Jamie Fitzpatrick discusses the give-and-go and line change scenarios that make the 2nd assist weak.

Interesting article from the Denver Post. Apparently Chris Snow, Wild director of hockey operations, has started to individually track first assists and second assists.

You haven’t heard the last from me on this one. I’ll try to periodically track the NHL scoring race and show the adjusted leaders minus their second assists.

-Brian

I haven’t posted in like 2 years, but I figured I’d post this because I found it a bit interesting. Matt’s probably wondering a) how did Brian remember his WordPress blogger login info? (it was saved on my computer with Firefox password saving) and/or b) is Brian really still registered as a contributor to this site? (apparently I am, for now at least…). But that’s part of the fun.

Thought it’d be interesting to see what the points race would look like if you subtracted out 2nd assists (through today’s games). I just took the top five in points and subtracted out of their 2nd assists:

Kovalchuk 34 adj pts
Lecavalier 31 adj pts
Crosby 31 adj pts
Zetterberg 28 adj pts
Iginla 27 adj pts

With 2nd assists included however,

Lecavalier 42 pts
Kovalchuk 37 pts
Zetterberg 37 pts
Crosby 37 pts
Iginla 36 pts

Pretty much what I expected – obviously it’s going to hurt the playmakers in some way and favor the goal scorers. I just wanted to see who had the most primary assists among these players and if there was anyone who had a disproportionate number of secondary assists.

Kovalchuk is the leading goal scorer (and only has 3 second assists), so he leads in that adjusted format. Lecavalier has 11 second assists of his 24 assists, while Crosby only has 6 second assists of his 23 assists. Zetterberg has 9 second assists of 19 assists. Of the players listed, Henrik had the only second assist on an empty net goal! I was expecting a few more of those than just that one for all these players. Finally, Iginla has 9 second assists of his 21 assists.

Note: Daniel Alfredsson left off due to time constraints (He currently has 37 points).

Update (7:25 PM): A later edition of the same McKenzie column has more from Orr:

“I just think in today’s game, with the crackdown on hooking and holding and interference, we have to call penalties for hitting people in the head,” Orr said. “Think about it, you can’t touch a guy anywhere with your stick without getting a penalty, you can’t make a little tug or get in a guy’s way, but you can hit him in the face and knock him unconscious and there’s no penalty for it. There’s something wrong there.”

Also, Bob McKenzie had some good points himself. Here’s one:

In a recent Detroit-Edmonton game, Wings’ defenceman Danny Markov leveled Oiler forward Jarret Stoll with a clean open ice hit, shoulder to chest, that knocked Stoll upside down, but without any injury. Late in that game, Oiler forward Ethan Moreau attempted to fight Markov. Never mind that Moreau dislocated his shoulder and will be out five months, in the hockey vernacular, he was sending a message to Markov and the Oilers that they weren’t about to let the clean, open-ice hit go without a response. This, according to many traditionalists, is what the game is all about.

Which is what Oiler defenceman Steve Staios was doing in the first period of Tuesday’s game when he dropped the gloves and fought Markov, who readily accepted the invitation. Staios, in his mind, was settling a two-week old score.

Later in the game, of course, Torres leveled Williams with the devastating check that has widely been accepted as legal. The Wings did not respond with retribution of any kind, unless you consider a 3-0 shutout win as a form of payback. Some of the same people who lauded the Oilers for their payback against Markov suggested there was no need for the Red Wings to do the same against Torres. It was a clean hit, after all.

It would appear there’s an incongruity there, but that’s not unusual in the game of hockey.

What, Bob? The Wings aren’t wimps because they didn’t go after Torres? What a novel idea! - Matt

After the Torres hit on Jason Williams, which sent the Red Wings forward to the hospital, and a few similar hits have occurred this season, the debate on what a legal hit is has escalated. Now entering the debate is legend Bobby Orr, via TSN.

He calls for the elimination of all hits to the head, regardless of legality within the current set of rules: “I don’t want to see hitting taken out of the game, I love hitting in hockey, but if someone puts his shoulder into a player’s face, if he puts anything — an arm, an elbow, a glove — I think that player should get a penalty. Definitely, it should be a penalty. We are having players getting knocked unconscious before they even hit the ice and carried off on stretchers. How can that be legal? When did hitting someone in the head with your shoulder or any part of your body become part of the rules? Anything above the neck, it’s wrong.

Hey, I got hit a lot when I played and I didn’t get hit in the head with checks. Players didn’t always hit like that. To me, that’s not part of bodychecking. I mean, don’t you have to be responsible for your actions? If you hit a guy in the face with your stick by accident, you’re going to get a penalty. Two minutes, four minutes, five minutes, something. If you go to bodycheck a guy and you hit him in the face or head, and injure him, that’s legal? That’s fair? That’s not a penalty? I’m sorry, I don’t think that is right. It should be a penalty.

When I looked at the conference standings this morning, I saw the Wings at 12th in the Western Conference and 4th in the Central. I was also surprised to see the Wings at 20 goals for, and 21 goals against – I can’t remember the last time the Wings were being outscored in regular season goals. The past three games, the Wings have lost 4-1, 5-1, 3-1, against the Ducks, Sharks, and Oilers, respectively. It was certainly a tough road trip for the Wings, who went 1-3 out on the West Coast, and scored only 6 goals in 4 games.

So who is not producing like they should be this season? Datsyuk and Zetterberg are the most obvious players not meeting high expectations. Datsyuk has 2 goals and 2 assists in 8 games, with only 11 shots on goal in that span. Kopecky has more shots (13) in only 5 games played, and obviously much less ice time. The bottom line is that Datsyuk is not getting enough shots, and needs to be more greedy on the offensive end of the ice. Zetterberg has 2 goals and 1 assist in 8 games played, with 26 shots – a shooting percentage of 7.7%. In perspective, Datsyuk had a shooting percentage of 19.3% and Zetterberg had a shooting percentage of 14.4% in 2005-2006. You would expect most forwards getting a lot of shots to score at a minimum 11-15%, so Zetterberg needs to get himself in that range, and soon: 7.7% shooting is not acceptable. Note: Datsyuk tends to have a higher percentage than the range of 11-15%, based on his passing the puck in most players’ shooting situations.

A lot of the offensive troubles are due to special teams. The Wings are ranked 27th on the power play, going only 4/46. On the penalty kill, the Wings are ranked 24th, killing 41/53 chances. The Oct 19 San Jose game certainly didn’t help, with the Sharks going 5/12 on the power play, accounting for all 5 of their goals in their 5-1 win.

Let’s hope the Wings turn the ship around when they play the Sharks Wednesday night at JLA.

Link

Link

It looks like the recent success of the Pistons and Tigers has shortened the season ticket waitlist for Wings tickets considerably. It’s been three years since I signed up for the waitlist, and back then it was a rumored 10 year wait for season tickets. Has anyone else gotten the letter?

Well, Holland brought our old friend back. He’s put up some decent seasons, and has been a pretty consistent 10 goal, 20 assist player – that is, when injuries don’t plague him. Last season, he went 11 goals, 8 assists through 68 games, missing time with a groin strain.

My first reaction to this move was thumbs up. Johnson is speedy, and could be a great playmaker on a team like the Wings. Also, his TSN profile says he is good at killing penalties and taking faceoffs. But then I look at his age and what happened to him last season. If he stays healthy, this could be a great move. But, if a groin injury creeps up, it could mess up his entire season. I’m disappointed Holland hasn’t been able to sign more players outside the organization (second, third stints not included).

I give Holland credit for being creative and probably getting a bargain forward who can play fourth line center for the Wings. But I’d rather have seen the Wings go out and get a guy with more offensive potential: Bondra, Nolan, Carter, Dumont, etc. Johnson replaces Franzen (if necessary), and still leaves the need to fill in for Shanahan’s production. I’m still waiting…

UPDATED (8/15 11:03 am)

Greg Johnson’s base salary for 2006-2007 will be $500,000 via the NHLPA site, with I’m sure some performance-based incentives included.