2010-2011 NHL Season Thread

[Valisk]

Winner: Jason Arnott - By escaping the 27th place Devils to join the Washington Capitals, the veteran center will get a chance to return to the postseason for up to six or seven games.

lol'd

[Ishido]

Antti Niemi: Play well for half a season, get huge contract that puts your team into imminent cap hell.

[Thoronas]

Antti Niemi: Play well for half a season, get huge contract that puts your team into imminent cap hell.

Considering he's got the cup ring it was kind of inevitable that he was going to get a decent contract, despite as you say only playing well for half the season. Maybe he'll be money in the playoffs, the Sharks could use someone like that.

[Callisto]

Considering he's got the cup ring it was kind of inevitable that he was going to get a decent contract, despite as you say only playing well for half the season. Maybe he'll be money in the playoffs, the Sharks could use someone like that.

yeah if he can be like the anti-Nabakov that'd be pretty ideal for them, barely scrape them into the playoffs then put up 2.00/.930 in the postseason.

[Palin]

Someone did a fun fan video for the post-deadline Leafs.

Did they really just compare Phaneuf and Kessel to "full blooded soldiers?"

[NynJa]

he's got the cup ring

God, not this road again...but hey speaking of cup rings, Sopel has a ring, good pick up for the habs now!

[Ishido]

Tomas Kopecky has 2 cup rings, give that man 8 million dollars.

Brett Lebda has a cup ring, give that man far more than he is wo- fuck, beaten.

[Anton]

Brett Lebda has a cup ring

http://implied.facepalm.de/facepalm_implied.jpg

[Thoronas]

God, not this road again...but hey speaking of cup rings, Sopel has a ring, good pick up for the habs now!

Dude I don't like using that train of thought usually but he played pretty well in the playoffs considering where he sits in goalie rankings.

[Ishido]

http://implied.facepalm.de/facepalm_implied.jpg

1) Get paired with former Norris winner
2) Play like shit but no one notices because your partner actually does stuff
3) ???
4) Name on the Stanley Cup
5) ???
6) 2 year $2.9m contract

[Anton]

TOR's upcoming schedule sees us play Pittsburg tomorrow, Philadelphia on Thursday, and then back home vs Chicago on HNIC. The problem is we've known for a while the closing schedule is fkin brutal. This is the last game against PIT, but we play PHI twice, BOS twice, ATL, WSH, TB, MTL... few points a Leafs team has the skill to walk away with. If we're even close these next three weeks, this city will go apeshit.

So here's hoping for as many OTLs we can get. Sure they are worthless in a tie break, but who cares if you do it in games you'd lose? Points are points, and the single picked up just for going to OT is why it's so hard sometimes to overtake in the NHL.

Also HNIC vs Chicago. Very jokes indeed

[Palin]

A closer look at the teams fighting for the final 6 spots in the Western Conference Playoff Run..

3rd) San Jose Sharks - 78 points - 19 games remaining - 4 shoot out wins
Home (13): COL, DET, DAL, NSH, VAN, NYR, MIN, STL, CGY, DAL, ANA, LA, PHX
Away (6): CHI, DAL, LA, PHX, ANA, PHX

4th) Phoenix Coyotes - 76 points - 18 games remaining - 3 shoot out wins
Home (11): DAL, DET, VAN, CGY, CHI, STL, CBJ, SJ, DAL, COL, SJ
Away (7): LA, ANA, CGY, EDM, VAN, LA, SJ

5th) Chicago Blackhawks - 74 points - 19 games remaining - 5 shoot out wins
Home (8): CGY, CAR, SJ, FLA, ANA, TB, STL, DET
Away (11): TOR, FLA, TB, WSH, DAL, PHX, DET, BOS, CBJ, MTL, DET

6th) Los Angeles Kings - 74 points - 19 games remaining - 7 shoot out wins
Home (10): PHX, VAN, DET, CBJ, DAL, NSH, EDM, VAN, SJ, ANA
Away (9): DAL, STL, ANA, CGY, SJ, COL, DAL, PHX, ANA

7th) Calgary Flames - 73 points - 18 games remaining - 7 shoot out wins
Home (9): CBJ, NSH, DAL, ANA, LA, SJ, EDM, EDM, VAN
Away (9): STL, CHI, VAN, PHX, COL, ANA, STL, COL

8th) Dallas Stars - 72 points - 20 games remaining - 5 shoot out wins
Home (9): CGY, MIN, LA, SJ, CHI, PHI, ANA, CBJ, COL
Away (11): PHX, ANA, SJ, LA, NSH, PHX, SJ, LA, ANA, COL, MIN

9th) Minnesota Wild - 72 points - 19 games remaining - 2 shoot out wins
Home (9): BUF, COL, CBJ, MTL, TOR, STL, EDM, TB, DAL
Away (10): NYI, NYR, NSH, DAL, VAN, SJ, STL, DET, VAN, EDM

10th) Nashville Predators - 72 points - 19 games remaining - 6 shoot out wins
Home (12): MIN, COL, LA, BOS, DET, EDM, ANA, DAL, VAN, DET, ATL, CBJ
Away (7): EDM, VAN, CGY, SJ, BUF, COL, STL

11th) Anaheim Ducks - 71 points - 19 games remaining - 4 shoot out wins
Home (11): DET, DAL, VAN, NYR, PHX, STL, CGY, COL, DAL, SJ, LA
Away (8): COL, LA, DAL, NSH, CHI, CGY, SJ, LA

12th) Columbus Blue Jackets - 68 points - 21 games remaining - 4 shoot out wins
Home (10): STL, LA, BOS, DET, NJ, VAN, FLA, CHI, STL, BUF
Away (11): VAN, EDM, CGY, STL, CAR, MIN, COL, PHX, WSH, DAL, NSH

13th) St. Louis Blues - 65 points - 20 games remaining - 3 shoot out wins
Home (9): CGY, CBJ, MTL, DET, EDM, MIN, CGY, COL, NSH
Away (11): WSH, NYI, CBJ, ANA, LA, SJ, PHX, MIN, DET, CBJ, CHI

Basically...every single team in the race is just in a massive face off month against all the other teams that they're fighting against. So thoughts...toughest schedule? who'll get in?

[Melena]

Sharks will take the division and the third seed. I'm not even going to guess on who winds up in 4-8 as it's just one huge jumbled mess but I'd say Kings/Yotes/Hawks/Flames/Stars will round it out in some order or another. Vancouver pretty much has that #1 seed locked up. Detroit has 6 points up on the Sharks and I think they'll hold that.

[Melena]

Antti Niemi: Play well for half a season, get huge contract that puts your team into imminent cap hell.

Half the reason he played like shit the first half of the season is cause they couldn't make up their mind who was the #1 goalie. Nittymaki or Niemi. I mentioned it back when the sharks had that 6 game losing streak that they had to suck it up and let Niemi sink or swim, and he's been swimming pretty damn good since then when Nittymaki got hurt and he was forced to be the #1. Was the same exact issue when we had Kippursof and Nabokov swapping out every other game.

[Anton]

Sharks are in, the biggest head start wins for sure. And who else is going to choke before the conference final?
Coyotes are in, because nobody cares about PHX.
Blackhawks are in, they have to defend. I believe they'll give ground though. Especially to
...The Kings. On paper, what they did at the deadline is genius. In practice, it'll probably work.

For everyone else, see if they can beat the 2 teams ahead of them in the points. If they can, flip a coin .

There was very little trading done this year, a piece here for a piece there, a prospect here for some picks. Furthermore, the eastern teams did the bulk of the heavy moving.

These teams in the west... they all made small, minor changes, so I'm guessing they will continue to play to their projections. So since they're all averaging so closely, it's going to come down to random shit, like streaks/slumps. Bottom line the data is too homogenous, so there is no accurate prediction.

[bluefan]

Habs win, Price loses a shut out with just a few minutes left in the third though, a shame.

[Thoronas]

A closer look at the teams fighting for the final 6 spots in the Western Conference Playoff Run..

Crazy good list

Basically...every single team in the race is just in a massive face off month against all the other teams that they're fighting against. So thoughts...toughest schedule? who'll get in?

Minnesota lost Koivu at a pretty bad time, they're now unsurprisingly losing a lot. I think they'll miss out.

I think Chicago, LA and Calgary will continue to play good and will make it in baring injuries of course.

Dallas, man . . . . I wanted them to make the playoffs but if Richards doesn't come back I don't think it's happening.

[Thoronas]

Minnesota lost Koivu at a pretty bad time, they're now unsurprisingly losing a lot. I think they'll miss out.

I think Chicago, LA and Calgary will continue to play good and will make it in baring injuries of course.

Dallas, man . . . . I wanted them to make the playoffs but if Richards doesn't come back I don't think it's happening.

Edit: I should mention that Vancouver plays Calgary twice before the seasons over. I expect the Canucks to win both games and if the Flames lose out on the playoffs by 2-4 points I will seriously

Spoiler: show

[Vaspinne]

Edit: I should mention that Vancouver plays Calgary twice before the seasons over. I expect the Canucks to win both games and if the Flames lose out on the playoffs by 2-4 points I will seriously

Spoiler: show

Calgary won tonight (another shutout against the Blues) putting us in 5th again. We play immediately tomorrow against Chicago and IF we win that one, we go 3 points up on them. It's gonna be a huge game. And yeah, while we have 2 games against Vancouver, we also have 10 games against Colorado, Edmonton, Anaheim, Columbus, Nashville and St. Louis. All teams on the out looking in that we're playing better then. I'm pretty sure we can afford 2 losses if we keep up our .700+ hockey we've been playing lately.

I am excited for the Flames vs Canucks games though, despite being down 1-3 in the series this year. Always fun to be a hockey fan living in enemy territory

[Thoronas]

I am excited for the Flames vs Canucks games though, despite being down 1-3 in the series this year. Always fun to be a hockey fan living in enemy territory

Wait, you're in Vancouver?



Friend of mine is a Calgary fan here as well. We've both agreed seeing Vancouver vs Calgary for the Western Conference would be epic. Also we'd probably end up fighting each other.

1-0 Nucks, Raymond finally scores a goal after like a billion games.