Hockey

Richard Pollock, who provides his insight weekly on the Illegal Curve Hockey Show on TSN Radio 1290, crunched the numbers this week for the big 3 RFAs (Bryan Little, Zach Bogosian and Blake Wheeler). He was interviewed by Rick Ralph on the Rona Roundtable about the subject.  Listen here. Richard’s interview on Rona Roundtable Audio courtesy of TSN Radio 1290. If you missed any of Richard’s assessments, you can get them here: 1.  Bryan Little 2.  Zach Bogosian 3.  Blake Wheeler So now that you’ve had a chance to listen to Richard and read his analysis, what do you think the Jets should do to get these important RFAs signed?

So imagine you have a a major league hockey team in the biggest market in the United States, one of the stalwarts of the league, and you're having them play in an arena. What would that arena look like? A towering bowl built to amplify sound? A massive canyon of fans to intimidate players? Or.. The Hatch Shell, indoors, to inspire quiet, celebrity-friendly viewing? MSG is simply the second worst (so long as the Isles are still at Nassau). There's no other way to put it. Consider that to build MSG 4: Even MSGier, they had to knock down a grand monument to architecture of a train station, something which people are still trying to reverse. Consider that MSG is known far more for concerts and the WWF than for the Rangers or Knicks. Consider that, because of it's concert hall-ness, it still has that odd ovular shape that makes every Rangers game look like it's taking place in front of temporary bleachers in a convention center. Consider that the lighting is borked. Consider that it took them four tries to get an arena even this half-baked. Consider that, despite the name, it's not even at Madison Square! Oh, and the ice sucks and changed that game last night. In conclusion, Madison Square Garden is awful and Rangers fans should feel awful that they like the place. *Disclaimer: I have never been to Madison Square Garden, and am really just ranting after last night. So imagine you have a a major league hockey team in the biggest market in the United States, one of the stalwarts of the league, and you're having them play in an arena. What would that arena look like? A towering bowl built to amplify sound? A massive canyon of fans to intimidate players? Or.. The Hatch Shell, indoors, to inspire quiet, celebrity-friendly viewing? MSG is simply the second worst (so long as the Isles are still at Nassau). There's no other way to put it. Consider that to build MSG 4: Even MSGier, they had to knock down a grand monument to architecture of a train station, something which people are still trying to reverse. Consider that MSG is known far more for concerts and the WWF than for the Rangers or Knicks. Consider that, because of it's concert hall-ness, it still has that odd ovular shape that makes every Rangers game look like it's taking place in front of temporary bleachers in a convention center. Consider that the lighting is borked. Consider that it took them four tries to get an arena even this half-baked. Consider that, despite the name, it's not even at Madison Square! Oh, and the ice sucks and changed that game last night. In conclusion, Madison Square Garden is awful and Rangers fans should feel awful that they like the place. *Disclaimer: I have never been to Madison Square Garden, and am really just ranting after last night.

On a night where it looked like the Bruins were heading for a clean sweep of the New York Rangers, everything changed in an instance when Tuukka Rask stumbled and fell leading to the Rangers first goal. That play alone changed the whole complexion of the game and from that point forward, the Black and Gold began to make costly mistakes. Whether it was the Rask and Chara exchange or the too many men on the ice penalty, the Rangers took advantage and eventually won 3-2 in overtime to live another day. Boston College standout Chris Kreider scored the game-winning goal beating Rask on a pretty deflection in front of the net. Kreider is only the second MA-born player to score a playoff OT goal versus the B’s (Bob Sweeney). Kreider recorded his sixth career NHL postseason goal including his third game-winner. “I just kind of buried my head and drove toward the net,” Kreider said. “It’s so surreal. It’s not something that can really be explained. It’s something that just has to be felt, but it was awesome and I’m just excited to give these guys an opportunity to play another game.” Kreider finished the game with 13:50 of ice time, had three shots, was a plus-two and scored the biggest goal of the post season for his team. That was Kreider’s first goal of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs in seven games. He has not been much of a factor while on the ice, but on this night he was. Even during the regular season he only played in 23 games recording three points-two goals and one assist. Henrik Lundqvist made all of this possible for Kreider after he turned away seven B’s shots in the extra frame. “I told the guys before the game there was no way we were losing this game,” Lundqvist said. “We want to keep playing. We owe it to ourselves, to our fans. All our focus today was just on this game. Now we move our focus to the next game and the first period of that game. We will see how far it takes us.” Kreider, who was pushed to the second-line with Rick Nash due to the coaching decisions by John Tortorella, made the best of his opportunity forcing a Game 5 Saturday night in Boston. “Goonies never say die,” Kreider told NHL.com The post Player of the Game: Bruins-Rangers Game 4 appeared first on Bruins Daily.

COLUMBUS, OHIO - The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed defenseman Ilari Melart to a one year entry level contract, club General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen announced today. Melart, 24, has spent the past several years playing professionally in Europe. ...

One of the two coaches in this series was named a finalist for the Jack Adams Award. It’s time for him to prove he deserved it. Quenneville changed up his lines before this game and tweaked his power play. In-game, he cut ice time of under-performers and sat star players to cool them down. He’s hammering every button he can find and nothing is working. He’s being outsmarted by Mike Babcock at every turn and unless he can find a way to get his troops pulling in the same direction — or at least convince a couple of his guys to plant themselves in Jimmy Howard’s kitchen on a consistent basis — the Blackhawks are headed for a humiliating end in Game 5. -Allan Muir of Sports Illustrated where you can read more on the Chicago/Detroit game last night.

Right to the point.

Provided by the NHL... FRIENDLY CONFINES Home teams won all three games Thursday and have a 44-20 record (.688) in the playoffs, including a 14-3 mark (.824) in the second round. Home clubs also have won 15 of the 21 overtime games (.714) in the postseason, including all four in the Conference Semifinals. The Kings set a franchise record with their 13th consecutive victory at STAPLES Center dating to the regular season. Los Angeles also has won a team-record seven straight home playoff games dating to last year. DOWN, BUT NOT OUT The Rangers overcame 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to force overtime and eventually win in the extra frame, marking the third time in franchise history that the team won a game in which it faced elimination and trailed by two or more goals. The other wins of that description were a triple-overtime victory in Game 6 of the 1971 Semifinals against Chicago and Mark Messier’s famous “guaranteed win” in Game 6 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Final at New Jersey. Thursday’s victory also marked the first time the Rangers won any playoff game in which they trailed by two or more goals since 1995 against Quebec. (Elias)Continue reading "Morning Notes"

Follow me @jaeckel Last night at Joe Louis Arena, the Hawks put together, for the most part, a horn to horn effort and still came up short versus the Red Wings, going down 3-1 in a series it looks increasingly like they cannot win. Is there a path to a series victory for the Hawks? Absolutely. A win on home ice in Game 5 (which I would say is quite plausible), a must win in Game 6 back in...

Kevin Schultz, Islanders Point Blank:One of the neat things that NHL.com has been doing lately is editing actual NHL highlights to mimic NHL 94, the classic video game. First they did Pavel Datsyuk and Patick Kane, now John Tavares has gotten the special treatment. If you’re not familiar, NHL 94 is the classic NHL game released just about twenty years ago now. It’s famous in pop culture for that scene in Swingers with Vince Vaughn and for being the first hockey video game that everyone really took to. It had a couple predecessors, but they were very similar versions. For me personally, this was the hockey game that my generation grew up on. Kids who were hockey fans and those who weren’t both loved it, and it was released on both NES and Sega Genesis, which were HUGE systems at the time. I can honestly say I spent a good four years after the game was released playing the PC version on our circa 1990 IBM computer. That version of the game came on — get this — two floppy disks, which is just crazy when you consider some games today require 8GB on your XBOX (looking at you, Halo 4). That’s like a kajillion floppy disks, give or take. I’ll have to take a look and see if I can dig up the disks, they’re probably still sitting in the basement somewhere.

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