Down the Frozen River

Category: NHL

  • The Golden Knights; What Are the Odds?

    The gamble of putting a hockey team in Las Vegas is really paying off.

    If you’re a hockey fan, you have probably heard all about the incredible start to the season for the Golden Knights, coming out of the gate with a 7-1-0 record. Fans from around the league are still asking the same questions, “Is this team the real deal?” At this point, it is honestly still too early to tell. If you are a fan of the team, you obviously want to flaunt this big run, but it’s a long season and anything can happen. Could they continue their great play, shock the NHL, and advance to post-season play? Absolutely, it’s a long season and anything can happen.

    As a Bowling Green graduate, I had the opportunity to meet many famous Falcon Hockey alumni, as they came home to cheer on their alma mater. George McPhee was one of those individuals. It was the 50th Anniversary of the rink and there were many former players in attendance. I essentially had a checklist of people I wanted to “conveniently run into” for a quick picture and an autograph. When I saw McPhee, as I handed him a puck to sign, I found it within me to ask him a question about his new job. Very simply, I asked what we could expect from this new franchise. His one word answer was straight to the point, “Effort.” He went on to explain that his team would give their best effort and the results would take care of themselves.

    Fast forward to a Las Vegas team that is now in the record books for the best start of any Expansion team and this conversation takes a whole new meaning. No one would have predicted this start, even the General Manager himself. He was right though. The Golden Knights are giving 110% and their hard work is paying off.

    After their first few wins, particularly two against the Colorado Avalanche and another two over the winless Arizona Coyotes, the Golden Knights were simply taking advantage of their strength of schedule. A few games later and they have defeated the Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks; three teams that are legitimate Stanley Cup contenders (at least have been in recent memory). So is this the real deal? The way I see it, there are three potential finishes the Vegas Golden Knights could have. Let’s take a look and you can be the judge.

    Option A: The Golden Knights Continue to Dominate

    The expectations have changed for this team. Fans and players alike are starting to see that something special is brewing in Nevada and they want more of it. At this point, why doubt them? They could come back down to earth, but it’s more fun just to enjoy the ride. James Neal is having a career year, followed by the success of Reilly Smith and David Perron. William Karlsson is finally seeing some daylight after being towards the bottom of the Columbus Blue Jackets’ depth chart in previous seasons. Keep in mind they are winning games without Marc-Andre Fleury, who could be coming back shortly from injury. Their early resume is impressive to say the least, and if the players continue to push their limits, they really could tear apart the Western Conference. If you picked up the Golden Knights and put them in the Eastern Conference, this would likely be a different story. But, the schedule they have plays in their favor and you might be watching this team win a lot more than they lose.

    Option B: Mediocracy is Ok Too

    If you are an established franchise, you never want to shoot for average, but Expansion teams have completely different expectations. The coaching staff in Las Vegas probably established a goal to break even this season. Win several home games, play good hockey, grow the fan base, and get a decent draft pick. In their first season of play, that would be an ideal outcome. This is the most plausible result for the Golden Knights. In an 82-game season, things happen. Injuries, slumps, and trades are all problems that can derail a team’s season. The Golden Knights haven’t had to deal with much adversity so far this season. With the exception of their goaltending department, the Golden Knights haven’t had to deal with much adversity so far this season. It will come and we will see how they handle it. Regardless, don’t sleep on this team because they have shown they know how to win.

    Option C: Tank… Tank… Tank…

    The idea of a complete breakdown seems unlikely, but it is still possible. Their start to the season is great, but could the wheels still fall off? As we mentioned above, one major injury could completely change the course of the season. So far, Malcolm Subban and now Oscar Dansk have prevented this from already happening. The difference between success and failure is a very fine line in the NHL. One moment things are great, but then all of a sudden… something bad happens. The Golden Knights are on an incredible streak, but as we learned with last year’s Columbus Blue Jackets, winning doesn’t always last. The concept of tanking is really awful. Players should always go out and give their best, no matter what their current record looks like. The Golden Knights will fight throughout the season, but what will their result look like at the finish line?

    Expansions teams are a unique topic. You are starting with brand new players, who typically have not played together before. There are really no star-caliber players on the roster, which means you can’t depend on one or two guys to take over the offense. Team chemistry, specifically among line mates, is a critical part of the game. All teams have to deal with questioning where they slot in the new players on their roster, but the Las Vegas coaching staff had to make those decisions for the entire team. So far, things have worked perfectly, but that could all change with the flip of the switch. Keep an eye on the Golden Knights because they could sneak up on the rest of the league. They are here and they appear poised to continue their success. Will the management go all in on this year’s team? We’ll have to wait and see.

  • Down the Frozen River Podcast #76- A Coach’s Stance (feat. Craig Custance)

    Down the Frozen River Podcast #76- A Coach’s Stance (feat. Craig Custance)

    NHL Insider for The Athletic and Editor-In-Chief for The Athletic Detroit, Craig Custance joined the show this week to discuss his new book Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey’s Greatest Coaches available on Amazon or wherever books are still sold. Custance and the Original Trio discussed his book, the Detroit Red Wings and who they’d pick as head coach of Team USA.

    Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) and/or on Stitcher.

  • Down the Frozen River Podcast #75- Captain’s Practice (with Cap’n Cornelius)

    Down the Frozen River Podcast #75- Captain’s Practice (with Cap’n Cornelius)

    Nick and Colby are joined by the Cap’n this week as the trio discuss the Vegas Golden Knights home opener, bad starts for the Arizona Coyotes, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and San Jose Sharks, as well as other thoughts around the league. The New York Islanders really need an arena and the Carolina Hurricanes really need some fans.

    Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) and/or on Stitcher.

  • Sabres’ Early Struggles Lead to Questions

    Bad habits die hard, as the Buffalo Sabres have had another bad start to the season. And because of those slow starts, the team gets in a hole at the beginning of the season so deep that they can never battle back and salvage the campaign.

    The Sabres are 0-2-1 through the first three games, and the past two games against the New York Islanders and the New Jersey Devils have seen them give up a total of 12 goals. One of the biggest problems is that Buffalo is giving up a great deal of odd-man rushes. In the New Jersey game, odd-man rushes cost the Sabres four goals against.

    But it is not just odd-man rushes. A lot of the goals against are because of the sloppy play in the Sabres’ own end and turnovers in key areas. Phil Housley, the Sabres’ new head coach, says the team needs to work harder and the results will come.

    As if the defense is the only group struggling, Buffalo’s offense has also had its short comings. The Sabres have only had one line producing goals this season. Evander Kane has four goals, Jason Pominville has two goals and Jack Eichel has one goal. Big name players like Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Reinhart and Kyle Okposo have been snack bitten thus far. O’Reilly has been basically invisible through three games and Sam Reinhart has looked lost playing his original center position.

    Last year, the Sabres finished with the best power play in the league. Well, that was last year folks, as this year the Sabres are currently 16th with a lousy 15 percent success-rate early in the season. That’s not the worst part though, as the Sabres have given up four shorthanded goals already this season. That is the same amount the club gave up all of last season.

    The team doesn’t have many excuses for the bad play. They don’t have many injuries, with just Zach Bogosian being the only serious loss to the team. So why is this team struggling so badly already? Sabres fans are looking for answers and if the squad continues to play the way it is, the loyal fan base will look for change.

    Most of the Sabres’ struggles are because this team is weak-minded. They don’t handle adversity well at all. For example, when the Sabres were down 2-0 against the Devils, Kane found a goal to cut the lead to one. But, that positive momentum didn’t last a two full minutes as the Devils responded with goal of their own, and then found a fourth minutes later. Housley put it best when he stated the team doesn’t have push back when the game needs it or they face adversity. With a young team, learning to win is a hard thing to teach, but they need to show more fight if they want to be in more games.

    The next issue has a lot to do with the goaltending, but Robin Lehner is not entirely to blame for this struggle. The fan base is used to having star and franchise goals, as the Sabres were lucky to have two elite goalies play for their organization in Dominik Hasek and Ryan Miller. Lehner is not one of those goalies: he is a tweener until the next franchise goalie comes along.

    Lehner has been left out to dry for the two games he’s played this season. This is a goalie who posted a .920 save percentage last year and bailed the team out of a lot of games. His main weakness is the shootout, as he has yet to find a win in the shootout in his three seasons as a Sabre. He struggles to even make one save, but – again -it’s not just his fault as his team also forgets to score in shootout.

    It’s easy to blame the coach and his system. Housley wants to play a five-man attack and wants the team to play with speed. This is part of the issue as the team doesn’t have a lot of speed with the exceptions of Eichel and Kane. Learning the new five-man attack is taking some time and, without the correct cycle, is leading to those odd-man rushes going the other way.

    It looks bad right now, but I would like to remind people that last year the Nashville Predators struggled to start the season. They started their first 10 games 3-5-2 under Housley’s defensive system. That being said, things need to change for the Sabres because Jason Botterill has a plan and I’m sure could find a way to make moves to better this team.

    The league is getting younger and the youth movement is on. It’s only a matter of time before the youngsters of Alex Nylander, Brendan Ghule and Linus Ullmark get a spot in the NHL. Players like Matt Moulson and Josh Gorges are going to move on and the youth will get a chance to wake this team up.

    The Sabres are heading west as they have San Jose tonight at 10:30 p.m. EDT. They have had luck against this team over past few years, and they need to get on the right path on this trip with other games against LA, Anaheim and Vegas. If they could take 2 or 3 out of 4 games, the fans will calm down and they could start getting out of the big hole.

  • October 12 – Day Nine – The Kevin Peter Hall game

    If you have no idea who the title is referring to, maybe today’s selection can help.

    Action is slightly delayed this evening, as our first two contests (Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay [SN360/TVAS] and St. Louis at Florida) don’t drop the puck until 7:30 p.m. Dallas pays a visit to Nashville at 8 p.m., followed by Minnesota at Chicago half an hour later. Another pair of contests (Winnipeg at Vancouver and Detroit at Arizona) get the green light at 10 p.m., with tonight’s nightcap – Buffalo at San Jose – getting underway 30 minutes later. All times Eastern.

    There’s two games from that selection that have drawn my eye. The Wild-Blackhawks rivalry is always fun to take in, but I’m surprisingly more drawn to a meeting between between two 1-2-0 clubs.

     

    Still can’t figure it out? Hall was the person in the Predator suit in the first two Predator movies. He’s the star of Predator!

    Sure, I could have gone with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that would have been too easy.

    Anyways…

    Coming off an offseason of high expectations, both of these teams had a tough opening week to their campaigns. They both lost their opening two games (including an embarrassing 4-0 loss by the Predators to Pittsburgh in a rematch of the Stanley Cup Finals) before winning their contests on Tuesday.

    Starting with visiting Dallas, this was supposed to be an offense that eclipsed that of 2015-’16, yet the Stars have averaged only 2.33 goals-per-game to start the season ([t]third-worst in the league).

    Part of the problem has been the goaltending they’ve squared off against. Both Jake Allen (.93 save percentage and 2.58 GAA) and Marc-Andre Fleury (.963 save percentage and 1.32 GAA) have yet to lose a game in three starts and – especially Fleury – have been among the league’s best.

    Even though the super line of Jamie Benn–Tyler Seguin–Alexander Radulov didn’t find the back of the net, Dallas proved what it is truly capable of Tuesday against G Petr Mrazek. With the exception of the top power play unit scoring late in the first period, the middle two lines began flexing their muscles by scoring the remaining three goals (shh, no one needs to know that C Martin Hanzal‘s first goal of the year was an empty netter).

    While the offense assumes its form, it’s been the superb play of G Ben Bishop that has been keeping the Stars competitive in all their games. So far this season he’s posted a .955 save percentage and 1.15 GAA, including what could have been a shutout if he hadn’t been forced from the Vegas game on opening night.

    Of the numerous signings made across the league, few improved a team as immensely as this one did for Dallas. Add in the fact that the Stars also added D Marc Methot to a formerly flimsy defensive corps and you find a Dallas team ready to shoot for the stars (that was so lame).

    As for the Predators, they’re just trying to live up to qualifying for last year’s Stanley Cup Finals. No big deal, right?

    That postseason effort was largely dependent on a defensive corps that also had a scoring touch as golden as their sweaters, and maybe it’s the absence of that flair that has held Nashville back so far this young season. Beyond D P.K. Subban and his four assists, only two other blue liners have contributed on offense. Even more noticeable is that none of those defensive points are goals.

    It would seem D Ryan Ellis‘ absence is certainly being felt, as he posted 16-22-38 totals last season for .54 points-per-game. He would have notched at least one point by now.

    And as dependable as Bishop has been for the Stars, G Pekka Rinne has been below-average to star the season. He’s managed only an .869 save percentage for an atrocious 4.16 GAA – and he didn’t even play in the four-goal loss to Pittsburgh.

    With such an offensively-minded D-corps, elite play from Rinne is an absolute necessity. To put it bluntly, forcing the defense to actually focus on playing defense (that’s not a knock on this group, but we all know they’re almost always planning their next attack) takes such a major weapon away from this Nashville team. Head Coach Peter Laviolette cannot afford for this solid team to be in the wrong year of Rinne’s “good year, bad year” routine.

    If anything is starting to go right for the Predators, it’s their power play. The man-advantage, specifically the top unit, played an integral role in the Preds’ comeback win Tuesday from a 4-3 deficit in the third period. Nashville has converted 31.3 percent of its man-advantages, which ties with the Rangers for the second-best effort in the NHL.

    Though it was great to get that win over Philadelphia, I still don’t think all the Preds are mentally back from summer vacation. Having said that, I’m leaning towards Dallas pulling off the victory tonight, whether the game is over after 60 minutes or requires a shootout.

    The machine that is the Pittsburgh Penguins seems to have rediscovered its groove, as they beat the Washington Capitals 3-2 at the Verizon Center in yesterday’s DtFR Game of the Day.

    The Penguins employed a goal-per-period strategy last night that the Caps nearly matched, failing to score in the first period. Because of that, does that make D Kris Letang‘s (W Bryan Rust and First Star of the Game RW Patric Hornqvist) first goal of the season, a power play wrist shot 5:22 into the game, the game-winner?

    Unfortunately for Letang, we all know the answer to that question is technically ‘no.’ Sorry, buddy.

    Pittsburgh registered its second power play goal of the night 8:20 into the second period, courtesy of Hornqvist (W Tom Kuhnhackl and C Sidney Crosby), another first-time goalscorer for the 2017-’18 season. The Penguins almost took a two-goal advantage into the second intermission, but Second Star D Christian Djoos (C Lars Eller and W Brett Connolly) sneaked a slap shot past G Matthew Murray with 53 seconds remaining in the frame to pull Washington back within a goal. Just like the goalscorers before him, Djoos’ marker was his first of the season, but this one was extra special: tonight was also his NHL debut.

    Apparently Head Coach Mike Sullivan was none too pleased about Djoos’ late marker, as Third Star W Conor Sheary (D Justin Schultz and D Olli Maatta) provided what proved to be the true game-winner 38 seconds into the third period.

    The play truly started with five seconds remaining in the second period when RW Alex Chiasson earned himself a seat in the penalty box for getting caught holding D Brian Dumoulin. As far as action on the ice is concerned, the scoring play began with Maatta at the blue line. Seeing Schultz undefended – due to the Capitals being shorthanded – in the face-off circle to G Braden Holtby‘s right, he passed to his fellow defenseman who quickly centered a pass to Sheary waiting in Holtby’s crease. Though the 25-year-old began falling while performing his tip-in, the redirection was just enough to beat Holtby to the post.

    W Alex Ovechkin (Djoos and C Nicklas Backstrom) did pull Washington back within a goal with 7:09 remaining in regulation, but neither he, F T.J. Oshie nor any of the other Capitals could complete the comeback in the remaining time.

    Murray earned the victory after saving 20-of-22 shots faced (.909), leaving the loss to Holby, who saved 33-of-36 (.917).

    Pittsburgh’s road victory snaps what was a four-game winning streak for the 5-3-1 home teams in the DtFR Game of the Day series. That being said, hosts still have a two-point advantage over roadies in the competition.