J-Swift

Embarassing. Let the blow-out begin.

We're afraid of taking the Conference for some reason. And Philadelphia scores again.

Lovely effort by the Wings on that goal.

We're getting physically manhandled by the worst team in the league.

I feel the word "embarassing" more accurately describes Lilja's turtle.

That power-play wasn't so great. Datsyuk gives the puck away to the Flyers who go down the ice and score, and then we miss the net a bunch of times. I like seeing Lilja take guys hard into the boards, but that was a pitiful turtle by him.

There ya go. Nice one Franzen.

This is a little troubling.

The Wings are kinda coasting out there right now. Let's hope they can tighten it up a bit for Joey's sake.

Bit of a defensive breakdown there.

The Flames are a bunch of goons. They've done nothing but take runs at Zetterberg and Datsyuk ever since we got such a big lead.

Ugh. Nice giveaway.

Zetterberg's picking up where he left off against Phoenix.

Hank and Pavel's line is really buzzing. They're skating circles around the Flames.

I thought Hudler got a stick on that, but I guess not. Nice to see Schneider scoring again.

Almost Franzen.

Another great play by the Datsyuk-Zetterberg-Holmstrom line.

No kidding. Those guys are awfully bitter towards us for some reason. Anyways, I'm really hoping MacDonald can get his first NHL win tonight. I know people have slammed him for his poor rebound control, but if he only allows 2 goals like he did against Colorado in his last start, we really should be able to pull out a win for him.

Joe Sakic is a tremendously consistent hockey player; he always seems to be one of the league's top scorers. I always thought of Joe as Colorado's version of Steve Yzerman, so he's hard not to like.

I was also extremely pleased with what I saw today. Canada was rolling four lines all game, so Helm saw more even-strength action than he did yesterday. Not only does he have blazing speed and tenacious forechecking skills, but on a couple occasions against the Americans and the Swedes, Helm showed an ability to strip the puck from opposing defenders. Realistically, I don't see him as a big offensive contributor in the NHL, but he certainly has the makings of a solid checking-line player. The TSN commentators were comparing him to Kirk Maltby, which is a pretty accurate comparison IMO, as Helm has the same kind of tenacity Maltby had several years ago.

I watched a little bit of Canada's 2-0 win over Sweden today, and Helm was in the lineup. Pierre McGuire described him as one of the fastest skaters in the World Juniors, and he certainly looked the part. Darren had a couple even strength shifts, but as RB! noted earlier in the thread, he's used primarily as a penalty-killer, where he did an excellent job fore-checking.

That's very typical of Downie. Anyways, TSN has Helm penciled in on the fourth line, so I guess we probably shouldn't expect to see him play five-on-five all that much.

For whatever reason, Cory Emmerton was not selected to Canada's 2007 World Junior Selection Camp Roster. That's absolutely unbelievable if you ask me. But on a more positive note, Darren Helm was selected.

Cory Emmerton scored twice in the ADT Canada Russia Challenge tonight, leading Team OHL to a 5-0 victory. I watched a bit of the game, and Emmerton looked good. His first goal in particular was pretty nice.

I got to see Emmerton play last Thursday when Kingston came to Windsor, where he scored a goal and two assists. Cory almost had another goal (and it was a nice play by him, too), but it was waved off after they reviewed it. He played with Bobby Hughes and Chris Stewart for most of the night, and you can tell the Frontenacs really depend on those three for offence; it seemed like they were on every other even strength shift. All in all, I was pretty impressed with what I saw. He didn't really seem to be doing much early on, but he started to look really dangerous as the game progressed. The big knock on him (from what I've read) is that he's not fast enough for a player his size, but I didn't think he looked like a bad skater at all. He seems to pick up quite a bit of speed through the neutral zone and across the opponents' blueline. Emmerton's one-on-one moves are solid, and I was impressed by the way he stickhandled around defenders on the rush. There were a couple plays, though, where he'd take the puck deep into the offensive zone all by himself, and then make a quick pass back to the point that the Kingston defencemen weren't really ready for, so the puck would go right by them. Emmerton is very "Zetterberg-like" in terms of hockey sense. He always seemed to know where to be; and not just in the offensive zone. He was intercepting passes all night. As for his physical game, he didn't seem too afraid to go into traffic, and crunched a Windsor player against the glass when he was fighting for a loose puck. But Emmerton isn't particularly big, so I wouldn't expect him to have much of a physical game at the NHL level. Cory's essentially used in every situation, including both the power-play and the penalty-kill. I was a little to suprised to see him playing the point on the PP, which is a testament to the kind of shot he has. I'm pretty excited with what I've read and seen of Cory Emmerton. He kinda reminds me of Evan McGrath, except I think he's a little more responsible in his own end, and I gather he has a better work ethic.