Well, here is the first of the monthly NHL threads. These threads are a place to discuss anything and everything about the NHL. There was great participation last year and all are welcome to post about the league or your favorite team or player.
Three games to open the season and they’re all good. I’m going to be particularly interested in the Vancouver game tonight. Luongo’s first start since the Stanley Cup loss. I’ll also be watching some of the Philadelphia game and see how the new Flyers look I think the Flyers are going to struggle early in the season with all of their changes and I don’t think they’ve gotten better except in net.
Ouch. That was pathetic. The Habs sucked tonight, but so did the officiating. Just an ugly night all around.
And seriously Leaf fans, can you at least pretend to like your team a little bit? You’re an embarrassment to the league. Paraphrasing a tweet from Down Goes Brown: Instead of OccupyWallStreet, how about OccupyYourSeatAtTheStartOfPeriods?
Flyers fan here. Why the hell is Jagr wearing a Philadelphia jersey?? Good. I can skip the whole season now. I don’t care what team he’s on, I’ll still make the “fairy whistle” we’ve done for umpteen years. Whiner.
Um. No. I don’t blame the refs at all for the loss. The Habs’ D sucked, there was no offence, they couldn’t get out of their own zone and all-around played terribly.
BUT the refereeing was also pretty atrocious…on BOTH sides. Just in favour of the Leafs I saw at least two missed hooking and high stick calls and a blatant obstruction. In favour of the Habs there was the late (as in after the whistle and away from the puck) drilling of Gomez into the boards and at least twice the Leafs D held the puck in their hands and skated away from their net with it. There was slashing and grabbing on both sides and the refs just ignored all kinds of crap, thereby making the actual calls that they made kind of dubious at best. Either call nothing or call everything, but this was random and felt like a whole series of bad/makeup/bad/makeup calls.
It was poor officiating, and I stand by that. It’s frustrating to watch, nevermind the crap play by the team I was cheering for.
And the crowd was pathetic; please tell me you recognize that booing your own team on opening night and having nearly the entire lower bowl be empty at the start of each period is kind of pathetic.
Andre Kotitsyn was awful, and deserved his demotion to the third line. I was yelling at the TV on that play in the second period, and I’m not even a Montreal fan. That was a lazy, lazy play.
Grabovski and Kulemin are legit offensive threats. They had another good game today despite not scoring. They created some good chances and played well defensively.
Kessel has got to ditch that boat anchor wearing #42. Kessel was all over the ice; about the only time that Bozak got his name called was when he inadvertently threw a pick on a Montreal player to spring Phaneuf.
Oh wait, I forgot, Bozak also ran Price. That was a dirty play and he was lucky to only get 2 minutes for that. When you watch the replay it’s clear he had every intention of blowing up Price on that play. Clearly he’s spending too much time with Colby Armstrong.
Montreal’s third line was a black hole offensively. Most of that it due to Darche and Desharnais. I really have to question why Montreal is paying Cole so much to play with these two – it’s not going to end well. Cole is a banger who needs a skilled offensive centre(read: Eric Staal) to create offensive chances for him. I really really question why on earth Darche and Desharnais saw the ice at on the PP and with the goalie pulled.
When I see Reimer kicking pucks out into the slot time and time again, I can’t help but think “Raycroft”. Admittedly Raycroft had that great rookie year with a pretty good Bruin team bailing him out, while Reimer did it behind an awful defensive team.
Meh. Gomez took an unnecessary slash at Reimer and it wasn’t even clear to me on the replay that Gomez was even pushed in. It looks more to me like he got tangled up and fell into the boards.
First turnover in the neutral zone about 3 seconds into his first shift. He was awful; he should be on the 3rd line and Cole up with Pleks and Cammy
I noticed Grabovski but not Kulemin, but I’m not that familiar with the roster.
Agreed that Bozak sucks.
Agreed. There’s a significant group of Habs fans that wish they had a goon who could react to this kind of play. It’s uncalled for and just nasty. I don’t know where I stand on this…if the refs were more competent, there wouldn’t be a need for goons (this is true across the league IMHO) but since the refs don’t come down hard on this sort of stuff, it just seems to fuel more and more dirty play.
Getting Eller and Betts into the line up will help. I think Cole should be with Pleks and Cammy, then Pattioretty-Gomez-Gionta, Desharnais-Eller-Darche/AK and White-Betts-Moen/Darche… At the least, put Cole with Patches! I hate Jacques Martin’s line juggling and while I loved watching the prospects in the pre-season, I feel that having only played one game with something resembling an NHL team puts the team behind the ball (puck?) to start the season.
I noticed those rebounds too, which is why the inability to fucking score already by the Habs was so aggravating. I think Reimer is a decent goalie; I don’t think he’s the Leaf’s saviour. I’m not sure he’ll keep it up all year.
I disagree with your “tangled up” assessment. But away from the puck and - especially - after the whistle makes it pretty much worth a penalty in my book.
Sucks, I’m traveling tonight and I’m gonna miss the game. I suppose I could DVR it, but by the time I’ll be able to watch it I’ll probably already know the outcome.
Heheh, have fun dealing with his primadonna ways. He’s gonna get booed, BIG TIME when he comes back to Pittsburgh. (I hear Mario was PISSED when he went and signed with Philly after all that gushing about how much he wanted to come back and play with the Pens, and all that.) And even though I’m really really hoping that Matt Cooke succeeds in changing his ways, I hope he makes an exception here. I wanna see him take down Jagr. With EXTREME prejudice. Either him or Brooks Orpik.
I almost chewed my knuckles off last night. Don’t get me wrong – I love shoot outs, but it still makes me tense up. And I really wanted to see Cooke get a hat trick.
