they can somehow maintain their current form or something close to it.

The Colorado Avalanche may have lost one of the premier free agents, centre Paul Stastny, but recovered somewhat by bringing in the top free agent goal-scorer. Numbers Game looks into the deal for Jarome Iginla The Avalanche Get: RW Jarome Iginla. Iginla, 37, scored 30 goals last season, just like he has in every full season since 2000-2001, while playing for the Boston Bruins. The Bruins ran into cap issues that squeezed Iginla out of their plans and opened the door for the Avalanche to improve their forward ranks. Sure, at his age, Iginla has probably lost a step (his 2.68 shots on goal per game last season was his lowest since 1998-1999), but over the past six seasons, he ranks seventh in goals, with 186. He can pull the trigger and thats largely what the Avalanche will need from him. Colorado has lots of young talent up front, guys that the can skate the puck into the offensive zone and it would easy enough to fit Iginla on a line with rising star Nathan MacKinnon and veteran Alex Tanguay, with whom Iginla shared some productive years in Calgary. The issue for the Avalanche is how rapid Iginlas descent might be. Hes been unbelievably durable throughout his career, missing eight games in the past two seasons following five straight seasons without missing a game. But, once more than 1300 NHL games are on the odometer, its difficult to maintain production and its already begun with Iginla, who has averaged under 0.80 points per game in each of the past two years for the first time since 1998-1999. Its evident how this career arc is playing out. With 560 career goals, Iginla ranks second among active skaters, behind only Jaromir Jagr now that Teemu Selanne has retired. But, for all the great goal-scorers that have played at age 37 and beyond, its rare to keep scoring 30 goals per season. Since 2000, there have been five forwards, aged 37 or older, to score 30 goals in a season. Theyre Hall of Fame calibre players, like Iginla, so maybe he can get there at least once during the life of this contract, but the odds are that Iginla is going to start falling between 20 and 30 goals because as players get older, even for the great ones, its not as easy to get to the net. Without much room to maneuver under the salary cap, the Bruins may have to look internally to fill the void created by Iginlas departure. Loui Eriksson could move up to join David Krejci and Milan Lucic on the top line and prospects Ryan Spooner and Alexander Khokhlachev are likely to have opportunities to make the team next year. As long as he doesnt drop too precipitously, Iginla can still provide value on the three-year, $16-million contract he received from Colorado, but its likely to be in more of a supporting role because while every career isnt the same, all athletes eventually diminish with age and the Avalanche are looking at those years with Iginla. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Brad Boxberger Jersey . The 49ers announced the deal Tuesday. San Francisco selected Lloyd in the fourth round of the 2003 draft. David Peralta Jersey . Although Spain could still advance out of the group stage, the game may have signalled the end of the run by a generation of Spanish stars whose quick passing, "tiki-taka" style delighted the world and helped them win the last three major tournaments. http://www.cheapdiamondbacksjerseys.com/?tag=cheap-clay-buchholz-jersey . 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But head coach, Randy Carlyle, doesn’t want to say too much about it. “We’re going to just keep that one close to our vest,” said Carlyle of the phrases meaning, always guarded when it comes to matters in-house. “They know what it means and we as a coaching staff know what it means, so we’re just going to keep that between ourselves at this point.” What’s clear is the Leafs needed to change something after they were kicked twice in a matter of days by the Sabres and Predators. But instead of pinning it down to wins and losses they decided to cut the big picture into very small pieces, aiming for little changes to affect big picture results. It started with conversations between coaches and management and filtered down from there. “…we felt we had to reset and focus on the process,” Carlyle said. “And the process for us, instead of looking at wins and losses, was to pick something within it and say ‘Hey, if we can accomplish this our chances of having success are going to go up’ and that’s really the way that it was presented.” Changes were easily evident in back-to-wins over the Lightning and Red Wings. The Leafs played a cleaner, more structured and sound game against a pair of division rivals, resulting in fewer turnovers, fewer dangerous chances to contend with and, thus, fewer shots to handle for their typically busy goaltender. “I think it’s like anything,” said Stephane Robidas, sounding a lot like a coach himself, “whenever you set long-term goals, it’s far, it’s far ahead, and it’s tougher to see the big picture. Whenever you put short-term goals, like little things you can control, it kind of makes it easier. It’s little things. It’s details.” The team came up with “process goals” before last Thursday’s game against Tampa, objectives they could focus on during the course of a game. One such goal was holding opponents to 25 shots or under, a particular challenge for one of the worst shot suppression teams in the league in recent years. And while they weren’t able to hold Tampa and Detroit at or under 25 shots, they did keep both to a very respectable 28 shots apiece. Few of those shots and subsequent opportunities came off the rush – because of wiser puck play and increased engagement from forwards defensively – a particular point of peril in those one-sided losses to Buffalo and Nashville. All of which made life for Jonathan Bernier quite a bit easier than the norm of his Toronto tenure. Fewer run-and-gun opportunities for the opposition means far more predictability for the goaltender, less danger to manage in just a matter of seconds, and more shots from those areas of the ice that aren’t quite as menacing. “Rush shots are the hardest to stop,” said Bernier, appearing relaxed after back-to-back games of fewer than 30 shots against, a harkening back to his days with the Kings. “[But] when it comes [from] the outside, you only have one shooter, you don’t have to worry about the back-side [shooter], you can challenge a little bit more and, obviously, [your] percentage to stop that puck is pretty high and most of the shots will go in your belly.” To tame the shot totals of their opponents, the Leafs have a conneected “process goal” of improving back-side pressure – making certain that the high forward in the offensive zone is in proper position if the puck is turned over and play goes the other way.dddddddddddd That not only helps the group on defence – which will be without the injured Roman Polak, likely for the next month – hold the opposition up at the blue line, but it puts Bernier in a better position to succeed. His approach changes dramatically when contending with a 3-on-2 rush as opposed to a 3-on-3 – he can play deeper in his net, for example. “When you have that back-pressure, it’s either going to be a dump or a wide shot,” said Bernier. “There’s not many options out there because, if the D and the back-pressure do a good job, then they shouldn’t get anything out of it.” That’s just another one of the minor adjustments the Leafs have made and hope to continue to stick with as the road moves forward. They started addressing such matters at a video session in the hours after last Tuesday’s 9-2 pounding from Nashville. It came down to improvements as small as increased urgency on the forecheck. “If you think about it,” said Robidas, “if you get a real good forecheck, what’s going to happen? You’re going to get the puck and you’re going to be in their end - if you’re in their end, they can’t shoot the puck on net. That’s a pretty good start.” “We talk about Detroit for years, how good they were with the puck,” the 37-year-old continued. “Yeah, they’re really good with the puck, but they didn’t have to defend that much because they had the puck the whole game. Whenever they lose it, they track it back and they get it back.” But unlike those Red Wing teams of the past couple decades, the Leafs were an awful possession club last year, worst in the league with a 42.3 per cent Fenwick rating in 5-on-5 situations. That number has improved to 47.7 per cent this year, still not great at 23rd overall, but an improvement nonetheless. More possession of the puck means less time in the defensive zone and fewer shots against, all part of the thread toward “playing the right way. Toronto is still fourth from last in yielding 33 shots per game at the quarter mark of the season, but that number will edge lower if they can somehow maintain their current form or something close to it. “That’s the way we tried to beg, borrow, steal, whatever you can do to convince your players that there is a certain way that we have to play,” said Carlyle. “We’re going to focus on trying to block shots, trying to create less defensive [and] more offensive zone time, be stronger in structure - all those things -and then, usually, the shot clock will go down if you’re doing those things effectively.” Whether or not it continues is the question. The Leafs are an unpredictable bunch and as ripe as any to veer off course when the script changes for the worse, if even a little. But after skidding so violently off the rails, Carlyle – whose job veered into questions general manager Dave Nonis had to quiet – has managed to get his group back on track (albeit, in only two games) with a simple edict and message. “You start by doing little things and, by the end, it gets tougher,” Robidas observed, “but now you’ve proved to yourself that you can do it. You’ve broken it down and you know what you need to do to keep going.” And that presumably is playing the right way. ' ' '