NHL, 2006-2007 season

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As the new season got underway last wednesday, what are your thoughts on who will make the playoffs? What do you think of some player or team performances, and so on.

I watched the Montréal / Buffalo game last night. The habs should've won that game!! The score was 4-2, as there was 4 and a half minutes left to the game. The referee had called a penalty on Brière. In the replay, you can clearly see Brière harpooning Bonk in the stomach with his stick. For like five minutes, Brièe had an inflamated discusision with the ref. Then, out of the blue, the ref gives a penalty to Micheal Ryder who didn't deserve it at all and sure enough, Brière is on the ice and scores after the faceoff. The sabres were able to score teh tying goal in the last seconds.

But the minimum to what Brière did is 5 minutes. Ar at the very least 2 minutes for obstruction (Bonk didn't have the puck). The habs should've had the power play, not the other way around...

I tell ya, the referee in hockey are like the refs in the WWF, they're a joke...

 

I think that the Leafs will surprise a lot of experts and make the playoffs. They looked good in their last two games (and not bad in the 4-1 loss to Ottawa)...

 

How was the leaf / habs game last night? I missed it, I was working..

 

I did a bit of digging and I think that NHL games are only shown on a channel called Setanta Sports over here, which is a PPV channel. Don't look like I'll be seeing any of the season then.

 

Triactus: Montreal won in a shootout. Sundin and Koivu traded Goals on the first shots. I forget who shot next two for the Habs, but Wellwood was stopped, Tucker and Ponikarovsky both hit the post, but Michael Ryder got the winner for the Habs. I think the Leafs do need to dress Alexander Suglobov, give him a regular shift and have him ready for the Shootout. I think that will increase their chances...

Monday night, the Leafs play the Florida panthers, and Former Leaf Goalie Ed Belfour. I hope the Leafs embarrass them.

 

I turned on the Leaf-Panthers game mid way through the second and watched up until shortly after the Panthers scored. The Leafs were dominating the Panthers but Auld was amazing in net for the Panthers. Naturally Wellwood scored to tie it probably only seconds after I turned the tv off. The Leafs actually won on the shootout so that would make them 1-1 on shootouts for the year. Tucker and Sundin scored on the shoot-out. That makes it two shoot-out goals on two tries for Sundin. It is nice to see Sundin doing well - pairing him with Wellwood definitely seems to be working.

 

Yes! The habs crushed the Flyers 3-1 yesterday! That's 5 points out of a possibility of 6. Pretty good... And they might even take advantage of teh Sens' horrible season start saturday night...

 

Leafs persevere against Alex Auld and win the shoot out is good. Canadians winning over Philly? I don't care for Philly and have Aebisher in my Hockey pool, so that's cool. Leafs blowing a 6-3 lead to lose in a shoot out against New Jersey was ugly.

Tonight promised to be good. Jeremy Williams had 2 first period goals, Jochen Hecht had a powerplay assist, and Ollie Jokinen had an assist, so my pool team could swing the head to head matchup tonight...

 

Dang it!! The sens beat the habs in a shootout... well, at least the habs have a point. That's 6 on a possibility of 8. Not too bad.. And they haven't lossed in regulation time. Woo!

Gnarf, you must be happy that Sundin scored his 500th carrer goal last night. Do you like him?

 

Yeah, I do.

He's been the public face of the team for years. It was good to see him get that milestone and break out of his own slump in a loud fashion.

8 out of 12 possible points for the Leafs. Probably better than many would have predicted. Since they've played two more games than Montreal, I expect that the Canadiens will have a really brutal stretch somewhere during the season...

 

Pffff, what the hell are you talking about? The Canadians will win the cup...

 

It doesn't mean that there won't be a stretch that will be absolutely brutal. They will have a stretch where they will have a lot of games in short period of time.

More on Sundin's 500th. It was also number 365 in a Leaf's uniform. This ties him with Dave Keon for second on that list.

 

I am just back from watching the Habs-Flames game - it was a really great game. The Habs managed to squeek by with a 5-4 win. Neither of the goalies played particularly well but the action was end to end, the lead kept flipping back and forth non-stop for the first two periods, and there were some dandy hits. Downey was admiring a pass he made and Regehr absolutely crushed him with a good clean hit. Downey must have been down and out cold for a good couple minutes.

To make it more interesting me and two of my co-workers have lived in Montreal at some point in our lives so we were cheering for the Habs while our other two co-workers who were with us were cheering for the Flames. Definitely a fun night - even the fact that I lost my umbrella at the Bell Centre and had to walk back to the pub and then hotel in the rain didn't ruin the fun.

 

I watched the game at my friend's place, on his new HD TV.. What a rollercoaster game that was. And it's even sweeter since the both of us as well as his roommae are big habs fan!

OMG JSBB! I forgot my umbrella at my friend's place and had to take the bus and walk home in the rain! That is so scary!

 

Buffalo just stomped all over Philly 9-1. I picked them last year to be the Eastern champs (but they fell short), and I'm picking them again this year.

 

Yeah, Buffalo's win was wicked!

I wonder about something, though. Daniel Brière, the Sabre's captain, is from Gatineau, the city I live in. If Buffalo wins the cup, can I exepect a Cup parade here?

 

Yeah. I've been looking at the question of which head coach gets fired first. Here's my top 5:

1: Ken Hitchcock, Philly. This season has been off to a horrendus start. They aren't a team, and the defence first philisophy doesn't net enough offence for the new NHL. He and Bob Clarke are gone by Nov 1.

2: Bryan Murray, Ottawa. Again, another team that was expected to set the world on fire, but they are getting precious little from their big three and not much more out of their other 15 skaters. I give him until Nov 15, and John Muckler is gone too for trading away Marion Hossa, Martin Havlat and not suitably replacing Zdeno Chara.

3: John Tortorella, Tampa Bay. Even without Khabibulin and Kubina, they should still look like a competent team. His post game rants aren't going to sit well and I'd say he's gone by December 1.

4: Marc Crawford, LA. Wrong coach, wrong time, wrong team. Bad decision by management that will be rectified by Christmas.

5: Ted Nolan, NYI. Not that he's screwed up or that he deserves it, but come on, it's the Islanders. Nothing they do makes sense...

 

I agree with your assesment of Hitchcock and Murray. Their days are numbered. But the others, I don't know. Usually, coaches don't get fired on their first year, since they're getting to know the players. They tend to have better lattitude. As for Torterella, I think he's in there for a while. If he didn't get fired when his feud with Lecavalier was at it's highest, he'll get through this season...

I heard a rumor. The Avalanche's game tonight against the habs might be Sakic's final game, as he will retire afterwards. But I don't know. I would think we would have heard it in the media.. Did you hear anything?

 

Wow, you were right on the money, Gnarf (though it *was* 10 whole days before your prediction... ). Ed Snider, the flyers' owner, announced today that he fired head coach Ken Hitchcock, and that Bobby Clarke quit as General manager. Those are big changes.

Does the presence of "free agent" Ken Hitchcock makes John Muckler think about replacing Bryan Murray with him? Oh, and there's still Pat Quinn who is free for a coaching position...

(And the Joe Sakic thing was probably rubbish, since I haven't heard anything about it...)

 

I watched the Philly Buffalo train wreck--er game. I saw Hitchcock leave Esche in for all 9 goals. I remember how much better off Montreal would have been if they had fired the coach instead of trading Patrick Roy in 1995.

If the Sens don't win at least one this week against the Leafs, then Murray and Muckler are gone before Saturday night's game against Boston...