Still could be confirmation bias but I was thinking more of the last few games before Bruce was fired and the first few under Hunter, especially the ones they lost.
Holy crap that was fun. Four goals, one assist for Lars Eller in a 7-3 [del]Alouettes[/del]Habs win over the [del]Blue Bombers[/del]Jets. One of those goals was on a very nice penalty shot (which I’m honestly surprised was awarded, but I’ll take it!).
Josh Gorges hasn’t stopped working now that he’s signed that contract; he, too, potted a nice one after the Jets took the early 1-0 lead.
In such a difficult season, games like this are a lot of fun. 
Today is a good day in my world of hockey.
Canucks are back on top of the NHL standings for the first time this season, even if it will be a short stay since many of the other top teams have games in hand. But I think they will get back there to stay by mid-February since the whole team is firing on all cylinders again. The Sedins are currently #1 & 2 for most points. Kesler’s stats are down because he started the season sitting out due to back surgery - but he seems fully recovered and beastly again.
And this Saturdays game against Boston is coming up. Lets see how well the Bruins can do against a <mostly> uninjured Vancouver team.
Bruins up 6-0 against Flames with 14 minutes left in 2nd.
7-0 at end of 2nd.
9-0 the final :\
I believe in the power of epic collapses. And when it happens, it’s going to be glorious.
In other news, Flyers fans attackRangers fans…leaving an off-duty cop who is a war veteran unconscious. They began the encounter by paying a homeless guy to spray water in the Ranger fan’s faces. Stay classy, Philly. :rolleyes:
Krys Barch was given a one-game suspension, likely as much for PR reasons as anything else. Rumours have it that he said something along the lines of ’ did you slip on a banana peel" , but Barch himself has also said that he wouldn’t repeat what he said and that it isn’t something that he’d ever want children or his grandmother to hear, that it was “pretty explicit”. Erik Cole maybe-kinda-sorta said that there was a comment making reference to Subban’s parents, or the fact that they are from Jamaica. I think the " banana-peel" comment is only a mild part of what actually happened.
It’s a fucked-up world, though, when comments like that and “sloppy-seconds” lead to suspensions, but breaking men’s backs doesn’t. Sticks and stones, apparently.
Calgary just wanted out.
Here’s hoping they made the Bruins feel overconfident for Saturday’s game.
Happiest player in the league today? Ian White. Last year he was having a terrible time in Calgary, with a -10 after just a couple dozen games, and got bounced to Carolina and then San Jose. If he was still with Calgary, he’d probably be about -40 after last night’s horror show. Maybe he’d even be in the minors this morning. Instead, he’s with Detroit. +24. Sixth in the league, and threatening to crack Boston’s stranglehold on the stat. What a difference a year makes.
The NHLPA has blocked the realignment plan, which now must be delayed by at least a season:
The league feels the union’s blocking it is without just cause and so plans to sue. The union claims they weren’t told enough about how the schedule would work out. Hockey fans see a bunch of billionaires and millionaires arguing.
Well the millionaires got bent over hard last time they had a pissing contest, you think they’d learn.
This looks like some sort of negation ploy by the NHLPA, somewhat like Republicans immediately opposing anything the President suggests.
I expect they’ll work something out as I’m sure Washington really doesn’t want to be making repeated trips to Winnipeg for yet another year.
I think Washington can learn to deal. It’s Winnipeg that’s getting the shaft in the current alignment. Your 3 trips a year pale somewhat in comparison to the number of trips East they have to make, no?
Personally, I don’t like the new alignment anyways. I like the structure we have and I think shuffling a few teams around to make it make more sense is all that’s needed. The very fact that you can’t split 30 teams into 4 makes the new proposal incredibly stupid; some teams would have a higher barrier to entry into the playoffs than others, simply because they are competing against more teams to get into the top 4.
I know it will piss off more than a few people, but flip a coin over Columbus or Nashville, have them swap with Winnipeg for next season, then sort out all the other problems in the league. The NHL needs to sort out Phoenix…if the team is moving, then move it, then figure out how to realign, because it won’t make more sense to have Québec City (let’s assume) playing in the Pacific division, now will it? Get a new CBA in place and fix the stadium issues in Long Island (or move that team too).
Otherwise we’re facing this same discussion again in 2-5 years.
One of the reasons they proposd this, though, is that a Phoenix-to-Eastern Canada move would be easy to fix, since you’d just slot them into a 7-team conference. Without doing this you’d inevitable have an additional year of idiocy, whereby the Quebec City Whatevers were playing as if they were in the American Southwest while the Jets continued to play as if they were in the Southeast. The four-division setup allows for quicker accomodation of that.
I understand the 7-7-8-8 issue but I don’t feel THAT bad about the team that finishes 5th instead of 4th anyway.
Honestly, I think basing a realignment structure on whether or not you can shuffle it around when various teams go bankrupt is a stupid idea. I mean, it is such short-term thinking. It addresses the various collapses that are imminent, but doesn’t necessarily make sense long term.
By the sounds of it, the NHLPA said “give us more details, show us that this really does work” and the league said “No, don’t wanna!”. It would be irresponsible of the union to just blindingly agree to what the league wants to do, but it’s also immensely stupid of the league to not be willing to expand on their idea to ensure that all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed.
Looking at the standings this morning I noted that Boston has scored twice as many goals (138) as they have allowed (69.)
This has to be a rather rare accomplishment - not that I think it will stand up all year, but Boston is an amazingly dominant team. The 1976-1977 Canadiens, who IMHO were the greatest NHL team ever assembled, pulled it off over a full season, and I’m pretty sure that’s the only time it’s been done in the expansion era.
Even if you take out the 9-0 annihilation of Calgary (and you shouldn’t, but let’s play around) Boston’s goal differential is amazing. A team that dominant is effectively unbeatable in a seven-game series, and watching them, man, I believe it. The Bruins are fricking AWESOME; they present scoring threats on every line and at every position, have a terrific goalie, and defencemen coming out the wazoo. When people are calling Brad Marchand a “pest” when the guy has 31 poinjts in 36 games… I mean, when your pests are scoring threats, you’ve got a hell of a team.
In a testament to how close the bubble in the East is right now, in two games the Devils went from 9th to 5th and the Penguins went from 5th to 8th.
Washington, Winnipeg and Toronto have also each jumped in and out of a playoff seeding overnight.
There’s starting to be some separation after the 10th seed with Buffalo, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Carolina and the Islanders seeming like they’re not going to be playoff teams this year without a major resurgence combined with a drop off by at least one team, and it’s certainly early enough that it might happen, but it’s looking like it’s going to be six teams in the Devils, Ottawa, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Winnipeg and Washington all fighting for the final four playoff spots.
The Rangers might fall off, but they’ll just swap the fourth seed with the Flyers and won’t matter much in the grand scheme of things unless they totally collapse, but the SE will be interesting. If Washington or Winnipeg can catch Florida, a distinct possibility (my money is on Washington), it’ll drop Florida into the bubble mix.
They’re benefiting from some luck at this point as their PDO is currently on the high side (1051), but they’re clearly the best team in the East, and perhaps the League, right now and even when they eventually drop off a bit and regress to the mean they’re still going to be extremely tough to beat… especially in a 7 game series.
They’re incredibly deep in scoring talent, currently leading the League in Goals/G with 3.63, but don’t have anyone on pace for 40 goals. They do, however, have 7 guys with double digit goal totals and four guys right behind them with 7 each. Every single one of the 19 players who’ve played in at least 10 games for them this year has at least one goal.
Throw in arguably the best goalie tandem in the League and 7th ranked PK unit, barring some major injuries or an untimely run of bad luck, it’s hard not to think they’re the favorites to win the Cup again this year.
I know I certainly don’t want my team running into them in the first round.
Feels good…
After watching my Canucks beat down the goon squad bruins. I am here to say they are definately not unbeatable. Finally, we beat them in Boston too, something not done during the playoffs last year.
Quoting their stats is somewhat misleading since they really go all out to run up the scores against lousy teams like Florida and Calgary.
Bittersweet win though - I sure hope Brad Marchand gets at least 5 games for clipping and injuring Sami Salo. He is the least sportsmanlike player in the game right now. He doesn’t deserve to be a ‘Starley Cup Champian’.