Kukla's Korner

Time For The Blackhawks To Get Serious

Blog: KK Hockey By Paul

05/18/13 at 05:57 PM ET | Comments (9)

from Jesse Rogers of ESPN Chicago,

No one move will make the difference, it’s a cumulative effect, but now that the Wings have proved they can play with the Hawks it’s time for the favorite to get serious. Speed and chaos – as seen in Game 1 -- is called for and the Hawks have been able to accomplish that at Joe Louis Arena lately as much as any team in the league. But Detroit has been decent enough in Chicago over the years too. They were again on Saturday. 

“They had the puck a lot tonight,” Kane said. “Took a page out of our game. I felt like we were chasing the puck all the time.” 

That was Detroit’s game before it was the Hawks’. The Wings never stopped playing that way, they simply haven’t been as good at it over the last few years. Saturday showed they can still bring it, if their seven-game series win over the Ducks didn’t.

more with some suggested changes...

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NHL Fines The San Jose Sharks $100K

Blog: KK Hockey By Paul

05/18/13 at 05:51 PM ET | Comments (5)

NEW YORK (MAY 18, 2013) -- The San Jose Sharks have been fined $100,000 for public comments by General Manager Doug Wilson pertaining to the suspension of Sharks forward Raffi Torres, the National Hockey League announced today.

The fine was issued for violation of League Rules that prohibit formal team statements to the media during the 48-hour period following a disciplinary decision. The Rule calls for an automatic fine of $25,000. The Sharks were fined an additional $75,000 under Article 6 of the League's Constitution due to the inappropriate nature of the comments.

On January 17, 2013 a memorandum was issued to all Clubs regarding Disciplinary Procedures for the 2012-13 season. Following is the excerpt from the memorandum dealing with 'Prohibited Communications':

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Blackhawks’ Joathan Toews irked by Red Wings’ physical play

Blog: The Malik Report By George Malik

05/18/13 at 05:21 PM ET | Comments (39)

The Detroit Red Wings elevated just about every aspect of their game during their 4-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday, but while Henrik Zetterberg told the Chicago Sun-Times' Mark Lazerus that his somewhat personal battle with Jonathan Toews (and more than a few Blackhawks who tried to take the heads off of Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Valtteri Filppula, among others) was just the way things go come playoff time...

“It’s part of playoffs,” said Zetterberg, who pointed out that the Hawks had control of who matched up against whom, not the Red Wings. “I think he plays better when it’s a little physical and I think I play better when it’s a little more physical. So there’s a lot of give and take.”

Toews complained loudly about the officiating, or the perceived lack thereof:

“I’m not going to go off and complain about some calls that I thought should have been called or whatever,” Toews said, before essentially doing just that. “If that’s the way they’re going to play, we need to play the same way. There’s a lot of clutch and grab, a lot of interference, and if [the refs] are going to let that go, that’s something we need to know and maybe do to them a little bit. It’s just tough to understand sometimes why we get roughing penalties and hooking penalties, whatever it is, [and] doesn’t go both ways. It is what it is. If that’s the way it’s going to be, we need to understand that and play more physical and be tougher on them. We’ll know that going into the next one.”

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Switzerland Beats USA In World Championship Semi-Final Game

Blog: KK Hockey By Paul

05/18/13 at 04:12 PM ET | Comments (0)

from John Sanful of IIHF.com,

They did it. In a semi-final game featuring two teams challenging history, Switzerland defeated Team USA 3-0 to advance forward to their first opportunity for gold since 1935.

Whatever the outcome in the final game against Sweden will be, it will be the first World Championship medal for the Swiss in exactly 60 years.

Nino Niederreiter’s second period goal and Reto Berra’s 29 saves led the Swiss side to its ninth consecutive win in this tournament. Switzerland remains unbeaten at the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship.

continued

Watch highlights of the game below...

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Filed in: Non-NHL Hockey, International Hockey, | KK Hockey | Permalink
  Tags: team+switzerland, team+usa

Red Wings-Blackhawks Game 2 quick take: no handshake line as Wings assert selves

Blog: The Malik Report By George Malik

05/18/13 at 03:57 PM ET | Comments (33)

Updated 3x at 4:50 PM: The Detroit Red Wings just turned the table on the Chicago Blackhawks, who were supposed to absolutely steamroll the Wings, delivering a puck possession clinic of their own in a 4-1 victory that evens the series 1-1 and at least ensures a fifth game.

From start to finish...Well, save the first shift of every period...The Wings played at least solid hockey, and after the inevitable Brendan Smith gaffe yielding a Chicago goal, the Wings rebounded with hard work, effort, attention to detail, silky smooth tranistion game passes from defensemen to forwards skating with speed through the neutral zone, and instead of trading chances with the Hawks, the Wings slowly but surely abandoned the one-and-surrender-one tendencies to begin to absolutely pound the snot out of the Hawks in terms of possession, control, "zone time," slot penetration and anything else you'd like to describe as a metric of a strong team and individual game.

Yes, yes, it was Brendan Smith again, with a doofy gaffe that yielded a Patrick Kane goal 14:05 in, negating a strong and stronger start, and the Wings were unable to cash in on double minors to David Bolland (in fact, the Wings have yet to dent the Hawks' 4 penalties), but one could also argue that Smith was rather deftly tripped by Patrick Sharp, and Kyle Quincey's block of Michal Handzus' shot placed the puck on Patrick Kane's stick.

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Afternoon Line

Blog: KK Hockey By Paul

05/18/13 at 03:47 PM ET | Comments (0)

Filed in: NHL Teams, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, | KK Hockey | Permalink
 

NHL Award Nominees Announced

Blog: The Puck Stops Here By PuckStopsHere

05/18/13 at 01:44 PM ET | Comments (2)

Over the last couple of weeks the NHL has announced the nominees for the year end awards.  Earlier I posted the people that I would vote for if I had an award ballot.  That is not my predictions about who will get nominated, but rather who I think is deserving.  Now that we have seen the nominees, I want to comment upon who I think should win the award and what the nominations mean.  Given our shortened season, there has been less time for players to distinguish themselves as likely award winners, so I think some of these award races are more uncertain than they usually are.

Calder Trophy - Brendan Gallagher Montreal Canadiens, Jonathan Huberdeau Florida Panthers, Brandon Saad Chicago Blackhawks.  The only nominee of this bunch I would have voted for was Huberdeau and I think he will win it.  While there are narratives that lead to all three winning, I don't buy into the cases for Gallagher and Saad.  Gallagher is a very hard working player in a big market in Montreal.  This makes him a popular player but he cannot do the things that Nail Yakupov does easily and makes look effortless (and sometimes makes it look like he isn't trying even when he succeeds).  Yakupov also outscored Gallagher in a lower scoring conference (which was effectively a different league given no cross-over games).  I think he would have been a better nominee.  Saad is given a lot of credit for cracking a tough Chicago Blackhawk lineup and getting some first line minutes.  What is rarely mentioned is how Chicago was in need of a first line left winger and he got auditioned along with some other players and given Chicago's talent none looked out of place.  This shows he is an NHL player, but also one who is benefiting from the circumstances in which he plays.  I think Jonas Brodin was a better nominee as he played a much bigger role in Minnesota with much more icetime than Saad.  He was a far more important player to Minnesota than Saad has been in Chicago.

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Red Wings-Blackhawks Game 2 game-day updates: no changes for Chicago, Miller likely in for Detroit

Blog: The Malik Report By George Malik

05/18/13 at 12:06 PM ET | Comments (3)

Updated with AHL news at 12:19 PM: The Detroit Red Wings hope to right their ship by bouncing back from Game 1's third-period meltdown today as they face the Chicago Blackhawks in a matinee affair (1 PM EDT, NBC/CBC/97.1/post-game on WDIV and FSD), and there's little news on the player personnel front save the Chicago Tribune's Brian Hamilton, NHL.com, the Chicago Sun-Times' Mark Lazerus, ESPN Chicago's Scott Powers, Comcast Sportsnet Chicago's Tracey Myers and probably seven or eight other Chicago sources stating that Michal Handzus (back) will play for Chicago today, but Viktor Stalberg (healthy scratch) will not...

So enjoy Ken Kal's game-day preview from the Wings' website. It features Drew Miller, who may or may not play today, depending on whether coach Mike Babcock believes he's ready to go based upon his play in warm-ups...

And it's a day late, but Wings coach Mike Babcock's colorful and somewhat combative Friday afternoon presser should put you in the mood for hockey:

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No Surgery Required For Eric Staal

Blog: KK Hockey By Paul

05/18/13 at 11:13 AM ET | Comments (0)

RALEIGH, NC – Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on team captain Eric Staal’s right knee revealed a third-degree sprain of the medial collateral ligament (MCL). Surgery will not be required to repair the ligament, and Staal’s rehabilitation should last three months. It is expected that he will be healthy and ready to play to start the 2013-14 season.

Staal, 28, was injured when he took a knee-on-knee hit from defenseman Alexander Edler in the first period of Canada’s quarterfinal game at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championships on Thursday in Stockholm, Sweden. Edler received a five-minute major kneeing penalty and a game misconduct by the game’s officials. On Friday, the IIHF Independent Disciplinary Panel determined that Edler should have received a match penalty as a result of the play and suspended him for the remainder of the tournament.

Filed in: NHL Teams, Carolina Hurricanes, | KK Hockey | Permalink
  Tags: eric+staal

Two Western Conference Games Today

Blog: KK Hockey By Paul

05/18/13 at 11:05 AM ET | Comments (0)

The Red Wings will try to even the series at 1-1 with the Blackhawks while the Sharks need a win or else they will go down 0-3 to the Kings.

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