Brittney Griner’s arrival on Baylor’s campus was met with much fanfare. The Texas native is one of the few women in history who can throw down. Sure, her variety of dunks is more Shawn Bradley than Shaquille O’Neal — but we’re still impressed.
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Carey Price probably regrets his decision to leave the net in hindsight. The Canadiens goalie left his crease to play a puck and was punished by Cam Janssen. It may not have been intentional — but the results was a huge hit.
It’s tough to decide whether or not skaters should be allowed to hit a goalie. In this case, Price was far from his crease and pretty much forced Janssen’s hand. Janssen was chasing the puck when he leveled Price with a hit. Immediately, a Canadiens player starts to take Janssen to task and even Price drops his gloves to prepare for a fight. Yahoo’s PuckDaddy blog notes that, although Price ditched his loves, he forgot to remove his helmet.
The Blues ended up shorthanded after the play. Janssen was giving a roughing penalty and his own goalie, Ty Conklin, received a minor penalty for trying to get in on the action. Canadiens netminder Carey Price didn’t receive a penalty while teammate Roman Hamrlik was given a roughing minor. You can check out the video of the collision below.
The Rangers took a tough loss on Sunday night to the Red Wings at Madison Square Garden. Detroit came in having won only two of their last six games. The Wings dropped a game on Saturday to the Devils and were hoping to salvage some points from their East Coast swing.
The Rangers played fairly well. Michael Del Zotto continued to anchor the blueline and logged the most time on ice out of the Blueshirts. The rookie also had seven hits in the game. Unfortunately, Marian Gaborik didn’t manage any points in his 23:44 of ice time. The Rangers will have trouble in the future when facing a team with a lockdown defender like Henrik Zetterberg or Pavel Datsyuk.
Henrik Lundqvist and Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard both made 28 saves but Hank allowed two goals. Lundqvist didn’t have a bad game but he did accidentally direct the game-winner into the net with a litte over two minutes remaining. Henrik has taken a lot of heat lately for not performing up to his typical level of excellence. This game seemed to prove that his funk is probably temporary.
The highlight of the night came when Artem Anisimov failed to pick his head up after receiving a pass in the neutral zone. The young center figured he could simply stickhandle into the offensive zone, but Brad Stuart was not having it. Anisimov tried to glide around the defenseman and was promptly destroyed as Stuart stepped into him. You can see the video below.
Everybody was talking about Phil Kessel in the offseason. That’s because the former Boston Bruin’s salary demands got him traded to Toronto. Last night, Kessel made his debut for the Leafs and was on the wrong end of a highlight reel hit.
Kessel hadn’t played since last year’s Eastern Conference semi-finals due to a bum shoulder. He didn’t show too much rust and was on the ice for a whopping 23:50 in the game. Kessel showed a lot of speed on the play that nearly got him murdered.
In the first period, the American winger collected the puck in his own zone and darted through the neutral zone. He showed good quickness and puckhandling skills and managed to cross the blueline with a head of steam. Unfortunately for Kessel, Mattias Ohlund had him lined up.
Ohlund unleashed a ferocious open-ice hit and put Kessel on his back. The hit was completely clean as Ohlund didn’t leave his feet before making contact, use his elbow/hands, or target his opponent’s head. On the other hand, Kessel committed the cardinal sin in hockey of skating with your head down. You can check out the video of the hit below.
