Matt Stienburg gets the first hearing with the Department of “Player Safety”. Not the worst hit I’ve ever seen by any means for an alleged charge of another player, so … probably 3 games for him, and then the next half-dozen similar plays don’t get anything.
Because, you know … “player safety” and all that bullshit.
Nice article on Campbell in SEA
Kopi breaks 800 mark for assists:
Again, if you do not appreciate the greatness, AND humility, of Anze, you’re not watching the right hockey.
Let’s get caught up on a few things, since now we’re done with CAS meeting stuff.
Winnipeg is good. Like, historically good. A 41.9% power play helps a whole lot with that. No one is going to care if the Jets can’t get the job done in the playoffs, though, and that means the spotlight on Hellebuyck is going to be ultra-white hot.
Connor McDavid is back, and after a game to get back in the flow he put up 3 points on Vancouver to move him 5 away from 1000 career points.
Cale Makar (24 points) no longer leads the league in scoring. Nathan MacKinnon (29) does, and Kirill Kaprizov (28) is on his heels and on pace to blow away his team-record 108 points from 2021-22.
All these young guns putting up goals, and then there’s 39-year old Alex Ovechkin with 10 on the season, 863 for his career. His 314 PPG would be T-209th all time, 27th among active players.
How long will Florida wear robes to the arena? And should Montreal do the same, or do the Canadiens need to find someone to exorcise whatever demons are present inside the franchise?
What are ya: pregnant?
Wait: you are referring to Power Play Goals, not Points Per Game, right?
I’m more amazed that he doesn’t have more. Dude is a sniper and a rebounder on the PP.
314 power play goals is an incredible number: should be number one all-time.
Guessing Gretzky owns that.
Nope. Ovechkin.
Winnipeg is 15-1-0 now. No pressure on the Jets here, but they’re starting to get into “if they don’t win the Cup, it’s going to go down as an all-time failure” territory.
Ottawa gets the 3-0 shutout in Toronto. It’s the first regulation shutout for the Senators in Toronto since October 29, 2005, when Dany Heatley scored 4 goals in an 8-0 thrashing of the Leafs.
The blessing of the robes is over. Florida falls to New Jersey 4-1. Will be interesting to see what fashion trend the Panthers jump on next.
McDavid has a goal and 3 assists in a 4-3 win over the Islanders, moving him to 999 career points in 658 games and out of a tie with Jason Spezza for 100th all-time. He can go into 4 digits for points tomorrow night at home vs. Nashville.
They need to start losing, lower everyone’s expectations.
I should note for Boston fans: maybe your power play might work better if you didn’t have 5 guys all around the perimeter, mostly standing near the opposing PKers, and you’re trying to pass the puck to those guys who are covered and then they keep shooting from bad angles. Maybe have a guy in the middle of the defense, so you can feed a pass to him and he can shoot and then when the opposing PK collapses in you have a guy left all alone somewhere. You know, like the Blues did twice last night on their PP.
Or, hope Ryan Suter is out playing defense - because Suter was dogshit last night (on the ice for all 3 Bruins goals in the 3rd, and looked terrible on every one of them).
The Capitals being good is confusing but Im here for it
Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin is week-to-week with lower leg injury - ESPN
He’d just moved clear of everyone for the league lead for goals. At age 39. Let’s hope it’s not a long-term thing and he’s back before too long, because him chasing Gretzky’s all-time goal scoring mark will draw a shitload of people to watch.
Winnipeg falls in back-to-back games, dropping .104 in win percentage. Still 12 games above .500, holding a 5-point lead on the division, though, and a 10-point cushion on 9th place. They’ll probably be OK for a while.
Shane Wright - you remember, #4 overall pick from 2022, hyped as the 1st overall pick before he fell - gets sent to the press box. 13 games, 1-1-2, all in one game a month ago vs. Philadelphia.
J.T. Miller, who sat much of the 3rd period in the Canucks loss to Nashville on Sunday, is taking an indefinite personal leave of absence. In a season full of strange events for the Canucks, surprising to see they’re 9-5-3 and you wonder how things will go if they can get all their shit together.
Speaking of getting their shit together: for a team that started 0-7-2, you wouldn’t expect the Sharks to have gone 6-3-2 over the last 11 games with 2 of those 3 regulation losses by a single goal, but here they are.
And Boeser has been out for a while and Garland may not play tonight. They are missing the heart of their offence against the Rangers at home tonight.
Probably incredibly rare that someone with a .715 point percentage as a head coach gets canned, but add Jim Montgomery to that list.
The replacement: Joe Sacco (130-134-30), who oversaw the last hurrah for Colorado in 2009-10 before the Avs began their descent into the abyss.
Some talk of Ovechkin surpassing Gretzky’s goal-scoring record. I don’t want his friend Putin to have a victory to celebrate. Hoping The Great One’s record is not beaten by Ovechkin.
Leafs have quietly moved into first place in their division, without Austin Matthews.
The still concerning thing for them: 61 goals, just 16 haven’t come from the big 4 + Knies (playing up top) + Reilly. And 6 of those are from Bobby McMann, who’s playing on the top lines with Matthews out.
St. Louis hits the (roughly) quarter mark at 9-11-1 with a(nother) shootout win over San Jose. Colton Parayko is starting to finally look more like the dominant defenseman people thought he could be, though he’s still prone to mind farts. Helps (or doesn’t?) that he’s paired with Ryan Suter, who balances “decent but not spectacular” play with reminders that he’s 40 years old and some team thought he was good enough to carry a regular spot on its roster. I will say if Jake Neighbours could just camp out in the neutral zone and be available for passes to go on breakaways and never have to worry about defense (which he doesn’t probably 75% of the time), he could score 60-70 goals a year.
I got to watch the Blackhawks yesterday since it was on something other than the new regional sports network. Based on what I saw them do against the world champs, I can only assume they’re very good this year.
That is a small sample size. Trap game for Panthers.