Brooks Orpik warrants Hit of the Year consideration; Daniel Paille is still airborne
| We’ve had some fantastic hits in this NHL season. Niklas Kronwall has been very lively, Dion Phaneuf has yielded wows from his father (among others), PK Subban is a physical, polarizing force as usual. Despite a bevvy of contenders, Brooks Orpik may have put them all to shame with an earth shattering jolt into the [...] |  |
In defense of the scapegoat
| Something funny happened in Denver Saturday afternoon. Vancouver’s Kevin Bieksa, after playing one of his worst games of the season against the Colorado Avalanche, made a diving save off an empty net attempt with his team down 2-1 with under a minute to go before recovering a curious bounce from an Erik Johnson clearing attempt [...] |  |
Pizzo’s Points: Franchise single game point records
| By now I’m sure you have read numerous things about Sam Gagner’s amazing game last night. It’s not often a player puts up 8 points (hasn’t happened since Mario Lemieux did it in 1988), so he is getting all the attention he deserves. When I woke up this morning I was trying to think of [...] |  |
Is Bruce Boudreau a Jack Adams candidate?
| Let’s not kid ourselves—11 points out with 31 games to play, the Anaheim Ducks do not have a realistic hope at the NHL playoffs this season. After a hot second half last season that landed them in a first round series against Nashville, the Ducks will need to go about 21-6-4 from here on out [...] |  |
Face Paint with Devan Dubnyk (video)
| After getting the starting nod in six straight games, it’s become obvious that the Edmonton Oilers are giving Devan Dubnyk his chance to be an NHL starter. Paul Brothers from theScore caught up with him to talk about his masks the other day, and he was kind enough to give us a tour of those and explain why [...] |  |
Systems Analyst: Listless, unfocused Oilers defense lets the Leafs play shinny
| I apologize for the amount of Systems Analyst posts that have been Leafs-or-Caps-centric, but hey, they just keep getting involved in goals with noticeable breakdowns. Last night was another one of those times, as the Leafs poured in six on the hapless Oilers defense. We could’ve gone over a number of the goals from last [...] |  |
The Top 10 NHL Non-Fighter Fights
| theScore’s video team was inspired by Ilya Kovalchuk knocking Brayden Schenn to his knees this weekend, and because of that, savages like myself were given a gift. For whatever reason, I find fights between offensive-minded point-getters endlessly entertaining. This is the Top 10 NHL Non-Fighter Fights – Gretzky’s “fight” didn’t quite crack the list because, y’know, it [...] |  |
Tea with Ms. Conduct: My Life as a Newbie, Middle-Aged Tendy
| I’m getting my goalie mask painted soon, and for a beer league goalie, that’s a pretty big deal. Unlike pro players, you generally only get one or two shots at making your paint special because it may be the only paint job you ever get. Not because it’s crazy expensive, but it isn’t cheap either, [...] |  |
Fight of the Night: Kovalchuk/Schenn or McGrattan/Reaves?
| Every so often a fight will happen that makes you wonder “how the heck did that happen?” Seriously, peruse the archives of hockeyfights.com and you’ll find some seriously bizarre fights. Today we had one of those as Brayden Schenn duked it out with Ilya Kovalchuk. To the surprise of many, Kovalchuk threw down and more [...] |  |
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about college hockey players in the NHL
| College hockey fans are to hockey what hockey fans are to other sports. They feel slighted, like some niche group that isn’t worthy. They feel like people think all good NHL players come from major junior, and gosh darnit, if they’d just pay attention, they’d see how great their niche is. Because of that, they’re [...] |  |
The Beerability Index: who’s moving up and who’s falling down
| For those of you who missed Backhand Shelf’s introduction to the concept of “beerability,” you can find out everything you need to know by checking out the lists of the 10 players and 10 coaches who have the most (and you can find the thorough definition of the term there too). Basically, the more you’d like to sit [...] |  |
Other cool facts about Sam Gagner’s 8-point night
| Alternate title: Gee, I wonder what the hockey blogosphere will be talking about today? “Sam Gagner has just tied a record, with eight points in a game, the franchise mark he now shares with Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey!” -Gord Miller, TSN, with the unlikely call In case you’ve missed it, the Edmonton Oilers’ young [...] |  |
Backhand Shelf Podcast: Kovalchuk fights Schenn, Power Rankings, Scott Gomez’s year drought
| Today on the Backhand Shelf Podcast, Pizzo and I discussed the Ilya Kovalchuk/Braydon Schenn fight (and other superstar fights of the past), Scott Gomez and the one year anniversary of his last goal, the Philadelphia Flyers being unable to beat the New York Rangers, our favourite teams to watch play, our current NHL power rankings, and [...] |  |
Clockgate: the LA Kings clock had been “sticky” late in games before
| Apparently, the clock in Los Angeles does have a nasty habit of sticking late in the third period at the STAPLES Center. This doesn’t help us determine if it’s clock error or timekeeper-related, but it does help us know this: that wasn’t the first time the clock found itself “sticky” late in the game. Verrrrry interesting. Stick-tap [...] |  |
In Praise of Doing Nothing
| In the season of the trade deadline, the fancies of hockey fans invariably turn to thoughts of general management. Not that general management is ever very far from our thoughts (we are an anxious folk), but for much of the season we are far more occupied with discussions of players- their achievements, their failures, their [...] |  |
Pizzo’s Points: Super Bowl hockey parallels
| I consider myself a fan of all sports; football, basketball, baseball, I love watching them all. But in the end it always comes back to hockey. It’s just the way my brain is wired, regardless of the sport I am watching, I am always trying to think of the hockey equivalent. I did just that [...] |  |
One-touch passes: your mid-Monday catch up for February 6th
| While Systems Analyst, The Whiteboard and Beerability have entrenched themselves as steady features on Backhand Shelf (on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday respectively), I’ve yet to lock down a fun Monday feature. Thus, a new one is born. For those of you who weren’t able to catch all the news from the weekend that was, and want to get back on top [...] |  |
The 5 NHL teams that never make me want to flip channels
| If you missed it on Wednesday, I compiled my personal list of “5 teams that make me want to flip channels.” That was one was fairly easy to write, but this one’s a little harder – hell, I like watching a lot of teams play. But, I felt like I should write the positive side [...] |  |
Backhand Shelf Podcast: Sam Gagner is good, beerability updates, and Professor Frink on Dean Lombardi
| In today’s episode of the Backhand Shelf podcast Pizzo and I start with Sam Gagner’s historic eight point performance last night, move on to our latest segment of “beerability” with Derek Snider, and end up discussing Dean Lombardi’s explanation for the clock malfunction. And, we got Professor Frink from The Simpsons to help us out! [...] |  |
The Detroit Red Wings pity your team and would rather play Broomball than practice
| The Detroit Red Wings are really good at hockey to the point where things have gotten out of hand. Every year is the year we expect them to finally have their age catch up with them and it never ends up happening. Rather, they just dominate and win and wow you with their general excellence. [...] |  |
The Rundown: Best hit, fight, save and goal from the weekend (video)
| If you’re someone who uses your weekend to, y’know, actually “do stuff,” then you may have missed some of the best highlights from the weekend that was. And hey, if you’re someone who prefers to “do nothing” and stay in (which is fantastic in itself), then maybe you just want to see the best highlights [...] |  |
History Lessons: The Ancient Mystic Society of No Eddies
| “But you let in Eddie Shore!” “It says no Eddies. We’re allowed to have one.” One of the common historiographic sayings is that, “History is written by the winners.” Now, this is often used as a bit of an analog to ‘might makes right’, as though it represents conquerors rushing into cities and inscribing [...] |  |
Bottoms Up: Things I Can’t Explain Edition
| Bottoms Up is a weekly feature on Backhand Shelf that admits that sometimes the underdog doesn’t win: sometimes they just lose and lose and lose some more. In this edition, what is this I don’t even Weeks like this almost make me believe that hockey gods actually exist, that the gods of Mount Olympus turned to [...] |  |
