toby91_ca

If the story written is untrue, I can understand the lawsuit. I'm sure Stewart thinks it's true, but it's very dangerous to publish stories that you are hearing second hand...so he's finding that out. However, if I'm Eric, my guess is the lawsuit has more to do with Stewart than the actual story.....since, the lawsuit is bringing a lot more eyes and attention to the story than would have by just having the story out there.

I'm not sure how anyone could even consider giving Benn supplemental discipline for that. If I were the ref and watching the whole play, I'd give them both two minutes, Z for holding or interference and Benn for roughing. Normally in these incidents though, it either goes totally unnoticed (no one gets called) or they call the roughing as they are following the puck off the draw and aren't paying attention to the interference. This was in no way a sucker punch in my book. Z was tying him up, he made a forearm push to get free, which didn't work and then punched him in the head. A sucker punch would be when a player is just standing there and a guy punches him for no reason. Z was tying him up and Benn was trying to get away. That same play probably happens, on average, 5-10 times in every game....it just happened to have a bad outcome here.

Paul Stewart is really in trouble with this one...not sure how he can possibly avoid losing the lawsuit. Apparently Eric is denying the story about ripping up the posters as Stewart describes and the guy who Stewart suggests told him the story is also denying it. Winning the lawsuit would require Stewart to "prove" that the story is "factual".....I think he's going to have a really hard time doing that. My guess is it will somehow be settled without getting to final conclusion though.

Getting 2 goals in 12 minutes is not unheard of, but unfortunately, that would have still left them down 4-3. The fact is, it would be extremely, extremely rare for a team to come back from a 4-1 score halfway through the 3rd period. Not impossible, but it's not like it happens every week. That's really what I don't like about the NHL...so hard to score goals these days (again). So, bold move by Roy for sure, but I'd be willing to bet most coaches would have just accepted defeat at that point, at least he was thinking outside the box.

I honestly don't think anyone knows at this point. I'm in Chicago this week and the only word I've heard is potentially 6-10 weeks, but that is pure speculation as well.

I honestly don't think the Kane, or Toews or Crosby's imaginative play comes from any soviet influence as Igor suggests. I think the issue is that certain players are allowed more freedom than others....perhaps that is part of the problem. Guys like that are allowed to get away with turning the puck over, guys trying to crack the line up are not given the same latitude. I think he has a point with that, the NHL, in general, could be much more imaginative and interesting to watch, but the #1 problem is that teams, coaches, GMs, etc. only have 1 priority and that's winning. It has been proven over and over again that a certain style of play wins out more often than not and that style of play is not always the most interesting. With that fact out there, I'm not sure how you could ever change things...unless you tried to make rules to avoid certain playing styles (which would be extremely difficult)

Even better that it would have bounced off the side of the net if he just let it go past

Wonder what caused the guy to go after him...was there something that happened before the video starts?

They lost their 11th game in a row last night, the most ever in team history. And with the Leafs, that's means something since they have quite a long history,,,most losses in a row in the last 100 years. Edit....the joke was, going into last night's game.....the last time they had lost 10 games in a row was the last year they won the cup.

Not sure I'd expect a ton of DET penalties this game as PIT doesn't draw a lot of PPs. DET is #2 in the league in terms of PP opportunities, PIT is #16. In terms of penalties taken, DET is up there at #6, but PIT is even worse at #3.

If I were trying to match lines, I'd have the line that tries to shut down (Datsyuk's) play against Crosby and I'd have our agitators out against Malkin. I've found that Crosby doesn't get too agitated anymore like he used to, but Malkin is still prone to getting thrown of his game.

I'm not sure what to expect from this game....the Pens have struggled quite a bit lately, probably mostly due to injuries (even to guys playing). However, I think a lot of their struggles may be against others in their own division as they still have a pretty good record against the Atlantic (12-2-3) and the West. I think the Wings could win this in easy fashion, but if the Pens play the way they can, one might think the Wings would struggle....but the Wings have been in most games this year, so I think that is unlikely.

Not sure if true, but I've heard he has been disliked by teammates since we was 16.

In addition to St. Louis, it would also be the 50th anniversary for Philly, Pittsburgh and LA

Well....not every season...in 1999/00, Osgood's stats were better. Manny only played in 4 games though.

What makes it even worse is the fact that the program was for Tuesday's game in which he didn't play.

Apparently, the guy is the father of the girl that was on the ice (kicking)

What areas of the game does holding a World Cup of Hockey tournament diminish?

I like it when it's the best on best.....other than that, I don't care if it's in the Olympics or some other tournament. Why are some people so fixated on needing the NHL players in the Olympics? As long as there is an international tournament that has the best playing the best, then that's all I care about. I must admit though, being Canadian, I probably have a different perspective. For all my life....pre-2002, the best Canadian players never played in the Olympics....I didn't care at all about watching the Olympics. I loved the Canada Cups though. For Europeans, it's probably different as the best players did play in the Olympics. Chelios was on the radio this morning and he mentioned that the best players were always at the Olympics, but not necessarily at the World Cup. It didn't make a lot of sense to me since there has basically been no history. NHL players started going to the Olympics in 1998 and there has only been 1 world cup tournament since then. Anyway....as I said, as long as it's best on best, I don't care, but from an NHL perspective, it makes a whole lot more sense to have the World Cup where they are in control, it's played in North America and it's played in September vs. shutting the league down in the middle of the season.

I think LaFontaine and Mullen deserve more love.

It always bothered me that Hull played for the US. I've always wondered why he really did that. He spent a few years in Chicago as a very young child, but he was born in Canada and spent almost all of his life in Canada before going to play college hockey as a 20 year old. What I've always believed is that Canada didn't take him and he was annoyed, so went and played for Team USA simply because he could (dual citizenship due to his American mother....who hadn't lived in the US for many years). The reason I had been bothered is that I thought....if you weren't good enough to play for your country, suck it up, don't go play for a different country, that's more like playing for yourself than your country. I also wonder if it has something to do with the messy divorce of his parents. He went and lived with his mother in Vancouver and didn't maintain a lot of contact with Bobby. I wonder if part of it is going to play for the US (for his mother) as a bit of a dig against his dad (Canadian). A bit far fetched...I know.

I think the salary cap coming in has everything to do with him not remaining with the team. Sure, he didn't have a great year, but it wasn't awful. Statistically speaking, him and Zetterberg had very similar numbers that year.

When you choose to be a goalie....it's this type of scrutiny you need to deal with. It's been this way since the beginning of time. We may joke about Wings fans always arguing or being tough on our goalies, but it's not a Wings thing, it's not an NHL thing, it's a hockey thing...it starts as soon as a 5 or 6 year old straps on the pads (believe me, I've heard the parents in the stands grumbling a bit about why the 5 year old can't stop more of the shots). With that out of the way, I don't think Howard is a barely average to average goalie, but I also don't think he's one of the elite. He has put up good numbers and was putting up good numbers this year as well. I know there was an article talking about the goalies that could be considered for Vezina consideration and he was amongst the 7 or 8, but there's no way I would have had him in my top 3 finalists. I think at times he's average, but mostly an above average goalie. Most importantly though, if he wasn't above average, the Wings would have a much worse record.....upgrading him won't help the Wings too much at this point, there isn't all that much room for improvement.

Another reason for less rivalries is simply less familiarity. You really don't have to go back that far to find the league with only 21 teams....they played each other a lot more then. Also, playoffs were set up where you'd need to get out of your division first. There are other reasons, as mentioned, but this plays a big role as well. Edit....on the PIT v PHI thing, I've always heard the "Battle of Pennsylvania" thing but I don't think it has anything to do with geography....which I didn't really have a great appreciation of until last year. I drove down to Pittsburgh from Toronto with the wife last year (as her friends suggested she get out the shopping....no tax and all). Anyway, Pittsburgh is actually closer to Toronto than it is to Philly, or at a minimum, very similar. For that matter, Detroit and Columbus are probably the closest teams to Pittsburgh.

While Kolzig and Coetzee were both born in SA, I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that SA produced those players. Kolzig moved to Canada when he was 3 and Coetzee moved to Canada when he was 4.