The Puck Stops Here
What Is Wrong with The Habs
by PuckStopsHere on 02/06/12 at 12:52 PM ET
Comments (5)
The Montreal Canadiens have been a playoff team for the last four seasons. They won at least one round in two of them. It looks like that streak will end this season. Montreal is currently tied for last place in the East Conference with 49 points. They have a 20-33 record with nine regulation tie points. Only Anaheim and Columbus have fewer wins than they do. What has gone wrong?
The biggest problem surrounding the Habs is the uncertainty of who is in charge. In December Jacques Martin was fired as coach and replaced by Randy Cunneyworth. This soon led to controversy as Cunneyworth does not speak French and this angered some Quebec language activists’. This situation was handled badly as owner Geoff Molson went on record to say that Cunneyworth is only an interim coach. Montreal would hire a French speaking coach for next year.
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Tags: Jacques+Martin, Montreal+Canadiens, Pierre+Gauthier, Randy+Cunneyworth,
Top Defenceman So Far This Season
by PuckStopsHere on 02/05/12 at 01:02 PM ET
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In mid-November, I picked Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators as the top defenceman in the league so far this season. In January after Weber had lost time to a concussion, I updated this pick to Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins. Now that Weber is back and healthy he has played himself back into the position of Norris Trophy front-runner.
Weber has 35 points which places him among the top scoring defenders in the league and second on his team. His +19 +/- rating leads his team. Weber is a dominant defenceman who has had more value to his team than any other. Zdeno Chara and Nicklas Lidstrom are other contenders for this award but neither has as many points or a team leading +/- rating. Erik Karlsson is also worthy of mention since he is the dominant offensive defenceman in the league but he is not nearly as strong in his own zone.
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Tags: Nashville+Predators, Shea+Weber, Zdeno+Chara,
The Best Defensive Team
by PuckStopsHere on 02/04/12 at 11:57 AM ET
Comments (1)
The team with the best goals against in the NHL right now is the St Louis Blues. They have a low 1.92 goals against average. This is quite amazing from a team that fired its coach in early November. It wasn’t that Davis Payne was horribly failing as much as Ken Hitchcock is a top coach who brought in a strong defensive system. Hitchcock has been a strong reason why the blues have been a top team so far this season. His effect on the Blues is an example of the maximal effect a coach can have on his team. Rarely does a coach make this big a difference. One wonders where the Columbus Blue Jackets would be if they had hired him as was rumored when the Blues hired him.
The biggest strength of the St Louis Blues is goaltending. Brian Elliott is having an outstanding comeback season. He is posting a .938 saves percentage and a 1.69 GAA. Jaroslav Halak has recovered from a slow start and he is posting a .921 saves percentage and a 1.96 GAA. This is one of the best goaltending pairs in the NHL.
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Tags: Brian+Elliott, Jaroslav+Halak, Ken+Hitchcock, St+Louis+Blues,
Karlsson Top Offensive Defenceman
by PuckStopsHere on 02/03/12 at 12:09 PM ET
Comments (9)
It is quite an achievement that Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators is the top scoring defenceman in the league. He currently has 48 points in 52 games played. This gives him a 12 point lead over any other defenceman in the league. This season is already his career best offensive total. That is quite an achievement for a 21 year old player.
Karlsson is playing against top competition. No other Senator regular plays against as tough competition. His +7 +/- rating is among the best on his team. He is starting to be seen as a solid Norris Trophy candidate. I would argue that three more well-rounded defencemen exist in front of him in Zdeno Chara, Shea Weber and Nicklas Lidstrom, but he is the best of the next group.
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Tags: Erik+Karlsson, Ottawa+Senators,
What’s Wrong With The Buffalo Sabres?
by PuckStopsHere on 02/02/12 at 02:01 PM ET
Comments (1)
Last season the Buffalo Sabres finished in the seventh seed in the East Conference with a 43-39 record with 10 regulation tie points. Many thought they looked like a team ready to make a big step toward being a solid Stanley Cup contender when new owner Terry Pegula opened the purse strings and signed free agents Christian Ehrhoff to a ten year contract worth a total of $40 million (which pays him $10 million this year) and Ville Leino to a six year contract worth $27 million. That hasn’t been the case.
Buffalo is currently fourth from last in the East Conference with only 21 wins in 51 games played. So what went wrong?
The easy answer is that the Sabres overpaid for their new signings. We knew that when Ehrhoff and Leino were signed, but it is more obvious now. Leino has been limited to four goals and twelve points so far this year. Ehrhoff has scored a little higher from defence, but his -9 +/- rating is among the worst on the team.
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Tags: Buffalo+Sabres, Christian+Ehrhoff, Terry+Pegula, Ville+Leino,
Selke Trophy Leader
by PuckStopsHere on 02/01/12 at 01:13 PM ET
Comments (8)
I last picked Frans Nielsen of the New York Islanders as my Selke Trophy leader in mid-December. It became clear to me that another player had moved into the lead just before the All Star break, but I hesitated to announce it because he was out with a wrist injury and should he remain out of the lineup for a prolonged period of time he would soon be surpassed. Last night Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks returned to action. He only missed one game because of the All Star break.
Toews is a wonderful two-way player who can score. His 51 points place him tenth in the NHL scoring race. He can also play outstanding defence. Toews plays against tough competition and shuts them down. He plays in tough defensive situations and he plays almost two minutes of penalty kill time per game.
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Tags: Chicago+Blackhawks, Frans+Nielsen, Jonathan+Toews,
Top Scorer For January
by PuckStopsHere on 01/31/12 at 07:20 PM ET
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January isn`t over yet as we still have games to play tonight, but it looks like the top scorer in the month with be John Tavares of the New York Islanders. He has seven goals and 11 assists on the month for 18 points. This gives him a three point lead over the four players who are next with 15 points each. Tavares also plays tonight versus Carolina so he may increase his lead.
Tavares has 49 points so far this season and seems likely to increase his point total for the third straight season. He leads the Islanders in points and is 12th in the league.
He is an often overlooked rising star who was selected first overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft and has been playing somewhat out of the limelight on Long Island. The Islanders have never seriously contended for a playoff spot in Tavares`s time and he has had few talented teammates to play with.
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Tags: John+Tavares, New+York+Islanders,
I NOW Consider Tim Thomas A Hall Of Famer
by PuckStopsHere on 01/30/12 at 02:11 PM ET
Comments (31)
I have spent the last 25 or more years trying to answer the question of at what point in a player’s career does he establish himself as a sure-fire Hall of Famer regardless of what happens in the rest of his career. Today I am saying that Tim Thomas has reached that threshold.
Thomas has won a remarkable number of awards in his career. He is a two time Vezina Trophy winner. He was last season’s Conn Smythe Trophy winner as he led his Boston team to the Stanley Cup. Twice he has won the Roger Crozier Saving Grace award for best saves percentage. Once he shared in the William Jennings Trophy for the goaltenders of the team with the fewest goals allowed. That amount of awards won is quite good for a Hall of Famer. The question is the shortness of his career. Thomas has fewer than 400 career NHL games. He has only regularly played in the NHL since 2005 (he also played four games in the 2002/03 season).
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Tags: Boston+Bruins, Tim+Thomas,
Oklahoma City Leads At All Star Break
by PuckStopsHere on 01/29/12 at 02:26 PM ET
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The AHL has rolled into its All Star break. Much like the NHL, its first place team has changed several times over the first half of the season. At All Star break the first place team is the Oklahoma City Barons (Edmonton Oilers minor league affiliate). They have a record of 29-16 with five regulation tie points. They have a three point lead over the second place St John’s Ice Caps (Winnipeg Jets minor league affiliate). The Barons took the lead in part of their current six game winning streak.
The Barons strength is keeping the puck out of their net. They have allowed 100 goals so far this season. This is ten fewer goals than any other team in the league. Their biggest strength is goaltending. In another reality Yann Danis would have had a long NHL career. He has posted some pretty solid NHL numbers in his NHL shots in Montreal, New Jersey and the NY Islanders. He played well in his year in the KHL. He is an All Star this year in the AHL posting a .922 saves percentage and a 2.11 GAA.
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Tags: Edmonton+Oilers, Oklahoma+City+Barons,
East Conference Catching Up
by PuckStopsHere on 01/28/12 at 08:40 PM ET
Comments (1)
Over the years I have often written about how much better the West Conference is than the East Conference. When we look at the head-to-head record, the West Conference has had a much better record. So far this season the West Conference has had a better inter-conference record. They have a 92-89 record with 26 regulation tie points. This makes the conferences much closer than they had been in the past.
In the past, I explained the difference as being due to the difference in travel between the conferences. The West Conference has significantly more travel over a season than the East Conference does as the West has teams in four different time zones and the East is entirely in the eastern time zone. This makes East Conference records better than they otherwise would be and it makes West Conference records worse. This makes West Conference teams better able to get early draft picks and thus draft better players. East players tend to put up better numbers as they have life easier. This leads to them getting bigger contracts and in a salary capped NHL this limits your team’s spending ability.
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About The Puck Stops Here
The Puck Stops Here was founded during the 2004/05 lockout as a place to rant about hockey. The original site contains over 1000 posts, some of which were also published on FoxSports.com.
Who am I?
A diehard hockey fan.
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I want to.
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