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belowthegoalline

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  1. belowthegoalline
    Please check out the full article at Below the Goal Line. Thanks for reading!
     
    NHL Game Updates:
     
    Chicago Blackhawks @ Buffalo Sabres, Jack Eichel returned to the lineup for the Sabres, who picked up one assists after missing 15 games. The Sabres score three in the third to pick up the 5-3 win in a match-up of two non-playoff teams.
     
    New Jersey Devils @ Los Angeles Kings, The Devils shut out the Kings, thanks to Kieth Kinkaid's 38 saves, and a shorthanded goal from Michael Grabner, his 27th of the year.
     
    Montreal Canadiens @ Toronto Maple Leafs, First NHL goal alert: Andreas Johnsson of the Maple Leafs scored his first NHL goal tonight. This goal was extra insurance for Toronto, who scored four goals, while goaltender Curtis McElhinney stopped all 33 attempts that made it his was for the 4-0 shutout.
     
    Boston Bruins @ Tampa Bay Lightning, The Boston Bruins have been chasing the Tampa Bay Lightning for the first spot in the Atlantic Division all season. It was Boston who was victorious tonight, thanks to 23 saves by Tuukka Rask on what seemed to be a stale bunch of Lightning. David Backes scored before leaving with injury, and the Bruins win 3-0.
     
    Philadelphia Flyers @ Carolina Hurricanes, The desperate Flyers scored four in the final frame to win 4-2. They maintain their spot in the Eastern Conference playoff picture: third in the Metro.
     
    Ottawa Senators @ Columbus Blue Jackets, Scary moment when Ryan Dzingel take a shot off the head and leaves the game. We want to wish him the best moving forward. Markus Nutivaara of the Jackets scored his 4th of the year in the second period. That goal turned out to be the difference in a 2-1 win for Columbus. The goal was Nutivaara's first NHL game winning goal.
     
    New York Rangers @ St. Louis Blues, If the Blues have any hope of getting back into the playoff consideration, they need to pick up two point almost every night. That was the case tonight, as Alex Pietrangelo, who opened the scoring in the first, got his second of the game in the third to send the game to overtime. Brayden Schenn scored in overtime to propel the Blues to the 4-3 victory.
     
    Minnesota Wild @ Arizona Coyotes, Devan Dubnyk picks up his 200th NHL win, this time a 3-1 win over the Coyotes. Rookie Clayton Keller scored his 20th for Arizona.
     
    San Jose Sharks @ Vancouver Canucks, The red-hot San Jose Sharks maybe aren't playing their best defense of the season, but are scoring at a higher clip than at any other point this season. After wins in Edmonton and Calgary, the Sharks sweep the Western Canada road trip, beating Vancouver 5-3.
     
    Edmonton Oilers v Florida Panthers:
     
    The Florida Panthers entered today three points out of a Wild Card spot, but they had two extra games to play over the New Jersey Devils, who hold that last Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Panthers, who are 8-1-1 in their last ten games, have been on fire since the All-Star break, and have rocketed up the Eastern Conference standings. After beating the Boston Bruins on Thursday, they look to keep rolling against a Edmonton Oilers team that has been on the outside of the playoff picture in the Western Conference the entire season.
     
    Both teams played a heavy, physical game in this one. Several different big hits happened in the neutral zone. The biggest of the hits in the first period was Michael Haley crunching Zack Kassian, which lead to a fight between Haley and Oiler Jujhar Khaira.
     
    The hitting continued into the second period, where the scoring picked up. Frank Vatrano, former Boston Bruin, scored at 8:02. This after the puck hops over a Oiler defenseman's stick, and Vatrano races in, beats goaltender Cam Talbot to the puck, and scores an easy one into the open net.
     
    Ryan Nugent-Hopkins responded with his 20th goal of the season, this time shorthanded. The goal, at 11:09 of the second, was the result of a 2-on-2 shorthanded with Leon Draisaitl. Nugent-Hopkins sneaks the puck through goalie Roberto Luongo's left side, and the it trickles into the net.
     
    Panther Vincent Trochek answers on a wrister nearly five minutes later. He takes a pass from captain Derek MacKenzie, and fires the puck past Talbot for the 2-1 lead.
     
    Roberto Luongo had the play of the game, however. After making an initial stop, the puck finds Anton Slepyshev, who fires the puck at the net. Luongo, who was sprawled out in front of the net, dove back to his left and got enough of the puck with his stick to keep if from tying the game.
     
    Talbot makes a huge save of his own in the second period. This time, he stops a Aleksander Barkov breakaway chance with a little over a minute left in the second period. Barkov is having a true breakout year offensively this season. The Finnish forward has 25 goals and a career high 45 assists for a career high 70 points in 68 game so far this year.
     
    Unfortunately for the playoff hopefuls, it was all Edmonton in the third period. Goals by Connor McDavid, Adam Larsson, and Ty Rattie pushed the Oilers over the top for the 4-2 win. The Panthers just seemed to run out of gas when the Oilers picked it up in the third period. It was captain Connor McDavid who lead the push for Edmonton, pick up a point on all three goals in the third. He now sits tied for second in the NHL with 89 points.
     
    The Panthers have been on an incredible push since the All-Star break, but it remains to be seen if they have enough in the tank to catch the other teams in the Wild Card race. New Jersey, who sits in the second Wild Card spot, won today, and now sits five points ahead of the Panthers. Next year might yield better results for the Panthers, who will look to get off to a better start to the season. Playing catch up at the end of the year is a lot harder than getting off to a hot start and playing well enough to fend off teams that didn't.
  2. belowthegoalline
    Please check out the full article at Below the Goal Line. Thanks for reading!
     
    As I’m sure you are all aware, the NHL is most likely going to expand to Seattle in the next several years. Seattle has always been on the NHL wish list, and they finally have a plan to renovate their arena for hockey and basketball.
     
    The investment group has already filed for an expansion team with the NHL, and their season ticket drive to gather investment capital and gauge the interest in the team was a complete success. The Seattle group made their ticket sales goal in a matter of minutes, which was not as fast as anyone expected.
     
    So with the talk that Seattle will be joining the league sometime in the next couple of years, I want to talk a little about what they are going to look like when they come into the league. The NHL has stated that Seattle will have very similar Expansion Draft opportunities to what the Vegas Golden Knights did in 2017. The current NHL teams will be able to protect certain players from Seattle, but Seattle will have a very good chance to pick up some quality players from the rest of the league.
     
    But don’t expect Seattle to have the instant success that Vegas is having right now. NHL teams have learned just how strong their hands were tied in certain cases, and they will take a better look at what they can do to protect the players they value most. Maybe we will see a team like the Columbus Blue Jackets hold on to a player like William Karlsson, who is currently leading the Golden Knights in goals.
     
    Vegas also had the perfect combination of players and coaching. I’m not sure that Seattle is going to be able to get the same level of coaching as the Golden Knights are getting from Gerard Gallant. Vegas certainly picked up players that fit the way Gallant wanted the team to play, and they have been unprecedentedly successful this year. I would expect some natural regression from Vegas next season, but time will tell just how far they will regress, if at all.
    Seattle will probably struggle a little bit more coming out of the gates, but don’t expect them to not be competitive. I would image the ceiling for that team should be set at a Wild Card level, even though Vegas is going to win the Pacific Division in its first year. We are not going to see Seattle struggle like the 2016-17 version of the Colorado Avalanche.
     
    So, what is this going to mean for the alignment of teams in the NHL. The natural fit would be to stick them into the Pacific Division, but that would put that division at nine team, while the Central only have seven. I think splitting the league up into two conferences and eight divisions makes the most sense. Think about the NFL’s division system, and you get the idea. This system would allow for more regionally-based divisions. Let’s take a look at the East:
     
    Eastern Conference
     
    Division #1: Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, and Washington Capitals.
    Division #2: Philadelphia Flyers, New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, and New York Islanders.
    Division #3: Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Ottawa Senators, and Montreal Canadiens.
    Division #4: Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Pittsburgh Penguins.
     
    The first two divisions are easy to put together. You can use the geography to put Division 1 together, and you maintain the rivalry of Tampa/Florida. The second division also makes sense, since all of those teams are basically right on top of each other.
     
    It gets a little trickier after that, but in keeping a “northeast/west” theme here would make sense. You can lump the Sabres and Bruins together, as well as the Jackets and Wings. So then it’s about putting the other four teams in good spots, but those could easily be flipped around a bit.
     
    What about the West?
     
    Western Conference
     
    Division #1: Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, Arizona Coyotes, and Dallas Stars.
    Division #2: San Jose Sharks, Seattle, Vancouver Canucks, and Vegas Golden Knights.
    Division #3: Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, and Winnipeg Jets.
    Division #4: Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues, and Nashville Predators.
     
    Obviously, the West doesn’t have that natural geography like the East, but that is due to the teams being so spread out compared to the East. I tried to keep a geographical theme here, but there a few different ways to do it. Honestly, the hardest part is determining where the California teams go, because the Sharks just fit in a couple different spots.
     
    The point, though, is that I think the best way to line things up would be a eight division breakdown of teams, as opposed to the four division format we have now. If we stick with four divisions, you are going to be moving the Golden Knights to the Central, which wouldn’t be the end of the world, but wouldn’t be my favorite thing. Time will tell us what we can expect for NHL re-alignment, but that’s my pitch for the eight division. Stay tuned for a comment about the NHL playoff format, as that is a very hot topic around the hockey world right now.
  3. belowthegoalline
    Good morning boys and girls! This is my inaugural Below the Goal Line post on HockeyForums.net. I have partnered with HockeyForums to bring you exclusive updates from around the hockey world. I host my own site, Below the Goal Line, where I keep you up-to-date with the latest game info, trades, and other important topics from the NHL and beyond. Please join me as we take a deeper look into the world of hockey.
     
    Here's how we are going to work this who blog business. I am going to publish my posts on my site. I will then post select articles from my site on here, so that you guys have an avenue to stay informed about the latest hockey news. Don't forget to check out Below the Goal Line for exclusive content regarding the NHL and other hockey leagues. I am not going to backlog my posts, but I will start publishing new posts on here shortly. For those who would like to see what I have posted so far (including a three-part look into the CHL before their playoffs start and other posts), please visit www.belowthegoalline.com. Thanks for your support, and please let me know if there is any topic you are interested in hearing about. I'll see you guys on the ice!
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