Coming into the night the Admirals had a 9 game win streak, beating Hershey once during it. The Bears started off possessed, dominating the entire first period until the final two minutes when the Admirals seemed to right the ship. They finished the period down on shots 10-5 and 0/1 on the power play.

Shortly into the second period the Bears head to their first power play leading to Jaroslav Janus making a couple huge saves which would become the norm for him throughout the game. Ads kill it off and get their own chance, shortly into it Tyler Johnson sets up Cory Conacher for an awesome power play goal, it was Conachers 30th goal and 13th power play goal on the season putting him second in goals and tied for first with PPGs. After the goal the Admirals nose dive to the end of the period, getting out shot 6-2 in the closing minutes and still behind overall 19-11going 1/3 on the PP

Early on in the third Picard gets a breakaway but can't get it past Holtby. The teams exchange power plays and neither team capitalizes until the Hershey Bears head to their third man advantage and veteran Boyd Kane gets on the board for the Bears. A couple minutes later Admirals rookie Ondrej Palat gets on a quick break and puts another past Brandon Holtby. Before the goal the Bears had a player go on a breakaway out of the box and Janus came up with the single biggest save of the year for him.

Janus gets the first star of the game stopping 29 of 30. The streak is extended to 10 games with the Admirals playing the Springfield Falcons, former TB affiliate, Friday and Saturday. With the win the Ads are now number 1 on the entire league And have a 6 point lead on WBS Pens (71) and 10 point lead on Hershey (67). Kind of a side story is the rumors of Tampa leaving Norfolk at the end of the season, really have no info on that since I am not an official media person but I really really hope it does not happen, travel was a complaint but being #1 over all might change some minds.

Questions or comments always welcome.

Hello all,

My girlfriend and I will be driving from Jacksonville and attending our first Lightning game this Friday night against the Rangers. Since I have never attended a game before I just wanted to ask for any advice on things that we should do or check out while I'm there. Are there any pre or post game activities? Also, is there any chance of seeing a player and getting an autograph anywhere? Thanks in advance, Go Bolts!

The title says it, ask me some questions and I'll try my best to answer them. Any questions, prospects, veterans, how bad IS scope food. I won't be writing about the games this weekend since they are on the road and I wouldn't have an in person write up. If you have time this evening you can catch the game on 1021thegame.com and click listen live, should switch to Admirals stuff around 7.

Shawn Dulin

The Norfolk Admirals came out with something to prove last night, starting with a quick break from Mark Barberio and getting 4 shots in the first minute of the game. The hitting was there early like most back to back weekend games with Ondrej Palat taking most of them but sticking with the game plan and creating turnovers. PC Labrie had an awesome period with several goal scoring chances and Conacher had a real nice one but got interfered with no call. The best forward line in this period was Mike Angelidis, PC Labrie, and Ouellet. At 13:33 remaining the Admirals got their first PP of the night with the top line again being Corey Conacher, Tyler Johnson, Richard Panik, Mark Barberio and Matt Fornataro. After a scrum in front if the net where Conacher takes a punch to the face, he gets a cross checking penalty and the puncher got a roughing. The Ads only got 1 shot off on the PP, once it ended the Crunch stepped up pressure and kept it in their offensive zone for a little bit. Ads get another man advantage at 10:03 remaining with the top line getting time again. Kostka launches a hard shot but no one was in front of the goalie leading to an easy save. The Ads get two shots on the PP making it 10-3 so far, all 3 shots from the Crunch were outside the blue line but “on net”. Now for whatever reason Jeff Dimmen has some words with Jean-Francois Jacques and they drop the gloves for Dimmen’s 4th fights and JF Jacques 5th of the year. From where I sit it looks like Dimmen handled the bigger guy well and looked to cut him over his eye a little, but Dimmen heads to the locker room (returns later). Period continues with Conacher laying a big hit on Caputi. Norfolk gets another PP at 5:23 remaining with probably he best scoring chance of the night, puck gets thrown across the middle but Palat didn’t have stick on the ice to tip it in. The ads finish the period off a little sloppy and take a penalty and give up two shots. At the end of the period Norfolk leads the shots at 13-5 and 0/3 on the PP.

The second period starts off just as physical as the beginning of the game and there is Palat getting some more turnovers, and getting a quick wrister off but the goalie handles it easily. The Ads take a penalty at 16:39 remaining, Syracuse gets good movement but no shots, and at one stoppage Palmieri has some words with the hard hitting Gudas. On the ensuing faceoff Caputi messes with Conacher and Mike Angelidis trades places and he shuts up, doing what a Captain should do. At this point the best chances for awhile happen, Angelidis gets a wrap around and hits the post, goalie loses his stick, the Admirals continue with Gudas launching a shot and the goalie getting all of it. Play continues in their zone until their goalie desperately just takes off his mask, coach John Cooper was not happy, expressing it should have been a 2 minute delay of game penalty and it should of but the referee of course disagrees. Syracuse then after the illegal but not punished stoppage starts playing better, launches a shot that sits in the crease until an Ad swats it away with his glove. The hitting picks up with the tension growing and then Gudas lays a big hit and gets called for a boarding minor. The Crunch never got a shot but the Ads take another penalty giving them a 5-3 where they get some shots until Gudas goes on 2 on 2 break and remembers hes a defenseman on a 5 on 4 PK. Syracuse scores a PP goal on the tired killers, they had 4 shots on the PP. Admirals goto another PP and just pass the puck around the entire time, no real chances to shoot. The power play would end and the Admirals would take a penalty, and kill it well. The Crunch get a nice breakaway but Jaroslav Janus stands on his head with an awesome save. I haven’t mentioned him much but JJ had a very good game. The period ends with the Ads leading shots 19-16 and 0/4 on the PP.

Unfortunately I got back to my seat late at the start of the third and missed the Syracuse goal so I can’t really elaborate on it, but it put the Ads down 2-0 early in the third. The Ads pick up their fore check keeping the Crunch in their own zone for awhile and drawing a penalty. The power play didn’t get any real chances at all, but kept it in the offensive zone wearing the Crunch out, forcing them to ice it after the PP and take their time out. Following the time out the Admirals screen the goalie and Barberio launches a laser towards net and scores through all the bodies. The sell out crowd was ecstatic, loudest I have heard at this point. About 20 seconds after the goal Norfolk heads to another power play. Syracuse at this point looked exhausted, couldn’t clear the zone at all. Lots of good shots until Panik tips in a rebound that rolled behind the goalie, initiating a “Panik Attack”. The Norfolk Scope exploded in cheering and goal sirens, my ears literally rang. The Admirals had clearly taken over at this point and Syracuse started playing a trap hockey style, waiting for odd man rushes only. Labrie has a good shot with the Crunch running around, two players end up behind the goalie trying to block shots. Matt Smaby and Johnson both receive roughing penalties after the mass hysteria in the Crunch’s zone. The Admirals then gain a man advantage and go 4 on 3, taking their time passing but no real scoring chances. All the penalties run off and the teams return to even strength. JJ is on his head again on a quick 2 on 1 break after a collapse on defense with just under 3 minutes to go. At 1:55 the puck rolls behind JJ but no Crunch in area to tip in. Regulation ends with the teams tied at 2-2, Ads leading shots 35-20, outshot the crunch 19 to 4.

Going into the over time the fans that follow hockey regularly were aware that we had taken control of first place, jumping over the baby penguins in standings win or lose. The over time was pretty much all Syracuse, ringing one off the post until just under a minute. The Admirals shot low and hard, Crunch player laid down to block and the goalie was right there. The puck gets tipped into the net, it was never covered by goalie, but the referee had terrible positioning and blew the whistle and disallowed the OT winning goal. The sold out home crowd was not impressed. The OT ends with neither team trying after that point.

Syracuse would be starting off first in the shootout. Caputi would try 5 hole and be denied. Then Trevor Smith would try 5 hole on the crunch and be denied. Jacques of the crunch would go backhand glove side and scores on JJ. Conacher goes next for the Admirals, mishandles on the rough ice and shoots wide. Gordon tries 5 hole on JJ and gets stopped. Next up is Mike Kostka, 3rd star for the AHL the previous night, he dekes hard and back hands it high and scores making it 1-1 after 3 rounds, AHL goes 5 round instead of 3 like the NHL. . Palmieri comes in deking, faking, and gets stopped by JJ. Panik then comes in quick and Tarkii of the Crunch makes an easy save. Maroon of the Crunch dekes twice left and JJ comes up with a stop. Barberio throws a little move and Tarkii makes another save. After 5 rounds it becomes sudden death. Holland dekes left on JJ and scores. Johnson shoots from far out, high blocker side and scores to keep the Admirals in it! Holzapfel dekes a lot and Janus stops it and lays down on the puck. Dimmen tries a deke and gives an easy stop. O’marra of the Crunch comes in straight and easy glove save for JJ. Palat just dekes to the right and Tarkii makes another easy save. Carle has a good try, dekes across his body, pulls the puck to JJ’s left and JJ makes a pad save. Michel Ouellet is up next and he scores in the 9th round of the shoot out winning the game for the Admirals. At this time the Norfolk Scope erupts, everyone going crazy. The single loudest moment in the years I have been there.

The Admirals secure 1st in the division by 2 points over the Penguins and now ride a 6 game win streak. JJ had an awesome game even allowing those two goals and really brought it for the shootout. The Admirals are off till Friday when they play Binghamton, Hershey(sat), and Wilkes-barre(sun), a very BIG weekend for standings. This was the second sell out game in 3 weeks after not having one in about 5 years.

Questions or comments, don't be afraid.

Coming into the night the Norfolk Admirals were riding a 4 game winning streak including two wins over division leaders and outstanding goaltending. Tokarski has been getting into a groove as of late and Janus seems to be the number 2 as of now. Over the last couple games Tyler Johnson has stepped up his play on every front it seems, finding a permanent home on the top line of the PP and what I think is the top line of 4 on 5 PK. He saw a lot of time of both last night, combined 14 penalties between the teams. On the first PK of the night Johnson creates a 2-1 break with Mike Kostka along side, makes a nice pass leading to a SH goal for Kostka. The rest of the period continues on with no real flow, lots of stoppages and penalties. One thing to note was that Mark Barberio took a big hit and then took a penalty and skated off the ice looking at his wrist, he came back later and seemed to be fine. At the end of the first the shots were 6-4 Syracuse leading.

The Admirals come out in the second firing on all cylinders, getting 4 quick shots and looking like they want to take over the game. The game picks up some physicality until Kostka picks up a tripping penalty at 4:37 into the period. They fire from the blue line and Tic gets the initial save but couldn’t find the puck to cover, 1-1 on a power play goal by Holzapfel. Less than a minute later the Crunch pick up a penalty leading to a strong PP of the Ads, Labrie rings it off the post but the Crunch kill off the penalty. On the power plays they seemed to pick up the TB system of running four forwards and one defenseman. For most of the night it was Johnson, Panik, Conacher, Fornataro, and Barberio sometimes switching out Forny for Palat making it a full prospects, and mainly rookie, power play. Worked very well for the most part, would like to see this used a lot more. At 9:37 into the period Syracuse gets their second goal of the night on a nice screen of Tic, defenders didn’t clear out the front too well, easy rebound from initial shot was put in. After this the intensity picks up again, lots of hard fore checking and it leads to an Admirals PP, Nittymaki comes up with some great saves through the PP with the top line having the best chances, Ads now at 0/4 so far for the night on the man advantage. Caputi of the crunch interferes with Tic leading to the fifth power play of the night and a goal from Tyler Johnson High glove side on Nittymaki. Ads get another PP and Alexandre Picard goes high glove again after a quick pass making the Admirals 2/6 on the night. At the end of the second period the Admirals took the shot lead 19-13, outshooting the Crunch 15-7.

The third starts off with TJ creating a turnover and sending Palat and Panik on a quick chance and then Labrie and Conacher follow up on the next shift with another awesoe chance. At this point TJ started setting the pace and I really thought he was deserving a start but wiser minds disagreed. Conacher gets an even strength goal at 14:15 remaining in the third but its equaled by a Crunch goal 13 second later, Holzapfel’s second of the night. The game gets kinda stagnant for a couple minutes until the Admirals take a penalty. On the PK Kostka outlets to Angelidis for a short handed break away, he shoots high on Nittymaki and bounces over his shoulder for the second short handed goal of the night. SYR takes a penalty on their PP, goes 4 on 4 for a short time with up and down play. On the short Norfolk power play Smith gets a goal pushing the lead out to 6-3 and the PP goes up to 3/7. A minute later Dimmen sets up P.C. Labrie for the 7th goal of the night. Former Admirals coach Trent Yawney decided now was the time to change goalies. Admirals then turn the puck over and some poor defense leads to a Syracuse even strength goal. The Crunch get one final shot at the PP and come up empty being held to one shot. For the last bit of game it gets pretty wide open both teams going up and down often. The game ends with the Admirals winning 7-4 and free wings for everyone!

The Admirals went 3/8 on the PP and netted themselves two shorthanded goals. In the 3rd period they scored 3 goals within 4:30 minutes, on only 3 shots, and for what may be the first time in Admirals history they scored a short handed, power play, and even goal on those three shots. The three official starts were 3. Holzapfel(SYR) 2. Smith(NOR) 1. Kostka(NOR). My personal would have been 3. Holzapfel 2. Kostka 1. Johnson. In this game Conacher took possession of the goal scoring lead at 29 goals on the season and further cemented his rookie scoring lead, 60 points and second is 46. Tokarski is once again tied with Ben Bishop of the Peoria Rivermen for 23 wins on the season and is in the top 10 of goalie stats. The two teams meet up again tonight at 7:15.

If there are any questions please ask them, any criticism, please critique.

Sources: www.theAHL.com

Game Sheet: http://theahl.com/stats/official-game-report.php?game_id=1009396

I am gonna need some input from the community here before I starting writing up stories. Are ya'll interested in full game recaps or would you prefer a weekend wrap up after the Friday and Saturday games? I could also try and do a weekly wrap up of the prospects. Just let me know, I already have a game recap started for last nights and hope to have it wrote by noon and will post it up.

A common-held assumption is NHL teams that rely on a single scorer for the majority of their goals are not successful during the season in which their leading scorer provides the most scoring for the team. That's a particularly troubling assumption--if held to be true--for the Tampa Bay Lightning this season: Steven Stamkos, while leading the NHL with 37 goals (as of Thursday afternoon when I computed the stats herein) supplies nearly a quarter (24.18%, to be specific) of the goals scored by the Bolts this year. To explore the validity of this assumption, I explore goal-scoring statistics for the past five seasons (including the present season), and the results were surprising to me.

First, let me orient you to my tables. Each table is formatted identically. The Lightning's row in each table is blue with silver font. For every table except the one for 2011-2012, the eventual Stanley Cup winner is highlighted in Yellow. For the columns labelled "Goals," "Individual Goals," and "NHL Standing," the red outline shows the bottom three in each category, a green outline denotes the top three in each category. For example, thus far in 2011-2012, the three teams with the lowest scoring are the Wild, the Kings, and the Blue Jackets (121, 120, and 130 goals, respectively) and the Flyers, Red Wings, and Bruins have scored the most goals this season (181, 178, and 181 goals, respectively). On the column labelled "% of team goals scored," the percentage shown is the percent of team goals provided by the team's leading scorer in the third column. Red highlight with dark red text show the top three teams most reliant on their team's leading scorer, and the green box with dark green text represent the teams least reliant on their team's leading scorer. Lastly, all teams with a reliance on their leading scorer more than the league average is in bolded and italicized text. The charts below are arranged, from the left, current season, 2010-2011, 2009-2010, 2008-2009, and 2007-2008.

To be honest, I fully expected the teams that relied most on their individual goal leader to do the worst in the regular season. The tables I've compiled do not paint that picture at all. Over the past five seasons, there is little to be drawn from the relative reliance of a team on its leading scorer as to the team's regular-season success, or lack of it. From the 2007-2008 season through and including the current season, the 3 most reliant teams on their leading scorer (those teams, remember, that are shown with red boxes with dark red text) average finishing in the league between 14th and 15th place (14.6 on average), with the best regular season finish as #1 in the league (2010-2011 Vancouver Canucks) and the worst finish being #28 in the league (2007-2008 Atlanta Thrashers). Similarly, a team relying less on their particular goal-scoring leader can't expect to necessarily finish at the top of the league. For the same time period (2007-2008 through now), the three teams least reliant on their leading scorer averaged a *lower* finish in the regular season than those that were most reliant (average finish of 16.6)--the best position in the standings being this season's Boston Bruins (5th place overall), and the worst finish being the 2008-2009 New York Islanders, who relied on Kyle Okposo for only 9.09% of their season goals, but finished dead last in the league nevertheless.

So, if we can't draw any solid conclusions between reliance on individual scorers and team placement in the regular season, what about team goal scoring compared with the individual scoring? There's not a significant difference there, either. Over the five-year period in this study, the three most reliant teams on their team scoring leader averaged scoring 216.8 goals per season (high of 268 goals in 2008-2009 by the Washington Capitals, and low of 130 goals this season by the Islanders). By contrast, the three least reliant teams scored on average almost 10 goals more per season (226.7--high of 242 goals in 2008-2009 by the Montreal Canadiens, and a full-season low of 189). That 10-goal difference may not seem significant at the outset, but consider the goal difference between the playoff teams last year--if the Bolts had scored 10 goals fewer through the course of last season, they would have matched the goal total for the Carolina Hurricanes, who as we all remember didn't play hockey past the second week in April.

Let's now look at the reliance in the past five seasons of the winners of the Stanley Cup (including the #1 team in the league this season). Through the period of this analysis, the team that went on to win the Stanley Cup relied on their leading scorer for 12.2% of their team goals (from a high of 17.06% by Zetterberg and Detroit in 2007-2008, to a low of 6.15% by Lucic and Boston last year). Comparitively speaking, the league-wide team reliance percentages range between 16.04% (2007-2008) to 14.39% (2009-2010).

The surprise conclusion to the look at five years of scoring leaders and team reliance on those scoring leaders is any correlation is neither solid nor absolute. While team reliance on an individual scorer seems to point to a lower number of overall goals scored for the team, that difference (less than 10 goals over an 82-game season, or a mere 4%) is small and potentially insignificant.

It started innocently enough, but eight years later I'm still doing this blogging thing. That's a testament in itself as bloggers tend to last only so long; giving in to burnout, giving up on their hobby, or finding something better to do.

But really, eight years later.... Thank you to those who have read my work, those who continue to read my work, and those who have sworn off my work as utter drivel (you know who you are, and I'm thankful I don't know who you are).

Special thanks to long time associates Eric McErlain, James Mirtle, Mike Chen, Jes Golbez; the bossman at SB Nation, Tyler Bleszinski; Cassie McClellan, Meredith Qualls, Nolan Whyte, the rest of the Raw Charge crew (Clark, Matt, Dani, Clare, Tina), and too many bloggers to note (those on SB Nation and elsewhere).

At any rate, I decided to throw together some numbers to compliment that span of time since I opened up shop (on Boltsmag.com) on February 10th, 2004.

Eight Year numbers:

Tampa Bay Lightning record: 267-238-70 with 1 tie
Number of Stanley Cup Championships: 1
Number of Head Coaches: 4
Number of General Managers: 3
Number of ownership groups: 3
Number of different uniform/logo designs: 3
Number of different roster players since Feb 10, 2004: 146
Number of players from the 2004 roster who remain: 3*

*Pavel Kubina left and came back

Those are hockey stats, it'd be interesting to have blogging stats, now wouldn't it? I must apologize because I can't easily find every time I've been mentioned on Puck Daddy, accurate visitor numbers for Raw Charge/Boltsmag combined, and exact number of stories I've written in that time (approximately 2230 - or 279 a season).

(Editor's note: Promoted from the FanPosts)

As teams in the NHL begin serious pushes and posturing for playoff spots or tee times at their nearest golf course, focus begins to shift to the annual NHL Entry Draft. Recently, NHL Central Scouting released an updated ranking of the players eligible for this year’s draft, and three draft experts from NHL.com posted their mock draft results.

About the only players who are guaranteed to not be available at the Lightning’s current position are the top two players heading into this year’s draft, Nail Yakupov (RW, Sarnia [OHL]) and Ryan Murray (D, Everett [WHL]).

This short article is caveated with the understanding the draft position of the Lightning could change drastically up or down from their current position (#7).

Continue reading this post »

In this, the third installment of "Do They Hate Us?" I’ll update the statistics for the Lightning this season through the end of January. If you’ve not read them before, please take a moment or two (or 10 minutes if your read as slowly as I). You can find the first edition here, and a deeper look (as well as a look at the penalty statistics through the end of December 2011) here. As I started the last edition of "Do They Hate Us?" I will start this edition.

To re-orient you to the terms and statistics I used in this edition of the DTHU. First and foremost, this issue and continuing topic makes generous use of Power Play Opportunity (PPOP) statistics. For PPOP, only time in which one team is at least one man up counts as PPOP. To make the point more clearly, there is a notable difference between PPOP and the number of times a team’s opposition is penalized. The difference between the two is the number of matching penalties (either of the minor or major variety) and misconduct penalties (because they do not cause a Power Play in and of themselves).

Also worth noting is the difference in tallying a double-minor penalty. The NHL scores a double-minor penalty as two PPOP, but only one penalty against the offending team. An example of this is the Lightning's game versus the San Jose Sharks earlier this year. In the 3rd period, Michal Handzus received a double-minor for high-sticking--giving the Lightning two PPOP and giving the Sharks one penalty tally. Additionally, PPOP is counted for even the smallest amount of man advantage (i.e. 3 second 5-on-4 advantage counts as a single PPOP).

As always, numbers below zero (-3, for example) are in the Lightning’s opponents’ favor, whereas positive numbers are in the Bolts’ favor.

First, let’s look at the penalty statistics through the month of December (the table above). Red blocks denote season lows, and green blocks denote season highs in the respective categories. After finishing November with a penalty differential of -20, the Lighting continued their previous pace of taking penalties at a greater rate than their opponents on any given night, reaching season lows in game penalty differential (15th January versus the Penguins) and season penalty differential (21st January versus the Coyotes). Shifting over to the PPOP columns, we can see the PPOP differential consistently in the opponents’ favor (PPOP differential less than 0), the exceptions being the 5th, 12th, 13th, 17th, and 24th of January. The brightest spot so far this season was the game against the Blue Jackets on the 24th of January, where the Bolts had the advantage of +2 in PPOP differential over the team from Columbus. However, that was barely noticeable in the context of the whole season’s PPOP differential, where the Bolts hit their season low twice (-28, on 21st and 31st of January).

So, if we look at the season thus far (in the graph below), we find clearly the Lightning had a bad stretch from mid- to late-October, and second bad stretch that has lasted from Thanksgiving through the current stretch of games. Also included in the graph below is an orange trendline. It has, if ever-so-slightly, a positive slope—meaning brighter days should be ahead—but not much brighter.

Turning our attention to the league-wide penalty statistics, the table below shows each team and where that team ranks in the league from most penalized to least. The column to the extreme right of the table shows the increase in total penalties for each team. On the bottom of the chart, I’ve calculated the league average number of penalties (just under 226.5) and total penalties. On the right hand column, I’ve also calculated the average increase per team in penalties from the end of December (the last DTHU? Article)—just over 47 penalties. Also on the right column are red and green highlighted boxes—denoting the 5 most penalized teams in the month of January (red boxes) and the 5 least penalized teams in the month of January (green boxes). While the Lightning don’t fit into either category, they are the 7th most penalized team in the NHL in the month of January—a fact that will not improve the number of PPOP for the Bolts.

Let’s turn now to how the Lightning’s penalties compare with the team’s opponents thus far this season. The table below shows the opponent, number of games played against that particular opponent, and breaks down penalties and PPOP and the team differential of each of those categories. The last column averages those differences out over the span of all the games played this season between the Bolts and each particular team. On that column, the team with which the Bolts have the worst PPOP differential is highlighted in red (the Panthers) and the team against whom the Lightning enjoy the biggest PPOP advantage is in green (the Jets). In many ways the troubles for the Lightning at the beginning of the year is the story behind the differential with the Panthers. In particular, the home and home series in early October did the Lightning no favors—and those effects statistically are noticeable even this late in the season.

In summary, this season for penalties has in many ways mirrored the play of Our Team—started off on a bad note, improved slightly, and regressed for the last two months of 2011. The second half of the season hasn’t started off particularly well, either—though the team managed to have a 4-game winning streak to end the month. However, that 4-game streak wasn’t matching in PPOP or penalty differential. At this point, the evidence for a penalty or PPOP turnaround is fleeting, but if the Lightning manage to turn around their PPOP and penalty numbers, it could very well signal a turnaround in the team’s overall play.