Kukla's Korner Hockey
The Changing Game
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 02:26 PM ET
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from Eric Weinrich via the St. Louis Blues,
Folks, do you remember back to the Edmonton dynasties and the Pittsburgh teams of the early ‘90s? Well, fast forward to 2005 and – Voila! – those days are back. Goal scoring is up 41 percent! That is a huge difference from the last five years. If you like lots of offense and lots of power plays, this is the game for you. If you are a fan of tight checking, hard-fought defensive battles, you might want to watch the Stanley Cup finals of 2003.
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Havlet Facing Possible Suspension
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 02:23 PM ET
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from TSN,
The long arm of NHL law is coming to Martin Havlat and the Ottawa Senators. Sources say the NHL is reviewing a kicking incident last night in the Ottawa-Boston game at the Corel Centre. Havlat, after being knocked into the back of the net, kicked Boston defenceman Hal Gill. A suspension is expected. Havlat was not penalized on the play, but the kick was duly noted by the NHL's hockey operations department. While no disciplinary hearing has been schedule, it is expected one will occur before the Senators play their next game on Friday at Tampa Bay.
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Shanahan Saved The Game
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 11:07 AM ET
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from the Buffalo News,
Give him the credit he deserves. Anybody paying a little attention to the NHL can see the bungee cord is working, that the freefall has been aborted and the league is safely headed skyward. You can thank one person for having the vision, for putting his skate down and demanding change. Gary Bettman? Good heavens, no. Try Brendan Shanahan. The commissioner was where he belonged during the lockout, which is to say he was arguing over money and nowhere near hockey. If he and his cronies did their jobs, say, five years ago, the game wouldn't have fallen into such disrepair and lost its place on the national landscape. Thank Shanahan, who pulled this game from the ruins.
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What’s Wrong With The Pens
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 11:03 AM ET
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from the Beaver County Times,
The Pittsburgh Penguins' 0-2-4 start to this campaign is starting to get more than a little disconcerting. It's starting to get downright desperate at Mellon Arena. Following Saturday night's 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Mellon Arena, the Penguins failed, yet again, to get two points for the sixth straight game. Afterward, Penguins coach Eddie Olczyk said it was his team's best all-around game this season and that the team was close to turning the corner. At this rate, it appears the Penguins are running in circles. Though the Penguins have recorded a point in four of their first six games (three overtime losses and one loss in a shootout), that's not a very sound strategy for a team with legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations. What's going wrong? "I don't know," a cranky Mario Lemieux said. Well, it's the same old thing every night.
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What Can A Defenseman Do
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 10:59 AM ET
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from Al Strachan of the Toronto Sun,
Confused about how physical a defenceman can be when it comes to clearing out opposing forwards? You're not alone. So are lots of fans. For that matter, so are lots of players and coaches. "That's the one area of the new approach that is the most misunderstood," a veteran referee said. Then he explained what the standard is supposed to be -- although he admitted that even some of his colleagues don't seem to be clear on the point. You may have heard announcers say that if the stick is parallel to the ice when it is put upon an opponent's body, it's an infraction. Not necessarily.
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Wanted- Shootout In The Playoffs
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 09:55 AM ET
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from the Buffalo News,
If a shootout is good enough for Olympic hockey, and for World Cup soccer, it should be good enough for the Stanley Cup playoffs Hockey's old guard (crusty Canadian curmudgeons) can't stand the shootout. They talk about the tie game as if it were a hockey sacrament, a reflection of the game's essentially righteous character. Of course, these are the same dinosaurs who held the sport back for years, content to sit back as suffocating, defensive hockey sucked the life out of their sport and drove casual fans to auto racing and poker. Critics of the shootout say it cheapens the game. They say a shootout is a skills competition, not legitimate hockey. They say it's unfair for a team to be outplayed for a full game and then lose because the opposition has a better goalie. Come on. A shootout tests the most basic of hockey skills. It's a breakaway, an offensive star against a goalie, best man wins. If anything, there should be more breakaways in hockey. They should award more penalty shots in regulation.
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Q & A With Bettman
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 09:51 AM ET
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from the Miami Herald, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman met with the South Florida media before Saturday's game at the BankAtlantic Center. Here is the complete transcript of the conversation.
Q: Are you happy with what you've seen from new cable partner OLN? A: If you want to put something in perspective, to accomplish what they did on about six weeks' notice is nothing short of phenomenal. This year on OLN will be a work in progress in two respects: 1, as the year goes on they'll get better and better in doing all the things they want to do, and they're not in a fire drill; and 2, the schedule we agreed to put together really won't be in place for a year; that is, on Monday nights have all the hockey in the U.S. to themselves, and two good exclusive games on a lighter schedule on Tuesday nights. Remember we did the schedule before we even announced the deal; we didn't even know what our cable arrangements were going to be. And it wasn't just who our partner was going to be, it was what was the right schedule. And there were a lot of variables because we were talking to different parties. But this year will be a work in progress, and they will only get better, and next year, when people look at what they do and our ratings this will be a very good move both for OLN and for us. Also, look at their coverage at the end of the game; there's a nice studio show, they're not blasting off to somewhere else.
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Blue Jackets Read The Riot Act
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 09:42 AM ET
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from Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun,
Columbus president/GM Doug MacLean has read the riot act to the Blue Jackets' players. Only five games into a season he promised owner John McConnell and the good fans of Columbus his club would challenge for a playoff spot, sources told the Sun that MacLean blew his top following a 4-3 loss Friday in Anaheim. After watching his club give a halfhearted effort against the Ducks for Columbus' fourth loss in five games, the word is MacLean went ballistic -- especially to winger Nikolai Zherdev -- during an expletive-filled session in the dressing room. Not only is the heat on MacLean -- who signed free-agent defenceman Adam Foote to a $4-million (all figures US) contract -- but there's talk Jackets coach Gerard Gallant is living on borrowed time.
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Carolina May Be Saved
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 09:38 AM ET
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from the Rocky Mount Telegram,
The new NHL was not made for franchises like Detroit, Toronto or Philadelphia. There was never any doubt that the fans of the great tradition-filled franchises would return to the arenas after the year-long lockout. The new NHL, with its rules designed to open up play and increase scoring, was designed to help the struggling franchises, such as the Carolina Hurricanes. Sure the Hurricanes had gone to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2002. The fans showed up in droves then, leading to the familiar rallying call of the “loudest fans in the NHL.” However, not much has gone right since then. There was the last-place finish in 2002-03 and the mildly better season the next. Moving or contracting the franchise, just eight years after moving from Hartford, Conn., was an option the talking heads discussed as a way to “fix the NHL” after the lockout.
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Hockey Being Played Again
by Paul on 10/16/05 at 09:35 AM ET
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from the Edmonton Sun,
Have you seen this new game on TV? It's called "hockey" and it's fast-paced and high-scoring and hard-hitting and tremendously fun to watch! And we can't believe that the NHL denied for so long that there was a problem with Canada's beloved national sport! It's only a couple of weeks into the start of the new season of the new National Hockey League, but the earlier reviews are overwhelmingly positive. We certainly can see why. We were skeptical that the NHL lockout would return anything to the ice other than the same old, boring, clutch-and-grab game - except paid by players earning less money than before. It turns out to be anything but the old game on the ice. And boy, are we glad. It seems that the really revolutionary change made during the league's one-year sabbatical from our lives was not the salary cap - although that's helping to make the Oilers a lot more competitive - but the comparatively minor tinkering of the rules. The two rule tweaks that seem to be doing the most to increase the speed and flow of the game are the two-line passes, as the centre red-line is ignored when it comes to passing the puck up the ice, and what the NHL terms "zero tolerance on interference, hooking and holding/obstruction."
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About Kukla's Korner Hockey
Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.
From breaking news to in-depth stories around the league, KK Hockey is updated with fresh stories all day long and will bring you the latest news as quickly as possible.
Email Paul anytime at pk@kuklaskorner.com
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