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All Quiet on the Chopping Block
December 31st, 2009
There’s something different about the NHL this year. It doesn’t have anything to with anything on the ice and it isn’t the salary cap. It’s the coaches. Read the rest of this entry “
This Is How It Ends
November 22nd, 2009This is a picture of Dick Jauron when he was hired to coach the Buffalo Bills in 2006.
Partial hair loss.
This is a photo of him during their 2009 season opener at New England.
...more partial hair loss.
Normally, it takes four years in the White House for someone to age that fast, not three and a half in Orchard Park, but that pretty much sums up the Dick Jauron Era for you. Read the rest of this entry “
Hoc-key Re-cap
November 21st, 2009
Losing team of the week-the Carolina Hurricanes have always been a streaky team, winning the 2006 Stanley Cup with a rookie goalie by simply outlasting the Buffalo Sabres and Edmonton Oilers on their way to the title, then missing the next two postseasons with Mets style collapses before rallying down the stretch last season and making it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Still, it’s kind of unusual for a team to be so streaky that they could go on a 14 game losing streak. The good news for the ‘Canes: the streak ended on Sunday with a 5-4 SO win over Minnesota and have a 4 game point streak thanks to SO losses to the Islanders on Friday, Montreal on Tuesday and a SO win over Toronto on Thursday. The bad news: their star forward and goalie, Eric Staal and Cam Ward, are out with serious injuries, along with one of their backup goalies, Michael Leighton.
Speaking of streaks-at the other end of the win column, the New Jersey Devils finally lost their first road game of the year on Monday, 3-2 to Philadelphia. The Devils were one game away from tying Buffalo’s record of 10 straight road wins to start the season.
Are you sure you aren’t doing this wrong?-the good news for Chicago Blackhawks fans: the team is close to signing Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews to contract extensions and is about to sign one of its players to what could be a 13-year deal. The not quite as good news: neither Kane or Toews is said player, with defenseman Duncan Keith getting the Ovechkin/DiPietro-length deal.
Odds and ends-Alexander Oveckin and Ilya Kovalchuk are back, making Southeast Division games infinitely more watchable, Anaheim’s owner, Henry Samueli, is out of jail and back in control of the team and Brendan Shanahan finally retired.
NHL Recap: November 11th, 2009
November 11th, 2009
Hockey Hall of Fame weekend-did you know that hockey has its very own hall of fame? It’s true! The good folks of the NHL and the other hockey powers that be were even thoughtful enough to place it in one of the largest cities of North America (albeit Toronto) instead of exotic eastern central New York or eastern Ohio ala football and baseball. Anyhow, the Hockey Hall of Fame saw fit to take this year to honor Brett “HIS FOOT WAS IN THE CREASE” Hull, Red Wings great Steve Yzerman, legendary Rangers blueliner Brian Leetch, Kings star Luc Robitaille, and Devils GM Lou Lamoriello. Speaking of Toronto and hockey players who haven’t been decent since the lockout… Read the rest of this entry “
NHL recap
October 30th, 2009
October 24th, 2009
Lightning lighten up with strip shootout
Let’s see….
Pulling the goalie?
2 for high sticking?
Holding the stick?
Stick handling?
Eh forget it, it’s too easy. Instead, how about some hockey highlights from the week?
Atlantic-Pittsburgh has the best record in the NHL at 9-1, the Rangers are also off to a good start (7-3) but that isn’t as impressive anymore because they started the past two seasons the same way and still went home early at the end of the season, Philly’s tailed off a bit from a strong start and is now 4-2-1 (sorry, Mech), New Jersey is playing like a Jacques Lemaire team because they are (still 5-3 though) and the Islanders finally won a game.
Southeast-Washington is, predictably, off to a good start at 5-2-2, Atlanta (surprise!) is right behind them at 4-2-1, as I already mentioned, Tampa Bay is playing strip hockey and the Bolts, Carolina, and Florida have won 7 games apiece.
Northeast-apparently it’s 2007 all over again, as Buffalo is in first place at 5-1-1 along with Ottawa at 6-2-2 (the NHL points system, there’s nothing like it,) Boston is playing .500 hockey (4-4-1) and Montreal has won 4 of its first 9 games, picking up where they left off last year. Oh and Toronto still hasn’t won a game.
Central-Give or take a couple switches in the specific order of the records, the Central Division looks more or less the same as it did when the playoffs opened last spring. Chicago and Columbus are in the top 2 spots with 5 wins each, Detroit and St Louis are 3-3-2 and 4-3-1 neither outright great nor downright awful, and Nashville’s in the cellar at 3-5-1.
Northwest-Colorado’s off to a 7-1-2 start that’s inexplicable except for the fact that Craig Anderson’s been playing even better than he did last year when he was Florida’s goalie, Calgary’s off to a slightly more plicable 6-2-1 start with help from Dion Phaneuf’s team high 5 goals, Edmonton’s a very solid 6-2-1, thanks to Dustin Penner remembering that he actually knows how to score goals, Vancouver’s 4-5 in large part because they didn’t pick up their first road win until a 3-2 victory at Chicago on Wednesday and Minnesota is still suffering from the aftereffects of having been coached for the better part of a decade by Jacques Lemaire and is thus 2-7 and tied for fourth fewest total goals in the NHL, with 18.
Pacific-San Jose’s 5-4-1, which isn’t as big a deal as it normally would seem for the same reason the Rangers’ start isn’t as impressive as it usually would be, Dallas is 4-2-4, Phoenix is 6-5-2, which would be nicer if they weren’t drawing home crowds of 6-9,000 people a night, and in a reversal of the usual SoCal hockey status quo, LA is 6-4 while Anaheim is 3-4-1. Not too many must-watchers this coming week, though Philly plays Washington on Tuesday, which is always fun.
NHL Recap II
October 16th, 2009
All’s right in the Northeast Division-Toronto’s winless and only has 1 point so far, Boston have been OK but not exactly world-beaters, Ottawa’s leading the division by all of a point, and Buffalo’s undefeated in regulation and coming off of a 6-2 win over Detroit. The standings might not exactly match up with most preseason projections but the more competitive division races the NHL has the better.
Good news, bad news for Islanders fans-good news: John Tavrares is off to an excellent start, with 2 goals and 5 points in his first 4 games. Bad news: the Islanders are still the Islanders, so they haven’t won a game yet. Holding a 3-0 lead on Boston before losing 4-3 last weekend does count as progress though.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot-Scott Hartnell may or may not have bitten another player, Colorado is off to a 4-1-1 start, which is surprising but has happened before, Los Angeles finished Thursday 4-2, which is a little surprising and hasn’t happened in a while but was bound to happen eventually, and Phoenix was 3-2 as of Thursday, which is just plain weird, given how many distractions they’ve had lately.
Game to watch-Vancouver-Chicago on Wednesday, Luongo’s having another good year, so are Kane and Toews, Vancouver’s getting some good scoring from the Sedin twins, and Anti Niemi’s starting to look like the real deal in net for the Hawks. So naturally, VS isn’t touching this game and U.S. viewers will have to watch on the NHL Network. At least the Leafs don’t have any nationally televised games here this week.
NHL Recap
October 6th, 2009
Hockey. The Greatest Game on Ice (well, it’s either this or curling and skating). We here at The Rookies, being 72% comprised of bloggers from states with actual winters, have decided to give you, our loyal public, a (hopefully) weekly recap of some of the notable NHL games from the past week, seeing as A: we couldn’t think of anything better to do and B: it’s not like any of you who have DirecTV can actually watch any of the games on VS. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry “
About Time
September 30th, 2009
As he’d been threatening to do since the beginning of the month, Judge Redfield T. Baum threw out both the NHL and Jim Balsillie’s bids for the Phoenix Coyotes today, hopefully bringing to a close one of the longest, ugliest, saddest, and yet downright boring court cases in hockey history, if not quite in sports in general. The NHL didn’t quite get what it wanted, though since Baum ruled that the league could make a bid in the future and that it does have the right to decide to who owns one of their teams, that shouldn’t matter. Read the rest of this entry “
Redfield Baum, You Might Be My Hero
September 11th, 2009
Really? This is by no means anywhere close to a done deal but the fact that the judge in the neverending Phoenix Coyotes case, Redfield Baum, is even considering throwing out both the NHL and Canadian tycoon Jim Balsillie’s bids for the the NHL’s most misplaced franchise is probably the best chance hockey fans have had at seeing this saga end in anything but disaster. Read the rest of this entry “
