Islanders vs Rangers: The Throwdown

This is it, what they have been waiting for. The Islanders and the Rangers play Sunday for the first time since the Chris Simon stick swinging incident.

This was the first incident in recent memory (followed quickly by the Jordin Tootoo sucker punch) that occured outside of Vancouver. Both the Marty McSorley and Donald Brashear attach and the Todd Bertuzzi ambush on Steve Moore both occured in Vancouver.

Why is this important? For a few reasons:
1) If you own or can grab Aaron Asham, Brendan Witt, Colton Orr or Ryan Hollweg off of your leagues waiver wire you are likely to get a few PIMs out of tomorrow's game
2) The NHL and the entire hockey world will be watching to see what happens.

In case you missed it, Chris Simon is out for the rest of the season so the remaining tough guys on both teams are Aaron Asham and Brendan Witt for the Islanders and Colton Orr and Ryan Hollweg for the Rangers. After Colton Orr's demolition of Todd Fedoruk and Ben Eager last week I pity anyone who steps up to the plate with Orr.

This game has larger implications than just who will fight who. The plethora of incidents over the last several weeks include: Wade Belak fighting Cam Janssen, Colton Orr fighting Todd Fedoruk and Ben Eager in retaliation for incidents which occured weeks in the past. Not to mention the Jordin Tootoo sucker punch that sent Stephan Robidas to the hospital with a concussion.

Todd Fedoruk was removed from the ice on a stretcher after being KO'd less than a minute into the game on Wednesday night and the following night John Sim was sent to the hospital with a fractured orbital bone after tangling with Mark Bell.

This rash of fighters injuries and retaliation has prompted Directory of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell to suggest that the NHL needs to take a look at fighting in the game and implement procedures to limit it.

So the question becomes... will there be a fight in tomorrow's game? And if there is, what will be the repercussions?

Perhaps even more importantly, if a hockey fight occurs in New York in the middle of the day and no one is watching... does it make any noise?

Starting Goalies in the NHL tonight Saturday, March 24

Below are the reported starters for Saturday night:
(Bold is my predicted winner, Italic is an uncertain starter)
Rangers - Henrik Lundqvist vs Bruins - Joey MacDonald
Islanders - Rick DiPietro vs Flyers - Martin Biron
Thrashers - Kari Lehtonen vs Penguins - Jocelyn Thibault
Blues - Jason Bacashihua vs Red Wings - Domink Hasek
Sharks - Evgeni Nabokov vs Hurricanes - Cam Ward
Capitals - Olaf Kolzig vs Canadiens - Jaroslav Halak
Sabres - Ty Conklin vs Maple Leafs - Andrew Raycroft
Devils - Martin Brodeur vs Panthers - Ed Belfour
Senators - Ray Emery vs Lightning - Marc Denis
Kings - Sean Burke vs Wild - Josh Harding
Predators - Tomas Vokoun vs Oilers - Jussi Markkanen
Stars - Mike Smith vs Coyotes - Mikael Tellqvist

How did I do last night?
8-8 for starters, 2-4 on winners
(Bold is the actual winner, Italic is my predicted winner)
Maple Leafs - Andrew Raycroft vs Sabres - Ryan Miller
Kings - Mathieu Garon vs Black Hawks - Nikolai Khabibulin
Avalanche - Peter Budaj vs Oilers - Dwayne Roloson
Stars - Marty Turco vs Ducks - J.S. Giguere

Starting Goalies in the NHL tonight Friday, March 23

Below are the reported starters for Friday night:
(Bold is my predicted winner, Italic is an uncertain starter)

Maple Leafs - Andrew Raycroft vs Sabres - Ryan Miller
Kings - Mathieu Garon vs Black Hawks - Nikolai Khabibulin
Avalanche - Peter Budaj vs Oilers - Dwayne Roloson
Stars - Marty Turco vs Ducks - J.S. Giguere

How did I do last night?
18-20 for starters, 5-9 on winners
(Bold is the actual winner, Italic is my predicted winner)

Capitals - Brent Johnson vs Hurricanes - John Grahame
Sharks - Vesa Toskala vs Thrashers - Kari Lehtonen
Senators - Ray Emery vs Panthers - Ed Belfour
Blue Jackets - Frederik Norrena vs Red Wings - Chris Osgood
Penguins - Marc-Andre Fleury vs Islanders - Rick DiPietro
Canadiens - Jaroslav Halak vs Bruins - Tim Thomas
Devils - Martin Brodeur vs Lightning - Johan Holmqvist Marc Denis
Blues - Curtis Sanford vs Wild - Niklas Backstrom
Predators - Chris Mason vs Flames - Miikka Kiprusoff
Ducks - Ilya Bryzgalov vs Coyotes - Mikael Tellqvist Curtis Joseph

Does Ray Emery wear women's shoes

This is a bit of a strange trip, but trust me and follow along.

For some strange reason I decided to type the words 'puck bunnies' into Google and see what happened. I am at the office today so I wasn't trying to find pornographic pictures of amorous hockey females.

Oh, wait, for those of you who don't know what a puck bunny is...

According to Wikipedia: "A puck bunny is a female ice hockey fan, often one whose interest in the sport is primarily motivated by sexual attraction to the players rather than enjoyment of the game itself."

So, back to my original train of thought.. a naked blonde walks into a bar with a foot long salami under one arm and a poodle under the... wait, wrong conversation.

I type puck bunnies into Google and the first result I get is to an online forum for puck bunnies... no really this actually happened. (Check out http://www.voy.com/193541/)

So I get sucked in and start to troll around reading posts from various puck bunnies, puck bunny haters and puck bunny wannabees. Oh, yeah, and the venerable retired puck bunnies (aka gray hares). I must admit that I probably spent close to an hour reading about the exploits and conquests of various puck bunnies. Did you know that Wojtek Wolski is very well hung but has an extremely hairy ass? Neither did I, and I apologize for putting that information into your brain.

Back to the point... I stumbled across a thread about Ray Emery here. The discussion begins around Ray Emery's shoe collection, apparently he has around 500 pairs of shoes, and one pair of women's boots! I became entranced with their discussion about why Emery would have a pair of ladies boots in his closet. Opinions ranged from an ex girlfriend leaving them behind to his penchant for wearing women's shoes.

Just let me say that it was an enjoyable afternoon spent rolling around in the dirt with a bunch of puck bunnies. I hope you enjoy it too.

Orr drops Fedoruk onto his ass in 21 seconds

The New York Rangers vs Philadelphia Flyers matchup started off on the wrong foot last night.

Colton Orr went after Todd Fedoruk a mere 21 seconds into the 1st period and very shortly afterwards dropped Fedoruk to the ice with a big overhand right. Watch the fight below:



This is the second time in three nights that two NHL heavyweights have dropped the gloves in an effort to 'send a message' to the other team and the rest of the NHL. The Toronto Maple Leafs Wade Belak went after the New Jersey Devils Cam Janssen on Tuesday night in retaliation for the late hit that Janssen put on Tomas Kaberle in the last meeting between those two teams.

This fight was eerily similar as Orr was going after Fedoruk in order to 'send a message' about the hit that put Brendan Shanahan out for 15 games in the two teams last meeting, even if it was accidental.

Still in the first period Orr challenged Ben Eager minutes after coming out of the penalty box and two went at it by the boards between the two benches. You can watch this fight below:



These retaliatory fights seem to be getting a little bit out of hand. Colton Orr is regularly sitting in the press box for the Rangers and was clearly inserted into the lineup tonight just to take the fight to the Flyers. It would be nice to see some suspensions or fines for this type of thing but I don't plan on holding my breath.