NHL 2007-2008 Thread

I missed it. It was on a channel that my cable company doesn't carry (yet, the Wild are working on something). I've seen plenty of replays, though. That was pretty violent. I'm looking forward to Wednesday's rematch. I have a feeling Boogaard could be a busy guy that night.

Just when you think the Wild are starting to get almost healthy, they lose another of their top players. I don't know if you've seen much of Mikko, but he's turning into a damn good center. He's got a bright future.
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I haven't seen much of Mikko Koivu play to be honest, lots of Saku Koivu though . Looks like last year he put up some decent numbers and had a great start to this season.

I think the fours games was probably enough, I'm not big on how the NHL hands out suspensions but I do know that they base it off of any past incidents and Ohlund hasn't had any.

The Leafs played Ottawa on Saturday night, number one team in the league and we implemented a zone/trap defence, something I haven't seen our team do in a very long time and it worked, we beat them 3-0, I haven't seen the Leafs play that well against Ottawa for over three years and play an overall team game that well in that time as well. I honestly at times I find the trap boring when other teams are using it against us, but seeing how well and how responsible it keeps the players makes it something I hope we continue to use, winning is winning, I'll take whatever can get us the two points. The run and gun style is really fun to watch at times, but when your constantly getting burned by giving up odd man rushes it gets extremely tiresome.
 
JConnors said:
I honestly at times I find the trap boring when other teams are using it against us, but seeing how well and how responsible it keeps the players makes it something I hope we continue to use, winning is winning, I'll take whatever can get us the two points. The run and gun style is really fun to watch at times, but when your constantly getting burned by giving up odd man rushes it gets extremely tiresome.
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Sometimes it's the only way to shut down some of these teams. Players are too good and too fast. If you let them run loose, you're asking a lot from your goaltenders. It's good to see someone be able to slow down that Ottawa team. They're dangerous.

I was fine with the 4 game suspension. To be honest, I was expecting a little less than that. I just hope Koivu can get back quickly.
 
JConnors said:
The Leafs played Ottawa on Saturday night, number one team in the league and we implemented a zone/trap defence, something I haven't seen our team do in a very long time and it worked, we beat them 3-0, I haven't seen the Leafs play that well against Ottawa for over three years and play an overall team game that well in that time as well. I honestly at times I find the trap boring when other teams are using it against us, but seeing how well and how responsible it keeps the players makes it something I hope we continue to use, winning is winning, I'll take whatever can get us the two points. The run and gun style is really fun to watch at times, but when your constantly getting burned by giving up odd man rushes it gets extremely tiresome.
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I think the Sens played a bad game that night, not a knock against the Leafs though. Just look at the handful of losses they have received thus far, always at the hands of the lower ranked teams. They just can't seem to get up for the game.

Really, that was a third period game. Not much happened the first 2 periods save the dying seconds.

The Sens can beat the trap, they've done it before and have played it well themselves in the past. If the Leafs come back next game and use the trap against them to their advantage then I'll take it back. I don't think that will be the case though.

Mike
 
I think the Sens played a bad game that night, not a knock against the Leafs though. Just look at the handful of losses they have received thus far, always at the hands of the lower ranked teams. They just can't seem to get up for the game.

Really, that was a third period game. Not much happened the first 2 periods save the dying seconds.

The Sens can beat the trap, they've done it before and have played it well themselves in the past. If the Leafs come back next game and use the trap against them to their advantage then I'll take it back. I don't think that will be the case though.
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The Leafs gave up very few quality shots and forced the puck outside all game. Yeah, maybe some of it was that Ottawa had a bad game and maybe thats because the Leafs played a zone defence instead of man to man which always results in the Sens taking advantage of blown coverage. There was only one game out of the four Toronto Vs Ottawa games this year that was a blow out, the first two games of the season where pretty close, the first game we should have won too, had we not blown our coverage. I find the Toronto Vs Ottawa rivalry isn't the same anymore cos of the schedule (or the fact they always win).
 
Well, I saw it as a very lackluster game. Much like their game against Washington which ended 4-1.

I'm not saying that the Leafs are a walkover, they always get up for playing the Sens. Makes for an interesting game most nights. I just didn't see much jump in either team until the third period.

I'm betting that we'll see a lot more jump next Leafs/Sens game.

There hasn't been a lot to look forward to in that rivalry lately, maybe this will wake things up a bit.

Mike
 
Fantastic! The one on Friday against the Coyotes went into a shootout... we lost, but we did not deserve the win.... and it was exciting, so it was ok....

Then on Sunday night we played the Kings and won, 3-2. It was very exciting, and the Ducks looked good in the last two periods... the Kings had 6 on 3 for the last minute and a half, and we held them!
 
The Leafs got beat badly by the Coyotes on Saturday night, embarissingly bad.

Right on, sounds like a good time.
 
The Coyotes are doing well.... with a new Goalie in these (from the Ducks I might add) :)

It was cool, they did a little tribute to him during the game, and everyone cheered for him, it was cool!
 
Yeah, Bryzgalov is a great goalie. Its crazy how hard it is to trade in the salary cap era now, Brian Burke couldn't even get like a 4th round pick for him so they just put him on waivers. Pretty cool that Burke honored his word when he told him he'd either trade him or put him on waivers so he could be a starter somewhere else. Something you really don't see a lot of in professional sports.
 
Can someone explain to me why Hockey doesn't sell in the States?

MLB has come under attack for the steroid scandel and has a huge black eye on the game right now. They've had players juicing up and cheating for years. All these records being broke by guys that needed steroids to do so is just pathetic.

The NFL had a similar problems years ago and still does encounter positive steroid test every year, but the NFL is plagued with off field problems from players, murder charges, gun possesion, drug possions, assaults, domestic violence, dog fighting charges, DUI's, lewd behaviour and so on and so on. I love the NFL, love watching football but every year it seems that there are players that constantly commit these crimes and I'll admit the new commisioner has done a good job of cracking down on these incidents but it still goes on (last year there were like 9 players on the Bengals arrested). The NBA encounters similar problems. Athelets making millions of dollars and then behaving like this, I find that very pathetic.

And then you have the NHL were rarely do you ever see incidents like any of the ones I mentioned. Over 3000 drug tests since the NHL implemented its policy and only one came back positive for a steroid. Its about as clean of a proffesional sport as your going to get. Teams like Detroit, Chicago and St. Loius, have seen a huge decrease in attendance over the past years and ticket prices aren't exactly all that expensive. I don't know if its a problem with the game or fans just don't get it, but its really odd to see such a lack of interest in such a great sport.
 
JConnors said:
Can someone explain to me why Hockey doesn't sell in the States?
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Ignorant pricks who won't spend the three minutes it takes to actually learn the rules of the game. That's all I can think of. Everyone I know who understands the game, loves it.
 
I think it's regional for one thing. It's definitely bigger the further north you go.

It also doesn't get the media attention that Basketball and football get. It's all about revenue.

Oh yeah, and the ignorant prick thing.
 
Yeah, it definetly doesn't get the coverage in the States it deserves. Whenever I'm at NAB, trying to find highlights is damn near impossible, ESPN spends about 2 minutes showing highlights and you have to listen to Barry Melrose.

Its just kinda odd, places like Dallas which isn't a hockey town has a great fan base, Colorado has never had trouble selling out, but then you got places like Phoenix and Nashville and thats the leagues fault for putting teams in those markets. The league screwed up by letting the ESPN contract go and allowing Versus and NBC to take over.

It's just really odd why it has never really caught on, the league totally caters towards the American markets to try and help the game grow. They've changed rules, added a shootout, tried to generate more offense by calling more penalties and making the goalie equipment smaller, tried to keep fighting down, and to be honest I really don't think it would matter, I think the fan base that each US team has is going to be right around the same every year.

How would you guys rank the Leagues? I think something like this.

1. NFL
2. Nascar
3. MLB
4. NBA
5. NHL

And I'd probably rank College football and basketball before I would hockey.
 
Last night was pretty entertaining. Between Crosby's Gordie Howe hat trick and Gaborik's 5 goals, there's plenty of cool stuff for SportsCenter to ignore.:D
 
I think a big reason hockey doesn't get the looks it deserves is that most kids don't grow up playing hockey...at least not like they do football, baseball, basketball, etc. I know, for me, until I started playing street hockey in the early 90's, I paid no attention to hockey. I thought the puck was a black checker.

And it definitely doesn't help not having ESPN to pimp the game...I think that was a big mistake on the NHL's part...they should've tried to make a TV deal with ESPN. I don't get Versus at home, so in the winter I'm stuck with the NBA - I'd rather stick a fork through my balls.
 
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