What a crazy night last night. The Blues beat Detroit, the Blues on the second half of a back-to-back and the Wings coming off of three days of rest. The Blues are now in the playoffs. I don’t think anyone saw that coming a few weeks ago. The bottom of the Western Conference is crazy. [...]
Mike Heika posed an interesting question this morning: why didn’t Sean Avery work in Dallas? Heika obviously can’t say for sure. My suspicion is that ultimately, Avery’s salary was a source of jealousy and that kept the other players from embracing him. Salary is a huge thing — especially in a league with a salary [...]
I’m sorry but I think Mats Sundin is a little crazy. This week he was in New York, huddling with the Rangers, making it seem like his signing was inevitable. And then, of course, he signed with the Canucks. In New York, the beat writers seem to believe the X factor was a dollar sign. [...]
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 [...]
How about those Blackhawks? They’ve yet to lose at home this season, including last night’s big 6-2 win over the Avs. One of the reasons for Chicago’s success? Coach Joe Quenneville’s Detroit-style offense, that features a lot of shooting defensemen. The defense either scores or creates rebound opportunities for the forwards. As I see more [...]
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 [...]
Two-Line Pass recently had a great post taking the Wings to task for not having enough cap space to call up rookie Ville Leino while Johan Franzen is out. Ryan’s beef with Detroit is the money they spent on Darren McCarty, who’s been used sparingly by Detroit coach Mike Babcock. Well I’m not sure if [...]
The Boston Globe had a nice piece on Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli (login info.). One of the interesting parts is the culture shift in Boston, moving from a place that seemed to hate its players to one that seems to respect them: One key difference in the Chiarelli regime has been the relative ease with [...]
We’re just two games into the season and lineups are still in flux. In Tampa, the Lightning made a post-Prague trade with Vancouver, swapping Shane O’Brien and Michel Ouellet for defenseman Lukas Krajicek and forward Juraj Simek. Tampa might not be done tweaking, though, and could be interested in Calgary’s Rhett Warrener, recently placed on [...]
Todd Bertuzzi made his debut with new linemate Jarome Iginla. I was really excited about this combination because I love huge finesse guys. Not that Bertuzzi has so much finesse anymore. But he once did and I like to think he can eventually access it once again. Especially now that he’s back in western Canada. [...]
