The Puck Stops Here
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.
I thought there was a chance that Danis would catch on in the NHL this year if Nikolai Khabibulin failed or got hurt. So far Khabibulin has done neither. Danis is 30 and hence not a serious NHL prospect. His backup in David LeNeveu has played well in more limited playing time. He gives the Barons two strong AHL goalies. At age 28, he too is not much of an NHL prospect.
The problem with AHL success is the strong teams are often teams of men 28 or 30 years old who are no longer NHL prospects. Teams filled with prospects are 20 or 22 years old. In most cases, the team of men will beat the team of boys even though the boys will be better players when they finish maturing. This is Tyler Dellow’s recent point. It is faint praise for the Oiler organization that built a team that has had two straight last place finishes and is well on their way to another lottery finish to say that they know how to build a good AHL franchise.
The top scorers on the Barons are not really NHL prospects. Top scorer Ryan Keller has six career NHL games with no points scored at age 27. Philippe Cornet might be a prospect. He is only 21 years old, but seems to be having a very lucky season. In only 66 shots he has 20 goals. He has a 30.3% shooting percentage and that is almost certainly unsustainable. He has never scored goals at this rate in his previous AHL season or in his QMJHL years.
The top offensive prospects have all spent time in the NHL this season and thus have fewer games played. Teemu Hartikainen, Magnus Paajarvi and Linus Omark all could be solid NHL players in the future. Perhaps Alex Plante is a prospect on defence but he hasn’t been an AHL star.
I think there Oklahoma City may not wind up the top team at the end of the AHL season. They might but there are several good teams. They may not have the as many prospects at the AHL level as some teams, but they have some legitimate prospects. It is a sign that the Oilers will see brighter days in the future. However the Barons biggest strength is goaltending and that likely won’t pay off in the NHL because they are older AHL veterans and the Oilers have had strong enough goaltending in the NHL to not need to call them up.
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Tags: Edmonton+Oilers, Oklahoma+City+Barons,
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