Don't look now, but the Columbus Blue Jackets are 8-3-1 with a 3-0 win tonight over St. Louis. Pascal LeClaire records his 5th (!!!) shutout of the season, already matching a franchise record for shutouts in 1 season.

I have to say, I expected this team to come out and compete hard every night, but I didn't expect them to win this quickly. I know they won't keep up this pace (5-0-1 in their last 6 games), but its nice to see winning hockey in Columbus. Rick Nash is playing like one of the best 2-way forwards in the game (its like looking at what Hitchcock did for Mike Modano), scoring 10 goals, and probably our best PK'er right now (sans Pascal). I don't know what Hitch did to Nik Zherdev, but the kid is finally playing the game the right way, backchecking, working hard, and is getting rewarded for it, both on the stat sheet and in the TOI department.

Its just nice to see a TEAM game, where the entire roster works hard every shift, right down the lineup. The Jackets have the top PK % in the league (something around 94), and they're not just playing the trap either. They're playing smart, limiting second chances, hitting people, and getting great goaltending.

I'm hoping they can keep this up as they enter the stretch of divisional play, and can just keep getting points. Their upcoming game @ Detroit will be a big test to see where they stand against the Wings.

Seen the Jackets twice now, once when they smacked us hard on our early road trip after the London games, and last week, when we finally got a shootout win. They have a lot going for them, I think, and I thought it was a good sign that we were able to come out and play with them last week after how poorly we have played this year.

The Avs have now won 7 in a row against the Flames.

in other news, Theo Fleury was the guest analyst on the lousy Flames PPV broadcast I got stuck watching last night. To put it kindly, he was fucking dreadful.

Poor Theo Fleury...

poor Theo Fleury? how about poor DD for having to listen to the schmuck.

With last night's 2-1 overtime win over Washington, Atlanta has now moved into 3rd place in the Southeast, and is the same as New Jersey, 1 point better than the Caps and 2 points better than the Oilers through the same 15 games.

Of course after scoring his NHL-leading 13th goal, Ilya Kovalchuk left with an injury midway through the second period and did not return. An MRI is scheduled for later today.

I have listened to both Colorado's radio and televsion guys. You should be used to listening to schmucks by now. ;)

I am off to the Pens/Flyers game tonight. I am hoping the Flyers can stop the 9 game winning streak that the Pens have against them. I am not too confident about it after seeing the 22 shots they gave up against the Rangers in the first period. For the past 3 or 4 games, they like to wait until the middle of the 2nd period to start playing. You can't do that against a team like the Pens that has a lot of offensive firepower.

two words: Mickey Redmond

The Ducks just won a shootout with the Sharks tonight, ending with this thrilling announcement by Hayward: "And the Ducks win the shootout and take over first place in the Pacific Division."

All I have to say is, damn, does the Pacific Division suck right now.

It's no NFC West, that's for sure!

What? Mickey Redmond is one of the best out there.

Well, apparently whatever the problem is in Buffalo, it's worse than they ever imagined. How do you get shutout at home by the Leafs?

(Well, I guess "home" is a relative term here, since the Sabres fans everyone says are so passionate have no problem letting Leaf fans take over their building four times a year.)

Come on! Mickey is like your old, friendly drunken uncle.

Well, for the first time since the 2001-2002 Regular Season NHL thread, I can say the Blackhawks do not suck! It's amazing what a salary cap and a couple of phenoms can do...

3 cheers for mediocrity! Oh, and the ability to beat the Red Wings, a skill which no one else has mastered to this point ;)

SI

Red Wings with a 9 game win streak, tying a franchise record. Zetterberg scores late to keep his point streak alive and the Wings just keep flying.

I saw a game in Buffalo a few years ago. The place was filled with Leaf fans...and the Leafs weren't even playing.

In the Sabres defense, a lot of Buffalo hotties make the trip to the stadium.

That reminds me of a funny comment from Tuesday's Sens/Leafs game. They had Ottawa's Luke Richardson do one of those quick interviews during a commercial break right after the Sens had made it 2-0 early on. They asked him about the lead, and he said something along the lines of "That's really key for us, we needed to get on the board early and take the crowd out of the game".

The game was in Ottawa.

and, IIRC, Luke Richardson is FROM Ottawa.

The Avs now have a 3 point lead in the NW. Me so happy.

*Yawn*

Actually, as a Sabres season ticket holder, I want to thank Leafs fans and their bottomless wallets for almost singlehandedly paying for my entire year's worth of tickets just by purchasing these four games from me at prices about five times their worth.

Passion? It's just called good business. I wouldn't DREAM of letting my Leaf fan buddies down by withholding my ducats! ;)

Dola -

It would have been a lot tougher a decision had Buffalo even remotely resembled an NHL team through the first 15 games.

But their ineptitude, combined with border traffic on a weekend and the fact that I could sit comfortably on my couch and watch the game in beautiful HD on TSN, well...the decision was an easy one.

Flyers beat the Islanders to go 6-0-0 at home. They are the last team in the league to be undefeated at home. Last year they did not get their 5th win at home until Feb.

Canes win their second straight on their divisional road swing in FLA tonight, but Erik Cole gets taken off on a stretcher after suffering a head/neck injury getting knocked down from behind charging in on net and colliding with Vokoun. When the good news is that he's "moving his extremities", that doesn't bode well for a quick return to the ice. Given he had a similar severe injury two years ago, it does become concerning whether he should even come back and risk further injury to his neck that could be irreversible next time.

On a more positive note, congratulations to Canes assistant GM Ron Francis on making the Hall of Fame tonight. Well deserved for one of the class acts in the NHL and the man who was the face of the franchise in the years after they moved to North Carolina. My favorite memory of him is that OT goal he scored in game one of the '02 Final in Detroit which just left the entire crowd in Joe Louis stunned.

For those that missed it, there was an incident before the Rangers/Leafs game on Saturday night. New York's Sean Avery said something to the Leafs' Jason Blake during the pre-game warmup. Darcy Tucker overheard it and almost squared off with Avery -- there was lots of jawing and some stick swinging before teammates stepped in and separated them.

During the game Tucker challenged Avery who backed down, leading to minor penalties. As soon as they came out of the box Tucker went after him again and finally got him to drop the gloves. After the game, Wade Belak (who didn't play) predicted that Avery was going to get "killed" some day for what he says on this ice.

After the game Avery didn't speak to the press and nobody on the Leafs would comment on what specifically may have been said. The league has now apparently called Avery onto the carpet for an explanation.

Well, it seems like what everyone suspected is now being reported, although not outright confirmed by anyone. Apparently a source in the Rangers dressing room has confirmed that Avery was making fun of Blake's cancer diagnonis.

Should anybody be surprised? No.

Avery's an asshat and has always been one. Unfortunately, too many guys give in to his silliness and that's how he becomes effective. Then the media hypes things up even more and voila, Avery's done his job. Teams continue to fall over themselves to take stupid penalties and the rest of Rangers get the week off from dealing with the press because everybody wants to hear what Avery's going to say next.

Let him chirp all he wants...if he has the puck, hit him...if he hits one of your best players...hit him harder...if he gets up...repeat. He'll eventually fade away as he's nothing more than a 3rd liner but gets paid big bucks because he's willing to take a lot of crap to get his team a power play or two a game and nowadays, that's HUGE.

Correct.

avery also almost got into a fight before the game against the devils last week. he was jawing at david clarkson.

For Devils fans, tonight's a big night. Scott Gomez is playing his first game in New Jersey as a damn New York Ranger. I know most Devils fans (including myself) hate Scott Gomez now, and I'm sure that many of the people at Prudential Center will have a less-than-welcoming treatment for Gomez tonight. I'll be booing him from my house, and I hope Devils fans around the country are booing him, too!

Blues beat Detroit!!!! Oh Baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

McCabe is a pretty good D, eh?

He's Mr. Overtime.

I'll be rooting for the earth to open up and swallow the Prudential Center.

:p

im going to the rock on friday night.

tonight ill be loudly hating gomez from my couch.

I don't have any idea how Scott Gomez's old teammates feel about his move to the Rangers (it's not like he's the first guy to leave New Jersey for New York, so it's probably not a big deal to them), but I think it would be great for the Devils to try to goad Gomez into a fight just to get the crowd into the game. Then, in retaliation, Sean Avery will do something really stupid and get himself a misconduct. It'll be hilarious.

Fixed.

After the recent developments, this quote seems much funnier

(For those who don't know, Tlusty took some nude pics of himself on a camera phone and sent them to some girl online apparently and the Toronto media got ahold of them and posted them online.)

Boooooooo


Heh. :cool:

henrik is good. ill give him that

but the devils just dont play a consistent game. they only seem to try 25 minutes a night.

To add to this, I'm being facetious here, but it seems like Brodeur is only trying 25 minutes a night, too.

During one of the intermissions last night, Stan Fischler brought up a good point. Brodeur isn't stickhandling the way that he used to. Now, that's not going to have a great effect on GAA over the course of a season, but in a single game, it can change things. Brodeur isn't making long passes to his teammates, and he isn't coming out of his crease to play the puck before it gets to the red line. He's not bring a third defenseman anymore, and that's something that's made the Devils successful on defense over the past several years.

Is it because of Brodeur's age and/or the physical toll of playing so many games each year, or is this Sutter's doing? Martin Brodeur has never been the kind of guy who only leaves his crease to stop rolling pucks behind the net, but that's what he's become. It's scary. :(

Don't blame Brodeur. He's untouchable.

TSN is reporting that the Ducks are placing Ilya Bryzgalov on waivers. I find this to be an odd move. Is there some other back-up in Anaheim now?

Well, sure he's had some good stretches, but the guy has never been a full-time starter, he's not exactly young, and he's going to need a big contract extension. You can't expect that some team is just going to trade you half their draft for the guy. That would be stupid.

(Hangs self.)

Hey, man, when you're done hanging, can I have Mrs. Leafs?

very curious.

I heard he slept with Pronger's wife.

Is she getting back at him Anna Benson style?

That's the word on the street.

Boy, the Prongers sure do get around.

I find that odd, too, but only because we really should have been able to get something for him. We have Jonas Hiller down in AHL, who was considered one of the best GKs in Europe the past couple years, and we have been trying to move Bryz so we could bring him up to back up Jiggy.

This was a serious question, by the way.

I don't get this either. Bryzgalov is a very good backup, something that should at least get a late round pick. Are there revocable waivers in the NHL?

Not that I am aware of. I don't think hockey works that way. Or I wouldn't hear about players being lot inw aivers in hockey more than other sports.

I heard that Phoenix got Bryzgalov. (e5) :)

I have no idea what the hell Burke is thinking. We just gave a division rival a starting goaltender for nothing - he's better than Auld and Tjellqvist easily. Hell, I'd have given him to an Eastern Conference team for a bag of pucks. If he's allowed to get into a rhythm, Bryzgalov is a pretty good goalie. Inexcusable stuff.

Hiller is going to be good, but you just don't throw a player like Bryzgalov out there for nothing and let him land wherever he may.

Could it be to make room for Niedermayer.. with Bryz on the roster, the Ducks would have been about 500k over the cap if Niedermayer came back

That would be great news, but still you don't give a team in your division a chance to get better for nothing. Burke has bought himself a lot of leeway with some of the moves he has made over the years, but I don't get this one.

+1

I'm still amazed that Burke couldn't get anything for him.

but if you guys are worried about making the Coyotes better, you are in more trouble than I thought.

I heard an interview with Burke and he said that while there was interest around the league in Bryzgalov, pretty much every team wanted the Ducks to assume part of his salary in the move, something the club wasn't prepared to do.

you mean take a salaried player in return? you can't assume salary in a trade - one of aspects of the CBA Burke has been lobbying to change

You know what? No, I'm not giving Burke a pass on this one. I don't care how many good things he has done. This has to be one of the stupidest things I have seen a GM do--in any sport--in the past several years.

Bryzgalov is a player everyone pretty much agreed was a #1 netminder serving as a backup. He's even had playoff success, in both of the past two seasons. His numbers are comparable to Jiggy's in many ways. The team never missed a beat when they switched goalies.

Tonight, on Duck Calls (the post game show on the local radio), the announcer said Burke claimed he did this because he couldn't get a deal he liked. Well, Burke, then you sit on the guy and you don't do a damn thing until you get that deal. Or you lower your expectation of what you will receive and move him that way. Point is, you move him for "something" not freakin' "NOTHING"!

And, this is most important. YOU DON'T LET HIM MOVE TO A FREAKIN' DIVISION RIVAL!!! I don't care if you only get a bag of flippin' pucks for him, you do not move him to a Pacific Division team, even the Yotes. You send him East, where with the NHL's freaky schedule you never have to play the guy. Or if you do keep him West or even Pacific, you damn well better get the best deal ever for him.

There is absolutely no excuse for this move. Even the salcap reason for Niedermayer doesn't fit, because, as mentioned, you can't assume salary, and trading him removes the salary anyway. And the way NHL waivers works, the Ducks have to pick up some of his salary anyway doing it this way.

This is so pheonomenally dumb on so many levels, I don't know what else to say. Fit Burke for a dunce cap right now.

Isn't Toronto looking for another goalie?

Hmmm...that must have been it...he must have been looking for a pick for him but the other teams wanted to dish someone else off in the deal and he wasn't willing to add salary when there's still a chance of Niedermayer coming back.

That was interesting. The Islanders just iced the puck 6 times in the first 3 minutes against the Rangers.

Down by 2 with 6 minutes to play, Atlanta rallies to beat Tampa 4-3 in OT.
That brings the once 0-6 Thrashers to .500 for the year.

Wild game to watch, as Brad Richards looked like a pro playing with pee wees for a lot of the 2nd period, and Hossa took on the same sort of look for the end of the 3rd.

Thanks for that. Keeps Carolina five clear in the division right now. Tampa's beaten the hell out of us each time we've played so I'm more concerned about them than I am about the Thrashers. ;)

Seriously, good job by Atlanta getting that mess straightened out. Do you think they'll be able to keep it up or are they just going way over their heads right now?

Eh, in Atlanta, we always kind of expect reality to set in sooner or rather ;)

I think some of the kids will hit the wall before the year is through, and we're just one injury to Hoss or Kovy away from disaster (or one healed LetOneIn).

But they're playing well right now, fun to watch.

First Pens play their best...OK not best, but most entertaining...game of the year at Ottawa last night, and now this news!

http://www.wheelingnailers.com/Pages...s/20071121.asp

Awesome...Tarnstrom got his eggs scrambled and has left the game. Get one D-Man back only to lose another one.

Shouldn't the team improve defensively with Dickie T out?
:confused:

You would think so but I guess that's why we're in friggin' last place!!!

When he's being replaced by a d-man who is something like 11th on the team depth chart (being Allan Rourke), then no, the team doesn't improve defensively with him out.

It sounds like things are finally, mercifully ready to blow up in Toronto.

The media is now openly speculating about who the next GM will be -- virtually nobody thinks JFJ can survive the week, let alone the whole season. There are reports today that Ferguson tried to fire Maurice last week but was shot down by the board, which is as good a sign as any that he's on the way out soon. It sounds like they're just waiting to have a replacement ready to go before they drop the axe.

Names that have been mentioned: Colin Campbell, Glenn Healy, Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, Doug Gilmour, Ron Francis. Other than Campbell, none of those guys have significant front office experience although some are viewed as good hockey minds. You could see a situation where a veteran executive comes in, with a big-name former player as assistant GM with a plan to take over in a year or two.

So does JFJ survive until tomorrow night's game against the Habs? If so, do the fans burn the ACC to the ground if the Leafs lay another egg?

take Pierre McGuire. Please.

Yeah...take him out back and shoot him!!!

Do you often go to the pound, find small puppies with severe wounds, and squeeze lemon juice on them?

I think at this point I'd take Rourke over Tarnstrom or Grebeshkov until Greene gets back. Both of those guys (Tarnstrom/Grebeshkov) seem to have their biggest value being on the PP and we have plenty of guys that can handle those minutes. Certainly not wishing an injury or anything like that, but I just don't see Tarnstrom not being on the ice being that huge of a blow, especially in our own end.

Generally speaking, I try and teach my kids not to be fatalists ... I'm a pretty optimistic person, but I recognize the need to balance reality with optimism. So we end up having conversations about not assuming the worst is going to happen in different situations, etc.

Saturday night, the whole family went out to see Enchanted, but my seven-year old son didn't want to go. We talked for a bit, and he finally relented, but as we got in the car, I said "We'll go to the movie, have some popcorn, and then when we get home, we'll sit down and watch the Leafs lose, ok?"

"Dad, you don't *know* that they're going to lose!"
"Yes I do."
"No you don't ... they could win."

I dropped it at that point. Walked out of the theatre a couple hours later and checked my cellphone -- 5-1 (end 2nd).

I didn't mention it. :)

Poor kid. Did he at least like the movie?

Aw, come on... That'd be a MONSTER front office move!

Yeah, the movie was great. :)

Vote For Mike Richards

I don't know who Ryan Dixon is, but his take on Lilja's decision to fight Phanuef after Phanuef cleaned little Jiri Hulder's clock is ridiculous...

http://www.thehockeynews.com/article...clean-hit.html

Hockey has so many great traditions, but one of my least-favorite customs was on display last night in Detroit.

Calgary crusher Dion Phaneuf laid out little Jiri Hudler with one of his patented, bone-crushing hits at center ice. Even Hudler’s mother would tell you it was a perfectly clean play. But that didn’t stop Detroit defenseman Andreas Lilja from extracting revenge on Phaneuf in the form of a fight.

I admire Lilja’s spirit; teammates have to stick up for each other. And had it been a dirty hit, I could live with retribution by donnybrook.

But the consequence for delivering a clean hit should not be a forced five minutes in the box. Phaneuf had no choice but to partake in the bout once Lilja came after him.

Why should he (and his team) be punished for making what amounts to a great defensive play? Should Phaneuf have to sit on the bench and weigh his options before a shift?

Would the thinking go: “Well, I could give my team a lift by laying somebody out, but is that worth our worst defenseman getting more ice time while I sit in the box for five minutes?”

And don’t try telling me Phaneuf shouldn’t be clipping Hudler’s wings just because he’s a little guy. If Hudler can’t take the hits, he shouldn’t be in the league. If small players didn’t have to endure hard checks there’d be nothing remarkable about them playing with the big boys.

The proper course of action when a teammate gets smacked with a hard, but legal, hit should go something like this; pat him on the back, tell him his still-attached head has to be up at all times and, of course, get the number of the delivery truck and some time when he’s not suspecting it, two months down the road, crunch him with a clean check of your own.

Maple Leafs, please skip this post. For your own good, please ingore this...

Where are they now?


ALEX SHPRINTSEN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
November 30, 2007 at 9:46 PM EST



Forget Paul Maurice.


Forget the board of directors of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.


Forget the debate over whether Mats Sundin can lead a team to a Stanley Cup title.


If one really wants a portrait of why the Leafs have been so mediocre for the past 40 years, remember those famous words from the franchise's most successful general manager over those four decades.


"Draft shmaft."

That was Cliff Fletcher's response on trade deadline day in March, 1997, when the then-GM confirmed the Leafs had turned down the offer of a first-round pick for Wendel Clark. Alas, Fletcher couldn't deliver a Cup, and looking at the cold, hard facts, performance at the draft has played a major role.


The truly abominable drafting era for the Leafs began 20 years ago, and has continued unabated to this very day. The 1987 entry draft is a good point of departure because the previous year was the last time the Leafs used their first-round draft pick to choose a future star: Vincent Damphousse. Toronto's drafting performance since then has been truly inept.
And it is unquestionably the main reason for the general futility of their 40-year quest for the Stanley Cup.

First-round woes
Contrary to what has often been said and written, the Leafs have not given away most, or even many, of their first-round picks. In fact, in those 21 drafts, they have had 19 picks — which is pretty close to the NHL average.
Here are those 19 players in chronological order: Luke Richardson, Scott Pearson, Scott Thornton, Rob Pearson, Steve Bancroft, Drake Berehowsky, Brandon Convery, Grant Marshall, Kenny Jonsson, Landon Wilson, Eric Fichaud, Jeff Ware, Nik Antropov, Luca Cereda, Brad Boyes, Carlo Colaiacovo, Alex Steen, Tuukka Rask and Jiri Tlusty.


What is remarkable about this group is how unremarkable they are. The highest career scorer among them is Thornton with 278 points over 18 NHL seasons with six different teams. The highest individual accomplishment in one season was the 26 goals and 43 assists by Brad Boyes in 2005-06 with the Boston Bruins.


What's most incredible is that the highest number of goals in a season by one of these picks in a Leafs uniform came from Rob Pearson (23) in 1992-93. No one else has ever scored as many as 20 goals. Of the 20 teams that have been in existence since 1987, the team with the second-lowest career scorer drafted in the first round is the New York Islanders, whose highest point-getter has been Todd Bertuzzi with 546 points.


The league average over the same period is more than 900 points.
Averaging out the stats for all the NHL players who were picked in the first round during this 20-year period, if we were to prorate them over 82 games, those 19 Leaf picks would average 10 goals and 16 assists a season.


The rest of the NHL has been almost in a different league. The best franchise — Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche — has its first-round roster averaging 24 goals and 37 assists for 61 points a season. The NHL average is 42 points a season, more than 60 per cent better than the Leafs.

The competition
Of the four teams that have won more than one Stanley Cup since 1990, Colorado/Quebec, the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils have been the three most effective drafters in the first round.


The Penguins have been very good at giving themselves a high draft position by being awful for many consecutive years — that's how they got Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, and after many years in the wilderness, they may now again be on the verge of another young, Cup-contending team. Still, the Devils (Martin Brodeur, Petr Sykora, Jason Smith and Scott Gomez) and the Avalanche (Joe Sakic, Alex Tanguay, Adam Deadmarsh) prove that you can pick very good players with low picks in the first round, disproving some of the excuses provided by and for the Leafs over the years.

The Leafs all-stars
For a better idea of the players the Leafs have drafted since 1987, here's a look at the all-Leafs team composed of 20 players:


Goalies: Felix Potvin and Damian Rhodes


Defence: Tomas Kaberle, Dmitri Mironov, Danny Markov, Ian White, Nathan Dempsey and Yannick Tremblay


Forwards: Daniel Marois, Tie Domi, Yanic Perreault, Grant Marshall, Nikolai Borschevsky, Fred Modin, Sergei Berezin, Alex Ponikarovsky, Kyle Wellwood, Mike Eastwood, Matt Stajan and Darby Hendrickson


There would only be one star on this team: Tomas Kaberle. In 20 years of drafting by the Leafs, only one player has developed into a borderline star. And so this "fantasy" team of Leaf draft picks would certainly not strike fear into anyone, especially when you look at some of the others, particularly the Detroit Red Wings.


Over this period, the Red Wings have not drafted particularly well in the first round, partly because they had traded away many of their picks (only 14 first-round picks since 1986) and when they did have one, it was often very low because they have been such a consistently good team.


Detroit, however, has been a consistently good team because they have more than made up for first-round failures by drafting well in subsequent rounds. The 1989 draft is an excellent point of comparison with the Leafs, who happened to have three first-round picks. They selected Scott Thornton (third overall), Rob Pearson (12th) and Steve Bancroft (21st), who in a bizarre twist all came from the Ontario Hockey League's Belleville Bulls.


In the very same draft, the Red Wings used later picks to select Nicklas Lidstrom (53rd), Sergei Fedorov (74th) and Vladimir Konstantinov (221st).
Detroit's post-first-round team of the last 20 years:


Goalies: Chris Osgood, Norm Maracle


Defence: Nicklas Lidstrom, Dan McGillis, Vlad Konstantinov, Jason York, Anders Eriksson, Mathieu Dandenault


Forwards: Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov, Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Mike Knuble, Thomas Holmstrom, Jiri Hudler, Dallas Drake, Darren McCarty, Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula

A new frontier
The striking comparison makes one wonder how the Leafs have avoided the depths of the cellar all these years.


There is a rather simple explanation — trades and free agency — which today make for a particularly bleak future. Two of the most lopsided trades in the NHL history were carried out by Fletcher. One brought Doug Gilmour to the Leafs, the other Mats Sundin. In both instances, Fletcher used previously successful Leaf draft picks — Gary Leeman and Wendel Clark — to pry those superstars.


During the Ken Dryden/Mike Smith/Pat Quinn era, successful free-agent signings, like those of Curtis Joseph, Ed Belfour, Gary Roberts and Alex Mogilny, allowed the Leafs to ice a respectable team.


It's a strategy that is no longer possible because of the salary-cap system, and the Leafs' postlockout signings of Eric Lindros, Jason Allison and Pavel Kubina show how difficult it is to improve your team via that route. It is only possible when a team has several great young players who don't earn a lot of money in their first few years, leaving them with sufficient cap room to sign stars.


Most of the Leafs' budget is tied up with veterans such as Sundin, Kubina, Bryan McCabe, Jason Blake and Darcy Tucker, making it all but impossible to improve by simply buying players.


Similarly, with regard to trades, the new cap system has made it very difficult to do anything more than patch minor holes in time for the playoffs.



The bottom line in the NHL is that contenders cannot be built through trades and signings.

A spendthrift solution
On the other hand, there is no salary cap on management and this is where Toronto must now spend its money.


It is patently obvious the Leafs have had an utterly incompetent collection of scouts during the past 20 years. That must change and quickly, but it's not that difficult to do. For the $5-million a year the Leafs are paying Kubina, they could hire the best general manager in the business and complement him with the combined scouting staff of the Red Wings, Devils and Avalanche.


This could happen quickly or slowly. Quickly, if the Leafs management were to decide to blow up the current team, getting rid of everyone they could and securing draft picks along with cap space, rebuilding the Penguins' way by getting high first-round picks for several years. The other — the slow or the very slow — way is to rebuild the team through attrition and gradual smart drafting.


Either way, ultimately, the Leafs' simplest direct solution is to spend their money to raid the scouting staffs of the most successful teams.

The Pens put Mark Recchi on waivers...one day after Mark Recchi bobblehead doll night at the Igloo.

harsh

Oilers win 3 in a row for the first time this season pulling to within a game of .500 with Souray, Greene, Roy, Tarnstrom and Moreau still on the shelf (and Pisani having played just his 3rd game of the season). A nice back to back set with the Ducks where the Oil outscored them 9-1 followed by their 7th shootout victory of the season (with Hemsky missing the last two games).

I'm at the point now where I'd very much like to see Roli and Garon split the rest of the season in net, and if they can be around .500 once they get the rest of the troops back (assuming they don't lose as many as they're getting back) I'm fully assuming that Lowe will look to make a 3 or 4 for 1 deal (including prospects) to bring in a rental scorer to see what kind of push they can make.

And on that note, I'd fully expect some of Torres, Schremp, Pouliot, Syvret, Tarnstrom, Jacques to be dealt. But the fact we're now ahead of Calgary and only a point back of the Ducks has to give the guys in that locker room a lot of confidence considering the injuries and the fact that they have yet to really put together a long winning streak. Here's hoping they don't let it go to their heads too quickly.

I wanted the Avs to sign Garon this summer. That was a good move for the Oil.

I thought it was kind of cold that his bobblehead was wearing street clothes.

Wade Belak scores his 1st goal................


















IN 4 YEARS!!!!!

i randomly turned on the sens game yesterday with 5 mins left...they were down 3-1, and scored 2 goals in the last 90 seconds or so to tie it. still lost in a shootout though.

they can keep on losing, as far as im concerned. they are one dangerous team.

And he's cleared...I doubt he is actually sent to WBS in the AHL. He'll be recalled soon, with hopes someone grabs him on re-entry waivers.

I can't imagine who would. He's due $1.75M this year...so whatever the prorated portion of that is now...

He was great early last season...then scored once in his last 29 games, including playoffs. Bringing him back with the idea he'd play on the top 2 lines was a mistake. He could be servicable on the 3rd line, but the Pens have no room there.

His wife is from Pittsburgh, and even while in Philly and Montreal (and that 2 month stint in Carolina) lived here in the offseason. He should retire, and Mario will give him a job in the front office.

Dola...meant to post this last week.

Max Talbot is hilarious

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/281672

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns

Woot! Boy do we need him, too.

And he's playing tonight, Sabres fans!!!
























































Okay, I'm fibbing...

This team needed that so frickin badly. Now at least I feel like we have a shot at defending the cup. Selanne meh, if he can still play we need the goals but he faded badly in the playoffs.

Huskins to be traded soon? With Schneider and Niedermayer, seems like we have all the puckhandling defensemen we need.

Someone has to go. With Niedermayer, we're about 1.5-2 mil over next year's sal cap (which, by the new CBA, teams must also abide by). Not sure how much Huskins makes, but didn't think it was that much. I was hearing more about Marchant being moved.

As for Teemu, I would bet he doesn't fade so much coming back now. After all, play until early June (the ideal, of course), it's still just six months of hockey--two less months and no training camp grind.