Fast Tube by Casper

We see it time and time again on the ice, poor sportsmanship after giving up a goal. This time it proved to be costly for Florida Panther’s goaltender Thomas Vokoun. Panthers defenseman Keith Ballard pulled the dumbest stunt yet this season while attempting break his stick over the crossbar after Atlanta’s goal midway into the first period, struck his own goaltender in the head.

Vokoun suffered an ear laceration and was alert when taken off the ice on a stretcher. Although there is not a rule of high sticking your own player in the NHL, the Florida Panthers management needs to address this with either a fine or a suspension with out pay to Keith Ballard. This type of behavior should not be tolerated at any level of hockey period. Ballard is lucky that all Vokoun suffered was an ear laceration, this could of been a hell of  a lot worse. GROW UP.

Florida GM Randy Sexton said. ”There was no internal ear damage, just a laceration. They stitched him up, took a CAT scan and there’s no additional injuries.”

For all the youth players out there; I watch you kids do similar acts of banging sticks against the boards, over the net or on the ice and you look stupid. Parents pay a whole lot of money for hockey, never mind the $200.00 sticks you “have to have” and by breaking them in an act of frustration or poor sportsmanship is a total disrespect to your parents, teammates and coaches. Everyone makes mistakes on the ice, deal with it and move on. Unlike the NHL, there are penalties that go along with your broken stick and usually you will sit for a unsportsmanlike or a misconduct. Acting like a fool after a mistake doesn’t take it back, it only makes it worse. Play safe and stay positive.

Fast Tube by Casper

Thanksgiving has come and gone and here is another issue of my weekly round up. I will have to admit with the holiday weekend, I have slipped a bit but here we go with some things that you have may of missed as you turned to football for the weekend or just simply slept your turkey dinner away.

Who is in, who is out?

Out for the next two games would be the Penguins Matt Cooke. Once again we see a cheap shot  and the NHL has responded properly by issuing Cooke a 2 game suspension for a high hit to the head on the Rangers Artem Anisimov. Cooke threw an elbow to Anisimov’s head and dislodged his helmet which to me was a total cheap shot as it was no where near the puck at the time.

The Avalanche have lost David Jones who torn his ACL  and will be out till late March. Colorado has been struggling of late and losing Jones will not help matters.

The Boston Bruins can’t catch a break in the injury department. Just 4 games after getting power forward Milan Lucic back in the line up, Lucic once again goes down for another 4 weeks as he has a high ankle sprain. Anyone in Boston that saw that injury live was thinking the worst as it appeared to be a knee injury at first. The B’s also got back Vezinar trophy winner, Tim Thomas on Saturday after missing 5 games. In that shootout win for the B’s, Patrice Bergeron rolled his right ankle and then took a slap shot off the leg. Bergeron missed Monday’s practice and there is no new if he will play their next game Wednesday against the Lightning.

The Chicago Blackhawks finally got what they were waiting for with Marian Hossa who made his debut on Wednesday. The red hot Hawks added had to have been on cloud 9 with Hossa’s two goals to what already appears to be a stacked line up.

New York Newsday is reporting that Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro will play in part of Bridgeport’s game in the AHL to start his road back to the NHL. GM Garth Snow is hoping to see Dipietro back with the Islanders by mid-December.

Black Friday killed some streaks

Like mentioned above, the Blackhawks are on fire as they rang up a 8 game winning streak before getting shut out Friday night by the Ducks and losing in a shoot out the next night to the Kings. Still at 8-1-1 and Hossa’s arrival, the Western Conference has reason to be worry.

Friday also killed Nashville’s 7 game winning streak as they lost to the Blues. The Predators are 8-2 in their last 10 and host one of the best road teams in the League as the Devils who have 10 wins on the road and are 7-2-1 in their last 10. Speaking of the Devils, they stopped the Bruins 4 game winning streak in a great battle of the goalies. Martin Brodeur also set another record as he passed Patrick Roy in all time minutes played.

Another southern team is also making some noise as the Atlanta Thrashers is riding a 3 game winning streak and 7-1-2 in the last 10 will host the Florida Panthers who are 5-2-3 but have lost the last 2.Even with all the injury issues the Bruins have had ,they have suddenly surged from 12th to 3rd  in the Eastern Conference by going 6-1-3 in the last 10.

The Carolina Hurricanes continue to struggle as they have lost their last 3 and are 3-5-2 in the last 10. The Canes are still without a win on the road will host the Avalanche who are 2-5-3 in their last ten games. Despite the recent slump of the Avalanche, they are still holding 4th in the West thanks to the great start they had at the beginning of the season.

Key Match-ups this week ahead

Tonight’s Pittsburg/Rangers game should be interesting as they play the back half of a home and home. Good thing for the Pens, the NHL suspended Cooke or this one could of gotten real ugly. The Penguins have a tough week as they face the Avalanche on Thursday and the Blackhawks on Saturday. Also tonight you have a battle of two hot teams as the Devils visit the Predators.

The Buffalo Sabres will try to leap frog over the Sen’s and Bruins to capture first place in the Northeast as they visit Toronto tonight as well.

The Bruins will have to beware of the set up game Wednesday night against the Bolts as they will visit Montreal for a Friday night battle against the Habs but more importantly the game that every Bruins fan has been waiting for as Phil Kessel makes his first appearance in the city he wanted to leave. I wouldn’t expect too many cheers for Kessel at the Garden Saturday night.

I’ll have to admit, looking at the schedule this weekend and the loss of Milan Lucic…again, I predicted the Bruins to lose to a rested Ottawa team. Hoping I was wrong, it appeared at the end of the first period there was some truth in my theory. The Sens scored 2 goals on 5 shots in the first period as Tim Thomas returned to action and The sold out Garden was thinking it was going to be a lonngggg night.

The never say die Bruins came out a different team in the 2nd frame and it was their turn to run the show as they scored 2 goals, both on the power play and  giving up none and sending it to the final frame knotted up at 2. Dennis Wideman ends his 21 game scoring drought with the Bruins third power play goal of the night half way through the third. Mark Recci takes a penalty with just 3 minutes to go and again, I am having those bad thoughts. But once again the Bruins killed the penalty and were storming an empty net in the last minute trying to solidify the unlikely comeback . Ottawa calls a time out with 25 seconds and on the ensuing faceoff, the Sens storm in and beat Thomas on a really bad goal. Timmy just simply missed his angle with 19 seconds left. Bruins have seen this time and time again so an extra 5 was ordered again.

After a scoreless overtime, we have a shoot out for the second time in as many days and the ninth time this season for the B’s . Thomas came up huge on Spezza in the shootout keeping it scoreless. Michael Ryder beats Elliot in the 4th round of the shootout and  Thomas comes up huge again giving the Bruins the win in a shootout redeeming himself from the soft goal that got them there to begin with.

The Bruins have had a revolving door on the injury list all season and the team has pulled together to keep themselves in just about every game. the efforts have paid off as the team fights their way to the top of the Northeast Division. If this team can ever get healthy, they are going to be tough to beat just like a year ago. They are a scrappy team that finds a way to be in the mix night in and night out.

Tukkaa Rask who has been in net for the injured Tim Thomas looked like the Vezina Trophy winner he was replacing stopped 33 of 34 shots faced in regulation as Martin Brodeur was equally as good coming up huge in with 3 seconds left in the third period making his 29th stop of the afternoon to force the extra session.When the puck dropped at the beginning of the third period,  Brodeur broke the record for most minutes played in the NHL by a goalie passing Patrick Roy’s mark of 60,235. Brodeur is at 60,280 and counting.

The back and forth game went to a shootout. After both goalies stopping the first shots faces the two goal scorers in regulation ,Zach Parise and Blake Wheeler score in the second round of the shoot out. Jamie Langenbrunner broke the stalemate and beat Rask on the final shot of the shootout making the Devils 10-2-1 on the road this season. Someone had to win and neither team deserved the loss in this great matinee game. No rest for the weary as the B’s are right back at it hosting the Sens tomorrow night. The Bruins are now tied with Ottawa for 1st place in the Northeast Division.

Dwayne Roloson has played over 500 NHL games in his 13 year career and at 40 years old, Roloson is still proving that he has what it takes to play in the NHL. The New York Islanders signed the veteran goalie to a two year deal  in July and are getting their money’s worth. Last night Roloson made a career high 58 saves to help the Isle’s beat the struggling Maple Leafs in overtime 4-3. Roloson had to bail out his teammates as they squandered a 3-0 lead. So far this season Roloson is sporting a 7-2-5 record with a 2.86 GAA and a .916 save %.

In case you were wondering, I did some research and got you some numbers on saves by a goalie in the NHL. Sam LoPresti holds the regular season record for saves made. Lopresti stopped 80 of 83 shots in a 3-2 loss at Boston on March 4,1941.

The playoff record is held by coincidentally an Islander’s goalie, Kelly Hrudey who stopped 73 shots in a 3-2 as teammate  Pat LaFontaine scored int the 69th minute of overtime to lift the Islanders over the Washington Capitals on April 18,1987.

Dominic Hasek holds the record for most saves in a shut out victory with 70. The Sabres netminder accomplished this record in a 1-0 victory against the New Jersey Devils on April 27,1984. It took 4 overtimes to break the 0-0 tie before Dave Hannan backhanded the game winner past Martin Brodeur in his rookie year.

Being a Bruins fan, the one that sticks out for us would be on March 21,1991 when Ron Tugnutt of the Quebec Nordiques stopped 70 of the 73 shots that the Bruins threw at him in the Boston Garden. Ray Bourque had 19 shots himself in that game and managed to get one by Tugnutt.