Nitzy's Hockey Den

In baseball, there is a term for a player who dominates in the high minor leagues (AAA ball) but cannot quite make a mark when given a chance in the big leagues. They're called 4A or AAAA, an imaginary level just below the big time. It's starting to look like Chris Bourque (Ray's son) may be one of hockey's AAAA players. He just finished his fifth full season in the AHL by winning the Calder Cup Championship with the Hershey Bears. On top of this he was awarded the Butterfield Trophy as playoff MVP after he scored 27 points (7+20) in 21 games. He tallied 70 points in 49 regular season games. Bourque has played 33 NHL games in his career and has produced a mere one goal and three helpers. His biggest hinderance would appear to be his stature of 5'8". Over the years there have been many AAAA hockey players and more often than not, they have lacked the size that most GM's feel is necessary to play in the NHL. Other 4A's: Darren Haydar 5'9", 170 l...

Even the good ones get it wrong sometimes. The Colorado/Quebec franchise has had the most success in the draft, and they can't be blamed too much for taking Bryan Fogarty ninth overall in 1987. The guy was the highest scoring defenseman in OHL history, how were they to know he'd end up naked and dead in a school cafeteria kitchen in the middle of the night? The man had problems. Anyway, Fogarty aside the Nords/Lanche have the greatest success in drafting players in the NHL. I looked at all the picks made in each franchise's history and how many of them reached the 500 point and 1000 point plateau, perhaps not for the original team, simply in their NHL career. I also counted the goalies that were picked by a franchise that played 300 NHL games. I figured add the 500 point guys, add a bonus point for the 1000 point guys and include the 300 game goalies, divide that number by the number of draft yaers and you get a very basic, yet telling rating of draft success. I only looke...

Brian Burke has said he wants a "prospect" with the Leafs first pick in the 2010 draft. The fact that the Buds don't pick until the 62nd selection doesn't seem to be an issue for Burkie. I decided to look at what if anything has been obtained in the past with the 62nd pick. There have been 41 NHL drafts in which at least 62 selections have been made dating back to the 1969 Amatuer Draft. Nine players selected in the 62nd slot have managed to play at least 200 NHL games including current players Paul Martin in 2000, David Backes in '03 and Kris Letang in '05. Three pretty good players. The best player picked at number 62 in the draft would have to be Kris Draper, picked by Winnipeg in 1989. Drapes has managed 19 NHL seasons and 1110 games, tallying 353 points, four Cups and the 2004 Selke Trophy. I'm pretty sure Burke would take that with his pick. Other notables at the 62nd selection are Mario Marois by the Rangers in 1977 who played 15 years and had 433...

Alex Ovechkin wins the Ted Lindsay (Pearson) Award as the MVP voted by the players and Henrik Sedin wins the Hart Trophy as the offical MVP voted by the writers. Somewhat surprisingly, this differing opinion on the MVP's of a season is not as uncommon as you'd think. Of the 39 Pearson/Lindsay winners, 14 of them failed to also win the Hart Trophy. Four of the first six Pearson winners failed to win the Hart. In 1971 and 1972, Phil Esposito and Jean Ratelle were denied the Hart by one Bobby Orr and in 1975 and 1976 Orr himself and Guy Lafleur lost the Hart to Bobby Clarke both years. For three straight seasons, 1979 thru '81 the Pearson and Hart had differing outcomes. Marcel Dionne twice and Mike Liut were beaten for the Hart by Bryan Trottier in 1979 then Wayne Gretzky back to back. Gretzky formed a consesus for four consecutive seasons then lost the Pearson to Mario Lemieux in 1986. Gretz also had a Hart with no Pearson in '89 when Steve Yzerman was the players pick. ...

With the Hockey Hall of Fame announcing it's 2010 selections this week, I figured I'd share some random thoughts on current, future and past selections. Joe Nieuwendyk I do believe he'll get in on this his first year of eligibility. His resume has just about everything one could look for. 564 career goals, 3 Cups, Calder Trophy, Conn Smythe, Olympic Gold medal.... simply a winner, and one of the great leaders of the game. Pavel Bure I'm somewhat confused as to why Bure is not in the Hall yet. Sure he played just over 700 games, but I believe he has the credentials. In my mind if Mike Bossy is in, Bure should be a no-brainer. Bossy played 50 more games and scored 573 goals to Bure's 437, but when the numbers of these two vastly different eras are compensated for, the similarity is remarkable. During Bossy's career the average goals scored per game was often over 8.00, while in Bure's NHL the average was usually under 5.50 per game, a vast difference. When b...

This is a cool item I recently came across while looking through the great site, Classicauctions.net. Below is pictured a program from early in the 1976/77 season of the Seneca Nationals a Toronto area Junior B squad. Most will be familiar with this team as one of Wayne Gretzky's stepping stones to greatness. He had played the previous year with the Vaughan Nationals and scored 60 points in 28 games in a season which he started as a 14 year old. This 76/77 year, he would tally 72 points in 32 games. What is interesting is the program has a list of Gretzky's team mates during this early part of his career. Somewhat amazingly, this junior B team would produce, not only Wayne Gretzky, but three other NHLers and a total of 6 professional players. Bill Gardner , brother of Paul Gardner was almost a year older than Gretzky and scored 102 points in 68 games this season. He would go on to have two more 100 point years in the OHL with Peterborough and be drafted in the fourth round by C...

Below are the point leaders for the Cup finals, somewhat surprisingly led by the Flyers trio of Briere, Leino and Hartnell. These are the only three Flyers scoring at least a point per game, while Chicago has seven players with 5 or 6 points. The most surprising thing may be the fact that Toews, Gagne, Carter and Richards each have only two points over the five games. The all-time record for points in a Cup final is Wayne Gretzky with 13 in 1988 against Boston. He scored 11 points in the four game sweep, as well as two in the game suspended due to power outage at the Garden. Gretz's 10 assists are also tops. Mario Lemieux tallied 12 points in five games against Minnesota in the '91 finals. With 9 points and 7 helpers, Danny Briere is definitely within striking distance of the all-time records.

Quite often in the Stanley Cup playoffs, previously unheralded players take their first step to the next level of stardom. I'm not refering to rookies like Dino Ciccarelli, Pat LaFontaine or Ken Dryden making a mark in a Cup Final. Nor do I mean the Chris Kontos/ John Druce kind of once-in-a-liftime scoring explosion. I'm talking about guys like Dave Bolland, Claude Giroux and Ville Leino. Dave Bolland was a junior sniper, scoring 130 points in his last OHL season with the London Knights. Chicago selected him 32nd overall in 2004. This past season, returning from back surgery he matched his rookie year stats with 16 points in 39 games. However in his second year, 2008/09 he began to show flashes of what he can become as a player scoring 19 goals and 47 points. In this year's playoffs he has scored 12 points and is a +6, while shutting down the opponents top scorers at every turn. Claude Giroux was a first round draft pick (22nd overall) of the Flyers in 2006 and had a stel...