Nitzy's Hockey Den

I brought this question up in the hockey change room last night after another summer league win. Is Mark Howe the last Hall of Famer that will have played in the WHA? We tend to swing from very informed hockey discussions in the change room from Hall of Fame qualifications, possible signings and trades, various trivia I pull off the top of my head, Seinfeld, Happy Days, Good Fellas quotes and 20 year old drinking and dating stories. On this night though, the topic of the recent Hall inductees was the main one and my query about Howe being the last WHA veteran inducted was debated. The first and only real obvious name that came up as possible future WHA Hall of Famers was Paul Henderson. Now, in reality Paul Henderson is probably not a Hall of Famer but his unbelievable week in Moscow in September of 1972 puts him at least in the discussion. Henderson is the only WHA veteran to have even a remote chance at the Hall. The truth is though there are a few WHA vets that are borderline Hall ...

In the winter of 1981/82, the Wayne Grezky Legend exploded in earnest. This was the first time in NHL history in which there was serious talk of a player scoring 100 goals in a regular season. And I was a 10 year old Gretzky-idolizing, hockey stat loving kid. I was in my glory. Gretzky was coming off his first two NHL seasons with goal totals of 51 and 55, so nobody expected him to make a run at 100 in season three. Sure, he'd scored 28 goals in the last 29 games of 1980/81, but 100...come on. Gretzky is quoted before the season by Terry Jones of the Edmonton Journal saying he was going to go for goals instead of assists. He said,"Lafleur advised me at the Canada Cup, to shoot more." Gretzky actually started off the season on a pedestrian 50 goal pace with 7 goals in his first 11 games. He notched 24 in his next 15 games to get to 31 in 26 overall games by Nov. 29 but then went goal-less in the next four to sit at 31 goals in 30 games. There was no talk of 100 goals but ...

Of course Niklas Lidstrom is coming back for another year, why wouldn't he? He just completed a season in which he became the highest scoring 40 year old defenseman in NHL history. With 16 goals, 46 assists and 62 points he is the only d-man that old to score at least 60 points. Ten years previous, Ray Bourque tallied 59 points in his last season playing with Colorado. The only two other 40+ year old defenders to reach even the 30 point plateau were Chris Chelios with 39 in 2001/02 and Rob Blake with 30 in 09/10. Prior to Bourque in 2001, the top scoring 40 or older blueliner season was way back in 1969/70. Tim Horton scored 28 points in 74 games while splitting the year between Toronto and the Rangers. The only other two defensemen to score even 20 points in a 40 year old season were Doug Harvey and Doug Mohns. Harvey notched 22 points as a 44 year old in 68/69 with St.Louis in his final season and Mohns had 21 with Washington in 74/75 as a 41 year old. Also, Lidstrom's 16 go...

Well, as you can imagine it's been a crazy few days around Vancouver since my last post. What with Game Seven, the rioting idiots, designing a new Luongo T-shirt and the odd facebook debate with good friends about all of that...I finally have some time. I won't hide the fact that I was happy to see the Canucks lose, especially in the manner they did. As a Leaf die-hard (I hate that term "die-hard", it's too easily thrown around when discussing ones fandom. My unwavering, undying support of the Leafs is unmatched by anyone I know with their favourite team. It really is all-consuming.) there was no way I wanted the Canucks to win a Cup in my lifetime before my Buds. It would have been thrown in my face, and held over me for years, until the Leafs win one....maybe for decades. Now, I have a collosal Canucks collapse to throw in the face of my rivals when need be. Some may say it's a case of "Schaedenfraude", pleasure derived from the misfortunes of oth...

How weird has this year's Cup Final been? Both Boston and Vancouver have won three games although the Bruins have outscored the Canucks 19-8 in the series. If in fact Vancouver wins game seven by one goal, they will have won the Cup with a Goals For/ Goals Against +/- of -11. They very well could win the Cup while scoring 11 less goals than their opposition. Over the entire playoffs, Vancouver has a -7 goal differential through 24 games. The last time any Cup finalist was a minus for the overall playoff season was in 1975 when Buffalo was -5. They would lose the Cup in six games to Philadelphia. Through 17 playoff games they scored 53 while surrendering 58 goals. Prior to that it was 1968 when St.Louis was a -8 through 18 playoff games which included a four game sweep at the hands of Montreal. There has been only one time in NHL history that a Stanley Cup winner had a minus goal differential that playoff season. In 1945 the Toronto Maple Leafs beat Detroit in seven games but throug...

Through four games and two victories each, Vancouver has held the lead for a total 16:57 and Boston for 87:50. In Game Four the Boston forward with the most ice-time was Gregory Campbell at 18:05. Through the four games of the Finals, Ryan Kesler, Daniel and Henrik Sedin have combined for a total of 1 goal on 28 shots, 2 assists, a -6 rating, and 47 PIM. Cup Finals Goalie stats: Thomas 1.25 GAA, Save Pct .966; Luongo 3.77 GAA, Save Pct .887 Tim Thomas recorded Boston's first shutout in the Finals since Gerry Cheevers blanked Montreal in Game Three of the 1978 Cup Final. Brad Marchand now has 8 playoff goals as a rookie, tying the Boston rookie record of Mike Krushelnyski in 1983 and Bob Joyce in 1988. Over their last 7 games, the Canucks have scored in the First Period only twice, both by Alex Burrows (Game 4 vs. San Jose, and Game 2 vs. Boston).

Roberto Luongo has had an up and down playoff season in 2011, more up then down. The game three 8-1 loss in the Stanley Cup Finals is about as down as he can get. A team notching eight goals in the Finals is, as expected a rare event. It's even more rare when a goalie is not pulled in such a game and allows all eight. The last time a team scored 8 was in 1996, and the last time one goalie gave up all eight was in 1985 when Philadelphia's Bob Froese was ventilated. The following are the eight goal games in the Stanley Cup Finals: 1996, Game 2. Colorado 8, Florida 1. John Vanbiesbrouck and Mark Fitzpatrick 4 goals against each. 1991, Game 6. Pittsburgh 8, Minnesota 0. Jon Casey and Brian Hayward 4 goals against each. 1985, Game 5. Edmonton 8, Philadelphia 3. Bob Froese 8 goals against. 1973, Game 1. Montreal 8, Chicago 3. Tony Esposito 8 goals against . 1973, Game 5. Chicago 8, Montreal 7. Ken Dryden 8 goals against. 1962, Game 5. Toronto 8, Chicago 4. Glenn Hall 8 goals against...

It was 18 years exactly since Eric Desjardins completed a hat-trick in overtime in the McSorley "illegal stick game". A pretty special game to have witnessed in person, and I did from the Standing Room section of the Montreal Forum. This was game two of the 1993 Stanley Cup Final between Montreal and Los Angeles. My buddy and I were living in Monreal at the time had camped out in front of The Forum a week earlier for these tickets. We spent a luckily pleasant night about twentieth in a line of Habs fans that eventually numbered well into the hundreds. Most of the kids in front of us were there on behalf of scalpers and being paid maybe fifty bucks to buy the maximum amount of tickets allowed. My pal and I were on much more of a budget and opted for only the standing room tickets for games Two and Seven. I think we paid 30 apiece for them. As it turns out we also ended up going to Game One as well by pure fluke. Our apartment was about a block from The Forum and we had to...

As you may expect, the 1-0 game in game one of this year's Cup final is a fairly rare event. In fact it's only the 25th time in the last 87 years that it has occurred. 2007, May 30 Anaheim 1 Ottawa 0, Game 2 2004, May 31 Tampa Bay 1 Calgary 0, Game 4 2003, June 2 Anaheim 1 New Jersey 0, OT , Game 4 2000, June 8 Dallas 1 New Jersey 0, 3OT, Game 5 1996, June 10 Colorado 1 Florida 0, 3OT, Game 4 1992, May 30 Pittsburgh 1 Chicago 0, Game 3 1986, May 22 Montreal 1 Calgary 0, Game 4 1984, May 10 Edmonton 1 New York Islanders 0, Game 1 1975, May 19 Philadelphia 1 Boston 0, Game 6 1968, May 7 Montreal 1 St.Louis 0, Game 2 1957, Apr 9 Montreal 1 Boston 0, Game 2 1954, Apr 11 Montreal 1 Detroit 0 OT, Game 5 1953, Apr 16 Montreal 1 Boston 0 OT, Game 5 1945, Apr 6 Toronto 1 Detroit 0, Game 1 1945, Apr 12 Toronto 1 Detroit 0, Game 3 1945, Apr 21 Detroit1 Toronto 0, Game 6 1937, Apr 11 New York Rangers 1 Detroit 0, Game 3 1937, Apr 13 Detroit 1 New York Rangers 0, Game 4 1934, Apr 10 Chicag...