lordstanley

Bolts storm back to win 6-4. So Eastern matchups will be Panthers-Caps, Canes-Bruins, Leafs-Lightning and Rangers-Penguins. in the West, Minnesota-St Louis and Edmonton-LA. Division winners Colorado and Calgary will play Nashville and Dallas; matchups to be determined by tonight’s results.

Ha, Montreal is finally ready to start the season. Beating Florida 10-2!

Buffalo Sabres' announcer Rick Jeanneret, he of "Mayday, Mayday" fame, called his last game tonight. Which ended, fittingly, with a Sabres' OT winner. https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/33648862/sabres-raise-banner-honoring-long-broadcaster-jeanneret

Ha, they were doing EVERYTHING to feed Bertuzzi. Hits the post. Then finally puts it in.

Who the hell is Hellberg?

Broadcast just chatting about Dan Cleary and showed his game 7 winner against the Ducks in 2009. One of my favorite goals ever. That was such an intense game.

Would like Bertuzzi to get his 30th. Four minutes left to do so.

I think that the puck is over the line and the Wings will be re-taking the lead by time game gets back from commercial.

Keeping an eye on out of town scoreboard. Don't want the Leafs to avoid Tampa. But if current scores hold, it will be Bruins-Leafs in the 1st round. Would have to think if that happens this is the year the Leafs finally have the Bruins' number, especially with home ice advantage.

Wings take the lead on a Veleno goal.

Would winning Shane Wright rule us out of Connor Bedard next year? I salivate over the prospect of getting Bedard. He's from North Vancouver so have been hearing about him since his adolescence.

My head agreed but my heart would feel 5th place shows some progress

1G 1A for Rasmussen as he roars towards the finish line. 2-2 after 2.

Red Wings season point totals in the 6 straight years they've missed the playoffs. For the two Covid-shortened seasons are pro-rated it to 82 games: 2016-17 79 2017-18 73 2018-19 74 2019-20 45 (actual: 39pts in 71 games) 2020-21 70 (actual 48pts in 56 games) 2021-22 72 (with one game left to play to possibly add to that) In mid-February, I had thought 82 pts in 82 games was a reasonable target to aim for. They were on pace for around 80 points at that time, have fallen off the cliff since then.

I'm not sure who would have been Messier. The Wings did have some Semenkos on the roster at that time though.

Have talked with some friends about this today. I’m happy with how things worked out for the Wings. Ultimately, I don’t think a Gretzky trade would have resulted in a better era than we ended up getting https://www.audacy.com/971theticket/sports/detroit-red-wings/wayne-gretzky-recalls-red-wings-trade-that-wasnt?utm_campaign=www.audacy.com%2F971theticket&utm_content=1651080307&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=WXYT-FM

Yes, there did seem to be improvement by Rasmussen in the second half. He might become serviceable.

So what's that, 9-19-4 since February 15, I believe. Has wiped away any of the positive feelings I had the first half of the season about progress. We played 82 games to discover that Raymond and Seider are really good picks, Larkin and Bertuzzi are strong, and Vrana was a nice trade. Plus a ton of question marks at best after that.

60 goals is quite a season for Matthews. When he was drafted, I thought he'd be an average #1 overall pick. Seems he is better than that, especially with #1 overalls recently being less than stellar. Apart from McDavid and maybe McKinnon, I'd have to rank him no lower 3rd of the past 12 years. For the record, the last twelve 1st overalls have been: Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Nathan McKinnon, Aaron Ekblad, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Nico Hischier, Rasmus Dahlin, Jack Hughes, Alex Lafreniere, and Owen Power. I know it's a bit early on a few of the more recent ones, but I don't see why any of them would match Matthews.

When I'm in Portland, Oregon, they pronounce where I live as "Van koo ver BEE SEE" or "Van koo ver Can ah dah". If I say I'm from Vancouver, they think I mean the little hiccup Vancouver, Washington just across the river from them.

Ned is all over the place. Blowout some games, shutout others. Wings win 3-0 with 2 ENGs

Agreed.

May be 2-0. Busy crease.

Oddly, after bottoming out with under 80 points in the 3 seasons between 2018-2020, the Rangers are near the top of the NHL standings this season despite getting little out of high picks Lafreniere and Kakko.

Down year for Tomas Tatar with the Devils. 15G 15A for 30 PTS in 75 games.