Board of Leaders

Took me an extra night to update the leaders this season thanks to an uncooperative scoreboard from the Austrian league, but do not fear the board has been updated.  Biggest movers?  The North American leagues are stepping up and closing the gaps.  Last update there was nobody.  Not the same this time.

Radulov for the last time still holds places in both the top ten's.  Still very impressive but he will easily be out of the mix next update in early December.

The top point getters are pretty much the same.  Luciano Aquino made a big move into the top five with a strong weekend.  We also get the first North American NHL player to climb the point rankings with Tyler Seguin.  Hoping he can continue to climb as I'm not expecting many North Americans to make the list from the NHL for various reasons.

What do we see at the bottom of the list?  We have our first AHL-ECHL player to crack the top ten.  I'm not shocked who it is, but I am surprised how fast he got there.  Only 15 games to already be one of the top point scorers in hockey.  He was also very impressive last season with Colorado.

Off to the penalty charts where the North American leagues made big jumps.  Five of the top 10 are now from American leagues compared to none during the last update.  By the next update it could be 8 or 9.

Lefebvre and Artyukhin are still holding up well and as documented have strong AHL ties.  Bobby Farnham?  If you are surprised, that makes two of us.  Never had this guy on my radar even in the slightest.  Not only is he at the top for local leagues but he is doing it in both the AHL and ECHL.  That is normally something you see towards the end of a season.  Joining him are Adam Huxley, Brett Gallant and Bobby Robbins all of whom are well known fighters.  Andrew Conboy cracks the list with the accumulation of many penalties.

Now the question is who gets to 100 first?  I will guess a European player as they can rack minutes up quickly.  A player in the German league got 59 minutes in one game this weekend and if you notice he isn't even in the top ten.

My guess is somebody on Graz in Austria and let's go with Gallant for North America.

AHL Action

Lots of action this weekend in the AHL.  Here are two of the more interesting videos.  First we have a dust up during the Binghamton - Adirondack game that starts off small.  Then we get a little goalie action with Toronto.

Geoffrion Hit

Friday was a busy night in the AHL.  Lots of scoring, which has been extremely present so far this year in both the AHL and ECHL, as well as a lot of the rough stuff.  The Syracuse - Hamilton game was no exception.  And there's nothing quite like being the main show in town when you are playing the game in Montreal in front of almost 20,000.

Blake Geoffrion might have been playing their regularly had it not been for the lockout.  He was traded to Montreal last season, a place he was almost destined to be.  His great-grandfather, grandfather and father all played for Montreal and last year he did too.  Now the question is asked if he will ever play again.

The other party involved in the unfortunate play was Syracuse defenseman Jean-Philippe Cote.  Cote would be considered a bit of a rugged player with a solid AHL past.  Oddly enough, five of the seven seasons he has played in the AHL were with Hamilton and the only NHL action he has seen was with Montreal.  If there was ever a game to show yourself this was the one.

Geoffrion received a short outlet pass and started up the boards.  What he didn't notice was Cote sizing him up for a classic hip check.  When he does notice it is a bit too late and because he tried to hold up the hit sent him flying awkwardly into the air.




It is hard to see much after the scrum but we do see Geoffrion eventually get up and skate off the ice by himself, apparently bleeding heavily.  It's the part afterwards that gets scary. 

After deciding he needed to go to the hospital, Geoffrion apparently started convulsing.  Tests revealed that he actually fractured his skull on the play.  Emergency surgery was required to alleviate the pressure the fracture was causing on his brain. 

The last replay shows it the best.  As he took the hit the momentum of his body torques so that his feet are moving up and around while his upper body is moving down.  It just so happened that a part of his head with little protection took the worst of the hit to the ice.  Might as well have landed on concrete.  I have hope that he will return at some point and continue to play.  Take a hit, land on your head, fracture your skull, skate off to the bench.  Hockey. 

Goalie #2

Hoping that every goalie scrap this year will be documented on video.  Here comes one from the Southern league that starts off with a scrum.

Leaders Updated

European hockey is in full swing and continues to get better and more exciting as leagues continue to add NHL players.  This could be a great season in many leagues in terms of point totals and overall scoring.  The nastiness is also heating up.  And away we go.

Only have the AHL and ECHL of course and most teams have yet to play ten games yet.  I wouldn't have been shocked if somebody cracked the leaderboard, but as of now they are still trailing.

The lockout players have easily made their way up the list.  It was only a matter of time even though most started the season late.  Both Evgeni Malkin and Ilya Kovalchuk have been on fire lately.

Alex Radulov is still hanging on to positions in both categories.  My guess is he will be knocked out of the penalty minute race by the next update.  Also I should mention that Damien Brunner who made the list in points last update technically qualifies as a lockout player.  He has never played in North America but was signed by Detroit this year.

Penalty list got a whole lot tighter and represents all five leagues.  Artyukin has kept his cool recently.  Ledin picked up half of those in one game.  The Austrian league is getting very physical.  In fact that is the league I would look to continue to see players climb the list.  Check this shit out.  The four players on the list that play in the Austrian league are all on the same team.  Have fun playing that squad.

For a little bonus feature, last year Barry Brust while playing in Germany put up the incredible total of 109 penalty minutes with an additional 29 in the playoffs.  He is a goalie.  I've never seen anything even close to that since I've compiled stats.  Hextall was the king of that in his day, but I was too young.  Brust ranked sixth in the entire league for penalty minutes.  Jerry Kuhn might try taking a run at that this season.  Playing for Olimpija in Austria he has 46 so far easily leading the team with a lot of the season yet to go.