Jaromir Jagr Ties Mark Messier For Second-Most Points
Jaromir Jagr played his first NHL game on October 5, 1990 in Washington. He scored the first goal and point of his Hall of Fame career two nights later at home versus the New Jersey Devils.
So far, 766 players have played in the NHL this season. Just 455 of those, or 58%, were born before the end of 1990. Jagr has played against players born from 1951 (Guy Lafleur) to 1998 (Patrik Laine). Yet he’s still here, and reached an incredible milestone on Tuesday night: Jagr is now tied with Mark Messier for second all-time in NHL scoring.
With three assists against the Sabres, Jagr now has 755 goals, 1,132 assists, and 1,887 points. That’s 524 points more than the next highest active player, Joe Thornton. The 45-year-old Jagr is now playing in his twenty-third NHL season, and has played for eight teams.
The new top five for all-time points looks like this, until Jagr gets his next:
1. Wayne Gretzky – 2,857 points in 1487 games
T2. Jaromir Jagr – 1,887 points in 1662 games
T2. Mark Messier – 1,887 points in 1756 games
3. Gordie Howe – 1,850 points in 1767 games
4. Ron Francis – 1,798 points in 1731 games
5. Marcel Dionne – 1,771 points in 1348 games
Jagr has said that he wants to play until he’s at least 50-years-old. Should he average 50 points from now until then, he would end up in the neighborhood of 2,150 points. While he would still be 700 points behind Gretzky, he would be the first, and likely only NHLer to ever surpass Gretzky’s assist total. The first years of fantasy hockey pools had a rule: no one could take Gretzky, it was either his goals or his assists. That rule was there for a good reason, as Gretzky still has more assists than any other player in history has points, with 1,963. TSN’s Frank Seravelli wrote that Jagr would need to start another Hall of Fame career to even come close to Gretzky, but says “finishing second only to Gretzky, though, is sort of like being first among the rest of the nearly 6,000 other mere mortals to play in the NHL.”
While it may seem like a longshot for anyone to play until the age of 50, Jagr is still having fun. He’s brought back his legendary mullet from the 1990s and is still one of the most dedicated players in the league when it comes to staying in shape. He once told Sportsnet Magazine:
“The time between when I quit hockey and I die, I want it to be the shortest. It’s not going to be as exciting, that time. So as long as I can play, that’s what I’m doing. If I can play ’til I die, that’s what I will do. What else are you gonna do?”
Snapshots: Three Stars, World Junior Captains, Iginla
The NHL has named Artemi Panarin, Henrik Lundqvist, and Eric Staal as its Three Stars of the Week.
Panarin had three goals and seven assists for 10 points in four games. He bookended two thee-point performances with a pair of two-point nights as the Blackhawks continued their five-game winning streak. Panarin now has 34 points in 34 games this season
This week marks the second consecutive week with a New York Rangers goaltender as the second star. Last week, Antti Raanta was the second star as he temporarily took over the starting role from Lundqvist, but now the man they call The King has taken back over. Lundqvist went 3-0-0 and allowed just three goals to go with his 0.967 SV%. He and Raanta combined for a shutout when Lundqvist was forced to leave a game after being run over by Cody Eakin (for which he was suspended).
Staal had four goals and five points in three games as part of a 3-0-0 week. The Wild have now won seven straight and Staal is leading the team in goals, assists, and points; he has 24 points in 30 games in his first year in Minnesota.
- Hockey Canada has named its leadership core for the upcoming World Junior Championships. Arizona Coyotes prospect Dylan Strome will wear the C for Canada, while Mathew Barzal and Thomas Chabot will serve as alternate captains. All three players played for Canada at last year’s tournament and appeared in the NHL at the start of the season. While they combined for just 10 games and one assist in the NHL, all three are 2015 first-round picks and dominant CHL players. Strome has 295 points in 191 games with the Erie Otters; Islanders sixteenth-overall pick Barzal has 281 points in 174 games with the Seattle Thunderbirds; Chabot, a defenseman picked eighteenth overall by Ottawa, has 128 points in 182 games with the Saint John Sea Dogs.
- The Vancouver Canucks most recent first-round pick, Olli Juolevi has been named captain of Team Finland. Juolevi had nine assists in seven games in last year’s tournament, as Finland won gold. So far, Juolevi has 21 points in 26 games with the London Knights.
- Today marks 21 years since the Calgary Flames acquired Jarome Iginla from the Dallas Stars for Joe Nieuwendyk. The trade worked out pretty well for both teams: the Stars won the Stanley Cup four years later with Nieuwendyk playing a key role, and Iginla became the face of the Flames franchise. Nieuwendyk was in the prime of his career, while Iginla was an eleventh-overall pick playing for the Kamloops Blazers. Amalie Benjamin of NHL.com tweeted that Iginla initially thought he had been traded to the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen. After turning pro, Iginla scored 1095 points in 16 years with the Flames, leading them to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2004. He’s bounced around between Pittsburgh, Boston, and Colorado in the four years since he was traded. Iginla could be on the move again this year, as the Avalanche are one of the worst teams in the NHL and he could want to go to a contender for the end of his career.
Department Of Player Safety Hands Down Suspensions
It’s been a busy day for the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. Ottawa’s Mike Hoffman and Dallas’ Cody Eakin both had scheduled meetings with the DoPS today—Hoffman for a cross-check to the back of Logan Couture‘s head and Eakin for running heavily into Henrik Lundqvist – and the two have each received their penalties.
According to John Shannon of Sportsnet, Hoffman received a two-game ban for his infraction and will forfeit $57.6K in salary. Meanwhile, Eakin has been suspended for the next four contests, according to Mark Stepneski, who covers the Stars for NHL.com. Eakin’s suspension will cost the six-year veteran more than $85K in forfeited salary.
Additionally, Marc-Edouard Vlasic was fined $5K, the maximum allowed under terms of the CBA, for spearing Ottawa defenseman Erik Karlsson. Vlasic speared Karlsson in the second period of the same game where Hoffman crosschecked Logan Couture.
Injury Updates: Crawford, Palat, Kucherov, Vatrano, Honka
Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford underwent an emergency appendectomy back on December 3rd and it was said then that he was likely to miss two-to-three weeks as a result. Thirteen days later, the 31-year-old is back on the ice skating with his team, reports Tracy Myers of CSN Chicago. Myers adds that Crawford also took some shots today and head coach Joel Quenneville is waiting to see how their #1 net minder is doing when the team returns home from their current road trip.
The team has fared pretty well in Crawford’s absence. After dropping his first two games, Crawford’s understudy, Scott Darling, has won four of his last five starts, allowing just six goals during that time. He is likely at this point to get the call in both of Chicago’s weekend games, at St. Louis on Saturday and in Chicago against the Sharks on Sunday.
Elsewhere on the injury front:
- Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times reports that the Lightning will be without forwards Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov for tonight and likely for the team’s game tomorrow as well (Twitter link). Additionally, Ryan Callahan is not going to play tonight as Tampa Bay travels to Vancouver to take on the Canucks. In a follow-up tweet, Smith adds that Palat is considered day-to-day while Kucherov has not been placed on IR, suggesting he is also day-to-day. While it’s never a good thing to be without three regular forwards, even if it’s just for a game or two, a prolonged absence of Kucherov would be especially bad news for the Lightning. The fourth-year winger leads the team in both goals (13) and points (30) this season and also topped the club in scoring last season. Palat has tallied 13 points in 30 games for Tampa Bay, while Callahan has added just four points in an injury-marred campaign for the gritty veteran winger.
- Frank Vatrano, who has been out since September with a foot injury, was activated by Boston and assigned to Providence of the AHL, according to Joe Haggerty of CSNNE. Haggerty states that the young winger needs to play to get back up to speed. Vatrano exploded on the scene as a prospect last year after registering 36 goals in just 36 AHL games and earned his first call up to Boston. While not as successful in the NHL, Vatrano did net eight goals in 39 games for the Bruins, demonstrating the ability to be a solid performer at this level.
- Finally, the Dallas Stars activated defenseman Julius Honka from IR and reassigned the young Finn to Texas of the AHL, the team announced today. Honka had missed the last five games with an upper-body injury. The team’s first-round draft choice in 2014, the 21-year-old blue liner made his NHL debut this season and in eight games recorded three points. In 16 contests earlier this year with Texas, Honka tallied three goals and 12 points. Dallas already has a roster full of capable NHL defensemen, leading one to wonder when or if the team will recall Honka, as some have suggested the constant shuffling on the back end has contributed in part to the Stars struggles this season.
Stars’ Eakin To Meet With Player Safety
Dallas Stars center Cody Eakin will be meeting with NHL Player Safety on Friday afternoon.
This comes after he took a run at New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist on Thursday night in Dallas. Eakin was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct, while Lundqvist briefly left the game. Despite the fact that Lundqvist was out of the net, the NHL rules clearly state that “a goalkeeper is not ‘fair game’ just because he is out of the goal crease area.”
It’s a similar incident to the infamous Milan Lucic–Ryan Miller incident from five years ago. Lucic, then with the Bruins, skated right through the Sabres netminder. Miller, who was out of the net to play the puck, was sent flying. Lucic got a two-minute penalty for charging but did not face any supplemental discipline for the hit.
Eakin has just one assist in 14 games this season, but is coming off three seasons of 35-40 points. He’s working on getting back into game form after injury, but it seems like that may be delayed by a suspension. Lundqvist, meanwhile, returned to the game and finished with 27 saves in a 2-0 win. While he won’t get credit for a shutout because he didn’t play the whole game, it’s still a great return for The King, who had been temporarily displaced by the hot hand of Antti Raanta. Raanta started four straight, with just three goals allowed and two shutouts in the 3-1-0 stretch.
Eakin isn’t the only one who will be meeting with Patrick Burke and Player Safety, as Senators winger Mike Hoffman will also have a disciplinary hearing for cross-checking San Jose Sharks center Logan Couture in the head on Wednesday night.
PTO Checkup
During the offseason NHL teams extended a total of 194 professional tryouts (PTOs) to players trying to earn a professional contract for the upcoming season. Of those 194 players, only eleven earned a permanent NHL/AHL contract. Those lucky 5% have had varied success this season, and this article looks at how those players have fared so far.
Steve Bernier: New York Islanders
Steve Bernier failed to garner a contract on his PTO right away, but the New York Islanders signed him to a one-year, two-way deal on October 24, 2016. The contract pays him $600K (NHL) / $200K (AHL). Bernier has remained with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers—the Islanders’ AHL affiliate—all season, posting 8G and 5A in 15 games.
Gabriel Bourque: Colorado Avalanche
Gabriel Bourque signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Colorado Avalance worth $800K (NHL) / $200K (AHL). The 26 year-old forward has split time with the Avalanche and its AHL affiliate San Antonio Rampage this season. Bourque has failed to register a point with Colorado, but has 3G and 5A in 16 games for San Antonio
Rene Bourque: Colorado Avalanche
Rene Bourque signed a one-year, one-way deal with the Colorado Avalanche worth $650K. Bourque has impressed so far, scoring 8G and 3A in 11 games for the Avalanche. He’s already surpasses last years totals (3G and 5A in 49 games) and could come closer to regaining his prior form.
Justin Fontaine: New York Rangers
Justin Fontaine signed a one-year, two-way deal with the New York Rangers worth $600K (NHL) / $300K (AHL) after failing to earn a contract with the Minnesota Wild. The 29 year-old forward remains in the AHL so far this season and has racked up 3G and 8A in 21 games for the Hartford Wolf Pack.
Nicklas Grossmann: Orebro HK (SHL)
Nicklas Grossmann initially signed a one-year, one-way contract with the Calgary Flames for $575K. The Swedish defenseman lasted three games before the Flames attempted to demote him to the AHL Stockton Heat. Grossmann, however, did not report to Stockton, so Calgary terminated his contract. Grossman failed to register a point in those three games with the Flames.
Eric Gryba: Edmonton Oilers
Eric Gryba signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Edmonton Oilers worth $950K (NHL) / $250K (AHL). The move has not yet panned out as Gryba remains pointless through 14 games. The Oilers placed Gryba on IR on November 30th, and the defenseman is reportly nearing a return. While Gryba was never an offensive defenseman, the Oilers do expect more from him and could send him down if he doesn’t improve when he returns.
Lauri Korpikoski: Dallas Stars
Lauri Korpikoski signed a one-year, one-way contract with the Dallas Stars worth $1MM after failing to sign with the Calgary Flames—the team that initially offered Korpikoski a PTO. In 29 games for the Stars, Korpikoski has 4G and 5A, which is respectable but nothing noteworthy. He’ll have to improve if he wants to stay in the lineup after all the Stars’ injured players return.
Tom McCollum: Calgary Flames
Tom McCollum signed a two-year, two-way deal with the Calgary Flames worth $575K and $650K in the NHL and $175K and $200K in the AHL. Despite the two-year deal, however, McCollum has seen little action. The former first rounder has played 1 game in the AHL with the Stockton Heat and 3 games in the ECHL with the Adirondack Thunder.
Devin Setoguchi: Los Angeles Kings
Devin Setoguchi returned to the NHL this year with the Los Angeles Kings on a one-year, two-way deal worth $575K (NHL) / $45K (AHL). The former eighth overall pick has 3G and 4A in 24 games. Setoguci returns after playing in Switzerland for a year, and is still looking to regain his scoring touch with the Kings.
Jack Skille: Vancouver Canucks
Jack Skille signed a one-year, one-way deal with the Vancouver Canucks worth $700K. In 22 games this season Skille has 3G and 1A and plays less than nine minutes a night. Skille has never lived up to his draft position—7th overall in 2005—and has bounced around the league ever since.
Kris Versteeg: Calgary Flames
Kris Versteeg signed a one-year deal with the Calgary Flames worth $950K after failing to maintain a contract with both SC Bern (Swiss) and the Edmonton Oilers. Versteeg’s SC Bern contract was voided when Versteeg failed his medical exam. In 19 games with the Flames, however, Versteeg has 4G and 7A. So far the signing seems to have paid off for Calgary.
Comparative Standings: One Year Ago
With the first third of the season completed for all but Columbus (who have amazingly played just 26 games, six fewer than the Winnipeg Jets), there have been some huge swings from a year ago.
Those Blue Jackets are the league’s most improved team, with a staggering 18 more points through 26 games than last season. Their huge swing is only matched by the Dallas Stars equally amazing drop-off of 18 points the other way. The Jackets can attest their improvement to the development of young players like Zach Werenski and Alexander Wennberg, while the Stars have seen a litany of injuries to their star players including Jason Spezza, Patrick Sharp and Johnny Oduya.
The Central Division as a whole is off to a slower start this year, with only the Chicago Blackhawks bettering their 2015-16 record. The Colorado Avalanche, expected to take a step forward with their young core has suffered the exact same fate with 23 points through 27 games.
The two biggest Canadian rebuild stories, Edmonton and Toronto have both improved, though not as largely as the fan bases in each city might have you believe. Four points for the Maple Leafs and five for the Oilers lend credence to the idea that it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish that counts. Though both franchises have a lot to look forward to, keeping up an advanced pace for an entire season is extremely difficult. The two teams finished last season with just 69 and 70 points respectively.
Below are the current standings. In parenthesis is the difference in points through the same amount of games last year.
Stars Defenseman Jamie Oleksiak Suspended For Two Games
Dallas blue liner Jamie Oleksiak has been suspended by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for an illegal check to the head of Philadelphia Flyers forward Chris VandeVelde during Saturday afternoon’s game, the league announced. According to Cap Friendly, Oleksiak will forfeit $10,208.33 in salary. The defenseman was not penalized on the play.
Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News speculates the Stars could turn to Patrik Nemeth or Johnny Oduya to take Oleksiak’s spot in the lineup. Nemeth was a healthy scratch yesterday while Oduya is currently on IR. Heika mentions that the team has made roster moves that would be necessary in order to activate Oduya.
Oleksiak is in his fifth season with the Stars and in 13 contests in 2016-17, the 6-foot-7, 255-pound defender has three goals and four points with 16 penalty minutes. In 91 career appearances, he has tallied four goals and 16 points with 61 penalty minutes. Dallas selected Oleksiak in the first-round of the 2011 entry draft.
Snapshots: Raanta, Blackhawks, Player Safety Meetings
New York Rangers backup Antti Raanta will make his third straight start in favor or Henrik Lundqvist on Sunday afternoon.
Raanta has won two straight, allowing just one goal. He beat the Jets 2-1 before shutting out his former team, the Chicago Blackhawks 1-0 on Friday. He’s made 43 saves in those two games.
Raanta’s two game streak comes just as Lundqvist is hitting a dry streak. He’s lost two of his last three appearances, which included an ugly goal from center ice against the Sabres; he’s allowed 10 goals in those three games.
While there’s no danger of Raanta permanently displacing Lundqvist in the Rangers net, he’s certainly picked a good time to get hot. The Rangers brought in Raanta to replace current Oilers starting goalie Cam Talbot in 2015. After a disappointing early playoff exit in which he was torched for 15 goals in five games, the Rangers appear to be giving Lundqvist more rest throughout the regular season to keep the 34-year-old fresh for the playoffs.
- Despite being ruled out of tonight’s game against the Dallas Stars, Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews returned to the ice 0n Sunday morning, according to Tracey Meyers of CSN Chicago. Toews hadn’t skated in a week before this morning’s optional skate, and has missed the previous eight games. NHL.com writer Brian Hedger reported that Toews was first on the ice and last man off.
- Another couple injured Blackhawks are inching closer to their returns as well. Defenseman Brent Seabrook missed Friday’s 1-0 overtime loss against the Rangers, and will also be out of the lineup tonight. However, Seabrook told Chris Hine of the Chicago Tribune that he plans on going on the Blackhawks upcoming road trip.
- Goaltender Corey Crawford, who has been out since an appendectomy on December 2, is also making progress in his recovery. Coach Joel Quenneville told Meyers that Crawford is “doing all right,” but that it will take some time to “get him back to square one.” The initial diagnosis was around three weeks, which would mean Crawford will be out until just after Christmas.
- Meanwhile, Mark Stepneski reports that Dallas Stars defenseman Jamie Oleksiak will be meeting with NHL Player Safety later today to discuss his high hit on the Flyers’ Chris Vande Velde during Saturday afternoon’s game. Oleksiak was not penalized on the play. Fellow defenseman Mark Borowiecki will also have a hearing today after the Senators defenseman boarded Kings winger Tyler Toffoli. Borowiecki received a major penalty for the hit.
Western Conference Notes: Stars, Red Wings, Labanc, Toews, Seabrook
A year after riding the league’s most prolific offense to a Central Division title, the Dallas Stars have been beset by injuries and currently sit on the outside looking in at a postseason berth. Obviously the absences of key players like Ales Hemsky, Patrick Sharp, Jiri Hudler, Mattias Janmark and Cody Eakin for parts – or in the case of Janmark, all – of the season has played a role. However, Mike Heika addressed another possible factor for the team’s on-ice struggles in a recent mailbag feature.
When asked what trade he would make if he were the GM to improve the Stars, Heika suggested making a relatively minor deal sending blue liner Patrik Nemeth to Detroit for a goalie prospect. While on the surface it’s difficult to envision a trade of this nature having much of an impact on the ice for either team, Heika reasons that moving one of the eight defensemen on the roster would “alleviate the pressure of eight defensemen for the players and the coaching staff and that could immediately make a player such as Jamie Oleksiak better.”
Ordinarily having quality depth is considered a good thing but perhaps not when it comes to the Stars blue line. As Heika suggests, carrying seven blue liners may allow head coach Lindy Ruff to more easily identify consistent defense pairings.
While this does not qualify as an actual trade rumor, Heika’s hypothetical deal does provide a look at what the Stars brass may actually consider at some point. The team does have solid depth on the back end and with neither Antti Niemi nor Kari Lehtonen performing well between the pipes for Dallas, the Stars could certainly find themselves in the market for a young goaltender-of-the-future.
- Highly-regarded rookie Kevin Labanc isn’t exactly lighting up the league with just three goals and five points in the first 14 games of his NHL career. But after going scoreless in his first four, the 20-year-old winger – 21 on December 12th – has been more productive of late with all of his points coming in the last 10 contests. As Kevin Kurz of CSN Bay Area writes, the mini outburst from Labanc has already helped the youngster leapfrog veteran forwards Joonas Donskoi, Joe Thornton and Mikkel Boedker in the goal-scoring department. As Kurz notes, Labanc’s contributions have likely earned him a regular role on the Sharks for the balance of 2016-17.
- Chris Hine of the Chicago Tribune provides an update on the status of Jonathan Toews and Brent Seabrook. Toews has missed the past eight contests with a back problem while Seabrook missed his first game of the season with an upper-body-injury. Hawks bench boss Joel Quennville has already said that before returning to the lineup, both players will need to skate with the team. To this point, neither player has been able to do so, though Seabrook’s injury is a recent development. The injury to Toews has to be of great concern to the Blackhawks. There is no timetable for a return and back injuries can be problematic, leading to the possibility Chicago’s top pivot could be odd for a while yet.