What a game in Calgary. After Jay Bouwmeester scored with 34 seconds left in the game to put the Flames up 2-1, Marian Hossa tied it with 2 seconds left for the Blackhawks to force overtime.
With a quarter of the season down here are some of the things that stand out to me. Chicago has clearly been the best team as they have yet to lose a game in regulation. They were already a good team and Crawford is putting them over the top with his great play in net. Kane is also having a great start to the season. San Jose is right behind them in the west and I kept on thinkink of the shortened season helping out the young teams while failing to realize the benifit it could have for a verteran group. The Sharks are healthy and rested and the top guys (Marleau and Thornton) are playing great. On the other side, the Blues are in a rut losing 5 in a row after a strong start and the Kings are still near the bottom in the west which is a major suprise. My Avs are at the bottom and its tough. With Landeskog and Downie out and O'Reilly holding out our offense is inept and our D was never strong to begin with. Varly is playing well but he can't do it on his own. Now with the trade rumors out their for O'Reilly I hope if we do move him we get back either a top 6 winger or top 4 defensemen along with a top prospect. In the east I am suprised the Devils are at the top and that the Caps are at the bottom. Other than that it is still early so teams are only seperated by a few points for the most part. I expect this next quarter of games (which will take us to the halfway mark) will start to seperate teams. From what I've seen Chicago, San Jose, Vancouver and Nashville look like the class of the west while New Jersey, Boston and Pittsburgh appear to be the class of the east with the Rangers starting to come on.
Did anyone see the Karlsson injury last night. As Matt Cooke was riding him to the boards, Karlsson facing the glass and Cooke behind him is following through on his check and for some reason lifts his skate and it ends up cutting Karlsson's achillies and ending his season in the process. First Spezza and now Karlsson, Ottawa has lost their top offensive and defensive players. This has brought up alot of chatter as Cooke has a rep and some are saying it was on purpose. See for yourself (warning, while not bloody, it is a little disturbing), I think it was on purpose as it does not seem like a regular move by Cook. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyfTzunzrUk&feature=player_detailpage
Not on purpose. Matt Cooke is a POS and I hope he gets his for many reasons........but anyone that plays or has played can see that was not on purpose. Sucks for Ottawa and for Karlsson. I hope the kid recovers 100%. It would be a damn shame to see talent like that ruined. But as much as I want to believe that Cooke had intent........that was a normal attack. Shat happens.
I've heard the case for Cooke trying to pin Karlsson against the boards and that is the reason he lifted his skate to press his leg against Karlson's to pin him there, but he doesn't just pin his leg against Karlsson's. It appears (to me atleast) that he comes down with his skate on Karlsson's heel.
Love that my Ducks are playing amazing hockey right now and not being talked about. No ones catching CHI obviously, but I would be thrilled if Ducks can hang on to that 2 or 3 seed.
Chicago is reeediculous. Streamrolling the league. And in this shortened season every win is 2x as big. Great game between PHX and Calgary the other night; we blew a 4-3 lead to lose 5-4 with exactly 1 minute left. Then we turned around the beat the Canucks. Great depth play recently with lots of injuries. I bought season tickets for the remainder of the season (10 home games). Lower bowl about 6 rows up. I've never had season tickets for anything, NOR have I sat in the lower bowl at an NBA or NHL game, so it will be a blast. Cooke has always been an instigator and a twit. I didn't like him 6-7 years ago on the Canucks and I don't like him now.
3 game series coming up between the Coyotes and the Ducks soon. Baseball style. That's on oddity. Should be fun.
Tonight looked like your classic trap game against the Jackets. The Jackets played hard, probably should've won, but Hawks found a way to get the 2 pts. I really thought the St. Louis game would be a loss, but I wasn't aware they were missing a few players. I think Detroit has spoiler written all over it. Always a tough game for the Hawks at the Joe.
I had hope for the Jackets all night. Just couldn't quite get over the hump. They basically got killed by that breakaway goal off of a faceoff win.
Tonight was one of my favorite Coyotes regular season games that I've ever seen. Cautiously excited about playing the Ducks 2 more times in a row. Even if we (the Coyotes) lose, it's gonna be playoff intensity.
It took a shootout, but the streak is still alive!!! Red Wings scored with 17 minutes to go, but Patrick Kane tied it on the power play and scored the only goal in the shootout. Wow. 22 without a loss in regulation.
I love Kane. I surely thought this would be the game, and it probably would have been had the Wings not screwed up in the last 5 minutes with that delay of game penalty. I guess this team just really finds ways to win. I'm not trying to doubt them, and I'm enjoying this streak, but one has to think it'll come to an end at some point. All streaks are meant to end eventually. We do have the Wild and Colorado (back to back) coming up. I could see one of those games being it, maybe the one in Colorado.
Good thing for the Hawks is that the back-to-back will be at home. Wild have been playing pretty well as of late... Avs are on a back-to-back of their own; they gotta go to Detroit on Tuesday. I agree that all streaks come to an end, but who knows... they've stolen quite a few wins in this abbreviated season. That one in Calgary was ridiculous. And, yes... I am a Blackhawks bandwagoner. Houston everything else, though. But that was before they won the Stanley Cup. I used to play with them all the time on NHL 2005.
:grin: Nice to know another Hawks fan on cfans. And Yeah that Calgary game was ridiculous. Emery played the game of his life in that game. With this shortened season, it's all weird with the scheduling so you might be right. Just amazing to watch, the amount of excitement for the Blackhawks in Chicago is unreal right now.
