Right now the Florida Panthers are playing the Pittsburgh Penguins. Florida, who is coming off a 3 game road winning streak, leads the game 2-0. The puck is on ice now with just a few minutes left in the 2nd period. So what am I watching?

Commercials. A few minutes ago the broadcast broke up and a screen came on saying there were technical difficulties.

Bullshit! FSN has technical difficulties every Panther broadcast they do. Their obtrusive in game promotions for other programming, annoy the hell out of me every time I see them. I don’t give a @#$#$%! about the next broadcast, or some other FSN show. I want to watch the hockey on ice like any other NHL fan. How the hell am I supposed to do that when a good size portion of the screen is covered with garbage?

Obviosuly FSN doesn’t give a damn about its viewers. Rather than entertain us, they can’t stop from promoting itself and haven’t a clue how much they piss off viewers when they do. That’s why I hate FSN Florida.

Update- The broadcast is back on. I think the technical difficulties were really an excuse for FSN to flood viewers with more commercials. Florida still leads 2-0. Go Panthers!

The Minnesota Wild have traded former first-round draft choice Benoit Pouliot to Montreal for left wing Guillaume Latendresse.

The 23-year-old Pouliot has been one of a handful of first-round disappointments for the Wild in recent years after being drafted fourth overall in 2005. Defenseman A.J. Thelen, drafted in 2004, never played for the team and 2005 pick James Sheppard, a center, has not developed as quickly as the team had hoped.

Latendresse, who has only 2 goals and 1 assist so far this year, I think is just off to a slow start.

Benoit Pouliot(2 goals and 2 assists for the year) on the other hand looks like a NHL draft bust. Maybe a change of scenery will get Pouliot’s career on track, but I doubt it.

Scott Clemmensen kept the Florida Panthers in the game until the rest of his teammates got their act together.

Bryan McCabe’s goal 40 seconds into overtime gave Florida a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night.

Clemmensen made 39 saves for the Panthers, who won for the fourth time in five games to reach .500 (9-9-2). Stephen Weiss scored Florida’s other goal and added an assist. Nathan Horton had two assists.

*****

Pavel Datsyuk scored for Detroit, which lost its second straight at home. Chris Osgood made 18 saves.

*****

McCabe beat Osgood with a one-timed shot from the right circle for his third of the season, converting Weiss’ pass.

Weiss tied it 1-1 at 8:13 of the third period with his seventh goal. Horton threaded the needle on a cross-crease pass, and Weiss put a shot into the open side of the net.

*****

Datsyuk’s power-play goal with 2:02 left in the second period opened the scoring. He jammed in his own rebound for his fifth goal.

I’ll be the first one to say Clemmensen saved Florida last night. His goaltending had been wretched this year, and I was expecting Detroit to have a feast. It didn’t happen and Clemmensen was getting absolutely no offensive help from the Panthers in the 1st period. Florida had just one shot on goal in the first twenty minutes.

Florida is playing eight games in two weeks. I expect Peter DeBoer to go back to Tomas Vokoun for tonight’s game against the New York Rangers. Clemmensen will have to probably wait a week till getting another chance in goal.

Last night marked the fifth time Florida won in overtime. The four previous wins were in shootouts. Overall Florida is 5-2 in overtime this year. Detroit on the other hand, is 1-4.

Florida is now 9-9-2 after a 2-7-1 start. As of yet, I’m not totally convinced the Panthers rally is a legitimate turnaround.

Besides the rare win in Detroit, the big news out of the game was the knee injury Cory Stillman sustained. Stillman had been one of the Panther’s hottest scorers of late. Since David Booth went out of the lineup, Florida has done their scoring by committee. The committee is now shrunk by one member. It’s time to bring Shawn Matthias back from Rochester, but DeBoer seems to have little confidence in the player. I don’t know why. Matthias is the only Rochester callup who knows how to put pucks in the net.

Michael Frolik scored twice, Dominic Moore and Rostislav Olesz had a goal and an assist each, and Tomas Vokoun made 26 saves in the surging Florida Panthers’ 6-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night.

Stephen Weiss and Cory Stillman also scored for the Panthers (8-9-2), who have turned things around after a 2-7-1 start. Florida, which beat Buffalo for the first time in five games, is 6-2-1 in its last eight games.

Drew Stafford and Clarke MacArthur scored, and Ryan Miller made 18 saves for Buffalo (12-5-1), which was denied in its attempt to string together a four-game winning streak for the third time this season.

Stafford opened the scoring with his sixth goal with 5:37 left in the first period. Stafford skated toward the net from the lower portion of the right circle before lifting the puck over Vokoun, who was on his knees. Frolik tied it 4 minutes later, netting his fifth goal on a one-timer from the high slot.

Weiss gave the Panthers a 2-1 edge 1:21 into the second period. After stopping Frolik’s wrist shot, Miller swatted the puck right into Weiss, who deposited it into an empty net. Stillman upped Florida’s lead with his sixth midway through the third, converting a 2-on-1 with Steven Reinprecht, before MacArthur made it 3-2 with 5:43 to go in regulation with a power play goal.

Frolik, Olesz, and Moore iced the game with late third-period goals.

The Weiss goal was the turning point tonight. Miller made a stop and put down the puck. Weiss who was trailing on the play must have been shocked at such a opportunity handed to him.

Florida has been playing great of late with the exception of the back to back losses to Washington. No matter what I think of their goalkeeping, you can’t deny that the Capitals are among the best teams in the east.

Up next for Florida are road games against Detroit and the New York Rangers. I think the Panthers have never won in Detroit or just once. The team is playing better this year on the road(5-4-1 is their record when traveling) than at home. If they can get at least two points out of those games, I may modify my outlook on the Panthers 2009-10 season.

The Carolina Hurricanes have signed veteran goaltender Manny Legace to a one-year, $500,000 deal, general manager Jim Rutherford said Monday.

The Hurricanes lost starting goalie Cam Ward to injury Saturday for at least a month.

Legace, a 10-year NHL veteran with the Los Angeles Kings, Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues, has played six games with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves this season, logging 317 minutes while going 2-2-1 with a 3.21 goals-against average.

He last played in the NHL for the Blues last season.

At this point in his life, Legace is a mediocre backup Goalie at best. The Canes better hope Leighton picks up the slack or this season will grow even worse than one that already features a eleven game streak without a win.

Even without two-time MVP Alex Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals are still quite adept at putting the puck in the net — especially against the defensively challenged Florida Panthers.

Tomas Fleischmann scored twice during a five-goal third period, and the short-handed Capitals beat the Panthers 7-4 Saturday night for a sweep of their home-and-home series.

Washington played a third straight game without Ovechkin, who has an upper body injury. The Capitals were also without injured defensemen Mike Green and Jeff Schultz, both of whom were hurt Friday night during a 4-1 victory in Florida.

But Washington prevailed anyway, amassing a season-high seven goals in the process.

The Panthers scored four goals without David Booth and Radek Dvorak. I will repeat it again, Washington will not make the Stanley Cup finals as long as they try to ride the back of Goalie Jose Theodore to get there.

As mediocre as Theodore is, one half of Florida’s goaltending tandem is even worse. Scott Clemmensen has played in 4 games this year for Florida and been horrible in three of them. In addition to last night’s seven goals, he gave up five to Dallas in a game a little over a week ago, and before that against Buffalo gave up two goals in the first 90 seconds of play. Coach Peter DeBoer yanked Clemmensen but the damage was already fatal. Florida went on to lose 5-1.

Here’s a question for any NHL stats officianados- Why didn’t Clemmensen get the defeat for the 5-1 loss to Buffalo? He left the game early but Florida never tied the score after he left the game. In baseball if a starting pitcher leaves a game and his team never regains the lead later on or ties the game, he gets the loss. No matter what the score was when the starter was removed.

Back to Clemmensen, his stats are horrific this year other than his 2-1 record in goal. He has a .838 save pct and is allowing 5.14 goals a game. What if Alexander Ovechkin had been playing last night? Dallas was without Mike Modano when Clemmensen let five pucks get past him in that game.

Florida had great goaltending last year with Tomas Vokoun and Craig Anderson. They combined for nine shutouts and that is no easy feat as the Panthers Defensemen with the exception of now departed Jay Bouwmeester, always had problems when it came to getting the puck out of the Florida zone. In the offseason, Anderson became a unrestricted free agent and eventually signed with Colorado where he has continued to to excel in goal.

The Panthers signed Scott Clemmensen who was coming off a breakthrough year in New Jersey. Clemmensen was excellent last year, but had shown very little before that said he was a quality NHL Goalie. Florida signed Clemmensen rather than Anderson probably in order to save the team about 1.5 million dollars over the next two years.

Clemmensen is a bust in my opinion and if Florida was serious about fielding a winning hockey team, they’d let this bum go and call up Mike Brodeur or Alexander Salak from Rochester. Of course Florida management will let financial considerations decide their personnel moves, and because they’d have to eat Clemmensen’s salary were they to release him, GM Randy Sexton will keep him on the Panther roster to the absolute detriment of the team he is supposed to be running. Just like Washington keeps playing the underperforming Theodore. Unfortunately Florida doesn’t have the talent to make a five goals a game goalie a winner in the NHL.

Carolina goalie Cam Ward remained in a hospital Saturday night after his leg was cut by a skate during the first period of the Hurricanes’ game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Ward didn’t fly home after the 3-2 loss because of concerns about the stress of the flight on his injury.

“It’s a significant injury and all I mean by that is I don’t have any timeline,” coach Paul Maurice said. “There was a fair amount of blood on the ice. All I know it was his leg; other than that I do not know any more.”

Hurricanes spokesman Kyle Hanlin said Ward, who was helped off the ice by two trainers, went to the hospital for further evaluation for a cut on his leg.

Ward stretched to make a save while Blue Jackets forward Rick Nash skated through the crease at 7:35. It appeared Nash or a defenseman nicked Ward in the leg with a skate.

Ward was on all fours for a couple of minutes on the ice before he was attended to by the trainers. As he was being helped off, drops of blood trailed him all the way to the dressing room.

This isn’t the first time Ward has been cut during a game. A similar incident happened two years ago when Carolina played the New York Islanders and the skate of Brad Isbister sliced Ward’s knee.

Anytime a Goalie gets cut and bleeds significantly, brings back memories of Buffalo Sabre Goalie Clint Malarchuk and what happened to him in 1989. Florida Panther Richard Zednik also suffered a severe neck wound two years ago. I was watching the game when it happened.

Lets pray Ward gets better and that he will be able to return to the ice soon.

Carolina’s 3-2 loss last night marked their 11th consecutive game without a win. At this point in the season it looks like the NHL’s Southeast Division has the two worst teams in the league.

Update- Ward could be out up to 5 weeks due to his injury.

Oft-injured New York Islanders defenseman Radek Martinek is out for the season with a knee injury.

The 33-year-old Martinek tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee on Friday night in the third period of a 2-1 loss at New Jersey, the Islanders said on Saturday.

Martinek was helped off the ice with about 5:45 to play after he was hit hard against the boards in front of the Devils bench by Zach Parise.

The Islanders are thin at defenseman but a team relying on a player at Martinak should have a backup plan in mind. Radek Martinek’s greatest consistency as a player is his ability to get injured.

Tomas Vokoun made 31 saves for his second straight shutout, Steve Reinprecht opened the scoring early in the third period and the Florida Panthers extended the Carolina Hurricanes’ winless streak to 10 games with a 3-0 victory Wednesday night.

Vokoun beat the St. Louis Blues 4-0 on Saturday.

Cory Stillman added a power-play goal and an assist and Reinprecht also had an assist. Defenseman Bryan Allen scored an empty-net goal with 2:01 left.

Cam Ward stopped 22 shots for Carolina, 0-6-0 in the road.

The Panthers have won three straight after opening 2-7-1.

Carolina, 0-7-3 during its losing streak, hasn’t won since beating Florida 7-2 on Oct. 9 in its fourth game of the season.

The Hurricanes were shut out for the third time this season. They have scored two goals or less in 11 of their 14 games.

Reinprecht scored his ninth goal of the season when Stillman’s wrist shot bounced off his leg and through Ward’s pads. Stillman made it 2-0 at 13:46 when he tipped Bryan McCabe’s slap shot from the point.

Carolina dominated the first period, outshooting Florida 21-4. It was the Hurricanes’ most shots in any period this season.

This was a odd game in a few ways. No scoring for the first 44 plus minutes of play, then three goals in twelve minutes. Carolina had 4 power play chances in a row, then Florida got six man advantages in a row. The game ended with Carolina showing some anger, after the buzzer went off Hurricane and Panther players scuffled behind the Florida net.

After their blazing start to the game, Carolina played listlessly for much of the last two periods. I would have to think Carolina coach Paul Maurice’s job will be in jeopardy soon if a turnaround doesn’t take place soon.

Florida has now won 3 in a row. I’m not yet sold on the Panthers correcting their woeful start to the 2009-10 season. If they split or better their two games with Washington on Friday and Saturday, I might feel more confident about my favorite hockey team.

A senior staff member for Alberta Health Services has been fired for giving the Calgary Flames swine flu shots while thousands of people waited in line for the vaccine last week.

The board, which reports directly to the Alberta government, won’t name who was dismissed Wednesday and said more people might be punished for their roles.

“I am deeply offended that this circumstance has occurred,” Ken Hughes, chairman of Alberta Health Services, said in a news release. “The decision to allow preferential access to the Flames and their families was a serious error in judgment.”

Hughes said the “most senior staff member involved” was dismissed.

Flames president Ken King said Tuesday the players and their families received their shots on Friday at a private location. He said they believed they had gone through proper channels at Alberta Health Services, the agency that administers health services for the province.

King said they felt the shots were a priority for the players because of their extensive cross-border travel and the close-contact physical nature of their sport. He also said they didn’t want to cause a commotion by having the players stand in line at a public clinic.

What would have happened had the players gotten in line with the rest of the public? They would have gotten asked for autographs? I suppose these players and their families all live in a monastery so they don’t have to do deal with the little people.

You can turn the snark off now.

Atlanta Thrashers goaltender Kari Lehtonen is expected to miss six to eight weeks after having a second surgery on his back.

Lehtonen has not played this season after having surgery July 20 to repair a herniated disc.

The team said Wednesday that Lehtonen had another surgery Friday in Rochester, N.Y., to remove edges of bone that were applying pressure to nerve roots in his back at two locations.

Ondrej Pavelec has been a more than decent job in goal. In addition the Thrashers have been without the services of star winger Ilya Kovalchuk for most of this season. Atlanta isn’t slumping with these injuries, they are 6-4-1 at present.

Lehtonen’s back problems may put his career at risk. The 2nd overall pick of the 2002 NHL entry draft hasn’t played to the level Atlanta hoped for when they drafted Lehtonen so high.

The Phoenix Coyotes’ bumpy six-month journey through U.S. Bankruptcy Court has come to an end with a judge’s approval of the sale of the franchise to the NHL.

Judge Redfield T. Baum signed the order on Monday after a quiet, brief hearing in a mostly empty courtroom, a stark contrast to earlier scenes of high drama featuring countless high-priced attorneys locked in often-bitter arguments.

The NHL’s bid totals about $140 million. The official figure listed in the sale order is $128.4 million, but that does not include the $11.6 million the NHL has agreed to spend to purchase claims of nearly all the unsecured creditors in the case.- Associated Press

The NHL said it would now move quickly to complete the purchase. After that is completed, the league will look for new owners.

What part-Coyote team owner Wayne Gretzky thinks of all this is a bit of mystery. He didn’t object to the sale and could be out as much as 8.2 million dollars. I don’t think that can have a positive effect on the relationship between Gretzky and the NHL.

Now that the financial turmoil and question of where the Coyotes been temporarily shelved, are there many hockey fans left in the state of Arizona who care about the franchise?

The Phoenix Coyotes gave the Kings’ Drew Doughty an open look at the goal. He buried the chance.

Doughty scored the go-ahead goal with 4:51 remaining and Los Angeles rallied to beat the Phoenix Coyotes 5-3 Monday night.

*****

Earlier Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Redfield T. Baum approved the Coyotes’ sale to the NHL with the league intending to find a buyer committed to keeping the franchise in Glendale. The conclusion of the team’s bankruptcy proceedings didn’t help the Coyotes avoid a franchise-record low announced crowd of 5,855.

Which leaves serious doubts as to whether NHL can ever be successful in Phoenix. I think it would be wisest for the NHL to entertain bids from owners who will take the franchise to somewhere where it can flourish.

Flyers defenseman Braydon Coburn waited five years for his first two-goal game in the NHL. Then he took care of the feat in 1½ minutes.

Coburn scored twice and Scott Hartnell and Matt Carle each had a goal and two assists to help Philadelphia snap a two-game losing streak and send the Carolina Hurricanes to their eighth straight loss, 6-1 on Saturday.

“I’ve had a lot of close calls so far,” said Coburn, who has played in 227 career NHL games. “You just have to wait for your time.”

David Laliberte, playing in his first NHL game, and James Van Riemsdyk each had a goal and an assist for the Flyers, unbeaten in their past six regulation games at home against Carolina.

*****

Brandon Sutter scored for the Hurricanes (2-7-3), who are off to their worst start since 1997 — the franchise’s first season in Carolina — when they were 2-7-2. Carolina is winless on the road (0-5-2), and on an 0-5-3 skid overall.

Ray Emery, who stopped 28 shots in the Flyers’ season-opening, 2-0 win over Carolina on Oct.2, made 39 saves in the rematch.

Michael Leighton, making his first start for the Hurricanes, stopped 22 shots.

Hurricanes coach Paul Maurice said he thought Leighton needed some game action. You think so? You’re team is 2-6-3 with one goalie who has played all 11 games you played this year. I think it is time to try option two if just for one game.

Even if it doesn’t work.

I’m amazed by Carolina’s start, which is worse than the Florida Panthers. Carolina went to the conference finals last year. Both the Panthers and Hurricanes have 7 pts at this point in the 2009-10 NHL season but Carolina has played one more game. I’m more optimistic about the Hurricanes turning around than Florida.

In nine previous NHL seasons he has never scored more than 19 goals. How or why is he suddenly playing like Alexander Ovechkin?

I will update this post either late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Brian Sutherby just scored a goal for Dallas to make the score 3-1.

Update- Dallas has scored another goal. This one after a Florida penalty. The score is 3-2 at the end of the first period.

2nd Update- Florida scored a 4th goal but this time Reinprecht assisted Jason Leopold. The bad news- Dallas once down 3-0 and 4-2 have come back to tie the game at 4 all.

3rd Update- The Panthers won 6-5 in a shootout. Rostislav Olesz scored Florida’s 5th goal and then the winner during the shootout.

*- David Booth suffered a concussion in as a result of the hit made on in him by Michael Richards in last Saturday night’s game. Booth will be out at least a week.

*- Michael Richards was not suspended. The NHL’s disciplinary system continues to be a joke.

*- Radek Dvorak is also out with a knee injury. His return date is unknown.

*- Are the Panthers lacking in toughness? This legitimate question is being asked a lot after last Saturday’s game. No Panther put up their dukes after Booth was leveled. Should they have or would a fight or retaliatory hit been a case of two wrongs not equaling a right?

I’m more concerned by Florida’s inability to play well when faced by games on back to back nights. The Panthers have always had this problem. Hockey requires a great deal of energy but all NHL teams face back to backs. Why can’t Florida put it out for two games?

*- Bryan Allen was benched for Saturday’s game. The stated reason was that his rehabilitated knee that was severely hurt last year isn’t ready for two games in a row. This makes me question whether Allen can still play period. He hasn’t shown much to me for the first 9 games of the 2009-10 NHL season.

*- To replace Dvorak and Booth, the Panthers called up Kenndal McArdle and Michal Repik from their Rochester affiliate. Why not Shawn Matthias? McArdle, a 1st round pick in 2005 has shown nothing in either the minors or in a few short stints with the Panthers.

*- The Panthers have decided to keep Russian teenager Dmitry Kulikov on the roster. By playing 10 NHL games this year, Kulikov earns credit towards future free agency. Kulikov, a highly touted defenseman, was the Panthers 1st round draft pick this year.

If I had been the Panther management, I would have sent Kulikov to the junior leagues. I do understand why GM Randy Sexton and Peter DeBoer decided not to. Kulikov has shown he is a good NHL player already. He is too young for the AHL by their rules, what will he learn by going to a junior league in Quebec? Nothing, but the Panthers had to way the long term considerations for the team. No one wants Kulikov to be another Jay Bouwmeester. If not for a trade, Bouwmeester was going to jump Florida the moment he became a unrestricted free agent.

The play of Kulikov and Steven Reinprecht(who just scored his fifth goal of the season in tonight’s game) have been about the only Panther highlights for the 2009-10 season. At the moment the Panthers are 2-6-1 in addition to being badly banged up. The team is going to have to suck it up or this will the worst season for the team since the lockout. Can the cats get it turned around? Last year the team was struggling and banged up(Booth, Nathan Horton, Cory Stillman for sure and I believe one one more starter were all out injured) at the end of November. The team then went 6-1, including four straight road wins. I don’t think this year’s Panthers can do that type of turnaround but I’ll watch almost every game this year in hope they do.

At the end of one period tonight, Florida and Ottawa are tied 1-1.