FanHouse MikeComrie

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We begin our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Northeast Division.

Brian Burke begins his rebuild of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Dany Heatley wants out of Ottawa and just what is Boston going to do with Phil Kessel and a limited amount of salary cap space?

When the Senators acquired Mike Comrie and Chris Campoli before the trade deadline, some of the talk surrounding the trade wasn't about the players themselves. Since the Senators were out of the playoff race at the time some of the discussion revolved around Comrie's significant other, Hillary Duff. Duff could almost always been seen at the Coliseum when Comrie was an Islander and is now a fixture at Scotiabank Place.

Around the same time, music star Carrie Underwood began dating Mike Fisher and started showing up at games. Now, Sports Illustrated is reporting that the Senators have added another famous lady to their All-Star lineup of WAGs.

Late Friday afternoon, the Islanders and Senators agreed to swap three players and a draft pick, a move that made waves across the blogosphere. The basic breakdown of the deal seemed to be Chris Campoli for a first round pick, as the other two parts -- Mike Comrie and Dean McAmmond -- were very similar. They both have contracts that expire this summer and weren't doing a whole lot of anything offensively for their teams.

Given that both teams should be trying to stockpile draft picks (let's face it, whether or not Bryan Murray knows it, that's what the Senators should be doing), they're going to be looking to trade off veteran assets of value. So, could we see McAmmond and/or Comrie get moved again before the March 4th trade deadline?

In a surprising move, the Ottawa Senators have acquired defenseman Chris Campoli and center Mike Comrie from the New York Islanders in exchange for Dean McAmmond and a first-round pick (originally belonging to San Jose) in the 2009 NHL draft, according to the Islanders website.

This move makes little sense for Ottawa, unless general manager Bryan Murray has another deal on the horizon. If he doesn't, well, then he's either under the delusion that his team, currently 13 points out of the final playoff spot, is primed to make a serious run in the final weeks of the season, or he's completely lost his mind and is trying to George Costanza his way out of a job.

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.

The Islanders actually entered the third with a 2-1 lead, only to watch the Rangers beat Joey MacDonald -- starting in place of Rick Dipietro -- four times on their final 12 shots. Petr Prucha, playing for the first time in eight games, tied the game just 49 seconds into the third period, while Michal Rozsival gave the Rangers their first lead of the night two minutes later. Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes also tallied late goals for the Rangers, while Scott Gomez tapped in a tic-tac-toe pass from Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky in the second period, opening the scoring for the Rangers.

Mike Sillinger, Kyle Okposo, Blake Comeau and Mike Comrie scored for the Islanders.

Physical game between the crosstown rivals, resulting in a pair of fights in the first 10 minutes, and capped off with a crushing hit by Ryan Callahan on Trent Hunter early in the third. Callahan smashed the Islanders forward into the penalty box door, forcing it open, resulting in Hunter's midsection smashing off the boards. He was down for quite a while, and appeared to be in severe pain, resulting in a stretcher being brought on the ice. Hunter, however, managed to bring himself to his feet and skate off because, you know, he's a hockey player.

Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn recorded his first career hat trick on Saturday night, while Carey Price stopped 31 shots, including 16 in the third period to lead the Canadien's to a 3-2 victory in Pittsburgh. With the win, Montreal moves ahead of the Penguins in the Eastern Conference standings, while the Penguins failed to win consecutive games yet again -- they haven't won two in a row since November 13-15. Just sayin'.

Kostitsyn scored a pair of goals in the first period before completing the hat trick early in the third period with a quick slap shot that beat Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury through the five-hole.

Following Kostitsyn's goal, Price turned into a brick wall, as the Penguins had a trio of power plays in the final period, and peppered the Montreal netminder. Of course, if you're Pittsburgh, you have to be a tad frustrated you failed to convert on five power plays, after going 0-for-5 one night ago in New Jersey. How a power play that features Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Petr Sykora and Ryan Whitney, among others, can consistently have so many 0-for-5 and 0-for-6 nights seems to defy all logic. Yet, here we are.

Crosby and Pascal Dupuis each finished with a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh.

This has certainly been THE summer for NHL celebrity romances. Not long after we got word that MILF Hunter Jarret Stoll is going to get hitched to Rachel Hunter, and Dan Hinote getting engaged to a Playboy "playmate", we get word that Hilary Duff and Mike Comrie are getting ready to take their relationship to the next level.

From Hollyscoop.com, it seems the paparazzi scoped out the happy couple and caught Duff sporting with what looks like an engagement ring.

Hilary Duff has sparked engagement rumors after she was photographed leaving Hollywood hotspot Il Sole sporting a ring on her wedding finger Friday night.

Duff, who has been dating her hockey player beau Mike Comrie for a little over a year, wasn't trying hard to hide the ring. As soon as she saw the paps snap her photo, she casually flashed the ring while pretending to fix her hair.

Of course, Hilary Duff is a pro at the celeb hounding game and knows that she can keep her name in the media hungry by throwing them a bone or two, but leaving them guessing.

While it might look like Comrie would benefit from the fame and fortune of Hilary Duff's family-friendly entertainment empire, keep in mind that Comrie is heir to a large furniture chain. I'd say Duff did well for herself.

Relationships between Americans and Canadians require some amount of work to get around all of the cultural and other differences between the two countries. Besides differing views on health care, accents (ask a Canadian how to say 'futile'), and months in which to celebrate Thanksgiving, Americans have to know a thing or two about hockey if they are to successfully date and mate with a Canadian.

It should be no surprise, then, that the sugary Hilary Duff has a few things to learn if she's going to continue dating her hockey-playing beau, New York Islanders' center Mike Comrie.

From People Magazine, her sister, Haylie, spills the beans:

"I actually caught her with a copy of the Hockey for Dummies book," Duff, 22, said at the opening of the Foley+Corinna store in West Hollywood. Big sis says she "adores" Comrie – and says it's actually distance that makes things work between him and 20-year-old Hilary. "He lives in New York and she lives here, and they really put in a big effort to see each other."

Awww, isn't that cute. Perhaps we ought to pick up a copy of "Dating Overpaid Self-Absorbed Celebrities for Dummies" for Mike Comrie, so that he's on an even level in this relationship?

Previously on FanHouse:
Mike Comrie Gets a Public Duffing.
Mike Comrie Just Made Life Miserable ...
Hockey Player Mike Comrie Snags Hillary Duff

Sorry, No Photos

It's only December 5th, but that hasn't kept many fans from pushing the panic button. Heck, the Atlanta Thrashers pushed the button way back on October 17th, and that worked out pretty well for them (hey, now they're actually winning games). In quite a few NHL cities, things have been teetering on the brink of insanity for a few weeks now, with the last straws for many fans coming in the last week or so. Most organizations have yet to take any action of their own (outside of Atlanta and Washington), but that has not kept fans from going off the deep end. Today, I'll take a look at a few of the fan bases that are delirious with thoughts of seasons already lost.

Montreal Canadiens: The Habs had a great start to the season, with a 6-3-3 October record. They were in the top third of the conference and things were looking rosy. Now, well, not so much. The team is 1-4-1 in their last six, and managed only 16 shots (16?!), including four in the third period, during Tuesday's home loss to Detroit. Their top two goaltenders, Carey Price and Cristobal Huet, are banged up, which doesn't help the situation at all.

Anaheim Ducks: How the mighty have fallen! A year ago the Ducks won the pacific division on their way to the Stanley Cup. Today, they find themselves tied for 8th in the division with Nashville and third in the divisional race behind Dallas and San Jose. A season that started with an eight loss October, with those results blamed on a trip to England, has continued to be maddeningly inconsistent. The team was 8-4-2 in November, but was subsequently shut out at home by Edmonton in their first December game last Sunday. On the season the team is 13-12-4 and is in serious need of scoring help. Anaheim is 29th in the NHL in goals scored and the power play unit is 30th in conversion percentage. Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Chris Pronger combine for almost 70 points, accounting for 40% of the team's total output. Sure they have Scott Niedermayer back, but where is Teemu Selanne when you need him?

This video goes all the way back to the lockout, which would have been the 2004-05 season. That year, lots of NHL players went overseas to stay on top of their game including Zdeno Chara and Sheldon Souray. This video pays tribute to the pair, who signed on with Farjestads BK Karlstad of Elitserien (a.k.a. the Swedish Elite League). Marian Gaborik, Mike Comrie and Martin Gerber were also on the team but did not kick the crap out of as many people. If you're like me and have the attention span of a goldfish, congratulations on making it this far into the post, and also fast forward to the :50 mark of the video to watch Chara absolutely destroy a guy. For the rest of you, enjoy the highlights and Swedish music. I assume that the music is Swedish, but I can barely speak my native language, English, half the time so don't take my word for it.


Man, that was some pretty intense stuff. Not nearly as deathly intense as Lenny Clarke, but intense nonetheless. I would say it ranks somewhere between watching the Omen for the first time (the original version) and sitting on the Calgary bench in front of Mike Keenan for a game.

If you were wondering, Farjestads BK finished the regular season in fourth but led the league in penalty minutes. Naturally. Chara and Souray combined for 249 minutes, finishing second and third on the team to Emil Kaberg who had 213.