Peter Puck

Here's a point I haven't heard anyone comment on regarding our goalies. Next year all goalies will have to wear pads whose size is proportional to the individual goaltender. I don't expect this to affect Price much given his size. On the other hand, I think Jaro will be forced into smaller equipment. How will this affect his play? How will it affect the play of other goalies in the league? For this reason, I am nervous about putting our eggs into Halak's basket. I note that Pang, the world's smallest goalie thinks we should keep Halak and let Price go. I don't think any team will spend $5 million for Halak. His body of work in the NHL just isn't extensive enough yet. There are too many goalies who have gotten hot for a season or less and then fizzled.

The team admitted that they considered trading Halak to Philly. The team also said that Philly wasn't willing to offer what Gainey thought he was worth. How does this translate into a mistake by Gainey? To me the bottom line is that the all players he brought in last summer (except Mara who is injured) were the key players in the victory over Washington. I don't think you will find many people who think we would have won that series if we had kept the UFA's from last year whom Gainey let go. The decision to let 9 UFA's walk was a huge risk. I think the team's play against Washington proves that we are better after changing the core especially given that we are a much younger team now. Gainey's gamble has been vindicated. Many people think we are in deep cap trouble but I am not convinced. Many teams have looked like they were screwed by the cap and suddenly they find a loophole or a trade no one thought possible and then they are fine. If we trade Hamrlik this summer we are okay.

This is just ridiculous. Just because you thought Gainey was doing a bad job and should be fired doesn't mean the ownership was about to fire him. Furthermore, the idea that he quit because he was afraid of losing his job is completely unsubstantiated. Although obviously Halak did an unbelievably fantastic job I don't know what you mean by proving he is capable of playing a 7 game series. He only played 6 games and he got shelled in one and a half games. I don't mean to criticize Halak but I don't know how any one can conclude from this that he is capable of playing a 7 games series. Furthermore, what we want is goalie who can play a regular season and then 4 series. Halak might be the guy but we still don't know. Finally, I'll say that I won a bet on the Canadiens (at 3 to 1 odds) after game 4. I don't claim that this proves anything though.

This is a bit off topic but I noticed that Hershey outshot Bridegport 34-7. At one point in the second period the shots were 23-1!!! Here's the game sheet.

Subban wins it 6 minutes into the 2nd OT!!!!

Glumac! scores with 8 minutes to go in the 3rd to tie it up 4-4. Stevenson with the assist. 3:30 left in the third now.

Yes, JoeLassiter is this year's winner. kaos is runner up. Nobody else was really close.

Wow, Mark Flood has played in the Islander last 5 games. I wonder if he can stick in the NHL?

Well the Leafs now have their backs against the wall. Their chances of making the playoffs are now 4 in 100 million (against). Time for them to pull out all the stops.

Thanks. Thanks.

What happened? I guess I'm forced to use the interweb to see if I can find out if this game was played.

Well I think a team's OT record predicts something about the playoffs. A good OT record in the regular season predicts a good OT record in the playoffs. There is a significant difference in that regular season OT is 4 on 4. Still the fact that we play especially well when the next goal wins the game has to be seen as a good sign for the playoffs.

What does it matter if Chara has to avoid shorter people's heads when he throws hits. If Gionta hits someone low the refs still call it clipping and give him a penalty because hitting people low is dangerous. Should Komisarek and Chara be allowed to high stick shorter players?

Wow. Weber finished the game +5 (and we only scored 5 goals).

Actually if you watch Laps' hit closely you'll see that it wasn't really late. Nichol's shot hits the post and bounces back to him. Nichols swings wildly at the puck as it goes by and at the same moment Laps shoves him.

Why wait for TSN to report it. I already told you what was going to happen.

To me that was much worse than the Lapierre hit. It also did more damage and drew a penalty from the ref. But given the double standard I'm going to say he gets 2 games. I think that deserves 5 or 6 games.

He got 2 tonight to take him to 50.

I betcha they don't. They left it too late. There are too many teams they have to jump over.

The NHL has just announced a lawsuit against Moyes (former owner of the Phoenix Coyotes). They are seeking $61 million including $20 million to cover losses of running the team this year and $8 million to pay Gretzky what he his still owed on his coaching contract. Moyes announced he will counter-sue. I've been waiting for this. I think the NHL will prevail. Bettman and the NHL lawyers seem to know what they are doing in court anyway. I find it interesting that the league has run the team for a year (after losing most season ticket holders during the summer) and yet has only lost $20 million. Moyes claimed that he was losing $60 million a year.

I really like this trade. I remember Palushaj at last year's world junior and thought he was one of the best players on the US team. I recall wishing we owned him.

So you think Leclair was just a product of Lindros? This has never really made sense. Sure Lindros was a great player and that definitely helped Leclair. But before Leclair arrived Lindros was very ineffective. Why did Lindros suddenly improve once he was playing with Leclair? Leclair had great skills and he was great after he went to Philly. But he was great in the 93 playoffs too and that was without Lindros.

Yeah this is what I did. I focused on a promising young guy by the name of LeClair. I watched the Habs pluck him from obscurity and throw him into the big time - and he was great. I still remember watching his 1st game - he scored twice and seeing all the raw potential he had and thinking he was going to be our next great star. Then he blossomed in the 93 playoffs and I just knew he was destined for greatness. Then he regresses a little and we throw him away like garbage. Lots of people say he only amounted to anything because he played with Lindros but I don't buy it. He always had showed potential. Anyhow, having suffered through that, I am quite sure that this is not a good strategy for enduring a long period of horrible years.

What do you mean if I were an athlete???? I voted curling since curlers are the only athletes capable of mixing alcohol and competition at the same time.

Classic.