LATEST STORIES FROM PUCK UPDATE
How Brad Richards Found Offense Through Defense
Larry Brooks had a nice little appreciation of Brad Richards yesterday.
Brooks also credited New York Rangers coach John Tortorella, who moved Richards off of Marian Gaborik’s line when it became obvious the two just weren’t clicking.
Tortorella deserves a lot of credit for his handling of Richards.
Given Richards salary, it would seem that he belongs on...
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December 14, 2011
Discuss
Blues Thought Ahead with Coaching Change
It was a little bit surprising when the St. Louis Blues fired coach Davis Payne earlier this month. The Blues were 6-7. Not great, but certainly not horrible.
It was even more surprisingly when GM Doug Armstrong hired Ken Hitchcock as the new coach, since the rumors had Hitchcock taking over in Columbus.
Armstrong obviously didn’t have much faith in Payne, but he...
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November 28, 2011
Goaltenders Need Protection From Their Teammates
Kerry Fraser had a big piece on TSN about how Brendan Shanahan blew it by not suspending Milan Lucic for his hit on goalie Ryan Miller. Fraser says that without a Lucic suspension, it’s going to be open season on goalies:
Players (and more importantly goalies) would know that the League still considers them endangered and will continue to protect them from full blown...
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November 16, 2011
Trapping Isn’t Tantrum-worthy
Like a lot of NHL fans, I’m not sure why people are just now realizing that the Tampa Bay Lightning use a 1-3-1 system.
I’m also not sure why the 1-3-1 suddenly infuriated the Philadelphia Flyers Wednesday night.
But now, there’s talk about the NHL “doing something” about trapping teams.
Obviously, there are things that can be done.
Greg Wyshynski...
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November 11, 2011
Put Columbus Coach Scott Arniel Out of His Misery
Scott Arniel has got to go in Columbus.
Not because his coaching is the reason his team has been awful. Not because of this weekend’s embarrassing 9-2 loss to the Flyers.
But because the team has obviously checked out on him.
With just two wins and an overtime loss, the Blue Jackets have five points in the standings, putting them 10 points behind the eighth...
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November 07, 2011
Sean Avery Might Have Magic Powers
More and more I wonder if Sean Avery has some kind of magical power.
The Rangers traded for him in February 2007, helping to put Avery on a more prominent stage than he had in LA as a King. Avery’s antics and agitating suddenly seemed more noteworthy.
Avery loved it in New York but couldn’t come to a contract agreement with the Rangers, so in the summer of 2008...
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November 02, 2011
Rangers’ Young Core Might Have Already Peaked
The Rangers are getting a bit nervous about their lack of secondary scoring.
The team has just 12 goals in its first six games of the season. A third of those goals have come from Marian Gaborik. Another third have come from a combination of grinder Brandon Prust and sophomore defenseman Ryan McDonagh.
That pattern probably won’t be sustainable over the course of...
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October 24, 2011
Martin Brodeur Injured At A Very Helpful Time
Devils’ coach Peter DeBoer got a little bit of a break in Martin Brodeur getting slightly injured so early in the season.
The Brodeur injury instantly grabbed the team’s attention, focusing them on winning without their franchise goalie, and took their minds off of last season’s horrible start.
DeBoer has been doing a lot of mental coaching to try and shake...
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October 18, 2011
Glen Sather and Icing Safety: Compassion or Gamesmanship?
It’s nice that Rangers’ GM Glen Sather is coming out, very publicly, in favor of the NHL adopting some kind of no-touch icing rule. Sather’s in favor of the race to the puck stopping at the faceoff dots, rather than around the boards.
Sather was commenting on the state of icing in the NHL because of Oiler defenseman Taylor Fendun’s horrific leg injury, which...
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October 10, 2011
Sean Avery’s Waiving Could Have Been Avoided
I can’t imagine anyone is surprised Sean Avery was waived yesterday. Avery has lived in coach John Tortorella’s bad graces since before Tortorella coached the Rangers. It’s vaguely sad, though, since there are things Avery and Tortorella could have done to make the relationship work. I hardly consider myself an Avery fan, but he’s an interesting character who makes...
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October 05, 2011
Parise or Kovalchuk Should Consider Switching Sides
I’m always amazed how NHL teams will let their rosters fall out of balance. For example, how did the Devils not consider the ramifications of investing so much in left wings?
The Devils have a lot of money and talent in Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise, both of whom play the left side.
Last year, coach John MacLean tried to move Kovalchuk to the right side. It didn’t...
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September 29, 2011
Jaromir Jagr Looking Downright Contemporary for Flyers
I’m shocked by how good Jaromir Jagr has looked for the Flyers.
When he left the NHL in 2008, he looked exhausted. He was playing for a coach who didn’t mind static, half-court offensive sets without much stretch-passing or speed, but the league was changing around Jagr and around the Rangers. It was becoming harder and harder to consistently win without lots of strong...
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September 27, 2011
Two-Thirds of a Top Line Is Enough for Rangers
It looks like the Rangers are considering Wojtek Wolski for the top-line wing spot, which would have him playing with Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik.
It would be a nice gig for Wolski, especially since there were rumors the Rangers might buy out his contract this summer.
But the Rangers really don’t have many options for their top line. Coach John Tortorella probably wants...
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September 19, 2011
Islanders Still Dream of a Healthy Rick DiPietro
Yesterday’s New York Post had a nice, long profile of New York Islander goalie Rick DiPietro.
DiPietro is perhaps best known for signing a 15-year contract in 2006, putting together two very strong seasons, and then spending the next three seasons being perpetually injured.
DiPietro is once again trying to get his career on track, to live up to the flashes of goaltending...
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September 15, 2011
NHLers Enjoy Aggressive Coaching Just As Much As Fans Do
After the last NHL lockout, the league put an emphasis on trying to take trapping out of hockey, saying that fans didn’t want to watch a team trap for three periods.
So the league tweaked some rules and did what it could to put some more speed into the game. And for the most part it worked. But I always wondered how players felt about it. For many NHL players, trapping...
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September 12, 2011
Time For League to Treat All Players Like People, Regardless of Role
Over in New Jersey, Todd Fedoruk is trying to survive the pressures of addiction and an NHL comeback, as he works to catch on with the Canucks.
Fedoruk is a 32-year-old enforcer who was out of hockey last season while he worked on some personal issues.
Down in Tampa, Steven Stamkos is trying to establish his new contract doesn’t mean more pressure for the young...
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September 05, 2011
Jets and Crosby Show the Importance of NHL Teams, Not Players
I was happy to see the good people of Winnipeg are psyched to have an NHL team in their midst again. The new Jets are already rock stars and they’ve yet to play an official minute in the Peg.
Excitement has been one of the main casualties of the NHL’s expansion into non-traditional markets and into markets that can’t really sustain an NHL team.
By forcing square...
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August 26, 2011
Are the Flyers Getting Nervous About Jaromir Jagr?
I was a little surprised to hear the Flyers have invited Michael Nylander to training camp on a tryout.
Signed by the Caps in 2007, he never quite clicked anywhere and found himself playing out his contract in the AHL. While in the AHL, he injured a vertabra in his neck and had what many said could be season-ending surgery.
Capitals owner Ted Leonis would eventually...
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August 22, 2011
Loose Caps Are A Feature, Not a Bug
I was very intrigued by Matt Bradley’s comments about Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau and the tone of his team’s locker room:
I think our locker room was maybe a little bit too nonchalant, and guys weren’t disciplined the way they should have been.
Tarik El-Bashir followed-up on Bradley’s comments and was met with a silence that seemed to agree with...
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August 18, 2011
NHL GMs Go Hollywood and Embrace the Reboot
Here in the United States, we seem to be in a period where we’re enthralled by the idea of a reboot, with reboot defined as the reconceptualization of a previously developed idea.
The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies were popular but to breathe new life into the character, the franchise is getting rebooted, giving a slightly different take on Spider-Man than seen in...
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July 29, 2011
Rangers Give Brandon Dubinsky Four Years to Live Up To Potential
The Rangers did a relatively impressive job in holding Brandon Dubinsky to a four-year, $16.8 million, arbitration-avoiding contract.
According to some, the big issue in getting the contract done was money and length of contract. According to others, the issue was just contract length.
If the proceedings had a feeling of deja vu, it’s because back in 2009, Dubinsky...
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July 22, 2011
Next Devils Coach Might Want to Learn He’s Hired
I’m not quite sure why the Devils have yet to pick a new coach but my gut feeling is that it can’t be a good thing.
After last season’s coaching misfire, with rookie NHL head coach John MacLean destroying the season, followed by former coach Jacques Lemaire returning to his old job, almost managing to bring the Devils back into the playoffs and undo the MacLean damage...
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July 13, 2011
Chemistry Between Gaborik and Richards Isn’t a Given
The most interesting thing about the Brad Richards signing in New York is the assumption that he’ll click with Marian Gaborik.
The assumption is so prevalent, the only question people seem to be asking is who’ll play left wing on the Richards-Gaborik line.
But I think we need to take a step back. Because just because two players are great doesn’t mean they...
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July 08, 2011
Sharks and Flyers Fix What’s Not Broken in Search of Cup
The most interesting part of last week’s roster moves (and this weekend’s) was that two very successful NHL teams were willing to dramatically reinvent themselves, even though the previous season’s versions of the teams were successful.
Both the Philadelphia Flyers and San Jose Sharks, two teams that, had some things gone just a little bit differently, could have...
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July 05, 2011
Purge of Flyers Helps Team Shed Salary and Talent
The thing that worries me about Philadelphia’s crazy purge of two of their best players, is that I can kind of understand what Flyers’ GM Paul Holmgren was trying to accomplish.
Holmgren wanted to sign goalie Ilya Bryzgalov but the Flyers were capped out. Mike Richards and Jeff Carter both had no-trade clauses that would have started in 2012. They also both had expensive...
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June 24, 2011
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