Random non-Blues NHL stuff

[theohall]

And Auston Matthews scores the first goal of the NHL season. Per Sportsnet, first time a #1 overall pick scored a goal in his first game. And they were wrong, because Mario Lemieux scored on his first shift in his first game.

[theohall]

And Matthews scores again with an absolute ridiculous show of skill and makes Erik Karlsson look really bad stealing the puck off him with a stick lift. Beat 3 Senators to score unassisted.

[glen a richter]

I got Matthews on my team, steal of the draft. I think it round 8 or 9 and he's still sitting there. How could I pass?

[theohall]

I got Matthews on my team, steal of the draft. I think it round 8 or 9 and he's still sitting there. How could I pass?

that's stunning he was there that late or is it a really small league?

[cardsfan04]

So, I guess it's all downhill from here.

[StL Dan]

Matthews scores 4...aaaaaand....the Leafs find a way to lose.

[glen a richter]

It is a small league, 8 teams of colleagues and former colleagues. But we're all knowledgeable about hockey, no putzes in this league and he was still sitting there that late. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a guy who'll score over 300 goals this season alone.

[theohall]

The thing with Matthews - his line is all rookie forwards. It's not like he had veterans supporting him when he scored 4 goals in his debut. And as has been covered by everyone, post-game he brings up his failure in OT defensively immediately. The kid gets it. Watching him play, he is always looking around with and without the puck for the next play. The 2nd goal - he's looking for a pass after the steal from Karlsson as he's skating to the net and that look has Anderson not quite as square to him as he should have been.

While Mitch Marner didn't score for Toronto, he played a solid game last night with lots of opportunities.

Elliott getting shellacked - the Flames committed some horrible turnovers and looked really bad defensively. That being said, there were two (three if you include the penalty shot) Elliott should have had - going off his blocker and in when he was in good position to make the save. And they lost by 3 (one empty-netter) so one could say the loss was on Elliott. IMO, it was the horrible turnovers and poor defensive play by the Flames.

Kings are going to be in for a rough road to start the season with Quick out for who knows how long with a suspected knee injury (MRI today). It looked like he got hurt on a side to side save at the end of the 1st. Yet, even with Quick out for 2 periods, the Sharks only scored 1 goal on Zatkoff to get the win.

Craig Anderson for Ottawa only gave up one bad goal last night to Matthews (the 2nd one). The other 3 he had no chance on. Fredrik Anderson for Toronto, on the other hand, gave up 3 "bad" goals. Leafs are going to need better goaltending than what Andersen provided last night.

[theohall]

This TSN article on Matthews describes the things one doesn't really see but has a sense of when watching the game. Nothing Ottawa did worked against Matthews line (a line of 3 rookies) other than 3 on 3 play in OT. Will be interesting to see what happens when he goes up against Bergeron, Marchand, and Backes on Saturday.

Give credit to the NHL: Opening the regular season with a game between the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs played out splendidly.

Sure, the defensive coverage on both ends of the ice ranged from suspect to catastrophic, but nine goals and a hell of a lot of back-and-forth action made for an incredibly exciting game.

Ottawa ended up winning in overtime by a score of 5-4, but the story of the night was the wondrous effort of Toronto rookie Auston Matthews. The kid chipped in four goals in his NHL debut, including a couple which were of absolute highlight-reel quality.

Now, I think anyone can appreciate that kind of performance - scoring four goals in any game is an almost impossible achievement, let alone doing so in the first game of your career. But the real takeaway for me was how his performance on just about every single shift was overpowering against an Ottawa team that has plenty of talent. Even on shifts when Matthews didn’t score, he and his line were in total control.

The goals will get an awful lot of attention, but consider some of the other numbers underpinning Matthews’ performance on Wednesday night. First, he individually generated six shots. Second, his line - he played primarily with Zach Hyman and William Nylander - generated a whopping 13 scoring chances at 5-on-5, or about one per minute of ice time. Third, by Corsi measures, the Leafs had control of the puck approximately 75 per cent of the time with the Matthews line on the ice.
Yes, it’s just one game. But those kinds of splits are tough to manage even for established NHL veterans against halfway decent competition.

On that competition point: Matthews didn’t exactly get a run of easy deployment. Ottawa, with last change, had their chance to throw whatever line and defensive pair they wanted against his group. That meant big servings of their top-pairing in Erik Karlsson and Marc Methot, and healthy servings of forwards Bobby Ryan and Kyle Turris.

Did it matter? Well, not really. Here’s a look at Matthews’ competition by frequency on opening night and how he fared against each by way of shot differential. It was pretty much a bloodbath in Toronto’s favour:



The stunning thing here is that not a single Ottawa player was able to break even against the Matthews line, though Dion Phaneuf - at least relatively speaking - came close. This was, for all intents and purposes, as one-sided a matchup as you’ll see.
On the other side of the ledger, there were plenty of areas to give Leafs coach Mike Babcock heartburn. The defensive zone breakdowns, as mentioned earlier, were still quite noticeable. And Fred Andersen’s goaltending debut - a position the team sorely needed to upgrade after last year’s abysmal puck-stopping run - was more or less a disaster.

In that way, the first Leafs game of the year was a perfect reminder of the situation now and what’s to come. There are plenty of reasons to be cautious about proclaiming the Leafs a playoff hopeful, but there are also plenty of reasons to be hopeful about what’s to come. Matthews, one game in, looks like a star.

[cardsfan04]

Backes had 2G, 1A and was a +5(!!!!) in his Bruin debut.

[StL Dan]

Backes had 2G, 1A and was a +5(!!!!) in his Bruin debut.

NHL.com doesn't seem to notice. They are touting Brad Marchand's 5 pt performance in their headlines section. Nail Yakupov is the 2nd headline, though.

[theohall]

Backes had 2G, 1A and was a +5(!!!!) in his Bruin debut.

NHL.com doesn't seem to notice. They are touting Brad Marchand's 5 pt performance in their headlines section. Nail Yakupov is the 2nd headline, though.

NHL.com might not notice, but NHL Radio is all over Backes and Marchand... while everyone seems to be ignoring Pasternak's 2G 2A +6 evening. Yes, the three of them were on the same line.

Marchand 2G 3A +5
Pasternak 2G 2A +6
Backes 2G 1A +5

Of course the headlines aren't about Backes and his measly 3 points.

[cardsfan04]

Backes had 2G, 1A and was a +5(!!!!) in his Bruin debut.

NHL.com doesn't seem to notice. They are touting Brad Marchand's 5 pt performance in their headlines section. Nail Yakupov is the 2nd headline, though.

NHL.com might not notice, but NHL Radio is all over Backes and Marchand... while everyone seems to be ignoring Pasternak's 2G 2A +6 evening. Yes, the three of them were on the same line.

Marchand 2G 3A +5
Pasternak 2G 2A +6
Backes 2G 1A +5

Of course the headlines aren't about Backes and his measly 3 points.

Must have been same D pairing out there for their goals too. They had 5 players that were a +5 last night. I don't know if I'm making much ado about nothing, but that seems crazy to me.

[theohall]

Why everyone is talking mostly about Marchand (watched the game today) - he took over the 3rd period of that game and made it look like everyone else was skating in molasses.

Chara was on the ice for all 6 goals for, but also was on the ice for one against - leaving him at +5. Backes 2nd goal was a deflection off a Chara bomb.

Other stuff:
Winnipeg's comeback from 3 down in the 3rd to win in OT was something to see. Tieing the game with just over 1:30 left and getting the game-winner off a nice steal by Wheeler with a great setup to Schieffle. Laine's goal - nice top far corner wrister with a perfect screen in front of the netinder. Helleybuk (sic) let in some soft goals, though, which should have Winnipeg still concerned about goaltending.

The Lightning play where someone goes to the net and they shoot for that guys stick was working to perfection in the 3rd period vs Detoilet with 2 goals being scored that way. Drouin's goal could have been another, but it didn't need the deflection. Deadthings should have had one less goal. Weird deflection off the glass in a corner on a dump wound up directly on goal and bounced between Bishop's pads. Play would have been icing had it not deflected the way it did.

Panthers were lucky to win. Devils had some great chances in OT, but just couldn't beat Luongo.

Weird to see Edmonton and Calgary opening the season with a home-and-home series. Blues West Coast trip next week will be a test to see if the system can counter the speed those two teams have and if the Blues have enough speed on their top 3 lines to match.

[theohall]

The Flyers looked ridiculously good last night vs the Kings. Their rookie Konecny has some sick hands and already seems to have excellent chemistry with Couturier. While it is early, the Flyers adding scoring from a line with players not named Giroux and Simmonds makes them a legitimate threat in the East. Some will say it was because Quick wasn't playing - I'm not sure Quick would have stopped any of the goals the Flyers scored last night. Kopitar did shut down Giroux, like he does against top centers almost every night.

Oilers notes: McDavid is just plain sick. Beat Elliott on a clean break with a slick backhand. The Oilers are playing way better defensively. Larsson and Russell are both very good at moving the puck quickly from D to O. Sekera's game seems to have improved dramatically in his 10th NHL season in the same area. He was one of the best d-men for Team Europe in the World Cup. As a result, the Oilers forwards are able to challenge more and are generating odd-man breaks from this. Their top 3 lines are also playing excellent as a 5-man unit with solid gap closure and outstanding positioning. Even when the Flames did get to the Oilers net, there was no space at all near the net to do anything with the puck.

Flames notes: Elliott played better. McDavid's breakaway goal will beat most anyone. The 4th goal was a fluke going off the post, across the crease, off of Elliott's pads and in. No chance on prior two goals. Flames defensive issues - poor positioning by defenseman leading to penalties. Poor decision making by forwards trying to force passes through players - especially on the PP. Too much focus on trying to make plays at the net, instead of getting pucks to the net. The Oilers essentially kept the Flames on the perimeter almost the entire game.

Blackhawks will not make the playoffs this season. Yes, I'm calling that now having seen their last two games. There is no depth at C at all. Kruger (50.0%) is the only forward at 50% on faceoffs, but we know Toews (48.9%) will be fine in that area. The issue is Anisimov (34.4%) and Schmaltz (28.6%). This will lead to goals against and extended possession by opponents which is a death knell for any team in the talent-loaded West. Were it not for two seriously fluky plays (the Blues broken stick play and Rinne playing an easy puck wrong), Chicago would only have 2 goals in 2 games. Teams can't count on fluky plays on any consistent basis. Meanhwile, Panarin and Kane have been held pointless leading Quenneville to break their line up during the Nashville game. Hossa, Toews, and Panarin didn't produce anything either when put together mid-way through the game.

[glen a richter]

A big reason I suck at fantasy hockey is because I refuse to have Hawks or Wings on my team. This year I broke with tradition by drafting Panarin and so far so bad. I think splitting up him and Kane is a terrible idea and I'm sure Q won't make that permanent.

[theohall]

The problem is Anisimov. He was centering the two and because of his crappy faceoff stats this year, Kane and Panarin aren't getting near as much offensive zone time.

[theohall]

Troy Brouwer scored a goal tonight and served a 2-min penalty immediately after when he'd committed the penalty before the puck went in the net...

Yes, Louie Erickson put it in his own net....

[theohall]

Oilers cancelled their mandated day-off in order to practice today before they play Carolina tomorrow. IMO, this is stupid. As some others have said, it's OCTOBER and the Oilers already have two wins. McClellan will still be as pissed about the loss on Tuesday as he was after the game. What happens if the lose to Carolina? More cancelled days off?? It's too early in the season to be freaking out, especially as a head coach with a young captain and a young team. Of course, he should be freaking out about the goaltending, which hasn't been that good this season, even in their two wins.

In other weird news, Ryan Miller played the full game vs Calgary, didn't give up a goal, so had a 0.00 GAA, 100% SV%, yet didn't get credit for a shutout thanks to Louie Eriksson scoring in his own empty net on a delayed penalty call.

[ComradeT]

Oilers cancelled their mandated day-off in order to practice today before they play Carolina tomorrow. IMO, this is stupid. As some others have said, it's OCTOBER and the Oilers already have two wins. McClellan will still be as pissed about the loss on Tuesday as he was after the game. What happens if the lose to Carolina? More cancelled days off??

Yes, and if they are not top of the division by the trade deadline, hard labor camps for everyone! And theo, if you mess up GDT once, you'll come out of retirement and have to work your way back in. Now drop down and give me 20!