NHL 2010-2011: Rick Rypien

Dysplastic wrote:

Paleo & other DC area hockey fans - I will be in DC the weekend of January 13th and would LOVE to go to the Jan 14 game against the Canucks. Anyone interested?

I might be convinced. Contact KrazyTaco and Mixolyde. They are huge hockey fans.

Both Canucks games have been boring as hell. I think I fell asleep in the 2-1 win over Florida. Luongo has looked fantastic though. Ballard and Hamhuis have looked great. Perfect fit. Even Alberts is doing great in his role. The offense just needs to get its head out of the sand. Sedins are gliding through yet still producing. I'd like to see a little more finish from them.

This commercial is so weird, I can't help but laugh:

Vector wrote:

Both Canucks games have been boring as hell. I think I fell asleep in the 2-1 win over Florida. Luongo has looked fantastic though. Ballard and Hamhuis have looked great. Perfect fit. Even Alberts is doing great in his role. The offense just needs to get its head out of the sand. Sedins are gliding through yet still producing. I'd like to see a little more finish from them.

Raymond too. Luongo's looking fantastic, maybe he won't need his usual month-long wake-up this season. But yeah, the offense is a little slow to start, even if three goals total is good enough for three points. Early days though, but I'm still missing Burrows.

After watching the game I've determined that Burrows is desparately needed. The dude just brings it every game. Put him on any line and they get going.

Looks like the Pens are in for another year of scoring 3-4 goals minimum to get a win due to the Fleury factor. At one point in the second period the Leafs had 3 shots on goal, 3 goals, and rang a post. The Pens can not possibly compete for another cup with that guy in net. Sure, we'll probably continue to make the playoff despite his efforts to make Swiss cheese look like a viable NHL goalie.

Regarding that Ovi commercial, all I can say is the only thing creepier than that commercial is how often FOX Sports Pittsburgh runs it. I think it was averaging 1-2 plays PER COMMERCIAL BREAK!

El_Duder wrote:

Looks like the Pens are in for another year of scoring 3-4 goals minimum to get a win due to the Fleury factor. At one point in the second period the Leafs had 3 shots on goal, 3 goals, and rang a post. The Pens can not possibly compete for another cup with that guy in net. Sure, we'll probably continue to make the playoff despite his efforts to make Swiss cheese look like a viable NHL goalie.

Regarding that Ovi commercial, all I can say is the only thing creepier than that commercial is how often FOX Sports Pittsburgh runs it. I think it was averaging 1-2 plays PER COMMERCIAL BREAK!

The Penguins dominated play for long stretches of time but Toronto still came away with the win - happy to see them win an ugly one. Gustavsson made some key saves that were nice to see. The effectiveness of the second line of MacArthur-Grabovski-Kulemin is very positive. The Leafs were fortunate too: you can't count on the fourth line to score like they have.

Still, all in all I'm happy. They talked a lot about getting a good start and they're doing that. Now I'm just getting nervous like I'm waiting for the axe to fall. I know this team isn't that good. They're not, right? Success right now is because everybody on the team is competing extremely hard and outworking the opponent. It's my favourite kind of hockey to watch, but all it takes is some complacency and things start to fall apart.

A strong season start usually doesn't mean that much, but I wouldn't worry yet. Eventually, the team will slump and being able to work out of that is your best indication of how good they are. Remember, after years in the doldrums, the Leafs aren't shooting for top of the conference, making the playoffs would be great and it's looking like they have the tools to do that this year.

On the other side of the country, the Canucks had a hard loss to take. Chances and calls just not going their way and losing 3-4 to Anaheim. It had some exciting stretches to watch but was so so frustrating. On the other side, the Perry/Getzlaf/Ryan fan is me is glad to see those talented guys finally getting something going.

It was nice to see the Pens powerplay show some signs of life yesterday against the Flyers. Of course it's always nice to see a solid route of those bums. Johnson's been playing really well and I think it's given the team some motivation to get out there and work a little harder. Last year I saw a few games where Fleury would let in a soft goal and the look on the faces of the guys was just demoralizing. I don't expect Johnson to be playing a majority of the season, but I think Fleury has some major flaws that have not shown any sign of improvement in the past couple years. I think the Pens management might be starting to look at Fleury in a different light.

I watched the Oilers/Flames game yesterday as well. I figured that was a pretty good rivalry, even if both teams have been in a bit of a funk the past few years. It was a pretty entertaining game but man do I wish the refs would just put the damn whistle away sometimes. There were some pretty petty calls made in that game that just brought the pace to a crawl at some points. I think Oilers fans have a lot to be excited about given the abundance of youth on their team.

hehehe i found this thread!!

"GOOoOOo Caps!!"

=P

Hi five to Caps fans.

Until you play Detroit.

PS-
It's about time the hammer comes down. I suggested 5 games for the Doan hit, since it could be in the video the NHL sent out about illegal head-shots. It was the text-book "what not to do". 3 games seems fair.

The example has been set. Lets hope the NHL decides to be at least a little consistent with this.

Wow... glad I caught Sunday's game and am at work missing this one. Luongo is back on Craigslist already.

Edit: Well the good news is that Daniel Sedin is still on pace for an 82 goal season. Make it happen!

You didn't miss much. It was Sportsnet One so I had to head out to a bar for it. There, I was treated to to a 6-2 shellacking by the Wild. The Wild. Whaaf*ck? Consolation prize - I'm now really drunk.

Doug wrote:

You didn't miss much. It was Sportsnet One so I had to head out to a bar for it. There, I was treated to to a 6-2 shellacking by the Wild. The Wild. Whaaf*ck? Consolation prize - I'm now really drunk.

Anyone with Shaw or Telus HD go a free preview. It sucked so much. I ended up doing homework midway through the second period. My roommate offered to write one of my essays.

The Chicago game looked better. Missed most of it. I'm almost at the point where Schneider should play in shootouts.

Having no faith in Lu, I haven't watched a shoot-out in close to 2 years. After the third, I usually turn it off and check the outcome later in the evening. Sports highlights are the best way to watch shoot-outs, anyways.

Vector wrote:
Doug wrote:

You didn't miss much. It was Sportsnet One so I had to head out to a bar for it. There, I was treated to to a 6-2 shellacking by the Wild. The Wild. Whaaf*ck? Consolation prize - I'm now really drunk.

Anyone with Shaw or Telus HD go a free preview. It sucked so much. I ended up doing homework midway through the second period. My roommate offered to write one of my essays.

The Chicago game looked better. Missed most of it. I'm almost at the point where Schneider should play in shootouts.

I don't know what game you guys were watching cause that game was awesome.

It's almost funny how fast the hype turns around for the Leafs. The last two games were not good efforts and the press now seems suddenly aware that this a team that has a long way to go yet. If they're quick to hype the Leafs up, they're equally fast tearing them down.

It makes me think about how you hear good athletes always trying to stay even keel, not to high not to low, emotionally, how much harder that must be in Toronto when you have reporters (super excited or super depressed) talking to you everyday.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Vector wrote:
Doug wrote:

You didn't miss much. It was Sportsnet One so I had to head out to a bar for it. There, I was treated to to a 6-2 shellacking by the Wild. The Wild. Whaaf*ck? Consolation prize - I'm now really drunk.

Anyone with Shaw or Telus HD go a free preview. It sucked so much. I ended up doing homework midway through the second period. My roommate offered to write one of my essays.

The Chicago game looked better. Missed most of it. I'm almost at the point where Schneider should play in shootouts.

I don't know what game you guys were watching cause that game was awesome.

I prefer last Friday's game. Much better score.

Top 10 / Bottom 5 attendance numbers in the league so far (via CBC). Percentages in brackets.

1. Montreal 21,273 (100)
2. Chicago 21,149 (107.3)
3. Philadelphia 19,464 (99.8)
4. Detroit 19,379 (96.6)
5. Toronto 19,299 (102.7)
6. Calgary 19,289 (100)
7. St. Louis 19,150 (100)
8. Vancouver 18,860 (100.3)
9. Ottawa 18,640 (100.8)
10. Washington 18,398 (100)

26. New Jersey 14,002 (79.4)
27. NY Islanders 11,742 (72.1)
28. Columbus 12,963 (71.5)
29. Atlanta 11,184 (60.3)
30. Phoenix 10,673 (61)

As Wharnsby says, usually early in the season non-hockey market teams have lower numbers, but that is still a lot of Canadian teams in the top 10. Only the Oilers aren't in there, and they are apparently at 100% capacity in their building.

but that is still a lot of Canadian teams in the top 10.

Well, of course. You can add another 10 000 seats to the stadiums of the Leafs and maybe the Canucks and they would still sell out.

On the other hand I am glad to see Detroit selling out; I heard they were having problems. Any mention of how many of those are corporate sales (i.e seats that are unnecessarily empty half the time...).

And Phoenix... Ah, Phoenix. Bettman, suck it up and move them already.

Nice to see the Blues attendance doing well. They desperately need a sugar daddy to invest in the team.

Folks are starting to get excited as the Blues are popping up pretty high on some power rankings. Of course, so are Detroit, Nashville, and Chicago. What a tough division this has turned out to be.

Doug wrote:
but that is still a lot of Canadian teams in the top 10.

Well, of course. You can add another 10 000 seats to the stadiums of the Leafs and maybe the Canucks and they would still sell out.

On the other hand I am glad to see Detroit selling out; I heard they were having problems. Any mention of how many of those are corporate sales (i.e seats that are unnecessarily empty half the time...).

And Phoenix... Ah, Phoenix. Bettman, suck it up and move them already.

not sure if Detroit is actually 'selling out'.

One of my pet peeves is they go by tickets sold for attendance not tickets scanned and asses actually in seats. Been to one Sens game this year and the announced attendance was not the actual. Sure the teams might still be doing ok money wise but I think atmosphere wise the NHL is hurting allot. Was watching Nashville in TB last night and it was like they were playing infront of a ghost town. Also saw an article where Phoenix had around 6,600 for a home game recently.... brutal.

nihilo wrote:

As Wharnsby says, usually early in the season non-hockey market teams have lower numbers, but that is still a lot of Canadian teams in the top 10. Only the Oilers aren't in there, and they are apparently at 100% capacity in their building.

Yeah, the Oilers could easily be top 5 with a modern arena - their capacity is something like 16.5K, and it's always 100% full Hopefully the new arena proposal goes through.

I also heard that the Hurricanes got to play all their October games away to fight low attendance in October? That strikes me as really wierd, and indicative of a substantial problem.

Dysplastic wrote:

I also heard that the Hurricanes got to play all their October games away to fight low attendance in October? That strikes me as really wierd, and indicative of a substantial problem.

Or there's a state fair that occurs at that timeframe every year across the street from the RBC Center.

Blues beat Nashville down by a score of 3-0 and get that monkey off their back. They had lost five straight games to them by one goal apiece. Going to Nashville and dominating them tonight was pretty sweet. The Halak trade is paying some pretty large dividends as he stopped two break-aways in the first that could have turned the game.

This is the team I thought I would see last season. I'm glad they stuck with the kids after last year's disappointing season. That is also paying some nice dividends.

The Blues get their first road win, hand Nashville their first regulation loss, and have made a pretty strong statement about how ready they are to compete this season. Now if EA could just drop those damn rosters, I'm itching to get my NHL 11 season started!

Ever wish your team had more than one player who can score? Or maybe a power play unit that could score? Or maybe just the ability to score a goal?

sigh...

Lundqvist and Thomas played well these last two games, but the Leafs made it far too easy on them too.

Sorry about that 5-1 loss, Jayhawker.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Sorry about that 5-1 loss, Jayhawker.

No worries, since I am a Blues fan. Mclement had a hat trick, and then Oshie and Boyes buried goals in the shootout to beat Atlanta 4-3. Definitely a closer game than fans had been hoping for, but two points is two points.

How does shootouts affect player stats. Oshie had a seven game point streak. Is that gone even though he scored in the shootout?

Jayhawker wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Sorry about that 5-1 loss, Jayhawker.

No worries, since I am a Blues fan.

Misread "Blue Jackets" as "Blues." Congrats on the win!