Some random and non-random puck observations, now that the NHL season is almost 75 percent over and the trade deadline is a week away:
My Lightning Indulgence
My January 26th post noted, among other things, that Tampa Bay entered the All-Star Break having won 12 of their previous 14 games. Well, two days ago the Bolts won their 10th in a row by defeating Philadelphia, making them the first team in 49 years (and only the third team ever) to have two 10-game winning streaks in one season.
That January 26th post also pointed out that Andrei Vasilevskiy had posted a .946 save percentage in his 10 previous starts. Well, over a four-day span last week he started three games against playoff contenders (Columbus, Pittsburgh, Edmonton) and allowed only one goal to each of them. His save percentage was a pedestrian .902 in November and pedestrian .906 in December, but since the calendar flipped to 2020 he is clipping along at -- you guessed it -- the same .946 rate I mentioned three weeks ago, and he is a phenomenal 19-0-2 in his last 21 starts.
The Lightning have pulled this second 10-game winning streak off while facing adversity. Injuries have taken defensemen Ryan McDonagh and Jan Rutta out of the lineup and forced the Bolts to replace them with the older, slower, and less skilled duo of Braydon Coburn and Luke Schenn. Meanwhile a lower body injury forced Steven Stamkos to miss all three games in that four-day stretch cited above; and on top of him being absent, Nikita Kucherov and Anthony Cirelli were also out with LBI's for the third of those games.
But no worries. From the "That's How You Step Up Department," when Stamkos got sidelined Yanni Gourde skated into the breach and delivered in dramatic fashion: Despite being in the throes of a soul-sapping slump during which he had not scored a goal since November 25th, Gourde potted the overtime winner to beat Pittsburgh last Tuesday, and two nights later he followed it up by scoring the game-winner against Edmonton while shorthanded.
And I have not even mentioned how perfect Tampa Bay's offseason acquisitions of Kevin Shattenkirk and Patrick Maroon have proven to be, nor have I mentioned how solid the play of rookies Carter Verhaeghe and Mitchell Stephens has been.
To be clear: As great as all this is, it does not make the Lightning the front-runner to hoist the Cup. They are not even in first place in their division, and their power play has been shockingly bad for the last 15 to 20 games, plus they do not have the kind of game-stealing backup goalie that has been indispensable for several recent Cup-winners. But they are a contender, and I appreciate what I am seeing.
My Lightning Indulgence
My January 26th post noted, among other things, that Tampa Bay entered the All-Star Break having won 12 of their previous 14 games. Well, two days ago the Bolts won their 10th in a row by defeating Philadelphia, making them the first team in 49 years (and only the third team ever) to have two 10-game winning streaks in one season.
That January 26th post also pointed out that Andrei Vasilevskiy had posted a .946 save percentage in his 10 previous starts. Well, over a four-day span last week he started three games against playoff contenders (Columbus, Pittsburgh, Edmonton) and allowed only one goal to each of them. His save percentage was a pedestrian .902 in November and pedestrian .906 in December, but since the calendar flipped to 2020 he is clipping along at -- you guessed it -- the same .946 rate I mentioned three weeks ago, and he is a phenomenal 19-0-2 in his last 21 starts.
The Lightning have pulled this second 10-game winning streak off while facing adversity. Injuries have taken defensemen Ryan McDonagh and Jan Rutta out of the lineup and forced the Bolts to replace them with the older, slower, and less skilled duo of Braydon Coburn and Luke Schenn. Meanwhile a lower body injury forced Steven Stamkos to miss all three games in that four-day stretch cited above; and on top of him being absent, Nikita Kucherov and Anthony Cirelli were also out with LBI's for the third of those games.
But no worries. From the "That's How You Step Up Department," when Stamkos got sidelined Yanni Gourde skated into the breach and delivered in dramatic fashion: Despite being in the throes of a soul-sapping slump during which he had not scored a goal since November 25th, Gourde potted the overtime winner to beat Pittsburgh last Tuesday, and two nights later he followed it up by scoring the game-winner against Edmonton while shorthanded.
And I have not even mentioned how perfect Tampa Bay's offseason acquisitions of Kevin Shattenkirk and Patrick Maroon have proven to be, nor have I mentioned how solid the play of rookies Carter Verhaeghe and Mitchell Stephens has been.
To be clear: As great as all this is, it does not make the Lightning the front-runner to hoist the Cup. They are not even in first place in their division, and their power play has been shockingly bad for the last 15 to 20 games, plus they do not have the kind of game-stealing backup goalie that has been indispensable for several recent Cup-winners. But they are a contender, and I appreciate what I am seeing.
Surprises, or lack thereof
Although most seasons feature anywhere from one to a few teams that are genuine, big-time, headline-gobbling surprises, that does not seem to be the case for 2019-20.
Many people seem not to have anticipated the Canucks' emergence as a playoff contender... but since I touted their wherewithal and potential early last season, I am not the least bit surprised to see them sitting near the top of the Pacific this season.
Few expected that the Jets would now be two spots out of the final wild card and in danger of missing the playoffs... but they did lose their top four defensemen before the season's curtain even rose, so should anyone really be surprised about the way things have played out?
With the San Jose Sharks being a playoff team and fringe Cup contender for pretty much the entire cap era, many observers appear shocked to see them out of the running this time around... but then again, the Sharks have a geriatric roster and haven't received an injection of young talent to rejuvenate themselves since Methuselah was in his prime, so how can anyone be shocked that their luster has faded?
Granted, I did not expect to see Nashville behind the playoff field this late in the season... however the Preds do play in a brutal division where it is destined that at least one good team will miss out, and Pekka Rinne's goaltending has been regressing for a few years, and the Preds did jettison P.K. Subban without receiving any roster-ready players in return, so maybe their declining fortunes shouldn't cause much eyebrow-raising after all.
Also, I did not expect to see Edmonton battling for a division crown or Columbus in the running for a playoff spot... however the Oilers do have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on their roster, and the Blue Jackets, despite their loss of big-name talent in free agency, remain a well-coached outfit with supremely structured defense and strong blueliners, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised by the success these two teams have had.
Angst on the border
It must be agonizing to be a Buffalo sports fan. Through the 1970's and 1980's the Sabres and Bills each had a wealth of talent, but no championships to show for it. Then came the 1990's, which were bookended by Scott Norwood's wide-right depriving the Bills of a Lombardi Trophy and Brett Hull's non-goal depriving the Sabres of a Stanley Cup. Then came the 2000's and 2010's, a pair of decades marked by awfulness and mediocrity with only a few good seasons thrown in.
Despite being filled with devoted fans, the City of Lights remains a city without a championship. And considering what has happened on the ice over the past decade, the patience of its hockey partisans is getting tested like Job's in the land of Uz.
The Sabres made the playoffs in the 2010-11 season and were eliminated in the first round by Philadelphia. The most noteworthy thing about 2010-11, however, was the mid-season announcement that the franchise was being purchased by energy and real estate magnate Terry Pegula, along with his wife Kim. At the introductory press conference Terry boldly spoke two phrases that every fan wants to hear: "Starting today, there will be no financial mandates" and "I'm going to make decisions based on winning the Stanley Cup and what is right for the fan base and the team."
You don't need me to tell you that things have not panned out the way the Pegulas envisioned. Other than that lone first-round elimination two months after the team changed hands, the Sabres have not reached the playoffs during the entire Pegula era. And they aren't gonna be in the post-season this year either, which will mark their ninth straight miss. Should the same fate befall them next year, they will be tied for the longest playoff drought in league history, and what the fans must find especially aggravating is that for the last several years the franchise does seem to have done the right things and put the right pieces in place, yet the futility keeps repeating.
The Pegula era has included some really bad seasons, three of which saw the Sabres finish last in the NHL. Thus they have been "blessed" with lots of high draft picks and have used them well by drafting superstar centerman Jack Eichel, dependable pivot Sam Reinhart, a budding superstar in defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, and the wonderfully acidic blueliner Rasmus Ristolainen. Come April, those four players will have completed a combined 18 seasons between them despite the fact that the oldest (Ristolainen) is only 25 and the youngest (Dahlin) is still 19. Eichel's current campaign has been so strong that it has garnered Hart Trophy talk in some quarters.
And it's not like the Sabres have never fared well in trades during the Pegula era, either. Evander Kane was brought over from Winnipeg and proceeded to have the three most stable seasons of his career. Ryan O'Reilly was acquired from Colorado and, from a scoring perspective, posted the second- through fourth-best seasons of his first nine years in the league. After Jeff Skinner was obtained from Carolina, he immediately had a 40-goal, 63-point campaign in 2018-19 that ranked as his personal best on both counts.
Add all that together and you might assume that Buffalo had tasted the playoffs at least one measly time since 2011, but you would be wrong. No matter how well the players play and how loose the owners are with the purse strings, the team's results just haven't been there.
And as if to pour salt on wounds, the Sabres have flashed glimpses of success, only to see them swept away like a matador's cape. In the first quarter of 2018-19 they went on a 10-game winning streak and had the best record in the NHL, only to collapse the rest of the way and finish five spots out of the playoffs. This season they exploded out of the gate 8-1-1 and looking strong, but of course they regressed and now have the 24th-best record in the 31-team NHL.
It is almost impossible to figure out what ails this team, which makes it almost impossible to figure out how to fix the ailment. It looks like the Sabres will once again be drafting high this summer, but you can't blame their fans, including radio caller Duane, for wondering if it will even matter.
At some point in time the Sabres will finally return to the post-season. Arithmetic says it will have to happen sometime. Whenever that sometime happens to be, you might want to consider rooting for them -- as long as they aren't playing the Lightning, of course.
Miscellaneous
Admittedly this isn't much of a stretch as predictions go, but I predict that the Predators will end up in the playoffs (they're only one point back of the field right now) and the Coyotes will not (they and Calgary would be the wild cards if the post-season started today).
If Marc Bergevin knows what he's doing he will flip Ilya Kovalchuk before the trade deadline. The Habs clearly are not going to make the playoffs and obviously need to go into full rebuild mode, so they might as well get a draft pick in return for the 36-year-old forward. Plenty of contenders would love to add Kovalchuk's scoring touch to their roster, especially at his feather-light cap hit of $700,000. That would give him a fighting chance to finally get that elusive Stanley Cup, and it would allow the Habs to add another pick to the huge pile they are already holding for this summer's draft. His contract expires on June 30th anyway, so sticking around Montreal for the rest of this season doesn't do anyone any real good from a hockey perspective, does it?
You know what? There are plenty of other things I want to toss into this miscellaneous section, but frankly I am tired of typing. And as often happens with me, this post is already too long. So I'm just gonna say Au revoir. Enjoy the rest of the season, folks!
Many people seem not to have anticipated the Canucks' emergence as a playoff contender... but since I touted their wherewithal and potential early last season, I am not the least bit surprised to see them sitting near the top of the Pacific this season.
Few expected that the Jets would now be two spots out of the final wild card and in danger of missing the playoffs... but they did lose their top four defensemen before the season's curtain even rose, so should anyone really be surprised about the way things have played out?
With the San Jose Sharks being a playoff team and fringe Cup contender for pretty much the entire cap era, many observers appear shocked to see them out of the running this time around... but then again, the Sharks have a geriatric roster and haven't received an injection of young talent to rejuvenate themselves since Methuselah was in his prime, so how can anyone be shocked that their luster has faded?
Granted, I did not expect to see Nashville behind the playoff field this late in the season... however the Preds do play in a brutal division where it is destined that at least one good team will miss out, and Pekka Rinne's goaltending has been regressing for a few years, and the Preds did jettison P.K. Subban without receiving any roster-ready players in return, so maybe their declining fortunes shouldn't cause much eyebrow-raising after all.
Also, I did not expect to see Edmonton battling for a division crown or Columbus in the running for a playoff spot... however the Oilers do have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on their roster, and the Blue Jackets, despite their loss of big-name talent in free agency, remain a well-coached outfit with supremely structured defense and strong blueliners, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised by the success these two teams have had.
Angst on the border
It must be agonizing to be a Buffalo sports fan. Through the 1970's and 1980's the Sabres and Bills each had a wealth of talent, but no championships to show for it. Then came the 1990's, which were bookended by Scott Norwood's wide-right depriving the Bills of a Lombardi Trophy and Brett Hull's non-goal depriving the Sabres of a Stanley Cup. Then came the 2000's and 2010's, a pair of decades marked by awfulness and mediocrity with only a few good seasons thrown in.
Despite being filled with devoted fans, the City of Lights remains a city without a championship. And considering what has happened on the ice over the past decade, the patience of its hockey partisans is getting tested like Job's in the land of Uz.
The Sabres made the playoffs in the 2010-11 season and were eliminated in the first round by Philadelphia. The most noteworthy thing about 2010-11, however, was the mid-season announcement that the franchise was being purchased by energy and real estate magnate Terry Pegula, along with his wife Kim. At the introductory press conference Terry boldly spoke two phrases that every fan wants to hear: "Starting today, there will be no financial mandates" and "I'm going to make decisions based on winning the Stanley Cup and what is right for the fan base and the team."
You don't need me to tell you that things have not panned out the way the Pegulas envisioned. Other than that lone first-round elimination two months after the team changed hands, the Sabres have not reached the playoffs during the entire Pegula era. And they aren't gonna be in the post-season this year either, which will mark their ninth straight miss. Should the same fate befall them next year, they will be tied for the longest playoff drought in league history, and what the fans must find especially aggravating is that for the last several years the franchise does seem to have done the right things and put the right pieces in place, yet the futility keeps repeating.
The Pegula era has included some really bad seasons, three of which saw the Sabres finish last in the NHL. Thus they have been "blessed" with lots of high draft picks and have used them well by drafting superstar centerman Jack Eichel, dependable pivot Sam Reinhart, a budding superstar in defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, and the wonderfully acidic blueliner Rasmus Ristolainen. Come April, those four players will have completed a combined 18 seasons between them despite the fact that the oldest (Ristolainen) is only 25 and the youngest (Dahlin) is still 19. Eichel's current campaign has been so strong that it has garnered Hart Trophy talk in some quarters.
And it's not like the Sabres have never fared well in trades during the Pegula era, either. Evander Kane was brought over from Winnipeg and proceeded to have the three most stable seasons of his career. Ryan O'Reilly was acquired from Colorado and, from a scoring perspective, posted the second- through fourth-best seasons of his first nine years in the league. After Jeff Skinner was obtained from Carolina, he immediately had a 40-goal, 63-point campaign in 2018-19 that ranked as his personal best on both counts.
Add all that together and you might assume that Buffalo had tasted the playoffs at least one measly time since 2011, but you would be wrong. No matter how well the players play and how loose the owners are with the purse strings, the team's results just haven't been there.
And as if to pour salt on wounds, the Sabres have flashed glimpses of success, only to see them swept away like a matador's cape. In the first quarter of 2018-19 they went on a 10-game winning streak and had the best record in the NHL, only to collapse the rest of the way and finish five spots out of the playoffs. This season they exploded out of the gate 8-1-1 and looking strong, but of course they regressed and now have the 24th-best record in the 31-team NHL.
It is almost impossible to figure out what ails this team, which makes it almost impossible to figure out how to fix the ailment. It looks like the Sabres will once again be drafting high this summer, but you can't blame their fans, including radio caller Duane, for wondering if it will even matter.
At some point in time the Sabres will finally return to the post-season. Arithmetic says it will have to happen sometime. Whenever that sometime happens to be, you might want to consider rooting for them -- as long as they aren't playing the Lightning, of course.
Miscellaneous
Admittedly this isn't much of a stretch as predictions go, but I predict that the Predators will end up in the playoffs (they're only one point back of the field right now) and the Coyotes will not (they and Calgary would be the wild cards if the post-season started today).
If Marc Bergevin knows what he's doing he will flip Ilya Kovalchuk before the trade deadline. The Habs clearly are not going to make the playoffs and obviously need to go into full rebuild mode, so they might as well get a draft pick in return for the 36-year-old forward. Plenty of contenders would love to add Kovalchuk's scoring touch to their roster, especially at his feather-light cap hit of $700,000. That would give him a fighting chance to finally get that elusive Stanley Cup, and it would allow the Habs to add another pick to the huge pile they are already holding for this summer's draft. His contract expires on June 30th anyway, so sticking around Montreal for the rest of this season doesn't do anyone any real good from a hockey perspective, does it?
You know what? There are plenty of other things I want to toss into this miscellaneous section, but frankly I am tired of typing. And as often happens with me, this post is already too long. So I'm just gonna say Au revoir. Enjoy the rest of the season, folks!
