Archive for October, 2009

The Philadelphia Flyers have placed veteran defenceman Randy Jones on re-entry waivers.

Jones was a victim of the salary cap; with the Flyers pressed against it, they made the decision to dump Jones and his $2.75 million cap hit in the minors and use the much cheaper Ole-Kristian Tollefsen ($600,000) and Danny Syvret ($575,000) as their end-of-roster defenceman.

Jones has played 217 NHL games, all with the Flyers, and adds size, physicality and some puck-moving ability to the team.

Jones cleared waivers at the start of the season, but at that time any team claiming him would have had to take on his entire cap hit. Now the situation is somwhat different; any team signing him would only need to take half of that cap hit, while the Flyers would take the other half (they have some space if they put the injured Simon Gagne on LTIR, as Broad Street Hockey suggests). On top of that, Jones has an expiring contract – he’ll be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

Is there a team out there willing to take a chance on a guy like Jones? Maybe an Eastern Conference team with a banged up defence corps? This seems like a fairly low-risk, possibly high-reward move, with the added bonus for other teams of sticking the Flyers with half the tab.

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Comparables is a series where we take the statistics of some of the young, up-and-coming players in the league and compare them to other players with a similar background to give us an impartial career projection.

We tried this last week with Canadiens’ forward Andrei Kostitsyn, and this week we’ll focus in on Toronto Maple Leafs’ centre Matt Stajan.

To start with, here’s the profile of Stajan we’ll be using. All results have been pro-rated over 82 games, as they will be with our comparables.

Matt Stajan
6’1” – 200lbs – Second round pick
23: 82GP – 10G – 29A – 39PTS
24: 82GP – 16G – 17A – 33PTS
25: 82GP – 16G – 43A – 59PTS

As with Kostitsyn, comparables were not easy to find. Stajan’s breakout campaign came at the age of 25, after four seasons of mostly running in place. It’s a rare thing for an OHL player to crack an NHL roster as a 20-year old and go that long without much improvement, and thus most of the comparables are U.S college players who didn’t turn pro until some time later. Here’s the list:

Matt Cullen
6’1” – 195lbs – Second round pick
23: 82GP – 13G – 27A – 40PTS
24: 82GP – 10G – 30A – 40PTS
25: 82GP – 19G – 31A – 50PTS

Brian Rolston 6’2” – 214lbs – First round pick
23: 82GP – 18G – 27A – 45PTS
24: 82GP – 17G – 15A – 32PTS
25: 82GP – 24G – 33A – 57PTS

Steven Reinprecht
6’ – 185lbs – Undrafted
24: 82GP – 15G – 22A – 37PTS
25: 82GP – 23G – 33A – 56PTS

The Rolston comparison is obviously the most favourable, but I’m not a huge fan of it for two reasons: first, Rolston’s stats came on a very good team (although one with comparable offence), while Stajan’s did not, and second because Rolston was a drafted 46 spots higher than Stajan. No, here I think the most likely comparison is Matt Cullen, a consistent 40-50 point scorer and a fellow second-round pick. Of course, if Stajan keeps up his near point-per-game pace I’ll have to change my tune, but that’s what I think is most likely right now.

Looking a little more in-depth, here’s where Cullen and Stajan got their points in their breakout years:

Cullen: 35 even-strength, 2 short-handed, 11 powerplay
Stajan: 41 even-strength, 3 short-handed, 11 powerplay

As before, two questions:

Does Cullen seem like a reasonable comparison?
If Stajan went on to have Cullen’s career, would that be more or less than Leafs fans expect of him?

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Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun has a very interesting article relating the latest developments in the ongoing disaster currently ravaging the NHLPA head office. Yesterday Ian Penny, the interim executive director, sent out a six-page email to player reps, an email which contained two memos; memos identical in every respect except for one sentence. Here are the differing versions:

Version 1 – “Due to this unacceptable work environment, I am prepared to work with the Board to determine whether my employment situation can be resolved on reasonable terms.”
Version 2 – “Due to the unacceptable work environment, I am prepared to resign from the NHLPA subject to certain reasonable conditions being met.”

Understandably, the difference raised a few questions, and asked to clarify, an NHLPA spokesman gave the following statement:

“The substantive meaning is the same. Ian Penny is not resigning from the NHLPA.”

I’m pretty sure that isn’t the meaning in the emails Penny wrote; “prepared to resign” and “employment situation resolved on reasonable terms” are rather different in substantive meaning than “is not resigning”.

I have to wonder if Penny meant to include the second memo in his email; after all, it was Penny who mistakingly hit “reply all” rather than “reply” when making snide comments about Paul Kelly back in August, and it’s rather difficult to imagine a scenario where it benefits him to do it intentionally.

In any case, aside from that interesting anomaly, it appears Penny spent most of the email badmouthing Chris Chelios – the same Chris Chelios who was recently named to an internal review committee by his the player reps, a committee which will spend it’s time investigating, among other things, Penny’s new contract and the circumstances around Paul Kelly’s dismissal.

Barring some extraordinary events, it’s very difficult to imagine any scenario which sees Penny continue working at the NHLPA beyond the immediate future.

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Ottawa Senators General Manager Bryan Murray made the right decision today with his team’s first-round pick in the 2008 draft, sending Erik Karlsson to Binghamton of the AHL. It was a decision that Murray had previously indicated he would not make:

“Erik’s a young guy who’s going to be an NHL player for a long time. Whether he’s here for every game or whatever this year, I don’t know that at this point. But 10 games won’t be the trigger point.”

Despite the reversal, this was absolutely the correct decision. Karlsson was clearly not ready for the NHL, something he demonstrated night in and night out. Of note – no Senators defenceman had as many starts in the offensive zone, and no Senators defenceman had a worse ratio of shots for/against. That’s a brutal and rather difficult to manage combination, and does a good job of reflecting his play so far.

On top of that, there are cap considerations. Karlsson had played nine games this season; one more, and the first year of his entry-level deal kicks into effect. That reduces the amount of time that he’s on that cheap first deal. It makes him eligible for unrestricted free agency a year sooner. By sending him down, Ottawa avoids those problems.

Not only that, but many (including myself) would argue that playing in the AHL might actually be better for his development. Silver Seven Sens made that case two weeks ago:

It’s just about time that the team did what is best for his development, and sent him to the AHL for another year of development. Karlsson needs to adjust slowly to the North American game, get used to a smaller ice and tighter neutral zone. He has to learn when and where he can afford to take risks. Finally, he simply needs to get bigger, which can only happen with time. The amount of strength that a 19 year old can pile on over the course of a season can be dramatic.

For all of these reasons – his on-ice play, cap considerations, developmental considerations – sending him down was a no-brainer.

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I have a few beliefs about hockey, and one of them is that most players have an intrinsic level of scoring ability, as measured by shooting percentage. A lot of outside factors can cause it to fluctuate from year to year – injuries, line-mates, powerplay time, psychological factors, etc. – but at the end of the day there’s a centre point and while players may stray from it because of those outside factors, they can’t sustain numbers that are either too high or too low over the long haul.

G.M.’s tend to get in trouble when they sign or trade for players on the basis of shooting percentage fluctuations. I’ll use some examples from the Edmonton Oilers, since I’m most familiar with that team. Fernando Pisani’s a reasonably talented shooter – he has a career average of 13.1% – but in the 2006 playoffs he took it to another level, scoring 14 goals in 24 games on the back of a 28.6 SH%. He was a pending free agent, and was signed to a long-term, big-money deal – and promptly reverted back to his true level of ability. Raffi Torres struggled through an injury-plagued 2007-08, firing at a career low 5.7 percent (his previous career low was 9.7%). Edmonton traded him away, and while injuries are still a problem, last year he converted at a 16.2% rate.

With that in mind, I thought I’d look at the league’s current top-ten goal-scorers, and see who I think can keep up the pace. We’ll revisit these predictions at the end of the year. Naturally, all predictions assume perfect health (and with Kovalchuk out 2-4 weeks, that isn’t going to happen). Additionally, all statistics are from prior to last night’s games.

Anze Kopitar: 10 goals, 34 shots (29.4 SH%)

Current Pace: 68 goals
Career High: 32 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 10.4% – 15.9%

As it stands, Kopitar is poised to more than double his previous career high in goals, while taking the same number of shots as last season. He’s on fire right now, without doubt, but right now his shooting percentage is almost twice his previous career high. I don’t doubt that he’ll score at a career-best rate this year, but that’s more likely to mean 40 rather than 70 goals.

Prediction: 40 goals

Alexander Ovechkin: 9 goals, 67 shots (13.4 SH%)

Current Pace: 74 goals
Career High: 65 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 10.6% – 14.6%

Ovechkin led the league last year with 528 shots, and he’s poised to bump that number up to the 550-shot range this season. His shooting percentage is easily within his career norms, and because the increase in the number of shots is so modest, he could very well carry this pace on until the end of the season. Seriously: this guy could score 70 goals this year.

Prediction: 68 goals

Patrick Marleau: 9 goals, 37 shots (24.3 SH%)

Current Pace: 61 goals
Career High: 38 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 10.3% – 17.4%

Marleau’s on pace to take just two more shots than last year, but he’s firing at a tremendous clip right now – put another way, goalies facing his shots have a .757 SV%. Obviously, he’s very talented, but that’s also very unlikely to continue, and we’ll probably see him drop back to his career shooting percentage levels – around the 15% range, numbers that would translate into about 40 goals on the season.

Prediction: 40 goals

Ilya Kovalchuk: 9 goals, 27 shots (33.3 SH%)

Current Pace: 92 goals
Career High: 52 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 12.0% – 18.4%

Kovalchuk’s taking shots at the same rate that he has the past two seasons, but his shooting percentage has more than doubled from last year’s 15.6%. He’s likely to be in the 50-goal range at the end of the year, just like he is every year, when his shooting percentage reverts to his established level of ability.

Prediction: 50 goals

Marian Gaborik: 8 goals, 44 shots (18.2 SH%)

Current Pace: 60 goals
Career High: 42 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 8.2% – 19.1%

Gaborik has a wider range in shooting percentage than most of the players on this list. Before the lockout, he’d ranged between 8.2 and 13.6 percent; since the lockout, he’s been between 15.1 and 15.3 percent every year but last year, when he played in only 17 games. The 15.2% mark is probably around where his true ability level lies, and he’s only slightly ahead of that this season. He’s taken more shots the last two years than he has in years prior (although he’s generally between 200 and 300 shots). If he stays healthy, 50-60 goals seems like a reasonable target.

Prediction: 55 goals

Dany Heatley: 8 goals, 29 shots (27.6 SH%)

Current Pace: 55 goals
Career High: 50 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 12.9% – 18.3%

As it stands, Dany Heatley is on pace to set a career-low in shots over an entire season. His previous low (202) came in his rookie year, when he scored only 26 goals. In fact, if we adjust for his career average shooting percentage and he continues firing shots at the same rate, he’ll score only 35 goals, his lowest total over a full season since his rookie year. It’ll be interesting to see if this continues, although I imagine Heatley will be right around the 40 goal mark at season’s end, just like he has been for the past two years.

Prediction: 38 goals

Dustin Penner: 8 goals, 32 shots (25.0 SH%)

Current Pace: 60 goals
Career High: 29 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 11.4% – 14.2%

Dustin Penner will not score 60 goals. He does, however, have a good chance at passing his previous career high, as he’s getting more ice-time and shooting the puck more than he ever has before in his NHL career. Extrapolating with his current shot totals, he’ll finish the year at around 35 goals – and I’m sure the Oilers would be thrilled with that total.

Prediction: 33 goals

Steven Stamkos: 7 goals, 35 shots (20.0 SH%)

Current Pace: 64 goals
Career High: 23 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 12.7%

Given that Stamkos is a sophomore this season, it’s very difficult to know where his level of ability truly lies. He probably isn’t going to finish at the 20% mark, since most of the league’s best have difficulties reaching that level (Ilya Kovalchuk is probably the closest). That said, a substantial increase on last season wouldn’t be a surprise, and he is shooting the puck a lot more. 40 goals isn’t out of the question.

Prediction: 35 goals

Devin Setoguchi: 7 goals, 35 shots (20.0 SH%)

Current Pace: 52 goals
Career High: 31 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 10.5% – 12.6%

Like Stamkos, Setoguchi has a limited track record at the NHL level, and it’s hard to know where his true level of ability lies. Still, it’s likely not at the 20% mark, for the same reasons as Stamkos. But shooting percentage alone isn’t the only reason for Setoguchi’s fast start, as he’s firing the puck more too. As with Stamkos, 40 goals isn’t out of the question.

Prediction: 35 goals

Ryan Malone: 7 goals, 27 shots (25.9 SH%)

Current Pace: 64 goals
Career High: 27 goals
Career Shooting Percentage Range: 12.8% – 21.0%

Malone’s a remarkably efficient scorer – over the last two years he’s gone from the 13-16% range to 17.0% and finally 21.0% last year. That has to be near the peak of his ability; 21.0% is an incredibly high mark to keep up consistently. That said, he’s never fired the puck as often in previous years as he has this year – he’s on pace for 246 shots well above his previous career high (159).I don’t expect that to continue, and at the end of the day Malone may very well set career highs – say between 30 and 35 goals – but he won’t be keeping company with Ovechkin and Kovalchuk.

Prediction: 30 goals

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It’s a little mean to pick on the Vancouver Canucks right now. After all, this is a team with it’s best goal scorer (Daniel Sedin), another top-six forward (Pavol Demitra), a top-four defenceman (Sami Salo), a promising depth player (Jannik Hansen) an agitator (Rick Rypien) and, uh, Kyle Wellwood on the shelf.

That said, there’s a rather alarming trend when it comes to even-strength scoring on the roster.

Five forwards – Henrik Sedin, Alex Burrows, Mikael Samuelsson, Ryan Kesler and Steve Bernier – have played a little under half (49%) of the Canucks even-strength minutes. That group has recorded 23 even-strength points.

Eleven other forwards have combined to play the other 51% of the Canucks’ even-strength minutes. They have combined for six points, and only one of them (Mason Raymond) has more than one point to his credit.

In short, 80% of this roster’s even-strength scoring is coming from just five players.

Last year, the top five players (the Sedin twins, Burrows, Demitra and Kesler) again played 49% of the minutes, but only contributed 65% of the Canucks total offense. The other players on the team combined for 35% of the offense. The worse news is that both groups – the top five, and the rest of the roster, have dropped off in scoring. Here’s the damage:

Top Five Even-Strength Scoring

2008-09 Points: 234
2009-10 Projected Points: 171
Projected Drop-off: 26.9%

Rest of the Roster Even-Strength Scoring

2008-09 Points: 126
2009-10 Projected Points: 45
Projected Dropoff: 62.3%

This trend probably won’t continue (at least to this degree), although the news that Pavol Demitra is likely out for the season is a major blow. As criticized as Demitra was by Canucks’ fans last year, outside of the top line he was the team’s most effective even-strength scorer (2.30 PTS/60).

With the Canucks employing offensive sinkholes like Rypien, Ryan Johnson, Darcy Hordichuk and Tanner Glass on their bottom-six, it’s going to be up to players like Kyle Wellwood (one even-strength point), Mason Raymond (two even-strength points) and even rookie Michael Grabner (zero even-strength points) to pick up the slack. Given that neither Raymond nor Wellwood could crack the 15-point mark at evens last year, and that Grabner’s scoring numbers in the AHL have never been especially encouraging, it might be asking a lot.

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Sam Gagner is now scoring at a point per game pace, thanks to five points over the span of two games. That was very good news for my fantasy team, which came out just ahead in a very tight matchup against SBNation’s excellent Nashville Predators blogger, Dirk Hoag. Also helping me was the performance from the trio of Predators on Hoag’s team; the good (J.P Dumont, with five points) the bad (Jason Arnott, on injured reserve) and the ugly (Steve Sullivan, no points, minus-five).

When the dust cleared, the final score was a 5-4-4 win for my group. The breakdown is as follows:

Category: Willis – Hoag

Goals: 9 – 7
Assists: 18 – 16
Plus/Minus: -6 – +1
PIM: 14 – 52
PPG: 1 – 1
PPA: 7 – 7
GWG: 2 – 1
SOG: 98 – 112
Wins: 3 – 3
GAA: 2.00 – 2.82
Saves: 105 – 200
SV%: .929 – .909
Shutouts: 0 – 0

Transactions

It was a quiet week on the transaction front for my team. I finally gave up on Radim Vrbata, dropping him into free agency in favour of Blackhawks forward Dave Bolland. However, towards the end of the week, with star defenceman Sergei Gonchar on the shelf, but not yet listed on IR I decided to shore up my blueline, dropping Bolland in favour of Marc-Andre Bergeron. Once Gonchar’s officially recognized by Yahoo! as being on injured reserve, I’ll add another forward to round out my team.

Week Four Matchup

Next week, my opponent is Dallas Stars blogger Brandon Worley of Defending Big D. Looking at his roster, I don’t see a lot of big names outside of Pavel Datsyuk, Mike Ribeiro and Niklas Backstrom (the Wild goaltender, not the Capitals forward), but his team has performed very well so far this season and he does have Ales Kotalik, who has had a fantastic start with the Rangers.

I would have gone 4-6-3 against Worley last week, with all four of my wins coming in the goaltending department. I’ll clearly need a better performance from my skaters next week if I want to be competitive in this matchup.

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