Inside the BHL By Jens Ebbesen
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With only 6 or 7 games left in the regular season, nothing is settled yet. The fate of some teams seems to have been sealed. Ottawa and Montreal both need miracles to make it to the playoffs. Neither of the two can end with more than 24 points - at the moment Toronto has the 8th place with 21. It will also be difficult for both Carolina and New York Islanders to make it - both 5 points after Toronto with only 7 games left. On the other end of the table both Atlanta and Washington are just two points away of securing their playoff spot - both teams have 32 points - Tampa Bay in 9th has 21 with 6 games left and New York Rangers (10th) have 19 with 7 games left. Even though the two teams may be in the playoffs, it is very unlikely they will rest any of their best players. They are locked in a fierce battle for 1st place in their division and the looser of this battle will probably end at just 4th seed. At the moment the 4th seed will meet Florida. Florida has been for some weeks been very close behind their two division rivals. Due to a loss, a gap of 5 points has opened and with 6 games left it seems unlikely they can catch up with Washington and Atlanta. However it seems likely that Atlanta and Boston will make it to the playoffs as they have a 6 points advantage over Tampa Bay. It is still very tight between the remaining teams where 5th placed Buffalo only has 5 points down to Pittsburgh. All teams between 5th and 11th need to play up to there very best to capture the remaining playoff spot. At first sight it just looks like a battle for the places 5 to 11 (four teams have a chance to become 3rd seed). The Atlantic division is still very open and 4 points separate the four top teams. New Jersey and Pittsburgh are tied for first with 22 points each.
In the west it is almost certain that either Edmonton or Calgary will win the conference title. They still have a good lead over the next teams. Had Edmonton won their most recent game they could have been the first team to clinch a place in the playoffs. They still need two points. The first team to make it to the playoffs last season was St. Louis. They secured their spot by totally dominating their division. It will not be as easy this season. At the moment St. Louis is second behind Nashville. Both teams have 24 points - just 4 behind is Chicago. If St. Louis wishes to retain their title they have to work hard for it. The pacific division is just as close as the central. Currently Anaheim leads with one point ahead of Phoenix. Los Angeles is 3 points behind but has played a game less than Anaheim and Phoenix. One point further off the lead is Dallas with 19 points. Currently there are 4 teams within 4 points of the lead.
In general nothing is settled in the west, as only Edmonton and Calgary seem certain of 1st and 2nd. But From Nashville in 3rd to Los Angeles in 8th is 4 points and Los Angeles has a 4-point deficit to Detroit in 13th and last place. So all western team have a lot to play for; which hopefully will mean a lot of great games all the way to the end of the season.
There have been a couple of trades this week. The first was between Washington and Florida where Washington traded away their back-up goalie Guy Hebert in exchange for Florida goalie Sean Burke and left-winger Bill Lindsay.
The other trade was between struggling teams Ottawa and Carolina. A trade, which saw Pavel Bure, Radek Bonk and Damian Rhodes, go to Carolina and Ross Young, Marc Savard and Roman Turek head for Ottawa.
"I traded Bure to get rid of some salary, and to get Ross Young, who has a lot of points this season. Turek, will hopefully give me a good back up goalie, Savard is a good player so hopefully he will make my team turn around. My team has not been doing good but hopefully with the new players my team will start winning more." was the comment from the Ottawa GM. As mentioned earlier Ottawa is now so far of the pace that the team which produced last season biggest upset in the playoffs needs a miracle to clinch a playoff berth.
The battle for first spot in the west in becoming a duel between local rivals Edmonton and Calgary. At the moment Edmonton leads Calgary by one point and 3rd placed Nashville by 6.
Edmonton has show improving form all season and after some rough times they are back on top where we were used to see them a few seasons ago. Inside the BHL spoke to Edmonton GM Adam Grenier earlier this week and asked him what he felt was the main reason his team is doing so well this season "I believe the reason my team is playing so good right now, would be from the play of captain Weight and all star goalie Cujo. But I must also say the role players on the team are playing super," As most people knows Edmonton was among the biggest teams in BHL before they were forced to let some of their stars go due to salary disputes. Although Edmonton still has many all-star players Adam do know believe that the new team will ever get to the same level as the old team "No there is no way any team will be able to bring up a team that was as good as the Stanley cup team that year. I had an all star on every line. It was so cool." However with the signing of Lindros many would think that Edmonton would come closer to the Stanley cup team. But Lindros has not lived up to the expectations and when Inside the BHL asked for a comment on his play we got this reply "I have no comments on the situation that Lindros has put himself into. We've talked to him many times, but he keeps telling us he wants to stay." So it does not seem as if Lindros want to leave Edmonton any time soon. As for weaknesses in his team Adam expressed some concern about his defense and told Inside "I'm just a few players away from doing it (Winning the cup). My defense is too young but they are big. So look for me to start wheeling and dealing before the trade deadline" and apparently most players could be traded away "I'm accepting offer on any of my players". But when asked of names he came up with the following Kariya, Lindros, Weight and Poti - and besides some experience in defense Adam is also looking for a star right-winger.
While Edmonton his used to being in the top of the league their rivals Calgary has been struggling earlier and it is something of a surprise to find them battling for 1st place in the west. Most people agree that the main reason for their great season is their offence with continues to produce more goals than any other team in the league - so far they have scored 82 goals (10 more than Boston and Washington - who are 2nd in goals scored). Calgary GM Chris Wildschuetz also agree that much of his team's succes is due to their offence - and praises his young talents who have produced most of the goals "I have done a lot of scouting of the younger guys. I never expected to score like they are, but I am not complaining. I think they are tired of being the doormats of the BHL." And it seems as if this scouting really have paid of - at the moment Calgary have 3 players among the top 20 players in the points-table all 3 are young talents. But it is not just the young players who have helped the team Chris also signed veteran goalie Grant Fuhr "I took a big chance signing Fuhr, but he even in his old age was better than the scrubs I had minding the nets!" Even though they are just 4 points behind Washington in the overall standings Chris tells Inside that he does not give the President's Trophy much thought " Making the playoffs is the biggest goal my team has at the moment. I am not worried about the President's Cup. If we win that, we win that." He also went no to state that there have been many cases where winning the President's Trophy does not mean much when the playoffs begin. "I would be happy with at least making the second round of the playoffs, anything past that would just be icing on a great season!" and the way the team is playing at the moment it seems very likely they could achieve this goal. One thing many have noticed is that Calgary has not produced any goals in power play, which could becomes a problem for the team later but Chris is not as worried " Right now I am not to worried about this stat. The young guys never score on the power play. I think I would be concerned if my team didn't take a lot of shots, but these guys fire 50+ shots a game on average and play pretty good defense so I don't lose any sleep over the lack of a power play." But however Chris admits that he has been looking for some players to improve his power play but has not been successful yet.
Like Edmonton is former Stanley cup champions Nashville beginning to show some of the form that made them champions and the team has moved up into 3rd place. In general however it is very close in the west and only Edmonton and Calgary have opened a gap to the rest where there is only 4 point between number 3 and 11 so nothing is settled in the west yet.
The latest news from the western conference is that Jamie Bittick have left San Jose and the team is looking for someone to take over as GM. Time will tell if a new GM here will have the same impact as it has for division rivals Phoenix.
In the east Washington opened a small 3-point gap down to rivals Atlanta to stay in top of the standings. Just behind Atlanta we find Florida a team that last season had one of the worst overall records in the BHL but have improved greatly. Josh Sullivan GM in Florida is looking to one players when asked for the reason of his teams improvement this season " The main reason for my teams success this season is because of the great play of Tedd Streibel who leads the BHL with 16 goals and is 3rd in the points race. He leads the BHL in shots too." But he also looks back to a trade in last season which he felt helped both his own and Washington "I think that that trade we made, Hasek for Allison (The trade also included John Madden (to WSH) and Mike Vernon (to FLA)) helped both of our teams cause both teams doing much better this season. Allison is having a good season." As for the future Josh is looking to keep the team together and hopes to catch up with Washington so his team can enter the playoffs as 1st seed. The latest rumors in the league are that Florida is currently looking to sign a new goalie and a trade should be close at hand.
In Pittsburgh there was an immediate effect when Leo Almeida took over the team. Pittsburgh went from being 3rd from the bottom up into a playoff spot within a couple of weeks. But the team appears to still need some improvement because the team went back down to 11th this week but the team still seems better than before Leo took over. When Leo took over he stated that this season would be a rebuilding season and when Inside the BHL spoke to him this week he stuck to that statement "As I said before this is a rebuilding season for the Penguins. But if we can make the playoffs and have a good run we will be very happy." As for the future Leo told us "We are planning to do a lot of trades and picking up some free agents during the off season. But with the teams improvement during the last couple of weeks maybe there won't be many." When asked of the reason his team has been playing better these last weeks he told us "This team is really going out there and enjoying themselves lately. That brings together a great bunch of guys with a winning attitude."
Just like in the
western conference things are still very tight in the east where
only the 3rd Southeast division team have broken lose and gotten
a 3 point lead over 4th placed Boston who again only have 5 points
down to 11th placed Pittsburgh so there is still a lot to be settled
in the east.
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| P | Name | Salary | Team |
R Bill Guerin (7.7M) Buffalo C Brian Ralston (6.6M) Buffalo C Bill Clement (5.6M) Buffalo C Eric Petersen (5.4M) Buffalo D Bryan Marchment (5.4M) Washington |
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At the moment the battle for the Eastern conference lead is between division rivals Washington and Atlanta and this week Atlanta took advantage of one of Washington's rare losses to close the gap. Washington, However, reopened the gap only a few days's later when the two teams met in Atlanta. A game, which ended with a score of 5-2; Washington's win gave them a two point lead over Atlanta with half of the regular season played. For the fist time this season it was not Hasek who started in Washington's goal but their newly acquired back-up goalie Guy Hebert - the change of goalie may have been a reply by the Washington GM to some talk in the league that all their success was due to Hasek. The starting goalie for Atlanta in this game was former Washington goalie Bill Ranford who was fired in Washington when the team hired Guy Hebert. Bill Ranford has been a very good investment for Atlanta and the loss to Washington actually broke a seven game winning streak for him. The first game where Atlanta did not win was when he started in goal. Another little piece of news from Atlanta is that they are looking to trade away Daneyko.
At the moment only one or two team seem able to challenge Atlanta and Washington for the top honors in the east but after a bit of a bumpy start Boston seem to have found the form that gave them the Stanley cup last season. With some good results all week they are closing the gap. Just before the playoffs started last season Boston signed Dafoe and all through the playoffs Boston got great goaltending by their two star goalies. So far neither one of them has been able to live up to that standard this season - but this has just given Boston a chance to show their class and instead of using their defensive skills they have returned to the kind of play they were known for last season were Boston produced more goals than any other team. So far they are second only to Calgary when in comes to scoring goals and this is even more impressive given that they lost both Selanne and Jagr last season.
Where as Boston has improved their play in the last couple of weeks it still seems as if Toronto still as to regain their form from last season. They are currently ranked 10th and have not won a single game this week. There needs to be made some changes in the team's attitude or in the roster if Toronto wants to get into the playoffs. Another team that has been struggling in the league is the New York Rangers, and the latest rumors is that there may be a changes of owners on the way - however rumors have it that a change can only occur if both GM and Head coach are not fired by the new owners.
On a more positive note it seems as if things have turned around for Pittsburgh and the team is know climbing up through the standings and are now ranked 8th. Perhaps this will be more than just a 'rebuilding season' for Pittsburgh and their new GM.
It has been a terrible season for the three Canadian teams in the east. Toronto is out of the playoffs and the two other teams Montreal and Ottawa have the worst overall record in the BHL this season (4-10-0 for both). Especially Ottawa, which produced the biggest upset in last year's playoffs, has been disappointing. Although neither of their two great goalies Potvin and Rhodes has lived up to their usual standard most of the blame must be put in the teams offence. They have only been able to produce 28 goals so far and it is likely that the Ottawa GM will soon be starting to look for some players to strengthen his team.
In the west there has been some changes in the top of the rankings where Edmonton have taken over as 1st but just one point ahead of their local rivals Calgary. They are three points down to a group of three teams Chicago, Phoenix and Anaheim.
With their return to the top Edmonton seems to have regained their style from just before the drastic cut in the team's budget, which lead to a massive change in the team's roster. Where the former Edmonton was known for their many huge stars the new Edmonton base their success on great teamwork. All two or three line's can all produce goals. Eric Lindros left Pittsburgh over a wage dispute and it was Edmonton who was quickest and signed him right away but so far Lindros must be a disappointment for the GM since he has only produced very few points.
While some of their closes rivals in the top have changed positions this week Calgary have remained second in the standings and continue to impress with the offensive play which gives them the clear lead in the goal scoring standings. The lead is even more impressive given that the team has yet to score a single goal on power play. If Calgary can continue this kind of play they will be among the favorites for the Stanley cup this season.
After leading the league for a long time Anaheim has lost some of their momentum and have dropped down to 5th in the conference. This possibly as a result of the trade Anaheim made with St. Louis. They got defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky and center Vaclav Prospal in exchange for winger Todd Harvey and defenseman Bill Houlder and only time will tell if this will help Anaheim return to the number one spot.
Those of you who have read the minutes from the last owners meeting will know that from now on there will be an addition to Inside the BHL where GM's can announce if they have some players they want to trade away - so if you are such a GM contact Inside the BHL - mailing address is on the BHL-site.
In the west Anaheim is still dominating the top of the league. However, Calgary seems to be closing in on them with a strong week (3-1-0) and Anaheim's lead is just 3 points with Calgary having a game in hand. The main reason to Calgary's great success this season is their goal scoring in the 3 first games this week. They scored an impressive 22 goals, which helped Calgary to a joined tie for first place in goal-scored with Buffalo. The main weakness in Calgary seems to be their devotion to the offensive play, which gives their opponents mainly open chances. This became clear in their last game where Calgary was beaten 7-1 by Atlanta. They allowed 9 goals in their first three games however and the team is still 4th in the goals allowed department where only teams like the New York Rangers (19), Philadelphia (19) and New Jersey (21) have been more solid on defense.
Two seasons ago Nashville was famous for their great defense, which was the main reason for their Stanley cup triumph in BHL3. Last season they fell from grace and were not able to reach the playoffs. The team is still struggling partially due to the fact that there have not been many changes in the team since then. There has however, been some improvement in the team since last season and Nashville now has a chance to get a playoff spot. With roughly a third of the season played they are in 7th position and although their defense is not as strong as it was two seasons ago, their goal scoring has improved a bit. So far they are in third place with 31 goals scored.
Last season Vancouver got of to an impressive start winning around ten games in a row without a single loss. So far they have not been near that form and have not been able to get more than two consecutive games without a loss. This has resulted in a disappointing 9th place.
This was the week where Washington got their first loss 6-4 in a close game against divisions rivals Florida. Still they keep their 1st place in the Eastern Conference with two points down to division rival Atlanta.
In other news Pittsburgh appointed a new GM this week and in a short press release he mentioned that he saw this season as a rebuilding year and that next year he and Pittsburgh will go for the cup. He also made a short remark to the loss of Lindros with he called "A sad tragedy" but added that the team had to move on. And it seems as if changes in GM was a miracle cure because Pittsburgh has turned things around winning 3 of their 4 games and only loosing to Calgary. Although they have had a good week they are still stuck in the 15th and final place in the eastern conference but they have played a game less than Ottawa and Montreal.
It seems as Toronto have found some of the form that game them the President's trophy last season getting wins in their first three games this week finally losing to Stanley Cup champions Boston by a score of 6-1. This has moved Toronto up to 9th place but they need to keep improving their game and finding the form from last season if the want to be sure of a playoff berth this season.
Last season the New York Rangers barely made it to the playoffs and they seem to be struggling again this season. Although they have one of the best defense in the league their offense have been punch-less getting only 15 goals in their first 9 games (The same as Calgary scored in their first two games this week). It seems as if there needs be some significant changes if these former giants in BHL want to make it to the playoffs. Only time will tell if the GM will make these changes or if the owners will look to the already proved "miracle cure" and begin to look for a new GM to take over.
Last week Inside
the BHL remarked about the strength of the Southeast Division.
Although it did not seem possible, the teams of this division
have taken an even stronger hold. All five teams are in the top
8 and 3 are in the top 4. The last achievement is actually matched
in the west where a team from the Northwest division has taken
control of 2nd, 3rd and 4th place.
Week
3 - Toronto , The Biggest Disappointment?
The biggest disappointment
so far in the league has been Toronto. After winning the President's
Trophy last season many had Toronto among the favorites for the
Stanley cup this season - but after 7 games Toronto have only
managed to get 6 points and it would take a miracle for them to
finish 1st in the league this season.
Inside the BHL spoke with the GM of Toronto earlier this week
to get is view on his teams performance and it was clear that
he was very disappointed in his team performance he also expressed
some doubt as to the reason for his team poor results so far "I
don't know what the reason for my downfall is. I believe it is
my goaltending..." As for the rest of the season Todd expressed
more hope saying "I believe that I will bounce back from
my early troubles, I feel that I have improved my team from last
year a great deal."
As for his reactions to the poor play Todd told us "I made
some pickups to help my defense, and I am currently looking for
a new goalie." and there are several sources close to Inside
the BHL that are confirming negotiations between Toronto and at
least one of the leading teams in the Eastern conference time
will tell if Toronto are successful in securing a new goalie to
strengthen their roster.
Last season Vancouver surprised everyone with their great play
all season - this year New York Islanders might do the same and
although they still cannot match what Vancouver did last season
the Islanders have already proved strong. They are currently in
8th place in the Eastern conference so it was a very positive
GM for New York that Inside the BHL got an interview with earlier
this week. Even though New York just barely missed the playoffs
last season and could possibly with one or two lucky trades get
that little extra strength that would take them into the playoffs
the GM chose not to make any significant changes commenting on
the fact of changes that "[He] just decided to let the same
team from last year build on its success and act as the leagues
dark-horse" As for the major strengths in his team James
told us that "The team's greatest strength would be its team
play and all out commitment. This makes up for our greatest weakness:
the lacking of a superstar." A fact that a quick look in
the points table would prove - the Islanders have only two players
among the 50 best when it come to point (Trevor Linden at 36 and
Mark Lawrence at 38). However goalie Marcel Cousineau has been
quite impressive so far since normal first starter Stephane Fiset
has been very disappointing in his starts Marcel have taken over
as starting goalie and have played some good games.
It is clear that the GM has great confidence in his teams potential
" I hope that this team can make the playoffs and show that
it doesn't always take high priced players to win. Advancement
in the playoffs and an eventual Stanley Cup is most definitely
in the Islanders future." he told Inside the BHL when asked
about his hopes for the future in the top of the eastern conference
it is still Washington dominating the rest. Washington has opened
a 2-point gap to the next three teams and has played a game less.
Washington is also the only team without a single loss so far
(6-0-1). With four teams in top five of the Eastern conference
it seems as if it is the Southeast division dominating all the
rest of the Eastern conference with only Carolina out of the best
8. Even more impressive is their achievement this week combining
for 14 wins in a total of 18 games (2 of the 4 none wins came
against other Southeast teams) it appears that the dominance have
moved south this season.
Shortly after losing Eric Lindros it seemed as if Pittsburgh was
not affected getting wins in their first two starts without him
but then something went wrong for the team and they have now lost
5 straight games and to extend the misery their GM has just left
the team at the moment there are hectic activity in finding a
suitable person to take over.
The owners of Pittsburgh must hope they will strike gold as they
did in Phoenix when they hired Tim Timpson. After he began as
GM the team has improved and have just complete a week were all
games were won. This has moved the team up into an impressive
5th place in the Western Conference.
One of the teams that felt the strength of Phoenix was Anaheim
after winning their first 4 games Anaheim suffered their first
lost in the season losing 1-0 to Phoenix. But Anaheim remains
strong and is still leading the Western Conference with a two-point
lead to Chicago.
The most disappointing team in the west has been Los Angeles having
only gotten one win in 7 games and neither goalies nor the players
have lived up to their potential.
Sometimes all it takes is a new GM to
turn things around for a team. This seems to be the case for Phoenix
where Tim Timpson took over as GM. Although the team is still
struggling a bit (1-2-1 this week) there has been a lot of activity
in Phoenix this past week. Inside the BHL spoke to Tim shortly
after he had taken over and he made it clear that he saw it as
his mission to "take this team from the laughing stock of
the league to a new found respectability" Tim told Inside
the BHL that he felt it was necessary to taken some changes to
achieve this "We would also like to obtain some more veteran
leadership in the locker-room" he said and in the following
days it became clear that Tim was serious making no less than
three trades. In two trades with Atlanta in acquired defenseman
Cory Sarich and Igor Kravchuk, right-winger Martin Gelinas and
veteran goalie Ken Wregget for center Juha Ylonnen and Paul Mara.
In the third trade he secured Gary Valk in exchange for Shane
Doan and Craig MacDonald. At the same time he made this trade
he also signed free agents Greg Adams and Guy Carbonneau. Time
will tell if these trades will bring the strength needed to achieve
Tim's mission. As for Tim's hope for the season he told Inside
"Our immediate goal is to get our team in a position to make
the playoffs, of course I would be lying if I said that the Staley
cup is not on our minds."
It seems as if Anaheim is out to prove that their great result in the previous season was not just a stroke of luck. Anaheim have won all of their first 4 games to take the lead in the league - but also Chicago have gone of to a good start and have not lost a game yet (3-0-1) and it seems that the team is out to make up for their disappointing last season in which they did not reach to play-offs.
In the other end of the table is Los Angeles without a single
point so far a very disappointing start for the team that reached
the play-offs last season.
A team that has surprised a bit so far is Calgary - after loosing
their first game to local rivals Edmonton the team has found the
form and have won their next three games with a total score of
17-6, which gives them the 3rd place in the conference.
Washington has been dominating the east so far getting 7 point
from their first 4 games. The result is even more impressive given
the fact that they have met strong teams as defending champions
Boston, last year's big surprise Vancouver and former champions
Edmonton.
Ottawa caused the biggest upset in the play-offs last season defeating
Toronto in the first round. So far this season they have been
struggling a bit to find the form having only won half their games
so far (2-2-0). But things could have been even worse - Ottawa
lost the first two games that caused the GM to act making a trade
with Carolina which game him Jeff O'Neill and Sean Hill in exchange
for Steve Duchesne and Rob Brown. Especially the signing of O'Neill
paid of when he scored the game winner in the game against San
Jose giving Ottawa their second straight win and Ottawa need to
show more of this kind of play to live up to the demand of the
GM who is hoping the team will make it even further than last
year and the GM told Inside the BHL that "[He's] really hoping
to win the cup, [He] know [his] team has what it takes."
Carolina also started the season with a couple of losses and but
as with Ottawa they also got some more power after the trade getting
their first win shortly after.
3 players got most of the attention before this season's talent
draft. These were defender Bryna Dabby, right-winger Ben St. John
and center Alexander Zecevic. In was Florida who got the first
pick and the secured Dabby, next up was Calgary who signed St.
John, Zecevic was signed as number three by Washington. Next up
were J. Prinz (signed by Philadelphia) and P. Martin (by Boston).
With 4 rounds gone some of the rookies have already made their
mark - in the points table it is two players from Washington that
have made their mark these are Tom Roberge (1-2) and Zecevic (1-1).
Roberge have been quite impressive getting his 3 points in just
2 games. Two other players have also scored two points these are
the two right-wingers Pierzynski (Edmonton, 2-0) and Dishington
(Colorado, 0-2). As for the two players signed as 1 and 2 they
have both scored a single point - however St. John has only played
in one game so far.
It seems as if the trade between Ottawa and Carolina was not enough
for either team because they have made another big trade where
Carolina got Shawn McEachern, Igor Larionov and Benoit Hogue in
exchange for Joe Thornton, Radek Bonk, Rick Tocchet and Jeremy
Shelling - time will tell if this trade will help the two teams.
In the west Anaheim got of to a good start against Buffalo and proved the have not lost the touch that brought them all the way to the play-off finals last season recording a 5-4 win in Buffalo mainly due to some excellent play by their to great right-wingers Bondra and Fleury who scored all 5 goals for Anaheim.
In another game in the west Edmonton continued their dominance of rivals Calgary. In their season opener they secured a 4-3 victory at home.
Former champions Nashville began their season at home taking on another big western conference team Dallas and the two strong teams ended up with a point each when the game ended 2-2.
In the east Boston starter their defence of their championship
taking on Atlanta at home and in another close match Boston walked
away with a 5-4 overtime win. The game also saw Jaromir Jagr back
in Boston after his controversial break with Boston in the middle
of the play-offs last season and in was a Jagr who was besides
him selves not getting a single
goal against his former team but getting 6 penalty minutes more
than anyone else in the game.
In another game which saw a team trying to defend a title from last season Toronto won 4-3 away in Los Angeles. Toronto trying to retain their titles as the best team in the regular season. One of Toronto's goals were scored by Chris Chelios who had just been signed as a free agent but more about this and the other big signings later in the edition.
The first day also saw some good results for three Southeast division teams. Tampa Bay, Florida and Washington all won their game with 2 goal margins and especially Florida seemed to be much stronger than last season posting a 5-3 win over St. Louis and Jason Allison continued to improve for Florida getting 2 goals one of which were the game winner. Tampa Bay proved strong defensively getting the only shout-out in the 9 games played on the first day.
As mentioned earlier there have been some big signings just before the beginning of the season. As a result of Chris Chelios arrival another of the Toronto defencemen Jason Smith has dropped. In Atlanta they continue to strengthen their offence after the signing of Jagr late last season they started this one of NY signing Vincent Damphousse.
In the last of the three big signings Philadelphia secured goalie Chris Osgood and dropped Wade Flaherty a move that may have caused some problems for the team. There have been rumors that the increase in salary expenses brought on by the signing of Osgood have broken the budget for the team and that Eric Lindros have threatened to leave if the situation is not solved quickly.
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