11/5/11 Studs & Duds

[GMGates]

Saturday Night S&Ds
Eastern Heavy

Since I have enough content to publish an early version of the Studs and Duds (three games remain on the schedule), I thought it would be nice to post them up for early discussion.



Studs

Seguin's Big Bad Brew

Last time Boston played Toronto, Seguin light up the score sheet with three points and silenced Kessel to zilch. Tonight's matchup, or round two, and it is the same song and dance. This time around though, "Leafs-Killer" Seguin made sure to seal the deal, notching his first NHL hat trick.

Tim Thomas, while wearing new pads and a fancy "Movember" mask, recorded his first shutout of the season, as the Bruins destroyed the Leafs 7-0.

Lucic, Bergeron, Krejci and Seguin all finished with three points apiece.

Pit Stop

Before Saturday night, the Red Wings were second last in league scoring (ahead of the Islanders) with 24 goals for. With five goals against Anaheim, they have switched gears. Hopefully for Detroit fans, this tune up may just be what the mechanic ordered to finally get their show on the road.

Between drives, Johan Franzen is playing some good hockey. With ten points on the season, his stat line versus the Ducks: one goal, two assists, plus-three, two PIM and six shots on goal.

Follow up - In the last five games played against the Ducks, Jimmy Howard has shut them out three times.

Philly Lotto

The Flyers definitely spread the love against Columbus on Saturday night, as only three players failed to hit the score sheet; Hartnell, Rinaldo and Lilja.

Everything went to plan as the team in orange crushed their most recent opponent.

Voracek and James Van Reimsdyk recorded three points each, while five others finished with two. Strong stat lines across the board, however props to rookie defenseman Erik Gustafsson who finished the game with one assist and a plus-six rating.


HM Jhonas Enroth continues his stellar play. He has now won the three games he started this season. Same goes to Harding, who has put up amazing numbers to give the Wild multiple victories.

Both goalies are prime candidates to be featured in the upcoming Studs and Duds weekly recap.

HM Frans Nielson and PA Parenteau with three points apiece versus the Caps - a big reason why the Islanders won the game.



Duds

Windbreak my Heart

The only team with double digits in the loss column continues to fall.

After allowing two goals in just over three minutes into the game, ex-Blue Jacket Jakob Voracek assisted on the marker that chased Steve Mason out of the crease. Things didn't get any easier as Allen York let in Columbus' fifth goal against with under a minute left in first period.

The floodgates never dried up. Nine goals against and CBJ cried their way out of Pennsylvania.

Follow up - Voracek and Couturier, two pieces in the Carter to Columbus trade, combined for three goals and five points.

Habs Gone Bad

Even though Price let in three goals in the first, it wasn't his fault. How can it be when your team combines for 34 PIM in under eleven minutes of play? Talk about deflating tires early into the game.

Even though the Habs fought back and made it a game, that first period mishap cost them the match.

Follow up Last time these two teams met, Price was chased out before the first intermission after allowing five goals on twelve shots. For those counting that was a .583 SV% performance.

Darn Caps!

How dare they give Rick DiPietro his first win and assist of the season!

Everything was fine and dandy to start the game, but what the hell happened? Two goals in the last two minutes of the game (granted one was an empty netter) is what happened!

Boo the Caps boo...


DHM Both Brian Burke's present team (Leafs) and ex-team (Ducks) were shut out on Saturday night with a total of twelve goals against.

DHM Another St. Louis start, another Halak loss. 'Nuff said.


Quick Hit

Selanne owners got a treat in a much different fashion Saturday night. Instead of his regular score sheet points appearance, Teemu logged in 22 penalty minutes early in the third - a roughing call and a misconduct, tagged with a game misconduct.

[bondon]

Great studs and duds Gates!

Awesome catch with regards to Voracek/Couturier, completely forgot that they were the pieces that went the other way in the Carter deal. Man, it would be two of the three Flyers I own in various leagues that go scoreless in the game. Hartnell and Rinaldo bah.

Great connections, very interesting read.

[GMGates]

Thanks B!

Here are some other notes from last night's late games...

Quick Hits

The Coyotes gave Dave Tippett his 100th win behind the Phoenix bench. Tippett became the fastest coach in franchise history to record the milestone and now sits at 100-55-22.

This win also ended the 6th game winning streak Edmonton was riding.

The Kings and Pens match up looked to be quite a battle and both tenders played well. I could go on to describe some recaps and box scores, but I'll invite Tim Lucarelli to share his thoughts as he was in attendance in a pretty good seat.

Finally, as a Preds fan, I love when they play San Jose and I love it even more when they skate away with the win. Some great play by guys like Legwand, Pavelski & Couture. Pekka Rinne stood on his head and kept the game alive with a great save late in the match up.

Keeping these extra hits short as a few markers will be mentioned in Monday's recap.

[ericdaoust]

I call gimmick infringement on this one!

[GMGates]

I call gimmick infringement on this one!

Muahaha, well I didn't actually tune into those late games so I'd be writing solely on recaps and replays.

It's really too bad Fantrax asked me to do Monday-Sunday recaps (even though it works well with my schedule) as the last couple of weeks I continually find content that I want to write in both the Saturday recap and the weekly recap, but I don't want to overlap.

For example, Legwand who scored two last night has 14 points in 13 games. But if you look on the week, he exploded with 6 points in his last four played. So that type of content I'd save for the weekly edition.

[Dean Youngblood]

You need to learn how to spell Jakub Voracek's name Tsk Tsk. Kitten Dead

Good stuff Gates!

[GMGates]

lol, I actually meant to double check. Pretty bad since I'm a Voracek owner!

Point noted.

[metaldude26]

Those PIMs from Teemu might be the only ones his owners get all year. Kinda like a couple years back when Kopitar got a misconduct from breaking his stick on the bench. I don't think he took another penalty all year. Gotta love that randomness.

[duballstar014]

That Kings-Pens game was a pretty solid hockey game. In the first period the Kings took a couple penalties that led to a 5-on-3 advantage for Pitt...then four seconds into the power play, former Penguin Rob Skuderi flipped the puck over the glass, giving the Pens a ridiculously long power play. They had a pretty strong kill, but eventually Sullivan found the back of the net.

The Kings struggled to find life for a while after that Sullivan marker, but eventually Kopitar had a nasty goal and all of a sudden we had a hockey game again. Kopitar later found Simon Gagne back door and gave LA a 2-1 lead late in the third period which looked to be a very likely game winner. With just under 5 minutes to play Mike Richards skated in the zone and floated one to the net, where Dustin Brown deflected it in beautifully for a 3-1 lead and the game looked to be all LA at that point.

The goal was called back though and Chris Kunitz capitalized on the momentum shift, tying the game 2-2 with 2:57 to play. After 3 rounds of shooters, the game was still tied, and the coaches sent Simon Gagne and Chris Kunitz over the boards respectively, with Gagne missing his attempt and Kunitz burying his five-hole on Jon Quick to win the game.

The Kings absolutely gave this one away. They were distracted by the disallowed goal and let Kunitz even the score late in the third, then failed to win in the shootout. Mike Richards also had a shorthanded breakaway and was hauled down by Kris Letang, leading to a shorthanded penalty shot, but Richards missed the net entirely. I'm guessing that miss is why he didn't go in the shootout, but regardless, this Kings team had plenty of opportunities to seal the deal and just did not.

[GMGates]

Great analysis.

Thanks for sharing Tim!