Lundqvist received a great deal of criticism for his performance last season. He deserved that criticism. After posting seven consecutive years with a .920SV%+ (.921, .923, .930, .926, .920, .922, .920) he posted a .910SV%. By many fans, especially Ranger fans, not only was he no longer considered elite, but he was not a "good" starter in the NHL. During the last playoff, Lundqvist posted a .927SV%. He was the main reason the Rangers beat Montreal in the goaltender duel against Carey...
The NHL has done well with selling tickets at all the outdoor games the past 10 years but they may have a real headache in trying to sell tickets in South Bend, Indiana next year. Up until now every outdoor game in the US had teams that were a reasonable drive to the venue but Boston is 900 miles from South Bend and that drive in late December is risky because of possible lake effect snow from Buffalo to Toledo on I-90. I-80 is an alternative but still risky that time of year. Chicago is...
The NHL scoring race this year has been so volatile that it seems every few games the rankings shift dramatically behind the current points leader. Taylor Hall, Johnny Gaudreau, Connor McDavid, Blake Wheeler, Claude Giroux, Alex Ovechkin, and Anze Kopitar are among the players all leading their teams in scoring and in hot pursuit of the points scoring lead. However, three players at the top of the scoring race are clearly distinct from the rest of the pack: Nathan MacKinnon, Evgeni Malkin,...
With the pre-playoff break, I wanted to delve down and try to see exactly what we have here. I'm going to look both at this year's stats alone and the past 2yrs stats together to try and get a clear picture of what our players actually are. These are all the stats that I've learned to depend on as the most useful and accurate ones to assess hockey performance. This is my best assessment of the roster we have - and I'd love to hear your guys' own assessments as well. Feel free to add your...
The Vegas Golden Knights have had the most unexpected expansion season in NHL history, however for this Cinderella story to continue well into the playoff season, the Knights will have to face what most would consider their toughest opponent of the season, the Los Angeles Kings.
The Cinderella story and historic run continues for the Golden Knights. In their first ever playoff series the Golden Knights shut down the Los Angeles Kings in a four game sweep. Though Vegas dictated much of the pace of that series, it was far closer than most people seem to realize.
September 20. 1990 was when hockey was born in Tampa Bay and I was there. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A crowd of 25,581, more than 4,500 above the National Hockey League single-game record, turned out Wednesday night to see the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Kings, 5-3, in an exhibition game at the Suncoast Dome. Phil and Tony Esposito called in favors to promote that game and found 3 media backers to help promote the game - Nanci Donnellan from WFNS, Tedd Webb from WFLA Radio and Chris Thomas...
I've long wondered why the NHL doesn't have a unique award for the defenseman who scores the most points in a season. Benefits: Honors the best offensive defender in the league. A perfect corollary to the Selke Award, which honors the best defensive foward. Unlike the Selke, it's not a subjective award. He who gets the most points wins. There's precedent for creating new awards. The Rocket Richard was introduced in 1999. The trophy was donated by the Montreal Canadiens to the NHL. Are you...
It's hard to believe that in the early 1970s, over 95% of NHL players were Canadian in origin. This figure has been on the decline for the past 40+ years, and by 2015-16, the majority of NHL players were not of Canadian origin. It seemed to begin to change when the WHA Winnipeg Jets imported several Scandinavians to their roster for the 1974-75 season. Once the Jets became the top team for the remainder of the WHA, it paved the way for Swedes and Finns to cross the Atlantic, and make a...
I mentioned this the day of the trade, but with the Karlsson transaction having included Chris Tierney and Rudolfs Balcers ( :cry: ), the trade extended the life of a chain of deals that can be traced unbroken back all the way to the 1993 draft and the Sharks' first round pick that year. So in honor of that, I have spent the last few days creating what might be my magnum opus: a complete visual reference to the greatest trade tree in Sharks history and possibly one of the greatest in NHL...
:wally: When I was a teenager growing up in Boston the Bruins were the laughing stock of the NHL as they failed to make the playoffs from the 1959-60 season thru 1966-67. Toronto at the same time was a dynasty, and I can remember listening to games on the radio with my Dad from CBL 740 Toronto. The highlight of that era came when the Bruins beat the Leafs 11-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1964, The Bruins have not lost a playoff series to Toronto since 1959 but that is partly due to the Leafs...
Zadorov is a guy who isn't going to get talked about a lot since he is never going to be an offensive dynamo, but he has been stringing together a very solid season. He had a tough October, showed up to training camp late after rehabbing from a pretty tough injury that cut his 16/17 season short. But since a series of scratches he has appeared to take his game to a new level. Here's a look at his last 23 games (since being inserted back into the lineup) 54.15CF% (Avs as a team are 50.38% in...
Shortly after Thanksgiving of last year, the Florida Panthers relieved head coach Gerard Gallant, and their then, highly unqualified general manager, Tom Rowe, stepped in as interim head coach. Fast forward to today, where Gallant has taken an expansion team and as of today, is coaching the best team in the Western Conference, with the second best overall record in the NHL. Meanwhile, the Panthers are among the worst teams in the league and will be looking at a lottery selection as they...
Obviously every system isn't perfect, but I like a system that encourages trading. Here are a few thoughts/ideas, some less novel and likely recycled. 1. Trading salary. There's arguments against this, but teams can already retain cap hit if trading a player, so how about the team retains the player and trades the salary/cap hit. It's essentially trading money. Teams can eat some salary, without actually needing to take the player and gain some assets along the way. 2. Deadline rentals....
I decided to create 2 polls - the first asks which 10 teams have the brightest future? This doesn't mean "who will improve the most", but rather "who will be cup contenders, who will rack up the most points, who will always be near the top". The second poll is the opposite, and asks "who will rack up the least points, be near the bottom, will not contend" over that 5 year span. Brightest [URL]https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/top-10-teams-with-the-brightest-future-2018.2523729/[/URL] Darkest...
Seriously. An expansion team with 23 players that have never played together before are currently 1st place in the Western conference near midway through the season. Everyone, myself included predicted them as a bottom 5 team in the league. Every expansion team that has ever come into the NHL has had embarrassingly bad records their inaugural years no matter who they drafted and signed in the offseason. Is Vegas a top team? A middle of the pack team getting some good puck luck? Or are we...
Fast forward 5 years. The Leafs have since removed all remnants of that 2013 team – players and management. Only 5 players remain from that team – Kadri, JvR, Bozak, Komarov, and Gardiner.
And by official, I mean mine, of course. So after all the fighting on the other threads, i tried to crank out a stats-based Center ranking, but nothing too fancy. At the same time it's both complicated and simple. NOTE: IF YOU HATE STATS JUST SKIP TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE FINAL RANKINGS Here's how I approached it. I looked at the last 2 seasons. This imo is the best combo of "recent" and "good sample size" to judge a player's current value. But it's not perfect, of course, especially when it...
Late round as in 3rd round and onwards. For me Detroit 1990 - ) Vyacheslav Kozlov (3rd round), Stewart Malgunas ( 4th Round), Jason York (7th round) 1991 -) Chris Osgood (3rd round), Mike Knuble (4th round) 1992 -) Dan Mcgillis (10th round) 1993 -) John Jakopin (4th round), Norm Maracle ( 5th round) 1994 -) Tomas Holmstrom ( 10th round ) 1995 - 1996 - 1997 -) n/a 1998 -) Pavel Datsyuk (6th round) 1999 -) Henrik Zetterberg ( 7th Round ) 2000-2001 -) None 2002 -) Valterri Filppula (3rd...
Hey everybody -- inspired by that ESPN article from a few days ago, I decided I'd make my own rankings. Hope you enjoy. Poile - NSH (The master of re-signings. Jarnkrok, Forsberg, Arvidsson, Ekholm, Turris are all signed to incredible deals. The guy can build a helluva team and has the guts to trade.) Yzerman - TB (There's a reason that Team Canada always hires Stevie Y. Those Hedman, Kucherov, Stamkos, Vasilevskiy, and Stralman deals are insane and he's amazing at getting depth players...
As a Red Wings fan, I've become acquainted with the phenomenon of fans cheering for losses. I go to a fan forum, wanting to be happy about beating the pants off the Pens, and encounter a bunch of people who are mad that we won. I understand their reasoning given the draft rules, but I think it's a counter-intuitive and frankly very annoying way to "cheer".
Tampa Bay and New Jersey will play in the first round. Tampa Bay finished with the best record in the East while New Jersey took the final wild card spot. New Jersey swept the season series, 3 games to 0. However I predict Tampa Bay to win this playoff series.
