Two NHL families were reunited this weekend at the 2012 NHL draft in Pittsburgh through blockbuster trades.
The first one came on Friday, when it was announced that Pittsburgh Penguins forward Jordan Staal would be joining his brother, Eric, in Carolina. Just a day after turning down a 10-year contract extension, Jordan was traded to the Hurricanes in exchange for the No. 8 overall pick in the draft, center Brandon Sutter and defenseman Brian Dumoulin.
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The St. Louis Blues find themselves one game away from their summer vacation.
Trailing the Los Angeles Kings 2-0 entering game four of a Western Conference semi-final, the Blues needed to win last Thursday night to get back in the series. Unfortunately, they could not pull it off. Although they started with more speed and aggression than in game two, they couldn’t stop the Kings’ offense, which has been on fire as of late. The Kings had goals by Dwight King and Drew Doughty along with a Gordie Howe hat trick (a goal, an assist, and a fight) by Mike Richards. Jonathan Quick also had a solid game in net for the Kings. However, he received a lot of help from his defense. Quick did a great job of stopping the initial shot, but he left a number of rebounds. The Kings’ defense was strong and did a great job of boxing out the Blues forwards so they couldn’t put in the rebound.
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Although there are only six games in regular season hockey for the Philadelphia Flyers, they are basically in a must win situation if the Flyers hope to secure home ice advantage over the New York Rangers.
Philadelphia suffered the loss of two major players after losing to Tampa Bay on Monday. The Flyers will head to Toronto without defensemen Kimmo Timonen (upper body injury) and goalie Ilya Bryzgalov (left foot chip fracture).
Paul Holmgrem told Philadelphiaflyers.com
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It’s been a frustrating season up in Toronto, especially for Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke.
After watching his team get off to an unbelievable start to the season, their playoff hopes have slowly eroded away with their recent 2-7-1 slide. As a result, Burke was forced to fire head coach Ron Wilson. And while some fans in Toronto may be happy to see the coach gone, many of them want Burke to follow him out the door.
Burke, being well aware of this, was a little ticked off when he was asked about his job security in a radio interview he gave Tuesday.
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The “Fire Wilson” chants that came raining down from the Air Canada Centre during the waning minutes of Toronto’s 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers this past Tuesday seemed to have worked.
Ron Wilson was fired Friday as coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs after nearly four seasons behind the bench and replaced by Randy Carlyle.
“This was not an easy decision for me to make,” GM Brian Burke said in a statement. “I want to thank Ron for all of his hard work and dedication to our organization over the past four seasons.”
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He may have been born in Sweden, but for Maple Leafs fans, Mats Sundin is as Canadian as they come.
The team’s career scoring leader will be honored before the Leafs-Candiens game Saturday night when they raise his No. 13 jersey to the rafters of the Air Canada Centre.
“To have my sweater honored, up there with Darryl Sittler and Doug Gilmour, Borje Salming and Johnny Bower, that’s awesome. It’s going to be very emotional for me.’’
Sundin will be the 18th player to have a banner raised in his honor by the Maple Leafs.
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The NHL’s Winter Classic is a hockey spectacle that has grown bigger each season of its five-year existence.
It won’t get much bigger than 2013.
The NHL announced Thursday that the next stop for the Jan. 1 outdoor game will be at Michigan Stadium, home of the Michigan Wolverines, with an incredible 115,000 tickets that will be available for fans.
Adding to the mystique of the New Year’s Day game at “The Big House” will be the two Original Six franchises participating in the game—the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings.
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Every good captain needs an assistant, and that’s why Toronto Maple Leafs forward Joffrey Lupul and New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist have been named assistant captains for the 2012 NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa.
Lundqvist will join the team of captain Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators, while Lupul will be part of the team led by captain Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins.
Thanks to some amazing chemistry with Phil Kessel, Lupul is enjoying the best season of his eight-year NHL career. He currently ranks fourth among all League scorers with 51 points (20 goals, 31 assists) in 46 games.
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With the NHL trade deadline just about a month away, more and more rumors are beginning to surface regarding some key players. However, due to the fact that the standings are so tight right now in both conferences, we may not see much activity until the final weeks leading up to the Feb. 27 deadline. Nevertheless, here are some of the names that are currently linked to various rumors—some of which may actually be true.
James van Riemsdyk and Luke Schenn
This rumor started running wild last week when a report came out of Philadelphia claiming Flyers director of player personnel Don Luce scouted the Leafs in recent games.
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Christmas came a little bit early this year for Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson.
And not only did it come early, but it came granting him his Christmas wish.
On Friday, Wilson couldn’t contain his giddiness over his early Christmas “gift” and took to Twitter to express how excited he was that Santa—ahem—Brian Burke gave him a contract extension.
At 7:49 a.m., Wilson posted this to his Twitter account, @coachrw63: “‘He came! He came!’ Remember saying that as a little kid? Well he did: I got a new Red Ryder BB gun and a contract extension!”
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