There were plenty of wild games on Thursday night. The Sabres won a wild 7-6 game against the Ducks. The Senators came from 5-1 down to get a point before ultimately losing in overtime. However, the Mammoth game against the Penguins took the cake. Kindel scored with 24 seconds left, just for Logan Cooley, a Pittsburgh native, to complete his hat trick with one second remaining in the game. Sergachev went on to win the game in overtime. Cooley now has seven goals and eight assists in 14 games. Yes, the shot rate is quite poor, but we can't complain about those results. His shot rate is up quite a bit lately, so perhaps it could get better. Cooley does seem like he's on the path of a Robert Thomas type of season, but if he does get to two shots per game or even higher, we could be getting a top 50 season. Let's take a look at what else happened the last two nights:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful!
It’s double duty for your guy, MarmosDad, this week!
After writing just under 4000 words on this past weekend’s NHL action, I’m back again for our Tuesday night roundup!
I managed to squeeze in a quick snooze before the 7:00 games started up, but I guess I didn’t tune in early enough as the Leafs were already down 1-0 when I turned the game on 5 minutes after puck drop.
But don’t worry, fans. The Blue Jackets Fam door was wide open, and the torrential downpour that followed soon after soaked everyone in Leaf showers.
Sure, Columbus got the chickens and pigs in before it got too muddy. But they couldn’t get the Cowan.
Tuesday marked the return of The Frozen Frenzy, where every team in the league plays in a stand alone time slot. It's a cool concept, but I can't understand for the life of me why this doesn't happen on a Saturday instead? I digress. The second game of the night was Florida against the Blue Jackets, and the Florida superstars destroyed Columbus 7-3. They were led by the Tkachuk brothers, with Brady Tkachuk scoring a hat trick, his first goals as a Panther, while Matthew Tkachuk dished five assists. Matthew was off to a very good start, while Brady started woefully. I haven't seen anything to think the switch to Florida is going to bring a drastic change to Brady's fantasy value. He does seem to be shooting the puck a bit less, mostly cutting up the hopeless, bad angle shots. His spot on the top power play unit is locked in as long as Barkov is out, so for now, enjoy the production that you're getting. Let's take a look at what else happened on Tuesday night:
It was a very difficult start to open the season for the Ducks, opening at Vegas before hosting the Panthers. Here we are on Sunday night with the Ducks winning both games. They stormed out to a 4-0 lead against Vegas, holding on to win 4-3, before beatong the Panthers 3-2 in overtime. Leading the charge? The man who broke the NHL pay scale this offseason, Leo Carlsson. Carlsson had a goal and an assist against the Golden Knights before dishing three assists against Florida. Last season, Carlsson started the year with 34 points in his first 25 games before injury derailed him. If he can stay healthy and play to his potential, the 21 year old has a chance to reach 100 points. I had him ranked just outside the top 50 overall because we saw that he could be a fringe top 100 guy for an extended period, but I'd bet on him being inside the top 50 come the end of the season. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful!
Matthew Knies (2 G, +1, 2 PIM, 4 SOG, 2 H) is one of the only bright spots shining on the sinking ship that is the Toronto Maple Leafs’ season. His second-period shorthanded goal was a thing of beauty. Knies intercepted a weak Bruins pass, pushed aside Mason Lohrei, who looked a lot less powerful than his 6’5” frame would suggest, like an empty paper plate, and threw a nifty head fake on Jeremy Swayman before roofing a nice lickety-split wrister over the netminder’s glove.
As much as this was a nice opportunity for the Bruins to pad their lead over Columbus, Montreal, and Detroit in the extremely tight playoff race, this tiny snapshot in time was an equally important reminder for Leaf fans that the team needs to do a lot of other “retooling or rebuilding” that DOES NOT involve trading their 23-year-old sniper.
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful!
Well, fantasy baseball drafts are in full swing (pun relatively unintended), and I’m knee deep in preparations and writing for those.
And I’ve been sick for three days.
But…HOCKEY IS BACK! And I’m pretty excited to have an 11-game schedule of matchups to run down for y’all on the last Tuesday night of games before the Friday afternoon trade deadline.
As for more names on the trade block? Well, I can guarantee this guy isn't going anywhere.
After missing the playoffs for fourteen straight seasons, I keep waiting for the Sabres to slump, but instead, they keep getting better. On Friday, they had a big 3-2 regulation win in Florida. If that wasn't enough, on the second of a back to back, they absolutely destroyed Tampa 6-2, including a 5-0 lead less than two minutes into the second period. Only the Colorado Avalanche have more regulation wins this season than the Sabres. What's been different this week is that Josh Norris has actually been in the lineup. Norris had an assist with three shots against the Panthers, before scoring two goals against the Lightning. As has been the case for Norris for four straight seasons, he's been hampered with injuries. The good news is that he's dominated when he's played this season, sitting with 8+12 in 22 games. The shot rate is poor so I wouldn't necessarily hold, but he's an elite streamer who probably belongs on the fringe. Ride the production while you can. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful!
We’re smack-dab in the middle of Olympic chaos, and Wednesday’s playoff round looks like a doozy.
I’m not even sure which game I’m looking forward to watching more: David Pastrnak vs Team Canada or the Swedish berries/fish/meatballs vs Team USA.
Luckily, we don’t have to look into too much of that for right now, because it’s time to pair up last week’s trade deadline preview with the other side of the league. If you missed it last week, you can click the link here…
It's not that often that you see a team score 10 goals in a game. In fact, it didn't happen all of last season. It did on Saturday, with the Bruins smashing the Rangers 10-2 in the afternoon. It's no surprise that the two highest game scores of the season were Bruins in this game. It's definitely not a surprise that one was David Pastrnak, who dished a whopping six assists in the game, adding five shots on goal. The huge surprise was Marat Khusnutdinov, who scored four goals and an assist, finishing +6. While he didn't record any stats in Boston's game on Sunday, Khusnutdinov did have three assists in his previous four games. He's currently on the first line with Pasta, so he's worth bumping into the middling streamer range. There's some upside here, but he only had seven shots in his previous eight games combined, so that will need to drastically change for anything more. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful!
What did the Buffalo say to his boy before dropping him off at college?
I don’t know for sure. I mean, I’m not a creeper or an obsessive stalker of bison, but I do know one thing.
Despite the frosty January nights in Western New York, there’s one group of hockey players that is about as hot as the surface of the sun and is certainly not saying, “Brrr.”
The Columbus Blue Jackets spoiled Buffalo’s win streak on Saturday (5-1 CLM), but the Sabres were BACK Tuesday night at home vs Vancouver.
Early on, I had things written up looking like we'd get a blowout from Buffalo, but the Canucks made it interesting with a late push and three straight unanswered goals after the 10-minute mark of the third period.
In the end, it was the Sabres’ 11th win in their last 12 games, and a leapfrog over the Panthers into the top four spots of the Atlantic division.
Was that the only exciting bit from last night’s schedule?
Atlantic Division Preview here
Metropolitan Division Preview here
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful!
It’s your new/old hockey writing friend, MarmosDad, back with another divisional preview as we start knocking games off of the NHL calendar.
Last week, I gave you the final Eastern Conference preview with the Metropolitan Division (you can click it to check it out!).
This week, we head West with a peek at the Central division, and boy, am I excited to get rolling on this one!
I nearly jumped the gun and went straight to the Central when I started writing these up, just because I’m kind of obsessed with a certain Winnipeg Jets prospect who opened some eyes in training camp.
That should be enough of a teaser to get us through this preview, especially because the Jets round out our teams at the bottom of our profiles today.
So let’s close our eyes, take a deep breath, and try to find our Central, er, center, as we head out to visit the place with the least creative division name of all…
Things are shaking out differently than I expected in Detroit. I thought Petr Mrazek was brought in to be the backup to Talbot, but he’s started three consecutive games. After losing to his former team, the Hurricanes, on Friday 4-2 (saved 28/31 shots), he came back with an 18 save shutout victory in the 3-0 win over the Golden Knights. Please, blog, may I have some more?
