Northeast Division Update - March 2nd, 2012

Place/Team	Games Played	WINS	LOSSES	OTL	Points	ROW	GF	GA	DIFF	HOME	AWAY	S/O	L10	Streak
1. Boston Bruins	62	38	21	3	79	31	204	143	+61	19-11-2	19-10-1	7-2	5-4-1	WON 1
2. Ottawa Senators	66	34	24	8	76	29	200	194	+6	17-13-3	17-11-5	5-2	7-2-1	LOST 1
3. Buffalo Sabres	64	29	27	8	66	23	157	180	-23	16-11-7	13-16-1	6-4	5-3-2	WON 2
4. Toronto Maple Leafs	64	29	28	7	65	26	191	200	-9	16-12-5	13-16-2	3-3	1-8-1	LOST 4
5. Montreal Canadiens	65	25	30	10	60	21	169	181	-12	12-14-8	13-16-2	4-8	3-6-1	WON 1

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Toronto Continues To Slide
The Maple Leafs have had troubles down the stretch and are slipping away from a playoff spot. They have just one win in their last ten games, going 1-8-1. They are currently 5 points behind Winnipeg for 8th in the East and if they can't put a win streak together, they will miss the playoffs again, making it every year since the lockout.

And Breaking News...
Ron Wilson has been fired by the Leafs as the team has been on that slide lately. He has been replaced by Randy Carlyle, and it is not on an interim basis. Carlyle was the coach of the Anaheim Ducks when Brian Burke was there and they won the Cup together. Look for more in-depth analysis in an upcoming post.


"Fine, YOU do better"

Face-off Gurus
The Northeast is home to arguably the top two face-off men in the NHL. Jason Spezza (752) and Patrice Bergeron (726) are 1-2 in terms of draws won, not percentage, but the actual amount of wins. Tomas Plekanec is just outside the top 5, sitting in sixth with 655 wins.

Shutout Surprise
The Boston Bruins, second in the NHL in goals for per game, sputtered in February. Five times  the Bruins  were shutout, most recently by Robin Lehner and the Ottawa Senators in a crucial game. Though, after they have been shutout they bounce back, winning their next game 4 of 5 times.

Goalie Gaffes 
James Reimer and Jonas Gustavsson seem to have a competition to see who can perform the worst. Both goalies have had chances to grab the starting role all for themselves and both have thrown the job back up into the air. Brian Burke also recently called them out and said he's looking for a goalie on the market. Burke made no moves for a goalie at the deadline so the Leafs are hoping on of them step up.

Bruised Blueliner
Josh Gorges is certainly not the picture of an offensive-defenseman that will lead your powerplay. Montreal has a guy for that, but Gorges fulfills a much less glamourous role and is doing it exceptionally well. He leads all players in the NHL in blocked shots with 183. That's 31 more than the second place players, Ryan McDonagh and Mark Stuart, who both have 152 blocked shots on the season. If the offensive players for the Habs could do their jobs as well as Gorges does his, they might be in the playoffs.


Gorges gets down to block this to bail out Carey Price. Something he's done 183 times this season.

Darcy's Day
Darcy Regier was the busiest of the Northeast GM's on deadline day. Trading away Paul Gaustad and a 4th rounder to the Nashville Predators for a 1st round pick and pulling off the biggest deal of the day with Vancouver that involved Zack Kassian and Cody Hodgson. For more on these trades and other trades of deadline day check out the articles our team has written

Leafs Make A Blockbuster... Well Not Really
Toronto was fairly quiet on the trade deadline making only two minor league deals, sending away Keith Aulie and Mark Fraser and acquiring Dale Mitchell and Carter Ashton. Not the huge moves many Leafs fans wanted but, Burke didn't want to mess with the chemistry of his team.

Habs Start Trade Deadline Off
Montreal made the first trade of February 27th, dealing Andrei Kostitsyn to Nashville for a 2nd and 5th round pick. That was all from the Habs before the deadline, after much speculation that they could be big sellers Pierre Gauthier decided to stay fairly quiet.

Bruins Add Depth
The Boston Bruins added some more veteran pieces to their team hoping for a deep playoff run. They acquired Brian Rolston, Mike Mottau and Greg Zanon giving up three minor league players in those two trades combined. They are hoping that these players can add some key depth to their lineup.

Ottawa Makes A Couple Of Deals
The Senators made just one deal on deadline deal swapping Brian Lee for Matt Gilroy with Tampa. The day before the deadline they made a deal with St. Louis for G Ben Bishop for a second round pick, adding even more depth to their goaltending position.


Ottawa also gets sick flow from Gilroy.

Cooking Catastrophe
Ottawa's Craig Anderson has been out for a week and it is unknown when he will be back after he cut his finger while preparing food at his home. Let's hope it wasn't pancakes.

Rivalry Renewed
The Maple Leafs and Canadiens will battle it out on Saturday night. Montreal is 2-1-1 against Toronto this season while the Leafs will be beginning a new era with their new coach, Randy Carlyle.

Setoguchi's Slip
In the Wild vs Canadiens game on Thursday, the Wild stormed back and tied the game with 10 seconds remaining on a goal by Devon Setoguchi. Then he had a chance to extend the shootout and...

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Players To Watch
- David Krejci. He notched a hat trick in Boston's last game against New Jersey and he also went 60% on his faceoffs in the game. Look for him to built off that momentum.
- Another David in David Desharnais. He's got 6 points in his last 3 games passing Max Pacioretty for the team lead in points.
- Dion Phaneuf. He's got 4 points in his last two games including a three point night in a loss to Florida on Tuesday. 3 of those points were recorded on the power play. And now that Wilson has been fired, his leadership will be even more important.
- Jason Spezza. He continues to be hot, getting an assist in the game against Boston which extended his point streak to 10 games.
- Cody Hodgson. After coming over in the biggest deal on deadline day, look for Hodgson to make a big impact with Buffalo.