NHL History & News

The Eastern Conference is a wide open conference with some great battles at the top of the standings starting with two divisions, the Southeast Division and the Northeast Division.

The Southeast Division is even up with the favorite, the Washington Capitals and the long shot, the Florida Panthers. Both teams are cutting their way through the competition. The Caps expectations were high going into the season but the Panthers are surprising everyone. Both teams have 21 points and if the playoffs started tomorrow one of them would be heading home.

The Northeast Division is also in a dead heat. The Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs are neighbors just across the Niagra Falls from each other but the two teams are also neighbors in the standings. The two teams are identical except the Maple Leafs are have given up 19 more goals than the Sabres.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are leading the NHL in points, tied with the Western Conference leaders, the Blackhawks, with the 25 points. The Penguins are doing this despite their star player, Sidney Crosby, being out of commission with concussion issues.

There are several teams that are already eliminated from the NHL playoffs before we ever get to the month of December but only one team, the New York Islanders, is so far gone they can be considered a candidate for the No.1 draft pick.

Who is the favorite to win the Eastern Conference? Pittsburgh can win this conference easily if their star Crosby comes back but they will still win the conference without No. 87.

Which Eastern Conference team has the best odds to win the Stanley Cup?

On New Year’s Day at Heinz Field, home of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, the Arch NHL rivals Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals will battle against each other in the Winter Classic and NBC will broadcast the match at 1 pm ET.

For this matchup NHL Odds are not yet available.

The Penguins beat the Capitals 3-2 last Thursday in Washington when the teams met just last week.

The game went seven rounds of a shootout before Pittsburgh winger Pascal Dupuis scored the winning goal on Washington Capitals goaltender Michal Neuvirth, even though it was not easy matchup.

In the first minute of the game the tone was set early when Alex Ovechkin put a big hit on the Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin. In order to stretch his scoring streak to 23 straight games, it took just one shot and three minutes for Sidney Crosby after that. To give his team a 1-0 lead Crosby scored on a tip-in off a pass from Kris Letang.

When Mike Green scored to stop his 14-game scoring drought, Washington later scored on a five-on-three advantage.

Caps Coach Bruce Boudreau said of Green’s play that, “I thought it was his best game in a long time, He played good defensively and yet he jumped into the play to make things happen offensively. You could see when he scored – it was like the weight of the world came off his shoulders.”

On Sunday (7 pm ET, NHL) at Madison Square Garden, the New York Rangers will battle against the Washington Capitals.

For this match NHL Odds are not yet available.

As the Capitals were to face the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday both teams will be on the second half of a back-to-back and also the Rangers visited the Columbus Blue Jackets the same day.

Thursday, in their previous game Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals lost their fourth-straight game. In over a year it is their longest losing streak.
As the Florida Panthers blanked Washington 3-0, Tomas Vokoun stopped 36 shots to earn his third shutout of the season and on the power play Washington went 0-for-8.

Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau makes a statement “If your best players aren’t your best players, you’re not going to have success, you have to get production out of your best players, and it’s not happening for us right now.”

By beating the Senators 5-3, the Rangers took on the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.

Erik Christensen, Derek Stepan, Michael Sauer, Brandon Dubinsky and Ruslan Fedotenko all had singles for New York.

The Rangers, who have won seven of their past 10, Henrik Lundqvist stopped 24 shots for them.

In NHL action Wednesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs visit Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

The Leafs have stumbled lately, although they got off to a great start, and are now at 5-4-1, Washington is at 7-4-0.

The Maple leafs will be without forward Colby Armstrong, on the injury front. He is out indefinitely with a hand injury. Including forwards Boyd Gordon (Day-to-Day, undisclosed) and Marcus Johansson (Day-to-Day, hip injury); the Capitals have a number of players sidelines.

In the past 10 head-to-head matchups, Toronto is 5-5-0-0, seven of which have gone under the total. On Jan. 15 last season, the teams last met, when the Capitals blew out the Maple Leafs 6-1 and cashed as a -255 home favorite. Over the total of 5.5, went the score.

On Saturday was Toronto’s last game, when it lost 2-0 to the New York Rangers. A -150 moneyline home favorite was Toronto.

With a 7-2 shellacking of the Calgary Flames, Washington closed out a road trip. A -115 home favorite was Calgary.

The Washington Capitals made another move this week, shoring up one of their leading scorers for the next decade. Nicklas Backstrom was signed to a 10 year $67 million deal. Backstrom had his best season ever scoring 33 goals and 68 assists. His 101 points in 2010 was good enough to place him 4th in the league in scoring.

Spending this kind of money on one of the best centers in the league, who is only 22 years old, is a smart move by the Capitals. Not only did they ensure that they will have two of the best players in the world on their roster for the next decade, Ovechkin is signed for 10 more years as well, they are getting a very durable player at a reasonable price. Backstrom has yet to miss a game over three NHL seasons.

Many Capitals fans might be worried that the team is overspending and committing too much money to just two players in Backstrom and Ovechkin considering their team was just upset in the first round of the NHL playoffs by 8 seed Montreal. While I do not blame some fans for thinking this way I do not agree with it however. Whenever you get the chance to lock up two players who combined for 210 points, easily making the top scoring teammate duo in the league, you have to make sure you do so. With the signing of Backstrom the Washington Capitals appear that they will be competitive for many years to come.