Nitzy's Hockey Den

In the words of Leaf GM Brian Burke, "We expect he will see significant time in the top six." The question posed, is MacArthur a legitimate top-six NHL forward or only on a team as challenged at the forward positions as the Leafs? MacArthur is predominantly a left winger, but can play centre as well. Before his signing, the Leafs top two LW's are Kris Versteeg and Nikolai Kulemin with their top centres being Tyler Bozak and Mikhail Grabovski. Of these four I can easily see MacArthur supplanting Kulemin or Grabovski on a second line perhaps only for the fact that he's a good old Alberta boy slightly more in the mold of a Burke/Wilson type of player. In the event that Tyler Bozak fails to carry the mail as first line centre to Phil Kessel, I could even see MacArthur getting chance on the top line. In his three junior seasons with Medecine Hat, Macarthur notched 75,75 and 74 points and then proceeded to average a point per game over two and a half AHL seasons. Obviously...

Believe it, it's true. With Tomas Kaberle unceremoniously back in the fold, there are very few teams in the NHL that can match the Buds defensive unit one though eight. Of course, this is the problem that "Master Genius" Brian Burke did not want to face. His goal was to turn the asset of Kaberle into a top flight forward, yet now his squad has a veritable cornucopia of NHL calibre defensemen and a black hole of top calibre forwards. In truth however, the Leafs are blessed with a fine octet of defensemen. Their top four of Dion Phaneuf, Tomas Kaberle, Francois Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek are superior to most NHL teams. When their next four are included (Schenn, Gunnarsson, Lebda and Finger) there are even fewer teams that can compare. Shall we look? Boston . Sure they have Chara, but Seidenburg, Boychuk and Hunwick do not match up with the Leafs 2 thru 4. The Bruins 5 thru 8 may include two rookies along with Andrew Ference and Mark Stuart, advantage Leafs. Calgary ...

It's never too early to start preparing for your hockey pool draft, so let's do it. I rarely if ever will pick a rookie in a draft mainly due to the high unpredictability factor. A draft is usally won by getting good return on lower selections in the draft. The main reason I finished one point out of first in last year's draft was the fact I got Steve Stamkos in one of the later rounds. So, which of last year's rookies are primed to have a breakout year in 2010/11. One way of trying to figure it out is to look at which rookies finished strongest last year. Below are the rookie Points per game leaders after the Olympic break last season. What can we surmise from this list? The name Tyler was an extremely popular baby name twenty odd years ago, yes. There are a lot of up and coming point producing defenseman on the horizon. From the familiar names Del Zotto and Myers to lesser knowns like Erik Karlsson and Jamie McBain, we may be entering a golden age of offensive d-men....

Above is my copy of a 1957 hard-cover edition of The Hockey Handbook, by Lloyd Percival. This is the book that legendary Russian coach Anatoli Tarasov used as his "bible" during the beginnings of the rise of Russian hockey. Here's two of my favourite Gretzky covers in my collection. The first is a kids magazine called Crackers which was put out by Scholastic Books in Canada in 1982. I actually received this in '82 as a subscription making this one of the very first pieces in my hockey collection. I have been to many collectable shows over the years, and have never seen another one of these magazines. The next one is an Oilers game program from Gretzky's rookie season of 79/80, one of his first program covers ever. The game was against the Leafs on Jan. 26, 1980. Gretzky had 26 goals, 43 assists and 69 points through 46 games to that point in the season and sat fifth in league scoring. He was 22 points behind Marcel Dionne for the scoring lead. From this point on ...

We are officially in the dog days of August, and training camps are still three weeks away. What better time to get back to the roots of Nitzy's Hockey Den, those roots being my actual hockey den. When I initially began this blog it was to showcase some of the finer nicks and nacks of my collection. I thought I'd share a few of the more recent additions to my basement shrine. Above is the oldest hockey card I own, a 1933 O-Pee-Chee of Maple Leaf, Harold "Baldy" Cotton. I picked it up a few months ago, and now am on the hunt for a good deal from one of the rare issued sets in the 1920's. My WHA collection grows with a pair of Toronto Toros programs, the first featuring Gordie Howe with the Houston Aeros. Below has a great cover shot of Czech defector Vaclav Nedomansky. I've also got four of the seven WHA league guides and programs from Quebec, Calgary, Edmonton and Chicago. This program encompasses two of the main components of my collection, old time Leaf ...

With a nod to good Friend of the Den, Joe Pelletier at www.greatesthockeylegends.com I am going to expand on his twitter trivia question of the day. Apparently he was stumped (so was I) by one of his readers who asked which player played the most playoff games during the 1980s. The answer is a somewhat surprising Bobby Smith with 143, barely beating Duane Sutter at 141 and John Tonelli at 140. This of course got me asking who led each decade in playoff games. Pretty much every decade has leader that may not be expected. 2000-2010 Brian Rafalski played 154 games, twenty more than John Madden and Scott Niedermayer. Top Red Wing, Nik Lidstrom sits fifth with 133 playoff games. Perhaps even more unexpected is the fact that Patrik Elias led the decade in playoff scoring with 106 points (in 119 games). 1990-1999 Another defenseman leads this decade as Larry Murphy suited up for 139 playoff matches in the 90s. Second and third are Mike Keane and Claude Lemieux with 135 and 132. Top point g...

Who scored the most points in the NHL during the seaons 2000/01 through 09/10? Most good hockey fans would know it was Joe Thornton with 823 points in the decade. This would probably be the toughest decade to name the leader since the 1940's. The 90's were topped easily by Jaromir Jagr with 958 points, the 80's obviously belonged to Gretzky with a ridiculous 1842 points and the 70's were led by Phil Esposito with 1087. All are fairly easy to name, as are the leaders of the 50's and 60's. Stan Mikita bests teammate Bobby Hull 827 to 786 during the 60's and Gordie Howe easily tops the 50's with 806 points. This is where it starts getting difficult for even the most diehard hockey fans. The leading point scorer of the 1940's? Not Maurice Richard who even though he played only eight seasons of the decade, easily led in goals scored with 250.It was Chicago's Doug Bentley led the NHL in points during the 40's with 475 points. This brings us to th...