The Puck Stops Here
AHL’s Top Team
by PuckStopsHere on 02/20/12 at 11:41 AM ET
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The St. John’s IceCaps (Winnipeg Jets farm team) have moved into first place in the AHL. They have a 33-19 record with 6 regulation tie points. They have passed the Oklahoma City Barons (Edmonton Oilers farm team) who also have a 33-19 record but with only 5 regulation tie points.
St John’s is best known as an offensive team. They are third overall in the AHL in scoring. Given that the Winnipeg Jets are run by Mark Chipman, who ran the successful Manitoba Moose in the AHL before the Jets, it isn’t a surprise that they have a top AHL team. The question is whether or not this helps the Jets win at the NHL level. A winning team in the AHL is usually a team of men who are no longer NHL prospects that defeat teams of boys who have much higher NHL potential.
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Tags: Oklahoma+City+Barons, St+John's+Ice+Caps,
Highest Scoring Team
by PuckStopsHere on 02/19/12 at 12:16 PM ET
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The Philadelphia Flyers have recently become the highest scoring team in the league surpassing the Boston Bruins. The Flyers have 3.31 goals per game versus the Bruins 3.27 goals per game.
The Flyers have successfully remade their offence this summer as they traded Jeff Carter to Columbus and Mike Richards to Los Angeles. This season their top scorers are Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr. Giroux first showed his ability to be a top scorer last season when he led the team in scoring. He scored 76 points. This year he is on pace to eclipse that with 96 points.
Hartnell has a career best 60 points. He is currently on pace for 76 points. Jagr has had high scoring season in the past but he spent the last three years playing in the KHL and at age 40 it wasn’t clear that he this left in his career.
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Tags: Claude+Giroux, Jaromir+Jagr, Jeff+Carter, Mike+Richards, Philadelphia+Flyers, Scott+Hartnell,
What Is Next For The Blue Jackets?
by PuckStopsHere on 02/18/12 at 02:21 PM ET
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The Columbus Blue Jackets have had an awful season. They have only won 17 of the 57 games they have played so far this season. With the trade deadline coming their top players in Rick Nash and Jeff Carter are rumored to be available. Should they be traded they will almost certainly be the best player involved in the trade. The only way that Columbus can win this deal is in the longterm if they obtain young prospects who develop into significant NHL players. The problem is these prospects are likely not NHL ready today, but in a year or two at best. That would make Columbus an even weaker team in the short-term than they are now. That is not a good prospect for their fan base.
The most significant reason that Nash and Carter may be available is that they are expensive players. Nash has a $7.8 million salary cap hit until his contract expires in the year 2018. Carter has an almost $5.3 million salary cap hit until his contract expires in 2022. There is a significant investment in those players and Columbus is not on the strongest financial ground.
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Tags: Columbus+Blue+Jackets, Jeff+Carter, Rick+Nash, Scott+Howson,
AHL Scoring Race
by PuckStopsHere on 02/17/12 at 12:23 PM ET
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For much of the season Keith Aucoin of the Hershey Bears (Washington Capitals affiliate) has led the AHL in scoring. This changed when Aucoin was called up to the NHL for a big part of February so far (though he is back in the AHL now). Aucoin was given very little opportunity in the NHL. He played slightly over nine minutes a game in five games without scoring any points.
While Aucoin has been in the NHL, he has been caught in the AHL scoring race by teammate Chris Bourque. Both Bourque and Aucoin have 70 points so far this season. They are well ahead of the rest of the league in scoring.
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Tags: Chris+Bourque, Hershey+Bears, Keith+Aucoin,
Southleast Division
by PuckStopsHere on 02/16/12 at 11:34 AM ET
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The Southeast Division has been the NHL’s weakest for several years. Although they won two Stanley Cups in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Lightning and 2006 with the Carolina Hurricanes, they have never had more than two teams in the division make the playoffs in the same season.
This season the division is somewhat changed as the Atlanta Thrashers have moved to Winnipeg. That isn’t a move that helps the division. It merely adds more travel for all of its teams.
At this point no team in the division has more wins than losses. Florida may be in first place but they do so with a league leading 11 regulation tie points. Florida has 11 points in games that they lost. Without that they would not be as high in the standings. They have 27 wins and 29 losses.
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Tags: Carolina+Hurricanes, Florida+Panthers, Tampa+Bay+Lightning, Washington+Capitals, Winnipeg+Jets,
Hawks Slumping
by PuckStopsHere on 02/15/12 at 09:01 PM ET
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The Chicago Blackhawks were in first place in the NHL as recently as mid-November. They are a team with a good young core built around Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, Patrick Kane and Brent Seabrook. They also have talented older players in Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp. This is a team that won the Stanley Cup as recently as 2009 and a team that could win with a few lucky bounces this year. They have a problem with their goaltending which could potentially be solved at the trade deadline or if an existing goalie gets hot (Corey Crawford having a strong playoff is more plausible than Michael Leighton getting hot for a playoff run and that happened in 2009).
The problem is Chicago has not won any of their last nine games. Their highest offensive output in any game during the slump is four goals against Edmonton (they allowed eight goals). They have allowed at least three goals in each of the games.
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Tags: Chicago+Blackhawks,
Worst +/- In The League
by PuckStopsHere on 02/14/12 at 05:39 PM ET
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For much of the season Eric Staal has had the worst +/- rating in the league. He no longer is the league worst. He appears to be going in the right direction finally. This leaves behind Milan Jurcina of the New York Islanders with the worst +/- in the league. He is stuck at -23.
Jurcina is not an offensive power. He has only six points so far this season. He has never scored more than 17 points in a single season. He is mostly used in a defensive role. He plays one of the tougher defensive roles on the lowly Islanders. This is a situation where a player would be unlikely to get a good +/- rating, but it does not explain why Jurcina is the league worst.
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Tags: Milan+Jurcina, New+York+Islanders,
He Could Have Been An NHLer
by PuckStopsHere on 02/13/12 at 01:38 PM ET
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The NHL has never been a perfect league in its ability to find all of the best talent in the world to play in it. Many NHL capable talents never have significant NHL careers. One prime example of that is Yann Danis. He currently is a star goalie with the Oklahoma City Barons of the AHL. Danis leads the AHL in saves percentage (.938) and goals against average (1.94). He has had a few trials as an NHL goalie and although they have gone pretty well they never led to a regular job. He has succeeded in the minor leagues and in Europe.
Danis is 30 years old and is signed to a one year contract in the Edmonton Oiler organization. He is playing very well in the AHL and waiting for an NHL shot. If Nikolai Khabibulin or Devan Dubnyk get injured between now and the end of the season he should get an NHL tryout. Otherwise he is likely to leave the Oiler organization without playing any NHL games for them. I am sure he is an NHL capable goalie who with another set of luck would have had a relatively long NHL career.
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Tags: Edmonton+Oilers, Oklahoma+City+Barons, Yann+Danis,
Why Vancouver Won`t Trade Schneider This Season
by PuckStopsHere on 02/12/12 at 01:16 PM ET
Comments (23)
One of the players who is rumored to be on the trade block at this year`s deadline is Cory Schneider of the Vancouver Canucks. Vancouver has two strong goalies in Schneider and Roberto Luongo and both would like to be the team`s clear number one goalie. Luongo is signed until 2022 with a $5.33 million salary cap hit. That contract is prohibitive to move. Schneider is signed for $900,000 this season and he becomes a restricted free agent. His contract would be far easier for another team to fit into their salary structure.
The Vancouver Canucks are a top team who have a very good shot at the Stanley Cup. The Sedin brothers are 31 and might begin to show decline as they age. The Vancouver Canucks will have trouble keeping their core together into the future under a salary capped system. Thus this might be the season where the Canucks have the best shot at winning the Stanley Cup in the foreseeable future, so they should take their best run at it.
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Tags: Cory+Schneider, Keith+Ballard, Roberto+Luongo, Vancouver+Canucks,
If Only They Had Goaltending
by PuckStopsHere on 02/11/12 at 12:49 PM ET
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Every season I pick a team that could be a much better Stanley Cup contender if they added a top goalie. My choice last year was the Tampa Bay Lightning. It proved to be a pretty good selection as they added Dwayne Roloson in a trade and then went to the semi-finals in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Tampa has not maintained that level of play as Roloson has struggled this season. Given his age (42) it is likely a final age related decline that will end his career. While Tampa Bay again needs a goalie, I think there is a better candidate for a team that would significantly improve their Stanley Cup chances by adding a goalie. They are the Chicago Blackhawks.
Chicago is the probable playoff team with the worst goaltending this season. Corey Crawford has been their starting goalie and he is posting a .898 saves percentage and a 2.99 GAA. Ray Emery, their backup, has a .901 saves percentage and a 2.80 GAA. Neither has been very good.
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Tags: Antti+Niemi, Chicago+Blackhawks, Corey+Crawford, Cristobal+Huet, Ray+Emery,
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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.
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A diehard hockey fan.
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