Ha Ha! Loves how he keeps going without going back for his stick!
Islanders and Penguins play tonight for first in the Mighty Metro!
Howard out, Fleury in for the All-Stars. (He should’ve been there in the first place. Don’t get me wrong – I’m sorry about Howard. But Fleury was totally snubbed)
Okposo with four goals as the Isles go to three points up in the Metro and one up in the Eastern Conference, 6-3.
My wife was not happy, I was quite pleased.
Wow, the Leafs are making Carolina look like Stanley Cup contenders.
Bring on the McDavid lottery…
Yeah, you have to be a truly terrible team to lose to the Hurricanes…
cries
Toronto is seven points out with 36 games to go, which means their chances of making the playoffs might be, at best, twenty to one. The history of teams coming back from this point is a remarkably poor one. Seven points doesn’t sound like much but the introduction of the loser point has made comebacks actually more difficult, since the teams ahead of you will pick up a point here and there even in games they lose.
Indeed, we’re just past the halfway mark of the season and the Eastern Conference is almost set; Toronto and Ottawa are not quite dead but close to it, and everyone below them is doomed. Florida could conceivably make it but really they aren’t that good. The eight teams currently in the playoff picture are the teams we’ll see in the playoffs. The West has a race, but the East is set.
Living in the Toronto market, it’s almost impossible to describe what a bizarrely dysfunctional team the Maple Leafs are. It’s not even just limited to the choice of personnel or inability to develop young talent; the team seems to have a sort of neurotic, almost psychotic attitude towards itself , its fanbase, and its media. The team seems legitimately serious when it talks about how Toronto is a “hard market” to play in, as if being in a critical market stops teams in New York, Boston, or LA from winning things. Honestly, I wouldn’t know where to start fixing the club.
Dammit, I wanted Connor for the Canes.:mad:
Leafs started tanking too late to have a good shot at McDavid.
Also, I see that the police are charging the fans who threw their sweaters onto the ice. That is a good way to endear yourself to you fans. Charge them when things go bad…
Well, it’s not like the team is charging the fans. 
Some of the sweaters were thrown on the ice during play. I think charges should be laid right now to nip this in the bud. (No pun intended.)
Well Wings are now on the break, and my midseason evaluation:
Better than I expected, and much better than most predicted. Most people were thinking they would struggle again to make the playoffs, and they are in the thick of the hunt for #1 in conference. And that’s with a 5 game winning streak with the 3 and 4th string goalies. But honestly they are punching above their weight right now. They are around 50% on the PP for the last few weeks, and that will never hold up. And they still can’t shut it down at all in the third period, they keep giving up the lead then squeaking back for the 2 points. Not a confidence inspiring tendency.
The best thing that can happen to them is Franzen stays hurt. It’s not even a discussion of him being a good player anymore. He just isn’t competent anymore. Glacially slow, poor puck handler and atrocious passing. He has by far the worst plus minus on the team, and in his case it is a direct metric of his value, he keeps fumbling offensive chances into defensive scrambles that give up a lot of goals. I hope Babcock finally has the balls to at least cut him from the PP when he gets back, I have no hope that he will finally be scratched. But it should be obvious to everyone that his injury directly lead to the PP success lately.
But enough Bitchin, things are lookin good in Hockeytown, now and the future.
Last year if you told me that Steve Downie would be one of my favorite players, I’d have looked at you like you had two heads.
Bruce Arthur had an interesting article on this in the Star yesterday. I disagree with him though. You know I live in Toronto and don’t like the Leafs, so I really enjoy the yearly melt down as much as you do.
If I were in charge I would literally blow things up. Trade Kessel and anyone one else who still has any modicum of value. Take everyone else, players, coaches, trainers, equipment guys, locker room attendants, security, anybody who has been there longer than 6 weeks, and put them on buses. Drive those buses off a cliff somewhere. Tear down the current locker room to the studs and fumigate the area.
Any real rebuild would begin from here. It would include hiring people, to fill the vacated roles, who are hockey fans but don’t care about the Leafs.
Sycophantism and its accompanying infection, complacency, are very hard to isolate and remove. Only the removal of these infections will restore the Leafs to any form of glory. Or a ghola of Pat Quinn.
That was the problem with the Canes. That’s how half the team(including the Olympia driver) ended up with big money and a NTC. Luckily Karmonos stopped liking his GM, even if he still “likes our team”:dubious:.
Chirp… Chirp… Chirp…
I’m starting to wonder if we’re tanking or something, but what would be the reason? Obviously the loss of Dupuis is hurting us, but we can’t be THAT bad. Jesus Christ.
And Zac Rinaldo is a fucking douchebag. When even Flyers fans are saying he’s a disgrace, that’s something. Who the hell brags about concussing a player? (Yes, he “apologized”. I don’t buy it. He only did so after he caught hell for those comments)
Yeah, Rinaldo is a hack who should not be wasting a roster spot in the NHL. I remember a game last year when he got 27 PIMs in four seconds of ice time.
Seriously? Holy shit – I don’t think even Matt Cooke ever accomplished that.
BTW, anyone else looking forward to “Red Army”?
Yes.