Everyone made a big deal about Alex Ovechkin sitting on the Caps bench to watch the Rangers practice before game three.
Maybe he caught some of a passing drill and decided he wanted to pass the puck, too.
After spending the first two games almost pathologically refusing to pass up a shot, Ovechkin spent game three distributing [...]

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 [...]

When I saw the Isles won the draft lottery, my first thought was that the NHL should step in and not let them trade it, as the Islanders are a little bit like Jack from JACK AND THE BEANSTALK. If any other GM offers them some beans for the pick, the Islanders are all in.
If [...]

I enjoy checking in on players immediately after they were traded. It’s like watching someone at their first day of work:

Mark Recchi hit the ground running in Boston. It helps that after he was traded to Carolina, they won the Cup. Shockingly, he spent some time in last night’s loss to Phoenix bouncing around the [...]

This year’s trade deadline was basically fantasy hockey. Not a lot of big names moved. It was a lot of second-tier players. The kind you spend a lot of time moving on a fantasy team.
Adrian Dater called it Tuesday: GMs are scared to death of the probability of a shrunken future cap.
Pretty much everyone GM’d [...]

OK. We’re going dim sum style today:

Does anyone else feel the Alex Ovechkin-Evgeni Malkin is either entirely faked or will end with one of them getting shot in Las Vegas?
Flyer Scott Hartnell gets awful stage fright in shootout/penalty shot situations. Unlike a breakaway, where you’re just reacting, with shootouts/penalty shots, you have the opportunity to [...]

The Avs lost 4-1 to the Flames last night, with one unlikely hero emerging for Colorado: the much maligned goalie Peter Budaj.
Adrian Dater said it might be the worst Avs game he’s ever seen. Budaj at least kept it close.
The Avs can’t expect the calvary to come any time soon: there’s no update on when [...]

David Singer from the essential hockeyfights.com has a great-if-blasphemous piece on renaming the Gordie Howe Hat Trick (goal, assist, fight). Howe only accomplished the feat twice. So what should we call a goal, an assist, and a fight in one game? That’s easy. A Bettman. Bettman loves goals and doesn’t understand fights. Maybe, if he [...]

The Times has an interesting story this morning about the NHL leaning on its stars to market itself.
The article quotes Bob Stellick, the president of a Toronto-based marketing company:

Stellick says that the N.H.L. would be wise to augment its reliance on Crosby by trying to promote players born in the United States to appeal to [...]

I like the beginning of the NHL season because you get to see interesting people as offensive leaders. Right now, on NHL.com, you can see Keith Tkachuk as the NHL’s leading goal scorer and Aaron Voros as the NHL’s point leader. I’m not sure that’s going to last a whole season.
In New York, one of [...]