San Jose goaltender Evgeni Nabokov was a victim of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. First of all, these playoffs allowed Nabokov to once again show he’s not a big-game goalie. He just wasn’t very strong. But also, watching goalies like Ryan Miller and Roberto Luongo fail to carry their teams had to register with Sharks [...]

I loved last night’s Montreal win over the Flyers. In the first two games of the series, I noticed Montreal’s defensemen trying to break-up plays up near the circles. They wanted to stop the Flyers and get the puck out as quickly as possible, which makes sense. But the Flyers are so quick and shifty [...]

The Canadiens and Flyers are both in adjustment mode. Even though Philadelphia won big in game one of the Eastern Conference finals, they’re still looking at what they can improve upon, knowing Montreal probably will be a tougher team tonight. For instance, they’re trying to figure a way around all of that Montreal shot-blocking. Over [...]

It’s never fair to lay a team’s fortunes at the feet of their goalie since while the goalie is an important position, a lot of factors go into wins and losses. For instance, Pittsburgh couldn’t get past Montreal, last night and in the series, for a few reasons. Montreal goalie Jaroslav Halak was super hot. [...]

[picappgallerysingle id="8653547"] For all of the talk about the new NHL, with its speed and its goal-scoring, the reality is that the playoffs are very much the old NHL, with its hooking and its defense and its checking. The Flyers and Bruins made it into the second round of the playoffs playing pre-lockout NHL hockey, [...]

Tim Panaccio looked at some of the line combinations coming out of Flyers training camp. It looks like Claude Giroux is going to spend a lot of time with Daniel Briere, making for a fast, dynamic, and small line. The interesting (and unsurprising) thing is, is that Briere doesn’t see size as an issue, pointing [...]

When you run a sports team in a media-centric city like New York, there aren’t a lot of places to hide if your team isn’t successful. Sure some, most notably the Yankees’ Joe Torre when he coached here, could parlay past success into a fairly consistent waiver from criticism, but other than that, if you’re [...]

I’m never able to get very excited about the NHL draft. Very few draftees have an immediate impact, so it’s hard to get psyched about players you probably won’t see for a while. Greg Logan had an interesting piece about if teams should take the player they value most highly or the one the market [...]

Brent Sutter is starting to look like another successful graduate of the Mats Sundin Rapid Decision-Making Program. He’s still not sure he wants to coach the Devils next season. The longer Sutter waits, the less effective he’ll be as a coach if he decides to return. Would you play hard for someone who was that [...]

Sometimes, during the playoffs, it’s nice to check-in on what the losing teams are up to. For instance, Jim Kelley has a great piece reminding HabNation not to give up on goalie Carey Price after his brutal playoff performance. Kelley points out it takes a while for a great goalie to emerge and uses Roberto [...]