A massive blueline loss for the Bruins; Neal, Kronwall and Hartnell among the stars of the night, lineup info, fantasy tips and more in Scott Cullen’s Statistically Speaking. Bruins D Zdeno Chara suffered a knee injury (torn posterior cruciate ligament), when hitting Islanders C John Tavares, that will keep the Bruins workhorse defenceman out 4-6 weeks. With Chara playing only 4:13 against the Islanders and Kevan Miller already out of the lineup with a dislocated shoulder, Matt Bartkowski played 20:57 for Boston, which ranked fifth on the Bruins’ blueline. (Small sample oddity: before getting hurt, Chara had been on the ice for one shot attempt for and 11 against, 8.3%, vs. the Islanders.) Chara has been a dominant performer on the Boston blueline, putting up excellent possession stats, year-in and year-out. Big Z, Possession Machine YEAR Corsi% RelativeCorsi% 2009-10 55.0% +3.6% 2010-11 54.2% +5.5% 2011-12 57.9% +5.7% 2012-13 55.6% +2.1% 2013-14 55.2% +1.9% 2014-15 56.6% +2.6% That he posts positive relative possession numbers while facing the opposition’s top lines shows how dominant Chara can be, though he’s also had the benefit of playing with Patrice Bergeron in a lot of those situations and Bergeron tends to be a positive possession driver. Even so, this is going to cause some short-term pain for a Bruins team that is already off to a 4-5 start to the season and appears to open up the competition at the top of the Eastern Conference. HEROES James Neal - The Predators’ right winger scored three goals, all at even-strength, for Nashville in a 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. Neal had nine shot attempts (6 SOG) for the game and now has five goals in seven games. Niklas Kronwall - Detroit’s to defenceman had two goals, including the game-tying goal with 39 seconds left, and an assist in a 4-3 overtime win against Pittsburgh. All of Detroit’s four goals came at even strength, with Kronwall on the ice, and the Wings earned 65% (13 for, 7 against) of the unblocked shot attempts when Kronwall was playing at evens. Scott Hartnell - The Blue Jackets’ winger assisted on four of Columbus’ five goals, thriving against the Sharks’ shutdown defensive pair of Justin Braun and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, with 11 shot attempts for and four against (73.3%) when matched against Vlasic and slightly better (12 for, 4 against, 80%) against Braun. ZEROES Brad Marchand - Boston’s shift disturber didn’t generate a shot attempt for the Bruins in 14:12 of ice time against the Islanders. Marchand has three points in nine games to start the year, but his 2.11 shots on goal per game is his best rate since 2011-2012. Cam Ward - The Carolina goalie surrendered five goals on 24 shots for the Carolina Hurricanes in a 5-0 loss at Calgary. In three starts this season, Ward has stopped 63 of 76 shots (.829 SV%). Tyler Myers - It’s not easy playing big minutes on an inferior Sabres team, but defenceman Myers was on the wrong end of the possession game (8 shot attempts for, 25 against, 24.2%) at Los Angeles SHORT SHIFTS Red Wings C Henrik Zetterberg had a goal and two assists, giving him nine points on 10 Detroit goals in the past four games…Predators LW Filip Forsberg had a pair of assists, giving him seven points in seven games…Blues RW Vladimir Tarasenko registered 11 shot attempts (4 SOG) vs. the Canucks…Sean Monahan scored two goals for the Flames, while Joe Colborne, Jiri Hudler, Paul Byron and Kris Russell each had two assists…Kings D Alec Martinez had a dozen shot attempts (4 SOG) vs. Buffalo…Ryan Johansen and Mark Letestu each scored two goals for the Blue Jackets…Joe Pavelski scored two goals for the Sharks…Sharks D Brent Burns had 11 shot attempts (6 SOG)… Kings RW Dustin Brown had a dominant possession game (25 shot attempts for, 4 against, 86.2%) against Buffalo. LINEUP NEED TO KNOW Islanders LW Josh Bailey suffered a broken hand against the Bruins and is out indefinitely. Blues C Jori Lehtera returned to the lineup after missing a game with the flu. Coyotes C Martin Hanzal remains out with a lower-body injury. Flyers defencemen Braydon Coburn and Andrew MacDonald are both out approximately four weeks. MacDonald ranks second on the team with an average 22:56 of ice time per game (Coburn played 20:02 in the only game he’s played this season), so the Flyers are going to have to force more minutes on the rest of their defence corps. FIRSTS Islanders D Lubomir Visnovsky played 17:50 in his first game of the season, in the lineup for an injured Travis Hamonic. Islanders LW Anders Lee played his first game of the season. He was recalled from the AHL, where he had three goals and five points in five games with Bridgeport, after the Islanders placed Mikhail Grabovski on the injured list. FANTASY FOCUS Penguins LW Blake Comeau moved up to a line with C Evgeni Malkin and RW Pascal Dupuis, played 18:24 against Detroit, his most in a regular-season game since March 31, 2012, and contributed a pair of assists. Anyone skating with Malkin on a regular basis is worth your attention. Some players to keep in mind for tonight’s games: D Trevor Daley, getting first-unit PP time for Dallas. D Anton Stralman, taking first-unit PP time for Tampa Bay with Victor Hedman out. RW Jakob Silfverberg, has four assists in the past five games, and is skating with Ryan Kesler and Andrew Cogliano. Much of the data included comes from www.war-on-ice.com, www.puckalytics.com, www.hockeystats.ca and www.naturalstattrick.com Scott Cullen can be reached at scott.cullen@bellmedia.ca Cheap Air Max 90 All White . Cilic cruised to victory, beating the seventh-seeded Seppi 6-1, 6-3 in just 72 minutes. He faced only one break point, winning 24 out of 29 points played on the first serve. 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Click here for the Dec.TAMPA, Fla. - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to meet with Richie Incognito to determine if one of the central figures in the Miami Dolphins bullying scandal can help their struggling offensive line. Coach Lovie Smith emphasized Monday that the Bucs had arranged a "visit" by the free agent guard but that a signing wasnt necessarily imminent. An NFL investigation determined Incognito and two other Miami offeensive linemen engaged in persistent harassment of teammate Jonathan Martin, who left the team last October.dddddddddddd. Incognito was suspended and missed the final eight games before becoming a free agent when his contract with the Dolphins expired. Smith says it would "jumping the gun" to assume the Bucs will sign Incognito but that he would enter the meeting later Monday with an open mind. ' ' '