SB Nation - Steve MacIntyre

Weiss, Vokoun lead Panthers to physical victory on road, smack Flyers 4-1

Whale4ever — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:41:33 -0000

about 23 hours ago: Philadelphia Flyers' Daniel Carcillo (13) is sent flying after being checked by Florida Panthers' Jason Garrison (52) and Mike Duco (68) during the first period of an NHL hockey game, Monday, Dec. 21, 2009, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

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Points aplenty by the end of this one: Stephen Weiss (career-high 4 points), Michael Frolik (3), and Nathan Horton (2 goals) led the Florida offense over a confused and mentally battered Flyers club which displayed neither a semblance of confidence nor a peek at the realistic talent which is being paid top dollar.

Yes, the game got physical, as ~~hoped for~~ expected: Gregory Campbell and Ian Laperriere with fighting majors just 1:48 in, captains Bryan McCabe and Mike Richards at 3:42, and Mike Duco taking on a rather spry Laperriere at 13:26. Of the first period.

It settled down, however, as both teams gained - or lost - their legs in front of 19,323 paying patrons: a two-goal Florida lead going into the third frame was expanded upon (rather quickly) as the Cats banged in another duo within the opening six minutes.

Bottom Line: Panthers kept cool, resilient, and open to adjustment (rumors say that's what winning teams do) on a strange, bizarre evening. So much was expected: defending the honor of ~~Charlestown~~ Sunrise is never a short order, but this bunch made it look good (Laperriere's 30 minutes in penalties didn't hurt, yet keep in mind Dennis Seidenberg burned 17 of his own on a terrific night with 22:08, 1 assist, and a +1). Coach Pete DeBoer - again - kept his troops on-topic during what might have degenerated into bedlam with the entire league watching. Left Wachovia with the win, a healthy roster, and heretofore unbeknownst confidence...a combination hardly believable just days ago.

For the curious: Steve MacIntyre, understandably expected to log a healthy block of time, clocked 2 minutes on the ice (1 shot). Mike Duco got the lion's share of attention, logging 6:29 (5 pim) while garnering a boatload of money shots via Fox Sports Florida. Bryan Allen was a sparkplug as well (4 pim, 3 shots, 20:12 TOI).

Notes: Florida scored three power play goals. Philadelphia netminder Brian Boucher (hand injury) was yanked after allowing two goals on 13 shots; recent Carolina castoff Michael Leighton replaced him, stopping 15 of 17. Final SOG: PHI over FLA 31-30. McCabe, Allen, Seidenberg, and Duco all had at least 4 pim for the Cats, while Laperierre, Mike Richards ('member him?), and Danny Briere did the same for the Flyers.

Next up: Rangers on Wednesday.

Monday Caterwaul - Panthers Open Forum - "We Didn't Forget" Edition

Whale4ever — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:00:26 -0000

"I don't know if we're just going to run around and try to fight everybody we see,"

- Defenseman Keith Ballard, presumably joking, via the Sun-Sentinel

So, what's the topic of discussion for today? Weather sure is delightful...

Poll

A bloodbath tonight?

Oilers @ Panthers, 12/5/09 - Steve MacIntyre Reunion Tour

Derek Zona — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:30:12 -0000

via www.sportslogos.net

SBNation's Oilers vs Panthers game page

Litter Box Cats

Litter Box Cats talked with Dmitry Kulikov last week. Kulikov was my guy in this summer's draft and he looked good in preseason, but he's in over his head thus far. He's been the weakest of Florida's rearguard, and there is a chance that starting the clock early on him was a mistake. How much of that was attributable to losing Bouwmeester?

The Panthers rolled out a third jersey this year, it looks like a cross between the Maine Black Bears and the Springfield Falcons. They missed an opportunity here. They're from the Sunshine State, they should gone with a yellow jersey. There's not enough yellow in the NHL anymore.

Keith Ballard is on a mission: terminate goalies with prejudice.

Ex-Oiler Steve MacIntyre was claimed by the Panthers on waivers, going back to the team that he came up with.

Mike Richards is a dirty, dirty player. He should still be under suspension.

Florida Panthers Injuries

Out (IR / Out / Suspended / Physically unvailable)

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Nick Tarnasky	other-excused	09/26/2009
Cory Stillman	knee	11/21/2009
David Booth	concussion	10/25/2009

Capitals destroy Panthers 6-2; does it matter?

Whale4ever — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:35:46 -0000

More photos » by Alex Brandon - AP

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As an ardent Cats fan and dedicated blogger who covers the Panthers, a recap of Thursday's embarrassment in Washington would prove to be a pointless exercise. No offense to the Capitals, who played a masterful game in all zones; it's simply time I vented.

So for that reason (and about a dozen others) I'll let loose what's on my mind.

We'll get the positives out of the way first: I firmly believe - and will defend to the end - that every member of the Florida Panthers cares.

All of them has a burning desire to win. Each will go to war for the other, and do everything within their power to be victorious; against all odds and deficits, to bring two points to his club in the standings and carry this team to a place it hasn't tasted since before many of their fans were able to walk independently: the postseason. We've all seen the heart and soul each of them bring to the table every game. The new ownership appears to be solidly behind the hockey operation - at least in words at this early stage - which was highly questionable during the latter portion of Alan Cohen's regime. Coach Peter DeBoer is a winner, just not yet at this level. General manager Randy Sexton has presumably done all he's been allowed to do.

I've spoken, emailed, and IM'd with many employees of the organization. They'd stop just short of giving their first (and in some cases second) child if it would help the club win. Dedicated to a fault; even those who were thrown to the ground by previous regimes. And there are more than a few.

This team has a lot of fans within - and so many more just outside the large bay windows ringing the BAC.

On the negative side: this team sucks. As currently constituted, they cannot compete in this league, much less their own division. Speaking of the Southeast, here's their record: 1-6 against the division, the lone win coming against a reeling Carolina club. This is no way to blaze a glorious trail to, well, anything even approaching prosperity. Got to be better news within the stats, right? Attend: through Wednesday's games (and it's worse now), Florida was 24th in wins, 5th in losses, 21st in goals scored per game, 27th in goals allowed, and it snowballs from there.

They can't hold a lead...in any period. Power plays should be declined, as has been suggested time and again. They ended a five-game winless streak Wednesday by blowing four two-goal leads and getting lucky - yeah, I said it - in the shootout after Stephen Weiss won it in the fifth round. Fifth round. He scored a natural hattrick in regulation and was shelved until the fifth round. What is that??? Which blackboard was DeBoer reading from?

Far too many nights they spot the opposition a freebie lead, which typically ends up being too high a mountain to overcome. Leaving out the anomaly that was the 3 for 3 performance against Colorado (get the impression the Avs' collective brain just wasn't in it?), the Cats can't buy a special teams goal. They did against Washington on Thursday, in the form of a shortie, but along with 75-cent seats, the Panthers are quite generous.

What about individuals? "Cats aren't tough enough!" we screamed, leading to the re-acquisition of hard-hitting forward Steve MacIntyre. Got his claws on Donald Brashear and Colton Orr, but following that quick spell, he was reassigned to Rochester. Smells a lot like quickie fan-favorite Wade Belak. We're all aware DeBoer does not prefer giving a roster spot to 3-4 minute guys who won't contribute in any other way, but the Cats have been pounded otherwise. Think Weiss or Steven Reinprecht is gonna go with some of the monsters employed around the East? And what of Mike Duco, just called up from the "A", getting a billion penalty minutes against the Caps (at a point which ultimately didn't matter on the scoreboard)...wanna bet he's on a one-way Greyhound back to rural New York?

Lost in all the recently announced partnerships - imagine an empannage embedded anywhere but at BankAtlantic Center - is the hockey team. Dreams of shopping, dancing, dining, and who-knows-what-else have overshadowed the presence of the item that made all of the dreaming possible.

Florida's hockey fans deserve far better than what they've been handed. We continue to tune in, show up, buy the goods, shout across the web, tell our friends, recruit coworkers, blog till we're blue, and endlessly accept the manure that's been strewn our way. And there's been a lot of it.

Why? Because we're hockey fans. Slavishly loyal and fiercely proprietary over "our" team, we're no different than any other group of followers in the NHL. Treat us as such. The players deserve it, the employees of the club deserve it, and the fans deserve it.

We're fed up, we're tired, and we've got lots of options to spend our money on in this part of the world. For one small moment in time, give us a winner.

It may just be cost-effective.

Not ready for prime time

Bruce McCurdy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:15:01 -0000

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For quite some time I have had a pet peeve about the make-up of the Oiler roster. Too many young unproven guys, too many old expensive guys, and nowhere near enough prime-of-career guys. I wrote this and this on the subject last April, noting the gaping hole in the middle of the age spectrum. What has changed so far in 2009-10?

Let's look at the forwards. So far this season Oilers have already used 19 (!) of them. I have divided them into 5 groups, by hockey age (as of Feb 1, 2010, as defined by Hockey-reference.com):

Entry level (age 20-22): Cogliano, Gagner, O'Marra
Developing (age 23-25): Brulé, Jacques, McDonald, Nilsson, O'Sullivan, Potulny, Reddox, Stone, Stortini
Prime (age 26-28): Hemsky, Penner
Late prime (age 29-31): Comrie, Horcoff, MacIntyre
Veterans (age 32-34): Moreau, Pisani

If that seems like a lot of developing players, it is. Let's check out the distribution by number of players, number of GP given those players, and percentage of ice time.

Age	#fwds	%fwds	%GP	%TOI
20-22	3	15.8%	17.5%	17.3%
23-25	9	47.4%	43.8%	39.8%
26-28	2	10.5%	15.3%	19.5%
29-31	3	15.8%	13.4%	14.6%
32-34	2	10.5%	10.0%	8.8%

(The same categories are represented by the blue, red, and green lines respectively in the graph up top. ~~Sorry for its poor quality, although it's much better if you click to view it in full size~~. New and improved!)

Pat Quinn has ridden his prime time horses -- both of them -- pretty much as hard as he can. Still, for every minute one of them spends on the ice, younger players have received nearly 3 minutes. So what have all these developing players done with said ice time? Results after the jump ...

Age	G/GP	P/GP	+-/GP	G/60	P/60	+-/60
20-22	0.14	0.45	-0.08	0.58	1.82	-0.07
23-25	0.16	0.40	-0.23	0.73	1.77	-1.07
26-28	0.45	1.06	+0.36	1.41	3.34	+1.16
29-31	0.23	0.44	-0.20	0.86	1.64	-1.12
32-34	0.13	0.22	-0.07	0.57	1.00	-0.29

No surprise to see Penner and Hemsky with massively greater production on a per-game basis. Even parsed on a per-minute basis their goals and points output is roughly double all of their teammates. No adjustments have been made to account for powerplay time, which obviously will favour those players. That said, the starkest contrast of all can be seen in the plus/minus columns, where the prime timers have been awesome while all other groups have bled goals against. This is particularly noticeable in the age 23-25 bracket, where several still-not-ready-for-prime-time players have posted some underwhelming numbers at both ends of the rink: Robert Nilsson, 1 goal, -12; J.F. Jacques, 2 goals, -9; Patrick O'Sullivan, 4 goals, -11. Ouch, ouch, and more ouch.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that if the Oilers added a couple more players in their prime years they would produce on the level of Dustin Penner and Ales Hemsky. I do, however, think the team would benefit from having something resembling a "cluster" of players around those peak years. It was a problem identified last year, and one that was hardly solved with the addition of Mike Comrie.

Without getting into a statistical breakdown on the blueline, it is readily apparent that the Oilers have another big split in the experience levels of their players. Of the 8 players with 10+ GP, four of them are currently age 26 or younger (Gilbert turns 27 in January), and the other four age 33 or older. Only 29-year-old Dean Arsene (2 GP) fills the void in between those two groups. And in goal it's more of the same, where the choice is between old and breaking down or young and inexperienced.

On the roster as a whole, the Oilers have already used 31 players in 2009-10. Just 5 of those players -- Penner, Horcoff, Comrie, Arsene, and the departed Steve MacIntyre for goodness sake -- are currently between the ages of 27-32.

Early results suggest it is not a recipe for success.

Predators, Ellis rip Panthers 4-1

Whale4ever — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:55:41 -0000

Jordan Leopold scored Florida's only goal. Not Nathan Horton. Not Stephen Weiss. Not Rostislav Olesz. Not Michael Frolik. Not...you get the point.

Nashville positively owned the Original Cats, leading in SOG (29-24) and just plain solid effort to get back in the win column. Goaltender Dan Ellis was superb when called upon - and that wasn't often - and given support with goals by Dan Hamhuis, David Legwand, Joel Ward, and JP Dumont.

Remember goal support? Neither do I, but it certainly sounds like a winning strategy. Works for Florida's opponents.

Another evening of chasing the plays and allowing the opposition to dictate terms. Sounds like U.S. foreign policy.

Why wasn't Clemmer in net for Toronto on Friday, paving the way for Tomas Vokoun to start this one, against a club he played eight seasons with.

Why was Kenndal McArdle allowed to risk injury - a second time - in another fight with Jordin Tootoo when Steve MacIntyre was standing by with zippo on his schedule?

Why - OH WHY - did defenseman Bryan McCabe lead his team in SOG? Where were the forwards? Oh, here they are: Horton: zero shots. Weiss: two. Frolik: two. Congratulations, Rusty Olesz...you led the forwards with three shots on goal. And a belated thanks to defenseman Bryan Allen and his three attempts.

Another complete and utter waste of time and cash by the Panthers (what does it cost to transport and house these guys for a night?).

A sick and terribly lacking performance.

Panthers delaminate, fall to Maple Leafs 6-4

Whale4ever — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:29:03 -0000

More photos » by Rick Silva - AP

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The second of rookie defenseman Dmitry Kulikov's two goals. A big night on the scoreboard for the 19 year-old ends in depressing fashion as Florida drops leads and momentum; the Cats continue to struggle mightily at home.

Pension Plan Puppets * Leafs at Cats GameDay Central * Boxscore

Ugly. Sickening. Disgusting. And that was just the crowd.

An announced attendance of 16,101 - on a Friday evening, with an abundance of $10 tickets (among other incentives) available, and the Toronto Maple Leafs as a ferociously strong drawing card considering the snowbirds have arrived in SoFla - was rather unimpressive. Downright embarrassing.

Folks who stayed away missed dual items of importance: the first two-goal game of Dmitry Kulikov's career, and the Panthers' collective inability to hold a lead finally bite them in the standings.

An eight-game point-streak was snapped - hard - while divisional opponents Atlanta and Tampa Bay advanced to a three-point lead over the Cats.

Leafs' coach Ron Wilson simply wove magic out of his troops, coaxing Phil Kessel and former Panther Niklas Hagman into two goals apiece, a four-point performance from Alex Ponikarovsky, and a less than awe-inspiring yet good enough to seal the deal 26 saves from Jonas Gustavsson.

Peter DeBoer's boys couldn't conform to Toronto's adjustments, despite Dennis Seidenberg's two assists, Radek Dvorak's splendid hustle (1g on 5 shots), and Tomas Vokoun's 27 saves.

This was a classic Florida meltdown, and it could be felt long before the Panthers lost their two-goal lead. Just a bizarre night on many counts.

The real entertainment came at the 11:12 mark of the first period, when Colton Orr and Steve MacIntyre decided to exchange phone numbers:

What more can be said other than someone's got to take the fall for a game the Panthers had no right - statistically - to lose?

Anyway, back at it tonight against the Predators. Which begs a question: Why did Scott Clemmensen not get the nod last night, freeing up Vokoun to start against his former club?

AHL Bash: Mirasty vs. MacIntyre

Whale4ever — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:13:25 -0000

Rochester's Steve MacIntyre dances with Jon Mirasty of Syracuse; I hereby rescind the "not a heavyweight" claim from a couple of weeks back. Is there room for Big Steve in Sunrise?

Thanks, LetsGoAmerks!

Remember this guy? Panthers (re)claim winger Steve MacIntyre

Whale4ever — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:19:09 -0000

Steve MacIntyre

#33 / Left Wing / Florida Panthers

Height: 6-5

Weight: 250

Born: Aug 08, 1980

Had a feeling about this guy ever since the Cats waived him in September of '08 during a rather strong training camp, if I recall correctly.

Anyway, you wanted muscle? Here ya are. Even at 250 pounds, he's no heavyweight, but brings an element missing since Nick Tarnasky's unfortunate meld with a Chris Neil fist what seems like forever ago. MacIntyre's goods can be found at HockeyFights. Some funny stuff at their bulletin boards, as well.

Well, what's your take? Does this solve the "physicality" issue? Or just another variation of Whack-a-Mole?

Thanks to SNOOP97DAWG for the earlier FanShot.

How NHL players have grown

James Mirtle — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:50:36 -0000

More photos » by Elise Amendola - AP

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When Insider asked me to look at the personal data for thousands of professional athletes dating back to the 19th century, I was fairly sure what I'd find. As expected, the numbers show that athletes from the big four leagues have grown larger since the first of the leagues (MLB) was established in 1876. For example, the average professional baseball player is nearly five inches taller now than when the sport first went pro. But in general, jocks have added even more weight than height over the decades. The average NFL player is 1.4 inches (or 1.2 percent) taller today than in 1950, but 41 pounds (or 19.7 percent) heavier since then. On a pounds-per-inch basis, players are 24 percent bulkier in the NFL, 12 percent bulkier in the NHL, 8 percent bulkier in the NBA and 5 percent bulkier in MLB than they were in 1950.

— Peter Keating, ESPN The Magazine

And there's a pretty neat graphic here that charts the results of this data in all four major professional sports.

NHL players have gone from an average of 5-foot-9 and 172 pounds in 1920 to 5-foot-11, 180 by 1955, 6-foot and 190 in 1980 and then, finally, up to the 6-foot-1, 205 pounds hockey players have averaged the last 15 years or so.

Here's a question to ponder: Just how big can the average NHLer get? Have we hit the limit?