Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Hnidy-Hnight!

To Boston: D Shane Hnidy and a 6th-round pick

To Anaheim: F Brandon Bochenski (Link)

While there are some salary cap and tag implications created by this move, I think the gains are pretty small. Basically, this is a trade to get a guy who could crack Anaheim's lineup for a guy who probably could not.

The thing about Hnidymayer is that he's fairly frustrating to watch on defense; one second you think that he's in good position to defend a play, the next second he's got his arm wrapped around some forward begging the referees for a holding call.

Still, there's a lesson to be learned about Hnidy: he's not going to be a good top-four option on defense, but he can be a capable bottom-pairing guy. In Hnidy's first seventeen games for Anaheim (played largely without Mathieu Schneider or of course Scott Niedermayer), Shane played some 214 minutes of even-strength hockey, on the ice for 2 goals-for, 9 goals-against. Additionally, he played some 28 minutes shorthanded, on the ice for 3 goals-against there. Basically, he was a bleeder.

In his most recent sixteen games, though, with an available Schneider, Hnidy has found a way to be more effective in lesser minutes: in 177 even-strength minutes, Hnidy was on the ice for 9 goals-for and only 1 goal-against. In 12 shorthanded minutes, the opposition power play went scoreless.

I think some of this shift-in-results has to do with on-ice adjustments; Hnidy had to figure out his role on the Anaheim blueline and play towards that. Also, though, there's a lesson about adding personnel to a roster: when you add top talent to the top of your roster, it allows secondary players to fall into more appropriate roles. Boston may have gotten themselves a useful defenseman in this trade, but it probably depends on who they've got playing in front of him.

I can't say very much about Bochenski yet, but going on the basis of balance, the re-Niedermayered Ducks are in more need of a secondary scoring forward than they are another sixth defenseman. Kudos to Brian Burke for negotiating this trade in a basically no-trade environment.

===================================

As an aside, you might recall that I am technically a blogger for AOL Fanhouse, though I haven't really written anything there in a month-plus. Part of that is obviously laziness, though workplace firewall developments have made it near-impossible to contribute during the workday; I'm banned from viewing that site or recently, even BoC and other Blogger sites, from my work computer. I apologize if I'm slow responding to comments during the day, or even if I miss a gameday post (like yesterday), but I'm looking into some solutions for that.

In the meantime, though, I've agreed to pick it up a bit, now in the form of a weekly cartoon. Every Thursday at 11 am (Pacific) I'll be putting something new up, usually scheduled to be posted the night before. You can check out my first PuckToon about the NHL Winter Classic, though it won't be visible until its publish time today.

Go Ducks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

the game last nite doesnt help with the confidence....its funny how u cant find a recap that mentions that scot nieds again got undressed and contributed to the columbus goal..by a rook no doubt scoring his first goal...he got bumped off the puck hnidy style also...(sorry had to throw a hnidy blast one more time for ole times sake)...dux need to still open it up..

p.s. ryan carter looked real good centering the checking line...he even earned the 3rd star of the game..won 10 of 13 face-offs..he looked good at vancuver too...that guy will need more ice time once sami gets back somehow marhanct should sit...we need face-off aces...carter was also on the PK...ryan looked hungry too...

p.s.s. I actually love the make-up of our team...they just need to score more period

Itlan said...

The PP looked better in the 2nd and 3rd. They were actually trying something different than "pass-to-Getz-then-to-Pronger-for-a-one-timer". Ryan was behind the net and Skeetermayer was parked to the left of the crease, and just missed the post. Pretty nice to see something different for a change.