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.