Versus has a 2 fer with the Caps @ the Bruins, followed by San Jose @ Colorado in game 2. Plus according to Comcast, Centre Ice is supposed to be a freebie for several days beginning today as well.
I have seen a prediction already that Vancouver should go all the way. Anybody else hear/feel anything?
All I have to say is : DROP THE PUCK!!!!!

The NHL is back...so I've heard. The message on my DVR said that Center Ice preview runs until Oct. 24.

The Kessel-less Bruins did not impress me last night. Little to no offense punch as I suspected. Meanwhile the Versus boys were sure talking up the Flyers and Pronger last night. Both of them had the Flyers in the finals already. Tonight get to see the new look against the Canes on Versus. I look forward to this. The Leafs/Habs went to overtime with Montreal on the winning side.

The Flyers-Hurricanes aren't on Versus. Versus is showing the two games being played in Europe starting at noon ET.

My mistake. Its on Center Ice.

Well, Joe the dream begins on the right foot with the Flyers first victory. Emery looked solid getting the shutout behind a strong defense. Perhaps the arrival of Emery and Pronger will make a difference this year.

Welll Vancouver is now 0 and 3, and though I am a Canucks fan, this is a lousey start. Montreal is here tomorrow, Wednesday, and Price is hot in the net and would look great in the nude.
I would like to really know how the Toronto goalie Jonas Gustavsonn really got the name The Monster. Is it really because he is big in the net, or is it because he has a big dick?

I thoroughly enjoyed the Caps/Flyers game. Back and forth and had lots of bounce to it, literally. The Flyers look like the real deal so far, and they have to be pleased with this start. I look forward to their rematches this season with Pittsburgh, to see how they will fare. I heard Benninati of Versus say last night that last weeks Caps/Bruins game, had the highest ratings of any game ever, on Versus.

Red Wings aren't looking great at the moment either. Maybe now that they're back in North America they can concentrate on hockey instead of jet lag. I'm a diehard Wings fan, but I don't know about this young team. Rebuilding year?

Don't know about the Wings situation. I would say as far as the Rangers, yes. I watched some of the Rangers/Devils game the other night, and there were alot of names I didn't recognize with New York. I am salivating at the game on later on Center Ice between Pittsburgh and Philly. Should be something.

Leafs most expensive ticket in the league.

So my Leafs are winless in 7 now - worst start in the sad history of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Leaf Nation is getting ugly - and funny.

The game this past Saturday at the ACC against the Rangers was the ugly. Leaf fans were chanting 'zero and seven' through much of the third period. If not chanting that they were booing the Leafs nonstop. It was ugly. Many fans apparently took off their Leaf uniforms and left them in the ACC. Others stormed the box office after the game demanding their money back.

Fortunately the Leafs - and their fans have a 7 day break bewtween games. for the Leafs - hopefully they can get their act together. For the fans the anger has subsided and now the Toronto Star has a front page sports section story today - that has taken off on the Star's website with fans submitting Leaf jokes.

Among my favourites
- What do the Leafs and the Titanic have in common? They both looked good until they hit the ice.
- Where is the red light district in Toronto? Behind the Leafs net
- What do the Leafs, Blue Jays and Argos (Toronto's football team) all have in common? They all can't play hockey.
- Why did Vesa Toskala stop the couple from having sex? He wanted to see what it would be like to stop somebody from scoring.
- What is taking so long for the Leafs to get their website up and running? They can't seem to string 3 w's together.
- A Canadian peacekeeper on patrol found a bottle. when he rubbed it out popped a genie. The genie told the soldier he would grant him one wish. The soldier thought about it for a while and then pulled out a map of the region he was in and said - 'I want peace for this region - and pointed at the area on the map'. The genie paused and said. Oh - not sure I can do that, do you have another wish? The soldier thought about it for a minute and then said - 'OK - can you make the Leafs win the Stanely Cup?' The genie replied - 'Let me take another look at that map'.

Literally dozens more on the Stars website at http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/m...-jokes#comments

You gotta know though. they WILL win some games. The question is when obviously. I have sympathy for the team and their fans. I have seen some of their games. They could use some offense for sure, as it does appear they are lacking there. They could also be accused of trying to hard as well. The time of should do them some good. All fans can do for now is to try and hang in there. The wins will come, sooner or later.

Leafs: still winless.

This is not hurting the fans as much as it's hurting the ticket scalpers*. Gone are the days when they could charge double face value (or more) for tickets. Real fans actually have a better chance of buying tickets now--from the box office or from scalpers (as with the Blue Jays, the scalpers may soon be calling out "Cheaper than the box office! )

*It just dawned on me: is "scalping" considered a politically incorrect word like "gyp" (as it is derived from "Gypsy" and is a derogatory term for the Roma people and their supposed penchant for swindling people).

Well if they keep playing stupid hockey like they did last night, they will be winless for awhile yet. I watched a good portion of the Canucks/Leafs game. The Leafs started well. Had lots of energy, and LOTS of chances. They should have scored first. They, they started taking penalties. LOTS of penalites. Too many, and they let the game slip away. Got to play smater than that!

Don't mean to rub your nose in it, Pat and Mark, but my Pens are sitting pretty with a 9-2-0 record, despite that 4-1 loss to the Devils. Next up: Wednesday night at Montreal.

Well at least the Leafs have won one - beating the Ducks the other night. As Mark noted with the crappy start tickets are not going for as much as a premium as in the past - but you know that will change IF the Leafs ever start to string some winds together.

The TV ratings are still there as the Leafs - Canucks game the other night helped CBC average over 2.3 million viewers for the early game on Saturday night's Hockey Night In Canada. That was almost double the viewers of the second place sporting event of the weekend up here in Canda which was a CFL game. Here is a list of the Top Ten rated sports programs this past weekend in Canada - and you see Hockey still rules.

1. NHL, Leafs at Canucks (nationally)/Rangers at Habs/Bruins at Sens (regionally), Saturday, CBC: 2,306,000

2. CFL: Lions at Roughriders, Saturday, TSN: 1,202,000

3. NHL: Oilers at Flames, Saturday, CBC: 1,119,000

4. NFL: Early games, Sunday, CTV: 899,000

5. CFL: Eskimos at Stampeders, Friday, TSN: 714,000

6. CFL: Ticats at Argonauts, Friday, TSN: 706,000

7. CFL: Alouettes at Blue Bombers, Saturday, TSN: 637,000

8. NFL: Eagles at Redkins, Monday, TSN: 592,000

9. MLB: Angels at Yankees, Sunday, Sportsnet: 530,000*

10. NHL, Hockey Night In Canada pre-game, Saturday, CBC: 507,000

Tuesday's Flyers-Capitals game on Versus was the highest-rated regular season game in Versus history, despite the whole DirecTV/Comcast debacle.

Well it being a little over a month into the season some of my predictions have certainly not come true, yet.

My biggest surprise has to be Colorado. Who saw that coming? Not me. As of right now they are sitting at the top of the NHL. Which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what I expected. Did I enter the Twilight Zone?

How about the Central? Right now, only Columbus makes the Playoffs. Not Chicago nor Detroit (though in fairness they aren't far out). I thought this division might be the toughest, but it looks like the Atlantic is where its at, for now.

Nor did I expect Carolina to be struggling this hard. I didn't pick them to be a major contender, but to go from conference finals to dead last in the league. Ouch.

Sorry to all the Toronto fans, but I anticipated some trouble there, but not quite the start they had though. Can't imagine the Hell it must to be playing there right now. Then again, for the league minimum I think I could learn to live with it LOL.

I didn't see the Atlantic being quite the powerhouse division. Not a single team is below.500. Not one (as I write this, of course). That includes the Islanders. Not exactly a team I was expecting to hold its own.

If someone had said that Buffalo would be leading the Northeast more than a month in, I would have laughed.

I never picked New Jersey to be doing quite this well.

Lastly, and certainly not least, was the Detroit-St. Louis series in Sweden. Never would I have thought that Detroit would lose both games with near effective home ice advantage. But they lost both games after leading by multiple goals in both games. I could see offense oriented teams like Chicago, San Jose, or Pittsburgh managing to do that once, but even they couldn't pull that off twice. Seeing St. Louis do it twice was the shocker for me. Detroit just doesn't let that kind of thing happen, especially against offensively deficient teams like St. Louis. If I were a Detroit fan, I wouldn't be panicking, but a note of caution about the future of that team should have gone up.

Me either. LOTS of suprises so far! Your right about Colorado. No body I heard picked them to do anything. Can never rule out Detroit. They were hot until last night. And the Pens were smoking up until recently too. Seems to be alot of parity. Its early though, but we'll see how this pans out. It could be a very, very interesting playoffs this season.

My first visit to the ACC for a Leafs game this past Saturday. Fantastic renovation and addition to the west end of the arena. It really relieves the between period crowding on the upper level and looks fabulous! Plus what a night to be there. Hall of Fame Game night - with the biggest cheers for Stevie Y. Leafs fans joined the 2000 or so Wings fans in attendance in giving him a long loud standing ovation during the lengthy pregame ceremony. Also a nice moment when Bobby Hull embraced his son Brett. And who knew Luc Robitaille is the all time leading scorer for a left winger?

And then surprise, surprise - it was us Leafs' fans who had the most to cheer about the rest of the night with an impressive 5 - 1 win. Two wins in a row - and at least a point in six straight games now. Kessel looked good - especially on the power play and the 'Monster' Gustavsson continues to shine in net.

Dare I say it - reason for optimism in Leafs Nation.

TP, I watched the game. The Leafs played strong and intense. They were far more motivated than Detroit was. Kessel will help alot. I look for them to make a move in the standings soon.

I certainly agree there is reason for some optimism. For the first time since the pre-season, they kind of looked like a team. But let's face facts, when you start out the season (what was it? 0-7-3?) there really is only one direction you can go.

Attention NHL coaches: do NOT coach a team playing in Philadelphia on the day after Thanksgiving. For the 4th year in a row, one of the teams playing in that game has fired their coach! If you want to remain employed, DO NOT coach in Philadelphia on Black Friday! (Of course, there's a twist to this year's firing, one that makes the majority of Flyers fans quite happy...)

Well - other than the 4 - 0 win last week against the Flyers - sorry Joe - the Leafs are struggling once again and now have to be considered a long shot to make the playoffs. Bruins must love that getting a first round lottery pick because of the Phil Kessel trade.

But I've got to say other than their terrible habit of always falling behind 1-0 or most of the time even 2-0 - the Leafs have been a fun team to watch and hope for the future with some of their young guns is clearly there. They just need some better finish around the opposition's net and tighten up their penalty kill and they'll be fine. Unfortunately even if they do that making the playoffs this year is a long shot.

There have been so many games that the Leafs have lost where they have been the better team for much of the game. I can think of 5 or 6 losses where the Leafs outshot the other team by more than a 2-1 margin and three of those games were against Buffalo where Ryan Miller has just stoned them.

One of the other games that the Leafs lost - that they had no business losing - was the Boxing Day (Dec 26 for you Yanks) game at the ACC against the Habs. I went to that game and I've got to tell you - I felt like I was living a 'Canadiana experience' that night.
- 6:20PM - jump on the Queen Streetcar down the block from my apartment and find myself with about six other Leaf fans and four in Habs uniforms in a good natured ribbing session to the Queen Subway.
- 6:30PM - get on the subway heading south to the ACC and the subway car is packed with fans heading to the game. Multiply my street car numbers tenfold and you've got an idea of the crowd on the subway car and a Go Habs Go chant even breaks out - quickly replied to and drowned out with a Go Leafs Go chant
- an absolute buzz in the air walking through Union Station to the adjoining ACC with thousands of Habs fans mingling with their Leaf fan counterparts.
- 6:50PM move into our seats and the place is almost full 20 minutes before the puck is going to drop, chants of Go Habs Go! and Go Leafs Go! reverberating around the ACC - even though the teams haven't even left their dressing rooms yet.
- 7:05PM a lengthy dramatic video presentation showing the Leafs wins dating back to the 30's and 40's through the 1967 Stanley Cup win over the Habs (our last one) interspersed with more recent Leaf highlights since then all coming to a dramatic conclusion with the motto the Leafs are using this year 'Spirit is everything' appearing on all the screens of the scoreboard to a roar as the teams take the ice. The Canadiens fan sitting beside me turns to me and says - 'That's a good line for you guys 'Spirit is everything' - for us WINNING is everything!' All the Habs fans around us who heard him laughed - and begrudgingly us Leaf fans knew exactly what he meant by that and laughed along.
- well of course in the first 10 minutes the Leafs fall behind 2-0. After that though the Leafs are flying and comeback to make it 2-1 midway through the second.
- second intermission and we start chatting with the family sitting in front of us, a dad with his three sons. Dad and two of the kids in Leafs uniforms the other son in a Habs uniform. So naturally we are ribbing the kid in the Habs uniform and the other three love it. I even say to the Dad - 'what happened - drop him on his head too often when he was a baby.' They all howled and his Dad replies with 'I don't know where we went wrong with that one.'
- the Leafs are flying in the third and tie the game. The place goes crazy! For the last 10 minutes the ACC is just rocking as the Leafs buzz the Habs goal over and over and over again but Huet stands on his head to keep the game tied even though the Leafs outshoot the Canadiens by about 50-20. Then with 5 seconds left a perfect pass from the corner to Kessel wide open in the slot 10 feet in front of the Habs goal with more than half the net empty and he blasts it - Leafs fans leap out of their seats thinking for sure it was going to be the game winning goal - but no somehow he shoots it inches wide. Leaf fans all standing moan and hold their heads in disbelief and sure enough what we feared at that moment happened - the Habs win it on a fluke shot in overtime. Leaf fans leave their own building being serenaded by Habs fans sing 'Na na na na, na na na na - Hey - Hey Good Bye!. And the kid from the family in front of me in the Habs uniform turns to us with a big grin on his face and says - 'I think I'm the only one that was not dropped on my head - because you've got to be crazy to be a Leafs fan.'

Truly a night of living the typical 'Canadiana experience' circa 2010.

God the flames are a tragedy lately.

Maybe it's time to unload some overpaid, underperformer (Joke-inin and Pheneuf) and, if not salvage this season, think about next.