The Boston Bruins re-signed 26 year old Chuck Kobasew to a multi year deal on Tuesday, no terms however were released. This season he set career highs in goals (22), assists (17), and points (39) in his first full season as a Bruin. This isn't Kobasew's first stint in Boston as he played one season at Boston College where he lead the Eagles to their 2nd of 3 National Championships and was voted Most Valuable Player in the Frozen Four. Soon after he was drafted 14th overall by the Calgary Flames where he played his first 4 seasons as a Flame before being traded last season with Andrew Ference to Boston.

The Calgary Flames signed their 1st pick, 24th overall, in the 2007 draft,18 year old centermen, Mikael Backlund. He has shown great offensive skills while playing in and for his native Sweden. He scored the game winning goal in overtime in this years IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship semi final against Russia. Sweden ended up winning silver in that tournament. Also he is ranked 2nd among European prospects.

Dallas fans have to feel good about going into tonight's game 4 against the San Jose Sharks being up 3 games to none. They also have to feel great about the play of the goalie Marty Turco. He is one of the biggest reasons they are where they are. In only 2 games this postseason Turco has let up more than 2 goals, both loses to defending champion Anaheim. Also to go along with his 1.86 goals against average and .921 save percentage in this years postseason, both teams that have played the Stars have had a extremely tough time when Turco has been handling the puck. He is playing like a third defensemen on break outs out of their zone and Turco's offensive skills have helped him on the defensive side of his game because the Sharks are having a tough time keeping the puck in the zone on dump ins cause of the great puck movement from Turco.

The San Jose Sharks are only one loss away from elimination. How can this be? Just a few weeks ago everyone in the hockey world was watching them win at an incredible rate and most experts had picked them to win the Lord Stanley's Cup. Now they have their backs against the wall and many Sharks fans are looking for answers to why they are coming up short year after year. It all starts with head coach Ron Wilson and his lack of emotion on and off the bench. For some reason the Sharks players need to be pushed in the playoffs for them to compete, look at the games against the Stars and Game 6 against the Flames in round 1. They have played uninspired hockey and have been outplayed by the Dallas Stars in every facet of the game and it's Ron Wilson's job not to let that happen. It's hard to let a coach go when he has won an average of 46 games over the last 4 years but other than an '04 loss in the Conference Championships, Wilson's playoff resume has been very poor for such a talent enriched team.

Johan Franzen has been unstoppable in this years playoffs for the Red Wings. He has 7 goals in 8 postseason games and 5 goals in the last 2 games against Colorado. The Avs have a lot to deal with going against a team that looks like they are playing great hockey top to bottom. Since the goalie goalie change for the Red Wings in Game 5 of the Nashville series, Detroit has played possessed hockey. They have out shot their opponents 173 to 82 in Chris Osgood's 4 wins and Colorado is praying for things to change when the series heads back to Denver Tuesday night.

In just his third season in the NHL, Dion Phaneuf has put himself in some rare company. On Tuesday morning Phaneuf joined Nicklas Lidstrom and Zdeno Chara as finalists for the James Norris Memorial Trophy, which goes to the defensemen who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all round ability in the position. With this definition there really is only one player to win this award this year and he has won it 5 times before, Lidstrom. With 70 points, a +40 rating, almost 27 minutes of ice time a game it's hard not to give it to him. But with that said Dion Phaneuf is on his way to owning this trophy like Bobby Orr did in the late 60's and early 70's. This season Phaneuf was first for defensemen for penalty minutes with 182, second in goals with 17 and fights with 10, fifth in average ice time and points with 60, and his 194 hits rank sixth. And it didn't stop in the post season as his 33 hits lead all other d-men. He is a mix of Scott Stevens and a little Bobby Orr. In a pole of 141 NHL players he was ranked number one as the hardest hitter in the league and he is the only defensemen I have seen that can take the puck into the offensive with relative ease, especially after he was paired up with Jim Vandermeer.

Over a month ago I said that the signing of Curtis Joseph was one of the best moves any team made this year. Last night he proved his value. He replaced Miikka Kipprusoff only 3 minutes and 33 seconds into the game, down 3-0 and proceeded to stop all 22 shots the San Jose Sharks threw at him. While Cu Jo was doing his thing in net, the Flames dusted off their bad start and came after the Sharks physically. Unfortunately for Patrick Marleau, he was on the wrong end of 2 big hits. One by Dion Phaneuf that caused Marleau to bleed out of his right eye and not long after that hit, Cory Sarich ran right over the Sharks captain and made him bleed out of his nose. It was after this hit that the game changed in the Flames favor. The Sharks played very timid and it showed when the Flames scored 4 unanswered goals to win the game 4-3 and take a 2-1 lead in the series.

The Flames have played the last 2 games not only against the Sharks but also against the 4 blind mice. The Flames have been penalized 18 times in games 2 and 3 in this series, including 6 penalties in a row in the 2nd period of game 2. The Flames thought that game 3 would be different when they went home, but in the first minute of the game Stephane Yelle went to the penalty box on a very weak slashing call. Now I am not saying that the Flames didn't disserve most of their penalties, cause they did. Now what I am upset at is the amount of no calls against the Sharks. They have been called for half as many penalties even though they seemed to be playing a similar style of game.

One announcer has said that the Flames new haircuts are something you do when you are playing junior hockey and don't belong in the NHL. The mohawks worn by such players as Jarome Iginla, Craig Conroy and Matthew Lombardi not only look great but have given an old team a feeling of youthfulness. The Flames are one of the oldest teams in the league but they haven't played that way in the first two games of the playoffs. Last night they were controlling the tempo of the game in the first period only to have it taken away by some shady officiating in the second. It's hard to keep the momentum going when you have 8 straight penalties called against you on some very questionable plays and see the opposition doing the same and not get called on it. Even though the Flames lost they can go home with a lot of confidence after winning game 1 and keeping one of the best powerplays in the league to only 1 for 12 in game two. I mean come on 12 penalties, ridicules.

The Flames came out last night and shocked most people in the hockey world with a 3-2 win over the San Jose Sharks. They built a quick 2-0 lead in the first period with a great tip in by Stephane Yelle and Dion Phaneuf took advantage by netting a powerplay goal, set up by a great play by Daymond Lankow kicking the puck to Phaneuf in front of the open net. The Shark Tank didn't stay quiet for too long, as Ryan Clowe was able to beat Miikka Kipprusoff who was scrambling around in his net. Each team added one more goal each and the Flames were able to steal game one. Now the Flames have to withstand the onslaught that is to come in game 2 tonight. But they have favored quite well in the second half of back-to-back games, going 8-4 on the season and may have put some fear into the hearts of some of the Shark players with the game they showed they could play.

The Calgary Flames couldn't have picked a hotter team to play in the first round than the San Jose Sharks. It's true the Sharks have lost their last 2 heading into the playoffs but they did run off quite an impressive 20 game point streak right before that. Nothing looks good for the Flames on paper. Nabokov had a better season than Kipprusoff, Joe Thornton led the league in assists without having a 30 goal scoring on his team, they have the best penalty kill in the league and own the top road record in the NHL. Well you can throw all this out the window cause now it's playoff time. It's a whole different game and the Flames seem well fit for it. The playoffs are the most grueling tournament in all of sports and the Flames are built for grinding it out and play a hard nose style of hockey, a perfect match for playoffs. It'll be hard for the Flames to beat the Sharks 4 times but no Stanley Cup has come easy for anyone.

Last night Jarome Iginla scored his 50th goal of the season, this is the 2nd time the Captain has hit as many as 50. Iggy is the 6th player in Flames history to score 50 goals and only the 2nd to score 50 twice. The other was Joe Nieuwendyk the man the Flames gave up to get Jarome from Dallas way back in '95. At the time I think many people were worried about that deal but I believe that we got the best out of it. I know the Stars won a cup with him but with Jarome he has given the Flames a face and an identity that the people in Calgary can cling too.

It's not official but word is the Flames have signed front line center Daymond Langkow to a 4 year $20 million, no trade contract. Langkow has scored 25 or more goals in each of his 3 seasons in Calgary. This might mean that Kristian Huselius, who has only 3 goals in his last 30 games, might be looking for somewhere else to play next summer. They are both unrestricted free agents at the end of the season and with a large chunk of the organizations money going to the big 3, Iginla, Phaneuf, Kipprusoff, someone will have to go and it is looking like the 29 year old Swede.

This is a warning for the Minnesota Wild. Jarome Iginla is in the twin cities and he is looking to do some damage. The Wild have done very little in the past to try and stop him, or it just seems that way on the score sheet. He has the most goals and points out of anyone vs. the Wild and has 3 or more points in 3 of his last 7 games against them. With the Flames having the ability to win their division by winning their last 2 while the Wild have to lose their last 2 games, Iggy and friends should come out strong and take it to Minnesota tonight. I predict they win 3-1 and Godard and Boogaard throw down at least once in the game.

The Flames don't need to win their division in order to be successful in the playoffs. Just so long as they don't come in 5th, 7th or 8th place. Nobody wants to be in those positions cause it means that they will face Detroit, San Jose, or Anaheim in the first round. If Calgary were to finish 6th they would play Minnesota, a team they have played extremely well this season going 5-1, including 2-1 in the land of 10,000 lakes. If they were able to win the series they probably will play one of the teams mentioned before but who knows what they will have to go through just to move on. So best case scenario is the Flames sweep Minnesota and the rest of the west beats each other up.