Mid-August Bric-a-Brac
Jonathan Willis
August 11 2009 01:02PM
It turns out that there are a few things to talk about with respect to hockey – even without looking at Patrick Kane’s off-ice adventures (or worse, writing article #9954 about Sidney Crosby’s birthday party). The Leafs have made some moves, Nikolai Zherdev has bolted for Russia, Theo Fleury plans a comeback, and the Sabres have signed Mike Grier.
The Rush to Judgement
Jonathan Willis
August 11 2009 06:30AM
The hockey world is roundly condemning Patrick Kane after reports that he and his cousin had been charged with assaulting a cab driver and depriving him of his fare. Some of that condemnation has occurred on this website.
Compare and Contrast: The Death of Hockey
Jonathan Willis
August 10 2009 01:29PM
Adam Proteau of The Hockey News saw the same study on the demise of hockey in Canada that I did, but his view is slightly different from mine.
Baptism By Fire and the Pittsburgh Penguins
Jonathan Willis
August 09 2009 05:00AM
The 2003-04 Pittsburgh Penguins were a miserable team – the worst in the NHL in fact. They went 23-47-8-4, and were led in scoring by defenseman Dick Tarnstrom (52 points) and had ten different players who recorded a -20 rating or worse. The team also featured 17 players aged 25 or younger, including many high draft picks.
Five years later, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup – showing that the baptism-by-fire method helped develop those young players into champions, right? Wrong.
Best of The Rest: Free Agent Goaltenders
Jonathan Willis
August 05 2009 01:11PM
It’s early August, and the NHL is about as far off of the radar as it could possibly be. Free agency has cooled down, the draft is far in the rear-view mirror and the fact of the matter is that there aren’t a lot of stories to cover (side point: how stupid is it that the draft and free agency both get jammed together at the end of June/very start of July?).
However - there remain teams with holes (most of them) and players capable of filling those holes. We’ll start by considering free agent goaltenders.
