Nitzy's Hockey Den

Conrad "Connie" Poitras never played in the NHL and played only one season in the AHL, but over his ten year career he became the only man in history to play on a minor league squad with both Gordie Howe AND Jean Beliveau. Born in Quebec City in 1924 he played junior with the Verdun Terriers in 1943/44 scoring 18 points in 14 games. The next season was his only spent in the AHL with the Indianapolis Capitols. He scored 16 points in 56 games while playing in front of future Hall of Fame goalie Harry Lumley. His teammate calibre increased even more the next year with the Omaha Knights of the USHL. Fresh off the farm was a 17 year old Gordon Howe who tallied 48 points in 51 games on his way to becoming a legend. After two more years in the USHL he joined the San Diego Skyhawks of the PCHL. In 1948/49 Poitras scored 30 goals, 52 points in 65 games and led the playoffs in goal scoring with 8 in 14 games as San Diego won the Patrick Cup championship. By 1950/51, Poitras was back h...

As Sidney Crosby has finally caught and passed Steven Stamkos for the overall points lead 40 to 39, the more impressive number is Crosby's point total at even-strength. Sid the Kid is the only player in the league to average at least one even-strength point per game with 26 in 25 matches. Stamkos is next a full 7 points behind at 19 and the surprising Loui Eriksson and Bobby Ryan are tied at 18 even-strength points. Poor Johan Gustavsson, despite his 3-6-1 record for the Leafs he sits 11th in the league in save percentage at .917 (among goalies with at least 10 games). In his losses he ranks even higher. Among goalies with at least 6 losses he is 3rd with .908 Save Pct behind Ondrej Pavelec and Tuukka Rask. Speaking of the Leafs, "1st Line Centre" Tyler Bozak has now gone 18 games without recording an assist. 18 games, without an assist playing with Phil Kessel who has 6 goals over that span. In Colorado, rookie defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk has quietly tallied 10 points ...

I recently picked up a copy of Canada On Ice - The World Hockey Championships, 1920-2008 by Dave Holland and have been somewhat surprised at some of the relative unknowns that have represented Canada in the past. Upon returning to the World Championships in 1977, there has always been a slight struggle to field the best team possible with players often declining invitations. This has lead to some slightly less than world-calibre names being selected to past squads. Trevor Johansen, 1979 Defenseman, Trevor Johansen was a smallish (5' 9") first round selection of Toronto in 1977. A product of the Toronto Marlies system he never scored more than 39 points in a junior season but was a First Team All-Star in 1977. We was also added to the St.Catherines Fincups team that represented Canada in the 1977 World Junior Championships. He notched 16 points in a full rookie season with the Leafs in 77/78 and was traded with Don Ashby to Colorado for Paul Gardner near the end of the fo...

Some interesting numbers since last year's Olympics, as we have half a season's worth of combined numbers to look at. As some stars such as Crosby and Stamkos are thriving, many have continued a post-Olympic let down into this season. Since the Games (GP-G-A-Pts); Alex Ovechkin 40-18-28-46 A full season pace of less than 40 goals, definitely not what we've come to expect from Ovie. Evgeni Malkin 33-13-19-33 A point per game pace is far below what Malkin produced over his first few seasons. Jarome Iginla 40-14-15-29 The streaky-one just may finally be coming out of a real cold stretch. Ilya Kovalchuk 41-13-19-32 Safe to say, not quite what the Devils expected when they signed him long term. Miikka Kiprusoff 16-19-2 2.77 GAA His and Calgary's struggles started long before this season started. Roberto Luongo (including 2010 playoffs) 24-21-4 3.08 GAA A just over .500 record with a below average GAA is not going to take the Canucks to the promised land. One other...

After his hat-trick last night Steven Stamkos sits with 19 goals in 19 games. The hockey world is abuzz with speculation that he may have a shot at scoring 50 goals in 50 games. This feat has only been done eight times by five players, the last being Brett Hull almost 20 years ago. Certainly he has a chance of some sort to accomplish this feat. Let's look at his last 50 total games including last season. In his final 31 games of last year he put up 24 goals and 19 assists for 43 points. Since Jan. 27, 2010 Stamkos has played exactly 50 games and his totals read 43 goals, 35 assists for 78 points. These are fantastic numbers for sure, but as good as they are he still falls seven goals short of 50 in his last 50. In each of their last 50 games played including this season Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin have 31 and 30 goals respectively. In fact the next best is Alex Semin with 33 in his last 50. Of Tampa's next 31 games, 17 are on the road and only 14 at home. This shouldn'...

I recently picked up a cool full-size replica of Terry Sawchuk's goalie mask for my hockey den. It's an exact copy of the one pictured in the above photo. It got me looking deeper into Sawchuk's career stats. He really did have two distinct portions of his career. The 20 year old Sawchuk came up to Detroit after two solid seasons in the AHL and 4-3 with a 2.29 average and a shutout. Then, for five seasons he was out of this world. Sawchuk's Goals against average of 1.94 was over half a goal better than the league average and he recorded an amazing 57 shutouts over those five years. Then, the Wings traded him to Boston in favour of an up and coming Glenn Hall. Hall had played the last three seasons with the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Western League and the Wings wanted him to take over for Sawchuk even though Hall was only two years younger. Sawchuk would play adequately the next season but in January of '57 he left the Bruins due to exhaustion and nerves. He retur...

I spent the past weekend in Ontario visiting family and made my usual pilgrammage to downtown Toronto. Everytime in the city I trek over to Maple Leaf Gardens just to have a look. Knowing full well that the building is being renovated by Loblaws and Ryerson University I was still surprised by what I saw. The entire street level of the Gardens is boarded up like any other construction site, but I found my way to the only opening. Near the back corner of the building on Church and Wood St. there is a large truck bay that was fully open to view with a couple of security guys on guard. From here one can see clear through to the other walls of the building which had been stripped clear of any signs of seating from the ground to the ceiling. Thanks to the website blogTO.com we can see that very view (I had forgotten my camera that day). You can see the angled remnants of the upper grey seating at the far corner. The concrete and steel of the stands have been removed all the way back to the ...

Which goaltender has the lowest goals against average so far this season among Canadian born players? Yep, Maple Leaf Jean-Sebastien Giguere at 2.31. The sad truth is that this mark places him only 9th overall among goalies that have started at least 6 games. Next on the Canadian list is Dwayne Roloson at 2.44, Carey Price and Dan Ellis at 2.45, Marty Brodeur at 2.70 and Roberto Luongo at 2.76 checking in at 19th overall. Ahead of Giguere are four Americans, two Finns, a Slovak and a Russian. Overall as a team, Toronto ranks the same ninth overall in GAA and an atrocious 29th overall in Goals Scored For/ Game. Since the Leafs won their first four games of this season, Giguere has a GAA of 2.48 while going 1-3-2. Over the nine total games the team has scored a grand total of 15 goals. Over their own last nine games, Vancouver Canuck second liners manny Malhotra and Raffi Torres have combined for 10 goals on their own. This is the difference between good teams and not so good teams, co...

His record still lives to see another year. The record does not have the lustre of Brodeur's 100 plus shutouts or Gretzky's 51 consecutive game streak but in Canuck-land it's still something to talk about. Daniel Sedin came close this season with points in nine straight games to start the year. In 1983/84 a 20 year old Tony Tanti had arguably the best start in Canuck history. He scored at least a point in his first eleven games scoring 13 goals and 23 points, this included a streak of scoring at least a goal in each of his first seven. As October, 1983 drew to a close Tanti was actually ahead of Wayne Gretzky in goals with 13 battling Rick Vaive's 14 for the goal scoring lead. The Great One was a mere three points up on Tanti for the point scoring lead. It's interesting to look at past seasons by segments, especially the high-flying '80s. Many players would have stretches of scoring that were astronomical even by standards of teh mid-80s. Gretzky's next ...

Have a look at the NHL's top ten in points. As of Nov.2, 2010 each and every one of the top ten scorers in the league was born in Canada. Yes that is extremely rare. OK fine, tied at 8th place is Paul Stastny who represents USA internationally, but he was born in Quebec City. Also, Dany Heatley was indeed born in Germany, he plays for Canada. If we really want to break it down, Alex Ovechkin is actually ranked 8th on the strength of more goals scored than Stastny, Heatley and Derek Roy. Even still, the top seven scorers in the NHL being Canadian is an extremely rare occurance. Steven Stamkos from Markham, Ont, Patrick Sharp from Winnipeg, Chris Stewart of Toronto, Regina's Ryan Getzlaf, Joe Thornton of London, Sidney Crosby of Cole Harbour N.S. and Brad Richards from Murray Harbour PEI are not very likely to all finish one through seven in scoring. The last time that happened in the NHL was 1990/91 when the top eleven scorers were Canadian...sort of. Second overall Brett Hull ...