Archive for April, 2010

The first series of the second round gets underway tonight with the San Jose Sharks at home to the Detroit Red Wings. There’s a lot of great hockey to look forward to in the second round, but this might be the matchup I’m most interested in seeing.

San Jose has home ice advantage, but I’d be willing to bet that the majority of fans and pundits don’t consider them the favourites against the Red Wings. The Sharks beat Colorado in six games and outplayed them by a bigger margin then that indicates, but the fact is that until they make the Finals they aren’t going to be regarded as a team that can win in the playoffs. Fair or not, that’s just the way it is.

Detroit is an interesting comparison because for years they had much the same reputation as the Sharks have now. It’s easy to forget, given their recent success and their success in the past, but the Red Wings have had a number of early playoff disappointments and players like Pavel Datsyuk (just three goals in his first 37 playoff games) and Henrik Zetterberg (five points over his first 16 playoff games) were questioned early on. Now, their reputation is the opposite – back to back trips to the Finals have established the Wings as a ‘clutch’ team in the minds of many.

Vital Stats/Points Of Interest: San Jose

Record vs. Red Wings: 1-2-1
Power Play (Reg. Season): 21.0% (4th in NHL)
Power Play (Playoff): 19.2%
Penalty Kill (Reg. Season): 85.0% (5th in NHL)
Penaly Kill (Playoff): 86.7%
5-on-5 Goal Ratio (Reg. Season): 1.23 (3rd in NHL)
5-on-5 Goal Ratio (Playoff): 1.33
Aside from San Jose’s dominant top line, only one other player has a plus/minus better than plus-6: cheap off-season addition Manny Malhotra, sitting at plus-17.
The Sharks have some depth in scoring, with five 20-plus goal scorers and nine players in the double digits in goals.
The Sharks also have a plus/minus standout on defence: Marc-Edouard Vlasic, at plus-21. Only Rob Blake, at plus-14, is even close.
During the first round, the Sharks finished second in the league in shots for per game (40.8) and allowed the fewest shots against (24.8) per game – meaning they averaged 16 more shots per game than their opposition.
The Sharks won every game in the first round where they scored first, led after one period or led after two periods.
The Sharks won 53.8% of their face-offs in the first round, down from their 55.6% regular season winning percentage. Both numbers are very good.
Feisty forward Scott Nichol led the team with 28 first round hits, while Dan Boyle is the surprising leader in blocked shots, with 12. Bolye also managed six points and a plus-5 rating in round one.
The trio of Dany Heatley, Joe Thornton, and Patrick Marleau scored just one goal in the first round and finished a combined minus-7; the only forwards on the team with a negative plus/minus. Those are shocking numbers, especially given that Thornton dominated in terms of scoring chances.

Vital Stats/Points of Interest: Detroit

Record vs. Sharks: 3-0-1
Power Play (Reg. Season): 19.2% (9th in NHL)
Power Play (Playoff): 23.5%
Penalty Kill (Reg. Season): 83.9% (10th in NHL)
Penalty Kill (Playoff): 81.8%
5-on-5 Goal Ratio (Reg. Season): 0.93 (21st in NHL)
5-on-5 Goal Ratio (Playoff): 1.36
The Red Wings were one of the NHL’s best out-shooting teams in the regular season, ranking second in the league in shots for and 9th in shots against, which works out on average to four more shots per game than their opposition. .
Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg remain the twin engines that drive the Red Wings’ results up front; both finished with 70 points and in the double digits in plus/minus; no other Red Wings forward topped the 45-point or plus-5 mark.
There aren’t many defencemen who record 49 points and a plus-22 rating and are still considered to be in the downswing of their careers, but Niklas Lidstrom is one of them. Over the last three playoff years he has played in 61 games, recorded 47 points and gone plus-19. It would be a mistake to underestimate how important he is to this team, or how much of a difference maker he can be, even at the age of 40.
The bottom of the Red Wings’ defence corps has been a disaster over the regular season; Rafalski and Lidstrom face the toughest opposition and are a combined plus-45, while the rest of the defence corps is a combined minus-43.
Through the first round, Niklas Lidstrom was once again the Wings’ most important defenceman (and arguably most important player) but Brad Stuart bounced back nicely from a disappointing regular season, scoring twice, adding four assists and recording a plus-6 rating in the first round. He also finished second on the team with 27 hits.
Some of the Red Wings’ depth forwards were no-shows in the first round; Kris Draper, Dan Cleary and Patrick Eaves all failed to record a point in seven games against Phoenix.

The Bottom Line

Like I said, this should be a good series. Entering their matchup with Phoenix, I said that Detroit was better than their record; they had success against good teams all season (including the Sharks) and players coming back from injury made them a better team down the stretch than they were to start the year. I like the Sharks, and I think the Sharks are sometimes underrated because of previous playoff disappointments, but I don’t like them to beat the Wings. Predicted Winner: Detroit.

Follow @JonathanWillis

I’m in agreement with some of Kouleas’ points, and in disagreement on some others.

For starters, the idea that both teams got what they deserved bothers me a little bit. Montreal won the series, and that’s the way it is, but I felt both throughout the series and certainly in game seven that Washington was the dominant team. Montreal did a very good job in the defensive zone, but they spent such a vast quantity of time in the defensive zone that despite that good work it shouldn’t have mattered. There was a little bit of luck and a whole lot of Jaroslav Halak involved, and so they move on.

If they played this series 100 times, I’d be willing to bet we see results skewed in Washington’s favour, but that isn’t the way it works.

I don’t think Washington choked here, because I don’t know what else they could have done, but the Canadiens do deserve credit for the way they defended their zone. A lot of shots were blocked, players did a very good job of controlling the area in front of the net. Plus, Halak stopped 131 of the last 134 shots he faced.

As for the game itself, it was a lot of fun to watch. I didn’t think the officiating was terrible, although I was shocked that Ovechkin’s goal was waved off without so much as a video review. The commentators called it a “courageous” decision by referee Brad Watson, but on contact that marginal I don’t know how video review doesn’t get involved. Video review was involved later when Maxim Lapierre pushed the Capitals’ goaltender into the net on a far less questionable call; why not use it?

Pierre McGuire went on, as he does, about confident veteran big-body presences who know how to win while playing for a contract, guys who just want the puck more and are willing to take a hit to make a play, never give up on the play and get into lanes, but I don’t see the need to resort to such dubious, clichéd logic to explain what happened.

Washington dominated the territorial game, but Montreal collapsed in front of their net, got brilliant goaltending, and just enough offence to squeak out a series win. There’s nothing more, or less, to it than that.

Follow @JonathanWillis

Yesterday, I threw a post together showing where the NHL’s best forwards this past season came from. Four out of five were first round picks, and more than three quarters were still with the team that drafted them. It was a powerful indication of the ability of NHL scouts to identify the best talent early and the importance of developing star players through the NHL Entry Draft.

Today, I’m going to look at the league’s best goalies – the 23 men who posted a 0.910 or better save percentage this season.

Original Draft Position

First Overall: 0/23 (0.0%)
Top-10 Pick: 2/23 (8.7%)
First Round: 5/23 (21.7%)
Second Round: 3/23 (13.0%)
Top 100 picks: 9/23 (39.1%)
Drafted Outside Top 100: 11/23 (47.8%)
Undrafted: 3/23 (13.0%)

How Acquired

Draft: 10/23 (43.5%)
Trade: 5/23 (21.7%)
Free Agency: 7/23 (30.4%)
Waivers: 1/23 (4.3%)

Those numbers are remarkable for how they compare to the numbers at forward. For my list of forwards, 92.0% of players were taken in the first 100 picks at the NHL entry draft, with only 8.0% slipping into the bottom of the draft or missing out entirely. For NHL goaltenders, the situation is completely different; many top goalies are never drafted, or are acquired with late picks.

Less than half of these players are still with the team that took them in the draft. One of the best (Ilya Bryzgalov) was claimed on waivers, while others joined their current teams via free agency or by way of trade. This tells us something: it tells us that the NHL, as a whole, is far worse at evaluating goaltenders than it is at evaluating forwards. This isn’t just on draft day, but also at other times – which is why good goaltenders are allowed to depart via trade or to free agency, far more often than good forwards are.

Follow @JonathanWillis

If there’s one particular hallmark of Brian Burke’s general managing the last few years that sets him apart from the crowd, it is his ability to recruit undrafted free agents. In Toronto, he’s been particularly successful in recruiting goaltenders.

Last season, the Leafs scooped up Jonas Gustavsson, who had a decent North American debut after a spectacular season in Europe. This year, the Leafs already signed the premiere undrafted goalie prospect on the market when they signed Jussi Rynnas. During their pursuit of Rynnas, it was suggested that should they fail to sign him, Cornell goaltender Ben Scrivens might be an appropriate consolation prize.

Today, the Leafs also added Scrivens to what looks like a stacked group of goaltending prospects.

Since seizing the starting job at Cornell three seasons ago, Scrivens has been one of the best goaltenders in college hockey. The 6’2” Albertan has been consistently good in the starting role, as the numbers show:

2007-08: 35GP, 19-12-3, 2.02 GAA, 0.930 SV%
2008-09: 36GP, 22-10-4, 1.81 GAA, 0.931 SV%
2009-10: 34GP, 21-9-4, 1.87 GAA, 0.934 SV%

This leaves the Leafs with the delightful problem of having three quality goaltenders outside of the NHL, and it probably means that a guy who may be a future NHL goaltender is going to start the year in the ECHL. Scrivens was the best goaltender in ECAC hockey last season, Rynnas was the best goaltender in Finland last season, and they’ll join James Reimer, who outplayed veteran options Joey MacDonald and Adam Munro to take the starting job late last year with the Marlies. The 22 year-old posted a 0.925 SV%.

Follow @JonathanWillis

Steve Kouleas on the Red Wings’ decisive Game Seven win over Phoenix.

Follow @JonathanWillis

This past season, 25 NHL forwards recorded more than 70 points. I thought it might be interesting to see how those players originally entered the NHL, and how many of them were drafted by the team they’re with now.

Original Draft Position

First Overall: 6/25 (24%)

Top-10 Pick: 15/25 (60%)

First Round: 20/25 (80%)

Second Round: 2/25 (8%)

Top 100 picks: 23/25 (92%)

Bottom 100 picks: 1/25 (4%)

Undrafted: 1/25 (4%)

How Acquired

Draft: 19/25 (76%)

Trade: 4/25 (16%)

Free Agency: 2/25 (8%)

Those are remarkable numbers, and they do a good job of showing us how good NHL scouts as a group are at identifying the top talent at forward – of the top-25 scorers, only one (Daniel Alfredsson) came outside of the first 100 picks in the NHL Draft, and only one was undrafted altogether (Martin St. Louis).

Those numbers also show that most top scorers come to the teams they’re on now through the draft. Sometimes they’re available via free agency or trade, but in more than three-quarters of cases the best scorers in the league are still on the first team that selected them.

Follow @JonathanWillis