Oops, haven’t been keeping up with the monthly threads, I’ll be better going forward.
I’ll be checking out the surprising Devils and Kraken in games tonight.
Also quite enjoyed Vegas vs Boston last night. It’s late enough into the season to believe in these teams.
The Athletic (paywalled?) awards Cale Makar the NHL person of 2022 award
Carey Price getting himself into some hot water as he wades into the politics of guns in Canada.
Lots of people were on his side battling addiction, now, not so much.
Also - Carey’s knee. He recently mentioned the difficulty of just going up stairs with his kid, and stuff.
To add to Canucks’ ongoing woes: (on a more minor, trivial front)…Hapless Bruce Boudreau (742 games) was surpassed by Tampa’s Jon Cooper (741) for fastest coach to win 450 games.
ETA: And I don’t mean running the 40. Which I’m sure Jon would also have the edge on.
Ovechkin is rapidly closing in on the empty net goals record. Tallied 4 ENGs in just the last few games. Just 3 behind Gretzky now for that record, and overall is now under 100 career goals to passing Wayne.
I came in here to post about this. He’s scored 4 empty netters in a row. Does anybody know what the record for scoring most consecutive ENGs is? I can never figure out how to use the stats stuff at hockey-reference.com or even if they would have that historical data. You have to pay to get the top ten results anyway I think.
Interesting that the other three players are in the last three years.
It seems to me that teams pull their goalies earlier now and also often down two goals so I think there are more chances these days.
Thanks for that.
800 Goals!!
I have tickets to Saturday’s game between the Caps and the Leafs. Hoping to see a milestone goal.
Dare I say that passing Wayne is starting to feel like an inevitability? As long as Ovechkin can stay on the ice, he’ll score goals. The way he scores a lot of his goals isn’t reliant on a lot of skating finesse or crashing the net; the magic is almost entirely in his uncanny accuracy. If his only job was to go out on power plays, skate to the left circle and wait to be fed pucks, he could play another 15 years.
Ovechkin could have waited for the chance to set the all-time consecutive empty netter record and he fucked it all up.
What a waste of a shot at immortality.
The ESPN coverage showed a recorded reading of the line up while Ovie scored 24 seconds into the game with no live commentary. They did have it in split screen.
John Walton audio feed synced with the national tv broadcast on mute is the only way to go.
Yep. And maybe it’s just me, but goalies seem to wait until the last second or two, now, before whacking their stick to idicate the end of a penalty. Seems like they always used to do it with more like about seven or eight steamships left.
Interesting Ovie stat: no sign of slowing down…when clustering his goals in 100-goal components, the 700-to-800 cluster was his third fastest, taking him just 162 games at a .62 goals/game rate to do so.
Comparatively - Gretzky took 232 games to do it in that same cluster, at .42 goals/game, while Howe took 256 games, at .39 g/g.
Alex Pietrangelo set to return after a horrific medical situation with his daughter, glad she’s doing better and he’s able to return to hockey.
Referees call everything these days, including things that look like they might be a penalty, but aren’t.
The tv play-by-play guys are baffled half the time, even when watching the replay. “I think it was Jones there for a cross-check although he just used his gloves, or maybe just before that… not sure. Oh, it was actually Smith for interference… not sure why but that’s the call”
Anybody know why the Winter Classic is being held on Jan 2nd instead of New Years Day? What’s up with that?
Probably for the same reason that the traditional college bowl games aren’t on Jan 1st. It’s a Sunday and Sunday “belongs” to the NFL.
Gene Reyburn: The Canucks have been so crummy lately…
Audience: How crummy?
G.R.: They have as many home victories as they do 5-1 (all home) loses - 5.
At 35, Sid the Kid is still greatness, leading the league in 5-on-5 even stength points at 32.