Official 13-14 NHL Regular Season Thread

[Peter_Doherty]

Big night tonight, best defender in hockey ever gets his jersey retired (I know some might argue that Orr was better but lets just say it's debatable and leave it at that). Can't believe that he's still underrated here in Sweden.

[batdad]

2nd best.

[Peter_Doherty]

I don't agree, but that really doesn't matter. He's among the greats and deserves the recognition. I don't even think he's seen as Swedens best player in Sweden, says more about the knowledge of Swedish people though He's obviously our best hockeyplayer ever and one of our biggest athletes ever, sadly he will probably never get that recognition here. He should be up there with Stenmark and Borg, but he's not for some reason, hopefully that changes some day.

[batdad]

2nd best Swede ever too. Inge Hammarstrom.

[Peter_Doherty]

I would tell you to stop trolling, but i don't really want that =P I'm from the same City as Inge, but he was nowhere near Lidström =P

[batdad]

Of course not. I just love his name, and remember watching him and Borje when I was growing up. Hated the Laffs, loved them and Sittler.

[XenHL]

Lidstrom? Best D yeah I agree.

But even if not the #1, still one of the very best ever and I feel lucky to have been able to see play regularly. There's only a few others I can say that about, Lemieux, Bure, Gretzky, Yzerman, Roy, the Green Unit.

[philou21]

MacKinnon surpassed Gretzky with a point for a 13 game in a row as a rookie! Good job Nathan! Probably the only record you can beat from Wayne though.

[batdad]

Yeah, so now he is the next Gretzky. No question about it, he will score 92 goals and have 217 points.

[CJ]

Yeah, so now he is the next Gretzky. No question about it, he will score 92 goals and have 217 points.

Absolutely!

[YZG]

Yeah, so now he is the next Gretzky. No question about it, he will score 92 goals and have 217 points.

Nah. 93 goals. Gotta beat that mark too....

[philou21]

St-Louis confirmed that he asked to be traded because he wasn't choose on the Olympic team this year and that he thought of himself because he felt ignored by Yzerman. What?!? Everyone here praise him for his decision and they all hang Yzerman on the public place. What?!? Am I the only one who doesn't understand this? I just see St-Louis as a selfish, self-centered idiot now. He just lost all respect I had for the guy, poor little baby.

[Primis]

St-Louis confirmed that he asked to be traded because he wasn't choose on the Olympic team this year and that he thought of himself because he felt ignored by Yzerman. What?!? Everyone here praise him for his decision and they all hang Yzerman on the public place. What?!? Am I the only one who doesn't understand this? I just see St-Louis as a selfish, self-centered idiot now. He just lost all respect I had for the guy, poor little baby.

It seems silly, but welcome to new ammunition for the NHL to *not* ever send their guys to the Olympics again. "What if we don't pick one of our players and he demands a trade out?". In fact this whole thing may be the final nail in the coffin.

Here's the thing: either St. Louis is a think-skinned idiot, or he's been looking for an out for a while now and the Olympics thing came along and made a great excuse. If as some have claimed he's been trying to engineer a way to NY for a while, the latter seems incredibly possible.

In either scenario though, St. Louis is obviously not the kinda' guy you want in your room now... poor attitude, selfish, malcontent.

[batdad]

TIm Bozon 2nd round pick of Montreal, playing for Kootenay ICE was put in an induced coma last night to try and slow down the menengitis. All my thoughts and prayers to Tim and his family. Such a sad situation.

[philou21]

TIm Bozon 2nd round pick of Montreal, playing for Kootenay ICE was put in an induced coma last night to try and slow down the menengitis. All my thoughts and prayers to Tim and his family. Such a sad situation.

Omg that's just terrible. Hope it works for him.

[YZG]

St-Louis confirmed that he asked to be traded because he wasn't choose on the Olympic team this year and that he thought of himself because he felt ignored by Yzerman. What?!? Everyone here praise him for his decision and they all hang Yzerman on the public place. What?!? Am I the only one who doesn't understand this? I just see St-Louis as a selfish, self-centered idiot now. He just lost all respect I had for the guy, poor little baby.

It seems silly, but welcome to new ammunition for the NHL to *not* ever send their guys to the Olympics again. "What if we don't pick one of our players and he demands a trade out?". In fact this whole thing may be the final nail in the coffin.

This situation actually highlights one single problem at the core of it all: national team GMs and staffs should be neutral. They should not name staff active in leagues where they could select or not select one or several of their own players. As simple as that. If a player is not selected to the NT, he may well be widdled, but he won't turn against his pro team like this. There's also the opposite risk - a GM may pass over one of his stars by fear of him getting injured during the Olympics. Potential conflicts of interests.

I reckon that it shouldn't have to be factored in. I reckon that as professional adults, they should know better than acting like that. But well, humans are what they are, sadly.

TIm Bozon 2nd round pick of Montreal, playing for Kootenay ICE was put in an induced coma last night to try and slow down the menengitis. All my thoughts and prayers to Tim and his family. Such a sad situation.

Omg that's just terrible. Hope it works for him.

Awful situation indeed. I sincerely hope he'll make it and fully recover.

[Primis]

This situation actually highlights one single problem at the core of it all: national team GMs and staffs should be neutral. They should not name staff active in leagues where they could select or not select one or several of their own players. As simple as that. If a player is not selected to the NT, he may well be widdled, but he won't turn against his pro team like this. There's also the opposite risk - a GM may pass over one of his stars by fear of him getting injured during the Olympics. Potential conflicts of interests.

You're probably right. The argument against that though I'm sure "The best GM's are GMing in the NHL", despite the fact that, I dunno', Garth Snow GM's in the NHL too and I'm sure there are lots of guys in the AHL, CHL, and ECHL more qualified and better than him.

Who isn't GMing right now though that would have been good for Canada and USA, and that isn't with an NHL team in some capacity (so sorry, no Scotty Bowman, since he has Chicago ties active).

More than likely, the Tavares injury and the St. Louis situation are just going to be enough that if we ever see NHLers at the Olympics again, it won't be for some time.

I won't lie, I'd prefer a World Cup in the summer. #1, summer hockey, who doesn't love summer hockey? #2, serious injuries still have time to heal and come back for the playoff push. #3, season isn't interrupted to make it happen. #4, maybe an NHL-run tourney would finally throw together a makeshift team of leftover Internationals so we could see Kopitar, Vanek, Zucarello, Zubrus, Grabner, etc, all on one team. Because that'd be fun.

[batdad]

1 player means the best guys for a job should not get the job? And again St Louis asked to be traded the first time b4 Yzerman was there. The Lightning would not let him go. Lawton has said that.

By the way World Cup is not all sunshine and roses. To jump in and play at that elite level so quickly has led to injuries and issues with quality of hockey as well. The players and management have not liked it for various reasons in the past. That being said still better than interrupting the NHL season n

[XenHL]

The NHL needs to quit whining about the Olympics so much and should just be happy that in terms of world sport hockey is basically an irrelevancy and the NHL itself is monumentally lucky. If hockey seriously was a major world sport, or if the NHL wasn't on he right side of a quirk of history, then these owners could cry all they want but Olympic participation would never be a questioned issue, because then hockey would be like soccer and if a national team called a player up the club would be absolutely obliged to release him for national service. IMO, as it absolutely should be!

I adore my Habs more than anything in any sport but... nation before club. I would rather see Canada winning Olympic or IHWC golds than Habs' cups, if I have to choose. If the Habs don't win #25 this year because of Price's injury... well, that would suck but it's okay because he won us the gold.

[philou21]

I would rather see Canada winning Olympic or IHWC golds than Habs' cups, if I have to choose.

Never thought I would see a Habs fan say something like that. NEVER.

[philou21]

After what's happening to Bozon, Matt Stajan left the Flames for a while because he lost his new-born son. That sucks.

[XenHL]

I would rather see Canada winning Olympic or IHWC golds than Habs' cups, if I have to choose.

Never thought I would see a Habs fan say something like that. NEVER.

Well I'm a bit of a non-standard Habs fan, so.

After what's happening to Bozon, Matt Stajan left the Flames for a while because he lost his new-born son. That sucks.

Oof, yeah, that does suck.

[Primis]

Unbelievable.

Joakim Andersson has a broken foot. This means if you count Zetterberg as a C as many folks still like to, DET is missing FIVE centers to injury right now (Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Weiss, Helm, Andersson). Franzen could move to C but... with the tear he's been on that'd hurt the offense just as much. I don't even know at this point who you plug in there. The Wings steadfastly refuse to use Nyquist at C (where he played in college and the AHL). They can call up Emmerton, but... that burns 1 of their 3 post-deadline call-ups.

I'm just glad DET is past the whole "4 games in 5 1/2 days" thing, what an awful stretch of schedule, and what an awful thing to do to move that Sunday game from 7pm to noon for NBC.

[rocker87]

The NHL needs to quit whining about the Olympics so much and should just be happy that in terms of world sport hockey is basically an irrelevancy and the NHL itself is monumentally lucky. If hockey seriously was a major world sport, or if the NHL wasn't on he right side of a quirk of history, then these owners could cry all they want but Olympic participation would never be a questioned issue, because then hockey would be like soccer and if a national team called a player up the club would be absolutely obliged to release him for national service. IMO, as it absolutely should be!

I adore my Habs more than anything in any sport but... nation before club. I would rather see Canada winning Olympic or IHWC golds than Habs' cups, if I have to choose. If the Habs don't win #25 this year because of Price's injury... well, that would suck but it's okay because he won us the gold.

Well, this part is not so much accurate. Difference between football (you call it soccer) and hockey, it's not even a thing to talk about it. At least, not as argument.

Football teams have their own problems, and yeah, they don't like to see their players in the national team rosters that much. Most of big teams in "big 26" or something like that would like to be out of UEFA and FIFA both, but they can't do that just like that. They have some improvements with insurance policy, when UEFA/FIFA pay players wage if they got injured in their competition. But, who would pay you money you lost if that guy make you winner of champions league instead of lost semi-finals? Then we're talking about 20-30M euro lost directly. Which insurance would pay that? Don't need to talk that some players retire after some injuries, or you lost a lot of attendance in the game, money from advertising, etc... for example, if Barcelona lost Messi for 10 months injury blow, how much you think it cost them? Or Ronaldo from Real Madrid? After that injury player is not the same.

Another problem about summer is that players, mostly best of them, played 70-80 games through season. It's not like hockey. Hockey player have 20-25 minutes per game, best football player play 90 minutes for their team most of time. I know it's not the same thing and because in hockey you're on 100% every shift, but players in football run over 10 km every game.

Now I'm going on direct thing, which you need to know. NHL have 90% of all of best players in the world in there. They got monopoly and they can do whatever they want. You think you'll do the different thing? Believe me, when we talk about money, then it's not. With lockout last season, Olympic break this season, NHL lost a lot money they could earn. In football you have, at least, 16 national associations for euro, 32 for world cup, and they're all under UEFA/FIFA. NHL is not under anybody.

I don't blame NHL, they're just best organization at the time, KHL is a long way behind with everything, so, they can do whatever they want. NHL got they own cataclysms all over the history, with WHA, with lockouts, etc... and they became stronger after every one of them. I think NHL make hockey this big, not Olympic games or somebody else.

I know I'm from Europe, but I'm just trying to be realistic and I told you that I'll do the same on their position.

[philou21]

Peverley left the game after collapsing on the bench vs the Jackets. Seems to be heart problems which he suffered in training camp. Bad news keeps coming for players these days.

Lethonen also have a concussion. (How could someone think not after that hit?)

Edit: Peverly was reanimated before he got tranfered. Good news is that he was conscious when he was getting to the hospital. I think they even suspended the game by now.

RE-edit: Game is officially suspended. Seems like everyone was too shocked to keep playing. I can understand that but in the past did the game got suspended when Fischer collapsed?