League News
Only 4 days left until the 2011 NHL Entry Draft. A lot of people are still talking about Boston, which is indeed better than talking about the riot. Speaking of Boston, the 43year old veteran Mark Recchi, who has played a major role for the Bruins in their 6th Stanley Cup run, has retired. The “Recchin’ Ball†as he is known around the league went out like a champion.
He holds the record for the second longest span between Stanley Cup wins (1991–2006), at fifteen years, his 123 points (53 goals, 70 assists) in the 1992–1993 season is the Flyers regular season scoring record, he is the oldest player to record 5 assists in a game on March 1, 2009 at 41 years, 28 days and the oldest player to score a Stanley Cup Finals goal on June 6, 2011 at 43 years, 126 days. Recchi became one of only ten players in modern day NHL history to win the Stanley Cup with three different teams, Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991, Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, finishing off his trio of Stanley Cup wins with the Boston Bruins this year. [more…]
Good morning everyone. This is your mashup for what looks like a really slow hockey day. Things are expected to get spicier as we come closer to draft day, but you can expect some news adding fuel to the fire prior to that, much like yesterday’s snag with the Drury buyout or Parise’s team elected arbitration.
All in all, here is what we’ve come to expect. Burke has his mind set to make some moves to move up in the draft’s pecking order, we need a No1 center and things are looking more promising as far as Richards is concerned. Now, Glenn Sather will probably need a cap miracle to sign Brad but that doesn’t exactly mean he’s practically a Leaf. Also, I’d really hate seeing Richards sign in Toronto just because he ran out of options.
Of course I'm talking about the Leafs, who will be drafting at #25 and #30 after the Bruins destroyed the Canucks in Vancouver last night.
The Canucks' best players didn't play like their best. In fact, they may have been their worst. Roberto Luongo can't really be blamed for the loss, but he really didn't do much to help his team win.
The Sedin twins, on the other hand, were atrocious. Both were -4 on the night, while Alex Burrows was -3. Not much of a top line.
It's how you hope every hockey year will end. You dream about scoring the game winner and lifting the most glorious trophy in all of sports at the end of just such a game. Even if your team doesn't feature in this, most glorious of all hockey games, if you're a true hockey fan, it will still send positive shivers down your spine. You're anxious for that puck drop, knowing that whichever team comes out on top that very night, they will be crowned champions. Ladies and gentlemen, hockey fans around the globe, it’s time for a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
The 2011 Stanley Cup Finals have been quite a rollercoaster so far. It has been one of the strangest series I have ever witnessed showcasing both the crowning virtues and crippling flaws of our great game. Vancouver won all of their three games at home. All were extremely tight, low scoring affairs. Boston also won all of their three games at home, but with a combined score of 17-3. An offensive regular season juggernaut stymied throughout the series. A PP that went through a drought equal to that of the Sahara desert improved in the Finals, one of the league’s best defensive teams tearing it up offensively when it mattered most. Injuries, some horrific in nature, some in intent, sidelined skilled forwards Nathan Horton and Mason Raymond for what surely would have been the game of their lives.
In keeping with the juvenile back and forth exchanges stemming from the Alex Burrows biting incident, is anyone else disappointed that Tim Thomas didn't tell the post-game media scrum "those three goals would have been easy saves for me" after last night's Bruins rout? The Canucks are certainly happy they ultimately hold the home ice advantage in this series; TD Garden will be giving Luongo and the Canucks nightmares after conceding 17 goals and scoring only three in three games in Boston this Stanley Cup Final.
Luongo was pulled after conceding three goals in three minutes and four seconds last night, and you would think entering the all-deciding Game 7 on that note might sound a little disconcerting. However, Luongo has been pulled more times than you can count now in these playoffs and has always bounced back positively. Just in this series, he's been blown out in all three games in Boston but allowed only two goals in three games at Rogers Arena, posting two shutouts. A bizarre series of rollercoaster-like momentum changes and a ton of controversy between two teams who by this point positively despise each other will be decided by one, final game. I don't think the NHL (this will be the ultimate showcase) or neutral supporters could have asked for more from this Final. [more…]
Here we are. After months of great hockey we find ourselves at a dismal place. Yes, unfortunately, it could all be over today. The unfortunate part isn’t in that the Canucks could be crowned champions, even if they haven’t quite displayed the character traits most of us would like to see in a Stanley Cup winner.
No, ladies and gentlemen, the sadness comes from the realization that hockey will be gone for quite some time. Starting tonight or Wednesday, it really doesn’t matter. Seeing how this is probably my last mashup before the Finals are over, please allow a little ode to hockey.
In a series where the Boston Bruins have outscored Vancouver 10-6, with 8 of those goals coming in Game 4, it is bordering on unfamiliar territory for both teams to be tied at no goals midway through the third period. As is often the case in these tight games, one bounce (or in this case two in the same play) proved to be the difference. After Kevin Bieksa's bank pass of the boards took the perfect bounce out front to Maxim Lapierre, the former Hab bounced in the biggest goal of his career off of a sprawling Tim Thomas. After having a clear advantage in Games 3 & 4 while rallying behind the loss Nathan Horton, the Bruins are now in a difficult position to climb back into the series. They must hold serve at home and hope to break the home ice advantage in game 7 to complete the comeback.
The Stanley Cup will be in the building on Monday night in Boston, with the Canucks looking to become the first Canadian team to take home the trophy since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. Almost looking down and out despite the 2-2 series score, the Canucks with a massive game 5 win are back on top, in control, and on the brink of winning it all. One win for Vancouver and it's over.
Let me just start by saying I was presently surprised by how the Bruins managed to stick to their gameplan last night in another route of the Canucks. What exactly is that gameplan? Hit, hit, and more hitting.
It's just mind-boggling to see this series turn around the way it has. After the first two Canucks wins in Vancouver I figured they would go back to Boston, get a split and possibly end this thing on home ice Friday - not the case. And in a matter of two games I'm almost looking at this series in the sense that Boston were really two bounces away from a sweep.
In the wake of the Aaron Rome hit on Nathan Horton Monday night, there were mixed reviews on the severity of the incident and debate over the number of games Rome would be suspended for. Bruins fans, quite unsurprisingly, felt Rome should be booted for the remainder of the post season, while Canucks fans - of course - thought he deserved only one or two games, deeming that it was an unfortunate result to an otherwise clean hit.
After taking all of the evidence into consideration and reviewing different angles of the replay, interim NHL disciplinarian Mike Murphy announced a four-game suspension for Rome, sidelining him for the remainder of the post-season. Whether or not you agree with the ruling, the league needed to take a stand against illegal hits (and late hits, in this case) to send a message to the other 29 teams that they will not be tolerated.
It’s about as close to a “get out of jail free†card as the NHL could get. When the Canucks’ Aaron Rome decided to step up and clobber Nathan Horton last night, everyone immediately knew the hit was questionable. It's become engrained in our minds (a good thing, perhaps?).
Upon further review, and some slo-mo replays, it looked like Rome’s hit was a bit late. Though I’ve seen much, much worse over the past few years.
The result was scary, but I wouldn’t call Rome a vicious player by any means.
Either way, the league’s disciplinarian Mike Murphy is faced with one of the easiest suspensions he’ll ever hand out. Not because the hit was easy to categorize as dirty, it wasn’t. In realtime it’s actually a  pretty tough call to make.
Don't poke the bear. Pretty simple message that one. It’s also one that the Vancouver Canucks choose to ignore in just the worst possible hour. With just 5:07 played in the first period Aaron Rome took a really late hit on Boston’s Nathan Horton. The hit sent Horton on the stretcher and into the hospital but it also set the Bruins in a frenzy.
Now, at the risk of sounding like a Don Cherry type of guy, I have to say my peace. The way Vancouver played and carried themselves during these playoffs is wrong and this is coming from a guy who defended Torres after the Seabrook hit.
Tonight can't come fast enough if you're the Boston Bruins or the Vancouver Canucks. For Boston, it means a chance to get back into the swing of things by winning Game 3 in your own building. For Vancouver, it means a chance to put a stranglehold on the series.
A chance the magnitude of which is better explained by going over the probability of a 3-0 deficit comebacks throughout the course of time. In the league’s history only 3 teams managed a 3-0 series comeback. In 1975, after opening their Stanley Cup quarterfinal series with three losses to the Penguins, the New York Islanders put together a four-game streak, completing the comeback with a 1-0 win in Pittsburgh. Then of course, we have the Philadelphia Flyers last year and...
