Season opener tonight against The Kings. Gonna be weird facing off against Willie...he's paired on the top line tonight apparently with Daughty as the shutdown. He'll be seeing the Sedins a lot tonight...he knows them better than probably any D man in the league, so it'll be interesting. That said, probably wont make it any easier to stop them.

I know what facet of their powerplay the Avalanche will be working on in practice this week..

I guess we're going for 81-0-1 now.

anyone see that SJ/Philly game the other night? Unbelievable. Best game I have seen all year. SJ snuck out with the win a bit undeserved IMO, but the Sabs took care of it last night.

Saw that. Unreal/unbelievable was the exact way I described it as well. The Philly goal "at the buzzer" in OT- you physically can not get closer than that to scoring a goal and not having it count! We definitely stole one there. Sharks can't find any consistency and this brutal December schedule doesn't help: 10 games in 17 days with a cross country flight and 8 on the road, 10 road and 5 home overall. I'd be surprised if they're over .500 during this stretch. Good news is January looks a lot more manageable.

Nobody gets to complain about travel unless you're in Vancouver. We've banked more mileage every year for like the last 10 years probably. But yea, thats probably the closest Ive ever seen a puck not cross the line in time. And then Philly smacked around Toronto last night after Phaneuf's long awaited arrival back to the ice. Vancouver also had an unreal win against Anaheim the other night with Kes scoring a beauty red ice goal with 20 seconds left and Lou outta the net to tie it up and bring it to an eventual SO win. Our first shootout win of the season, and also Lou's first shootout saves of the year. And one other thing I'll say...is how about Crosby. On pace for something stupid like 72 Goals. And thats someone who coming into the league was looked at as more of a facilitator and not much of a pure goal scorer.

Crosby is on an unreal tear right now. So much for Stamkos' 50 in 50, now onto Sid?

And I'll go ahead and defend my comment about travel... Sharks had the toughest travel in 08-09 with 5000 more miles traveled than Vancouver. Last year both were down the list a little with Vancouver roughly 2000 ahead of San Jose. This year, San Jose is back on top and over 5000+ miles above Vancouver. This season may be one of the toughest travel schedules ever. The mileage IS inflated by an early season trip to Europe- I'll give you that- however that trip completely threw the team off in the early going so it's impact can't be overlooked.

When all's said and done, though, we can both feel each other's pain as we are both Pacific Coast teams, and we'll always travel a considerable amount more than Washington, Philly, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and so on and so forth... that's the nature of the beast.

Yeaa, Im not a fan of those early season overseas games. Really lets the teams who stay at home get that early touch right away. I dont think we really need the marketing there anyways.

Anyone check out the all star weekend? Or at least the game? I think it could have been netter, but was still awesome.. The fantasy draft made it.

NHL All Star weekend is just pure win. The game itself is a little like any all star game- pussified. However, aside from the lack of hitting and defense, there's a great display of skill. What makes the weekend, though, is the skills day. That day is nearly perfect.

Fastest Skater? Awesome.
Breakaway challenge? A little rough around the edges, but players showcase a decent amount of hand/eye and overall skill and creativity.
Accuracy? Awesome.
Skills relay? Awesome.
Hardest shot? Zdeno Chara makes it interesting. 105.9 MPH- Jesus H Christ and Holy Allah!
Elimination shootout? Just a really long shootout, which is excellent.

When contrasted with the Pro Bowl this weekend, you really see how much better the NHL All Star weekend is than anything else. The fantasy draft made it THAT much better. Judging it too harsh from this inaugural draft would be unfair, like judging a new show solely from the pilot. There are a lot of tweaks that are needed in the future to make the draft better, but it was a geek/fan's dream. My only gripes, turn off the captain's microphones so there's some suspense with the picks, and improve the commentary, which mostly didn't work, was awkward, and tried too hard to stir up little faux-controversies.

9/10 overall! Hear hear!