2009-10 NHL Thread

[Absolutely Virtue]

Sorry I didn't post this sooner, pretty much been drunk since Friday. It came out better than I expected.^^

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1.../OVPumpkin.jpg

[BadKarma]

Gaborik playing with one leg scored the winning goal. The man is god.


Also first shutout for the King this year, yay.

[Bregor]

Theodore looks fucking good tonight, Caps have hung him out to dry at least three times now in the 1st and he's answered them all.

[Absolutely Virtue]

Bregor I didn't want to say anything because I thought you might not be watching the game. I jumped out of my seat on the setup for Backstrom's goal. Ridiculous.

[Ishido]

Both BJs goals coming on almost empty nets lol.

[Bregor]

Yeah that was pretty, but Flash does this for like 5-game stretches and then goes into hibernation.

But yeah two lucky bounces for Columbus and we're going to overtime, such bullshit.

Edit: One more terrible penalty, and that's game. GG.

[Ishido]

Awesome, 2 assists by Nash tie that category for me this week, I need Hejduk and Quincey to get 1 more assist and 2 more shots than Bieska in the game tonight for a 9-1-1 week. A SHP would be cool too but I doubt it.

[Sepukku]

Caps lose a point. Happy happy joy joy! Crossing my fingers AO misses a week or two, didn't sound serious judging by Washington play-by-play radio broadcasters.

[Ishido]

I was watching a stream until it died, the collision looked like nothing so it had to either be aggravating an old injury or something small.

[Absolutely Virtue]

Bloggers reporting it's the dreaded "Upper Body Injury" and he's day-to-day. Doesn't sound too bad.

The game was a disappointment. One shitty penalty to give up the equalizer, and another to lose the game. Ah well.

[CrosisX]

I'm glad Gaborik only missed a few games and the Rangers made sure to only play him when they think he's ready to come back. Even better he nets the only goal of the game for either team today. If he can stay healthy the rest of the year i think he may be a contender for the scoring title.

[Thoronas]

Man Lunqvist gets a shutout and then Vokuon (!) gets a shut out. Good weekend for my goalie tandem.

Is it just me or is there more injuries at the beginning of this season? Everyone is taking some time off before the Olympics.

[Abraxas]

6. Everyone else - emphasis on Rangers and Phailadelphia - 19 points or less through 14 games.

uh try 11 games

[Sepukku]

Hey dumbshit, it was a reference to the MAX points you can have through 14 games being 19 points (assuming you win the 12th, 13th, and 14th games). And people say I'm the idiot....

[Brill Weave]

If he can stay healthy the rest of the year i think he may be a contender for the scoring title.

If he can stay healthy the rest of the year

If he can stay healthy

If

He won't. And he won't be. Not even a quarter of the way through the season and he's already been injured. So while I appreciate your excitement at how well he's played this year, you need to keep your hopes in check. Gaborik is a great player. But he is not durable. And to be blunt, it's only a matter of time before he goes down.

[Oxyminus]

As I said to my buddy while sitting at the Rangers' game yesterday: "Rangers need to find out how good they are without Gaborik. That's the reality of him being their superstar"

effort looked better yesterday. Not sharp, but the effort was there. Looking forward to this west conf. Road trip.

[Brill Weave]

Without Gaborik they are essentially the same team as last year. That's the one thing I never really liked about teams bringing in a gamebreaker onto a team with young developing forwards. The Rangers are blessed with a ton of young, potentially very good players. Anisimov, Callahan, Dubinsky, Lisin are all decent young players. Callahan and Dubinsky especially. I think that with Gaborik being brought in, it may actually hinder their development more than it will speed it up. Before you get up in arms, here is my reasoning.

When you have a guy with the talent of Gaborik on the ice, most young players are naturally going to defer to him. It happened with Lemieux. It happened with Gretzky. So instead of making a move towards the net, they may choose to pass it off and let Gaborik do the heavy lifting.

Granted Gaborik is no Malkin, Ovechkin, Crosby. But he's still a damn good player. I think the biggest concern is the one you touched on. What happens when Gaborik goes down? Will the Rangers be able to adapt? Or will they have spent so much time looking for Gabby that they can't function without him? That's the curse of having such a dynamic offensive player lol.

[Sepukku]

Thank you! thats what I've always been saying about Ovechkin. He hinders the team around him's development, and the reason the Pens won is Crosby had to literally take a step back and not do everything he possibly could every play to get the TEAM to take a step forward.

[Brill Weave]

I disagree with you 100% Sepukku. I don't feel that Crosby took a step back at all. He has consistently produced the same general numbers each season. He has improved every year with his responsibilities. When it comes to what the Penguins were able to accomplish I feel the vast majority of it is due to the fact they have all played together as long as they have. Most of these guys had been here for years and came up through juniors and natrually developed on their own. Jordan Staal continues to evolve into a power forward. Letang and Goligoski are younger versions of Gonchar. I think when a team is able to come up together and lose together it helps them in the long run.

When you have a situation where an established team of youngsters(Rangers) bring in a top flight player I think that it is more likely that it can hinder their production and their maturation as a whole. Instead of learning to do the things themselves, they learn to rely more on one person. It's just my thinking on the matter, I'm sure some of you disagree completely though.

[Ivaden]

Jordan Staal is turning into a beast, but I don't see him ever being a #1 or #2 center unless a team really needs a center to begin with. He can't pass for shit, and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with the puck if he was standing a foot away from it, but he knows how to get himself to the net. Unless he starts parking himself in front of the net and letting his wingers try to set the play up instead of him always powering to it and losing the puck or getting a weak backhanded shot off because that's all that's available to him, a line centered by him is not going to be a top line. Which sounds ironic and stupid considering how well our third line produces, but I don't think any line in the NHL can compare to the chemistry Kennedy, Cooke, and Staal have shown to have. Our idiot ass television announcers say it a lot, and it's one thing I have to agree with them on: our third line may be the best in the NHL.


Then again, all of that could just be fueled by my initial reaction to the fact that we lost to the Wild, and during that loss Staal had a few wide open chances that he threw the puck into the glass.