North America On Top

The rise of Colorado forward Chad Costello continued over the past two weeks.  He now leads all leagues I cover in points and also with it earned a promotion to the AHL.  Costello is also joined by teammate Jack Combs in the top ten, who coincidentally also earned an AHL promotion and coincidentally again moves up to the same team as Costello.  The rest of the list looks similar except in the NHL department.  Malkin is back in while Seguin moves out.


It was a race to see who would get to 100 penalty minutes first.  It seemed like a European would be a sure thing except it never materialized.  The first European made it this weekend in the German league.  It would not have been my first or second guess.  However, both the AHL and ECHL have been on a run since the last time I posted.  In fact, out of the now 14 players now above 100, only two got there on a minor penalty.  Every other player received some sort of combination or a major, misconduct or game misconduct.  Got to get there in style.

In other notes my next race would have been to see which team will get two players above 100 but that already went to Bridgeport with Gallant and McIver at one and three.  Seems a bit early to ask for three guys on one team.  Maybe the next race can be to 150 since they have been rocketing since getting past 100.

Here is the new list.

He Did It

With a lot of players within the range, one player stepped up last night to become the first player to go beyond 100 penalty minutes this year.  The first to do so was the AHL's own forward from Providence, Bobby Robins.

Robins is no stranger to the penalty box.  Last year he managed to go over 100 penalty minutes twice.  Once in the AHL with Providence and once while playing in the ECHL.  Robins also accomplished the feat in the true typical style of a guy who gets a lot of penalties.  Robins picked up a boarding, fighting and game misconduct all at the same time.  That's how you do it.

Last night was not without another interesting accomplishment.  I call these accomplishments but they are really just a little something for myself to combine the skill of the game with the aggressiveness.  Anyway, last night while playing for Evansville in the ECHL Nathan Moon picked up a hat trick.  Nice work.  He also got into a fight.  Not that is a Gordie Howe hat trick.  Except it isn't.  Which is why in my stat book it goes under the Danny Boy.  The reasoning is simple.  The first and only time I saw that done in the AHL or NHL was by Daniel Briere.  Now there have been two (since I've been paying attention).

I tried waiting for videos for both but so far nothing.  If they get posted I will get them up. 

Radulov Dropping

Another installment of the league leaders from all the leagues I keep daily a daily tracking of are in.  For the first time since we began, Alexander Radulov is finally dropping.  He is out of the top ten in penalty minutes and has slipped in points as well.

One big change came from North America as all but one spot in the penalty rankings now belongs to the local professional leagues.

Now for my two cents.

• It would have been interesting to see what Brunner could have done in a North American league.  Never pegged him for those kind of numbers.  He had been sent to the AHL this year in the Detroit organization.  Now he is playing with one of Detroit's best players in Henrik Zetterberg.  Maybe chemistry for the future?
• Luciano Aquino came on very strong.  His teams 11 goal performance on Sunday certainly helped.  Speaking of coming on strong, I'm surprised to see four guys from Sweden in the top ten.  Not really a high scoring league.
• Look at Chad Costello climb the charts.  He made the bottom of the list last time and now just four points behind.  Keep representing until some other players from North American can start making a push.  But as Costello climbs we are losing other NHL guys.  Malkin is off the list leaving only Seguin as the only NHL representative.

Clearly penalties will be dominated by the AHL and ECHL where fights and physical play will dominate many games.  I still think a European or two could stay in the mix maybe until the next update.  After that who knows.

Last time I posted the list I wondered who would get to 100 first and went with a European.  I also put out Graz as my team and Gallant as my North American league player.  Well nobody has made it yet (haven't looked at the KHL scores today).

Stancescu becomes a likely, or high unlikely depending on how you take it, candidate as he plays tomorrow.  Adam Huxley sitting at 85 plays both tomorrow and Wednesday and leader Brett Gallant is the only player from the AHL leaders playing through Wednesday.  Who gets it first?