Corruption in the NHL

Refs are biased in PHI's favor in tonight's Sabres game. There have been allegations of corruption for years. They must be investigated and the referees who rig the games need to be held accountable.

Boxscore notes, Feb 24, 2008

1) I'm glad to have Selanne! Five point night!

2) Panthers were slain by the Rangers. Is Jokinen really going to go?

3) J. Williams in action for Chicago, did well. Will he return to his point per game form?

4) How will Detroit survive the injuries to its top three defensemen?

5) Paul Martin is underrated. Oduya is improving fast.

6) What happened to Paul Stastny tonight? Was he a healthy scratch?

Boxscore notes, Feb 22, 2008

Sens top line fails to score -- second line, with Stillman on it, comes through. Why was Foote tossed at the end of the game? Vyborny might be available in CLB, but Federov and Zherdev should not be traded.

Tampa Bay shut out, third time this year -- second time by the Islanders.

Atlanta's still Kovalchuk, Hossa, and Kozlov -- and Recchi. Where's Enstrom?

Cullen's getting the ice time -- has he really recovered? He's not scoring. Staal stepping up nicely in place of Brind'Amour.

Cheechoo scores again, and so does Knuble -- and I bench Nabokov in his first win in a while.

Pittsburgh and Montreal -- would be a great postseason series.

STL 1 LA 5, full of surprises, such as the emergence of O'Sullivan, long touted. But the biggest surprise is one win for Cloutier. Don't add him to your fantasy team just yet.

Who is Willie Mitchell?

While preditable goal scorers like Dumont and Jagr and Kovalev made their mark tonight, some surprises hit the net as well.

In ice time, Willie Mitchell notched 27 minutes, ahead of Sami Salo and M. Ohlund.

For the Senators, Vermette had a goal, and assist, and another goal in the shootout.

Ryan Malone, a rising star, got two of PIT's three third period goals.

Speaking of comebacks -- MON came from 5-0 down to win it in overtime. Of course, it was against the flameout team, the Rangers, for whom a big lead is bad news.

In Toronto, a bunch of promising kids got the points, tho Sundin had one. Maybe the team could survive trading him and Blake? Coliacovo (second goal of the season) had more ice time than Blake.

More violence

The NHL claims to be selling players like Crosby, Ovechkin, and Thornton -- but they really seem to be selling Downie, Hollweg, and Laperriere.

The Laperriere hit on Lidstrom was clean . . . but I still did not enjoy seeing it.

The hit to the face of Filpula, on the other hand, was not.

Both plays were Intent To Injure and deserved five minutes.

Pacific Divison

While everyone's complaining about the weakness of the Southeast Division, I'd like to point out that the Pacific Division has astonishing strength.

Want to fix the problems? Realign the divisions and change the postseason:

NE: BOS, MON, BUF, OTT, WASH

Atlantic: PHI, PITT, NYI, NJD, NYR

South: CAR, FLA, TB, ATL, DAL

Central: NSH, CHI, CLB, DET, TOR

NW: MIN, STL, COL, CAL, EDM,

Pacific: VAN, LA, ANH, SJ, PHO

A key element here: every conference (except South) has at least one Canadian team. Also, DET and TOR get to play each other.


Everyone plays 4 games against own division (20 games) and 2 against everyone else (50 games) for 70 games.

End of season: league rankings. No Conferences, just Divisions.


Or: 3 Divisions, with league rankings making the postseason.

4 games against division (36 games) plus 2 aginst everyone else (40 games) for 76 games.


In either case, first month of the season is cross-divisional play. Last few weeks, as this year, are within the division.

Boxscore notes, Feb 14, 2008

Brodeur STOOD ON HIS HEAD. He's back to playoff peak performance. Great for him! Dropped Commodore for Robidas before the game and could have used Commodore's 5 PIMs. But otherwise, fantasy hockey misses value of players like Commodore. It's all about hits and blocked shots.

Don't know what happened to the Sabres today but I watched the game and I can tell you they played weak today. They were outmuscled by the Rangers. The opening play reminded me of the outdoor game when Crosby scored early. Today it was Jagr with the muscle and Avery with the finish.

Dustin Brown scored again for LA. They really should give up on Cloutier. He'll make a popular minor leaguer somewhere. La Barbera, OTOH, is quite good.

What's wrong with Atlanta? The Islanders do play well occasionally but 10 shots in one game is unforgivable. Hossa needs to be traded. Perhaps a pending trade situation with Campbell led to the blowout against the Rangers today? It would serve Sabres management right if they lost Campbell on the free agent market after failing to make the playoffs. And I'm a fan of the team (just not the management).

I'm a Devils fan first, however, and am thrilled by the recent performance of the whole defence corps. Martin is playing like an all-star, Oduya is playing well, and everyone else is doing what they're supposed to. Asham did extremely well today.

Please Defend the Goalies

There's too much interference. Someone's going to get hurt.

Robidas Replaces Zubov?

When I lost Zubov, I assumed that I needed to look to another team. I've currently got Commodore, recently traded from Carolina to Ottawa. But Robidas is tempting.

Players Who Performed Well When Their Teams Did Not

Last night:

Nasville: 1 Goal. Jason Arnott: 1 Goal

Pittsburgh: 3 Goals (in loss). Lupul 1 G 1 A.

Boxscore notes, Feb 13, 2008

New Jersey beat Ottawa tonight, as I'd hoped, but I expect Ottawa to have integrated the new pieces by Saturday and to crush NJ then. That would be a good time for NJ to play Weekes (poor Kevin). Did Heatley and Alfredsson come back too early?

Lang and the Blackhawk defense show up and trounce Columbus and poor Leclaire got pulled. Hainsey fought Ruutuu (The Dirty Finn -- all the other Finns play clean). Yay Hainsey. Kane scored. Should I pick up Dustin Byf? Too many shots in the loss to Edmonton.

Buffalo beat Toronto 1-0 in spite of being outshot 35 to 20. Sabres need to do better. My guess is that Connolly should have rested and Stafford should have played. If Paetsch can play, he deserves at least a few minutes. This was supposed to be an easy game for Buffalo, but this is hockey and no game is easy. Buffalo's now in seventh place -- I hope they don't meet NJD in the first round of the playoffs -- Carolina would be an ironic opponent, Ottawa the most hated.

Carey Price is back!!! And another win for him. I'm thrilled I have Kovalev.

Poor Conklin. Looks like he played well and the Penguins let him down. Malkin, of course, got the only goal. Tim Thomas continues an astonishing season, but can Boston make the playoffs -- and if they do, will Chara? Because of Chara, a BOS-OTT round 1 matchup would also be interesting.

VISORS NOW!!!!!

After the Zednik incident, some are calling for neck guards for all NHL players -- and maybe they should have neck guards -- but they should definitely have visors.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW: The other timeless protection debate

Yes, Freak accidents are unavoidable in NHL, but they would be less harmful if players were protected. The correct attitude to quadriplegic youth hockey players is not complacency. Action is needed.

Bettman and Campbell should learn from this incident, but history shows they won't change anything. After all, injuries give the NHL press coverage, and that's more important than a player's life and future health.

Lehtinen

Lehtinen is one of my favorite players and he's back and clicking with Modano. . . if I were looking for points, I'd pick him up, but I'm not looking, so no action.

Commodore

Dropped Timonen for Commodore.

So whom should I drop to make room for Stastny? I'll keep him on IR for a bit.

ELIAS

Picked up Patrick Elias. He has 32 points in 48 games. He has 10 points in the last 6 games and 22 points in the precending 42 games.

What happened? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

I'm going with it.