Vanflyer

He never gives up on a play which reminds me of the was Richards *can* play. He creates his own chances and takes advantage of them when he gets them. Rookie of the first 1/4 of the season. Let's see if he can hold together for 82 games

Not disagreeing, but aside from a "late blooming goalie", its a bit weird for me for someone who will be 26 y/o when awards are announced to get the Calder. Nonetheless, I don't disagree. Couturier is still there for me as well (though he has more games played than Read and plays less minutes).

Lucic clearly is pursuing the puck as he crosses the blue line. As he nears Miller (before the top of the circle, with Miller approaching the dot) he moves his stick to the left - away from the puck - and clearly slams directly into Miller.

He even stops moving his skates.

He is not pursuing the puck at that point - he's lining Miller up from the top of the circle to the dot.

Okay- fair enough. But the point is this on my end: Miller charged out to get the puck and Lucic was charging in. In regards to stop skating, that is a god send- could you imagine if Lucic kept skating??

In the end, it is a hockey play. I mean what if it is someone like timmo coming from the other wing trying to get there and and at the last SECOND get there and flips the puck to the glass?

You have your points and I have mine.

At the end of the day, my opinion is that ANY player that plays the puck (with exception of the goalies in either crease or trapezoid) is fare game. Miller was a 3rd defensemen there. If he does not want to get nailed, stay in the crease. Let Luci retrieve the puck and see if the defense can stop the trailers or catch up to him. If he does not want to do that and challenge the play, he is fair game- plain and simple.

Truth be told, I would have done the EXACT same thing Lucic did.

Back in the days of Roy, Hextall, Smith, Resch and others it wouldn't even be a topic today. I also could name 30 other goalies / teams through the history that would have pummeled Lucic for doing that (thereby prohibiting the hitting of the goalie), but that will digress this thread.

Lucic made no attempt to play the puck OR avoid the hit. It was intentional and a penalty - regardless of who got hit or where the hit occurred.

Rad- you really need to watch that video again. Lucic loses control of the puck and is in full speed pursuit. Miller comes out to try and get the puck first- and does. He quickly flips the puck to the boards- just as Lucic gets there and gets nailed. To me its a completely legit hockey play.

The only thing making a goalie "fair game" in this situation will do is improve Michael Leighton's job prospects.

A player is "fair game" when he has control of the puck and is skating with it - not the case here. You can't just willy-nilly barrel into players. Doubly so for goalies - and that's the way the game is called, not the way I made it. "Should" it be different? Makes no difference. It's not different.

Lucic made no attempt to play the puck OR avoid the hit. It was intentional and a penalty - regardless of who got hit or where the hit occurred.

Rad- no offense, but your point is invalid. Watch the play again. Miller skated to below the circle PLAYED the puck will an attacker was skating full bore to get to the puck and got leveled just after he shot the puck into the glass. If you don't like the hit, fine, but don't say its because Miller did not play the puck, because he did AND he knew that Lucic was barreling in after pursuit of the puck. What did miller think was going to happen??? That Lucic was just going to bear off and not pursue and give Miller and easy out??

I know this has to be a penalty in the current league, but it shouldn't be. The guy came out to play a puck right in front of a guy that had skated full-speed down the entire ice. Lucic didn't "curl" because of the possibility maybe Miller misplays it. Hi a guy wearing a mask in the shoulder. I actually want to see more of that. Don't want to get hit? Stay in your crease! Want to come out and play the puck, that's fine, but be aware you could possibly get hit.

They're wearing more padding than everyone else and a full mask, what is the issue exactly? I mean, what the hell is the crease even for if they're going to be protected from playing hockey everywhere else on the ice as well?

I could not agree more. Its incredulous to me all these people that are protecting Miller. Now, I don't condone running the goalie when he is in his crease, but when he is out of the the trapezoid / crease, he is fair game to me.

How people forget Hextall, Resch and Billy Smith. These guys would go to make hockey players and acted just like one, not a pansy. They would take and give hits.

Did my wife call you?

Seriously, I value your advice. I wouldn't go on the ice after drinking. And, I really hate to admit it, but I'm probably too old. I go on the ice here once in awhile, but I'm on a carpet or holding onto the boards.

There is always shuffle board. You can drink while doing that- yet there is still the risk you may fall. Asphalt hurts just as much as ice. (Joking of course!!)

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/frequentflyers/Howe-inducted-into-HHOF.html

What a class act.

i'm fairly sure that he would have to go through re-entry at some point to play for the leafs. my understanding is the flyers can trade him as-is, but he'd go from minor league team to minor league team, and would have to be recalled from the marlies. i'm not 100% about it, though.

I was thinking the same thing. The twist would be that Comcast no longer owns the Phantoms (Brooks Group does). My understanding is the Flyers own the players and the Books group owns the operation / business side. Leighton is the starting goalie for the Phantoms and doing quite well. Backlund has not started a game this year (I guess injured). So, unless Toronto wants to give the Phantoms a goalie prospect in return, trading leighton would actually handcuff the Phantoms (believe it or not).

I know. And that's what leads to me to suspect that something huge must've happened. Or it may be as simple as the Flyers just overestimated Mike's abilities to lead on and off the ice.

I heard he banged Brindy's wife.

Finally, he refused to be involved in any charities, and Snider absolutely despises that in players.

Wow, if true, makes Lindros look like an angel. Allot of people do not realize all the charity work that Lindros did and the hours he spent at CHOP (Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia).

I am a bit stunned to read this. Despite never meeting the guy, his time in Juniors (as noted by FC and Jammer) and watching him play in WJHC, he was every bit an affable guy, leader and genuinely nice person.

Here is a link. I just did a filter on all teams + rookies and then sorted by games played. There are 82 rookies that have played this year. You can do different sorts (unfortunately not a team sort, but you can go look team by team or games played). Or just go team by team in the filter drop down (very cumbersome).

You could also cut and paste each page (3 pages) into a spread sheet and then sort by team and you would have your answer (probably the easiest thing to do).

http://www.nhl.com/i...d=nav-sts-indiv

Hey Mojo-

Fair enough. I kind of did not get the hanging around the team thing either, yet we really don't know what his "consultant" role was. The patrick sharp thing is definitely a thorn. Wasnt there also issues with Justin Williams? I guess in the end, I just see him as being a very strict hard ass coach and if you get in his dog house, sometimes its hard to get out.

Like you said, he has a new gig, so it water over the bridge.

I wonder if Maker is going to move to St Louis.

What FG said - not without goaltending, which was crap at the time (sorry Hextall's fans).

The year that Colorado won the cup, hexy played a fine year. He was 31w / 13 L / 7 ties. GAA 2.17 and sv pctg .913. The problem was that he was having problems with his groin, but his play was better than crap. His back-up, Garth Snow was crap.

We beat Tampa in 6 games in the Quarter finals and then played the Panthers in the conference Semis (the eventual conference winners). We were up 2-1 after the first 3 against Florida. Game 4 we lost in OT 3-4 in Florida and Game 5 we lost in double OT 2-1 in Philly. The 6th game was a 4-1 loss.

Florida went on to win the conference in 7 games against the Penguins.

SOmeone on another board also made the point that having Sakic was HUGE for not only Forsberg, but for team leadership as well. We didn't have that here.

The point about sakic is extremely valid. For me it is very hard to compare. As pointed out, the Flyers were gutted. Yet Colorado (Quebec), not only had our players / picks / cash, but also had Sakic and others than enabled them to get other pieces.

Imagine if you will if the Flyers had Sakic before the trade and retained him. No pressure for big E to be the leader and also to be the top centerman.

As great a talent as Forsberg was, he has allot of thanks going to sakic- who was a stud (and perhaps the best wrist shot in the league for 10 years). Colorado was able to roll two to three lines (don't our nemesis Claude Lemieux were there too). Ricci was there from us and Chris Simon. Add to that a young Sanids Ozolinch, Adam Foote, Adam Deadmarsh, Mike Keanne and of course Patrick Roy.

Interestingly, The Flyers were a really good team that year. But short of the right pieces. Hextall played very well in the playoffs, but the opposition found a way to shut down the Flyers Legion line and they were one and done.

As an aside, I read on another post the other day that Ricci was taken 4th overall by the Flyers in the 1990 draft. Guess who was taken 5th: Jaromir Jagr!!!

I loved Ricci as a heart and soul third line guy- but man was that a bad pick. Even as selfish as Jaromir was, could you imagine him with Lindros and Leclair? Then you have Renberg on the second line playing with Brind'A mor. That might have gotten us a cup right there (assuming that Jagr would not have been part of the trade to get Lindros).

Derien Hatcher went #8 that year.

Interesting....for the last 35 years my understanding of penalty shot rules was that the player had to keep moving toward the net, the rule they're citing says it's the puck that must keep moving.

I always thought the puck had to keep forward progress, so it never crossed my mind that a player could / would stop. If you look at some of the penalty shots over the years, many guys would start to skate laterally to get a different angle going towards the goalie.

the more i see and hear about hitch the less i like him, now i know this is coming from mike milbury who has his head up his ass 3/4 of the time but he had a point when he was on hockey night asking what hitch was doing at the nhl clubs practices when he's supposed to be the "developmental guy" and further what the hell was columbus thinking putting that guy in charge of young players.

beyond halak and jackman i don't know much about the st louis roster but if i remember last year the roster was full of young guys. hey i hope the guy can teach the kids how to play a good two way game since that's his forte but, man his behavior the last couple of weeks has been weird, unless he's been scouting columbus to raid the cupboards.

Hey Mojo- Kind of talking out of both sides aren't you. You ask what was he doing at NHL Clubs practices when he is the "developmental guy", but then lambaste him as being horrible with young players.

He was a consultant for Columbus and as I understand it in a very limited capacity (mostly to get his payday- perhaps something in his coaching contract).

Secondly, say what you want, but I don't get the "bad with young players rap". I mean there are two schools of coaches by and large. Hard asses and coddlers. Rarely do you see inbetween (perhaps lavy is, but I lean towards the former more).

My point being that Hitch is a great x / o guy and knows the game very well. If you are going to have a knock on him, perhaps it is his defensive first style. He wants everyone to be accountable Redline in. Many do not like it, because they want to let the offensive guys go.

Yet, I would put any amount of money down that if we had a player like Kovulchuk on our team, there would be non-stop whining about his defensive game (or complete lack of). This is why everyone likes Coutier so much so far. At 18 years old he plays all three zones extremely soundly and has an innate ability to see things that most his age (an older) do not.

This is nice to see. About 5 years too late imho. But that is life.

The only problem with the whole debacle is that Lindros should never have been captain and perhaps he should had some smarts at some point (perhaps after 3 years in the league), to separate himself from his parents and hire an agent. I mean he was already a multi-millionaire at that point.