Penalty Minutes: Ducks on fire, Jones' impact with Preds; more

Penalty Minutes: Ducks on fire, Jones' impact with Preds; more

Published Oct. 22, 2013 8:29 p.m. ET


 
How much
firepower do the Ducks have -- even after trading four-time 30-goal
scorer Bobby Ryan in the offseason?
 
Enough
so that when they trailed Dallas 3-1 on Sunday at first intermission,
they simply fired off five unanswered goals in a 6-3
win.
 
Entering Tuesday's match in Toronto,
the Ducks were riding a seven-game unbeaten streak, longest in the
league this season. A win over Toronto gave Anaheim a chance for a
franchise-best eight wins in their first nine
games.
 
The usual suspects are leading the
charge for the Ducks: former Hart Trophy winner Corey Perry, Ryan
Getzlaf and ageless wonder Teemu Selanne, along with right wing Jakob
Silfverberg, who came over in the Ryan deal. The Ducks' start is
beginning to make general manager Bob Murray's decision to re-sign
Getzlaf and Perry to deals for a combined 16 years and $135 million last
March look prescient.
 
It also goes without
saying that coaching is a factor. Here at Penalty Minutes, we're a big
fan of Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau, not just because of his quotable,
media-friendly nature but also because he just might be the best coach
of offensive hockey in the NHL over the last decade or so. Boudreau
pointed the finger in the direction of Getzlaf, the captain, who spurred
the 6-3 win over Dallas with four
points.
 
"When the big man is leading and
getting points, he's a tough man to stop," Boudreau told the 'Orange
County Register.' "When he's going good, we usually go good as a
team."
 
Starting on Tuesday, the Ducks face a
daunting task: eight straight on the road. If they can continue their
torrid play, this season is shaping up as their best chance to win a
round in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since they last did it in
2009.
 

 
Perhaps a
snarky Wikipedia edit said it all last week: It listed New York Rangers
goalie Henrik Lundqvist as the owner of the Washington Capitals. The
same goalie who has vanquished the Capitals in playoff Game 7s in each
of the past two seasons notched a 2-0 shutout last Wednesday over the
Capitals, prompting the Internet
ruse.
 
Looking at the issue more globally,
the Capitals remain one of the NHL's most perplexing teams. Entering
Tuesday, only five teams in the NHL had fewer points than the Capitals'
six despite the fact that they owned the league's top power play and
that Alex Ovechkin is tied for the league lead in goals with
seven.
 
Only a Hart Trophy-winning
performance from Ovechkin saved them last year from failing to qualify
for the playoffs. Will a similar Herculean effort be required to rescue
them this year?
 
Clearly, offense is not the
problem. One thing that's hard not to notice is a series of moves that
have hamstrung the Capitals. Last spring, they traded the 11th overall
pick in 2012, forward Filip Forsberg, to Nashville in exchange for right
wing Martin Erat. Until he broke out with a three-assist performance in
a 4-1 win over Columbus on Sunday, Erat was reduced to a fourth-line
role, totaling just 6:20 in the loss to the Rangers. Erat's deal is
eating up $4.5 million in cap space this season and continues at that
number in 2014-15. Meanwhile, Forsberg looks promising, as he has begun
his rookie campaign with three points in seven games for the Predators
who are 5-1-1 in their last seven.
 
However,
Forsberg could become a footnote when considering the Erat deal because
Washington received that pick from Colorado in exchange for goalie
Semyon Varlamov, who is off to one of the best starts in the league,
tying for third in wins with a 5-1 mark, fifth in save percentage at
.950 and eighth in goals-against average at
1.68.
 
The Capitals also received a
second-round pick in the Varlamov deal, which they sent to Dallas along
with Cody Eakin in exchange for Mike Ribeiro. Ribeiro left Washington
via free agency and has seven points in seven games for Phoenix, whose
12 points tie them for the sixth-best record in the NHL. (Eakin, by the
way, has four points in eight games, tied for fourth on the
Stars.)
 
Goaltending often can be a
reflection of the team in front of it, but Washington ranks 25th in team
goals-against average at 3.09, along with a .905 team save
percentage.
 
One can only wonder how the
Caps might be faring if they had Varlamov in
goal.
 

 

The
Sharks still haven't lost in regulation and own an absurd goal
differential of plus-24 -- which means they're winning by almost three
goals per game.
 

The
Ducks have won seven straight, hottest team in the
league.
 

The Avs went on the road and
shut out Pittsburgh, the East's best team, 1-0, on
Monday.
 

Best record in the East, as
Sidney Crosby again leads the league in
points.
 

The defending Cup champions
aren't scoring much but have lost only once in
regulation.
 


Martin Brodeur's current .865 save percentage
stands as the lowest of his 21-year career. (Candice Ward-USA
TODAY Sports
)


 

Future Hall of Famer Martin
Brodeur (.865 save percentage, 3.40 GAA) has struggled
mightily.
 

After a 2-0 win over
Washington earlier in the week, they slept-walked through a 4-0 loss on
Saturday to rival New Jersey.
 

Co-leader in points, Taylor
Hall, will miss four weeks with a knee injury for the team with the
fewest points in the West.
 

Has
improved from averaging one goal per game to
1.3.
 

Hard to believe the Flyers
have the fewest points in the
league.
 


In a 5-2 win over
Detroit on Oct. 19, Smith became only the seventh goalie in NHL history
to shoot a puck into the opposing goal (a player is credited with a goal
when he is the last one on his team to touch the puck before it goes in
the goal, so other goalies have been credited with goals when the
opposing team mistakenly shot the puck into its own net). In addition to
Smith's goal -- which barely crossed the goal line before the final
buzzer sounded -- Smith made 31 saves on 33 shots in 60 minutes to pick
up the win.
 

In handing
San Jose its first -- and, to date, only -- loss of the season with the
winning shootout goal in a 4-3 win last Thursday, the rookie right wing
also had an assist, a plus-2 rating, six shots, two hits and two
blocked shots in 18:58, 3:09 on the power play and 2:08 shorthanded.
Dating to last season when he played seven games, Chiasson scored nine
goals in his first 10 games in the league. After scoring in each of his
first three this season, he has gone five straight without a
marker.
 


In a 5-0 loss to Boston
last Saturday, Hedman was on ice for all five of Boston's goals, causing
him to finish minus-5 with two shots in 19:24. Hedman, the second
overall pick in the 2009 draft, ranks fourth among Lightning defensemen
in average time on ice per game, having fallen behind rookie Radko
Gudas. It's starting to look like Tampa Bay might have picked the wrong
Swedish defenseman in that draft. Phoenix's Oliver Ekman-Larsson (sixth
overall) has evolved into one of the league's better young
defensemen.
 

 
It's hard to
say who will be more atwitter for this game, the Ottaouais (one of our
favorite French words because of all of those consecutive vowels) or the
Swedes. Yes, Daniel Alfredsson, the long-time Senator and formerly
Ottawa's captain, will play his first game against his old team now as a
member of the Detroit Red Wings after electing not to re-sign in the
(Canadian) nation's capital. Alfredsson chose to play where oodles of
his fellow countrymen also play -- the Wings have eight Swedes this
season -- prompting feelings of betrayal from his former fans. Alfie, as
he's affectionately known, was unhappy with Ottawa's contract offer
after feeling he was under-paid for years. He currently ranks third on
the Red Wings with nine points; Ottawa's best player entering the game
is Swede Erik Karlsson, the 2012 Norris Trophy winner who is averaging a
whopping 27:46 per game and ranks third on the Senators in scoring. The
game also happens to be an Atlantic Division matchup, now that Detroit
moved to the Eastern Conference as part of the league's
realignment.
 


Seth Jones' average ice time ties him for the
most per game by a rookie defenseman since 2001. (Eric
Bolte-USA TODAY
Sports
)


 
When we
saw Nashville Predators general manager David Poile mention his rookie
defenseman Seth Jones in the same breath as Hall of Famer Scott Stevens
to the 'Ottawa Sun's Chris Stevenson over the weekend, it got our
attention and we wanted to follow up.
 
Poile
mentioned Jones' name in the sense that in his 32 years as an NHL
general manager, Jones and Stevens are the only two rookie defensemen in
their draft year to step in and play for his teams from the start of
the season.
 
"They're different types of
players but we all know where Scott Stevens, his career ended up --
Stanley Cups and the Hall of Fame," Poile said. "My point was that Seth
Jones, after six games, is making significant contributions, as was
Scott Stevens right out of his draft
year."
 
It's also worth noting that Poile
took Stevens fifth overall for Washington in 1982 and Jones fell to him
at No. 4 overall this year, which is starting to look like the steal of
the draft. After Jones' highlight-reel, game-winning goal on Saturday in
Montreal, one of the league's hotbeds of the sport, more observers are
going to take notice, if they weren't
already.
 
Jones is averaging 24:28 per game,
which, according to research by the Predators' broadcast team at FOX
Sports Tennessee, ties him for the most time on ice per game for a
rookie defenseman since 2001. Atlanta's Tobias Enstrom averaged that
much in 2007-08. Los Angeles' Drew Doughty in 2008-09 and Pittsburgh's
Ryan Whitney in 2005-06 each averaged 23:50, tying them for
third.
 
Increasingly -- starting at about
Doughty's draft year of 2008 -- rookie defensemen began stepping in
right away and logging heavy minutes, a phenomenon that previously did
not exist; sort of like NFL quarterbacks requiring years of learning on
the bench, the same was true of defensemen, who toiled in the minors to
learn their craft.
 
Poile, general manager
of the 2014 U.S. Olympic team, credits these players' improved
development, particularly in the case of the U.S. National Team
Development Program in Ann Arbor. Jones came out of that program, as did
Jacob Trouba, selected ninth overall this year by Winnipeg. Until he
got hurt last Friday against St. Louis, Trouba was logging about 23-plus
minutes per night. Other U.S. rookie defensemen to make an impact out
of that program were Anaheim's Cam Fowler and Carolina's Justin Faulk,
both drafted in 2010.
 
"They're really
cranking out a lot of good players, not only in quantity but also mostly
in quality," Poile said.
 
Poile said Jones
has benefitted from his size (6-4, 205) and maturity but also from
playing with two-time Norris Trophy finalist Shea Weber on defense. With
Jones being mentioned in the same sentence as Stevens and former
Predator Ryan Suter, his expectations are sky high. But so far, he's
showing why.

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