National Hockey League

It is one of the mysteries of the late-season NHL where some teams are preparing for a deep playoff run and others are looking much further ahead. One night, the New Jersey Devils look unbeatable in an easy 5-2 win over the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. The next night against the worst team in the Eastern Conference, the Devils were all out to salvage a point from the Maple Leafs.  

All the asinine dirty hits of late — it almost seems they're coming on a nightly basis — is thankfully costing perpetrators in the wallet. What they fail to understand is the cost to the other players out there. All of them, not just those who suffer career-ending or shortening injuries.  

With one dip of his shoulder, Pittsburgh Penguins winger Matt Cooke probably ended Marc Savard's season with the Boston Bruins and started a debate all over North America. The issue: Was Cooke's blow to Savard's head legal? No penalty was called on the play, which occurred in last Sunday's game at Mellon Arena.

If a guy gets hurt like that with a shot to the head, there's got to be something   -Bill Guerin

 

This might be the last hurrah for 48-year-old Chris Chelios. After 26 years of professional hockey, he's just about ready to call it a day and find some senior men's rec hockey league that will have him. It's not because of the grind of an 82-game National Hockey League schedule, nor the near-constant training nor that his body can't handle the bumps and bruises with the ease it could when he was 21 and playing in his first games for the Montreal Canadiens.

I don't know how he does it   -Zach Bogosian

 

Pension Plan Puppets — ... out a SO win with a sick Phil Kessel deke that had me convinced he'd run out of ice right before he scored. Good times. Links after the jump.  

A day after acknowledging he failed a drug test for cocaine last year, Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington admits he used marijuana and amphetamines while he was a player. "When you're young you make mistakes," Washington said yesterday. "I wish I could take back some of the mistakes I may have made, but I can't."

When you're young you make mistakes   -Ron Washington

 

Gatineau Olympiques coach John Chabot borrowed a phrase from Harry Neale on Thursday as his team wrapped up preparations for its Quebec Major Junior Hockey League first-round playoff series against the Montreal Junior. "Goaltending is 70 per cent of your team, unless you don't have it; then it's 100 per cent," said Neale, a former NHL coach who now works as a colour analyst for Buffalo Sabres game telecasts. Ottawa Senators fans know that all too well.

a game just like any other game   -Maxime Clermont

 

Anaheim Ducks defenseman James Wisniewski was suspended for eight games without pay Thursday for knocking Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brent Seabrook out of a game at Anaheim. The incident occurred at 2:22 of the second period during the Blackhawks' 4-2 loss on Wednesday. Seabrook's head struck the glass with such force that it left him with a dazed expression a couple of seconds before he fell to the ice.

I am, however, very disappointed in the length of the suspension. Eight games is incredibly hard to swallow, especially in comparison to other recent hits that have resulted in lesser punishment.   -Gary Bettman

 

Adam Henrique scored twice and added an assist as the defending Memorial Cup champion Windsor Spitfires outclassed the Erie Otters in just about every way, winning 6-2 Thursday night to take a 1-0 lead in their Ontario Hockey League Western Conference quarter-final series. Justin Shugg opened the scoring for the Spitfires midway through the first period when his sharp-angle shot beat screened Erie goaltender Adam Courchaine. Greg McKegg tied the game for the Otters five minutes into the second period when he converted a pass from Shawn Szydlowski on a short-handed odd-man rush.