What’s that? The Leafs are in a playoff position? This must be our year! Plan the parade! Alright, alright, perhaps it isn’t time for histrionics (yet) but for now, the Leafs are in top 8 (6th, to be precise) and life is good. However, if we’ve learned anything from last season’s catastrophic late-season spin-out, it’s that we shouldn’t be holding our breaths just yet. Still, the Leafs have done a good job staying in the top 8 throughout most of the season and so, barring disaster (knock on wood) they should be in a position to make the playoffs this year. Let’s take a look at how they got there:

Surprises
1. Nazem Kadri
The biggest story of the pre-season must have been Nazem Kadri heading into training camp with “unacceptable fat levels”, as Marlies coach Dallas Eakins was criticizing his conditioning. Fast forward a couple of months, and nobody’s calling the talented young forward chubby. His 25 points in 28 games are good for second on the team, and his +12 rating is first among forwards. The hat trick he scored against the New York Islanders on Feb. 28th epitomizes the breakout season he has been having, as he is consistently creating chances and being rewarded.

2. James van Riemsdyk
As the 2nd overall draft pick of the 2007 Draft, right behind Patrick Kane, James van Riemsdyk has been burdened with high expectations. Aside from a few bursts of brilliance, he never really found his game in Philadelphia. However, after a trade sent him to Toronto in exchange for Luke Schenn, he was given a new lease on life, and has responded by scoring a team-leading 14 goals in his first 28 games as a Leaf.

3. Matt Frattin
Although injuries have kept him out of the lineup for over half of the Leafs’ games, Matt Frattin has collected 7 goals and 11 points in 13 games played. His shooting percentage is at an astronomically high 35.0%, however, so it remains to be seen if he can keep up this kind of production.

4. The Penalty Kill
Since the lockout, the Leafs’ penalty kill has been, to say the least, atrocious. Over the last 6 seasons, the Leafs’ penalty kill has been perennially sub-80%, putting them among the bottom-3 in the league each year (with the Leafs’ PK taking dead last in 2008-09 and 2009-10). However, so far in this abbreviated season, their penalty kill has been successful 84.4% of the time, good for 6th in the league. Recent additions Jay McClement and Mark Fraser can definitely be credited for this improvement.

Disappointments
1. Mikhail Grabovski & Nikolai Kulemin
Two short seasons ago, a troubled, talented centre, a promising young power winger and an enigmatic free agent were placed together on a line. Thus the “KGM” line was born, the “M”, of course, standing for Clarke MacArthur. The line, which combined for 177 points that season, was one of the bright spots of the Ron Wilson era, at one point being considered by the coach as the team’s top line. MacArthur has since found his place on a line with Kadri and Leo Komarov, but his former linemates have just 11 and 13 points, respectively, across 28 games each. In addition, they each have just 1 point and no goals in March, and their +/- ratings of -7 and -6 place them both below the oft-criticized Phil Kessel. Although Kulemin may just be proving that his 57-point season was an anomaly, the Leafs cannot afford this level of production from Grabovski, who is signed for 4 more years at a cap hit of $5.5 million.

#FreeJakeGardiner?
Meanwhile, as the Leafs’ defense have been playing as a cohesive unit, there has been one man who has been sitting quietly from the outside looking in: Jake Gardiner. Coach Randy Carlyle simply could not find a place to put him as he recovered from a concussion, and so he was sent down to the Marlies. However, with the Leafs’ recent slump, Gardiner’s agent has taken to Twitter to plead for his client. Thursday’s 3-1 loss to Pittsburgh, in which defensive lapses caused the Leafs to relinquish three unanswered goals late in the 3rd period, had fans questioning the revolving door that is Dion Phaneuf’s defensive partner. With inexperienced blueliners such as Mike Kostka and Korbinian Holzer sharing time with the captain on the top pairing, one has to wonder if it’s time to free Jake Gardiner.

With the looming realignment that is set to being next season, the Nashville Predators were left to wonder who their new rival would be. Since the Detroit Red Wings are leaving for the East, Nashville no longer has that divisional opponent who you knew everyone would be geared up to play. Luckily it seems that the Predators and their fans have found a new team who they can love to hate…the Dallas Stars.

Considering the Predators were without two of their top forwards (Hornqvist and Wilson, both on injured reserve with upper body injuries) it seemed that the bad luck would follow. After their meeting a little over two weeks ago, you knew this game promised to be high in physicality and emotion, and it did not disappoint! The first period started off slow, well slow compared to the previous game, and it wasn’t until a bit past the mid-way point that someone would find the back of the net. Nashville’s Matt Halischuk (who was recently recalled from Milwaukee) had a pretty sweet takeaway in the netural zone. Halischuk fed the puck to teammate Nick Spaling, who put the puck past the Stars’ Kari Lehtonen.

During the second period things would begin to heat up. Nashville would convert a power play goal thinks to Shea Weber, and it wasn’t his rocket shot that did it, but rather a heads up backhander that Lehtonen wasn’t prepared for. A few minutes later, Nashville’s Rich Clune would get whistled for roughing and sent to the box. What looked like a bad call, actually worked to the Predator’s advantage. Once Nashville killed off the penalty, Clune jumped from the box and grabbed the puck on a breakaway. Dallas’ Jordie Benn hooked Clune to which the officials awarded Clune a penalty shot. Clune, making it look easy, beat Lehtonen though the five hole and put the Predators up 3-0. At that moment you could just feel the air being let out of the Stars’ bubble.
If you thought things couldn’t get any crazier than a Rich Clune penalty shot, then all you had to do was wait for the third period. With about seven minutes left in the game, Dallas could not hold back their frustration. Stars’ Eric Nystrom went after Predators’ defenseman Ryan Ellis and both players dropped the gloves. You should note here that Ellis isn’t prone to fighting, especially considering that the majority of players are twice his size. Nystrom would serve 5 minutes for fighting as well as 2 minutes for roughing, which put the Predators on another power play. Oh but wait, the fighting was far from over. After being cross checked in the back several times, Nashville’s Mike Fisher laid into Dallas’ Stephane Robidas. It looked like Fisher got in about seven punches to Robidas zero, but who’s counting. While that was going on, Weber fought Dallas’ Antonie Roussel and Nashville’s Bobby Butler fought Brenden Dillon. Once everything was sorted and the players were in their respective boxes, the Stars’ Jamie Oleksiak tried to go after Clune immediately after the face off. Clune, rather smartly, had no part of it. Oleksiak would receive a 10 minute major and leave the game. Now, back to hockey play, with the Predators still on a power play, Nashville’s Gabriel Bourque would add another goal on a beautiful shot from close range.

Nashville would go on to win 4-0, giving Pekka Rinne yet another shutout. Rinne now leads the NHL with five shutouts this season. To say that Rinne was in true from last night would be an understatement. While everyone was fighting each other, Rinne fought that puck like a ninja.

Here are some of my thoughts after the game…

1. Rich Clune?!?
At the beginning of the season, I was as bad as everyone else. The idea of Rich Clune being a Predator didn’t excite me. When Clune didn’t get off to a great start and was taking bad penalties, I was yelling for him to be benched. My how things have changed. I’m not sure for the reason, but Rich Clune has been playing good hockey lately. He now has three goals on the season (as many as Martin Erat, let that sink in) and seems to be playing with more hockey smarts. While I’m sure Clune will more than likely take bad penalties at the worst time, it’s nice to see the good that Coach Trotz had been talking about.

2. Injuries
While last night’s win gave the Predators a much needed boost in the confidence department, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Faceoff specialist, Paul Gaustad went out with an upper body injury. The Predators have a tendency to struggle in the faceoff department when Gaustad is a no-go. Injuries were going to be a problem in this shortened season, but you just hope for Nashville’s sake that they can continue to overcome.

The Predators continue their road trip with back-to-back games on Thursday and Friday. Thursday they will be in Vancouver to take on the Canucks before they travel to Calgary to take on the Flames Friday night. The goal has to be for the team that showed up last night to keep going and pick up some much needed points this week. The Predators are usually good for having a great game, and then lose it before the next game even starts. Nashville has to have confidence in the way they played in Dallas, now they just have to contain that momentum and keep moving forward.

So the NHL season is officially at its halfway point and the Montreal canadiens are sitting on top of the eastern conference! Yes you read that correctly. If you had came up to me before the season had started and said Montreal would be leading the conference at the seasons half way point i probably would have laughed in your face. Here are 5 reasons why Montreal are currently number 1.

5. Andre Markov. Ladies and Gentlemen he is back. There were many questions about Markov before the season started but he has proved so far he is still the same old markov who is a former NHL all star and 64 pt producer.

4. The gallys. Alex Galchenyuk And Brendan Gallagher earned there  spot with the habs and for good reason. These two youngsters have proven there ready for the big leagues and we can only imagine what they will bring to the canadiens for many years to come.

3. Carey Price. Time and time again Carey has been himself this season…amazing. There is usually one thing that seperates good teams from great teams and that is great goaltending and carey has yet to dissapoint this season. He is the backbone of this team.

2. In prust we trust. Brandon Prust is provong that montreal needed to add a little toughness to be more competitive. The current PIM leader is quickly becoming a fan favorite for his hard nose style play, he has even seen some mins on the PP and on the top line.

1. New management. There has been nothing that has changed the habs this quite like new GM Marc Bergevin or the second coming of a matured Michel Therrien. They have quickly made everyone forgot about last years train wreck and have brough a winning attitude back to the canadiens.

Id love to hear your thoughts on my list, let me know if you agree or disagree. you can tweet me @Synyster_sparx and as always like our facebook page :http://www.facebook.com/NotYourAverageHockeyBlog

Only time will tell if Montreal can keep up and clinch a playoff spot, there is still some hockey to be played, until next time take care and hope I you enjoy reading my hockey blog 😀