Ben from Occasionally Wright commented about how Prusek might be benefiting from weaker competition to boost his numbers. I decided to figure out the stats of each goalie's competition. I used basic point totals for each team although it doesn't reflect games played nor point differentials that could be caused by playing Ottawa with different goalies. I could have done a point per game pace with the games against Ottawa excluded but I just don't feel like taking the time to do so right now.


Anyways, here are the stats:

Median points per opponents:
Lalime - 55
Prusek - 59.5

Average points per opponent:
Lalime - 58.22
Prusek - 59.13

It appears to me that Prusek has actually faced tougher competition then Lalime. The stats would probably show an even greater difference if the points earned in games against Ottawa were factored into the comparison because of Prusek's superior winning percentage. (0) comments

Owen Nolan on last night's game:

Boo hoo, so what. I don't care. We were tired, too, and we found a way to battle back and win the game. I'm sure they have their excuses ready to go.

I wonder why Nolan didn't drop the gloves last night when he was challenged?

Did he have his excuses ready to go? (0) comments

The biggest story in Ottawa right now is Patrick Lalime. There are tons of people calling for his head. Meanwhile, Jacques is showing his loyalty to his number one goalie.

I'm not going to say what I would do because I know less about goaltending then Martin, Muckler, etc.

All I'm going to do is post the numbers for Lalime and Prusek and you can draw your own conclusions.

NAME	GP	W	L	T	GAA	SV%
Martin Prusek	17	10	4	1	1.85	0.928
Patrick Lalime	38	17	15	6	2.35	0.904

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The Leafs battled back from a 4-0 deficit to beat the Sens 5-4 in overtime last night.

But if you had told me that the Sens would get a point from a game in which:

they were missing Marian Hossa, Wade Redden, Zdeno Chara, Mike Fisher, Jason Spezza, Antoine Vermette, Vaclav Varada, Anton Volchenkov

have Karel Rachunek and Chris Neil leave the game halfway through

at least half the team was so sick with the flu that there were times there was only six skaters on the bench and there were three or four buckets being passed around

they got bad goaltending from Patrick Lalime

I'd have been happy.

The Sens came out and dominated the Leafs in the first half of the game with what was essentially a split roster like you would see in a preseason game (I'll refrain from saying they were icing an AHL team because Alfredsson, Havlat, Phillips, etc are not AHL players) until the flu and the Leafs took over.

The Sens actually held the Leafs scoreless 5 on 5 from the third period on but Bill McCreary decided to give the Leafs an even further edge when he called Curtis Leschyshyn for highsticking when he was highsticked by a Maple Leaf. Even though the Leafs powerplay was nullified shortly after on a Gary Roberts goaltender interference penalty, the Sens were clearly at a disadvantage with the faster paced 4 on 4 hockey when the Sens were all skating slower then Brad Marsh at that point of the game. The Leafs then scored during the 4 on 4 to tie the game.

# posted by BlackRedGold : 9:39 AM

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In a bizarre moment Pat Quinn called Zdeno Chara, "Man Mountain Dean". For those of us born in the past 50 years the reference makes little sense. Anyways, I've found a picture of Man Mountain Dean.

If you were to take away the beard, add a suit and make the hair grey, I think you'd find a pretty strong resemblance to certain Toronto head coach. More of a resemblance then to a 6'9" Slovakian blueliner, anyways.

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A lawyer is trying to bring the NHL to Hamilton. The Toronto lawyer is trying to purchase an existing team and move it to the Copps Coliseum.

This has less chance of happening then an NHL team to Winnipeg.

Copps Coliseum is a huge white elephant that isn't NHL viable. In one report I saw, it has 12 suites. That is far too low for an NHL building. And from what I can gather, it can't renovate to add additional suites.

The other problem is territorial fees a franchise moving to Hamilton would have to pay. Hamilton is in both the territory of the Maple Leafs and the Sabres. While you would think that the relatively poor Sabres would pose a bigger problem then the megarich Maple Leafs with regards to the territory fees, it will probably be the Maple Leafs that will pose the bigger hurdle.

For Buffalo, a Hamilton team will hurt them at the gate but not so much that a figure can't be reached to compensate for this. Buffalo isn't going to have to worry about a Hamilton team taking away its television deals. In some ways it might help Buffalo to have a Hamilton team in their division. It would mean 3 extra games each year where they can draw fans from both teams to their building.

But when it comes to the Leafs, the Hamilton franchise will cause problems. They won't hurt their attendance but their television deals could be a sticking point. There is limited time on Sportsnet and TSN to broadcast regional NHL hockey and even more limited time on local tv stations because of network commitments. A new NHL team in Hamilton would compete not only with the Leafs but also the Leaf-owned Raptors for broadcast time.

As well, it would be nearly impossible to subdivide the Hamilton-Toronto region into distinct broadcast regions because of the proximity and how the local channels cover both markets. Having two NHL teams would fragment the market. As well, the Leafs have shown that they are not particularly interested in sharing their market by refusing to enter into an agreement with the Ottawa Senators similiar to the one the Senators entered into with Montreal that allows each franchise to broadcast in the other's market. (0) comments

A post on HFBoards gives yet another reason why Pat Quinn shouldn't be named head coach of Canada's World Cup team.

To summarize, Quinn is the only non-player ever expelled from the NHL for dishonourable conduct. Albeit by another crook in John Ziegler.

Quinn accepted a position, and money, with the Canucks while still head coach of the Kings. He also hid his contract with Kings for a period of time so that he could continue to collect money from the Flyers. And he refused to pay the Russian hockey federation money that the Canucks owed them.

So he's a liar, crook and deadbeat but he's a good choice to represent Canada?

No wonder he became a lawyer. It's a shame the position of NHL League President no longer exists. He'd be a perfect candidate for it. (0) comments

Brooks Laich is going to make his NHL debut for the Ottawa Senators against the defending Stanley Cup Champion New Jersey Devils. This is the fifth player from the Sens 2001 draft that will play in the NHL, four of whom made their debut in a Senators sweater.

That's just a remarkable accomplishment for a team to have five players they've drafted to make it to the NHL less then three years after being drafted. Especially a team as deep as Ottawa. Plus, they drafted one of the top players in the NCAA that year in Brandon Bochenski.

The future just keeps getting brighter in Ottawa. (0) comments

The Dallas Stars have a photo gallery with lots of nice action shots from their games. However, for the recent Stars-Senators game they have a shot with the caption, " Wonder how tall Zdeno Chara is? Look at him next to 6-4 Jason Arnott".

Unfortunately, Stars fans will have to continue to wonder because the shot is of Karel Rachunek, not Chara. You can easily tell because Chara doesn't wear a visor. Plus Chara wears a different model of helmet and gloves. (0) comments

Since Pat Quinn has once again brought up the Alfredsson hit on Tucker during the playoff two seasons ago I thought I'd post a pretty accurate and articulate account of the hit from someone who is neither a Sens or Leafs fan.

Here it is, taken from Teal Sunglasses. (0) comments

Talk is beginning to heat up that Pat Quinn is a front runner to coach Canada's team for the upcoming World Cup tournament. While Quinn has been successful coaching, is he the right man for the job.

Even one of his biggest admirers, Tom Benjamin at Canucks Corner, is critical of Quinn's penchant for dishonesty and misdirection. Whenever someone is chosen for a position like head coach of a national team there is a stock answer of being named "is an honour". But is choosing Quinn to represent Canada an honour for Canada?

Quinn, in less then a year, has lied about Darcy Tucker being spit upon by Chris Neil. He's lied about Daniel Alfredsson kneeing Mats Sundin in Saturday's game, which even Sundin has denied happening. He has lied about Marian Hossa waiving his stick around recklessly when the only incident he can point to is an accident that happened four years ago.

He's also cried about Alfredsson hitting Tucker from the side during the playoffs two seasons ago while leaving out Owen Nolan injuring Jason Spezza by hitting him in the numbers a couple feet from the boards. His team has the reputation as the biggest group of cheapshot artists in the league but he is constantly crying about the other team's actions, regardless of whether or not they actually happened.

Some will say that he's just trying to deflect attention from his team and help them win. But does the saying, "it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" not apply anymore? And if so, why not?

Should someone with a history of lying and whining represent Canada on an international stage? Or is winning so important that we overlook things like honour? (0) comments