While we all enjoy reading about the brightest stars in the league, it's every now and then good to take a look at some of the heroes that don't get their names on the media coverage as much as they maybe deserve. I'll throw in some names that might appear on the name plates on silverware in the end of the season to surprise us all.
Let's start defence first to honor many coaches favorite clichés. Has anyone noticed that Minnesota Wild has been hovering on top of the NHL for some time now and doesn't look like going anywhere? The team is in bottom 5 of goals scored in the whole league but still manages somehow to stay on the winning end. This team really knows how to defend. They trap, block shots and have apparently three amazing goaltenders in the lineup. But who's leading the team to this workmanlike success? Wild captain Mikko Koivu leads the team in points and plus-minus. He plays almost the same minutes as the leading defensive pair in the team. He's in the rink on powerplay or while shorthanded. If Minnesota keeps up the rest of the season, this guy deserves the Selke trophy.
To the points race and Art Ross trophy. Now with Crosby out of the competition, there is actually a race for this. The Sedin twins are in the mix as always, newcomers like blossoming Claude Giroux and comeback-kid Phil Kessel are there to be followed. But there's also a Slovak threat in form of Marian Hossa, who seems to have found both his health and level of play after couple of sluggish years. The whole Chicago team is rocking and even on route for grabbing the Stanley Cup in the end. Hossa has taken over equally impressive Jonathan Toews and Patrik Sharp in the points race and is the hottest player on this massively talented squad at the moment. He's also leading his team in the plus-minus with +18 and has the perfect combination of offensive skills and experience to keep going steadily until the end of the season. Who knows if Hossa would end up on top of the points pile in springtime.
The new faces on NHL this season have been again really fun to watch. There seems to be no reason why 18 year old kids couldn't play with the older pro athletes. Take look at Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. He's actually so good that there's no one to challenge him in the offencive end this season for the Calder trophy. There's other kids like New Jersey's Adam Henrique and Philly's Matt Reed, but they cannot keep up with the number one pick's pace this season. So, the challenger for the trophy has to come from the defence lineup. The number one candidate may be New Jersey's other rookie called Adam. Yound Swedish defender Adam Larsson has played entertaining hockey on a mediocre Devils lineup. He's connecting really well with the offensive artists in the team like Ilya Kovalchuck. Unfortunately that playful style, while sometimes productive, also leads to quite bad numbers in the plus-minus. If he can turn up the defence skills a notch while not steering away from courageous, imaginative plays, there might be a chance to challenge the RNH for the Calder title. If not, well the wunderkind from Edmonton will raise that cup in the end.
Then the masked men. In the Vezina talks there's one guy who seems to fly constantly under the radar while really establishing himself as the backbone of a famed franchise. Detroit's Jimmy Howard leads the pack on wins and has very impressive stats on GAA (1.91) and save percentage (0.929). Still, the Vezina race he seems to always go unnoticed. Maybe it's the legacy of unforgettable Red Wings goalies like Dominik Hasek that keep on casting a shade on Howard's heroics. Detroit has been doing incredibly well this season with the lineup combining Hall of fame bound veterans like Datsuyk and Lidström with some rather unknown grinders. Comparing Howard's position behind this team to the setup for e.g. Tim Thomas and Marc-Andre Fleury should shine some light on how well he's played this season. Hopefully he gets the recognition he deserves in the ceremonies too.
Finally the ever so thrilling goals race. Rocket Richard trophy is likely seen as a race between rebounding Phil Kessel and last years' top cannon Steven Stamkos. However, right behind these guys is currently injured Ottawa Senator, Milan Michalek with 19 goals already under his belt. Michalek has the best accuracy by far on the top scorers and so far this season he's been phenomenal in finding the spots where the goals can be shoveled in. Okay, his wrister is definitely a dangerous weapon, but there has been numerous game highlights displaying Michalek backhanding or tapping in goals from goal mouth scambles or just on the perimeter of the scrum in front. If he returns to the lineup soon and keeps this pace, who knows where he'll land on the goals race in the end. The fun statistic for Michalek is that he only has 6 assists to goal with his bucketfull of goals. I wonder if it tells more about his skills to finish the play or trust for his linemates abilities in the same task.
It'll be fun to watch these sleeper picks for the rest of the season and see if they really can challenge the obvious candidates for the personal spotlight.
2011/12/19
2011/12/09
Violent times
The hockey news have recently started to feel more and more like a police report of some serial abuser. Is this a sign of rising tempers on the ice or just a mere reflection of the current world and its increasing focus on peeking into nasty incidents and filth? If the first theory is true, we'll be seeing a lot of Mr. Shanahan on the video clips to come. If the latter, well I guess it's time to look in the mirror and ask what are we relly looking for in the coverage of our favorite sport.
I'll chip in by producing another article on the violent topic. I'll try to inject some sense within the gallery of gore.
I'll try to avoid the Sidney Crosby threshold here, otherwise I'd have to write about every bump that happens in the game. Instead, I'll focus on some of the recent serious incidents on the rinks around NHL.
Let's start with fellow Finn Ville Leino of the Buffalo Sabres. I knew the guy was extremely talented, but his nasty elbow on the head of Flyers rookie sensation Matt Read was in its viciousness a tribute to superhuman limb coordination. Leino used his left knee to knock Read's stick up, his right foot to kick the puck to himself and delivered a "no-look elbow" straight to the head of the unsuspecting rookie. All this in a fragment of a second, with perfect coordination. One game suspension is light and likely mostly so because Shanahan, regardless of his unquestionable merits on ice, couldn't have pulled that off himself and thus writes it off as an reckless accident. Hopefully Read didn't get any damage on the play and Leino vents his frustration of unproductiveness on other levels of play in the future.
Moving then to a distinguished bad boy Krys Barch. On his first game as a Florida Panther, he managed to destroy Boston's Daniel Paille on a thunderous hit near the boards. Paille spent four games on the press box after vicious headshot in February. Conspiracy theorists should all already connect the dots on the fact that the victim on Paille's check was Raymond Sawada, then a teammate of Krys Barch in Dallas. Barch hasn't yet received a suspension on the hit, but Paille is very likely out with a concussion. To make matters worse for Daniel Paille, he just returned from some time off the roster after stopping a slap shot with his nose. The ratio of buck for pain is definitely getting worse for him. Tough guys..
On the same night, Edmonton Oilers' Andy Sutton jumped off the ice to smash Carolina's Alexei Ponikarovsky's head on the boards. That's a 245lbs of mean meat aimed directly at someone's head. He's been suspended a few times in the past for irresponsible hits on ice and this is just getting ridiculous. Ponikarovsky is a big guy himself and there's no info on his status, but I find it very unlikely that he'll be able to play for a while. Sutton on the other hand is suspended indefinitely and will likely be looking at some extended time on the stationary bike and gym. Definitely not on the ice for a while.
And to cap the night of irresponsibility, Colorado's fourth liner Kevin Porter's knee-on-knee hit destroyed David Booth's dreams of starting to click in the Vancouver Canucks' lineup. Booth is out for at least a month with knee injury and Porter sits out the next four games as reminder.
On a week where we already saw Nashville Predators' Jordin Tootoo get suspended for trying to re-concuss Buffalo's star goalie Ryan Miller and Dallas Stars' Mark Fistric get three games ban for jumping off the ice to knock Islanders' Nino Niederreiter out with concussion, this recent burst of violent incidents just seems to underline the dangers of this game.
But in the end, has anything changed? Ice hockey is, and will always be, a rough sport. The players know it and the fans expect it. The players are professionals and practice every day to be able to navigate the hazards on ice. You can't take the physicality off the game without changing the whole sport. Everyone knows that.
The league is working hard on limiting the number of severe injuries, especially on the head area. But at the same time these get picked up to the headlines way easier than before and thus portray the picture of ice hockey as more violent than ever. I wonder will this new focus on injuries subconsciously also program some of the game's loose cannons to aim for the spotlight? There must be a sociopath or two out there who'd like to steal the headlines for a day or two on the sports coverage, right?
I'll chip in by producing another article on the violent topic. I'll try to inject some sense within the gallery of gore.
I'll try to avoid the Sidney Crosby threshold here, otherwise I'd have to write about every bump that happens in the game. Instead, I'll focus on some of the recent serious incidents on the rinks around NHL.
Let's start with fellow Finn Ville Leino of the Buffalo Sabres. I knew the guy was extremely talented, but his nasty elbow on the head of Flyers rookie sensation Matt Read was in its viciousness a tribute to superhuman limb coordination. Leino used his left knee to knock Read's stick up, his right foot to kick the puck to himself and delivered a "no-look elbow" straight to the head of the unsuspecting rookie. All this in a fragment of a second, with perfect coordination. One game suspension is light and likely mostly so because Shanahan, regardless of his unquestionable merits on ice, couldn't have pulled that off himself and thus writes it off as an reckless accident. Hopefully Read didn't get any damage on the play and Leino vents his frustration of unproductiveness on other levels of play in the future.
Moving then to a distinguished bad boy Krys Barch. On his first game as a Florida Panther, he managed to destroy Boston's Daniel Paille on a thunderous hit near the boards. Paille spent four games on the press box after vicious headshot in February. Conspiracy theorists should all already connect the dots on the fact that the victim on Paille's check was Raymond Sawada, then a teammate of Krys Barch in Dallas. Barch hasn't yet received a suspension on the hit, but Paille is very likely out with a concussion. To make matters worse for Daniel Paille, he just returned from some time off the roster after stopping a slap shot with his nose. The ratio of buck for pain is definitely getting worse for him. Tough guys..
On the same night, Edmonton Oilers' Andy Sutton jumped off the ice to smash Carolina's Alexei Ponikarovsky's head on the boards. That's a 245lbs of mean meat aimed directly at someone's head. He's been suspended a few times in the past for irresponsible hits on ice and this is just getting ridiculous. Ponikarovsky is a big guy himself and there's no info on his status, but I find it very unlikely that he'll be able to play for a while. Sutton on the other hand is suspended indefinitely and will likely be looking at some extended time on the stationary bike and gym. Definitely not on the ice for a while.
And to cap the night of irresponsibility, Colorado's fourth liner Kevin Porter's knee-on-knee hit destroyed David Booth's dreams of starting to click in the Vancouver Canucks' lineup. Booth is out for at least a month with knee injury and Porter sits out the next four games as reminder.
On a week where we already saw Nashville Predators' Jordin Tootoo get suspended for trying to re-concuss Buffalo's star goalie Ryan Miller and Dallas Stars' Mark Fistric get three games ban for jumping off the ice to knock Islanders' Nino Niederreiter out with concussion, this recent burst of violent incidents just seems to underline the dangers of this game.
But in the end, has anything changed? Ice hockey is, and will always be, a rough sport. The players know it and the fans expect it. The players are professionals and practice every day to be able to navigate the hazards on ice. You can't take the physicality off the game without changing the whole sport. Everyone knows that.
The league is working hard on limiting the number of severe injuries, especially on the head area. But at the same time these get picked up to the headlines way easier than before and thus portray the picture of ice hockey as more violent than ever. I wonder will this new focus on injuries subconsciously also program some of the game's loose cannons to aim for the spotlight? There must be a sociopath or two out there who'd like to steal the headlines for a day or two on the sports coverage, right?
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