Under a proposal approved by the NHLPA, the Jets will be moving to the Western Conference next year. The Red Wings and Blue Jackets will be moving to the Eastern Conference.
The plan still has to be approved by the NHL Board of Governors, but that is considered to be a formality.
With this change, all of the teams in the Eastern Time Zone will be in the Eastern Conference, and all of the teams not in the Eastern Time Zone will be in the Western Conference.
As a follow up to my post above, I have come up with the phrase “whack-a-mole hockey” to describe what the caps do when they quit playing team hockey. Five individuals can’t beat a team of five.
In the comeback against Boston, I saw Ovie put his body on the ice to block shots. He made up for it with penalties and turn overs that lead directly to two goals today and one yesterday.
But good news, they aren’t raising ticket prices next year. Probably will start charging to visit the restrooms…
Damn. I dislike splitting up the Blackhawks and Red Wings. Two originals with a long, storied, heated, hated rivalry. I can’t imagine not hating the Red Wings, but it’s going to be difficult when they are in, say, the Northeast division of the Eastern Conference.
What is going on in Chicago tonight? Oilers up 4-0 in the 1st…
stumbles into thread
Olé, Olé Olé Olé! OLÉ! OLÉ!!!
Loving the Habs this year.
Man, Crosby’s just on fire. already with 40 points entering the game tonight, he’s set up 5 goals so far, and there’s still 10 minutes left. Unreal.
Should the Bruins prefer the Leafs or Rangers in the 1st round?
As Bob Errey put it, “Welcome to SidneyLand”
Chris Kunitz is unreal this season. I mean, he’s always been a pretty solid player, but wow.
This year Crosby has stopped playing like a punk and it’s paying off. He’s cut done on his PIMs and really concentrated on scoring.
As a Bruins fan, the one team that I’m concerned about is the Pens and the Bs visit them twice in 5 days starting on Tuesday, so if they can get by this huge test, it could be clear sailing until the playoffs.
Kunitz is certainly playing extremely high level hockey, but it helps when you’re getting near flawless setup passes from Crosby. Watching about 80%of the games so far this year, Crosby is just seeing the ice in slow mo…reminiscent of Gretzky in that respect at the moment.
So, I was curious, and Crosby’s PPG so far this year are on a level, that if extrapolated over an 82 game season, would be the most points in a season since Lemieux in 96. Crazy.
Crosby was playing precisely the same way and at the same level of brilliance last season, actually, but nobody remembers that because his season ended early due to injury.
That was two season’s ago when he was playing so well and then got injured but still a valid point.
He’s playing exactly the same way he always has.
His assists are up (mostly, they were slightly higher last year), but his goals are down (mostly, they were lower last year).
He’s getting 3.5 shots per game, which is what he’s averaged over the past five seasons. His shooting percentage is 13.2%, which is right about his norm.
He’s not doing anything differently; he’s benefiting from his teammates scoring more and small sample sizes.
No, it was last season. And the season before. In both years his season was shortened by injury, and in both his point levels were very high and his penalty minutes low.
Over the last three years Crosby has played 89 regular season games, just 7 more than a real season… and has 148 points, or a regular season pace of 137. That’s amazing in today’s NHL. It’s like a 200-point season in the 1980s.
It’s pretty amazing to me that the Ducks are getting so little publicity right now for what they’re doing - though I imagine they prefer it that way. The Blackhawks streak has monopolized all the Western Conference discussion so far this year, but the Ducks are only 6 points behind them with 2 games in hand! As a Ducks fan out here in the OC, I can tell you that all the discussion right now is about the trade deadline looming and whether or not Corey Perry will still be a Duck after it’s come and gone - and that so far, the general consensus seems to be that he’s outta here.
How do you trade a recent league MVP having an excellent season off a team that’s in serious contention for the Cup? But how do you hit the offseason without a contract and lose him for absolutely nothing in return? Glad it’s not my decision, that’s for sure.
Because Anaheim’s success isn’t sustainable and the return for Perry could be well worth it in the long term. Find the right buyer and it could turn out like turning Kessel into Seguin and Hamilton.
But a championship banner flies forever. Anaheim may actually be the best team in hockey. This isn’t a marginal team trading for the future; it’s a team whose future has arrived.
Not really. Their success is heavily luck driven right now.
It’s not to say it won’t last long enough to win a Cup, but it’s unlikely.
Regardless, one should always be looking out for the future health of the team. Granted, I don’t know what their prospect pool looks like and that would weigh heavily into any decision to trade Perry and for what, or re-sign him, but keeping him around in the hopes that they can hold off regression to the mean for long enough to win and then losing him for nothing is just bad business (See also: NJ Devils and Zach Parise).
Last season he played the final 20 something games of the year, though, so it’s hard to say that it was ‘cut short’ after playing well. He played like 7 games at the beginning of the year, then was out for most of the season, then returned for the last several weeks and the playoffs.