Not going to be taking any offers soon, I think. We need Halak, since Price clearly isn’t back to his best form! It’s rather bizarre to me that Price has won games where he’s faced 40+ shots, but crumbles when he only faces 20 or so. What’s up with that?
Beats me, but maybe a problem keeping focus? Martin Brodeur was sometimes like that as well earlier in his career.
Oh, and I agree that we still need Halak right now. It’s just that I could stomach trading him more easily if Price was consistently on his game.
Wings are fighting injuries and Jason Williams broke his fibula in an ugly accident in last nights game. They are trying to hang in while team mending occurs.
Toronto isn’t really a good team with or without Kessel and is not going to make the playoffs. But if Kessel, who’s only 22 and scored 36 goals last year, is as good as he’s looked so far in his career, he’s equivalent in value to at LEAST one or two top draft picks.
Look at it this way; if you were in charge of running an NHL team’s draft and I could guarantee you “This guy here will be so good he’ll score 36 goals at the age of 21,” you’d draft him with a smile on your face. That’s basically what Toronto did.
i wish the Canes had that much hope.
I said it in another thread. The Wings have played a lot of hockey in the last few seasons and they’ve been very very lucky with regards to injuries. This year? Clearly playing catch up. We’re going to get a very good look at some of the Wings younger players and see how deep they are and how good of a coach Babcock really is.
A pity that he won’t get to play with Marc Savard this year. Stajan and Grabovski aren’t nearly as good.
Even though Kessel will not play with Savard this year and that will hurt because he has nobody feeding him the puck, I think he should score more because there are not as many goal scorers on the Leafs as were on the Bruins last year. Basically I think he will get more opportunity and that might boost his numbers enough to offset the lack of Savard.
what’s wrong with Sidney Crosby? pointless in 5games so far. Is he saving up his “juice” for the Olympics or something?
What I saw of the Pens game last night looked kinda sad. Malkin, Gonchar, Letang, Talbot, and Kennedy are out of the lineup with injuries, and Orpik was injured during the first period and did not return. Last night Sid was centering Fedotenko 
and Matt Cooke :dubious:, instead of his regular linemates.
The Pens are at this point without the reigning Art Ross Trophy holder, their top 3 defensemen, the hero of game 7, and their top goal scorer in October. In the salary capped NHL, every team has weaknesses. The Pens have elected (as your excellent username indicates) to have strength down the middle at the center position, a top tier (but not elite) goalie, and a mix of offensive-minded and stay-at-home defensemen. This has come at the expense of an elite wing or two. Quite simply, without a player of Malkin’s ability and with Staal failing to step up his offensive game, the opponents can afford to focus on stopping Crosby. Plus, losing a premier power play quarterback in Gonchar is a killer (see: the power play last year without Gonch).
Really, this team is built to have Crosby and Malkin making their wingers look much better than they perhaps actually are with Staal running a checking line that can chip in some secondary scoring as well as shut down a top line. I suspect the reason for the new lines are not so much to get Crosby going but to get Fedotenko going. It’s fairly clear that throughout Tenk’s career he needs an elite center beside him to really be a scoring presence. Cooke is a pretty good choice to play the role of physical presence to clear out some space for Sid against the opponent’s top defensive pairing and checking lines. I think this is a good choice for all involved. The real problem is asking Staal to become an offensive playmaker instead of a two-way grinder.
The problem now is just a lack of NHL-caliber talent on the Pens. Once they get Orpik, Letang, Gonchar, Talbot, and Kennedy they’ll look much much better. Once Malkin is back, though, I think the whole equation changes. Suddenly having two playmaking centers lets Staal go back to the role that he’s excelled in and then the rest of the pieces start to fall back into place. This is a good test for the Pens and should knock the pretend fans off the bandwagon for a bit.
Canes failed again tonight.
Any talk down there of Rutherford or Maurice being on the hot seat?
Nope. JR is a minority owner, so I don’t think he’ll get sacked. We’ve still paying Laviolette, so I don’t think Karmanos will shell out for three head coaches at once.
seriously wtf is wrong with the Hurricanes? aren’t they on paper better than what they’re doing? I know Cam Ward recently got injured but what is it that is being written in local newspapers? And what’s Eric Staal doing? Do i need to use my line for Crosby and say that he’s saving up for the Olympics? at this rate they won’t even choose him to represent Canada.
They should be better than this. Staal’s out for a few weeks with “an upper body injury”, and everybody except Brandon Sutter is being visited by the screw up fairy every other shift.:smack:
Habs face the 'Canes next.
I fully expect three periods of passing the puck around between the two blue lines, with the goalies skating away to have a pint together just to see what happens.
My prediction: Brandon Sutter and Tuomo Ruutu each score a hat trick, as the Canes lose 8-6.
That assumes that any players on either team are able to score at all.
My prediction? 0-0 though to a shoot-out, and the Habs win because due to a corruption in the laws of physics, the puck bounces off a defenceman before going in.
First Star: Carey Price
Second Star: Random 'Cane that managed to get the puck out of the neutral zone once or twice
Third Star: Youppi!
Mrs. KennerTheGreat and I were at the Senators/Rangers game yesterday. God, Kovalev’s a lazy bastard when the puck is not on his stick.