» Publishers, Monetize your RSS feeds with FeedShow: More infos (Show/Hide Ads)
from Scott Burnside of ESPN,
Starter Michael Leighton left Tuesday’s game in Nashville with a high-ankle sprain, and the club announced late Thursday afternoon that he is gone for eight to 10 weeks.
Now, what looked to be a significant risk—turning over the Flyers’ netminding chores to an untested journeyman like Leighton—has quickly evolved into what appears to be a monstrous blunder.
It is true Holmgren did take a run at Florida Panthers netminder Tomas Vokoun at the March 3 trade deadline but backed off when the cost was going to include sniper Jeff Carter.
Fair enough.
But when Plan A failed, what happened to Plan B or even Plan C? In Philadelphia, where goaltending isn’t a storyline but a recurring nightmare, we are talking Plan Z here.
from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,
I bring you back to an August conversation I had with Shane Doan. The Phoenix Coyotes captain was insisting anyone picking his team to be brutal this season was making a big mistake.
“As bad as everything you hear about us, we just don’t think we’re that bad,” Doan told me six months ago. “We don’t think we’re the worst team in the league even though everybody seems to be picking us to finish last.”
Fast forward to late Thursday night. Doan was about to board a plane in South Florida with the Coyotes a few hours after erasing a three-goal, third-period deficit to beat the Florida Panthers 4-3 in a shootout. The victory set the all-time Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets franchise record for wins in a season with 44.
Just another day at the office for the team everyone wrote off before the season.
I mentioned our August conversation and Doan laughed.
Bauer Hockey Corp. is recalling 13 models of junior hockey sticks due to excessive lead levels in the sticks’ paint
Vancouver, B.C. - Vancouver Canucks President and General Manager Mike Gillis announced today that forward Ryan Kesler has agreed to terms on a six-year contract extension through the 2015-2016 season.
“Today is an exciting day for the Canucks organization,” said Mike Gillis. “Ryan Kesler has excelled as a two-way player and in his role as an alternate captain. Ryan has showcased his ability to perform under extreme pressure and we are looking forward to continuing to see Ryan develop into one of the League’s premier players.”
from Randy Sportak of the Calgary Sun,
They’re still outside the Western Conference’s elite eight, one point back of the Red Wings for the final playoff spot.
They still need to claim more “huge” wins — which is what seemingly every player called the 3-2 victory over Colorado.
Maybe as many as nine more over the final dozen remaining on the regular-season schedule.
If not, they’ll need help from other teams around the league.
NEW YORK (March 19, 2010) – The National Hockey League (NHL) will unveil its new Stanley Cup Playoffs campaign tomorrow, March 20 during the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. The campaign reminds viewers that “History will be made” during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
from Helene Elliott of the LA Times,
It’s time to worry.
Not to panic, but to be concerned that since the Olympic break the Kings have lacked the drive and cohesion that had fueled their turnaround season and now bear an unpleasant resemblance to the bad, old Kings who would stumble through March and be done by early April.
Despite preparing with two vigorous practice days, the Kings were lifeless Thursday during a 3-0 loss to the Blackhawks, who had played the previous night at Anaheim. The loss, the team’s third in four games and first home shutout loss since Feb. 12, 2009, dropped the Kings’ record since the Olympics to 3-4-1.
“There was not much good out there tonight,” Coach Terry Murray said.
Veteran poolies know that now is a great time to find sleeper picks for next year’s hockey pool. A young player can have a poor start to the season and catch fire during the last couple months. Usually this is a sign that the player has found his NHL game and should perform at a high level next season. Anyone following that line of logic would likely have selected Steve Stamkos to their fantasy hockey team this year and as a result has a good chance at winning their league.
This year, the young player who best appears to have found his game in the second half of the season is Chris Stewart of the Colorado Avalanche. Stewart is a second year NHL player who has 58 points in 65 games so far this year. He has been the highest scorer in the league since the beginning of March (16 points in 9 games). In the 2009 portion of this season, Stewart has 25 points in 37 games. In 2010, he has had 33 points in 28 games. Stewart has been above point per game pace for the last two and a half months. That is evidence that he can maintain such a pace next season.
“It was more important that we got the two points. We’re in a battle here, and it was great to get the win here in New York. To get to 400 is a nice thing to happen, but I’ve been fortunate in my career to play with a lot of great players and received a lot of great passes. Terrific play.”
-Paul Kariya of the St. Louis Blues after scoring his 400th goal. Via Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
from Chris Iorfida of CBC,
Detroit is flirting with its first non-playoff season since 1989-90 and will undoubtedly finish with fewer than 48 wins for the first time in more than a decade, but if the Wings qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament, they will likely be a trendy upset pick for many hockey observers.
That’s because in addition to the wealth of playoff experience on the club — highlighted by a championship in 2008 and runner-up status last year — the Red Wings stack up well against the teams in the West they would most likely face in the first round.
Detroit is 2-0-1 against each of San Jose and Chicago. The Wings are 2-0 against Vancouver, their opponent Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada to complete their Western Canada road trip.
While they currently sit eighth, Detroit has the fourth-fewest regulation losses in the West.
Normally, I’d have a lot to write about after last night’s stinker of a game by the New York Rangers in a 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues. However and unfortunately, I’m swamped at work.
As such, feel free to consider this an open thread to discuss all things Blueshirts - good or bad!
from Greg Wyshynski of PuckDaddy,
Netminders have obviously allowed goals from center ice or beyond before, as Vokoun did on Radim Vrbata’s( meek shot; but rarely are those goals allowed with 59.7 seconds left in the game and with that goalie’s team clinging to a one-goal lead.
By virtue of their win against CGY on Monday, DET achieved their first 3 game win streak since December, and had pulled within one point of 7th place NSH, and 3 points ahead of CGY. Since then, NSH have home wins against PHI on Tuesday, and MIN last night (5-0). MIN, had been winners of 3 straight heading into NSH, but were absolutely inept. NSH scored 3 in the 1st, and MIN mustered 8 total shots in the final 40 mins. NSH now sit 5 points ahead of DET. DET do have two games in hand and play at NSH on the 27th, and host them on April 3rd. Meanwhile, CGY won at COL (3-2) on Wednesday, and are back within a point of DET (DET do have one game in hand on CGY).
EDM are the worst team in the league, 13 points behind TOR (or is it ahead?), in the race for the utmost in futility (to be fair, the EDM injury list is absurd). EDM are losers of five straight games (among them a gimmick point loss at MTL), and are 2-7-1 in their last ten contests. EDM are also horrendous at home 8-24-3 (30th). DET, who have been on vacation since Mondays huge win, play three games in four nights, at VAN tomorrow, and hosting PIT Monday - - Thanks Gary, Ass. On paper, this tilt shouldn’t even be close. You know what that means; for a must win game tonight (since the next two are challenging), this contest also has the potential to be a huge let-down game as well.
Continue reading "GDT - Game #70: Red Wings at Oilers (9:30)"
from George Malik of Snapshots,
Red Wings GM Ken Holland suggested to the Free Press’s Helene St. James that it’s entirely possible that Jiri Hudler may have an out-clause in his contract with Dynamo Moscow, and could choose to utilize it to return to Detroit after this season. As far as I know, Wings coach Mike Babcock has indeed kept in contact with Hudler, and his teammates have at least called from time to time to check in on him.
Dynamo’s still recovering from a stunning first-round ouster at the hands of Spartak, a fellow Moscow club, but Sport-Express’s Andrei Kuznetsov reports that, at this point, it’s former Red Wings defenseman Danny Markov and Swedish imports Linus Omark and Johan Harju are taking the vast majority of the flak for the team’s disappointing performance.
read on as George breaks down the KHL and has other Wings related news…
from Larry Brooks of the NY Post,
The Rangers might be able to overcome deficiencies on the power play, problems in their own end and the inability to create a sustained attack, but they simply cannot overcome an average performance from Henrik Lundqvist.
Which is exactly what the Blueshirts got last night—at best—from their elite goaltender in the 4-3 Garden defeat to St. Louis that leaves them three points behind the Bruins for the final playoff spot, with a losers’ bracket confrontation set for Boston on Sunday afternoon.
Then, too, the Thrashers are even in points with the Rangers, with the same game in hand that the Bruins hold on the 10th-place Blueshirts.
“I have to do better, I have to be better,” Lundqvist said after allowing three goals on the Blues’ first eight shots and four on the first 13 shots, including one stinker. “I tried to battle and give the team a chance to win, but the bottom line is that I have to be better.
“Personally, I [stunk]. I am really, really disappointed.”
from Steve Rosenbloom of RosenBlog at the Chicago Tribune,
Predictably, the hit on Seabrook after the hit on Campbell has prompted calls for the Hawks to bring in an enforcer, or at least made people wonder where Dustin Byfuglien and Adam Burish were in exacting revenge.
Stop it. Just stop that talk right now. That’s the easy way out. It’s easy and wrong. Send out the cement head and give your opponent a power play. The Hawks aren’t a charity. They aren’t giving away five-on-fours. And in fact, it takes a stronger team to absorb abuse without retaliating. The Hawks’ revenge comes from scoring with the man-advantage. That’s how you intimidate in today’s game. Even the new guy, Nick Boynton, a tough character who will get a lot of time on the blue line now, understood. Boynton went after Wisniewski only at game’s end, saying he couldn’t challenge him earlier because the outcome was in doubt.
That has been the Hawks under Joel Quenneville. It’s a playoff style. Play hard, play fast, play disciplined. Skate and sacrifice. It works because the officials whistle the obvious penalties that teams use in trying to slow down the talented and speedy Hawks.
As we get closer to the playoffs, we can start to gage the chances the various playoff teams have of winning the Stanley Cup. Of the probable playoff teams, the Philadelphia Flyers look like they could be in very poor shape come playoff time. They have not had particularly strong goaltenders at any point this season.
The Flyers brought in a new goalie tandem of Ray Emery and Brian Boucher this season. It was a move to stay below the salary cap. They could not afford last year’s tandem of Martin Biron and Antero Niittymaki. It was a case of poor salary cap management that forced the Flyers to have big question marks in goal. This problem was one of the major causes of the firing of coach John Stevens.
From the Penguins:
Ken Sawyer, the senior executive who led the Pittsburgh Penguins out of bankruptcy to become one of the premier franchises in the NHL, and who oversaw the construction of the new Consol Energy Center, will retire on August 31, the team announced today.
Sawyer joined the Penguins as executive vice president when co-owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle bought the team in 1999, was named president in 2003 and has led the organization as CEO since 2006. During his tenure the Penguins emerged from the depths of bankruptcy to become one of the hottest tickets in the NHL, with a sellout streak of more than 150 games, while reaching back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals and winning the Cup in 2009. His crowning achievement was the development and construction of Pittsburgh’s spectacular new arena, expected to open in August.
Lemieux and Burkle announced that David Morehouse, who has served the team as president since 2007, will now lead the Penguins in the dual role of CEO and president.
Continue reading "Penguins’ CEO Ken Sawyer to retire Aug. 31, Morehouse to take over"
Narrated by James Duthie of TSN.
from Elliotte Friedman of CBC,
Here we are, heading into one of the most anticipated games of this NHL season, for all the wrong reasons. In today’s meeting, Wolf Blitzer’s producers are saying, “Don’t forget to record that hockey thing tonight. Someone might get killed.”
Fact is, you don’t need a grudge match between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins to find a clip of someone getting clobbered. Right now, we’re averaging one spectacularly dirty play per night. The GMs maintain there are only about six hits per year the league must eliminate, but the players appear determined to prove them wrong.
The latest offender is Anaheim’s James Wisniewski, who ran Brent Seabrook late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning.
“He’s one of my really close friends,” Wisniewski told The Orange County Register after the game. As the old saying goes, who needs enemies?
“When did it become legal to hammer guys without the puck?” one player asked, about 10 hours before this incident. It’s a good question, but, then again, there are a lot of good questions going unanswered right now.