Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.Let's face facts, folks. The NHL All-Star game is a giant bore, and the skills competition no longer holds as much interest as it used to as the novelty has worn off.
Well, some great news for fans as it appears the NHL is taking a page from the NBA's Slam Dunk competition. The hook? A shootout competition which will showcase the NHL's best and brightest showing off their slickest moves while schooling the likes of Martin Brodeur.
The shootout will feature three players from each conference. They will be allowed to start from anywhere on the ice, even behind the net they are shooting on. The competitors will get two chances each. The judges will score the move anywhere from a 1 to a 9. If the player scores, he'll get an additional point, allowing for the possibility of a perfect 10. All six All-Star goalies will take a turn in net.
The two players with the highest scores from each conference will showdown in the final. Once again, they will get two attempts each. The single best score (ie: one 10 beats two 9's) is declared the shootout champion.
This, along with other tweaks, will give the NHL's skills competition a much needed shot in the arm. The Sports Network (TSN) has been campaigning for this sort of competition all season, and, amazingly, the NHL listened.
I can't wait to see some moves that can top Marek Malik's between the legs roofer, Robbie Schremp's lacrosse moves, or Jussi Jokinen's 'drag and drop'.Not long after being named the starting netminder for the Western Conference, Roberto Luongo told the NHL, "Thanks, but no thanks!"
Is Roberto going lazy and snubbing the league? Not really. It turns out that his wife will be quite preggo and he wants to spend some time with her, rather than a bunch of sweaty hockey players.
Vancouver's all-star netminder, who was recently named the Western Conference's starting goalie in the NHL's all-star game, revealed Wednesday that he will be missing the event to return home to be with his pregnant wife Gina.
"I struggled with this decision, " said Luongo. "But I think family right now is more important to me and this is a good opportunity for me to spend some time with my wife and the baby. "
You'd think the players would know better by now to have some birth control so that their babies would be born during the summer, and not during the season. Sheesh!! Where are his priorities?
Speaking of missing games, Buffalo Sabres defenseman Teppo Numminen will not be coming back any time this season. After enduring open-heart surgery, The Repo Man has recovered quite slowly, and isn't taking any chances.
"It is disappointing," said Numminen, who planned to return to the lineup in the next week or so.
Numminen's doctors made their recommendations after examining test results from a recent checkup, and consulting with doctors at the Cleveland Clinic, where he had the operation last September.
Given what once happened to Jiri Fischer, it's not worth the risk for Numminen to attempt a comeback until he's 100% recovered. At this point, Numminen has nothing to prove and has had himself a long, successful career.
Jeff Gordon (no, not the NASCAR driver) of FOX Sports wonders just how long LA Kings coach Marc Crawford has before having to search for new employment. Given how the LA Kings are languishing at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, and recently looked like a dead dog in a 7-0 loss to the Predators, it's just a matter of tick-tocks before Crow will get the boot.
"From our coaching staff, I can assure you that we're burning the midnight oil," Crawford said. "I can assure you that we're analyzing, maybe over-analyzing the games. This is the first game in months where we played poorly.
"We played awful. It was a stinker. There's no two ways about it. You can't mask this one, anyway. It was awful. We all have to take responsibility, myself included."
Their first poor game in months? The Kings are 15-27-2 and have given up a league-high 150 goals against this season. If Crawford is really convinced that his team has had only one poor game recently, then his standards are lower than that of Pam Anderson ans her choice in dates, and/or he's truly delusional and should be put on heavy medication.
Gratuitous YouTube Embed: The Russians aren't known for their pugilism, which makes this Russian Super League brawl all the more entertaining. Look at the passion, the fury, the violence! So much for that European pacifism.
