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Northeast Division Thoughts

July 24, 2012, 1:37 PM ET [33 Comments]
Travis Yost
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Boston Bruins -- The nature of a fan base spoiled by regular success is to overreact at the first hint of something negative. New York Yankees fans (self included) are a case study in the above.

When news broke last night that head coach Claude Julien signed a multi-year extension, I was expecting a pretty unanimous assessment of the deal -- Boston locked up one of the better coaches in the National Hockey League long-term, and it was a win-win for all parties involved.

Apparently, this wasn't a universal truth.

Head coaches are hired to be fired, and even the real savants of the National Hockey League have their fair share of detractors. Still, I don't think some Boston Bruins fans realize how well they have it right now. There's a head coach currently in the organization maintaining a tough, two-way system that emphasizes beating teams senselessly in every third of the ice. And, he has the deadly player personnel at his disposal to make it work.

When many think of the Boston Bruins, they think of a team that can simply out-muscle the opposition on a nightly basis -- and that might be accurate. Still, this is one of the very best teams in the National Hockey League, and I think their overall team skill remains highly underrated. With a violent forecheck, bevy of scorers, and bona fide shutdown pairing in Chara // Seidenberg, they're still the odds-on favorite to grab the Northeast division for the foreseeable future.

Last season -- a down-year from the prior, considering the Stanley Cup victory -- came and went without much fanfare for Boston, especially after an early-exit from the post-season at the hands of undermanned Washington. And yet, the numbers behind their play through eighty-two games may have been as impressive as ever, towing a +0.7 GF/GA // 60 -- second in the National Hockey League behind Detroit at even-strength.

When the sides were equal, Boston simply scored more than the opposition. Regularly. A lot of it had to do with the ridiculous positives they ran with respect to scoring opportunities on a game-to-game basis. I'm entirely serious when I say that last year's team may have been just as good as the Stanley Cup product, save one ugly playoff series.

Does the team have flaws? Without question. It's pretty disturbing to watch their even-strength unit dominate, followed by a power-play that's really a comedy of errors.

But, that's life in a salary cap NHL. There's restrictions, and creating a deadly unit from top-to-bottom -- free from flaw -- is downright impossible.

With the current lineup, Julien's created one of the most feared team // system combinations in the league. Asking for the team to look elsewhere is simply asking for change when change isn't needed, and sometimes, you don't really know how good you have it until the alternative steps into the fray.

Of all places, Boston should know.
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Buffalo Sabres -- If there's one player to express a bit of concern about in Buffalo right now, it's the lovable Tyler Ennis.

Ennis is in the middle of contract negotiations with the Buffalo Sabres, and presumably, he's going to get a pretty sizable offer. Ennis is working with a pretty small sample size (140 GP; one full NHL season), but has pretty much all of the leverage when it comes to negotiating a new deal. Buffalo's lacking any kind of depth down the middle, and Leino -- and his agent -- are fully cognizant of that.

To make matters a bit more confounding, Ennis actually had a quality year last season in limited time. The minute twenty-two year old scored 15G/19A in 48GP last season, winning over the fan base in short order. His side can point to those numbers all day as rationale for a bigger and better deal, and Buffalo's pretty much going to have to take it on the chin.

There's just one issue with Ennis: The insulation provided by Derek Roy is gone, and Steve Ott -- judging by recent remarks made by the coaching staff -- is headed for a L3 role, an ideal fit for the two-way tough-guy.

What's that mean? Well, not a lot of good news for the likes of Tyler Ennis and Cody Hodgson, who are now being thrusted into the top-six without a ton of preparation. I hold my own reservations about Hodgson as a L2C this early in his career, but against weaker competition, he could be alright.

Ennis, though? I'll say this much -- if he's on the first line, it won't matter who the wingers are. He's going to skate regularly against players like Jason Spezza, Patrice Bergeron, et al., and it's not going to be pretty.

More to the point, I'm not entirely sure Ennis' numbers last season weren't a bit inflated based on some positive shot variance and pretty weak quality of competition. Looking at Ennis' shot numbers, he managed to total just 1.7 on goal per game last year, meaning his scoring output was unreasonably -- a/o, favorably -- skewed.

I speak a lot about two percentages -- specifically on-ice shot percentage, and on-ice save percentage -- when looking at a player's true output when compared against his real or normalized output. A 11.65% on-ice shooting percentage for Tyler Ennis wasn't just high -- it was herculean. Of players with at least forty games, Ennis finished seventh(!) in the National Hockey League here, in the same company of players like Steven Stamkos, Jordan Eberle, Martin St. Louis, and Kris Letang. Hell, he had a better on-ice shot percentage than Boston's Chris Kelly, and essentially anything that guy threw at the net went in last season.

His on-ice save percentage was also pretty absurd at .939 -- good for second best among forwards on Buffalo. For the other end of the spectrum, consider Derek Roy (.912) and Jason Pominville (.908).

This shouldn't act as a scathing incrimination against Tyler Ennis the player -- he clearly has a ton of talent. However, it's become quite clear that the organization fully believes he's ready for a much-expanded role come 2012, and I think a lot of that has to do with relatively fluky results that manifested last season.

And again, this all came against fairly weak opposition. Against elite talent, Ennis could seriously struggle. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see Buffalo mix-and-match early in the year to protect him from this kind of beating.

It's not really fair to Ennis to be thrown to the wolves like this -- moreso, it should be an indictment of how Buffalo managed to really destroy it's center depth from years past. For now, the twenty-two year old tandem of Hodgson // Ennis will have to suffice, although I'm holding serious reservations.

If Buffalo's a contender by the trade deadline and they're looking to buy, I'd expect them to immediately dress one of the roles in the middle of the lineup -- protecting (and properly utilizing) both Ennis and Hodgson, and giving the team a top-nine that could really produce.
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Montreal Canadiens -- Here's an interesting thought: Considering Montreal's strength when it comes to prospects(RW) and Louis LeBlanc's relative flexibility as a player, should the Habs organization consider moving him to a position where he'd be a bit more useful -- like, you know, his natural position?

LeBlanc actually came through the junior ranks as a center and has spent the majority of his playing career there, but last season Montreal opted to use him on the wing, perhaps in an effort to insulate him against NHL-ready centers and evaluate his future as a RW opposed to C.

Looking at the talent coming through the ranks, though, I find it hard to believe that Montreal can seriously consider keeping him on the outside without giving him a shot down the middle. Consider first a collection of prosects at the right wing position, then, at the center position:

RW
Sebastien Collberg
Danny Kristo
Brendan Gallagher
Alain Berger
Alexander Avtsin
Steve Quailer
Ian Schultz
Maxim Trunev

C
Alex Galchenyuk
Michael Bournival
Brady Vail
Patrick Holland
Joonas Nattinen
Gabriel Dumont
Daniel Pribyl
Dustin Walsh
Michael Cichy

Night and day.

Assuming Galchenyuk pans out and Plekanec remains a focal point of this team at the center position, the club still needs at least one more to fill out, and I think LeBlanc could battle with the likes of other potential centermen in Lars Eller and David Desharnais for a future spot on the big-league team.
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Ottawa Senators -- The NHL's fourth-ranked offense was a big reason behind Ottawa's unexpected playoff berth last year, and once again, they'll have to play a major role in this team's success if Ottawa wants to compete in the Eastern Conference.

While many other franchises around the league have opted to pay -- and sometimes, overpay -- for forward talent, Ottawa's sat idle, comfortable with the current lineup. It certainly doesn't scream talent when benchmarked against the likes of a New York, Detroit, Vancouver, et al., but it's just another example of smart money operating by GM Bryan Murray.

See, the Ottawa Senators did possess one of the best attacks in the league last year, averaging about three goals per night night in Paul MacLean's puck possession system. A lot of the credit was given to the likes of Jason Spezza(84 PTS), Erik Karlsson (78 PTS), Milan Michalek (35G), and captain Daniel Alfredsson (27G).

You know who didn't receive proper credit for the team's total output, though? Bryan Murray. Fans entrusted in his ability to rebuild the organization and spoke candidly of his work developing the farm, but lost in a flurry of hyperbole was just how little Ottawa paid for fantastic production.

Coming into the 2012-2013 season, the Ottawa Senators currently spend the third-least(!) among all thirty National Hockey League teams at the forward position. Below, the comparables -- it's worth noting that some of these numbers have changed a bit from the year prior where output was measured, but it's still a solid look at where dollar is floating in and out:



Pretty safe assessment to correlate low spending with poor offense, but there's a few teams that appeared to get quality production on the cheap -- Ottawa and Philadelphia, most notably.

When you have young players on cheap contracts stepping in and delivering, it's easier to maneuver around the salary cap. Philadelphia(Weber, probably) and Ottawa(Karlsson) had to give out massive contracts in the off-season and have shortened up available dollar, but the Senators still maintain $18M in cap space as they prepare for training camp.

Will Ottawa tap into that unbelievable reserve? Right now, no. But, it gives them a ton of flexibility and option for the future -- especially with no name in need of a serious raise; Kyle Turris being the only player who may receive a considerable bump.

TL;DR -- Murray's icing a quality team without spending a lot of money, and this is what we call good business.
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Toronto Maple Leafs -- The more I look at Mikhail Grabovski's new contract (5Y/$27M), the more I find myself in agreement with Brian Burke and the rest of the suits in the Maple Leafs organization.

In the interest of full disclosure, my only real issue with the deal was that the term was a bit lengthy -- especially considering they paid at least market value on the dollar. Looking at how free agency and how the trade market has played out, though, I think Toronto got this one right.

Even in a lost season for the Maple Leafs where the last two months of the season were entirely forgettable, Grabovski played and played well throughout. Grabovski never posted the absurd point splits that the likes of Lupul // Kessel were in the first-half of the season, but he also never played with either Lupul or Kessel. Pretty amazing how that works.

Grabovski's most common linemates last year were Nikolai Kulemin and Clarke MacArthur -- solid talents, but neither had the best of years in 2011-2012. Kulemin's unbelievable mean regression sidetracked his entire year, and MacArthur [62P to 43P] didn't fare much better.

The Belarusian still managed to post his second-consecutive fifty-point season, but probably was on the low-end of his natural production based on his other splits. Looking at the peripherals, Grabovski actually drove possession (14.9 Corsi Relative) better than any other player -- qualified or unqualified -- on the Toronto Maple Leafs last season, meaning when he was on the ice, play was generally favorable.

Not surprisingly, his Corsi Relative QualComp (third highest among F -- (1) Kulemin; (2) MacArthur) speaks to the poor position Grabovski was placed in last season as the predominant L2C. While other teams were generally receiving high-quality output from their second trio, Toronto's was wildly inconsistent -- a natural byproduct of the struggling Kulemin // MacArthur.

The natural deduction is as follows: Grabovski's wingers may have seriously curtailed his production last season. The remedy for the issue, though, is a bit unclear. Do you confide in the likes of Kulemin, MacArthur, and other internal options to play on the talented Grabovski's wing, or do you look externally to fill that void? A third option is moving Grabovski up(yuck) or down(double yuck) -- he's a 2LC, and an increase in QualComp or decrease in TOI would be pretty damning to his value as a player.

I've spoke highly of Kulemin, and maintain that he's a player Toronto should serious keep around; in fact, I considered him one of the best offer sheet candidates this off-season). MacArthur? I'm still not sure.

Based on contracts, they'll be around for at least one more year -- MacArthur's up at the end of 2012-2013. If I'm Burke, I look to build around Grabovski as the L2C.

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