Another round of play behind and lots of points shared at the playoff bubble. In the East, Washington Capitals had to settle for one point in loss to Philadelphia Flyers. The Caps still sit on the eighth spot and control their own destiny. However, Buffalo Sabres are charging hard and one slip could throw Capitals to the role of a challenger. Friday night the Caps have a critical game agains still hopeful Winnipeg Jets. Win for Washington would give them some breathing room and basically end Jets' run. At the same time, recently rejuvenated Sabres take on the conference leading New York Rangers. A tough game to beat for Buffalo, but who knows. Their desperation levels are at the maximum and Rangers are already easily in and a likely home ice starters anyway.
To the West then, where the race is even more thrilling. Thursday night's round shuffled the playoff chasing crowd big time. Dallas Stars had to give up the division lead after a loss to mighty Vancouver Canucks. Los Angeles Kings and Phoenix Coyotes wrestled victories and jumped to shared lead of the Pacific. Colorado Avalanche lost a tough one to the Coyotes and now sit on the outside. At the same time San Jose Sharks found the heroic effort to beat league leaders, St. Louis Blues to sneak one step closer to the playoffs. All of the teams in the bubble still have a chance to storm into the postseason, but it will take a high winning percentage in the remaining 6-8 games.
Calgary Flames took another dent in their hopes, losing in shootout to lowly Minnesota Wild. One point salvaged, but the Flames need to win at least five out of remaining seven to make it. Their next two will be against Dallas Stars, who sit above them. Those two games will basically decide which one of these two still has a chance. Cruel, but extrtemely entertaining.
Showing posts with label all stars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all stars. Show all posts
2012/01/17
Semi-Random All-Stars 2012
It's time for the yearly event of televised pond hockey in form of NHL All-Star game. This year it's hosted by Ottawa and luckily the Senators have amazed everyone with solid play for the first half of this season. Against all odds, the host team's boys can proudly participate in the rink instead of humbly filling the water bottles for true stars.
Talking about true stars, I need to rant some about the guys that somehow got left out of the ceremonies. The screaming error here is Anaheim's Corey Perry taking the spot that by any standard belongs to the amazing Teemu Selänne. Perry was superb in the second half of last season and got credits for that. However, this season he has been one of the young bulls watching the old man beat them in any category: points, consistency and heart. Come on, NHL, Selänne is breaking all the records in 40+ forwards' history and still hangs in the top-15 in league scoring race. Need to point out that Perry is 6 points behing and -15 lower than Selänne. What a failure.
-- Correction: At least according to ESPN:s Pierre LeBrun, Selänne was asked to join but refused. Too bad. Hats off to Teemu anyway on his point per game pace and all!
Maybe this whole selection should reflect the season heroics a bit more. Now it seems rather arbitrary. Just to point out a few more flukes..
How did you get Patrick Kane ahead of so many forwards that have him beaten in scoring? He's a thrilling player, but Chicago alrady has Hossa and Toews. Guys like Anze Kopitar, James Neal or rejuvenated Patrick Elias should have been considered before Kane. Maybe it's the thrill of seeing him pull off some moves in the shootout competition, who knows..
And how on earth did you guys come up with Logan Couture? He's having a mediocre season in San Jose and should be considered only after perennial All-Stars Marleau and Thornton have refused to come over. Ridiculous!
Ovechkin probably got his ticket from injured Bäckström. Maybe that's the case with a few others here too.
And guys.. you never leave Niklas Lidström out of the All-Stars lineup. Never!
-- Correction: Again, according to ESPN, Lidström requested to pass the festival. Maybe he's had enough of those already to know he's pretty good in the game. Leave it for the kids.
Finally, when you take a look at the goaltenders, you see that the selection board got tired of picking and just took some random guys after Thomas, Lundqvist, Quick and Howard, who all deserve the recognition. Elliott has been fantastic as a backup. But if you started taking backup goalies, you should have gone with Tuukka Rask, who has the best stats in the league after 15 games. Carey Price? Who is this guy to keep getting the love from everyone without much proof to base it on? There's a dozen goalies that have had better seasons so far! Workhorses Fleury, Kiprusoff and Rinne. Solid number ones Niemi, Smith and Luongo. Just to name a few.
Well, it's a relaxed event, but you should keep the serious professionalism until the team has been built. Otherwise you'll risk the few remaining reasons to keep this tradition. For players, young and old, it's always a moment of recognition for a job well done. Please, don't mess it up with personal bias.
Talking about true stars, I need to rant some about the guys that somehow got left out of the ceremonies. The screaming error here is Anaheim's Corey Perry taking the spot that by any standard belongs to the amazing Teemu Selänne. Perry was superb in the second half of last season and got credits for that. However, this season he has been one of the young bulls watching the old man beat them in any category: points, consistency and heart. Come on, NHL, Selänne is breaking all the records in 40+ forwards' history and still hangs in the top-15 in league scoring race. Need to point out that Perry is 6 points behing and -15 lower than Selänne. What a failure.
-- Correction: At least according to ESPN:s Pierre LeBrun, Selänne was asked to join but refused. Too bad. Hats off to Teemu anyway on his point per game pace and all!
Maybe this whole selection should reflect the season heroics a bit more. Now it seems rather arbitrary. Just to point out a few more flukes..
How did you get Patrick Kane ahead of so many forwards that have him beaten in scoring? He's a thrilling player, but Chicago alrady has Hossa and Toews. Guys like Anze Kopitar, James Neal or rejuvenated Patrick Elias should have been considered before Kane. Maybe it's the thrill of seeing him pull off some moves in the shootout competition, who knows..
And how on earth did you guys come up with Logan Couture? He's having a mediocre season in San Jose and should be considered only after perennial All-Stars Marleau and Thornton have refused to come over. Ridiculous!
Ovechkin probably got his ticket from injured Bäckström. Maybe that's the case with a few others here too.
And guys.. you never leave Niklas Lidström out of the All-Stars lineup. Never!
-- Correction: Again, according to ESPN, Lidström requested to pass the festival. Maybe he's had enough of those already to know he's pretty good in the game. Leave it for the kids.
Finally, when you take a look at the goaltenders, you see that the selection board got tired of picking and just took some random guys after Thomas, Lundqvist, Quick and Howard, who all deserve the recognition. Elliott has been fantastic as a backup. But if you started taking backup goalies, you should have gone with Tuukka Rask, who has the best stats in the league after 15 games. Carey Price? Who is this guy to keep getting the love from everyone without much proof to base it on? There's a dozen goalies that have had better seasons so far! Workhorses Fleury, Kiprusoff and Rinne. Solid number ones Niemi, Smith and Luongo. Just to name a few.
Well, it's a relaxed event, but you should keep the serious professionalism until the team has been built. Otherwise you'll risk the few remaining reasons to keep this tradition. For players, young and old, it's always a moment of recognition for a job well done. Please, don't mess it up with personal bias.
2011/02/09
KHL angle
I got a chance to watch the KHL all stars game the other day. If the NHL's annual lazy Sunday skate looked to be a bit pointless, this made it look like a gruesome playoff grind in comparison. Russian league's stars practically let each others take breakaways while at the same time refusing to pull the trigger even on wrist shots and always looking for the tic-tac-toe to the empty net. The players seemed to enjoy the scoring fest. Goalies, on the other hand, had hard time summoning smiles to their faces. The game ended 17-16 and the hungriest guys scored 5 goals and up to 7 points.
The skills event before the game seemed to imitate NHL's just as well. Of course they managed to clock the all-time hardest shot by Denis Kulyash, beating Zdeno Chara's blast clearly. Not that either of them had much of use for that talent in the game itself.. I've always been a fan of the Russian skating and stickhandling skills, so the skills competition suits them just fine. Homecomer Maxim Afinogenov took the fastest skater's title. No news there, having seen him play in NHL and internationals several times. That guy sure can fly.
In general, it was fun to see the top talent in KHL. It's a good combination of some very good Russian talent, choosing to play in Russia rather than NHL, some elderly statesmen with great NHL pedigree, like Jaromir Jagr and Alexei Yashin and the cream of European players who haven't been able to lock a permanent NHL roster spot. Good players in general, definitely the second best level on the sport. It's going to be interesting to see how much these leagues will blend in the coming years with players moving back and forth between those.
While the all star game was just foolish, it's great to see this other major league for hockey. It may be extracting some talent from NHL but at the same time it keeps NHL as an organization alert and active in improving. From money perspective it may have the downside that all the rest of the world's leagues have to settle with third grade talent and local juniors on their way up. Well, can't please them all.
From my subjective viewer's point of view, however, the intensity of NHL games in a smaller rink keeps the NHL as the undisputed top of the sport. KHL may have speedier highlights here and there, but the whole package of NHL with heavy hitting, reaction decisions and seizing the moments simply cannot be beaten.
Honorable mention goes to Dominik Hasek. I thought this guy had already retired after winning it all. But there he was, at age of 45, between the pipes on among the KHL's best of the best. With the same weird style that brought back many memories from the past.
The skills event before the game seemed to imitate NHL's just as well. Of course they managed to clock the all-time hardest shot by Denis Kulyash, beating Zdeno Chara's blast clearly. Not that either of them had much of use for that talent in the game itself.. I've always been a fan of the Russian skating and stickhandling skills, so the skills competition suits them just fine. Homecomer Maxim Afinogenov took the fastest skater's title. No news there, having seen him play in NHL and internationals several times. That guy sure can fly.
In general, it was fun to see the top talent in KHL. It's a good combination of some very good Russian talent, choosing to play in Russia rather than NHL, some elderly statesmen with great NHL pedigree, like Jaromir Jagr and Alexei Yashin and the cream of European players who haven't been able to lock a permanent NHL roster spot. Good players in general, definitely the second best level on the sport. It's going to be interesting to see how much these leagues will blend in the coming years with players moving back and forth between those.
While the all star game was just foolish, it's great to see this other major league for hockey. It may be extracting some talent from NHL but at the same time it keeps NHL as an organization alert and active in improving. From money perspective it may have the downside that all the rest of the world's leagues have to settle with third grade talent and local juniors on their way up. Well, can't please them all.
From my subjective viewer's point of view, however, the intensity of NHL games in a smaller rink keeps the NHL as the undisputed top of the sport. KHL may have speedier highlights here and there, but the whole package of NHL with heavy hitting, reaction decisions and seizing the moments simply cannot be beaten.
Honorable mention goes to Dominik Hasek. I thought this guy had already retired after winning it all. But there he was, at age of 45, between the pipes on among the KHL's best of the best. With the same weird style that brought back many memories from the past.
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