Around the National Hockey League By Caden Balint (Debut Article)
Some major things that have been happening around the NHL has been injurys. While Tampa Bay Lightning superstar Steven Stamkos has still almost 2-3 months left because of his injury that had happened to him back in November, the Lighting has had to juggle out players, like Cory Conacher from the AHL. Not only does it come down to the AHL rookies having make some big roles, it also comes onto the players in the organization right now, like Nikita Kucherov and Jonathan Drouin. It will come to these guys to step up in scoring and in leadership for the younger rookies who are coming in and out of the lineup. That is not the only big injury for the NHL. Mika Zibanejad suffered a broken fibula in the Rangers game against the Panthers on November 20, 2016. From that injury he was expected to miss 6-8 weeks from that point on. With this happening to Zibanejad the Rangers were forced to juggle their lines as well bringing up centerman Kevin Hayes to the 2nd line. This also shows the Rangers small concern in picking up Matt Puempel off of waivers from Ottawa. With the Rangers losing the 23 year old forward for some time can ask some difficult questions for New York, but will they be able to answer them. Now onto the last major injury. Alex Galchenyuk of the Montreal Canadiens, he suffered a injury against the Los Angeles Kings. This was announced December 6th. Galchenyuk led the Canadiens in points and goals coming into their game when Galchenyuk was injured. With this injury to Galchenyuk, it will raise questions for the Canadiens roster. With losing their top goal scorer and point getter, who will step up for Montreal now? Will it be their captain Max Pacioretty, Alexander Radulov, superstar defender Shea Weber. We will have to find out as the season rolls on.
Why aren’t some teams winning? Here are some goalie woes around the NHL. We will start with New York. Henrik Lundqvist has been the Rangers starter for 5 years and for the past 4 games the Rangers backup, Antti Raanta, has started 4 straight games, winning 3 out of the 4, and getting shutouts in 2. What will the Rangers do now, will they continue to work The King, or will he be dethroned by Raanta. Next onto Calgary, over the summer Calgary signed St. Louis Blues starter Brian Elliott, to be a common starter for the Flames. Then out of nowhere comes Chad Johnson. He started the past 5 for the Flames, winning 4 out of the 5. The Flames brought in Elliot to be a starter and now Chad Johnson has taken his spot as starter. Now onto the Tampa Bay. Ben Bishop and Andrei Vasilevsky. Vasilevsky and Bishop have been trading games recently. So coming to the expansion draft, what goalie will Tampa protect Bishop or will he go in the draft.
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By Caiden Balint
