It wasn't only to fight, but teams definitely had goons who were there to be overly physical.... the difference being there's no place to hide in hockey.

A safety destroys a receiver, then....? Maybe that safety gets cheap-shotted later if someone goes out of their way to do it?

In hockey, you could get destroyed the very next shift, or as you said, have to answer with a fight.

Who knows how much of a deterrent it really was (and fighting isn't even allowed in college, the Canadian leagues, international play), but most of the goons are out of the league as the game has shifted to be faster and more skilled after rule changes years ago... and they've had review committees in place for a while that will get players suspended for targeted/dangerous hits.

There are still a few players around who just don't get it.... the NHL definitely isn't aggressive with their suspensions by any means, but they actually produce videos of what they saw and the reasoning behind each suspension, including the player's history and comparisons with other suspensions, which is of course incredibly transparent and forward thinking.

IMO, they could do more to get rid of those players who don't get it, and impose lengthier suspensions in many cases.... but, overall, the goons are gone and fighting is way, way down.

Yeah goons are pretty much non existent in today's game...

It's not defensive to point out that you're spewing bullshit that doesn't really even apply to today's game. It's the equivalent of showing up on an NFL forum and ranting about how the NFL needs to protect QBs more. Sure, that might have been the case at one point, but it's a very outdated take.

I feel weird about the idea of wearing a 21-year-old's name on my back, but I'm seriously considering a Makar jersey...

Also, what a night for Adam Werner. Not very often you see an AHL goalie performing as well as he has tonight.

Designated enforcers have mostly been phased out and replaced by guys who are tougher than most but can actually play. Staged fights are few and far inbetween nowadays. If there’s a fight, it’s usually just two players who have had enough of each other.

Heh... I haven't bought a jersey in years, partly because I like the idea of only buying them for HoF or retired players, since they can't ever be traded.

But, MacKinnon and Makar definitely make it difficult not to update my collection of Sakic, Roy, and Rob Blake.


And yeah... 40 saves. :eek:

Go Flyers. 4th in the East!

Been waiting a few years for competitive hockey to reappear in the desert! Can’t get fully sucked in until February but Coyotes definitely have me semi-sucked.

McDavid in the slot.

McDavid somehow finding the far post.


Welcome to the NHL, kid.

Yup. Didn't figure we had much of a chance in this one. Seems I was right.

A little hard to see Pat Maroon not in a Blues jersey.

Blues playing with a lot more intensity than last time I saw them.

Are you planning on seeing them on NYE?

Depends on work.

Blues finally looking awake.

Babcock fired from the Leafs.... didn't realize they're under .500 at the moment. Time to get their shit together.

As a wings fan I'd take him back, things have been shit since he left.

Sakic is getting good at making trades with teams right before their wheels fall off.

Sorry, Barrie. It had to be done. Hopefully he can go somewhere better next season.

Barrie's main concern is that he hasn't scored a single goal this season. Thus, his next contract is potentially doomed.
I think that's going to change.

As far as Babcock goes, He made a lot of maddening decisions and was extremely stubborn to the point where it cost the Leafs some playoff sucess.
I liked him, his fake Saskatchewan accent, the 75 year old face with the 25 year old head of hair. But, at the end of the day, he had to go.

This is a monumental change for the Leafs. Years from now, people in Toronto will ask, "Where were you when you heard Babcock was fired?"

He made his money on the power play, and from what I'm reading, Babcock just plain didn't use him right in that role. Hopefully Keefe will figure that part out.

Things have been shit since the salary cap. We (Wings) were great when we were the Yankees of hockey.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

IMO - I'd like to see a luxury tax in the next CBA. This strict cap is a killer for the teams with higher tax rates, (Both NY teams, MON, TOR, etc...). Teams like TB, FLA, AZ, DAL are all at an unfair advantage.

Ironically, Altitude's obnoxious "Hey, Dish!" every 10 seconds is starting to make me wish it was blocked here.


Or maybe it's just the Wild.

That would probably be unprecedented, but you have a valid point.

I love Altitude's on air guys, but the network's handling of this whole situation has been completely obnoxious. It's not far off from straight up propaganda.

Tonight's Blues sweater is awesome...

Damn, why do they always have to show the Coyotes on both channels? Is there a way to stream the Blues game?

Reddit nhl streams

I have to disagree.:shake:
Those jerseys only remind me of Gretzky's failure in St. Louis.
They're for losers and should be burned.

Ouch..

https://www.9news.com/article/sports...7-653abbb5547e

Avalanche legend Peter Forsberg is the star of a Swedish game show, and the clips of it are amazing
"Vem kan slå Anja och Foppa?" translates to "Who can beat Anja and Foppa?" and features Colorado Avalanche legend Peter Forsberg participating in zany challenges.

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I really enjoyed the Leafs vs. Avs game tonight.
I don't get to see Western conference teams often, but I was very impressed with the speed of the Avs. That Makar kid seems like a real nice replacement for Barrie.
Poor ole' Kadri didn't have a great night. He seemed to get hit by friendly fire on every shot from the point in the offensive zone.

Weird game... the first few goals were all kind of flukey, yet the Avalanche missed their chance to score a couple more in the first 10 minutes, as well as Nylander missing on the breakaway.

Considering the shots that went in, it felt like it could have been 5-3 or 5-4 in the 1st period... didn't feel 4-1 at all.

They play again 12/4, even though the Leafs will be on a back to back.

So it looks like Flames coach Bill Peters got fired for calling a former player (Akim Aliu) the N word when he was coaching in the minors.

Crazy stuff.

The sensitivity to big hits these days is kind of ridiculous... there are so many times play has to stop because someone takes exception to a completely clean hit. It's a different game than ~20 years ago, of course, but this is about as clean as they come.

Glad the refs got it right though.


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Mikko is back!!! PBJ PBJ PBJ

(Four points tonight in two periods.)

The Champs just boat raced the piss out of the Avs tonight. Fun game.

The Blues are a tough matchup for the Avs. We just struggle with the Blues constantly getting sticks in passing lanes.

That said, I think Makar being in makes this a 7-game series at least. (I know the Blues are beat up too.)

Yeah, some guy named Tarasenko says hi.

Well I'm a Blues fan and it goes without saying that we really benefited from the double minor. A good call, but without that I'm not sure we keep up with the Av's speed.

For the most part, the Blues do a damn good job of keeping the Avs speed to the outside and limiting high danger chances. Crazy the amount of speed Colorado has.

These teams will be fun in a playoff series.

Just another night of hockey, with 9 goals in the Leafs/Jets game and 10 in the Avalanche/Blues game.

Handsome captains

https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/pr...size=728%2C410

Jay Bouwmeester collapsed on the Blues' bench in Anaheim and was carried off on a stretcher.

They just mentioned this on the Avs broadcast. Holy shit.

Sounds like he was blinking as they stretchered him off the ice. Damn, hope he's OK. At least he had medical attention almost instantly.

Pang reporting they aren't going to continue with the game tonight.

If his condition isn't known, I can't imagine they would. He could be dead for all his teammates know.

Holy crap. Awful. The blinking is a positive sign.

Supposedly alert, so that's a good thing.

Wow, WOW!!!

Prayers for Jay...

Here's video, but warning that it's a little difficult to watch.

https://twitter.com/BradyTrett/statu...36963575123968

Ugh

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">On Blues broadcast, Darren Pang said Jay Bouwmeester was alert when he went into ambulance to the hospital. John Kelly said Bouwmeester&#39;s dad was at the game.</p>&mdash; Nick Cotsonika (@cotsonika) <a href="https://twitter.com/cotsonika/status/1227441044192661504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That's terrifying.

Really scary. Horrible for his dad but in a sense at least he can be there for his son at the hospital. Hope he’s okay. 1000% the right call to postpone the game.

I didn't find the video disturbing. That's probably the safest place for that type of thing to happen. Wishing Bouwmeester all the best.
The Clint Malarchuk video was far more disturbing. It's amazing how well the NHL's medical staffs react to these situations.
The Leafs had a guy have an artery cut on his wrist by a skate this year. He would have bled out before the ambulance came if he was playing beer league or shinny.

Damn. I didn't hear about this until just now. Glad to hear it seems that Bouwmeester is stable and apparently in good spirits. Hope whatever the problem is, that it turns out to be something minor that can be repaired/treated fairly easily.

How/why does this type of thing happen? It's been boggling my mind all day. If an elite athlete can have something like this happen, what's to say it won't happen to me?

Its actually given me a great deal of anxiety today..

Not NHL, but whatevs...

Got to try one of these, I'm not sure I'm going to add one to my bag, but it was bad-ass...

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I'm sure this game was picked at the beginning of the season and maybe the Red Wings weren't predicted to be this ****ing bad... but, damn.

Their goal differential now sits at like -105 and the next worst is -43. :eek:

I remember when Reebok had the 9k twig with the holes in them and my teammate got one. That was an awful stick.

I miss my old Easton S16, S17 & S19 twigs. :(

There have been similar incidents with athletes about as long as I can remember. Many of them are just simply genetic; some hereditary issue that crops up every other generation or whatever. I don't know if it's still true, but when I was a kid, I remember my dad (diagnostician, M.D.) telling me that many weren't even discernible. in other words, you could run every test known to man and some of these things wouldn't show up as anything on any test.

But the likelihood of most of them being a serious problem was about the same as getting hit by lightning.

The Wings look pretty weak.


But after decades of them crushing the Blues, I'm completely okay with that for now.

Sideline Swap app... [emoji41][emoji108][emoji106]

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Sergachev pushes Compher into Vasilevskiy.... Vasilevskiy extends his forearm into Compher. Compher even tries to jump over Vasilevskiy's skate to avoid him...... and TB starts a fight and Compher is one of the players who end up in the box for interference. LMAO

And Rantanen's out a while after being tripped into the boards. :grr:

I just watched the highlight, that was indeed a great game...

It's nice seeing little brother lose, but 2-9-2 is a rough stretch to stomach to enjoy it much

Lightning sure did have their panties in a bunch... they got all hot and bothered after a perfectly good hit by MacKinnon, too.

It was pretty playoff-like though... I'm catching the Yotes/Lightning this weekend.

Jay Bouwmeester will not play for the rest of the season, including playoffs:

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/hock...bde1fee6a.html

I was fully expecting today to be his retirement press conference.

Last year of his deal, 36 years old and coming off a cardiac event.

Maybe he gets a 1-year deal with the Blues if he clears medical, but I can't see anyone else signing him - even though he's been a solid defender and wins the conditioning tests every year.

The more I think about it, the more I think he's going to announce his retirement this summer. The only thing that speaks otherwise are his comments about being a hockey player and that even right now a part of him wants to be on the ice with his teammates.

Either way, I'll be glad for him. He's always been a favorite of mine.

Flames scored with 42 seconds left to take the lead. Predators scored with 0.01 seconds left to tie and then the same guy for Nashville scored the winner in OT. Crazy game

Blues are starting to look like last year's playoff team. And Taresenko might be back on the ice in a couple weeks. Wondering when we'll start hearing "Gloria" again.

You won't.

Pretty sure everyone's tired of it or at least that's what all of the kvetching in the Blues' fan FB group indicated during their little bit of a schnide earlier this month when the song would be posted or referenced thrice daily.

Ha, the "Gloria" reference was kinda tongue-in-cheek. Just thinking the Blues just might make a deep playoff run. Right now they're +885 to win the Cup again. I know it's nearly impossible for a team to repeat in the NHL, but the Blues are on a 5-game win streak, and look pretty sharp lately.

Maybe, just maybe there's another miracle left in the tank . ..

Six game but I get your point. Binnington hasn't been Godlike as he was during last year's Cup run and who knows what Tarasenko can do when (if) he comes back.

Binnington hasn't been Godlike as he was during last year's Cup run-YET.

Be precise when talking about Our Savior, please.