340 replies to this topic

[mikeford]

Mark Fayne holding is fuckin charles dickens at the side of the net and loses his assignment. Guy is garbage.

[sachmoney]

This is ridiculous. Let them fight. This is hockey, not figure skating.

Edited by sachmoney, 27 February 2012 - 08:38 PM.

[Dropkick Izzy]

Step out of the room and miss it. Would it fucking kill NBC to show a god damn replay?!?

[kenneycb]

mikeford, on 27 February 2012 - 08:00 PM, said:

If you're not watching Devils/Rags, you're missing a brutal hitting battle.

4 shots each in the first. Truly partying like it's 1999.

[cshea]

Prust being a total bitch here.

Took him awhile, but the gloves reluctantly come off against Boulton.

Edited by cshea, 27 February 2012 - 09:02 PM.

[Dropkick Izzy]

Jesus, they almost broke that one up too! Friggin linesmen.

[cshea]

Clarkson may be getting Shannabanned.

Good scrap here with Dubinsky.

[Dropkick Izzy]

Clarkson certainly left his feet but barely got him. Didn't look like Dubinsky wanted much to do with the scrap but he came on a bit at the end.

[cshea]

Clarkson launched himself like 4 feet in the air to hit Dubi, but it wound up being nothing more than a love tap. Bizarre. Clarkson is a psycho.

[mikeford]

Clarkson will fight anyone on the planet. He needs to shit up and fly right in the 3rd, we need him on the ice

[Lose Remerswaal]

Are we at the point in the season and the standings where the Rangers winning that game is good for the B's? They are far enough ahead of Boston that keeping NJ from getting closer might be more valuable than the small chance that the B's can catch the NYR in the standings.

[The Four Peters]

NJ can't catch the Bruins unless they catch the Rangers too. It really doesn't matter unless the Bruins lose their hold on the division, which is solid but not indefinite at the moment. A win tonight would be huge for the B's in the division race.

[cshea]

Lose Remerswaal, on 28 February 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

Are we at the point in the season and the standings where the Rangers winning that game is good for the B's? They are far enough ahead of Boston that keeping NJ from getting closer might be more valuable than the small chance that the B's can catch the NYR in the standings.

It actually does't really matter what NJ does. The B's are basically locked into the 2 seed, due to the division winners getting seeded 1-3. The only teams the B's would be scoreboard watching are Ottawa and the Rangers. Philly, Pittsburgh and New Jersey are all irrelevant in terms of catching the B's.

Edited by cshea, 28 February 2012 - 01:45 PM.

[The Four Peters]

cshea, on 28 February 2012 - 01:43 PM, said:

It actually does't really matter what NJ does. The B's are basically locked into the 2 seed, due to the division winners getting seeded 1-3. The only teams the B's would be scoreboard watching is Ottawa and the Rangers. Philly, Pittsburgh and New Jersey are all irrelevant in terms of catching the B's.

Fucking right!

[mikeford]

Yeah, NJ losing that game (or any games for that matter) only benefits you if you want us to finish 7th and play you in the 1st round.

Personally, I'd like to avoid that.

[Jack Sox]

"Fi-re Wilson" chant heard at the ACC tonight. Tremendous.

[TheShynessClinic]

Ryan Malone loses his shit vs. Montreal.

[PedroSpecialK]

Of course Subban comes off the bench. Guy wouldn't go within 5 feet of Malone without a set of stripes in between.

Emelin's a good hitter and a solid d-man, but I hope he goes back to the KHL before too much Montreal rubs off on him.

[Greg29fan]

bad hit by Vlasic on Briere

[PedroSpecialK]

Here's the full incident involving Emelin



Malone's explanation

Quote

Malone wasn’t as displeased with the hit as he was with Emelin refusing to fight him.

“It’s not old school hockey, it’s pretty much hockey,” Malone said. “ If they feel they can take a cheap shot at someone and then not stand up for themselves, that’s the way they play. I think I always played fair where if I take a cheap shot at someone you have to kind of pay your dues.”

When told Emelin no longer fights because his face got smashed in and rebuilt with metal plates after a 2009 scrap in the KHL, Malone said that was T.S. (which stands for Tethered Swimming, of course.)

Lightning head coach Guy Boucher stood behind Malone with his post-game comments.

“The blind hit he got there, that’s extremely dangerous,” Boucher said. “He had no puck. The puck didn’t even come close to him; a blind-side hit with no puck. we’re just lucky Malone is that tough that he could take that check. He took care of his own business.”

Edited by PedroSpecialK, 29 February 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[cshea]

The Leafs are actually winning tonight, 1-0 on Chicago early on. McKenzie was speculating on NBCSN that Wilson's job may be on the line tonight.

In the other game, Nystrom may have concussed Letang.

[NYCSox]

cshea, on 29 February 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

In the other game, Nystrom may have concussed Letang.

Looked like a cheap shot.

[Greg29fan]

It was an "old" Matt Cooke special - guy has chance to play the puck or give a kill shot, chooses the latter.

[Jack Sox]

Dion Phaneuf is just not a very good hockey player.

[Ed Hillel]

Millbury and Roenick just came really REALLY close to fighting on air.

[The Napkin]

video

[NYCSox]

That is gold Jerry. Gold.

[Spaulding Smails]

Here is the video of Nystrom on Letang:



Honestly, I'm torn on this. The hit was very unnecessary but it was also a shoulder and Letang was leaning down. Don't blame the Pens for their reaction either but I don't know, I see maybe just a fine here.

[PedroSpecialK]

Nystrom makes less than 0 effort to go for the puck. That, to me, is a cowardly and dangerous play.

I thought Roenick was dumb - I didn't think he was that dumb. Would've liked to see Milbury beat him a shoe there.

I can see people defending Nystrom's hit as not being to the head - but that's not the point here. If the puck is up for grabs, play the puck - don't forego puck pursuit for the sole purpose of knocking a player into next week.

Edited by PedroSpecialK, 01 March 2012 - 12:08 AM.

[Catcher Block]

I think Letang lunging for the puck right before the hit gets Nystrom off with a fine instead of a suspension. Truth be told, if Nystrom lifts his arms at all (as many players seem to do when trying to blow someone else up), that hit gets a lot worse in a hurry for Letang.

[veritas]

The hit on Letang was borderline. Nystrom was over-anxious to play the body and Letang was playing the puck without being prepared for contact and that's a bad combination. But IMO he didn't target the head. Penalty yes, fine maybe, suspension no.

The hit on Malone was significantly worse. An open ice blindside hit when it was obvious Malone never touched the puck. It shouldn't matter that Malone was lucky not to get injured, it was a far dirtier hit. Just a complete horseshit hit by a guy who won't back it up. It's somewhat understandable he won't fight after seeing that KHL video. But if you're physically unable/unwilling to fight, don't be a habitual line-stepper like Emelin is. This isn't the first time he's been accused of a dirty hit and I doubt it will be the last

[PedroSpecialK]

veritas, on 01 March 2012 - 12:33 AM, said:

But if you're physically unable/unwilling to fight, don't be a habitual line-stepper like Emelin is.

I was just reminded of Charlie Murphy and I thank you for it.

Edited by PedroSpecialK, 01 March 2012 - 12:43 AM.

[Jettisoned]

I think Roenick is right. The hit doesn't seem that bad to me for a bunch of reasons:

- He didn't go out of his way to make the hit. The Stars are trying to cycle the puck in that corner and Nystrom is doing exactly what he's supposed to coming down the boards to try to keep the cycle going
- He came straight at Letang.
- Nystrom had a legit reason to hit Letang: he wasn't going to get the puck and had to knock Letang down to prevent him from skating past him and joining the rush. This is exactly what he's supposed to do.
- I'm not 100% sure but it looks to me like the main point of contact was Letang's right shoulder. Maybe Nystrom's shoulder grazed Letang's face or something.

Basically what happened was Letang was trying to beat the cycle by shoving the puck up the boards and dodging around Nystrom to either get to the puck and make a pass/rush the puck out, or recieve a pass from his winger and skate the puck out. Nystrom sees this and tries to hit him, but Letang takes the hit kind of funny because he had lunged to tap the puck up the boards and dodged sideways to avoid the hit.

I don't want to sound like one of those idiots whining about "wussifying the game", but if you ban this hit, you've removed a lot of perfectly legitimate ones and probably rendered the cycle inneffective. This is a situation where an NHL defenseman should expect to take a hit and not put himself in a wierd position to get drilled.

Also Milbury is a complete idiot. Wasn't he whining a while back about the league trying to stop hits like the ones on Savard and Booth? He's just sensed a shift in perception and has now overcorrected.

Edited by Jettisoned, 01 March 2012 - 01:13 AM.

[FelixMantilla]

If you don't mind players missing major chunks of the season or become permanently disabled then you probably won't see anything wrong with this hit.

[SawxSince67]

This is not an vicious blow to the head or head-hunting. I believe the result was not indicative of the intent.

Nystrom was flying down the boards and had his stick on the ice until the last second, he then took one of his two options.

He 'loaded up' for contact, but didn't go out of his way; Letang was just positioned in an unfortunate way.

With that said, I don't blame the Pens for confronting Nystrom, either.

Between the two of them, JR seems to be the rational one.

[kenneycb]

FelixMantilla, on 01 March 2012 - 07:27 AM, said:

If you don't mind players missing major chunks of the season or become permanently disabled then you probably won't see anything wrong with this hit.

Yes, because all injurious hits are illegal and should be suspendable. This is one that is very much in the gray area. It's a penalty for sure but I think it's a fine if anything. It's a two-way street for both the hitter and the hittee.

[PedroSpecialK]

My main beef is that the puck was there to be played and Nystrom made a conscious decision not to play it. I don't think it's anything close to five games like Milbury is saying, and Letang certainly didn't do himself any favors, but IMO it's mutually beneficial for Nystrom and Letang if Nystrom makes some sort of effort to play the puck - perhaps a cycle is started in the corner if Nystrom gets a stick or his body in front of the puck. By choosing to go after Letang's body, he nipped this possibility in the bud.

[Curtis_Lesspanic]

Watch Nystrom's stick. It's clearly in a position to play the puck until the second Letang plays it by him. He was probably going to scrape the puck along to boards and use his momentum to carry the puck through contact with Letang. As soon as Letang lunges to beat him there he puts his body into him and the vulnerable position Letang put himself in results in the head contact. If Letang doesn't lunge to chip the puck past him, Nystrom probably gets to it first or at the same time with more momentum and Letang doesnt get his face blown up. It's a bang bang play. I don't even think the roughing call was warrented aside from doing something to calm the tempers of the Pens.

[erfus]

PedroSpecialK, on 01 March 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

My main beef is that the puck was there to be played and Nystrom made a conscious decision not to play it. I don't think it's anything close to five games like Milbury is saying, and Letang certainly didn't do himself any favors, but IMO it's mutually beneficial for Nystrom and Letang if Nystrom makes some sort of effort to play the puck - perhaps a cycle is started in the corner if Nystrom gets a stick or his body in front of the puck. By choosing to go after Letang's body, he nipped this possibility in the bud.

I don't think it's a suspendable hit, but I think it's a stupid hockey play to choose to attempt to level someone with a body check instead of stopping to play the puck. NHL players are pretty good at stopping, it's not like he is actually on rails. The hit here is just another indication that any kind of respect for one another is almost dead in the game. There's just no reason for that play to occur the way it did. Can you legislate that back into the game through enforcement of unwritten rules? I don't think so, but maybe it's worth a try. I'm not sure what the solution is, the old days of having a handful of teams where everyone knows each other or even speaks the same language are way dead.

The idea of body checking is to knock an opponent off the puck for you or a teammate. To whiz by a loose puck to make a big hit is just inane. The sport is markedly worse and declining because of this stuff though. Something needs to be attempted to stop it from continuing and I don't really care if it's harsher written rules, more suspensions, softer padding, mandatory full face masks, or a combination thereof.

[Jettisoned]

Are you kidding? Honestly the NHL is way cleaner than it was 20 years ago. Watch some playoff footage from the 90's on youtube. There are multiple instances in each game of what would now be considered among the dirtiest hits of the year.,

I can't speak for the 1950s-1980s but I kind of doubt it was all that clean then, either. The players were worse athletes, took longer shifts and people didn't know or didn't care about concussions.

[The Napkin]

No hearing for the hit - fine or warning still possible