Since Ken Hitchcock took over as coach of the St. Louis Blues, they have become one of the hardest teams in the league to score against, but they have not exactly lit the scoreboard afire themselves. The Blues finished 17th and 21st in the league in goals-per-game in each of the previous two seasons while qualifying for the playoffs with some pretty strong records.
On those teams Alexander Steen has been one of the Blues top scorers, twice hitting the 20-goal plateau while netting an impressive 15 last season in 43 games. They were nice totals but not league-leading.
So far the Swede (born in Winnipeg when his father Thomas played for the previous incarnation of the Jets) is enjoying a breakout season, as his 10 goals are tied for the league lead in only nine games played. We are reminded here that Steen stands but 5-foot-11 and when we spoke to Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford last year before the NHL Draft on the topic of teams' wanting to add size, he noted that the player who had just won the Conn Smythe Trophy, Patrick Kane, would be considered small, about the same size as Steen.
Smaller players, it seems, can still be potent scorers and the Blues are thankful to have one. They own the league's top power play at 30.3 percent (Steen has three of their 10) and rank second in the league in goals-per-game at 3.78, as Steen has accounted for nearly 30 percent of their total of 34.
"Pucks are going in for me recently and I'm riding this as long as I can," Steen said after scoring on Saturday against Nashville. "I realize I am on pace with (the Capitals' Alex) Ovechkin. It's great to be with him because he has been doing this for nine years. I've been doing this for nine games."
Teammate T.J. Oshie said Steen has a great release and gets to good areas from which to shoot. That release has Steen shooting an absurd league-best 38.5 percent, almost eight percent higher than the league's No. 2 shooter.
"I've been saying he has been underrated for years and people are finally starting to realize what he can do on the ice," Oshie said.
Maybe he won't be underrated for much longer.
A gander at the NHL's overall standings on Tuesday morning revealed that nine of the 10 worst records in the league belonged to teams in the Eastern Conference. (Edmonton is the only Western Conference outlier.)
For the last few seasons it had appeared that the balance of power in the league had swung to the West, not only with three of the last four Stanley Cup champions emanating from that conference but also as the sheer preponderance of talent seemed to have migrated that way, as well.
The former schedule matrix was able to mask this trend to a slight degree until the Cup Final itself, as teams from each conference did not play each other as often -- particularly last season when the lockout shortened the season to 48 games and teams did not cross over at all.
However, the NHL's new realignment plan and schedule matrix provided the most balanced schedule between East and West in years. Western teams now play 32 non-conference games apiece -- an increase of 44 percent -- while Eastern teams play 28 non-conference games apiece, a 36-percent increase. (The East has 16 teams to the West's 14, resulting in the imbalance). In 2011-12, the previous 82-game season, teams only played 18 non-conference games and not every team played in every other team's arena. This season, as part of the change, each team will play in all 29 other arenas.
Previously, Eastern teams rarely had to leave their own time zone, especially under a schedule matrix from the early 2000s in which teams played only 10 non-conference games, visiting one five-team division, hosting another road while not seeing the third not at all. In that case, if an Eastern Division was matched up for road travel with the Central Division, it played Detroit and Columbus, both in the Eastern Time Zone, and three others in the Central Time Zone with the other five games at home.
Now, Eastern teams are learning about the onerous travel that their Western counterparts have long endured (which is the major reason Detroit wanted so badly back into the East.) The New York Rangers started their season on a nine-game road trip and went 1-4 in their first five games. The last four games were against Eastern teams and they went 2-2 in those.
The Rangers' six points are tied for the second fewest in the league. The other nine teams in the bottom 10 in the standings (from best to worst) are: Carolina, Columbus, Ottawa, Washington, New Jersey, Florida, Philadelphia and Buffalo.
It also works the other way at the top end of the standings, as Western teams own the league's top five records with only Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh and Toronto cracking the top 10.
For now, the West, as Jim Morrison said, is the best.
Joe Thornton and the Sharks lead the league in scoring at 3.9 goals per game. (Kelly L. Cox-USA TODAY Sports)
Still kicking butt and taking names. Entering Thursday, the Sharks are 10-1-2 with a plus-27 goal differential.
The Avalanche still have only one loss in regulation. Matt Duchene's nine goals are just two off the league lead.
After losing their first two on an eight-game trip, the Ducks won their next two.
Did GM Steve Yzerman finally find his goalie in 6-8 Ben Bishop? His seven wins are tied for third in the NHL.
The defending Cup champions are slowly getting back in the groove and still only have two regulation losses in 13 games.
Injured goalie Tim Thomas isn't helping a minus-16 goal differential.
Mediocre goaltending and bad defensive play by young forwards is a toxic mix.
The Flyers finally won two in a row (before blowing yet another two-oal, third period lead Tuesday vs. Anaheim) but remain eight points out of a playoff spot.
Scoring remains a struggle, wit their 18 goals representing the league low.
Ryan Miller is 1-9. Is he the next one to get shipped out of town?
After scoring 112 goals the last four seasons, Matt Moulson has continued his hot touch as a Sabre. (Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports)
In his first game as a Sabre after being traded by the New York Islanders for Thomas Vanek on Monday vs. Dallas, Moulson scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season in 19:48 and finished with a plus-1 rating, four shots and two takeaways. This trade has us completely puzzled from the Islanders' perspective. With 112 goals over the previous four seasons, Moulson has been one of the league's most reliable scorers. While over the same time period, Vanek, a two-time 40-goal scorer, has 116 goals. Why did the Islanders feel the need to throw in a first-round pick in 2014 and a second-round pick in 2015? Both players will be free agents following this season. If the Islanders cannot re-sign Vanek and cannot win a playoff round for the first time in 20 years -- they gave Pittsburgh a heck of a series last year -- this deal could end up being a disaster.
In a 6-5 overtime loss to Tampa Bay last week, Seabrook turned in the equivalent of a Houdini act -- or just some excellent play for a defenseman once considered a Norris Trophy candidate when the Blackhawks won the Cup in 2010. Somehow, he managed to stay off ice for all six Lightning goals while being on ice for all four of his team's, as he went plus-4 in 21:57 of time on ice with an assist, two hits and a giveaway. To compare, fellow defenseman Johnny Oduya went minus-3, as did forward Patrick Kane.
In a 4-1 loss to Washington last Thursday, the Oilers' young guns were on ice for all four Capitals' goals. Each of them finished minus-4 in, respectively, 21:49, 19:08 and 22:32. As the Oilers, with so many high picks invested in their young forwards, wait to see the payoff in their investment of patience, the growing pains have been difficult. Eberle, 23, was the 22nd overall pick in 2008, Nugent-Hopkins, 20, was the first overall pick in '11 and Yakupov, 20, was the first overall pick in '12 -- but it's not getting Edmonton anywhere and one of those players, Yakupov in particular, could be trade bait. With Edmonton the cellar-dweller in the highly competitive Pacific Division, one can only wonder how long the organization will remain patient.
For the first time since the Devils' former captain Zach Parise left his old team via free agency following their run to the Cup Final in '12, these two teams meet. The Devils' descent into the bottom of the league began with Parise's move to his native Minnesota and accelerated this past offseason with Ilya Kovalchuk's decision to return to the KHL and David Clarkson's signing in Toronto. Only three teams had fewer points than the Devils' eight entering Tuesday. Meanwhile, Minnesota has gone through fits and starts. Currently, the Wild have the eighth-most points in the West but are tied for having played the third-most games in the league at 13. Parise, of course, leads the Wild in points with six goals and three assists.
Alex Ovechkin's hot finish to 2012-13 has carried over to this season in the form of 10 goals in his first 10 games. (Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports)
For a couple of years following his last 100-point season in 2009-10, the burning question had become a topic of debate in the nation's capital and in hockey circles much like the recent government shutdown: What was wrong with Alex Ovechkin?
Since the second half of last season, Ovechkin has answered that question in a resounding manner with his play.
Over the final 23 games of the 2012-13 season, he netted 23 goals. He then began this season with 10 goals in his first 10 games, giving him 33 in 33 games (he has gone scoreless in his past two).
This led us to wonder what it would mean if Ovechkin could score 50 goals in 50 games, even if it had to stretch back to last season. While eight players have scored 50 goals in a season in 50 games or less, only five have done it in their team's first 50 games (the three others might have missed games because of injury or some other such reason).
When Mike Bossy did it with the New York Islanders in 1980-81, he became only the second player to do it since Montreal's legendary Maurice Richard and the first player to accomplish the feat in 36 years. Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull are the others who scored 50 in 50 games or less in the same season.
Bossy, now executive director of corporate relations with the Islanders, said he remembers those 50 games vividly and that, as he got closer, he received death threats, which the Montreal native said some suspected might have come from his hometown itself.
Bossy said for Ovechkin to equal the feat, in his mind, he would have to score 50 goals in the first 50 games of the 2013-14 season -- not stretching back to last season.
"I don't think it's a matter of taking a luster off," he said. "I'm one of five who have done it in one season and to me it's a season feat and it's not an overlapping feat. Honestly, with all due respect to Alex, if it's not done in one season it's not the same thing."
Once a mainstay in the NHL, the 50-goal scorer has gone the way of the complete-game pitcher in Major League Baseball. In the previous 10 seasons in which 82 games were played, only 23 were recorded. Compare that to 1992-93 when 14 players hit the mark.
While improved coaching and defensive coverage have a lot to do with that, Bossy said in his day tactics were different. These days, the league has cracked down on restraining fouls -- hooking, holding, slashing -- which were given free rein in his day.
"I had a guy hanging on my back the whole time I played," he said. "There's no doubt that watching games today, yes, the defensive coverage is a lot more strategic now and it's more of a team defense than it used to be. But in at least 50 or 60 percent of games I played back then, I had a guy who didn't care if he touched the puck all night. His whole success of his game was whether he kept me off the score sheet."
If Ovechkin happened to score 50 in a 50-game span over the past two seasons, it might not inspire the hysteria that Bossy did almost 33 years ago but it might provide a nice jolt for the league in terms of excitement around the idea of the 50-goal scorer, of which the league has had only three in its previous two 82-game seasons.
"To get 50 goals in 50 games is a remarkable feat, no doubt about that," Bossy said, "it's just if it's over two seasons . . ." his voice trailed off.
Now if Ovechkin could score 50 in 50 this season, that could be something magical again.
