Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

After missing about a week of hockey, thanks to the Great Basement Flood of Oh-Nine, I was finally able to plug back in the HDTV widescreen on Monday evening, and get back into the Coolest Game on Ice, or is that The Fastest Game On Earth, or whatever we’re calling it these days.

Started with the Dallas Stars tangling with the feisty Columbus Blue Jackets.  Those dudes from Ohio, that well-known Western state, apparently are genuine in their efforts to make the NHL post-season for the first time in their relatively short history.

The hometown Blue Jackets poured shot-after-shot at Marty Turco, but the trouble was, this was vintage Marty Turco in net, not the imposter from earlier this season.  Turco made some fantastic saves, and the Stars emerged with the 3-2 win in the shootout, though Brad Richards left the game in the second period with what appeared to be a wrist injury.

Next flipped over to the suddenly firewagon Atlanta Thrashers in L.A. to take on the Kings.  Atlanta are too far out in the East to seriously make a run for a playoff spot, but you never know, particularly with the way Ilya Kovalchuk has been finding the back-of-the-net lately.  The Kings, however, are in a race for the bottom end of the Western Conference post-season invites, and every game will be huge here on in.

Well, it didn’t start that way for the Kings.  The Thrashers pumped three goals quickly past Jonathan Quick, building up a 3-0 lead only 7 1/2 minutes into the game.  Quick found the end of the bench, and Erik Ersberg took over between-the-pipes.

I was tempted to abandon this matchup, and turn my attention to the Oilers and Coyotes; in fact, I quickly checked that game out, before returning my attention to Southern California.

Maybe the Hockey Gods whispered in my ear, but it turned out to be a wise choice.  The Kings finally got on the board, only to see Atlanta answer back 33 seconds later.  L.A. got one more before the end of the first.

After 20 minutes, this game already had six goals, a fight, a goaltending change, a big lead by the road team, the start of a comeback by the home team, and all that with at least 40 minutes to play.

The Kings would outshoot the Thrashers 45-27 in the game, but more pointedly, L.A. outshot the visitors 34-13 in the second and third period combined.

Ersberg made a number of great saves, while Hedberg held his own when he was called upon.  There were nice goals, shorthanded goals, powerplay goals, video replays, and playoff-type tension as the third period wound down.

The Kings fought back from a 6-3 deficit and tied things up with a powerplay marker, and the goaltender yanked, with only five seconds remaining, on a nice goal by Anze Kopitar, who was able to corral a rebound, and had the presence-of-mind, and a boatload of talent, to step back and set himself properly before burying the puck.

I didn’t have a rooting interest in this game, so what I wanted to see was an entertaining hockey game, and both the Thrashers and the Kings delivered that on Monday evening.  Eventually, Atlanta would win 7-6 in the shootout, denying the Kings that vital second point.

Kings’ fans experienced a bittersweet evening of hockey.  They were five seconds away from losing, but at this stage in the season, they really needed that second point as well.

After three-and-a-half seasons, I’m still not totally sold on deciding regular-season games by the shootout, but I recognize the drama that comes with it, and on Monday night, it seemed only fitting that a game such as this would be decided in this manner.   Last man standing.

And the fans were standing.

Sure, three periods of high-tempo overtime would have been preferable, but we know that’s only going to occur during the playoffs.

The Thrashers-Kings game had a bit of everything, but mostly, it was fun to watch.  Credit to the Thrashers for not sitting back when they had the three-goal lead.  It almost cost them that second point, but they won my respect.  Head coach John Anderson and his troops made the game enjoyable to watch, and even though you’ll often hear that tired old “just win, baby” saying that I believe came from the mouth of Al Davis, more importantly, the Thrashers went instead with “let us entertain you”.

After all, sports is entertainment, and if it ain’t entertaining, people will find something else to do with their money, particuarly in these times.

Encore, encore!

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Rod Black and Craig Button man the helm this week, as they talk with The Golden Jet, Bobby Hull.  Other guests include Randy Jones of the Philadelphia Flyers, Rich Peverley of the Atlanta Thrashers and Mike Ribeiro of the Dallas Stars. Listen now.

Live From Wayne Gretzky’s is 2-hours of interactive radio from Wayne Gretzky’s Restaurant in Toronto. Listen every Saturday afternoon on NHL Home Ice, your local radio station or by podcast.

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Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Not sick-in-the-head, though many would advance that theory.  Sick as in “Man, I can’t get outta bed, it hurts so bad” sick.   One wicked case of sinus infection, which seems to happen this time every year.

Stuck at home, feeling like I blocked an Al MacInnis slapshot with my forehead, until the drugs kicked in.  Dragged myself to the basement TV room couch.  Thankfully, there were a lot of NHL games on this particular Tuesday evening.

Started with Pittsburgh in Montreal.  Talk about a game both teams wanted to win.  The Penguins trying to claw their way back into an Eastern Conference playoff spot; the Habs trying to hang onto theirs.

Don’t know what Canadiens’ head coach Guy Carbonneau said to Alex Kovalev, but the enigmatic Russian sniper played with some jump in his step.  Carey Price still makes me nervous as I watch him tend net.  His positioning is top-notch, but get the dude to move, and you’ve got a good chance of burying the puck.  Price will excel with a defensive core dedicated to clearing the puck.  Sounds simple, but not all defenceman master that basic skill.  Even so, Price appears to give up one questionable goal a game.  And he’s gotta stop doing that annoying shrug of his shoulders whenever he is scored upon.  It’s like he’s saying, “wasn’t my fault”.

Switched over to the resurgent Florida Panthers at the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Had intended to attend this game, but no such luck.  The Leafs staked themselves to a 3-1 lead, but watching it from the couch, I just knew that the Cats were gonna tie this thing up.  Toronto’s Alexei Ponikarovsky got caught for boarding with less than two minutes remaining in the game, and of course, Florida tied it up.

What cracked me up about that sequence of events was how Leafs’ uber-GM Brian Burke reacted, high up in the pressbox.  His face indicated he probably thought the penalty was horse-bleep.  Funny how that is.  It was clearly a boarding call.  It was also the only situation all night where a Leaf went to the penalty box alone.  Why can’t a team, or a homer TV/Radio play-by-play guy, or for that matter, most homer fans, admit when a penalty is a penalty?  Show some class.  Shuddup, and skate to the penalty box and feel shame for two minutes.  Or less.

And to complete the evening, ex-pat Bryan McCabe scored the overtime winner for Florida on a two-on-one slapshot.  Nice shot, but really, Vesa Toskala should have had it.  He’s a starting goaltender in the National Hockey League.  They’re supposed to get those ones, not allow them to squirt past him for the game-winning tally.

Hey, every so often one of those gets through.  Grant Fuhr was with the Maple Leafs when Trevor Linden unloaded a similar shot on him during a game at Maple Leaf Gardens during the autumn of 1991.  No doubt you could hear me scream with joy miles away, even though I was ensconced way up in the corner greys.

That goal stood up as the winner in a 2-1 victory for the Canucks.  After the game, Fuhr admitted one or two of those find their way through him every year.  He played the shot correctly, but sometimes, that little vulcanized rubber projectile has eyes of its own.

Same thing could be said for Toskula, but the trouble is, like Price, he tends to give up one bad goal a game.  A team cannot constantly win knowing they’re effectively one goal down to start.  Not that the Leafs’ brass probably minds; wasn’t this Year One of the constant rebuilding phase?

Switched games and caught the tail-end of the Capitals putting down the Devils 5-2.  Jose Theodore in net still makes me nervous.  Come to think of it, most goaltenders make me nervous.  So much so, I forgot about the sinuses for a while.  What will the Devils do when the Best Goaltender Of All-Time (C) returns?

A couple of late games that I was able to catch.  The mighty Marty Turco and his band of Merry Dallas Stars were at home and dropped the Calgary Flames 3-1.  Turco is back to playing like, well, Marty Turco, and the Stars are the force most of us expected them to be.

Which is why everyone has to keep their cool when it comes to watching this grand game of ours.  It’s a long, long season.  82 regular-season games.  All that matters is where you stand once your 82nd game is played.  Most teams will experience highs and lows during the course of the season.  Don’t allow either to convince you it’s a trend.

Having said that, Dallas moved to erase the cancer in their dressing room, and slowly, this team has rediscovered its confidence, even with key injuries.  Let the 2008-09 Dallas Stars stand as an example why a team should not automatically fire its head coach when things aren’t going as planned.  Often, the fault lines run deeper than that.

(Now watch, of course, as the Stars lose every game for the rest of the season).

Dallas were able to pull themselves out of a troubling nosedive, yet the Ottawa Senators seem keen on continuing their descent.  They get rid of the perceived malcontents, design some horrid third sweaters, the owner tells reporters to go blow themselves up, and then they fire head coach Craig Hartburg affter only 48 games.

48 games?  That’s not even as long as most people get to try out their fancy new widescreen HDTV before realizing they can’t pay for it, and return it to the store.

Whatever.  It looks good on the Senators that they lost tonight 1-0 to the rebuilding Los Angeles Kings.

Are we to expect a 11 am press conference on Wednesday morning announcing the firing of head coach Cory Clouston?  That’s the way things are tracking in Ottawa.

Flipped the channel.  Saw video of Adam Graves getting his number 9 retired by the New York Rangers.  With all due respect to Larry Brooks of the New York Post, who I enjoy reading, but is the whole world going crazy???

Okay, I get it.  Graves was a great guy off-the-ice, did great things for his community and was a key cog in the 1994 Stanley Cup winning Rangers team.  But c’mon.  This isn’t Rod Gilbert, or Jean Ratelle, or Ed Giacomin, or Brad Park, or Brian Leetch, or Mark Messier, or even Andy Bathgate, or Harry Howell, or Bill Gadsby, Vic Hadfield or the Cooks we’re talking about.

This is Adam Graves.

Messier commented that the night was not about honouring Graves’s stats.  Fair enough.  Raw numbers don’t always tell the whole tale.  But retiring his uniform number?   It should be first-and-foremost about what happens on the ice that determines sweater retirements, and Hall-of-Fame inductions, etc.

The standards have been lowered.  Ranger fans, take your best shot.  And don’t try and feed me the line, “ya had to be in New York to truly appreciate Graves”.

What about Bathgate, and Bernie Nicholls, and Rick Middleton, if the Rangers hadn’t been so stupid, stupid, stupid and traded away Nifty.  These guys also served as Number Nine.

Wow, win one Cup, one stinkin’ Cup after fifty-four years of nothing, and I guess you truly do walk together forever.

Then again, hey, it’s your team.  Do what you want.  The way things are going, each and every member of that ‘94 team will eventually have their number raised.  I can hardly wait for Jay Wells night.

And I thought the 1967 Maple Leafs were honoured to death.

Stop the presses!  As I type, the Vancouver Canucks actually win a game, 4-3, at home against the Hurricanes.  Alex Burrows pots the shorthanded winner with under two minutes to play.  Mats Sundin stays out of the penalty box and contributes a goal and an assist.

Stay tuned.

Time to take some more drugs.  All is well in the NHL.  Goodnight.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

The players admitted to me in game and after that for whatever reason, they came out flat on Saturday night against the Dallas Stars.  Still, I think the real reason we saw what we saw had more to do with Dallas, than the Phoenix Coyotes. They were routed by Detroit in their last game, their head coach wasn’t pleased and he let them know it.

So … off we raced to a scoreless tie after one, two and three periods. And after OT.  Goaltending was sharp at both ends.  And if not for Steven Reinprecht’s brilliant shootout goal to keep the Coyotes alive, we wouldn’t have seen Kyle Turris and his game winner.

Two points as this team hits the road. They had better make certain that these lack luster starts to games does NOT continue.  They must be aggressive on their forecheck and remember to fall in love with their team speed.  The rest will follow.

Listen as Coach Gretzky describes the game:

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It will be a grind … a true test of this team’s mental and physical make up.  And we will be there every step of the way!  See you in St. Paul on Tuesday.

- Todd

Everybody and their brother seems to have an opinion regarding Sean Avery of the Dallas Stars.  Wayne Gretzky has repeatedly said that this is a “league” issue.  In fact, even when pressed by a Toronto radio reporter recently to comment as a “league spokesman,” he wouldn’t go there.  And why should he?  He is the Head Coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.  Period.

Wayne is so open and candid and well spoken on so many issues … from Hockey Canada to autograph seeking to Barry Melrose to the state of hockey in Arizona.  You name it, he has been asked it.  I know, because most of the time I am standing there when he is asked.  Sometimes I am even asking the odd, obtuse question.  So he gets a pass in my book when he doesn’t feel the need to expand on an issue as volatile as Sean Avery and his recent comments.

That said, I have something for you. An assignment. Head to the Dallas Stars website and look up the blog written by their longtime television and radio voice Ralph Strangis. It is entitled, “A Man For Himself.“  It is a remarkable account and look into what the Stars have been dealing with.  It is a highly personal blog, too.  Then, if you have time, click on my interview with Ralph regarding his blog. It ran last night on the Coyotes Radio Network.  I think it will be worth your while.

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- Todd

Maybe they shouldn’t have won this game … but that’s water under the bridge.  They did.  And what a feeling it was to board the plane and head back to Phoenix back to .500 and void of that empty feeling created by that miserable night in Chicago.

The Coyotes had time to stew and to think about what happened that night and then had a back breaking practice to try and fix it.  All that is over now.

The Coyotes fell behind the Dallas Stars last night early but overcame a parade to their own
penalty box (7 penalties in the first period and a half) en route to a 5 3 win. Martin Hanzal and
Olli Jokinen with two goals each. Hanzal the game winner, Jokinen scoring at 19:56 of the second
changing the momentum of this game for good.

Coach Gretzky’s post-game:

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And guess what?  They get to do it all over again tonight at Jobing.com Arena against the Minnesota Wild.
See you at 6:30 on Fox Sports Arizona!

- Todd

There was a point in practice yesterday where Wayne had his players bring the puck up to the blue line and leave it there.  After a few takes on the drill, it got a little sloppy.  Nobody really knew what in the world the purpose of this drill was.  Simple, that’s what was happening the other night in Chicago … leaving the puck at the blue line!!  Sorry.  Gallows humor.

Olli Jokinen is back, the road trip concludes and we have it all for you on AZ TV.  Listen in on the coach. Some interesting comments on the role of agitators in the NHL.

Click to listen:

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Gee, I wonder why THAT was brought up here in Dallas???

- Todd

Riddle me this, Batman … How could a team that got it’s “butt kicked” in their last game, after a hard working practice session the following day, come out flat in their first game after the previous loss? I don’t get it.

It was almost a repeat of the game against Florida when the Coyotes gave a struggling Panther team a heavy dose of self confidence with a lack luster first period that included a goal and the lead. As we know, the Coyotes came storming back.

The Dallas Stars, however, are NOT the Florida Panthers. Dallas got the lead…..regained the lead after losing it, and won, snapping a three game losing streak in the process. A chance to move five points ahead of Dallas in the Pacific was squandered.

Suddenly, Wednesday’s game with Chicago now takes on added meaning. It’s a getaway game for a four game trip back east. On a more positive note, for perhaps the first time all season, and after being scratched in his last two games, Dan Carcillo finally looked like he belonged. That can only bode well on night’s like this one when the team needs a spark.

The tinder was too wet to ignite, tonight. Instead, it only smoldered. When the smoke clears, the Coyotes will wake up in the midst of a two game losing streak.

Listen what Wayne had to say:

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See you on Wednesday night on Fox Sports Arizona. Coyotes Live at 7.

- Todd