Flip-check

First off, thanks to Aussie for keeping this up! Count me in. And now to slide in under the radar (10 minutes til the night's games start!): Saturday: Montreal @ Toronto NY Rangers @ Ottawa Buffalo @ NY Islanders Carolina @ Washington New Jersey @ Florida Anaheim @ Pittsburgh Atlanta @ Tampa Bay Philadelphia @ Edmonton Dallas @ Nashville Columbus @ Minnesota Detroit @ Chicago Boston @ Phoenix Vancouver @ Calgary St.Louis @ Los Angeles Sunday: San Jose @ Colorado

OsGod... What did you *do* to the WonderBread guy? He looks.. well, you know!

Nhl tv or.. ? If you mean myp2p, just download Sopcast from here: http://www.myp2p.eu/Programs/Sopcast.htm Install, open it up, click on the NHL links, and you'll be set. I don't see any for tonight's game though, so Center Ice ftw for now.

Offsides! I'm missed! REPRESENT! Glad to see you guys around. Still. Harsh sir. WE ARE ALL WINNERS HERE, Mister Nothing! Except the losers. They still get zilch. Thankyew wingnut! Also, I got a couple snaps from opening night that a certain Ozzie/Hudler fan around here might appreciate... even at low quality from the SRO fanbooth: PUT ME IN COACH Gooning it up, like usual.

He doesn't, but I see where you spot the similarities. It makes me think of another country video cameo that three other NHL boys make however. One of them was DMac, I think. One of you guys might recall it in an instant.

The games are viewable on CI through the 9th. It's blacked out here (for the Center Ice-preview), but you out-of-town folk may be able to view it. http://www.nhl.tv/team/console Or for future games, http://myp2p.eu/NHL.htm

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. HELLO I'm so hott that Kid Rock wants to say hi and stuff. Right?

one goal, one passion .....Aaaaaaaand I go back a page to see this. Wtf? He looks thirteen! Corey Perry is gonna get it.

I don't read HN much unless it's at a bookstore, they really should conduct more polls like this though. 283 players joined in on it and these are some of the results. This was likely posted a while ago I believe, but it's summer and this is for those who didn't see it: How do you feel about the NHL schedule format? 1) There should be more games against the other conference (248) 89% 2) Like it the way it is (25) 9% 3) There should be fewer games against the other conference (6) 2% What should the NHL do about the delay-of-game penalty for clearing the puck over the glass? 1) Keep it as is: a two-minute minor (128) 46% 2) Treat it like an icing: no line change for offending team (110) 40% 3) Revert to the way it used to be: no penalty (38) 14% Would you rather see a fourth-line roster spot go to: 1) An enforcer (177) 66% 2) A skilled player who can play the power play and participate in the shootout (93) 34% If you could play for any NHL team (other than your own), which would you choose? 1) Toronto Maple Leafs (34) 14.4% 2) New York Rangers (29) 12.3% 3) Detroit Red Wings (19) 8% 4) Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks (18) 7.6% 5) Dallas Stars (15) 6.3% To what city would you least like to be traded? 1) Buffalo Sabres (40) 16% 2) Edmonton Oilers (28) 11.2% 3) New York Islanders (24) 9.6% 4) Pittsburgh Penguins (18) 7.2% 5) Florida Panthers (17) 6.8% 6) Carolina Hurricanes and St. Louis Blues (13) 5.2% What is the toughest building to play in on the road? 1) Detroit Red Wings (41) 16.4% 2) Calgary Flames (37) 14.8% 3) Montreal Canadiens (25) 10% 4) San Jose Sharks (21) 8.4% 5) Philadelphia Flyers (14) 5.6% Which NHL arena has the best ice? 1) Edmonton (152) 58.4% 2) Calgary (22) 8.5% 3) Montreal (21) 8.1% 4) Detroit (13) 5% 5) Minnesota and Toronto (9) 3.5% Which NHL arena has the worst ice? 1) Anaheim (42) 16% 2) Rangers (41) 15.7% 3) Florida (40) 15.3% 4) San Jose (19) 7.2% 5) Phoenix (18) 6.8% -- If you had a son who was an NHL prospect, would you prefer to see him play: 1) U.S. college hockey (140) 52% 2) Major junior hockey (104) 39% 3) European hockey (26) 10% What’s the best thing about your job? 1) Living dream/playing/adrenaline/sold out buildings, etc. (111) 43% 2) Friendship/Teammates (32) 12% 3) Money/Lifestyle (26) 10% 4) Travel/other cities/road trips (25) 9.7% 5) Times off/Summer (22) 8.5% What’s the worst thing about your job? 1) Travel/flying/sked/missing family (104) 42.6% 2) Injuries (33) 13.5% 3) Nothing (25) 10.2% 4) Losing/slump (17) 6.9% 5) Media/questions/etc. (12) 4.9% Which of the following phrases most closely resembles your opinion of the NHL working environment? 1) Somewhere in between (161) 60% 2) Progressive and open-minded (55) 21% 3) Old boys network (51) 19% http://www.thehockeynews.com/en/news/news.asp?idNews=24100 Women rank at #9 for Best Thing about playing, #14 for Worst is "Protein shakes, watching video, late nights, filling out forms, fighting, autographs, missed childhood, girls, money, Cam Janssen, getting yelled at, pre-game skate, coaches and being booed (1) 0.4%" (lol, Cam Janssen?) I was surprised that the Pens rank up there was least fav teams though, Pittsburgh is going places and the living there can't be that bad can it? The 4th liner question doesn't really say much to me either: I think anyone would pick an enforcer over a skill player for that line, although it'd be nice to think that your average player would pick a "tough-skilled" player over a non-tough player for say the second or third line.

I clicked the link, saw the title, instantly closed it. Ain't watching! It's windy outside and I <3 it.

This is just a player poll, not an article analyzing team depth. The language is put simply. And sure, yet an unrealistic poll question is useless. 'So NHL guys, what goalie would you like to become God and turn the league back into the Original Six? It's not gonna happen, we're just asking... for informational purposes, you know.' I get what you're saying, and somewhere else it'd apply, but not here. Pardon? It's not that, that particular question was just loaded, that's all. And I agree a list of players would be interesting. Just in an additional info sort of way, I don't care so much which 283 guys answered.

The winged wheel and the Habs are the best in the league, hands down. After that I'd be sorely tempted to simply pick O6 teams for the top logos in the NHL, but that's pretty damn unfair. These would be the better set of picks: #5- Oilers #4- Avalanche #3- Blues #2- Original Buffalo Sabres #1- OLD TIME Leafs this would make the perfect touch-up on the old Sabre jersey

As far as career ties go? You bet. And this is really what it's all about, not which city or nation he loves more. You don't spend 20+ deliberate years with a city and then hike back to your home country "just because it's Canada". He's built his professional life here, not in his homeland. Q F T

I didn't read it that way at all. Why would a player want a 4th liner on their squad to help with a shootout? Eva points out a crucial thing about it, it's the 4th line. What kind of skill player will you pick up that can score there, really? The question in my eyes wasn't fair at all--it would have been fair if they'd bumped it up to the 2nd line and asked the same thing. It's a bit of a no-brainer if we're talking about line 4 and "skill" "shootout players".

The other day I ran across a map some hockey blogger cooked up, it was pretty interesting to see. The map basically outlines the league and the divisional geography that we've got going on currently. And since I hardly ever think of their positions in a photo, it's a nice touch. It also gives you the visual for how much travel the Western conference pulls: -from On the Forecheck Aside from that he put up a different look at what the league could look like with another two-team wave of expansion. (arguments against expansion aside, we all know the league isn't ready yet, but it's gonna happen) I think Columbus is probably the most likely bet to actually go east, it doesn't look bad at al, or the idea of Nashville having some southeast "natural" rivals in their division like Atlanta, Carolina, and so on. All in all I dug the idea. But if you ask me, this is what the new Eastern conference Wings' division should look like. Added is Portland in the place of KC for the west. About as useful as debating whether we'll pick up Selanne or Forsberg or trade the ghost of Jason Williams to Pittsburgh for Crosby, but take a look.

You still live in British Columbia. No fixing that. Seattle rocks you!

Which one of you drinks first Marc or yonself?

In no certain order: -Sammy -Hank -Jason Williams (The guy still can't believe he has to play for the Hawks) -Dom (he'll retire for a year, then come back for a Cup) -Lidstrom (he'll "go home to Sweden" *winkwink*, then come back for a Cup) -Maltby (HTYES! ...but somebody will say Drapes misses him and he'll come back for some gatorade) This will leave us with a core of promising stars, including: Grigorenko (who will be a top 2 forward by his 13th game and have a 99 Potential rating in NHL '08), Kronwall (who will be a top 1 bench warmer by his 6th game after taking a bad hit behind the net), Jiri "HURTCHA BAD" Hudler (who will get into 10 gazillion fights and knock out Kevin Bieksa, Travis Moen, and Jim Vandermeer with headbutts), and oh yeah Datsyuk. Wings go on to repeat SCF wins for thirteen seasons then rename themselves the Montreal Canadiens per Ilitch's decision.

So he admitted it today? was it at a press conference? adios marc!

Like it needs any more dents. I thought it was going to be Pronger too.. Ahnuld isn't bad, he's just Conan. And this year if we make the finals, we can have.... Eminem and Granholm at the game!

Talk to OsGod around here (if he hasn't PMed you already), he's done it before and--iirc--had his bases covered on the agreement. He should definitely be able to help you out.

They wouldn't go for that. Maybe the piping... turning the bottom of it into a dress with the stripe is a no though. St. Louis will do a good job. On the fan-barf they perennially got going on, it gets ignored. It's stupid, they don't even know why they do it.. poor Blues fans, hopefully they field a team this year.

It didn't occur to me til now the Russian connection with TMAM, haha! Like, consciously. how weird! What year did you go Jen? You hear stories, of course, but I wonder what it's like for anyone there.

Jagr's best years were after Lemieux, actually. He nearly hit the 150 point ceiling with Mario... but when he left for the first time, Jagr had three near or above 100pt seasons. This is taken at a surface level look at stats though, because I never kept tabs on Jagr or the game as a whole those years.. whoever he was playing with then, they definitely weren't from Quebec.

I don't expect ol' Feds to wind up on our doorstep, but... It will be hilarious if he does. Like destiny homing in just to please/disgust all the Offsides/Kp-Wings of the world.