Keep Them Doggies Rollin'

Yeah, the Canucks are pretty banged up. Bobby Lou, Morrison, and various other players were out last night. But a team that lost to the Kings without Cammaleri and Frolov beat the hell out of Vancouver last night. And when their grip on Vancouver's neck loosened a bit when the lead was thinned to one goal, the Sharks squeezed harder, got quick goals by Jumbo and Bernier, and coasted to a 5-2 victory. The Sharks are 3-0 against the Northwest leader this season.

The story of the evening was clearly the blinding speed shown by Patty and Michalek en route to their mirror-image goals. Michalek turned the jets on down the right side, and Marleau the left. Both cut to the middle and beat the goalie far-side high.

I can't imagine what ran through Drew McIntyre's head when he saw Big Joe barreling down on him on a breakaway in the third period. He probably could have used a diaper when Joe wound up for the slap shot. Welcome to the NHL, meat.

In other news, Semenov went out of the game in the 2nd with a hand injury. I don't pay that close attention to who is getting ice time when, so I didn't discover that until this morning. But I admit, my first thought was, "There is a God." Not very nice of me. I wouldn't actually wish an injury on him, but I take favors when they come. Hopefully it will give my boy Carle an opportunity to work himself back into the lineup for good.

Shh! Don't Wake the Giant!

Someone in the Sharks organization leaked Alexei Semenov's team picture before color correction and cosmetic surgery:


In the latest installment of "Did You Know", did you know that last night's +1 effort was Frankenov's first plus game of the season? Brings him up to a glistening -6 in 12 games. On the positive side, he's a big dude. Big. Really Big. The problem is he seems to be made of wood, and he doesn't use his size for the forces of Good. Only for the for the forces of Slow. Yeah, he got into a fight last night, and promptly got his ass kicked by Todd Fedoruk, who's entire face is now made of paper maché. Or as the Canadians would say, "POP-i-yay MA-shay". Or as Semenov would say, "UNNNHHHH".

In fact, I heard the build-up to the fight, because it was near section 124:
Semenov: BRAINS!
Fedoruk: What the fuck d'you say to me?!
<drops gloves>

But we kid because we love. Sort of. I still can't understand why Semenov is out on the first PP unit every night. He has three points, none on the power play. I've been reduced to thinking that Ron Wilson has an overdeveloped sense of irony.

But as Grier said, it was an all-around great effort by the Sharks last night, and I would rank it as the Sharks' best of the season.

Douglas Murray and His Monstrous Plus-Minus

So you go over to the ESPN stats site right now, and you'll see that Douglas Murray (can't I call you Doug?) is tied for the league lead in plus-minus, at +15, tied with Chris Phillips. Holy God! That's a pretty amazing stat, given that the Sharks are +10 overall (including PP) while the Sens are +20.

I've never put a huge amount of stock in plus-minus as a purely defensive measure, because lots of things can skew it. I did an analysis once that showed that teams with a poor power play generally have players with a higher +/- than teams with a good power play. It makes sense. If you don't score on the PP, that means a higher percentage of your goals must come on even strength (ES), which boosts your +/-. Only ES and short handed goals count as a plus. And only ES and SH goals against count for a minus.

In my view, when you're rating a defensive defenseman, you really want only half of what the +/- stat give you. You want ES goals against only, because a defenseman's job is to prevent goals, not score them. If Larry gives up 20 ES goals, but they score 21 when he's on the ice, he's +1. And if Pete gives up no goals, and scores 1, he's +1, just like Larry. But Pete is a much better defensemen than Larry.

So let me start with a little factoid: Douglas Murray has not been on the ice for a even strength goal against since October 18th vs. Detroit. That means, he's been perfect for 10 games, over a month. Unbelievable.

The NHL doesn't publish this information exactly (you'd have to pore through the game logs) but luckily there are some good stats sites out there, and I turned to hockeynumbers.com. They have a stat called EH-, which is defined as "Goals against average while on ice @ even strength". They don't publish the formula, but I'm assuming it's goals per 60 minutes of time. Murray is the best on the Sharks, with an EH- of 0.3. If that means what I think it means, that's pretty astounding. Just for the record, and unsurprisingly, Alexei Semenov is the worst with an EH- of 4.1 (Kaspar is technically worse, but he only played 3 games).

So I went overboard, as I usually do, and made a spreadsheet. Here's the list of the top 10 defensemen in the NHL this year (who have played over 10 games) in EH- (and I have no idea why there's a big gap here):

Player	Games Played	EH-
Douglas Murray (SJ)	15	0.3
Petteri Nummelin (MIN)	15	0.3
Alexander Edler (VAN)	12	0.4
Mike Stuart (BOS)	18	0.9
Glen Wesley (CAR)	21	0.9
Nicklas Lidstrom (DET)	20	1.0
Marek Malik (NYR)	12	1.0
Ville Koistinen (NAS)	13	1.1
Luke Richardson (OTT)	16	1.1
Marc Staal (NYR)	20	1.2

Murray leads the league. Chris Phillips, the man who is tied with Murray at +15, is not in the top 20 (1.6). There are other factors that can skew this stat, like strength of linemates and strength of opposition, but this is a better raw stat than regular +/-. Douglas Murray has been one of the best two or three defensive defenseman in the NHL this year.

Can Roenick save the season?

Could we not only have witnessed history on Saturday night in JR's 500th goal, but did we perhaps see the turning point of the Sharks early season woes? His passionate response to his milestone had an effect on the entire team's effort, which was solid from the drop of the puck. The Sharks needed something good to happen to them after weeks of bad calls, dumb luck and lackluster effort. Saturday night could be their chance to turn the corner. We'll see if they keep it up tomorrow night because Phoenix, though lacking in talent, plays with tons of heart and hustle.

A few other thoughts

- Thank you for pulling Semenov. He adds nothing on the ice but a chance for us to make jokes at his expense. Ehrhoff went from a healthy scratch to playing the 2nd most minutes on the team. I think they may have got his attention, whether he stays or is trade bait.

- I liked Bernier on the 4th line. He played more physically than I've noticed this year, which is the major part of his game that is lacking right now. I thought the fact that RW didn't juggle the lines much meant he was happy with the overall play and he may have found a great 3rd line in Roenick/Mitchell/Grier.

- Carcillo's play for Phoenix further proves my point that we need an agitator on our club. He goated Rismiller into a penalty. We don't have a player like that right now.

- Marleau showed some flashes of life in the 2nd and 3rd period.......

Mike and I have a wager on who will score more goals by season's end - Setoguchi or Cheechoo. I have Gooch and Mike has Cheech. The bet is off is either is traded or if Gooch is somehow sent to the minors. Right now they are tied at three apiece. Who do you think will score more goals?