Hockey Rambling

Pastrnak is the #1 prospect for immediate impact, some World Junior thoughts, MacLean rumoured to take over in New Jersey and more...   *   UPDATE: Adam Oates and Scott Stevens have been named co-coaches to replace DeBoer with Lamoriello also joining the bench to "supervise."   This is about as embarrassing as Edmonton's interim to [...]

Giving up on Parenteau, buying low on Stewart, some World Junior talk and more...   *   I hope everyone had an excellent holiday. Now it's Boxing Day, which means it's time to get back to business. No NHL action today but that just means a bigger spotlight on the World Juniors. Before we get [...]

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Here's a free Fantasy Hockey Guide … *** Merry Christmas everyone. And to those of you curious about the annual Midseason Fantasy Hockey Guide, I am making last year's Midseason Guide available to you - free. Just click here to download. Take a look, enjoy, [...]

Why Tyler Johnson is awesome; Zuccarello looking at a big second half; Thoughts on some goalie situations; and more … *** Merry Christmas Eve everyone! This is our last bit of NHL hockey for four days. Nice of the NHL to give us this break so that we can actually pay attention to what our [...]

Johnny Hat-Trick, Craig Smith heating up, Holtby is cooking and more…   *   Johnny Gaudreau, we are not worthy! He scored three unanswered last night for the natural hat-trick to bring his team back from a 3-0 deficit to force overtime, where they won to end an eight-game losing skid. Two of those goals [...]

Going after Carolina players; Zuccarello heating up; Pickard/Raanta on fire; and more … *** I noted on Wednesday that I thought Kopitar's performance with Gaborik was very promising despite just the one point. But I guess I didn't know the half of it. Eight points in two games after that brought more than a handful [...]

On the Kings' return to form, Toronto's defensive issues, Bobrovsky's hot streak and more...   ***   On Saturday perhaps the biggest story was Jannik Hansen briefly collapsing on the Vancouver Canucks' player's bench following a heavy collision with Calgary Flames defender Dennis Wideman.    Luckily it appears that Hansen is okay. He didn't really [...]

Tough debut for Bryzgalov, Getzlaf running hot, the Senators are picking up steam and more...   *   What a miserable debut for Ilya Bryzgalov conceding six goals to the Senators. I expect better from Bryz in the future. Not that he’s great but the Ducks are a strong club so if you thought Bryzgalov [...]

No mumps for Fleury, Foligno keeps scoring, Green back on top and more...   *   Some major happenings on the injury front for the Pittsburgh Penguins. First, starter Marc-Andre Fleury’s mumps test results came back negative so he started last night and recorded a 29-save shutout. Then word came down that backup netminder Thomas Greiss is [...]

Rare shutouts for Anderson and Lehtonen, the Canucks slumping second line, Fleury may have the mumps and more...   *   Craig Anderson with the 34-save shutout win to help bail his team out from a subpar performance. This ends a 10-game string of middling performances from Anderson in which he had allowed three goals [...]