NHL analysis

Major Additions: Aaran Asham, Ian Moran, Noah Clarke, Vitaly Vishnevski, Kevin Weekes, Karel Rachunek, Danius Zubrus

Major Subtractions: Jim Fahey, Dan LaCouture, Scott Clemmesen, Brad Lukowich, Brian Rafalski, Scott Gomez

Analysis

Last summer the Devils spent most of their time scrambling to deal with their salary cap troubles, due mostly to the salaries of Alexander Mogilny and Vladmir Malakhov counting against the cap while not playing for the team. Those salaries are now gone and the Devils came into the summer with their two cornerstones - Martin Brodeur and Patrik Elias - already signed long term. Despite all of that, the Devils were unable (or unwilling?) to resign UFA Scott Gomez or Brian Rafalski.

So now what do we expect? Certainly not a repeat as division championship - the Penguins were only 2 points back last year and got better where the Devils got worse. Certainly not missing the playoffs - so long as Brodeur stays healthy he can be expected to almost single-handedly drag his team into the playoffs if that’s what it takes.

The argument can be made that New Jersey quite rightly was unwilling to overpay to keep Gomez around, however, it’s hard to make that argument about Rafalski; furthermore, the addition of Zubrus, while more affordable and fair than the grossly inflated $7+ million per year contract Gomez landed, does not adequately replace Gomez’s production. For that, the Devils will lean on newly re-signed Zach Parise and hope he can handle the weight.

The Atlantic division is entirely up for grabs this year. The Penguins are the early favourites for many but they are young and it wouldn’t be a stretch to see them regress this season. The Flyers are hugely improved but big changes often necessitate an adjustment period before they pay dividends. Ditto for the Rangers. I’d have to pick the Rangers to lead the pack, followed by the Penguins, which means the Devils will be in a dogfight for the playoffs rather than for home-ice advantage (best that 3rd place in a division can hope for is 5th seed).

Here are things I’ve noticed about each of the remaining 8 teams:

Buffalo Sabres: Strong, fast, deep, talented - but not very tough.  The Sabres don’t have a particularly gritty team, and the insertion of Tim Connolly onto the fourth line (while obviously the right decision) has only added to that.  I just can’t see the Sabres lasting against a team like San Jose or Anaheim if they were to make the finals.  That being said, I wouldn’t want to be the team to face them or tell them that.

New York Rangers: Just not good enough to beat the Sabre (not that anyone is surprised).  While Henrik Lundqvist has been excellent, and Jaromir Jagr looks like he’s out to prove something, the defence and the second, third and fourth lines simply lack the skill to skate with their opponents.  This is not to say that the Rangers can’t win.  But they’ll have to be very, very patient if they wish to do so.

New Jersey Devils: The Devils are a team that just wins.  Of course it starts with Brodeur, but it continues with everyone from Scott Gomez (10 assists so far in the playoffs) on down.  That being said, they needed overtime to salvage a slit of their opening two home games against the Senators.  As long as Ray Emery can continue to remain within spitting distance of Brodeur’s play, the Devils will be hard pressed to lengthen this series, let alone win it.

Ottawa Senators: So far, the Sens look determined to break their reputation as playoff chokers.  For how long?  They may still fall apart, but it won’t be happening anytime soon.  They still could have used Gary Roberts, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll make do without him.  If I didn’t know any better I’d swear Mike Comrie was playing for a new contract…

Detroit Red Wings: Very nearly went down 2-0 heading to San Jose.  Detroit may just have their hands full with a bigger, faster, strong Sharks team.  The good news is Pavel Datsyuk is playing up to his new contract, Hasek remains one of the best, and the Wings got past the first round.

San Jose Sharks: My current pick for “team to beat” remaining in the playoffs.  The Sharks forwards are so big, so tough, so mean, and so all around goooood it’s almost scary.  Craig Rivet was worth the first round pick the Sharks gave up after all.  And maybe the Sharks should be moving Toskala instead of Nabokov.

Anaheim Ducks: The third and fourth liners are hardly playing.  That’s both the best and worst thing the Ducks could hope for here.  The Ducks have some of the best players in the league on their top two lines and defence pairs, but the rest of their line up is somewhat weaker than that of their opponents.  In long games and long series’, that is potentially worrisome.  Do they have the stamina if they’re only playing half their roster?

Vancouver Canucks: Managed to split the games in Anaheim (which I didn’t think they would) but then dropped game three in Vancouver.  They certainly can’t afford to drop game four, and I’m not sure winning it would be enough, either.  However, I have to give the team credit - how different would the situation be if they hadn’t suffered the injuries to their blueline?

Key players for Ottawa: Ray Emery, Mike Comrie, Dany Heatley

Key players for New Jersey: Martin Brodeur, Brian Rafalski, Patrik Elias

Analysis: After watching New Jersey have so much trouble with the Tampa Bay Lightning, I have little confidence in them defeating the Senators, who look like a determined and focused team against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Comrie has played very well, enough to add a significant second threat while keeping the big line of Heatley, Spezza and Alfredsson together. Most importantly of all, the Senators have confidence in their goaltender and have plenty to prove. The Devils to me seem uninterested. That had better change if they hope to last against the Sens.

You can never count out Brodeur, but he’ll have virtually no margin for error in this matchup. The Senators are much stronger at every single position than the Lightning were, and the Devils had trouble with them. The Devils are an excellent team at pouncing on turnovers, but so are the Senators, and their guns are bigger. I’d expect a fairly quick out for the Devils.

Prediction: Senators in 5

Key players for Tampa Bay: Johan Holmqvist, Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis

Key players for New Jersey: Martin Brodeur, Brian Rafalski, Patrik Elias

Analysis: Martin Brodeur will match up more than nicely against the big Tampa forwards, and while New Jersey lacks depth, they make Tampa look like a puddle.

Tampa will need to vastly improve its play on the road or this series will be all but over before they even set foot in their home rink.  More than anything, they need Richards to step up his play.  As good as the tandem of Lecavalier and St. Louis are, Richards is the one making $7.8 million and needs to return to the play that saw him crowned playoff MVP a few years ago.

The poor management of Tampa Bay’s goaltenders will prove the final blow in the coffin.  How can anyone in Tampa Bay show any confidence in Holmqvist or Marc Denis?

Prediction: New Jersey in four

Claude Julien fired, Lou Lamoriello steps in as head coach for the playoffs.  From ESPN:

The firing comes after the Devils won four of their last five games. The team is in first place in the Atlantic Division with three games to go.

Julien guided the Devils to the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, posting a 47-24-8 mark in his only season as coach.

The consensus (beyond surprise) seems to be shaping up that Lou was pulling all the strings anyways, and this just makes things a little more honest.  I don’t buy that.  If Lou was pulling the strings all along anyways, why take the risk of distracting your team now?  This just draws all sort of media attention at a time when you want your club focused on hockey, not rumours.

There’s got to be something more here, but not surprisingly, Lou’s not talking.  It’s tough to be dissatisfied with the record (2nd in the East) so far, especially given the injury and salary cap situation the Devils have struggled with all season long.

I’m convinced that shots are not sufficient indicators of scoring chances.  Even over the course of a full season, teams that give up plenty of shots don’t necessarily give up a lot of goals.  Sure, solid goaltending helps in this regard, but after keeping an eye on a few different teams over the past few months I’ve become convinced this is not the only factor.

Consider the New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs.  The two teams are currently tied for 7th in the NHL, with each team giving up an average of 28.7 shots per game.  The Devils translate that into a league-low 2.32 goals against average, while the Leafs give up almost a full goal per game more, fitting in at 3.18 goals against per game, good enough for 25th in the league.

Now, Martin Brodeur helps.  Obviously.  He’s in a whole different league than Andrew Raycroft, even when Raycroft is fully on his game.  Are goaltenders the whole story here?

Stats can’t back me up here but after watching the Devils and Leafs game last week, it seems obvious that the Leafs give up far more quality scoring chances than the Devils do.  The Devils clear the front of the net, stack the slot and force the shots to come from the outside.  When the Leafs did manage to get a shot through with traffic in front, even Brodeur couldn’t do much to stop it.

The Leafs defence should be better than the Devils at this sort of thing.  The Devils blueline features Brian Rafalski and then drops off to Colin White, Paul Martin, Brad Lukowich and John Oduya.  Total salary cap hit this year (including as a sixth man Andrew Greene): a little under $12 million per year.

The Leafs, on the other hand, feature a top six of Bryan McCabe, Pavel Kubina, Tomas Kaberle, Hal Gill, Ian White and Carlo Colaiacovo.  Price tag: about $19 million.

The Leafs get more offence from the blueline, but not enough to justify the difference.  And in the meantime it always seems like Brodeur gets to face 25 shots per game from shallow angles with few bodies in his face while Raycroft dives around trying to follow the puck bouncing from open opponent to open opponent (see Mike Fisher’s first goal last night as an example).

Bottom line for Toronto: they need their expensive blueline to start playing like it’s price tag.  Bottom line for the league: I’d like to see them start keeping track of scoring chances.  I know a stat like that will be difficult to keep fair - people will invariably disagree over what constitutes a scoring chance.  However, that’s also true of hits, assists and more, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from keeping track of those statistics.  Even if the stats won’t be perfect, over the course of a full season I think it would be very telling - and interesting.

So earlier tonight New Jersey Devil’s goon Cam Janssen may have driven the final stake in the Leafs’ playoff aspirations this year when he knocked Tomas Kaberle out - literally - with a late, high hit, leaving his feet and lifting his elbow in the process.

Not one of the four officials on the ice saw the play, so the Leafs did not receive even a 2 minute power play in exchange for the loss of their best defenceman. The refs did make sure they called two borderline calls on the Leafs in the next five minutes, however.

I’m not going to argue about whether or not those Leaf penalties deserved to be called - the league has done its best to be clear that if you get your stick up, you will be spending two or less in the box. My problem is that if you’re going to enforce this zero tolerance policy over hooks that often have little impact on the gameplay and all but never create dangerous situations for players on the ice, then you’d sure as hell better show zero tolerance for this kind of crap.

And you’d better enforce it during the games. Janssen is likely to be suspended for his hit, but who cares? Janssen means nothing to the Devil’s season. The NHL could suspend Janssen forever and it would mean nothing to anyone but Janssen. With the Leafs’ season on the line they now have to play without their best defenceman down the stretch because a good threw a late hit.

Tonight was also an example of why the instigator is such a problem. In tonight’s case the Leafs had no one dressed who could have fought Janssen anyways, but even had someone tried the instigator rule would have meant the Leaf player who went after Janssen would have received an additional minor penalty and been ejected from the game. That seems fair.

I had the pleasure of watching Scott Gomez 6 years ago at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Winnipeg. My cousin Chris St. Croix was a defencemen for the US team that also featured the fiesty little Gomez. I’m not sure what memories stick out more - Gomez stickhandling through the entire Canadien team, or watching him being interviewed just after the game. Gomez looked like he was about a foot shorter than the interviewer

Did I mention Scott was still wearing his skates?

It’s hard to believe the Devils are playing without their five million dollar forward. They were baddly outshot by the Leafs tonight but managed to win anyways, mostly due to the exceptional if expected play of Martin Brodeur. But you also can’t discount the defensive play of the Devil’s entire team. The Leafs had a monopoly on shots but they rarely got quality scoring chances - an important distinction.

I mentioned a few days ago that the Leafs would live and die by their forecheck. Tonight was a perfect example of what I was talking about. The Devils sat back, even when they got a powerplay midway through the third period. They waited and waited, content that the Leafs would, eventually, make mistakes.

They also scored in the ways I noted the Leafs simply cannot and will not. Mikael Tellqvist, in relief of JS Aubin, who came down with the flu, was called upon to make several big stops coming off of odd-man rushes. The Devils are a defensive minded team through and through, but their big guns are a very skilled group, and they easily could have stung the Leafs worse than they did. Of course, the game-winner was an absolute flub of a shot that bounced off not one but two Leaf defenders before slipping into the goal.

Although the Buds lost their second game in a row, they can take some positives from this game. Down to their third string goaltender, they received simply excellent goaltending that kept them in the game even when they couldn’t buy a goal. They managed 34 shots against one of the stingiest teams in the league, and they played very well late pressing for the tying goal. They were literally beaten by only a few lucky bounces. They also looked much better than they did a few nights ago against the Bruins.

The word is now out that the Leafs are only marginally better than they were a year ago, so the next month or so will be crucial for this team. Now is the time for Maurice’s team to show its character. Solid play will keep them in good playoff form and allow them to compete not only for a playoff spot but for home-ice advantage. A slide now could drop them very quickly into the absolute clot of teams in the 7-10 slots, and much worse, could do irreparable damage to the team’s psyche. They need to prove to themselves and to the rest of the world that they are indeed better than they were a year ago.