T-Ruff

Friday, October 8 Minnesota at Carolina San Jose at Columbus Dallas at New Jersey Anaheim at Detroit Buffalo at Ottawa Washington at Atlanta x2 Saturday, October 9 Phoenix at Boston Columbus at San Jose NY Rangers at Buffalo Dallas at NY Islanders Montreal at Pittsburgh Ottawa at Toronto New Jersey at Washington Atlanta at Tampa Bay Philadelphia at St. Louis Anaheim at Nashville Detroit at Chicago Los Angeles at Vancouver Sunday, October 10 Boston at Phoenix Los Angeles at Calgary Florida at Edmonton

Awww yeeeah hockey is truly back baby! Great work as always sir

I would put them in this order of likelihood of making it in: 1. Lighting, one of the most improved teams --------- Realistically I think only the Lightning will make it in 2. Leafs, better than last year, still a major challenge. The sooner they trade Kaberle for a foward the better chance they will have 3. Oilers, could have all their rookies perform and Khabibulin stay solid in net all season 4. Panthers, Vokoun is perhaps the most underrated player in the league, if he gets some help from newcomers who exceed expectations (Wideman, Higgins, Grabner) and a healthy Booth, with an improved Weiss and Kulikov, etc and they could surprise some people 5. Thrashers: A lot of young guys and a new starter and young backup who is the future (and perhaps Byfuglien isn't a complete bust), but they are still more likely 14th/15th IMO. 6. Blue Jackets, if Mason bounces back and Nash and company have a solid season, but a hell of a lot of stars would have to align IMO. 7. Islanders, Tavares could have a near Stamkos like sophomore year, but the loss of Streit basically for the season hurts them immensely

He's going off base on purpose I think. I mean, it's a good career move and will garner more discussion and visits to his site. e.g. his Northeast predictions were just as odd: 1. Buffalo 2. Toronto 3. Boston 4. Montreal 5. Ottawa

http://capgeek.com/charts.php?Team=15 With a 23 man roster (14 forwards, 7 D, 2 G) we have just over 500k in space, that roster does not include Ritola or Meech

And then people say they shouldn't expand, or worse: that they should contract.

i.e. Shootout wins will no longer count towards the total number of wins for the first tiebreaker criteria. I approve

Makes a lot of sense for the Sharks given their current D-Corps

Kane is definitely more unlikeable than Crosby. I don't think Hall/Seguin will come even 1/4 as close or big as the Ovechkin/Crosby "rivalry" is.

I frequent a Leafs forum that's quite good leafscentral.co.uk, only other forum I visit regularly. I'm also a member of Calgary Puck but haven't posted there much, same goes for HFBoards.

The biggest difference between now and then is that the Canadian dollar is back on par, as opposed to being 65 cents or whatever back when they had to move. A team in Quebec City would be a very low risk move, certainly much less so than Kansas. I fully expect the NHL to expand to 32 teams within the decade adding good markets like Quebec and shifting around some other one(s) if they don't work out (Atlanta seems like the best candidate at the moment). FTR I like Seattle as a home for a team one day.

I'm thinkin Kunitz-Crosby-Dupuis Malkin-Staal-Comrie/Tangradi if he's ready/other young guy Cooke(Comrie)-Talbot-Kennedy/Asham Kennedy/Asham, Rupp, Adams, (Cooke) Not half bad if you ignore Crosby's wingers

I think they're going to keep Staal at centre moving him up to the 2nd line where Malkin will play on his wing. Staal is a better centre man than Malkin is I believe so this would make more sense.

I'm probably goin to this game (as well as the regular season Leafs game) Pumped

They happened way too often and are boring. What they need to do is expand OT to have an extra 3 on 3 period, this would significantly cut down on shootouts and therefore make the old purists happier. Also make the shootouts 5 vs 5. How did they come up with the number 3? Soccer has always used 5 as well as international hockey....

It doesn't matter if it wouldn't have changed something in the past, it's a harmless change that improves the system and may have a positive effect if teams find themselves in that position in the future. It's not change for the sake of change, it's improvement.

How is that worse lol? It means if two teams have the same amount of points, but one team has more of their wins in regulation or OT, they get put ahead of a team that has more of their wins in the shootout. All they need to do is go to 3 on 3 OT after 4 on 4 (before a shootout) and it will be close to perfect.

Shootout losses don't go into number of losses, they go into OTL and sometimes their own SOL. I imagine wins will be expanded to Wins (regulation and OTW) and shootout wins, so they can compare wins without shootout wins for the purpose of tiebreaking.

I'm pretty shocked he wasn't traded actually. I think Burke dropped the ball, he gambled at high stakes, lost, and now he has to try and save face. Kaberle could walk at the end of the season for nothing (and I think that's more likely than him re-signing). Hopefully T-Kabs OK's a deadline deal, signs an extension (which would require someone like Komisarek be moved you would think) or it's going to hit the fan in Leaf Nation.

Lilja is reportedly looking for 1.5m. He might come down before eventually signing, but he probably wasn't willing to right now, hence the signing of Salei

I don't like it because Turco is a lot better than Niemi. Hopefully it doesn't work out for em though in addition to his struggles in Detroit .

I think Vinny will have a bounce back year in a big way as well. 40 for him and Stamkos!

Kovalchuk's agent Jay Grossman tweeted: "Ilya Kovalchuk will make his decision today (for sure, this time!)." Now the rest of the dominoes can fall.

Yeah no way they would allow a contract until a player is 44. Even worse/more obvious cap circumvention than Hossa and Luongo

My thoughts exactly. You gotta think Gagne to LA is a safe bet now, and I think Burke is still on vacation but I'd expect a Kaberle trade shortly after his return.