Fantasy Blackhawks

When Tuomo Ruutu was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks 9th overall back in 2001 draft, pundits expected Ruutu would be the next BIG THING in NHL Power Forwards.

Ruutu started off quite well, putting up and playing a very aggressive crash-and-bang "Canadian" style of game and putting up 23 goals in his rookie season. Ruutu loved to deliver hits, and looked like he'd develop into an effective 35-40 goal scorer for the Hawks for many seasons to come.

Alas, Ruutu ran into injury problems (and was mistaken for an armed robber!), and was never quite the same again. During the past two seasons, Ruutu has put up just 38 points in each campaign and hardly looks like he belongs on the top two lines of any club. The Canes, who gave up Andrew Ladd (another disappointing forward) to acquire Tuomo, are hoping that Ruutu can find his game in a new home, signed the young Finn to a simple 1-year deal that will pay him a cool $2.25M next season.

"We are happy he'll be back with our team and we hope that he can stay healthy and return to the 20-goal plateau that he reached during his rookie season," said Rutherford.

Is Tuomo simply a bigger version of his pesty and unproductive brother, Jarkko, or will he actually provide above-average offensive numbers? 20 goals is hardly much of an exciting target.

Question: Who leads the Chicago Blackhawks in goal scoring and ranks 9th in the league with 33 goals?

Patrick Kane? Jonathan Toews? Martin Havlat? Robert Lang?

Nope. It's Patrick Sharp, the once-forgotten Philadelphia Flyers prospect that has quietly developed into one of the league's more dangerous snipers. The likes of Vincent Lecavalier, Dany Heatley, and Olli Jokinen are all eating this guy's goal-scoring ice dust.

One of the bigger reasons for Chi-Town's resurgence has been the fine and underrated play of this small sniper. Sharp, together with Rene Bourque, has given the Blackhawks the most dangerous shorthanded units in the entire NHL. Sharp leads the league (tied with Daniel Alfredsson) with seven shorthanded goals, and the Hawks lead the entire NHL with 14 goals while a man or two sits in the sin bin.

YEAR	CLUB	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-
03-04	PHI	41	5	2	7	-3
05-06	PHI/CHI	72	14	17	31	+5
06-07	CHI	80	20	15	35	-15
07-08	CHI	65	33	18	51	+18

It's been quite a steady rise for Sharp, and Philly's 'brain trust' must be kicking themselves for giving up a solid 2-way player for a minor leaguer who won't amount to anything useful to the Flyers.

Fantasy Leaguers: It's rarely smart to bank on somebody who gets a huge amount of their offense from shorthanded goals, as that offense is never steady from year to year. That said, Sharp should be good for 25-30 goals per season from here on out. Make sure you pilfer him from under the noses of your rival GMs.

Now that we're into 2008, recovered from our hangovers (or flus, in my case), and pretty much halfway through the NHL season, it's time to reminisce about the past and look towards the future. There is no better way to do both than be looking at the league's rookies through the first half.

Here are the rookie scoring leaders as of January 3rd ...

Player	Team	GP	G	A	P	PIM	+/-	TOI/G
Patrick Kane	CHI	38	9	28	37	26	-2	18:29
Jonathan Toews	CHI	36	15	17	32	26	5	18:42
Nicklas Backstrom	WSH	40	7	22	29	10	-3	17:27
Tobias Enstrom	ATL	41	3	21	24	20	4	24:03
Martin Hanzal	PHX	38	3	17	20	16	0

For sure, the most surprising rookie on the top five is Tobias Enstrom of the Atlanta Thrashers. The 23-year old from Sweden was an 8th round selection in the 2003 Entry Draft, and pretty much written off as another 'small' (ie. under six feet tall) offensive defenseman who would never do well out of Europe.

Well, Enstrom is getting the most ice time for any rookie, by far, and is giving the Thrashers an unexpected boost to their rather poor defence corps. It's very hard for a defenseman to just come into the league and look like a 10-year vet (it took Lubomir Visnovsky a few years, for example), but Enstrom has done just that.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

It wasn't so long ago that Pascal Leclaire was a struggling young goaltender who let in more things between his legs than a Parisian call girl. All of a sudden, Leclaire is stingier than Scrooge McDuck and continues to pile up the shutouts.

Last night was blank sheet #7 (a 2-0 win over the Thrashees) for the young Blue Jackets netminder this season, continuing a string of dominating performances that Pascal has put out since the season started.

At 25 years of age, Leclaire is at the point where most goalies are just starting to establish themselves. It shouldn't be a surprise that Leclaire is finally showing his potential, even after years of being shell-shocked behind a poor Jackets D. With his skill-set, Leclaire should be able to maintain a high level of performance as long as his team can continue to play a stifling style for coach Ken Hitchcock.

What a difference a year can make ... from struggling goalie to Vezina candidate.

05-06: 33GP 3.23GAA 91.1SV% 0 shutouts
06-07: 24GP 2.97GAA 89.7SV% 1 shutout
07-08: 24GP 1.97GAA 92.8SV% 7 shutouts

Every July, various team owners and GM's, despite their better judgment, lustily rush out to sign whatever slab of UFA meat they can catch to the biggest, longest contract that they possibly can afford.

Salary inflation? Dimishing returns? Chemistry concerns? Cap issues? Those factors mean little when a fairly good player is on the free agent market, and a bevy of other teams are vying for the same player.

So, which of these unrestricted free agent players have actually been a good investment thus far?

Chris Drury - 2007 salary of $7.1 mil (28GP 6-13-19 -2)
Despite the fact that Drury has never proven himself to be more than a pretty good second liner, the Rangers decided to fork over superstar money without a second thought. I wouldn't say Drury's production has been disappointing, given that it's in line with previous totals of his, it's just that Drury is definitely overpaid for the type of player he is.

Scott Gomez - 2007 salary of $10mil (28GP 5-16-21)
Gomez is definitely one of the better playmakers in the league, but has always had consistency and coachability issues. Again, the Rangers forked over large amounts of money for somebody who is not a superstar (he had only 60 points last season), and they aren't getting rewarded for their investment. Gomez just doesn't have the same chemistry with Jagr that Michael Nylander had, and will probably never live up to his huge contract.

Of course, it's always easy to pick on the Ranger$, so let's look at some other squads.

The Chicago Blackhawks were one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL last year (2nd worst with 201 goals for), so they go out and trade a skilled winger in Radim Vrbata for a fourth-line grinder in Kevin Adams.

Make sense to anyone?

"In Kevyn Adams we're getting a veteran player who is extremely versatile, is a good skater and is a very good face-off man," said Blackhawks general manager Dale Tallon. "Kevyn has won a Stanley Cup and is a proven leader."

Kevin may very well have heart, but he has very little offensive skill. Adams had just 12 points in 68 games last season, compared to Vrbata's 41 in 77 games.

I realize that Vrbata is a frustrating player that won't carry a team to the higher echelons of the NHL, but how do the Hawks benefit by trading one of the few players on their team that can score a goal for a dime-a-dozen grinder?

The Coyotes are in a similar boat than the Hawks, lacking offense and talent of any sort. They get a pretty good player in return for somebody who wasn't doing much for them.

For fantasy leaguers, expect about the same production out of Vrbata this season. He'll get just as much Power Play time in the desert, with the same (low) quality of line-mates. He remains a good bargain, but needs a good sniping forward to play alongside.

(Post Edited: 3:18PM)

Although it's one year too late -- and what former NHL player is going to give up a fishing trip for this? -- the Florida Panthers will celebrate their Cinderella run to the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals this weekend. Panthers alumni like John Vanbiesbrouck, Ray Sheppard and Bill Lindsay will join the majority of the players (sans schedule-conflicted Rob Niedermayer and Robert Svehla) who led Florida to the Finals in only the third year of the franchise, before being swept away by the Colorado Avalanche. There's a golf tournament, player appearances and an exhibition game at BankAtlantic Center on Saturday that will give hockey fans something they've long dreamed about: another chance to witness the majestic skating of Terry Carkner on NHL ice.

The Panthers, who will unveil their new uniforms at Saturday's game, have dubbed the celebration "Weekend of the Rat" after the single most significant memory from the team's Stanley Cup run. The Sun Sentinel remembers the fun:

In 1995-96, they finished third in their division (41-31-10, 92 points) and fourth in the Eastern Conference in the regular season, then beat in the Bruins 4 games to 1 in a seven-game series, the Flyers 4-2 and the Penguins 4-3 before losing to the Avalanche in four games in the finals.

Right winger Scott Mellanby killed a rat in the dressing room with his stick minutes before the home opener that season, then scored two goals that night, prompting Vanbiesbrouck to declare Mellanby's feat a "Rat Trick." Throwing plastic rats on the ice after goals soon became a phenomenon.

"We accomplished some pretty lofty things with a group of guys who were considered mediocre players at the time," Lindsay said.

"Mediocre players at the time?" Has history been that kind to Johan Garpenlov and Jody Hull? Florida Panthers fans have every right to celebrate this unexpected season of meteoric success, lest they fall deeper into the depressing reality that their franchise is now known more for losing Roberto Luongo and failing to make the playoffs in the Southeast Division than plastic rodents. But for the rest of us, this weekend begs the question:

Are the Florida Panthers the most mediocre Stanley Cup finalist of the last 25 years?

It didn't take long for the Calgary Flames to make a big move after hiring new coach Iron Mike Keenan.

The prize? One of Mike Keenan's former players in Vancouver: Adrian Aucoin, who agreed to waive his no-trade clause to get the hell out of Chi-town.

Calgary Flames General Manager Darryl Sutter announced Friday the acquisition of defenseman Adrian Aucoin and a 7th round pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for defensemen Andrei Zyuzin and Steve Marr.

On the surface, the Flames completely appear to have ripped off the Blackhawks in terms of pure talent. When Aucoin is on his game, he's an effective 2-way defenseman who is blasting bullets from the point.

The problem? Aucoin has been anything but good the past two seasons. After signing a lucrative deal with the Hawks after the lockout, Aucoin was frequently injured and, when healthy, quite ineffective. How can a guy with his kind of shot score just five times in 92 games?

SEASON  TEAM  GP  G  A  PTS

03-04   NYI   81  13 31  44

05-06   CHI   33  1  5   6

06-07   CHI   59  4  12  16

It looks like the Blackhawks have found a backup goaltender they are comfortable with, after having to go through the disaster that was Brian Boucher. Go figure that the Blue Jackets went and claimed Boucher ... What the hell? Doug MacLean's last laugh? 0.o

Anyhoo, The Hawks have signed Lalime to a 1-year deal, allowing him to continue to reclaim an NHL career of some sort.

From the official Blackhawks website:

Chicago Blackhawks General Manager Dale Tallon announced today that the Blackhawks have agreed to terms with goaltender Patrick Lalime on a 1-year contract.

Lalime, 32, 6'3", 189 pound netminder appeared in 12 games with the Blackhawks this past season posting a record of 4-5-1 with one shutout, a 3.07 goals against average and a .896 save percentage.

After suffering through a miserable post-lockout season with the Blues, Lalime started the year on the sidelines as he was recovering from a herniated disc and shell shock. I was at the game where he staged his comeback and shut out the Canucks at GM Place. He looked to have his agility back, and was hardly rusty behind a poor Hawks defence.

While he is highly unlikely to ever return to the level of a #1 goaltender, as he was with the Ottawa Senators, Lalime should provide the Hawks with a good backup to Nikolai Khabibulin, who has been fighting inconsistency and aches and pains during his tenure with the Hawks.

If I had to hand out a rookie of the year award for Hockey blogging for the 2006-07 NHL season, one of the top contenders for the award would have to be The Forechecker. Bursting onto the scene as a regular presence in the preseason, The Forechecker combined hockey smarts, number crunching and a penchant for detail to produce consistently compelling prose.

In his latest post, parceling out a number of postseason awards that nobody really wants to win, he fearlessly names names and unearths stats that most NHL player agents would rather see remain buried:

CROSS-CHECKER OF THE YEAR: The nominees are...

Joni Pitkanen, Philadelphia Flyers (5)
Brent Seabrook, Chicago Blackhawks (5)
Sheldon Souray, Montreal Canadiens (7)
Brendan Witt, New York Islanders (6)

And the winner is... Sheldon Souray! It's been a season of extremes for Souray - the most goals scored among NHL defensemen (26), the worst +/- rating (-28), and the third-most penalty minutes (135) to go along with this Cross-Checking award.

Ouch! Bet you're thinking twice about seeing your favorite team drop a couple of million a year to bring Souray to town now, eh? Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from. As for The Forechecker, here's hoping he'll be cycling back into the zone next season to cause some more havoc.