NHL 2012-2013: Tentative deal early Sunday January 6

nihilo wrote:

That win against Carolina last night was badly needed.

That was a rough game. It felt closer than the stats made it look, I was just glad we managed to tie it up. I was certain that as soon as one of us scored, that would be it. At least we got a point.

In other news, what the sh*t is going on?!?

Carolina Hurricanes wrote:

Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that forward Jeff Skinner has been diagnosed with a concussion and is out indefinitely. Rutherford also updated the status of defenseman Joni Pitkanen, who has also been diagnosed with a concussion and is out indefinitely.

And 2 hours after that announcement, Rutherford admitted on the radio that Harrison's injury that's kept him out for weeks was a concussion as well.

Seems like now that they're being more aware/strict about concussions, it's all over the league.

Concussions? In my hockey league? It's apparently way more likely than you think.

The verdict's still out on the severity of these injuries, Bettman says, plus the fans like the hits, so we'll keep going the way we have for now. I mean, that only makes sense, right?

It's not inhumane if they really want to do it, right?

Yeah, you pass Kessel for most points / goals at your own risk. Michalek and Giroux down. Toews had better be careful.

nihilo wrote:

Yeah, you pass Kessel for most points / goals at your own risk. Michalek and Giroux down. Toews had better be careful.

The year of the concussion. Crazy part is how incidental they are this year. Saw the hit Skinner got hurt on and it looked fairly normal hit with no head involved. Michalek and Giroux get conced by their own teammates.

Pronger out for the year now... including playoffs.

Philadelphia traded Richards and Carter because Pronger didn't like them (not the whole story but was part of it) and bet a lot that he'd be healthy this season. Oops.

Note: I hate Chris Pronger and the Flyers.

Habs fire Jacques Martin. I feel somewhat negative about the move but teams not putting much value in coaches isn't a phenomena limited to the Habs.

I'm worried they end up with Crawford/Hartley/Roy as a long-term replacement. I think roster construction and the injury situation has a lot more to do with the Habs' mediocrity lately rather than the coach. As long as they don't get someone disastrous like one of the aforementioned trio things should work out with some ( non-Markov) health, regression, and Kaberle continuing to help the powerplay.

I was at the Jets vs Ducks game tonight. It was unbelievable! It was great seeing Selanne back after 16 years or so. My voice was wrecked after the first 10 minutes of the game. I think Selanne got like 3 standing ovations, including when he came out as the 3rd star of the game, and we chanted his name more times than I can remember! With all that we still found time to cheer our Jets to victory! What game!

It's been so much fun getting back into hockey this year.

Gaald wrote:

I was at the Jets vs Ducks game tonight. It was unbelievable! It was great seeing Selanne back after 16 years or so. My voice was wrecked after the first 10 minutes of the game. I think Selanne got like 3 standing ovations, including when he came out as the 3rd star of the game, and we chanted his name more times than I can remember! With all that we still found time to cheer our Jets to victory! What game!

It's been so much fun getting back into hockey this year.

Wait, Selanne gets standing ovations and Doan got boo'd every time he touched the puck. Is there some backstory here I am unaware of?

Coldtouch wrote:
Gaald wrote:

I was at the Jets vs Ducks game tonight. It was unbelievable! It was great seeing Selanne back after 16 years or so. My voice was wrecked after the first 10 minutes of the game. I think Selanne got like 3 standing ovations, including when he came out as the 3rd star of the game, and we chanted his name more times than I can remember! With all that we still found time to cheer our Jets to victory! What game!

It's been so much fun getting back into hockey this year.

Wait, Selanne gets standing ovations and Doan got boo'd every time he touched the puck. Is there some backstory here I am unaware of?

Way back when, Selanne was lighting it up for Winnipeg and everyone loved him. He and his family were vocal about loving living in Winnipeg (which brought in more love from the city) and Selanne was very upset when he was traded to Anaheim. The city has had a love on for Selanne ever since.

Doan was booed for not being enthusiastic about the idea of the Coyotes returning to Winnipeg. It's not like the guy could come out and say he really hopes they leave the city they're currently in, but fans aren't exactly rational about these things.

Coldtouch wrote:
Gaald wrote:

I was at the Jets vs Ducks game tonight. It was unbelievable! It was great seeing Selanne back after 16 years or so. My voice was wrecked after the first 10 minutes of the game. I think Selanne got like 3 standing ovations, including when he came out as the 3rd star of the game, and we chanted his name more times than I can remember! With all that we still found time to cheer our Jets to victory! What game!

It's been so much fun getting back into hockey this year.

Wait, Selanne gets standing ovations and Doan got boo'd every time he touched the puck. Is there some backstory here I am unaware of?

That's pretty easy. The crowd here basically picks a guy, or two, on the opposing team to boo (usually the best guy/s on the team) just to try and throw them off their game. We also try to throw off the opposing goalie by chanting his name as often as possible in a jeering drawn out sort of way. It's fun, and keeps the whole arena engaged. That's part of the reason teams are starting to say Winnipeg is a tough arena to play. It's hard to take the crowd out of the game, and it gets super loud in the arena.

So why Doan specifically and not Teemu? Well it's a bit of a story.

When it looked like Pheonix was just about to be sold back to Winnipeg earlier this year, Doan said that he would not make the move back to Winnipeg. That pissed a lot of people off, although later he explained himself. Obviously he has been in Pheonix for a long time and his family is all set up there, it's home now. He felt like it wouldn't be fair to leave his family for such long stretches in order to stay with the team, and it wouldn't be fair to move his family this late in his career. Still the damage was done, and it made it easy for us to pick on him during the game. What you didn't see or hear was during one of the commercial breaks they did a little welcome back thing for him (just like they did with Selanne) and everyone cheered for him.

So than there is Teemu. Why didn't we boo him? You need a little bit of background first. The people of Winnipeg have always felt like our team was stolen from us. The decision to move was never because of fan support. It was all about money. The owners of the Jets back than were getting screwed big time. The Canadian dollar was weak, player salaries were going through the roof, but most importantly the team owners didn't own the arena they played in, and couldn't get a deal struck to build a new one. To top it all off the arena was getting really old and the company that owned it knew that, so they were trying to soak as much money from it as possible, and it put the Jets in a really bad spot. So the team got sold in December of 1995, but they couldn't move right away obviously, so they played the remainder of the season in Winnipeg before going to Phoenix the next year. Which brings us back to Teemu Selanne. He was a fan favorite, he had a stellar rookie season and was exciting to watch. He was the most beloved player on the team since Dale Hawerchuck or Bobby Hull. Everyone loved Teemu, and than out of the blue the f*ckers from Pheonix traded Teemu away, and to top it all off they did it just before a road trip! So the fans never got to say goodbye to him, not to mention the fact we never wanted to say goodbye to him!

So you could imagine after 16 years of frustration, and anger, and disappointment, we finally got to see our favorite player again in person. It was amazing, and we cheered him as much as we could and booed the rest of his team as much as we could, and called out their goalie as much as we could. The only way it could have been better was if Teemu had been playing as a Jet!

One of my friends has a funny wish/theory/plan that I am sure will never pan out, as does he. Anehiem is not doing well and wouldn't it be great if they were eliminated from playoff contention before the trade deadline. Wouldn't it be great if the Jets were looking good to make the playoffs as well? Maybe Selanne will ask Anahiem to let him go so that Selanne could come back to Winnipeg to finish his last season in the city where his NHL career started, and help Winnipeg make a playoff run! It would be the next miracle on ice!

That makes a lot of sense. I didn't really start following hockey all that much until we got a team, so I don't know much about the Jets past.

I should also point out I hate the 4 conference idea when it comes to playoffs! This what was in place when the Jets were last in the NHL, and we were constantly screwed by it. The conference we were in was the toughest conference by far in all of the NHL and when we made the playoffs were were always playing the top teams in the first rounds. Meanwhile weaker teams in other conferences ended up playing even weaker opponents!

I have no problem with 4 conferences and the way they divide the season up, but when it comes to playoffs they should take the top 8 teams from both divisions (2 conferences make each division) and have those 8 battle it out until you are down to 1 from each division and than those two teams play for the Stanley cup! It would help prevent all the problems of the past, and still allow for those great rivalries the league is desperate to regain.

I should point out in order for it to work you would need to move Chicago to conference C so that both divisions would have 15 teams.

Detroit would be the much better candidate to move than Chicago, but it won't happen. Detroit in Central is something Bettman wanted - and the rest of the teams in the Central did too.

The current playoff format is how it is because it was needed to get it past the board of governors. First round will have more rivalry playoff matchups in this system, which is a plus. Also it's less travel in the first round (absolutely essential for central - eastern cities like Detroit, who felt that first round matchups against west coast teams were killing them). And it's not like the strongest teams are at a disadvantage for winning it all.. if they get through their strong division they'll be set to make their cup run.

The biggest criticism is what you say - it won't be as balanced with who makes it into the playoffs. Divisions will be strong or weak and good teams will be stuck against good in early rounds and weak vs weak. It'd be cool if a 5th place team in a strong division who had more points than the 4th place team in a weak division had some way to do a best of 3 or something for the playoff spot, but that won't happen.

On the upside, the Leafs are in a weak division (at the moment), so I think it increases their chances of getting in.

http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/con...

Cam Janssen misses his hit and flies into his own bench. He's unable to get out, so his teammates decide to call it a line change.

Man the Jets really need to improve their 4 on 4 play and they most certainly need to work on their shoot outs!

Vancouver is finally starting to play like an actual NHL hockey team, which is nice. The downside is that we seem to be averaging 1 powerplay per game. Don't know what to make of that, but I do have some disparaging opinions about the league's reffing policies.

Looks like Randy Cunneyworth has mistaken "bilingualism" for "coaching like Mario Tremblay". Healthy scratching Subban (your #1 dman who, with Gorges has been holding the defense together) and your 2nd-best two-way centre are inexcusable moves. Should be an easy two points for Winnipeg (especially since they're already up 1-0).

A friend of mine is at the game tonight. Luckily for him he didn't pay for the ticket.

Roke wrote:

Looks like Randy Cunneyworth has mistaken "bilingualism" for "coaching like Mario Tremblay". Healthy scratching Subban (your #1 dman who, with Gorges has been holding the defense together) and your 2nd-best two-way centre are inexcusable moves. Should be an easy two points for Winnipeg (especially since they're already up 1-0).

A friend of mine is at the game tonight. Luckily for him he didn't pay for the ticket.

A friend of mine is also at the game tonight, and thankfully it's 2-0 for the Winnipeg Jets.

Montreal just doesn't look like they are in the game.

Gaald wrote:

A friend of mine is also at the game tonight, and thankfully it's 2-0 for the Winnipeg Jets.

Montreal just doesn't look like they are in the game.

They've been terrible (league-basement terrible) since November 23rd when Gomez got injured and then Gionta also getting injured hasn't helped. Firing the coach looks to be a horrible decision, with the interim guy scratching good players and overplaying grinders.

Going into the season I was optimistic and the Habs carried the play really well up until mid-November when the injuries finally caught up to them. Before Martin was fired I thought they still had a decent shot of making the playoffs if they could get some health. When Martin was fired my confidence in the General Manager was shaken a bit. Now that Cunneyworth has turned out to be a disaster of a coach I'm worried Pierre Gauthier is going to make panic moves and set the team back five years.

What Montreal now needs to do is what Philadelphia did the one bad year they had post-lockout. Dump expiring contracts for future assets, tank for the rest of the season, and then give it another go. The core of the team is pretty good but the injuries and now the panic have just obliterated them this year.

The good news is I've gotten back into Civ4 though, so there is a positive in all this.

The way you build good hockey franchises is with proper player development. If the team isn't winning, don't fire the head coach; fire your scouts and maybe some AHL affiliate staff.

4xis.black wrote:

The way you build good hockey franchises is with proper player development. If the team isn't winning, don't fire the head coach; fire your scouts and maybe some AHL affiliate staff.

It's not always as simple as that. It could be any number of things, including player dev, coaching, the GM, team cohesion. It can be complicated and sometime impossible to figure out from the outside looking in.

It's never simple.

I don't think the Habs have been built very well. They are a good team but there isn't anything extremely promising in the pipeline while the big producers aren't big producers (Gionta, Cammalleri, Plekanec, and Kostitsyn).

Ugly, ugly game for the Jets tonight. Although there were several blown calls by the refs. For example, with no one near the net except for Fleury, it gets knocked off it's position just as we are about to fire the puck at his net from the hash marks. No call! A Pittsburgh player grabs one of our guys and slue foots him into the board taking them both down, and again no call! It didn't help that the Jets players seem to want every goal to be a highlight reel goal instead of just putting the puck on the net and grabbing rebounds!

There are no missed calls; only seized opportunities for world class playoff hockey!

Cross-posted from the videos thread:

You may not always agree with him, but at least he speaks his mind, and isn't afraid to admit when he feels he was wrong. I met him person on the set of the Don Cherry story. It was pretty damn cool.

Get ready to get your work stoppage on.

RDS reporter Renaud Lavoie tweeting that the NHL isn't moving forward with the divisional re-alignment because the NHLPA has rejected it.

Tweets: here, here, here, and here.

Quote from Bill Daly:

We believe the Union acted unreasonably in violation of the League’s rights ...We intend to evaluate all of our available legal options and topursue adequate remedies, as appropriate.

I agree with the NHLPA because I don't like the re-alignment.

But if the NHL and NHLPA is stupid enough to have another work stoppage I hope no one ever watches again.