EHM The Blue Line

I guess Boston feels a need for more defensemen whose best years (in this case a relative term) are behind them... and they had to re-fill their quota since Leetch went down.

I kinda doubt that the Yotes would deal Comrie since he's still a young player with huge potential. The biggest knock on him (beside being Lindros-lite in the attitude/professionalism department) has been can he be an elite player at 5'9". That is pretty much answered by the results smaller players have been achieveing this year in the "New NHL".

The next trade may easily be Varada to whoever has a spare draft pick to offer... that offer has been made pretty widely known.

Anyhow, since I've been ragging on my Hawks' poor play this year I wanted to say that they played one hell of a game with Calgary today. Khabibulin really held them in the game early on and has been a totally different player recently. I've been wondering about Bell and Calder and they've both really steeped it up in recent games, Bell with two last night!

Maybe they will finally realize they need to stop taking so darn many penalties and give themselves a better chance to win some games. In the first period they took eight penalties and were at a man-disadvantage for 13 of 20 minutes! They only allowed two goals though and battled back to dominate the second and third against a team known for their work ethic. Hopefully they can keep it going.

Well, the Bruins lost the past two games 2-3. I think it would be fair to say we suck and I'm starting to feel your the same pain you must go through with the Hawks, Minty. Although at least we haven't had the same scale of shocking backroom shenanigans as you've had to endure. I hope we can pull ourselves out of this rocky spell.

Tonight it's the Caps @ Pens a.k.a. Ovechkin v Crosby
Is anyone up for predicting how many points each will get tonight?! I'll say Ovechkin 1 and Crosby 2.

Depends on who is in net I'd guess. I can see Ovechkin lighting up Thibault for a hat trick rather easily. I'l guess Crosby will have two assists. We'll see, it's probably the only thing that could make a Pens-Caps matchup spark my interest really

I predict that...

Ovechkin scores twice, and Crosby records two assists.

Hooray! I predicted correctly!

Crosby got 1G+1A and Ovechkin got 1A. I must watch the higlights of that game - it sounds like Crosby's assist was pretty impressive.

That game was still snoresville but I did see Crosby's goal and I literally said out loud "Oh... "truck" that... you gotta be kidding me!" It was rediculous!! He split right through two defenders and made about 17 moves in one second drawing Kolzig about eight feet in the wrong direction and then flicked the puck 'top shelf' in such an extreme manner he sent the waterbottle flying Amazing. :jawdrop:

I saw that one too! I can do this to that goal.

Ha! Watching Flyers/Islanders and Snow is in net for the Isles with a new mask on. It's got the Isles retired numbers on each side whihc is a nice touch but the best thing about it is it's got the Bumble on it!!!!! That kicks ass!

I didn't watch the whole match so I didn't saw that picture, too bad Forsberg wasn't playing. I hope he is allright.

Wow it's all a little mad at Boston and San Jose.

We've won both games since Thornton has left. Yesterday we came back from 0-3 down to win 5-4 in OT. Boyes got two goals and Tanabe scored in OT, his first for the Bruins

Meanwhile, SJ have won both of their games since they acquired Thornton. He got two A's in both games. Yesterday they beat the Leafs 5-4.

Ouch! This sounds nasty:

The Boston Globe wrote:Referee makes judgment call

Veteran referee Don Van Massenhoven, who was struck in the face by one of Sean Hill's deflected slapshots, remains in Florida, recovering from extensive surgery. The shot caved in his forehead, broke the orbital bones under both eyes, and crushed his nose. Surgeons patched him together, needing seven tiny titanium plates. Once doctors give him the OK to get in an airplane (air pressure concerns), he'll head home to Ontario, where he was once a police officer. Once back on the ice, Van Massenhoven already has decided to wear a visor. Perhaps most amazing of all: He was not knocked unconscious.

http://www.boston.com/sports/hockey/bru ... ow/?page=4

Yeah Arch that was ugly, I saw replays... not good. It's amazing more guys don't get hurt but hockey officials are by far the toughest of any sport's too

Here's a wierd quirk of the schedule, there's a lot of slowdowns this week. For example Vancouver played tonight and their next game isn't for eight days...

Yesterday I bet on NHL: Canucks - Bruins win for Canucks, Avs - Sabres win for Sabres and Detroit - Islanders win for Wings and that stupid red things lose their home match and my money is away

Yeah, I was watching that game it was like the building was filled with people that declared "I payed for my ticket and I'll nap if I want to!". The place was dead... Detroit came out really flat and the crowd just yawned.

1-4 v the Avs

Seems like my Bruins are't going anywhere fast. Raycroft is especially having a nightmare season. We really need to get some degree of consistency.

What's worse is that Boynton is out for a month and a half with a fractured kneecap. That sounds darn painful. Ouch!

Injuries are really starting to mount for some teams like they're contagious. I'm sure a lot are wishing that Olympic break would hurry up and get here.

There's a "Snow Delay" delaying the Philly/Canucks game right now... they had to move start time back half an hour because the players had a hard time getting to the rink. You see something new every day...

My gahd... I was watching Toronto vs NY Islanders yesterday. Another "New NHL" game with zero flow and more power play time than even stregth time due to a seemingly neverending (and overlapping) string of penalties. Remarkable though in that there were eight goals scored. In the first period Toronto came out and scored four more in the second. In the third the scored one more between two by the Isles making it end up 9-6

What the Dickens? Is that supposed to be more entertaining? Well it ain't, it's just rediculous...

I thinks Leafs came out with an all-offense game last night due to the stomping they took in Ottawa on saturday. Alot of the journalists were saying the Leafs would never be able to score 8 goals like the Sens did, guess they wanted to prove a point.

And finally Swedish TV channel Canal Plus pulls the head out the *** and broadcasts a Red Wings game. Thought they'd show more of the Wings considering there are seven Swedes on the team. It'll be great!

The Wings just shot, shot, shot and shot, but Roloson just kept denying 'em.

Think it should've a win for Detroit.

Hooray! I can watch hockey again! The commentary is in Spanish but at least all the text on the screen is OLN's (or whatever they're called) so that bit is in English.

I watched the 3rd period from the re-run of the Phi-Bos game just before. We really ought to have tied it up in the third; we had some real good chances and were quite unlucky - Niitymaki was on top form.

Over a the Boston Globe, Raycroft was talking about his poor run of form. I hope I'm not taking this out of context, but:

"This happens to everyone -- you have bad luck, it's a bad year. I am here, but I can be the No. 1 goalie somewhere in the league."

Please don't go

Sounds like Raycroft is on the block. Apparently he's not being allowed to train with the Bruins at the moment despite the fact that he's healthy. The coaching staff are using the excuse that he's not fully fit, but this is rumoured to be untrue.

Tim Thomas seems to be taking Raycroft's place, having perfomed fairly well in the last few games.

Tim Thomas has been one of the best goalies in the Finnish Elite League for the last couple of years, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd make it in the NHL also now.

Actually i'd say Toivonen will be the no.1 goalie, as soon as he's out of the injury list.

I'd say that a big factor in this will be that Boston claimed Chicago's Craig Andersson off of waivers as they attempted to send him down. That gives them a suitable pro backup for I'd assume Toivonen... whatever way that decision goes it ceratinly doesn't seem to factor in Raycroft for anything but as a trade commodity. They were saying in the protion of the Boston game I watched tonight they noted that the likelyhood is that Boston would need to win at a 74% pace for the rest of the year to make the playoffs. There of course is a looming coaching change rumoured as well.