We have arrived more or less at the midway point of the 2018-19 NHL season. That means there is a lot of runway left, and many things can change and some will change, but we've seen enough to start talking like experts so why not do that? Here are some thoughts about this campaign up to now.
Goals Galore
Two seasons ago, Sidney Crosby led the league with 44 goals while Nikita Kucherov and Auston Matthews finished tied for second, with 40 apiece.
Last season, Alex Ovechkin led the way with 49 followed by Patrik Laine's 44, with six other players reaching the 40-goal mark.
Right now 22 players are on pace to meet or exceed 40 goals this time around, including six who are on pace for 50 or more. And Ovechkin has a very good chance of getting all the way to 60, a mark that hasn't been attained since Steven Stamkos did it in 2011-12. Which tells me that the surge in speed and skill, combined with the league's stricter enforcement of slashing -- and also combined with players doling out far fewer open-ice hits, because of how hard it is to guess what the Department of Player Safety might do if the press and the opposing team complain -- is having the kind of impact that NHL power brokers must be loving.
Goals Galore
Two seasons ago, Sidney Crosby led the league with 44 goals while Nikita Kucherov and Auston Matthews finished tied for second, with 40 apiece.
Last season, Alex Ovechkin led the way with 49 followed by Patrik Laine's 44, with six other players reaching the 40-goal mark.
Right now 22 players are on pace to meet or exceed 40 goals this time around, including six who are on pace for 50 or more. And Ovechkin has a very good chance of getting all the way to 60, a mark that hasn't been attained since Steven Stamkos did it in 2011-12. Which tells me that the surge in speed and skill, combined with the league's stricter enforcement of slashing -- and also combined with players doling out far fewer open-ice hits, because of how hard it is to guess what the Department of Player Safety might do if the press and the opposing team complain -- is having the kind of impact that NHL power brokers must be loving.
Vegas
Early on, the defending Western Conference champs were listing and it looked like their season might be one big long sophomore slump. In my post at the quarter-way point, I remarked that their unimpressive record was "largely because Marc-Andre Fleury's goaltending has not been up to his usual standards."
Well, things have definitely changed for the better: 20 games into the campaign, Fleury's save percentage was just .901 overall (after finishing .927 last season) and a shockingly low .895 at 5-on-5, but since November 17th he is .919 overall and .928 at 5-on-5. This is a result not so much of him improving his good games, but of him altogether eliminating his bad ones.
Combine Fleury's improvement with Nate Schmidt's return from suspension and Paul Stastny's return from injury, add in an uptick of more than 13 percent in the team's shooting percentage... and suddenly the Golden Knights look like contenders again, having vaulted up the standings to third place in the Western Conference.
Last season should have taught us to never doubt this team, don't ya think?
Calgary
Speaking of the Western Conference, the Calgary Flames currently hold its #1 spot and lots of people are treating that fact as if it's a surprise. They shouldn't.
Yes, the Flames missed the playoffs last season, and have in fact missed them two of the last three. But when you look at the talent on their roster, it seems to me that missing the playoffs is what should be considered an anomaly, not the other way around. They simply have too much offensive firepower and too much defensive talent to be sitting at home come springtime.
This club should have been considered a playoff contender entering the season. Now that "Big Save Dave" Rittich has stabilized its goaltending and Bill Peters has proven to be an upgrade behind the bench, it should be considered a Cup contender.
Crawford
The demise of the Chicago Blackhawks has been painful to watch, all the way from the inevitable slowing of Duncan Keith to the predictable inability of Jonathan Toews to live up to his cap hit, to the unjustified firing of Joel Quenneville.
Alex DeBrincat has had a solid year and Patrick Kane is on a hot streak, but it's gotta be hard for fans to get jazzed about those things when the team itself -- less than two years removed from being a top seed and less than four years removed from winning Stanley Cups -- sits tied for the third-worst record in the league.
And the most painful thing to watch about the Blackhawks' demise is the plight of their most important player: Goaltender Corey Crawford. On December 16th, during a game against San Jose, a collision resulted in Crawford's head striking the goalpost and him immediately grabbing it. He was diagnosed with a concussion after trainers helped him leave the ice -- 51 weeks to the day after he sustained another concussion, the effects of which lingered for almost ten months and forced him to miss the final 47 games last season plus the first five this season. And these were not his first two concussions, as I remember him having at least two others in the past.
Crawford is an elite netminder when he's in a game, but over the past year he has missed more than twice as many games as he has played -- all because of concussions, which, just so we're clear, are defined by the United States CDC as "a type of traumatic brain injury." Crawford turned 34 this week; has won two Stanley Cups; has played 432 games for the Blackhawks and has the highest career save percentage of the 13 goalies in history who have played more than 100 games for them; and entering this season he had earned more than $35 million in salary throughout his career.
What I'm saying is that Corey Crawford needs to retire. The cumulative effects of concussions can be debilitating and long-term, and he has a 16-month-old son who needs a dad. Corey Crawford has made his mark and made it well, and the risks of continuing to play through the remaining season and a half of his contract far outweigh any possible rewards. 'Tis time to put his gear away for good.
My Lightning Indulgence, Part One
Part of me doesn't even want to mention my team. Partly because everyone in both the American and Canadian hockey media is talking glowingly about them and I don't want to jinx anything; but mostly because I can remember so many examples of high-scoring teams failing to win the Cup because, you know, defense wins championships, goals are harder to come by in the post-season, etc.
But this Tampa Bay Lightning squad is so good I can't not mention them, so here are some notable facts about them: They are 15-0-1 over their last 16 games and have not lost in regulation since November... They have bagged six goals in four of their last five games, and since November 27th have played only two games in which they scored fewer than four goals... They have the league's best record despite goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, key defenseman Anton Stralman, and defensive-minded winger Ondrej Palat all missing significant time with injuries, and much of that time being concurrent... Nikita Kucherov, long known for his shot, has become such a good passer that he's dishing out assists like a Hall of Fame centerman even though he plays on the wing... Also, Kucherov has had seven straight multi-point games, and there has been only one game in the last six weeks in which he has not recorded a point.
I dunno if this team is going to win the Cup, but I do love this team.
My Lightning Indulgence, Part Two
As eye-popping as the above factoids are, there are two topics that I think could prove to be even more important if the Bolts are able to embark on a deep run this spring. One of those is the work being done by Steven Stamkos at the face-off dots, and the other is the work being done by Coach Jon Cooper at distributing his personnel and managing their ice time.
Face-offs are one of those things that are easy to forget about until your team is forced to take one at a critical juncture in a tight game. But they are important, crucially so in certain situations, and they have long been a glaring weakness on a Tampa Bay team that is otherwise a juggernaut. Face-offs were in fact one of the main reasons the Lightning came up short against Chicago in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, and they have always been a weakness, maybe the only weakness, in Stamkos's game.
The last two years, however, he has worked diligently at face-offs and turned them into a strength. 2017-18 was the first time Stamkos completed a full season with a face-off percentage above 50 (he finished at (52.2%), and as of a few days ago he was above 57% for 2018-19 (according to puckbase.com he is at 55.4% right now). When you consider that this is his eleventh season in the NHL, this goes to show that an old dog can make himself learn new tricks. The fact that Tampa Bay's captain did this, that he focused on a non-glorified and seemingly mundane aspect of the game because he realized its importance, is one of the reasons we Bolts fans love him.
And as far as Jon Cooper's coaching is concerned, it really is a shame that him "having so much talent to work with" will probably prevent him from being considered for the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year. Stamkos and Kucherov do not currently play on the same line, which is not bad because their respective lines are both churning out points. But being aware that they like playing together and have clicked when playing together in the past, Cooper has been sure to orchestrate his team's partial line changes to get them on the ice at the same time before a full line change kicks in. He has also been sure to put them on the ice together during power plays. And evidence of how well this works is that during Stammer's recent 15-goals-in-13-games streak, Kuch assisted on at least 5 of the 15 goals (I want to say that 7 of the 15 goals were on the power play and Kuch assisted on 5 of those 7, but I can't swear on a stack of Bibles that that's what I heard on the radio, and I don't feel like trying to look it up, but still).
In addition to strategically pairing Stammer and Kuch without depriving their respective lines of their services, Cooper has taken advantage of his team's depth by keeping his stars' minutes lower than they would be on other teams. Knowing that the Lightning's "third" and "fourth" lines can score as well as some teams' second lines, and can do so without sacrificing one bit of their defensive responsibilities, Cooper has shrewdly given those lower lines more ice time than you usually see down-roster.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are always a war of attrition in which endurance plays a major role, and I can't help but wonder if part of Cooper's master plan is to have his stars enter the playoffs with less wear on their tires and more gas in their tanks than other teams' stars? If so, the other side of the coin would be that Tampa Bay's "third" and "fourth" lines, which are already more productive than most, would have the additional advantage of better game shape and thus better timing as a result of spending more time on the ice and less on the bench.
Again, I do not know if that's the plan. And if it is, I don't know if it will work. But it makes sense, and I like it.
And with that, I am signing off. Here's hoping for a great second half of the season!
Well, things have definitely changed for the better: 20 games into the campaign, Fleury's save percentage was just .901 overall (after finishing .927 last season) and a shockingly low .895 at 5-on-5, but since November 17th he is .919 overall and .928 at 5-on-5. This is a result not so much of him improving his good games, but of him altogether eliminating his bad ones.
Combine Fleury's improvement with Nate Schmidt's return from suspension and Paul Stastny's return from injury, add in an uptick of more than 13 percent in the team's shooting percentage... and suddenly the Golden Knights look like contenders again, having vaulted up the standings to third place in the Western Conference.
Last season should have taught us to never doubt this team, don't ya think?
Calgary
Speaking of the Western Conference, the Calgary Flames currently hold its #1 spot and lots of people are treating that fact as if it's a surprise. They shouldn't.
Yes, the Flames missed the playoffs last season, and have in fact missed them two of the last three. But when you look at the talent on their roster, it seems to me that missing the playoffs is what should be considered an anomaly, not the other way around. They simply have too much offensive firepower and too much defensive talent to be sitting at home come springtime.
This club should have been considered a playoff contender entering the season. Now that "Big Save Dave" Rittich has stabilized its goaltending and Bill Peters has proven to be an upgrade behind the bench, it should be considered a Cup contender.
Crawford
The demise of the Chicago Blackhawks has been painful to watch, all the way from the inevitable slowing of Duncan Keith to the predictable inability of Jonathan Toews to live up to his cap hit, to the unjustified firing of Joel Quenneville.
Alex DeBrincat has had a solid year and Patrick Kane is on a hot streak, but it's gotta be hard for fans to get jazzed about those things when the team itself -- less than two years removed from being a top seed and less than four years removed from winning Stanley Cups -- sits tied for the third-worst record in the league.
And the most painful thing to watch about the Blackhawks' demise is the plight of their most important player: Goaltender Corey Crawford. On December 16th, during a game against San Jose, a collision resulted in Crawford's head striking the goalpost and him immediately grabbing it. He was diagnosed with a concussion after trainers helped him leave the ice -- 51 weeks to the day after he sustained another concussion, the effects of which lingered for almost ten months and forced him to miss the final 47 games last season plus the first five this season. And these were not his first two concussions, as I remember him having at least two others in the past.
Crawford is an elite netminder when he's in a game, but over the past year he has missed more than twice as many games as he has played -- all because of concussions, which, just so we're clear, are defined by the United States CDC as "a type of traumatic brain injury." Crawford turned 34 this week; has won two Stanley Cups; has played 432 games for the Blackhawks and has the highest career save percentage of the 13 goalies in history who have played more than 100 games for them; and entering this season he had earned more than $35 million in salary throughout his career.
What I'm saying is that Corey Crawford needs to retire. The cumulative effects of concussions can be debilitating and long-term, and he has a 16-month-old son who needs a dad. Corey Crawford has made his mark and made it well, and the risks of continuing to play through the remaining season and a half of his contract far outweigh any possible rewards. 'Tis time to put his gear away for good.
My Lightning Indulgence, Part One
Part of me doesn't even want to mention my team. Partly because everyone in both the American and Canadian hockey media is talking glowingly about them and I don't want to jinx anything; but mostly because I can remember so many examples of high-scoring teams failing to win the Cup because, you know, defense wins championships, goals are harder to come by in the post-season, etc.
But this Tampa Bay Lightning squad is so good I can't not mention them, so here are some notable facts about them: They are 15-0-1 over their last 16 games and have not lost in regulation since November... They have bagged six goals in four of their last five games, and since November 27th have played only two games in which they scored fewer than four goals... They have the league's best record despite goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, key defenseman Anton Stralman, and defensive-minded winger Ondrej Palat all missing significant time with injuries, and much of that time being concurrent... Nikita Kucherov, long known for his shot, has become such a good passer that he's dishing out assists like a Hall of Fame centerman even though he plays on the wing... Also, Kucherov has had seven straight multi-point games, and there has been only one game in the last six weeks in which he has not recorded a point.
I dunno if this team is going to win the Cup, but I do love this team.
My Lightning Indulgence, Part Two
As eye-popping as the above factoids are, there are two topics that I think could prove to be even more important if the Bolts are able to embark on a deep run this spring. One of those is the work being done by Steven Stamkos at the face-off dots, and the other is the work being done by Coach Jon Cooper at distributing his personnel and managing their ice time.
Face-offs are one of those things that are easy to forget about until your team is forced to take one at a critical juncture in a tight game. But they are important, crucially so in certain situations, and they have long been a glaring weakness on a Tampa Bay team that is otherwise a juggernaut. Face-offs were in fact one of the main reasons the Lightning came up short against Chicago in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, and they have always been a weakness, maybe the only weakness, in Stamkos's game.
The last two years, however, he has worked diligently at face-offs and turned them into a strength. 2017-18 was the first time Stamkos completed a full season with a face-off percentage above 50 (he finished at (52.2%), and as of a few days ago he was above 57% for 2018-19 (according to puckbase.com he is at 55.4% right now). When you consider that this is his eleventh season in the NHL, this goes to show that an old dog can make himself learn new tricks. The fact that Tampa Bay's captain did this, that he focused on a non-glorified and seemingly mundane aspect of the game because he realized its importance, is one of the reasons we Bolts fans love him.
And as far as Jon Cooper's coaching is concerned, it really is a shame that him "having so much talent to work with" will probably prevent him from being considered for the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year. Stamkos and Kucherov do not currently play on the same line, which is not bad because their respective lines are both churning out points. But being aware that they like playing together and have clicked when playing together in the past, Cooper has been sure to orchestrate his team's partial line changes to get them on the ice at the same time before a full line change kicks in. He has also been sure to put them on the ice together during power plays. And evidence of how well this works is that during Stammer's recent 15-goals-in-13-games streak, Kuch assisted on at least 5 of the 15 goals (I want to say that 7 of the 15 goals were on the power play and Kuch assisted on 5 of those 7, but I can't swear on a stack of Bibles that that's what I heard on the radio, and I don't feel like trying to look it up, but still).
In addition to strategically pairing Stammer and Kuch without depriving their respective lines of their services, Cooper has taken advantage of his team's depth by keeping his stars' minutes lower than they would be on other teams. Knowing that the Lightning's "third" and "fourth" lines can score as well as some teams' second lines, and can do so without sacrificing one bit of their defensive responsibilities, Cooper has shrewdly given those lower lines more ice time than you usually see down-roster.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are always a war of attrition in which endurance plays a major role, and I can't help but wonder if part of Cooper's master plan is to have his stars enter the playoffs with less wear on their tires and more gas in their tanks than other teams' stars? If so, the other side of the coin would be that Tampa Bay's "third" and "fourth" lines, which are already more productive than most, would have the additional advantage of better game shape and thus better timing as a result of spending more time on the ice and less on the bench.
Again, I do not know if that's the plan. And if it is, I don't know if it will work. But it makes sense, and I like it.
And with that, I am signing off. Here's hoping for a great second half of the season!
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