[NHL] On The Blue Line

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Before this even get’s started, go check out Steve Price’s column. He’s back and he’s tearing it up!

Ice This!

No more help pronnouncing names. It was just never funny. What is funny, however, is ESPN’s lame “HOCKEY NIGHT” coverage on ESPNEWS. You get Buccigross and Melrose talking hockey as if ESPN wasn’t out to bury the NHL as much as possible.

Penguins for sale?

Apparently Super Mario and his partners have been approached by several interested parties in the sale of the Penguins. The Penguins, who recently became part of a coalition to build a new arena in Pittsburgh once they receive a license to run a slot parlor in downtown Pittsburgh, aren’t officially for sale nor would garner any interest from me but apparently the franchise is listening to potential buyers.

Perhaps to further entice their potential customers, the Penguins acquired Eric Cairns from Florida for a sixth round draft pick in this year’s draft and also chipped in with the following:

Ziggy Palffy Retires

So long, Ziggy! He pretty much had it all in Los Angeles and previous to the NHL owners dropping the lockout on the players the Kings were offering him a two year deal at $6 million a season which he declined in favor of wanting to sign with a Cup contender and not with a team where just making the playoffs was a concern every season. So, Palffy signed a 3 year, $13.5 million contract with Pittsburgh in August and after 5 months of playing with one of the worst teams in the league, he’s decided that his playing career is over.

It’s a shocker for sure and the NHL has certainly lost a player who quite frankly lived more on potential and lapses of brilliance than results.

Mario Lemieux Retires

The man has done everything possible to save the Penguins and help the city of Pittsburgh. A pure skater with amazing hands and even more spectacular patience. He revived the franchise when he was drafted, won 2 Stanley Cups, he beat cancer, fought through hip and back injuires, retired, bought the Penguins and saved them from bankruptcy, made his return to the NHL in 2002, continued to battle said injuries and now after being diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, Super Mario has retired once and for all.

He’s not leaving the team while it’s on any steady ground. At least not yet. They still have Sidney Crosby and have been very patient with goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, now it’s just a matter of hoping that LeClair and Gonchar retire soon as well.

So long, Mario.

NHL on NBC Debut

NBC snatched up the rights to broadcast NHL games on the cheap during a desperate time for the network. They had lost the NBA years ago, lost football to CBS and hadn’t had the rights to MLB in nearly a decade. With hockey being the cornerstone of the Winter Olympics (settle down figure skating fanatics, it’s true!) and the Olympics being the only damn thing that still consisted of sports on the network, bringing in the NHL was a natural fit. The NHL on NBC made it’s debut on Saturday, January 14th and the partnership was able to dish out a passable broadcast. Not having a glowing puck was certainly a great start to the NHL’s 3rd network association in 7 years but not much innovation was presented in it’s place. During a game fans were treated to a scroll down timer which kept track of star players shifts. It took that timer 3 drops before I realized what it was actually for! (Hey, I missed the pregame show, sorry)

“Oh man, Joe Sakic has been on the ice for 56 seconds, time for a change, Quenneville!!”

Casual fans will flip through and when they finally figure out what that clock is for they’ll just wonder if that’s actually something that hockey fans really care about. Line change stats and a scroll down reading “PENALTY” every time the refs make a call would be a lot better. It would also serve useful as a way of letting people know why a whistle has been blown with “OFFSIDES” and “ICING” dropping down when those infractions take place.

“Get off the ice, Forsberg! You’re hogging up ice time!!”

That timer needs to go!

Other than that, the camera angles and the intermission reports were tolerable. It was a nice touch having Clement, Ferraro and Mark Messier outdoors at Rockefeller Center with an ice rink behind them. That remote stuff was something that ABC and FOX were dreadfully afraid of.

It was a good first week and now’s it’s about promoting the league’s rivalries. Make a big deal about divisional games, talk about the old time rivalries and make believe that hockey in Columbus is a hit and everything will be just fine….for a while, at least because the Blue Jackets actually have a winning record in their last 10 games and might get out of gutter and into the middle of the pack now that Nash is back full time. Plus the return of Adam Foote can only do good things. I need to get a Blue Jackets jersey!

Alexander Ovechkin is the man (ask Steve Price!)

Would he be having this good a year had there actually been a season last year and THAT had been his rookie year?

Of course!

As of right now, Ovechkin has 34 goals which is just about half way to Teemu Selanne’s rookie record of 76. Can he get there? Maaaybe, but he’s got a better shot than Crosby, for sure. Ovechkin doesn’t take as big a beating on a nightly basis as Crosby does which is definitely an advantage. Crosby has to deal with virtual goon tactics aimed towards him every time he’s on the ice simply because he’s the best player on the league’s worst team.

Ovechkin is the best player on a bad team that seems to be capable of pulling out a big win from under another team’s hat and is probably more of a threat to it’s division rivals than Pittsburgh will ever be to it’s own.

Both guys are amazing and we’re all fully enthralled in the second coming of Gretzky or Lemieux.

In the Olympics for Russia, a first line of Ovechkin, Kovalchuk and Datsyuk rings just as good as Mogilny, Federov and Bure.

Torrino 2006

We’re getting closer to the Winter Games and despite some dissenting voices around me, it’s something that I’m looking forward to. The field and tournament have had some changes made to them but it’s still going to be an exciting 2 weeks of hockey. Team previews start next week and with that, see you then.