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Clare Drake will once again wait to see if he gets into Hockey Hall of Fame
Clare Drake, who’s been a road map for a score of NHL coaches with his coaching foresight, keeps saying his storied life will be just fine, thank you, if he doesn’t get that elusive Hockey Hall of Fame...
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Oilers Snapshots: Capitals' Alex Ovechkin virtually unstoppable on power play
Washington Capitals’ winger Alex Ovechkin, who came into the Edmonton Oilers’ matchup with 528 goals in just 844 games (nine in 12 games against the Oilers), always sets up shop on the power play on...
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Hockey World: Patrick Kane top MVP candidate, but Jaromir Jagr has been amazing
This much is known with the NHL season half-over Jaromir Jagr of the Florida Panthers is made from parts unknown to man. He needs six more goals to pass Brett Hull (741) for second place on the NHL’s...
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Jim Matheson: Oilers effort is strong, but goals can't be found against Capitals
On a night when Washington Capitals goalie Braden Holtby stopped everything, the game turned when he didn’t have to make a stop at all. The Edmonton Oilers had a gift two-on-nothing seven minutes into...
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Capital's coach Barry Trotz is a big fan of Draisaitl and McDavid
Washington, D.C. Barry Trotz has been watching Leon Draisaitl and has been blown away by his play. “To come in when he did as a fill-in for (Connor) McDavid and to have 17 points in his first 10 games...
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Stanley Cup continues to elude Alex Ovechkin
Alex Ovechkin has five Rocket Richard trophies as the NHL’s top scorer, three Hart trophies as league MVP, and one asteroid named after him, but he has zero Stanley Cups. Does the 30-year-old...
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Cult of Hockey: Taylor Hall hammered in social media after fighting illness...
Taylor Hall almost didn’t play in Tuesday’s loss to Dallas. He missed the morning skate with illness, with head coach Todd McLellan saying at the time that he wasn’t feeling well but that the team...
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The new and improved Alex Ovechkin
Alex Ovechkin has 25 goals, in case you haven’t paid attention–nine in his last 10 games. The stat that jumps out at you, though, is plus 12. That’s a better plus/minus than Sidney Crosby (plus 8) or...
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Short Shifts: Tyler Myers stands tall again for Buffalo Sabres
Tyler Myers’s game in Buffalo has picked up considerably this year because Josh Gorges is mentoring him, but as one pro scout said, “how can a guy playing those minutes (24-1/2 per game) have no...
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Barry Trotz was told very early he was going to be coach, not NHL player
Barry Trotz has won 560 games as an NHL coach, fourth amongst active coaches behind Joel Quenneville (Chicago), Ken Hitchcock (St. Louis) and Lindy Ruff (Dallas), and 13th most in league history but...
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Which shooters and goalies are the Edmonton Oilers’ best shootout options?
No team in the NHL has participated in more shootouts this season than the Washington Capitals. Through five games, the club has gone to the skills competition three times, posting a 1-2-0 record. This...
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Babcock nears decade in Detroit
The two longest-serving NHL coaches, Barry Trotz and Lindy Ruff, have said their goodbyes in Nashville and Buffalo, respectively, and moved on to Washington and Dallas. Trotz’s contract was not...
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Barry Trotz knows he has to appeal to Ovechkin to change his game
Former Nashville coach Barry Trotz might want to call Scotty Bowman and ask how the greatest coach of them all, can change the spots on a scoring leopard. In the early 90s, Bowman went about convincing...
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SHORT SHIFTS
If Barry Trotz is hired as the next head coach of the Washington Capitals, he will have gone full circle. His first NHL job was as a pro scout for the Caps in the late 1980s and he coached their farm...
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Local boy Jim Benning gets his first GM gig
The Vancouver Canucks were bitter losers to the Boston Bruins in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final in 2011–not as upset as the nutbar rioters on the streets after it was all over–but the hockey...
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This ’n’ that
If the Boston Bruins are looking for another puck-moving defenceman to help Dougie Hamilton and Torey Krug, maybe they should take a run at Dan Boyle. His game struggled for long stretches after his...
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SHORT SHIFTS
Hard-rock local defenceman Ralph Nattrass, who was the great Bill Gadsby’s partner with the Chicago Blackhawks in the late 1940s, just passed away in Edmonton at age 87. He was living at the Rutherford...
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Randy Carlyle surprisingly stays on as Leafs’ coach
Turns out Randy Carlyle wasn’t a Dead Coach Talking in the last few weeks of the just past Toronto Maple Leafs’ season. He was just whistling by his grave. He’s alive and well, with a two-year...
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Will Todd McLellan be the fall-guy for the Sharks crash to earth?
Todd McLellan may be the most hydrated coach in the NHL behind the San Jose Sharks’ bench because he always has a water bottle in his hands, taking healthy swigs throughout the game but on Wednesday...
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Alex Ovechkin needs to wear some of Washington Capitals’ failings
With the purging of general manager George McPhee and head coach Adam Oates in Washington, the need for change escaped captain Alex Ovechkin. The soon-to-be 29-year-old superstar has 422 goals and 814...
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