The start of the season is tough, because you always want to make grand statements about teams when you’re really just working off of a small data set.
Watching last night’s Rangers-Devils, on Versus (I’m one of the 50 people left with Versus), I was very impressed by the Devils. They didn’t look like a typical [...]

This weekend saw Rangers coach John Tortorella formally announce the painfully obvious: The Rangers needs to be a mentally and physically stronger, more aggressive team this season.
Tortorella probably doesn’t care how the Rangers ended up this way, but it’s interesting to track, especially because in some ways, he’s responsible for their softness.
Tortorella was interim coach [...]

David Pollak had a piece discussing how much competition the Sharks have for their third- and fourth-line slots.
This seems to be the new GM move: spending an excruciating amount of time, and to a certain extent, money, on guys who will play 10 to 15 minutes a night.
At least San Jose GM Doug Wilson has [...]

Not that he’s horribly objective, but Jeff Halpern expects the Lightning to be much more successful this year.
Tarik El-Bashir caught up with him in DC and it’s interesting to hear Halpern talk about how hard it was for him to leave the Caps. Halpern also talks about the pressures of being in a contract year.
Speaking [...]

I’m really not too interested in the Patrick Kane cabdriver altercation story, because there’s really no way to know what went down in that cab. And I’m not sure we ever will know. But Chris Kuc has an interesting post remembering Kane interacting with another cabbie, leaving the driver with a huge tip.
Obviously, one anecdote [...]

Larry Brooks caught up with Rangers coach John Tortorella and found some interesting stuff.
For instance, veterans are not a lock to make the team out of camp.
Assuming this is true, this is a huge departure for a team that loves to talk about a youth movement but has never been willing to support one. [...]

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 [...]

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 love when people say hockey is a team sport and one person really never has the ability to dominate a game, unlike the NBA. If anyone says that, show them last night’s Caps-Pens game, where Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin each had a hat trick.
It’s funny to watch Washington play Pittsburgh so well considering [...]

Wow. Two crazy game sevens last night.
Down in DC, Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist made some stunning saves against the Capitals, but ended up giving up a soft game-winner, once again showing how vulnerable he is when you shoot shortside on him. For whatever reason, Lundqvist just does not fully hug the post.
The Rangers controlled the [...]