Saturday Notebook
By Ray Calder
Some notes from a very high quality evening of hockey Saturday ;
- Huge night for Caps rookie netminder Simeon Varlamov who singlehandedly gave his team a chance to score a win against the Canadiens. Varlamov stopped 32 of 33 shots in getting his first NHL win .
-The Blues BJ Crombeen scored his 7th goal of the season against the Sharks . He's helping St. Louis immensely and you have to believe the Dallas Stars ( lost him on waivers) could surely use him back .
- Dallas got a very inspired performance from backup goaltender Tobias Stephan against Nashville but it was not enough and they were shut out 3-0 . The good feelings from the win one night earlier against Detroit were short lived .
- Henrik Lundqvist was very strong in a shootout win over Carolina just a night after giving up 8 goals to the Devils . The Rangers defense was again awful and the only people who are doubting that Lundqvist is in the top tier of NHL goalies are those reading boxscores and not watching games . The team doesn't need Mats Sundin- it needs somebody to clear the front of the net .
- Another reason to stay up late and watch the Coyotes . They came within 20 seconds of upsetting the defending champs and continue to get nice contributions from youngsters Peter Mueller, Mikkel Boedker, Martin Hanzal , Enver Lisin and others .
-The Bruins Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist to stretch his point streak to 15 games . He's pure gold to those of you in head to head weekly leagues .
- I'd hate to be a defenceman having to defend Derek Roy and Nathan Gerbe on the same line - they both possess top end speed .
- It's a well known fact that the Red Wings are going to have some decisions to make with Henrik Zetterberg,Marian Hossa, and Johan Franzen eligible for Unrestricted Free Agency at years end . The underreported story is that Jiri Hudler who seems to be getting better every game is a restricted free agent and is almost certain to draw interest from other clubs.
-The Kings Anze Kopitar scored another goal giving him markers in 4 of his last 5 games . In his last 2 games he's managed 13 shots so keep rolling with him . You no doubt had hoped for more than 10 goals at this point but he appears to be heating up.
- The Sharks got a huge challenge from the Blues after dominating play in the first period . As good as the usual stars (Thornton, Marleau, Boyle) in San Jose have been, the team won again at home and guys like Marcel Goc, Mike Grier, and Ryane Clowe had as much to do with this victory as any of the bigger names . Everybody is contributing and that's what makes a team dangerous on a nightly basis.
-The Caps who were seemingly getting healthy, lost forwards Nicklas Backstrom and Sergei Fedorov to injury in the win at Montreal Saturday . I'll try and update both guys in Monday's injury analysis.