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Dobber Hockey Dobber Sports

Published on Friday, July 24, 2015

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July 24, 2015

I don’t suppose there is another place to start than with the monster news of Thursday that the New Jersey Devils would lose long-time president/general manager/coach Lou Lamoriello to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Lamoriello signed on with the Leafs to be their new general manager, a position that had been vacant since the firing of Dave Nonis after the season was over.

I wrote a little bit about this on the site, and that can be read here. There was also a, let’s say, vigorous debate in the Forums on this topic. I encourage the readers to go to either for more information or discussion on this move.

The one quote that scared me was from Jonas Siegel of TSN, who quoted Lamoriello as saying that the new GM will have full autonomy. Presumably, he means full autonomy over the roster. Lamoriello would go on to say that he would still report to team president Brendan Shanahan, but that’s not a surprise. Every organization has a hierarchy, and every general manager reports to the president.

Lamoriello is without a doubt one of the most experience minds in the game. He also had a lot of success with the Devils. Almost all of that success came before the salary cap era, though. Since the 2004-2005 lockout, the Devils made it past the second round of the playoffs once, and that was their Cup Final run in 2012. It should be noted that team owed a large part of its success to Ilya Kovalchuk, a player whose contract was deemed to be cap circumvention, and the NHL fined the Devils $3-million, a first round pick and a third round pick (some of those were eventually slackened). The point remains that he built a consistently average, or slightly above-average team, for a decade.

If he really does have full autonomy of the lineup, I would be a little worried as a Leafs fan. This isn’t “hating” on anything, it’s a look at what the Devils have done of late. The drafts have largely been busts, and the team has missed the playoffs in four of the last five seasons.

I was also a little taken aback by the timing, too. Why let a front office go through the Entry Draft, free agency, and trade the team’s best player, and then hire a general manager. I’m sure the Leafs have their reasons, I just don’t see them right now.

It remains to be seen what the final product will be, and his value to the Leafs won’t be known for years to come. For right now, I would think that guarded optimism is perhaps the best that could be mustered.

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Carey Price seems to be the consensus number-1 goalie going into next year for fantasy drafts, and that’s justified. The guy cleaned up at the awards, he carried the Habs to a division title, and isn’t long removed from a gold medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

There are some warning signs here, though.

At five-on-five last year, Price was second among all goalies with at least 2000 minutes played with a .943 save percentage (Steve Mason was first at .944, by the way). That helped him post a career-best .933 save percentage at all strengths.

That number of .943 was a huge deviation from what he had done previously. From 2011-2014, a span of over 7400 minutes, Price’s five-on-five save percentage was .927. For reference, that was lower than Jaroslav Halak (.928) and Mike Smith (.930).

This is why I worry: Semyon Varlamov posted a .924 save percentage at five-on-five from 2010-2013 (not very far from Price’s .927 from 2011-2014). Then in the 2013-2014 season, Varlamov posted a .936 save percentage at five-on-five, again, a big deviation from what he had established for himself.

Predictably, Varlamov cratered last year, and was even worse than what he established for himself, finishing at .918. I don’t think Price crashes down that far, but Montreal isn’t that great defensively (better than Colorado, but that’s not a high bar to pass). He doesn’t have to regress much to have a big effect on his value.

I have Price as facing 1542 shots at five-on-five last year. With a .943 save percentage, that’s 88 goals against. With even a .930 save percentage, which would still probably be top-10 in the league, that number shoots up to 108 goals. With the same number of minutes player as last year, that sterling 1.96 goals against average is now 2.26, and that awesome .933 overall save percentage is now .923.

Even if Price is a .935 goalie at five-on-five, the goals against would be 2.14 and the save percentage would be .927. He would basically be Pekka Rinne from last year.

Reminder that first set of numbers (2.26, .923) are still top-10 for goalie in roto leagues, and the second set (.214, .927) are top-5, but it shows that he doesn’t have to fall off that much to not be worth close to a first round pick, or probably even a second round pick. Taking him that early means banking on, A) him replicating last year or, B) Montreal improving a lot defensively. Or coming very close to last year, and Montreal improving a bit defensively. Either is a tall order.

This isn’t Tuukka Rask playing behind arguably the best defensive team in the NHL. This is Carey Price bailing out a team almost night in and night out. That’s a big gamble for a first round pick.

For a moment, let's just remember the year that was:

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The more I think about it, the more I think I won’t be surprised if Phil Kessel doesn’t end up playing with Sidney Crosby for the majority of the year at even strength, but rather Evgeni Malkin. Here’s my reasoning.

Malkin posted a three-year low in points per 60 minutes at five-on-five in 82-game seasons at 2.39. That mark is still pretty good, but he had a big dip in his assist rate, which ended up being his lowest since this started being kept track of in 2007-2008 (excluding the lockout-shortened season). I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it came in the year that he lost James Neal as a line mate.

Crosby has shown the ability through the years to drag almost anyone to a productive season (I mean, come on, he got Chris Kunitz on the Olympic team). Also, the Penguins are still lacking a true shutdown center, as I don’t really think Brandon Sutter has fulfilled the expectation of this role in his Pittsburgh tenure.

It would make sense to turn to Perron-Crosby-Dupuis or Kunitz-Crosby-Dupuis, and use them in more of a defensive role, only to have the duo of Kessel-Malkin run wild on “lesser” matchups. Chicago has done pretty well as a team while keeping Patrick Kane off of Toews’ line for the most part (they’ve played together at five-on-five for less than one-quarter of Toews’ ice time over the last four years). I’m wondering if the Penguins don’t do the same thing with Crosby and Kessel.

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Speaking of the Penguins, keep an eye on David Perron when drafts roll around. He’s a guy that is locked in a top-six role in Pittsburgh, is coming off a down year, and is still just 27-years old.

Perron’s down year saw a goals per 60 minutes rate of 0.74 (including his time with Edmonton). That was just behind Sean Monahan (0.76), and just ahead of the aforementioned Kessel (0.73). His rate the previous three years (0.87) was the same as Patrick Kane and Kyle Okposo.

It depends on his draft position, but I don’t think Perron goes inside the single-digit rounds in a 12-team league. Once things get to round 10 or later, there are much worse gambles to take. He will cruise past two shots per game and will rack the penalty minutes, so the peripherals are fine. Don’t be surprised if he gets back to the 25-goal, 55-point plateau (if healthy) next year. 


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