Did you happen to see Marchand screw up his shootout attempt? Classic 
Surely made all the Marchand haters happy.
More impressive was the Flyers comeback. I like the Bruins better but have to say the Flyers showed a lot of grit.
Crosby’s back and scoring, Geno scored twice, the Penguins won with 7 goals (CHILI!!!) and all’s right with the world again.
I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I loathe Marchand, so that made me happy. On the other, it meant the Flyers won, which pisses me off. :mad:
In the seventh coach firing this season, Gerard Gallant has been jettisoned out of Las Vegas. They’re still contending for the play-offs, and as far as I know he was quite beloved (hopefully Snoboarder Bo can confirm or correct that), so I’m sorta scratching my head over it. Especially when the replacement is Peter Deboer, who I’m pretty sure is not the most popular choice, given that his former team (and avowed Knights rivals) was San Jose.
Missed edit window.
Let’s hope Gallant ends up in Seattle.
I was wrong. That should have been nine more but he got three of them tonight.
Looking at the Pacific Division standings, it’s amazing to see how much California absolutely su-huh-huh-hucks now, with all three franchises (LA, San Jose, amd Anaheim) well clear of the rest of the divison for CFTB (contenders for the bottom). From about 2007 to 2014-ish, a road swing into Cali was a very daunting one - all three of those teams were big and heavy-hitting, and seemingly on the cusp of auguring a bigger, meaner style of hockey that I think has since taken a slight back seat to speed and skill (along with the “whole-team-buying-in / no-superstar / grind-it-out” approach). With the 2007 Stanley Cup finals, I’ve never seen a team, EVER, finish their checks as much as the Ducks did in that series (and on their way to the finals), completely pummeling the Senators to a crumpled pulp en route to a SC. Guys like Thornton, Beauchemin, a young Getzlaf, :eek:Pronger:eek:, Perry (maybe not the cleanest guy), May, :eek:Parros:eek:, and Niedermeyer (who, despite being the nicest of the bunch, would still let you know if you tried to suddenly cut laterally across his blue line, or hip-check you airborne if you “felt lucky” trying to pass between him and the boards.)
Pretty well body-checked their way to a Cup. Quite something to watch.
Well, I’d say the bottom-dwelling Californians is partly due to a pretty even Western Conference. From Colorado (No 2 in the West today, 58 pts) to Minnesota (No 12 in the West, 48 pts) is only a 10 point spread (and Anaheim is still within 10 pts of a wildcard spot). A similar point spread in the East from 2nd gets you to 5th. And checking seems to be more of the game in the West, still. If anything, it seems the Cali teams are doing poorly in the conference they kind of shaped.
I was thinking more of the Cali teams’ standing in the Pacific division rather than the Western conference standings, the latter looking at a few other factors, like, sure, there’s definitely lots of parity, but with the Cali teams already that far back (yep, even before the all-star break), they’ve actually dug themselves into a formidable hole that, while not insurmountable (like acquiring a Binnington), is definitely making waves of concern with the exiting of DeBoer from San Jose, fans and press in LA griping about Todd McClellan making cellar dwellars out of his last two teams, and in Anaheim, they’re not only doing way worse than they were at this point last season, many there have now resigned to a .500 season and focusing on rebuilding with their cap space.
YEAH! gotta love that run-on sentence. 
Divisionally, I’d still maintain that it’s been increasingly more speed/skill dominant in the last few seasons with the ascension of Connor McDavid, Elias Pettersson, and (a temporarily underperforming) Johnny Gaudreau, and with the diminishing “team enforcer” role in hockey, the heavy checking aspects that were a hallmark of 2007-14 Cali have also (at least for the time being) subsided, somewhat, accordingly.
an’I’ll betcha the Wild don’t make it either.
It seems like Ovechkin had been slumping a bit for a while there, but what a week he’s had. 8 goals in 3 games. Back-to-back hat tricks. Passes Lemieux on the all-time goal list, then ties Yzerman. Ties Maurice Richard for 8th all-time in career hat tricks (26).
The Caps were down 4-1 to the Islanders at the beginning of the 3rd period today. The Caps ended up winning the game 6-4.
I absolutely, positively, LOATHE fairweather fans, and the ones who were booing Matt Murray yesterday need to GTFO.
(Some people think it MIGHT have something to do with his father’s death a little over a year ago. Perhaps depression or something. Either way, shame on these so-called fans.)
Here’s a weird question I don’t know how to research. Some kinda drunk loudmouth at the sports bar last night was saying that no one has had their first NHL goal come on a shorthanded play. How would I research this? I can’t believe this, surely someone has gotten their first goal shorthanded.
Brad Marchand’s first NHL goal was shorthanded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrDLZu7PA5s
Ah ok, Mr bar drunk must have been messing with me as everyone knows I despise Marchand with the passion of a million burning suns.
Believe me, even though I knew the piece of trivia, it was still tough for me to give the guy credit for something.
I have nothing to say other than that was a painful way for the Stars to enter the all-star break - but what can you expect if you shuffle all the forward lines in one night with a team that’s not really scoring a lot already (yep, an understatement)? Ouch.
Well that sucked.
Well, I for one am SHOCKED. The Flyers have always had a reputation as such a classy order!
The father’s looking for some kind of settlement here. There’s no way Gritty ran after the kid and punched him at a meet-and-greet event. Something doesn’t smell right.
Well, I will confess to being a wee biased. 