Hockey Rambling

The Islanders and the Golden Knights have looked like the better teams in their respective series. Yet the Flyers and Canucks have both clawed back from 3-1 series deficits to force Game 7. And you should know by now than in a Game 7, anything can happen. Here’s what happened in an incredible night of [...]

The Florida Panthers have hired Bill Zito to be their new general manager, a few weeks after Dale Tallon was let go. Tallon’s era was marked by a lot of turmoil between hiring, firing, re-hiring and plethora of terrible moves that sunk a team that had Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Aaron Ekblad under contract [...]

The Islanders and Flyers got things rolling on Tuesday with their Game 5 matchup. Philly was on the brink but gave up the first tally of the game in a scramble early in the second frame. Mat Barzal banged it home. With the way the Isles clog things up, that wasn’t a fortuitous bounce, but [...]

It was the Penguins teams of recent Cup years that really cemented home to me the necessity of depth in the playoffs. This is very rudimentary, but this is roughly how I see playoff teams at the outset of every year: One good line: playoff contender Two good lines: may win a round or two [...]

Last week I broke ground on the 2020-21 Fantasy Hockey Guide. It’s my 15th Guide. The timeline will be tight this year, with Free Agency opening up on October 9 and the season kicking off December 1 (tentatively). Many of your drafts will be held in late October, so I want to get this guide [...]

After a two-day pause to promote social justice and racial equality, NHL teams were back in action on Saturday with three games. Tampa Bay 3, Boston 1 (Tampa Bay leads series 3-1) After losing Game 1, the Lightning have struck for three consecutive wins and are now one win away from the Eastern Conference Final. [...]

As you likely already know, the NHL had postponed all its games on Friday, the second consecutive day it had done so. Games will resume today (Saturday) starting bright and early at noon ET (9 a.m. where I live), when the Bruins and Lightning will face off. To make up for the lost time, teams [...]

I wanted to take the time to highlight some of the work our writers, podcasters, and editors have been doing around the site of late. Of course, there needs to be a mention of our Prospects Report. Dobber and our prospect team put in thousands of combined hours of scouting, writing, and editing to put [...]

In light of the NBA and WNBA players deciding not to play their playoff games, the MLS cancelling games, MLB teams like Seattle and Milwaukee deciding not to play, Kenny Smith walking off the NBA on TNT set, and Naomi Osaka pulling out of her tennis tournament, the NHL had a 70-some word statement before [...]

The big news on Tuesday was Kasperi Kapanen being traded back to Pittsburgh, the team that originally drafted him, for Pittsburgh’s 2020 first-round pick (15th overall). There were other pieces on both sides, and Cam had the full breakdown of the trade here. I have the Ramblings tomorrow so I’m going to dive into it [...]