Hurricanes at Maple Leafs: Game Day Preview

Is there a place to watch it on the web? Anyone know?

GO CANES GO.. I find it amazing, reading this article on tonights game, then go read the lead blog on the Leafs site. Its hilarious, first sentance reads , now you all know I hate the Carolina Hurricanes. The absolute ineptness in the writting of some of these other blogs amazes me, I feel like its writting on a high school bathroom wall. Canes country deserves the props it gets, insightfull writting by people that actually know what the game of hockey is about. Not a bunch of drivel like, “I hate the Canes”, “I hate them because of their cindarella run in 02”, people like ADOG actually take the time to study the game, the prospects the lines. Not to mention the contributions of HMo2 and Bob and Cory. Guess its just good old southern hospitality, and the greatest fans in the NHL.. LETS GO CANES!!!!

   I think this commentary is interesting and informative as to the difference between the attitude of the media covering the Hurricanes and the media covering the Canadian teams. It is also interesting to see that the commentator is highly disrespectful of O’Sullivan and the trade that brought O’Sullivan to Edmonton. It is little wonder that many players would prefer to work and live in a sports environment that is supportive of them even when they are going through slumps.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/30703-THNcom-Blog-Oilers-must-not-overgrease-freeagent-wheels.html

  Here is a quote from the article that gives a flavor of its tone.
 
        “Tambellini is responsible for acquiring the ever-underwhelming Patrick O’Sullivan at last year’s trade deadline and, possibly the most egregious of all the bad contracts in Edmonton, signing netminder Nikolai Khabibulin to a four-year, $15-million contract that can’t come off the books until the deal is over, retirement or not.”

   The Hurricanes are back to basics. They have to learn how to win again. It’s a tangible quality about teams that the great teams find a way to win and the great players are the ones whose greatness is most clear when the game is on the line. Whitney has been in the past a money time player. During the slump, he, too, was not his amazing, superb self during money time — which was totally unlike himself throughout his career. It is not a surprise that when Whitney is playing his game, the Hurricanes win. The same is true of Staal.

   Here is an article worth reading about money time players and the statistics below the statistics revealing who are players one wants on his or her team when the game is on the line. As the Hurricanes rebuild, it is critical that the new players are players who want the puck when everything is at risk and who rise to the occasion.

    I am most optimistic about the future of the Hurricanes because I think the core Hurricanes team is comprised on money time players, many of whom are young, and many of whom have won at every level of competition during their careers. Here’s the URL:

  http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/30704-Campbellnomics-Jan-12.html

Just watched the Curtis Joseph press conference.

I remember beating him in the 2002 playoffs….

He was a very good goaltender….

Remember guys, the guys who hate Carolina most likely weren’t alive last time the leafs raised the cup. I am sure it pains them to no end for that 40+ year (and going strong)failure and to see us win it and go deep in last years PO’s is salt in the wound. Evidently they have not learned to deal with their shortcomings and over-expectations of what is clearly a lower tier team with a large following (see Yankee Fans, almost all jerks). And I’d bet what makes it worse is that their GM is American. BTW, is the 40+ year streak without a Cup the longest streak in sports now? Thats gotta sting a little.

In case you missed it, Cyn4Canes and I are planning on going to Backyard Bistro in case anyone’s interested in joining us.

I agree with Mo not changing the lines right now, while winning games. I know some on here have been bad mouthing the Rats but with half the team now called up were starting to win a few games. I’m sure this makes it hard to add in some of our injuried. I’m sure thats also one of the reasons in not rushing some of them back into the lineup.

   I am fascinated that hockey has a set of rules of the road that differ from basketball. In basketball, it was always the rule that if you got put in a game and the team won, you pretty much played until the team lost. In hockey the rule according to commentators is that nobody loses their position to injury; and when you get well, you get your position back.

   Both rules make sense, but they are entirely different approaches to injuries. In basketball, if the veterans were not superstars they would have to wait until the team stopped winning; and there really wouldn’t be much of a discussion about it. The coaches would say essentially, we weren’t playing that well before and not we are playing well and winning — looks like this group has it all together.

Well, congrats gang!

The handful of minutes I got to see looked like Ward the Smythe winner rather than any other Ward variant. You also got to see the wonder that is the Toronto special teams.