Trending Up/Trending Down, volume 2

by Hooks Orpik on Jan 11, 2010 7:00 AM EST

Think of this as the interim reports to the monthly grades.

Trending Up:

Luca Caputi: Making his NHL season debut, Caputi's got points in two of his first three games and hasn't looked out of place playing on the 2nd line with Evgeni Malkin.

Sidney Crosby: 4 goals, 1 assist in the five games in January and has been averaging 5.6 shots per game in this span.

Matt Cooke: Despite all the losses lately, Cooke is a +4 in January and has a goal and two assists. His tenacious play has earned him a chance to screen the goalie on the Pens top PP unit.

Alex Goligoski: It's no secret Goligoski has been struggling since his return from injury, but he's got three assists this month and has been averaging a team high 24:11 of ice-time in January.

Trending Down:

Craig Adams: The 4th liner is a combined -4 in the five games. Zero generated offense + watching goals go in = downward trend.

Marc-Andre Fleury: There's hope MAF broke this trend with the 42 save on 43 shot performance Saturday night, but his overall January performance: 0-2 with getting pulled in a third game is enough to land him here.

Eric Godard: Godard's played two games this month and has zero fighting majors. In his usual limited playing time (3:38 ice-time in one game, 3:36 in the other) he's found a way to be a -1 in both games and took a minor penalty that Philadelphia scored on while he was in the box to stretch their lead.

Max Talbot: Talbot's shoulder may still be hindering him, as he's been the victim of a healthy scratch lately and has just two points (both assists) in his last 14 games.

STAT of the DAY:
With four road games coming up this week, how about this: Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have combined for just 33 points in 41 games on the road (14 goals, 19 assists) and have a total plus/minus of -10. In home contests this season the two stars have tallied 63 points (26 goals, 37 assists) in 43 games and have a combined +/- of +28.

Who's trending up and down in your eyes?

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Comments

Trending up I would put Staal in there too. Hes been more consistent this year than any time in his career. He might not score every night, but there aren’t to many players that can dominate both ends of the ice like Staal does. I think its fair to say you could put Fedotenko and/or Dupuis trending down. The have been very underwhelming of late. Although I felt the same way about Feds last year, then he really got hot towards the end of the year and playoffs. Which makes me wonder if there would be any outside interest in him come deadline time.

by genomachine-O on Jan 11, 2010 12:14 PM EST reply actions