The Importance of Family/Friends in the NHL

Days like Thanksgiving and Christmas are days when Americans can join together with their closest friends and family, share a meal, and love one another.

Every year, the NFL has two three games on Thanksgiving day/night. Now let me ask you realistically; how many times has it occurred that you ignored your family while you and the other males in your family ditched the Thanksgiving meal and watched football. The answer is probably a lot.

Apparently the NBA has some tradition thing-y with games on Christmas but I wouldn't know because I don't watch basketball. But these games, I'm sure interfere with family time as well. (by the way, congratulations to the NBA on missing several months of their season! Yay!)

Well the NHL has got it right. No games on Thanksgiving so Puck Heads can relax and enjoy the holiday. Additionally, they not only have off Christmas day, but they also don't have games on Christmas Eve so you won't miss any games while being with family.

So Puck Heads, spend the day off with family while you have no reason to spend time watching sports.

So on behalf of Robin's Nest, Happy Holidays to all! And to you too Benoit Pouliot.

Heartless Celebration Leads To 38 PIM, misconducts; Overtime First

Last night in the Rangers-Lightning game, Artem Anisimov scored a shorthanded goal to put the Rangers up 2-1 with about 6:30 left in the second period. It's not necessarily the scoring that got people upset. Rather it was how he celebrated that resulted in over 38 penalty minutes and 2 game misconducts.

Now I'm not sure exactly why he did it. Perhaps it was saying he's a sharpshooter and doesn't miss or maybe that it was a signal saying that the Lightning were done for the night and that he scored the winner. But whatever reason he had for doing was silly and immature.

Now everyone has seen Teemu Selanne's sick shooting goal celebration back from his Winnipeg days but that celebration was a bit different considering the jovial attitude of it all. The symbolism was obvious. It was like him shooting at a clay disc in the sky.
Here, the Lightning had to interpret on their own what Anisimov was shooting at. Immediately after he did the shooting, Tampa forward, Vincent Lecavalier, who skated right into the line of fire of Anisimov, skated right toward him in anger. And before you knew it we had a whole line brawl.

Tampa forward Steve Downie skated onto the ice from the Tampa bench to get into some of the fighting. Now believe it or not, this was technically allowed because it was ruled as a legal line change because a Tampa forward had already skated off the ice just prior to Downie going on. Downie (and Anisimov) were given game misconducts and everyone combined totaled 38 penalty minutes. It's still realistic for Downie to receive a suspension for going on the ice to fight but we'll have to wait and see. And I doubt Anisimov will get suspended either. If you have an opinion on what should happen leave a comment.

In the end, the Lightning pulled off a 3-2 shootout win.
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Last night in the Devils-Senators game, the Devils had a 4 on 3 man advantage going into overtime. However, the rule book says that a team must have at least 3 men on the ice at all times. So the Devils had a 4 on 3 to start overtime. However, once all the penalties expired and the penalized players went onto the ice, both teams had 5 skaters aside for about a minute. This was a very interesting and unusual occurrence. I'm not sure if it has ever happened before but I doubt it.
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This year there have been a larger amount of suspensions due to headshots in the NHL. Brendan Shanahan has been busy making explanation videos since the beginning of the pre-season. Well Shanahan didn't have to make 1 video thanks to Philadelphia's Claude Giroux's great reflexes. Watch:

Malkin clearly was aiming for the head and would probably have warranted a suspension had he connected with his deliberate head shot. But Giroux somehow ducked under the punch just in the nick of time.

NHL Realignment Plans Finalized

When the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, the NHL was in dire need for a realignment. Winnipeg would have had to stay in the Southeast Division for at least a year giving the southern teams and the Jets a difficult traveling schedule. While they were already planning on switching up the Divisions, the question for the NHL was whether or not they should completely shake up the way the teams are divided.

Well they did.

NHL Division Map Before Realignment.

After an hour long meeting yesterday with the NHL Board of Governors, the league decided to adopt a system where there are 4 different conferences. The teams were split up for traveling convenience. There are 2 conferences with 8 teams (those two conferences are with Western teams) and then the two 7 team conferences are with Eastern teams. All 30 NHL teams voted whether or not they liked the proposal and an astonishing 26 teams voted yes for it (they required at least 20 teams to vote for it). So the four conferences are:

Western Teams:
Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, San Jose' Sharks, Phoenix Coyotes, Colorado Avalanche, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, and Edmonton Oilers.

Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Detroit Red Wings, and Columbus Blue Jackets.

Eastern Teams:
Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins, Florida Panthers, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Carolina Hurricanes.

NHL Conference Map After Realignment

Well here's how the scheduling is going to work. For teams in the 7 team conference, you play each conference team six times and then play a home and home with every other team in the NHL.


Now for the playoffs schedule. The top 4 teams in each conference make the playoffs. Yes that means that if there's a good team in a difficult division and they finish fifth in their conference, they won't make the playoffs while a not-as-good team in a weak conference will. Let's say the Devils have 84 points in their tough conference and finish 5th, a team with 80 pionts may make the playoffs in a weaker conference. And this is definitely something that's going to occur and it WILL agitate many fans.

So the first two rounds are inter-conference games. The 1 seed vs. the 4 seed and the 2 seed vs. the 3 seed. Then the winners of those games meet. That means that there won't be any chance of a rivalry game past the second round. Most rivalry matchups will be wasted within the first two rounds. Great series like the Rangers-Devils or Penguins-Capitals will be done with quickly and we won't see them late in the playoffs. That's one slight thing that's disappointing for the NHL who's had memorable Conference Finals in years past. Another problem is that the 2 best teams in the league might end up playing in the second round if they're in the same division instead of those teams making it deep into the playoffs. That will definitely take away from the excitement of those late rounds.

The NHL has not yet announced its plans for post-second round of the playoffs.

The change obviously has its ups and downs. For starters, they set up the conferences with rivalries in mind so each team will play their rival a good 6 times. We will see Crosby against Ovechkin a lot more than we normally would. Also, we will automatically see rare Eastern team vs. Western teams on a daily basis now. With every team playing each other at least two times a year, we'll see good games like Vancouver against Boston.

Now for some problems with this idea.

The Buffalo Sabres play the Devils, Rangers, and Islanders the same amount of times they play teams like the Ducks or Sharks. This doesn't quite make sense geographically. 

Another thing, the Carolina Hurricanes pretty much lost every single rivalry they made. Their only division team they have left with them next year is the Washington Capitals who we all know is A) not much of a rivalry anymore and B) the Caps are sure to move on to new/past rivals like the Islanders or the Penguins.

The change did make several teams happy though with their traveling. These teams were stuck in the Western Conference having to play a lot on the West Coast which was an inconvenience to the team's traveling schedule and the fans' viewing schedule. Those teams included the Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota Wild.

Another inconvenience this change presents is that the Winnipeg Jets only play other Canadian teams twice a year each. These are marquee matchups that aren't going to happen too often after this season.

But there are still some good things about this. The likelihood of seeing those rivalry playoff series are much greater. Year after year we'll be seeing series with the Rangers-Devils, Penguins-Capitals, Oilers-Flames, Bruins-Canadiens etc. That is definitely a good thing for the NHL.

The fact though that 26 out of the 30 NHL teams voted for this was pretty amazing. It shows that most teams are on board with this idea. As for the 4 teams that didn't vote for it? Well analyst Pierre LeBrun hypothesized that among those 4 teams were the Rangers and Lightning. I personally think that the Hurricanes, Lightning, Panthers, and Islanders were the teams.

In my opinion, I think that realignment was necessary; we all did. But I don't think we needed something THIS radical. I don't like the playoff system for previously stated reasons. I kind of like the fact that the regular season means more. There are less playoff spots for bubble teams to make it now. If the Washington Capitals slack off for a part of the season (like they're doing this year) they might not make the playoffs. So this makes regular season games more important. But I also don't like that teams play other teams on the different side of the map as many times as they play teams a few miles away from them. It just doesn't make sense.

A couple of more pressing matters.

Firstly (and most important,) is what are we going to name these conferences? A lot of speculation is going around (including this great article by Puck Daddy on Yahoo! sports) but nobody knows for sure. Possibilities are the classic Northeast, Atlantic, Pacific, and Central. But the NHL has had divisions like the Patrick, Smythe, or Adams, honouring past players. So people are wondering if there will be more recent legends being honoured (e.g. Gretzky, Orr, Hull, etc.)

Another issue is what will we do with the Wales and Campbell Trophies. Those trophies are presented to the champions of the Eastern and Western Conference respectively. Well now those trophies seem obsolete. But it's not like players touch it anyway...

Note: Please vote on the side of the page for if you like the realignment plans or not.

Top 4 Empty Net Fails in NHL History

Last night we saw a unique fail in the NHL. Rookie sensation Craig Smith, forward on the Nashville Predators, had a chance to put his team up 4-1 with a minute left in the game and with the Toronto net empty. Well things didn't quite work out.

This wasn't the first time we saw a terrible mistake happen with an empty net. Here are my top 4 fails of all time with the net empty.

4. Philadelphia Flyers

It doesn't look like much but here's what happened. On a delayed penalty, the Flyers pulled their goalie for the extra skater. After a Martin Brodeur save and a few bad Flyer passes, the puck wound up in their own net giving Brodeur (the last player on the Devils to touch the puck) the goal, the second of his career. What makes this fail so unique? Well the Flyers scored again to make the game 3-2 in favour of the Devils but failed to score another. This gave Brodeur the only game winning goal by a goalie ever. Which means the Flyers literally scored the game winning goal off of themselves.

3. Niclas Wallin

This one was probably the worst own goal in NHL history. Although he didn't intend to, it appeared Wallin shot it perfectly into his own net. Their truly was no explanation for it. The goal was credited to Dainius Zubrus. The Hurricanes later came back and won the game.

2. Craig Smith

I decided to put this one at Number 2 and you'll see why momentarily. But Craig was literally four feet away from the net. That means he had to shoot it at a 45 degree angle in order to actually miss it (that's college physics baby.) The Predators scored the empty net goal a little bit later and won 4-1. The funniest part of the play was A) the fact that the fans cheered B) the announcers thought it went in C) the stadium goal spotlights went on D) the goal horn sounded E) the cute embarrassment of an NHL rookie F) seeing his teammates hold in the laughter. The worst part of the play? He's on my fantasy team.

1. Patrik Stefan

Patrik Stefan is rather synonymous with the word "suck". And this play proves it. He came right in and took his eyes off the puck for a fraction of a second and then swung and miss. And then, in a desperate attempt to redeem himself, he comically slips and gives the puck right to a guy on the Oilers. To make things even better (or worse), the Oilers went right down the ice and scored within the ten seconds they had. The Stars won the game in a shootout but his play will forever be remembered by hockey fans. "Can you. Believe. What we. Just saw?"

The Disrespect Hockey Fans Get From ESPN

We expect it at this point. But that does NOT mean that it's okay for it to be done.

ESPN, the "World Wide Leader" in "Sports" has quite the history with hockey. It is an understatement to say that hockey is an after thought in their premier show Sportscenter. But the WWL stooped to an all new low in my opinion.

The St. Louis Blues haven't been doing too well this season. This led to their head coach, Davis Payne, getting fired in favor of their new head coach, Ken Hitchcock. (I'd like to use this moment to point out that Davis Payne treated this situation like a pro. He said "It's shocking and it's disappointing, but in the end, you're responsible for all the areas of your hockey team. There were pieces that weren't firing on all cylinders and it's under my umbrella of responsibility. But I also can say that we were looking at a favorable schedule ahead and ready to turn the corner. That said, if this is what gets things going, then I'm all for it. I wish nothing but the best for the team and this group of guys. They deserve it." This shows how great a guy Davis Payne was. Wish him success.)

Well when I saw this, I was astonished. The disrespect that the WWL showed to hockey, to St. Louis, to Davis Payne, and others was truly mind boggling. Watch:

Just in case this video is removed, I'll go through the dialogue:

Woman: That's it for us, Monday Night Countdown 7 Eastern on ESPN

Man: That's it for Davis Payne too. He's fired as Blues head coach.

Woman: Bye

Outro Music

Sportscenter is an hour show. 

Really? 

They couldn't fit this noteworthy piece of hockey news into an hour long show? 

Pathetic. 

But again, this is the nature of the show. Hockey lower down on the list. Even on a day where sport news was slow (what actually happened this weekend (besides for football which can only take up SO much space)?).

I've been meaning to write a nicely length-ed feature article on the prejudiced of ESPN (in addition to one about the abolition of the shootout) but I haven't had much time. However, I'll give you guys a pretty well written ESPN vs. hockey article by none other than Puck Daddy, the Yahoo! hockey blog. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/About-ESPN-SportsCenter-and-its-perceived-anti-;_ylt=A2KLOzLjjbhOQXgAF2BNbK5_?urn=nhl-255184

It makes some great points and I highly suggest it.

Off Ice Controversy; Racism and Tortorella

Over the past couple of days, a couple of events stirred the internet.

First off, was an event that occurred on Halloween night. Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres dressed up with his wife for a Halloween party. Their costume was creative and cute yet many found it offensive.

Torres wore a mask of rapper Jay-Z and Mrs. Torres wore the mask of Jay-Z's pregnant wife Beyonce'. 

Harmless? Apparently not. The argument ensued (mostly of Twitter). While it seemed most analysts and players were backing up Raffi's costume, there still seemed to be a handful of fans who found it offensive. One person in particular, even took offense to Paul Bissonnette (aka @BizNasty2point0) backing up his teammate.

For me, I don't understand what the big deal is. I've seen plenty of "white" kids dressing up as Lebron James before. Was that racist? It's only respect. And I found it troubling that so many people didn't understand it. 

The other controversial situation happened today. Last night, the San Jose' Sharks completed their East Coast Road Trip with an ugly 5-2 loss against the New York Rangers. Out of frustration, Sharks captain Joe Thornton issued a statement saying that the Rangers were the "softest team we played on the road trip."

Now was that a nice thing to say? Well not exactly. It's never a good thing to downgrade your opponent even after the game and especially not if they just defeated you. So I'll say it wasn't the right thing to do on Joe's part.

Let's look at the Sharks road trip though. They started off with a shootout come-from-behind win in New Jersey. Then they went on to beat Boston, Detroit, and Nashville in a row (not an easy task). Next they beat the Islanders on a cheap overtime goal. Next, after going 5-0 on this difficult road trip, they fell to the Rangers.

First let's see the position of the Rangers going into last night vs. the other teams the Sharks played on their road trip.

Nashville: 12 points

Detroit: 10 points

Devils: 9 points

Rangers: 9 points

Islanders: 8 points

Boston: 6 points

So statistically the Rangers weren't even the worst team. The top 5 teams shown are all doing pretty well this year while Boston is struggling pretty badly. But I'll take Thornton's word for it that the Rangers seemed to be the weakest of the bunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUzz9_864zo&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Well no controversy with the Rangers passes without a word from their often colourful head coach John Tortorella. The coach is known for getting into disputes with reporters, to spraying fans in the first row with water. Well he bounced back by pointing out the obvious in that "Joe (Thornton) hasn't won a goddamn thing in this league."

Brutal.

My question is did John go over the line or was he defending himself after Thornton went over the line (as always, I'm interested to hear what my audience thinks so let me know). 

In my opinion, Tortorella has a history of saying bad things at bad times so I want to put him at fault but I think he was sort of right. In today's sport, this demonstration of poor sportsmanship isn't acceptable. Joe may not have been trying to point out the weakness of the Rangers team, he probably just was disappointed with his team against a team they should have beat, but he shouldn't have said. 

Jamie Benn Dazzles; NHL notes

Throughout the offseason, most hockey personalities, when discussing good picks for fantasy hockey, would almost always mention Jamie Benn's name. Jamie Benn is in his third season with Dallas and the Left Winger has been pretty impressive so far in his career. He scored 56 points in just 69 games last season and maintains a clear level of skill.

Going into my fantasy hockey drafts I figured I'd snag Benn in the latter rounds of the draft but to my surprise, he was selected early. In fact, I was only able to draft Benn in one of my three fantasy leagues. In the other two, he was gone before I had the chance to select him. I've tried proposing trades to get him back but so far the owners wouldn't accept any offer for him.

Well last night, Jamie Benn scored what might be in the top 10 goals of the year. Watch:

What I love about this goal is that most goals of the year come from a player dancing through a crowd of players and usually the only quality you see in that player is his skill. With this goal, you see Benn's skill (batting it out of mid air and then eventually a quick move on the goaltender followed by shelfing it), but you also see his effort. He had to work pretty hard to get it deep and once there, he put on a heavy forecheck in order to get the puck back. In my opinion, that quick poke check was the best part of the goal. 

Now will it end up being the goal of the year? Probably not. As I've mentioned before, the NHL filled with talent and it's only a matter of time before someone scores a beauty. But this one should definitely be recognized for it's great effort.

-After we saw the touching memorial by the Jets for Rick Rypien, it was Vancouver's turn to honour their former player. First, I'd like you to read a touching article about Rypien right here. But last night against the Rangers the Canucks had a presentation of their own; this one a bit more emotional.

And in case you want them, here are the lyrics to the song that was playing (It's Not Easy To Be Me by Five For Fighting). This tribute speaks for itself and Rick Rypien will truly be missed.

-The Bruins got what they asked for. Their "style" of hockey is known to be physical and explosive. Their fans are often arrogant and their players are often dirty. Well they got what they deserved last night. A night where 6 of their players combined for 68 penalty minutes, a night where the oblivious Bruins announcer actually couldn't understand why some of the penalties were called, a night where the Bruins coach, the one that's supposed to control his team, got ejected, and a night where the sometimes moronic Bruin fans littered the ice with bottles. Well here's the video showing all of the altercations. The Hurricanes capitalized when they needed and thankfully the Bruins lost 4-1. If only it could have been more.

-Last year NHL fans were given a treat in the Conference Finals. The Lightning-Bruins series was physical and filled with exciting hockey and the Sharks-Canucks series was filled with plenty of offense and big goals. Well this season all four of those teams aren't playing so well. Last night, Vancouver and Boston lost making the four teams from last year's conference finals a combined record of 6 wins and 16 losses. But don't panic because all of those teams are pretty good and I'm certain they'll bounce back.

Best Shootout Team in the NHL?

I don't want to sound like a homer but the New Jersey Devils are, in my opinion, the best shootout team in the NHL. I know the Devils have only had 2 shootouts while other teams haven't even had one yet but bare with me for a minute.

First I want to show you our first two shootouts. Both of them were 2-0 shootout victories, the first coming against the Los Angeles Kings and the second one against the Nashville Predators.

And

Zach Parise has scored the 7th most shootout goals in the NHL since the shootout began back in Zach's rookie season of 2005-2006. Keep in mind, however, that Zach missed ALL of last year's shootouts where he would have most likely scored around 4 goals (he is 5 shootout goals behind the leader). He has two go-to shootout moves. The first being a slick forehand-backhand move and the second move is the same forehand-backhand move but he brings it back to the forehand (he used the first move vs. LA and the second one against Nashville.) This combination makes him, in my opinion, the ultimate shootout weapon. And his stellar 46.9% proves this as well. On top of all else he is also a clutch shooter. His 9 game winning shootout goals is the 11th highest in the league.

Ilya Kovalchuk is known to be one of the most dominant goal scorers in the NHL. He has a blazing wrist shot with tremendous accuracy. He also is known for his crafty stick handling, thus making him a shootout threat as well. He is 29.5% with his attempts which is a solid number and he is already 2-2 this year.

The Devils last shooter is usually Patrick Elias. Elias has been a very consistent shootout player for the Devils. He has a decent 14 shootout goals in only 37 attempts (37.8%) and usually steps up in big attempts (he's 30th in the league with 6 game winning shootout attempts.) Elias' is an underrated forward and once the Devils need him, the world will see how clutch he is.

Well how about on the other end.

Martin Brodeur is currently 2nd in the NHL with shootout wins (and lets not forget all of the games he missed due to injury.) He is only two wins away from the league leader Henrik Lundqvist who has 37. But let me tell you what most people don't know. BRODEUR HAS 6 LESS LOSSES THAN HIM!!! 

This is true. Martin Brodeur has an impressive winning percentage of 54%! (this is a statistic I had to come up with myself seeing as nobody else factors in the Winning percentage.) While I'm too lazy to check up every other goalie on the list, I'm certain that few have a better win percentage than 54%. 

Well Brodeur is out right now so let's see how backup Johan Hedberg is doing. He has already stopped all 4 shooters he's faced this season in the shootout and he even stopped a penalty shot the other night.

Well Johan Hedberg is right up there with the best with 20 career shootout wins, 11th most in the league. Additionally, he has a whopping save% of better than .804 which is better than any other goalie who's in the top ten in the league in shootout wins. Hedberg also maintains a very unique way of stopping the puck (shown in the LA game when he stopped Gagne with his two pad stack.)

The Devils as a team have also been very successful in the shootout.

First off, they are HIGHEST in the league in scoring percentage with a 40.2% rate which is 3% more than the second place team. Next, they are 7th in the league in save percentage with .704%, a respectable number. On home ice, they've won a league high 23 times and they're sixth in the league on the road with 21 wins. In all they are third place in the league with 44 wins.

Now there are other good shooutout teams. Pittsburgh and New York are also very capable teams in the shootout as are the Dallas Stars. But right now, I don't think there's a team in the league that can beat the Devils in a shootout.

Post a comment with your thoughts on who the best in the league in the shootout is.

Jets Return Home Goes Perfectly; Remembering Rypien

...Except for the whole winning thing.

When I turned on the game today to watch the Montreal Canadiens take on the new Winnipeg Jets in front of Winnipeg's hockey-hungry crowd, I assumed I would see a great effort by the Jets and the fans cheering throughout the game and helping get the victory.

Well I was half right.

We'll start from the top. Player intros were goosebump inducing. The Jets cheered every player they announced to the ice (one awkward moment, though, when they announced Randy Jones and nobody skated onto the ice but they still cheered him). The Jets literally cheered everyone as loud as possible. They yelled and screeched for star defenseman Tobias Enstrom almost as loudly as they cheered on Jim Slater. And that was just amazing.

Then came what I thought was the best moment of the day. When a whole city gets a team back, you'd expect a lot to be focused on the coming years with a little look back into the past from what the team once was. But the management did not overlook the small detail people literally forgot about.

Rick Rypien

This past summer, the former Atlanta Thrashers signed forward Rick Rypien. Unfortunately, the tough guy committed suicide before the season started. He reportedly was suffering from depression for the last ten years. The tragedy was unfortunately overlooked due to the excitement of Winnipeg hockey. But with the Jets' tribute to Rypien earlier today, he will not be forgotten anytime soon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqJrjsWdLNQ&feature=feedu

The sad memorial video with the opening faceoff was followed with the Canadian anthem which was also a pretty cool thing to see.

But the fans of Winnipeg weren't waiting for a hockey for a pre-game show. They didn't want to just cheer for 5 minutes and then go home. No. They wanted HOCKEY back in Winnipeg. And by the time the opening faceoff came, you can tell there was almost a mixter of sighs of relief and excitement as they were about to get what they wanted. A hockey team.

Well the game didn't go so well.

In fact, just a few minutes in, Winnipeg defenseman Johnny Oduya made a terrible terrible turnover giving Michael Cammalleri a breakaway and he made no mistake about it and shelfed it off of Ondrej Pavelec. The fans remained active, however, and continued cheering on their team. In fact, it actually took the Jets and Johnny Oduya into the second period to have another bad turnover turn into a goal for Montreal.

But FINALLY, 3 minutes into the third period, the fans were able to celebrate their first new era goal, brought to them from the Kazakhstan native, Nik Antropov. Watch here and enjoy.

That goal made it a 1 goal game in the third but Montreal piled on their total and Jets were defeated 5-1 in their debut. But the fans were seemingly cheering during every minute of it.

As put best by CBC: "The Canadiens win it, but it feels like the Jets did".

That's honestly the best way to put it. Hold your heads high Jet fans. It's a long season. Enjoy every minute of it.

UPDATE: I found the video from CBC highlighting the importance of the Jets to the Winnipeg and I highly suggest watching it. It's truly beyond just a hockey team.

Why the NHL is Awesome

I'm a fan of every sport. And therefore, I'm involved in several fantasy leagues a year. Right now, I am in 3 different fantasy hockey leagues and throughout each draft, I noticed something. While in other fantasy sports, it wasn't such a tough decision on a first round pick after the first few selections (e.g. who wouldn't pick Chris Johnson over Rashard Mendenhall?). There's a bit of a difference in hockcey. There are a lot better players in the NHL versus the amount of better players in other sports (we'll use football for the examples). I realized that it took until the middle of the 3rd round in fantasy hockey for lesser superstar players to be picked while Roddy White is a usual 2nd round pick in most NFL drafts (with all due respect to Roddy White who IS an exceptional player. I'm referring to legit superstars). 

I've said in the past that it was fantastic for the NHL to have more stars come up into the league. Crosby and Ovechkin were fantastic players to get us back from the lockout. But right now, there are plenty of superstars to choose from. I considered it a steal in my league by drafting Pekka Rinne in the third round of my most recent draft. Pekka Rinne is legitimately in the top 3 goaltenders in the league. And it wasn't that other participants in the league were just passing over him. They were drafting excellent players of their own. 

As I'm writing this, I'm imagining the responses I'll receive. The fans of other sport leagues will just assume I'm overrating the players in my favorite sport and downgrading the players in the other ones. Hockey fans might blindly agree with what I'm saying without even thinking twice about it. All I'm asking is that you take a second to think about this. The 2005 lockout was so destructible to the NHL and it's truly unbelievable to what we've accomplished just 6 seasons later. Now go through just a few teams in the NHL and think of their top 3 players. Like for the Devils you'd have Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Martin Brodeur. The Rangers you'd have Brad Richards, Marian Gaborik, and Henrik Lundqvist. Now do the same for a few teams in the NFL. You'll realize the difference in star power.

Now I'm not trying to brag about how hockey is better. I'm just trying to reiterate the point that the NHL bounced back very strongly from their 2005 break. It came from a sport that's ignored almost completely to a sport that any given game you'll see an amazing goal, save, or hit (but still ignored by ESPN). This drastic change isn't just gonna stop. In a few years, I'm hopeful that my 3rd round draft pick will be even better than my 1st round draft pick of this year.

Keep growing NHL.

2011-2012 Bold NHL Predictions

First off, I apologize that I haven't been posting all too much this year. I've been quite busy and honestly, this lack of posting may continue throughout the year. But every now and then I'll try to write something good up. Which brings me to this idea.

The idea of these bold predictions were taken from Puck Daddy, the Yahoo! hockey blog. For the sake of giving them credit, here's this years predictions by Puck Daddy: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/What-We-Learned-20-bold-predictions-for-the-NHL?urn=nhl-wp13920.

I copied the idea over and made my own list last year. I enjoyed doing it so I decided that I'll do it again this year.

So without further ado, here are my predictions:

1) Evgeni Malkin will have the best season of his career and he'll win the Rocket Richard Trophy (most goals in the league), the Ted Lindsay Trophy (most outstanding player), and the Hart Trophy (league MVP).

2) Rick Nash also will have a career season and he'll lead the Columbus Blue Jackets into the playoffs.

3) Just for the heck of it, I'll add the Minnesota Wild to the list of Western Conference Playoff teams.

4) For some reason, everyone forgot how good Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise are. The Devils somehow "shock" everyone and make the playoffs with flying colours.

5) The Edmonton Oilers improve a little bit and only finish 3rd in the Northwest division.

6) The New York Islanders will finish the season just out of 8th place and will have to wait yet another year to make the playoffs.

7) The Toronto Maple Leafs will indeed make the playoffs and their bandwagon will be loaded, looking a little something like this:

8) Remember the Vancouver Canucks? Ya they'll win that Presidents Trophy thing again.

9) Corey Perry will take a step back and finish with less than 90 points this season.

10) Despite their active offseason, the Panthers will still be pretty bad.

11) The Lightning will struggle this year and JUST miss the playoffs while the Capitals will easily finish 1st in the East yet again.

12) The Nashville Predators will finish first in their division, second overall in the conference, with the next years Vezina winner leading them.

13) Phoenix and Anaheim will both miss the playoffs this year.

14) The Los Angeles Kings and the Buffalo Sabres, who both made big signings in the offseason, will finish in first place in their divisions.

15) There will be a moment where people will believe that 5 teams will make the playoffs at of the Central (Detroit, Chicago, Columbus, St. Louis, Nashville) but the Blues will fall apart at the end of the season and just miss the playoffs.

16) The Winnipeg Jets will be hot at the beginning of the season but cool off by the end and just finish outside of the playoff race but it will be a successful opening season nonetheless. 

17) Jaromir Jagr will be solid this year for the Flyers and will finish with 45-50 points.

18) Montreal will be very streaky this year and will make the playoffs in the last week of the season.

19) This year's Winter Classic on January 2nd in Citizens Bank Ball Park between the Rangers and Flyers will be not as good as it should be, thus making the NHL office come up with a new plan for the yearly game.

20) The Washington Capitals will win the Stanley Cup

Conference Standings:

Eastern Conference

1- Washington Capitals

2- Buffalo Sabres

3- Philadelphia Flyers

4- Boston Bruins

5- New Jersey Devils

6- Pittsburgh Penguins

7- Toronto Maple Leafs

8- Montreal Canadiens

---------------------------------------

9- New York Rangers

10- Winnipeg Jets

11- New York Islanders

12- Tampa Bay Lightning

13- Carolina Hurricanes

14- Ottawa Senators

15- Florida Panthers

Western Conference

1- Vancouver Canucks

2- Los Angeles Kings

3- Nashville Predators

4- Chicago Blackhawks

5- Detroit Red Wings

6- San Jose' Sharks

7- Minnesota Wild

8- Columbus Blue Jackets

--------------------------------

9- St. Louis Blues

10- Phoenix Coyotes

11- Dallas Stars

12- Anaheim Ducks

13- Edmonton Oilers

14- Calgary Flames

15- Colorado Avalanche

Concussions in the NHL; What Should Be Done

A concussion is a serious injury.

Concussions have affected the NHL in several ways. Devils defenseman Bryce Salvador just missed an entire season because of a concussion. Pretty much the same story with Marc Savard of Boston. Clearly something has to be done.

The NHL has been trying to deal with this problem. They're trying to make the punishment for headshots greater in order to help eradicate such hits from the game. These types of small changes may help prevent players from getting injured but let's be real here; even if David Steckel received a major penalty for his hit on Sidney Crosby, it would not change the fact that Crosby was severely injured on the play.

I think the NHL is definitely improving though on solving the problem. Ideas mentioned at the NHL research and development camp like the addition of the curved glass in lieu of the dangerous turnbuckled may help prevent future injuries like Max Pacioretty's. I still think, however, that the NHL is completely missing the point.

One of the main problems for the NHL in regards to dealing with head injuries, is the decision by coaches to not rest those players.

We see it time and time again in when a player gets a high stick and misses maybe a shift because he's on the bench getting stitches. But most of the time he'll be right out on the ice before we know.

This type of dedication to the game is what makes hockey players uniquely tough and willing to play through anything.

Head injuries are a different story.

A concussion is a very dangerous injury mainly because the fact that is cumulative. That means the more times you get hit in the head, the worse the injury will be over time if it continues. And for a league as tough as our own, well you get the picture.

In the NHL, hits and tumbles like these happen too frequently

So you get the idea now.

But the willingness of players to play through injuries is just too great. And this is where we get the big problems.

The link earlier in this article showed the hit Sidney Crosby received from Washington forward David Steckel. Most people don't know this but Crosby actually came back and finished that game against Washington. Then Crosby was in the lineup again the next game just 4 days later. And that was when he was clobbered into the boards by Tampa Bay's Viktor Hedman. THAT was when Crosby actually got injured.

So the coaching staff of the Penguins had him play 4 days after receiving a vicious blow to the head, risking a grave injury. Well they lost the gamble and look where they are now.

Sidney Crosby had a press conference last week announcing that he was still not 100% recovered yet and won't play until he gets to that number. Officials reported he had a few setbacks in training camp and it may take months for him to return at this point because of "post concussion symptoms". People are at this point saying he might be out all season or even worse, his career.

The one upside in this story was that they are now going to wait until he is 100%. Now that they see the horrifying affects of the concussion, they know not to rush things at this point.

Hopefully he'll be back soon though. Although I'm a moderate Crosby hater, I still maintain some respect for the athlete and I don't like seeing hockey players suffer. We're rooting for you Sidney.


Another example of stupidity was the whole Nathan Horton scandal in the playoffs. Nathan Horton was plowed in the Stanley Cup Finals last year by Vancouver's Aaron Rome. Now I can go for days and days debating the legality and severity of the hit but I already did:
http://robinsnest-yoro.blogspot.com/2011/06/dirty-hit-by-aaron-rome-in-game-3.html
http://robinsnest-yoro.blogspot.com/2011/06/classless-fans-diving-players-typical.html
http://robinsnest-yoro.blogspot.com/2011/06/horton-ready-to-play-good-and-bad-for.html
As mentioned in one of my posts, Horton was in the Boston Garden for game 6 looking active as ever. I wrote that a concussion, an injury that's sensitive to light and sound, should be treated with plenty of rest, especially several days after what was classified as a "severe concussion". Well there was Horton. In perhaps the loudest possible buildings in America on that night. Looking alert and active.
During the Summer I received a message on August 24th, 79 days after Horton received the hit, that Nathan Horton said he was at long last "symptom free".
Well I'll be. A concussion THAT severe should not have been handled in that way. Traveling with the team, being in the arenas for the game. A concussed player should, idealistically, be dealt in the following manner.

Step 1: Stay in your home
Step 2: Rest

and continue both steps until symptom free.

I would not be surprised if Horton's condition grew worse over time because of his activity immediately following the head trauma. Therefore, I am shocked that the Bruins allowed him to do it.
One complement that I had for the Bruins though was their decision not to play him in game 7. For a player to sit out of game 7 is something that is truly unimaginable for spectators. Everyone dreams of the NHL game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and Horton admitted himself that he would play if they let him. Horton probably did everything in his power to persuade the front office and his doctors to let him play. And kudos to them for putting their foot down and making the (obvious) decision to not allowing him to play.


One last note before I end this off.

Remember Marc Savard? Skillful forward for the Bruins? The guy who showed great offensive abilities. Unfortunately, the same guy who has more youtube videos of him getting injured than of him displaying those offensive abilities. The guy who was cheapshotted by Matt Cooke and missed considerable playing time. Then, when he returned to play, scored that incredibly, gut-wrenching, goosebump-inducing overtime goal in the playoffs in his first game in 2 months. Unfortunately, the guy who was re-concussed this year in a hit along the boards.

Ya well that guy.

Well I've been wondering, since the night of game 7, where he has been. His health updates weren't optimistic and I was hoping he would be enjoying watching his team win it.

Well first off, It was reported that Marc will indeed get his name on the Stanley Cup. This is something that can make anyone really emotional knowing what he went through. He's worked hard in his career and know at least has something to show for it as he truly helped inspire this year's Bruins team.

Now the bad news:

The Bruins recently revealed that Savard will miss the entirety of the 2011-2012 NHL season due to "post concussion symptoms". He played 25 games this year before receiving his 2nd severe concussion in just 10 months.
And just recently it was reported that the 34 year old forward may never play in a game again. They say it's highly unlikely that he'll return to the game and that his retirement is eminent. Savard was a true hockey player and a nice guy. Hopefully he'll help prevent further concussions if he decides to join the NHL board.

Concussions are terrible. Let's get 'em out of the game for good.

Another Hockey World Tragedy

Geez. When will it end.

I was saddened with loss of Derek Boogaard. It was quite a depressing occurrence. The fact that a current NHL player, someone who was beloved by the fans and other players, could just vanish from the world in just a blink of the eye.

I was distraught when I heard the news that Rick Rypien passed away. I felt bad that the NHL lost 2 such valuable people who were still playing in the league.

When I heard that former NHLer Wade Belak died, I was upset that such a loss had to hit the hockey community. When one hockey player passes away, it isn't only felt by a player or fan of that team. It effects everyone involved in the great game. I'm someone that never really saw too much of any of the 3 players but I understood the type of player they were and felt the pain that the fans felt. Once again; the hockey world is a place where hockey fans all over the world are bonded with this sport.

Earlier today, I received several terrifyingly bitter news. It was in the form of a tweet and this is what it said:
"BREAKING: A terrible tragedy in Russia. A charter plane carrying the KHL's Lokomotiv crashed. Only one person survived."
After reading that tweet, I wanted to hear the details. And it didn't take long for them to reach me. Here's what the AP reported: "A Russian jet carrying a top ice hockey team crashed while taking off Wednesday in western Russia, killing at least 43 people and leaving two critically injured, officials said.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed immediately after leaving an airport near the city of Yaroslavl, on the Volga River about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Moscow. It was carrying 45 people, including 37 passengers and eight crew, and the ministry said all but two people were killed in the crash."

Now I'm not a KHL expert but I've heard the name Lokomotiv more than once so I knew that this was a big time team. Now many names jump out at you right away from the roster. Former NHL players that were now in Russia playing professionally there. They are Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek, Karlis Strastins, and Stefan Liv. Being a life-long NHL fan, I knew all of these players. Some more than others, but I still knew them all and was extremely sad to find out. I felt terrible that these amazing athletes had their lives cut short.

Well one player on the list of the deceased caught my eye. It was none other than New Jersey Devils prospect Alexander Vasyunov. I remembered Vasyunov from this season. He was one of those young, quick, and skillful players that brought a lot to the table. He was relentless on the attack and was an energetic player on the team. I was pretty proud of the youngster when he picked up his first career NHL goal. Well I just felt terrible when I saw he was a passenger on today's tragic flight.

The news of this terrible plane crash put me in a downright somber mood throughout the day, a mood that was quickly noticed by my peers in school. They couldn't quite understand what made me so terribly sad that a team so far away from where we were with a team I didn't necessarily care for crashed. And this connects to what I was talking about earlier. While it is true, I'm not 100% down on my KHL teams and players, this was an even that completely effected everyone in the hockey community. Whether you knew someone on the flight or not, if you're a hockey fan, you felt awful. And this is what makes our sport unique. The unity throughout the world by all our fans.

Well hopefully these string of unfortunate events end shortly. Already so many tragic happenings throughout the year has left many of us in shock. This most recent event will definitely leave a mark on the hockey community for years on end. But all we can do now is remember the players that left us and not to let their memories die.

Here are many of the reactions from players in the NHL via Twitter

Here is a video dedicated to those who perished in the tragic crash

The New Uniforms For the Winnipeg Jets

In a live press conference, they revealed what the Jets will be wearing this season. It was a little awkward/cool when they showed the back of a Jet open up and these 4 players walked down donning the new uniforms. Overall, I think they look pretty cool. I love the new logo and the colours of the jersey with the stripes on the sleeves look just fine. 

NHL Research and Development Camp 2011

A special thanks to PuckDaddy hockey blog on Yahoo! I wasn't home while it happened so I'll be using their article for the ideas that the NHL came up with. The ideas that I'm expressing, however, are my own.

The NHL R&D is a place where our sport can be cleansed of dirty hits or be made more exciting for the fans. This year's spokesmen, NHL discipline head Brendan Shanahan, came up with several great ideas that will hopefully be integrated into our league to make it a better sport. So let's get to the ideas.

A Curved Glass at the End of Benches In Lieu of the padding.

We all remember last year when Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins injured Montreal forward Max Pacioretty by driving his head into the turnbuckles at the end of the bench (the same padding that supports that part of the boards in every NHL arena.)

So the new idea is that instead of having a padding there that would absorb all of the contact and push it right back into you, they are now experimenting with curved glass who's purpose is to deflect all of the force back into the playing surface to prevent injuries such as the one to Pacioretty.

to deflect all of the force of the player back into the playing surface

I think this is a great idea and it should be instituted into the league. It will prevent many injuries but it will still be cool to see a player get hellicopter'd.

GOOD IDEA

No Touch Icing...Sometimes

Let's face it. No touch icing is for hosers. The idea is that the race for the puck in a delayed icing situation can lead to some series injuries. Which it does. But let's be real here. Nothing gives the fans more satisfaction than a scrappy player beating out an icing call. So they experimented with allowing the referee to judge who will win the race or if the turnout of the race will end up with an injured player. It might not work too well though considering that the fans and players will often be confused about the call right in the middle of an action packed play.

BAD IDEA

No Shorthanded Icing

Just a flat out bad idea. The best part of watching your team on the penalty kill is when they are able to clear the puck down the ice and able to get a good line change after a long play. The idea here is to give the team with the powerplay more opportunity to score because if the penalty kill team ices the puck, the faceoff comes right back to their zone and they can't change lines. This will keep the killers tired and give more offensive zone time for the powerplay. The problem is that the killing team will ice the puck anyway for the 10 seconds of resting they can get and every time they ice the puck there'll be a whistle, thus slowing down the game entirely.

BAD IDEA

Defining Possession

When there's a delayed penalty, the penalized team has to gain possession the puck in order for play to stop. Or as written in the NHL rule book: "When the team to be penalized gains control of the puck, the Referee will blow his whistle to stop play and impose the penalty on the offending player or goalkeeper." But a problem that's been seen in the NHL is the inconsistency of the referee's opinion of what "gains control" means. Sometimes it will mean some stick handling or sometimes it will mean if it touches the player. Either way, they experimented with the idea that the penalized team has to skate the puck out of the zone or at least clear the puck in order for the play to stop. I think this is a horrible idea. I think the rule was already good enough. Most of the time, the refs would hold that all the player has to do is stick handle a little bit to prove he has possession of the puck. It'd be a bit too complicated and difficult to clear the puck.

BAD IDEA

Double Goal Line

An idea that I liked a lot was the goal verification line. This extra line would help during controversial video replays to determine if the puck crossed the goal line or not. Let's say that a player is blocking the view of the primary goal line and you can't tell if it's completely crossed or not. Well this second line will help. If the puck is touching the second line, it means that it has 100% cleared the regular goal line. So this is an idea that should definitely be implemented into the league.

GOOD IDEA

Clear Plank On Top of Net

A solid idea. Not completely necessary but may help the birds eye view in video replay.

It's not too hard to see through the netting anyway but the transparent view may help once in a while and it doesn't necessarily hurt either.

GOOD IDEA

New Offside Faceoff

The idea here is that after an offside, the faceoff should go all the way back to their own zone. A pretty brutal call if you ask me. Not all offsides are on purpose or avoidable. Maybe if it's a blatantly on purpose offsides they can make it a little worse on the offending team but other than that it'd be too much.

BAD IDEA

Set Faceoff

A lot of times, you'll see players taking false starts on faceoffs. A way to cancel these out, the referee would place the puck in the faceoff dot, blow the whistle, and only when both centremen are set, the referee picks up the puck and drops it. I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea but PuckDaddy said that the centremen were complaining that it was a different type of drop and they weren't used to it. I think it would've worked but if it bothered the players THAT much then it's not worth it.

GOOD-ISH IDEA

Faceoff Penalty Line

As explained here: "If a player is deemed to have committed a face-off violation, he will be required to move back and keep his skates behind a "penalty line" (1' foot further back) which will cause a loss of leverage and therefore loss of strength for the ensuing face-off." Not a terrible idea but I don't think it'd work. It's pretty much an automatic penalty loss and just for an accidental false start. It sounds a little promising but it'd be too weird to watch during a game.

BAD IDEA

Remove the Trapezoid

Yes yes yes yes yes. A silly rule implemented after the lockout to try to create more forechecking by preventing the goaltender to play the puck all the time (mainly targeted at Martin Brodeur because of his talented puck playing. Known by the Devils as the "third defenseman".) It's a foolish rule and it creates injuries. I wrote a very good piece on trapezoids a few months ago and I truly invite you to read through it. It's about goalies playing the puck and I truly recommend that you read it. So ya. Get rid of the damn shape.

GREAT IDEA

Shallow Nets

A harmless idea with tremendous upside. 

It adds a lot of room behind the net and could create more offensive chances.

GOOD IDEA

Alternative to Boarding a Player

If a player has the puck along the boards with his back towards the play, he is in a vulnerable position to be hit hard into the boards. But the player trying to get the puck has no other option. So this idea was to be able to grab the player and literally throw him or push him away from the puck. It's a cute idea but there'd be too much controversy because it's pretty much a holding penalty anyway.

BAD IDEA

Long Change In Overtime

A pretty good idea. The teams benches would be further away from the defensive zone thus creating more odd man rushes from bad changes and it could give us more exciting overtime sudden death finishes. 

GOOD IDEA

Five Player Shootout

Not a bad idea shootout wise. I hate the shootout but for people who like the shootout it's a good idea. More skill is required per team. 

GOOD IDEA

Another Overtime

If the 4 on 4 overtime ended tied, it would go to a 3 minute 3 on 3 overtime period. It's extremely cool watching it especially with the talent in the NHL. A video (courtesy of PuckDaddy...again) shows how cool it can be. For someone who hates the shootout, I think it's a great idea.

GOOD IDEA

So that's it for me. Leave a comment saying which idea you love or hate or if you have any ideas of your own.