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| 15th February, 2008 - 11:19 am |  Douglas Benton/RealGM - Welcome to the newest addition to the hockey coverage here at RealGM with our new hockey blog called Hockey Talk. Running on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Hockey Talk will examine player and team trends as well as take a more in-depth look at the game. This is an interactive project so feel free to email your opinions to Douglas.Benton@RealGM.com and your thoughts may just appear in this space.
February 15
The Carolina Hurricanes? playoff hopes took another blow on Thursday night when center Rod Brind?Armour tore his left ACL in a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Hurricanes? captain had 19 goals and 32 assists for a team best 51 points but will now miss the rest of the season.
The Hurricanes now have a huge void in veteran leadership and will have to have excellent play from goalie Cam Ward and for Eric Stall to become a dominant player. I don?t think either player can, and you can expect the Hurricanes to fall out of the division race.
The New York Rangers locked up all-world goaltender Henrik Lundqvist to a six-year, $41.25 million contract. Lundqvist is 24-21-5 with a 2.37 GAA and a .907 save percentage.
Lundqvist is a top notch goaltender who is in the prime of his career. The Rangers' philosophy in player acquisition is to bring in more flash over substance which usually results in a strong crop of offensive players with minimal defense.
The Rangers could still miss the playoffs (although I think they will make it), but in either situation, Lundqvist is a very good piece to build around.
In Edmonton, the Oilers have struggled this year at 27-27-5, but they have two nice wins this week at home against the Wild (4-2) and at San Jose (3-2). Some of the success has to go to goaltender Mathieu Garon, who has been in net for both wins. He has stopped 66 of 70 shots in those two games against some potent offensive players. [READ] |
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