Wow, I hope I did not jinx Ryan Miller when I mentioned that he better watch out for his backup goaltender, Jhonas Enroth, picking up more playing time. Unfortunately for Miller, there was a bit of a mishap (see: collision with goalie) last weekend in Boston involving Miller and Milan Lucic that caused Miller not to be able to finish the game. He ended up with a concussion due to Lucic’s questionable maneuvering about the ice and he could miss a significant amount of ice time for the Sabres. Again, maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing seeing how well Enroth has manned the pipes as of late.
So, how did Enroth do in his first start as the number one goalie? Anyone who watched Monday night’s game between the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens saw Enroth only give up two early goals, as Buffalo came from behind to win 3-2 in a shootout. Enroth is now 6-0 with a 1.76 goals against average. Again, keep an eye on the net minder in Buffalo.
Just like any team sport, the teams that play consistently (I hate this word) well throughout the year are usually the teams making the playoffs. Each team may have a stretch where things are not working out and there are some odd losses added to the season’s tally. A team that has been confusing to pin down so far this season is the Detroit Red Wings. Detroit started the season 5-0 with its next two games against Washington and Columbus. Seems like a good way to start 7-0, right? It seemed so.
Detroit lost to Washington by a touchdown and then lost to Columbus three days later, giving the Blue Jackets their first win of the season. Not much to read into. Well, Detroit continued to lose their next four games – six straight losses in all with one overtime loss. What did they do to right their way? They won four straight contests, with Jimmy Howard posting two shutouts in that stretch against Anaheim and Edmonton. Detroit coming into Tuesday night now stands at fifth place in the conference. I will be curious to see if their streaky play continues to sway to both the negative and positive sides of the win-loss column.
Next up for Detroit is the St. Louis Blues, where, again, former Badger Brian Elliott is continually proving himself in the goal. He has two shutouts in the last five games and leads the league in average goals against and is second in save percentage. His career win-loss mark is currently 13 games above .500 and continues to rise with his stellar play.
I have done some +/- statistics over at the Kohl Center for the men’s team, so I keep an eye on a stat that I and many others feel is somewhat overblown at times. Not to get into that, but peeking at the NHL leaders in +/- there are two things that stick out to me: three Blackhawks are in the top ten – Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, and Marian Hossa – and that the NHL leader, Tyler Seguin, was born in 1992. He’ll be 20 in just over two months, but it’s surprising to see such a young player have his name atop the leaderboard in that category. I suppose it doesn’t harm his +/- numbers any when he has netted 11 goals and accumulated 20 points already. Having a defenseman teammate like Zdeno Chara, who is always near the top amongst defenseman +/- numbers, does not hurt his ability to play aggressively either.
Kane is playing a new position this year, so it’s clear the Blackhawks brass knew what they had in moving Kane to the center position. He and Hossa have been a great duo on the Blackhawk offensive zone so far this year, which has (hopefully) cemented Chicago near the top in the Western Conference standings for the entirely of the year.
Lastly, I just want to touch on the Colorado Avalanche. They have gone from a 6-2 record to begin the year to a record of 8-8-1. Luckily, eight of their next ten games are at home. That is usually a positive for most teams. Sadly, the Avalanche’s home record currently stands at 2-6-0, so it appears some tinkering will occur to make the best of this stretch of eight home games at the Pepsi Center. Maybe they will get a new sensation…