Hockey Rambling

Last night we had two games between what I consider to be the top-four cup contenders. Unfortunately, only two of them can move on, in the early game last year’s champs found a way to win, and in the late game, Vegas pulled out the OT thriller. * Down 3-1 in the series entering last [...]

I wanted to talk about the Colorado Avalanche a bit, because their recent stretch of three games is one we have not seen from them in recent memory and certainly no time in the 2021 regular season. They have been getting absolutely ran out of the building almost every night and despite blowing the doors [...]

I’m not hearing much complaining from Montreal fans about Carey Price’s contract these days. This is big-money goaltending. And it certainly bodes well for his fantasy value heading into next season. I think I’m done predicting any series involving Montreal this year. They’ve now won six in a row, and this is a team that [...]

The Tampa Bay/Carolina game had lots of goals. Ten, to be exact, including eight in the second period alone. That eight-goal outburst saw Carolina take a 4-2 lead before Tampa Bay stormed back with three goals to take a 5-4 lead into the second intermission. An insurance goal in the third period sealed a 6-4 [...]

The Montreal Canadiens are getting hot at the right time. After looking like the league’s most improved team to start the season, the Habs sputtered on their way into the playoffs and appeared to be dead in the water after Game 4 against Toronto (you know what happened after that). Now they are hot again, [...]

The NHL Department of Player Safety has ruled on a four-game suspension for Mark Scheifele for his charge on Jake Evans near the end of Game 1. You can watch their video for an explanation of the suspension below. https://twitter.com/NHLPlayerSafety/status/1400603878618501121 I can’t say this about the DoPS every time, but I believe they got this [...]

I have always found the Ted Lindsay award somewhat interesting. Appealing to authority is something that we should avoid doing as much as possible, but it’s still interesting to find out who the players thought were the three most valuable among them. This year, we have two names that are very obvious and one that [...]

My updated top-200 contract projections are below. This is a Ramblings article though, so there are a few other thoughts I want to touch on before I get to the contract numbers. * The Vezina nominees were revealed yesterday: https://twitter.com/NHL/status/1399746429116207107 In my (perhaps slightly biased) opinion, Juuse Saros should have been nominated here. No offence [...]

Craig Smith was out for Game 2 between Boston and New York while Jake DeBrusk was on the second line. It is a reminder that while DeBrusk had a bad year, he has had good years before and was Boston’s staple on the second line with David Krejci. Do not give up on him just [...]

Carolina hung in there, but in the end the Tampa team is just too strong. But the Lightning seriously shortened the bench. In fact, just four forwards saw more than 16:10 of ice time: Nikita Kucherov, Alex Killorn, Brayden Point and Barclay Goodrow. Steven Stamkos was seventh in ice time, as Coach Jon Cooper tried [...]