French Collection

Baptiste with 1g and 1a after 2 periods for Erie.

Drew Doughty provides anti tank weaponry.

Good one. Can they put that one together in time, years of highlights to go through. He has been playing better since riding the pine though, 8 goals. Maybe looking to trade him.

I thought entry level contracts were pretty standard. There are minimums and then some bonus incentives. I liked Brandon's game but I wonder what the issue was? He expected to be a first rounder and wasn't, have a gripe with the other 29 teams who passed you over as well.

Nashville gave us a first for Goose, would Stewart return that now?

Shut out today. .500 hockey will cause them to drop in the standings.

Curiosity got the best of me so I went to NHL.com enhanced stats for the first time. I looked at team stats only. Looked at SAT as the main one, focusing on top teams and some anomalies (Habs, Flames, Canes and Ducks). I also looked at traditional stats like shots on goal and goal differential. The shots led me to figure out how many actual shots were generated by SAT. Overall goals divided by shots led to team shooting and save percentages. Interesting findings: Preds are 9th in SAT 51.5%. Goal differential is 56.1%. Obvious factor is Rinne's SV% but they also have a 9.5 Shooting %. Habs are 22nd in SAT 48.9%. Price is right because they have the best SV%. Outshot by 1.6 shots per game. 1 trick pony. Ducks are 15th in SAT 50.3%. Shooting % is an excellent 9.9% while SV% is good. Can they keep it up? Isles generate and give up tons of SAT. Good goal differential due to 9.6% shooting. .900 SV% is worrisome. Bolts have a solid SAT 52.9%. Excellent goal differential may be due to whopping 11% shooting. Red Wings are 53.2% SAT. They don't generate lots but have 300+ fewer SAT against than the next best club. Solid SH and SV %. Blackhawks have top SAT differential. Goal differential is even better. Their tough division has them lower in the standings. Kings are a beast at 54.1% SAT (top %). Low goal differential and standing due to low SH % and so-so SV%.Quick rebound? Flames have 28th ranked SAT 44.5% yet sit in a playoff battle and rank 15th in overall points. Their goal differential is+15! SH% of 10.6 helps as does a decent SV%. Digging down showed that only 56.1% of SAT against led to actual shots on goal. The next best team was 63.2%!!! They are blocking shots and shooting lanes way better than others. Canes sit 12th in SAT yet 27th in points. Poor goal differential. SH% of 7.4 was even lower than the Sabres. SV% was poor as well. Sabres SAT is 37%. The only stat I found to be good was that 72.1% of our SAT end up as a shot on goal, tops among the 11 teams I studied. This was actually a fun exercise for an original six era guy.

Isles played 5 games in 7 nights and were shut out. Hope they keep losing, making our pick more valuable. St. Louis can keep winning and get the President's trophy so Jets get late pick.

Neuvirth had a great game. Relies a lot on reflexes vs positioning, contrary to new age goalies. He is a bit smaller than the new breed. Larsson had a good shift filling in for Zemgus, 200 foot game. Played fine otherwise. Nice to see Bogo stand up for teammates, Benoit knocked Wilson down to start fireworks then saunters over to hug Fisher. Risto was pretty good. Pysyk was solid in limited minutes. Ennis is nifty (sorry I'm using Rick Middleton's nickname, but it fits). Zemgus was a locomotive.

Mitch Marner matches McDavid's 5 point game.

It would be interesting to see players' possession stats in contract years vs other seasons. The 110% cliche might be accurate in those years. I'm old school so the analytics seem like too much, but I am intrigued by some of it to contradict plain points and plus/minus. I hope the chips will be more accurate for possession numbers because I don't see shots, attempted shots as the ultimate possession number. Some players and teams may have the puck for long periods of time in between shots, while others may pepper the opposition from everywhere. An example of time between shots would be a strong cycling line (Getzlaf,Perry) that can hem you in your end for an entire shift but only get one shot. They're setting up for a good opportunity and wearing you down. The Russian teams of the past played a stick handling and passing game until they had a high percentage shot. I don't have the numbers but these guys seemed to have the puck for 40 minutes but only took 30 shots. They didn't dump and chase but would retreat back in the neutral zone to try a carry in.

I don't know if Kane has captain potential in him but an A for effort may be in the near future. His type of leadership may be more on ice than off ice. He may not like having rookies under his wing away from the rink.

I believe there is some truth to a post in the trade thread about him being trumped by the ex Blackhawks group and Wheeler for alpha dog status. He had a long run with the franchise and wasn't a big part of the room. He may not be a rah-rah guy but his on ice give a schit meter has always been high. He may embrace the youth movement that he will lead. He was a large part of Junior success at the Memorial Cup and World Championship.

Helps the tank. We can't do anything but hope for 30th now. Increases ice time for Ben-Wa's Mess, which could step up their trade value (5th rounder instead of 6th). wow! May cause Pysyk and or McCabe to get some NHL ice time and $$. Bogo is gonna carry a lot from here on out, more ice time than ever in his career. Gorges could form a shutdown pair with Bogo next year or they could each pair with a young'un and mentor.

Both Staal's may be out of Carolina by 2016. Eric has lost a step and Jordan has not been effective since his days in Pittsburgh.

Nick Baptiste with 1 G + 2 A tonight, McDavid got 5 pts. Brycen Martin with 1 G. Hudson Fasching with 1A. Eric Cornel with 1A. Sam Reinhart with 1A early in Kootenay game.

NHL put chips in pucks and player jerseys at All Star game. Time of Possession (TOP) stats could be tracked accurately with this type of technology. No need for stopwatches. Scrims would have to be blanked out, scrambled. I'm not a techie but I can see possibilities with that stat. Back to the Russian teams of the past, they were generally outshot by Canadian teams but probably had the puck 60% of the time. Canada scored by shot volume and Russians scored by shot quality.

Go back to pre-50's rule of serving entire 2 minutes, regardless of goals. NHL could increase goals. Lots of special teams emphasis.

Slovakian Bobby Orr with a last second rush.

Agreed

Some are saying Eichel may stay in school and re-enter the draft if he doesn't like the scenario.

I didn't realize Carl Lindros was Eichel's agent. Ha! I cannot see a kid burning years of NHL $$$ just to avoid Buffalo. Pegula perks could help here. We still hope to get McDavid and avoid this issue.

Bogo wasn't brought in to improve the offence. Bring some grit and "heavy" play is what Timmy asked for. He may contribute some points once the team improves. Myers will score more in the Peg because of better support, not because he discovers his inner Housley.

Neuvirth got confused. Mess lost his man and coasted into the ref on his way to the front. Weak.

Leading the NCAA in scoring as a freshman is elite. Tavares was elite as a junior but took some time. Stamkos was mentioned as a weak rookie but look at him now. Thornton comes to mind as another, slow out of the gate. I think they get put into roles to give them confidence and succeed, PP, O-zone starts, good line mates. McDavid needs a bit more weight to hold up, speed to burn though. I hope we get McDavid but Eichel will do fine. Eichel may be driven by always being #2, will try harder. Avis could be his nickname.