Around the league in October

October 31, 2008   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

I was considering a Devils month in review, but nine games does feel a bit too short for a team critique.  Especially when half of them are on the darn injury list – with the latest casualty being defenseman Andy Greene, out 4-6 weeks with a broken hand courtesy of a Pavel Kubina shot.  The joke of it is Greene was finally starting to live up to expectations and he played most of the Leafs game with the broken hand unbeknownst to anyone, which was the best game of his career ironically (three assists and a +3).  Well if we’re going to play the Lowell Devils roster for the next month maybe we should have Lowell Devil ticket prices.  Nah, that’ll never happen.

But team issues aside, it is fun to take a look around the league once in a while and see what is going on.  To wit, here are some tricks and treats getting in the spirit of Halloween:

Treats (in net): Some underrated and overlooked goalies have started the season off very well.  Carey Price has rebounded well from his playoff meltdown in Montreal while the underappreciated Tim Thomas is also off to a hot start for the Bruins.  Both have GAA’s under 2 and save percentages above .930.  Mike Smith‘s played very well in Tampa – with a joke defense around him - in his first full season as a starter and Alex Auld seems to have finally found a niche in Ottawa after bouncing around the NHL since being part of the infamous Roberto Luongo trade (and doing a credible job as the Bruins’ back up last year)

Tricks (in net): What’s happened to most of the elite goalies?  Other than the two goalies who happen to play for the Devils and Rangers, not a lot of big-names are playing very well.  To name a few, Marty Turco, Chris Osgood and Evgeni Nabokov – all have gotten off to bad starts (despite what the W/L record says for Osgood and Nabby).  Others like Jean-Sebastian Giguere and Mikkua Kiprusoff also started slowly but have picked it up in the last few games.  Of course Jose Theodore has been a dissapointment – again, this time for the Capitals.  And Rick DiPietro is still in witness protection, hurt or both.

Treats (up front): While Alexander the Great has slumped in Washington partly due to family issues, the Capitals’ other Russian hotshot with the same first name – Alexander Semin (above picture) – is tied for the league lead with 16 points in his first nine games, while Marian Hossa has lived up to billing so far in Detroit with 6 goals and 9 assists in 11 games for the defending champs.  An early favorite for comeback player of the year is Simon Gagne in Philadelphia – all he’s done is put up 7 goals, 5 assists and a +6 in nine games for the suddenly hot Flyers after missing most of 2007-08 with concussion issues. 

Tricks (up front): Did anyone tell Ryan Malone the season’s started yet?  He only has two goals and a -1 in nine games – but he does have 24 penalty minutes which I suppose is a plus for fantasy leagues.  Malone’s former teammate, Sidney Crosby got hurt again in the Penguins’ loss to Phoenix last night.  Hopefully this injury doesn’t last too long as Crosby’s one of the best players in the league – over-the-top hype or not.  And can Mats Sundin please make up his mind already…I think five months is more than adequate to decide whether to retire or not.  Unless he already knows and just wants to avoid training camp a la Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer.  While we’re on the subject of old star forwards, can someone clue Brendan Shanahan into the fact the Rangers don’t want him already?  Unless of course this ‘waiting game’ is an even more elaborate ruse for a planned mid-season signing due to the fact the Rangers have very little cap room in the first place.       

Treats (teamwise): Lindy Ruff is at it again in Buffalo and the Sabres are becoming the Minnesota Twins of hockey.  Mid-level budget and market, lose star players every year and somehow rebound to put a competitive (6-2-2 so far) team on the field.  At least the Sabres still have NHL leading goalscorer Thomas Vanek and Ryan Miller in goal, who by all rights should be considered at least one of the ten best at his position if not higher.  Speaking of Minnesota, I didn’t expect much from the Wild either, after losing Pavol Demitra and Brian Rolston, among others to UFA.  But once again they sit on top of a tough Northwest division with a 6-2-1 record.  And as much as I want to put the Rangers in the trick column, they have had a surprisingly solid start to the season, leading the NHL in wins and points.  Enigmatic Nikolai Zherdev leads the NHL in plus-minus and is tied for the team lead in points (12) with emerging Brandon Dubinsky.  And rumors of Henrik Lundqvist’s impending demise in the preseason (ostensibly due to bad knees) were as exaggerated as 95% of the political innuendo in the silly season just before Election Day. 

Tricks (teamwise): The jury’s still out on the effect of the Blackhawks’ firing of coach Denis Savard basically five minutes into the season.  The team is 2-1-2 so far under Joel Quenneville.  While the Stars and Flyers struggled (to put it kindly) early, both seem to have picked it up recently, particularly the Flyers who have won four in a row and are living up to their tag of favorites in the Atlantic Division.  Predictably the Isles and Thrashers have struggled, but nobody else has been really bad so far.  Even the Kings have three wins.  Surprisingly however, the Red Wings have struggled defensively despite getting out to a 7-2-2 start.  Osgood and backup Ty Conklin have given up 37 goals in those 11 games…yikes.  Does the usually dominant D miss ancient Chris Chelios that much?!  I doubt it but something’s wrong in Motown besides the economy.