The New York Rangers announced on Thursday that forward Chris Kreider is out indefinitely after he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his right arm. He’s expected to miss 6-8 weeks, according to Larry Brooks of the New York Post.
Kreider left Wednesday night’s game against the Washington Capitals in the first period after he began feeling something in his right arm. He was sent to a local hospital to be evaluated and the symptoms persisted.
The 26-year-old Kreider, who has 11 goals and 22 points in 37 games, joins a growing list of NHL players who have dealt with blood clots over the last few seasons. Steven Stamkos, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Kimmo Timonen and Pascal Dupuis are just a few names who have seen their seasons and careers sidelined by the diagnosis.
The Rangers will travel to Detroit for Friday night’s game against the Red Wings before returning home for Monday’s Winter Classic at CitiField against the Buffalo Sabres.
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Sean Leahy is a writer forPro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line atphtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.
(Pro Hockey Talk is taking a look back at the year in hockey. We’ll be presenting you with the best goals, saves, moments, players and much more as we bring you the best of 2017.)
You’ve likely read this already if you’re perused some best/worst of 2017 lists, but I’m not breaking rank: these 12 months were often a beatdown for humanity.
Luckily, pop culture, sports, and other distractions responded to the carnage like a bat signal, providing us with precious diversions as the universe crumbles. Fantasy hockey falls in line with that, if you ask me, so let’s look back at 2017, combining hearty portions of 2016-17 and 2017-18 for a kind-hearted retrospective.
This guy, That guy, and everyone else
If you want to look at the two most successful hockey players in the world, you’d probably go Sidney Crosby (Stanley Cup, strong regular seasons, international glories) against Connor McDavid (2016-17’s only 100-point season, freak of nature, plausible future glories).
From a fantasy perspective, it’s about two scorers … but only McDavid makes that duo, if you’re being harsh. And also if you’re ignoring playoff pools, which are denizens of randomness, if you ask a fellow who’s only delved into them a bit.
No, in using NHL.com’s refined results settings, two scorers stand alone during this calendar year (OK, Jan. 1 to today): McDavid and Nikita Kucherov. These are the only two scorers who’ve hit 100-plus points during that span, with the closest contenders stuck at 87 points (John Tavares, Patrick Kane, Blake Wheeler, and Mark Scheifele, with the latter player hopefully being OK as 2018 approaches).
Remarkably, you could very sanely argue that Kucherov’s been better, as goals are tougher to come by than assists, and he’s hit his near-identical mark in three fewer contests:
McDavid in most of 2017: 81 GP, 30 goals, 72 assists, 102 points, 242 shots on goal, +29, somehow just a 39.8 faceoff winning percentage, I felt the need to mention.
Kucherov in most of 2017: 78 GP, 51 goals, 50 assists, 101 points, 279 SOG, +21, eight GWG to McDavid’s six.
Again, no one else even hit 90 points during this span. Remarkable. It stands as another reminder that Kucherov’s brilliance needs to be trumpeted, preferably from a high vantage point, Ricola-style.
These two guys are special, but no longer seemingly aliens
If you drafted Brent Burns and/or Erik Karlsson high heading into 2017-18 (bless your soul and sanity if they were among your top three picks), then you’re well aware that the two seemingly-untouchable defensemen have looked decidedly human this season. Granted, Karlsson is still incredible, but the fantasy returns have been more minimal.
Well, the calendar year numbers back that up. Karlsson and Burns are up their among the four highest defensemen, but they’re joined by Victor Hedman and John Klingberg as the guys who’ve hit 60+ points. Burns leads with 65 (and a ridiculous 307 SOG, more than Kucherov and McDavid, by the way), Hedman has 64, while Klingberg and Karlsson are tied at 62.
When in doubt, draft Swedish defensemen and/or dudes who could pass as Chewbacca.
(Note: Karlsson scored his 62 points in 71 games, so … he’s still possibly a Martian.)
Braden Holtby is the new Martin Brodeur
In case you haven’t poked around Hockey Twitter much, or blogs for that matter, Martin Brodeur isn’t the no-brainer superstar some assume. Well, at least when you compare him to, say, Dominik Hasek. In certain communities, that is.
You see, Brodeur frequently hobbled behind the true elites in terms of save percentage, and many believe that his puck-moving skills didn’t make up that difference.
That said, on the fantasy side, Brodeur was often fried gold.
The all-time wins leader obviously won a lot, and for most of his career, you could count on him to play a ton of games. He’d nab a lot of shutouts, to boot. As unpredictable as netminders can be thanks to the teams in front of them and health breaks and arrests go, Brodeur was as steady – and effective – as you could really ask for.
Holtby is becoming that guy: tons of reps, dependable, very good but maybe not getting mentioned as the cream of the crop as often as, say, Carey Price or Sergei Bobrovsky. It makes perfect sense, then, that he’s unmatched when it comes to wins (though his .920 save percentage speaks for itself.)
Now, I was pumping his tires as the next Henrik Lundqvist earlier but … Henrik Lundqvist still seems like Henrik Lundqvist, so let’s go with The Next Brodeur for now.
Reigning rookies
In 2016-17, Auston Matthews led a crop of outstanding Toronto Maple Leafs youngsters while Patrik Laine looked like the heir apparent to Alex Ovechkin. Jake Guentzel really blossomed during the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs, while Matthew Tkachuk annoyed everyone in his path to fantasy glory.
Shockingly, 2017-18 is producing a comparable crop of rookies, to the point that the volume makes it difficult to name everyone.
Mathew Barzal and Brock Boeser are both (at least temporarily) altering the trajectories of their teams. Yanni Gourde and Jesper Bratt likely deserve a bit more credit for their teams’ startling improvements. Nico Hischier looks like he’ll live up to being a top pick, while Clayton Keller is making teams kick themselves for passing him up, even for a few picks. Defensemen like Will Butcher, Charlie McAvoy, and Mikhail Sergachev are making splashes of their own.
Rookies are tough to figure in fantasy, what with uncertainty about even staying with the big team and no/little prior NHL numbers to use as a reference. Taking chances on them, only to see them explode, makes the successes so much sweeter, then.
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So, those are some of the trends and stories that stood out to me in fantasy this year. No end-of-year list is complete without people groaning about choices, however, so share your omissions and opinions in the comments, on Twitter, or via email.
Previously:
- The top hockey bloopers of 2017
- The best hockey moments of 2017
- The 20 best NHL players of 2017
- The top shootout goals of 2017
- The top 15 saves of 2017
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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.
NBCSN’s coverage of the 2017-18 NHL season continues with a doubleheader on Thursday night. In the early game, the Washington Capitals host the Boston Bruins at 7:30 p.m. ET and then the Vegas Golden Knights visit the Los Angeles Kings at 10 p.m. ET. To watch the BOS-WSH game online, click here. For VGK-LA, click here.
Only the New Jersey Devils and Vegas Golden Knights have a winning streak as long as the Boston Bruins at the moment. Wins in five straight and in 14 out of their last 18 have helped Bruce Cassidy’s charges surge up the Atlantic Division standings and find themselves tied for second with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The key to that streak? Not getting complacent.
“We just need to keep playing the way we have. I think that’s been resulting as wins. You don’t want to get complacent and just satisfied with [the way] things have been lately. I think you want to keep pushing yourself, and that’s what great teams do,” said Bruins goalie Tuukka Raskvia NBC Boston. “They always, they don’t take anything for granted. They always push each other, and I think that something, you know, to put some wins together we have to, you know, show that, show everybody that we’re capable of keeping that up for the rest of the season.”
The nightcap will feature a terrific Pacific Division battle between the Golden Knights and Kings. Vegas continued their historic run with a 4-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks Wednesday night, extending their points streak to 10 games.
”Our biggest trait is we’re resilient and don’t give up,” said Golden Knights netminder Malcolm Subban, who made 27 saves. “When a team’s working really hard like we do, it’s tough to generate chances. We’ve been really consistent.”
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Sean Leahy is a writer forPro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line atphtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.
Welcome to the PHT Morning Skate, a collection of links from around the hockey world. Have a link you want to submit? Email us at phtblog@nbcsports.com.
• The U.S. World Junior team hit the ice at New Era Field in Buffalo in preparation for Friday’s outdoor game against Canada. [@WJCinBuf]
• Canada moved to 2-0 with a 6-0 rout of Slovakia. The U.S. plays Slovakia tonight. [IIHF]
• Joining the Goo Goo Dolls as Winter Classic entertainment will be drummer Max Weinberg and Ace Frehley. But will the CitiField apple raise after a goal is scored? That’s the all-important question. [NHL.com]
• Corey Crawford hits injured reserve again and will be out at least a week for the Chicago Blackhawks. [NBC Chicago]
• Why it was smart for the St. Louis Blues to give GM Doug Armstrong a four-year extension. [Bleedin’ Blue]
• It’ll be a reunion of sorts Thursday night as Jonathan Drouin and Mikhail Sergachev face their old franchises for the first time. [Tampa Bay Times]
• How the New York Islanders’ new arena deal impacts the franchise beyond the obvious. [Lighthouse Hockey]
• A first-person look at traditional and non-traditional hockey markets. [Blackout Dallas]
• “A 10-year-old New Hampshire boy who was seriously injured in a bicycle accident received a special holiday message from a professional hockey player.” Good on ye, Milan Lucic. [boston.com]
• On Paul Kariya and how he was one of the NHL’s first stars of Asian descent. [NBC News]
• The great-great-great grandson of Lord Stanley of Preston wants to watch his first full NHL in Canada. [The Star]
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Sean Leahy is a writer forPro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line atphtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.
Players of the Night
- As discussed here, Riley Nash ranked among the Bruins’ supporting cast members who were marquee stars during Wednesday’s win. He scored two goals and one assist to give Boston five straight wins.
- The Pittsburgh Penguins continue to torment John Tortorella and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Artemi Panarin‘s second goal of the game gave Columbus a 4-2 lead midway through the third period, but it wouldn’t hold for Columbus. Evgeni Malkin triggered the comeback, generating one goal and two assists in the third period. Malkin added a shootout goal, making him the biggest catalyst for Pittsburgh’s comeback win. More on that in a moment.
- There were some other notable performances, including a backup goalie duel featuring two shutouts between the Capitals and Rangers. Nico Hischier scored two goals to help the New Jersey Devils churn out their fifth consecutive win.
Highlights of the Night
Mathew Barzal continues to confound opponents, with this overtime-clincher being his latest stroke of genius:
There was also this nice save by Jake Allen, which wasn’t enough for the Blues against the Predators:
For even more highlight-reel fun, make sure to check out Connor McDavid‘s sweet drop to Leon Draisaitlfor a shorthanded goal.
Factoids
Beyond frustrating the Blue Jackets in the playoffs and generally making John Tortorella lose his mind, the Penguins have also befuddled Columbus during the regular season in recent times:
The Vegas Golden Knights set another record for an expansion team, and honestly, the old mark was pretty ugly (sorry, 1993-94 Panthers).
Scores
Bruins 5, Senators 1
Devils 3, Red Wings 1
Islanders 3, Sabres 2 (OT)
Penguins 5, Blue Jackets 4 (SO)
Hurricanes 3, Canadiens 1
Rangers 1, Capitals 0 (SO)
Predators 2, Blues 1
Wild 4, Stars 2
Jets 4, Oilers 3
Coyotes 3, Avalanche 1
Golden Knights 4, Ducks 1
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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.
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