FanHouse Jonathan Cheechoo

It's been a couple days since Dany Heatley was shipped from Ottawa to San Jose, so we've all had a little time to take a step back and look a the trade. Today, some of the best and brightest in the two blogospheres involved have taken the time to share their views on the trade with us. I have an odd feeling that the Senators' bloggers feel a lot of relief now that the trade has been mad but, to find out, follow me through the jump.

FanHouse begins its four-part preview of the upcoming NHL season. Check back every Thursday from now until opening night for the rest.

The calendar has flipped past Labor Day in the States, and that means the start of the NHL's regular season is fast approaching. We're going to take one last look back at the summer and discuss the best and worst moves -- in some cases, non-moves -- of the offseason. Who took a step in the right direction and who took a step back?

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Pacific Division.

San Jose saw its Presidents' Trophy campaign come to a surprising end in the first round of the NHL playoffs, Los Angeles is still the perfect spot for Dany Heatley, and is there any hope for success on the ice in Phoenix?

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.

The Islanders actually entered the third with a 2-1 lead, only to watch the Rangers beat Joey MacDonald -- starting in place of Rick Dipietro -- four times on their final 12 shots. Petr Prucha, playing for the first time in eight games, tied the game just 49 seconds into the third period, while Michal Rozsival gave the Rangers their first lead of the night two minutes later. Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes also tallied late goals for the Rangers, while Scott Gomez tapped in a tic-tac-toe pass from Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky in the second period, opening the scoring for the Rangers.

Mike Sillinger, Kyle Okposo, Blake Comeau and Mike Comrie scored for the Islanders.

Physical game between the crosstown rivals, resulting in a pair of fights in the first 10 minutes, and capped off with a crushing hit by Ryan Callahan on Trent Hunter early in the third. Callahan smashed the Islanders forward into the penalty box door, forcing it open, resulting in Hunter's midsection smashing off the boards. He was down for quite a while, and appeared to be in severe pain, resulting in a stretcher being brought on the ice. Hunter, however, managed to bring himself to his feet and skate off because, you know, he's a hockey player.

The San Jose Sharks were my pre-season pick to win the Stanley Cup. With excellent goaltending, quality coaching, the magic of Joe Thornton, and a roster full of speedy, determined workhorses, I figured the time was ripe for the Sharks to take a bit out of Western Conference.

That being said, I am both quite amazed and not surprised by how well the Sharks have done this season. Yes, I expected the Sharks to do well, but when I look at the kind of individual stats the players have put up, I can't believe these guys win so many games.

Patrick Marleau appears like he is trying to play his way off of the team, the team has just two 20-goal scorers, and their top offensive defenseman is Craig Rivet(!).

How do these guys do it?

Poolies all over the continent must be scratching their heads about what to do with one 27-year old Jonathan Cheechoo, the spunky winger who piled up an amazing 56 goals just two seasons ago.

Once again, Cheechoo is off to an incredibly slow start, with just three points in his first eight games, and ZERO in the first five. Fans and fantasy league owners of Jon's must be wondering just WHO is the real Cheechoo?

SEASON  GP  G A PTS SOG SH%
03-04  81 28 19 47 175 16.0
05-06  82 56 37 93 317 17.7
06-07  76 37 32 69 250 14.8
07-08   8  2  1  3  22 9.1 

Obviously, Cheechoo's amazing 56-goal performance, like Brady Anderson's 50-home run performance over a decade ago, was a one-year fluke where the stars in the sky aligned right and everything went right for the Sharks sniper.

So, what to make of Cheechoo? Just how much can we expect from somebody with his production curve?

1. Cheechoo's shooting percentage is abnormally low. He's still getting almost three shots per game, suggesting that he's still generating scoring chances. You can expect the goals to start going in soon enough. Somebody with a past history of burying the biscuit wont' stay dry for long.

2. Cheechoo is still playing on the same line with one Joe Thornton (after a brief demotion). Getting passes from one of the league's premier playmakers ensures Cheechoo will continue to get prime scoring opportunities.

While the two series that are my responsibility here in the first round begin tonight, I have some observations about the 4 games that were on the docket last night. Day one of the Playoffs saw two games go to OT, one of which to quadruple-OT, plenty of nerves, a ton of hitting, brilliant goals, head-shaking saves, bad local TV coverage, unlikely heroes, moments of villainy and moments of redemption... sometimes all on the same shift.

Yawn... just another day at the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

For the recently-converted in the audience, welcome and get used to it. It'll only get worse from here.

Points of Interest:

• Versus did themselves a favor by putting Ken Hitchcock on the air, and I'm sure he'll get more comfortable with the job. I'm no fan of Hitch personally, but his comnents during the intermissions provided great insight to the technical things the Senators were doing right against the Penguins.
  
• The Pens looked every bit the part of the nervous 17 year old boy taking his first love to the prom. But, to me, it was the lack of presence shown by the veterans that was surprising. Mark Recchi, unchallenged, over-skated the puck along the boards which led directly to Ottawa's 2nd goal because he was not focused on the task at hand, clearing it out of the zone.
  
• Chris Neil went an entire shift without cheap-shotting anyone!
• Patrick Rismiller had two chances to clear the puck during the final minute of regulation in Nashville last night and saw just 4 shifts in the 1st OT, and one in the 2nd, on which he scored the game-winner.
• If it was okay for Scott Nichol to cold-cock Jaro Spacek earlier in the season (according to FSN South announcers Pete Weber and Terry Crisp) when Spock took Nichol hard into the net, then shouldn't it have been okay for Joe Thornton to do the same to Jared Smithson the shift after Cheechoo got knee-doctored last night?