Bruce Beaudreau out as Caps coach, Dale Hunter in. Three days to whip them into shape for Pittsburgh :smack:
Man, Dale Hunter was one major goon in his playing years.
Paul Maurice out in Carolina replaced by Kirk Muller. That should be interesting.
They get a scrimmage against the Blues tomorrow first.
Looks like the South East is quickly turning back into the South Least.
I thought the Caps had made some really good moves this off-season and fully expected them to make one last push while their window was still open, but unless Hunter, a guy with no NHL coaching experience, can turn things around in a hurry it’s going to be a long season. It’s a bit mind-boggling that a team with that much talent and depth isn’t absolutely dominating most nights.
'Canes fire Paul Maurice and hire Kirk Muller.
While a win against St. Louis would be great, I doubt there is a Caps fan alive who wouldn’t take a loss on Tuesday for a guaranteed win on Thursday against the Penguins. Of course, no one is making such an offer…
I don’t follow hockey too closely but hasn’t BB lead the Caps through multiple dominating seasons in a row? Sure they deflate every year in the post season but at least he was getting them to the postseason every year. Do they really think Dale will do better? Basically anything short of a Stanley will make the move meaningless and if they don’t make the playoffs then it will have been a regression.
He was 201-88-40 in the regular season, being one of the fastest coaches to ever reach 200 wins, but success isn’t measured by the regular season. All the regular season success did was increase expectations and eventual heartache over their postseason failures.
I think after being swept out by Tampa Bay last year (after revamping a prolific offense into a trapping team) he was already on thin ice, and now after collapsing and seemingly losing the team after an impressive 7-0 start the final nail has been hammered into the coffin.
As to whether Hunter will make any difference, it’s hard to say, especially since he has no NHL coaching experience. Typically teams tend to perform well shortly after a coaching change, though it’s difficult to separate how much of it is players responding positively to change, the coaches input and/or just other teams not fully knowing what to expect yet. If they don’t make the playoffs it may not necessarily be seen as a regression, but that depends on how the team performs over the rest of the season. It’s possible to make strides and still fall short.
Regardless, someone somewhere posited that perhaps Hunter is just a stopgap for management to really get a sense of whether additional changes need to be made; that is, if it’s just more of the same then it’s obvious that the coach wasn’t the only problem.
Brendan Shanahan needs to explain the Pacioretty suspension to Chris Campoli. Patches was responsible for not hitting Letang’s head, but Campoli was responsible for Malone hitting his head?
Fucking seriously?
Had both led to suspensions, I’d be fine with it. My gripe isn’t with the fact that Pacioretty got suspended - these sorts of hits sicken me, though I don’t see intent in this case, as compared to the Malone one - it’s with the fact the Brendan Shanahan is a fucking retarded ass-weasle who can’t see the same thing twice and come to the same conclusion.
ONE SET OF RULES FOR EVERYONE, PLEASE!
Goddamn this league is bush.
James Neal has been fined $2500 for his high stick on Subban. During the game, Subban slew footed Neal, and on his way to the ice, Neal’s stick hit Subban in the head. He was given a minor.
I understood the two minute penalty. I think the fine really sucks, and I wonder why Subban wasn’t fined. They must have reviewed the video.
The other day, Bob Errey said that slew footing is supposed to be a match penalty. It’s such a dirty, weaselly move that I’d like to see them start enforcing the rule and the penalty. Subban has such a history of doing it and everyone knows that. There’s no reason for him to stop.
Part of the issue with the Caps is hidden a little by the change to overtime play.
They are 12-9-1 (W-L-OTL) but pre-overtime that would ahve been 7-9-6 (W-L-T). A team that should be dominating (on paper) all but about 2 or 3 teams in the league is getting blown out or struggling to OT wins. Of course, this supports my contention that at the top professional leagues in any sport there really isn’t that much difference between the best and worst team. Even the worst NHL player made his way up thru mulitple levels and is pretty darned good. A few breaks and “intangibles” and fortunes swing quickly.
Similarly, BB did get to 200 wins faster than any other coach but the second place guy in that stat coached when he couldn’t win in overtime so you can’t make a direct comparison.
Here’s a gifof the play - I can totally see why on-ice officials wouldn’t have seen Subban do anything wrong, given the placement of the players as it happened. I agree it looks bad (though wonder is he kicking, or losing his balance? I’m just not sure and I blame that on the choppy way the gif is playing on my computer).
While I usually defend Subban because I honestly believe his reputation is worse than his play (with “influential” mouth-breathers like Cherry leading the charge to bad-mouth him at every opportunity), he has been doing really stupid shit this year, more than before (IMHO). Thing is, I rarely see slew-footing get called, even though I see it rather often in various games. It’s one of those things that the refs just never look at.
As for why the fine only on Neal; presumably the process that led to the play being reviewed requires it to be a review of an in-game penalty, to see if further discipline is needed. Neal was penalized on the play, so he was open to further review for a fine. Subban wasn’t, and therefore no further review was possible. That’s my best guess, anyways.
It’s pretty clear to me that Neal didn’t simply fall - there was a deliberate effort to swing the stick around. I agree with the on-ice call, I think the fine is such small potatoes as to be fine with it but wouldn’t have cared if it never got applied.
This constant “yeah, but what about [this guy] who did [this] to [player on my favourite team]!!! Why no penalty/suspension/fine for him?!?” kind of just proves my point… the officiating and discipline in the NHL SUCKS. Rules are inconsistently applied on the ice, inconsistently reviewed off the ice and inconsistent penalties are applied. Fans of every team have reasons to complain, which is not just homerism, it’s a symptom of an actual freaking problem in this league. Whether the inconsistency is due to nepotism/bias/favouritism towards certain teams on the part of officials/upper management, sheer incompetence, sheer stupidity, poorly written game rules or whatever needs to be identified and needs to be corrected.
This is the greatest game on earth, but this league is making a sham of it.
Well there’s your problem.
I looked it up, and he was correct. I guess he knows what he’s talking about.
Rule 52.2. I’m aware. It was a joke referencing Errey’s typical idiocy about, well, pretty much everything.
Subban should have been given a penalty, but the refs probably just missed it live. The review afterwards that led to the fine for Neal should have resulted in something similar for Subban to let him know that he didn’t get away with it. Why it didn’t, I don’t know.
That said, it was great to hear from you in the NHL thread! Looking forward to the next time someone dares to have the audacity to not let the Penguins get away with their usual thuggery and cheap play so you’ll come back and bitch about it!
Ridiculous stat of the day: The Devils have now given up more short-handed goals (6) than power play goals (5).
[del]Skeletor[/del] Adam Oates needs to go, and go far, far away. An average power play has only gotten worse since he’s taken over and that’s unacceptable for a squad that can put Parise, Kovalchuk and Elias on the ice at the same time.
At this point I think they could do better with no direction.
3 coaching changes in 3 days. Who is next?
Jacques Martin?
:crosses fingers:
Please, oh please let it be Jacques Martin! I have no idea who could/should replace him, but I’m really beginning to loathe the man and he’s an easy person to blame for this crappy season. 
Wow - didn’t take long for Boudreau to find work. And Holy Crap, my Blues are actually responding to Hitchcock. 8-2-1 since he took over. :eek:
Travis Moen in a shootout before Kostitsyn or Plekanec. This, right here, is why Martin needs to go.
:smack:
Well, it looks like it’s going to take some time for Hunter to settle in – how long has it been since we beat the Caps?
So now I guess we’re supposed to feel bad for Carlyle. LOL
One headline I saw that amused me: “Duck Duck Bruce”.
24/7 debuts on December 14! I can’t wait! (Avery should be especially entertaining)