Let's walk away from the trade speculation for a short while and review the biggest point producers of late. The top of overall scoring list has very few surprises, both in and out. But lately there's been a few guys that have shown a reignited passion to break through to the scoring race.
Leading the pack is maybe the number one candidate for Art Ross trophy, Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin. He has a steady team to back him up and seems to love the spotlight while Sidney Crosby is out. Malkin is a monster in every aspect on the ice. Big, strong, shoots a lot and makes plays like the best of them. With confidence up, this guy is practically unstoppable. He seems also to possess somewhat unique ability to explode for 5 points every now and then (three times this season!). A feat not many have pulled out ever despite having tremendously successfull careers. Malkin is on a continuous hot streak with 6+8 in last ten games. A minus one rating is maybe a small dent in February.
Chasing Malkin is Tampa Bay's and the whole league's number one sniper, Steven Stamkos. This boy is on fire and is really aiming for the scoring title to go with his somewhat sure Rocket Richard trophy for most goals. Stamkos' shot is just phenomenal and it's going to be fun to watch this kid score for years to come. He might end up with a number in career goals column that only few can dream of. Last ten games he's gone through the roof with 9+7 and positive plus minus rating on a team that's going to fail to make it to the playoffs. Tough to beat.
The third kid on the top three is Philly's Claude Giroux. He's also only 24 and starts to fill all expectations set for him and more. He's been really consistent while the team has gone up and down throughout the season. January saw Giroux fall from the scoring lead but now he's back, making a statement that it won't be easy to walk over him on this one. Giroux has sort of sneaked into superstardom this season and it's really interesting to see if he really is this good. Malkin and Stamkos already have some silverware for memories. Giroux is 5+10 in the last ten games, but also falling to -3 to raise some questions.
Chasing these three kids we can see some slightly more experienced guys with rising productivity. Ottawa's Jason Spezza is really on fire with 8+9 in last ten and has brought the surprising Senators to almost sure playoff spot with his heroics. Some praise must be thrown to amazing young blueliner Erik Karlsson for coming up with massive offensive numbers to complement Spezza's feats.
Another late season blast comes from New Jersey in form of always so thrilling Ilya Kovalchuk. He's got the most points in the last ten in the league if you don't count Edmonton's Sam Gagner and his 8 point night. 6+12 and counting for Ilya, and he's stepped it up on even strength too to rack up +5 during the stretch. Spending 100M on this guy may feel just a little bit less painful for the ownership when Kovalchuk is on this mode. The dude is one of the fastest out there and sized like a bull. Throw in his shot that pales to no one and this is what you should expect. Hopefully Devils can keep Parise and Elias to set Kovy up also in the future.
Some of the all season top ten guys seem to have run out of steam a bit.. well if you can call point per game that. There's Toronto's wonder pair Kessel-Lupul and Vancouver's identically scoring Sedin twins. Steadily following also Mr. Selke, Pavel Datsuyk and Buffalo's brightest star, Jason Pominville. All of these are still within a striking distance, should the big guns relax a little.
It'll be extremely tight this year and the big prize seems to fall for one of the young bucks. Hurray for modern NHL and skill hockey.
Showing posts with label Art ross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art ross. Show all posts
2012/02/22
2011/12/19
Unsung heroes
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.
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.
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