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Cross Czech'd; Seidenberg's Season Is Done

December 27, 2013, 8:40 PM ET [23 Comments]
GARTH'S CORNER
NHL news by Garth • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Updated:

Its always the "quiet ones" that we have to be wary of life.

On Saturday, the meek and mild Czechs snuck up and sacked Team Canada in their preliminary round game at the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships in Malmo, Sweden.

This was an upset of epic proportions for the Czechs who many prognosticators predicted would finish in the bottom four teams of this illustrious junior tournament.

Not so fast.


The Czechs took the cheer out of the large Canadian crowd with an early goal. Some sloppy play around their own goal allowed David Kampf to push the puck past Jake Paterson in goal. Paterson was making his second straight start but didn’t look sharp on that weak shot.

Canada dominated the rest of the period, though and got the only two power plays. The first one was effective but without a goal, and the second one saw Canada tie the game thanks to a fine shift from 16-year-old Connor McDavid.

He made a good rush to set up one scoring chance, and then he teamed with Bo Horvat and Sam Reinhart to make it 1-1 at 15:50. The play was textbook material, the kind of video a coach could teach 5-on-4 play with. McDavid got the puck at the top of the faceoff circle and passed to Horvat at the side of the goal. He wasted no time in finding Reinhart in the slot between all four Czech defenders, and his quick shot found the mark.

A short time later, McDavid set up Derrick Pouliot for another great chance, but in the second period he made a name for himself for all the wrong reasons. Caught on a long shift, he took a tired hooking penalty at 15:15, and Michal Plutnar scored one second after its expiration. McDavid hadn’t even stepped on the ice by the time Plutnar’s point shot eluded Paterson.

Then, as time expired and McDavid skated in on a rush, he fired the puck into the open net after the buzzer, prompting a scrum in the corner. Plutnar hammered McDaivd in the corner, earning a minor penalty.
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Regardless, Canada looked anything but sharp and the Czechs looked, if nothing else, thoroughly inspired and up for the challenge. After two periods, the underdogs also found themselves with a solid 2-1 lead.

It was a short-lived advantage. Just 24 seconds into the final period Jonathan Drouin blasted a hard shot on the fresh ice past Marek Langhammer to make it a 2-2 game. Plutnar's fine goal was offset by his retaliatory penalty which eliminated the lead he created.

Canada got a power play soon after, but off the faceoff McDavid took a lazy hooking penalty, creating a 4-on-4 with a faceoff deep in the Canadian end. Right from the drop of the puck, Vojtech Tomecek snapped the puck through Paterson's legs, officially two seconds after McDavid's penalty, and the Czechs again had a lead, 3-2.

Canada, ever resilient, rallied again, most improbably. After taking a too many men penalty, Canada looked in deep trouble, but a great rush by captain Scott Laughton left a giant rebound for defenceman Aaron Ekblad to bury at 11:09.

Before the penalty had expired, though, the Czechs went up 4-3. A long blast from Jakub Vrana eluded Paterson over the shoulder, yet another suspect goal on the night.

Charles Hudon made up for it 16 seconds later when his wrister beat Langhammer in the same location. Call it 4-4 in a game neither team seemed able to control.

Both teams next play on Monday, Canada against Slovakia and the Czechs against the Germans.



Source: IIHF




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The bad news for Boston Bruins fans keeps on rolling along. Dependable D Dennis Seidenberg is done for the season.

Here's the official release from


Boston Bruins General Manager Peter Chiarelli announced today, December 28, that defenseman Dennis Seidenberg will miss the remainder of the 2013-14 season with a torn ACL/MCL in his right knee. The expected recovery time for Seidenberg is 6-8 months.

The injury occurred during the third period of the Bruins/Senators game on Friday, December 27.

Chiarelli also announced that the team has recalled defenseman Zach Trotman from Providence on an emergency basis and assigned goaltender Niklas Svedberg to Providence. Trotman will join the team in Ottawa Saturday and be eligible to play in Saturday night's game.

Trotman has skated in 22 games for Providence this season, tallying one goal and six assists with a plus-11 rating

In total, 23-year-old blueliner has appeared in 70 AHL games since joining the P-Bruins in the 2011-12 season, amassing four goals and 22 assists. Trotman also skated in four playoff games with the Providence Bruins during the 2012-13 AHL postseason.

Prior to joining Providence, Trotman played three seasons at Lake Superior State University (2009-12) where he racked up 19 goals and 20 assists in 114 games.

This marks Trotman's first NHL recall.

The 6'3", 219-pound defenseman hails from Noblesville, Indiana and was drafted by Boston in the seventh round (210th overall) of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.

Dennis Seidenberg is a veteran of 615 NHL games with the Flyers, Coyotes, Hurricanes, Panthers and Bruins. This season he skated in 34 games for Boston and tallied one goal and nine assists.



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The Sabres skated to their locker room with a 2-0 lead after twenty minutes in Toronto on Friday night. Inexplicably, the Sabres forwards and D collapsed in the second period and allowed three Leafs goals to be scored. It was like a tale of two teams. In the first period, the Sabres controlled the puck while rolling four lines and six D. Playing with the lead is a luxury that the Sabres haven't relished this season. So in the second period, they gave Kessel and Co. too much time and space which created excess O-zone time which led to several grade A chances against Ryan Miller. Three such chances found the back of Miller's net. The Sabres activated their D and attacked the Leafs in the third period and were rewarded in the dying moments when captain Steve Ott scored the game tying goal to force OT and to chisel a point away from the Leafs.


Why are the Sabres such a fragile team in the second period of recent games? Why didn't Nolan ask for a timeout at 3-2 to settle down his team?

Nolan spoke about his team's second period slumbers at the team's practice at Bud Bakewell Arena on Saturday.


"Sometimes you get frustrated as coach," Nolan said. "You just want them to work themselves through it. We’re not in kindergarten where you have to hold hands and direct them through every tough situation. They have to find a way themselves. Sometimes you let them battle through it and sometimes you have to call a timeout. Last night it was one of those things I tried to let them battle through it."


Thanks, sabres.com

Fight or flight. Sink or swim. Fly or die.

Nolan is more than a hockey coach. He's been a life coach to his young team, most of whom are in their twenties. I agree with Nolan's take that sometimes you put the dry erase marker and the clichés away and you let the collective group find the solution to the problem. Nolan has seen enough of his team to know what their strengths and weaknesses are. He has faith in his leadership group to assist him in the teaching process. Nolan isn't a rah-rah, x's and o's head coach, like Ron Rolston. He inspires his young players to make smart decisions. He empowers them. In his culture, the players as individuals have a say. Nolan pumps their tires. He kicks them in the ass when they need it. He teaches them that the solutions to problems are inside the room and on the ice, within hearts of the unit of five.

On Friday night, his warrior soul captain found a solution to the problem. Were it not for a goal post and a blown play on an open net in the shootout, the Sabres would have won that game after they let it slip away. Losing builds character. Nolan is holding his players accountable and they are not disappointing him. Its would be real easy for Nolan to yell, scream and call out players in the media after a frustrating performance like Friday night. He's not wired that way. These days, he's all about hugs, not slugs. His players are responding to his intuitive, humane brand of leadership.












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Here's terrible news that the St. Louis Blues were not expecting:

Their leading scorer Alex Steen is out indefinitely with a concussion. The team says that the concussion is the culmination over several heavy hits the top line left winger has sustained in recent games.

Steen is the Blues leading scorer. His loss will be sorely missed both 5 on 5 and on the PP.

In 35 games this season, Steen has scored 24 goals and added 14 assists. He's a been the team MVP this season. Losing him long term would certainly be a huge blow to the Blues and their goals of advancing to the Western Conference Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals at the end of the 2013-14 season. The Blues have been constructed to win now. They have gone all-in on their attempts to win it all this season.





The St. Louis left wing depth chart looks like this: Morrow, Schwartz, Paajarvi, and Jaskin.

The Blues have $1,442,000 in cap space to work a trade with.

Will they patch from within? Or, will GM Doug Armstrong reach outside the organization for a scoring left winger?

Buffalo's Matt Moulson is a UFA to be. He plays top line minutes and responsibilities, and the can light the lamp with frequency.

The Blues have been scouting the Sabres for the past two months. Have they been watching Moulson and Ryan Miller?










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Rasmus. Ristolainen!

Finnish Airborne Ranger!

Look at this beautiful goal that the 6'4 225 lb. defenseman scored against host Sweden at the World Juniors!


Thanks, Kris Baker at SabresProspects.com

THIS is why Kevin Devine, Darcy Regier and the Sabres drafted Ristolainen in the first round of the 2013 NHL entry draft. He's big, tough, athletic, skilled, and has an iron will. He hates to lose and he competes like he's a 30 year old veteran. He has a power game and a finesse game for a man his size. He's an all-world talent and Sabres fans will be seeing more plays like this for the next decade.


Just WOW!


Finland lost to the undefeated Swedes. Mikhail Grigorenko, Nikita Zadorov and Team Russia will faceoff against the Finns on Monday.



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When the red light started spinning after John Scott's goal in Toronto on Friday night, he immediately joined an exclusive statistical club with his former Minnesota teammate, Derek Boogard.


Scott's glacial goal scoring pace in the NHL is very similar to that of the rough and tumble Boogard, who is now deceased.






Thanks, sabres.com




Zemgus Girgensons and Tyler Ennis nearly ended the shootout. They had the chances to beat Bernier and end the shootout but didn't bury them.

Toronto won 4-3 in the shootout.

Full marks to the Sabres for battling back to tie it in the third period, after they coughed up a 2-0 lead in the second period where they were badly outplayed by the Leafs.

The alarming trend lately is that the Sabres are falling apart in the second period of games. It used to be that they would fail in the first twenty minutes then push back for the final forty minutes.


I respect Tyler Myers for his candor in speaking his mind in his postgame interview with Brian Duff. He's right. The Sabres shot themselves in the foot by blowing a two goal period that they earned by out working and out hustling the Leafs in the first period. The Sbares kept the Leafs on the outside for the first twenty minutes and it limited the shots against Ryan Miller. In the second period, Buffalo deviated from its simple, basic 1-2-2 defensive structure which allowed Kessel and the Leafs to rush the puck which led to a 17-5 shots advantage for the Buds, and further allowed them to gain inside position on the Buffalo D.



Thanks, sabres.com
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