2010-2011 NHL season

Apparently. Very happy to see the Penguins back in form tonight. Kind of surprising to see Crosby with one point when they scored eight goals, though.

 

Definitely strange that, in an 8-1 win by Pittsburgh, Crosby had as many penalties as he had points.

 

Sometimes you've got to watch out for the other team.

And sometimes you've got to watch out for your teammates.

Dallas defensemen Karlis Skrastins and Matt Niskanen took each other out during third-period warmups at Chicago on Wednesday. From Crawford per the DMN:

"I can't really explain it, but I've had it explained to me a couple of times. Skrasts really likes to get out and get his legs going in warm-up, especially since he was going to be out there on the penalty kill to start the period. And Matt Niskanen was out there and he was going all hell bent for leather, and apparently they collided heads and then a stick slashed Matt's hand, so he broke his nose, chipped his teeth and cut his hand. And Skrasts doesn't even know he's in Chicago, so we lost both of those guys going into the third."

 

Getzlaf is going to be out a month at least. Ducks will lose a lot of 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 games. It'll be a miracle if they still are in range of a playoff berth by the time he gets back and regains his form.

 

And some Stars fans were probably thanking whatever deity they believe in that both of those guys were out of the lineup in clutch situations so they could win.

 

That last episode of 24/7 was really good. The whole series was incredible. Kudos to HBO. I came away really liking Bylsma.

 

If you're in Montreal and paid to see the BBJ tonight ... sucks to be you.

 

Leafs channeled Team Canada tonight. Up 5-2 against the Blues in the third, blow that lead and mercifully, win in the shootout.

Highlight of the night was Mikhail Grabovski's shootout goal. Freakin' awesome.

Jonas Gustavsson was handling the puck like it was a fucking grenade.

Toronto has become the Bermuda Triangle for goalies.

 

And apparently, it happened it last night's game, not the elbow-to-head hit to end the second period of the Winter Classic.

 

An unpenalized head shot which happened right in front of a ref and will hopefully put to rest the myth that he gets calls because of who he is.

 

The thing in the Winter Classic? That was as incidental as contact could be, and technically Crosby could have been penalized for (really rather weak, but I've seen it called) interference with Steckel because Crosby was the one who stepped into someone else's path.

If you meant against Tampa, didn't see it so you could very well be right. But there was enough whining from Pens fans about the collision in the Winter Classic that I wasn't sure.

 

I'm talking about the Winter Classic incident. And I'm not saying it wasn't incidental or even was worthy of a penalty. I'm just saying that, because it was a head shot that was not called, it should silence people who think the league and its referees see Crosby as a Gretzky-like ceramic doll who needs to be protected to such an extent that other players get the gate simply for coming into contact with him.