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.