Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all-time. Heck, he is also the greatest athlete of all-time. But I think it is safe to say that right now Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is the best hockey player in the world right now.
On Friday night, Crosby showed just why he is so great. In a dominating performance, Crosby had a hat trick by the early portion of the second period in a 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators in game two of the Eastern Conference semi-final that put the Penguins up 2-0 in the best-out-of-seven series.
Crosby will now have the opportunity to showcase his skills north of the border this weekend as Pittsburgh travels to Ottawa for game three of the Eastern Conference semi-final (Sunday, CBC, 5:30 p.m.). I know the Penguins are loaded with talent that includes Evgeni Malkin and Jarome Iginla, but the bottom line is when healthy Pittsburgh is Crosby’s team.
Here are the other events I’ll be watching:
Saturday–MLB–New York Mets @ Chicago Cubs–WPIX–11:00 a.m.–Two teams in fourth place in their divisions play today at Wrigley Field. The Cubs are 17-24 in the National League Central, while the Mets are 16-23 in the National League East. First baseman Anthony Rizzo, who represented Italy at the World Baseball Classic, with nine home runs, 29 runs batted in and a .522 slugging percentage. While so far this season, the Mets have been led by third baseman David Wright, who leads the team with a .312 batting average, .418 on base percentage and a .536 slugging percentage.
The Edmonton Oilers have now lost six straight after losing 5-3 to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night, but the big story these days in Edmonton is surrounding President Kevin Lowe.
Lowe made himself very unpopular with Oilers Nation after separating the two types of Oilers fans in Monday’s press conference when he announced the firing of General Manager Steve Tambellini. He seemed to place a hierarchy among the fans with the paying customer at the top of the list.
Lowe also bragged about the six Stanley Cups he won, stating that there was only one more player working in the game today (San Jose Sharks’ assistant coach Larry Robinson) that has won more Stanley Cups than him. The bottom line is that Lowe won all of his Stanley Cups as a player and it was Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier that had more to do with Lowe winning his six Stanley Cups than anyone else.
A week ago when you thought that the Edmonton Oilers might have got themselves out of the Western Conference playoff hunt, they have played outstanding hockey over the last three games.
Saturday night at Rexall Place, it was the Taylor Hall show for the first eight minutes and after that the Oilers did not need to do anything more offensively as Edmonton shut out Vancouver 4-0.
Hall set an Oilers record for the fastest hat trick to start a hockey game. He had a hat trick by the 7:53 mark of the first period. Wayne Gretzky, the greatest athlete of all-time, had the previous Oiler record. Gretzky had a hat trick by the 12:38 mark of the first period against the Quebec Nordiques in a 5-3 Edmonton win in 1986.
The Edmonton Oilers now have a defenceman. On Saturday the Oilers found out that Justin Schultz agreed to sign with the Oilers over Vancouver, Toronto, the New York Rangers and Minnesota after not coming to terms with the Anaheim Ducks.
Considered the best young defenceman not in the National Hockey League, Schultz met with Wayne Gretzky, Paul Coffey and Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger over the last few days.
Aggressive? Perhaps. But a necessary tactic because the Oilers haven’t had a great track record of luring free agents.
I am still a little skeptical because the media has completely overhyped two other players over the last five years before they played an NHL game in Jonas Gustafsson and Fabian Brunnstrom, and both of them one could argue were complete flops.
Schultz did play great at the NCAA level, but who is to say he can make a great transition to the NHL without any growing pains?
Now where does General Manager Steve Tambellini go from here? Well, there are two positions that still need upgraded– a stay at home defenceman that can play big minutes and prevent the opposition from scoring and a goaltender because at the end of the day Nikolai Khaibulin and Devan Dubnyk are not the answers.
The Calgary Flames announced on Thursday the hiring of former Calgary Flame and Edmonton Oiler Martin Gelinas as an assistant coach to Bob Hartley.
Gelinas also played for the Quebec Nordiques, Vancouver Canucks, Carolina Hurricanes, Nashville Predators and Florid Panthers. He racked up 309 goals, 351 assists and 660 points in 1273 games from 1988-2008.
Drafted by the Los Angeles Kings in the first round, seventh overall in 1988, Gelinas was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in the most controversial trade in sports history–the one that saw Wayne Gretzky move from Edmonton to Los Angeles.
Gelinas also scored four very memorable goals in his playing career. In 2002, he scored the game winning goal in game six of the Eastern Conference Final for the Carolina Hurricanes as they eliminated the Toronto Maple Leafs.
It’s almost time for the Stanley Cup Finals, and once again, Wayne Gretzky, the greatest athlete that has ever lived, and his daughter Paulina, are making the sports headlines.
Wayne Gretzky has made it clear he will be in attendance for game three of the Stanley Cup Finals. My reaction, is so what? Is that worthy of a number one sports story?
The bigger story is that Gretzky’s daughter Paulina has been named no.87 on Maxim’s list of the top 100 most beautiful women.
This has been the latest achievement for Gretzky who has been on the cover of Flair Magazine and is becoming a world class supermodel.
Also on the list was Calgary actress Elisha Cuthbert at number 34. Cuthbert, who is currently dating Dion Phaneuf of the Toronto Maple Leafs, was in attendance for Canada’s quarterfinal loss to Slovakia at the World Hockey Championships. Don’t blame the players if they were a little distracted!
With Russia’s convincing 6-2 win over Slovakia today in the Gold medal game of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Men’s Championships in Helsinki, Finland, Evgeni Malkin moved into the record books.
According to TSN, Malkin, who had 19 points in the tournament, became only the second player in hockey history to lead the National Hockey League in points and the World Hockey Championships in points in the same season.
The first? Well folks, the answer to that trivia question is the greatest athlete to have ever played any sport, Wayne Gretzky.
Gretzky accomplished the feat in 1982, when he had an amazing 92 goals in a season (still an NHL record) and became the first player in NHL history to record 200 points in a season (212). At the 1982 World Hockey Championships in Helsinki, Canada finished with a Bronze medal. The Great One led the tournament in scoring with 14 points (six goals and eight assists) in ten games.
It’s amazing. The Los Angeles Kings have all of a sudden become Alberta’s team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Almost hated by Edmonton Oiler fans 20 years ago because they acquired their superstar Wayne Gretzky, the Kings are having a strong following at the present time in Alberta by Oilers and Flames fans that just don’t want to see the Vancouver Canucks go far.
Sunday night at Rogers Arena, the President’s Trophy winning Canucks will try to prevent elimination as they will take on a Los Angeles Kings team up 3-1 in the Western Conference Quarterfinals. Game five can be seen Sunday night at 6pm on CBC.
Here are the other events I’ll be watching:
Saturday & Sunday–NHL Eastern Conference Quarterfinal Game 5 & 6–Washington Capitals vs. Boston Bruins–NBC–1pm–With the series tied 2-2, the Capitals and Bruins will now play an abbreviated best-of-three to determine who goes on to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals. Playing back-to-back games is difficult in the regular season, and I can’t imagine what it is like come playoff time where the mental intensity can be emotionally draining. Brian Rolston, who was acquired at the trade deadline from the New York Islanders, leads the Bruins in playoff scoring along with three points in four games.
It has been an interesting world in cyberspace for the Great One’s daughter.
Earlier in the week, Wayne Gretzky’s daughter Paulina was seen in the streets of Los Angeles wearing lingerie, and then Entertainment Tonight Canada reported Gretzky recently made her modelling debut in the magazine “Sauce Hockey.”
The media attention toward Gretzky has put her back in the public eye after some questionable photos of herself landed on her Twitter account last December.
The bottom line is that Gretzky needs to realize that she is the daughter of the greatest athlete in the history of the world. There is no question she is not afraid to show off her image, she just may have to be a little it more careful when the Paparazzi are analyzing her each and every public move.
It continues to get very interesting each and every night in the Western Conference. That is what happens when you have five teams separated by just one point.
On Tuesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome, Matt Stajan scored the game winning goal just forty seconds left in the overtime period as the Calgary Flames defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-2. With the win, the Flames move into a four way tie for eighth place, but have the edge over the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and Colorado Avalanche because they have the most combined regulation and overtime wins, and are one point back of the Phoenix Coyotes for seventh place.
It was also an historic night for captain Jarome Iginla, who scored his 30th of the season for the eleventh straight year. The only others to achieve the mark have been Mike Gartner, Jaromir Jagr, Wayne Gretzky, Phil Esposito, Bobby Hull and Marcel Dionne. Gartner and Jagr have the record of 15 years.
The Flames must also be pleased with the progress of rookie Sven Baertschi. The Flames’ first round pick in 2011 now has two goals in his first three games. The Flames next play the Phoenix Coyotes Thursday night.
In other hockey news, Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning became the first player to score 50 goals this season as the Lightning beat the Boston Bruins 6-1.
This week on 15 Minutes of Fame, we recap Super Bowl XLVI between the NY Giants and the New England Patriots, we take a look back at Sam Gagner’s eight-point night against the Blackhawks and we try to figure out if the Edmonton Oilers still have a shot at the playoffs, and who might not be on the team when the trade deadline hits.
In the GABBYs: NHL milestones, Shaun White, Rubellos, Zimbabwe soccer, John Foley and Alex Radulov. The Punchline this week is Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.
History was made at Rexall Place on Thursday night.
To say that Edmonton Oilers forward Sam Gagner joined some elite company with his performance in an 8-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks is quite possibly the understatement of the century. With a four goal, four assist night, Gagner becomes just the third Oiler ever, behind the likes of Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey, to rack up eight points in a single game.
Eight points!
Not only did he Gagner have one of the best offensive nights in the long history of the NHL, but the Oilers battled back from down 2-0 to blast a team that had a 22-point lead on them in the Western Conference standings coming into the game.
There was a lot to celebrate for the Oilers in this one – a 43-save night for Devan Dubnyk, Jordan Eberle scoring his 20th of the year, Ryan Whitney netting his first and Cam Barker putting one in after being out since November with an ankle injury. But seriously – eight points?! (more…)
On Thursday night Sam Gagner tied the Edmonton Oilers record for most points in a game with eight as Edmonton defeated Chicago 8-4.
Gagner had four goals and four assists. Coming into the hockey game, Gagner only had five goals all season long.
Taylor Hall added two goals while defencemen Cam Barker and Ryan Whitney added the other two.
Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs has the NHL record with 10 points in a game–on February 7, 1976. The last player to record 8 points in a game was Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins on April 25, 1989. The last player to record 8 points in a regular season game was also Lemieux on December 31, 1988.
Gretzky recorded eight points in a game twice– in 1983 against New Jersey and1984 against Minnesota. Paul Coffey recorded his eight point night against Detroit in 1986, in a game I had the highest honour of attending.
It’s times like these that I wish that Wayne Gretzky were the Prime Minister of Canada.
Sure, he might not be great at balancing budgets or tackling the socio-economic issues facing the country, but he’d probably get the hang of it. At the very least, it would ensure another win for Canada if the rumors about another Summit Series are true!
This September marks the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, and there will apparently be some kind of month-long celebration of the Cold War clash between the two nations. As part of that celebration, the Toronto Star reported this week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would be facing off against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a couple of exhibition games, which the PMO quickly denied.
Sounds cool, right?
Well…it would be, if we were talking about leaders like Wayne Gretzky and Vladislav Tretiak, or Joe Thornton and Pavel Datsyuk! Instead, we’re talking about a Canadian who dropped out of hockey in his early teens and a Russian who only just recently picked up the sport. (AFTER THE JUMP: Video of Putin on skates!) (more…)
History was made at Rexall Place on Thursday night.
It’s times like these that I wish that Wayne Gretzky were the Prime Minister of Canada.
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