A little bit of rust in the open

Lidstrom’s Hunt for History Part 2

The New York Rangers seemed to be turning a corner after a few wins including a 3-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils. The Rangers lost last night to the Quebec Nordiques who only 2 points behind the Rangers for the final playoff spot in the Wales Conference. On the plus side, Nicklas Lidstrom did score his 10^th goal of the season. Speaking of Lidstrom, let us take a look at his current projections.

Player	Games Played	Points	Points Per Game	Projected Points at 80 GP
Lidstrom	30	41	1.37	109.3
Lidstrom	38	47	1.23	98.9
Lidstrom	44	52	1.18	94.5
Suter (’94)	79	85	1.07	85

Lidstrom’s projection continues to fall and if he continues on this path, he won’t even come close to Suter’s mark of 85 points. He has jumped up to 1^st in the league in hits by a small margin.. The record for hits in a season was set last season by former Ranger, Mario Lemiuex with 330 hits. Does Lidstrom have a shot at that record too? Probably not, but let’s take a look below.

Game 30:

1. Petr Svoboda Rockies 111 32

2. Peter Zezel Devils 106 33

3. Mathieu Schneider Rockies 106 32

4. Nicklas Lidstrom Rangers 104 30

Game 38:

1.  Nicklas Lidstrom          Rangers           138 38

2.  Petr Svoboda              Rockies           134 38

Game 44:

1.  Nicklas Lidstrom          Rangers           164 44

2.  Petr Svoboda              Rockies           154 44

Player	Games Played	Hits	Hits Per Game	Projected Hits at 80 GP
Lidstrom	30	104	3.47	277
Lidstrom	38	138	3.63	290
Lidstrom	44	164	3.73	298
Lemiuex (’94)	80	330	4.13	330

Seems like Lidstrom has been focusing more on the physical aspect of his game instead of the offensive side of things. He is still projected to fall short of Lemieux’s record, but his projection has grown each time we check.