EHM The Blue Line

Hasek practiced with full equipment and took a few shots today (yesterday).

Sundin with 6 points tonight. 4 goals and 2 assists, one in overtime.

E5150_ca wrote:

Agreed! I was watching that game thinking I'd swap over to the Anaheim game but that game was so darn entertaining I watched it right through overtime. That keep all Leafs fans able to still go to bed thinking they'll win the Cup this year I think it has to be pointed out though that Florida played Jamie McLellan not Luongo in that game. It was a war though! Niewendyk and Roberts on a line were smokin too, Bionic Joe had a hat trick. Bouwmeester looked awesome too.

Lots of returns/rumored returns from injury today:

Colorado squeeked by tonight in Theodore's first win in net; and the game also featured the return of Tanguay to the lineup.

Redden was supposed to be returning from his personal leave tonight and joining Ottawa and it was rumored that Havlat might play too.

Warriner returned for Calgary and was just flattening people; he seriously must have had easily ten huge hits. Not that he's a superstar or anything but it never hurts to have someone who can punish the opposition over the course of a seven game series like that.

I see what you mean..
highlights


Looks like a cracking atmosphere, too...
I love this part of the season

BlackCats101 wrote:I see what you mean..

Looks like a cracking atmosphere, too...

Going to the ACC is an amazing atmosphere, its almost impossible to get tickets though. I was there about a week after opening night, and for the skills competition a few years ago.

I don't think any city in the world can compare to Toronto when it comes to hockey.

Depends, i've heard that some of the middle-european countries, or some particular cities take hockey the same way people take hockey in lets say england, meaning the whole crowd is singing and chanting the whole game. But this is just what i've heard.

In Finland atm the most hockey crazy city is Pori, since ässät made it to the finals and they sure have the best fans at the moment, they're acting exactly like described above. Only the arenas are lot smaller than say in NHL for example.

And yeah, sundin was on fire last night =p.

Yeps, in Switzerland, for example, hockey is more important than soccer and there are clubs who have better attendances than some NHL clubs!!!
SC Bern, for example, has sell out every location for years and they are playing in a huge sportscenter with a capaticy of more than 16000 spectators.
Also ZSC Zürich (my homeclub) has usually an attendance of more than 12000 and others like Fribourg or Lugano are usually sellouts.

Its usually not named, but the Swiss league is one of the best outside the NHL.

When Carolina has a full house of drunken rednecks, we aren't that bad as fans either

We WERE the loudest house in the NHL weren't we?

Okay add Sharks to my official "cheering for" list as they've overcome a terrible start to clinch a playoff birth with tonight's OT win over the Canucks! Thornton had four assists tonight including on the OT winner, which brings him to I think 91 assists on the season. Ninety-one!

Yep, seems like everyone is cheering for the Sharks now. Two crucial games last night-that one and the Sabres-Canadiens clash. The Canucks and Sharks meet again tonight. Vancouver really can't afford to lose this one.

BlackCats101 wrote:Vancouver really can't afford to lose this one.

Actually they couldn't afford to lose at all; but they did With one game remaining, against Colorado, they can't overtake anyone ahead of them. Even if COL loses their remaining two games and EDM loses it's final game Vancouver still wouldn't have enough points. So [cliche]that's how the West was won.[/cliche]

Western Conference Playoff Teams:

Detroit (Conference Champ)
Dallas
Calgary
Nashville
San Jose
Anaheim
Colorado
Edmonton

In the East the Conference title is still up for grabs; while Ottawa has a two point lead Carolina has an extra game to play, three games to Ottawa's two.

Besides that locked in are Buffalo, the Rangers, Philadelphia and New Jersey.

Montreal has 93 points so they need a win over Buffalo or New Jersey who they finish their regular season vs to lock themselves in. They have PHI and NJ left and have four points on Tampa, six on Atlanta and 7 on Toronto all of whom have three remaining. The worst Montreal could then do is tie for 7th/8th should they win one game, even if one of the other three wins all of their remaining games.

Those three games to decide proable 8th seed:

Tampa - Currently at 89 points Plays Carolina back to back, finishes with Washington
Atlanta - Currently at 87 points Plays Boston, Washington and Florida
Toronto - Currently at 86 points Plays Ottawa, Buffalo and Pittsburgh

My currrent guess would be Tampa over Atlanta via tiebreaker since Tampa has more wins.

Woohoo, The Wings clinched the President's against the Oil. Hopefully the Avs will finish 8th, but that likely won't happen.

inSTAALed wrote:Hasek practiced with full equipment and took a few shots today (yesterday).

Latest report btw is that he left practice before actually taking any shots yesterday; but that's what you get when you put your Cup hopes on the back of someone who hasn't played for years, was hurt when he last did and is older than Father Time

I got my playoff strips yesterday!

6 seats of playoffy goodness through the first two rounds (because thats all they sell now).

mmm... Nothing like the smell of fresh playoff tickets in the morning

Awesome!!! You'll have to do a little write-up on the games from a fan's perspective for us!!

GO CANES!!!!

Thornton is on FIRE today!! Already three points just a few minutes into the 2nd! He also just broke a rediculous record with that last assist btw; first player in 76 years to score more assists in a season than the leading point scorer posted overall in the previous season. Unreal!!!

That has also helped Cheecho take over as league's leading scorer at 55 and Thortnon as overall scoring leader with 125 points.

Makes you wonder if the Bruins would have been better off trading to get Cheechoo..

With the win the Sharks lock themselves into the 5th seed meaning they will play Nashville in the first round in what should be a great series even with Vokoun not in net there won't be any "easy" wins in that series.

Leafs are up on the Sens 5-1 with about 8 minutes left.

The hope for a playoff birth is still there. LOSE TAMPA LOSE.

timmy_t wrote:Makes you wonder if the Bruins would have been better off trading to get Cheechoo..

No offense to Cheechoo, but without Thornton Cheechoo is "just" a normal sniper.

Just look at his numbers with and without Joe. And Cheechoo had another good player centering his line in Marleau or McAuley before the trade...

Man, that f----ing trade will always chase us....just sad that one single man can destroy an entire franchise....

E5150_ca wrote:The hope for a playoff birth is still there. LOSE TAMPA LOSE.

Sorry 'bout that one Toronto is eliminated even though they beat Ottawa because minutes later Tampa beat Carolina in OT.

All that remains left to decide as far as teams in is which two of Montreal/Tampa/Atlanta will take 7&8 in the East. There are still very few matchups set though... so this race is also for who gets to beat Ottawa in the first round and who gets to be the first 4 of Carolina's 16 wins

Unless due to the seeding thing they end up playing each other first I'm calling the East final the battle of the black and red with NJ v Carolina. My best West guess currently (again unless they end up playing each other first) is Dallas - SanJose though Anaheim could make it too, but Detroit will definitely repeat performances of past years. By once again winning the President's trophy and then losing in the first round

I can honestly see Buffalo coming out of the east.

I'd like to see Calgary and Edmonton duke it out in the west final.

I like Buffalo I just think they just play too "loose" to win four seven game sets... Biron and/or Miller would have to be "this year's Kipprusof/Giguere" if they are to make it. It certainly could happen but I think the chances are more remote than that of teams beating Brodeur or Turco four times in a week. That's why I went with NJ and Dallas as two of my four. I feel, in essence, that there are better "Calgary's" in the mix than Calgary which is why I didn't consider them...

I would love to play the Devils in the conference finals because we have played them every year we were in the playoffs since we moved here

It was a decent sized rivalry, but now that Stevens retired it died down a bit.

He put down Francis, Tanabe, and Daniels in one game

As much as I'm not a fan of Crosby's cry-baby antics, I gotta give him kudos.


He just set an NHL record for the youngest player to get 100 points.