January 29, 2021
Alexis Lafreniere staying on ice (photo by Jared Silber / NHLI via Getty Images)
A reporter from Buffalo made a confused observation last night. In a tweet, Mike Harrington wrote; “It is another performance by Alexis Lafreniere. A shot on goal in 9:11 of the ice weather. No points yet in seven games for general choice # 1. You don’t even notice it. “
Now, I’m not sure what games Mr. Harrington has been watching, or if he was paying enough attention to Lafreniere, who probably should have done a hat trick last night.
Alexis Lafreniere has generated offenses
I know what I saw last night, but apparently when someone says they are not noticing a player, I try to get deeper. So I went to Natural Stat Trick and compared Lafreniere to Jack Eichel 5 against 5 for this season.
As well as the chances of individual goals for (iSCF), Eichel has 18 to 8 games. He also has 6 individual chances of high danger for (iHDCF) and created 1 rebound. Very solid, wouldn’t you say?
Lafreniere in his 7 games and also 31 minutes less ice time has 12 iSCF and 7 (iHDCF). That’s more than Buffalo’s best player in 30 minutes less ice time. It also generated two rebounds. The only difference is that the disc was not for him or his linemates.
Let me throw that at you too. Rangers’ best player, Artemi Panarin with 8 points from 7 games, was credited with only 12 iSCF and 3 iHDCF. He also played almost 20 minutes more than Alexis.
Lafreniere won his goal and more points are coming
The 19-year-old is the first general choice to score his first NHL goal in OT by Sportsnet Stats. What is most impressive about it is that it has never stopped working over the 7 games so far. He never bowed his head after glorious chances didn’t come and knock him down. He persisted and was rewarded.
“It is very crazy. Overtime, winning goal, was very special. I will never forget that moment, for sure ”, said Alexis Lafreniere wearing the Broadway hat, given to the player of the game. “I had a lot of good opportunities and was just going on. I was going to get in, for sure. I continued, I kept grinding. Good pass [Blackwell] and I had the network open. It was a very good piece of ‘Blacky’. “
Even in his euphoria, he gave Colin Blackwell credit for the big game and talked more about the team than about himself. It is no wonder that many in the Rangers organization feel that he will be the future captain of this team.
The end result is this: he took the proverbial monkey off his back and more goals and points are to come.
As for Mr. Harrington, he certainly heard last night from hockey fans and Rangers. He handled most of them very well, too, and no one should criticize anyone with vulgarity, especially because of an opinion about hockey.
“#NYR fans having fun with Lafreniere’s tweet – which was 100 percent correct at the time, ” Harrington replied. “Good job for everyone to react to something said in real time after something that happened 20 minutes later.”
I will leave you all with my answer. If you ask me, it was as appropriate as possible.
Last night’s NHL News and Scores
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