Yup, likely the worst game I've seen Buffalo (and Tyler Myers) play this year. Thank goodness for Miller but I imagine Lindy Ruff will give him the night off tomorrow so the team better be ready to play against the Isles with Lalime in net.

Gaustad out with the flu hurt, will be interesting to see the lines tonight with Paestch in there as a F

Another one bites the dust...

Val Filppula, broken wrist. Read 'indefinitey' and '6-8 weeks' on different websites.

Any Shanny sightings in Detroit?

Watching the Sharks-Avs last night, I'm still stunned at how well Anderson's playing. I doubt he can sustain a .940 save percentage all year, especially facing 34 shots a night on average, but he managed .935 and .924 the last two years in Florida (only 48 games total), so I guess if the defense gets a little better they can probably hold on to the division lead.

Kaleta might be out too with the flu. Seems like the team is rather ill. If we lose tonight, it won't bother too much.

Ducks finally break out of their absymal strecth of bad play by obliterating the Nucks last night. Hopefully they do the same to Phoenix tonight.

Ping: Philly fans...in case you didn't notice, the Ducks decided Sbisa was being put in too big of a responsibility for someone his age and reassigned him, which means back to Lethbridge for the year. I generally liked what he showed while on an underachieving team (meaning, he didn't look any worse than anyone else to me), but this is probably a good idea, especially since Brendan Mikkelssen has been decent this year.

Bruins shutout Edmonton for the second straight season. Rask with the SO. Good games from Vladimir Sobotka and Steve Begin led the way for the Savard and Lucic-less Bruins.

And the Oilers get shutout for the 3rd time in 4 games...awesome!!! Not sure how any other teams are doing but the Oilers have been really hit hard by the flu...WTF?

Didn't Smid have the swine flu? I was surprised he played against the Bruins. I guess a bunch of guys around the league have the swine flu.

Even though the Habs won in SO, this was hilarious.... nice work Habs fans.

What the hell are the Habs wearing?

Their pajama jerseys from 1912-13. They wore the PJs last year against the Bruins, too. I couldn't stop laughing.

Where's Waldo?

Did the Habs and Broncos have the same designer with the old uniforms?

Ducks waive Crusher Christensen (again)...and must have angered his remaining friends in Pittsburgh Tuesday night. :lol:

I think Christensen has played his last NHL game. All the tools, no toolbox. Except damn is he money in the shootout.

This west coast trip is killing me though, games starting at 10 EST.

Thought you woulda said something sooner. I think we waived him over the weekend. :)

As for last night's game, it was a fun one to watch, but the Ducks deserved to come out of that one with more than they did. The Penguins got every break to get their points (and good timed plays, so a lot is on what the Penguins did, not how things turned out, to be fair).

Not sure how Anaheim doesn't score in the last 3 minutes. The puck was out of the Pens zone a grand total of about 20 seconds.

solid game from the Sabres as they shut out NYI 3-0

Um, yeah...about me saying I was looking forward to Carolina's season? About that. I meant next season, 2010-2011. Clear some aged players off the roster, get some great-looking kids up from Albany, that sort of thing.

At this point, it's all I've got to look forward to anyway. (I swear, since college football started, I'm just living a nightmarish existence with my teams, aside from the Rockies making the post-season. It doesn't figure to get any better any time soon, either.)

Heck yeah, I know. That one play, where Crosby slid across and got a puck blocked in front of a wode open net, I don't know if he did that intentionally, or he just fell and the Duck (Perry or Koivu, forget which) just couldn't elevate the puck more than six inches off the ground. But it sure as heck saved the Penguins' bacon.

Imagine having to do that for about 10-20 games a year. That's the best part about being in the Western Conference and the Eastern Time Zone. Of course, I try to stay up and watch most of the west coast games, but it ends up being almost 1 before I go to bed.

Which means I'm looking forward to the Jackets playing in Atlanta tonight.

I hate the west coast games for the Wings. Damn things start at 10pm, I usually get through the first 2 periods and then go to bed.

I don't know if I've seen this before, but how about move both Detroit and Columbus to the Eastern Conference? I know that will cause the conferences to be off balance (17 to 13), but then allow 9 teams to make it from the East and 7 from the West, sending the 9th place Eastern team to play the 1st place Western team in the playoffs.

Additionally, the scheduling would be unbalanced, so there's another hurdle there. On top of that, if Phoenix moves to an eastern time zone, then you'd have another issue.

And when the Oilers are down east I likely don't get to watch any of the games because the TV usually doesn't get turned on 'til the kids are in bed...usually not before 8pm local time.

I really need to convince the wife that we need a PVR.

Or move a couple of the struggling "Eastern" teams to Western markets and then you can re-align the Conferences to make a little more sense.

I typically DVR the Wings' West Coast weekday games and watch them first thing in the morning. Outside of the playoffs, I just can't stay up until 1 am or so and still be fully functioning at work the next day. I lost those powers about 2-3 years ago it seems.

Is that because of what's on TV or what comes out of Dad's mouth while watching the Oilers? ;)

Can you name the NHL individual points leaders (per team)
for the last four years?


Can you name the NHL individual points leaders (per team) for the last four years? - sporcle

bbor, did you do the Leafs 200+ games one?

Link?

97/120

Only a few that I'm really embarassed about missing.

LOL...mind you, I would think your language watching hockey these days would be much worse than mine...no? :D

I only get a couple of hours with the girls during the week so I try to make a point to play with them as much as I can when I get home...and when you factor in dinner, cleaning up, bath time every other night...there isn't all that much "fun" time with them if I'm watching hockey every other night.

Besides, I don't want them growing up having to watch that crap...we'll see if they'll be allowed to watch in a year or two. :(

Did that one the other night and ended up over 100 with a few "well, duh" afterwards.

Damn...that was tough..i needed another 20 minutes

Heh...I don't have any kids to protect from my foul mouth! :p

I did pretty well the other night, vs Anaheim, a 10pm start.

I was in bed by 12:15...and up at 5:30 :(

Tonight (LA) and Saturday (SJ) are 10:30. Saturday isn't an issue, and I don't have to be at work as early tomorrow, but will still end up breaking about even if I am asleep by 1 and up at 6.

As for the unbalanced conference idea-- I can't see them ever doing that.
Also, isn't Nashville just as close (closer?) than Detroit and Cbus?

Best hope as mentioned is a few teams moving West, allowing one of those above to switch to the East.

Kansas City as expansion is one possibility. Winnipeg (although if it's Phoenix or Nashville moving, they are already West teams). Seattle? Portland?

106/120...a handful of "D'oh!" moments...like Havlat.

If anyone but Turner got the CBJ's from 05-06 and 06-07....wow.
I even tried Andrew Cassels and Brian Holzinger in there!

Nashville is central time zone. Only Detroit and Columbus get the full 3 hour fucking.

Dola, the Wings are too important right now to the West for them to go to the East. They help drive up a lot of attendance places (ironically not in their own barn) and I can't see Bettman and other owners letting that change.

Meh, methinks you over-emphasize their importance in other teams' plans (although I don't doubt there is an uptick in attendance for those games).

If the NHL really believed this, Sid the Kid wouldn't have played his first game at the Honda Center Tuesday night.

Something I haven't seen mentioned but needs to be is just how good Steven Stamkos has been this year. He is the best player on the Lightning at this point in time and I think he is going to play himself into a very prominent role on Team Canada in February.

He has been one of the best players in the NHL this year but sadly he's stuck in hockey purgatory.

Yup, noticed that for the first time today as well. He's off to a very good start.

I also recently noticed the Pens' Goligoski has really gotten off to a nutty start for a defensman, too.

Yep. I liked what I saw from Goligoski last year and took a shot on him in the fantasy hockey league. Thankful for that so far. He's producing some gaudy numbers for a D, let alone a rookie even with some NHL experience.

91/120

I missed the CBJ too! :( Guess I was trying too hard.

Even worse, I mentioned this too my wife, and she got the CBJ correctly. I'm ashamed

Hey Turner, whats the story with CBJ losing money? I just heard about it today but don't know much about it.

When Columbus was trying to get an expansion team, they went to the public to get the arena built, but was voted down twice. Lamar Hunt (who was supposed to be the original owner) walked out of the deal, but John P. McConnell (the first owner, before he passed away) made it his personal mission to get a pro hockey team in Columbus. So, he went to Nationwide Insurance and had them build the arena and he would lease it from them.

Well, the rumor is that McConnell never really read the lease, and didn't think about the finances, as he just wanted to get a team here. Well, the lease sucks (in respect to other NHL teams), and its the biggest reason that they bleed money (over 10 million a year). So, McConnell's son (the current main owner) is trying to figure out a way to decrease the losses and make them viable. Back in September, they attempted to lobby the city government to implement a 'sin' tax, without a vote, to finance the purchase of the arena from Nationwide. Once the city took ownership, they would provide free rent to the Jackets.

Overall, I'm not too worried about it yet. I'm just glad they're doing something about it now, trying to find a good solution, rather than waiting until its too late. Ideally, the city will buy the arena from Nationwide (who are willing to sell it). However, I'm not sure how well that will go over with the economy in the tank, but similar approaches were taken by Cleveland with Progressive Field and the Q.

On a bright note, the Jackets have the largest % increase in attendance so far (13.1 percent).

Atlanta is #2 (12.3 percent), but they must be reporting all tickets, sold or given out. I'm watching the game tonight, and they're can't be any more than 7500 people there. I know that the Jackets changed their policy to reporting only tickets sold after Doug MacLean was fired.

Coming into last year he was compared to Rafalski alot. He's really good with the puck, but he'll never be mistaken for a shutdown guy in his own end, because of his size (also Rafalski like at 5'11" and about 185).

Still, future looks pretty good with him and Letang even if Gonchar is not brought back after this season. Scary part might be he is two years older then Letang, though this is Letangs 3rd season, Gogo's 2nd.

Sporting News 2 weeks ago had an NHL section asking star defensemen about other D around the league. Dan Boyle pointed to Letang as most underrated. I'm not sure I'd go that far (there are alot of good players never mentioned), but that really caught my eye. Also, I've read that during the 2008 Finals, Bowman mentioned that Pittsburgh was a different team after they sat Letang (he was replaced by Sydor after Luc Bourdon's accident-- Letang and Bourdon were best friends), saying they lost alot with him in the pressbox...and this was when he was 20.

Dola

Found this one as well

Name all 30 NHL arenas

Can you name the NHL Arenas? - sporcle

I got 25...and giving myself credit for 27-- one based on spelling (Atlanta) and one based on shortened version (TB)