Mika Zibanejad’s Injury
There is still a lot of season remaining but through a quarter of the year, the New York Rangers have been much better than anyone anticipated.
Led by a high-powered offense, they currently sit atop a strong Metropolitan Division with an impressive 14-5-1 record. They have scored a league-leading 81 goals, own a league-best plus-34 goal differential and have used their team speed to skate teams into the ground on many nights.
Unfortunately for the Rangers, they just received their first gut punch of the season with center Mika Zibanejad set to miss six-to-eight weeks due to a leg injury.
The Rangers are as well equipped as anyone to deal with a key injury up front, but Zibanejad will still be a noticeable loss given how well he was playing.
In 19 games Zibanejad registered five goals, 15 points and 47 shots on goal. What’s most impressive is how efficient he has been during five-on-five play. Zibanejad averaged 2.41 points per 60 minutes played, which puts him 24th among 212 forwards who have played at least 200 minutes in that game state.
On top of the point production, Zibanejad has done a great job of driving play. During five-on-five play the Rangers have controlled 52.44% of the shot attempts (3rd on the team among regulars) and 56.22% of the scoring chances (again, 3rd on the team).
Many players on the Rangers have had strong starts to the season, but Zibanejad was at or near the top of the list. The ship won’t sink without him but the Rangers will definitely lose some wind out their sails.
A Calgary Flames Line that is keeping their season afloat …
Not much has gone right for the Calgary Flames this season.
They started the season much slower than expected, Johnny Gaudreau suffered a long-term injury right as he started heating up, Sean Monahan has struggled mightily and Brian Elliott hasn’t found his game yet. The list doesn’t end there, either.
Luckily the Flames have had one good thing going their way and it has kept their season afloat: the play of the Matthew Tkachuk – Mikael Backlund – Michael Frolik line.
Those who don’t follow the Flames closely probably wouldn’t expect that to be the best line on the team, but to this point it has been one of the best in hockey. And that’s not a stretch.
To this point, they have played 127 minutes together. With that unit on the ice at 5 v 5 the Flames are controlling 57.44% of the shot attempts and 62.16% of the scoring chances.
Without that trio on the ice, those numbers dip significantly. The Flames control ~48% of the shot attempts and ~41% of the scoring chances, a far cry from what they’re able to accomplish with Tkachuk, Backlund, and Frolik patrolling the ice.
Among 34 line combinations with 90+ minutes together at full-strength, that unit ranks 6th in shot attempts for% and 8th in scoring chance for%.
They have been consistently good on both sides of the ice and are pretty much the sole reason the Flames don’t sit at the bottom of the league right now. Their stars aren’t playing like stars, but luckily for them, their second tier of players, at least in terms of name value, are playing at an elite level.
Written by Todd Cordell (@ToddCordell)
