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Jett Woo is traded in the WHL, Mikey DiPietro injured in OHL Final |
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Off the top today, my apologies to the New York Islanders.
After my first choice to win the Stanley Cup, Tampa Bay, was swept in the first round, I moved over to the Isles in my second-chance bracket—and now they've been swept, too.
I'm pretty sure NHL.com won't give me yet another opportunity to embarrass myself, luckily for the teams that will advance to the conference finals.
For the rest of this round, I picked Columbus, Colorado and Dallas—all still very much alive for the time being.
With their series both tied 2-2, the Blue Jackets and Avs are both on the road on Saturday, looking to take a series lead in hostile territory. Columbus dropped a 4-1 decision to Boston at home in Game 4, while Colorado shut out San Jose 3-0.
On Sunday, the Stars will get the opportunity to become the second team to advance if they can close out the Blues on the road. Dallas seems to have picked up some momentum in that series, with wins in its last two games, but every game has been tight.
For me, the most amazing detail in that series is that Tyler Seguin is out-duelling Ryan O'Reilly in the faceoff circle. O'Reilly is one of the best in the league in that department—a Selke finalist this year with a 55.3 percent success rate in the circle over his career and 56.9 this year with the Blues.
Seguin is better known for his offensive abilities, but his faceoff skills have improved significantly during his six years in Dallas. He's 52.5 percent during his time with the Stars and was 53.9 percent during the regular season this year.
As is typical for him, nobody has taken more faceoffs during the playoffs so far this year than O'Reilly, whose 303 draws are 43 more than second-place Jordan Staal of Carolina. Seguin's fifth at 199, behind Tomas Hertl of San Jose (256) and Patrice Bergeron of Boston (246).
Among players with more than 100 draws taken in this postseason, Bergeron's in a class of his own with a ridiculous success rate of 63.8 percent. Casey Cizikas of the Islanders is second at 56 percent, followed by Ryan Johansen of Nashville and Paul Stastny of Vegas, then Seguin in fifth spot at 54.8 percent. O'Reilly's way down in 18th, at just 48.8 percent.
In this round, the numbers skew even more dramatically. Seguin has taken 97 draws and won 60.8 of them; O'Reilly has taken 144 and won just 43.8 percent.
Offensively, Seguin and O'Reilly each have four points in this round, where Dallas has 15 total goals and St. Louis has 12. For a team that often gets tagged as having just one line, the Stars have been led offensively by trade deadline acquisition Mats Zuccarello, who has six assists in the series so far, and rookie Roope Hintz, who has three goals on nine shots as well as two assists.
Hintz is just one of the young Finns who have been on fire in the second round. See also Carolina's Teuvo Teravainen (6 points) and Sebastian Aho (5 points) and Colorado's Mikko Rantanan, who has four points in this round and is currently tied for the overall lead in playoff scoring with his teammate Nathan MacKinnon, with 13 points in nine games so far.
No afternoon games on Saturday due to the Kentucky Derby. The Blue Jackets and Bruins will get us started at 4 p.m. PT.
Up next—a couple of junior hockey notes.
First, congratulations to Mikey DiPietro and his Ottawa 67's for kicking off their OHL Final series with a 7-2 win over Guelph on Thursday.
UPDATED: With the Ottawa 67's just three games away from clinching the OHL championship, Canucks' goaltending prospect Mikey DiPietro left Saturday's Game 2 against Guelph with an apparent leg injury.
As I type this, Ottawa has rallied in the second period in front of backup Cedrick Andree to take a 4-2 lead after 40 minutes.
So far, this is the only news on the severity of DiPietro's injury:
Another junior hockey note: on Thursday, Canucks' defense prospect Jett Woo was traded from the Moose Jaw Warriors to the Calgary Hitmen.
It's a good situation for Woo, who moves from a Warriors team that will be rebuilding next year to a deeper Hitmen team that's expected to be a strong contender.
The Canucks have signed Woo to his entry-level contract but because he only turns 19 in July, he'll return to junior next season unless he has an absolutely phenomenal training camp and sticks at the NHL level. After being cut from Team Canada's World Junior squad last season, Woo should also get another serious crack at representing his country this Christmas in the Czech Republic.
You may recall, we'd hoped to see Woo get a little bit of AHL action this season, but that plan was derailed by a knee injury.
And to close today—offer sheet compensation levels have now been officially announced for next season:
Normally, this is just an exercise in speculation, but there's a real buzz that we may see some offer sheet attempts around the NHL this offseason, with so many quality RFAs looking for new deals on teams that are tight to the salary cap.
Two reminders before you start drawing up your dream scenarios: a team must have all its own draft picks available when tendering an offer sheet—and the player must accept the offer. He won't look at anything that he doesn't see as a perfect fit.
Could the Canucks be in the mix? They have the picks and the cap space—and if Milan Lucic's words are any indication, they might be starting to be seen as a desirable destination, with an opportunity available to suit up alongside Vancouver's young core.
Should be a very interesting summer!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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