Archive for November, 2009

Remember Cody Hodgson? The Vancouver Canucks first pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, Hodgson made nice progress last season with the Brampton Battalion and was projected by many as not only a member of the Canucks this season but also a strong candidate for this year’s Calder Trophy.

That of course was before a disappointing training camp that ended with the star prospect being reassigned to the OHL, a move that split fans, many of whom felt that Hodgson had nothing left to learn in junior. Clouding the issue was a back injury that Hodgson repeatedly claimed was keeping him from playing at 100%. Canucks management felt he was tossing out excuses, and didn’t balk at making that crystal clear to the media:

G.M. Mike Gillis, September 25:

“He hasn’t shown enough in this camp to prove that he’s ready to play at this level. I don’t think that’s criticism. I think it’s an assessment of fact… He’s been cleared to play for 10 days and we’re in a time frame now where things need to get better. He needs to show that he is ready and capable of participating at this level on a good team. We’ll see how it goes.”

Head Coach Alain Vigneault, October 3:

“As far as I know, he has already had two opinions [on his back]: he had an opinion back home [in Toronto] from a specialist, who gave the exact same report that our back specialist gave him. If he wants to get a third opinion, that’s fine. I think Cody is a very young man who hasn’t had a lot of disappointments throughout his life. He’s probably having a tough time, personally, dealing with this one and trying to find a reason why it happened. We’ve all had times where we’ve encountered disappointment and tried to roll the [blame] in a different direction. We’ve all been through those things. Cody will learn from this.”

Meanwhile, Hodgson decided to seek that third opinion. What’s happened since has been interesting. After playing his final preseason game with the Canucks, Hodgson was confined to off-ice rehabilitation until the start of November. On November 2, Hodgson resumed light skating. More than a week later, on November 11, Hodgson finally started participating in practices with his Brampton teammates. Two weeks later, he has yet to participate in a game and has sometime in early December targeted as a return date – meaning he’ll hit the ice just before Canada’s World Junior selection camp.

All of this is a strong indicator that Hodgson wasn’t exaggerating the effects of his injury (the rather unlikely – and unpleasant – alternative being that he’s been loafing around for some other reason). The consequences of this injury on Hodgson’s play remain to be seen, but it seems likely that it won’t have a lasting impact. Where it may have a lasting impact is on Hodgson’s relationship with the Canucks. At this point I’m speculating, but it’s hard to imagine that his ties to the team haven’t been at least strained by their public and cavalier dismissal of his complaints.

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New Jersey 3, Ottawa 1

Two excellent recaps from different perspectives: John Fischer of In Lou We Trust had the Devils’ side of things, while Peter at Silver Seven Sens covered Ottawa’s angle.

It was a tight-checking game, and one of the four goals scored was an empty-netter, so it was a close one. Both goaltenders were solid, with Brian Elliott making 18 saves and Brodeur making 24 (as well as getting the first star).

Toronto 4, Tampa Bay 3

A pair of excellent recaps, one from Maple Leafs Hot Stove and the other from Pension Plan Puppets help shed some light on this game. The points of agreement, in bullet form:

Jonas Gustavsson was nothing special, but made some big saves and was good enough to keep the team in it
Francois Beauchemin is coming around after a slow start and looked very good again
Tomas Kaberle played an uncharacteristically weak game (MLHS thought he was directly to blame for two goals against)

Meanwhile, Carl Gunnarson quietly led the team in points with three assists. The Leafs have six of a possible eight points in their last four games, and are 4-4-2 in their last ten. Their next three games are all against teams on the playoff bubble, and could go a long ways towards helping Toronto get out of the hole they find themselves in.

Pittsburgh 3, Montreal 1

This was not a game that the Canadiens had any business being in. Leaving aside injuries and the disparity in talent between these two teams, the Canadiens had played in Montreal just the night before (a 5-3 win over Columbus), while the Penguins had an extra day of rest. Side point: ever wonder why so many teams playing their second game in back-to-back nights play on the road? I’m sure it’s because the NHL knows this helps the home team win, and it’s good for attendance if the home team wins.

In any case, the Penguins were dominant, jumping up to a three-goal lead and allowing only four shots in the third period. Carey Price continued his strong play of late with 27 saves, but obviously that wasn’t enough and Pittsburgh now moves into a tie for first in the Eastern Conference with Washington.

Calgary 2, Phoenix 1

By the shot clock it was a tight hockey game, but Phoenix captain Shane Doan didn’t come away pleased with the effort of his side:

“Absolutely no positive to take out of that. We had chances and opportunities, and we didn’t take advantage. We’re not scoring goals; I don’t know what it is. It’s not fair to our goaltender. We have to be a lot better.”

Ex-Coyote Nigel Dawes found a positive, though. Mired in a 12-game goalless streak, and having gone four games without a goal, Dawes scored the winner for the Flames. Both goaltenders had strong games, as did Daymond Langkow, but Jay Bouwmeester was shaky both by eye and by the shot clock – he was far and away the worst Flame by on-ice shot attempts (Corsi) at minus-14.

Los Angeles 3, Edmonton 1

I watched this game last night and it was an ugly one. The Kings weren’t especially good but they held the edge in play for the vast majority of the game; Jeff Deslauriers was solid in net but because the Oilers couldn’t generate any offence against a Kings’ team dealing with a run of injuries. The Kings lost 19-year-old call-up Andrei Loktionov on a harmless looking play in the neutral zone, but Michal Handzus also did his best to add to the Oilers’ games-lost totals, running Ales Hemsky hard from behind into the boards. Hemsky did not return.

I did a full rundown over at OilersNation, and Bruce McCurdy did one up at Copper & Blue, but it was probably Pat Quinn who summed it up best in his post-game press conference, saying “I don’t know if it’s a funk – maybe we’re playing where we are.” Game grades are up at Cult of Hockey, and while I’d argue with some of them (Horcoff, O’Sullivan and Deslauriers) they do give a fairly accurate picture of the game.

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Brian Elliott wasn’t highly regarded in his draft year, and the Ottawa Senators snagged him with the second-last pick of the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. The biggest part of the reason had to do with where he was playing – with the Ajax Axemen, an Ontario Junior A club. For the first two years after being drafted, it looked like Elliott wouldn’t be anything special – his numbers were good, but he played just 15 games over two seasons for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was studying business.

In 2005-06, Wisconsin’s starting goaltender, Bernd Buckler (a fifth-round pick of the Flyers in 2001), turned professional and Elliott was thrust into the starting job. Elliott went 25-5-3 with a 1.55 GAA and .938 SV% and ended up a finalist for the Hobey Baker award. He followed that with another good season in 2006-07, and finished the year with Ottawa’s AHL affiliate in Binghamton. His rookie AHL season was good, and he got into one NHL game, but he improved again last season, and ultimately earned a job splitting time with Alex Auld.

Now, with 38 NHL games under his belt, he’s expected to be Ottawa’s starter for the next month as Pascal Leclaire recovers from an injury suffered while he was on the bench (a deflected puck hit him in the face, fracturing his cheekbone). The Senators have recalled Mike Brodeur from the AHL on an emergency basis to handle the backup role, but after a solid season last year Brodeur has struggled, with a pedestrian .898 SV% in 15 games. In short, it’s all up to Elliott now.

Looking at Elliott’s save percentage, he doesn’t seem terribly impressive; after all, the .900 range is where most replacement-level goaltenders find themselves. There was one thing in particular that caught my eye about his statistics last year, though:

Even-strength SV%: .920
Short-handed SV%: .812

That’s of interest because while .920 is a very good number (last year, it tied Elliott with Henrik Lundqvist and Evgeni Nabokov, among others) that .812 SV% short-handed was the worst number by any goaltender with more than 25 games. It’s so terrible that I couldn’t imagine it as having any sustainability.

As it happens, it hasn’t; at least not so far this season. Here are Elliott’s save percentage numbers this year:

Even-strength: .891
Short-handed: .941

No goalie in the league with more than five games under his belt can compete with Elliott’s .941 short-handed save percentage. Meanwhile, only one goalie with more than five games has a worse even-strength number than Elliott (Vesa Toskala, .876). What should be made of it all?

I look at it based on sample size. Here are the number of shots Elliott faced in the four situations I pointed to above:

Even-strength, 2008-09: 628
Short-handed, 2008-09: 138
Even-strength, 2009-10: 129
Short-handed, 2009-10: 51

All of these numbers are small, except for the first one; it’s the one I’d be placing my confidence in. At this point, I’d guess that Elliott’s probably in the lower echelon of NHL starting goaltenders, but that he’s a good bet to at least keep his head above water as the Senators’ number one for the next month. Regardless, there’s no arguing that this next month could be the most important of his career: it could be the month that establishes him as an NHL starter, or it could be the month that undoes the excellent work he’s done so far.

One thing in Elliott’s favour is his demeanor. Hockey’s Future interviewed him while he was still playing college hockey and Elliott stressed the importance of staying at an even keel, and that maintaining mental focus is the most important part of goaltending. He’s also gotten better every step of the way; I’d be surprised if he didn’t manage to do that again.

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It’s been interesting to watch the reactions to the current financial predicament the Chicago Blackhawks find themselves in. With deals for restricted free agents Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith rumoured to be all but announced, the ‘Hawks need to clear some cap space to fit in their three stars.

It’s been suggested in some places that the Blackhawks are being unfairly penalized by the cap – after all, why should they be forced to scramble to re-sign guys they drafted and developed? Why should they need to move a player this season to create “tagging” room for next year?

That’s not my viewpoint at all. After all, there’s no reason for the Blackhawks to be in their current bind; it was a series of lucrative free agent contracts (Brian Campbell, Marian Hossa, Cristobal Huet, Brent Sopel and John Madden, to name five) that put them where they are now. No, this is an example of the salary cap doing exactly what it’s supposed to: keep the playing field level so that big market teams like Chicago can’t buy up all the available free agents.

The team of ex-G.M. Dale Tallon and his capologist (and eventual replacement) Stan Bowman signed these players. Now it’s Bowman’s job to navigate around the contracts they signed; perhaps by dumping Sopel to a team like Toronto (although that rumoured deal is now supposedly dead), or by trading a useful player (Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg are often mentioned), or by moving an overpaid guy like Campbell or Huet to a team with cap space in exchange for a cheaper option.

But the fact that Bowman now needs to scramble is a sign that the salary cap is doing its job (i.e. making bad managers live with their errors) rather than the opposite.

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For the second time in two days, an opposition goaltender was the story of the night. Unlike Dwayne Roloson last night, though, Mathieu Garon wasn’t the story in a positive way.

The Montreal Canadiens outscored the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-3 on the evening, but they weren’t really earned goals. Three goals by the Canadiens were decent shots from far away, and Garon should easily have had two of them and probably should have had all three. He also should have gotten back to his feet instead of flopping around in the net on Marc-Andre Bergeron‘s second goal of the night; indeed the only goal of the five with relatively little stench to it was the last one, a two-on-one goal where Maxim Lapierre beat him cleanly from in close.

Carey Price, on the other hand, was spectacular for the Canadiens, making 33 saves en route to the victory, many of them spectacular in nature. In his last five games, Price is 3-1-1 with a 2.13 GAA and .942 SV%. He’s had a .900 SV% or better in each of his last six games; the first time this season he’s posted more than two games in a row with a .900 SV% or better. It seems he’s turned a corner.

In his first game since being recalled, Sergei Kostitsyn lined up alongside his brother and had a very strong game, despite being held to a single assist. Marc-Andre Bergeron is always a gamble but yesterday he was a good one, playing a decent overall game and adding eight shots, two goals and posting a plus-3 rating. Josh Gorges also played well, although he threw a questionable hit on Jared Boll that left Boll shaken; fortunately, he would return to the game.

Speaking of questionable hits, while Rick Nash showcased some slick moves (including a beautiful behind-the-back pass to Antoine Vermette for a goal) he also threw a nasty hit on Travis Moen that should have at least been a boarding minor and frankly could have been a major; Moen retaliated later and took a minor penalty for roughing. Still looking at the Blue Jackets, Anton Stralman has been a nice addition from Calgary and shows that every so often it’s possible to add a flawed player who can make a genuine difference in certain areas of the game for a song. In fact, maybe that’s the story of this game – both teams’ cheap fixes (Stralman and Bergeron) came through in a big way.

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Calgary Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff left very little doubt about what he intends to do if he isn’t given the starting job for the Finnish Olympic team. He’s going to skip the whole tournament. Kiprusoff was quoted in yesterday’s Calgary Sun:

“Probably not going to go in that case. If I’m not going to start, for sure I think I’m going to take that time off and rest.”

This isn’t the first time that Kiprusoff has courted controversy when it comes to Olympic participation; in 2006 he skipped the Olympics to rest a nagging hip injury, and he declined invitations to both the 2002 Olympics and the 2008 World Championships.

I’m going to leave aside whatever questions this raises about Kiprusoff’s character, and instead ask what Finnish head coach Jukka Jalonen should do – should he offer Kiprusoff the starting job on a platter, or should he leave it open to competition between Kiprusoff and other Finnish stars?

It says here that Jalonen shouldn’t bother handing Kiprusoff the starting role. There are plenty of qualified candidates, and there’s a reasonable case to be made that the Flames’ net-minder doesn’t deserve the starting job on merit. If Kiprusoff wants to tryout for the job, great, otherwise there are plenty of other goaltending options, such as:

Niklas Backstrom: Since the 2006 Olympics (where Backstrom was the third-string goaltender), Backstrom has established himself as one of the league’s best goaltenders. He’s topped the .920 SV% mark in each of his past three seasons and was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy this past season. He’s a two-time SM-Liiga playoff MVP and he played well for Finland at the 2008 World Championships.

Antero Niittymaki: Despite solid numbers the last few years with the Philadelphia Flyers, Niittymaki gets surprisingly little respect in hockey circles. He signed a bargain-bin contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning this summer, and has since pushed himself into contention for the starting role – in 11 games, he has a 6-1-3 record with a 2.02 GAA and .940 SV%. He also has Olympic pedigree: in 2006, with Kiprusoff sitting the tournament out, Niittymaki took over as starter and led Finland to the silver medal. He was named the tournament MVP and posted a 1.34 GAA and .951 SV%.

Pekka Rinne: Rinne stole the starting job from Dan Ellis in Nashville last year and hasn’t looked back. He’s improved his save percentage from .917 to .920 and boasts a 10-4-0 record and a pair of shutouts with the offensively-challenged Predators. Rinne started for Finland at the 2009 World Championships, going 4-2-0 with a 1.93 GAA and .926 SV%.

Tuukka Rask: While the young goaltender is on the outside looking in right now, he’s done a lot to bring his name into the conversation with a hot start for the Boston Bruins. Rask boasts a 6-2-1 record to go with a 2.28 GAA and .920 SV% so far this season and compares favourably to the NHL’s leading Vezina Trophy winner in Boston. He’s excelled previously in Finland, and he’s represented his country three times at the World Junior Championships.

Let’s also not forget that Kiprusoff’s play has slipped noticeably since 2006. In short, I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to suggest that passing over Kiprusoff in favour of Backstrom is the right move – rather, I think it would be controversial not to. The starting job should go to Backstrom, and the backup roles to Rinne and Kiprusoff, but I don’t think it’s going to hurt Finland’s chances too much if Niittymaki replaces Kiprusoff on the roster.

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Despite the fact that we’re discussing the four Canadian teams that played last night, it’s Dwayne Roloson who shows up at the top of the post. More on that in a moment.

Ottawa 4, Washington 3 (OT)

I tuned in midway through the second, just before Jay Beagle scored his first NHL goal to give the Capitals a 3-1 lead (on a brutal, brutal giveaway by Jonathan Cheechoo). Apparently, the first half of the game was completely different from thge half that I saw. The Senators outshot the Capitals 22-4 through the third period and overtime, and controlled the play, scoring three goals in a come-from-behind win. Filip Kuba, who apparently struggled early in the game, assisted on all three goals. Scoring the winner was Mike Fisher, who has been on fire (and may even make a case for a fourth line role on Canada’s Olympic team) of late, with a great tip-in on a Chris Phillips shot. It was the second two-on-one for Ottawa in less than a minute, as Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza had missed only moments before.

Senschirp called it a “character win“, while Silver Seven Sens had a thorough recap and praised Fisher:

I’m sure you all know this already, but if you look up “clutch” in the Ottawa Senators Dictionary, it’s spelled F-I-S-H-E-R. The guy’s Ottawa’s all-time leading overtime scorer with five regular-season overtime winners and he’s got one playoff overtime game-winner, too (which was against the dirty Leafs, to boot). How good is this guy this year?

Meanwhile, over at Japers’ Rink they are sick and tired of blown leads, and judging by Bruce Boudreau‘s reaction post-game, so is he.

New York Islanders 4, Toronto 3 (OT)

And now back to Roloson, who was phenomenal enough to earn Puck Daddy’s coveted first star of the night award. Roloson faced 61 shots and made 58 saves as the Maple Leafs peppered the Islanders only to have a shaky effort in goal undermine them (more on that here). Phil Kessel and Lee Stempniak combined for 20 shots between the tow of them; one less than the entire Islanders’ team. Despite the 61-21 shot advantage, Colton Orr managed to finish -4 by the shot clock, the only Leafs’ player in the negative (on the other end of the scale, the Islanders Andy Sutton came out plus-1, the only Islanders’ player to do so).

Over at Lighthouse Hockey, they’re close to speechless:

I don’t know what to say other than hockey is a funny game sometimes. And God must hate the Maple Leafs. And Dwayne Roloson must be God. That must be how you get outshot 61-21 yet win 4-3 in overtime.

Meanwhile, there’s a good discussion over at Pension Plan Puppets (no razor blades, by request of the host) which included the factoid that 19 different NHL scouts took in last night’s game between Toronto and New York.

Edmonton 4, Phoenix 0

This was a fun game to watch and I’ve made most of my comments over at OilersNation; suffice to say that Jeff Deslauriers looked every inch an NHL goaltender en route to his first shutout. Phoenix didn’t play badly and pushed hard, especially in the third period, but Deslauriers was spectacular and they couldn’t get anything past him. Also of note: Ales Hemsky scored his 100th goal.

Bruce McCurdy at Copper & Blue looked at the numbers for last night’s game.

Anaheim 3, Calgary 2 (SO)

The Flames outshot the Ducks 43-31 but came up short as Jean-Sebastien Giguere tried to force his way back into the Duck’s goaltending conversation with 42 saves, and three stops in the shootout. Curtis Glencross had a fine game for Calgary and scored the team’s first goal, but missed with his team’s final chance in the shootout. Jay Bouwmeester led the Flames with six shots while Corey Perry had seven for Anaheim.

Anaheim Calling characterized this game as the Ducks deciding “they do not want to spend the entire season in the Western Conference cellar”, but if so they went about it in a funny way, as the Flames easily outplayed the Ducks territorially and out-shot Anaheim 18-7 in the third (culminating in Jarome Iginla‘s goal with less than 20 seconds left). If not for Giguere’s heroics, Anaheim would be sitting 15th in the West and Calgary would be one point back of Colorado for the division lead.

Endnotes

If anyone else has spotted a good take on those games from last night, toss up a link in the comments section. Speaking of the comments section, how do we feel about this becoming a regular feature here at Hockey or Die?

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