Henrik Lundqvist (Robert Kowal, Wikimedia Commons)
Two original six teams forced a game seven on Monday night.
At the Madison Square Garden in New York Sunday afternoon, Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves as the New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals 1-0 in game six of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal. This series is now tied up at three games apiece heading into the American national capital city this evening.
The lone Rangers goal came in the second period on a goal from Derick Brassard from John Moore and Mats Zuccarello of Oslo, Norway.
It was a bit of a tough game for Capitals rookie Tom Wilson.
Yes there’s hockey and football this weekend, but how could one not get excited about the Australian Open at the moment. There is literally some thrilling tennis from down under. Last night, Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ontario advanced to the fourth round with a straight sets win over Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber. Bad news is he has Roger Federer next!
On the ladies side, Ana Ivanovic, the former French Open champion takes on Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, the Wimbledon finalist, in the fourth round (Sunday, TSN2, 1:00 a.m.)
Here are the other games I’m watching this weekend:
Saturday–NHL–Toronto Maple Leafs @ Montreal Canadiens–CBC–5:00 p.m.–I heard a report on Sportsnet yesterday that the Maple Leafs and Canadiens could battle for the worst team in the Eastern Conference this season. The Habs are expected to have Tomas Plekanec in their lineup despite some sore ribs. The Maple Leafs meanwhile will be led this season by Phil Kessel, who averaged a point a game last season.
The 2012 Tim Horton’s Brier commences today from Saskatoon. Alberta will be represented this year by Kevin Koe who curled out of the Saville Sports Centre in Edmonton in recent years before making the switch to the Glencoe Curling Club in Calgary for this season.
Koe’s opening game will be seen live tonight at 5:30pm on TSN against British Columbia’s Jim Cotter.
In my opinion there are four teams that will contend for the championship. Koe, the 2010 World Champion, will be joined by Glenn Howard of Ontario, the 2007 World Champion, Brad Gushue of Newfoundland, the 2006 Olympic Winter Games Champion, and Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario, who finished in third place at the 2010 Tim Horton’s Brier.
The field will not have Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton, who won the 2011 World Curling Championship, and defeated Howard 8-6 in last year’s final. Stoughton failed to make the Manitoba Provincial Semi-Final in Dauphin, Manitoba this year.
The first televised game is Manitoba versus Quebec today at 12:30pm with draw times of 7:30am, 12:30pm and 5:30pm tomorrow.
The Calgary Flames continue to struggle in Anaheim. They have now lost 14 straight games at the Honda Center. On Monday night, former Flame forward Niklas Hagman scored the shootout winner a 3-2 Anaheim win.
The Flames did however preserve a much needed point in the Western Conference Standings when Jarome Iginla tied the game at 2 by scoring on the breakaway. The Flames captain has now scored at least 20 goals every year since 1998-99. Alex Tanguay was the other Flames goal scorer.
Calgary is now three points back of the Minnesota Wild for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They next play in San Jose Wednesday night.
The Oilers defensive woes meanwhile continued Monday night in Toronto. Tyler Bozak scored a key goal for the Maple Leafs on a Cam Barker giveaway that gave Toronto a 4-1 lead at the time en route to a 6-3 victory. The Oilers had no answers for Phil Kessel, who scored two goals, an assist, had six shots and was a solid +4.
Edmonton also got hit with the injury bug on Monday as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins re-injured his shoulder and head coach Tom Renney was absent behind the bench because he got hit in the head with the puck during practice. This was the latest segment of injuries this season prior to game time.
We’re through another week of action in the NHL and I’ve got to say, this may have been the toughest one so far when it comes to whittling my list of potential Goals of the Week down to a top five!
Cracking the list this time around is a beautiful spinning backhander, some slick breakaway moves, a bit of between the legs magic, a clutch play from a young forward and a one-man show at the United Center!
Let’s go!
5. Tyler Bozak
Toronto’s Tyler Bozak checks in at number five this week, corralling some knee-high sauce from Phil Kessel and hitting the top shelf with a spinning backhander over the shoulder of Roberto Luongo. Beauty!
It might be too early to call a particular game a must win. But on Saturday night at the Shark Tank in San Jose, it could just be a must win for the struggling Edmonton Oilers (CBC, 8pm).
After a hot October where the Oilers at one time led the Western Conference, it has been a tough grind. Since November 5, the Oilers have been 6-13, and have fallen from first to twelfth.
Luckily though, there is still 51 games left for the Oilers to turn things around, but there could be no more important game to their 2011-12 schedule than tonight. The Oilers currently find themselves four points back of the San Jose Sharks and Phoenix Coyotes for a playoff spot in the West. So at the end of the night, they could be as close to two points back, or possibly as far as six points out.
Even though the Oilers lost 4-2 to Phoenix Thursday, a very positive sign was the play of Taylor Hall, who scored both Oiler goals. It was his first game back after missing three weeks with a shoulder injury.
This is an exciting time for Canadian hockey. Right now there is a Canadian team first in the West, the Edmonton Oilers, and a Canadian team first in the East, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Maple Leafs at 9-3-1, have looked dominant in their last two road games– a 5-3 win over New Jersey and a 4-1 win over Columbus.
Last night in Ohio, the Maple Leafs got a stellar effort from Spruce Grove native Ben Scrivens, who was making his NHL debut. Scrivens, who suited up for the Maple Leafs to give Jonas Gustavsson a night off, made 38 saves on 39 shots.
Scrivens, who signed with the Maple Leafs on April 28, won the Ken Dryden Award as the top goaltender in the East Coast Athletic Conference while with Cornell University in 2010. He is getting time with the big club because of a head injury to James Reimer.
Offensively, the Maple Leafs have received great production from Phil Kessel, who leads the NHL with 10 goals, 21 points and a +10 to begin the season. The restricted free agent signing of Kessel by Maple Leafs’ General Manager Brian Burke doesn’t look so bad now, even though Tyler Seguin does lead the Boston Bruins in scoring. Another offensive spark plug for the Maple Leafs has been the play of former Edmonton Oiler Joffrey Lupul, who scored a hat trick on Martin Brodeur Wednesday night. Lupul now has 8 goals and 8 assists, and leads the NHL in +/- with Kessel at +10.
This may be a magical hockey season. Do you think we could just see a Toronto-Edmonton Stanley Cup Final? After the first month of the season, there is reason to believe of the possibility.
Nikolai Khabibulin (Dan Nicholas, Wikimedia Commons)
The Edmonton Oilers are red hot right now. They are shockingly in first place in the Western Conference with a record of 7-2-2 and have given up the least goals in the National Hockey League by a wide margin.
Their 18 goals against are four fewer than the Los Angeles Kings, who have given up only 22 goals.
A major reason for the Oilers low goals against total has been the sparkling play of goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, who was named the third star by the NHL for the month of October on Tuesday. Khabibulin is 5-0-2 with a shutout, a .960 save percentage and a 1.12 goals against average in October. His goals against average and save percentage lead the NHL. Phil Kessel of the Toronto Maple Leafs was the first star and Kari Lehtonen of the Dallas Stars was the second star.
Khabibulin was also the NHL’s second star of the week behind Montreal Canadien goaltender Carey Price.
In other Oiler news, defenceman Andy Sutton has been suspended four more games for his hit on Colorado Avalanche rookie Gabriel Landeskog on Friday night. The Oilers’ next game is Thursday in Los Angeles.
We’re back with another week worth of sporty goodness – this time around, we’re looking at the decision to keep Ryan Nugent-Hopkins up with the Oilers and the keys to the team’s early success, as well as the latest “Shanabans” in the NHL. As well, we take a look at the Eskimos latest defeat and a huge effort from Edmonton’s Gord Hinse, along with the latest in the NBA lockout drama.
In the GABBYS: The WHL, Jonas Hiller, the St. Louis Cardinals, Terrell Owens, Julian Bursuc and Chris Cooley. This week’s Punchline is Nick Diaz!
Another week has come and gone in the NHL, which means another week’s worth of beauty snipes and sick dangles.
Last week’s big winner was Philly’s Claude Giroux – did he make the list again? Do any goals from the past seven days beat his opening night gino? Do we have any repeat offenders? This week’s top five starts off with the Battle of New York and a little Johnny T, and finishes with a beauty from Music City!
Let’s get to it!
5. John Tavares
John Tavares is off to a red-hot start this season, and his NY Islanders actually look like a team that might make some noise this season. Check out this sick connection between Mark Streit and Tavares in a win over the Rangers (starts at 0:12)! (Goals after the jump!) (more…)
It is clear that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins doesn’t want to be sent down to Red Deer any time soon.
On Saturday night Nugent-Hopkins scored all three Oiler goals in a 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
The first overall pick in the 2011 National Hockey League draft had magic mittens in notching his first career hat trick. Problem is though he was the only Oiler to find the back of the net.
The Canucks got a late second period goal from Alexandre Burrows and a third period goal from Sami Salo to notch the victory.
There was an interesting situation though when Nugent-Hopkins scored his third goal. The goal was rather late being announced, and when it was, play had resumed. The Canucks had control of the puck in Oiler territory, when hats littered the ice in celebration of the hat trick. The play was called, but it literally could, and possibly should have been a bench minor penalty for the Oilers. Meanwhile, on the replay, it looked like the goal could have easily been credited to Taylor Hall.
Earlier in the night, the Calgary Flames lost 3-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Phil Kessel scored the game tying goal and game winning goal for a Leafs team that is now 3-0 on the season.
Heading into the weekend, there is one particular statistic that stands out to me over all the others.
After eight days in the NHL’s regular season, the Edmonton Oilers are tied with the Detroit Red Wings for the fewest goals allowed in the entire league! That’s right folks, the Oilers and Red Wings have only disallowed three goals each.
Oilers’ goaltenders Devan Dubnyk and Nikolai Khabibulin have actually only given up two regulation goals between them. Dubnyk gave up a softy to Kris Letang in the Oilers’ 2-1 shootout win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday, while Khabibulin gave up a regulation goal to Matt Cullen in Edmonton’s 2-1 shootout loss to Minnesota on Thursday.
On Saturday night, the Oilers will entertain the Vancouver Canucks at Rexall Place. They will have a tough time containing Daniel and Henrik Sedin though, who have combined for 114 points in 123 games in their career versus the Oilers. Game time is 8pm and can be seen on CBC.
Jeff Stoughton’s Winnipeg rink is now in the final of the World Men’s Curling Championship Sunday night in Regina (TSN, 5PM). This evening in the 1-2 game, Stoughton defeated Scotland’s Tom Brewster 5-2.
A major reason why Stoughton advanced to the final was because of two significant mistakes by Brewster. Down 3-2 to Stoughton in the eighth, Brewster was heavy with his final draw and gave up a steal. Then in the ninth, Brewster flashed his final stone and was unable to remove the Canadian stone, allowing Stoughton to steal another point.
Some of the best women’s curlers in the world take to the ice this weekend for the Women’s World Curling Championship in Denmark. Canada’s Amber Holland has qualified for the 3-4 game after a shaky start. This morning, Holland, of Yorkton, Saskatchewan, defeated Mirjam Ott of Switzerland 8-6 in the tie-breaker. Holland will go on to play Denmark’s Lene Nielsen in the 3-4 page playoff game (TSN, 3AM). And yes folks, I have my alarm set!
If Holland is successful in the middle of our night, I will sleep two hours and get up for 8am, when the Canada-Denmark winner will face China’s Bingyu Wang in the semi-final. Despite beating Wang in the round robin by a score of 8-6, Wang’s resume is impressive. She won the 2009 World Women’s Curling Championship in Gangneung, South Korea and the Olympic bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
We’re through another week of action in the NHL and I’ve got to say, this may have been the toughest one so far when it comes to whittling my list of potential Goals of the Week down to a top five!
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