01-02-2020, 02:21 AM
A Flyers defenceman leads the charge, the Kings’ top line is rolling, Fantasy tips and more in Scott Cullen’s Statistically Speaking. Jim Plunkett Jersey . HEROES Mark Streit – The 37-year-old Flyers defenceman had a goal and two assists in a 7-3 win over Tampa Bay. He has 18 points (1 G, 17 A) in the past 19 games and, based on with-or-without-you (WOWY) stats this year, won’t be any worse off while frequent partner Nicklas Grossmann is injured. Kings top line – Marian Gaborik, Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter opened the scoring against Toronto, 37 seconds into the game, then iced the game with an empty-netter with a minute remaining. Gaborik has 15 points (10 G, 5 A) in his past 12 games, Carter has 13 points (4 G, 9 A) in the past dozen games and Kopitar has 21 points (4 G, 17 A) in the past dozen games. ZEROES Evgeni Nabokov – Tampa Bay’s backup didn’t provide much of a break for starter Ben Bishop, allowing four goals on 13 shots against Philadelphia and getting pulled after 22:36. Booth and Clarkson – While the Leafs had to be happy with their overall matchup against the Kings, wingers David Booth and David Clarkson failed to register a shot attempt, while combining for nearly 28 minutes of ice time. LINEUP NEED TO KNOW Victor Hedman – Tampa Bay’s top defenceman suffered a lower-body injury against Philadelphia and will be day-to-day. With Radko Gudas also out, Nikita Nesterov likely moves into the lineup and Mark Barberio, who played 21:14 at Philadelphia, could handle a bigger role. Tyler Johnson – The Lightning pivot suffered a lower-body injury at Philadelphia. Tampa Bay is at least well-equipped to handle an absence down the middle of the ice, with Steven Stamkos, Valtteri Filppula, Brian Boyle and Cedric Paquette available. They’ve also recalled Vladislav Namestnikov from the AHL. Rob Zepp – The 33-year-old who made his NHL debut earlier this season, and played the past seven years in Germany, stopped 21 of 24 shots in a 7-3 win over Tampa Bay. Braydon Coburn – Suffered a lower-body (foot?) injury that is expected to keep him out four weeks. With Nicklas Grossmann already out, playing time is opening up on the Philadelphia blueline for frequent scratches Michael Del Zotto and Carlo Colaiacovo. Incidentally, before getting hurt, Coburn was having a nice game (9 shot attempts for, 0 against) in his 6:07 of even-strength ice time. Morgan Rielly – Played 20:18 at Los Angeles, in a 2-0 loss. While it was his lowest ice time in three games with the new coaching staff, it also marked the first time in Rielly’s career that he played at least 20 minutes in three consecutive games. SHORT SHIFTS Lightning D Anton Stralman recorded a pair of assists in a 7-3 loss to Philadelphia, giving him six assists in the past six games…Flyers C Claude Giroux had a couple of assists in the win, moving to a tie for second in the league with 48 points (13 G, 34 A) in 42 games…Flyers RW Jakub Voracek added a goal and an assist, and leads the league with 52 points (17 G, 35 A) in 43 games. Avalanche G Semyon Varlamov stopped 36 of 38 shots in a 2-1 loss to Washington. Capitals G Braden Holtby turned away 31 of 32 shots in a 2-1 win over Colorado. Holtby has a .932 save percentage since the beginning of December, second-best behind Carey Price among goaltenders with at least 500 minutes played…Kings G Martin Jones stopped all 19 shots he faced in a 2-0 win over Toronto. Jones has a 4-3-2 record this season, allowing a total of one goal in his four wins. FANTASY FOCUS It’s a busy night on the ice, so here are a half dozen players to consider plugging into your lineup: Justin Abdelkader – A plough horse who gets ice time with the thoroughbreds in Detroit, Abdelkader has eight points (4 G, 4 A) in the past eight games and, even better, is going up against the Sabres. Chris Kreider – It’s been an uneven start to the season for Kreider but, as the Rangers are rolling, he’s picking up too, with five points (3 G, 2 A) in the past five games. Mike Fisher – Was productive almost immediately upon returning to the Nashville lineup and has seven points (4 G, 3 A) in the past eight games. Nice secondary scoring if you can get it. Brett Ritchie – Ice time (by minutes) in his first six NHL games: 10, 12, 12, 14, 17, 19. That trend is heading in the right direction and Ritchie scored a goal with five shots on goal while skating with Jamie Benn last game. Sam Gagner – With Martin Hanzal out, more time available at centre in Arizona and Gagner has 10 points (4 G, 6 A) in the past nine games. David Pastrnak – Though the rookie has a modest three points (2 G, 1 A) in seven games, he’s put 20 shots on goal and, in that small sample, has generated more shots per minute than any player in the league. Among players with at least 75 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time: MOST 5-on-5 SHOT ATTEMPTS PER 60 MINUTES PLAYER TEAM POS. SHOT ATTEMPTS/60 David Pastrnak Boston RW 24.00 James Neal Nashville RW 22.49 Alex Ovechkin Washington LW 22.19 Matt Beleskey Anaheim LW 21.67 Tyler Kennedy San Jose RW 21.45 Rick Nash N.Y. Rangers LW 21.38 Patrick Sharp Chicago LW 20.90 Max Pacioretty Montreal LW 20.89 Tyler Toffoli Los Angeles RW 19.86 Filip Forsberg Nashville LW 19.58 Much of the data included comes from http://www.war-on-ice.com, http://www.puckalytics.com, http://www.hockeystats.ca and http://www.naturalstattrick.com Scott Cullen can be reached at scott.cullen@bellmedia.ca Gino Cappelletti Jersey . With one week left in the regular season, Cornish - voted The Toughest Player To Bring Down - is a leading candidate for the CFLs Most Outstanding Player award. He has rushed for 1,799 yards and could break Willie Burdens club record for rushing yards in a single season with a 98-yard performance against the B. Steve Young Jersey . 4 jersey of former defenseman Rob Blake this coming season. The ceremony will take place prior to the Kings January 17 game against Anaheim. http://www.custompatriotsjersey.com/cust...1871f.html . The Wizards gave up two seldom-used players — forward Jan Vesely and point guard Eric Maynor. Vesely goes to the Nuggets, while Maynor gets shipped to the 76ers. Philadelphia receives two second-round draft picks, one from the Wizards in 2015 and one from the Nuggets in 2016. CALGARY -- Dane Dobbie stands 5-foot-8, but the Roughnecks forward has been a big contributor to Calgarys offence all season. Saturday night was no different. Dobbie scored three goals and assisted on another to lead Calgary to a 10-7 victory over the Rochester Knighthawks in the opening game of the National Lacrosse Leagues Champions Cup final. "Youve got people that are probably a foot-and-a-half taller than him just trying to break his wrists," said Roughnecks coach Curt Malawsky. "Theyre not trying to dislodge the ball, theyre trying to break his wrist and break his arm. You see at the end, the guy tried to take his head off. But all that does is fuel Dobs fire." The NLLs leading goal scorer during the regular season with 51, Dobbie has a penchant for scoring the clutch goal. His third goal of the night Saturday, scored 2:07 into the fourth quarter, was his biggest of the game. It came after Rochester had reduced a 7-3 second quarter deficit to 7-6 entering the final 15 minutes. Dobbie neatly finished off a tic-tac-toe passing sequence with Karsen Leung and Mike Carnegie to give Calgary a much needed cushion and fire up the 16,541 raucous fans at Scotiabank Saddledome. "In the third quarter, we just tried to wear them down," Dobbie said. "The breaks werent going our way, but I think we took a bite out of them. We worked hard, we got to the dirty errors and made their defence run a lot." Three minutes later, Dobbie rang a shot off the post that was knocked in on the rebound by Carnegie. "Weve got to be better, moving our feet and moving the ball, I dont think we did that all that well tonight," said Rochester coach Mike Hasen. "But give them credit, they put us in spots where we werent able to do that and (Mike) Poulin made those easy saves. Full value to them, they were good tonight." Poulin said the game was an example of every player in the line-up contributing. He was especially proud of how the team played defensively. "I gave up eight goals in a quarter against Edmonton a week ago so seven in a game -- Ill take it," said Poulin, who had 36 stops. "We did a fantastic job as a unit and it made my job a lot easier. When it was a one-goal game, I havent seen us more calm out there than we were tonight. "We kept our composure and we focused on the next shift." Curtis Dickson and Scott Ranger had two goals each for Calgary, annd Shawn Evans and Jeff Shattler also scored. Ted Kwalick Jersey. Evans added four assists for a game-high five points. Rochester, which has won the Champions Cup the last two years, got two goals from Craig Point and one apiece from Joe Walters, Cory Vitarelli, Stephen Keogh, Cody Jamieson and Johnny Powless. Game 2 goes next Saturday in Rochester with a 10-minute mini game to follow immediately after if the Knighthawks win to even up the series. "By finishing in first place, we earned this opportunity to go back now to our home barn where its a tough place to play," said Point. "We play good there, fans are nice and loud, just like it was tonight. Its our opportunity to go back and give it our all." Both teams required the mini game to win their respective division semifinals. After losing the opener to Buffalo, Rochester -- first in the East Division at 14-4 -- rallied at home to take Game 2 and also capture the mini-game 2-1 in overtime. Calgary -- second in the West during the regular season at 12-6 -- opened with a win at home, lost the second game in Edmonton, and rebounded to win the mini game 2-1. Trailing 4-1 in the second quarter, Rochester got back into the game on goals 1:17 apart from Powless and Point. However, despite multiple chances, they were unable to push one more past Poulin to square it up. Then, on a shift that fired up the crowd, Dobbie scored goals 34 seconds apart to restore a three-goal cushion at 6-3. "What a game our defence played. They won us this game and our offence will pick up the pace for next game and hopefully win that game for us," said Dobbie, the Roughnecks new leader with 62 career playoff points, passing Tracey Kelusky (60). While he looks forward to next weekend, he knows it isnt going to be easy. "Its a real tough buiding to play in, theyre first place for a reason," Dobbie said. "Its going to be a tough game but weve got to bring it, plain and simple. Weve got to be better next weekend than this weekend and that was our goal all season is to improve every game." Notes: Geoff Snider (knee) was unable to suit up for the Roughnecks. He was hurt three weeks ago in the opening game of the playoffs... Missing for Rochester was veteran Dan Dawson, who was shaken up on a heavy hit last Saturday... It was the first ever playoff meeting between the two teams... Rochester has won four NLL titles while Calgary has won two. ' ' '