Hockey kicks off tonight, what are you looking for with your team?
What are you watching tonight?
5 Games on Tap tonight, I will likely have Pittsburgh and Philly on tonight as a Caps fan.
Interested to see the effect Covid has here, with the realignment of divisions so all the Canadian teams are in one division due to Covid Quarantine rules between the US and Canada.
All teams will play only divisional opponents in the regular season. Teams in the North division will play each other nine or 10 times, while everyone else will face their divisional opponents eight times.
The North Division may also be forced to play in a Hybrid Hub most likely in Edmonton due to travel restrictions between territories in Canada.
Some of the California teams may be forced to play in Arizona due to competitive event restrictions there.
There are also quite a few players that are still going through Quarantine protocols and won't be available early in the season.
As the league prepares to kick off the abbreviated 2020-2021 season, it announced that each division will have corporate sponsorship.
The Scotiabank North Division
The Discover Central Division
The MassMutual East Division
The Honda West Division
Comments
Your boy Farabee putting on a show. That third goal was way too easy
On pace for a 224 point season!
Really slick hands, couple times he made the puck float to a teammate over multiple sticks. Saw some twitterverse calling him Special Delivery.
Stanley cup or bust baby!!!
Edit: Better GIF
Absolutely fucking nothing, apparently, because Sinclair broadcasting is the absolute worst
As for the Canes, I'm just glad we are away from the Metro for a year. But yeah, we should be a pretty good bet to make the playoffs. And as long as we don't play Boston, who knows, we might win it all.
My in laws gave me their login information for their DirecTV account, so now I should be able to watch this year.
Phew, things were looking dicey there for a while!
Since I'm in Wisconsin, I now have an rink in my backyard which replaces access to Caps broadcasts. I'll be playing hockey pretty terribly all winter, but I'll definitely yell OVI every time I shoot.
I'm a career beer leaguer, so I play hockey pretty terribly all year long!
The Broadway Babies are here now. Laf, Kakko, Chytil, Miller, Fox, Lindgren, Shesterkin. Youngest team in the league by a mile. It's gonna be a rough year probably, but I'm cautiously optimistic, even being in the buzzsaw division we might make the initial round of playoffs.
The Rangers don't open until tomorrow night. There are some interesting storylines...
1) The Rangers are overloaded at left wing, with Panarin, Kreider, and Lafreniere. At the same time, they are very inexperienced at right wing behind Buchnevich. Kaapo Kakko and Julian Gauthier need to take a major step forward.
2) The Rangers have a major hole at second line center. Ryan Strome had a career year playing with Panarin, but he is woefully defensively and doesn't carry the play. Filip Chytil is the young center in waiting, but I still think he is more suited for wing and hasn't showed the passing skills to be relied on as a top two line centerman. There isn't a big time young center draft pick or prospect in the system, despite mountains of young defensemen and wings. Rumors have been swirling that the Rangers are interested in Pierre Luc Dubois, a 23 year old No. 1 center , who is unhappy in Columbus. He was also Panarin's centerman two years ago and both had huge seasons. If Chytil isn't the guy, does he get exposed and loses value as a potential trade piece for Dubois?
3) First full year with The Czar in nets. If he can stay healthy, I think he is a Cup-caliber goalie. And, ignore the chatter. The Czar is a vastly superior goaltender upside-wise over Georgiev.
4) The big story- K'Andre Miller won the job as Jacob Trouba's partner in camp, which leaves Tony DeAngelo as a third pair offensive defenseman who isn't so hot defensively paired with Jack Johnson (analytics worst player in the NHL last season) or Brendan Smith. I hope Miller can hold up because I think you can't have enough long rangy defensemen who eat up space on the ice in today's game. At the same time, with Adam Fox around and Zac Jones in the pipeline, DeAngelo is a very expensive luxury on the third pair, and his social media adventures (which I won't get into) have made him very unpopular with a large part of the fanbase. If things go badly, he is going to be public enemy number 1. He is also likely trade bait.
No matter what happens, we will always have the greatest radio call in history:
Fetisov for the Devils plays it cross-ice, into the far corner. Matteau swoops in to intercept. Matteau behind the net, swings it in front, HE SCORES! MATTEAU! MATTEAU! MATTEAU! STEPHANE MATTEAU! AND THE RANGERS HAVE ONE MORE HILL TO CLIMB, BABY!
just waiting for my Kraken's expansion draft in July!
Going to make for some interesting calls by a few teams on who they protect
Thinking this could be the year the bottom finally falls out on my Pens. Aside from getting rid of Jack Johnson (addition by subtraction) they didn't do much in the offseason to address the things on the roster that have been killing them the last two postseasons. Playing in the B(east) division isn't going to help either.
New assistant coaching staff though so maybe they'll address some issues and have us competitive
Excited to see what Laviolette can do with a talented, veteran roster. Hopefully Samsonov can step in and do an admirable job. No way he can be any worse than Holtby was last season. I definitely feel like the fans are expecting too much out of Chara just because of his name. He's old. I hope the shortened season doesn't ultimately hurt Ovi's quest to pass Gretzky.
No, no, no, no, no. My wonderful wife is from Edmonton. That p___y had better not catch The Great One.
I'm talking about Ovi, not Crosby.
If by too much you mean serviceable 3rd pairing defenseman, than I'm guilty.
That is what I'm expecting. Another Brooks Orpik essentially.
The lockout season and Covid seasons greatly hurt his chances, otherwise he might have gotten there. I hope he does but I'm not very confident at this point.
Ovie may close out like Jagr just to get there. Hope not but I could see it happening.
Agree with you there. Jagr played
forever... holy shit he's still playing pro hockey in Russia at the age of 48. Drafted by the Pens in 1990. That guy is an animalYeah he is, loves the game...
Actual footage of Jagr during his rookie season:
I just wanna watch hockey😂
Being a casual NHL fan I watch all Caps games I can on NBCSN but what the hell happened with Kane? I keep seeing he is filing for bankruptcy but I thought he was a big earner in the league?
Reddit has been saying among other things, he's a big gambler (had like a $500k unpaid marker with a Vegas casino at one point), then I think he's been sued a few times, and also living that baller lifestyle I'm pretty sure. From the snippets I saw, wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being like many other former athletes who end up with nothing after their playing days are done, and that's honestly kind of sad. I think the deal he's currently on was 7x7 when it was signed, so it's not like he isn't bringing home the bacon from that end.
The only thing I'm optimistic about with the Caps is that they should be first in line in the league to get their COVID Vaccine.
Really excited to watch the Canes! Don't think they have the goalie talent or depth to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, but should be an interesting season either way.
Goalie is such a ridiculous crapshoot. It certainly helps to have a top notch one, but its definitely not vital.
If the defense can play to its potential, which is honestly the best defensive grouping in the league, then Mrazek and Reimer are more than capable of leading them to a title. Where we really need improvement is scoring depth. Svech-Aho-Teravainen is a legitimate top line, and probably one of the top quartile scoring lines in the league. But we have been spinning tires behind them.
Necas should continue to improve, and that's always good. But we are going to need Trochek to step up and be the kind of guy we brought him in to be. We need Neiderriter to not suck this year. Its probably asking too much to think Staal has much left in his offensive tank, so we'll probably need Foegele to develop a little more consistency.
Also very curious to see how some of the new kids work out. Bean has been hyped for years, and I'm looking forward to seeing how good he really is. Suzuki was hyped a lot after the draft last year, so I'm curious to see what he brings. If we want to have a legit shot at the Cup this year, we might need some of their offensive skill to be realized in meaningful games.
To your goalie point, you can have Patrick Roy in his prime but if the defense in front of him is terrible you won't win.
And likewise, if you have an excellent defense, you can make the finals with someone like Michael Leighton
Eh, Roy won a title with a defense of Kevin Haller, Eric Desjardin, Mattheiu Schneider, Lyle Odelin and Patrice Briesbois. Sometimes a goalie can do it on their own, without being a trapping team. It takes a very unique talent (Hasek in Buffalo for example getting his team to a Final with hot garbage in front of him.)
But it is rare.
I always liked going to Canes games- very accessible arena and good sight lines/game day experience. Now being in Richmond, that is the first place I would head for games. Much cheaper than going to Caps games, for sure. Plus, they have one hell of a top line. It is hard to root against Svech and Aho, even when you are rooting for their opponent.
I'm excited to watch (read: sleep through) a lot of Caps-West games (read: Vancouver).
I always like to pick a team in the west to follow. For a few years it's been Edmonton with McDavid and Draisaitl. I figure this is a good year to change it up with Beagle, Schmidt, and Holtby in Vancouver.
Was just excited to see the puck drop yesterday.
A Flyers win over the Pens is always a good day, just felt a little different without 20k there to chant "Crosby Sucks!" Although his goal was a pretty.
Interesting year for the Flyers. I feel like if Covid hadn't broken everything up, they could have made a serious run the way they were playing to close out the regular season. They just couldn't quite get back into that gear offensively especially the top line.
Looking for a big year for Hart. The kid might finally be the goalie Flyers fans have been waiting for since Hextall was between the pipes.
Be forewarned- if you order NHL Center Ice without having a cable package, they will nail you with all $99 at once, rather than splitting into multiple payments like they have with full seasons. It is an automatic billing if you subscribed last year, so that hit caught me a bit off guard.
Only regret is not getting to see Lundqvist in a Caps jersey this year, but was happy to hear his open heart surgery went well.
#AllCaps 6-4 over Buffalo. Not a great defensive effort but 6 goals with zero from Ovi
As a Caps fan, have to tip the cap to the Penguins goalie tonight for his Ally oop in a two man disadvantage that led to a shorthanded goal for the Pens. It was pure magic how he dropped it over all the Caps.
Hated getting swept by those games, especially after the way we lost in game 2. The good news is that we are four games in, all on the road, and have six points. We get a two game home stand agains the Sabres which should get us up to 10 points. Just have to figure out the special teams.
Ovechkin, Kuznetsov, Orlov and Samsonov all in Covid tracing seclusion after violating NHL Covid social distancing policies. Caps hit with $100K fine.
Apparently the players gathered in a hotel room after an away game. Not sure how long their absence is in effect or if any actually tested positive.
Out at least 4 games. That hurts especially in this shortened season.
Doh
DuBois to Winnipeg and Laine/Roslovic to CBJ. It will be interesting to see how that all plays out, but I will say that I'm happy Columbus isn't in the NYR division this year. That's a lot of goals they just added.
Rutherford is stepping down as GM with the Penguins.
Rangers suck.
Pittsburgh needed a human sacrifice.
Rutherford used the same tactics that won the Canes the Cup in 2006 to get a couple more in Pittsburgh and it took longer for the long term ramifications of that to take hold because the Pens have Crosby and Malkin where the Canes had Brind'Amour on arguably his last good year and Staal who never matched his career year in 2006.
The thing that undid his tenure in each spot was an inability to identify quality defense. He has an unhealthy obsession with puck moving defense with marginal defensive skill.
French, I was really hoping the Rangers would be better than what they are right now. We are only a couple of games into the season, but I've definitely adjusted my expectations for the season accordingly. A bunch of youth talent moving forward, but not nearly as much talent to defend on each line.
Fox, Miller, and Lindgren are one hell of a foundation on the backend. But they need Laffy and Kakko to be next level stars. Laffy is showing some signs, but Kakko is a mystery to me. What made him such a desired prospect was how he made plays by dominating control of the puck, similar to a young Jaromir Jagr. Even though he has done good things this year, he very rarely holds the puck and makes things happen. Some games, he barely gets it on his tape.
How about a night where Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin all score Overtime winners? McDavid's first goal was sick, he skated through all five Maple Leafs and lifted it right over the goalie's shoulder
So the Tony DeAngelo situation in New York is..interesting. Had his Tweets and negative attention from that earlier this offseason, ultimately ending with him deleting his account. Now he had a kerfuffle with Georgiev, may have been punched in the face by Kreider, and potentially has other beef in the locker room, which landed him on waivers. I'm guessing he'll clear and then the org will do ???? with him.
Nobody will touch him. This is only the latest in a long line of behavioral issues.
Name a better love story this season that the capitols and giving up goals in the third period and somehow losing or going to OT every game they have no idea how to close a game out.
It was the second period before the Bruins series... They have one disastrous period every game. But hey, we've taken points in every game so far outside the last one against the Bruins, we have the Rangers coming up, and then two chances against the Flyers who are right there at the top of the division with us.
In flashes the caps have been brilliant and then within the same game its like they forget what theyre doing and give away sloppy penalties and allow the opponent back into games they shouldnt be in. Lazy play the last few games I know they are getting points but they are also giving up so many late goals it is going to be a real problem if it continues.
I was shocked when they went the whole first period without a dumb penalty....then they more than balanced in the 2nd and 3rd
Once the first penalty went I knew they were going to give up a few more they played sloppy in the 2nd and 3rd especially with wilson going in for the fight as well. Maybe its the age on the legs and they just havent gotten up to full speed is all but they have got to focus on cleaner finishes to games.
I feel like they might still be getting their legs under them from the offseason. You commit stupid stick penalties when you don't skate fast enough and give the puck away when guys aren't moving to space. This team is playing well enough to have 15 points in 10 games and hasn't peaked, so that's good. Plus, I think the top four looks set in the East as long as the Isles continue to underachieve.
why Nick Jensen still has a job is beyond me. Occasionally he will show a brief flash but then make some boneheaded plays like he did last night. lord i wish we would get rid of him and let fehvary take his minutes. TVD isn't all that great either.
Jensen was the only player who played consistently well in the bubble last season which was strange because like you said, I don't know why he still has a job. How he gets minutes over Siegenthaler is beyond me. I haven't paid a lot of attention to TVD. He did score the other night which is encouraging. Our blue line scoring outside of Carlson the last two seasons was spotty at best.
I do worry about chara playing so many minutes at 43. we need to tone him back some. but aside from a few mistake exiting the zone he has been a solid pickup
He gets pucks to the net from the blue line which we desperately needed after last season. He should only be getting third pairing minutes though, especially if he want him to be there for the playoffs.
Rangers skating making the Caps look like the geezers they are. Much faster team.
Laziest game the Caps have played all year. Sucks to see them lose, but at the same time it's almost good they didn't get some junk goal to force OT and get a point. They need to learn from this.
And Claude Lemiuex's kid does something shitty at the end of the game. Shocked!
This was legit and well done!
Nice to see the Rangers score some goals. Lafreniere finally showed some of that first pick skill we have been waiting on.
Definitely will be interesting to see how our offense looks in the next few games with no Breadman, and Kakko still on the COVID list
No Artemi hurts big time, I hope things get sorted out so he can get back to the team. Seems like it's a "salty hit job" for talking bad about the Kremlin.
At least maybe they will finally get a legitimate number 1 center prospect.
Game delayed until midnight to make the ice playable...SMDH
I thought the biggest debacle of the Lake Tahoe games was having to postpone until midnight to finish a game so the ice could freeze.... then I saw this
Two things that need attention from Caps-Pens Thursday: Oshie's goal of the year candidate and Kris Letang's stick breaking for the second time on a basic pass
Personal update, Southern Wisconsin skating season is over this week, weather is now mid-30s, and I'm itchy for my skating fix. I just learned forward crossovers so I'm very upset. Anybody here play beer league hockey?
D-League Beer Leaguer. I grew up wanting to play and about 2 years ago I was able to finally live out the childhood fantasy. I love it.
The Caps are 11-5-4 which ties Peter Laviolette for the best 20-game start by a head coach for the Capitals. First in the division, as well. For a team that is so wildly inconsistent and regularly does things that are incomprehensibly stupid, I'll take it.
Especially after the 4 Russians missed games with the covid and contact tracing.
Also Vitek Vanicek is the truth!
Frederic has been chipping away all game and even tried to get Ovi to drop the gloves in the second. Boys looking to get a whooping at some point
I'd say his "boys" got a whooping later in the game. Ouch...
I have been in my feels/mid life crisis mode the last couple of months, which for me means going back and watching lots of footage from 1994. Man, loved that Rangers team. The only thing that could have been better would have been for Neil Smith to keep Mike Gartner instead of trading him for Glenn Anderson. Anderson was a tremendous player, but he was toast in 1994, and Gartner deserved a title.
In this year's episode of "Tom Wilson vs. the NHL," we have the first ever suspension for boarding from the front. For those of you who didn't see it, Brandon Carlo was engaged with Jakub Vrana along the boards. Wilson comes flying in and hits Carlo, knocking him out of the game and sending him to the hospital.
There were a couple people who complained about it, mostly because it was Wilson, but I don't think a lot of people at the time thought twice about it. Then it's announced that Carlo had to go to the hospital, and all hell breaks loose.
Everyone is analyzing the hit to death. Look, here are the facts. The first point of contact was the shoulder, not the head, and the call wasn't even boarding on the ice.
Of course, the NHL has to review because it's Tom Wilson. There are three things they determine.
1. Wilson, by definition, is not a repeat offender. A repeat offender is someone who has been suspended in the last 18 months. Wilson has not been.
2. It's not an illegal hit to the head because initial contact wasn't with the head.
3. No one has even been suspended for boarding from the front
So, what does Wilson get? Seven fucking games.
Meanwhile, Brad Marchand crosschecked a Devils' player in the back of the head today and likely won't get anything from the NHL. Marchand, by definition, is not a repeat offender but has a history like Wilson does. It was a dangerous hit to the back of the head. Crosschecking is illegal, and, had a ref saw it, Marchand would have been penalized. By the way, Marchand is the same guy who said Wilson's hit was "bullshit" and a "fucking cheap shot."
I'm not blind or biased. Tom Wilson has made some egregious hits in the past. The hit on Zach Aston-Reese in the 2017-18 playoffs comes to mind. His suspension at the beginning of 2018 was completely warranted.
This was complete bullshit, though, and just another example of the NHL essentially caving in to bitching and moaning from teams with a lot of clout. Boston fans lost their minds over that hit, and Pittsburgh fans did, as well. You'd think Pens fans got confused by the Bruins' black and yellow and thought they were watching their team.
Anyway, rant over. Tommy will be back for the next series against the B's in a month. Bring it on.
I appreciate your break down and passion, but you're wasting breath. Wilson will always be a villain because of how he plays the game. He can lay the biggest clean hits ever and he will draw everyone's scorn. Just appreciate that he is on our team.
So what I learned was that part only applies to fines that are able to be enforced and may have no bearing on suspensions. (sorry, I know this comment is a week old) The other factor being, I think Wilson unfortunately missed a lot of everything and got Carlo in the head. It was one of those calls where as soon as I saw the replay I assumed he was going to get a call from the league. I don't know that it was 7 games worthy, but I don't think it was a play they could let go. Then again Parros is a clown and spin the wheel has almost never been more prevalent than now.
I don't have much skin in the game. I'm a Rangers fan, who goes to/watches a lot of Caps games due to my wife and her family. I consider the Caps a second team, although a bit further removed than when they were in a different division.
They didn't call a penalty on ice but suspended him for boarding? There was no boarding. That's obvious. He comes in hard but elbows down and crunches Carlo along the boards. I love that the Bruins broadcast team immediately begins crowing for a penalty.
If he got ejected from the game, he likely gets a lighter suspension. I think it was probably one of those spots where it is hard for any ref to actually see what happened in real time. The other factor being NHL refs being dicey at times this season. The problem with the hit was his hands come up and hit Carlo in the face, iirc. Edwards is a clown and a homer, and even B's fans know as much.
Again, I don't think it was 7 games worth, but upon immediate review it did look like a 1-2 gamer to me because he basically missed everything and the primary POC was head, since he managed to like miss most of the armpit/shoulder area which is what I'm guessing he wanted to hit.
Given his history (questionable) I could stomach 1-2 games. The zach aston reese suspension against the Pens in 2018 was totally bogus
Meanwhile, Holy mother of god! What is happening in the Flyers vs Rangers game. Bwahahahah.
https://tenor.com/xsvf.gif
3-4 games worth of goals in one period 😂 and a natural hat trick for Mika, he needed this breakout badly! Happy for my blue shirts after a rough season so far.
I'll never frown on the flyers getting the beat down.
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Gritty let the Leprechauns out and they all wore Rangers uniforms.
Likely burning these unis I would think
That was an ass whooping of massive proportions. What happened to the flyers this season I thought they were supposed to be legit contenders?
Alain Vigneault will do that to teams.
Thought the East was going to be a five-team battle between the Bruins, Islanders, Capitals, Penguins, and Flyers. The Flyers appear to be falling off a cliff though. It's crazy because this time last year right before the shutdown, they were the hottest team in hockey.
Naturally the Flyers beat the Isles last night. Maybe it is a five team race after all.
Direct result of this happening last night...
I'm happy. That man single handedly screws the Canes every time he is working our games, so I'm not surprised he was the one caught on the hot mic. Good riddance, asswipe, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Can't speak to that ref exactly, but this confirms what a lot of people have thought (known) about NHL officiating for a long time. They, more than any other sport I can think of, call the game how they want it to be. If a team is up 3-0, they would have to have their leg hacked off to get a PP or if they've gotten the last two penalty calls on legitimate penalties, they won't get the next one no matter what.
Edit: I understand that this clip makes it seem like he was directly trying to screw a team, so that's obviously worse. Just pointing out the control they seem to wield over the game in general