Hockey Trade Rumors

A fitting end to the weirdest season I have ever witnessed for the Devils

Once again the NHL disciplinary is a joke.

Colin Campbell takes four days to come up with a decision on Kyle McLaren brutal elbow to Richard Zednik’s head and comes up with only a three game suspension, and possibly only two if the Bruins are eliminated Monday night. From TSN.ca, Campbell says, “After a thorough review of the videotape as well as an in-person hearing with Mr. McLaren, and consideration of all the circumstances, I have determined that by extending his arm to impede the progress of Mr. Zednik, Mr. McLaren delivered a dangerous blow to the head of his opponent and caused significant injuries to the opposing player,” “Mr. McLaren clearly must be held accountable for his actions in this regard.”

Well Mr. Campbell, you surely held him accountable with the 3 games maximum suspension you gave him. These loose suspensions are why the league continues to have such incidents happening at increasing rates and has set a dangerous prescedent for future incidents of these types.

Now I know B’s fans are happy and the NHL braintrust again turns a blind eye to these events, and the rest of the hockey world just wonders what the hell is going on.

A weekly look at some of the stories rocking the hockey world and my take on each of them.

This week:

The demons are gone: Hurricanes advance

Booing at the rink: have we gone too far?

Canucks gone: Brian, have your phone ready

Regarding the Leaf and Islander game this Friday, what did you all think of the hits that Roberts and Tucker gave out?

Personally as a Leaf fan you might think I am a little bias, but seriously I did not think they were cheap or worth suspension.

Gary Roberts was in the middle of his check and could do little to avoid Jonnson, who saw him coming.

Besides didn’t Mike Peca do almost the exact same thing to a player earlier this year as well? (I forget who it was), but the guy was carried out on a strecher…

As for Tucker…once again clean. Mike carries out those types of hits all the time. There harsh, but clean.

It really sucks as that Jonnson is out and maybe Peca (as a Leaf fan, I know all about injuries). I wouldn’t count the Isle’s out at all though.

Anyway what’s your opinion…and I know there are a lot of Leaf haters on this site, but please try and remain as unbias as possible.

Jill

Now the only mystery left in the Flyers season is how the Philadelphia Daily News will sum up the season. Many weary Philadelphians will drop their sixty cents tomorrow morning, glance at another tacky tabloid headline and skip to the Signe Wilkinson cartoon.

There are three big events that we can count on every year in sports…

1) Tiger Woods wins a major.

2) The Atlanta Braves win their division title in the National League.

3) There are one or two upsets in the NHL playoffs.

Let’s focus on #3 shall we?

The Islander & Leaf game on April 23rd, 2002 was one of the most disgraceful games I have ever witnessed.

Name some of things you miss…

This story just got more interesting. It is not sure who is telling the truth, but it certainly seems like Mike Keenan is the weisel in this mystery.

Yes, there may be a conspiracy in the NHL. I am admittedly a New York Islanders fan. I’m sure many of you have heard the news of General Manager Mike Milbury blasting the refs yesterday. I’m sure many of you were also thinking, “there goes Mad Mike again”. In my opinion, the NHL doesn’t want the Islanders to do too well this year. In no way am I knocking the Toronto Maple Leafs. They have played an excellent series, especially Cujo in the last game.

The flyers have now been shut out in 2 consecutive games, and have not scored a regulation goal against the Senators. The flyers are playing mediocre at best and are being out classed by a team that they should be built to beat. What follows are my observations of the series so far.

Stan Fischler is a hockey analyst and is a commentator during New Jersey Devils intermissions on Fox Sports, sometimes on MSG the channel. Fischler also wrote books and has tons of hockey history knowledge and knows tons about many things in the NHL. Here he talks about the 10 top candidates to coach the New York Rangers next season.

ESPN is reporting that there is a chance Philadelphia Flyers goalie Roman Cechmanek might miss Monday nights game three playoff start because of an ankle injury. Cechmanek re-agrivated the sprained right ankle that kept him out of 13 games at the end of the season in last nights pathetic 3-0 loss to the Senators. If Cechmanek can’t go Brian Boucher would be the starter. Flyers coach Bill Barber was quoted as saying “Boucher has done a great job for us, If it comes to that I’m comfortable with it and so is the team” Cechmanek did not practice with the team Sunday.