Saturday 31 March 2012

Northeast Division Update - March 31st, 2012

Place/TeamGames PlayedWINSLOSSESOTLPointsROWGFGADIFFHOMEAWAYS/OL10Streak
1. Boston Bruins78462849638257192+65

23-13-323-15-18-36-3-1WON 1
2. Ottawa Senators784028109034240230+1020-15-420-13-66-45-3-2WON 3
3. Buffalo Sabres793831108631208219-1120-12-818-19-27-66-2-2LOST 2
4. Toronto Maple Leafs79343697730222252-3017-16-717-20-24-54-5-1WON 1
5. Montreal Canadiens792935157324202221-1914-15-1015-20-55-112-3-5OT 1

Standings Update
There has not been any changes in the divisional standings since last week. Boston has increased there lead a bit, now at 6, ahead of Ottawa. Montreal and Toronto both are now mathematically out of playoff contention and are much closer to a lottery pick than the playoffs. Buffalo is still in the heat of the playoff race and missed an opportunity to stay tied with Washington when they lost to Toronto tonight.


Leafs Take Another Licking
Just over a week after they were destroyed by the Bruins 8-0, the Leafs suffered another embarrassing loss, this time to the Philadelphia Flyers. Leafs defenseman Luke Schenn was a minus-3, while his brother Brayden of the Flyers scored the first two goals of the game, and the second was eventually the game winner. Family bragging rights, Brayden.
                                                                           Pulling The Plug On Pierre
"Can you repeat the question, I couldn't hear you
over the happy screams of Habs fans"
Montreal fired there general manager Pierre Gauthier after a season full of unpopular decisions. For more info on the firing check this article out.

Matinee Matchups
There were two afternoon games today, Saturday, March 31st and the Northeast had two participants. The Boston Bruins took on the New York Islanders, winning 6-3 and the Ottawa Senators beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in a shootout, after blowing a 3-0 lead.

Erik "Point-Per-Game" Karlsson
With his one assist Saturday against the Flyers, Erik Karlsson recorded his 77th point of the season, while playing in 77 of Ottawa's 78 games. They are just 9 players that have played more than 40 games, who are averaging a point-per-game or better this season, and Karlsson is the only defenseman, and he is also the youngest of the group, older than Steven Stamkos by just 3 months.

Road Warrior
Jason Spezza has put the team on his back when they travel. He leads the entire league in road point, one ahead of Evgeni Malkin, with 42. Erik Karlsson is 5th in the same category with 38 points away from home. This has also given the Sens one of the best road records in the league at 20-13-6.

Senior Signings
The Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs both signed a college senior to entry-level deals. Buffalo signed Maine's Brian Flynn while Toronto signed Spenser Abbott. Want to learn more about these players, and other college signings, head over here.

Golfing Early
Carlyle getting his troops ready.
Montreal was the first team to be officially eliminated from the playoffs last week, and the Leafs have since joined them. They have not both missed the playoffs since 2007. The Leafs are yet to make the playoffs since the lockout, the last time they made the playoffs being the year prior to the lockout.

Lotto Pick Race
Columbus has locked up the last overall position and will have the greatest chance at choosing Nail Yakupov in June, but Montreal and Toronto both have a chance. Montreal is 3rd last in the league, and Toronto is 5th last, giving them both a stab at the first overall pick.

Missed Opportunity
Buffalo played the weaker Maple Leafs on Saturday looking to keep pace with Washington, who beat Montreal to move 2 points ahead of Buffalo. The Sabres were unable to get the win, losing 4-3 to Toronto and are now 2 points behind Washington for 8th.

Bruises In The Capital
Ottawa has a lot of skill on their team with Alfredsson, Karlsson, Spezza, Michalek etc. they also have some physical players. Zenon Konopka and Chris Neil are both in the top 5 in penalty minutes this season, Konopka with 193 in 3rd place and Neil with 169 in 4th place. Their physicality adds another element to the strong Senators, but it does take the skills players off the ice with all their penalty minutes.

Surviving Being Outshot
The Boston Bruins are the best team in the league when it comes to being outshot in a game. Boston has won 70% of the games in which they did not get more shots than their opponents.

Quick and Plentiful
Phanuef has been on the ice many
times a game for the Leafs.
Toronto's Dion Phanuef and Carl Gunarsson both rank in the top ten in number of shifts per game, Phanuef at 31.3 shifts/game and Gunnarsson at 30 shifts/game. Despite them being on for so many shifts per game, Phanuef barely cracks the top ten in time on ice per game in 9th with 25:21 TOI/game, and Gunnarsson is 68th in the league with 21:58 TOI/game. They keep the shifts short in Toronto.

Rask's Return
Boston's Tuuka Rask is near to returning to the lineup. With the playoffs quickly approaching, Rask is getting closer to returning. Though Tim Thomas will likely get all playoff starts, having Rask return as the backup will provide some security for the Bruins. He has been out since March 6th and has been rehabbing his knee injury since.

Crease Crashing
The Maple Leafs have had their troubles in net, but it hadn't been because of injury until this week. James Reimer re-aggravated his concussion, and so Jussi Ryannas was an emergency call-up. During the warm-up of the following game, Jonas Gustavsson went down when a puck hit him in the knee when he was not expecting it. Ryannas got the start against the Flyers, and it didn't exactly go well for him. Ben Scrivens was then re-called from the Marlies today to play for the Leafs as well.

April Fools!
The NHL has always had some interesting pranks happen on April Fool's day, and it will be interesting to see what they come up with this year.


Players To Watch:
- Jason Spezza. Spezza is on another hot streak. Earlier this season he had an 11 game point streak, and he is currently on a 4 game point streak recording 3 goals and 7 points. With the Senators in the heat of the playoff race, Spezza will have to continue working hard to keep them in the playoff picture.
- David Krejci. Krejci has 5 points in his last 3 games, 3 of those goals, for the Bruins as they look to solidify their spot atop the Northeast. It only took him 4 shots to get those 3 goals, so he has been picking his spots on the net and firing them hard.
- Rene Bourque. The main piece of the Mike Cammalleri trade, Bourque has not played well this season, especially of late. He was held pointless in 9 straight games, and 14 of his previous 15 games before scoring Montreal's lone goal Friday against the Rangers. Look for him to try and impress in the final 4 games, trying to validate the trade.
- Joey Crabb. He recorded 4 points in his previous 4 games prior to Saturday's game where he opened the scoring for the Leafs on a shorthanded breakaway. He also recorded his first multi-point game of the year last Saturday against the Rangers.
- Tyler Ennis. During Buffalo's amazing climb up the standings, Ennis has been a key part. He recorded 16 points in 15 games in March before tonight's game and 6 points in his previous 4 games.

Divisional Games:
Toronto @ Buffalo - Tuesday, April 3rd
Boston @ Ottawa - Thursday, April 5th
Buffalo @ Boston - Saturday, April 7th
Toronto @ Montreal - Saturday, April 7th

The season is nearly over and Ottawa and Buffalo will be in the race for 7th and 8th in their final games. It's getting exciting! Who do you think will make the playoffs out of the Northeast?


Thursday 29 March 2012

London Knights Sweep The Windsor Spitfires

The London Knights were looking
for the sweep
Game 4 in the first round OHL series between the Windsor Spitfires and London Knights went down on Thursday, March 29th. Windsor was the home team and were looking to fight off a sweep at the hands of the Knights.

Windsor came out quickly, peppering Knights goaltender Michael Houser early and took a quick 5-1 lead in shots and forced Houser to come up big. The Knights survived the onslaught and countered 4:09 in. Ryan Rupert scored on a goal that took a bad bounce and got by Windsor goalie Jaroslav Pavelka. Then about 4 minutes later, Windsor has a defensive lapse and Andreas Anthanasiou threads a pass through to Brett Welychka who goes top shelf on Pavelka on the partial break. A few minutes later, Brett Cook had the puck behind the net, and went to skate out front when Windsor forward Kerby Rychel poked it off his stick and into the net. A very even first period that had a bit of everything, hits, goals, great saves. A great period from Houser making 12 saves and a solid period from Pavelka making 8 saves and a few of them very key.

Leafs prospect Greg McKegg
scored a great goal on a 3 on 2.
Just a few minutes into the second period the Knights find themselves on a 3 on 2 and a great give and go between Vlad Namestnikov and Greg McKegg with McKegg finishing it off, and giving the Knights a 3-1 lead. Shortly after, Bo Horvat was on a partial breakaway and was hauled down by the Spitfire defenseman, drawing a penalty. Ryan Rupert grabbed his second goal of the game on that power play, making the game 4-1 Knights. Chris Tierney added another goal for the Knights in the second and it was 5-1. After that goal, things got chippy. Hits were being thrown around and Brett Welychka showed that he could drop the gloves as well, and was in a spirited tilt that I'll rule a tie. A scary moment for Knights fans when Olli Maata held the puck in at the line and tried to slip a check from Windsor's Hunter Smith when the two collided knee-on-knee and Maata had to leave the game. The extent of the injury is unknown right now, the Knights will be hoping it's not serious. That was all for the Knights dominated second period where they outshot the Spitfires 14-7.

Headshot
Cullen's even got a sweet
mustache.
A fairly tame first 3rd period by London-Windsor standards followed. There were a few pushes and a couple of misconduct penalties given to Windsor, but nothing too physical happened. Windsor brought in their back-up goalie John Cullen to finish off the game and season for the Spitfires. This is Cullen's last season and he's a favourite in Windsor and a classy move by the Spits to get him some game time in a game that slipped from their grasp. He even had a little fun, making a glove save then skating out to the circle to drop it and play it out. Windsor added another goal in the third to bring it to 5-2, and Ryan Rupert scored again on the powerplay to record his first playoff hat trick and his first three goals of this playoffs. Chris Tierney added his second of the game shorthanded to make it 7-2 with a much smaller crowd remaining. On that same power play for Windsor, Athanasiou broke away with his speed to get around the Windsor defense and slip one past Cullen for the second shorthanded goal of the powerplay for the Knights. Michael Clarke chipped one past Houser with 36 seconds remaining to bring it to 8-3. Windsor then put out all of their over-age players for one last shift of their OHL careers.

It was a hard-fought series between the two teams, even though the Knights swept it. It was a much closer series than the number of games would indicate. The Knights will look forward, and await their next opponent while Windsor can only reflect on their season and hope for better next year.

What did you think of the series? How will the Knights do the rest of the playoffs?