Welcome to the Big Leagues, Kid: 2013-14 Week Six First Career NHL Goals

Welcome friends. Another week of goals awaits us, but something seems different. While we haven't seen things taper off in dramatic fashion, this week 6 of our 9 goals were scored by defencemen. Well, putting the biscuit in the basket from the back-end certainly is a different beast than from the front lines. Let's take a look at what we have here:

On Forecasting the Market for Goaltenders

Let's take a little trip into the not-so-way-back machine. The year is 2006, a few weeks before the start of the '06-'07 season, and goaltender Rick DiPietro is entering into a pact with Garth Snow and the New York Islanders that would pay him $4.5 million per year. Doesn't sound too crazy does it? He had been playing with the big club since 2000 and was steadily becoming a serviceable netminder at 25 years of age. One figures the Islanders wanted to pay him what they felt he was worth to the organisation and solidify him as the present and future of the team's crease.

But wait! While a $4.5 million cap hit doesn't make you bat an eyelash, the 15-year term to the deal might seem a little strange. It was certainly the first of this magnitude and especially unheard of for a goaltender. Even Evgeni Nabakov, unquestioned elite starter in San Jose, and Martin-freaking-Brodeur, both of whom had signed the same year, couldn't wrangle more than 4 and 6 years, respectively, from their owners.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Kid: 2013-14's Weeks Four and Five First Career NHL Goals

We had a healthy dose of first career goals in Week Four but things seemed to taper off the following week. Since this is beyond late anyways how about we do two weeks all together? Sounds good to me so here we go.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Kid: 2013-14's Week Three First Career NHL Goals

Welcome to Week 3 of first NHL goals. The excitement keeps on rolling, especially if you happened to be watching the league on Thursday the 17th when six guys populated the list. Let's jump right in, shall we?

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Kid: 2013-14's Week Two First Career NHL Goals

The young players continue to roll at the beginning of the season. We still haven't hit the 9-game tryout period before Entry Level Contracts are officially active so expect to keep seeing the kids to keep finding the back of the net, trying to make a case for a spot on their respective rosters. This week we saw 10 rookies posting their first goals. Let's meet them, shall we?

Inside the Numbers: Do Teams Sit Back to Force the Shootout?

If you have been monitoring the action around the NHL entering the weekend then you might have noticed that quite a sizeable amount of games have been ending in the shootout. In fact, of the 16 games occurring between Thursday October 17 and afternoon of Saturday October 19, 6 were decided in the shootout, a 37.5% occurrence. Shootouts are a polarizing topic, you may love the skill and novelty of it or you may despise the fact that it isn’t a suitable representation of actual hockey, but the reality is that they exist so we will have to deal with them until something better comes along.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Kid: 2013-14's Week One First Career NHL Goals

With how the Collective Bargaining Agreement is structured, players aged 18 or 19 are allowed a tryout period of 9 games before their entry-level contracts kick in. In a sense, this is kind of an extension of training camp for them, where if they actually make the opening night roster they get a good look from executives in full NHL-speed situations. If the player doesn't make a strong impression, no big deal, just send them back to juniors or the AHL and try again next year. But if he plays well he could be looking at the start of his career.

In training camps and prospect camps, one way to get attention is to pick some fights. Hockey players have to be tough so dropping the mitts seems like a great way to show the coaches that they aren't afraid of getting physical against the opposition. But the thing that really matters once the calendar flips to the regular season is results. And how does one get good results? By scoring goals of course!

With one week of 2013-14 in the books, let's take a look, chronologically, at who put up their first career NHL tally.