The 2014-2015 NHL Boondoggle

[Sodboy13]

I can see why they're considering it, though. Having the KHL around complicates putting together a tournament like this, because their season's already underway in September, and no one in the Putinverse is going to let their league's talent hop over for a couple weeks to give the NHL a cash infusion.

[HedleyLamarr]

Was there a kid who sat behind you in 2nd grade hitting you up for Thrashers tickets? Should have been like "screw you, jerkass," and then given him some Thrashers tickets.

Basically. We call them our Eight Month Friends.

"Hey Hedley, it's been a while. Can I get tickets for the LeBron game coming up?"

"We should get dinner some time, Hedley. You got any tickets for the Boston game?"

[The_Admiral]

Having a Mitteleuropa Junk Drawer team is kind of silly but I expect nothing less from this league. Personally, I think it's more important to create opportunities for other nations, like Torin said. If anything, combine the US and Canada into a mega-team.

[Still MIGHTY]

RIP #DryScrape

“The air came out of the balloon,” said Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving. “You’re going into overtime and you’ve got a tie game and all this energy in the building and you had this dead time before you started overtime. It was just a complete buzzkill.”

NHL vice-president and director of hockey operations, Colin Campbell, said the league was experiencing delays of anywhere from four to 6 ½ minutes for the dry scrape. In comparison, he said the ice can be cleaned with shovels in the time it takes for a commercial timeout, which is about two minutes. The scrape takes a layer of the ice off, while shoveling will simply remove the snow that accumulated during the period.

“I know in our market in Nashville, when they put up that five minutes, that was kind of an ‘oh-oh’ type of a situation,” said Predators GM David Poile. “We lost a lot of fans for the overtime. I think we just did the right thing. We made the right decision to make that change back and no harm, no foul.”

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland, who was behind the movement to establish the dry scrape, agreed with the decision to scrap it. “That was my bad idea, yeah,” Holland said.

[ninersdd]

Patrick Kaleta is out for the Sabres tonight because he is snowed in.

[DaRadniz29]

Patrick Kaleta is out for the Sabres tonight because he is snowed in.

Just saw on Twitter that the game is on, but looking at the weather and news in Buffalo, not sure how many fans/players will make the game. Sounds like the Sharks got there ok. Troy Grosenick will get his second NHL start tonight. Good move after Sunday's performance and it hopefully gives Nemo some rest. Not sure Grosenick can end the curse, but maybe, just maybe he can.

Also, on Randy Hahn's twitter (Sorry Red Wings fans):

Bakes and the Wall.

https://twitter.com/sharkvoice/status/534747951495929857/photo/1

[twi]

RIP #DryScrape

“The air came out of the balloon,” said Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving. “You’re going into overtime and you’ve got a tie game and all this energy in the building and you had this dead time before you started overtime. It was just a complete buzzkill.”

NHL vice-president and director of hockey operations, Colin Campbell, said the league was experiencing delays of anywhere from four to 6 ½ minutes for the dry scrape. In comparison, he said the ice can be cleaned with shovels in the time it takes for a commercial timeout, which is about two minutes. The scrape takes a layer of the ice off, while shoveling will simply remove the snow that accumulated during the period.

“I know in our market in Nashville, when they put up that five minutes, that was kind of an ‘oh-oh’ type of a situation,” said Predators GM David Poile. “We lost a lot of fans for the overtime. I think we just did the right thing. We made the right decision to make that change back and no harm, no foul.”

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland, who was behind the movement to establish the dry scrape, agreed with the decision to scrap it. “That was my bad idea, yeah,” Holland said.

Interesting. It did seem like a huge momentum killer, but more in the sense that I'd turn to another game and forget to turn back. The one OT game I've been to this year, it didn't seem like a big deal when you're in the arena. The switching of defensive ends is the bigger difference maker anyway.

Obligatory "how I would do OT" section of any overtime-related post: 10 minute 4v4, then a 5 man shootout if necessary.

[Still MIGHTY]

RIP #DryScrape

“The air came out of the balloon,” said Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving. “You’re going into overtime and you’ve got a tie game and all this energy in the building and you had this dead time before you started overtime. It was just a complete buzzkill.”

NHL vice-president and director of hockey operations, Colin Campbell, said the league was experiencing delays of anywhere from four to 6 ½ minutes for the dry scrape. In comparison, he said the ice can be cleaned with shovels in the time it takes for a commercial timeout, which is about two minutes. The scrape takes a layer of the ice off, while shoveling will simply remove the snow that accumulated during the period.

“I know in our market in Nashville, when they put up that five minutes, that was kind of an ‘oh-oh’ type of a situation,” said Predators GM David Poile. “We lost a lot of fans for the overtime. I think we just did the right thing. We made the right decision to make that change back and no harm, no foul.”

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland, who was behind the movement to establish the dry scrape, agreed with the decision to scrap it. “That was my bad idea, yeah,” Holland said.

Interesting. It did seem like a huge momentum killer, but more in the sense that I'd turn to another game and forget to turn back. The one OT game I've been to this year, it didn't seem like a big deal when you're in the arena. The switching of defensive ends is the bigger difference maker anyway.

Obligatory "how I would do OT" section of any overtime-related post: 10 minute 4v4, then a 5 man shootout if necessary.

The Ducks went to overtime in five consecutive games last week. Dry Scrape got really old really fast.

Mine: 5 mins 4v4, 5 mins 3v3, then personally, I'd call it a tie, but I guess shootout.

Supposedly the AHL's weird 4 mins 4v4, 3 mins 3v3 has worked pretty well in avoiding the shootout, but their timing is weird. It's a 7-minute overtime period, no matter what. It starts 4v4 then whenever the first whistle after the 4 minute mark, they switch to 3v3. So if you have continuous play, you could either not have 3v3 at all or only get like one minute or whatever. But I like the idea, just need to really define it.

[Cosmic]

Patrick Kaleta is out for the Sabres tonight because he is snowed in.

Just saw on Twitter that the game is on, but looking at the weather and news in Buffalo, not sure how many fans/players will make the game. Sounds like the Sharks got there ok.

Lake effect snow is hit-or-miss. Downtown and areas north are basically unaffected, the southtowns are absolutely buried. I live about five miles north of the arena, and I didn't even shovel this morning. Five miles south of the arena, you'd be looking at four feet of snow (and it's still falling). Thank you, Niagara Peninsula of Ontario! The Sabres are letting people exchange unused tickets for a future game... let's just say that have some excess inventory to play with this year.

Edit: It has looked almost exactly like this for the past 24 hours:

Double edit: That's the Sabres' arena in the foreground of this really cool time lapse video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRXOr-_GKPk

[Still MIGHTY]

Did the blizzard keep the Maple Leafs from showing up at the Air Canada Centre?

8-0 to the Perds. Yikes.

[twi]

If you want to see a visual definition of it just not being your night, look up a replay of Nashville's 8th goal tonight. Predators absolutely running the Maple Leafs out of the building tonight.

And the Bronx cheer for Reimer...poor guy does not deserve that he's had nothing but bums in front of him tonight.

[Still MIGHTY]

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop on Nashville. Are the Perds legit? i haven't gotten a chance to watch them yet.

[habsfan1]

Guess what? Another jersey gets thrown on the ice.

[twi]

To go along with the Irbe picture from earlier.

[HedleyLamarr]

Patrick Kaleta is out for the Sabres tonight because he is snowed in.

Just saw on Twitter that the game is on, but looking at the weather and news in Buffalo, not sure how many fans/players will make the game. Sounds like the Sharks got there ok. Troy Grosenick will get his second NHL start tonight. Good move after Sunday's performance and it hopefully gives Nemo some rest. Not sure Grosenick can end the curse, but maybe, just maybe he can.

Also, on Randy Hahn's twitter (Sorry Red Wings fans):

Bakes and the Wall.

https://twitter.com/sharkvoice/status/534747951495929857/photo/1

Fortunately for them in that they won, but being without team personnel and a player for a home game is the fault of the home team.

Not knowing Buffalo's schedule, the home team usually has a morning skate in their arena at 10am, and they also have hotel rooms within walking distance (or a very short drive) of the arena that they own during the season for players to get some shut-eye between the morning skate and the game.

I'd think that the team would have known better and required their guys to be at said lodgings if this big a snowstorm was near the city.

[Cosmic]

Patrick Kaleta is out for the Sabres tonight because he is snowed in.

Just saw on Twitter that the game is on, but looking at the weather and news in Buffalo, not sure how many fans/players will make the game. Sounds like the Sharks got there ok. Troy Grosenick will get his second NHL start tonight. Good move after Sunday's performance and it hopefully gives Nemo some rest. Not sure Grosenick can end the curse, but maybe, just maybe he can.

Also, on Randy Hahn's twitter (Sorry Red Wings fans):

Bakes and the Wall.

https://twitter.com/sharkvoice/status/534747951495929857/photo/1

Fortunately for them in that they won, but being without team personnel and a player for a home game is the fault of the home team.

Not knowing Buffalo's schedule, the home team usually has a morning skate in their arena at 10am, and they also have hotel rooms within walking distance (or a very short drive) of the arena that they own during the season for players to get some shut-eye between the morning skate and the game.

I'd think that the team would have known better and required their guys to be at said lodgings if this big a snowstorm was near the city.

Even for here, this is a lot of snow, and the way the lake effect band has stayed virtually still over a single area is unusual (although lake effect can do that). The weather radar has stayed essentially unchanged for the past 24-36 hours. The driving bans and such are unusual to last the whole day like they have, as well. Normally, a driving ban is for a few hours during the morning commute; these have been all day and are expanding, if anything. There is a wall of snow falling at 3-5" per hour cutting off anyone south of the city from getting in. They're talking totals of 70" in some areas, which I don't think I had ever heard before from one storm. This is an outlier.

Edit: Even still, they were missing a guy who has struggled to crack this roster (think about that), one trainer, a massage therapist, the director of media relations, and the anthem singer.... not exactly an empty bench. Irbe only suited up because of an injury.

[rxmc89]

Thank you Florida Panthers. You did your job, kick the Ducks' butts on Sunday and then lose to the Kings tonight.

[ninersdd]

The Sharks have had to start out the year 16 of 21 on the road, so I can understand some of the slow start. It's still inexcusable not to pick up a point against Buffalo and Columbus in 4 games. I can't describe it, but the team just appears stale so far this year. The team returns home Thursday against the Panthers. Bold prediction from me: If they lose that, Mclellan is gone.

[NJTank]

If you want to see a visual definition of it just not being your night, look up a replay of Nashville's 8th goal tonight. Predators absolutely running the Maple Leafs out of the building tonight.

And the Bronx cheer for Reimer...poor guy does not deserve that he's had nothing but bums in front of him tonight.

The Maple Leafs are offically now the Chicago Cubs of the NHL

[dbadefense1990]

Thank you Florida Panthers. You did your job, kick the Ducks' butts on Sunday and then lose to the Kings tonight.

Trends of California NHL teams so far:

Kings: Dominant at home, a clusterf#ck on the road.

Sharks: Dominant against the contenders, a clusterf#ck against lower-tier teams.

Ducks: The mumps.