Faceoff Factor

A Week Back East - Dec 9-15

Ashley Gallant | National Hockey League

Dec 15, 10:06 PM | Hype this story!

Quote of the Week
‘Let’s just call a spade a spade. It was just a good ol’ fashioned butt kicking.” – John Tortorella after a 6-1 loss against the Maple Leafs on Monday.

The Dominators
Joffrey Lupul, Right Wing, Philadelphia Flyers (6G, 3A, 3 games)
Absolutely mind-blowing. Looks like he found his scoring touch that he lost in Edmonton, eh Kevin Lowe?

Dany Heatley, Left Wing, Ottawa Senators (6G, 1A, 3 games)
The Sens are on a winning streak, Dany Heatley is scoring (including his 200th NHL goal), coincidence?

RJ Umberger, Centre, Philadelphia Flyers (3G, 3A, 3 games)
He’s the other reason why the Flyers won over his hometown team.

The games that made you cheer. Or freak out. Or cry. Or all of the above.
Boston Bruins (5) Atlanta Thrashers (3) – Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
It was Mark Recchi’s first game as a Thrasher, and he scored two goals. Good on him, but unlike many who are saying that Pittsburgh was stupid for letting this ‘sniper’ go, I question whether he can return to last season’s form. And besides, even if he does fare better in Atlanta, that doesn’t mean that he would have done the same with the Pens.

The Bruins were having serious goalie issues, with Manny Fernandez apparently out for the season after having knee surgery and Tim Thomas down and out with a groin injury. In comes Alex Auld, who was the third goalie in Phoenix’s farm team, but has been great so far as Boston’s starting goaltender.

Tampa Bay Lightning (3) Montréal Canadiens (2) shootout – Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Tampa has been horrible on the road, and Montréal has been horrible at home, but somebody had to win this one. Tampa made it through to win only their third road game of the season and handed Montréal their sixth home loss.

Marc Denis made several huge saves for the Lightning, and his save on Saku Koivu’s shootout attempt was amazing – how on earth he kept that puck out of the net, I don’t know.

And Brad Richards = wow. The guy messed up his leg the night before in Toronto and couldn’t put any weight on it as he left the ice, but not only did he play in Montréal, he scored a great goal as the only tally in the shootout.

Philadelphia Flyers (8) Pittsburgh Penguins (2) – Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
The heading of this section says “The games that made you…freak out. Or cry,” and this was definitely one of them. A lot has been said about this game on FF.com, so I’ll just say this: refer to the ‘quote of the week’ above.

Injury Report
Bryan McCabe, Defence, Toronto Maple Leafs – broken hand
McCabe broke 3 bones in his left hand in Saturday’s game against the Montréal Canadiens. This will take awhile to heal, and Toronto won’t be happy about that because he has been logging some serious minutes on the ice, and has been a big reason why the Leafs have turned things around since Peddie (the CEO) called out GM John Ferguson Jr. in the media.

Mike Fisher, Centre, Ottawa Senators – abdominal injury
Fisher has had a tough week. First, he was headbutted by Scott Walker when the two decided to exchange a friendly ‘hello’ with their fists. Now, he was injured in a freak accident on the bench in Saturday’s game. There isn’t much information available, other than the report that he was taken to hospital.

Manny Fernandez, Goalie, Boston Bruins – knee
Okay, so this didn’t happen this week, but the update on Manny did come this week. He had surgery on his knee and will likely be out for the rest of the season. This guy just can’t seem to catch a break – he was supposed to be the starter for the Wild, lost his job to Backstrom, came to Boston to be the starter, and now he’s hurt. If Auld continues to play well, then the Bruins should be fine in net.

Odds and Ends
Crosby wins another award
This week, Sidney Crosby won the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s top athlete, narrowly beating out the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash. He is the eighth hockey player to receive the award, joining the likes of Maurice ‘The Rocket’ Richard, Wayne Gretzky, Guy LaFleur, Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr, and is the first since Mario Lemieux won the award in 1993.

New skates for all?
Have you noticed a player who is skating a touch faster in the last few weeks? If so, maybe he is one of the four NHL players testing the new Thermablade skates.

Thermablade technology is essentially a heated blade that helps the skater skate faster by decreasing the friction between the blade and the ice. The blade is heated to about 5C, which isn’t hot, but it’s enough to melt the ice a little and increase the amount of water between the skate and the ice surface. Players activate the Thermablade by holding their finger and thumb on either side of the plastic blade holder. The system turns off when they are on the bench, but kicks in from the energy used to return to the ice.

Kris King, the NHL’s senior manager of hockey operations, said that there appears to be no problems with the technology. He has spoken to all four players, who are kept anonymous for the time being in order to avoid the media attention, and their equipment managers, and the blades appear to be working fine and there appears to be no safety concerns.

Now, what does this mean for the game of hockey? Hmmm…an even faster game? That wouldn’t be so bad.

Should the NHL and the NHLPA decide to go ahead with Thermablades, let’s just hope there are no fiascos like with the new RBK Edge jerseys.

’Canes get new goalie coach
Carolina Hurricanes goaltending coach Greg Stefan has decided to leave the NHL to be the new coach of the Plymouth Whalers of the OHL. Luckily, the Carolina had someone in their front office who can step in and take over – Tom Barrasso. Barrasso played 18 years in the NHL, winning two Stanley Cups with the Pens in the early 1990s, and is also working as Carolina’s director of goalie development.

Mike Richards signs contract extension
Richards will be in Philly for a good, long time – 12 years to be exact. He signed a new contract this week worth $69M.

I think that this now makes Philly the next ‘Islanders,’ with their ridiculously long contracts.

The Week Ahead
Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils – Sunday, December 16th, 5 PM ET.
Two of the top teams in the Atlantic battle it out in Jersey. Hard to know who to cheer for, but I’ll go for Brodeur and the Devils.

Ottawa Senators and Atlanta Thrashers – Thursday, December 20th, 7 PM ET.
Atlanta was embarrassed in Ottawa on Saturday, so they would like to return the favour when the Sens roll into Atlanta.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning – Thursday, December 20th, 7:30 PM ET.
Speaking of embarrassments, remember Tortorella’s quote above? Well, it’s time for pay back, and Tampa Bay has been incredible at home. Time for a Lecavalier hat trick, maybe? Or a St. Louis special?