Some of the greatest lines in hockey history have actually been twosomes, with revolving wingers on one side or another. Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri, the Sedin twins, Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt… The list is endless.
In today’s National Hockey League, you can count the top line on the league-leading Anaheim Ducks as a serial twosome, as head coach Bruce Boudreau continues to seek a left-winger who can stick with centre Ryan Getzlaf and currently injured right-winger Corey Perry.
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“I’m sure that, like everybody else, they’d like to have a guy who could be that permanent winger. But we just keep experimenting,” said Boudreau. “They’ve got eight years left on their deals. I’m sure they’ll find one at one point.”
Devante Smith-Pelly has the inside track after a nice run there during last spring’s playoffs. But even Getzlaf isn’t sure who’ll be on his left side once Perry returns some time in January.
“I seem too consistent in this, so apparently it’s hard to find guys to play with me. I’m a hard guy to play with,” he said sarcastically. “Seriously, it’s a hard position to fill. If anything goes wrong, it’s usually their fault. And that’s not the case. If me and (Perry) have an off night, it’s not our left-winger’s fault that we’re not playing well.”
The Sedins have gone through a litany of players on their right wing. My personal favourite was Jason King, which prompted the nickname, “The Mattress Line.” Two twins and a King. Get it?
As for Getzlaf, he can’t even say who has lasted the longest on his left flank. “I have no idea. When you’re talking about a week for the longest (guy), my memory doesn’t work that well.”
Anaheim has their share of injuries right now — Perry, Francois Beauchemin, Eric Brewer, Dany Heatley, goalie John Gibson — and has fought the mumps bug all season. But Boudreau still has them in the No. 1 spot overall, after their sixth straight win Friday in Edmonton. He runs all four lines out with a solid pairing — Getzlaf- Perry, Kyle Palmieri and Ryan Kesler, Andrew Cogliano and Jakob Silfverberg, Tim Jackman and Nate Thompson — then fills in the third spot as he sees fit. He knows the pressure that goes along with being the Ducks’ first-line left-winger.
“They probably overthink it, because they’re playing with those two, instead of doing what comes naturally to them,” Boudreau said. “When I got those few chances to play with Lanny McDonald I always overthought the game. Only when you got back to playing your own game did you find you had some success.”
BRODEUR’S PRESENCE A BOON TO THE BLUES
Martin Brodeur’s situation in St. Louis is truly an unknown. The Blues are just a team that found itself in a goaltending pinch when Brian Elliott went down, and Brodeur was an NHL goalie looking for a chance to prove he can still play.
Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock could have given us scribes a tasty angle on Saturday night, when long-time goaltending rivals Brodeur and Colorado Avalanche coach Patrick Roy found themselves facing each in Denver. But Hitchcock said he would instead reward Jake Allen for a solid start on Thursday, pouring cold water on what would have been a good storyline.
“Our attitude is, Marty is just coming in to help us. There is a lot of potential in our goaltending depth, but it is inexperienced,” Hitchcock said. “Our idea was, we don’t want to lose any ground here in this Conference (with Elliott out). Everything for us is a day to day evaluation, a day to day help, and there is no long term plan for Marty or for us.”
Simply injecting Brodeur into a dressing room that has had issues with discovering the winning formula can’t be a bad idea. He’s a walk-in Hall of Famer, a guy you want on your team, whatever his role may be.
“I was in four competitions with him, so I knew what we were in for personality-wise,” Hitchcock said. “But from our players’ standpoint, it’s been an experience that will do nothing but help us as an organization, and help the players in the locker room. Between his disposition, his focus, his right from wrong, style of play… What’s successful, what isn’t? It’s really helpful.”
The other side is, a player has to contribute. So far, Brodeur has gone 2-1-0, with a .904 save percentage as he works to get his ‘A” game back.
“They’ve got to be able to play otherwise their voice doesn’t carry much weight,” confirmed Hitchcock. “But he’s shown the ability to play, and the voice carries even more and more weight as we go along.”
AFTER SEGUIN, STARS LACK CONSISTENCY
How can the Dallas Stars have the league leader in goals (22) and the second-highest point-getter (36) in Tyler Seguin, and still be mired in last place in the Central Division with just 25 points?
They added Spezza and Hemsky, Jamie Benn is one of the best young-ish forwards in the game at age 25, and the Stars thought they had a decent crop of homegrown players on their blueline. What they’re finding is, Spezza and Hemsky only help when they’re scoring, doing little else the rest of the time, and Trevor Daley is struggling with No. 1 pairing minutes. Twenty-four-plus minutes per night may be too much for him.
As for goalie Kari Lehtonen, inked to that five-year, $29.5 million deal prior to last season, he’s killing them. Lehtonen is 31 now, and since the day he arrived in Atlanta as the second overall pick in the 2002 draft, he’s not been able to find the consistency — or prolonged health — that a team needs from its starter.
Lehtonen’s cap hit of $5.9 million is the eighth-highest among NHL goalies. But his .902 save percentage ranks 39th in the league, and his 3.10 goals-against average ranks 38th. “And he’s not hurt,” said a source in the Big D.
PENALTIES, SHMENALTIES
Who says taking lots of penalties is bad, and staying out of the box helps you win? Three of the seven least penalized teams in the NHL — New Jersey, Carolina, and Edmonton — sit 22nd, 29th and 30th respectively in the standings. On the other end, Winnipeg is the most penalized club and is having its best run in a long time, creeping up the Central. Pittsburgh is next, and sits at No. 2 overall behind Anaheim, and the Ducks are the fifth most penalized team in the league.
AVALANCHE STRUGGLING TO KEEP UP SCORING PACE
When making our playoff picks in September, we always ask, “Who is going to fall out of the Top 8?” Well, likely as few people picked Colorado as did Dallas. Sure, the Avs meteoric rise from 29th in 2012-13 to third overall last season made one suspect a fallback was due. But last season the Avs finished with four players in the Top 35 in league scoring.
As of Thursday, defenceman Tyson Barrie led the team with 19 points, good for 56th spot on the NHL’s leaderboard. There are always multiple issues when a team sags, but going from fourth in league scoring last season to 17th this season hasn’t helped.
CALGARY COMEBACKS CAN’T KEEP UP
The analytics folks have been burying the Calgary Flames all season, saying they can’t sustain their pace. Looking at the Flames roster of players having career years, and a team shooting percentage (8.85) that’s hovered around 9.0 for a long time, it’s a fair argument. I also see some intangibles there that belie what the fancy stats folks might say. That dynamic pairing of Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie can put Band-Aids on a few perceived ills, to be sure.
But this much is clear: you can’t trail in the third period as much as Calgary does, and continue to win. The Flames have trailed after 40 minutes in 15 of 31 games, and won six of those. On their current four-game losing jag, they’ve been tied twice and behind twice after 40. They’ve scored first in about half their games, but Calgary has just 17 first-period goals all season. That first-period production has to improve for Calgary to sustain their record.
OILERS DESERVED FASTH EXPLOSION
And finally, under the category, “Sometimes A Coach Just Simply Can Not Tell The Truth,” watch this video of Edmonton’s Viktor Fasth, who was yanked by Dallas Eakins after his team hung the goalie out to dry with two goals in the opening minute of a game Friday. Do these look like words of encouragement?
“He was more encouraging (his teammates). ‘Let’s get going. Let’s get the next goal,’” is what Eakins copped to, when asked about Fasth’s tirade after the game. “I didn’t catch all of it, but it was more encouraging things than anything.”
Fasth wouldn’t divulge everything he said, but admitted this much: “Basically I said, ‘You’ve got to wake up.’ That’s what I said.”
“Whatever he said,” winger David Perron added, “we deserved it.”
