Official NHL 2010-2011 Thread

[Ian Benhamou]

Wow!!

 

So much has happened in hockey yet, over a month between those two last posts.

 

While I totally don't expect most of our American brethren to jump on the NHL bandwagon, I would at least hope we'd be enough to keep this thread alive.

 

Anyhow, transaction rumours are starting to emerge.

 

Nabokov and Detroit??

 

Iginla and LA or possibly Montreal??? (more likely LA).

 

Giguere????, but his value seems to be diminishing.

[Bridog6996]

I hadn't heard about the possible movement of Iginla. That would certainly be big news.

 

Regarding Nabokov, I'm really surprised it took this long for his name to start circulating. He left the Russian league over a month ago right? There are a lot of teams that could use a goalie of his caliber. I would have said Tampa Bay right off the bat, but they just got Roloson, so apparently they think he's the answer.

 

One the bigger stories of the year, in my opinion, is the complete suckage of Kovalchuk. When you pay someone as much as the Devils are paying him, you expect a LOT more. Then again, maybe that's the problem in a salary cap league.

[MAJUSCULE]

I think I would post more often if I had something to brag about... Oilers are 11(?) points out of 14th place in the West. Ouch. Our captain, Shawn Horcoff, was out for six weeks, our assistant captain, points, assists and ice-time leader, Ryan Whitney, is probably out for the season, assistant captain and top forward Ales Hemsky was out with a leg injury and now has a concussion... The list goes on. Absolutely no luck around here. The one and only plus this year is that morale is higher compared to last year, when we were in the same situation. Players are still motivated and playing hard, but the pucks just won't go in. Also, it means we'll probably be able to secure a high pick in the form of Couturier, Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog or Larsson. The future is all we can hope for...

 

I love the World Juniors, but man oh man... Talk about a major phoquing choke. Jesus... I don't know what the hell happened there.

 

Nabokov and the Wings?! Ouate de phoque?! Why? Jimmy Howard and Chris Osgood have got to be one of the best tandems in the league!

 

Jay Feaster, acting GM of the Flames and probably permanent by this summer, said he had no plans to trade Iggy. Promises are only promises, but I wouldn't bet on anything happening until at least this summer.

 

Ian, you guys need some forwards! Habs were playing with 9 the other night!

[Ian Benhamou]

MAJUSCULE, the future is VERY bright for Edmonton. Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, a top draft pick again this year.

 

The Oilers made some really great moves in the last few seasons by re-building a fresh young team. It will pay off. Just give it a few more seasons.

 

The rumours about Iginla are pure media speculation. Some of the Hockey journalists are speculating that since Calgary is almost certainly out of the playoff race again this year that they should take a cue from Edmonton. That is to ditch their nucleus of aging veterans which isn't working for them and start collecting early round draft picks and young prospects in return.

 

Then Iginla becomes a possible trade. And if we look at the number of teams that could both afford to pay him and also have room on their salary cap their aren't many options. Toronto, New York Rangers, LA Kings, Montreal???

 

Who knows? Speculating about possible trades is always a waste of time, imo. You can't predict that sort of thing.

 

Yeah, we need some forwards, but actually we need defensemen. That first period against Buffalo was phoquing scary. Cammalleri, Pacioretty, Subban, Halpern all went down in the first period!!!! Not counting Pouliot who was left in Montreal due to a virus.

 

The news got better yesterday though.

 

Pouliot will be back tonight.

 

Pacioretty we thought had a broken rib and would be out for at least 4 weeks, but turns out just a bad bruise. His is a game time decision.

 

Halpern is day to day. He didn't make the trip to Ottawa for tonight.

 

Ryan White and Andreas Engqvist were both called up from Hamilton.

 

Cammalleri will be out for 4-6 weeks. That hurts, but now it's time for Gomez, Gionta, Kostitsyn, and Pouliot to step up their game.

[MAJUSCULE]

Funnily enough, Iginla came to Calgary in the same situation that he might be in soon. He was drafted by Dallas, but never played a game there. He was traded for Joe Neuwendyk. Flames fans absolutely hated the GM for that one, until Iginla was the MVP of the '95 WJHC and carried the team for the next fifteen years. Pretty smart in retrospect.

 

Indeed, the future is bright here. Devan Dubnyk looks like he has serious potential in net. Obviously, Hall and Eberle are the talk of town and have been for the last year, but there are plenty of other young guns coming. I absolutely love Magnus Paajarvi. He's been playing very well lately with Linus Omark and various centres. If he has someone to distribute the puck, he will quite literally fly around any defenceman in the league. Exciting player. Omark and Anton Lander also show promise. We might just replace Vancouver as the Swedish team in the next few years. On defence, Tom Gilbert is filling in quite well for Ryan Whitney, Jeff Petry is showing exceptional poise after his call-up from Oklahoma City. The jury is still out on Shawn Belle, Taylor Chorney and Alex Plante.

 

Patience is the mantra around here.

[Ian Benhamou]

I think the trade worked out much better for the Blues than it did for the Habs. I guess I wouldn't so much be disappointed with the trade itself, but disappointed in the quality of the trade.

 

Does anyone still believe that trade was bad???? Price is a contender for the Vezina. If the Habs finish first in their division ahead of the Bruins, he'll be a contender for the MVP.

 

Not to mention Eller being on fire ever since being paired up with Kostitsyn and Moen.

 

Tonight it's going to be Price vs. Halak. After the dramatic incident on Tuesday, tonight's game should be very emotional.

 

GO HABS GO!!!

[NoahZark]

Does anyone still believe that trade was bad???? Price is a contender for the Vezina. If the Habs finish first in their division ahead of the Bruins, he'll be a contender for the MVP.

 

Not to mention Eller being on fire ever since being paired up with Kostitsyn and Moen.

 

Tonight it's going to be Price vs. Halak. After the dramatic incident on Tuesday, tonight's game should be very emotional.

 

Hard to argue with you, Ian. The Habs have to be happy with how things worked out. Still, with Halak being injured for a decent portion of the year and playing behind a shitty Blues defense when he is on the ice, I still think it's a bit premature to conclude with 100% certainty that the Habs kept the right goaltender. I'll give you 80%-90%, though.

 

Noah

 

P.S. My Caps finally seem to be putting it together again, and I really like the trade deadline deals that George McPhee made (adding Jason Arnott, Dennis Wideman, and Marco Sturm). Hopefully, I will not have to suffer through a repeat of last year's playoff debacle against your Habs....

[MAJUSCULE]

Holy shit, how about Zdeno Chara on Max Pacioretty? Ugly, ugly stuff.

 

Things are getting real interesting. I feel like I'm following much closer and watching a lot more.

 

How about the Oilers deadline trade? I'd say that was the biggest D-Day trade. Colton Teubert is a great prospect, in my mind. I have big bias for anyone coming out of the WJC canadian team. But he's six-four. Come on folks. Finally, some size.

 

Also, I'm sad to say, I played my last game of minor hockey last friday. Nostalgia, nostalgia...

[Bridog6996]

You always hate to see someone get hurt like that. Hopefully Pacioretty will make a full recovery and won't have lasting repercussions like Marc Savard has had since he got hit by Matt Cooke of the Penguins last year. I honestly don't feel that Chara did it on purpose, but there's definitely been a big deal made of it. The police are "investigating" it, some idiot Montreal journalist apparently convinced fans to flood emergency response phone lines to complain about the hit (an unfathomably stupid and irresponsible thing to do BTW), and Air Canada is talking about pulling their NHL sponsorship. It sounds like you guys are really freaking out up there, Ian. Is there rioting in the streets as well?

 

As for Price vs. Halak, well, the picture has definitely changed since the first part of the season, that's for sure. Price has had the better numbers, but he also plays for a much better team, which obviously makes a huge difference. Plus, Halak has had injury issues. All things being equal, the Habs probably couldn't have gone wrong either way.

[Ian Benhamou]

Bridog, the police investigating is completely ridiculous and as a proud Montrealer, I'm embarrassed.

 

As far as intent, I definitely don't think Chara meant to injure Pacioretty. But I refuse to believe that he didn't know who was on the ice, who he was hitting, and where he was on the ice. Chara is a 13-year NHL all-star defenseman. He knew exactly where he was and what line he was up against. The play happened off the face-off, so he definitely spotted where every player was on the ice before the puck hit the ice.

 

Based on the the 2 players' history in the last 2 meetings, the 4-0 score with 15 seconds left in the 2nd period, I think Chara saw his chance to get even with Pacioretty.

 

Again, I don't believe he meant to injure him, it just ended up that way. I don't believe Chara is a vicious player like Matt Cooke or Chris Pronger, but you have to be responsible for you actions out there.

 

No there's not rioting in the streets up here. If you watched the game, you saw 22 000 of the loudest fans in sports have the wind sucked out of them. I've never seen the Bell Centre as quiet as that in my life! And that's how the people up here feel. We almost don't care about what happens from now on.

 

To add insult to injury, Chara gets away with it. Not even a 1 game suspension???? What a joke!

 

And after the horrific incident Lucic tries to lure Pouliot to drop the gloves?????? Another Bruin goes after Subban???? What the fuck's wrong with you???? It's a sport, it's not war. A guy almost loses his life on the ice and your still trying to start shit???? Get a life!

 

I watched the Habs/Blues game last night and I almost didn't care. No emotion whatsoever. I'm digusted by what happened and considering stopping to watch hockey altogether.

[Bridog6996]

Maybe Chara should have been suspended. It seemed to me that he was just riding Pacioretty off the puck, and it was a case of wrong place, wrong time. Watching the replays doesn't do it justice, because in real time it happened within a split second. Chara has never been the kind of player to take a shot at someone (if it had been Shawn Thornton, for example, he might not have gotten the benefit of the doubt), and obviously the league agreed. So where is the basis for a suspension, if even by your own words there was no intent to injure?

 

It's a tough call, and I certainly don't envy the people that have to make these decisions. The NHL gets a lot of complaints on these issues, but I wonder if anyone else could really do a better job in their shoes. You need set a precedent against players who go out of their way to hurt another player (Matt Cooke clotheslining Savard last year), but you don't want to kill the spirit of the game by punishing an otherwise clean hit that results in an accidental injury. If you start doing that, where do you draw the line? Pretty soon the sport will have to become non-contact if someone gets punished every time there's an injury.

 

With that said, I certainly understand Habs fans' desire for some kind of justice, because it really hurts to see a player go down like that. As far as the Bruins starting shit afterwards, that definitely goes both ways. It's not like the Habs were innocently going about their business and the Bruins kept picking on them. They gave as good as they got. These two teams have been starting shit with each other equally since the dawn of hockey, and this game was no different.

[Ian Benhamou]

So where is the basis for a suspension, if even by your own words there was no intent to injure?

 

Well, first it's an illegal hit because Pacioretty doesn't have puck posession.

 

Secondly, the 2 have a history since the overtime Habs win at the Bell Centre in January.

 

Thirdly, it's a 4-0 game with 15 seconds left in the 2nd period. Nothing left to prove and the game is pretty much out of reach for Boston.

 

As far as the Bruins starting shit afterwards, that definitely goes both ways. It's not like the Habs were innocently going about their business and the Bruins kept picking on them. They gave as good as they got. These two teams have been starting shit with each other equally since the dawn of hockey, and this game was no different.

 

Where, when and how were the Habs starting shit after the hit on Pacioretty?

[Bridog6996]

I don't want to get into this kind of argument, because we're both obviously biased towards out teams, and that colors how we view things. From my perspective, the antagonizing and shit-starting that went on in that game post-Pacioretty was not a one-sided affair. What I saw was no different than any other Bruins/Habs game I've seen. It's a heated rivalry, and players get fired up on both sides.

 

I'm continually surprised by fan reaction to this whole Pacioretty thing though. I was reading on ESPN just today that fans have been protesting outside the Bell Center. Is this for real? First of all, it's probably not all that effective to protest at your own home rink, because you're pretty much preaching to the choir there. Secondly...people, just give it a rest already. I mean, it definitely sucks when a player gets hurt like that, and I can understand the fan frustration, but I think they've effectively killed any sympathy anybody might have had for them by beating this issue absolutely to death in a rather "psycho ex-girlfriend" kind of way.

[NoahZark]

I'm staying out of the Pacioretty debate, but I will say this:

 

I enjoyed the heck out of my Caps beating Ian's Habs last night.

 

If the Caps manage to make it 10 straight tonight in Detroit, I'll be bordering on giddy.

 

Nice time of years for my boys to be playing good, tough hockey.

 

Noah

[MAJUSCULE]

My much-needed input ( ) :

 

The NHL's executives are complete idiots.

[Bridog6996]

I don't think that's true exactly. I think they're more handcuffed since the lockout, which makes it tougher to actually get anything done. Certainly the league has done things that I wouldn't have done, but who's to say I wouldn't be called an idiot?

[Ian Benhamou]

All I have to say is I would love to know what your opinion would be if Tim Thomas got injured because a Hab's player crashed the net, or if it was Alex Ovechkin who was out with a concussion caused by a hit by a player who's had a vendetta against Ovi for the past 2 games in a 4-0 end of period face-off.

 

 

[Bridog6996]

All I have to say is I would love to know what your opinion would be if Tim Thomas got injured because a Hab's player crashed the net, or if it was Alex Ovechkin who was out with a concussion caused by a hit by a player who's had a vendetta against Ovi for the past 2 games in a 4-0 end of period face-off.

 

I think it's over-sensationalizing the situation a little to suggest that Chara had a "vendetta" against Max Pacioretty, and also again suggests that Chara intended to injure him, which is a matter of opinion, but to answer your question, yes I'd be pissed.

 

But I wouldn't call 911 to tell them about it.

[Ian Benhamou]

Bridog, let's be clear.

 

1. I don't think Chara intended to injure Pacioretty.

 

2. Montrealers flooding 911 lines to report a crime that happened during an NHL game is fucking ridiculous and I find it embarrassing.

 

3. Every hockey fan knows the incident after Pacioretty's overtime goal celebration in the Boston-Montreal game back in January as well as PK Subban's hard hit on Brad Marchand was the spark that re-lit an original six rivalry between the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins. And if you think I'm wrong about that, just listen to Jack Edwards' commentating of that game when it happened.

 

4. Boston decided to get even with Montreal at their next meeting on home ice at the Garden, which they did, successfully, by getting Montreal to stop playing their speed/puck-possession game and try and play a more robust/physical game against the toughest team in the NHL. The result was an 14-goal-182-penalty-minute old-time hockey game which will definitely go down as one of the highlights in this long and storied rivalry.

 

5. March 8th's game at the Bell Centre, the Habs completely dominated by staying disciplined and by sticking to their speed game. It worked. They had a 4-0 lead with 17 seconds left in the 2nd period when the Chara hit happened.

 

6. Chara told reporters after that game that he didn't know who was on the ice when it happened. He recently re-stated that he did indeed know it was Pacioretty chasing the puck. He's already back-tracking.

 

Chara is a Norris-Trophy-Winnning defenseman with 13 years of NHL experience behind him. There's no way that he didn't know who every player on the ice was on that face off.

 

I'm not upset a Chara. He did what he had to do as a hockey player. The result is extremely unfortunate. But he should have at least been suspended for a few games just to send a message to the rest of the league. The NHL had a chance to send a strong message about head hits and they dropped the ball once again.

 

And the fact that Colin Campell, the NHL head disciplinarian, has a son who plays on the same team as Chara makes it look that much more sketchy.

 

Just my thoughts. But I'm tired of hearing about it. Let's just have a great end of season and solid playoff run. Things are getting really exciting with the Caps' 9 in a row. And the west's top 8 is going to go down to the wire.

 

Can't wait to see how the standings will look when it's all over.

 

 

[NoahZark]

Can't wait to see how the standings will look when it's all over.

 

 

Amen to that.

[theGman]

What worries me most about the Chara incident, as a neutral observer (Caps fan), is the constant pussification and sanitation of the sport; does every sport has to pass the "soccer mom approval" test?

 

I don't think Chara was trying to hurt him; it just happened when you play hard.

With all the modern equipment, and especially the rule changes to make the game more friendly, about the only thing the players can do is to finish their checks with gusto.

Two easy examples: You touch a jersey with your stick, it's a hook. Come on, get real!

A goalie gets just touched by an opponent, off to the box. Waaaaa.

The NFL with the quarterback protection rules are just as bad.

 

How would I have felt if it were Ovey? The same. Remember, I'm talking about the hit, not the unfortunate injury, which was incidental, IMHO.

 

Worried about the goalies roaming? If he wants to roam, let the regular skater rules apply to him also! He should be fair game when handling the puck out of the crease. End of problem.

 

Re-humanize the game; it's became a live video game, full of robots.

 

Yes, I sound like an older guy, and I am. Having seen many games since the 70s, with the Broad Street Bullies, etc., I'm glad I have those memories to remember how it was, from the beginning up to a few years ago.

 

 

 

[Bridog6996]

I'm half with you on that. I'd hate for the sport to turn into basketball, where looking at someone the wrong way is a foul, and the game stops every 20-30 seconds. The fact is, though, that athletes in general are bigger and stronger than they were even 20 years ago, which is leading to more injuries in contact sports like football and hockey. I don't want players getting injured left and right either.

 

I agree 100% about the goalie "trapezoid" though. Ditch it, I say.

[NoahZark]

Matt Cooke suspended for at least 14 games (through the first round of the playoffs).

 

That elbow was ugly, and Cooke is the very definition of a "repeat offender," so the suspension is fully warranted in my opinion.

 

Talk amongst yourselves....

 

 

[Sven Golly]

Cooke should be turfed out of the league. His contract should be nullified, and he should be sent packing.

 

 

[NoahZark]

Since the suspension is getting resounding support from Cooke's own team, it seems at least plausible that a dumping could happen.

[Bridog6996]

Well, after Pens owner Mario Lemieux's big beef about the league not setting any example, they couldn't very well argue the decision without looking stupid, but it seems like they've had enough of Cooke's crap, so I don't think is a case of politics.

 

Luckily for Cooke, he hasn't had to learn a hard lesson yet. Maybe after this, he'll reconsider his antics. I say give him another chance after this lengthy suspension (and loss of a lot of $$) and if it happens again, immediate ban.

[Mr.E]

What do the Leafs and Titanic have in common??

[MAJUSCULE]

Hmm, I missed the Cooke incident, I was out of the country. But if he gets thrown out, so should Trevor Gillies. Anyone who gets a ten-game suspension on his first game back from a nine-game suspension is trash.

 

Playoffs look good this year! Boston-Montreal and Vancouver-Chicago are two healthy rivalries, plus some Cali action and other geographical fun!

 

Side note: Les Remparts de Québec are one of two remaining undeafeated teams in the LHJMQ playoffs, leading 2-0 after sweeping the first series. Whoop whoop!

 

P.S. Damn, Edmonton sucks.

[Bridog6996]

Boston/Montreal might get ugly.

[Ian Benhamou]

Boston/Montreal might get ugly.

 

I think it'll be a great series. Long-storied rivalry plus all the shit that went down this year.

 

However, I think both teams will show some restraint. Montreal can't play the physical/robust game especially against Boston. And Boston can't afford to give the Habs too many powerplay opportunities.

 

This one will be decided between the pipes, IMO.