Joe Thornton and the Sharks are already starting to talk contract extension. Thornton’s current contract ends at the end of the upcoming season. Here’s the thing about Thornton and the Sharks: The Sharks want to keep him around and Thornton wants to stay in San Jose. He’s comfortable in San Jose, where he and his [...]

Blake Wheeler’s arbitration hearing with the Bruins is set for this morning. Wheeler, heading into just his third NHL season, has been remarkably mature and solid. He seems to have found a groove as a 20ish goals per season player, who helps out on special teams and can handle plenty of minutes. For whatever reason, [...]

Expectations are a funny thing. Once they been raised, they can be very hard to lower. The Flyers and Blackhawks are going to the finals and while only one will end up with the Cup, you can say that to a certain extent, both teams have met or exceeded expectations. The Sharks made it to [...]

It’s not surprising that the Flyers are struggling against the Bruins. Without Jeff Carter and Simon Gagne, Philadelphia isn’t that hard to defend. When Arron Asham is your offensive powerhouse, things are tough. Asham was playing on the Flyers third line, reunited with Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk. Those guys are pretty much the [...]

I don’t remember a playoff round where special teams were such a huge factor. New Jersey got bounced out of the first round on the weakness of their powerplay. And last night, so did the Sabres. Buffalo did not have a first-round powerplay goal against the Bruins. Nashville has a weak 3.3% powerplay percentage and [...]

[picappgallerysingle id="8543197"] I’m shocked the Sabres haven’t been able to hold off the Bruins in the playoffs. Boston now holds a 3-1 series lead after last night’s win in double overtime. The Sabres wound up losing when they took an ill-advised too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty, which Boston took advantage of. More specifically, Miroslav Satan, the one-time long-time [...]

Last night’s Bruins-Penguins was a great example of the need to get rid of the instigator rule. The Bruins looked completed depleted, both physically and emotionally, battling both the flu and the need to avenge Matt Cooke’s hit on Marc Savard. The Bruins chose to spend their energy avenging Savard and wound up losing 3-0. [...]

When a GM supports a coach, that’s usually the surest sign the coach is about to be fired. Down in Tampa, GM Brian Lawton is supporting coach Rick Tocchet, even as the team struggles to find consistency. One thing that’s forgotten about Tocchet is that he’s a new coach with an inexperienced coching staff. Rookie [...]

Last night Phil Kessel returned to Boston and Boston showed why they were comfortable trading such a talented player. Basically, Boston knows where Kessel’s off-switch is. They showed everyone last night as they simply played him super tight, taking away his speed and his wrist shot. He finished the game with just two shots on [...]

Fourth-liner Byron Bitz has been seeing some time on the first line with Marc Savard (and Blake Wheeler) and is expected to play up there tonight against Montreal. The Bruins just re-signed Savard. I hadn’t considered this, but part of the reason they wanted to lock Savard down is to give them long-term depth down [...]