Ice Hockey Metrics

What’s with all the love for Tomas Kopecky?

It’s not just the highly skilled Marian Hossa that’s jumped around from Stanley Cup finalist to Stanley Cup finalist, but his relatively unimpressive countryman as well. Yes, Kopecky won a Cup with the Red Wings against Hossa in 2007-8, teamed up with Hossa to lose one to the Pens in 2009-10, and now is within a game of the promised land yet again.

At 28 years old, the Slovakian winger is certainly not a developing youngster by any stretch. And at 0.21 points per game over 257 career games, Kopecky makes Max Talbot look like an offensive force, which is really saying something. By Goals Versus Threshold, Kopecky’s 3.0 GVT this season has actually taken him above replacement level, for a whopping 2.5 career GVT. Kopecky has also ridden his career year to rating as a nearly average NHL skater by Even Strength Total Rating, at -0.03. But is this really what you expect from a first or second line forward?

As I quipped on Twitter, Kopecky’s main hockey-related talents might include “Skating w/o falling down very often” and “Guy other teams like to hit”. But maybe Dan Carcillo just sees red all the time anyway.

Options for Chicago? How about swapping roles with Troy Brouwer? Brouwer looked great in Games 1 and 2, and was miles ahead of Kopecky with a fine 8.0 GVT and +0.30 ESTR in 2009-10. I’d even consider resurrecting Adam Burish from the press box and into the starting lineup over Kopecky. Sure, he looks like a lumbering hulk, but Burish’s 0.7 GVT in 13 GP would have pro-rated out to more than 4.0 over the course a full season. And in a handful of minutes last season and during a cup of coffee this season, the underrated right wing had a well above average +0.36 and +0.78 ESTR.

But don’t hold your breath regarding Kopecky moving out of the “top six forwards” for Chicago. After all, Coach Joel Quenneville stubbornly stuck with Nikolai Khabibulin last postseason well past the threshold where most coaches would have given Cristobal Huet a shot, and in these finals, it took him a full four games of complete nothingness before he budged and broke up his first line of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien.

That said, there’s no time to fool around here. While I assume that we all know that the Blackhawks are the better team, if this goes to a Game 7–which seems likely in a “home ice series”–Philly’s gamers are going to smell blood. And those wily veterans may just figure out a way to get to the finish line ahead of the Hawks if Chicago doesn’t close it out tonight.

I’ve had my eye on the potential Original Six matchup of Chicago-Montreal for a while now. Let’s see if it comes to pass.

Philadelphia Flyers vs. Montreal Canadiens

I’ve read in many places about what an unlikely matchup this was. Really, the only exceptionally tough hurdle to this matchup was Montreal’s defeat of Washington, unquestionably the strongest team in the NHL throughout the regular season. But if you paid attention to how teams played in the second half of the season, you’d have noticed that–aside from the Capitals–that the Flyers and Canadiens had the best second halves of all the Eastern Conference playoff teams. Philly’s had an easy road, against a flagging Devil team who were a bad matchup against them, followed by a Boston team that was fortunate to be in the playoffs, let alone in the second round.

It’s a contrast in styles, that’s for sure. Big, physical, and fast against small, smart, and speedy. I’d have picked Montreal in a second over Boston, but Philadelphia’s much more of a wild card – Obviously not the opponent that Washington was, but a tougher matchup than records and conventional stats might indicate. As I’ve written in several articles about the Flyers this year, their offense can run very hot (Capitals hot) or very cold (Boston/Edmonton cold) for weeks at a time. If we get the hot Flyers for this whole series, they definitely can win. In fact, the hot Flyers can definitely win in the Finals as well. Unfortunately, the Flyers haven’t been hot for all of a 20 game stretch at any point this season. This, incidentally, is why I didn’t pick Philadelphia as my Stanley Cup dark horse–I considered them, along with Montreal–because over the course of four series, they’re bound to stink one up.

One way the Flyers might win is by pummeling the Habs into submission. While hockey isn’t as physical a sport as football or rugby–where a physically imposing team can make a talent gap disappear by punishing the opposition, Montreal and Philadelphia are extremes in physicality.

But are the Flyers too slow on defense to keep up with the Canadiens? I saw Philadelphia drop a stinker to the Islanders in March and it was small, fast, hard working forwards that did Philly in that night.

While both teams had top 5 regular season power play percentages, Montreal’s PPG were diminished by a lack of opportunities. Philadelphia may play into Montreal’s hands here, if they allow more opportunities than the Canadiens would normally see, through undisciplined play.

Finally, while any key injury would hurt, let’s not forget that Philadelphia is playing with their last NHL caliber goaltender. An injury to Leighton–just returned to game shape in time to step into the Bruins series–and this series ends in a TKO.

Looking forward, the winner of this series should ideally look to close it out in no more than six games, to allow for a little breather before heading into the Finals as an underdog.

Montreal in 6.

San Jose Sharks vs. Chicago Blackhawks

I’ll admit that I’m far less familiar with the Western Conference finalists than the Eastern Conference finalists.

-Both teams have players with reputations for postseason difficulties, though the Sharks may have more: Hossa vs. Nabokov and Thornton are the main ones that come to mind. The “clutchness” and heroics of Sharks like Joe Pavelski seem to have offset some of this bad karma.

-The Blackhawks are perceived to be a physical team, but by the imperfect measure of Hits, they really haven’t been tenderizing their opponents as much as you’d think. Douglas Murray is a tough customer on the other side of the ice.

-With plenty of firepower on both sides of the ice, I’ll give my slight edge in goaltending to the hot and cold play of Antti Niemi over the mentally fragile Evgeni Nabokov. Nabokov’s had a great season–assuming you don’t count the Olympics–but has been trailing off a bit. 

Chicago in 6 (If they don’t win in six, San Jose will hold serve at home in Game 7). 

Habs in six + Hawks in six = Original six for the Stanley Cup Finals.

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks (1) vs. Detroit Red Wings (5) – Detroit in 6

Couple of OT bounces and San Jose would have been sweating out a Game 7 with Colorado. Nabokov wasn’t a disaster – always a fear – but we’ll see if that can last against Detroit. The Red Wings looked awfully strong against the Coyotes in Game 7…

Chicago Blackhawks (2) vs. Vancouver Canucks (3) – Chicago in 7

Worried about the playoff moxie of Vancouver, but a helluva matchup.

Eastern Conference

Pittsburgh Penguins (5) vs. Montreal Canadiens (8) – A surprise?

My preview will be up at Puck Prospectus on Friday. If you want a hint, check out the records of the two teams over the last 50-60 games.

Boston Bruins (6) vs. Philadelphia Flyers (7) – Flyers in 6

Expect Boucher to come back down to earth a bit. The Bruins get a good bit of luck again, facing a team with injuries to their top forwards – Without this luck, they’d have no chance of beating Buffalo or Philadelphia. Interesting matchup for Boston, as they meet a team with a diametrically opposite style and strengths as Buffalo.

We’ve seen the twenty best even strength players of 2009-10. What about the worst?

The overall worst player in the NHL? Brendan Witt of the Islanders – Not a fluke, as he was third worst on this list last season. And impressively, his -2.01 is by far the worst mark of the last two seasons for players who logged at least 500 minutes of ESTOI. Congrats are also in order for New Jersey’s Jay Pandolfo for making the list for the second year in a row.

Honorable mentions (notable players who would have made this list had they logged 500 minutes of ESTOI): MIN LW Derek Boogaard, STL RW Matt D’Agostini (Bottom 20 in 2008-9), PIT C Maxime Talbot, VAN LW Darcy Hordichuk, TOR D Jeff Finger, DET LW Justin Abdelkader, TOR D Garnet Exelby, TOR LW Viktor Stalberg, COL C Stephane Yelle.

Time to reveal the regular season Top 20 in Even Strength Total Rating* (ESTR), including this season’s overall top player at even strength. And the winner is…Daniel Sedin! Yep, you heard right. Not potential Hart Trophy Winner Henrik Sedin (who had more games played to accumulate more points), but the (rightly) more acclaimed twin brother Daniel Sedin. You’ll note that out of the players in the MVP discussion, Alex Ovechkin comes in tops, then Henrik, with Sidney Crosby not too far behind (+0.92).  My early choice of Marian Gaborik made the top 20 at ES as well…and we know how valuable he was on the power play as well.

*ESTR measures each player’s contributions on offense (ESOR) and defense (ESDR) per 60 minutes of Even Strength Time On Ice (ESTOI), compared to an average NHL skater. Only players with a minimum of 500 minutes ESTOI included above.

And remind me again…Why did Colorado trade Wolski?

As far as my own predictions, let’s get right into them. We’ve got potential for several upsets…and the wild, wild Western Conference is pretty much a crapshoot from this writer’s perspective!

Eastern Conference

1. Washington Capitals (54-15-13, 121 points) vs. 8. Montreal Canadiens (39-33-10, 88 points)

I would love, love, love to pick Montreal as a first round winner, and I’d have stuck my neck out and picked them over either New Jersey or Buffalo. Throw out all of the 5 on 5 deficiency mumbo jumbo you’ve heard, because this team plays okay offense but fantastic defense 5 on 5 with their lineup healthy. And they are healthy, for one of the few time this season. Just D Andrei Markov (last season’s points leader) and G Jaroslav Halak make a huge difference. The Habs are 20-8-5 with them in the lineup. Not quite the blistering winning percentage Washington’s kept up all season long, but not a far cry from it either. The Caps are very, very good and would have been basically invincible had they picked up Tomas Vokoun or Tim Thomas at the trading deadline. They’re vulnerable, but a favorite in every series they’ll be in.

Prediction: Montreal makes them sweat.

Capitals in 7 games.

2. New Jersey Devils (48-27-7, 103 points) vs. 7. Philadelphia Flyers (41-35-6, 88 points)

You can check out my multiple articles and references to the Flyers, both at Puck Prospectus and ESPN Insider: it’s the Philly offense, not Brian Boucher, that’s the main issue. These Flyers have proven that they can score like the Caps (nearly 4 GF/game) for extended stretches this season.  New Jersey can’t be happy to meet a team that’s beaten them five out of six times this season – In fact, Philadelphia beat them 5-1 just a couple of weeks ago, and that was during a slump. This will be a war, that will wear down the winner for their next opponent – Great news for Buffalo if New Jersey survives. 

Prediction: The schizophrenic Flyers find motivation against their rivals from up the NJ Turnpike.

Flyers in 7 games.

3. Buffalo Sabres (45-27-10, 100 points) vs. 6. Boston Bruins (39-30-13, 91 points)

The return of Tim Connolly, the Sabres’ best forward, is a huge key to this series. Without a healthy Connolly, the series would become close to a tossup.

**I”ll have a full preview of the Buffalo-Boston series at www.puckprospectus.com on Thursday – Check out PP today for previews of the series that are starting tonight**

Prediction: Rask may match Miller, but the no-name Sabres outclass the Bruins up and down their lineup.

Sabres in 5 games.

4. Pittsburgh Penguins (47-28-7, 101 points) vs. 5. Ottawa Senators (44-32-6, 94 points)

Pittsburgh shouldn’t have much trouble with Ottawa, who’s got unproven Brian Elliott in net and Alex Kovalev out with a torn ACL, among other injuries. These aren’t last year’s Pens, though. Pittsburgh was red hot going into the playoffs last season, whereas this season, they’ve held on after a scorching start. Other than Sidney Crosby improving his all-around game, pretty much everything else on the Penguins has been down this season. So don’t mistake an easy win this round with a deep postseason run for Pittsburgh; I don’t see it happening this time around.

Prediction: No contest.

Penguins in 5 games.

Western Conference

1. San Jose Sharks (51-20-11, 113 points) vs. 8. Colorado Avalanche (43-30-9, 95 points)

Can anyone feel confident about Evgeni Nakokov, given last postseason’s poor performance against 8th seeded Anaheim? His non-competitive effort against Canada in the Olympics? How about in Todd McLellan’s coaching, given no ability to right his team during last year’s first round debacle? Colorado’s recent slump corresponded with Brandon Yip’s absence. Craig Anderson–a career backup–must be getting worn down by having faced the most SOGA in the NHL this season…but his performance has improved of late, after going through a rough stretch.

Prediction: Believe it or not…

Avalanche in 7 games.

2. Chicago Blackhawks (52-22-8, 112 points) vs. 7. Nashville Predators (47-29-6, 100 points)

Chicago was Puck Prospectus’ preseason number one pick for VUKOTA and they stand a good chance of emerging out of a super-competitive Western Conference. That said, don’t discount Nashville, who’s played exceptionally well since the Olympic break – They were a bubble playoff team a few weeks ago, but turned it on to the point where they never had to sweat it as far as making it into the dance.

Prediction: The Predators are competitive, but the Blackhawks are in control of the series throughout.

Blackhawks in 6 games.

3. Vancouver Canucks (49-28-5, 103 points) vs. 6. Los Angeles Kings (46-27-9, 101 points)

Roberto Luongo finally got some credit, taking over from Martin Brodeur to bring home the gold medal to Canada in 2010. Underappreciated, he’s been a very good playoff performer overall. This postseason, it won’t be all on Luongo’s shoulders, as the improvements of Henrik Sedin and Alex Burrows have given Vanouver a formidable offense. The Kings are probably a year early; they’d probably stand a better chance with Jonathan Bernier in net than the mediocre and overworked 24 year old Jonathan Quick – but Bernier’s not even on the roster.

Prediction: What could be a close series won’t be so close, due to Quick’s deficiencies (and Ersberg is a below average backup).

Canucks in 5 games.

4. Phoenix Coyotes (50-25-7, 107 points) vs. 5. Detroit Red Wings (44-24-14, 102 points)

All Phoenix has to show for a great run over the past month–they were within points of the top seed just a few weeks ago–is a first round date with the red hot Red Wings – thanks to a playoff system that gives Division winning Vancouver the 3 seed. Folks, this is a war. Detroit has the pedigree, they have Nicklas Lidstrom, they have Pavel Datsyuk, they have fine young goaltender Jimmy Howard, they’ve got an excellent coach in Mike Babcock. But Phoenix counters with Ilya Bryzgalov (who I predicted as the top goaltender for the playoffs in ESPN Insider), a great all around team, and likely Jack Adams winner Dave Tippett.

Prediction: Detroit better finish Phoenix in six, because Bryzgalov definitely can steal a game on his own. That said…

Coyotes in 7 games.

I hope everyone’s been able to check out the content of my work over at Puck Prospectus lately, as well as the multiple podcasts of my radio hits that you can link to from this site.

Check out the latest discussion of my Brian Boucher article, over at Broad Street Hockey – see the new link. Thanks to Geoff Detweiler. Did ya notice how true it was? The Flyers were a gnat’s eyelash away from missing out on the postseason, and it sure wasn’t because of Brian Boucher, but because of an offense that could only–barely–muster two goals against the Rangers today.

Look for my annual forecasts of hot and cold playoff goaltenders, coming up at ESPN Insider on Monday, as well as my preview of the Buffalo-Boston series at Puck Prospectus on Tuesday or Wednesday. Then…then…we can get some playoff predictions up right here! I’ve got my eye on some big upsets…

We interrupt this hockey site to bring you a few thoughts on this season of American Idol.

Time for a few comparables–Idol contestants from yesteryear–based on demographics (Place):

1. Siobhan Magnus – Better than Diana DeGarmo (2), more mainstream than Paris Bennett (5), way better than Mikalah Gordon (11). The numbers say 2nd place might be a good guess, but I’m going with my gut here that this could be a special talent.

2. Crystal Bowersox - Clearly more artsy than Carrie Underwood (1) or Carly Smithson (6), more talented/less cute than Brooke White (5). A shot to be this season’s Idol; this is more of an Anti-Michael choice.

3. Michael Lynche – Not my cup of tea, but the judges and most folks seem to like him. Ruben Studdard (1) is his number one comparable, and that’s just demographics! Less awkward than George Huff (5), a big athletic guy like Matthew Rogers (11). Numbers say number one, but he looks like an overexcited jock on karaoke night to me, and the vocals aren’t any more special, than say Phil Stacey (5).

4. Casey James – The woo factor–and not just Cara–though I imagine that will start to annoy folks. Less animated than Taylor Hicks (1), better looking than Elliot Yamin (3) or Danny Gokey (3)…But somehow, Ace Young (7) seems to fit well. Just a hunch that his looks like carry him a ways, but that his ultimate talent cieling will hold him back from the top few spots. Oh, and Kip Winger (1987) is definitely a comparable for the teeth and hair.

5. Tim Urban – Not one of the best talents, but then again, I utterly and completely missed on Kris Allen last year. Yes, David Cook (1) and Allen (1) are among the comparables, but he’s not in Cook’s league and–I’m guessing–not as hunkable as Allen. Of interest is that the rest of the comparables are what I see as overachievers, a sign that Urban might go further than you’d think: Anthony Federov (4), Scott Savol (5), Anoop Desai (6-7), Sanjaya (7), Kevin Covais (11). And Urban’s not as bad as the latter two.

6.  Didi Benami – Katharine McPhee (2) is the cieling, not completely out of the question. In a way, she’s a dead ringer for Brooke White (5), without the gee shucks stuff. Going down the list, she’s more substance than Kristy Lee Cook (7). I thought Alexis Grace (11) should have placed much higher last season…that’s the floor here.

7. Katie Stevens is kind of a wild card. Pretty good talent, but exactly how grating is she going to be with that sh*t-eating grin that’s constantly plastered on her face? More confident than Jasmine Trias (3)–though without the voting block–less talented than Paris Bennett (5), Connecticut girl like Julia DeMato (10), more talented than Mikalah Gordon (11) and Leah LaBelle (12) but only slightly less annoying. Her placing could be anywhere in the bottom two thirds.

8. Paige Miles – Not a big fan. Lacking the youthfulness of Jordin Sparks (1), less polished than LaToya London (4), and even a notch down from last season’s Lil Rounds (6-7). More experienced than Lisa Tucker (10), but Mandisa (9) might be about right.

9. Lee Dewyze – Would get votes if it weren’t for the negative vibe, which is a shame because he’s got the demographics. I see him as an underachiever, and ultimately, another bottom half wild card like Katie. You can throw out Cook (1), Allen (1), and even Blake Lewis (2) as applicable comparables. Chris Richardson (6)–who I liked–is another underachiever that might be Lee’s cieling. Scott MacIntyre (8) is about right based on talent, though that vibe pulls my prediction down.

10. Lacey Brown – Nikki McKibbin (3), recently of Dr. Drew fame, is literally her highest comp. Less talented than Brooke White (5), but more talented/less blonde than Kristy Lee Cook (7) – 7th is about the highest I could see for Lacey, who I kind of like, but who doesn’t have the whole package. Haley Scarnato (8), Megan Joy (9), Amy Adams (10) and Jessica Sierra (10) are all about in the right range.

11. Aaron Kelly – is no Anthony Federov (4), as they say. But he could be John Stevens (6)–though I can’t see similar appeal. Kevin Covais (11) seems right on.

12. Andrew Garcia – For whatever reason, Hispanic contestants rarely make it out of the semifinals; if they do, they are almost always eliminated quickly. I’m guessing that Idol is not popular in Latin households. Garcia’s got decent talent, with Joshua Gracin (4) as an absolute max comp. More likely is Scott MacIntyre (8), Matthew Rogers (11), or David Hernandez (12).

Fun to look at these, but talent and charm speak to America. Let’s see how it goes…

Tough road loss by the St. Louis Blues to the Minnesota Wild on Sunday. Tough because they need the points to keep up with Nashville and company for the final two playoff berths in the Western Conference. Tough because what would otherwise be an easy portion of their schedule featured back-to-back road games: Minnesota rested comfortably at home on Saturday night, watching St. Louis tire themselves out against Columbus on their plasma TVs.

Not a great choice by young coach Davis Payne–yes, younger than me–to go to the well once again with netminder Chris Mason. On back to back nights, riding him for a tenth straight game. We all know that no goalie plays every game, and Ty Conklin is a good backup after all. Even if you have Lundqvist or Miller, this is the classic spot to put in your backup (even if it’s Alex Auld or Patrick Lalime).

A shame, because prior to that, the Blues had taken care of business against the Islanders–barely–and Blue Jackets–impressively, in their desperate chase to get one of the last tickets to the postseason.

I had the chance to take in Thursday’s 2-1 shootout victory against New York from press row at Nassau Coliseum (Thank you, Islanders!).

A few quotes:

-During the second intermission, St. Louis GM John Davidson made no bones about characterizing the game as “very sloppy”.

-Defenseman Barret Jackman seemed to concur with JD’s assessment after the game: “The first ten minutes of the game, we weren’t ourselves. A lot of turnovers, just a lot of chasing. And then, at the end of the first period, I thought we played pretty well until that goal – kind of a lucky play, they hacked one over Mason’s shoulder. It was scrambly, a lot of turnovers, a lot of indecision.”

-Goalie Chris Mason commented on the Blues playing after a prolonged five days between games: “I personally don’t like that, but…every team has to deal with their own little quirks in their schedule…We got some practice time in with the new coach, so that’s okay, but I’d rather just play games.” “We had a little bit of rust in certain areas of our game…that happens when you have a few days off.” “With the teams winning around us, we have to keep pace, and fight it out until the end.” “It was a bit scrambly, but we got the job done. That’s all that matters.”

Coach Davis Payne seemed to point to an inconsistency of effort between lines–”There were some groups that were taking it to them early and I also thought there were some groups that were having a little bit of trouble in their own zone with the kind of pressure that the Islanders were putting you under”–as well as poor execution when the effort was there: “Probably the execution offensively wasn’t as clean as we would like. We put a lot of pucks to the net, but didn’t generate many second opportunities based on where we put that puck. Credit their goaltender, but our power play needed to be a little bit sharper…in the third period. We’ve got to find a way to put one of those in there.”

-T.J. Oshie felt good going into the shootout–”I’ve been in quite a few over the past couple years, so the nerves kind of went away this year after the first couple. So I’m just going there, confident, with one of my go-to moves”–even though not having seen his Eastern Conference opponent added uncertainty: “I didn’t know in the shootouts…if [Biron] poke checks, or how he played the shootout.”

If play in regulation and overtime were indecisive, the shootout certainly looked very decisive. Both teams featured shooters with solid career numbers, but Biron’s weak .536 career save percentage presaged the Isles’ demise.

Fast forward a few days. Realistically, is St. Louis out of the playoff hunt? Not quite. Stay tuned for my Puck Prospectus column this week…

USA 6, Finland 1

Finland came into the semifinal matchup with Team USA off of two poor performances, a lackluster 3-0 loss against archrival Sweden and a somewhat fortunate 2-0 win against the sleepwalking Czech Republic. Thus, it was encouraging to see good energy in the first few shifts, including the typical extra effort of Tuomo Ruutu. Enter: Miikka Kiprusoff’s bonehead gaff – which not only disrupted the positive energy, but obviously put Kiprusoff’s head completely out of the game. Much like Bykov for the Russians, Jalonen–who should never be allowed to coach the national team again–waited until the game was all but over to make the goaltender switch…except, it should have been Antero Niittymaki dressed as the backup; Niittymaki has had a far, far superior season to Backstrom–playing Backstrom is so 2008-9–and he was red hot heading into the Olympics. All moot, with the hideous offensive effort put forth by the team outside of the Germany and Belarus games, of course. Oh, and the United States did exactly what they needed to do, clinically dispatching a faltering foe. Surprise good move on the coaching end, pulling Miller for Thomas–albeit much later than optimal–to rest Miller for the finals.

Canada 3, Slovakia 2

Why Canada won, aside from all that talent: 1. They played an intelligent, controlled game that kept the lethal Slovakian power play off the ice for most of the game. 2. Smart coaching, to be taking those wrist shots from the point; nifty deflections beat the underrated Halak for the first two goals. 3. The change to Luongo gave a slight edge over Brodeur, though Luongo was a hair’s breadth away from being the goat of a colossal third period collapse. 4. The choice of Brendan Morrow to the squad. I disagreed with both the Morrow and Staal selections, but both have been key to the Canadian effort, especially over the last two games. What an upset this would have been, and nearly was.

Bronze medal game: Finland vs. Slovakia

Aside from Gaborik’s injury, Slovakia and not Finland should be favored in this game. Has anyone been paying attention to the fact that Slovakia beat two of the tournament’s three favorites, while nearly taking a third to overtime? Finland’s resume is basically the opposite of that. Bronze medal games can be tricky to predict, though, because many teams will mail it in for a consolation game. Assuming consistent effort to what we’ve seen from both teams, even with the Gaborik injury, Slovakia will likely prevail – unless Jalonen makes the correct choice of Antero Niittymaki in goal. Niittymaki would be on a mission; Kiprusoff is mentally cooked and Backstrom is not that solid.

Gold medal game: USA vs. Canada

Oh, the cockiness–and short memories?–of twenty-some year old Canadians tweeting out there. Canadian fans, and team Canada itself, should be anything but overconfident. Team USA has been the best team in the tournament, bar none. Aside from their perfect record, think of the quality wins – comfortably over Switzerland in the prelims, great win against the Canadians–and sorry, it wasn’t all Miller–trashed the Finns, with only the quarterfinal squeaker against Switzerland a bit of a mediocre performance. That’s 3 of 4 good to excellent efforts against the better teams of the tournament. Canada’s track record–regardless of how good their roster looks on paper and how badly they trashed Norway and Germany–is spotty: an overtime nailbiter against Switzerland, the USA loss, and the Slovakia near-overtime near-epic-collapse, offset only by the impressive effort against Russia. That’s 1 of 4 above average performances against the better teams. Yes, Canada can bring better talent to the table, but with that track record, this game looks like a dead-even tossup to me. Above else, Canada needs to play from in front, or the pressure will become hard to bear. Tossup, but I’ll call it 4-3 USA in OT. Zach Parise with the game winner.

Quarterfinals

United States 2, Switzerland 0

The Anaheim Ducks must feel good about Jonas Hiller’s performance against Team USA and through most of the tournament – other than the Norway game. Switzerland played the US closer than I expected, though they were a second period buzzer beater and a goalie interference non-call away from being up 3-0 midway through the third period. News flash: Zach Parise’s good.

Canada 7, Russia 3

A dismantling? Give Canada credit for beating up on Russia, but this was just as much a Russian no-show as a great Canadian effort. To the horror of San Jose Sharks’ fans and management, the NHL’s “best goaltender” melted under the bright lights, yet again; if Evgeni Nabokov fails in the playoffs yet again this season, can we finally agree that it’s not a fluke? In the offseason, I argued for a change in goal–not Marleau or Thornton, as some wanted–and I’ve looked wrong on that account…until now. As I tweeted, Russian coach Bykov should be sent to Siberia–or whatever they do nowadays–for not bringing in Bryzgalov earlier; after the extremely soft Morrow goal, there was utterly no doubt how the day would end for Nabokov. By the way, to get the ball (puck?) rolling, Viktor Kozlov played laughably lazy defense on Getzlaf’s opening salvo. Dude, it’s the Olympics! Defense (albeit the forwards’ defense) and goaltending letting down a Russian team? Go figure. Anyway, it’s two terrible Olympic exits in a row for the Russians–being shut out 4-0 by Finland last time around was pretty embarassing as well. Eric Staal’s come alive in the last few games–the veritable heart and soul of Team Canada–and seems key to their hopes. The defensive corps has played well, with a couple of notable veteran exceptions. And yes, there’s no point to having Patrice Bergeron on the team.

Finland 2, Czech Republic 0

Bad and worse. Finland needed to meet a team playing even less inspired hockey than they have been–over the past two games–to advance to the semifinals. I’m not convinced that they could have beaten any other team in the quarterfinals, including Switzerland. I guess you could hang your hat and hopes on goaltending and defense, but this has turned into a rough team to root for, after a sparkling start to the tournament against Germany and Belarus. Look for the Czech Republic to go downhill for the next Olympics, with Jagr and perhaps Elias disappearing into the sunset. Who’s going to be left of any worth, aside from Tomas Plekanec and Tomas Vokoun? Martin Erat, the Invisible Man? Come on.

Slovakia 4, Sweden 3

True, the Triple Crowns were my pre-tournament favorites to win gold, but if you’ve been reading me here and at Puck Prospectus, you’ll know that I called for a potential upset in this game. A puzzling Olympics for Sweden, with a little something missing. The Swedes have tons of young talent, though, so they’ll be contenders for many Olympics to come. But Slovakia? They’ve beat two giants, Russia and Sweden already. A fine all around effort has carried them, enough “no name” defense backing the goaltending of Jaroslav Halak, and talented scorers in Marian Gaborik, Marian Hossa and Pavel Demitra, who ensure that they are not going to get shut out by even the best goaltenders.

Semifinals

USA vs. Finland

Other than what was a 2-0 quarterfinal squeaker against Switzerland, the United States has gone about their business, with a comfortable 3-1 preliminary round win against the Swiss (who took Canada to overtime), a 6-1 beatdown of Norway and the 5-3 signature win over Canada. Understandably, they haven’t shown quite the firepower of Canada, but they should be good enough to beat the slumping Finns. Finland’s power play clicked so well against Germany and Belarus and so poorly against Sweden and the Czech Republic. The Finns need to find that power play to have a chance against the United States, along with hoping that the Ryan Suters out there take some stupid penalties. Frankly, Finland’s looked inept on offense, so don’t hold your breath. The return of Joni Pitkanen from suspension should help their offense; hopefully they serious curb the minutes of defensive liability Lasse Kukkonen as well. Team USA needs to jump out to a lead here and let Ryan Miller ice the Finns.

Canada vs. Slovakia

Don’t get lazy, Canada, these guys are for real. Slovakia’s shootout victory over Russia set Russia on a collision course with Canada in the quarterfinals, while Slovakia’s impressive offensive display–against shutout machine Henrik Lundqvist–dispatched another top three team. Any team that wants to beat Canada in front of their home crowd better do it from in front, as Slovakia did against Sweden. For Slovakia, the key is superior defense and outstanding goaltending. For Canada, it’s playing from in front and avoiding stupid penalties that could put the lethal Slovakian power play on the ice. Note to Mike Babcock: think carefully about ice time, regarding players known to take stupid penalties.

Tournament outlook

I’ll admit that I normally root for Finland, but I’ve grown pretty detached about them after the last two games. I’ll be wearing my Selanne jersey–like when they lost the gold medal game to Sweden in 2006–but Canada vs. USA is a gold medal rematch that we all really should want to see.

USA and Slovakia don’t get enough credit for their gold medal chances. Finland’s only chance is by meeting Slovakia in the finals. While anyone would acknowledge that Canada continues to be the favorite, a) I would not discount the chance of a Slovakian upset and b) Team USA has a really good shot at gold.

Quick hits today, covering Friday’s and Saturday’s action. My Monday column at Puck Prospectus will wrap up the preliminary round action, and set up the secondary round games on Tuesday. PLEASE NOTE: I’ll be doing an online chat on Wednesday at 1 pm Eastern, hosted over at Baseball Prospectus. You can send your Olympic hockey (or NHL) questions in ahead of time.

Sweden 4, Belarus 2

No matter how smooth the Swedes look, a close shave here with Belarus is starting to make me wonder about rating them so highly going into the tournament. Hard to put your finger on exactly what the inefficiency is here. Too bad for Belarus that they’re missing their two top forwards – except for the bar fights they’re getting into.

Czech Republic 5, Latvia 2

So far, the Czechs–who will probably surprise me, like they did in 1998–have defeated a sloppy, penalty-taking Slovakia 3-1 and one of the worst two teams in the field, Latvia, by 5-2. They’re leading Group B, but I’m not 100% buying into the team. Vokoun, Kaberle, Jagr, Plekanec and Elias are all gamers, though.

Finland 5, Germany 0

We’ll see if it ultimately translates into a medal, but Finland is clicking as a team better than any other squad in Vancouver; they always seem to overachieve versus an apparent talent gap on paper. The Finland-Sweden rivalry game will be very telling about both teams. In my fantasy world, some NHL general manager would go and gather up all the Finns in the NHL; it would be very interesting to see how they’d fare there as well.

Switzerland 5, Norway 4 (OT)

For one afternoon, Vancouver turned into…Vikingstad! Didn’t see this one coming – much closer game than expected. I’m puzzled at the effort by a Swiss team that should advance to the quarters and give one of the contenders a decent challenge there. Hiller was supposed to be unstoppable, right? That was the high point for Norway; they’ll be out of their elimination game after one period.

Slovakia 6, Latvia 0

This is how you prove yourself to be a major contender, by laying the lumber to one of the weak sisters. Take note Canada, Sweden, Czech Republic. They’re still going to have a tough road in the elimination games, facing high seeds throughout. Having Russia lose to the Czechs would help a bit.

Belarus 5, Germany 3

Germany’s still got a way to go, to bring up the overall level of their program; here’s a lesson that dressing more NHL players isn’t a given for winning in this tournament. Germany might have had a chance in a secondary round matchup against Switzerland if they had defeated the White Russians; the lower seed ensures their elimination.

USA 6, Norway 1

A tad off the beatdown pace that Canada applied to poor Norway, but holding serve nonetheless. Two goals for top defenseman Brian Rafalski.

The real story occurred last night – the decision by Team USA coaching/management to ride poor Ryan Miller through every game of the tournament. The decision is baffling on so many levels. A nice effort against Western Conference power San Jose notwithstanding, Miller has had a rough few weeks–comparatively–leading up to the Olympics. What would be the harm in resting to poor guy, to recharge his batteries for the critical second week of competition? A move to ride him is so misplaced, so unnecessary, so win-the-battle-not-the-war, so damn amateur – Folks making decisions like that shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions no more. Tim Thomas was fully capable of leading the United States to a 3-1 win over Switzerland or a 6-1 win over Norway, just the same as Miller. Frankly, even were the United States to miss the secondary round bye and end up with an elimination game against the likes of a Latvia or Belarus, Team USA should still break down and go with Thomas for a game–it’s a layup, folks–before turning the stretch run over to Miller. The bottom line is that going with their–marginally–best goalie for every game actually decreases America’s chance of medaling down the line. Aside from all that, the Buffalo Sabres sure have to be ticked off at Ron Wilson and company for further grinding their bread and butter into a pulp.

Norway and Latvia are shaping up to be the two bottom seeds in the secondary round, drawing the Canada-USA loser or the second place team from Group B, probably the Russia-Czech Republic loser. By extension, really all the 2nd place teams get a virtual bye. There’s no real chance of losing that game.

Canada 3, Switzerland 2 (SO)

As the Swiss shut out Canada in 2006, it might seem odd for overtime to shock anyone. But it was shocking, especially with Canada leading 2-0 going into the last minute of the second period. Jonas Hiller is a big difference maker for Switzerland, of course, but their team is very solid overall. No team should take Switzerland for granted, especially once the elimination games begin. Clearly, the result puts the United States’ 3-1 win in a different light. Deeper still, consider that Switzerland outplayed both hockey powers in the third periods of the games. Lesson: you better beat up on this team early, because their effort and endurance just might nip you at the wire.

Teams like Canada and the United States left off many skill players for the sake of experience, toughness or some specialty as a role player. Is there any doubt that in a game like this that Mike Green would have been more valuable than the overrated Scott Niedermayer–remember, it’s 2010, not 2006–or that Martin St. Louis or Jeff Carter would have been more valuable than Brendan Morrow? When it’s nip and tuck, you want skaters that’ll just put the damn puck in the net.

What’s up with the silly international rule that you can keep recycling your top three shooters in the shootout? What a dumb rule.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter that the game went to overtime. Even an overtime win against the United States will rank Canada in first place of Group A. The point will make no difference there. The takeaway from this is an extra point for Switzerland, much might well bump them up a spot or two to a better matchup for the secondary round; maybe it’s the difference between facing Belarus instead of Germany, or Germany instead of Slovakia. Update: make that Russia?!

Slovakia 2, Russia 1 (SO)

Hard to believe that staying up past 2:30 might have been worth it–at my age–but it probably was. Shocked at the result? Sure, but probably more shocked at only 2 regulation goals, given all the firepower on the rosters. Bryzgalov had a game effort – he’s certainly not to blame. And with all the power plays Russia had, you have to give kudos to Halak and the Slovakian D. Strbak is a nice player; he’s going to parlay this tournament into an NHL gig, you watch. Amazing that the Slovakian penalties didn’t bite them in the dumbass again.

All right: the shootout. Finland left off Jussi Jokinen (54%), but they’ve got several shooters who are proven to be over 40% over a relatively large number of career attempts (No, leaving Jokinen off is a mistake because he’s having a career season and he’s better than 3-4 forwards on their roster). So why did Russia leave off the other best all-time shooter, Slava Kozlov (not to be confused with Viktor Kozlov), who is a whopping 58.7% over nearly 50 career attempts? No good answer there, as the superstar forward talent of the Russians ends at their top two lines. Yet against Slovakia, there were many, many elite and above average choices benched for many below average choices. Russian shooters, career shooting percentage (20% is poor, 33% is average, 40%+ is elite): Datsyuk 49%, Markov 44% (4 for 11), Tyutin 43% (3 for 7), Afinogenov 35%, Semin 32%, Ovechkin 27%, Kovachuk 25%, Gonchar 25% (1 for 4), Malkin 23% . With Ovechkin getting three attempts, that’s bad coaching. With their best three shooters sitting on the bench, that’s bad coaching. In fact, it’s horrible, horrible, inexcusably horrible coaching.

Finland 5, Belarus 1

Belarus is missing their top two scorers from this competition, but they still seem a cut above Norway and Latvia. Or maybe half a cut above. Sergei Kostitsyn–Sergei of the Habs’ doghouse–puts one in, but Finland has what is a scoring outburst for them: five goals. Smooth looking goal by Hagman, wonderful mid-air redirect by Jarkko Ruutu (man, is he a beat up looking dude!) But the most important thing you wanted to see from Suomi was great team defense, and that’s what you got. Only 12 shots against and many of those came late; Finland allowed an incredible 4 SOGA through two periods. Watching the interviews of Saku Koivu and Jarkko Ruutu after the game, you have this takeaway: Man, these guys seem focused. Watch out.

Sweden 2, Germany 0

The talking heads are correct that this game could’ve been 1-1 really easily, so maybe my perception is wrong – because it seemed like the Triple Crowns played the intelligent, smooth, all-around game you’ve come to expect from them. Their second goal was perfection for how forwards should work together: Alfredsson grinding to cause the turnover, Backstrom using great playmaking skills, Eriksson in position to finish. Lundqvist sharp – How is it possible that the Swedes haven’t had a shutout since 1994? Finland had five in Torino! Shows what that’s worth. A lot of varying opinions on Forsberg. I’ll take the middle ground: he looked like he belonged, but without any significant impact. Expect quality third line type play. Intriguing line of Zetterberg, Hornqvist and Forsberg. In any case, Germany was a quality opponent; take that into account before bashing Sverige. We’ll know more when we see how Finland does with Germany and how Sweden does with Belarus.

Czech Republic 3, Slovakia 1

Of course Marian Gaborik was playing! Come on guys, this is a major rivalry – on top of the fact that the Olympics are a big deal to the players (Mr. Bettman: please take notice). If you read my “Gaborik will be MVP” piece for ESPN Insider a couple of months ago, you’d know that Gaborik isn’t soft, he’s had hip problems that were never properly diagnosed and fixed in the past. On the Czech side, Patrik Elias is a quality player. If he’s healthy enough to be in the lineup, he can play for my team any day. Vokoun’s big time too. Czechs up 1-0 at the end of one period.

Gaborik lining up with Marian Hossa to start the second period paid off immediate dividends. Sick, quick release and accuracy for the Rangers’ winger. No one – no one in the sport lets it go as quick and accurate. 1-1 and it’s a helluva game. From there on, Slovakia was their own worst enemy, taking too many penalties. The killer was a pointless, childish retaliatory penalty by captain Chara after the team was already tired from having been on the PK. The final dagger in the second was a nifty finish by Canadiens’ breakout player Tomas Plekanec. A super game–what we’ve built this tournament up to be–with the Slovaks actually having the best of SOG went to the Czechs mainly due to bad decisions in the middle stanza. It’s going to be tough for the Slovaks to bounce back tonight against the Russians; the ramification going forward is a tougher secondary round matchup, likely against a team like Germany or Switzerland.

USA 3, Switzerland 1

Switzerland’s no slouch, so don’t go measuring USA’s goal difference directly to Canada’s trouncing of lightweight Norway. Bobby Ryan clearly had some familiarity shooting on his own keeper, Jonas Hiller, from Anaheim, but what’s coaching thinking by putting a top six forward on one of the lower lines? It’s either misjudging their rosters’ talent (hope not!) or trying to spread out scoring and role players across the lines. Seeing the roster construction pre-tournament, it seemed more likely that the United States would go with a true checking line to match up against the big boys, but that doesn’t look like what they’re doing now. 3-0 going into the second intermission was exactly where you wanted to see Team USA as a good indication towards the rest of the tourney, but the third period letdown took a little of the bloom off of the rose. The Americans will need to out-effort (and out-goaltend) the top three in this tournament to really make some noise; they came up short on that account in this warm-up. As a trivial point, I would have gone with Tim Thomas against the Swiss, Jonathan Quick (yes, Quick) against Norway in a can’t lose game, saving Miller for Canada only in the opening round. Miller has seemed to wear down over the last month and he could have used a week off in my estimation, at which point you could have rode him straight through the second week.

Canada 8-0

A game effort by Norway early on, but the expected pummeling later on. As previously stated, questionable roster construction–and coaching–with the immortal Patrice Bergeron lined up next to Sidney Crosby – he’s not only a fourth liner on this roster, but you could have named a dozen better Canadian forwards to the team (Martin St. Louis, Brad Richards, Jeff Carter, etc.) The good news is that the coaching staff clearly “stumbled” across the right combination by putting the hat tricking Jarome Iginla on Sid’s line. Then again, there are a lot of forwards that would look damn good lined up with Crosby. Another nitpick, a la Team USA above – Why not give your third goaltender (Marc-Andre Fleury) a go in a game that you know will be a rout? Bobby Lou is probably slated below Brodeur on the depth chart, but you could see that change if Marty doesn’t perform well against the United States.

Russia 8, Latvia 2

The other biggest mismatch of the preliminary round. Does Kovalchuk really need to dive…against Latvia? Come on, dude. We know that Russia is offensively prolofic–as Canada is as well–but what’s the two Goals Against say? Nabokov’s got to be given credit for coming back strong after a terrible first round defeat in the 2008-9 playoffs to be one of the two best goaltenders in the NHL this season – but the question still remains whether he’ll melt under the bright lights of a big tournament again. Russia’s medal hopes are closely tied to that question. And yes, those are two incredible lines…with the exception of Maxim Afinogenov.

Coming up:

Finland vs. Belarus – Belarus has key injuries at forward to Andrei Kostitsyn and Mikael Grabovski, leaving the enigmatic Sergei Kostitsyn as their main gun. Andrei Mezin is certainly capable for a non-NHL netminder. Finland will need to be tight on defense to advance far in the tournament, so the number to watch is their Goals Against. Suomi will want to see a 1 or 0 next to Belarus at the end of the game as a good indication towards possibly medaling. Finland 4, Belarus 1 is the prediction.

Czech Republic vs. Slovakia – Grudge match of the two halves of the former Czechoslovakia. Other than the outstanding goaltending of Tomas Vokoun, the surprising scoring of Tomas Plekanec, and the offensive presence of blueliner Tomas Kaberle, the rest of the bunch are question marks–in one way or another–for what some consider the 5th best squad…with former Hart trophy winner Jaromir Jagr the most interesting question mark.  The Slovaks have an extremely top-heavy roster–underrated goaltender Jaroslav Halak, mammoth defenseman Zdeno Chara, snipers Marian Gaborik and Marian Hossa–so it’ll be interesting to see how their coaching staff juggles that and with what ramifications. Ziggy Palffy–remember him?–has been tearing apart the Slovakian league for three seasons now; it’ll be interesting to see how that translates. Let’s call it Slovakia 3, Czech Republic 2 in a mild upset. Slovakia goes back to back nights, meeting Russia the game after. Tough scheduling.

Gold medal: Russia or Canada?

Nah, neither. Personally, I’m looking for Sweden to repeat as champions. The Triple Crowns always dress an intelligent, cohesive, and deep squad, and their talent may be even better now than in previous Olympics. For sure, the top three teams in the 2010 Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament are Russia, Canada and Sweden, with the former two as the big favorites. For all the pundits considering Canada as the top seed, Puck Prospectus recently agreed with Steve Yzerman in calling the Russians as the gold medal favorites. If you wanted to bring a fourth team into the tier of elite teams, you’d go with the United States, although they clearly have more weaknesses than the top three.

Let’s break down the top seven teams and see what we can learn:

Sweden

Strengths: Deepest group of very good to elite two-way forwards (Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, Henrik Zetterberg, Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Backstrom, Loui Eriksson) throwing in Peter Forsberg as well if he can turn back time; Nicklas Lidstrom anchoring the defense (he’s having a good year, despite lower counting stats); proven gold medal winning goalie in Henrik Lundqvist.

Weaknesses: Third and fourth lines feature mostly checking line types (Fredrik Modin, Samuel Pahlsson); no credible backup goaltender.

Canada

Strengths: Quality depth at forward through three-plus lines, better than any other team; three good defensive pairings (although they could have been better); the cohesive, elite unit of Sharks’ first line (Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley, Joe Thornton). Sidney Crosby.

Weaknesses: They won’t go with Roberto Luongo in goal as much as they should. Too much ice time for Niedermayer. Nitpicking a bit, their forwards are more scorers than two-way talents.

Likely Regrets: The exclusion of Mike Green, who would have been their best defenseman. Inclusions of non-optimal choices like–rolling eyes–Scott Niedermayer, Brenden Morrow and Patrice Bergeron.

Russia

Strengths: More offensive talent than even Canada, with Alex Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk, Alexander Semin, Evgeni Malkin at forward and Andrei Markov and Sergei Gonchar on defense. No weakness at defenseman or goaltender, which is sometimes the case for Russia. Not only does Evgeni Nabokov look like a new man–the highest ranked player by GVT currently–but Ilya Bryzgalov is no slouch as backup either.

Weaknesses: Disappointing in recent Olympics, like in the 4-0 semifinal loss to Finland in 2006. Nabokov’s penchant to melt under the lights of a big tournament. Third and fourth lines feature older players like Sergei Federov, hit-and-miss talents like Maxim Afinogenov, and KHL players.

USA

Strengths: Ryan Miller and Tim Thomas, the best goaltending tandem in the Olympics, can steal any game. Blueliners Brian Rafalski and Ryan Suter provide a solid first pairing. Zach Parise is one of the top half dozen forwards in the world, even though many folks don’t know it. Better second line talent than they’re given credit for.

Weaknesses: Puzzling choices for the rest of the defense corps, making the United States clearly flawed for their second and third pairings – Miller and Thomas better be good. Strange, defensive forward-type choices for third and fourth lines; Team USA looks to want to match up checking lines with their opponents’ top lines – This may backfire.

I see a big dropoff between the above four teams and the next three, although some might rank the United States and the Czech Republic similarly.

Czech Republic

Strengths: Tomas Vokoun has been one of the better goaltenders in the NHL in recent years – Unfortunately, every other contender has a netminder of similar value. Tomas Kaberle is a good offensive defenseman. Tomas Plekanec has been a surprise for the Montreal Canadiens.

Weaknesses: The lineup is full of overrated players and question marks - Patrik Elias is good if he isn’t bothered by postconcussion symptoms, Martin Havlat’s had an uneven season, Martin Erat is an enigma, and who knows what Jaromir Jagr will bring. Big drop down from Vokoun to Ondrej Pavelec – a better backup goaltender would have been useful in a preliminary group with both Russia and Slovakia.

Odd qualm: Needing two words to refer to a country; how about revising it to Czechland?

Finland

Strengths: A veteran core that’s proven it can overachieve in these tournaments; the motivation of the finals loss in 2006; three deep in quality goaltenders; good first pairing of Kimmo Timonen and Joni Pitkanen; the power play skill of Teemu Selanne; North American ice may help slow down speed and skill teams like Russia and Sweden; an understanding up and down the lineup of playing a team game. Mikko Koivu.

Weaknesses: Less raw talent than the top five teams, up and down the lineup.

Likely regrets: Not including Jussi Jokinen on the squad.

Slovakia

Strengths: Red hot goaltending of Jaroslav Halak could carry through to the Olympics; elite scoring talent of Marian Gaborik and Marian Hossa; the intimidation and skill of Zdeno Chara.

Weaknesses: Balancing act between overplaying their stars–wearing them out–and playing significantly weaker players; huge step down to Peter Budaj, who might be called upon in back to back games against Russia and the Czech Republic.

A couple of months ago in an article for ESPN Insider and Puck Prospectus, I made the bold prediction that the chronically fragile Marian Gaborik would stay healthy, play at an unprecedented level and win the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player – that on the Rangers, an offensively-weak, borderline-playoff contender. Over Alex Ovechkin and all other challengers.

During New York’s recent scoring drought–which dramatically ended with 6-2 and 8-2 trouncings of Montreal and Tampa Bay–Gaborik’s production and shooting percentage have fallen off marginally. So let’s take a look to see if the Slovakian sniper still has a case:

Goals Versus Threshold (prior to last two games): 12.9 – 8th amongst skaters, though leaders come from elite teams: Chicago, San Jose, Washington, Pittsburgh, Vancouver

Goals per game: 0.60 – 5th (only Kovalchuk is from a non-elite team)

Points per game: 1.27 – 5th (only Kovalchuk is from a non-elite team)

Additionally, Gaborik’s higher-than-career 16.3% shooting percentage is a positive indicator that his hip remains in good shape.

What makes Gaborik more valuable than the other contending skaters–and remember that the Hart historically goes to skaters except in some cases where a goaltender has been incredibly dominant in comparison–is how reliant the Blue Shirts are on him. My colleague at Puck Prospectus, Tom Awad, pointed out a few weeks ago that Gaborik was within shouting distance of Mario Lemieux’s record of contributing on 57.3% of his team’s goals in 1988-89. Yes, the percentage has fallen off, but Gaborik still leads the NHL:

Without Gaborik, the Rangers might already be on the verge of throwing in the towel for the season – the position teams like the Thrashers find themselves in. If you ask me, I’ll tell you that Marian Gaborik is still on track to be the 2009-10 Hart Trophy winner.

Riffing on the Sabres theme this week, we’re proud present the first look at 2009-10 Even Strength Total Rating (ESTR):

As a reminder, ESTR is the number of goals per 60 minutes that the player was better (+) or worse (-) than an average NHL player for that season–total offensive and defensive contribution–taking into account strength of teammates and opposition on ice. You’ll see that there is significant correlation between ESTR and GVT (take a look at “Sabremetrics” at Puck Prospectus this week), of course keeping in mind that ESTR is a rate stat and GVT is a counting stat.

Patrick Kaleta is the surprise leader in ESTR on the Sabres; Tim Connolly is repeating his fine performance from 2008-9;  the defensive quartet of Nathan Paetsch, Henrik Tallinder, Toni Lydman and Tyler Myers are obviously supporting Ryan Miller on one of the finest defensive squads in the league. Chris Butler, who scored well by ESTR last season, probably needs a trip back to the Portland Pirates to get his head straight; otherwise his status as one of Buffalo’s top prospects is going to start to slip away.

Tune in to hear me on Tuesdays at 4:45 pm on the John DiTullio show online at http://www.whtk.com/pages/johnditullio.html and on 1280 WHTK and FM 107.3 in Rochester.

See the Glossary for a definition of the other metrics.

As an addendum to my column at Puck Prospectus on the “Fall of the Flyers”, here are the Philadelphia Flyers’ conventional stats before (left side – below) and after (right side – below) November 24th:

Over the swoon, plus/minus has not suffered as much as scoring for many of the skaters – although it’s fallen precipitously more the likes of Chris Pronger (+13 before, -3 after), Matt Carle (+18 before, -6 after) and Arron Asham (+0 before, -7 after). In fact, the plus/minus of Kimmo Timonen (-2 before, +2 after) and Braydon Coburn (-4 before, -1 after) has improved. Even the much maligned Jeff Carter (-2 before, -2 after) has treaded water.

As covered in the Puck Prospectus column, the Flyers’ offensive production has nosedived from an outstanding 3.48 GF per game to a sickly 1.94 GF per game. As Geoff Detweiler of Broad Street Hockey breaks it down:

“The main thing holding this team back has been offense.  They simply haven’t been scoring.  They have only scored 28 goals in their last 15 games, and in their last 10 losses, they’ve only scored 9 goals.  Only four times in the last 17 games have they scored more than 2 goals.  In those 13 games where they have scored two goals or less, they’ve only won twice – both 2-1 wins over the Islanders.  That’s a lot of numbers, but it basically boils down to:  Since the Flyers can’t score more than two goals a game, they can’t win.”

You have to think the Flyers are better than this. They’ve got the talent; they just need to figure it out again.

A couple of weeks ago, I revisited my preseason predictions for the Eastern Conference. I felt pretty good about my choices at the time, but that might not be the case anymore, especially regarding the puzzling collapse of the Philadelphia Flyers. They’ve got to be better than this, right?

It’s the Western Conference’s turn, and I’ve got my share of hits and misses there:

 1. Chicago Blackhawks – So far, it looks like VUKOTA’s nailed number one. My slight downgrade was mostly due to a lack of confidence in the goaltending. Cristobal Huet has been better than I expected, though the Blackhawks might fare even better with Antti Niemi.

2. San Jose Sharks – How could you not like the President’s Trophy winners, when they went ahead and added talented scorer Dany Heatley? You also had to figure that the goaltending situation would improve.

3. Nashville Predators – My middling prediction for the Predators would have looked better if I ran this a few weeks ago. Players like Martin Erat, David Legwand and Dan Hamhuis are playing at unprecedented levels – You’d expect them to fall back to the pack a bit. My guarded optimism for Nashville was based on belief in young netminder Pekka Rinne.

4. Los Angeles Kings – I didn’t see it coming in the preseason, but I jumped on the bandwagon quicker than most. Even with the loss of Ryan Smyth and cooling of Anze Kopitar, the Kings have succeeded as a team.

5. Calgary Flames - Hit this one on the head. I figured that Kipper and Phaneuf were due for bouncebacks, plus adding Bouwmeester would help.

6. Colorado Avalanche - Big miss on this one, although I don’t know anyone who expected this. Even the other authors of Puck Prospectus, who were all quite high on Craig Anderson, didn’t foresee this.

7.  Phoenix Coyotes – The other big surprise. Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov has played the best hockey of his career, helping Phoenix to the league’s 4th best GA per game. I thought the messy ownership situation would bog down an already poor team, but so far, so good. You’d think that they’ll slide back to the pack, though.

8. Dallas Stars – A smaller surprise. A healthy Brad Richards, burgeoning James Neal and competent Marty Turco have buoyed the Stars. I thought Turco was cooked, and didn’t see where any improvement would come from.

9. Detroit Red Wings – We should have seen this coming, right? Though aged, Detroit remained a team of tremendous talent even with the departures of Marian Hossa and Mikael Samuelsson. Ville Leino showed signs of breaking out in the playoffs, but has been an enormous dud. It’s amazing that Detroit is in the playoff hunt with the rash of injuries they’ve dealt with. I suppose that the venerable lineup should have hinted towards possible injury issues.

10. Vancouver Canucks – This looked better a few weeks ago. The return of Daniel Sedin from injury and the return to form of Roberto Luongo should get the Canucks back into the playoff picture quickly.

11. Minnesota Wild – Somewhat better play has raised the Wild out of the Western Division basement. You had to know that losses of Marian Gaborik and coach Jacques Lemaire to the NY Metro area would have to hurt.

12. St. Louis Blues – I bought into the fine second half of last season, assuming that young talent had figured things out and would be able to produce at that level or higher this season. The Blues are back on the tracks after a horrible start now, so we’ll see.

13. Anaheim Ducks – Anaheim what? Oh, D-U-C-K-S. Playing toe to toe with the mighty Wings in the 2008-9 postseason seemed to show the real level of play of a team that had sleepwalked through most of the regular season. But Anaheim is a team that’s about five deep with quality forwards–even with the addition of Saku Koivu–and they’re iffy on defense. Geez, you’d still think they’d be better than this.

14. Columbus – I predicted that Steve Mason would perform poorly in the playoffs due to the high workload that he suffered during his rookie season. I picked up on that, but missed the fact that the effects could translate into this season. Do you have a better explanation? Columbus has the third worst GA per game in the NHL, and it shows in their record. Ken Hitchcock might be the first coach fired this season.

15. Edmonton – Marginally worse than the teams above them, I wouldn’t be surprised if they crept up in the standings. Dustin Penner’s been the shining star of a fine offense, but the Oilers’ defense and goaltending has let them down. Picking up Khabibulin wasn’t going to be an improvement over Roloson.

Hopefully, you’ve gotten a chance to read “Marian Gaborik will be MVP” over at ESPN Insider. Since I put the finishing touches on that article Friday morning (with 101 degree fever…That explains things, right?!), the Rangers have played in three additional games. We’ll take a look at where the Gaborik-for-MVP campaign stands in a moment.

First off, I thought you might enjoy what Rob Vollman emailed me as feedback:

Gaborik winning MVP?

“As usual, Timo Seppa is full of Darren Puppa.  Marian Gaborik?  Ha!  My Uncle Dennis has a better chance of winning the Hart.  The veteran Finn columnist makes 2.1 errors per 60 minutes, which puts him below replacement-level.  Unfortunately Seppa is not worth much in the open market, and Puck Prospectus may be stuck with him unless he signs in the KHL.”

Let’s hope most of that was tongue-in-cheek!

All right – it’s time now to see how the Sloviakian sniper has fared now with 25 games under his belt this season:

You’ll see that the big jump post-surgery has been in Goals per Game Played, coming from a higher (dare I say Mike Bossy-like) shooting percentage. Those are scary, MVP-type numbers indeed.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to see the original article yet, check it out at espn.go.com/nhl; Puck Prospectus will have a version up shortly as well.

On opening night, I made some predictions on how each Conference would shake out. Let’s peek back and see how things have shaken out so far in the East:

1. New Jersey – While the biggest change was the loss of Brian Gionta, I gave more credit to the Devils than most, remembering they were legit President’s Cup contenders in 2008-9, counting on a full year of Martin Brodeur, and putting stock in the return of Jacques Lemaire.

2. You figured that Mike Green couldn’t duplicate last season, but not much other falloff was expected for the Capitals. With two capable goaltenders, Bruce Boudreau could pick whoever is playing better.

3. You can always expect a championship hangover, but the Penguins could be expected to be as hot as the end of last season, given the health of their key contributors.

4. I had Buffalo as a playoff team, though not this high. I counted on a full year of Ryan Miller making the difference.

5. Alex Kovalev is one of my favorites, but I expect Ottawa to fall off from where they currently sit. I did not believe that Pascal Leclaire was the answer, as many pundits did.

6. Atlanta has a better young nucleus than I gave them credit for. If they can hold on for a playoff berth, it will be a significant step for the franchise.

7. I expected significant regression to the mean for Boston, plus the loss of Phil Kessel to hurt. That said, they’ve been worse than I expected. And I thought Dennis Wideman was a good fantasy pick!

8. With the way they started the season, with a 1.00+ SRS, I’m shocked that the Flyers are on the playoff bubble. I didn’t believe in Ray Emery or that Chris Pronger would make this much difference. I still think it’s pretty much a tossup between NJD, PIT, and PHI for the division crown.

9. I thought the addition of ESTR darling Alex Tanguay would give the Lightning a boost, but their performance so far is above expectations.

10. I was actually tempted to put the Rangers as high as 4th, with the addition of Gaborik and Prospal and a full season of Tortorella, but thought that it looked a bit too crazy. A couple of weeks into the season, I was kicking myself a bit for not making that bold prediction. The Blue Shirts are still an intriguing team, with all of their good rookie contributions.

11. Montreal is a bubble team primarily due to their prowess in overtime and shootouts. Exchanging Tanguay, Koivu, and Kovalev for Cammalleri, Gomez, and Gionta figured to be more of less a wash. The loss of Andrei Markov hurt – with him back in the lineup after New Years’, they will still battle for a playoff spot. 

12. It seemed that the ascent of the Islanders was still a year away. In a way, that would have been better, assuring another high draft pick this year. Tavares has been the real deal, though Streit has not lived up to last season’s level of play. They’ve played well enough were they certainly could make the postseason.

13.  Florida has shown signs of life since a poor start. I’m not sure why anyone would have thought they’d make the second season after losing Bouwmeester and Anderson while not making any significant additions.

14. Hats off to the VUKOTA projection of the Leafs, which was worse than mine. I’ll give Toronto a chance to worsen their draft pick through Kessel’s performance and some meaningless trades at some point.

15. I’ll give myself credit for picking last season’s semifinalist Carolina to be out of the money this season – They were hot going into the playoffs -I was on them for the postseason- but it was all still a bit fluky, especially beating Boston. Placing Anton Babchuk in the doghouse for the playoffs and then not signing him were poor decisions. Outside of Eric Staal, they’e got few useful pieces, and those should be sold off in a hurry. The Hurricanes get the first pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, hands down.

Look for my article on Marian Gaborik in Monday’s ESPN Insider.

First of all, sorry for the short absence here–and I’m glad you’ve checked back–it’s been a hectic few weeks. I’ll be picking up the posts shortly.

We’re a good month and a half into the season, and most teams are right on the doorstep of 20 games into the schedule. Ditto for the players, of course. A quarter of the way through the season, we’re starting to get a good idea about who’s performing poorly and well this season. For Even Strength Total Rating, we generally like to see a good 500 minutes ESTOI before we put much stock in ESTR – So, we’re getting there, but it’s not worth looking at the metric quite yet.

What we’ve seen so far is poor performances out of some of last season’s top 20, such as Patrik Berglund, T.J. Oshie, David Perron of the Blues, Ruslan Fedotenko of the Penguins and Stephen Weiss of the Panthers. Poor to mediocre starts for St. Louis and Florida are part of the explanation, but Fedotenko’s 3 G, 3 A, 6 P, -5 plus/minus stat line is particularly disappointing given playing time with either Malkin or Crosby, and manning the point on the man advantage in lieu of Sergei Gonchar (The Penguins’ below average PP% continues to befuddle me in general, given their top shelf offensive talent). I’m also not sure what to make of Martin Havlat’s line of 2 G, 6 A, 8 P, -12 plus/minus; the Wild have been unexpectedly poor this season, and Havlat’s certainly never been known as a defensive forward.

On the plus side, Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom continue to be bright lights on the suddenly average Red Wings, Zach Parise and Travis Zajac of the Devils continue their dominance, and even Bobby Ryan of the Ducks has woken up from a slow start. Two lesser known ESTR stars, Rene Bourque of the Flames–6 G, 12 A, 18 P, +1 plus/minus in +2:25 AVTOI compared to last season–and Tim Connolly of the Sabres–4 G, 11 A, 15 P, +0 plus/minus–have had excellent starts, at least on the offensive end.

I commented over at ESPN Insider about a Halloween-scary rumor that Chris Chelios could be a good fit for the Rangers (see the “NHL Rumors…” suggested link to the right).  Not…a…good..idea.  I remember the 47 year old getting blown past by Teemu Selanne for a short handed goal in the playoffs.  Now, that was ugly.  But what do you expect for a professional hockey player even older than me?  (Okay, much older.)  It can’t be a good idea.

I quoted Chelios’ 2008-9 GVT and his VUKOTA projection over at ESPN Insider.  I’ll admit that his ESOR/ESDR/ESTR of -0.51/+0.71/+0.21 weren’t awful last regular season, though it was in a smallish sample of 281 minutes of ESTOI.

I’ll go with GVT on this one.

Riffing off my piece on potential scoring improvements for the LA Kings aka “LA Kids” in 2009-10, over at ESPN Insider (and reprinted at Puck Prospectus) this week, let’s take a quick look at the teams that had significant two year bouncebacks after posting a negative Relative Goals For (RGF):

-Total team-seasons since 1998-1999 = 235

-Total team-seasons with a negative RGF since 1998-1999 = 111

-Number of cases of a team with a negative RGF improving by 35+ RGF the next season, since 1998-1999= 18, or 16.2% of teams.

-Number of teams that improved RGF the following year after that = 5, or 4.5% of teams.

Who were they?

Relative Goals For = Team’s Goals For – NHL average Goals For.  RGF is a measure of how much better or worse than average the team is at scoring, taking out effects of annual scoring environment.

The three stars of the game is a great hockey tradition.  How unprecedented is this: can you ever remember the winning team getting shut out?  The three stars from yesterday’s 4-3 Devils OT win against Tampa Bay:

1. Viktor Hedman, TBL – O G, 2 A

2. Steven Stamkos, TBL – 2 G, 0 A

3. Ryan Malone, TBL - 0 G , 0 A

I must have checked the box score half a dozen times to make sure I wasn’t misreading something.  Parise had a goal, an assist and a shootout goal and Zajac had a goal and an assist – No love there?  And the choice of Malone is frankly a bit comical – Regardless of his excellent effort, on a night where he scores zero points and nearly gets his starting goalie re-concussed or worse, another choice might be more appropriate.  Hedman looks like the real deal, though.

Finally – Career shootout stats (through last season): Brodeur .715, Smith .583; Parise 44.4%, Langenbrunner 47.4%, Tanguay 35%, Stamkos 0% (0 for 4).  Gee, who was going to win that one?  Preseason, I ranked the two teams 5th (NJD) and 29th (TBL) overall in predicted shootout effectiveness for this season.  The Lightning so far have been worse than predicted (against Carolina and New Jersey), going 0 for 4 shooting while allowing 4 of 5 shots to score!

Opening night is upon us! 

Good contest between Toronto and Montreal, but I don’t know if either team is going to set the NHL on fire…The Habs new first line looks good, as they did in the preseason, but let’s not forget that Koivu, Kovalev, and Tanguay weren’t exactly chopped liver…New shutdown defenseman Hal Gill got burned on a goal…Hobie Baker finalist Viktor Stahlberg looks like he might be for real, after having made the big team…I’d hoped that recovery from surgery might have helped Toskala, but he’s been brutal…Back up the bus for Vesa, and get ready for the era of the Monster…Price is giving up rebounds left and right…Beautiful shot-pass from Tomas Kaberle on Stajan’s goal.

**Check out the staff picks over at Puck Prospectus**

My full picks, per Conference:

Eastern Conference

Playoff teams (1-8): Washington, Pittsburgh, Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York Rangers, Buffalo, Montreal

Non-playoff teams (9-15): Carolina, Florida, Toronto, Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, New York Islanders

Western Conference

Playoff teams (1-8): San Jose, Detroit, Chicago, Calgary, Anaheim, St. Louis, Vancouver, Columbus

Non-playoff teams (9-16): Nashville, Minnesota, Edmonton, Dallas, Los Angeles, Colorado, Phoenix

And my real pick for Vezina was Roberto Luongo.

Really looking forward to seeing the Flames-Canucks later on tonight.

Here’s a list of teams that missed out on playoff births by having poor shootout records (in the post-lockout Shootout Era), and the teams that took advantage of them:

If the above teams had all won half of their shootouts, they would have switched places, between on-ice and on-the-links.  That’s an average of one playoff team per season that changed, due to the shootout.  And curiously, all in the Eastern Conference – Although it would’ve been a close call for Anaheim last season.

**Check out my article “Inside the Projections: Shootouts” over at ESPN Insider for a preview on the impact of shootouts in 2009-10**

A brief post only today, to give you the Even Strength Total Ratings of last season’s Devils, to coincide with **my New Jersey Devils season preview over at Puck Prospectus** today:

Puck Prospectus will run my Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins previews, later this week.

**If you haven’t already, check out the link to the ESPN fantasy hockey experts’ mock draft that I participated in a few weeks ago!**

My first hockey team was the Buffalo Sabres, back in the post-Finals appearance French Connection days. I’ve always been a sucker for a smart defenseman who wasn’t afraid to throw his body in front of a puck, so you might guess that captain Jim Schoenfeld was my favorite player. Black and blue and gold.

I could never understand how they could get rid of those classic uniforms for the black-white-and-red Buffalo Bills jimmies the team wore in the 90’s and beyond. Sure, the new look wasn’t as hideous as the Bruins’ third jersey or as laughable as the Islanders’ fisherman logo, but it was needless change for the sake of change. Having moved from Western New York to Connecticut in 1982, I was a New York Rangers fan by that time, and the vastly different look of those newfangled unis helped complete the mental separation from my former rooting interest.

Those are my Sabres’ credentials (The Rochester Americans are another story). Putting aside that lengthy intro, let’s take a peek at last season’s squad by Even Strength Total Rating, to see who the best contributors were, on that near-playoff team:

Centerman Tim Connolly led the team (among players with at least 500 minutes ESTOI) with a whopping +1.52 ESTR, good for 4th in the NHL. Not bad for a player that many fans don’t know of, huh? Connolly doesn’t get much respect even from Buffalo fans, as Rob from Amherst writes:

“Personally I love Connolly as a player – as with most things you have to weed out the public perception of him.  I think you hit it on the head – I don’t believe he’s ‘injury-prone’ so to speak, rather he’s just had bad luck with a variety of them lately…I think Connolly is a lot more of a complete player than he’s ever given credit for – he’s been painted with a ’soft’ brush which is very much unwarranted.  Perhaps to his detriment, he’s never afraid to dig for the puck or cross into dangerous mid-ice territory.  I was probably in the incredibly small minority of Sabres fans who was very pleased when they re-signed him late last season.”

Along with a very good goaltender in Ryan Miller, the Sabres have several promising pieces. Rookie Chris Butler put up the 3rd best ESTR (+0.83) among defensemen in his 47 GP last season; he scored only 6 Points, but had an impressive +11 plus/minus rating on the non-playoff squad. This season, the 22 year old youngster will be joined on the blue line by 5th rated defenseman Steve Montador (+0.80), recently of the Ducks and Bruins.

Even Strength Total Rating suggests that Buffalo stay away from resigning unrestricted free agents Maxim Afinigenov and Andrew Peters, and is ambivalent about resigning UFA Dominic Moore.

**Iain’s Fyffe’s Sabres preview is now up at Puck Prospectus**

In 2008-9, Marian Gaborik had his second injury-ravaged season out of the last three. Therefore, take his Even Strength Total Rating with a grain of salt, given the small sample size. We do know that (given good health, of course) he will have a significantly positive ESTR (but we can expect his ESOR to be less positive and his ESDR to be less negative – see below). 

What we can see by looking at some of the forwards in and forwards out of the Rangers’ roster is that there are a lot of eggs in the Gaborik basket.  Lose the superstar Slovak, and there’s a whole lot of below average there:

**Check out my comprehensive preview of the 2009-10 New York Rangers at Puck Prospectus today!**

A few weeks ago, we looked at the Anaheim Ducks defense, post-Pronger.  With the signing of Steve Eminger, who played on three teams in 2008-9, here’s what the updated defensive roster looks like:

Anaheim Ducks’ defensemen, Regular season 2008-9

At Even Strength, the 25 year old journeyman (!) was the epitome of a league average defenseman by ESTR.  He can fill a useful role for the Ducks if he does not displace better performers or get in the way of young Sbisa developing.  It’s Ryan Whitney who has been a flop anywhere he’s gone, who should be shipped out if Anaheim can find any takers.

“Suitcase” Steve Eminger?  Now that Mike Sillinger is retired, Eminger may take on the monicker based on 5 teams -Washington, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Florida, Anaheim- in a little over a year.  Sheesh!

Greg passed along this comment regarding the Oilers’ ESTR’s:

“Without looking into it further, it really seems to benefit players who played a lower qualcomp on their team with very good linemates (Ryan, Oshie and Berglund come to mind there), but there are some very good players who look good by a lot of metrics (Datsyuk, Hossa, Havlat).  Nilsson played with good players against the dregs and finished +2.  Horcoff played with the best against the other teams best and finished +9.  Yet it’s ranking Nilsson higher?”

A fine question, and a good case study to undertake.  Concentrating on the Oilers’ portion of the question, let’s compare Edmonton forwards Shawn Horcoff and Robert Nilsson.  At first glance, counting stats seem to be a hands down victory for Horcoff:

But Horcoff played in 80 games versus Nilsson’s 64 games, and got 21:21 minutes versus 15:11 minutes (ATOI).  Let’s look at what difference that makes to the rates if we give Nilsson equal games and ice time:

All of a sudden, the two players are as equal as you can get, on counting stats and points per game rates, right?

Yeah, except one thing.  Horcoff still would have seen more PPTOI (300 to 277 minutes) than Nilsson even with the normalization (The base numbers were 300 minutes to 158 minutes PPTOI).

Oh, and another.  At Even Strength, taking out Empty Net goals, both players were +6, and that’s without normalization.

And by our metrics, the average GF and GA for Nilsson were under slightly more difficult circumstances than for Horcoff.

So how do these numbers look now?

The Edmonton Oilers are well known to have some of the most loyal and stats saavy hockey fans out there. In a recent comment, blogger Greg asked how Oilers’ players fared by Even Strength Total Rating last season. Here are Edmonton’s best skaters for 2008-9, for players with more than 500 minutes at Even Strength:

The value of Patrick O’Sullivan, who began the season with Los Angeles, is a bit higher than shown due to his excellent net penalty performance, +1.3 per 60 minutes, giving him roughly a quarter of a goal per 60 minutes bump. Incidentally, I’m not sure how the Oilers were ruining Erik Cole, but at least they got a good player like O’Sullivan out of the three-way deal.  Then, there’s the Kings…

Who doesn’t show up on the list above? Zack Stortini, who was a nice contributor on my fantasy team last season due to a combination of fisticuffs with a few goals thrown in. Stortini, whose standard stat line was 6 G, 5 A, 11 P, -3 plus/minus, 181 PIM in 52 GP, was -0.48 ESTR at 375 minutes ESTOI.

**Check out my preview of the New York Islanders, just posted over at Puck Prospectus**

Vancouver has three new faces on the blue line for next season, all veterans whose names you’ll recognize: 40 year old Mathieu Schneider, who Montreal rescued from plus/minus hell in Atlanta at the trading deadline, and the latest San Jose castoffs, 27 year old Christian Ehrhoff (still a “prospect”?) and 33 year old Brad Lukowich (I thought he was older than that – Not a good sign).

Even Strength Total Rating says that they’re not going to be above average additions to the Canucks:

Not much to get Roberto Luongo jazzed up about.

**Don’t forget to take a peek over at Puck Prospectus. Today’s column introduces Even Strength Total Rating in some depth.**

TSN is reporting that Alex Tanguay has signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning.  No contender wanted the best remaining free agent?

By Even Strength Total Rating, Tanguay was Montreal’s best player, significantly better than Martin St. Louis, who had a fine season for the lowly Lightning.

The Montreal first-liner was one of the 10 best players of 2008-9 by ESTR.

Next week, I’ll be doing a full preview of the New York Islanders over at Puck Prospectus, followed up by looks at their Atlantic Division foes throughout the month.  You’ll want to take a peek over there for 2009-10 previews of all 30 NHL teams by our great staff, throughout September.

As a bit of a teaser, let’s look at the Isles’ biggest ESTR contributors last season:

It’s not surprising to see D Mark Streit’s Norris Trophy caliber season there among the top five Islanders, but there is/was perhaps some promise in seeing three other names from the defense corps – albeit taking ESTR’s with a grain of salt due to with smallish sample sizes: Andy Sutton is signed through this season, Brett Skinner remains a UFA, while Joe Callahan was scooped up by the Sharks.

The only forward in the top five -and trust me, the rest of the team’s ESTR plummet negative quickly past these few guys- is LW Dean McAmmond, currently unsigned as a UFA.  Dean McAmmond, anyone?

Relative unknown Brett Festerling resigned with Anaheim, a two year deal.  With the departure of Chris Pronger in the early offseason trade with Philadelphia, let’s examine who are the best blueliners the Ducks have to offer:

Anaheim Ducks’ defensemen, Regular season 2008-9

Leading the list is: Brett Festerling.  The 22 year old from British Columbia has taken steps to prove that he is a good stay at home defenseman in his first 40 NHL games, sporting a +1.28 Even Strength Defensive Rating in 570 minutes of ESTOI.  Anaheim doesn’t have any top end defensemen, with the deterioration of Niedermayer’s talent, so an infusion of young talent is necessary (Mind you, any hope of a change of scenery igniting Ryan Whitney has already proven fruitless). 

Regarding Luca Sbisa, don’t get too concerned with the poor showing above.  Remember that he’s an excellent prospect who won’t turn 20 until well into next season.  Given patience, Sbisa could develop into a cornerstone for the future.

Not much to write home about, with the past week’s signings.  With most of these guys, you don’t need any egghead stats guy telling you that these players are not going to bring much to their new teams.

Todd Bertuzzi (-0.28 ESTR) to the Red Wings…Really?  You’d figure they could make better use of $1.5 M.  If you think that Big Bert will make up for the loss of Jiri Hudler (+0.70 ESTR) or Mikael Samuelsson (+0.06 ESTR) -we’re not even going to broach Marian Hossa- you’re nuts.

The Hurricanes are looking to add more non-descript forwards, to ensure that they don’t improve on last season’s playoff overachievement.  Enter Stephane Yelle (+0.01 ESTR).  I would imagine that the Bruins were happy a) that his contract was up b) there roster was chock full of better forwards to begin with, to ensure that they didn’t do anything they’d regret.

And Vaclav Prospal (-0.25 ESTR) to the Rangers?  Another old forward on the decline.  Haven’t we seen this feature before?

To repeat: Alex Tanguay, anyone?

Who was the best on the blue line last season?

Even Strength Total Rating, Regular season 2008-9

You expect to see Mike Green there, with his 31 Goals and 73 Points -great teammates or not- and Mark Streit, of the Norris Trophy-caliber season, but did you see Dennis Wideman coming?

Speaking of Boston defensemen…Wideman, Montador…Where’s Trophy winner Zdeno Chara?  Clearly, the voters picked the worst candidate from amongst the finalists.  You know, the usual.