Well, it’s surely been a week. A shootout loss to the New Brooklyn York Islanders, a drubbing from the Leafs and then an ass-kicking from the Devils. They have the champs in DC tonight. Good times!
It’s still (relatively) early, but boy there have been plenty of takes and tweets. Here’s some of the stuff you may have missed or just want to revisit from this past week in hockey internets.
Links:
The Good
The Capitals will be donating 50% of the proceeds of their 50/50 raffle tonight to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. Thank you, Caps.
Where do I sign up for the Crosby-Malkin Step Brothers style movie?
[protected-iframe id=”0671583fe88589a22f897a57fa60e326-142507471-50437453″ info=”//players.brightcove.net/1704050871/rkedLxwfab_default/index.html?videoId=5856900881001″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=””]This might not be one to put under “good” but it will hopefully encourage a good debate. Gary Bettman, deserving of the Hall of Fame? Sure, there’s been three lockouts and the entire concussion saga, but there’s also been a lot of good. The league is more profitable than ever, he’s overseen unprecedented growth and we as Pens fans can’t hate him too much. He stepped in and kept the team here. He’s not without his flaws, but he has done a lot of good for this league.
Time for more debate: for my old school gamers, which did you prefer? Blades of Steel or Nintendo Ice Hockey? Wyshynski breaks it down.
The Bad
From Monday morning: The Penguins are slipping in this chart. What does that mean? They’re chasing the puck more than they’re possessing it. Not a recipe for success.
Shot share
Due to the ever-so-slight improvements by ANA and the bottom-drop-complete-collapse by OTT, these two teams find themselves linked at the bottom of the chart. That's not good. pic.twitter.com/Mhb6g8Kx5N
— Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey) November 5, 2018
Hahahahahaha Ottawa players have checked out. It’s barely November. Laughing at the Senators aside, what a total scumbag move by this Uber drive filming, uploading and sharing this. I know we try to stray from political-type debates here, but one-party consent is bullshit. Rightly or wrongly, what these guys said was something they expected to be between them on a night away from the rink. They shouldn’t have to worry about their Uber driver filming that conversation.
The Ugly
LA…it’s not your coach. It’s that you have the oldest roster in the NHL. By like, a lot.
No realistic chance you missed it, but the Blackhawks fired Joel Quenneville yesterday. Mark Lazerus of The Athletic had a very, very damning piece about their front office situation.
“At the end of the 2016-17 season, Bowman fired Quenneville’s best friend and closest confidante, assistant coach Mike Kitchen. In June that year, Bowman traded away Quenneville’s favorite and most trusted player, Niklas Hjalmarsson. That same day, Bowman traded away Quenneville’s second-best offensive weapon (and Patrick Kane’s favorite player), Artemi Panarin. Quenneville famously stormed out of the pre-draft meeting after learning of the Hjalmarsson news.”
Seems like Bowman (who should be fired into the sun) had been trying to make this move for awhile.
Numbers
Standings
Metropolitan
| GP | W | L | OT | PTS | |
| NYI | 14 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 18 |
| CBJ | 15 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 17 |
| PIT | 13 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 15 |
| WSH | 13 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 15 |
| PHI | 15 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 15 |
| NYR | 15 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 15 |
| CAR | 15 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 14 |
| NJD | 13 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 13 |
Atlantic
| GP | W | L | OT | PTS | |
| TB | 15 | 11 | 3 | 1 | 23 |
| TOR | 15 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 20 |
| BOS | 14 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 18 |
| MTL | 15 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 18 |
| BUF | 15 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 16 |
| OTT | 15 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 15 |
| DET | 15 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 12 |
| FLA | 11 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 9 |
Central
| GP | W | L | OT | PTS | |
| NSH | 14 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 22 |
| MIN | 14 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 18 |
| WPG | 14 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 17 |
| COL | 14 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 17 |
| DAL | 15 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 17 |
| CHI | 15 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 15 |
| STL | 13 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 13 |
Pacific
| GP | W | L | OT | PTS | |
| CGY | 15 | 9 | 5 | 1 | 19 |
| SJS | 15 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 19 |
| VAN | 16 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 19 |
| EDM | 15 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 17 |
| ANA | 16 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 15 |
| ARI | 13 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 14 |
| VGK | 15 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 13 |
| LA | 14 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 11 |
Points
| Player | Team | GP | Points |
| Mikko Rantanen | COL | 14 | 24 |
| Connor McDavid | EDM | 15 | 22 |
| Nathan MacKinnon | COL | 14 | 21 |
| Evgeni Malkin | PIT | 13 | 20 |
| Patrice Bergeron | BOS | 14 | 20 |
Save Percentage
| Goalie | Team | GP | SV% |
| Jaroslav Halak | BOS | 8 | .952 |
| Pekka Rinne | NSH | 7 | .948 |
| Thomas Griess | NYI | 9 | .940 |
| Semyon Varlamov | COL | 9 | .936 |
| Andrei Vasilevskiy | TB | 11 | .935 |
| John Gibson | ANA | 13 | .933 |
| Casey DeSmith | PIT | 7 | .932 |
What These Numbers Tell Us: Casey The Smith cracking the top ten is pretty cool and will inspire all of zero takes, I’m sure of it.
The PDO Gods can be a cruel, cruel mistress. Last year? Everything went in for Vegas and it didn’t matter which goalie they had in net, nothing went in. This year? Fleury & co. can’t make a save and they can’t score.
The Metropolitan Division-leading Islanders are a stunning +11 in goal-differential. It doesn’t hurt that Griess is playing out of his damn mind.
Arizona dropped their Monday matchup with Philly, but they are on the rise and in Pittsburgh Saturday night. They’re finally a team on the rise.
On the other side of the coin, what the hell is up with Florida? I know that losing Luongo early was a blow to that roster, but 3-5-3, -7 goal differential and last in what might be one of the weaker divisions in hockey is not where I at all expected them to be come November. Long season and there’s enough there for them to make a wild card push, but not a promising start.
Connor McJesus and his band of merry men have finally propelled him into the top five in scoring. Given how he is basically their entire offensive attack, I’m surprised it took this long. As we said last week, Geno is quietly making a case for another Art Ross Trophy and seemingly, no one gives a shit!
Rinne, as always, finds himself in a Vezina conversation early on and into the regular season. The question still remains if he stays hot in the postseason or if he does what he always does and folds like a cheap lawn chair once the calendar flips to April. Nashville, San Jose and Winnipeg are head and shoulders the class of the west, but only Nashville’s success can be determined in net.
The Week Ahead:
As stated earlier, the Pens are in DC tonight for a date with the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals. With everything they’ve gone through the past week, you have to figure they’re fired up for this one.
Know Your Enemy: Russian Machine Never Breaks
Saturday, they’re back at the Paint Can for a matchup with one of the hottest teams in the league in the Arizona Coyotes.
Know Your Enemy: Five For Howling
It all rounds out Tuesday at The Rock for a rematch with the Devils. Just some friendly neighborhood blogger advice: don’t leave Brian Boyle uncontensted in front of your net this time. Ok, thanks!
Know Your Enemy: Pucks and Pitchforks
It’s not an unreasonable expectation to expect four out of a possible six points should be taken from this swing. However, if this season has shown us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.
Thanks for reading, follow me (or tell me how bad this was) on Twitter @SynonymForWet.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
