Kukla's Korner Hockey

Jimmy Fallon pokes fun at Penguins and Bruins’ head-shots

by George Malik on 04/22/14 at 11:56 PM ET
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George here on the late shift...As I attempt to pen a little recap of a disheartening Wings loss, I at least got to see Jimmy Fallon make fun of NHL players' head-shots, playing a high-school-style "Most Likely to Be Voted to..." game:

Pittsburgh's Beau Bennett, Simon Despres and Matt Niskanen and Boston's Brad Marchand, Dougie Hamilton and Zdeno Chara all received jeers.

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Video- Coach’s Corner Tonight

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 08:43 PM ET
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Don Cherry and Ron MacLean discussed the first period of the Tampa/Montreal game and a few other topics including Cherry's view of the Matt Cooke hit last night.

 

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All Gary Bettman

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 08:18 PM ET
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Gary Bettman is in Philadelphia tonight for the Rangers/Flyers game and did a Q & A with the media...

from Randy Miller of NJ.com,

• On whether he likes shootouts:

Bettman: “I like the shootout in the way we use it. I wouldn’t like the shootout in the playoffs, and the fact is I like the shootout better than ending a game in a tie. And so the issue is can we tweak overtime so maybe there are slightly fewer shootouts? But the fact is, no matter what your opinion is – from the media or hockey person or fan – watch the buildings when the shootouts are going on. Everybody is on their feet. Everybody is interested. Everybody is watching. When games were ending in ties, that wasn’t so much the case in overtime. ... Nobody is looking for a fundamental adjustment. We’re looking more for a tweak to see if maybe we can get a few more games decided in overtime, but the shootout is a concept that’s here to stay."

• On the salary cap going up next season from $64.3 million this season:

Bettman: “The system is designed to deal with fluctuations in the Canadian dollar because hockey related revenues, which is used to compute the salary cap, is done in US dollars. So if the Canadian dollar goes down, the cap isn’t as high. Don’t hold me to this, we’re somewhere in the $69 million to $70 million as a guess. We’re don’t have all the data. We don’t have all of the reports from the clubs yet. That would be a wild guess. It’s a ballpark guess.”

more

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  Tags: gary+bettman

Open Post- Get On The Edge Of Your Seat And Watch 5 1/2 Hours Of Playoff Hockey Tonight

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 06:40 PM ET
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Tonight Tampa Bay must produce a win in Montreal or else they can start making tee times tomorrow.

Big game in Detroit with the Wings trying to bounce back from an ugly loss in Boston.

The Rangers and Flyers are tied 1-1 in the series and now Philadelphia has home ice for the next two games.

Biggest question for the late game is can the LA Kings slow down the San Jose Sharks' offense and score one more goal to get back in the series.

 

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All About Matt Cooke

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 04:22 PM ET
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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

In hockey parlance, Cooke’s wires crossed. He was late on the hit, and refused to abandon it. This wasn’t one of those plays where a defenceman is the last man back, and either he takes the puck carrier down or it’s a breakaway. There were three, perhaps four Wild teammates between the puck and the goal, but give the industrious Cooke credit here. He still likes to finish what he starts.

Barrie, the kind of player who actually sells tickets in the National Hockey League, is on the shelf for some period of time. (We won’t believe the Avalanche time line during a playoff series, any more than we’ll buy whatever defence Cooke brings to NHL disciplinarian Stephane Quintal’s office.) And, of course, the NHL Players’ Association will send out a representative or two in defence of Cooke, when what they should be doing is acting on behalf of Barrie and the other 885 union members and hide Cooke’s skates for good.

Of course, we’ve written that before too. It never really changes, does it?

Why should it? Matt Cooke never does.

more

Adrian Dater of All Thins Avs turns this incident into more about himself, than Cooke...

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  Tags: matt+cooke

Watching The NBC Sports Group

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 02:20 PM ET
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STAMFORD, Conn. – April 22, 2014 – On the strength of a new playoff format that has emphasized divisional rivalries in the first round, NBC Sports Group’s coverage of the first five days of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs has generated significant viewership and consumption increases for its coverage across NBC, NBCSN, CNBC and NBC Sports Live Extra, the live streaming product for NBC Sports Group.

Interest in this year’s postseason has been bolstered by:

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  Tags: nbc+sports+group

Will The Kings Make A Comeback?

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 02:10 PM ET
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from Rich Hammond of the Los Angeles Register,

Are the Kings finished, or merely setting up a blockbuster Hollywood sequel?

Losing consecutive playoff games by an aggregate score of 13-5 doesn’t lend itself to many positives, but there is one for the Kings: They were in this exact same hole 12 months ago, then leapt out of it.

Last year, the Kings returned from St. Louis down 2-0 in their first-round series, then won four consecutive games and advanced. Now, after two shockingly poor efforts, the Kings trail San Jose 2-0 in this first-round series, and face a veritable do-or-die Game 3 on Tuesday night at Staples Center.

“We’ll play better (in Game 3),” Coach Darryl Sutter said Monday afternoon, after fewer than half the Kings skated. “It’s not like there was a death in the family or something.”

continued

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Campbell: Lady Byng finalist Martin St. Louis’ trade demands weren’t ‘gentlemanly’

by George Malik on 04/22/14 at 01:23 PM ET
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The NHL announced that Martin St. Louis is one of the finalists for the Lady Byng Trophy as the league's most gentlemanly player today, but the Hockey News's Ken Campbell summarizes at least the Twitter-using media's reaction to said news:

Martin St-Louis did not get my vote for the Lady Byng, basically because he didn’t deserve it. St-Louis may have had only 10 penalty minutes this season, but he did anything but prove he was worth of the award that goes, “to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe that a player who sulks and whines and demands a trade out of town because he wasn’t originally selected for the Canadian Olympic team “exhibits the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct.” In most corners of the world, we would call a guy who does something like that a big baby.

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  Tags: martin+st.+louis, team+canada

Your Lady Byng Memorial Trophy Finalists

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 11:13 AM ET
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NEW YORK (April 22, 2014) -- Forwards Patrick Marleau of the San Jose Sharks, Ryan O'Reilly of the Colorado Avalanche and Martin St. Louis of the New York Rangers are the three finalists for the 2013-14 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, awarded "to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability," the National Hockey League announced today.

Members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association submitted ballots for the Lady Byng Trophy at the conclusion of the regular season, with the top three vote-getters designated as finalists. The winner will be announced Tuesday, June 24, during the 2014 NHL Awards from Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas. The 2014 NHL Awards will be broadcast by NBCSN in the United States and CBC in Canada.

Following are the finalists for the Lady Byng Trophy, in alphabetical order:

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NHL Short Notes

by Paul on 04/22/14 at 10:57 AM ET
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SPECTACULAR GOAL CAPS WILD OT VICTORY
Mikael Granlund scored his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal in stunning fashion to break a scoreless deadlock 5:08 into overtime and give Minnesota a 1-0 victory over Colorado. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Granlund is only the fifth NHL player in the last 75 years to score his first career playoff goal in a 1–0 overtime game. The other were San Jose’s Andrei Zyuzin (1998), Philadelphia’s Ruslan Fedotenko (2002), San Jose’s Niko Dimitrakos (2004) and Colorado’s Ryan O’Reilly (2010).

* Minnesota rookie Darcy Kuemper (22 saves) registered the first playoff shutout in franchise history and became the first NHL goaltender to record a shutout in his first postseason start since Anaheim's Jonas Hiller blanked San Jose on April 16, 2009. In addition, Kuemper is the first netminder to post the milestone in a 1–0 overtime win since Detroit's Normie Smith in 1936.

* The Wild set playoff franchise records with 22 shots in the first period and 46 overall.

* The Wild and Avalanche went to overtime for the seventh time in their 16 Stanley Cup Playoff meetings, with Minnesota improving to 5-2 in those games. Eleven of their 16 contests have been decided by one goal, including 10 of the past 12.

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