How Much Will Cammalleri Be Missed?

Taken from today's article on Lions in Winter :

How much will Michael Cammalleri be missed?

At Lions in Winter, we have been recording each and every goal and scoring goals created for the season. While the points total shows our best goalscorer and second points producer; by goals created, Cammalleri is a clear no. 1 on the team, and leads in many categories. Here's what I mean:

– Cammalleri's been on the ice for 77 GF, 49 at ES, 28 on the PP
– Next in GF is Tomas Plekanec at 69 GF and Jaroslav Spacek at ES with 45 GF
 
– He's been involved in 57 of those goals, scoring or assisting on 48
– Tomas Plekanec has been involved in 54 goals, with 54 points

– At any strength, Cammalleri is on for 4.21 GF/60
– Andrei Markov is just higher, but the next player is under 4.00 GF/60

– At ES, Cammalleri is on for 3.15 GF/60
– Next is Brian Gionta at 3.11 GF/60

– Cammalleri has created 22.17 goals in total, 17.33 at ES, 4.83 on the PP
–  Plekanec is second with 19.46 in total, 11.46 at ES, 7.75 on the PP

– Averaged that's 1.21 GC/60, 1.12 GC/60 at ES and 1.82 GC/60 on the PP
–  Plekanec is 1.02 GC/60, 0.84 GC/60 at ES and 3.35 GC/60 on the PP

– By these numbers, Cammalleri is a top 10 offensive force in the league (though we haven't corrected players on other teams with the LIW numbers yet)


In short, he's the engine of this team going forward.

If there's a silver lining in losing Cammalleri, it's that our 5-on-5 game looked terrible with him in the lineup anyway and there must surely be a bottoming out point. What's more, Cammalleri hasn't been driving the PP and should be replaceable there.

But while someone may well jump in and start putting up better numbers in Mike's absence (Gomez? Gionta?), the issue here is that there is no replacing a 4.2 GF/60 player from the extremely weak talent we have in Hamilton, and there's no way a Bulldog jumps in and creates goals at the pace of a top-10 NHLer.