Sunday night is a pivotal one for the St. Louis Blues. Down 2-0 in a best-of-seven series against Vancouver, St. Louis plays their first home playoff game since 2004 on Sunday night.
Veteran forward Paul Kariya has been out of the Blues' lineup since November. He's coming off hip surgery, and was recently cleared to skate with the team. His first practice with the Blues was Sunday morning, leading to a lot of buzz about his status for Sunday night's game. It's buzz that the Blues didn't do very much to kill.
No one could have expected this, but the St. Louis Blues have a shot at the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If they make it, they could get a huge boost to their offense.
Veteran forward Paul Kariya, who hasn't played since November 5, is having his surgically-repaired hips checked out. If all goes well, he could be available for the playoffs ... if St. Louis makes it.
Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.
Ducks 7, Avalanche 2: This game won't be showing up on the career highlight film for Andrew Raycroft, as the veteran netminder surrendered four goals on just eight shots during the second period of Anaheim's 7-2 thrashing of Colorado. Corey Perry scored a pair of goals for the Ducks, while rookie Andrew Ebbett added a goal and two assists in the win.
Entering the 2008-09 season, not much was expected from the St. Louis Blues. Most people recognized their talented young core, but few, if any, were predicting a trip to the playoffs. With just 13 games remaining on their schedule, the Blues enter Tuesday's game in Edmonton just two points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and have an opportunity to move into a tie for the No. 8 spot with a win (and a Dallas loss). So, how did they get here?
We're in the home stretch of the NHL season, and both conference playoff races are heating up as the standings change on a daily basis. The Eastern Conference has seven teams separated by just seven points in the No's 4 through 10 spots, while everybody except Phoenix and Colorado is still competing for a playoff spot in the West.
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.
If the St. Louis Blues didn't have bad luck this season, they would have absolutely no luck. On Saturday night, the Blues announced that forward Paul Kariya will be undergoing surgery to repair a torn muscle in his hip, as reported by Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The surgery will, obviously, keep him out of the lineup for quite a while, if not the remainder of the season.
The 34-year old forward had not played in a game for the Blues since November 5, a 5-2 loss at Anaheim, while he had 15 points (2 goals, 13 assists) in 11 games this season, after a 65 point effort a season ago.
One of my favorite hockey moments will always be game 6 of the 2003 Stanley Cup finals when, after being on the wrong end of a Scott Stevens elbow, Kariya returned to the game and blasted a slap shot behindMartin Brodeur, helping the Ducks force a game 7. Ugly hit. Fantastic shot.
Kariya joins Erik Johnson, Manny Legace, and Andy McDonald -- just to name a few -- on the lengthy list of Blues to miss significant time this season in a variety of bizarre manners. Just as a reminder, Johnson injured his knee in a golf cart accident, while Legace was knocked out of the lineup after he tripped and fell on Sarah Palin's red carpet.
There were three pretty significant injuries in the NHL over the past week, as Francois Beauchemin (Ducks), Andrew Ference (Bruins) and Andy McDonald (Blues) all suffered major leg injuries that will keep them out of their respective lineups for extended periods of time.
A quick look at each injury, and the impact they will have on each team.
First, for the Ducks, Beauchemin suffered a torn ACL in Anaheim's 4-3 loss to Nashville on Thursday night, and is expected to miss the next six months. The 28-year old defenseman has been a steady 25-minute per game player for the Ducks since being acquired in a trade with Columbus during the 2005-06 campaign.
Aside from being second on the team in ice-time, Beauchemin was also one of the team's best shot blockers and penalty killers. His injury, combined with the early season trade of Mathieu Schneider to Atlanta (for salary cap purposes) has left the Ducks once vaunted defensive unit rather depleted. Let's face it, no disrespect to Kent Huskins and Bret Hedican intended, but it's not exactly the unit that hoisted the Stanley Cup two years ago.
If you're looking for a positive for the Ducks, Beauchemin's injury and ensuing placement on the long-term injury list has cleared enough space under the league's salary cap for the team to bring up top prospect Bobby Ryan. Ryan, a former No. 2 overall pick, had registered 19 points in 14 games for the Iowa Chops of the American Hockey League.
After about five months worth of votes, the guys over at Orland Kurtenblog have finally determined a winner in their exhaustive poll to determine the greatest NHL hit of all time. The winner: Scott Stevens' clean and righteous destruction of Slava Kozlov during the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals:
Sitting proudly in the second spot: Brian Campbell's number on R.J. Umberger during the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Click here to check that one out. Thanks to the guys at Kurtenblog for leaving no video evidence unconsidered in what has to be considered the ultimate hit reel.
Every July, various team owners and GM's, despite their better judgment, lustily rush out to sign whatever slab of UFA meat they can catch to the biggest, longest contract that they possibly can afford.
Salary inflation? Dimishing returns? Chemistry concerns? Cap issues? Those factors mean little when a fairly good player is on the free agent market, and a bevy of other teams are vying for the same player.
So, which of these unrestricted free agent players have actually been a good investment thus far?
Chris Drury - 2007 salary of $7.1 mil (28GP 6-13-19 -2) Despite the fact that Drury has never proven himself to be more than a pretty good second liner, the Rangers decided to fork over superstar money without a second thought. I wouldn't say Drury's production has been disappointing, given that it's in line with previous totals of his, it's just that Drury is definitely overpaid for the type of player he is.
Scott Gomez - 2007 salary of $10mil (28GP 5-16-21) Gomez is definitely one of the better playmakers in the league, but has always had consistency and coachability issues. Again, the Rangers forked over large amounts of money for somebody who is not a superstar (he had only 60 points last season), and they aren't getting rewarded for their investment. Gomez just doesn't have the same chemistry with Jagr that Michael Nylander had, and will probably never live up to his huge contract.
Of course, it's always easy to pick on the Ranger$, so let's look at some other squads.
Sunday night is a pivotal one for the St. Louis Blues. Down 2-0 in a best-of-seven series against Vancouver, St. Louis plays their first home playoff game since 2004 on Sunday night.
Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.
Montreal's 
If the St. Louis Blues didn't have bad luck this season, they would have absolutely no luck. On Saturday night, 
There were three pretty significant injuries in the NHL over the past week, as 
Every July, various team owners and GM's, despite their better judgment, lustily rush out to sign whatever slab of UFA meat they can catch to the biggest, longest contract that they possibly can afford. 
