Posts Tagged Jonathan Tavares

Datsyuk Returns, Tavares Shootout Glory and Frolov to be Traded?

Pavel Datsyuk will join Henrik Zetterberg and the Red Wings tonight

Pavel Datsyuk will join Henrik Zetterberg and the Red Wings tonight

The Detroit Free Press has been reporting the Pavel Datsyuk will be returning to the lineup tonight in Phoenix. It looks as though Pav will be playing alongside a couple familiar faces, Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom. Re-uniting this line should be great for fantasy owners who carry any of these players on their squad. When together, Homer and the Eurotwins have been known to put up prolific numbers. Detroit could use some of that scoring tonight against a Phoenix team that has been great to start the season and carries a strong netminder in Ilya Bryzgalov.

Jonathan Tavares didn’t really have an outstanding game against the Islanders last night, but came up big when it counted. Tavares’ goal in the shootout gave the New York Islanders their first win of the season. His goal was a pretty one too. Check out the video of the entire shootout.

It looks like Alexander Frolov will soon be on his way out of Los Angeles. According to a great article on BleacherReport, Kings coach Terry Murray has had 10 meetings with Frolov regarding his poor play this season. The rest of the article details a few potential destinations for Frolov if the Kings trade the winger. Fantasy owners keep an eye out, if Frolov gets dealt, he might be able to regain his scoring touch playing on a better line.

Saturday, October 24th, will mark the second time this season that all 30 NHL teams play. The first “Face-Off Saturday” as it has been called, took place on October 3rd. I’m a little disappointed, however, that the earliest game starts at 7pm. A couple afternoon games would have made this Face-Off Saturday much more delightful. Either way, we will be on Twitter Saturday night doing some live tweeting of whatever games we choose to watch. Follow along if you can, it will be a great night.

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New York Islanders

Jonathan Tavares

Jonathan Tavares

With the number one pick in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, the New York Islanders selected Jonathan Tavares of the London Knights. The young stud, who will turn 19 on September 20th, was nothing short of a goal scoring phenom in the OHL. This will certainly prove to be helpful for a team which ranked next to last in goals last season.

As we know, however, scoring goals isn’t everything in the NHL. A solid goaltender will help any team improve. Since starting goalie Rick DiPietro continues to fight through injuries, the Islanders spent some money this off-season on a couple solid netminders to hopefully help turn things around.  They initially signed Dwayne Roloson and less than a month later picked up Martin Biron as well, so expect a battle all season long for the number one goalie spot.

While the scoring and goaltending have certainly taken a step in the right direction, the Islanders still have a ways to go on defense. Number one defenseman Mark Streit will be a great help again this season along the blueline, especially on the power-play, but he lacks the support necessary to make a solid defensive corps.

The Islanders are continuing to rebuild around young stars like Tavares and Kyle Okposo, along with some veteran leadership in Doug Weight, but don’t expect them to turn things around overnight. While there will definitely be some improvement in 2009-10, I don’t see them climbing out of a last place finish in the Atlantic Division.

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