Wednesday Grab Bag 1.16

The Good

Alex Prewitt of Sports Illustrated talked to a bunch of NHLers about their rookie dinners. A lot of gems in that one.

Brooks Orpik recently played his 1,000th NHL game. NBC Sports has a good write up on how someone like him has adapted his game to consistently stay in the league.

.@Steve_Dangle shares one of the greatest hockey stories you’ll ever hear on #IceSurfing.

Way to go, @PatrickOBrien29. 👏 pic.twitter.com/uBs4Wvvs88

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 16, 2019

Regardless of how you feel about Steve Dangle, this is a great story.

[protected-iframe id=”7b65a530d694ae3e91c7a11938281555-142507471-50437453″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/hoffmans-impressive-tally/t-277350912/c-64953103?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”360″] Call Forsberg, cause this was beautiful.

The Bad

The Anaheim Ducks, folks….they’re bad. Like, really bad.

When you’re waiving players you signed to four year deals…that’s not great.

Trigger warning – this is a little tough to watch. Zach Sanford of the Blues went into the boards awkwardly following a hit and definitely did not know where he was following the hit.

The Ugly

Former NHL All-Star John Scott is lucky to be alive. Maybe a bit of hyperbole, for those of us that have played pond hockey in our lives, this is Nightmare Number One.

Numbers

Standings

Now that we are into 2019, and about at the true midway point of the season, this section now includes the wild card races. In the interest of fairness (and my sanity) the four teams in the race for wild card will be included. Full standings can be found here.

Metropolitan 

	GP	Wins	Losses	OT	Points
CBJ	46	28	15	3	59
WSH	46	27	14	5	59
NYI	45	26	15	4	56

Atlantic

	GP	Wins	Losses	OT	Points
TB	47	36	9	2	74
TOR	45	28	15	2	58
BOS	46	26	15	5	57

Wild Card – Eastern Conference

		GP	Wins	Losses	OT	Points
WC1	MTL	48	26	17	5	57
WC2	PIT	46	25	15	6	56
	BUF	46	23	17	6	52
	CAR	46	22	19	5	49
	NYR	46	19	20	7	45

Central

	GP	Wins	Losses	OT	Points
WPG	46	30	14	3	62
NSH	48	28	16	4	60
COL	46	21	17	8	50

Pacific

	GP	Wins	Losses	OT	Points
CGY	47	30	13	4	64
SJ	48	28	13	7	63
VGK	49	28	17	4	60

Wild Card – Western Conference

		GP	Wins	Losses	OT	Points
WC1	DAL	47	23	20	4	50
WC2	MIN	46	23	20	3	49
	EDM	46	22	21	3	47
	VAN	47	21	21	5	47
	ANA	47	19	19	9	47

Points

Player	Team	GP	Goals	Assists	Points
Nikita Kucherov	TB	47	22	53	75
Connor McDavid	EDM	45	28	41	69
Johnny Gaudreau	CGY	47	27	42	69
Mikko Rantanen	COL	46	21	48	69
Nathan MacKinnon	COL	46	26	40	66

Save Percentage

Goalie	Team	GP	Save Percentage
Jack Campbell	LA	15	.930
Robin Lehner	NYI	24	.928
Andrei Vasilevskiy	TB	26	.925
Jaroslav Halak	BOS	23	.924
Anton Khudobin	DAL	21	.923

What These Numbers Tell Us: That whole “get into the top three of the Metro and stay there” strategy has hit a bit of a snag in the last week. The Pens went from having first place in their sights to…well, it’s still in their sights, the Metro is just extremely top-heavy. Win two of the next three and we’re right back after this. Doesn’t hurt that the Capitals got smoked last night, but doesn’t help that CBJ and the Islanders each won. The Pens, Caps, Jackets and Islanders are fairly evenly matched.

Edmonton sits two points back of the second wild card in the west. Even with that, McDavid has eclipsed everyone but Kucherov in the points race. I know that I often tell people to stop using the Penguins as their end-all-be-all for comparisons, but let’s look at this way: 2018-2019 is McDavid’s fourth NHL season. By this point in Crosby’s tenure, the Pens missed the playoffs his rookie season, lost in the first round his second, lost in the Final his third and won the Cup in his fourth.

So, with that in mind, Connor McDavid was their first overall pick in 2015, their fifth top-five pick in six years. Comparing that to the Pens, Crosby was their fourth top-five pick in five years. Since 2010, the Oilers have traded away: Taylor Hall (1st overall), Nail Yakapov (1st overall), Justin Schultz, Devan Dubnyk and David Perron. They’ve also thrown money at the likes of Lucic, Larsson, Russell and so many others to completely devoid McDavid of any help beyond his line.

By this point in Crosby’s career, he was surrounded by Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Marian Hossa (for a 1/4 of a season), Sergei Gonchar, Jordan Staal, Chris Kunitz and a myriad of other good depth. While Draisaitl and RNH certainly help, there is not much by way of help anywhere else on the Oilers roster.

The poor bastard either needs to go full LeBron and become the shadow coach and GM or demand a trade. They are doing him no favors.

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The Week Ahead

Two more games on the west coast and then it’s right to the All-Star Game and the bye week. Friday night the Pens take on the Coyotes. Their record does not reflect the fact that everyone on their roster is hurt. They sit six points back of the second wild card in the west and given that their IR looks like a World War I infirmary, that’s kind of impressive.

Know Your Enemy: Five for Howling

Then it’s from one desert to the next when the Pens are slated to play the defending Western Conference champion Golden Knights. There is no player on that team with any history with the Penguins so keep it.

Know Your Enemy: Knights on Ice

Well, one has to figure two out of a possible four is expected here. Arizona, despite the injuries is pretty bad, so that may be a night the Pens just lay down and decide for a night off while Vegas is a serious contender in the west. We’ll see how it goes and then we get a week of takes during the All-Star Game!

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