The cats are up 3-0 with a little over three minutes to go in a game versus the Dallas Stars. Reinprecht has scored eight goals for Florida in 11 games this season. Two of his goals tonight came less than 30 seconds apart against Stars Goalie Alex Auld. Auld played for Florida during the 2006-07 season.
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.
He will forfeit almost $35,000 in salary also. From ESPN-
The NHL suspended Anahiem Ducks forward Evgeny Artyukhin for three games without pay Thursday for what the league called “a slew-footing incident” against Dallas Stars defenseman Matt Niskanen of Wednesday’s game.
Niskanen suffered a head injury that will keep him out of Thursday’s game against Los Angeles.
Since Artyukhin was suspended for two games in January 2009, he is considered a repeat offender. He’ll forfeit $34,756.11 in salary based on the number of games (82), rather than the number of days (193). The forfeited money goes into the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
Artyukhin is a thug. Last year while playing with Tampa he brutally injured Florida Panther Ville Peltonen. I’m not a fan of NHL players who are sadists on ice skates.
He is the 24th NHL Goalie to reach that mark. From AP-
Goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin came up big in the shootout to earn a milestone victory.
A game after his goaltending gaffe led to a loss in Edmonton’s home opener, Khabibulin became just the 24th goaltender in NHL history to hit the 300 career win mark.
He stopped all three shots in the shootout as Edmonton beat the Dallas Stars 5-4 on Tuesday night. Khabibulin had a far better night than Saturday, when he lost the handle on the puck with less than a minute, a miscue that led to a Calgary goal and 4-3 loss to the rival Flames.
“That was a hard way to lose that first game so it was good to see the team rewarded tonight,” said the 36-year-old free-agent acquisition. “It’s nice to hit that milestone but right now I am just happy that we won the game. I’ll try to build on it and make sure I don’t stop at 300, I guess.”
Alan Hemsky scored the only shootout goal.
Khabibulin, who played for Chicago, Tampa, and Winnipeg/Phoenix before coming to Edmonton, may be showing his age. IMHO I think he will be a backup goalie within 2 years, as long as a NHL team doesn’t let salary dictate who should be the starting goaltender. Like what is happening in Washington.
He played in the NHL for 20 years with 4 different clubs and was one of the last remaining Winnipeg Jets to still be active. Enjoy your retirement Teppo.
Veteran defenseman Teppo Numminen will retire after 20 seasons in the NHL.
The 41-year-old Finn was an unrestricted free agent after playing the last four seasons in Buffalo Sabres. He also had stops in Winnipeg, Phoenix and Dallas during his career.
He made the announcement Wednesday, saying “playing hockey in the NHL and also for my country, Finland, was very enjoyable.”
The three-time All-Star had 17 points in 57 games for the Sabres last season. In 1,372 career games, he recorded 117 goals and 520 assists.
“I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to play with and against the best players in the world for so many years,” Numminen said.
Numminen accumulated six medals in his international hockey career with Finland, including a silver at the 2006 Turin Olympics.
The upcoming schedule was released yesterday. Right away I noticed something interesting. Florida has a home and home series with Nashville.
Nov 28 and Mar 29 are when the Panthers and Predators play next season.
What I find interesting is- Florida is playing Nashville home and home for the second straight season. In 2008-09, the Panthers and Predators played on November 1st and December 23rd.
In light of the way the NHL season is set up, namely that any Eastern or Western conference team plays only play 3 home and homes in any season, Florida and Nashville shouldn’t meet home and home more than once every five years 15 western conference teams divided by 3 home and home series equals five.
Here’s a link to the 2009-10 schedule. Anyone have theories as to what happened here or am I off base?
He is the only American to ever Captain a Stanley Cup winning team. From AP-
Flyers defenseman Derian Hatcher retired Monday, two weeks after knee replacement surgery in effect ended his 16-year career. The 37-year-old former Flyers captain joined the coaching staff as player development coach.
“It sounded like the perfect way to stay in the game and see if I like it,” Hatcher said. “I will be watching the younger players and making sure everything runs smoothly for them. I will be involved with running the rookie camp this summer.”
On the coaching staff, Hatcher replaces former Flyer Eric Desjardins, who resigned to pursue business interests.
Hatcher underwent a right knee replacement June 1 and said afterward he did not expect to play again. He missed all of last season and played only 44 games for the Flyers in 2007-08.
Hatcher finished his career with 80 goals and 331 points in 1,045 games for the Minnesota North Stars, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings and the Flyers. He also scored 33 points for 133 career NHL playoff games.
He signed with the Flyers as a free agent in 2005. He won a Stanley Cup with Dallas in 1999 and is the only American-born player to captain a team to a championship.
Hatcher was a good player but hockey is a rough sport without the type of surgery he underwent. He got out at the right time.
He replaces Dave Tippett who was just fired yesterday. From AP-
For Dallas Stars general manager Joe Nieuwendyk, it became clear in less than two weeks on the job that a coaching change was necessary. The team needed a leader with a tougher edge.
Nieuwendyk turned to Marc Crawford, a coach he once played for in the Olympics and someone similar to the coach he played for when the Stars won their only Stanley Cup 10 years ago.
“What Marc will bring is a real command at the top,” Nieuwendyk said. “The players will know who’s in charge. They will be held accountable on a daily basis. That’s what I think is necessary.”
Crawford was introduced Thursday as the replacement for Dave Tippett, who was fired Wednesday. The coaching change is the first significant move made by Nieuwendyk since he was hired May 31.
The more player-friendly Tippett had replaced Ken Hitchcock, who was fired midway through 2001-02 season. Now the Stars are going back to a more dominant coach after missing the playoffs for only the third time since moving to Dallas in 1993.
While Tippett did a good job in Dallas, he probably outlived his usefulness to the franchise. Will Crawford(Who took Colorado to a Stanley Cup Championship in 1996 over my favorite team, the Florida Panthers) make the team better? The Stars have more than their share of aging and or injury prone veterans. Michael Modano, Sergei Zubov, and Brendan Morrow. Crawford has a lot of work ahead of him.
His best seasons were with the Philadelphia Flyers in the mid-1980’s. The AP article makes no mention of the controversy at the end of Zezel’s career. He had a niece who was very ill in the Toronto area, so Zezel requested a trade to an Eastern team. At the time Zezel was playing for the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks traded him, but to Anaheim the team furthest from Toronto in the NHL. Zezel retired rather than play for the Ducks. The trade, made by then Canuck GM Brian Burke, was heavily criticized at the time. RIP.
Peter Zezel, a center who played 15 NHL seasons after breaking into the league with the Philadelphia Flyers as a teenager, has died. He was 44.
Zezel struggled with the rare blood disease hemolytic anemia for the past 10 years and died on Tuesday. Zezel suffered from the ailment off and on, but had rebounded after being in critical condition in 2001.
He was admitted to the hospital last week for scheduled surgery, but complications developed and his conditioned worsened.
“Peter will forever be remembered as a great teammate and a wonderful individual who touched the lives of many both on and off the ice,” Zezel’s family said in a statement released by the National Hockey League Players’ Association. “In his typical character of generosity, Peter donated his organs through the Trillium Gift of Life Network.”
The gritty center was known on the ice for his strong two-way game. In 873 NHL games with Philadelphia, St. Louis, Washington, Toronto, Dallas, New Jersey and Vancouver, Zezel had 219 goals and 389 assists.
His matinee idol looks also earned him a small role in the 1986 hockey-based movie “Youngblood” that starred Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze.
Zezel was born in Toronto and played junior hockey with the Toronto Marlies before the Flyers chose him with the 41st pick in the 1983 draft. He made his NHL debut in 1984 when he was 19.
Tom Hicks claims this won’t won’t affect the teams. From AP-
The company that owns baseball’s Texas Rangers and hockey’s Dallas Stars has defaulted on about $525 million in loans, with owner Tom Hicks saying on Friday that he intentionally made the move to help negotiate with banks.
Hicks told The Associated Press the teams won’t be affected after Hicks Sports Group, his holding company, didn’t make an interest payment on the syndicated bank loans Tuesday. A syndicated bank loan is one made by a group of lenders to one borrower.
“What we want is the banks to allow us to use our interest revenue,” Hicks said. “We need 51 percent approval, which we anticipate. It is hard to get two banks to agree to anything, much less 40 on a timely basis.”
A financial news Web site called FINalternatives first reported Friday that Hicks Sports Group did not make its interest payment on a $350 million bank-term loan, $100 million second-lien loan and a $75 million revolving credit facility.
“Like so many other companies and institutions, HSG has been impacted by a global credit crisis which no one could have anticipated,” Hicks said in a statement. “The company is not asking for additional money; it is only asking for full access to the interest reserve account and revolving credit line as well as some amendments in the debt covenants.”
He said that the negotiations have nothing to with his other assets or his family’s assets.
“This will be a nonevent to players, to the fans, our sponsors, our vendors, anybody,” Hicks said.
Hicks admits he is seeking minority owners for the franchises. I don’t see how these financial problems CAN’T affect the teams Hicks owns. In a few months it will be the time of year when NHL teams sign free agents or try to retain those players they have now. If these teams are unable to pay for a loan, how will they be able to compete in the player market?
Stars center Steve Ott was suspended indefinitely by the NHL on Sunday after he received a penalty for attempting to injure Anaheim’s Travis Moen at the end of a game one day earlier.
Ott missed Sunday’s home game against Pittsburgh and won’t be eligible to play until after a hearing with league officials that will determine a specific length of the ban.
Ott and Moen squared off in a fight after the final horn sounded in Anaheim’s 4-3 victory Saturday over Dallas. Ott’s hand made contact with Moen’s eye, which game officials ruled was an eye-gouge and gave him a match penalty for attempting to injure.
Ott left the ice with two cuts on his face.
The bout ensued after Ott cross-checked Ducks defenseman Scott Niedermayer during the final seconds of the game. Once time ran out, Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere whacked Ott in the knee with his stick and punched Ott behind the head.
Moen saw Ott involved with Giguere and began punching Ott, who has a broken bone in his right hand and can’t punch back. Ott said the eye-gouging was an accident.
Here’s the You Tube video of the incident.
The video is too unclear to pass judgment. If its determined Ott tried to gogue out Moen’s eye(s), I’d suspend him for the rest of the 2008-09 season. Realistically I expect no more than a 10-game suspension.
