[picappgallerysingle id="8523635"] The Devils season is over after last night’s loss to the Flyers. When a team implodes like the Devils did, it’s easy to blame the coach for the failings of the team, but in this case, Devils coach Jacques Lemaire needs to a lot of the blame for yet another early playoff exit [...]

[picappgallerysingle id="8589849"] It might be a bit early to wonder about this, but will going to the Devils wind up costing Ilya Kovalchuk money in the off-season? Kovalchuk has just two goals in the playoffs, including a powerplay goal in last night’s loss to Philadelphia. Daniel Carcillo, the Flyers fighter, has the same number of [...]

[picappgallerysingle id="8523135"] So the Flyers are off to a strong start, huh? Last night’s 2-1 win over the Devils was fascinating. It was yet another strong game from Flyers goalie Brian Boucher. Boucher has been solid in his recent starts, even doing a great job in very tight games, when it looks like the Flyers [...]

Photo from fOTOGLIF I’m going to jump on the Pat Burns for the Hockey Hall of Fame bandwagon since we talked about it last night on RinkSideRants. Kevin Allen did a nice job summarizing the case for Burns in the Hall, as did Frank Rekas. But even without the Jack Adams awards and the wins, [...]

The Devils are 3-2 in their last five games and, in general, have looked much better than they looked going into the Olympic break (2-5-1 for February). A lot of that February malaise was a combination of adjusting to the return of injured players and learning to play with Ilya Kovalchuk. But one other factor [...]

Everyone is looking at Atlanta, wondering where they’re going to trade Ilya Kovalchuk. But don’t forget to keep an eye on New Jersey, a team that also might be active before the trade deadline. Not so much for Kovalchuk, but for a goal-scoring center who can help out on the powerplay. I don’t think Kovalchuk [...]

David Pollak had an interesting take on the Sharks’ recent troubles, via coach Todd McLellan: The team simply wasn’t playing frequently enough to establish a rhythm. The Sharks have won their last two, with a victory over Anaheim Thursday and a win over Dallas last night. Since there were quite a few days between the [...]

Dallas coach Marc Crawford is mellowing and maturing. He realizes his overplayed his angry coach hand in Los Angeles, and it caused him to first lose his team and then his job. So now in Dallas, he seems to be on more of an even keel. Which has to be a little bit frustrating sometimes, [...]

I love that the NHL owns the Coyotes. Now, whenever NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman talks about the viability of the team, it has the desperation of someone trying to unload a used car they can’t afford to keep for any extended amount of time. Bettman was in Phoenix this week, just so he knew at [...]

Mike Heika did his weekly question-and-answer session with his readers and while it’s all usually really good, I wanted to spotlight one of this week’s answers from Heika: Q: What do you feel are the reasons for the Stars’ road success this year? And why hasn’t that success been duplicated at home? HEIKA: Those are [...]