Continue reading ‘Vezina Winner Comparables – How big of a raise should Sergei Bobrovsky get?’ »]]> I was listening to the #CBJ Sunday Morning Skate radio show this past weekend with special guest host, John Davidson, when something he said caught my attention. JD was discussing the ongoing contract negotiations with Bobrovsky’s agent and mentioned that his agent would be flying in for face to face meetings this week. JD mentioned that during the meetings they were going to take a look at comparable players to try and come up with a fair number.

Out of curiosity I decided to take a look and see what exactly the effect of winning a Vezina can have on an NHL goaltender’s salary. I only went back as far as the most recent lockout/start of the salary cap era.

The first things that jumped out at me at just the winner’s list is:

• Bob is the lowest paid Vezina winner since the last lockout
• He’s also the youngest by 5 years
• Only Henrik Lundqvist in 2011-12 had a lower GAA than Bob’s in 2012-13 (Tim Thomas matched Bob’s number in 2010-11)
• Only Tim Thomas in 2008-09 and 2010-11 had a better SV% than Bob did in his trophy year.

After looking at the winners list I wanted to take a look at the actual stats of each goaltender for a few years before and after they won. Bold = the year they won the Vezina. “New Contract” means that they started a new contract this year.

Miikka Kiprusoff – Calgary Flames

Martin Brodeur – New Jersey Devils

Tim Thomas – Boston Bruins

Ryan Miller – Buffalo Sabres

Henrik Lundqvist – New York Rangers

Sergei Bobrovsky – Columbus Blue Jackets

More interesting things I found while looking at these numbers:

• Only Tim Thomas won the Vezina in the last year of a contract. And when he did his pay went up by nearly 500% ($1.1M to #6M)
• Miikka Kiprusoff, Martin Brodeur and Ryan Miller all won the Vezina in their first year after getting a new contract… talk about justifying the cost…
• Only Kiprusoff and Thomas have gotten new contracts after winning a Vezina, Kiprusoff’s wasn’t until 3 years later but his actual salary went from $3.6M to $8.5M.

Some Non-Vezina Winner Comparables

I pulled up a list of the top performing goaltenders of 2012-13 and picked out the ones that were the closest to Bobrovsky in age.

• Stats-wise he’s most comparable to Cory Schneider who is only 2 years older but earned $3.5M in salary in 2012-13.
• From this list, only Ben Bishop made less than Bobrovsky in 2012-13.
• One of the more interesting cases is Tuukka Rask who is only 1 year older than Bobrovsky and is due for a contract extension this season while currently up 2 games to 1 in the Stanley Cup Final. I would expect to see Rask walk away with at least a $6M/yr deal after the playoffs are over.
• Every goaltender on this list either had their contract expire, has 1-2 years left, or just signed a 2 year deal. No one is signed to a long term deal.

Some conclusions/predictions

Based on all of the factors laid out above it’s clear that there is definitely a “Vezina bump” when it comes to signing a new contract. Additionally, young goaltenders that haven’t proven themselves to be able to perform consistently year to year don’t seem get long-term deals. Because Bobrovsky has 3 more years of restricted free agency left, I would expect to see the #CBJ push to sign him to a 2 year deal. I think earning comparable money to Rask & Schneider is certainly fair and when you factor in the “Vezina bump” I would expect to see the contract to be somewhere in the range of $4.25-5M/yr. Tim Thomas went from $1.1M to $6M, but he was a UFA at the time and it was his second straight season of putting up good numbers. I don’t think Bob will get quite so large of a bump. By signing him to a 2 year deal it will allow the Blue Jackets to hold onto his rights as he will still be an RFA at the end of his new contract.

Prediction: 2 year deal, $4.25M year 1, $4.75M year 2.

Continue reading ‘Did Henrik Sedin intentionally spear Sergei Bobrovsky in the eye?’ »]]> With less than a minute remaining in the game against the Canucks on Tuesday, Henrik Sedin was camped out in front of Sergei Bobrovsky waiting for a pass/rebound. As the Jackets gained possession of the puck and looked to move it out of the zone, Sedin managed to get his stick up and into/through the mask of Sergei Bobrovsky, hitting him directly in the right eye. After viewing the play on several replays it began to look like, and speculation started to spread, that Henrik might have done it intentionally/maliciously.

I was surprised to see there was almost no fuss about the play today and no videos of the incident on YouTube so I decided to put one together. The full video of the incident is below:

The question is… did he do it on purpose? At the time I was fairly confident a player of his skill level couldn’t have done that accidentally if he tried.

But one of the replays may have changed my mind.

Here are several GIFs of the incident:

The first 3 are GIFs of the the 3 main camera angles of the incident itself:

Steve Mason’s expression pretty much tells the story:

This GIF is the one that swayed me closer to saying it was an accident:

If you watch Henrik’s right hand in this close up/slow motion replay you can see he puts his hand on Nikitin’s back and pushes him forward. It appears that the small push from his right hand is what caused his stick to swing backwards and catch Bob in the mask. My primary concern was that if you knew you’d gotten your stick into the goalie’s mask accidentally you’d probably pull the stick out instead of pushing it in farther if it was an accident. The fact that he pushed it farther is what had me convinced it was intentional. However, once I noticed his right hand pushing forward on Nikitin it explains the motion of the stick.

I’m now willing to give Sedin the benefit of the doubt and say this was an accident but there’s absolutely no excuse for the refs to miss this and not call a 2 minute minor for high sticking.

My favorite moment from the entire event is the reaction of one of the fans in the stands after Bob appeared to be OK:

Amen.

Continue reading ‘#CBJ Fan Survey – Mid-season edition – The Results!’ »]]> I finally closed the latest #CBJ Fan Survey survey today and found the results to be very interesting. This was the first survey I’ve done that took place during the season and while games were ongoing. It was pretty neat to see how the results changed as the Jackets won back to back games versus Detroit. Because of the way the on-ice results were skewing the results I’ve decided that on the questions that saw a significant day to day change in opinion I would show you the total results and the results by day. The questions that have results broke up by day are the results for just that day, not cumulative. The combined totals are in the first pie chart under each question.

The results!

Personal preference, would you rather see the #CBJ push for the playoffs or get a top 3 draft pick?

As you can see from the first day results below (prior to the 1st Detroit game), this one wasn’t nearly as close on Friday and swayed significantly towards pushing for the playoffs as the Jackets continued to win games.

I don’t know if fans got a dose of reality after yesterday’s win when looking at the schedule or if they’d finally come off their post-win high but the numbers shifted back towards the Top 3 pick.

Do you think the #CBJ have a legitimate chance to make the playoffs?

This one also saw numbers shift towards “Yes” following the wins:

In your opinion: is it worth making the playoffs even if not a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup?

This didn’t see much change day to day so I’m only showing the overall results:

 How active are you hoping we’ll be at the trade deadline?

I think it’s safe to say some fans may have re-kindled their love with the current players after the first Detroit win:

If the #CBJ get a top 3 pick, who do you hope they draft?

Not much change day to day here either. I think it’s safe to say most fans are tired of drafting defense and ready to see some dazzling offensive stars in Union Blue:

So there you have it. The rebirth of hope in the #CBJ fanbase in pie chart form.

Continue reading ‘“Tempered” excitement… have we seen this before?’ »]]> The Blue Jackets are 5-0-2 in their last 7 games and have as many points (12) as they did in the previous 19 games combined…

Remember when Jackets, teetering on the brink of playoff contention elimination, rode on the backs of strong goaltending and opportunistic play by guys like Matt Calvert? When they increased their odds of making the playoffs by an order of magnitude in the double digits? When they went on a tear through the NHL that included a 3-0 shutout win over the Detroit Red Wings?

I of course speak of January & February of the 2010-11 season. Following a loss to the Phoenix Coyotes, the Jackets were looking at a pretty bleak 2.52% chance of making the playoffs. Steve Mason began playing out of his mind in net, posting two shutouts and 7 games of .925+ save %. By the time their run would end, the Jackets playoff chances had climbed all the way up to 29.24%. A win the next day against the Nashville Predators would have improved their chances of making the playoffs to over 40%.

Instead this happened:

Up 2-1 in the 3rd period against Nashville, a goal that was clearly fished “out” of the net could not be determined to have gone “in” the net (yay logic!). What would have put the Jackets up 3-1 instead left the game 2-1 and the Predators would end up scoring twice in the 3rd period to win the game (including a goal in the last 2 minutes, yay Scott Arniel prevent defense hockey!). The playoff chance would drop 10 points down to 19% and never recover. The Jackets went on to lose 7 straight after posting a 11-3-3 record during their run. In all they would only win 3 more games the rest of the season, closing out with a 3-12-7 record including the loss to Nashville. Calvert’s offense dried up and Mason’s save % seemed to go along with it.

As we stand now, the Jackets are on a 5-0-2 run. Bobrovsky is the netminder that’s putting this team on his back with 0.95, 1.00, 0.97 and 1.00 sv% games in 4 of his last 5 outings. Matt Calvert is back in the NHL and is setting the pace for the rest of the team. 13 days ago the #CBJ % chance to make the playoffs stood at a league low 0.39%. Yes, that’s right, less than half a percent. It now stands at 5.5%. While 5.5% is still low, that’s an improvement of over 14x. The road ahead is dark and full of dangers. To have just a 58.3% chance of getting the 8th seed in the playoffs the Jackets will have to finish the season with a 13-6-3 record. To improve that to 95% they have to go 14-6-2. 6 regulation losses in the next 22 games. That’s quite a tall task.

The one thing I think we have going for us that we lacked in 2010-11 is the guy behind the bench. Todd Richards has yet to lose a game when leading after two periods behind the #CBJ bench. The 2010-11 team seemed to lose all of their momentum after losing that game to Nashville. I think this team is learning how to win, but more importantly they are learning how to respond in the face of adversity. We’ve seen it all season long, games that the Scott Arniel coached teams would have given up, this team is fighting back. The Dallas game was a great example, and in my opinion a real turning point for this team. The Jackets fought back from 4 different 1 goal deficits to tie the game every time. They’d ultimately go on to lose in overtime but the heart they showed in fighting back has set the tone for the current streak they are on.

When I looked ahead at the schedule this past Wednesday and saw our next 5 opponents were: Vancouver -> Detroit -> Detroit -> Vancouver -> Chicago, I said to myself “well, guess we don’t have to worry about losing that lottery pick!”. But in the back of my mind I thought, and even mentioned to a co-worker “… if we can win just 3 of those 5 games … we’re going to open a LOT of eyes” Little did I know we would win the first 3 of those 5.

Is this sustainable? I honestly don’t know. The advanced stats guys keep telling me no. But the LA Kings couldn’t score a goal to save their lives in the regular season last year but somehow managed.

To me the two most important factors that will determine how this team finishes the season are: trades made on or before April 3rd and the fact that 12 of the next 22 games are on the road including a dreaded 6 game road trip to California in the final 7 games of the season. After this upcoming 5 game home-stand, we’re only back in Nationwide Arena for 5 of the final 17 games. Going to be very hard to only lose 6 games.

Continue reading ‘Game 13 – Jackets filet the Fins, in video’ »]]> Got some great videos tonight from a great win:

Brandon Dubinsky scores his first as a Jacket

Derek Dorsett destroys Adam Burrish for his late hit on Nikitin

James Wisniewski makes it 2-0 with a powerplay goal

Cody Goloubef makes it 3-0 with his first ever NHL goal

Patrick Marleau makes it 3-1 on a floating shot Mason wasn’t ready for

Nikita Nikitin opens the 3rd period with a big goal to put the Jackets up 4-1

Vinny Prospal scores a power play goal to make it 5-1

And Mark Letestu follows it just 9 seconds later on a deflected shot to make it 6-1

Joe Pavelski rockets a one timer on the power play to beat Steve Mason on a shot he had zero chance on, final score 6-2

Continue reading ‘Game 11 – Flames at Blue Jackets in GIFs and Video’ »]]> Jackets lost a close one in OT. They maybe didn’t play well enough to deserve to win but neither did the Flames. A break or two either way and this game could have been 5-1 for either team.

On to the GIFs!

Flames goal (score 0-1)

Blue Jackets goal (score 1-1)

Brutal (illegal?) hit on RJ Umberger (score still 1-1)

Blue Jackets goal (score 2-1)

Flames goal (score 2-2)

Flames goal (score 2-3)

Blue Jackets goal (score 3-3)

Prospal is happy (score still 3-3)

But the Flames would score in OT to make the final score 3-4 (this one loaded weird so it’s in super fast motion)

Which Brandon Dubinsky probably thinks is

Highlight Video:

Continue reading ‘Videos and GIFs from Game 10 vs the LA Kings’ »]]> I got a new toy today in the way of a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). This means new features for you! I didn’t capture the Kings goals tonight because ugh.

MacKenzie’s goal:

Brassard’s goal:

Dubinsky’s hit that earned him an ejection:

Dubinsky’s response to the ejection:

Shot map:

Shot map site is screwed up, temporarily removed the image.

Woof.

Continue reading ‘36 Minutes. No Excuses. No Regrets.’ »]]> I wanted to take a step outside of the normal #CBJ chatter to share a story from my local adult league hockey game from last night:

Sign from the #CBJ dressing room (borrowed from @Canadan82‘s twitter)

My team, B-Dubs Hockey Club, faced off against another team, The Lucky Pucks, at the Chiller North last night at 10:40pm. Yes, 10:40pm. The weather forecast for last night was looking pretty bleak earlier in the day so I was expecting a rough drive in. I was surprised to see the roads were fine and I was able to make it to the rink without any problems. The combination of the late start and the weather forecast had me wondering how many people on our team would be out. I was one of the last to arrive at the rink for my team and was happy to see that we had a full roster on hand. A full roster for us means 3 full lines of forwards and defensemen, or 15 total skaters. In fact we even had an extra sub on hand just in case anyone got hurt so we had 16 skaters.

The Lucky Pucks? They were not so fortunate. As we were waiting for the Zamboni to finish cleaning the ice we noticed there were only a handful of skaters on the other team waiting by the door. Right before puck dropped I checked their bench and confirmed that they had a total of 6 skaters dressed. That’s 5 on the ice and one on the bench.

A CAHL (Chiller Adult Hockey League) game consists of three 12 minute periods. We scored our first goal just 30 seconds into the game and by the end of the first period the score was 5-0. We changed strategies after the first period, moving some offense to defense and some defense to offense. We self imposed a “minimum of two passes before shooting” every time we entered the zone. They were already tired and we weren’t about to run up the score even more by having our top scorers scoring on breakaways. We would end up coring 2 more goals in the 2nd period making it 7-0.

With the score already 7-0 to start the 3rd period we asked the ref if they wanted to switch to a running clock (meaning the clock doesn’t stop with the whistle). The Lucky Pucks were clearly exhausted by this point and we figured everyone just wanted the game to be over. Unfortunately, it seemed, the refs didn’t hear our pleas and kept a normal clock. Despite being exhausted The Lucky Pucks fought on. We would end up scoring 4 more goals in the 3rd period (including goals by a player playing in his first game and another scoring their first goal in 28 games).

The final score was 11-0. Had the game not ended at close to midnight we were going to invite them out for beers after because they’d definitely earned it.

Fast forward to today where we found out today that one of our players (who wasn’t at the game) happens to work with one of the refs that called the game. When asked about the running clock:

…he said he continually asked the other team if they wanted a running clock and the “two oldest guys hes ever seen playing” said no, they want to get their money’s worth.

So, here was a team with 5 skaters and 1 sub, down 11-0 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd period and when asked if they wanted to take an easy way out they flat out said no way, they paid to play 36 minutes, they were going to get their 36 minutes.

There is a sign hanging up near (or in) the Columbus Blue Jackets locker room that says “60 minutes. No excuses. No regrets.” These guys were the living embodiment of that mantra. The Blue Jackets played a much better game on Saturday than they have all season. It remains to be seen if they can do so on a consistent basis (but I do have my hopes up). If they’re looking for inspiration I know of 6 guys and a goalie on an adult league team here in Columbus that could probably show them a thing or two.