Kings Fire Coach Crawford

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After a conference low 71 points last season, the Los Angeles Kings have given head coach Marc Crawford his marching orders.

Crawford, who’s record over his 2 seasons with the Kings is a dismal 59-84-21.  Last season the Kings tied with Eastern Conference bottom feeders, the Tampa Bay Lightning on points.

In a division that includes strong teams such as the Dallas Stars, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks, the Kings need to do far better to compete.

Tags: losangeles kings, dallas stars, anaheim ducks, san jose sharks, marc crawford, dean lombardi

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On the eve of Round 1 Game 1

The 2008 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs are here.  In just a few hours the pucks will drop on a series of Round 1 games, marking the start of 2 months of grueling battles to find an eventual victor.

This is a good time then to take a look at the battles for Round 1.

In the east

Montreal Canadiens (1) Vs Boston Bruins (8)
The Bruins struggled this year.  First they lost Patrice Bergeron to a season ending concussion, then later in the year Marc Savard goes down with an injury.   Yet,  somehow they scraped through to the playoffs, and they go into them equal to all other teams.  Montreal however are a hot team who have the leagues best Powerplay.  Boston, in order to keep in this series will need to stay out of the box.

Pittsburgh Penguins (2) Vs Ottawa Senators (7)
Ignoring the fact that Brian Murray accused the Penguins of throwing their last game, am I the only one who hopes to see the Penguins kick some serious ass this series?  Last year the fresh faced Penguins were routed from the playoffs in just 5 games by a stronger, more powerful Senators team.  This year the teams are evenly matched and both offensive powerhouses.

Washington Capitals (3) Vs Philadelphia flyers (6)
The classic Cinderella story.  Alexander Ovechkin is in the playoffs for the first time, and with him is a solid determined Capitals team.  The management of that team deserve awards for the progress and improvements they made with the team.  The Flyers have been inconsistent, and will need to be 110% on their game to beat the Caps.

New Jersey Devils (4) Vs New York Rangers
The battle of the creek, as it was referred to earlier on today.  These 2 teams have plenty of reasons to hate each other, and you can guarantee a very passionate series.  Unfortunately neither team can guarantee an offensive display, so expect physical defensive style hockey.

In the west 

Detroit Red Wings (1) Vs Nashville Predators (8)
There is nothing bad you can say about the Red Wings this year.  Top of their division, top of their conference and top in the league on points.  The best goalie duo (by stats) in the league.  Nashville don’t have a Crosby or Ovechkin.  They don’t have a Hasek.  They do however have a very potent young goalie in Dan Ellis, and a very effective Pack Mentality style play.  At the end of the day however, the Predators may find themselves a little behind the eight-ball.

San Jose Sharks (2) Vs Calgary Flames (7)
If there was going to be an upset, this might be it.  Going into the last day of the regular season, there was a chance that the Sharks may face the Avalanche in the first round.  In fact, most Sharks fans wanted them instead of the Flames.  Look for Iginla to lead the Flames to a long series against the Sharks, possibly even 7 games.

Minnesota Wild (3) Vs Colorado Avalanche (6)
Veteran leadership Vs Young blood.  That’s how this series may end up being.  The Avalanche have been reuniting old team mates, the question now is whether the likes of Sakic and Forsberg are able to content with the young speedsters like Marian Gaborik.

Anaheim Ducks (4) Vs Dallas Stars (5)
Defending champions the Anaheim Ducks have had a strange type of season.  If not for the controversial return of both Selanne and Niedermayer earlier in the season they would not be in the playoffs.  Their leading scorer, Corey Perry is out and Chris Pronger is likely going to do something to get himself a suspension.  Unlike last year the Ducks don’t have a powerful attack this time round.  They do however have the best Blue Line in the league with Pronger, Niedermayer, Schneider and Beauchemin.  Dallas will have to battle with their own demons however.  Getting past the first round is the goal of this team, and you can expect goalie Marty Turco to be on his game.  The inclusion of proven playoff performer Brad Richards in the lineup may have the desired impact.  The Stars, unlike the Ducks, can score this year, so expect a very hard hitting, physical game.

Predictions?

I know people like predictions, so here are my wildly unpredictable, highly unlikely, but what they hey predictions…

East:
Montreal Canadiens in 5 games
Pittsburgh Penguins in 5 games
Washington Capitals in 6 games
New Jersey Devils in 7 games

West:
Detroit Red Wings in a 4 game sweep.
Calgary Flames in 7 games
Colorado Avalanche in 6 games
Dallas Stars in 6 games

Tags: alexander ovechkin, Anaheim, Avalanche, battle, Boston, Brad Richards, Brian Murray, Bruins, Calgary, canadiens, Capitals, Caps, Chris Pronger, cinderella, concussion, creek, Dallas, Dan Ellis, Detroit, Devils, display, Division, East, fact, flames, Flyers, Game, goal, hockey, injury, league, management, marc savard, marian gaborik, marty turco, Minnesota, Montreal, nashville, New Jersey, New York, NHL, nothing, order, Ottawa, Patrice Bergeron, Penguins, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, playoffs, plenty, Powerplay, predators, progress, Red, San Jose, season, Series, Sharks, Stanley Cup, Stars, start, story, style, Team, time, today, victor, Washington, west, Wings, year

Video Update - 22-Mar-08

New videos added today, including fights, goals, and a handful of new interviews with Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley.  We apologise for not doing a larger update, however due to it being Easter we are under tight time committments at this time.

Thanks, 2mins Admin.

Tags: Admin, apologise, Dany, East, fight, Fights, goal, Goals, Heatley, interview, new videos, spez, spezz, Spezza, Tim, time, today, Update, video, video update, Videos

Consistant reffing a must for the Playoffs

It’s that time of year again.  The NHL Playoffs are just around the corner, and teams are already starting to prepare for the post-season.  In the West it’s highly possible that the 8 Playoff teams will be made up of 4 from the Northwest Division, 3 from the Pacific and 1 from the Central.  In the East it’s possible that there will be 4 from the Atlantic, 3 from the Northeast and just 1 from the Southeast.

One could argue that the Southeast and Central Divisions are the weakest in their respective divisions, and the current NHL schedule could be seen as biased towards strong teams from those divisions.   That is a topic for another day.

Today I want to touch on something that can make or break a game in the NHL, or in fact in any hockey league; Refereeing.

Bad calls are something we learn to live with in professional sports.  We must remember of course that the people in the black and white stripes don’t always see things the way we do.  There are times however when bad calls have influenced the result of a game.   Just this week referees made a bad call and caused a 2 minute minor on a team, then just 30 seconds later failed to pull up a goalie interference call on the opposition team, which resulted in a Powerplay Goal.

The Playoffs however are the be all and end all of NHL hockey.  Teams battle it out all season to make the Playoffs and the last thing they want or need are referees not doing their jobs properly.

We can only hope then that we will have a relatively clean Playoff Series, not just from the teams, but also the Referees.

Tags: Atlantic, black, call, Central Divisions, Consistant, corner, course, day, East, fact, Game, goal, Goalie, hockey, interference, league, minute, NHL, Northeast, Northwest Division, opposition, Pacific, playoff, playoffs, Powerplay, Refereeing, Referees, result, schedule, season, Series, something, Southeast, Team, time, today, topic, way, week, west, year