Thursday night the Chicago Blackhawks took their 12 game winning streak into Amalie Arena to face the Tampa Bay Lighting in a rematch of last seasons Stanley Cup finals. The Lighting where coming in on a 6 game winning streak of their own. It was a close game 2-1, but it was the Blackhawks that saw there team record winning streak end. It looked good for the Blackhawks early as Artem Anisimov put them up 1-0 on his 17 goal of the season early in the 1st period. Patrick Kane picked up an assists on the goal. Just about 7 minutes later Anton Stralman tied it up with his 6th goal of the season to make it a 1-1 game. Victor Hedman and Valteri Flippula assisted on Hedman’s goal. The teams entered the 2nd period tied 1-1. Late in the 2nd period on the power play Nikita Kucherov scored his 20th goal of the season; which turned out to be the game winner. Hedman and Alex Killorn assisted on the goal. Each team had scoring chances in the 3rd period, but both Corey Crawford (Blackhawks) and Ben Bishop (Tampa Bay) kept the puck out of the net. Crawford stopped all 10 shots he saw in the 3rd period. For the game Crawford stopped 31 of the 33 shots he faced. Bishop stopped 9 shots in the 3rd period, but overall had a lighter night in goal than Crawford as the Blackhawks only registered 18 total shots on goal. Bishop stopped 17 of the 18 shots he faced. Tampa bay will take it’s 7-game winning streak on the road tonight (Saturday) as they face the Florida Panthers. With their record breaking streak snapped you had to wonder how the Blackhawks would bounce back and they didn’t have to wait long to take the ice again as they where scheduled for back to back games as they took the ice last night to play the Panthers. The Panthers had there own 12 game winning streak just a couple of weeks ago, but came into last nights game on a 4 game losing streak. Crawford got the night off in goal for the Blackhawks as Scott Darling got the start. The Panthers didn’t waste any time getting to Darling as Reilly Smith (14), former Blackhawk Brian Campbell (3) and Quinton Howden (5) all tallied 1st period goals to give the Panthers a 3-0 after one. Aaron Eckblad picked up his 10th goal of the season in the 2nd period and as it turned out the Panthers didn’t need anymore than 1 goal as Roberto Luongo turned away all 27 of the Blackhawks shots he faced for his 4th shutout of the season in Florida’s 4-0 victory. So it’s went from winning 12 in a row to losing 2 in a row for the Blackhawks and it doesn’t get any easier as they face the St. Louis Blues on Sunday, but it is a home game for the Blackhawks. St. Louis is in 3rd place in the Central division of the Western Conference behind the Blackhawks and the Dallas Stars. The Blues will also be coming into Sunday’s game off a loss as they suffered a 2-1 shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche Friday night.
With a little over half of the season gone it looks as though the Washington Capitals are the best team in the NHL. Washington is 35-8-3 for 73 points on the season. The Blackhawks at 68 points and the Stars at 65 points are the two closet teams to the Capitals. While I’m sure you’re not surprised that Alexander Ovechkin leads the Capitals on goals with 28. It might be a bit of a surprise to you that he;s just 3rd on the team in overall scoring. With 15 goals and 33 assists Evgeny Kuznetsov leads Washington with 48 points. Nicklas Backstrom has 15 goals and 29 assists and is 2nd on the team in scoring with 44 points. Ovechkin is actually 3rd on the team in scoring with 42 points. While Ovechkin, Kuznetsov and Backstrom have led the Capitals offense t the best record in hockey it’s Braden Holtby who holds things down in goal. Holtby has started 38 out of Washington’s 46 games this season. Holtby is 30-5-2 and his 30 wins leads the league. He has the 3rd best Goals Against Average at 2.01 and his Save Percentage of .930 ranks 5th among regular starting goalies. Holtby doesn’t garner much attention, but he’s a big reason the Capitals are playing like the best team in the NHL.
The NFL will decide this Sunday who gets to play in the Super Bowl as the Conference championships take place. It starts with the New England Patriots at the Denver Broncos which is scheduled to kickoff at 2:05. The night game features the Arizona Cardinals at the Carolina Panthers. These 4 teams where the top seeds in their conferences; so I guess you could say they’re suppose to be here. I have to tell you I’ve been very disappointed in the playoff games so far. I think there’s only been 1 or maybe 2 games that have been good or even interesting to watch. I’m hoping that these 2 games will come through and give me something to look forward to as we head into the week off before the Super Bowl. Like we always do on the Sunday edition of Sports Time Radio Mr. Fantasy and I will do our best to break these games down and let you know who we think will win and why. Of course will let you in on who Dan the Man and Schaumburg are picking to win the games as well. In our playoff picks Dan the Man and I are tied at 6-2 while Schaumburg Stu and Mr. Fantasy are just a game behind at 5-3. Not to give too much away, but I did have Arizona winning the Super Bowl when we made our pre-season predictions; so you might be able to guess who I’ll be raking to win the Arizona/Carolina game. For the rest of the picks you’ll have to tune in between 10:00 a.m. and Noon on BlogTalkRadio.com to hear who everyone is going with to win.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the Cleveland Cavaliers made a change at head coach yesterday. Even with a career record of 83-40 in a season and a half and a trip to the NBA Finals David Blatt was fired by the Cavaliers. It may seem like an odd firing, but remember that he wasn’t LeBron James’ guy and it’s no real surprise that after they where embarrassed by the Golden State Warriors on Monday that they used this to fire Blatt. Tyronn Lue was immediately hired as head coach and given a 3 year deal. Lue gets to coach his first game as head coach tonight as the Cavaliers face the Chicago Bulls. Now I heard it reported over and over yesterday that James wasn’t consulted in the decision to fire Blatt. There is no possible way that you’ll every get me to believe that. There is no way the team didn’t go to James before they made this decision and asked his opinion. If Blatt was a guy James liked playing for there’s no chance that this move would’ve been made. In general teams don’t like to anger their best player. Of course this is the Cavaliers we’re talking about; so you never know. Lue inherits the best team in the Eastern Conference and should have no trouble at all taking the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals where he’ll probably suffer the same fate as Blatt. A loss to a better Western Conference team.
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