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HW Recap: Plugging Away

If the Habs proved one thing this week, it’s
that they can be a scrappy bunch and claw their way back into games. 
Unfortunately, that still only earned them 3 of a possible 6 points.  The
injury and recall-riddled Bulldogs had a so-so set of games, winning and losing
a pair.  With all of these injuries, efficiency is paramount; we go Inside
the Numbers to see who the most efficient Habs are.  Keeping with the IR
talk, the Final Thought looks at the silver lining in this situation.  Was
Tomas Plekanec able to hold on to top spot in the Power Rankings?  Read on
to find out.

 Power
Rankings

The PPR’s are on a cumulative basis with
some bias towards the current week.  The prev. column represents the last
ranking for the player; players not on last week’s list will be slotted back
where they were when returning from injury/benching/recall (italicized numbers). 
Thus, multiple players may have the same previous ranking.


Rk

Player

Prev.

Comments

1

Carey Price

2 Coughed up 3 each game but
made numerous game-saving stops.
2 Tomas Plekanec 1 Not his best
week, but 3 points in as many games isn’t too concerning.

3
Mike Cammalleri 3 Became a little too
predictable with his moves (always up the middle).
4 Roman Hamrlik 4 Brought the
offensive game to the table against Washington.

5
Andrei Kostitsyn 8 What an inopportune time to
get hurt – just as he was finding his groove.
6 Glen Metropolit 5 Seems to be
slowing down, but he keeps finding ways to produce.

7
Josh Gorges 6 Steady and reliable, doesn’t
seem as willing to join the rush now.
8 Jaroslav Spacek 10 Made a huge
difference in his return to the lineup on Saturday night.

9
Max Pacioretty 12 Now that’s the type of
performances everyone’s been waiting to see.
10 Travis Moen 7 Managed to
get a goal, but remains out of his element on a scoring unit.

11
Ryan White 15 It’s hard to envision him
returning to the Bulldogs anytime soon.
12 Ryan O’Byrne 14 Played with
several different D and did reasonably well with all of them.

13
Paul Mara 13 Second straight week with an
extremely costly penalty.
14 Marc-Andre Bergeron 18 Defensive
miscues notwithstanding, he did do his job in the offensive end.

15
Maxim Lapierre 17 The Latendresse deal seemed to
wake him up for now at least.
16 Tom Pyatt 13 Strong
positionally, but is knocked off the puck way too easily.

17
Sergei Kostitsyn Had some up and down moments
but was the best of this week’s callups.
18 Jay Leach 16 Made a
couple of iffy decisions but was otherwise fine in his own end.
19 David Desharnais A bit of a
mistake on the Gonchar goal; showed his offensive potential.
20 Kyle Chipchura 19 He got some
special teams time this week…strangely on the PP though.
21 J.T. Wyman -2 in 13 minutes, doesn’t bode well for his future
callup prospects.

Dropped from the rankings: Scott Gomez (9 –
injured), Guillaume Latendresse (20-traded), Gregory Stewart (21-minors),
Georges Laraque (22-suspended).

 The Dog
Pound

A lack of offence came back to bite the
Bulldogs early on in the week before Cedrick Desjardins took over shutting down
Lake Erie for a pair of games.

 Results:

November 24
1
2 3
Tot

PP

SOG
Rochester 0 1 4 5 0/3 30
Hamilton 0 0 2 2 1/6 30

Attendance:  2,715
3 Stars:
  1) Mink – ROC  2) Glumac – HAM  3) Salak – ROC

November 25
1
2 3
Tot

PP

SOG
Houston 0 0 1 1 1/4 25
Hamilton 0 0 0 0 0/4 26

Attendance:  2,485
3 Stars:
  1) Khudobin – HOU  2) Desjardins – HAM  3) Daoust –
HOU

November 27
1
2 3
Tot

PP

SOG
Hamilton 2 2 0 4 1/3 28
Lake Erie 0 0 0 0 0/2 24

Attendance:  9,066
3 Stars:
  1) Carle – HAM  2) Trotter – HAM  3) Maxwell – HAM

November 28
1
2 3
Tot

PP

SOG
Hamilton 0 3 0 3 0/3 22
Lake Erie 0 0 0 0 0/5 32

Attendance:  4,756
3 Stars:
  1) Desjardins – HAM  2) Trotter – HAM  3)
Desharnais – HAM

Stats:

If you’re scrolling through the following list
of skaters wondering who on earth some of these players are, don’t feel bad –
you surely won’t be the only one.  3 players are on minor league contracts
(Anderson, Neilson, Stevenson) while 3 others are on tryouts with a 4th injured
(Curadeau, Kinasewich, Lacroix, Murphy).

SKATERS

# Player GP G A +/- SH PIMS
5 Alex Henry 4 0 0 -1 3 2
6 Chad Anderson 4 0 1 E 2 0
7 Yannick Weber 3 0 0 +2 2 0
12 Andrew Conboy 4 0 0 E 6 2
15 Mike Glumac 4 2 1 +2 14 2
16 Gregory Stewart 4 0 0 -1 5 0
19 Brock Trotter 4 1 3 +2 4 2
20 Ryan Russell 4 1 0 +2 12 0
26 Grant Stevenson 2 0 1 +2 4 0
28 Ryan Kinasewich 2 0 0 -2 5 0
29 Eric Neilson 4 0 1 E 1 0
32 Frederic St. Denis 2 1 0 +1 2 0
42 Mathieu Curadeau 3 0 1 E 4 0
44 Shawn Belle 4 0 0 -1 4 0
51 David Desharnais 3 1 2 E 8 6
54 Ryan Murphy 3 0 1 +2 4 2
61 Andre Benoit 4 0 1 E 5 4
72 Mathieu Carle 4 1 1 +1 4 0
76 P.K. Subban 4 1 2 +2 7 2
91 Ben Maxwell 4 1 0 -2 10 6

GOALIES

# Player Record SV% GAA
1 Curtis Sanford 1-1-0 .911 2.42
30 Cedrick Desjardins 1-1-0 .985 0.43

Leaders:

Goals: Mathieu Darche (7)
Assists: Brock Trotter (14)
Points: Brock Trotter (19)
+/-: Tom Pyatt/Brock Trotter (+8)
PIMS: Eric Neilson (63)
Shots: Mike Glumac (74)

This Week:

December 4:
Toronto vs Hamilton
December 5: Hamilton vs Toronto

Inside
the Numbers

With all of the talk surrounding ice time over the
last few weeks, it’s worth looking to see who is actually most efficient when it
comes to producing points.  A player’s total time on ice is divided by
their total season points to generate the time on ice it takes on average for
them to produce a point (in minutes).

 

Player Pts TOI TOI/Pt
Tomas Plekanec 25 518.80 20.75
Sergei Kostitsyn 2 44.93 22.47
Michael Cammalleri 22 513.70 23.35
Glen Metropolit 12 307.57 25.63
Brian Gionta 13 396.88 30.53
Marc-Andre Bergeron 10 320.33 32.03
Max Pacioretty 9 316.03 35.11
Andrei Kostitsyn 10 356.92 35.69
Scott Gomez 11 453.68 41.24
Travis Moen 9 390.20 43.36
Maxim Lapierre 6 336.28 56.05
Roman Hamrlik 10 623.15 62.32
Jaroslav Spacek 9 568.75 63.19
Ryan White 2 129.08 64.54
Georges Laraque 1 70.68 70.68
Paul Mara 7 546.42 78.06
Guillaume Latendresse 3 261.07 87.02
Matt D’Agostini 1 110.77 110.77
Josh Gorges 4 553.17 138.29
Hal Gill 1 265.28 265.28

Final
Thought

There always seems to be one commonality that
comes out of each draft over the past few years for the Habs – they lack the
high-end talent but they’ve got a few steals in the later rounds.  Rather
than dwell on the perpetual negative that comes from this, let’s actually praise
the fact that the team has added some decent depth over the years. 
Seemingly long gone are the days of the Johan Witehall’s and Juha Lind’s of the
world; when injuries strike, there’s actually players with some talent (or at
least potential) available to be called up.  This is the one silver lining
of an otherwise frustrating season on so many levels – we’re getting a chance to
see if some of the kids can hack it.  No, not as a scorer, but every team
needs its fair share of cheap pluggers as well.  If the White’s and Pyatt’s
of the world can play well, this in theory will allow for more cap space to
acquire a scorer.  Just goes to show you, there can be more than one way to
draft a scorer after all.

If you have a question regarding my
capsheet or this article,
please feel free to
drop me a line at
b.larose@habsworld.net
.

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