Tag Archives: NHL

Monday Afternoon Six Pack

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Monday and you know what that means: time for a bunch of links. These usually come out in the morning, but I was busy. Let’s cover the bases.

We added a new contributor to the Loudville team, Ambrose. He loves the hell out of Sidney Crosby and he hates Chris Pronger so he probably won’t watch the Flyers HBO documentary that’s on tomorrow.

Johan Santana threw the worst game of his life yesterday. That’s interesting and all, but I’m not really concerned. He’ll bounce back and the Mets will do okay for a while until they all get hurt or September, whichever comes first. What’s better than talking about the Mets? Watching the Fordham Leap again.

The Saints may have done a bad thing. Who Dat’s accused of distributing stolen Vicodin, among other things, by a former staff member who seems like a dick. Unfortunately we can’t see how this plays out through Steven Segal’s eyes, since his Jefferson Parish sheriff show is still on hiatus. Oh well.

The most popular search that led people to Loudville this weekend was…

No sir, Dany Heatley is an all-star. Everybody knows that.

This post was really supposed to involve Wade Boggs. I need to work on that for next time, but for now let’s talk about another old man. Brett Favre might have told a guy that he’s going to retire, but nothing is solid. He was told last week that he needs surgery to play this season; I honestly think Favre is just being his selfish old man self, was aware of this in February and hid it from the Vikings staff and the media until after the draft so he wasn’t replaced by a first or second round pick. Childress might have not done that anyway though, and let his man-crush on Favre cloud his judgement, so who knows.

The Cleveland Cavaliers call their best section Loudville so I might as well mention that LeBron James won the NBA MVP for the second year in a row. His speech mentioned Akron, Ohio in a nostalgic fashion and people have been speculating that it indicated he’s changing teams as a free agent. People have been echoing the same for years. I refrain from comment. I’m not even going to link it.

Savard returns, lifts Bruins over Flyers in Game 1 OT

Posted on by
Reply

This is how fairy tales are written. On March 7th, Matt Cooke delivered a late hit on Marc Savard after he’d shot the puck on Marc-Andre Fleury. Savard was diagnosed with a Grade 2 concussion and was sidelined for just under 2 months, missing the entire remainder of the Bruins regular season, as well as their first round series against the Sabres. For those that can’t remember, here’s the hit.

Savard was back in the lineup today for the beginning of Round 2 with the Bruins taking on the Flyers. It was expected that Claude Julien would use Savard sparingly in his first game back, but an injury in the opening minutes to Marco Strum left the Bruins bench short, and Savard picked up the slack. Boston started the game very strong, scoring twice in the 1st period while shutting down the Flyers with an aggressive forecheck and a pace so grueling, everyone died of exhaustion and dysentery after attempting to ford the Charles River. The Flyers fought back, scoring twice in the 2nd and 3rd periods, with Briere splitting two defenders and burying his own rebound off of Tuukka Rask with just over 3 minutes to go in the 3rd period to tie the game at 4 a side.

But Boston had a fire lit under them during the 3rd intermission leading into the first overtime period. They came out on full attack, launching a full assault on Boucher and his defense. With just over 6 minutes left in the first OT, Zdeno Chara launched a rocket from the left point that hit off Boucher’s left pad. The bouncing puck was pinched and kept in the zone by Dennis Wideman, and Savard blasted the still-spinning unsettled puck past Boucher’s glove, winning the game.

Savard after his OT winner in the first game back from his concussion. (Courtesy NHL/Getty)

Watching Halak and Montreal upset the Capitals was so unexpected on my part, and their last-minute attack was so exciting to watch that I’d say that was a better game, but this was a very close second. I hoped Savard would at least be influential in his return to the ice, I could have never guessed he’d bury the finisher today.

Saturday Sports Moment

Posted on by
1

© Sal Iovine

I spent half my morning trying to fix some code here so I may as well post something. Loudville has a new voicemail hotline: 732-646-LOUD

How ’bout those Mets? First in the NL East and they beat down on the Phillies 9-1 last night. Outstanding. If only they could keep it up all year… can you imagine if they had a manager who seemed like he knew what he’s doing? The Yankees won too, and the Rays and Sox lost so it’s like two wins in a day for the Bombers. Bonus. Oh, and Dany Heatley got his first playoff goal of the season on Thursday. He’s an all-star.

I wasn’t really looking to blog today so I’m going to cut it here with another “history will be made” video, this one on the Sean Avery rule.

play

Round 2 of the NHL Playoffs begins tonight.

Posted on by
1

She gets bigger if you click on her.

I’m absolutely thrilled that the Habs knocked out the Caps last night, not because I’m a dirty Canada-loving hippie but because I really hated the level of success the Caps had in the regular season for the past few years. I’m a jerk like that. Washington is great team and they finally have half-decent fans and good attendance, but the Habs have a long tradition of being called the Habs for no good reason and I can go along with that.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Dan, that’s a smokin’-hot chick in goalie pads,” and you’d be right. I’m throwing my full support behind Boston against the Flyers despite them being part of Red Sox Nation because I’m pretty pissed that Philly knocked out my Devs. I’m not ready to talk about the Devils yet though, so I’m just gonna move on to a new topic.

There was a video of a Canadiens fan in a bikini here that my buddy Bob sent me, but some youtube deity has taken it away. In its place, one of those “history will be made” videos:

play

Now, really back on track. Tonight’s only hockey game is Detroit at San Jose, and everyone’s astounded the Sharks haven’t choked yet. My brother seems convinced this is a sign they’re going to win it all and dance with the Cup. But here’s the thing: Dany Heatley hasn’t scored a playoff goal yet. One man is not a team, but he’s the league’s 8th ranked scorer. He’s an all-star. And for more on Heatley, I direct you to his biggest fan on the youtube.

Jacques Lemaire Retires From Coaching, Gum Chewing

Posted on by
Reply

Jacques Lemaire finger pointing, a favorite pastime.

Jacques Lemaire stepped away from the head coaching job of the New Jersey Devils today.  His coaching career backs up a Hall of Fame playing career with the Montreal Canadiens with whom he won 8 Stanley Cups between 1967 and 1979. He coached 1,213 games between the Canadiens, Devils, and Wild between 1983 and 2010, having won the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 1995. He won a Jack Adams trophy in 1994 with the Devils, and in 2003 with the Wild.

Lemaire served as the head coach of the Minnesota Wild from their inception until the end of last season. Instead of retiring, Lou Lamoriello talked Lemaire into returning to the Devils as their head coach. He led the Devils to an Atlantic Division title while presenting his trademarked ‘defense first’ style of hockey. In his first stint as the Devils head coach, Lemaire implemented a notorious neutral zone trap, which allowed the Devils to subdue and control the offenses of most teams in the league. This was most notably the way the Devils won their first Stanley Cup when they shut down the Red Wings offense with their impervious trapping. Such play led to rule changes during the 04/05 lockout when the league determined that all obstruction penalties need to be called to increase the speed and scoring of the game.

Lamoriello said today that Lemaire will remain with the Devils organization on some level. As a Devils fan, I would like to see the vacancy filled by a coach that is willing to open up the offensive scheme more while hopefully retaining some of the young and talented free agents (Kovalchuk, Martin) in that scheme. The Devils have never been an offensively potent team since 2001 when the led the league in goals. Since then, they’ve been at or below the fold in terms of goal scoring in the East. The Devils have quality goal scorers, including Parise, Elias, and potentially Kovalchuk leading the pack; I’d just hate to see it all be underutilized in a stale offensive blueprint.

Hockey @ Loudville

Posted on by
2
The excitement of hockey, embodied here by Zach Parise

Photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images North America

Ice hockey is a game of unyielding passion. Players and fans pass every second of every game with their emotions on their sleeves. Split second decisions can lead to buzzer beaters with a tape-to-tape pass right on the money when you’re looking to tie the game with an extra attacker. The game’s intense physical play and quickness is unmatched by any game on the face of the planet.

Hockey has a strong following of enthusiastic fans, and this will be a blog for them. Those that don’t quite get the game should look elsewhere, I’m not looking to baby people into liking something they’re not interested in. I’ve been a hockey fan as long as I can remember, I have pictures of me at a kindergarten orientation wearing a Rangers sweatshirt. My first game was a Devils/Senators game back in 1995 just after the lockout, and since then I haven’t lost track of what the men in red have done. Today is an odd day for me to pick up this blog, seeing as the Flyers finished smothering the Devils with forechecking last night in Game 5; let’s just say this is my way of not cutting my throat.

Above all, this will be for fans of good hockey. Whether you like the high-flying scoring of the San Jose Sharks or the Washington Capitals, the finesse play of the Detroit Red Wings or the New Jersey Devils, or the rough-and-tumble game of the Philadelphia Flyers or the Anaheim Ducks, we’ll keep you entertained and cover major stories going on in the NHL. Most of all, we’ll keep my mind off of what happened last night at the Prudential Center.