Vanity Fair has an interesting piece on John Hughes, the iconic director who died in August.
In addition to being a huge 80s director, Hughes was also a big hockey fan. In fact, one of his last public appearances might have been the Wings/’Hawks Winter Classic.
The article points out some cool things, like how in FERRIS [...]

Not to be a jerk about the Olympics, but what exactly is the NHL thinking?
The Penguins are obviously already gassed from their successful Stanley Cup run. They beat Atlanta last night, but had dropped their previous five. And now, instead of just focusing on making it to the All-Star break, they’re going to send key [...]

Last night was kind of interesting. There were 10 games played, with four shutouts.
Goalies Steve Mason (CBJ), Ryan Miller (BUF), Ty Conklin (backup; STL), and Nik Backstrom (MIN) each kept the red light off behind them.
So is this a sign defense is back in the NHL? Is the NHL reverting to its pre-lockout lockdown defensive [...]

Tim Panaccio took a quick look back at Brett Hull’s career.
That amazing wrist shot from the circle? It was actually his dad, Bobby Hull’s, idea. Which is shocking, since Bobby Hull is synonymous with the slapshot. But the elder Hull said the quicker NHL game required a quicker shot.
It’s funny how we’ve come full circle. [...]

Anaheim has a couple of issues right now, mostly that they’re 3-5-1 and have dropped four of their last five.
But their most pressing problem might be goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s groin.
Giguere is making $6 million this season and $7 million next season, even as the Ducks have a much stronger, cheaper goaltending option in Jonas Hiller.
It’s [...]

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 [...]

So Todd Bertuzzi is back with the Wings.
I understand the attraction to Bertuzzi. He’s big. He once had great hands. In a lot of ways, he’s the North American version of the prototypical Detroit forward. But to be more precise, he was the North American version of the prototypical Detroit forward. He’s six-years removed from [...]

I’m very surprised Sergei Zubov is close to signing a KHL deal.
Zubov is 39 and coming off an injury-plagued season, but I would think there might be a few NHL teams interested in signing one of the game’s all-time great offensive defensemen. If nothing else, Zubov could probably quarterback the powerplay as a special teams-type [...]

One way you know it was a great game seven is that there just wasn’t much to say about it. It completely spoke for itself. The Penguins were flawless for two periods and strong enough for the third.
Defenseman Brad Stuart, whose turnovers and pinching led to both game seven Penguin goals, says he’d like a [...]

So tonight’s the night for Detroit or Pittsburgh.
Tim Panaccio says the Penguins need a role player to step-up and pull a Ruslan Fedotenko circa game seven of the 2004 Stanley Cup finals. I think Fedotenko, who now plays for Pittsburgh, is a logical candidate for that role, but maybe it’s too obvious.
Meanwhile, moving to the [...]