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The Chicago Blackhawks locked down the Wild, to go up 2-0 in their series, and the Pittsburgh Penguins controlled play against the New York Rangers, evening their series at one game apiece. Yordano Ventura Royals Jersey . Notes on Bryan Bickell, Brandon Saad, Matt Moulson, Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury and more. BLACKHAWKS LOCK DOWN WILD The Chicago Blackhawks stifled the Minnesota Wild on the way to a 4-1 win in Game Two, taking a 2-0 series lead. LW Bryan Bickell picked up a goal and two assists to lead the Blackhawks attack and RW Marian Hossa had three assists. LW Brandon Saad also had a pair of goals for the Blackhawks and the performance of supporting cast wingers like Bickell and Saad reminded me of the recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times by Mark Lazerus, about Chicagos use of analytics. The article, without getting into specifics, discusses how the Blackhawks use all kinds of data in their player evaluation and one of the easiest ways to dismiss Chicagos use of analytics is that, hey, they have Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews -- its not analytics that make them a good team. Of course elite players matter more than a teams analytical approach, and Toews and Kane are great, but they are just two players. The rest of the roster still needs to be filled out and, for Chicago, that includes big-bodied wingers like Saad and Bickell. Bickell, who was a playoff hero last season, scoring nine goals and 17 points in 23 games as the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, finished the 2013-2014 regular season with 11 goals and 15 points in 59 games, so expectations were relatively low coming into this postseason. However, digging a little deeper into the numbers, we see that Bickell had a 58.0% Corsi during the regular season (second among Blackhawks forwards, behind Jonathan Toews) and was among the unluckiest forwards in the league with a 95.6% PDO (on-ice shooting plus save percentage); these underlying statistics suggested that Bickell might be due for better results and, with five goals and eight points in this years playoffs, hes getting better results. Before scoring two goals, including an empty-netter, Sunday, Saad had one goal in 32 career playoff games. The 21-year-old is also a strong possession player, and has seven points (2 G, 5 A) in eight playoff games this year. For a team that has Toews, Kane, Hossa and Patrick Sharp, getting big production out of Bickell and Saad is just about unfair. A little more on the Blackhawks forward lines: with Andrew Shaw hurt and Brandon Bollig scratched, the Blackhawks returned Kris Versteeg and Jeremy Morin to the lineup. Ben Smith had a rough game, in terms of puck possession, on for 29.4% (10 for, 24 against) of the 5-on-5 shot attempts when he was on the ice. The Blackhawks, without Smith on the ice, were getting 62.0% (31 for, 19 against) of the 5-on-5 shot attempts. With Jonathan Toews on the ice, the Blackhawks had 73.7% (14 for, five against) of the 5-on-5 shot attempts. With Toews off the ice, the Blackhawks had only 41.5% of the shot attempts, though there were obviously some score effects at play, since Chicago dominated possession in score close situations. The Wild have been having trouble generating offence against Chicago. Blackhawks G Corey Crawford stopped 18 of Minnesotas 19 shots Sunday, and hes stopped 48 of 51 (.941 SV%) in the first two games of this series. One of the more notable problem areas in the lineup for the Wild is LW Matt Moulson, who has one goal (on 20 shots) and one assist in nine playoff games and has, effectively, been taken out of an offensive role. No Wild player had a lower percentage of offensive zone starts in Game Two, but this one example stands in contrast to the Blackhawks forward depth. This wasnt expected to be a particularly close series and, through two games, the Blackhawks are living up to their favoured status. The Wild will have to find a way, perhaps with better matchups at home, to get more chances or else this could be short work for Chicago. PENGUINS BLANK RANGERS The Pittsburgh Penguins dominated play against the New York Rangers in Game Two, winning 3-0 and evening the series at one game apiece. Penguins G Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all 22 shots he faced, and that gives him a .914 save percentage (224 saves on 245 shots) in the playoffs -- his highest playoff save percentage since 2007-2008. D Kris Letang had an outstanding game for the Penguins, with a goal and two assists, while playing 25:35; a bit of a break through for an offensive defenceman who had one point in the previous seven playoff games. Penguins C Sidney Crosby didnt record a point, but was on top of his game, generating a game-high 10 shot attempts and on the ice for 74.1% (20 for, seven against) of 5-on-5 shot attempts. Marcel Goc was the possession ace for Pittsburgh in Game Two, on for 12 shot attempts for and just two against (85.7%). The only Rangers line to finish on the right side of the possession ledger -- and just barely (10 for, nine against) -- was the trio of Brad Richards, Carl Hagelin and Daniel Carcillo. On the other hand, the line of Mats Zuccarello, Derick Brassard and Benoit Pouliot was on for less than 15% of 5-on-5 shot attempts, while D Ryan McDonagh was on the ice for four attempts for and 19 against (17.4%). The Rangers have played four games in the past six days and looked fatigued in Game Two. With Game Three going Monday night, there isnt much time for rest, but they will need to use whatever they can on home ice to tilt the ice back in their favour. The way Game Two played out, the Penguins controlled play even more decisively than the final score indicated and the Rangers could fall behind in this series while they struggle with a more condensed schedule than their opponents. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Custom Royals Jersey . Bautista led off the 10th inning with his second homer of the game, lifting the Toronto Blue Jays to a 5-4 win over the Cleveland Indians on Saturday night. George Brett Authentic Jersey . The 114th-ranked Lorenzi broke Monacos serve to go up 4-3 in the decisive set and held on to close the match in 2 hours, 34 minutes at the Ibirapuera Arena. The 32-year-old Italian squandered a match point before losing the second set, but was in control in the third to pick up the win in the ATP 250 tournament in South Americas biggest city.There is something singularly fascinating and unsettling about hockey fighters. And Darren Kramer is no exception. The man who had more hockey fights than anyone on Earth last season comes across as a polite, articulate teenager with a youthful look in his eye and yet still somehow mature for his age. Hes had the same girlfriend since he was 14 years old, is adored by his mother and father, his teammates and his coaches. His current one, Don Nachbaur of the Spokane Chiefs, calls him a role model. Last season, Darren Kramer dropped the gloves 47 times for the Chiefs in the Western Hockey League (46 regular season, one playoffs), more than 50 if you count his handful of fights in the Alberta Junior league before his call to Spokane. Hes managed to go from being a scrappy player in a Tier II junior league to an Ottawa Senators draft pick in the span of about nine months. Kramer says he loves the adrenaline that comes with a hockey fight, the roar of the crowd, the rush he gives his teammates by going a round with an opponent - be it right off the faceoff or in the heat of battle. To put his 46 regular season fights in perspective, consider that its 19 more than anyone in the NHL had last season, five short of the most anyone in junior hockey has ever had, and is twice as many as any other player in the WHL had last season. By comparison, no NHL player has had 40 in a season. Ever. "Its amazing as a raw quantity," says David Singer, who operates the popular website hockeyfights.com. "He is a kid who was clearly looking for scouts to notice what he is willing to bring to a team. A lot of guys bring that for a while but they fade out. But he just kept bringing the same thing night after night." Kramers fight card seems more than a little incongruous when you listen to his parents Hans and Hanna describe 19-year-old Darren as the perfect son - the kid who loves hockey like nothing else, who will stop at nothing to keep his dream alive, but has never been in a fight outside of an arena. Its then that you start to understand that while Darren Kramers story is all about fighting, it also has very little to do with fighting, or violence, or wanting to hurt another human being. Fighting to Darren Kramer is simply a tool, the thing he decided he must use to buy the time necessary to keep his hockey dream alive. If he was a baseball player, he might try to steal 100 bases. If he played basketball, hed probably try to master the art of three-point shooting. And if he played football, he might be a kicker, or a punter or a practice long snapping 500 times a day. Its anything to get noticed - to set him apart. Salvador Perez Royals Jersey. Find a job that not everyone is willing to do and do it better - or at least more willingly - than anyone else. Its no coincidence that Darren Kramer is also hobby inventor. He will happily describe his patent for a peanut butter jar that allows you to get to the bottom of the jar without messing up your hands, and has several other ideas in the works. And so when Kramer needed a way to prolong his hockey career as he moved into his mid-teens, he decided to reinvent himself, as a hockey fighter. He accepted the risks that many would not. Its not unlike the way race car drivers, or ski jumpers or any of those in a host of professions accept significant physical risk as part of the deal. How great those risks exactly are is the starting point of an emotional debate in hockey these days. We know that getting punched in the head can lead to concussions and brain damage, and we know that hockey fighters are prone to bare fists landing on skulls. We know that at least some former hockey fighters claim they developed anxiety rationalizing who they had to be on the ice with who they truly were off of it. We know there have been fighters whove had long careers and happy lives after hockey. And weve known some whove met tragic consequences and left behind some troubling unanswered questions. Darren Kramer knows all of that, has mulled it over, and then put it to the back of his mind, without dismissing it altogether. He wants to be a hockey player not a fighter. But that will depend on whether he can develop those other aspects of his game - his skating, his scoring touch, and whether he can prove hes hard to play against even when the gloves are on. Kramer is the Chiefs captain this season with five goals in five games - almost as many as he had all of last season. After youve met him, you want to root for him. To one day be able to say you, ‘knew him when. And you try not to think about the potential impact of all those fights. But you also fear for him. You worry about the potential toll on his body and soul, and that it isnt always going to be so easy for him to separate his on and off-ice personas. Using fighting to get to where you want to go in hockey is tough. Transforming yourself into a different kind of player, one wholl be known for more than a mind-boggling fight card, is even tougher. And no matter how often you tell yourself that Darren Kramer isnt a street fighter, that this simply part of the game of hockey, you also know the consequences can be very real. Fascinating. Unsettling. Indeed. cheap jerseys from china cheap jerseys ' ' ' |
