The column of evil that represents all that is bizarre in this world is back this week with five more oddball facts that you could probably only find here in my crazy mind. Now it is time for the strangest five things you have likely seen in the last week. Again much apologies and hopefully we do not traumatize anyone to death this time.
Oh god we are at it again! Spanning the last 10 years of Martin Brodeur’s career…we found something very uncommon in his shutouts. Most shutouts occur in 2-0,3-0, and 4-0 games but Marty has had 15 shutouts in his career by a score of 1-0 and yes I know many will say “The Trap” but it goes beyond that. Did you know though that Brodeur was in a 9-0 shutout over Pittsburgh several years back. Now that truly is a laugher.
There are two teams this year that are actually in the top 5 on both the Penalty Kill and Power Play and definitely one team you would not expect. One is San Jose (t-5th PP, 1st in PK) and the other is Atlanta (t-5th PP, t-5th in PK). Not surprisingly Atlanta is a much better road team for the goaltending and that penalty kill which is successful 84.1% of the time. That is a much better cry than last year when they were around 70% most of the early part of the season.
Ottawa and Anaheim lead the league in goals scored at home but put them on the road and its a completely different story. Two years ago these were two of the better road teams in the league and now they cannot buy a goal. Its a -25 difference for Ottawa and a -26 for Anaheim. No team in the league comes all that close to those two in that glaring discrepancy.
A weird byproduct of the Devils sort of “lack” of success at home is the fact that Zach Parise really is twice the player on the road as he is at home (nearly). Parise has 32 points on the year (technically 33 :P). Zach has 12 points in 14 games at home but 20 points in 14 games on the road. Six of his nine points on the man advantage (and both goals) come on the road as well. In every year but one he has produced more at home…maybe its something in the water at The Rock this year? No one is sure.
Lastly on this edition….I bring you the curious case of the Carolina Hurricanes who finally won a road game after 13 straight defeats (0-10-3). What is more bizarre is they beat the Pittsburgh Penguins who swept them out of the Eastern Conference Finals in the spring. What gets even more bizarre is that Andrew Alberts scored. Wait…wait…no it has to be that Manny Legace is 4-0 against Pittsburgh in his career. You get the idea. There were a lot of peculiar things going on in the Burgh last night.
Next week we will find five more odd facts from the week that was and then some on the Oddities. You never know what it may be. See you next week.
