Kukla's Korner Hockey

Category: NHL-Talk

Does First Place Matter

by Paul on 03/24/07 at 09:37 PM ET
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from the New York Times,

Still, the feeling persists, and not only among fans, that finishing first over all is an energy-sapping waste of effort. Perhaps more disturbingly, it persists among the players.
“I don’t care if we win the Presidents’ Trophy, or we finish first by 20 points,” Nashville goalie Tomas Vokoun said last weekend. “I’m here to play for the Cup. No one’s going to remember who won the Presidents’ Trophy.”
Or, as Randy McKay, a Devils defenseman, put it in 2000, “Who cares?”
Even the coaches of the teams now vying for the Presidents’ Trophy seem lukewarm about the honor.

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Early Games Today

by Paul on 03/24/07 at 11:43 AM ET
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24 teams in action today- too bad we don’t have a game at 4:30pm EDT, it would have made a great 11 1/2 hours of non-stop hockey action.

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Great Goonery

by Paul on 03/23/07 at 08:17 PM ET
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from the Vancouver Courier,

Hockey is a game that defines the nation, or so they say.
Then why do Canadian hockey fans allow the American-based National Hockey League to define the sport domestically and globally?...
The New NHL was supposed to herald an era of breathtaking skill and finesse. Great goals and great saves? Good golly, we’ve got gargantuan goonery instead!...
It shocks American TV viewers and pleasures knuckledraggers on this side of the 49th parallel. Thanks to YouTube, this idiocy has found a new on-demand home on the Internet.
Non-hockey fans use this to justify why they don’t follow the sport. Promoters of this behaviour say too much is never enough and don’t care that it overshadows the emerging greatness of Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin.

read on

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NHL Draft- Do You Feel Lucky

by Paul on 03/23/07 at 08:07 PM ET
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NEW YORK (March 23, 2007)—
The National Hockey League Draft Drawing, a weighted lottery system to determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2007 Entry Draft, will take place Tuesday, April 10, at 12 p.m., ET, at the NHL’s New York office.

The result of the Draft Drawing, and the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2007 Entry Draft, will be announced immediately after the drawing.
Clubs that did not qualify for this season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, or clubs that acquired the first-round picks of those non-playoff clubs, will participate in the Draft Drawing.
The club selected in the Draft Drawing may not move up more than four positions in the draft order. Thus the only clubs with the opportunity to receive the first overall selection are the five clubs with the lowest regular-season point totals, or those that acquired an eligible club’s first-round draft picks. No club can move down more than one position as a result of the Draft Drawing.

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Put On the Gloves

by Paul on 03/23/07 at 06:40 PM ET
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from the CP via TSN,

The NHL should take a page from the UFC when it comes to fighting, says in-the-spotlight Flyers enforcer Todd Fedoruk.
Fedoruk, who spent the night in hospital earlier this week after being at the wrong end of a nasty knockout, says maybe NHL tough guys should wear padding on their hands under their gloves.
“You look at extreme fighting, they’ve got those four-ounce gloves on,” Fedoruk said.
Such padding would lessen the blows, he argued.

continued

Another fighting story from the CP, again via TSN,

Burke, whose Ducks lead the NHL with 65 fighting majors this season, said there should be no debate.
“Fighting has been systematically reduced in the NHL,” said Burke, who had Fedoruk in Anaheim and phone him this week to make sure he was OK. “You are more likely now to not see a fight than you are to see one, through instigator penalties, suspensions and fines for fights in the last three minutes of a game. It’s been reduced to, in my mind, its proper place. It’s no longer utilized as a tactic.
“But the notion that we ever get rid of the players’ ability to regulate what happens, is silly to me.”

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Can Nashville Put It Together

by Paul on 03/23/07 at 05:00 PM ET
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from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

“It’s hard to jump into a team midway through the season,” said Forsberg, in an interview. “It’s never happened to me before because I’ve always been on a team that made the playoffs. I don’t think I’ve played as good as I want to, but it’s starting to get better. I’m starting to get used to my teammates and line-mates, so it should go uphill from here.”
The problem, from Nashville’s perspective, is that they haven’t had a chance to get their full team together since making the Forsberg trade. They currently have three top-nine forwards (Steve Sullivan, Martin Erat and Scott Hartnell) out of their line-up, with relatively serious injuries. Nashville’s strength is its balanced three-line attack. Forsberg is one point shy of 50 for the season; when he reaches that mark, he will be the eighth Predators’ forward to do so this season.

murch more on the Preds plus some NHL & PA talk…

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Can’t Have It Both Ways

by Paul on 03/23/07 at 02:48 PM ET
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from Loose Change at the Hockey News,

Concussions are no laughing matter. We all know that. But the stuff leading up to the concussion part pretty much is. Well, if it’s not exactly funny it’s, at the very least, entertaining. Now, before you start getting all sanctimonious on us – glorifying someone getting their grape squished – think about who’s buying all the Don Cherry Smack and Bleed DVDs, who temporarily delays his trip to the washroom when the No. 12 car flames out in Turn 4 and who also thinks Moe has gotten hitting Curly with an anvil down to an art form?
Yeah, you know who you are. One minute you’re suggesting the right cross instead of the uppercut and the next you’re “very concerned” that the poor boob on the ice has gone from being a 225-pound raging behemoth to an oversized, lumpy area rug - with roughly the same IQ. Basically, you’re what we call a sports voyeur. Admit it.

read on

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Getting Closer To The Truth

by Paul on 03/23/07 at 02:37 PM ET
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from Darren Dreger at TSN,

“Upper body, or lower body” have become the most oft used descriptive terms by team representatives in an effort to elude the prying media.
But, that’s about the change.
NHL general managers agreed to a policy change last month at the GM meetings in Florida and this week a memo has been distributed league-wide, outlining the new initiative to enforce teams be more forthcoming.
Teams are now being told to identify the approximate location, nature and severity of the injury.

read on

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Stuff It, Sir

by George Malik on 03/23/07 at 12:00 PM ET
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By George Malik:

Collie “Keep Your Head Up” Campbell, who applies selective justice with all the deftness and aplomb of Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard, has declared that it’s time to start pondering whether the dangers of fighting outweigh its benefits:

‘‘This year we’ve had two players carried out on stretchers because of fair, consenting fights that had taken place. . . . It scares you,’’ said Campbell.
‘‘I think we, the players and the managers, have to look at this aspect of the game.’‘

Continue Reading »

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Are The Right People Watching

by Paul on 03/22/07 at 11:16 PM ET
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from Stephen Brunt of the Globe and Mail,

A conspiracy theorist, presented with the NHL’s struggles to find an audience, with the pro-fighting sentiments that came out of the last general managers meetings, with a February in which fighting was way up and a March in which it will be the same, would put it all together and deduce there must be some master plan at work — that the league’s brain trust has actively or tacitly amped up the violence in a desperate attempt to get face time.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt: probably not.
But still, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and company have a decision to make right now. They’ve reached a watershed point.

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