Almost one month into the NHL’s 2007-08 season there’s been some interesting surprises.
Who would’ve believed:
Mike Cammalleri of the LA Kings would be the league’s leading goalscorer? As of this writing he leads all scorers with ten goals. He’s an emerging talent and could be poised to become a big star. Right now, he’s outshining teammates Anze Kopitar and Alex Frolov, as well as more big name “snipers” like Vincent Lecavalier, Dany Heatley, and Alexander Ovechkin.
Chicago Blackhawks rookie forward Patrick Kane would lead all rookies in assists and points? He’s a promising young talent but heading into this season most pre-season analyses expected others, including teammate Jonathan Toews, would rank higher in rookie points than the diminutive Kane. Thus far, he’s putting me in mind of another small rookie player, his head coach Denis Savard, who had 75 points in 76 games back in 1980-81.
Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo would have such terrible starts? Last season, Brodeur and Luongo were the undisputed goaltending masters of the NHL, dominating in nearly every statistical category, most notably wins, where Luongo matched the old record of 47 and Brodeur broke it with 48. Thus far this season, not only are they missing from the league’s top ten statistical rankings for goalies, they’re not even in the top twenty in some categories. Both should round back into form as the season progresses but it is unusual not to see them amongst the league leaders.
Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin aren’t among the top ten offensive players? They’re considered the twin pillars upon which the league hopes to rebuild its shattered reputation following the 2004-05 lockout, yet neither are off to rip-roaring starts. However, don’t expect them to be out of that listing for long.
Martin Gerber would lay claim to the job of Ottawa Senators starting goalie? It was a foregone conclusion this summer; Ray Emery was the starter, Gerber was an overpriced backup the Sens were hoping to dump at some point. But with Emery slow to recover from off-season wrist surgery, Gerber has stood tall between the pipes, earning his $3.7 million per season and making it tough for Emery to get back into the lineup. It’s a goaltending dilemma but one that should only benefit the Sens.
Scott Gomez and Chris Drury wouldn’t be a good fit with Jaromir Jagr? Few raised that suggestion during the off-season when the Rangers landed these two. Indeed, the only guy I recall saying it was “Cabbie” on The Score. Turns out he was profound, as neither have meshed well with the talented but enigmatic Jagr.
If anyone wants to add to this list please feel free to do so.
I know!! This is a really weird start to the season, lots of things are happening that not too many people thought would happen and then things are happening that only a few of US would have. You touched on Luongo and Brodeur not playing well but neither is Kipper, but then again he never really plays well in october...now is the time to ink him long term! Cammalleri is doing great, but so is Langkow in calgary, he's almost out playing Iggy....almost. As for Gerber in Ottawa, I honestly think he's a better goalie then Emery, and any team looking for a good starter (possibly great if he keeps this up) should have stolen him last year. One think I think has to be said is how bad the leafs are playing...most people knew they'd be bad, but this is amazing!! As a leaf hater myself, I love the fact that they are almost at the bottom of the league. And philly was Hitchcock last year but they look to be the team to beat in the atlantic, not too sure too many people thought they'd be that good! Scoring seems to be up, not a lot of goalies are doing amazing and fights are up...thats always good.
Only nine games in Edmonton's two best best defensemen are out for at least a month. Edmonton's biggest problem last year is that nobody could move the puck up from the blueline.... well it's looking much worse now.
How about the Wild starting off like they have thanks to the incredible play of Backstrom. Everyone knew he was talented but come on he's single handedly won almost evry game for them seeing as how the team can't manage to score more than 3 goals in a game.
panman, I really hope your right...the wild are playing the flames right now and the flames just came back to make it 3-3. I hope they can't score any more goals and the flames win it.....
Thats right, its hockey time and I'm going to be on here as much as I possibly can....cheering for the flames....I don't mean to offend anyone, I'm just really excited about this year. Love hearing what everyone has to say about any team really. Just glad the regular season started up again and we can talk about how things are going now, not this coming season or last.
Good for Mike Cammalleri. There's hope for the Kings in the next couple of seasons if they can just find a real goaltender. I think they'll contend but fail to make the playoffs this year.
Brodeur, Luongo, Crosby & Ovechkin will all pick it . It's still early. Luongo was great tonight but the team couldn't get it done.
I could see the Gomez and Drury thing coming. Jagr's always been "enigmatic" but the Rangers consistently fail to build chemistry. They should've signed Drury only and spent the Gomez money on Nylander and a top 4 defenceman. Gomez would look great on Atlanta right about now...
More on the LA goalie thing: it's a weird thought, but Mark Crawford's most glaring failure on TWO CONSECUTIVE TEAMS has been his incredible belief in Cloutier. Good coach otherwise.
What about the increadible turn arround of the Phidelphia Flyers? With all there new aquisitions over the summer it's remarkable how fast they where able to come together as a team and get off to a great start.
Go Sens stole my thunder, but I still have to say that Philly is the biggest surprise to me as well. I expected improvement, but this is a real treat. I realize that it is way too early to start making predictions, but if the rest of the Atlantic continues to struggle this way the Flyers have a clear shot to the playoffs.
Cammalleri is definitely the biggest surprise. He's talented, but I don't think anyone would have said he had this in him. Especially with the young team around him. There's no way he can keep this pace up but it will be interesting to see how long he can maintain and where he ends up.
Philly is a big surprise as well, and I think the biggest surprise there is the play of Lupul (and Richards). Lupul was tossed out of Edmonton but this season looks like the skilled and powerful young prospect the Ducks had, now coming into his prime.
Who would have thought that two established vets like Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermeyer would string along their own team (who just won a cup) on whether to retire or not? No matter how the Ducks organization plays it down or not, it's definitely affected them as indicated by their lukewarm start to the season.
Chemistry is everything in team sports as the NY Rangers are finding out. Just look at what happened to US Basketball and their so called dream teams. It's also common knowledge that Jaromir Jagr is too much of a solo operator to get along with any player.
But Gomez and Drury are amazing players who will find their niches pretty soon.
Toronto off to a dreadful start at home - no defence and no defence. JFJ needs to be fired for locking this team into mediocrity for at least the next few seasons.
Carolina's torid start - they finally look like the team who won the Cup two seasons ago. They've already been hurt by key injuries (Walker, Ladd, Cole) and still seem to come up with points each night.
I would have thought these two teams would be in a dogfight for the final playoff spot in the East. Toronto may well turn it around and back into a spot, but Carolina looks like it may regain its position atop the East.
cammalleri has six powerplay goals, on a pace for 50 powerplay goals this season, which is unsustainable. still he is a great player and i think finished second to spezza in scoring in the AHL during the strike season.
it is great that montreal has the top ranked powerplay after losing the Souray's record setting talent.
Amazing that after 10 games on the same team, Andropov is +10 and McCabe is -6.
shanahan a league leading 50 shots on goal, one score. that sums up the rangers. 600 goal scorer with a .02 shooting percentage.
i am shocked at fenandez's league worst .832 save percentage, over four games, which includes a shutout against the rangers. somewhat symmetric that boston's tim thomas has the best sv% and fenandez has the worst.
the flyers are letting in two goals a game, second to minnesota. better than last year's league worst 3.7. speaking of the Wild, amazing smarts in that organization. they get a .919 save percentage from fernandez then trade him for a prospect and a pick. minnesota goes on to lead the nhl in gaa and fernandez falls to the bottom in save %. i guess he only plays well for his uncle Jacques.
If roenick and tkachuk reach 500 goals this season, they will be the last of the firewagon stars to hit that plateau. maybe federov will limp across in three seasons, but it's going to be several seasons before Iginla, Hossa, LeCavalier, Gagne or Hejduk get there. The guys who lost a season to the lockout and played in the low offense era will really have to grind it out to hit the magic number.
I would also add that nearly every goalie that was traded during the off-season is off to a miserable start: Toskala, Fernandez and even Vokoun.
I would also add that I love seeing Roenick with 5 points in seven games even though he's averaging less than 11 minutes of ice time, least of any Shark's forward. Go JR. Glad to see him back.
And while not of major significance, anyone notice that Ryan O'Marra, one key piece of the Smyth trade at last year's deadline, was demoted to the ECHL? Great trade there, Kevin Lowe.
I am suprised that Luongo is having a bad start, not so much Brodeur, I said right from the beginning that the Devils won't be that good this year. Gerber really suprised me, so did Cammy. Ovechkin is starting to come around, I'm happy to see that. I thought either Kane of Toews would be the top rookie, so that doesn't really suprise me that much, but what does is how well he's playing to be the top rookie. I also knew that the Rangers were being over-hyped. Gomez and Jagr both like to be the guy with the puck, so that was a bad line right from the start. Drury though, I expected him to do a lot better than what he's doing now. One more thing that's not on here is that Cheechoo is having one helluva slow start.
Would we enjoy the hockey season any better if everything went according to plan and prediction?
The biggest surprise for me is Minnesota's quick start. They've been incredibly solid thus far. While I think a fall to earth is still forthcoming (perhaps last night's game against Calgary is an indicator?), these October points-in-the-bank are going to help out tremendously come April.
HermanZeGerman:
Hey, cut O'Marra a little slack! The kid had a tonne of injuries last season and his development clearly stalled. Sending O'Marra down to Stockton is less about his lack of potential and more about the quality of talent the Oilers have at the AHL level. Playing five minutes a night in Springfield doesn't do him any good. Let O'Marra rack up some solid first line minutes with the Thunder and play himself back into shape.
Actually, this would be a good excuse for me to finally check out a Thunder game -- only three hours down the I-5 -- and see the kid in the flesh.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on October 25th at 4:38 PM.
I'd also like to mention Henrik Zetterberg as the league's leading scorer. Hank is both a great offensive and defensive player, but he's riding a 9 game point streak to open and already has 17 points. I don't expect him to keep up this pace, but this might just be the year he explodes on the stats sheet.
As much as it pains me to see my devils struggling, at least the Rangers are in last place! I said a few times after they signed him it'd be too many egos in one room, and everyone said i was wrong....guess i was right huh?.....I wonder how scared Gomez is right now? An hour and twenty minutes till he feels what's it like on the other side of the Hudson River Rilvalry.......he's gonna need alot of ice tonight..........GO DEVILS!!!!!
When did the NHL start keeping a statistic on Missed Shots?! I don't recall it as part of the information package from last year and just discovered it this morning. What a fascinating stat!
For example, look at last night's NYR/NJD game that the Rangers won 2-0: The Devils got 22 shots on the Rangers, but also fired another 11 that missed (33 pucks in total directed at the net). Meanwhile, the Rangers hit the net with 31 shots and misfired on another 3 attempts (for 34 pucks direct toward the net). On shots alone, the Rangers had 50 percent more offense. Taking the misses into account, it was dead even.
Add into the mix the blocked shots -- 12 a side -- and it really gives you a sense of the offensive effort for the game. Consider: While the Devils got 22 shots on net, another 23 shots either missed the mark or were blocked. Half their offensive effort last night was frustrated.
Here's another view: Last night, Edmonton beat Minnesota 5-4 in a shoot-out. Shots were 31-30, the one shot edge to Edmonton. On the surface, a pretty evenly played game. But add the attempted shots blocked and missed shots into the mix. For Minnesota it's 30-14-17, so 30 shots and 31 misses (61 total). For Edmonton, 31-8-9, so 31 shots and 17 misses (48 total).
A 61-48 advantage Minnesota on offensive effort --a suitable name for this combination? -- is a better reflection of the tilt I watched last night, where Roli kept the Oilers in the game as the Wild pounded away in the Oilers zone.
Last edited by Matt_McCallum on October 26th at 9:04 AM.
Who would've believed:
Pascal Leclaire would be the Vezina frontrunner
- Leclaire has 4 shutouts in just 6 games and a GAA of 1.38. He is 4-2-0 and has a stunning S% of .950.
also, I guess this is no surprise for those who follow Finnish hockey, but for me:
Cory Murphy's performance.
- Granted, I'm not in a situation where I get to see the Panthers a lot, but the games I have seen, he seems to have adapted very speedily to the NHL.
I guess, you have no reason to believe me, but for the record, the Gomez/Drury and Gerber things don't come as any surprise to me, I called both, the rest.
It's probably not published because the actual attendance in some NHL cities is embarrassing. Kinda makes Bettman look foolish when he brags about NHL attendance being at an all time high.
Hi Lyle:
Nice to be back to the best hockey blog online. I surmised as much, one number that always has stuck in my mind was, when reading the hockey stats in the newspapers [before the net] seeing 16,666 at the old Chicago Stadium for Hawks games. It was ALWAYS 16,666.
Keep up the good work Lyle, it is much enjoyed and appreciated.
Cobra
Okay the Sens have been doing great with Gerber and Alfredson leading them on.They have let me down for years but I think this is the year for them. Spezza gets back on line 1 and look out for them in 2007-2008. I think this year they will go all the way to the top and I am routing for them all the way. Go Sens Go.This is your year!!!!!!
I'm Lyle Richardson, also known as Spector, Foxsports.com 's "Prince of Pucks".,which is based on the fact I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada and I couldn't think of a better byline. I've been an NHL hockey commentator since 1998 on my website, Spector's Hockey, and I'm a contributing writer for Foxsports.com , The Hockey News and Eishockey News. I'm also a regular on The Faceoff Hockey Show and a frequent guest on "The Late Crew" on The Team 1200 Ottawa.
