Never Change
Some choice quotes in this Sylain St. Laurent story in Le Droit – “Robin Lehner’s ambition is no secret“:
“The world does not yet know the real Robin Lehner. The next two years will be crucial for me. I still have plenty to prove. I know that people continue to doubt my abilities. My job, as of now is to prove to these people that I will be able to play and I’ll be able to shine in the NHL.”
“Everyone tells me since last year I need to play often. I am told that at my age, I have nothing to gain by warming the bench in the NHL. I do not think so. If I get to train every day with the NHL pros, I will learn many new tricks. When I reach a level of excellence in training, I am ready to play matches.”
You can be sure the media will be mining Robin for copy during training camp, can’t wait.
Century Club
It may be quite some time before we see another 100 point season by a Senator in Ottawa. However I think there’s a decent chance that four Senator prospects will notch 100 this season in the CHL. Their 2010-11 stat-lines are below:
Mark Stone – GP 71 G 37 PTS 105
Shane Prince – GP 59 G 25 PTS 88
Jean-Gabriel Pageau – GP 67 G 32 PTS 79
Stefan Noesen – GP 38 G 34 PTS 77
Stone should be a threat again, and Prince certainly would of hit 100 last year if not for injury. Pageau just got stronger as the season went on and paced his team with 29 points in 24 games in the playoffs. Noesen’s progression has been similarily brisk; here’s Plymouth GM and Head Coach Mike Velluci making the case for Stefan last week on The Pipeline Show:
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got close to a 100 this year. He played so well for us last year, and more than just points he played good defensively and was just a great leader. And this year I think his conditioning is even better, he took it up a notch and is just a little more confident. And playing with JT (Miller) and (Rickard) Rakell for a full season, I expect him to at least tack on another 20 more.”
Of course games missed due to injury and the WJC will play a factor. Nevertheless it should be an interesting thread to follow throughout the season.
USA U20 Camp
Speaking of Noesen and Prince, Corey Pronman has scouting reports on all the invitees to the US WJC orientation camp in Lake Placid. You can find that article here at Hockey Prospectus.
Point Shares
Kuklas Korner recently has been highlighting point shares as a hockey sabermetric as inspired by Bill James invention of win shares in baseball. The quick and dirty explanation being a team’s total points are split according to an individual players contribution and expressed as a percentage. The perils and difficulties of advanced stats in a free-flowing game like hockey are well documented, and this measure is by no means perfect. But I applaud the effort, and it’s a nice compliment to the other means of individual player rating – Goals Versus Threshhold*.
Justin Bukatko is the creator of this new metric which can only be found in the Hockey Reference database. Every player profile now has point shares deliniated into offensive, defensive and a combined total. You can search by season, team, position, etc. I am already addicted.
* Don’t mean to pile on, but if anyone doubted what their eyes were telling them…Brian Elliott had the worst GVT in the league last season.
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