Can you guess who leads the NHL in scoring? It's not Jaromir Jagr (14 goals, 15 assists), or Pavel Bure (15 goals, 7 assists). It's not even Joe Sakic (13 goals, 21 assists), the leading scorer on the Colorado Avalanche (19-4-3-0), the league's top team. The NHL's leading point and goal scorer is the right winger for the Los Angeles Kings, Zigmund "Ziggy" Palffy, the little-known superstar Slovakian. Palffy is averaging 1.5 points per game (18 goals, 22 assists) to lead the high scoring Kings to a respectable start this season (12-9-6-1).
Personal success is nothing new for Palffy, who has managed to average over a point a game in each of the past five seasons. Though the spotlight that comes with winning is certainly novel. Pallfy skated his first five seasons with the lowly New York Islanders (7-10-3-2), garnering fewer wins than interview requests. He sat out 32 games at the start of the 1998-99 season in a contract dispute before signing a five-year, twenty six million dollar deal in December, 1998. Pallfy played out the rest of the season with the Islanders before being traded to the Kings as part of an eight-player deal over the summer of 1999. In his first season with the Kings, the right wing had 66 points in 64 games and got his first feel of playoff hockey.
Trapped in an awful organization for the bulk of his career, a taste of the playoffs has Palffy ready to win when he hits the ice. Simply sharing the ice with the likes of Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille has resulted in an exponential increase in Palffy's work ethic and desire. He was on a serious weight lifting program for the first time over the off-season and is subsequently in the best shape of his life. With his newfound mass, Palffy has been a gritty, physical presence on the ice this season, and has become a better defensive player then the Kings could have ever hoped. Robitaille called him possibly the greatest player he's ever seen since Wayne Gretzky.
The Islanders traded away a talented, one-dimensional goal scorer, but the Kings now have one of the best all-around players in the game. The fact that Zigmund Palffy leads the NHL in points is no fluke, get used to it.
Keenan can't stir the pot in Beantown
The Boston Bruins (8-14-3-2) continue to lose under coach Mike Keenan. The fiery coach may have been able to take the Philadelphia Flyers, Chicago Blackhawks, and New York Rangers to at least the Stanley Cup Finals, but the post-Bobby Orr Bruins are going nowhere fast. The B's are now 5-10-2-2 under Keenan's leadership and have lost three straight to fall into a tie with another once proud franchise, the Montreal Canadians (9-15-3-0), at the bottom of the Northeast Division.
The Bruins latest debacle came Monday night at the hands of the Atlanta Thrashers (8-10-6-1). Boston center Sergei Samsonov scored two goals in just over two minutes to tie the game 4-4 with only 3:48 to play. Despite his efforts, the Bruins still managed to lose in regulation 5-4, as Chris Tamer lit the lamp with only 1:01 left for the Thrashers. Jason Allison, one of the few bright spots for the Bruins this season, also managed to net his 13th and 14th goals and add two assists (20) for good measure in the loss.
Ideally, the game could have served as a confidence booster on the heels of two embarrassing losses to the Washington Capitols, in which the Bruins were outskated and outworked. Instead, the Bruins made mistake after mistake, and deserved to lose to the sub-par Thrashers. Keenan will continue to search for a way to convince the Bruins they can win. Perhaps he would be better served consulting Rick Pitino to get some pointers on coping with defeat.
