Prague: A Tale of Two Games

The last of the NHL Premiere games went on Sunday and in Prague, it was a tale of two different games, as the Phoenix Coyotes and Boston Bruins split their opening series to start the 2011 season.  The Coyotes out-hustled and outworked the Bruins in the opening on Saturday, beating them decisively, 5-2.  In the second game, it was a much different Coyotes team that showed very little hustle and couldn't break through a tougher Bruins defense, as the team from Boston emerged with a 3-0 victory.

In the opening game, the statistics really didn't tell the whole story of the game.  Ilya Bryzgalov made 40 saves, but wasn't necessarily challenged as many times as you would have thought in the game.  The defense in front of him allowed plenty of shots through, but they were very straight-forward, especially in the first two periods of the game.  Radim Vrbata scored a pair of goals in the victory, to help lead the way, while Ed Jovanovski did his part from the back end, adding a pair of assists as well.  The Bruins did take advantage of a loose 3rd period, with Nathan Horton scoring both goals in his regular season debut for Boston, in a losing cause.

In the second game, it really felt like night and day compared to the opening game.  The Boston Bruins controlled the pace and really kept the Coyotes limited to fewer chances and less breakouts, making the job on their goaltender, Tim Thomas, that much easier.  Thomas made 29 saves to record a shutout in his first game of the season, also adding an assist for a 5-point game.  You can't complain about that, can you?  Nathan Horton reappears in the blog, picking up a goal and an assist in the game, while David Krejci picked up a pair of assists as well in the win.  This was the Bruins team that everyone has been raving about and expecting to win the Northeast Division this year.

Let's see how this series panned out for the draft, shall we?

Boston Bruins				Phoenix Coyotes
Tuukka Rask, G	Derek	0		Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D	Clayton	1
Zdeno Chara, D	Jani	1		Derek Morris, D	Dale C.	0
Marc Savard, F	Larry	0		Lee Stempniak, F	Derek	0
Nathan Horton, F	Peter	4		Ilya Bryzgalov, G	Jani	2
Tim Thomas, G	Peter	5		Keith Yandle, D	Kristy & Don	0
Milan Lucic, F	Ryan	2		Wojtek Wolski, F	Neil	0
Patrice Bergeron, F	Stuart	0		Ed Jovanovski, D	Neil	2
Dennis Seidenberg, D	Stuart	0		Scottie Upshall, F	Ryan	1
David Krejci, F	Wayne	3		Shane Doan, F	Stuart	0
Tyler Seguin, F	Wayne	1		Ray Whitney, F	Wayne	1

Obviously, the more impressive side of the ledger belongs to the Bruins, who picked up points in both games. Peter has to be a pretty happy camper, because he had the two biggest Bruins in the series, picking up 9 points between the two players, Horton and Thomas.  Wayne also enjoyed some success in Prague, picking up 5 points from three players, while Ryan and Jani had 3 points from two players as well.  This series looked to be a scoring success in the end.

Now, how will the travel and the slightly more condensed schedule suit these two teams for the rest of the season?

Stockholm: A Split for the Sharks and Jackets

The NHL Premiere series in Stockholm concluded on Saturday, as the San Jose Sharks and Columbus Blue Jackets split the opening two games of the season, the Sharks taking the opening contest on Friday, 3-2, and the Blue Jackets winning an overtime decision, 3-2. The Sharks do come away with 3 points in the standings, with their loss in overtime, so you could argue that they won the series in the end.

In the opening game, the Sharks were led by Antti Niemi, who not only earned the 2 points for the win, added an extra point by registering an assist on the Sharks' second goal of the game.  Also in the first contest, both Ryane Clowe and Joe Pavelski each picked up a pair of assists, helping to get their names in this blog post as multiple-point contributors.

The second game was a fairly tight affair, with the goaltending again coming to the forefront.  This time, it was Steve Mason who stood tall in the net, making 33 saves to pick up his first 2 points in the year.  The other player of note in this game was Kristian Huselius, who had a goal and an assist to propel the Blue Jackets offense to this win.

Let's see how the points broke down for our poolies in the draft...

Columbus Blue Jackets				San Jose Sharks
Antoine Vermette, F	Allan	1		Antti Niemi, G	Allan	3
R.J. Umberger, F	Benson	1		Ryane Clowe, F	Clayton	3
Jakub Voracek, F	Dale B.	0		Joe Thornton, F	Dale C.	2
Kristian Huselius, F	Don	3		Dany Heatley, F	Jani	1
Fedor Tyutin, D	Jani	1		Patrick Marleau, F	Larry	1
Anton Stralman, D	Jani	2		Antero Niittymaki, G	Neil	0
Rick Nash, F	Leon	1		Dan Boyle, D	Ryan	1
Mathieu Garon, G	Leon	0		Joe Pavelski, F	Stuart	2
Derrick Brassard, F	Peter	0		Devin Setoguchi, F	Wes	1
Kris Russell, D	Stuart	0		Thomas Greiss, G	Wes	0
Steve Mason, G	Wes	2		Jason Demers, D	Wes	1

It was a big series for Allan, Jani and Wes, who all came away from this home and home series with 4 points each.  After the early action on Saturday, all three teams are in the top six in pool scoring, so the series was pretty good success for them.  Clayton and Don fared well with their only player in this series, each picking up 3 points for their cause in these two games.

For most teams participating in this series, it wasn't too bad.

Helsinki: Home For Hurricanes

The Carolina Hurricanes managed to take both games of their series with the Minnesota Wild in Helsinki, Finland, which was a part of the NHL Premiere series in Europe to start the year.

The Hurricanes took the first game on Thursday by a score of 4-3, in a very spread out scoring display between both teams.  Cam Ward and Jussi Jokinen led the way for drafted players from Carolina, each picking up a pair of points in the victory.  Undrafted Brandon Sutter also had a couple of points in the win, helping his cause of being a waiver draft pick up in the middle of December.

In the second game on Friday, the Hurricanes and Wild played a much tighter affair with defense and goaltending playing the biggest part.  However, it was Cam Ward who was leading the way for the drafted players, picking up the 2-1 victory in the shootout, Niklas Backstrom not getting anything for the Wild, since I don't believe in the pity point in the standings, so there shouldn't be one in the pool for an overtime loss.

With all of that being said, I have revised the table of players who were drafted in the pool, taking part in this series, to show the number of points they picked up for their pool teams.

Carolina Hurricanes				Minnesota Wild
Cam Ward, G	Dale B.	4		Antti Miettinen, F	Benson	1
Joni Pitkanen, D	Derek	1		Brent Burns, D	Chris	1
Joe Corvo, D	Don	1		Marek Zidlicky, D	Derek	0
Eric Staal, F	Kristy & Don	0		Andrew Brunette, F	Don	1
Jussi Jokinen, F	Larry	3		Mikko Koivu, F	Jani	2
Zach Boychuk, F	Stacey	0		Martin Havlat, F	Kristy & Don	1
Anton Babchuk, D	Stacey	1		Cam Barker, D	Kristy & Don	1
Jamie McBain, D	Wes	1		Gui Latendresse, F	Kristy & Don	1
				Niklas Backstrom, G	Peter	0

Dale B. was the biggest winner out of this series, having his only player pick up 4 points for his team over the past couple of days, while Larry was pretty happy to pick up 3 points from his only player.  Kristy & Don had four players in this series, but only managed 3 points in total, which has to be kind of a let down.

Stay tuned to the blog, to see how the other two NHL Premiere series fare for our poolies.

Countdown to the Premiere Games

The Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild will open the entire NHL schedule in Helsinki on Thursday with their match-up at the Hartwell Arena.  Helsinki was one of the sites for last year's NHL Premiere games and it proved to be a very solid success.

The Hurricanes are coming off a very disappointing season that was brought down by injuries and a resulting inconsistent line-up, while the Minnesota Wild just had a very inconsistent 2010 season as a whole, as both teams missed the playoffs.  Both teams have traveled on fairly similar off-season paths to get to this point, both building for the most part within their own organization, not venturing into the free agent market as much.

I think for these reasons, the teams were a little light on players in the draft this year, with both teams taking a few more of the safe picks, with very few of the sleepers or wild cards taken.  This game will likely be dominated by one team in the pool, can you guess which one it is?

Carolina Hurricanes			Minnesota Wild
Cam Ward, G	Dale B.		Antti Miettinen, F	Benson
Joni Pitkanen, D	Derek		Brent Burns, D	Chris
Joe Corvo, D	Don		Marek Zidlicky, D	Derek
Eric Staal, F	Kristy & Don		Andrew Brunette, F	Don
Jussi Jokinen, F	Larry		Mikko Koivu, F	Jani
Zach Boychuk, F	Stacey		Martin Havlat, F	Kristy & Don
Anton Babchuk, D	Stacey		Cam Barker, D	Kristy & Don
Jamie McBain, D	Wes		Gui Latendresse, F	Kristy & Don
			Niklas Backstrom, G	Peter

The draft tandem of Kristy & Don ended up picking four players that are on the roster for these two games in Finland, including Cam Barker, who may not be ready to go because of a hip injury. On the bright side, they have two of the projected top scorers from these two teams in Eric Staal and Martin Havlat, so there is a pretty good chance that they will be leading in the standings after the first game of the season on Thursday afternoon.

Unfortunately for Stacey, Zach Boychuk didn't make the European-bound Hurricanes, so he'll be short one player on this trip, which leaves the other Don in the pool, as the only other team with more than one player playing in these two games.

I wouldn't exactly call this a marquee match-up in Helsinki, but I suppose it isn't the worst way to start the season off.  These will be two teams that are desperate for some better results in 2011 and it all starts here.

The Blue Jackets and Sharks will open up their 2011 regular season in Stockholm this week, giving the people of Sweden another solid taste of some North American pro hockey.  The Sharks were Western Conference finalists in the playoffs last Spring, while the Blue Jackets were just outside of the playoffs, but have done a pretty good job retooling the team to make another run at the Spring dance.

This game will also be jam-packed with players in the draft this year, surprisingly with the same amount of Blue Jackets in the pool as there are Sharks.  I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, rather it gives a good indication that the Blue Jackets might be going the right way for a playoff spot again this season.  Here's a look at the drafted players who will be taking part in this 2-game series.

Columbus Blue Jackets			San Jose Sharks
Antoine Vermette, F	Allan		Antti Niemi, G	Allan
R.J. Umberger, F	Benson		Ryane Clowe, F	Clayton
Jakub Voracek, F	Dale B.		Joe Thornton, F	Dale C.
Kristian Huselius, F	Don		Dany Heatley, F	Jani
Fedor Tyutin, D	Jani		Patrick Marleau, F	Larry
Anton Stralman, D	Jani		Antero Niittymaki, G	Neil
Rick Nash, F	Leon		Dan Boyle, D	Ryan
Mathieu Garon, G	Leon		Joe Pavelski, F	Stuart
Derrick Brassard, F	Peter		Devin Setoguchi, F	Wes
Kris Russell, D	Stuart		Thomas Greiss, G	Wes
Steve Mason, G	Wes		Jason Demers, D	Wes

Wes leads all teams in this game with four players on the roster, but I would imagine that Thomas Greiss likely won't see any action, barring injury to the other two goaltenders ahead of him on the chart. I do believe he'll be making the trip as insurance, but won't see much action.

Newcomer to the pool, Jani, will have three players between the two teams, a couple of defensemen for the Jackets and Dany Heatley for the Sharks. That should be a good starting point to the season for him.

The games in Stockholm should be a good start to the season for the pool alone.

Finally, it will be the Boston Bruins and the Phoenix Coyotes doing battle at the O2 Arena in Prague.  This 2-game series will feature two teams that are riding some high expectations into the 2011 season and should provide the good folks in the Czech Republic some entertaining games, North America style.

The Bruins will be boasting a pretty good back-end this season, with a quality goaltending tandem and strong blueline corps, but their offense is mildly banged up and will be the biggest question mark of their season.  The Coyotes want to prove that their trip to the playoffs last season was no fluke and they are going to be bringing in a couple faces into the starting line-up to help them do it.  Overall, this should be a pretty good match-up from the drop of the puck on.

This game boasts a good number of pool players as well, which gives you the impression that both teams should fare well in the season, both in the standings and in the scoring races.  It isn't as jam-packed as the Stockholm matches, but it should provide plenty of points.

Boston Bruins			Phoenix Coyotes
Tuukka Rask, G	Derek		Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D	Clayton
Zdeno Chara, D	Jani		Derek Morris, D	Dale C.
Marc Savard, F	Larry		Lee Stempniak, F	Derek
Nathan Horton, F	Peter		Ilya Bryzgalov, G	Jani
Tim Thomas, G	Peter		Keith Yandle, D	Kristy & Don
Milan Lucic, F	Ryan		Wojtek Wolski, F	Neil
Patrice Bergeron, F	Stuart		Ed Jovanovski, D	Neil
Dennis Seidenberg, d	Stuart		Scottie Upshall, F	Ryan
David Krejci, F	Wayne		Shane Doan, F	Stuart
Tyler Seguin, F	Wayne		Ray Whitney, F	Wayne

Stuart and Wayne lead the way in this match-up with three players each, both teams having two Bruins and a Coyote on their team. Most of the curiosity has to be centered around Tyler Seguin, who is on Wayne's team, since he is the number two overall pick in the entry draft this Summer.  With Marc Savard out of the Bruins line-up due to a concussion, Seguin should get plenty of time to shine in his NHL debut with the Bruins.

Derek, Jani, Peter, Neil and Ryan all have two players each going in this game, which should make it very interesting.  There is going to be a lot happening among these five teams when this game is going, I'm sure.

I like this match-up very much and will try and catch at least one game, if I can.  I think this series has the potential to be the most entertaining at the end of it all.

This might be a strange coincidence, but the only European person in the pool, Jani, has the most players heading over to the European Premiere games this time around, with six on his roster. Kristy & Don, Wes and Stuart all have five players taking part in these games, while Peter and Derek each have four players.  I think the question begs to be asked, does the flying and jet lag at the beginning of the season make a big difference on the end result?  I guess we'll see in 27 weeks.

NHL Announces Premiere Games in Europe

The NHL & NHLPA announced on Tuesday that the 2010/'11 season will get underway in three cities, which is up another city from this current season.

The Hurricanes and Wild will go in Helsinki, the Blue Jackets and Sharks are in Stockholm, while the Bruins and Coyotes will open up in Prague. It should be a great event for those cities and hopefully the schedule doesn't over do the travel for all six teams, so they can be well-prepared for the remaining 80 games in their schedule.

The four teams that opened up in Europe this season; Chicago, Detroit, Florida and St. Louis have all had some interesting seasons. Three out of the four teams are not in the playoff picture as of Feb. 9, which is kind of interesting. Injuries have been an issue for the Red Wings this season, but that could be more attributed to the overall age of the club, maybe. The Blues never really had the jump to their step that everyone expected, since they had that big run to the playoffs last Spring. The Panthers are such a limbo team as it is, it's hard to gauge anything in regards to them.

Only the youthful Blackhawks have come out of this last endeavour with their head held high. Going into Week Twenty in the pool, the Blackhawks did have five players in the top 100 in pool scoring, actually all of them are in the top 75, so that means that they kept their scoring ways up. I would suggest that teams in the European cities are a bad bet, unless you're talking about a young, up & coming team. Even the Penguins in the 2009 season can attest to that.

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Week One Newsletter

Here we have it! We're live with some real hockey news. The opening Premiere weekend has come and gone, both in Europe and on television here in North America. Sure, there's a few more pre-season games to polish up, but we'll be good to go for real on Thursday. First of all, we'll review our first four games and the impact it will have on the week to come.

In Prague, the Rangers and Lightning went head-to-head and it was the Rangers that came away with four points in the standings with a pair of wins. The Rangers were very dominant over Tampa in the Shots On Goal category, outshooting them 39-19 in the second game alone. Scott Gomez led the way with three points for the Rangers, while Henrik Lundqvist earned four pool points with his two wins as well. The Rangers had plenty of help from new faces like Markus Naslund and Wade Redden, who both finished up with two points a piece in these games.

For Tampa Bay, the big question marks surround the team and how they will gel together with a load of new faces and what kind of impact will Steven Stamkos makes? The team only managed two goals in the two games and was guilty of a lot of turnovers (14 giveaways in both games) and a lot of shots against (80 in total). Stamkos on the other hand, only managed to get in 22 minutes in both games combined, 8 in the first and 14 in the second, getting 3 shots on goal and he hit a couple posts as well. Nothing big off the hop, however. The Lightning will have to be a good North American team, because their European performance was somewhat lax.

The later games of the NHL Premiere in Stockholm provided a split in the win/loss column, but since Ottawa lost the first game in overtime, the Sens have a 1-point advantage on Pittsburgh in the Standings, but both trail the Rangers in the standings, since they won both their games. Nevertheless, the fans in Stockholm got a good treat, watching some of the NHL's best players play some pretty good hockey.

The Senators led a good portion of the scoring at the end of it all. Dany Heatley finished the two game set with three goals, while defenseman Filip Kuba had four assists. For Pittsburgh, four players finished with two points a piece: Sidney Crosby, Tyler Kennedy, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury. Scoring should be abundant from these two teams this season and they will likely be very popular when the draft goes down on Tuesday.

Poll Question
There are two poll questions, still technically active, but they'll get review in the first newsletter of the season. In the two polls, I wanted to know who you think the top rated goaltender is and who the top rated defenseman is. With the my draft coming up on Tuesday, I am a little curious to see what the general consensus would be for the first player in these positions to be taken. In previous polls this summer, we found that Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin all would populate the top three picks, which shouldn't come as any surprise.

In net, it was quite the mix of talent that garnered votes. Coming out on top, by a very small margin, was last year's top goalie, Evgeni Nabokov. Of 34 votes (with hours remaining on the poll), Nabokov snagged 25% of the vote. Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Brodeur were not too far behind though, snagging 17% each.

On the blueline, it was a slightly different story. Nicklas Lidstrom ran away with the voting, receiving 14 of the 30 votes, while Dion Phaneuf received 7. There was some love for each of the other candidates, but those two were the clear favourites.

The poll for Week Two will surround this year's rookie crop. Who will be the top rookie this season?

Well, since we don't have any pools officially 100% on the go quite yet, there isn't going to be a Mover & Shaker award this week, but I will take this opportunity to let you know that during the season, there will be hockey card prizes each week for the Draft's Mover & Shaker, which there will be 27 more weeks of this season. I've been picking out cards, jersey cards & other assorted inserts, to hand out as weekly prizes, nothing too extravagant, but hopefully something to work towards.

Cards will include some of the young superstars of the league and some hall of famers. There will hopefully be a few more rookie cards in there of our up & coming stars of the game and then there will be definitely a few young stars that you've already tried to pick on your draft team. Hopefully, a few prizes makes the rest of the season a little more exciting for everyone.

There was a tie for the first Player of the Week award, but the only tie-breaker I could find was that of having a picture of the player, or else I would have gone with the our other 4-point player this past weekend. Oh well, can't win them all I guess.

For winning both games for the Rangers this weekend, Henrik Lundqvist becomes our Player of the Week, tied for the lead in pool scoring with 4 points. Lundqvist made 39 stops between the two games, taking an even 1.00 GAA back to North America with a .949 save percentage. Lundqvist should be a first round pick in tomorrow night's pool draft and he'll likely spark whoever picks them into a share of the early lead.

Just for argument's sake, the other player tied for this honour was Ottawa's Filip Kuba, but I'll be damned if I could find a picture of him so far this season.

For the most part, if there was a bulk category for Cold Player of the Week, it would be the Tampa Bay Lightning. Both Mike Smith and Olaf Kolzig played well in net, but the rest of th team only managed one goal in each game, which won't win you many hockey games these days.

Other News and Notes

If you wanted to have Dan Fristche in your Selection Sheet pool line-up, you may want to take into account that he didn't start either game in Prague for the Rangers. Fritsche was a healthy scratch in the 24-man line-up. He may not have much fantasy value overall if he continues to sit, so bench him on your fantasy team and maybe wait and see if you haven't drafted yet.

The Sens missed the services of Mike Fisher in both games in Stockholm versus the Penguins. Fisher is considered to be out day-to-day with a groin strain, but will have a good number of days off while the team travels back to North America from their European tour.

Much like his European opponent above, Petr Sykora also missed both games against Ottawa with a groin injury. Sykora missed out on a pair of games and should be considered day-to-day as well.

Only in the second game of the European opener did defenseman Shane O'Brien sit out for the Lightning. O'Brien was a -1 in the opener against the Rangers and the coaching staff decided to put Mike Lundin in the line-up for some better puck moving.

Click here to see an updated injury page.



Hockey Night in Canada resumes coverage on Thursday night, sans the anthem, with a doubleheader. They will open up the North American regular season in Detroit, as the Red Wings will raise their Cup banner to the rafters and then take on the Montreal Canadiens, which could be considered a preview of this year's Cup Finals. In Game 2 of the doubleheader, we'll be headed to Vancouver, where the Canucks will open up their season against the Flames. In total on Thursday, there will only be four games in the league.

On Saturday, the Canadiens will be in Toronto for the first game of the doubleheader, while the Flames will host Vancouver in the second game. We'll be getting our fill of Habs, Flames and Canucks on HNIC this weekend.