Studs & Duds April 26

[newfcollins]

From myself and sixhands:


Studs

Ryan Callahan: Callahan continued his hot streak, posting a goal, an assist, a plus-one, six shots, two blocked shots, and four hits. He is on a six-game point streak, with nine points in those games. Playoff poolies beware though: All six of those games have come against non-playoff teams. His last point against a playoff team came back on March 10 (24 games ago) against Washington. In total, only four of his 29 points this year have come against playoff teams.

Phil Kessel: Kessel has points in nine of his last 10 games, accumulating 17 points in that span. He kept it going last night with another two goals on four shots, and finishing with a plus-two. The last time Kessel went more than two straight games without a point was all the way back on Jan. 21-26 (aka, Games 2 to 5 of the season).

Ilya Kovalchuk: The $100-million man scored his first goal in 10 games, and it was the game-winner to boot. He also added a powerplay assist. Kovalchuk now has points in three straight games.

Erik Karlsson: So much for easing back into things. He led all Ottawa and Washington players in assists (two), points (two), shots (eight), and time on ice (27:11). And this was his warm-up game. Wait until he’s back into game shape.


Honourable mention:

Tuuka Rask: A 30-save performance gives him his fifth shutout of the season, and his second back-to-back shutout when starting games. He has not given up a goal in 152 minutes.

Johan Franzen: One goal, one assist, plus-two, four shots, one blocked shot and one hit. The only thing that didn’t go well for the Mule was he lost the one faceoff he took.

Cam Atkinson: Two goals on seven shots, a plus-one, three blocked shots and a hit. All while playing only 14:05.

Jarred Tinordi: He had an assist, was a plus-one, and blocked a shot. But the impressive part of his night was seven hits. No other Hab player had more than one. In fact, the rest of the team managed nine total.


Duds


Hank and Dank Stank

Gone are the days when Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin could change the flow of the game in the Canuck's favour. I watched the game, so there’s almost 3 hours of my life I will never get back.

The Sedins are usually wizards with the puck but last night they looked like AHL call-ups, selected using the “Eeny Meeny Miny Mo” method. I know Henrik scored a point but that was a second assist and to be honest I don’t think he really deserved it. The hustle of the others earned that point for him.

Henrik finished the night a minus-one, had one shot on goal and a hit but was horrendous in the face-off circle. Hank the skank only won 3 of 11 face-offs for a dismal 0.214 FO%

Daniel didn’t fare much better than his older brother, zero goals and zero assists. The rest of his stat line wasn’t anything to write home about either, two shots on goal and nothing else. Zip, zero, zilch!

There was one word that came to mind when I watched the two “play” last night, PATHETIC!


Huey, Dewey and Loui

Loui Eriksson looked like he was about to redeem himself and go on another of his hot streaks. After goals in back-to-back games he returned to his ugly duckling ways and could only manage one hit and one shot on goal. The rest of his stats were all zeros, I guess finishing the night with an even plus/minus could be considered an accomplishment in this situation.

Louie Anderson could have made a bigger splash last night, at least he would have blocked a few shots. Loui Eriksson has 6 points in his last 15 games and 29 points in 47 games for the season. This pro-rates to roughly 52 points in a full schedule. A far cry from his previous three consecutive 70+ seasons.

Maybe he’ll be better off with the Ducks


What goes up, must come down.

Steven Stamkos followed up his career best +5 with a -1, I realize it was the second game in two nights but Stammer is a professional athlete so this is unacceptable. He wasn't much better in the face-off circle either, only winning 4 of 13 face-offs for a sub-par 0.308 FO%. I feel sorry for those that have Henrik and Steven as their primary centers, I’m guessing you lost your head-to-head match ups because of these two.

The only positives from his game last night was his 4 shots-on-goal, 2 hits and a take-away.


Florida Panther - a subspecies of cougar (Puma concolor coryi or Puma concolor couguar) found in southern Florida.

It was really tough trying to single out a Panther for the Duds column this week. Looking at the stats it was clear that they were all embracing the term “subspecies”. The team was a combined -20. The two worst culprits being Tomas Kopecky and Peter Mueller with -3 each. I honestly don’t know what Jonathan Huberdeau was doing on the ice, all he could produce in 23 shifts was one take-away and 2 hits. Huberdud didn’t have a single shot-on-goal, no penalty minutes, no blocked shots but hey he finished the night even in the plus/minus column.

There’s another version of the term “cougar” that most of us are familiar with! I’m pretty sure they would have “scored at least once” if they were on the ice instead!



Afterthoughts

Rick Nash and Ryane Clowe – Combined they finished minus-2 with only 3 shots-on-goal and 2 blocked shots between them. Nash also coughed up the puck twice to the opposition.

Jakub Voracek – 7 shots-on-goal with nothing at all to show for it. And apart from the one give-away his stat line was full of zeros.

Sergei Kostitsyn – All I can say is that it appears the younger brother is turning into a perennial dud. He did help out last night with 2 PIM, 2 hits and a shot-on-goal but also finished minus-1.

Evgeni Malkin – Zero points, no PIM, one measely shot-on-goal and less than 50/50 in the face-off circle. You're better than this Malkin!

[TheZamboniGuy]

I like it nice work !!!

[Bomm Bastic]

Nice read, gents.