The month of November was the tale of two halves. The early portion of the month featured a 3 game losing streak and various injuries to key players. However, by the end of the month, Hamilton found their winning ways, eventually producing a 4 game win streak at the tail end of their Eastern Conference road trip. Hamilton’s record on the season is 13-8-2 after two months, totalling 28 points and 8th in the Western Conference. However, they are only 3 points behind division leading San Jose and are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.
The injury bug hit the Tigers hard this month. D Kris Russell missed a couple of weeks in the middle of November. Once he returned, his defensive partner Oliver Ekman-Larsson suffered an MCL sprain and is out until early December. Another major loss is C Kyle Turris who continues to suffer from post-concussion syndrome. While he is expected to be back by mid-December, concussions are a hard injury to accurately gauge.
Here are the current player stat leaders for the Hamilton Tigers: Chris Stewart in goals (12) and points (21), Keith Yandle in assists (13), Rostislav Klesla in +/- (10).
Jason Labarbera saw more action in November, with both of his starts resulting in Tigers losses. Rask now has all 13 wins for Hamilton on the season with a 2.11 GAA with 4 shutouts. His save percentage is also increasing, and is now hovering around .913%.
December has the Tigers playing on consecutive nights four times. This means the team will have to rely more on Labarbera’s play this month to keep them in the playoff race. As shown in the off-season, new GM Brett Smith isn’t afraid of making a roster shake-up. Expect to see another move if the team falls into another slump.
