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The Ottawa Senators are en route to New York City to take on the New York Rangers in a pivotal game five, but they'll once again have to do so without the services of long-time captain Daniel Alfredsson.
Alfredsson - who suffered a concussion from a head shot via Carl Hagelin in game two - has not played in a game since. The captain did pass an initial baseline test last Monday, but suffered what appeared to be a setback in a skate soon thereafter, and hasn't practiced with the team all week.
While the coaching staff initially appeared optimistic about Daniel Alfredsson's potential availability yesterday morning, today's report suggests the reality of the situation is far more troubling. Not only is Daniel Alfredsson out of the lineup, but he's not even making the trip with the team.
It's not exactly the strategy Paul MacLean had dialed up for his team as they prepared for the playoffs. Few players are more important to their respective roster than Alfredsson is to Ottawa's, and the team's depth woes - especially on the wing - continue to compound as issues in his absence.
With Alfredsson on the mend, both Mark Stone - he of the 123P (41G/82A) season with the Brandon Wheat Kings - and Mike Hoffman were taking reps on L2 alongside Kyle Turris and Nick Foligno.
Stone getting some run this early as a black ace is pretty impressive, and considering he's fresh off back-to-back 100+ point seasons in the WHL, I'm going to say it's earned. What's intriguing, though, is whether or not Paul MacLean will actually insert him into the lineup in a pivotal playoff game.
We've already seen high-end prospects (e.g. Kreider, Saad) thrown into the fire for their respective teams and struggle, so Stone's insertion isn't any guarantee. With that said, I do think there's real potential for Paul MacLean to turn his way. Unlike many of the high-end finesse guys, Stone's a borderline freakish 6'3", 200 lb. forward who lives in front of the crease.
Speaking of high-end prospects: I touched on it Thursday, but Jakob Silfverberg - arguably one of the best forward prospects outside of the NHL right now - is heading to Ottawa on Sunday. It certainly doesn't look as though he'll play in round one against New York, but with how depleted the forward ranks are for Ottawa, one has to wonder if the coaching staff will turn in his direction for some goal-scoring help.
Coming out of the SEL, Silfverberg may take time to transition to the North American game. The wider rinks do provide quite a different style of play, with more emphasis on finesse, less emphasis on physicality and hitting. That's not to say Silfverberg hasn't been banged around from time-to-time; rather, he's not going to have even a tenth of the room to operate as he did with Brynas IF.
Even though Silfverberg's thirteen-goal run through the SEL playoffs broke Daniel Alfredsson's single-season playoff record, I still would keep expectations incredibly low for the kid. He's a twenty-one year old with precisely zero NHL experience and no kind of camaraderie or chemistry built with the current roster. Any scoring output is a plus.
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I'd be doing HockeyBuzz a disservice if I didn't pass along the fantastic work over at
Copper And Blue, an Edmonton Oilers blog that does a ton of work with Hockey Sabremetrics.
Regarding advanced statistics in hockey, I've always held the belief that no information is bad information, and dismissing new-age measurements due to their complexity or potential lack of substantiation is quite foolish.
As mentioned above, Copper and Blue did some fantastic work in aggregating the production of a ton of rookie forwards from around the league, throwing them into graph format for the sake of collective analysis.
On the horizontal axis, measurement includes Relative Corsi Quality of Competition. The further right a player is located on the graph, the tougher the opposition on a shift-to-shift basis.
On the vertical axis, measurement includes Zonestart-Adjusted Corsi, which takes into account where a player is beginning his shift. Truthfully, it's logical; players should be rewarded for producing when they're starting so often in the defensive third, and alternatively, players should be punished a bit when they're starting so often in the offensive zone .
Lastly, the size of the bubble per player, which indicates point production per game. Bigger the bubble, bigger the scorer.
From the Ottawa Senators, both Kaspars Daugavins and Colin Greening are included. Before you ask, Colin Greening is eligible, as he logged twenty-four games one year ago - one below the cutoff.
CLICK HERE FOR EXPANSION
A few notes from the graph.
First, it's quite obvious that Gabriel Landeskog should be the runaway favorite for the Calder Trophy. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a fantastic season, as did Adam Henrique, Sean Couturier, and others. But, none of these names were as important to their team's success as Landeskog was to Colorado. The guy drew against tough competition and performed admirably, with 22G/30A (52P) in eighty-two games played(18:37 TOI).
Second, there's obviously a few names that jump out of absolutely nowhere. No disrespect to Marcus Kruger, but the guy isn't exactly a household name just yet. At least according to this chart, he should be. Kruger had a decent offensive output in limited time (9G/17A in 71 GP, 15:24 TOI per), but did so drawing against fairly tough competition. And, the kid started just 44% of his shifts in the offensive zone on the year.
Third, a nice rookie season by Colin Greening. By this chart, it looks like his comparable is Matt Read, which is pretty solid company. On the year, Greening tallied 17G/20A (37P in 15:35 TOI per). Greening's a freakish combination of pure athleticism, with the size, strength, and speed to compete in the top-six at a high level. As his hockey game develops, his points should respond accordingly.
Another name in the same echelon as Colin Greening? Carl Hagelin. On Thursday, I
mentioned in detail why Hagelin was so important to the New York Rangers front lines. When the kid is on the ice, the Blueshirts drive possession and log scoring opportunities with regularity. So, pretty good company for Greening.
Overall, a very consumable production graph, although I'd love to see a bit of an adjustment or tweak for team play and production.
Back with more tomorrow.
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Thanks for reading!
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