Hockey World Blog

All Things Hockey

Archive for October, 2009

Sidney Crosby vs Marek Zidlicky Fight

Oct 31

Posted by Matt in Media | 2 Comments

Not sure how many of you caught the Minnesota and Pittsburgh game tonight, but it was a pretty good one. Unfortunately, for the Penguins, they could not pull off the comeback tonight like they have done so many times in the past.

A great highlight for you though came late in the 2nd period. Sidney Crosby interfered with Marek Zidlicky behind the Minnesota net. The two exchanged slashes and then dropped the gloves and had at it.

Crosby looked like quite a little scrapper in this bout, but Zidlicky is not really one known to drop the gloves. I have a feeling Crosby spent a lot of time watching D2: The Mighty Ducks when he was growing up. He had the stick, gloves, and shirt part down, that’s for sure. Check out the video:



Tags: ,

Coyote’s Potential New Owner

Oct 30

Posted by EB in News | 4 Comments

Phoenix Coyote’s owner Jerry Moyes has agreed to sell the team to the National Hockey League. The team, who filed for bankruptcy, has gone through a bitter battle for ownership. Moyes originally intended to sell the team to Jim Balsillie but was rejected by the other NHL team owners, later to be rejected by a court’s decision. Balsillie is CEO to the Canadien company Research in Motion, best known as the developers of the BlackBerry smartphone.

The deal between Moyes and the NHL still has to be approved by the court and should be decided upon very soon, potentially Monday.

If the court approves, the NHL intends sell the team to a new owner immediately, with hopes of that owner keeping them in the desert of Arizona. Perhaps lofty goals, but the NHL hopes to close on the sale by November 2nd.

NHL officials have met with representatives from Ice Edge among other potential buyers. Recent news though has shown that an interest from current Canadien Football League Toronto Argonauts co-owners Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon are intending to put together a bid as well.

Sokolowski and Cynamon were once a part of the Ice Edge group, yet now have decided to put together their own bid. This is interesting as the Ice Edge group has stated they intend on keeping the team in Arizona, however Sokolowski and Cynamon have not stated what they would do. Sokolowski and Cynamon are based out of Southern Ontario currently, where the market is assumed to be prime for a new NHL franchise.

It is presumed this season will finish out in Arizona, but who knows about next year? Whoever makes a bid has to work out a new agreement with Jobing.com Arena, but will it have enough weight to keep them in the desert? Is the future based on the productivity of the team?

Phoenix Coyotes may have a new owner relatively soon.

Phoenix Coyotes may have a new owner relatively soon.

Who knows what the future holds for the Phoenix Coyotes, but so far the team currently is off to a great start, 8-4-0 record, 5th place overall within the Western Conference. Just last night the team defeated the St. Louis Blues two to nothing, as net minder Ilya Bryzgalov put up his 3rd shutout this season.

Even with the spectacular play, ticket sales are still down. For this year, enjoy the warm weather Coyotes, next year you may be moving to a colder climate. Time will reveal all, but I do hope you stay in the desert.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Oh no Geno!

Oct 29

Posted by EB in News | 6 Comments

Evgeni Malkin will miss 2-3 weeks from the Pittsburgh Penguins lineup due to a shoulder strain.

Evgeni Malkin will miss 2-3 weeks from the Pittsburgh Penguins lineup due to a shoulder strain.

All Star Evgeni “Geno” Malkin will be out of the lineup for 2-3 weeks with a shoulder strain.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, who currently are in first place within the Atlantic division posting a league leading 10-2-0 record, will have to find scoring from a few other players in his absence. Malkin currently leads the team with 14 points, 4 goals and 10 assists.

Malkin’s greatest contribution thus far is on the power play, as out of his 14 points, 3 of his goals and 5 of his assists come from being one man up.

With solid play from Sidney Crosby, Alex Goligoski and the rest of the team, the absence will be missed, but not a severe detriment to the team. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury is on fire currently with a 9-1 record, posting a mere 2.07 goals against average and a .920 save percentage.

Look for the Penguins to take advantage of this loss by switching up the lines and creating even more deadly combinations from their offensive powerhouse that will benefit them later in the season.

Keep your money on the Penguins for the time being, they are not going anywhere but staying on top of the pack.

Tags: ,

Turning Things Around

Oct 28

Posted by EB in News, Soap Box | 3 Comments

Micheal Grabner scores against the Oilers.

Micheal Grabner scores against the Oilers.

With six players currently on the IR list, winning three games in a row is not a regular occurrence for most teams. Lately the Canucks have beaten the Black Hawks, Maple Leafs and most recently the Oilers. Things appear to be pointing in a more opportunistic direction. Daniel Sedin sustained an injury during a win against the Canadiens on October 7th.Since then Salo Rypien and Wellwood have become causalities. More often than not such a myriad of wounded players is a hindrance to any team. Surprisingly this is not the case for Vancouver, who has only lost two of their last eight games. The list of injured players may soon be a tad lighter. Rypien could be back in the lineup for the next game against the Red Wings. Salo’s return might be much sooner than anticipated. Sedin and Hansen are both making steady progress. Unfortunately Demitra is going to be out indefinitely. Mathieu Schneider has already been removed from the IR as he made his Canucks debut on Sunday.

Vancouver’s last defeat was on October 19th 2-1 to the Oilers.So what can be attributed for this positive turn of events? In the last three wins the second line of Raymond Kesler Grabner has been very productive. Michael Grabner has scored two goals and two assists. Mason Raymond has two goals Ryan Kesler has two goals. The play of this line is proving to be a real workhorse, at times outplaying the first line. After an uneventful preseason it was no surprise to see Grabner sent back to the Moose. When he was recalled on October 14th, most people were scratching their heads and questioning why. He has really shown that he is a valuable member of the team; he’s been a great fit with Raymond and Kesler. Kesler a veteran player is proving to be the catalyst, for what is becoming the most prolific tandem currently on the ice for the Canucks.

For a while Henrik Sedin seemed to be missing his shadow Daniel.Henrik went on a three game scoring drought but scored the game winning goal against Edmonton on Sunday, with assists from Samuelsson and Hordichuk. Sedin played with Samuelsson and Shirokov on the first line. It’s customary to see Alexandre Burrows play on the top line but against the Oilers he played on the third due to the fact that the first had been struggling to find any real offensive production.

In the Canucks most recent game Luongo record his first shutout of the season elevating him to being the Canucks franchise shutout leader. When you consider that last season he recorded nine shutouts, he still has a little way to go before he beats that. Starting the season with a save percentage averaging around the .818 mark it is now in the region of .900. It’s not hard to see the transition is being made to the elite goalie that he is known for. Rather than the poor play he has demonstrated of late.

The next opponent to face Vancouver will be the Detroit Red Wings.The Wings generally would be considered a superpower in the NHL. Though this season they do not resemble that image. With three consecutive losses, Detroit is in a frantic battle to find a winning form. With injuries to Johan Franzen and Andreas Lilja they are facing some adversity. Franzen is Detroit’s expert screener and fore checker who could be out of action for at least three months. To make matters worse the main issue of concern facing the Red Wing’s is that of goaltending. Detroit is often out shooting opposition, but losing games because of the inconsistency of Osgood and inexperience of backup goalie Howard. As always playing Detroit will be an arduous task with the likes of Zetterberg and Holmstrom to name but a few, causing problems for any team.

For Mikael Samuelsson this game will hold some significance, as he will be facing his former Detroit teammates. On November 24th 2008 The Canucks faced the Red Wings in their first game of the season without Luongo .In the previous game he had incurred his infamous groin injury. The Canucks won 3-2 in OT. They may have more injuries currently, but if the last three games are an indication of what to expect, then the next may well be a hotly contested battle.

This article is a guest article from Hockey World Blog reader James C. Edgington and the assistance of  Wings blogger rocknrollnobody. Please visit them at PenaltyKill.net.

Tags: ,

New Easton ST Hockey Stick

Oct 28

Posted by Matt in Gear | 2 Comments

Ryan Getzlaf is one of several NHL players who have been using the brand new Easton ST hockey stick this season. I haven’t been able to gather much information about the stick, but as you can see it features a new paint job. It seems as though Easton is moving away from their silver colored sticks in favor of more black sticks. The photo below features Getzlaf using the new Easton ST. Higher resolution and quality pictures can be found at Getty Images by searching “Ryan Getzlaf.”


Ryan Getzlaf using the new Easton ST Hockey Stick

Ryan Getzlaf using the new Easton ST Hockey Stick

Tags: ,

Toronto Wins!

Oct 27

Posted by EB in News | 10 Comments

Niklas Hagman took first star in their first win of the year against the Anaheim Ducks. The face says, "Yay we won, but we still are bad."

Niklas Hagman took first star in their first win of the year against the Anaheim Ducks. The face says, "Yay we won, but we still are bad."

The fans of blue and white had something to cheer about as the Toronto Maple Leafs finally posted their first win of the season.

Sure the Leafs beat a struggling “…not worth my time” Anaheim Ducks, but the win is still a win and it gives hope to the fans. Ok… maybe not that much hope, but a little.

The game itself was relatively back and forth, as through two periods only a goal separated the two teams as the Leafs were on top 2 – 1. The third period though was the straw that broke the camel’s back as the Leafs came out on fire. Two goals in under 7 minutes, and another for safe measures just past the 10 minute mark to end their scoring for the night. Anaheim did make an attempt to come back, but only scored one more time with only 7 minutes not enough time to go in the game. The final score was Toronto 6, Anaheim 3.

The highlights of the night were Niklas Hagman’s abnormal hat trick, Tomas Kaberle’s helping hands, and Jonas Gustavsson’s return from the injured reserved.

Hagman put up three goals for the night, leading the scoring charge for the Maple Leafs. All three of those goals came on the power play, one in each period.

Kaberle assisted on four of the six goals, as well as netting a goal himself. Fantasy owners were jumping for joy as all his assists were on the power play, and his goal was a power play goal also.

Gustavsson posted his first win in the NHL, saving 25 of the 28 shots against. Not incredible numbers, but nonetheless, he will remember this one forever. Gustavsson afterwards commented, “It’s late in Sweden; I don’t know if they’ll all stay up, but I hope they saw some of it”.

Colton Orr (TOR) and George Parros (ANA) dropping the gloves 3 minutes into the game was a bit of foreshadowing as the two teams had an incredible amount of penalties between them. Orr took a 10 minute misconduct for pushing the linesman away from stopping their fight. Parros, not to be out doen, took a 10 minute misconduct as well later in the game. Twenty-seven penalties totaling 76 minutes. Twenty three of those were minor penalties with the majority of them being roughing. Five of the six goals scored by Toronto were on the power play, an impressive 83% conversion rate. Oddly enough though, because of all the penalties, only 1 player from Toronto ended up with a +1 while the rest were at zero or negative. On the flip side, Anaheim had 7 players with a positive plus minus rating, two of which were +2.

The game was emotional for both teams, both showing their frustrations with their losing seasons. Neither team are going to build any momentum off of this game, only to later have more frustrations when they play better caliber teams.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Richards won’t be suspended for Booth hit

Oct 25

Posted by Chris in Soap Box | 7 Comments

Word coming down from league officials says that Mike Richards will not be suspended for this bone-crushing hit on Florida’s David Booth that occurred in last night’s contest between the Panthers and the Flyers. Immediately after the hit, Richards was assessed a major penalty for interference and a game misconduct for intent to injure. Booth left the game on a stretcher and stayed overnight in a Philadelphia hospital.

If you ask me, it looks like Richards leads into the hit with his elbow up and shoulder aimed at the head. Booth takes a second to look over his shoulder at a drop pass when Richards come from the blind side to make the check. I think it looked like a dirty hit. These types of hits happen every so often and can be devastating. The league has opened up discussions on keeping these types of hits off the ice, but ultimately the responsibility falls onto the players to eliminate these types of hits.

In this case, Richards easily could have given Booth something to think about by leading into the hit with his hips. I completely agree with the game misconduct and I think that Richards should have been assessed a one-game suspension as well. Whether or not you intend to do it, and whether or not you have a history of making similar hits, the league needs to crack down and show players that they will not be tolerated. Giving a star player a one-game suspension for a first violation would certainly send a message. And players need to head the warnings and know when it’s time to throw a big check and when it’s time to ease up. I’m always impressed with the Detroit Red Wings in this circumstance. Sure, Nik Kronwall delivers his share of crowd-pleasing hits and some of them are boderline dirty, but for the most part you will see many of the Red Wings pull up or stop short of throwing a hit if they see trouble brewing. I’ve seen Draper and Maltby pull back when they see that doors are open on the bench and I’ve seen Datsyuk pull away when a player turns his back, which would result in a hit from behind or boarding. Checking is a huge part of the game and if you don’t keep your head up in the nuetral zone you’re going to get popped. But players need to be more aware of the situation and make better judgement calls regarding some of these hits and keeps the blows to the head at bay. It’s just not worth it when you could potentially end a player’s career.

NCAA Frozen Four Shrinks in Size

Oct 25

Posted by Eddie in News | 1 Comment

The 2010 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four at Ford Field in Detroit has shrunk from approximately 70,000 to 35,000.  The change was announcedearlier this month by the NCAA. It is believed that the change in size was due to a lack of ticket sales and the economy. The positive the new configuration brings to the table is that fans are closer to the rink and have better sight lines. For those that are familiar with utilizing one end zone of the stadium like NCAA basketball used before the 2009 Final Four, the Frozen Four will be similar.

frozen four

The new configuration of 35,000 will still smash the NCAA Frozen Four attendance record, which was when 19,432 fans saw Michigan State defeat Boston College in the 2007 championship game. In addition, Ford Field will become the third venue to host both the Final Four and Frozen Four, and the first to do it in consecutive years.

I already have my tickets, do you? If you want to purchase tickets, ticketmaster.com still has tickets available. Tickets are very affordable as you can see three games (both semi-finals and championship game) for as low as $40. Fans who purchased tickets through Ticketmaster prior to the switch will be relocated to similar seats as purchased.

Tags: , ,

Datsyuk Returns, Tavares Shootout Glory and Frolov to be Traded?

Oct 22

Posted by Matt in Fantasy, News | 3 Comments

Pavel Datsyuk will join Henrik Zetterberg and the Red Wings tonight

Pavel Datsyuk will join Henrik Zetterberg and the Red Wings tonight

The Detroit Free Press has been reporting the Pavel Datsyuk will be returning to the lineup tonight in Phoenix. It looks as though Pav will be playing alongside a couple familiar faces, Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom. Re-uniting this line should be great for fantasy owners who carry any of these players on their squad. When together, Homer and the Eurotwins have been known to put up prolific numbers. Detroit could use some of that scoring tonight against a Phoenix team that has been great to start the season and carries a strong netminder in Ilya Bryzgalov.

Jonathan Tavares didn’t really have an outstanding game against the Islanders last night, but came up big when it counted. Tavares’ goal in the shootout gave the New York Islanders their first win of the season. His goal was a pretty one too. Check out the video of the entire shootout.

It looks like Alexander Frolov will soon be on his way out of Los Angeles. According to a great article on BleacherReport, Kings coach Terry Murray has had 10 meetings with Frolov regarding his poor play this season. The rest of the article details a few potential destinations for Frolov if the Kings trade the winger. Fantasy owners keep an eye out, if Frolov gets dealt, he might be able to regain his scoring touch playing on a better line.

Saturday, October 24th, will mark the second time this season that all 30 NHL teams play. The first “Face-Off Saturday” as it has been called, took place on October 3rd. I’m a little disappointed, however, that the earliest game starts at 7pm. A couple afternoon games would have made this Face-Off Saturday much more delightful. Either way, we will be on Twitter Saturday night doing some live tweeting of whatever games we choose to watch. Follow along if you can, it will be a great night.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Pacific Punches

Oct 22

Posted by EB in News, Soap Box | 15 Comments

With a 1 point spread between 4 out of the 5 teams, the Pacific Division is the tightest division among the league thus far.

With a 1 point spread between 4 out of the 5 teams, the Pacific Division is the tightest division among the NHL thus far.

Although the season is still at the beginning of its long enduring length, every game matters. The Pacific division is currently the closest as first place is only a 1 point spread among the four teams out of the five.

San Jose Sharks shares the lead with a 5-3-1 record posting 11 points.

The Sharks are the favorite to win the division, but in the early running they are not where many expect them to be. The scoring is there as they have one of the top goals for (35), but beating a team 7-3 in one game and losing 1-4 another is not going to cut it. Consistency is key and the Sharks need to play hard every night for them to produce as many expect.

  • Five more games to finish out the month: @TB, @ATL, @PHI, LA, COL.
  • Should win 3 out of 5, possibly 4.

Dallas Stars tie first at 4-2-3 for the season totaling 11 points.

The Stars are shaky in the early going. They seem to win a game, lose a game, no real streak yet. Veteran players Mike Modano (Center) and Jere Lehtinen (Right Wing) are on the injured reserve, as well as Brad Richards (Center) is currently day to day. Brendan Morrow, James Neal and shifty Mike Ribeiro lead the charge, however with all the firepower in the world, if you do not have a goalie that is playing well don’t expect any wins. Starter Marty Turco only has 2 wins in 7 starts. Sure he has a shutout, but that seems to be overlooked by his 3 overtime losses.

  • Five more games to hopefully put something together: @LA, @STL, TOR, FLA, @NSH.
  • They have a pretty easy schedule to get things going in the right direction. Expect 3 out of 5 with a good possibility of getting 4.

Phoenix Coyotes are currently tied in third place with a 5-2-0 record for 10 points.

The Coyotes are currently surprising many fans that seem to associate the loss in revenue from ticket sales with the teams play, but not for the reason of poor management. The team is second in the division with one of the lowest goals for at 18, but when goaltending only allows 10 goals against with 2 shutouts, a team can get on by for the time being. Who knows what the future holds for the organization, but when nothing is expected of you it tends to ignite something from within.

  • Six more games before month’s end: DET, LA, @NYR, @CLS, @STL, ANH.
  • A tough schedule, it really is a tossup. A split 3-3 should be the goal with hopes of more, of course wanting to win the 2 division games.

Los Angeles Kings share third place with a 5-4-0 record for 10 points.

Where did this team come from? They once had a 4 game winning streak, and after winning the other night against Dallas, they hope to beat that streak with their upcoming games. Veteran Ryan Smyth leads the team in scoring. Some may feel that he is trying to break the Olympic roster and he is playing with more drive this season. Whatever the reason, he is doing the things he needs to. The face of the organization, Anze Kopitar is also off to a good start as he is currently tied in points for the lead with 13. Controversy is stirring though within the organization as head coach Terry Murray gave a good media tongue lashing to Alexander Frolov and his poor play and lack of effort. Frolov is an unrestricted free agent, so the Kings hope his benching and his capability being dragged through the mud will turn him for the better. He better, otherwise expect his stock to go down as well as his bank roll. The only possible danger with the team is goaltender Jon Quick. Sure he has a 5-3-0 record in 8 starts, but his save percentage finally reached .900 after last night’s game.

  • Five more games in October: DAL, @PHO, CLS, @SJ, VAN.
  • Three divisional games are going to be tough, but they are young enough to keep up their play hopefully. Take 2 out of the 3 divisional games, losing to Phoenix, and split the other two.

Anaheim Ducks are not worth my time right now. 3-4-1 record for 7 points, they need to fix whatever is wrong and they need to fix it fast.

Tags: , , , ,