Skip to main content

Quick Game One Thoughts

The Red Wings certainly dominated the scoring opportunities, but the Predators held strong and had every chance to win the game in the 3rd. I'll leave it to sharper eyes to determine whether the go-ahead goal for Detroit should have been whistled offsides, the crappy non-HD feed on FSN didn't give a clear view. Dan Ellis looked very sharp in net, and Jason Arnott in particular looked pretty quick on his skates. I'll follow up with detailed analysis tomorrow morning.

More interesting will be to see if anything comes out of Niklas Kronwall's hit on Rich Peverley in the 3rd. As Peverley cleared the puck out the zone, Kronwall pinched in and committed the three sins which supposedly bring a suspension from the league office:

1) He left his feet
2) He nailed Peverley in the head
3) He used his elbow

Now, since Peverley got right back up and joined the play, I'm guessing nothing's going to come out of this. The NHL head office has shown a horrible propensity to hand out penalties based on the extent of injury to the victim, not the action of the perpetrator.

All the same, if I'm Barry Trotz, I'm lobbying hard for a suspension. This is the playoffs, and you've got to use whatever options are available.

Popular posts from this blog

Cheer up, it's the holidays...

Why is it that various media outlets continue trying to put their own spin on the "what's wrong with the NHL" story? Our latest example comes from The Hockey News , in a piece by Jay Greenburg entitled, "Excitement Level On The Decline." Take the opening sentence: Attendance is down and yet still up from before the lockout, leaving it arguable whether buildings in New Jersey and Florida are half-full or half empty. It's no surprise that attendance is down from last season, particularly if you compare the first half of 2005-06 to the first half of this year. Coming out of the lockout, there were legions of fans starved to see the on-ice product, particularly in light of the massive rule changes. This year is more indicative of business as usual, so the fact that the league is above pre-lockout levels is a positive. Toss in the projection that overall revenues are increasing despite a 1% decrease in attendance, and I'd say that paying fans have come back ...

How I'm Trying To Make Money Sports Blogging

To kick off this series of articles general sports-blogging articles here at OTF Classic, I think it's best to start with a comment that Brad left here last week, after I shared my goals for 2012 , which include specific revenue targets: I considered diving into the world of internet marketing myself, but I felt that my friends would hate me for bugging them about stuff. I mean, it's pretty low-risk high-reward, so it's tempting. I wouldn't mind reading about tips on how to maximize impact of blogging in general to make it a legitimate income source. Trying to make money at sports blogging can be a very touchy subject - for the vast majority of us, this is an activity we pursue to both exercise our creativity and share our love of the game, whether it's hockey, football, badminton, whatever, with fellow fans. Mixing that personal conversation with a commercial message can turn people off, especially if it becomes too intrusive for the reader. It's not unrea...

My Letter To Gary

Dear Mr. Bettman, When the announcement was made a few weeks ago that Jim Balsillie had entered into an agreement to purchase the Nashville Predators, speculation immediately began that a relocation to South Ontario would come in short order, and many hockey fans in the Nashville area jumped to the conclusion that we'd see a "Major League" scenario, whereby the new owner would deliberately undermine local support of the team so as to trigger the escape clause in the team's arena lease. As for myself, I decided to give Mr. Balsillie the benefit of the doubt - surely as a lifelong hockey fan and player, he wouldn't do such a thing after acquiring one of the best young teams in the game, with the Stanley Cup potentially within reach. I've waited and watched over recent weeks, and was initially encouraged by Balsillie's promise to field a competitive team, giving GM David Poile an ample budget to put together the best team possible. His legal representative ...