There were some great plays this past week across the NHL but there were a couple goals that stood out for me – Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh) scoring on the Florida Panthers with his back turned to the net, Jamie Lundmark (Calgary) wrapping around the net to surprise Ty Conklin (Detroit) with 1:20 left in the game and then Olli Jokinen securing the 6-5 victory in a shootout after making a major comeback.  Jokinen also scored an amazing breakaway goal for the Flames (who lost) against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

There were great saves too – Steve Mason (Columbus) denies the Boston Bruins, Cam Ward shuts the door on the Washington Capitals, Tomas Vokoun narrowly stops the Buffalo Sabres (it looks like his glove was just on the line) and Marc-André Fleury shocks RJ Umburger (and the crowd) who was celebrating a goal that never was. 

Watch the highlights:

As if I don’t hate that awful song enough, Energy 101.5 has decided to create a tribute song for the Calgary Flames inspired by Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”  I’m serious – I CANNOT STAND THAT SONG and I like Lady Caca even less.  The worst part about it is that Freeway Frank and Ian MacKinnon actually manage to make it sound even more awful than the original.  Listen and cringe.

Some playoff songs are more tolerable than others but, of course, being in Calgary, I only really get to hear the ones for the Flames.  I liked “In Da Dome” which was based on 50 Cent’s song “In Da Club” but I’ve learned to just tolerate the others. 

I’d love to hear about the ones in your area.  What awful/good songs are you hearing?

As far as trades are concerned, Olli Jokinen is delivering all that the Calgary Flames could have asked for when they acquired him at the trade deadline.  The man has managed to post eight goals and two assists in just six games.  Unfortunately, his new team appears to be struggling.  Despite Jokinen’s big numbers, they’ve just won two of their last six games.

I was over on Puck Daddy’s blog and he is blaming Jokinen for the team’s demise.  I’m not sure I’d go that far but I will concede that the man has some extremely valid points.  As he mentions, I’ve been scratching my head over Miikka Kiprusoff’s play in these last six contests.  Granted the defense has been just awful (the goalie had to stop 26 shots in the first period alone during one of the games last week) but Kipper looks a little frazzled.  At one point, my son and I were actually laughing because it looked like he was afraid that coach Mike Keenan was waiting in the wings with a gun.  The whole thing has just been really baffling.

Some are accusing Jokinen of being selfish with the puck (the numbers would seem to support that theory), causing his teammates to be resentful.  To be honest, while it was a sweet move, when Jokinen used the boards to assist himself in making a flashy, mid-air goal on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, I did wonder what the other players were thinking of him.  I hope that the Flames can get it together and they can figure out a way to work with their new acquisition because he really is talented.

New Jersey Devils goaltender, Martin Brodeur, has celebrated his 551st win by turning away 22 of 23 shots on goal by the Montreal Canadiens tonight, which has tied him with the record set by star netminder, Patrick Roy.  "It feels great, the first crack at it I was able to do it," Brodeur said during his postgame news conference. "Definitely, I’m enjoying this moment pretty good."

Roy was in attendance at the game and was excited to see the moment so that he can tell his grandchildren that he there to see it happen.  "He deserves every minute of it," Roy said.

He has not only tied Roy’s record for most wins, he’s also got Terry Sawchuk’s shutout record in sight (Brodeur has 100 career shutouts and the record is 103).

Could he take over Roy’s record on St. Patrick’s Day at home? 

Last night, the Calgary Flames played the Detroit Red Wings and there were a number of reasons why I didn’t watch all of it.  The first problem is that the Flames have been sucking majorly on this road trip and the other is that I just hate Detroit.  My son kept checking the score and my non-hockey loving husband kept complaining that he didn’t want to watch the game and, for once, I agreed with him.  The last time we checked, there was about 8 minutes left in the game and the Wings were up 4-2. 

I slumped down onto my couch and starting looking through the PVR for stuff we could watch after dinner.  I was really disappointed because the Flames were continuing their losing streak and I just didn’t want to hear about it.  I saw my son sneak upstairs to check the score and he almost stumbled down the stairs in his rush to tell me that the Flames beat the Wings 6-5.  He’s a bit of a prankster so I wasn’t even sure he wasn’t pulling my leg but he wasn’t – I checked the score myself and kicked myself for not watching the game but how could I know?

Anyway, here’s how it went down.  Detroit was looking as though the game was over (fans were already leaving) but wth 3:22 left in the third, Jamie Lundmark (Calgary) scored to bring the score up to 4-3.  Then, less than a minute later, Olli Jokinen (Calgary) scored and finally, with 1:20 left on the clock, Lundmark struck again to put the Flames in the lead!!!!  Just 38 seconds later, Dan Cleary (Detroit) put one behind Mikka Kiprusoff (Calgary) and tied the game.  No one scored in overtime so the game went to a shootout. 

In all honesty, I’m happy that I didn’t watch this game because I already get overly stressed during shootouts but this would have been brutal.  In the end, only Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit) was successful while both Mike Cammalleri and Jokinen put one in the back of the net for Calgary.

Watch the highlights:

I know it’s just one game but I feel like turning around to all those commentators on trade day who said the Flames weren’t on the Wings level and telling them to eat it.  You don’t know how a team is going to play with new lines and players so it’s stupid to underestimate them.

image: TSN

Toronto Maple Leafs head coach, Ron Wilson, was ejected during a game last night against the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning after he started an argument with the refs.  "Yeah, I’ve been kicked out before," said Wilson. "It’s not a big deal… What happened is, we killed too many penalties in the second period and lost our momentum.  They gained it and we could never find a way to get it back."

The man’s got a point.  The Leafs were outshot by the Bolts 30-21.

Here’s a video of Wilson getting a game misconduct.  You can see the officiator warning him and saying “you wanna go?”  What a tool…

This isn’t the first time Wilson has been talked about this week after his team lost.  He also hoped his Leafs could forge a comeback in a game against the Ottawa Senators by securing a power-play for reporting Jason Spezza’s illegal hockey stick. 

The Edmonton Oilers might have been celebrating the return of captain, Ethan Moreau, but the excited was short-lived since they went on to lose 4-3 in overtime against the visiting Atlanta Thrashers.  Unfortunately, the night also turned bittersweet for the victorious team since they lost their captain, Ilya Kovalchuk to an undisclosed upper body injury during the first period.  "We don’t want to say too much right now because we don’t know for sure," said head coach John Anderson. "He’s day to day as we speak right now. He had a little problem yesterday and I didn’t practice him. He said he was OK to go today and obviously he wasn’t, but I’ve got to give him credit for trying."

I hope Kovy is alright and can rejoin his team soon.  You really don’t want to be without your leader at this point in the season.

American Idol winner, Carrie Underwood, was again spotted cheering on her hockey-playing boyfriend, Mike Fisher, which his team, the Ottawa Senators took on the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning.  Fisher scored the game-winning goal, in overtime, on March 11, 2009 and Carrie can be seen jumping up and down and hugging someone in the box (I think it looks like she says “my boy.”  Here’s the video:

Let me just say that, if I were one of the reporters talking to Lindy Ruff, I would have kept my distance.  He revealed that a nasty virus, which they are calling a “flu bug” but, because it is causing stomach issues, is probably something like Norwalk, is sweeping through the Buffalo Sabres team and is even making it difficult to come up with lines.  Here’s a video of Ruff talking about the situation:

I read the following on the Buffalo Sabres website (some is taken from the video above): “What’s really made it tough is that we keep having players fall out of the game on us.  Even last night we start the game and want to use Max (Afinogenov), and after four or five shifts Max isn’t feeling well so we have to change lines. We haven’t really been able to put any lines together from game to game, due to the fact that somebody has come up ill. Max isn’t doing very good. Jochen (Hecht) is doing a little bit better than Max. Tim is just coming off going through it. He’s been a little bit drained so we decided to just keep him away today.”

Tim Connolly is struggling while Patrick Lalime and Derek Roy were among those who battled the flu last week.  “It’s definitely tough… especially when it’s stomach problems,” Roy said. “When you get hit throughout the game or try to skate or whatnot, it’s definitely tough. But no excuses this time of year… the other guys that are healthy have to step up and play that much harder. That’s what we need. We need a different hero every night.”

I hope the players can get well and get back to playing hockey.  This is a bad time of year to have a lot of your best guys out of the lineup.

I’ve tried to avoid writing about it because I wanted to see where this was going to go but now that it’s everywhere, I have to jump in to the discussion.   At the annual NHL GM meetings, the league managers had some recommendations and I’m not sure how I feel about them.  They want to curb fighting, which I understand since they want to minimize injuries (particularly concussions and other head injuries), and have proposed some changes that I’m sure fans will have a strong reaction to.

From TSN:

The GMs have proposed that a 10-minute misconduct penalty be given to players who engage in staged fights right after a faceoff. They’d also like to see the instigator rule be more strictly enforced, particularly in cases where a player wearing a visor initiates a fight or a player drops the gloves after a teammate has been bodychecked.

There has been renewed interest in changing some of the rules after the death of Don Sanderson earlier this year.  The 21-year-old Ontario senior men’s league defenceman was in a coma for three weeks after hitting his unprotected head on the ice (his helmet came off during the fight).

Apparently, out of the first 500 fights this season, 108 happened right after a face-off while 118 came in instances where a player was responding to a teammate getting hit.  If the proposed rule changes are accepted, they will be implemented next season.

TSN used an example that really brought it home for me.  Read this:

Under the proposed rules, Ottawa Senators forward Jason Spezza would have received 19 minutes on one play for his actions in a game last week. Spezza fought Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf in response to a clean hit on Dany Heatley and would essentially be given four penalties for that next season - two minutes for instigating, two minutes for instigating with a visor, five minutes for fighting and an automatic 10-minute misconduct.

Uhhh… To lose a player for almost a full period for a fight is a little crazy to me but what do I know?  Gotta love Brian Burke’s reaction: "If I’m the GM in Ottawa my response is we will take that penalty," he said. "We will kill that penalty if it is a star player.”  He also said that he “doesn’t mind his players instigating fights as retribution for other things that happen during a game. He’s among the group that views fighting as a way for players to police themselves on the ice.”

Montreal Canadiens forward, Georges Laraque, is not impressed.  "All of their recommendations are a joke!" Laraque said. "Stupidest thing ever!  I think it’s a joke. They might as well take fighting out of the NHL…fighting won’t be safer; it will be eliminated because an added 10 minute misconduct is too much."  He went on to say: "I’m aware of the criticism I will face for speaking up and being vocal. I’m trying to protect the other guys. I’m at the end of my career, for me it doesn’t matter. I’m for safety, but not the elimination of fighting and these recommendations are leading to that."

Laraque feels that they should have looked more at improving helmets as a way to keep players safe.  I agree with that but I guess those types of changes would have cost money.  I also wonder if these types of rule changes are going to result in more cheap shots on the ice which, unfortunately, can lead to injuries as well. 

What do you think?  Are the proposed changes a good idea?  What changes would you make?

image: TSN