Shallow Frozen Water

Lucky Number Seven

That’s how many games were on last night. Thursdays are often Saturday night “lite” as it is rare that they do not have a good selection of games to take in as we head into the weekend. A few thoughts from last night’s games.

The Northwest Division is going to be an absolute mess this year. The unpredictability of every team in the division should make for some late season drama. Some questions already lingering in regards to that division are.

- Will Luongo take it to the next step, or is the defense in Vancouver going to mean 3-4 goals against most nights? (I say it’s only a matter of time before Roberto hits one his streaks of incredible playing)
- Is Kipprusoff still a Tier One goaltender? (I say no, the best has already happened with Kipper and his early season slumps seem to extend longer each season)
- Will Gaborik be traded and what effect will it happen on the Wild? (I say he will, though to which team in the East I do not know. As for the Wild they will be fine without him, Lemaire only needs to find a checking forward to fullfill his expectations)
- Will the Canucks gets secondary scoring all year long? (Raymond, Hansen, Burrows etc all have looked great so far. Look for it to continue and the Canucks to have a strong year. Burrows in particular is a good pickup for the PIM and points combination that is much coveted in roto leagues.)
- Will the Oilers be able to overcome their lack of defensive rearguards and horrible faceoff percentage to keep winning games? (I say no. You can only get lucky so many times and unless something changes - ie hiring Adam Oates! - the wheels will start to come off the young team)
- What’s going to happen in net for the Avs? (Budaj has been flat out bad, and Raycroft is much of a better option. Joe Sakic is going to need to regularly score 3 points a game if the Avs want to make the playoffs)

I just HAVE to believe that Stamkos will get more ice time as the Lightning keep losing. He was 4th lowest on the team again last night with just over 9 minutes. Of course, he needs to produce as well. He’s very talented and if the coach will take off the harness a bit he should produce.

Paul Ranger was a minus two is his return with the bolts. It’ll be interesting to see how the playing time shakes out now with Krajicek, Ranger, Carle, and Meszaros all vying for time now. Only Vinny played more time on the powerplay then Ranger and I would expect to see some production from him as the season picks up.

Streit obviously has talent and wasn’t completely a product of the Montreal powerplay, he’s got a couple points so far on the year. Hopefully most of you drafted him lower then last year’s production warranted though, as he’s going to get KILLED on +/- along with scoring less points.

Nylander - 6 points on the season. Backstrom and Ovechkin - Combined 3 points on the season. And yet the Caps have the most goals for in the Eastern Conference right now and have only lost once. This is going to be a big year for the team once the stars get rolling.

I see Fleischmann is finally starting to mesh more with the Caps and I could see him breaking 50 points this year.

How many of us too Theodore too high this year? I sure did. He’ll get the wins as long as the Caps keep giving him goal support but his stats are going to be pretty weak aside from that.

I thought Andy Greene was going to be a bigger part of the future in New Jersey when I picked him up early last season. 9 minutes last night tells me that I was wrong.

Yawn, another shutout for Brodeur. He’ll be the starter in 2010 for Team Canada and look great doing so.

“The Boogeyman” Derek Boogaard played 6 minutes last night, got beat up by Wade Belak and scored an assist. Pretty much a career night for him. Hopefully he keeps losing fights so that he’ll eventually be dropped from the league…

Marty Turco is really struggling out there, and for all of us that expected the Stars to have a great year this must be a little concerning. I am sure he’ll turn it around but hopefully it’s sooner rather then later.

Boyes, McDonald and Kariya keep clipping along at a slightly slower then preseason, yet still impressive pace. Even Tkachuk is getting in on the action. Those 4 guys are all in the top 20 in scoring so far.

Bouwmeester is averaging over 31 minutes a game right now. Unbelievable. He only has 1 point so far in all of that. He’s not going to be an offensive guy to the degree that many of us had thought.

Something is askew in Philadelphia as they only got 18 shots on goal last night, their best players looked out of synch and Biron played pretty badly yet again. We could be seeing Niittymaki sooner rather then later as the starter there.

Gagne though is trying to prove to everyone that his head injury is a thing of the past. Hopefully he can stay healthy - I don’t see why 40 goals isn’t reachable again if he does.

Enjoy the weekend. There’s some good games coming up tonight and Saturday and I expect there will be some interesting story lines come Monday.