Have at it. Welcome to 2020!
Jake Guentzel’s out for the rest of the season. DAMMIT!!!
Well, I finally get what I wanted, a winter classic without the usual 6 teams that NBC always picks. I hope the ratings are good and it shows that people will turn in and not just to watch the Blackhawks, Rangers, Red Wings, Flyers, etc.
With the irrelevance of college football on New Year’s Day, I think plenty of people will tune in even though the outdoor game isn’t a novelty any longer. And, although the Preds have been disappointing, they’re still a good team and this is a good matchup.
Wings end 2019 by shutting out the Sharks. Which was nice, Bernier has been standing on his head and deserved to blank another team for once.
yeah, we’ve got DeKeyser out for the season, Athanasiou out for a few weeks, Mantha out indefinitely, Howard still conditioning in Grand Rapids. Feels kind of like Ned Flanders after the hurricane. “what, did the rubble burn down?”
Looked like a good game to me. (Except the part where Corey Perry got ejected for his reputation.) (Disclaimer: I’m a Stars fan). But they did break the record for Winter Classic attendance; no telling about the TV audience.
Well, the Minnesota Wild will be hosting the next Winter Classic. I’m sure it won’t be the Winnipeg Jets they’re playing, but I think the Blues would be a good matchup and could draw. I see no evidence that the Blackhawks will be a decent team next season, so hopefully NBC will resist.
And yeah - way to go! ::complaining::
curse-jinxer, you
I wouldn’t count him out if Pens go a round or two into the play-offs. Not that I’d put money on it, but neither would I be surprised to see his healing suddenly taking on a miraculous recovery rate come early May. (I rememeber how Erik Karlsson’s achilles heel injury healed way faster than anyone expected.) And getting dropped into the frying pan of 2nd or 3rd round Stanley Cup hockey will get you back into shape pretty darn quickly.
Apparently Guentzel had learned of his all-star qualifying only hours before he wrecked his shoulder.
Meh - I can’t see how his next six or seven seasons won’t be of really high quality.
ETA: Will this be one of the last shots for JG’s replacement Alex Galchenyuk?
Yeah, a great crowd, but no telling about the TV audience. Anyone who did watch was treated to a good game. Pretty tight until the end.
The hit by Perry was unfortunate. You could tell by his reaction that it was unintentional, but it was undeniably an elbow to the head. I’m not sure about the finer points of that particular rule, but he really should have tried to skate by without throwing the elbow. He’s going to have a hearing on Friday about whether he’ll get a suspension for it. I’m as big a Stars fan as any, and I hope he doesn’t get suspended, but it ended up being a pretty dangerous play.
Heheheheeh, and Bishop was the only one who didn’t look silly in his cowboy get-up after the game. 
My god, Bobrovsky is killing me and my fantasy team. Drafted Grubauer hoping for an improvement to my goaltending, but he is hitting the skids as well.
On the plus side, Huberdeau has been an absolute beast as of late. Also nice to see Radulov finally waking up down in Dallas.
Perry gets five.
ESPN is reporting that former Stars coach Jim Montgomery is checking into rehab for an alcohol problem. It seems that was the cause of him getting fired. He did have a DUI back in 2008.
There’s still got to be more to the story. I don’t know what the laws are in Texas, but shouldn’t he have been allowed to check into rehab before being fired? At my last job, not in Texas, we had an employee that was told to seek treatment as they were often visibly intoxicated on the job.
Was this just a case of him hitting the hotel bar on the road a little too hard? Or was he running into the bathroom during intermissions and gulping down a flask?
(slight tangent)
Eeeeeeehhhhhhhh way to go Canada!
Beating Russia at the World Juniors today!
Great win for gold!
With one minute to play the Caps give up an empty net goal to trail the Sharks 4-2. They won 5-4 in OT. It was the most exciting end to a hockey game that I Have watched live. I don’t feel sorry for the people who started to leave.
Andrew Burkle, son of co-owner of the Penguins Ron Burkle, has died.
They haven’t said anything about the cause – Jesus Christ, the guy was only 27. 
One of the dastardly prettiest goals I’ve seen in some time - Connor McDavid undresses Morgan Reilly.
I could belt out a wall of text breaking down all the astounding “little” things he pulls off, there. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it. Some are putting it in all-time top 10.
To a much a larger point, though, hats off to new Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe, who’s the first coach in the team’s 102-y.o. history to win 15 of his first 20 games. (And has made Hutchinson a better goalie!) Helps that he was an admired coach with Leafs’ main affiliate Toronto Marlies. Cool that he’s encouraged a more open, free-wheeling, offensive style, (especially for the likes of Marner and Matthews) compared to Babs’s more conservative defenive approach.
Leaffan - curious about your take on Tyson Barrie.
McDavid’s goal was a beauty. He was looking back as if he was going to make a drop pass and then just hit the afterburners and blew around Reilly and roofed it from three feet out.
Tyson Barrie looks fine to me. I believe he’s getting more ice time under Keefe. Nothing really stands out good or bad. He gets a decent amount of shots on net, points, and blocks shots.
He and three other Leaf defencemen are UFAs next year though, and the damned salary cap situation scares me, so it’s going to be interesting.
Caps have been slumping (5-5 in their last ten). Last night Ovechkin passed Selanne for 11th place in career goals. Seven more would put him past Lemieux, Yzerman and Messier. Of course there is a significant difference in games played with Ovie having 200+ more than Mario but he has played 300-600 fewer than the others around him on the list.
Not sure how unusual it is but Backstrom signed a five year extension negotiating without an agent.