Off Wing Opinion

It's been a long slog, but Ottawa successfully fought off an early season slump, and now finds itself on top of the Eastern Conference following this weekend's action. On Saturday, part of the Hockey Day in Canada festivities, the Senators smothered the Flames 3-1, and then extended Pittsburgh's winless streak to 19 games with a 6-3 win at the Mellon Arena.

The Sens now have 81 points, and lead Toronto and Philly by one point for the Eastern Conference lead.

Dallas tightened its grip on a playoff spot this weekend, notching a 5-1 win over Colorado on Friday, and following it up with a 4-0 shutout of Anaheim in a Sunday matinee. Marty Turco had a fairly easy weekend, turning aside a combined 29 shots in the two wins. Dallas finished the weekend in fifth place with 70 points, only four behind Pacific-leading San Jose.

Hot on their heels is a Nashville team that's desperate to make the playoffs. On Friday, they downed Anaheim 3-2 in OT on a Scott Walker goal, then followed it up on Saturday with an 8-2 win over Phoenix. Nashville is in sixth place in the West, only one point behind Dallas.

With the Flyers skidding, the Devils are still in position to win the Atlantic Division, and they went a long way to making it happen with another two-win weekend. First, they finished off the Rangers, and their season, with a 7-3 win at Madison Square Garden on Saturday (for a post-mortem on the Rangers' season, see Hockeybird). Scott Gomez had two goals and three assists, while Patrick Elias also scored twice for the Devils. Elias scored twice more on Sunday as New Jersey beat Calgary 3-1 at home.

In Washington on Saturday, the Caps rallied from two goals down to force a 2-2 tie with Florida, but the real news was being made in the stands:

Some patrons of MCI Center have complained that signs critical of Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and General Manager George McPhee have been seized by security personnel during recent games. Some fans have told The Post via e-mail that they will not renew their season tickets because of this practice.

The signs began appearing when the Capitals traded Jaromir Jagr to the New York Rangers, and continued with Peter Bondra's trade to Ottawa. Other popular players, such as Olaf Kolzig and Sergei Gonchar, could also be traded before the March 9 deadline.

Kurt Kehl, the team's director of communications, said the club's policy is to remove signs that are vulgar or offensive, or also those that obstruct the view of other fans. The Capitals had internal discussions prior to Thursday's game about how to handle such issues, and sources said Leonsis was among those who supported the right for fans to express negative opinions.

Season ticket holder Stephen Andrews said that signs saying "Trade Ted" and "Trade McPhee" were confiscated from fans near him even though patrons in those sections said the signs were not bothering them.

Now is not the time to antagonize fans, not when so few of them are still showing up to see one of the worst teams in hockey. Here's hoping the sentiment attributed to Leonsis above filters down to the ushers in the seats.

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tim Panaccio takes a look at how the NHL is taking the fight over the CBA to the Web. Click here for a closer look.

The news about Jeremy Roenick isn't good. The Coyotes have dealt Landon Wilson to Pittsburgh -- which has left him wondering who he got angry.

UPDATE: Missed the Kurt Sauer for Martin Skoula swap over the weekend. Keep up with all the trades here with TSN.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2004 at 12:00 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Back in the Fall, I put my money on the Buffalo Sabres making the playoffs. After a slow start (in part due to the absence of Jochen Hecht), the team has put together a fine run as of late, capping it with two wins this weekend: an 8-3 drubbing of the Kings on Friday night, followed by a 6-4 defeat of the Maple Leafs on Saturday. Robert Reichel of the Leafs scored twice on Saturday, unfortunately his second goal was scored into his own net when his centering pass traveled the length of the ice. At the end of the weekend, ninth place Buffalo trailed the eighth place Islanders by only five points. The Sabres play four times this week, finishing up on Saturday night on Long Island.

In his first start following the departure of Dominik Hasek, and an injury to Curtis Joseph, Manny Legace looked anything like the answer in goal for Detroit, yielding four goals on 29 shots in a 5-2 loss to Colorado. When it comes to backup goalies, there are few in the league who are as good as Legace, but I'm afraid the story is going to be a tad different if Detroit is forced to rely on him for an extended period of time.

In scenic Kanata, hometown of Todd Simpson, the Senators took down the Canadiens 5-2 on Saturday night. The win was Ottawa's third straight on their latest homestand, leaving the Senators tied for fourth place in the East with Boston. The misery continued for the Penguins, after they dropped their 14th straight game to the Blues, 3-2 in OT.

Down in Tampa, with the Southeast Division essentially wrapped up, the Lightning have their sights on bigger game -- namely, the first or second seed in the East. They moved two points closer to that goal after beating Florida 3-2 on Saturday. With the win, Tampa Bay trails Toronto for the second seed in the East by only four points, with one game in hand.

The news is much the same in San Jose, as a surprising Sharks squad is using a weak Pacific Division as a launching pad for a successful playoff run. After their 2-1 OT win over Columbus on Saturday, the Sharks only trail Detroit by four points for the second seed in the West.

With a 6-2 loss to the Flyers in the books, and new acquisition Jaromir Jagr on the shelf with a groin injury, the Rangers are just playing out the string.

Meanwhile in Jersey, the Devils posted back to back wins: 4-1 over Carolina and 3-2 over the Kings in OT. But despite their recent play, Larry Brooks says a rift has developed in the locker room between the team and head coach Pat Burns -- and the absence of Scott Stevens is to blame.

The good times keep rolling for the Flames, as they chalked up twin 2-1 victories over Anaheim and Minnesota. With 68 points, Calgary trails Vancouver by four for the fourth seed in the West.

For those of you looking for another angle on the NHL Armageddon storyline, check out Eric Fisher's analysis that compares Gary Bettman's strategy with that of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.

Now, nobody ever wants to be compared to Selig, but then again, he did avert a baseball strike, didn't he?

If you were wondering what Don Cherry did the other night, don't worry, Tom Benjamin was on the case. He also gives thumbs up to the rest of the Hockey Night In Canada crew for their take on all the proposed rule changes.

And finally, the New York City Attorney General expects to receive an extradition request from Montreal any day now.

UPDATE: Colby Cosh has some more thoughts on Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and cultural confusion.

POSTSCRIPT: Other weekend happenings you might have missed:

After suffering his ninth concussion, Jeremy Roenick is considering retirement. With a Cup so close in Philadelphia, I can't see him not coming back.

The league fined Tie Domi $1,000, and the Leafs another $5,000 for his autographed stick incident last week. I hope Jody Shelly held onto that stick, as something tells me it might be worth as much as Domi's fine if it were auctioned on Ebay.

With two assists in a game against Vancouver the other nigth, Sergei Fedorov reached the 1,000 point mark in his career -- the first Russian-born player to do so. Congratulations.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2004 at 12:01 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Life is good in Toronto as the Maple Leafs keep on rolling. First they easily polished off the Thrashers 4-1 in Atlanta. Trevor Kidd gave Ed Belfour the night off and got the win. And in the most eagerly anticipated game of the weekend, the Leafs beat the Senators 5-1 at home. Gary Roberts had two goals, but it was Daniel Alfredsson who was the star of the show as far as Leafs fans were concerned, getting booed every time he touched the puck. Toronto now sits atop the East with 69 points, leading Philly by one, and Ottawa by three.

Things are beginning to look better in Dallas, as the Stars have clawed their way back into the thick of things in the Western Conference. On Friday, they beat the visiting Sharks 3-1 at home, then took a flight to Phoenix on Saturday to beat the Coyotes, 5-4. The Stars are now fifth in the West with 61 points, eight behind the Canucks in fourth place.

Back East, the Glen Murray show continued for Boston. First, he got the only goal in the Bruins' 1-0 win over Montreal on Saturday. In a matinee on Super Sunday, Murray warmed up the New England faithful with a hat trick in Boston's 4-1 win over Pittsburgh. Murray now has nine goals in his last eight games, as the Bruins are now tied for fifth in the East with New Jersey at 65 points.

The word out of the Southeast is that the Tampa Bay Lightning are taking control. Fredrik Modin scored twice in Friday's 5-2 win over Atlanta, opening up an 11-point gap between the two teams. Tampa Bay now has 61 points, and looks to have the Division and the third playoff seed pretty much wrapped up, barring disaster, a spate of injuries, or a miraculous comeback by Atlanta's Dany Heatley.

Hey, didn't you guys used to be the St. Louis Blues? You know, the team actually challenging the Detroit Red Wings in the Central Division with who knows how many games in hand? Well, after a 4-1 loss to New Jersey on Saturday, the Blues are actually in ninth place, just a point out of the eighth spot where Los Angeles has clawed itself into position to salvage its season. It's not that the Blues are bad at 25-18-7-1, but they just haven't been terribly good for a few weeks. And in a competitive Western Conference, that isn't nearly good enough to make the playoffs.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2004 at 6:44 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.