ML...I can't believe Wilson did'nt freak after this play.As a coach i would have at least had the ref over for an explanation.I kinda have the feeling that he has quit on the team a bit.I would like to see him replaced soon for a "teaching"type coach...ala Dave King or some such.With the youngsters that will no doubt be coming up soon we need a teacher.

Maybe he was suffering from the same neurological disease that LaRue was suffering from. It could be related to Swine Flu or whatever the hell that plague up in Edmonton is.

This "intent" standard is incredibly meaningless and far too suspectible to after the fact justifications for a bad call.

How awkward would it be for Burke to fire Wilson before the Olympics?

Seriously, eh?

Guess the Oilers should have jumped the H1N1 Vaccine lines like the Flames and Canucks (heard reports of them doing so the other night) did.

Too awkward....that's the problem.If the Leafs don't show some signs of life i don't think he will have a choice.

He should definantly be gone after the olympics if things don't get better.

Neal got 2 games for the hit.

Hm. I didn't see that angle on our FSN feed. I saw the normal center ice angle and I thought it was a legit stoppage, especially after Legace got pulled over backwards and the puck disappeared from view. Obviously it hadn't finished moving but with bodies all over the place and Legace being bent over like that, it's not unreasonable that the ref lost sight of the puck momentarily and blew it dead "in his mind" to protect the players only to see it slide in afterwards. But, yes, it's a pretty damned arbitrary thing and I wouldn't blame Leafs fans for being upset about it.

Ducks are pathetic. While a 3-2 loss to the best team in the league doesn't look too bad on paper, this team has absolutely no chemistry and really doesn't appear to be trying very hard either. Even guys that have played with other before (the top line, Whitney/Wiz pairing) just look completely lost out there. Basic breakdowns all over the ice including the winning goal, Heatley (I think?) skating through the middle, both defensemen and the center converge on him, pass to Thornton, walks in on net, goal. I hate to say it as he's a legend but I think the players might have quit on Carlyle. Even Niedermayer is making basic mental errors and isn't all over the ice like he always has been.

Not sure we ever should have expected anything different, don't know how we ever thought we were going to replace Pronger and Beauchemain with the likes of Eminger and Boynton and that has to fall on the front office. Really bad not to resign Beauch considering we could have fit him under the cap for what Toronto paid. I loved the Koivu signing at the time but realistically, we needed a top 4 defenseman more than a second line center, and Koivu now looks like he doesn't have much left.

Nice knee on knee hit tonight by Laraque on Kronwall. Kenny Holland says he hopes Kronwall just has a strained MCL. Not exactly the best thing to hear about it.

Kronwall has a sprained MCL and will be out 4-8 weeks.

Koivu's still fairly young (35) and his performance was fine last year (no drop off, I mean). I think he's just suffering from the same team-crap performance everyone else is right now. As you said, even Niedermayer is making dumb mistakes. WTF?

Last year was like this early (but not as bad), and I remember thinking tons of time that Carlyle really didn't do a very good job last year. It seems more of the same this year. Carlyle's done a ton for the franchise the past five years, but I agree, it might be time to try someone new there, because this just doesn't seem to be working right now.

You sound like a Wings fan, Chief, when you start referring to 35 year old players as "fairly young". :)

LOL

Heh...true enough. ;)

I'm just noting that, from my experience, most players are still not far off of their peak at 35. Sure, they're not like they were at 27, but usually their production isn't that far off from their best unless they have had debilitating injuries in the meantime.

No, 37, 38, you're talking drop off in today's hockey player, particularly skill players who rely on speed.

Maybe I missed it, but haven't seen this yet.

I normally avoid ESPN for all hockey "coverage", but this I thought was really well written.

John Buccigross: How one of hockey's toughest men accepted his son's courageous admission - ESPN

Wow. Great article.

Indeed a great article. I grew up with the family and knowing Brendan had the courage to come out like that means so much more to me because I knew him way back when.

Can the Sabres learn to finish and put pucks into the net?

Wait, really?

Oveckie got ejected from the game for his hit from behind on Kaleta.

Are the Caps' fans chanting the "referees suck?"

Yep.

Very cool. Where? How long ago?

Also, did Brian Burke ever use the word "truculence" around you?

Umm, no.

At least they scored (had no clue they're playing this afternoon until I flipped it on) first.

Yeah, listening in to the game here at work. Sounds like I'm missing a good one...lots of fights and hits.

I definitely didn't appreciate the availability of live sporting events in the northeast before I moved out to Idaho. I've been going nuts this week. Yesterday I found my way into a single club-level ticket for Bruins/Devils in Boston, it was awesome. I haven't been to an NHL game in years.

Sabres losing Goose for a "few weeks" will hurt. At least Rivet should be back within a week.

Garbage that Kaleta can get suspended for his hit yesterday, but Alex doesn't for his (to Kaleta, btw).

Simply put, Kaleta doesn't score 60 goals a year and isn't the best player in hockey. :)

Losing Goose will be tough, for sure but I'm not that upset about Rivet - his play has deteriorated bigtime this year and maybe some time off will help. That said, losing three of your most physical players isn't a good omen...

Thrashers score five goals in the third to beat Carolina 6-4. Yeah, I know the 'Canes are bad but usually Atlanta just rolls over in cases like that.

Oh I know. I don't have a problem if Kaleta gets a suspension, but at least call the rules all around.

Rivet hasn't been quite the same. Hopefully not playing with Butler will help him more. At least he showed his physical side with the two fights yesterday.

Yes, Butler has a bad case of the "Luke Schenn's" this year...a wee bit of a sophomore slump. Still like him a lot though but I don't think he's ready for all the minutes Lindy is giving him.

Quite the third period collapse by Carolina again tonight, as Buffalo scores five in the last twenty minutes to win going away. Miller's save on Brind'Amour in the second period may just be the best save of the year.

Myers with three points too, although they could give him a fourth assist for the great drop pass he gave Matt Cullen on the Canes only goal :)

Just have to be patient with Butler. Like Myers and Sekera, they're going to make mistakes. I just wonder if Butler was sort of impacting Rivet's play.

I can't remember as great of a game that Miller has played in quite of long time. Besides the big turnover by Myers that gave Carolina their only goal, he was lights-out. Some incredible saves.

Kaleta got two games. Quite pathetic (not that he got that, but others didn't get the same punishment). The rest won't hurt.

Sabres will start getting into a busy schedule now.

First two periods last two games: Carolina 5, opponents 1.
Third period last two games: Opponents 10, Carolina 0.

It's not even that they're getting five-spots hung on them. It's that it takes just one goal and for whatever reason, everything just collapses on Carolina. Mentally they just fall apart. Yes, Miller was on his game tonight, but he wasn't in the attacking zone when Carolina gave up all those goals.

I'm beginning to wonder whether this team will rival or even "better" the 2002-03 team that finished with 61 points and finished DFL. It certainly has some common elements: a surprising playoff run from the prior year is rewarded by maintaining a core of older players, some pieces are added, others lost or given up. I think there's another common element, but I just can't quite think of it...something about the coaching staff.... Anyway, that team also had problems with injuries to key players and was rather self-destructive, but never on this scale (14 Ls in a row, granted those are OT/SO aided) and never this soon (that Carolina team imploded after the New Year).

:banghead:

If things continue the way downhill, do you think they need to blow-up the team and rebuild (starting with the idea of a top 3 draft pick)?

Well, that was pretty much the expectation for next year anyway. We're already the oldest team in the league (just over 30 on average) and have a fair number of the older guys coming off the books after this year. We're in cap hell, surprisingly enough, but that's only for this year, which means we're scraping for players and searching for cap exceptions whenever someone goes down.

The fans are hopeful that players like Brind'Amour and Aaron Ward will retire/move on after this year and allow a new core of young players we've got down in Albany to come up and join Staal and Ward. To some extent it's begun as Brandon Sutter was initially in Albany to start the season, but has pretty much cemented his place on the big roster with his performance in this mess. Will it continue? It's hard to say. Having watched the team over the years, patterns have emerged in Jim Rutherford's abilities. In-season, the guy is a mastermind at finding scrap-heap, recover-and-rebuild players (and coaches, both Maurice and Laviolette) who will make contributions to better the team, even if they don't push the team over the top necessarily. However, I'll be blunt and say he's not very good in offseason activities except for maybe drafting talent. He tends to be too loyal to players, especially older ones, and overcompensates them at contract time (see Cole, Erik). He also seems to too often sign free agents that just don't work out here.

So, fans generally have said the season is lost at this point and are right now looking at who's tradeable (if anyone could be from this mess) and what's coming off the books and hoping the rebuild begins in earnest next year, but I don't know how aggressive Rutherford will be about it, mainly because of his "loyalty" issues.

Hat night giveaway...Pens/Rangers at the Igloo...what could possibly happen?






About 2:00 mins in Crosby scores his third...it was about a 10 min delay to clean up.

At least one hat didn't make it to the ice...my 3 year old son refused to give up his hat.

Edit: no idea what I'm going wrong with the embed? Anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ5EZ9E2kfw

Strange (serious) injury in Florida.

The Tiger Woods story is "strange'. The Vokoun/Ballard incident is just plained fucked up.

Yeah. Florida seems to have a thing in taking out its own players (such as Zednick's teammate cutting his neck with his skate). I guess using sports equipment to is all the rage in Florida.

Sabres-Leafs game is tight, give-and-take so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETOshVnLO8

I love how Ballard swings again (while watching the goalie go down).

Woah. That's fucking crazy.

How 'bout them Leafs?

I bet Maple Leafs wishes that someone would do that to Toskala.

Not a bad game for the Leafs....Miller stole the show again.Can't beleive Lindy will be happy about giving up 38 shots to the Leafs.

Oops, just saw the Vokoun incident online. What makes it 10x worse is that Ballard actually hits the goalpost again, after his goalie is on the ice in agony.

Ovechkin is the dirtiest player in the league right now and if he wasn't a superstar would have been suspended at least twice. Discuss.

2 days after Crosby has his HT against the Rangers....Mike Rupp does the same.

Mike Rupp.
I'll let that sink in.









He's got 8 goals on the season already, 2 more than his previous career high.

I don't think Ovechkin is a dirty player. I think this is just how he plays the game, without regard to others or himself. He is reckless, but I don't think he is trying to hurt people on purpose. There is no logical reason that a guy who is 100 points/year player would try to hurt other players, and himself in the process.

With that being said, he needs to be suspended for at least 10 games for this. Maybe he will mature as he gets older and realize that he can't play the game this way. *shrug*

I don't buy this at all. When Cooke/Ott/Tootoo/Kaleta do the same thing, people make the assumption they are doing it on purpose, because they aren't 60 goal scorers. Scoring 60 goals doesn't make him any less dirty, just means he can do something else well while playing dirty.

And if we hold the guys listed above to a different standard because they have history, so does Ovechkin now.