Saying “Fleury wasn’t the only problem” does not address the concerns of the rational majority of Penguins fans who have argued, with full knowledge of the Penguins’ other glaring problems this postseason, that Fleury’s play was also atrocious. Even if we take into account Fleury’s calm two periods in Game 4 and a dominant third period in Game 5, his overall performance in the Flyers series was unacceptable by NHL goaltender standards, let alone by the standards of a supposed ‘clutch’ franchise goaltender making over $5 million a year.
Among other things, Burke said he could not bear to let Wilson face fans at the Air Canada Centre again after they booed him and chanted for him to be fired.
Burke also had very little confidence that Wilson could turn this season. Burke likened the team’s season to a 30-tonne truck being driven off a cliff, and said that even from talking to managers in other sports, that few had seen the kind of dropoff that the Leafs have seen recently, from sitting comfortably in the eighth spot to get them into the playoffs to falling five points out of playoff contention.
Burke went on to say that hiring a new coach now in Randy Carlyle saves them a month in the fall. He believes there is a slim chance that Carlyle could turn this team’s fortunes around and make the playoffs, but at the same time he doesn’t have to introduce a brand new coach on the first day of training camp.
The Battle of Ontario is renewed, with Ottawa four points clear of the Leafs but having played two more games. A key stat for the Leafs to look at is the fact Ottawa ranks as the fifth-most penalized team in the NHL, averaging 13.2 minutes per game. That stat will be a factor if Ottawa doesn’t get it under control down the stretch.
The addition of Kyle Turris has been a boost for Ottawa; the club can now ice two decent scoring lines, with Turris centring the second line and Jason Spezza the first. Milan Michalek is healthy after a lengthy injury layoff and the club has found a way to give goalie Craig Anderson a bit of time off (he had appeared in 22 straight games). Ottawa was said to be in the Tuomo Ruutu sweepstakes, but it now appears he will re-sign with Carolina. Sens are not expected to be big players at the deadline; but there is a fine line there between improving the club, and sticking to the pre-season plan of continued development.
They are, right now, the Leafs’ chief target in the standings.
The Islanders and Brett Yormark, chief executive of Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment and the Nets, announced Tuesday that the Isles would play the Devils in an Oct. 2 exhibition at the new Brooklyn Nets basketball arena.
The announcement serves as another shot across the bow of Nassau County politicians and voters, who have rejected every effort by Islanders owner Charles Wang to upgrade or replace Nassau Coliseum, the club’s 40-year-old home.
When Dustin Byfuglien was arrested for operating a boat while intoxicated, the reactions varied around the NHL. Fans of Byfuglien and the Winnipeg Jets were embarrassed and disappointed by his actions, while other fans that couldn’t care less about Byfuglien laughed at his stupidity and the fact that he tipped the scales at nearly 290 pounds at the police station.
However, neither Byfuglien’s weight nor his stupidity of operating a boat while being under the influence is reason for the Jets organization and their fans to be worried.
NHL star Sean Avery challenged cops to a FIGHT when they responded to his Hollywood Hills home this morning … calling them, “Fat little pigs” … law enforcement sources tell TMZ.
We’re told cops were dispatched to the home over a complaint about loud music — and when they arrived to Avery’s pad, the hockey star was NOT happy to see them.
Sources tell us 31-year-old Avery immediately began running his mouth at the cops — telling them he would fight all of them … even challenging them to, “Come back without your badges.”
During the incident, Avery — who famously dated Elisha Cuthbert a while back — allegedly shoved an officer and slammed the front door on the cops.
Some local officials privately said they could see Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who also owns 45 percent of the Barclays Center, potentially acquiring the Islanders to add 44-60 dates per year to help fill the arena.
A Prokhorov spokeswoman, however, said the Russian billionaire “has no interest in buying another sports team at this time.”
The arena currently is projected to host about 200 events annually, including Nets games.
Queens, Kansas City, Mo., Suffolk County and Canada have also been rumored as potential landing spots for the Islanders.
Clearly, the Rangers’ front office decided that Brad Richards was indeed worth the risk. The immediate benefits to this Rangers team are obvious. Richards has scored at least 20 goals in 9 of his 10 NHL seasons. He has posted at least 25 power play points in 8 of his 10 seasons. He will fit an immediate need both in the #1 center slot, and quarterbacking the power play. He has a Stanley Cup ring and a Conn Smythe trophy to his credit, from his days with current Rangers’ coach John Tortorella.
The contract he signed is a nine year contract worth $58.5 million. The deal takes him until he turns, avoiding the ‘Kovalchuk’-rule cap restrictions that come with contracts that take a player past 40 years of age.
What began as deadline day for the Pittsburgh Penguins and their pursuit of 39-year-old forward Jaromir Jagr has instead been filled with lingering questions about Jagr’s potential return to the NHL, his actual whereabouts late Wednesday and the interest of his former team in securing his services for the 2011-12 season.
Jagr was supposed to arrive in New York on Wednesday with a definitive decision on whether he would accept the Penguins’ reported offer of one year and $2 million, or if he wanted to sign elsewhere, be it in the NHL or back in Russia, where he played the last three seasons. He has also reportedly received interest from Detroit and Montreal.
Jagr can’t sign a contract with an NHL team until noon ET on Friday.
However, Jagr’s agent, Petr Svoboda, told the Detroit Free Press that he could not confirm his client’s whereabouts Wednesday night.
“I don’t know if he missed a connection,” Svoboda told the newspaper after 8 p.m. ET. “I have no clue.”
Montreal police say charges against Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara have still not been ruled out as they prepare to speak to him in the coming weeks about his controversial hit on Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty. Chara’s hit in March landed Pacioretty in the hospital and ended his season. The towering Bruins defenceman was thrown out of the game but subsequently received no suspension from the National Hockey League.
Montreal police said in March that they would investigate the incident to see if there was any criminal element.
Sgt. Ian Lafrenière of the Montreal police said the investigation was delayed because most of the witnesses were hockey players busy with the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Then around 3 p.m. Eastern time, the sound you heard was everyone’s jaw hitting the floor at the same time, because Paul Holmgren totally went off the deep end.
Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, and their more than $110 million in combined salary through 2020 and 2022, respectively, were traded about 35 minutes apart. Then they signed 31-year-old Ilya Bryzgalov for nine years. None of it, seemingly, made any sense.
(Of note: Holmgren seemed genuinely upset to have made the deals at the press conference, so one gets the feeling this was all coming from way upstairs, which is stupid and inexcusable.)
Three Super Bowl wins, two World Series titles and an NBA Championship. Yet something was missing.
After all of Boston’s triumphs over the past decade, the party never quite seemed complete. No matter how much fun the city’s had or how memorable the moments have been, there’s always been that one little X factor that has kept the party from being a full-fledged blowout for the ages.
Ah, yes, it’s a Bruins Stanley Cup victory. Well, rejoice.
They outhit us and they seemed hungrier,” coach Claude Julien said Saturday. “That’s where we should have been able to push back and we didn’t do that well enough. We’re aware of that and we certainly would like to have another crack at it. We have to show that in our building here next game and hopefully, again, having another crack at going down there and showing that we can push back as well.” But that’s hardly enough.
“When you don’t score I think you need to improve in more than the physical play,” Julien said. “That’s an area that I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job in Vancouver.”
The game was comfortably decided when Thomas decided to take justice into his own hands. The Canucks were on a power play, and Burrows was scrapping at the edge of his crease. He reached out and whacked the butt end of Thomas’ stick, knocking it out of his hand.
Thomas corralled the lumber and gave Burrows a sizable whack on the outside of the right leg. The Canucks’ rat then came hard at the goalie, and it looked like the pair were locked up, trying to drop their gloves and have a go. They would have, had Seidenberg not intervened to tackle Burrows.
It’s great to have such a warrior back there,” said B’s defenseman Dennis Seidenberg. “He hits guys, he defends his crease. It’s awesome.”
The seven-goal margin of victory was the most in an NHL final game since Colorado crushed Florida 8-1 in 1996. It was just the third time since 1927, when the NHL began competing exclusively for the Cup, that the margin in a game in the final was seven goals or more. The Bruins dramatically changed the complexion of the Stanley Cup final last night with an 8-1 drubbing of the visiting Vancouver Canucks.
Just 11 seconds into the overtime period, Alex Burrows broke free, circled behind the Boston Bruins’ goal and slipped a shot past Tim Thomas and into the net, giving the Vancouver Canucks a 3-2 win and 2-0 series lead on Saturday night. The man who made headlines following Game 1 for biting Patrice Bergeron during a heated moment let his play do the talking on Saturday night, scoring two goals and assisting on another as the Canucks held serve to take a 2-0 lead to Boston. Burrows, who escaped suspension earlier in the week, played the biggest role of them all, scoring the first goal of the game midway through the first period and assisting on another in the third.
The Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins face each other tonight in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Goaltending has been key for the Vancouver Canucks, but it is unknown if Roberto Luongo will be fully recovered from an Alexandre Burrows vampire bite.
Boston’s Tim Thomas and Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo are two of this year’s three Vezina finalists. They carried their teams to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, which will get under way Wednesday night with Game 1 at Rogers Arena. Luongo appeared in 60 games this season; Thomas played in 57. Last year, Cristobal Huet’s 48 appearances for the Blackhawks were the most of any goalie in the Final, but he played just 20 minutes during the entire playoffs.
While some teams were choosing to shore up areas of their team around their goaltenders, GMs Peter Chiarelli of Boston and Mike Gillis of Vancouver made sure a long time ago that they wouldn’t have to worry about their goaltending situations now. Chiarelli signed Thomas to a four-year, $20 million contract in April 2009 while Gillis locked up Luongo for the rest of his career, giving him a 12-year, $64 million deal in September 2009
The Vancouver Canucks are headed to the Finals after defeating the San Jose Sharks with an odd goal.
This slow motion replay gives a good look at the fluke goal that eliminated the San Jose Sharks. NOTE: We goofed and used the wrong photo. This actually is not Bieska's game winning goal.
While the icing call was negligent, the OT-winning goal by Kevin Bieksa was just pure bad luck for the Sharks. Canucks defenseman Alexander Edler, trying to play the puck up the right boards, had it deflect off a partition instead. Just about everybody on the ice, including Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi, thought the puck was heading around the boards and into the corner, but Bieksa saw the disc bounce right to him near the blue line.
The Canucks defenseman sent an ugly-looking shot on net and it went in, primarily because Niemi was looking over his right shoulder to try and locate the puck. By the time Niemi looked back up ice, Bieksa’s knuckling shot was just passing the goalie’s left pad.
“It’s an ugly goal, but definitely one I’ll take,” Bieksa said.
The sale of the Atlanta Thrashers to a group seeking to bring the NHL back to Winnipeg appeared imminent Thursday after Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported that an agreement had been reached between the Thrashers’ current owner, Atlanta Spirit, and would-be owner True North Sports and Entertainment.
The Globe and Mail said the league will confirm the sale and franchise transfer Tuesday. The newspaper is owned by David Thomsen, who is also a key figure in the True North group .
Ironically, it was a save that he didn’t make where he showed how tough he could be as Dominic Moore shot went off his face and into the net, after his own defenseman crashed into him, knocking his mask off.
“I didn’t know,” Thomas said. “Dominic Moore was the guy in front of the net. I think what made my mask come off was Adam McQuaid was trying to get across the crease and we kind of ran into each other. I haven’t seen the replay. I have been told the puck went off my head but I didn’t even realize it. At that point I was trying to find it I think.”
Thomas showed again Tuesday that you don’t have to save every shot to make big saves.
Coach Alain Vigneault wants Roberto Luongo to keep handling the puck outside his crease and chastised the media today for putting too much focus on the error the Vancouver Canucks goalie made Sunday night that led to San Jose’s first goal.
“Every player at one point or another is going to make a mistake,” Vigneault said after his team’s optional practice at Rogers Arena. “You seem to be making a pretty big deal out of it, but their goaltender turned it over on the first goal and I haven’t heard anything about that
We were hungry. We just didn’t win,” captain Alex Ovechkin said. “We want to win. They want to win. Somebody has to lose. We are losing and I don’t know what to say right now.”
Added coach Bruce Boudreau: “There’s not really much to say [after the game]. The [players] are down in the dumps, I’m down in the dumps. I just told them I was proud of them for the way they worked all year and that they never quit right until the end. That’s all a coach can ask – you don’t quit and you just keep plugging through. We thought we had a good chance to win, and we just didn’t get it done.”
The Tampa Bay Lightning have pushed the Washington Capitals to the brink of elimination.
41 year old Dwayne Roloson of the Tampa Bay Lightning has been playing like a Terminator sent from the future to destroy the Washington Capitals' hopes and dreams.
Goaltender Dwayne Roloson has played only nine playoff games for the Tampa Bay Lightning, but if the team keeps winning, he could find himself in the Conn Smythe Trophy race.
He’s stopped 304 of the 321 shots he’s faced so far in the playoffs as the Lightning beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in seven games in the first round and have built a 2-0 lead in the bestof-seven Eastern Conference semifinal against the Washington Capitals.
The Philadelphia Flyers, who eliminated the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night, were fired up after Buffalo players mocked several recently divorced Flyers.
Danny Briere of the Philadelphia Flyers says Buffalo Sabres players crossed the line by mocking him about his divorce from Smurfette.
Trash talk is common on the ice in the NHL playoffs, but Philadelphia Flyers forward Daniel Briere, right, said one member of the Buffalo Sabres “crossed the line” during Game 6 of their Eastern Conference quarter-final.
“Honestly, one of their young guys said something to me that was personal and crossed the line,” Briere told the Buffalo News.
“It got me fired up a little bit more than it usually does. That was probably a big part of it.”
According to the Buffalo News, citing a Flyers source, it was Sabres forward Patrick Kaleta who made remarks to Briere and Scott Hartnell about their divorces.
After falling behind 3 games to none against the Vancouver Canucks, the Chicago Blackhawks have come back from the dead to force a game 7.
After playing like zombies for the 1st three games of the playoffs, the Chicago Blackhawks have come back from the dead to force a game 7 against the Canucks.
In Vancouver, things are much worse because expectations are so much higher. The Canucks need someone to apply the Heimlich manoeuvre because they are on the verge of choking.
It’s easy for us desk-bound pundits to brandish the c-word with impunity right about now, but how else to describe blowing a 3-0 series lead and now facing a Game 7 Tuesday in Vancouver against a reinvigorated Chicago Blackhawks team?
The Canucks won the Presidents Cup as the top overall team in the standings this season. The Blackhawks, despite winning their first Stanley Cup in 49 years last season, just squeaked into the playoffs this time around. In other words, the Canucks have everything to lose and the Blackhawks have nothing to lose.
Last year is still a painful, though forgettable, memory for the Caps. Facing the same situation – up 3-1 coming home against the Canadiens – Washington got run in the first 10 minutes of Game 5 and went on to lose the series. Asked what he remembered from that experience, Alex Ovechkin said: “I don’t remember nothing. I forget about it.”
Most players feel the same way – that the Montreal series is in the past and that this is a new team. Much of the belief about a new team comes from new players – namely Arnott and Hannan, who weren’t part of that collapse. As much as they helped in the regular season, they’re here for playoff time and to get this first-round series out of the way.
Washington Capitals’ Head Coach Bruce Boudreau does not think highly of Madison Square Garden.
Caps' coach Bruce Boudreau does not get treated nicely at Madison Square Garden. Mainly because he couldn't block the view for any more fans if he was Jabba The Hut.
If Bruce Boudreau isn’t familiar with a Bronx cheer, he soon will be.
Apparently the Capitals coach doesn’t get the aura of Madison Square Garden. In an interview with a Washington radio station, Boudreau shared a few thoughts on the “World’s Most Famous Arena.” Here’s betting he didn’t make any friends in New York.
“Its reputation is far better than the actual building,” Boudreau said in an interview on the station. “It’s nothing. The locker rooms are horrible. The benches are horrible. There’s no room for anything. But the reputation of being in Madison Square Garden is what makes it famous. Our building is a lot louder, too. They can say what they want, but it’s not that loud in there.”
We could write at length about the Raffi Torres hit on Brent Seabrook, but we’ve got all day Monday for that. And we could praise the Canucks to the skies, but it’s starting to look like we may have another two months of that as well.
For now, with this series all but over, we should spare a moment to pay our respects to the fallen Stanley Cup champions, the Blackhawks, a team that isn’t only nowhere near as good as the Vancouver Canucks are. They are nowhere near as good as themselves a year ago either, down 3-0 in their first-round series to the Canucks, a pale impression of the team that eliminated Vancouver a year ago.
“Where we sit now, it’s not pretty. It’s really frustrating when you don’t put it all on the line; you don’t find a way to win that one,” Toews said, after a Mikael Samuelsson rebound goal – on the second or third whack – stood up as the winner in a 3-2 game.
The New York Rangers nickname this season has been the Black and Blueshirts, due to their gritty play. Unfortunately, that same gritty play will cost Ryan Callahan the rest of the season due to a broken leg.
The New York Rangers nickname of the Black and Blueshirts isn't so charming anymore now that they've lost one of their top players for the season.
It doesn’t get much more expensive than this and it doesn’t get much more devastating than this. The Rangers will first attempt to clinch a playoff spot and then attempt to do damage in the tournament without Ryan Callahan, who will be sidelined indefinitely with the broken right leg he sustained at the Garden on Monday night blocking a Zdeno Chara shot with 1:45 to go and his team protecting a one-goal lead in what became an emotional 5-3 victory over the Bruins.
This isn’t simply about the loss of the team’s spiritual leader, though there is that. This isn’t simply about the loss of the athlete who personifies the Black-and-Blueshirt mentality that has defined this band of blue-blooded brothers, though there is that, too.
This, rather, is about losing the team’s best and most reliable forward, and one of its three most valuable players — Henrik Lundqvist and Marc Staal complete the trio — on the cusp of the playoffs.
Places not as good as Katchop that you still might go to anyway:
