into the thick of the playoff race.
“We know what he’s done in the past,” said Julien. “We’re excited to see
him come back.”
The Canadiens will be even more thrilled if Price can immediately offer
his best.
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Sportsnet.ca / Acknowledging and analyzing the NHL’s top five goalies
this season
Andrew Berkshire
November 24, 2017, 1:11 PM
After breaking down the top forward lines and defence pairings so far this
season, the natural next step is to look at which goaltenders have been
the biggest difference makers for their teams.
Unfortunately with goalies there just isn’t the same variety of statistics to
evaluate their play that exist for skaters, so it’s a lot tougher to come to a
conclusion about total value, especially in small sample sizes.
In the end I decided that sticking to 5-on-5 play made sense once again,
because save percentage on special teams is highly unreliable in small
samples. In order to qualify, goaltenders had to start at least 10 games
this season and I wanted to look at not just overall performance, but
signs that the performance is sustainable, and how much the goaltenders
themselves are contributing to the shot quality they face.
With that in mind, here’s what I came up with as the top goaltenders
through one quarter of the NHL season.
Be aware that in order to increase the contrast in these big numbers I
started the y-axis (vertical) at 30 per cent.
Over the past several years of NHL hockey, we know that future overall
save percentage is normally best predicted by how well goalies are
stopping pucks in the high danger area, or inner slot. So far this season,
Mike Smith is leading everyone there by a wide margin, turning away
90.7 per cent of the high danger chances he faces, which is more than
13 percentage points better than league average.
An interesting note on Smith’s high danger save percentage being the
highest of this group: his outer slot save percentage is the lowest for him
personally and below league average. That’s an odd outlier. Smith gives
up rebounds on 62 per cent of the shots he faces, but those rebounds
are recovered by his teammates or himself 87.5 per cent of the time.
Smith has a relatively high percentage of his rebounds that wind up in the
inner slot area, but 98.6 per cent of those rebounds are either recovered
by his teammates or smothered by Smith before opponents get a chance
to get on the puck, so it hasn’t burned him yet.
Sergei Bobrovsky, last season’s Vezina winner, leads the NHL in even
strength save percentage again, and is third in high danger save
percentage while posting stronger save rates in the high slot than Smith.
Bobrovsky has been a bit of a mess with rebounds though.
A whopping 71 per cent of the shots Bobrovsky faces result in rebounds,
and 39 per cent of those end up in the inner slot. The Blue Jackets also
recover fewer of Bob’s rebounds than league average teams do, making
things tougher on him as he faces more second chances than other
goalies.
That hasn’t burned him yet, but the question for Bobrovsky is whether
you credit him for the extra saves or punish him for being the creator of
his own increased difficulty? In a small sample size, it’s tough to say
which is more important. If by the end of the season Bobrovsky still leads
the NHL in even strength save percentage, you just have to tip your hat
to him.
Braden Holtby puts up strong numbers across the board, and he doesn’t
give up many rebounds either, with only 59 per cent of the shots he faces
ending up out of his immediate control. The Capitals also recover among
the highest percentage of rebounds in the NHL at 90.7 per cent – and
they recover 97.5 per cent of Holtby’s rebounds into the high danger
area.
Holtby has the easiest workload of this elite group, but you have to give
him credit for helping to ease that by keeping second chances to a
minimum.
Corey Crawford remains one of the most consistent even strength
goaltenders in the NHL, posting strong save percentages and allowing
the lowest percentage of rebounds to the inner slot of anyone.
The Blackhawks don’t recover Crawford’s rebounds at as high a rate as
other teams, but Crawford’s own work in the high danger area leads to
97.8 per cent of those high danger rebounds being recovered.
Arguably the most surprising goaltender on this list is Jacob Markstrom,
who used to be the ‘Next Great Goalie’ prospect for years, only to
flounder in the NHL until this season when he’s been brilliant at even
strength for an equally surprising Vancouver Canucks team.
Markstrom boasts the second-best high danger save percentage in the
NHL, strong numbers in the high slot, and has the lowest percentage of
shots faced that turn into rebounds at just 57 per cent.
Of those rebounds, Markstrom is tied with Crawford for the lowest
percentage of them ending up in the high danger area at just 31.7 per
cent. Markstrom’s teammates have done a great job recovering the very
few rebounds he actually allows, too.
I think you could make a legitimately strong argument for any of Smith,
Bobrovsky, and Markstrom as the top-three goalies this season. Whether
those will be the same names up for the Vezina at the end of the year,
though, is anyone’s guess.
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TSN.CA / Leafs hang on for road win, snap 2-game skid
By Kristen Shilton
Columnist image
The Toronto Maple Leafs nearly let one slip away in Carolina on Friday
night, but the visitors held off a late surge from their hosts to top the
Hurricanes 5-4. The victory snapped the Leafs’ two-game losing streak
and moved them to 15-8-1 on the season.
Too slow for comfort
The Leafs have emphasized the importance of improving their starts. So
far, they’ve struggled to realize those ambitions. In each of their last three
games, Toronto has been outshot and outplayed for most or all of the
first period and relied on Frederik Andersen to keep them afloat; the
same held true in Carolina. Not only were they being hemmed into their
own zone and getting outshot 11-1 in the first 11 minutes of the game,
but they also took two penalties in the first 13 minutes. By the end of the
frame, the Leafs were trailing 14-4 on the shot counter (and 31-7 in shot
attempts), and have now given up a league-worst 281 shots in the
opening frame this season. The Leafs’ prospects would have been dire if
not for a couple of terrific saves by Andersen in the first 20 minutes – one
with the stub of his stick against Teuvo Teravainen and an even tougher
glove stop on Victor Rask. Toronto found their legs early in the second
period and dominated that frame, but why it’s taking them until then to
start working is an issue head coach Mike Babcock is eager to uproot. As
the game wore on, the Leafs held a three-goal lead twice and saw it
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
evaporate into a one-goal win, thanks to the same lapses (turnovers,
poor zone exits and clears) that put them on their heels in the first period.
Andersen finished the night with 43 saves and a .915 save percentage to
help hold the Hurricanes at bay. The Leafs netminder hasn’t just been
their best player this month, but also the best around the league, holding
a .938 save percentage in November to pace all starters and is tied for
the lead in wins (seven).
The Hurricanes entered Friday’s game giving up the sixth-fewest goals in
the NHL (57), but once the Leafs found their footing in the middle frame,
the scores came in bunches. Scoreless after the first, Toronto held a 3-0
lead after 11:37 – and it wasn’t their usual suspects lighting the lamp.
Zach Hyman opened the floodgates with his fifth goal of the year, a play
started by capitalizing on a Hurricanes’ miscue along the boards. Nazem
Kadri had the second assist on Hyman’s goal, extending his career-high
point streak to nine games. Then Josh Leivo tallied his first of the season
with a top-shelf snipe over Cam Ward. Four minutes later, it was Ron
Hainsey, making his return to Carolina for the first time since the team
traded him to Pittsburgh last February, extending the lead for Toronto
with his second of the season. Both of Hainsey’s goals as a Leaf have
come against his former teams (the first was in Montreal). The trio of
unanswered goals came on just six shots by Toronto. Friday was only the
second time in five games the Leafs had scored more than one goal in a
game, further highlighting the importance of this secondary scoring.
While the Leafs want their stars like Auston Matthews (one assist), Mitch
Marner (zero points) and William Nylander (one assist) in on the action,
being able to get it done without them from time to time is a boost in its
own right.
Cause for concern?
The Leafs have given up a lot of goals this season (68, tied for ninth-
most in the NHL), so it’s not exactly surprising they’ve also given up a lot
of shots (32.4 per game, also tied for ninth-most in the league). On
Friday they’d ceded more than 40 shots on goal with over eight minutes
left in the third period, marking the third time this year they’ve allowed at
least that many shots. The Leafs were outshot 47-25 on the night. The
last time Toronto held an opponent to less than 30 shots on net was
against the Vegas Golden Knights on Nov. 6; in 24 games this season,
only four teams have had 30 or fewer shots against Toronto. However,
despite the figures, the Leafs have the most wins this season (11) when
they’re being outshot. That could speak to how Toronto often jumps out
to leads and opponents are chasing the game, or to how well Andersen
has played, especially down this last stretch. But as they saw on Friday,
a busy goaltender can also become prone to mistakes. Noah Hanifin’s
goal, a soft one facilitated by a Matthews turnover in the defensive zone,
brought Carolina to within one with 4:11 left in the third and was
Carolina’s 46th shot on net. The Leafs did a better job in the second
period of limiting the Hurricanes’ chances by winning more one-on-one
battles and taking away the time and space Carolina had to establish
their speed game in the first. But the Leafs didn’t do it consistently
through the final 40 minutes; when they do, it makes a big difference in
how busy their goaltender’s night is.
In their first meeting of the season, the Leafs felt that their poor night in
the faceoff dot (47 per cent) gave the Hurricanes too many good scoring
opportunities off the draw which they used to advantage in the 6-3
victory. On Friday, their faceoff numbers were actually worse by the end
(45 per cent), with three of the Leafs’ four centres operating at 50 per
cent or less. But Toronto did a better job after the first period of not letting
the Hurricanes get set up off the draw and pushing pucks out of the zone
or to the outside. Still, Carolina bested Toronto handily in puck
possession, dominating every period in that category and finishing at 70
per cent. The Leafs’ best frame was the second, when they approached
50 per cent and scored four of their five goals on the night. It was in that
period the Leafs recorded their only four high-danger scoring chances of
the game, while the Hurricanes had 18 over 60 minutes.
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TSN.CA / Nylander seeks confidence boost
By Mark Masters
Columnist image
TSN Toronto reporter Mark Masters checks in daily with news and notes
from Maple Leafs practices and game-day skates. The Maple Leafs had
an optional skate at PNC Arena in Raleigh on Friday morning.
William Nylander is usually cool, calm and collected on the ice, but last
week against the Devils the 21-year-old showed a lot of frustration after
failing to convert an opportunity. TSN analyst Ray Ferraro was between
the benches for the broadcast on Nov. 16 and told Nylander not to sweat
it because, “You’re going to score.” And, sure enough, Nylander got the
overtime winner snapping an 11-game drought.
“It was nice of him to say that," Nylander recalled with a wide grin. "I was
pretty rattled there after I missed that one backhand shot so he cheered
me up a little bit.”
Nylander hasn't scored since then meaning he now has just that one goal
in the last 15 games. Is it a good sign that Ferraro will be in the building
tonight as the Hurricanes host the Leafs on TSN4?
“Hopefully," Nylander said, still smiling. "We’ll see.”
The Swede insists he's not superstitious, but is feeling a bit unlucky these
days.
“Of course, you want to score and stuff, but as long as you’re creating
chances, I mean, playing at such a high level [in the NHL] you can’t
expect to score all the time," he said.
Leafs Ice Chips: Nylander on verge of breaking 'slump'
William Nylander has just one goal in his last 15 games, but the young
Maple Leafs forward feels like he is getting the chances and just hasn't
been able to convert. Mark Masters has more on Nylander looking to
break out of his slump tonight in Carolina.
Head coach Mike Babcock is doing his part to try and get Nylander, who
has four goals on the year, going again. He's given him new linemates in
Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk and is working on getting him
easier matchups. And Babcock believes Wednesday's game against the
Panthers was one of Nylander's best efforts of the season.
“I liked that he went and got the puck and won some battles and shot it
like he can," Babcock noted. "It’s hard to believe that confidence is so
fleeting in the National Hockey League, but it is. And we need Willie to
get his confidence back and get feeling good. You saw it with Mitch
[Marner], you see it all the time with different players, you need to feel
good about yourself. So, we just decided that this is a different situation,
give him a different look to feel better and ideally that’s going to show
here again tonight. I really thought it showed in the third period the other
night.”
“I think it’s getting better," Nylander said. "I think I’ve been in a little slump
so I want to stay at that pace and keep playing like that ... it’s the way
hockey is, I mean, sometimes the bounces aren’t going to go your way
and it may be that way for a little bit so you have to work even harder to
get them to go your way.”
What's going through Nylander's mind during drought?
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
TSN Hockey analyst Ray Ferraro explains what is going through William
Nylander's mind during his current drought and grades Nylander's play
through the first quarter of the NHL season.
---
For the ninth game this season, Patrick Marleau will shift over to centre
for the Leafs.
"I can't get mismatches in any situation with him at centre," Babcock
explained. "He can play against anybody. Then I have more balance and
I don't have to spend my whole life sitting guys on the bench, 'Oh, did I
miss that guy?' When their [coach] is waiting to hunt your guys – they
always pick someone to play against, right? When they're waiting for that
guy and they keep getting you, you never get out of your zone and it
starts wearing you out. You get tired of watching that so this way I don't
have to watch it."
Marleau insists he's not worried about moving over to play down the
middle.
"I'm good either way. I have no preference," the 38-year-old said.
"Wherever they want me is fine."
Marleau, who started his career at centre, is quick to remind reporters
that he did see some time at the position as recently as last season in
San Jose.
"I've always been moved around," he noted. "It has always been that
way."
Babcock and Marleau had some brief discussions about the switch, but
the coach didn't have to sell the player on the move.
"I just said, 'What do you think?' I don't sell him on nothing, he just likes
hockey," Babcock said.
"He said, 'I got you in the middle, if you have any trouble with that let me
know,' but it's been going good," Marleau said. "You want everyone
going at the same time. That makes it so much harder to defend for the
other team."
The move seems to have had the desired effect as Hurricanes coach Bill
Peters said he won't really try to match lines tonight.
“We’re just going to play,” Peters said. “It’s going to be too fast, I think, to
get matchups. It’s only a matchup game when the game is slow and
there is lots of whistles and your matching lines off whistles. I don’t
anticipate that happening a whole bunch tonight. I got to get my guys out
in good situations where they can use their skill-set properly so that's
what I'm going to concentrate on and they can do what they need to do
and then, at the end, we'll see who wins."
"It's going to be quick for sure," Babcock agreed, "and we're balanced on
the road with four lines anyway. I can't tell you which is best and which
isn't, so we're going to roll them out the door and then go."
But Babcock made it clear he'll be focused on ensuring the right
personnel is on the ice against the line of Sebastian Aho, Jordan Staal
and Teuvo Teravainen.
"Obviously, for us, Staal's line is absolutely dominating. I think [Aho] and
[Teravainen] have 10 and 11 points apiece with Staal with six in their last
five games. They're on fire so we had better know who's out there."
Patrick Marleau will be back playing centre on Friday night against the
Hurricanes. The Maple Leafs forward insists he's happy to play wherever
Mike Babcock needs him.
---
For the fourth time in their NHL careers, James van Riemsdyk and
younger brother Trevor van Riemsdyk will face-off. The timing couldn't
have been better for the family, which has seen relatives flock to Raleigh.
Toronto flew into town after Wednesday's loss and the Hurricanes were
already home this week. That means the van Riemsdyk clan got a rare
Thanksgiving together.
"It's a million-in-one type shot," James said. "It seems like the stars
aligned. We had some family drive in from Atlanta to spend some time
with us, which was nice, because we don't see them too often."
Thanksgiving was always the big holiday for the van Riemsdyk family
growing up.
"That always seemed to be when we got a lot of family together," James
noted, "We're kind of a little spread out over the East Coast so that's the
one time when you got to see some people more than you usually did.
With our schedules over the years you don't get a chance to do that as
often anymore so for it to work out like this was pretty cool."
"It was an awesome holiday," Trevor said. "We would host it at our house
usually growing up and have a lot of relatives over and play a lot of
hockey, basketball, whatever it may be, in the driveway, work up an
appetite and then go inside and eat as much turkey as we could."
Basketball? How'd that go?
"I'd like to think I was the better of the basketball players," Trevor said
with some pride. "Worked a couple basketball camps back in the day so
my jump shot was there."
"He was probably the best athlete in the family growing up at all our
sports," James admitted. "He was a pretty good golfer, basketball, stuff
like that, he has a natural touch."
Trevor's teams have won two of the three showdowns with James' Leafs
including a 6-3 triumph at the Air Canada Centre in October when Trevor
picked up an assist.
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TSN.CA / TSN Hockey's Top 10 Storylines of the Week
By Scott Cullen
Teams are scoring more, Boeser, MacKinnon, Schenn, Vegas, Oilers,
Habs and more in TSN Hockey’s Top 10 Storylines of the Week.
INCREASED SCORING
One of the most notable statistics through the first quarter of the NHL
season is that goal-scoring is up, currently at 6.02 goals per game, after
finishing last season at 5.53 goals per game and hovering around 5.5 for
the past seven years, so this current goal-scoring rate stands out.
What’s the reason? Overall save percentages are down from .910 to
.907, so that’s part of it, but shots per game are also up a bit, from 30.2
per team per game to 31.9.
Is this as simple as the crackdown on slashing having a positive effect?
That’s possible, if it means that players with the puck are able to get
through the offensive zone a little bit easier and possibly create better
quality shots.
BOESER
One of the reasons that the league has lots of goals is that there is an
influx of young talent that can put the puck in the net, perhaps most
notably among the rookies is Vancouver right winger Brock Boeser.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Boeser was the 23rd pick in the 2015 Draft and played two seasons at
the University of North Dakota before joining the Canucks late last
season, scoring four goals and five points in nine games, an encouraging
start to his pro career.
After he was scratched for the first two games of this season, though,
he’s become a game-breaker for the Canucks, and he has scored six
goals in the past four games to take the lead in both the rookie and team
scoring races.
The 20-year-old winger can still round out his game, as the Canucks
don’t drive play with him on the ice, but his ability to fire the puck is going
to make him an integral part of Vancouver’s rebuilding effort.
MACKINNON
The first overall pick in the 2013 Draft, Colorado Avalanche centre
Nathan MacKinnon won the Calder Trophy in 2013-2014 after scoring 63
points in 82 games. It looked like he was well on his way to stardom.
But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming a scoring star, and
MacKinnon shot 7.4% over the next three seasons, numbers not really
fitting for a big-time scorer, and he managed 143 points over 218 games.
The thing is, that with his combination of speed, strength and skill, that
felt wholly underwhelming, like he hadn’t even scratched the surface on
what he might be able to produce in the league.
It looks like he might be hitting his stride this season, however, as the 22-
year-old has scored 10 points in the past four games, giving him 25
points in 20 games. He has the percentages going in his favour this year,
so the numbers are there, even while MacKinnon generates a career-low
2.7 shots on goal per game.
This is a big deal for the Avalanche because, after trading Matt Duchene,
MacKinnon is the clear No. 1 centre on the team, expected to lead this
young team back from a disastrous 2016-2017 campaign.
VEGAS, BABY
Coming into the season, there weren’t any expectations placed on the
expansion Vegas Golden Knights. Their roster looked okay, like they
could be competitive, but it also looked like they didn’t quite maximize the
current value that they might have been able to extract from other clubs
in the expansion draft.
Nevertheless, the Golden Knights got off to a great start and then their
goaltenders started getting hurt. By the time the franchise had played 10
games, they were already on their fourth goaltender, and while they did
start to drop some games, it was understandable given the
circumstances.
But, they currently sit atop the Pacific Division with 27 points in 20
games, have won three in a row, are getting goaltenders back from injury
– Malcolm Subban was first to get activated from injured reserve – and,
perhaps most encouraging is that they are starting to control play. In
November, Vegas ranks sixth in the league with 53.0% score-adjusted
Corsi, and if that trend continues, they won’t merely be a competitive
expansion team, but they’re going to make a legitimate run at the
playoffs.
SCHENN
There is one player in the Top 40 in league scoring this season that
changed teams in the offseason, and it’s Brayden Schenn, who is tied for
fourth with 30 points in 22 games since joining the St. Louis Blues in a
trade from Philadelphia.
Skating on one of the premier lines in the league. with Jaden Schwartz
and Vladimir Tarasenko, Schenn is driving play and generating shots in
a way that he never did in Philadelphia, so even though his percentages
are lofty right now, his improved production is not fueled solely by those
percentages.
Getting the opportunity to play with Schwartz and Tarasenko is a great
spot to be, but Schenn has earned his keep and the 26-year-old is
already more than half way to his career-high of 59 points.
OILERS WOES
It’s been a brutal start to the season for the Edmonton Oilers, a team that
harboured Stanley Cup hopes entering the year but, before Wednesday’s
win at Detroit, the Oilers had one regulation win in their previous nine
games and had been outscored 18-7 in three straight losses.
While the Oilers do have solid underlying numbers, including 53.2%
score-adjusted Corsi, that suggest a turnaround is possible, that
turnaround also depends on goaltender Cam Talbot recovering from a
rough start to the season. He had a .922 save percentage in 186 games
over the past four seasons, but is sitting at .901 through 20 starts this
year, and the Oilers, who aren’t getting enough complementary scoring,
haven’t been able to overcome those numbers.
If the Oilers didn’t have Connor McDavid, it would be tempting to write
their season off now, because they are already five points out of a playoff
spot having played more games than the teams immediately above them,
but they do have Connor McDavid and that leaves open the possibility
that he can drag this group back into the playoff picture.
HABS TROUBLES
The Montreal Canadiens didn’t necessarily have the same kind of
expectations as the Oilers coming into the year, but they surely thought
they could be a playoff team, but they’ve gone seven straight without a
regulation win and that’s left them four points out of a playoff spot, which
might not sound like much, but they’ve played three more games than
Boston and Ottawa, the two teams directly above them in the Atlantic
Division, so that four-point deficit has room to grow.
In any case, the Habs have had trouble scoring, which isn’t a great
surprise, but star goaltender Carey Price tried to play through an injury,
was ineffective, and now he’s set to return to action Saturday, with the
Canadiens desperately needing Price to play like he’s played in recent
seasons. The Canadiens know, as well as any team, that their
performance would look dramatically different with a goaltender stopping
93% of the shots that he faces, as Price has over the past four seasons.
Like the Oilers, it would be tempting to write off the Habs at this point, but
if Price is able to play to his customary level when he returns, there is still
time for Montreal to get back into the playoff hunt.
SABRES SINKING
Winless in seven, the Buffalo Sabres look like they are headed for the
bottom of the standings, again, and frustration is starting to boil over.
Jack Eichel, the second pick in the 2015 Draft, has taken heat for a lack
of production, and has been dropped in the lineup, but it’s worth noting
that Eichel had 24 power play points among his 57 points in 61 games
last season, but this year has just one power-play point among his 18
points in 22 games. Fix the Sabres power play and Eichel’s production
will follow. Maybe getting defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen back from
injury will help.
That won’t be enough to save the Sabres, though. They’re getting
outshot on a nightly basis and don’t have good enough goaltending (or a
potent power play) to overcome that deficit.
TOUGH TIMES FOR RASKS
There are two Rasks playing in the NHL and both are going through
tough stretches.
Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask had been dominant from 2011-2012
through 2014-2015, posting a .927 save percentage in 187 games, but
has fallen to a .915 save percentage, much closer to league average,
over the past two seasons.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Well, he’s down to .897 through a dozen starts this year and is losing
playing time to Anton Khudobin, who started his fourth straight game on
Friday afternoon.
Hurricanes centre Victor Rask, who missed four games total in his first
three seasons, and ranked fourth on the Hurricanes in ice time last
season at 17:18 per game, has been a healthy scratch in the past couple
of games. He had no points and 10 shots on goal in the previous seven
games.
Q1 AWARDS
With the first quarter of the season in the books, I checked in with NHL
award picks.
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TSN.CA / Hot Button Issues: Catching up with Canadian teams' 2017
first-round picks
By Craig Button
Columnist image
Across the country we go, looking at Canadian teams’ first-round picks
from 2017 and how they are faring so far this season.
Fans will get a great look at most of these players at the World Juniors in
Buffalo, as it certainly appears that at least six of them have every
opportunity to be participants.
Vancouver
Elias Pettersson, (C/RW/L) Växjö SHL 20 GP 11-16-27
The second leading scorer in the SHL is on a tear and looking every bit
the creative, offence- producing player the Canucks coveted with the fifth
pick. While projecting as a centre, he has played on the wing. But the key
takeaway for Pettersson is that it doesn’t matter where he plays, the puck
follows him around and inevitably finds its way into the opponent’s net.
Calgary
Juuso Valimaki, (D/L) Tri-City Americans, WHL, 16 GP 5-12-17
The workhorse defenceman, selected 16th overall by the Flames, is
expected to captain a very talented Finnish squad in Buffalo. While there
is no one area that stands out for Valimaki, his whole is greater than the
sum of the parts and it adds up to a player that can play any situation in
the game with a very high degree of competence.
Edmonton
Kailer Yamamoto, (RW/R) Spokane Chiefs, WHL, 5 GP 1-5-6
Yamamoto, drafted 22nd overall, began the season in the NHL with the
Oilers after a stellar training camp. He had four points in his first game
after being returned to Spokane but Oilers’ fans know they have a very
good young player on the horizon. His return to Spokane is good news
for the U.S. junior team as he’s expected to form part of what could be a
very strong line with Buffalo first-round pick, Casey Mittelstadt, and
Ottawa’s first-round pick in 2016, Logan Brown.
Winnipeg
Kristian Vesalainen, (LW/L) HPK Hämeenlinna, SM Liiga 21GP 5-8-13
The best news for Vesalainen is that he has found a permanent spot in
the lineup. One of the challenges for young players when they are
playing in European professional leagues is finding a sense of belonging.
Vesalainen has done exactly that and is the second leading scorer on his
team. He looks like the well-rounded player who can play a skill game or
a power game the Jets liked when they drafted him with the 24th pick.
Vesalainen thinks he will be a point producer in NHL
Jets 24th overall selection Kristian Vesalainen talks about how this day is
a dream come true and explains how he believes his game will translate
to the NHL.
Toronto
Timothy Liljegren, (D/R) Toronto Marlies, AHL 10 GP 1-5-6
Liljegren, taken 17th overall, has made the step to pro hockey in the AHL
and is acquitting himself quite nicely. He’s a terrific skater who is learning
how to be more patient and use that skating for greater benefit in all
areas. He missed a few games with a minor injury but he has looked very
steady, confident and assured in his play without feeling a need to do
everything and be everywhere.
Despite injury, Leafs prospect Liljegren making progress in AHL
Currently sidelined with an upper-body injury, defenceman Timothy
Liljegren is earning positive reviews for his performance so far with the
Marlies. It's rare for an 18-year-old to play at this level and there have
been some challenges, but Toronto's first round pick in the last draft is
showing off a competitive nature and generating chemistry with Travis
Dermott.
Ottawa
Shane Bowers, (C/L) Boston University, NCAA 14 GP 6-3-9
Bowers, the 28th pick, was traded to Colorado as part of the Matt
Duchene trade. While he’ll never be a prolific scorer, he will produce
some adequate offence and be a solid player in different areas of the
game. He became a necessary part of the trade and it reflects on his
potential that he was coveted by the Avalanche. He’s the one player who
won’t be a participant at the World Juniors this year but should be a solid
candidate for the 2019 event.
Montreal
Ryan Poehling, (C/L) St. Cloud State University, NCAA, 11GP, 3-10-13
As a 17-year-old freshman in college hockey, Ryan was able to hold his
own and progress nicely over the course of the year. He capped off his
freshman season by joining the U.S. under-18 team that captured gold at
the IIHF tourney in Slovakia. He was an instrumental player for the U.S.
during the event and will be counted upon to be an important member for
the U.S. at the World Juniors. The 25th overall pick has a game similar in
style to Jordan Staal.
Halifax Mooseheads at Acadie-Bathurst Titan, Sunday, Nov. 26. It’s
where I’ll be and I’m excited to watch four players I feel will be first-round
picks in the 2018 NHL draft. The Mooseheads boast three in Filip Zadina,
who will play for the Czechs at the World Juniors, Jared McIsaac and
Benoit-Olivier Groulx. The Titan have Noah Dobson, a very good
defenceman.
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TSN.CA / Dreger Report: How Schenn is thriving in St. Louis
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
By Darren Dreger
Columnist image
Teammates Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov are 1-2 in the NHL
scoring race. With Vladislav Namestnikov rounding out the trio, Tampa
Bay's top line is the primary reason the Lightning are perched at the top
of the league standings.
Just below the Lightning sit the St. Louis Blues, a Western Conference
powerhouse with a similar story of three men seemingly born to play
together.
Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko occupy three
of the top 10 spots in NHL scoring, Schwartz and Schenn enter the
weekend ranked fourth and fifth with 30 points each, while Tarasenko is
eighth with 26 points. As deep as the Blues appear to be, this line is
driving St. Louis in its quest to win the Stanley Cup.
Schenn arrived late to the party, acquired through trade during the NHL
draft last June in Chicago. Blues GM Doug Armstrong says he didn't start
talking to Flyers general manager Ron Hextall until a few days before the
deal was made. Schenn fit what St. Louis needed: a gritty, strong, two-
way forward with underrated offensive ability.
"I played maybe 15 games a season at centre in Philly and here, just
staying in one position and getting into a groove and rhythm and playing,
I guess my natural position, has made it easier,” Schenn told the Dreger
Report. “Obviously I have to be responsible in both ends of the ice and I
think as a young guy in Philly it takes time to learn that. I just tried to
keep growing as a player and I think just being in the middle of the ice
and playing with really good players has helped me a lot. It just kind of
feels natural."
Just prior to training camp, Blues head coach Mike Yeo informed Schenn
he would play centre full-time and wanted to see how he looked between
highly skilled wingers Schwartz and Tarasenko on the top line. Schenn
knew this was a tremendous opportunity and felt comfortable with the
challenge based on a long-standing relationship with Schwartz.
"I've known him for a long time, but you don't realize how good he
actually is until you see first-hand. He's hard on pucks, good at both
ends of the ice, has great vision...very underrated player. Then you add
Tarasenko, who's a shooter and is able to find open areas, and he has
one of the best releases in the game."
Schenn's scouting report on Tarasenko comes from recent experience
and getting to know the talented Russian star on and off the ice. But
there was no mystery to Schwartz's game or background as he and
Schenn crossed paths many times while growing up in Saskatchewan.
"His older brother, Rylan, was born in 1990, I'm a ‘91 and Schwartz is a
‘92, so I was always caught in the middle,” Schenn said. “At the under-17
camp as a young guy I was with his brother and then the next year I
would be the older guy and play with Jaden, so we were childhood
friends and would see each other around the rinks since we were like 10
years old and played a lot against him. I think it was when I was with the
Brandon Wheat Kings, we actually tried to trade for Rylan during the
Memorial Cup year.
"I've known the family for a long time, so it's nice to finally play with him
on a line."
As easy as the transition from Philadelphia to St. Louis appears to have
been, Schenn says he was shocked when he got the call he had been
traded. His name was often thrown around in trade speculation, so the
trade itself wasn't surprising as the destination. With depth up front,
Schenn knew the Flyers would have to do something. He had seen and
heard the chatter and knew he was vulnerable.
"You guys always had me on the TSN Trade Bait board...pretty much
every year, but I think I was more shocked I was going to St. Louis,”
Schenn said. “Did I have a feeling I was going to get traded? Maybe a
little bit, but once they got Nolan Patrick with the second pick overall,
another forward on a team with a lot of forwards, I thought since they had
missed the playoffs last year they would be looking to make a change or
two. I just happened to be the guy. So shocked to get traded out of
Philly? Probably not. But more surprised to end up coming here."
Adjusting to the move wasn't an issue, Schwartz was there to help ease
the transition and help Schenn settle in. Plus, the experience of having
been traded before gave him an understanding of the process. He was a
key piece of an NHL blockbuster in 2011 that moved Schenn and Wayne
Simmonds from the Los Angeles Kings to the Flyers as part of a package
for Mike Richards.
Still, the 26-year-old admits there were times it was difficult to be a
constant target on the TSN Trade Bait list.
"Early on, you see your name on that board and up in Canada people
pay attention to it and it’s a big thing,” he said. “For me personally, early
in my career maybe I looked at it and thought, ‘Oh maybe I will get
traded.’ But after four or five or six years of being targeted, I stopped
letting it bug me and just focused on going out there, doing my thing and
thought, ‘It is what it is.’"
There will be no Brayden Schenn trade rumours this season and the only
board we will be watching with his name on it shows the list of the NHL
scoring leaders. He knows he's in a great spot and intends on making the
most of his opportunity, while staying grounded and well aware of where
a good portion of his individual success comes from.
"Just playing with those guys helps big time, but coming here, they play a
team game...I don't consider it a flashy game, but guys come to rink
everyday ready to work hard, play a team game and get the job done."
For the St Louis Blues, the job won't be complete before winning the
Stanley Cup.
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USA TODAY / 'American Thanksgiving' a key stop in journey to NHL
playoffs
Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports Published 3:27 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2017
In the NHL, Thanksgiving means turkey, pumpkin pie and knowing where
you stand in terms of playoff expectations.
Although the season is only about a quarter complete, players and
coaches understand that if you are not in playoff position by what Detroit
Red Wings general manager Ken Holland calls “American Thanksgiving,”
it is an uphill fight to get there by April.
Since the introduction of the salary cap in 2005, 78% of teams that have
been in playoff position at Thanksgiving were still there when the regular
season was completed. That means three or four teams in the playoffs
today will not be there in April.
Here’s our look at teams that can still get there and those in danger of
falling out of a playoff spot:
New York Rangers: After looking disorganized in the early going, the
Rangers have sharpened their game. With eight wins in their past 10
games, they are performing like a playoff team. The defense is tighter,
and Henrik Lundqvist looks like his old self.
CAROLINA HURRICANES
NEWS CLIPPINGS • Nov. 25, 2017
Ottawa Senators: Just remember how impressively this team performed
during last spring’s playoffs. That confident group is still in there
somewhere. Newly-acquired Matt Duchene finding his comfort zone is
crucial to the Senators grabbing and holding a playoff spot.
Anaheim Ducks: Despite numerous injuries, the Ducks have kept their
heads above water. When this team gets healthy, it can play like one of
the league’s best. It's hard to see the playoffs starting with the Ducks on
the sidelines.
Chicago Blackhawks: While the perception of the Blackhawks is that they
are on the decline, this knows what it takes to be a playoff team. Goalie
Corey Crawford’s .932 save percentage might carry them into the
playoffs.
Detroit Red Wings: The Red Wings’ defense has been better than
expected and Jimmy Howard has been strong in net. However, their hold
on a playoff spot is fragile. They are trying to rebuild on the fly and need
everything to go right to make the playoffs.
New Jersey Devils: While the Devils’ improvement is noteworthy, they
have won three of their past 10 games. It will be no easy task holding off
the likes of the Rangers and Hurricanes.
Vancouver Canucks: Their 11-8-3 start has been one of the Western
Conference’s biggest surprises. But they haven't been sharp at home,
and it’s fair to wonder whether they can maintain this level of play. The
Canucks have only been the playoffs once in the past four seasons.
San Jose Sharks: The Sharks have played OK, but there are five other
Western teams tied with them in points. Doesn’t it feel as there will be
five playoffs teams from the Central Division? If that happens, the Sharks
won't make it.
USA TODAY LOADED: 11.25.2017