NHL 25/26 Thread

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Caught some of the Blues/Hawks game as well as Flames/Mammoth

Hawks had the Blues number, Hofer was a sieve, Nazar of the Hawks is very fast.

Quite surprised the Mammoth drew just under 12,500 for their home opener. A 20,000 seat arena, tons of hype for the Team sporting their new Uni's/Logo and they don't sell out the home opener?

They played a very good game and got the win too. A lot of good young talent on the Utah team, could be a surprise WC this season.

Probably because there is so much to do in Utah.

[Amazin69]

It took the Kings all of 3 games to decide that Useless (Brian Dumoulin) and Stupid (Cody Ceci) did not make a good defensive pairing after all, even if you tried hiding them as a 3rd pair.

(Remember, these dip****s get a combined $7.5 mn per, but Ken Holland and His Band of Idiots wouldn't pay Vladislav Gavrikov the $7 mn that would have kept Vlad from going to the Rangers, which means that we traded Jonathan Quick for NOTHING, which continues to eat at my soul.)

So Useless was moved up to play with Drew Doughty (who's of an age where he probably doesn't feel like zipping around the ice to cover for Dumoulin's old and useless butt) and Mikey Anderson was sentenced to drop down and try and get Stupid to remember which team he's supposed to be playing for.

How did the new defense do at Minnesota? Well, they fell behind 3-0 in the first period, but then they got it together and didn't yield any further goals. Did Drew and Mikey straighten out Useless and Stupid, respectively? Or did the Wild simply adopt a more defensive posture and try to hold their early lead? Can't say; I'll need to see more.

In any event, the Kings rallied in the 3rd. Fiala banked in a shot off of Wallstedt (the Minnesota goalie)'s butt and then Byfield dropped to a knee and sent one through the 5-hole. Then, in the final minutes, Jim Hiller apparently realized that putting 6 forwards on the ice doesn't allow for defensemen to use their position-specific skills from the point (finding angles for long shots, making cross-ice passes, etc) and so put Doughty out there at the end, as opposed to nailing him to the bench as Hiller had in Winnipeg, and Doughty sent a shot in from the point that bounced off of Wallstedt and came right to Adrian Kempe, uncovered because of the 6-on-5, and Kempe buried the shot for the tie (and did a little archery pose).

But then the Wild controlled the puck throughout the OT, keeping the Kings from any decent chances, and nobody could score in the shootout until Marco Rossi put one home in the 4th round for Minnesota.

And so the Kings limp home with their Pity Point (only their third point in four games played) to face Pittsburgh tonight and try and build some momentum, given that we have the easy win coming up against Carolina on Saturday.

(That last is one part bravado and three parts bull****, but we did lay the 7-2 smackdown on Cobra's 'Canes last season, so I'm going to get every last bit of juice out of those bragging rights before they expire, lol)

[Cobra Mgr]

Canes won game 2 of their 6 game/12 day annual State Fair West Coast Road Trip. They ducked the Ducks 4-1. They remain the only squad w/wins in all of their skates. Seth Jarvis got 3 pts w/2 goals. He now has 5 goals in the 4 games he's played. Alexander Nikishin got his first NHL career goal. Shayne Gostisbehere had 3 helpers, giving him 7 pts on the season. Jarvis, Nikishin, Gost, Jackson Blake, & Aho have scored a point in each of the Canes 4 games.......

......The 1st game on the road trip, San Jose, Brandon Bussi got his 1st win as an NHL goalie........

........I think these October trips are a blessing for the Canes. Every year, they go off on a long road trip when they are fresh. And they get to bond together for 2 weeks...........

The bad............

......Canes are on this road trip w/o Jaccob Slavin who has an injury that is rumored to have been w/him since the playoffs last year. So I'm now wondering why was surgery not considered. My thoughts are the Canes can make the playoffs w/o Slavin. Whatever that needs to be done to have him healthy in April, May & hopefully June, needs is what the plan should be.........

.......Nikolaj Ehlers has yet to score........

.......Power play is still anemic. Just 2 of 14........

[Cobra Mgr]

Seth Jarvis continues his hot streak, netting an OT winner to beat the Kings 4-3. Canes took a 3-0 lead thanks to 2 goals from the captain, Jordan Staal in the 1st period. The 1st gave him 300 career goals & makes he and his brother Eric the 4th pair of brothers to each have 300. Kotkaneimi got the 3rd goal on a breakaway set up by Miller.

Then the Kings began an onslaught of 3 unanswered. Waiver pick up Brandon Bussi was under siege in goal and had to make several sprawling saves. But he still couldn't keep LA from getting it into OT. That was when Aho & Jarvis combined for an OT winner for the 2nd time this year.

Bad news came in the form of a 1st period injury to Ghost. That left the Canes w/o their best offensive D, Ghost & their best defensive D, Slavin.

So far, the Canes are 5-0, 3-0 on this road trip. Now comes the meat of the trip. At Vegas, Colorado & Dallas. Hard to imagine the Canes unbeaten record surviving these 3. Especially potentially w/o 2 starting defensemen.

[Amazin69]

We suck so bad, I'm not even posting. Congrats, Cobra.

I would watch the replay to see what Tripp Tracy thought, but FanDuel has taken away most of the replays and the Canes aren't doing ANY at all. Gone are the days when I could watch the Kings live and the rest of the League the next day, apparently. Sigh.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

We suck so bad, I'm not even posting. Congrats, Cobra.

I would watch the replay to see what Tripp Tracy thought, but FanDuel has taken away most of the replays and the Canes aren't doing ANY at all. Gone are the days when I could watch the Kings live and the rest of the League the next day, apparently. Sigh.

I had flashback nightmares of the Canes 2 games vs the Kings last season. They were scoring touchdowns last season

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Bad news came in the form of a 1st period injury to Ghost. That left the Canes w/o their best offensive D, Ghost & their best defensive D, Slavin.

Ghost is out tonight vs Vegas. Charles Legault makes his debut. So 2 rooks on the blue line.

[Cobra Mgr]

Canes lost their 1st of the season 1-4 to the Knights. This was one of those where things just didn't bounce the Canes way. Goalie Anderssen had some tough luck. 1st goal was an own goal as the puck went off of Walker's stick as he attempted to block a pass. 2nd goal, you just give it up to Dorofoyev (sp?) who made a nifty move. Anderssen got him back w/a fantastic robbery in the 2nd period. 3rd goal was a giveaway on what should have been a penalty (Listen to the Vegas announcers. Even they thought it should have been a PP to the Canes). Last goal was an empty netter.

Canes lone goal was from Aho, assisted by Jarvis & Ehlers. It keeps Aho & Jarvis' point streaks going. And gives Ehlers his 1st point in a Canes uniform. Which is really misleading about Nikolaj's play. He is on the same line as Aho & Jarvis. They aren't having the starts they are having w/o Ehlers skating well.

On the opposite end of the Ehlers spectrum is Svechnikov. We have to begin to ask, what is wrong w/Andrei? He has zero points in 5 skates. We keep waiting for the light bulb to stay on. But it continues to flicker. For maybe 25 games, he looks like a bonafide all-star. For about 10-20, he looks like he should be in the AHL. The rest, you don't see him. He's either injured or just not making an impact. I wanted the Canes to use him as trade bait this off season while the rest of the league still felt he could be something. But I imagine those that see him that way are dwindling. He might be a piece they could move at the trade deadline when the Canes are shopping for a 2nd line C or improvement in goal.

[Cobra Mgr]

Thursday night's Canes/Avs game will feature Carolina in classic Whalers gear while the Avs will rep the Quebec Nordiques.

[Amazin69]

(Also, the Kings pulled out a 2-1 in OT Tuesday night, on John Kelly's return to St. Louis. And Fan Duel West showed the Blues' video-board tribute to Kelly, which I thought was classy of them. Wouldn't have minded checking out the FD Midwest telecast to see them talk about John coming home, but of course, no more replays, grumble-grumbie…)

[monkeyman576]

Kraken are ahead of the 5-1-0 Jets 1-0 after 2 periods. If we can get a win here that would be huge.

[Cobra Mgr]

Canes beat Colorado in OT, 5-4. I didn't get to see the 1st period. But Carolina scored all 4 of their regulation goals in the 1st on 11 shots. The 'Lanche subbed goalies & he shutout the Canes on their next 20.

From the 2nd period on, it was all Avs. Canes could not stay out of the box. Colorado finally brought it back to all square w/Nikhushkin's 2nd goal. The only successful PP in 8 tries by Colorado.

This was a game where Andersen stole 2 pts for Carolina. It was one of those rare times when I got to see the Canes on the other end of a contest where one side is throwing shot after shot & dominating the puck in the offensive end, but the goal tender makes save after save. Andersen had 44 saves. Denied several great opportunities.

This win was even bigger for the Canes seeing how their injury situation is going. K'Andre Miller was a late scratch. So that meant the Canes had to play 3 rookie D's. In fact one pair was all rookies. Then in the 1st period, they lost forwards William Carrier & Eric Robinson. So short-handed, w/less experience & outplayed in the thin Denver air, somehow Carolina managed to get a W vs one of the West's leading favorites.

Speaking of shorthanded, Jarvis got a short handed goal to give himself 7 & extend his scoring streak to 7. He also was the only skater to score in the shootout, giving Carolina the victory. Aho also had a goal ricochet off his butt to keep pace w/Seth's streak.

And speaking of ricochets, one allowed goal I didn't understand was Colorado's 2nd one. Malinski drove a puck to the net & Parker Kelly clearly stuck his hand out to grab it. It redirected into the net past Andersen to start the Avs comeback. Despite review, the score was upheld. And I don't get why. Whether he threw it in or not, a deliberate attempt to put your fingers on the puck that directly results in a goal shouldn't be counted, IMO.

One final note. former Cane now Av defensemen Brett Burns was honored for his 1500th game last night. Nice to it could happen w/Burnsie's former teammates in the arena.

[Amazin69]

Kings got another OT win at Dallas, 3-2, with Kempe getting the OT winner for the second straight game. I didn't get to see it live, but fortunately a replay is available at a streaming site.

(Unfortunately, I don't know how to download streaming video, so my archiving chances are slim. But at least Kuemper [who missed the two home losses] seems to be back on form.)

Now if only Kopitar heals; it would suck if any large portion of this farewell season is lost to injury. On the plus side, Drew Doughty (a mere spring chicken of 35 years) says he's good for at least five seasons after this, so that's a comfort.

[Cobra Mgr]

Canes have called up F Bradly Nadeau. They put Slavin on IR to bring up Joel Nystrom. Now Ghost is on IR as well to make room for Nadeau.

All of this because of a mountain of injuries. G Kochetkov, D's Slavin & Nadeau, then D K'Andre Miller before the Colorado game, finally F's Carrier & Robinson during the Avs match. Coach Rod says Carrier & Robinson will be out for an "extended period" while Miller could be out "a while". So Canes will send out 4 rookies when they play Dallas.

In the long run though, this could benefit the Canes when they reach the trade deadline. If the rooks account for themselves well, that means depth. And depth means you can be aggressive in making purchases. The prospects might end up desirable pieces for a team looking to burn off salary after a disappointing season. Or the front office may not fear letting a key player be part of a package if they feel they have adequate backup in place.

In the meantime though, I've never seen a team lose 6 players in the first 7 games of the year.

[Amazin69]

Kings blew leads of 1-0, 3-2, and 4-3 at Nashville on Saturday night, as Kopitar's return energized the offense (even though he himself did not score), but the defense kept failing. Annoying.

So we went to OT for the 6th time in 9 games (5 in the first 8 was already a team record) and on a power-play, no less. Not that it helped. By the time OT finished, we had to kill part of a pen to reach the shoot-out. Kuemper let the first two in, but stiffened and shots by Kempe and Trevor Moore kept things going and then we went through multiple saves by Kuemper only for our shooters to fail to win the game.

Both teams scored in the 7th round, neither converted in the 8th, and then the Preds won it in the 9th round as Joel Armia failed. Oddly, Jim Hiller never gave Kopitar a chance (or Alex LaFerriere, for that matter). I know Kopi is just back from injury, but I think he could make it up the ice ONCE.

Corey Perry did get a chance. Now Corey had a nice game, as he got in the paint when we were down 2-1 and Armia skated behind the net and tried to feed him but a Nashville player got in the way…only for the goal to go off his skate and past Saros to tie the game. And then Armia drove hard to the net and drew the defense, so Perry was waiting at the back post and that was goal #450 for his career, which is nice.

But still, of the 450 goals, at least 400 of them came from within the paint. A great stick-handler, Corey ain't He actually got Saros to drop to a knee…but his attempt to roof the shot hit the bar and stayed out. So we lost.

So we went to Chicago with a record of 3-3-3, which was nicely symmetrical, but not particularly good, given that it's really 3-6 with 3 pity points. UGH. And the Blackhawks were on a 4-0-1 run (and at home and rested) and they pressed for most of the first period and took a 1-0 lead when Anton Forsberg (playing the 2nd half of the back-to-back after Kuemper worked so long on Saturday night) accidentally kicked in a shot that had hit the left post and died there. Not a good omen…

…but screw omens! LaFerriere tied it with a goal in the 2nd (that'll teach Jim Hiller not to leave him out of the shoot-out…) and then Fiala gave us the lead with a nice wraparound stuff-in goal from behind the net.

(Which did prompt John Kelly to say "lit" again, so we may have to deal with that all season. If Kelly starts saying that a Kings goal "slaps", though…)

An empty-netter by Armia (who smacked the spinning puck in the paint so hard that he broke his stick) gave us our first regulation win of the season and if we can manage to avoid choking at San Jose tomorrow, we can actually finish with a 4-0-1 trip of our own, which would be a pleasant surprise, I admit. Of course, we're still behind f'n Seattle, so hold off the Champagne, atm.

[Cobra Mgr]

Update on the last 3 Cane skates..........

Saturday. Lost 3-2 to Dallas. Carolina scored the 1st 2 goals in the 1st. Then were shutout the rest of the game. D Heiskinan (sp?) scored 2 goals for the Stars, including the GW w/about 10 minutes to go. It was a valiant effort to end the road trip seeing as the Canes were playing w/5 players out. Aho continued his scoring streak, but Jarvis' came to an end.

Tuesday, Canes lost their 1st home game in over 2 weeks. Vegas completed the season sweep w/a 6-3 victory. Similar story keeps getting repeated. Carolina got off to an early lead when Svechnikov got his first goal of the year. Then injuries reared their ugly heads once again. Gostisbehere entered the lineup only to have to sit out the rest of the game w/a new injury. Later D Nystrom took on friendly fire from a puck, Martinook had to crawl back to the bench from an injury he suffered on the ice.

Still Canes managed to keep it tied in the 3rd until scored back to back goals w/under 5:00 to go. An empty netter was the final tally.

Note: Evidently Dorofeyev is a solid but unspectacular player when he doesn't play Carolina. But he was like a HOF vs Canes in the 2 games this year.

Finally, last night the Canes ended the losing streak w/a 6-2 victory over the Islanders. Chicago Wolves call up Bradly Nadeau got his first career goals. Mike Reilly followed w/his 1st on the year. Both were unassisted. Bussi was in goal & not only got the win, but stopped 26 of 28 & also assisted on Blake's goal for his 1st career point. Svechnikov got 2 points including his 2nd goal in as many games. So hopefully he's woken up. Aho's point streak came to an end @ 9. Ehlers still has yet to find the back of the net, but has an assist in 4 of the last 5.

The bad news is Jarvis left late after blocking a shot w/his ankle. He had to be helped off the ice. Brind A'mour said post game that "it didn't look good".

Besides all of the injuries (3 Defensemen out & 2 Forwards) a big concern is the power play. At the turn of the calendar last season, the PP became anemic. And it has continued into this season. Not having Ghost hurts, but it goes deeper than that. Canes are currently dead last @ a paltry 9.7% success rate. That is beyond abysmal. IDK who is coaching the PP units or is designing the plays, but it is time to admit they need help. IDK who they can call in @ this moment, but Canes are too good to be this bad. Especially when their forte is puck possession in 5-on-5. It seems that getting set up in the zone would be a piece of cake. But they are struggling mightily.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

The bad news is Jarvis left late after blocking a shot w/his ankle. He had to be helped off the ice. Brind A'mour said post game that "it didn't look good".

"We dodged a bullet". Jarvis maybe available Saturday vs Boston

Also..............

The expected hike in the salary cap has meant most teams are keeping their high priced potential free agents.

Martin Necas does 8yr extension w/Avs

Mammoth ink Cooley to 8/$80m deal

[monkeyman576]

Talk about no respect, the Kraken are underdogs agianst the Rangers even though they have a better record and are at home. Must be those New York bettors.

[Cobra Mgr]

NHL PSA - SNL

[Cobra Mgr]

W/Pytor Kochetkov making his season debut, Canes had to have a few goals in mind. 1. Get the W, 2 Pytor look good, 3. Ehlers finally find the back of the net, 4. convert on the power play, 5. No one else gets hurt. Carolina checked all 5 boxes.

Kochetkov stopped all 25 Ranger shorts for the shutout in a 3-0 victory. Pytor had to be sharp early as the Rangers were dominating play the 1st 10-12 minutes. Kochetkov turned away several prime chances for New York, including a one on one stop of Panarin and a point blank saves on Laba.

On the offensive end, Ehlers checked off 2 boxes. Early on their 1st PP, he took a pass from Walker after an Aho face off win banged it in off the post. It was his 1st goal in a Cane uniform. It was only their 4th PP goal this season.

From there, the Canes dominated the ice. Canes had 26 of the final 38 shots. Rangers went over 20 minutes w/o a shot on goal. Sean Walker got the 2nd goal. Seth Jarvis finished it off w/an empty netter.

Brind'Armor shuffled the lines up a bunch. Aho centered one line Svechnikov & Hall. Stankoven teamed w/Ehlers & Blake. And the Captain Staal still is w/Martinook, but joined w/Jarvis. Among the defensemen, no longer is there a rookie pair. Nikishin is w/Walker, Chatfield w/Nystrom & Reilly is w/Legault. So each vet has a rookie w/him.