2006/2007 Hockey Season Thread

[Ananas]

I love the almost Colbert-esque set up of the interview. Gotta give the guy credit, for all his shortcomings he's clearly got a sense of humour.

[NobBe Nobbs]

If you're wondering, 73 is a prime number and has no integral square root.

Edited October 8, 2006 by Be

[Toe]

Well, we lost in a shootout.

Poo. Poof hitting the metal really really really sucked, too. I thought it was in right away, but it didn't.

Oh well, Monday we get to face Belfour and the Panthers. I hope we can win there.

[CKN]

I dunno if it got posted in this topic, but I just saw it and laughed my ass off...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLV6NpXQXf8

[gunnar hendershow]

Wade Belak is the fucking man as that interview convinced me.

[The Sultan of Swank]

Habs start of the year with 3 of 4 points. They should have won the game in Buffalo, but they forgot that the game lasts 60 minutes and not just 55. In Toronto the game was a close, hardfought contest from both sides and really could have gone either way. Abby made some big saves in OT and in shootout it really became a case of who got the luckier bounces.

[Toe]

That was close.

We dominated the majority of that game against Florida, and if Alex Auld did not have a horseshoe or three up his ass, we would have won by more then just a shootout. Alex Auld earned Florida the point in that game. Thank fuck for Kyle Wellwood, Andrew Raycroft, and Todd Bertuzzi going slow as hell in the shootout.

[The Sultan of Swank]

3-1, Habs(Abeschier) played a good game. They got pummeled in the third period where it was an absolute shooting gallery on Abby, but damn he did a good job holding the puck out of the net. Higgins gets his first shorty of the year and Kovalev, Samsanov and Plecks get points. Woo us.

[Toe]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That was shit. Up by 3 going into the third, and then Brian Gionta scored three to give the Devils the tie, and they went on to win in the shootout. Out of the 6 againts him, at least 3 of them were easily stoppable by Aubin.

[lari]

Khabibulin played good for once. I guess he's too inconsistent to suck in every game. Hawks beat the Predators for the second time already.

[The Sultan of Swank]

A Blackhawks fan... wow, that's pretty rare.

[gunnar hendershow]

Happy to see him around though. We need some fans of teams that aren't in Canada. And he appears to like Helloween.

Oh. Yes.

[NobBe Nobbs]

A Blackhawks fan... wow, that's pretty rare.

[alldaws1]

Oh, how cruel late goals are. 3.3 seconds left in the game last night and the Penguins score on the powerplay to beat us

I think we (NY Rangers) should do well again this year, get into the playoffs at the very least. Hoping for big things again from Jagr and I'm excited to have Brendan Shanahan on board, even if he is winding down his career now, he's still a decent player. Such a shame I don't have NASN to watch the hockey any more, I'll have to wait until Channel Five starts showing it (anybody know when that is? After the World Series I guess).

[Guest Grapehead]

Ugh, I have a Habs fan on another board raving about Latendresse, meanwhile jumping into a discussion me and another guy were having about Patrick Eaves, just to call me biased and say that I was too "loyal to shitty Sens players." This guy is the WORST to listen to talk about hockey, cause he thinks he's king shit, he claims that you NEED Dvorak in every hockey pool, cause apparently he's going to be amazing.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Would you do me the kindness of linking to said board, I have the desire to tear a number of new assholes.

[Toe]

Radek Dvorak is in the dictionary next to the word "shite".

[Guest Grapehead]

Watched the Buffalo/Detroit game tonight, was very exciting. First of all, I went into the game cheering for Detroit(since I have Lang and Datsyuk in the EWB pool), and as the game went on Buffalo took me over to their side. Miller is very fun to watch, he's got a lot of good years ahead of him. The pace was all over the place, it was breakneck fast one minute, then mythodically slow at some points as the teams tried to tighten up. Very good game, and probably the first step towards bringing me on board the Sabres bandwagon.

[Toe]

I enjoyed watching the Sabres/Montreal game, the way those teams play is always fun to watch. But I will never cheer for the electric slugs. Never.

[lari]

Yes, I'm a Hawks fan. Ever since 91-92. Steve Larmer and Denis Savard are my all-time favourite players. It's also great to see how Savard has made the Hawks powerplay click this season (including preseason). Jeff Hamilton was a good signing to help the PP.

There hasn't been much to cheer for in the past ten years, and the team will probably finish near the bottom again this season, but the potential, especially on defense, is real good. Add in prospects Skille and Toews for offense and the team might just be a contender in two or three years time.

Current Hawk lines:

Martin Havlat - Michal Handzus - Radim Vrbata

Denis Arkhipov - Bryan Smolinski - Tony Salmelainen

Rene Bourque - Patrick Sharp - Martin Lapointe

Reed Low - Jeff Hamilton - Mikael Holmqvist

Jassen Cullimore - Adrian Aucoin

Duncan Keith - Jim Vandermeer

Lasse Kukkonen - Brent Seabrook

Nikolai Khabibulin

Brian Boucher

Healthy scratches: Matt Keith and Adam Burish

Injured Reserve: Tuomo Ruutu, Cam Barker, Patrick Lalime

First line is dangerous as everyone has seen by now, but I'm also really happy with the checking line of Bourque/Sharp/Lapointe. My favourite line at the moment.

Cullimore isn't doing very well, so I wouldn't mind seeing one of the young Admiral trio (Byfuglien, Richmond or Wisniewski) up soon. Too many youngsters may not be the best way to go though. Sophomores Keith and Seabrook give away the puck too many times as it is.

Arkhipov and Salmelainen haven't shown much yet, and I don't know if I want them to come back next year. There's better guys coming in from juniors, and I think this year Jeff Hamilton has been better so far. He lacks physical play and is a liability 5-on-5, but as a powerplay specialist he's been great. There may be use for Salmo's speed in the penalty kill though.

There's also better guys coming in from juniors. Hawk drafting has never been great, but you can only have so many high first round busts before real gems start appearing. And the Blackhawks have certainly been getting plenty of those high picks in the last few years.

I'm also starting to hope Ruutu will be traded at some point. He is awesome when healthy, franchise player material, no doubt, but I'm getting this feeling he will never play a full season in the NHL.

There's also no excuse for having Khabibulin for closer to 7 million dollars per year. The team is young, with an inexperienced defense and will be losing a lot again this year. Khabibulin provides nothing for this team. He could be an asset to a winning team (not that even that would justify his astronomical salary), but for Hawks anyone can do what he has done so far. Last year his stats were abysmal.