With the retirement of Brian Rafalski, and Nicklas Lidstrom still deliberating, the Red Wings now have only three sure things on defense; Niklas Kronwall, Brad Stuart, and Jakub Kindl. The latter, now 24, played 48 games with Detroit last season and will replace Ruslan Salei, most likely on the Wings’ third pairing. Kronwall and Stuart, meanwhile, played significant roles all of last season and were Mike Babcock’s first choice in pressure situations in the playoffs. They will likely become the number one pairing next season.
Tags: brian rafalski, detroit red wings, free agency
Posted in Detroit Red Wings | 3 Comments »
May 19th, 2011
In 2002, at just 17 years old, Jimmy Howard led the United States team to a Gold Medal at the IIHF World U18 Championships, posting a 1.33 goals against average and a .954 save percentage in 6 games. Following his stellar performances as a member of the U.S. National Team Development Program, Howard earned the Dave Peterson Goalie of the Year Award, establishing himself as the top goaltender prospect in USA Hockey. He continued his development for three seasons at the University of Maine, where he still holds single season and career school records for shutouts, goals against average, and save percentage. During the 2003-04 season, he set NCAA records for goals against average (1.19) and save percentage (.954), both of which still stand today. Howard was selected in the 2nd round (64th overall) in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft by the Detroit Red Wings, and joined the Grand Rapids Griffins in 2005. He quickly established himself as the Griffins’ number one, and remained with the club, maturing and developing his skill-set, for four full seasons. In those four seasons, he made the AHL PlanetUSA All-Star Team twice, and was the Grand Rapids Griffins’ recipient of the AHL’s Man of the Year award twice as well.
Tags: antti niemi, jimmy howard, pekka rinne
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April 29th, 2011
The Frank J. Selke Trophy is awarded annually “to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game” as judged by the approximately 400 member Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. The NHL Awards are voted on at the end of the regular season, so the writers did not, unfortunately, get to take into account Detroit Red Wing Pavel Datsyuk’s incredible first-round performance against the Phoenix Coyotes. Nor could they factor in Ryan Kesler and Jonathan Toews’ significant contributions in the seven-game battle which their respective teams, the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks, recently fought.
Pavel Datsyuk has claimed the trophy each of the last three years, and every time he has been nominated. If he were to win again, he would be first player to do so four consecutive times since Montreal’s Bob Gainey won it from ‘77-78 to ‘80-81, the first four seasons the award was presented. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: datsyuk, kesler, nhl, selke, stats, toews
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February 24th, 2010
On Sunday night in prime time, the preliminary round hockey game between USA and Canada went far beyond expectations. The most anticipated Olympic event to take place thus far in the 2010 Winter Games (According to Nielsen, 30.6% of all internet postings related to the Games were linked to hockey) was an instant classic; a thrilling, high-scoring affair which resulted in the American upset of Canada in the Olympics for the first time in 50 years.
But this game, which sent the entire nation of Canada spiraling into a severe state of depression, was replaced on the main American network by–wait for it–Ice Dancing, the middle of three rounds, in conjunction with an exhilarating combination of tape-delayed Bobsled, Skiing, and Speed Skating. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: canada, hockey, nbc, nhl, Olympics, tv ratings, usa
Posted in Olympics | 3 Comments »