NHL 2012-2013: A hooligans game played by hooligans

Oh, Rangers.

Did they learn nothing from that stupid CBC fiasco from last year?

Ugh. All they'd need is to add a line about waiting till the end of the period to fix your make-up and it could be a parody.

Wait till you see their flash game.

So, hey yeah...hockey...so uh...are the Capitals playing yet?

They've been looking better as each game happens, there's a lot of moving parts that were changed at once. Even the Kings are in the toilet right now!

Yeah they still lost tonight, but they didn't do it in embarrassing fashion like last night, so I'm not panicking.

Do you feel as if they're making progress picking up Oates's system? The fact they aren't scoring much is problematic when the system is supposed to encourage it (well more so than Hunter's system).

A response to the sexist Rangers article Athryn linked above:

http://devilsarmyblog.com/2013/01/25/a-guys-guide-to-watching-the-devils/

As a Caps sorta fan (especially easy to root for them since they only play the Blues twice a year on a normal schedule, and not at all this year, plus I still love me some Adam Oates from the old "Hull And Oates" days in St. Louis), I'm afraid the window might've closed here. That 2008-2009 team ran into a juggernaut called the Penguins and still nearly beat them (always have wondered if the lopsided Game 7 of their series might've been different if Ovie had buried that breakaway when the game was scoreless five minutes in; when Fleury stoned him, Ovechkin disappeared for the rest of the game). The 2009-2010 team ran into a hot goalie in Jaro Halak. I think the biggest failure for them (and if Xaroc is around, he knows enough to either refute or support this postulate) was that they never dealt from a supposed surplus of gifted scorers for more defense...and then that "surplus" kind of hasn't played out as some guys in Hershey just haven't translated AHL success to the bigtime.

During the Penguins series in 2009, a buddy and I from Chicago (and he's a huge Blackhawks fan) were at Grevey's watching one of the games and he noted something along the lines of "The Penguins could be staging the Ice Capades in front of the Capitals net and no one would hit them or try to clear 'em out."

And the Caps break through with a big W this afternoon against the Sabres.

Speaking of erstwhile surplus Caps, it tickles me that Keith Aucoin, now with the Islanders, is tied for the team lead in goals, one back of the lead in points, and leads them in shooting percentage.

Attaboy, Keith!

Brutal loss tonight for the Caps. Up 2-0 in the first, they let it get away and got beat 3-2. Still just not scoring, and that has to be a concern.

I know you all hate the Bruins, but last nights' game was entertaining at the end. The Bruins knot it up late in the 3rd and it goes to a shootout. First shooter, Tyler Seguin easily scores. But wait! Some nudnik threw a hot dog at the goalie during the shot! So, the refs make Sequin shoot again. And he scores, again.

Of course Kovalchuk's shot after that was so fast Tukka Rask didn't even move before it was in the net. That guy is scary good.

EDIT: YouTuber outs the culprit

I'd have disallowed the goal and not given him a do over, but that's just me.

The thing with the shoot out was that it went 6 rounds and was 2-1 at the end (and 1-1 after the first round). Don't know if I ever saw that many 0s before.

Why? It wasn't the player's fault.

Spoken like a Devil's fan.

Yeah, as much as I dislike the Bruins, I wouldn't have disallowed it, BUT I could see it as being a punitive measure against fan shenanigans.

It's hard to punish the players for things beyond their control like fans throwing debris on the ice. How do you know which team's fan was attempting to interfere with the play? Was the hotdog-thrower trying to distract the shooter or the goalie? If the league starting disallowing home team goals whenever a spectator throws something on the ice, then some less-than-scrupulous fans of the visiting team will try to influence the outcome of games.

Cause I'm a Devils partisan!

Well, duh!

Well, it's like how rule 63.4 could be potentially abused, though. It doesn't specify anything about who throws things on the ice, just that the home team can be issued a bench minor penalty.

They're not using replacement refs are they? I was watching the end of the LA-VAN game the other night and the Kings got penalized twice in the third period for being pushed by a VAN player into another VAN player. I think the penalty VAN took was a little dubious as well, but I don't remember it much. The Kings did manage to come back and win in the SO, so I'm not really complaining, but it was weird that the first hockey I've watched this year started with some marginal penalties.

They're calling the games super tight this season, don't get me started on the ones that happened against the Caps last night ...

Speak for yourself! I love the Bs!

I will admit to the occasional dalliance with the Sens, though, but that ends as soon as Alfie retires.

I grew up in MA in the Bourque years. I might root for the Pens now, but I can never bring myself to hate the Bruins.

We have Chris Bourque now! It's 1990 all over again!

The Canucks getting way more bullshit calls in their favor than they should is not new this year.

This should be accompanied by a flushing sound:



Or wait! Someone made it better.

The Bruins traded Tim Thomas to the Islanders for a conditional second rounder after he refused to play this season.

The trade doesn't make a lot of sense to me, from the Islander's perspective. Not only is he a mental patient, he's also 38. Steroids are a wonderful thing but it's entirely possible he'll never play again. And of course, the Islanders already have DiPietro and Nabokov. But I guess when your GM was a goalie, you end up with a lot of goalies.

It's all about the salary cap floor, they could care less if he shows up, they need his salary cap hit to meet the minimum.

Seriously? They couldn't come up with a use for $5 million that would actually improve the club? Even giving Scott Gomez $5 million would make more sense.

Timmy noooooooooooo!

Sure, you're a crackpot homophobe, but I still love ya.

The key is that Thomas is suspended for failure to report, so he's not getting paid. He counts against the cap for the Isles now, but won't actually cost them any money. If they'd signed Gomez instead, that'd cost real money.

They also don't lose that 2014 2nd round draft pick if Thomas doesn't play for them and they don't trade him for something in return. So basically they get their cap met for free, a bargaining chip for future trades when teams are looking for goaltenders on the upcoming off-season (there are always a handful), or maybe a goaltender when DiPietro finally dies his death of a thousand ACL tears. In return, Boston gets Thomas off the books for this season to free up 5mil of cap space.

What I'm not sure about is how the contract works. Thomas was set to expire this year, so when the Islanders toll the contract to their cap, does that tick his contract over a year and cause it to expire this upcoming off season?

Ah, sneaky. If they put half as much effort into winning as they do into being cheap, they could be a contender.

That's a good question. Has a player ever held out for an entire year before? I kind of think that when a player holds out for more money, the year doesn't count because that would reward the player. But in this case, both the team and the player would want the year to count.

Yashin with the Senators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Yashin

And Yashin ended up on the Islanders. Coincidence?

Yashin is a classic example of just a completely over-entitled douchebag hockey player. Even if you feel like you are being underpayed for your value, you signed the damn contract. Play it out and then demand your raise when you are legally allowed to, and if no-one will give you a fatter contract then maybe you aren't as good as the players you are comparing yourself to. He and Avery are players that confuse me, because how do you manage to get to a world-class level of skill while having absolutely no respect for the game you're playing? Wastes of talent.

With Yashin it's pretty obvious, teams were willing to overlook the character issues because of his talent... until he stopped producing on the ice. He's basically the NHL's Terrell Owens or Randy Moss, except that in the NHL you can't just cut a guy when he becomes too much trouble. Avery reminds me more of Brett Lindros--all of the attitude without the talent.

The ECHL's Backersfield Condors decided to bring an actual condor out for the national anthem. The result is magic!