The NHL is not the only sports league with struggling franchises by any means, but Gary Bettman seems hell-bound and determined to make them the league with the most unique method of dealing with those franchises. Already the owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, who they may or may not be selling to Jerry Reinsdorf this […]

Social media is a wonderful thing for NHL fans, especially over the off-season. It’s the fastest source for trades, re-signings, and especially signings of unrestricted free agents after July 1st. Unfortunately, it’s also the fastest source for unsubstantiated rumors that tend to freak out fanbases. This off-season is the first of those for Winnipeg Jets […]

You might remember a little kerfluffle a few off-seasons ago, in which the New Jersey Devils signed Ilya Kovalchuk to a flagrantly front-loaded contract of huge length. The league basically deemed it cap circumvention, scrapped the contract, and had the Devils pay a hefty fine and give up their 2011 third round pick, as well […]

Ondrej Pavelec has had more NHL experience by age 24 than most goaltenders have had in a lifetime. Not all of it has been good — he was relied upon heavily when injury prone Atlanta Thrashers starter Kari Lehtonen went down, and after the trade that sent Lehtonen to the Dallas Stars, Pavelec was going […]

The Norfolk Admirals, who are the Tampa Bay Lightning’s AHL affiliate, headed into tonight’s game with a 2-0 lead over the Toronto Marlies for the Calder Cup. The Marlies have been on quite a run to give the city of Toronto their first taste of a major sports championship since the Blue Jays’ World Series […]

PHOTO CREDIT: Los Angeles Times Blog Hockey fans’ve long known that the sport harbors some of the most modest, charitable, and all around good people of any of the professional sports. It’s next to impossible to make it through a season without reading stories like Brooks Laich changing tires after a heartbreaking game seven loss […]

A little bit of “out of left field” news to start the day off. The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired the negiotating rights to Tomas Vokoun from the Washington Capitals this morning for a 7th round pick. If Vokoun doesn’t reach a deal with the Pens, he becomes an unrestricted free agent. When you take into consideration […]

A rumor broke Thursday night that Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas was considering taking a year away from the NHL. Many, myself included, discounted it as nothing but gossip. What reason would Thomas have for doing so? How could it possibly do anything but harm his career? It seemed mad that he’d consider doing such […]

You can say a lot of things about the KHL. Foreign. Unprofessional. Funded by oil money. The negative things that people usually think of when you mention the Russian-controlled league are something that the owners are trying hard to push out of Americans’ minds. They don’t want to be the also-ran to the NHL anymore. […]

Oops. Chalk this one up to not knowing any audience. The CBC announced the invasion of their ladies’ themed podcast “While the Men Watch” on Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts. The assumption that women watch hockey differently than men ticked people off (As Steve Lepore of Puck the Media suggested, just feature Cassie Campbell. Hell, […]

The Phoenix Coyotes were eliminated last night in game five of the Western Conference Finals by the Los Angeles Kings, bringing their season to a close. In a year where they won the first Pacific Division title in team history and made it to the conference finals for the first time in team history, negativity […]

No more chuckling at the British hockey teams, hockey “purists.” They might just have more hockey cred than even Canada, based on some new evidence dug up by two Swedish researchers. Carl Giden and Patrick Houda uncovered a picture in a book dating from 1797, featuring a British youth skating on the frozen bank of […]

I’ve heard people complain about “boring hockey” for two days short of forever, but not more often than this season. The Blues were accused of playing “boring trap-style hockey.” Too much defense! Not enough running and gunning! Score more! While the latter would have been nice, especially during round two, most Blues fans didn’t notice […]

.   Winston Churchill once said of Russia, “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…” This quote is often applied to their players as well. Jingoistic hockey pundits call Russian players lazy and mysterious. They’re also accused of playing when they feel like it, and shutting down when they’re faced with adverse […]

The original Winnipeg Jets never made it to the Western Conference finals, unfortunately for the fans and the city. The team that they turned into, the Phoenix Coyotes, start play in the conference finals tomorrow, and understandably some fans of the original team are a bit upset. Sad with nostalgia at what could have been, […]