There's no question rookie phenom Patrik Laine has been an invaluable piece of the Winnipeg Jets' puzzle this season, but a closer look at the numbers reveals just how important his production has been.
Through 57 games, Laine has netted 31 goals and posted 56 total points - both tops among all NHL rookies (though Auston Matthews has pulled into a tie in the rookie goals department).
Winnipeg is obviously going to have a better chance at claiming victory when its young Finn gets on the board, but the above-mentioned numbers paint an interesting picture of just how dependent on him the Jets really are.
When Laine scores, the team cruises, having won 73 percent of the time. But when he's held off the scoresheet, and the rest of the roster is relied upon, they've lost an astounding 71 percent of games.
That's especially noteworthy considering the young winger isn't Winnipeg's only weapon. It also boasts one of the game's top centers in Mark Scheifele (seventh in league scoring), an elite sniper in captain Blake Wheeler, and one of the game's premier offensive defensemen in Dustin Byfuglien.
And yet, just one season into his career, Laine already appears to be the Jets' most important player.
For the past two seasons, the Tampa Bay Lightning have been among the cream of the Eastern Conference crop.
The club has three straight second-place division finishes under its belt in as many years, and - more impressively - has earned a conference final trip and a Stanley Cup final appearance in the past two campaigns.
But this time around, the Lightning are far from continuing that impressive postseason streak. As it currently stands, the former Cup finalists are in need of a strong finish to even earn a shot at the playoffs.
Through 63 games, the Lightning rank sixth in the Atlantic Division and five points out of a wild-card spot with some decent teams standing between them and a postseason berth.
A 5-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night didn't help, and head coach Jon Cooper said performances like those simply continue to turn up the heat for the struggling club.
"We weren't going to go 20-0, but it makes (Saturday's) game pivotal," Cooper said after the loss, according to Fox Sports Florida. "We have no margin for error. We need these points."
The Lightning will square off against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night. Though the two teams seemed to be in completely different situations coming into 2016-17, they now find themselves level.
"Buffalo's in the same position we are," Cooper said. "We're all scratching and clawing to get into this, so we just need to scratch a little harder."
(Photo courtesy: USA Today Sports)
The Sabres sit just one point below Tampa Bay, having played one more game. A win on Saturday would move them past the Lightning, tying them with the Philadelphia Flyers.
It seems general manager Steve Yzerman was wise to hang on to franchise centerman Steven Stamkos last summer, as his club is now seeing the effects of the captain's absence.
The club has just 19 wins in the 46 games that have followed Stamkos' exit, the fifth-least in the league over that span. While the captain is reportedly skating again, it's unclear how close he is to a return. Which means it isn't going to get any easier for the Lightning.
Even with a miraculous late-season run pushing them back into the playoff picture, it seems the Lightning are destined for the second of the two wild-card spots at best (the New York Rangers hold the first one, and already have 18 points on Tampa).
The Edmonton Oilers were joined by some four-legged guests at practice Friday.
As part of the team's partnership with Edmonton police, the Oilers invited the Edmonton Police Service Canine Unit to take part in their morning skate. The dogs chased pucks, played tug of war, and, of course, received plenty of pets.
On January 24th, the Calgary Flames' 2016-17 campaign looked poised to remain a miserable affair.
With the club holding a 24-24-3 record, teetering between promise and disappointment, a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens had them positioned to spiral out of control.
And their head coach was well aware.
“We were pathetic,” head coach Glen Gulutzan said immediately after the loss, according to Sportsnet's Joe Pack. “It was a pathetic display. No bite back, no kick back, accept it right down, our top guys didn’t do anything and we need somebody to step up.”
He wasn't done.
"Our starts have been good but one little shot goes in, we crumple. We just crumple. We have no resolve to stay with it; we have to look internally here at ourselves - everybody, everybody in the organization - and see how we’re going to pull ourselves out because the league doesn’t feel sorry for you."
A little over a month after that spirited tirade, Gulutzan's club seems to have received the message. The Flames have rounded into shape, and they're doing far more than keeping their heads above water:
Since the Montreal meltdown on Jan. 24, #Flames have the NHL's best record: 1. CGY, 11-2-1, .821 2. CHI, 11-3-0, .786 3. WSH, 11-3-1, .767
Calgary's performance through the 14 games that followed their coach's rant has hinged on their improved defensive play over that span - the Flames have allowed the second-fewest goals in the league (33) since Gulutzan's meltdown.
Netminder Brian Elliott has been a key part of that equation.
After looking decidedly human through the season's early goings, prompting Chad Johnson to temporarily claim starting duties, Elliott has begun to look like his old self.
The veteran 'tender posted a respectable .925 save percentage through the above-mentioned stretch, earning nine of Calgary's 11 wins (the second-most wins of any netminder in the league since January 24th).
And in front of him, the team's formerly dormant first line has found new life. Johnny Gaudreau, the club's offensive focal point, has scored at a point per game pace since the late-January turning point (14 points through 14 games).
Rearguard T.J. Brodie is in that same boat. After struggling through the campaign's early months, Brodie has rediscovered his offensive swagger, putting 10 points on the board during those 14 games - tops among all Flames defensemen.
For both players, those totals are roughly double what they managed in the month preceding the Flames' dominant stretch.
Whether Gulutzan's frustration was the catalyst that spurred the Flames' resurgence or not, it's clear something changed for the formerly stumbling club. And just in time, it seems, as the Flames still have a wild-card spot in their grasp, leaving them primed to make it back into the postseason after a year on the outside.
Kris Letang's injury appears to be a bit worse than originally thought.
Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters Saturday that his star defenseman is going to need some extra time to recover.
"It's a little more complicated than day to day," he said. "We're just hoping it's not a long-term injury."
Letang was initially deemed day to day with what the club would only refer to as an upper-body ailment. He's missed the last four games and has been limited to 41 of Pittsburgh's 63 contests with various injuries.
Bill Peters thinks Eddie Lack is a problem, but the Carolina Hurricanes' issues go far beyond their backup goaltender.
The head coach called Lack out in a lengthy tirade, staring in the direction of the netminder's stall and imploring the veteran to "make a (expletive) save" at the end of a fiery media scrum Friday.
Lack hasn't been consistent, but he's a convenient scapegoat for a head coach of a team that has a couple of more pressing concerns.
Take Carolina's starting goalie, Cam Ward, for example. Peters lamented the fact that he's had to rely on Ward to shoulder the bulk of the starts because of the backup's uneven play, but the No. 1 hasn't been good enough, either.
Ward gave up three goals on 21 shots in a 4-2 loss to the lowly Arizona Coyotes on Friday night, and his last win came a month ago, on Feb. 4 against the New York Islanders.
He's played 50 of the Hurricanes' 61 games, but he's hardly deserved the heavy workload. Here's how the other goalies with at least 50 games played have fared this season:
G
GP
Record
GAA
SV%
SO
Sergei Bobrovsky (CBJ)
50
33-15-4
2.13
.928
4
Cam Talbot (EDM)
57
32-18-7
2.39
.920
5
Martin Jones (SJ)
52
30-15-6
2.28
.915
2
Tuukka Rask (BOS)
51
30-15-4
2.26
.913
6
Peter Budaj (TB)
54
27-21-3
2.16
.916
7
Frederik Andersen (TOR)
52
24-14-13
2.73
.916
3
Ward
50
21-20-8
2.65
.904
2
Peters' apparent gripe with Lack is that he doesn't play well even when he's given a rare opportunity, but he's essentially the least used backup in the NHL among No. 2 netminders who've served the role with the same team all season, although he missed about three months with a concussion suffered in November.
The head coach was upset at Lack for allowing four goals on 16 shots in a loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night, but he was two starts removed from a 34-save shutout of the Ottawa Senators.
It's not just in goal where the Hurricanes' real problems lie.
While they are one of the best possession teams in the NHL, they aren't parlaying that into much actual scoring. Carolina ranks 23rd in goals per game (2.48), and the Hurricanes' power play is also 23rd with a mere 17 percent rate of success.
They're loaded with developing, young talent on defense, and the blue-liners are a major reason they've limited opponents to a fourth-best mark of 27.6 shots per contest, but the forwards aren't exactly an intimidating group, as a quick glance at the lines reveals:
The Hurricanes sit dead last in the Eastern Conference at 25-26-10, but blaming a guy who has only played 16 percent of their games misses the point.
Carolina isn't this bad because of Eddie Lack, and instead of lashing out at his backup goalie for struggling, despite having so few chances to prove himself, Bill Peters should turn his attention to the team's more important weaknesses.
The St. Louis Blues were on fire after making a coaching change last month, but things have suddenly gone downhill in a major way.
The Blues' 3-0 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Friday night was their fifth-straight defeat, a skid that comes immediately after the club won seven of its first eight games under new head coach Mike Yeo.
“This should be a good slap in the face for us,” Yeo said postgame, according to the Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I don’t know. I get the sense that sometimes we just assume, just think, that things are going to turn around for us."
St. Louis was sitting comfortably in third place in the Central Division following a torrid stretch last month, but the wheels have fallen off since.
The Blues are once again outside the playoff picture, back where they were just prior to Ken Hitchcock's firing on Feb. 1, sitting six points behind the Nashville Predators for third in the Central and one point back of the Los Angeles Kings for the second Western Conference wild-card spot.
So what's gone wrong?
It's mostly been bad luck. Of St. Louis' four losses prior to Friday's defeat, three were by a single goal, and the other one, a 4-2 win by the Chicago Blackhawks, was only decided by a two-goal margin because Tanner Kero scored an empty netter with three seconds left.
Friday's three-goal margin was aided by two empty-net tallies from the Jets.
Jake Allen has rediscovered his form and backup Carter Hutton has also been reliable lately, posting three shutouts in four games before stopping 38-of-39 shots in a losing effort Friday night.
Kevin Shattenkirk was traded to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday, and his departure leaves a gaping hole in both ends of the rink. It hasn't made a major impact yet (admittedly in a small sample size), but it will certainly be worth monitoring how the Blues make up for his absence.
St. Louis won the puck possession battle in Tuesday's 2-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers and kept it close to even Friday night in Winnipeg.
The Blues have the easiest remaining schedule in the NHL, according to Rutherford, but they'll need to covert more of their one-goal games into wins if they hope to play deep into the spring.
