NHL: October 2015

The arena in Brooklyn looked totally bizarre. It reminded me of some of the makeshift courts in early season college basketball when they were playing in unusual places, such as air craft carriers.

That Brooklyn arena looks like an awful place to watch hockey with a lot of obstructed views and strange neck twisting to follow the game.

I know it was built for basketball , but some renovations will be needed to be up to NHL standards

Playing in an arena built for basketball is what screwed the Coyotes when they moved from Winnipeg to the desert.

I thought the new Skycam at Verizon was an atrocity, then I saw what Islanders fans are getting.

Admittedly, I haven’t seen a full game yet, but the Columbus Blue Jackets looks surprisingly bad. After choking away a lead last night, they’re now down 3-0 to the Rangers.

Well the Wings are fun to watch, and off to a good start, but this is a freaky schedule. Back-to back Friday and Saturday every October and November weekend.

Wow, I hadn’t even looked at that. It seems weird that they don’t have any Friday-Saturday back-to-backs that are both home games. That’s a LOT of travel that they’ll be doing.

I watched Friday’s game, with Abdelkater getting a hat trick and Larkin getting his first career goal in his first career game, plus the assist on one of Abdelkater’s goals. What a great start to this kid’s career at only 19! I’m glad I finally have cable again and can catch a lot of games this season.

I don’t know if I’ll ever again be a “watch every game” fan like I was when I was younger, but I should be able to catch 1-2 per week now.

Tomorrow’s the Pens’ home opener. We better fucking win this one. (Don’t underestimate the loss of Dupuis. Whenever he’s out it seems our performance goes down quite a bit. HIS nickname should be “The Piece”, not Scuderi’s)

Ovechkin out for ‘personal reasons’ tonight. Probably nothing but worth keeping an eye on.

McDavid scores his first goal in his third game. You know who else scored their first goals in their third games?

facepalm Just…no.

The Wings beat Tampa last night to open the season 3-0. I think this team is looking a lot more alive than they did the past couple of years under Babcock. Of course, with 79 games left, who knows how this will end up, but I’m happy with the Jeff Blashill era so far. Heck, the guy coached my university to the NCAA tournament, so he’s been doing good hockey work for a few years now.

Apparently Martin Jones is a pretty good goaltender, despite sounding like he should be an insurance salesman…having given up just 1 goal in three games so far with the Sharks. The whole team seems a bit more focused this season. It looks like missing the playoffs last year shook things up pretty good, which may have been just what the team needed.

Some truly wretched hockey being played by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Soft goals by Bobrovsky are hurting the Jackets, but sloppy passing by all forward lines has resulted in numerous chances being wasted. Losing 4 games in a row to start the season isn’t what I expected of a team that finally has the injury bug behind them and finished the previous season so hot.

Over slept - missed morning skate - scratched in accordance with team rules.

I was quite surprised to learn that Montreal’s 5-0 start to this season is the best in team history.

Holy hell the Blue Jackets are a thing to behold. They’re giving up 5, 6, 7 goals a game and I realize the whole team sucks but why is Goalie Bob still playing?

With a trip to Chicago tonight, it’ll be interesting to see if the Jackets go with their backup , McElhinney. Usually the backup will get a start in back to back games, but do you want to start a backup against the the Hawks in Chicago?

Road trips out west are hard for me to stay up for. I watched the first period of the Caps-Flames and went to bed. Thirty seconds into the second, Ovechkin scored his 900th NHL point.

Jackets fire Richards and hire…Totorella. This won’t end well

Sometimes it’s good to be a Caps fan living on the west coast. You missed a great period of hockey - not just for Ovie’s 900th. It was some of the best playing I’ve seen from this team in a long time.