Kind of a crazy 24 hours in hockey.
Wonder goalie Jonas Gustavsson signed with the Maple Leafs, leaving the Dallas Stars scrambling to find a “backup” for Marty Turco who can step in and start when Turco inevitably flounders. Again. Not that Turco is going to go quietly into the night. He wants to play less [...]

The big shock of the weekend, for me, anyway, was Ryan Smyth accepting a trade out of Colorado.
For someone who made a very big deal about where he would sign last year, he sure seemed ready to get the heck out of Denver. And while the Banff native was probably happy to get a little [...]

So tonight’s the night for Detroit or Pittsburgh.
Tim Panaccio says the Penguins need a role player to step-up and pull a Ruslan Fedotenko circa game seven of the 2004 Stanley Cup finals. I think Fedotenko, who now plays for Pittsburgh, is a logical candidate for that role, but maybe it’s too obvious.
Meanwhile, moving to the [...]

So this year’s Stanley Cup finals will be a rematch of last year’s. The Blackhawks magical run through the post-season finally ended last night.
It’s interesting how close the Detroit-Chicago series actually was. Chicago had a decent chance to win games two and five. Another season or so of experience and the Blackhawks might have won [...]

It’s amazing what the struggles of the Phoenix Coyotes is flushing out.
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s report the Panthers are firing TV analyst Denis Potvin to find someone who can give them more bang for their buck, Adrian Dater uses some back-of-the-envelope calculations to estimate what the Avs lost this season and says he’s [...]

Be honest. How many people even remembered Martin Havlat still played for the Blackhawks? I think even people in the Blackhawks organization didn’t remember Havlat was on their roster.
Now, it’s tough to forget, given his two huge goals in a 3-2 win over the Flames.
Chicago basically held on against Calgary, but it was a big [...]

I know the playoffs start this week, but that’s why it’s all the more important to think about the next coach of the Avs. Because once the playoffs start, no one is going to say the word Avalanche again for quite a while. Adrian Dater is hearing the next coach could be Patrick Roy.
It makes [...]

Wow. Last night Phoenix’s Al Montoya became the first Cuban-American to play in the NHL. Even better, he got a shutout.
Montoya is a former first-round pick who’s never seemed particularly ready for the NHL, so it’s great he had such a strong game. Even if it was against a horrible team. A horrible team a [...]

Adrian Dater has a nice long post deconstructing Avs goalie Peter Budaj.
Dater says Budaj needs the eye of the tiger, attributing the goalie’s playing troubles to a lack of intensity.
A friend of Dater’s says Budaj is a slave to his technique, and I think that’s the heart of the issue. Goaltending systems are designed to [...]

Mike Heika posed an interesting question this morning: why didn’t Sean Avery work in Dallas?
Heika obviously can’t say for sure. My suspicion is that ultimately, Avery’s salary was a source of jealousy and that kept the other players from embracing him. Salary is a huge thing — especially in a league with a salary cap. [...]