Total Eclipse of the Splash

 

The Sharks really, really, really need to underscore how much they appreciate the fans that are willing to continue showing up in support of a team that has a top story featuring their recent 8-1 loss to an instate rival. God bless, Sharks fans, and your extraordinary patience. 

Making the sale

We are getting down to the wire on the season. The Stanley Cup Playoff starts in less than a month, so naturally, any fan of a team with a shot wants to secure their tickets and get to the arena. Playoff games sell out, it should be an easy sale. Unless you are hanging on by a fingernail, like the Blues, who are 2 points ahead of the Flames (who have two games in hand) a 3 ahead of the Canucks (who have a game in hand).

Selling playoff tickets isn't hard, but the Blues have to sell themselves as a playoff team. 

Thanks to a strong record since the 4 Nations Face-Off break in February, the Blues have climbed back into the playoff picture as the 2024-25 regular season enters its final stretch.

If the Blues clinch a spot in the playoffs, their opponent and a complete first-round schedule will be available after the completion of the regular season.

"If" is sure doing some work here. It's important to talk about the potential the team has demonstrated, and the hope the teams late run has given, because one way or another, you are trying to get your fans to work with Ticketmaster. It had better be worth it.

The Trade Deadline for the weekend

My team already made a trade several days ahead of the deadline. Your team probably made a trade. There are a lot of things to say about the trade deadline every year, but an important thing to say about the 2025 version is that it was on a Friday, and even if you spent your entire attention span on the deadline, at least it was the weekend the very next day. 

Part of a trend over the last few years has been teams making their big swings a day or two ahead of the deadline. Sure, you may find that this cuts some of the drama out of the day, but frankly, I think it only helps. Many teams are waiting for the big shoes to drop and reacting. When the rumored, larger transactions happen, teams can really cut loose and make all of the moves they want to make. 

That seemed to be the case on Friday, where there were 23 deals, and several big names changing teams. Mikko Rantanen (again) and Brad Marchand rated among the largest, even if the Dylan Cozens-Josh Norris 4 player deal may be more significant in the long run. It's hard to say, especially with draft picks at play. 

I was able to refresh Pro Hockey Rumors every 15 minutes throughout the day yesterday, and was treated to another transaction fairly regularly. I know there have been years gone by that the deals seemed to wait until after lunch, which was interminable, especially if you were watching a studio show that was supposed to be breaking these moves down. 

It's probably the last exciting day of the season for the Sabres, the end of an era for the Bruins, and the beginning of an exciting push to the finish for the league, and we all get to recover and and break down the moves through the weekend before going back to work with our heads on straight.

A good deadline that came on a Friday counts as a win here in North America, and we need all those we can get here in 2025.

Total Eclipse of the Splash

 

If you didn't know, the New Jersey Devils were actually named after a mythical creature roaming the woods of south Jersey in the 19th and early 20th century. There are some theories that, if it actually existed, it may have been a large bat. 

But kudo's to New Jersey for spotlighting the drummer from Slipknot to really lean into the whole "dark arts" vibe a lot of people associate the name with. 

Real outdoor hockey

 

As many of you may know, the Prince of Wales Trophy was named after Edward, Prince of Wales in the 1920s. Edward would eventually become King of England, and was the last English monarch to abdicate. Canada is a Commonwealth Realm, and nominally, the head of state is the King of England, which is, circuitously, how the Trophy got it's name. The Maple Leafs are finally close to the Prince of Wales, but it is actually a park in Etobicoke. And also, the park was named after the Florida Panthers, current holders of said trophy. 

With all the outdoor games that come through now, and all of them ending up at stadiums that seat three times as many fans as an NHL arena, I do commend the Maple Leafs for taking the outdoor concept (as they have done for years) and ACTUALLY returning hockey to its roots, by getting closer to the fans, and playing how a lot of kids are playing - on sheets right next to bleachers and trees and parking lots, with moms and dads watching, both for love of the game and because they need to be vigilant. This is real service for fans, rather than "fan service".  Won't say this often, but good job, Toronto. 

Total Eclipse of the Splash

 

Listen, I understand that spending a week in January in the Midwest can bring anyone down a bit, so I'm not going to make light about the Canucks fighting some seasonal depression as noted in the headline, but I would like to call out the reverse side of the "West Coast swing". Oh no, we have to stay up late to catch the end of the game against the Ducks? Well, in Vancouver, you better hope the games are on the weekend, because otherwise your kids won't be home from school until the 2nd period if the game is on the East Coast. 

A Monday game at 430 in the afternoon is crazy, is all I'm saying. 

(Tweet of the Moment is no more, because social media is a hellscape, and not every team is yet on BlueSky. I still like a random, quick peek at hockey online, so now, we are looking at team home "splash" pages and turning that into whatever this is. Welcome to 2025) 

Bizarre Buffalo hat trick; hockey history

 Ryan McLeod got his first career hat trick tonight against the Carolina Hurricanes. That is a great achievement for a team that hasn't had many good nights, and against a team that is actually pretty good! Let's enjoy some video of his capstone goal

 

Oh, do you see what happened there? McLeod scored his first two goals like the quality hockey player he is, and then because the Sabres can't have anything nice as they are a franchise based out of Buffalo, he got the third goal in about as strange a manner as possible.

After the empty net, full length shot rang off the post, McLeod was free and clear for the rebound and ol' Sasquatch Brett Burns did a flying Paul Bunyan maneuver and hacked his stick in half. That is a penalty shot, and given that the 'Canes had already pulled their goalie, it was an awarded goal for Buffalo.

But who goes in the stat book as the goal scorer? We already know that it was McLeod, given that you made it this far in the article, but McLeod never touched the puck. Tage Thompson was the last one to touch it, as he was the one who fired it down the ice in the first place. Ultimately, the scorers decided that, since it would have been McLeod's penalty shot, he should get the resulting goal, voila, hat trick.

Thompson, by ringing the post, wasn't credited with a shot on goal. Nor was McLeod, despite the credit for the goal. And in the third period, neither did anyone wearing a Sabres jersey. 

The Sabres' goals outnumbered their shots. Because there were no shots. It was the first time in recorded history that a team scored a goal in a 20 minute period while not recording a shot. Only in Buffalo could you score a game clinching goal and still have universal agreement that the offense needs work. 

Congrats to Ryan McLeod though, that's certainly one you will always remember