2025-'26 NHL Season

Don Wassall

Don Wassall

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Jaromir Jagr, the second highest scorer in NHL history, is still playing professionally at the age of 53 in his home country of the Czech Republic. He's the player/owner of the Kladno Knights. This is his 38th professional hockey season, giving him Gordie Howe like longevity. I remember when he broke in with the Penguins at the age of 18, all smiles and thrilled to be in America, and immediately helped them win back to back Stanley Cups. Amazing that he's still playing all these years later.

Jaromir Jagr is back: At 53, the former NHL great starts his 38th professional season​

triblive.com

Jaromir Jagr is back: At 53, the former NHL great starts his 38th professional season

KLADNO, Czech Republic — At age 53, Jaromir Jagr began his 38th professional season by playing on the fourth line for his hometown Kladno Knights in a 3-1 victory over Vitkovice on Friday night in the Czech league. The former NHL great logged 10:08 minutes of ice time and joined
triblive.com
 
Matthew Schaefer looking nice at one end of the scale. Ovi on the other, i think the Caps want him to get his goal as quick as possible and then reduce his line and/or minutes.

Although he has show revivals before.
 
I like the Oilers and McDavid and was rooting for them to win in the Finals the past two years to end the now endless drought for Canada, not sure what's going on with them. More focused on the Penguins, the only pro sports team I root for year in and year out, and they've been a pleasant surprise so far, reminiscent of the Capitals' unexpected success last season when everyone predicted they'd be a bottom feeder.

Really, the key was finally getting rid of Mike Sullivan, the most over-rated head coach in league history. Everyone who knows hockey and followed the team wanted him gone a number of years ago but management stubbornly kept him on against all reason and common sense. We have much the same situation here in Pittsburgh when it comes to the Steelers and Mike Tomlin's tenure for life.

Sullivan is now with the Rangers and they're struggling just like the Oilers despite having lots of talent and experience. Sullivan is simply a terrible head coach, thank God the Blueshirts are stuck with him now.

And Sean, thanks for posting here, the hockey forum is a lonely place most of the time.
 
Don, you are correct. Sullivan is torpedoing the Rangers already. NY sports is just in a depressing sports cycle, Knicks and Yankees excluded. Not that I care deeply about either team as they are too non-White.
 
As a hater of the Blueshirts I am so glad they got Sullivan and happy for Crosby that he is gone! I just need my Cats to be healthy enough to make the playoffs!


Crosby is such an incredible player and class act. I’m not a penguins fan but I can root for that guy easily. He is not only incredible as an individual talent but he makes those around him better also, which is a rare skill.
 
Don Wassall said:
I like the Oilers and McDavid and was rooting for them to win in the Finals the past two years to end the now endless drought for Canada, not sure what's going on with them. More focused on the Penguins, the only pro sports team I root for year in and year out, and they've been a pleasant surprise so far, reminiscent of the Capitals' unexpected success last season when everyone predicted they'd be a bottom feeder.

Really, the key was finally getting rid of Mike Sullivan, the most over-rated head coach in league history. Everyone who knows hockey and followed the team wanted him gone a number of years ago but management stubbornly kept him on against all reason and common sense. We have much the same situation here in Pittsburgh when it comes to the Steelers and Mike Tomlin's tenure for life.

Sullivan is now with the Rangers and they're struggling just like the Oilers despite having lots of talent and experience. Sullivan is simply a terrible head coach, thank God the Blueshirts are stuck with him now.

And Sean, thanks for posting here, the hockey forum is a lonely place most of the time.
Click to expand...
Yeah, my Bruins are in a similar situation. Great start and then looked like we were coming back to earth, but got it going again.

Great start from Geekie and shout out to Pasta for his 400th the other day.

Penguins had a nice win today. Great to have games in Europe for a number of reasons, most of all the games starting at a reasonable hour for once :)
 
Anyone who cares about the NHL Draft or college hockey, in general, might want to tune into FS1 (Fox Sports) Friday night as Penn State takes on a struggling (4-8-1), but iconic University of Minnesota hockey program.

Penn State is led by the NHL's consensus top pro prospect, freshman sensation Gavin McKenna. He is not the first top prospect to go the U.S. college route -- recently, Macklin Celebrini, who attended Boston U., was the top pick in the 2024 draft and is already a fast rising NHL superstar.

But Gavin McKenn is the first big-time Canadian juniors star who was lured to a U.S. college by N.I.L. money. This was made possible by multi-billionaire Penn State alum Terry Pegula's huge N.I.L. cash deal (by hockey standards). Pegula, who owns the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres, basically has single-handedly built PSU's men's and women's hockey programs.
 
Sean89 said:
Matthew Schaefer looking nice at one end of the scale. Ovi on the other, i think the Caps want him to get his goal as quick as possible and then reduce his line and/or minutes.

Although he has show revivals before.
Click to expand...

Luckily I kind of covered myself with Ovi !
What a man
 
Congratulations to Leon Draisaitl of the Oilers, who last night became the first German born player to score 1,000 career points in the NHL. Draisaitl is a winger on center Connor McDavid's prolific line. Leon is the complete package, a 6' 2" 210 pound power forward who has won an Art Ross Trophy as the league's leading point scorer and a Hart Memorial Trophy as league regular season MVP. He's only 30 so he could move well up the ranks of the all-time scorers before he retires.

​
 
This is the 20th anniversary of then Penguins head coach Michel Therrien absolutely ripping his team to shreds during a post-game press conference. It's up there with Jim Mora's famous "playoffs? playoffs??" rant but not as widely known as hockey is treated as a "niche" sport by the anti-White corporate media.

The below article states that Therrien's scolding "changed the culture" and it did to some degree, but the Penguins culture still has a strong streak of country club entitlement going back to the Lemieux era -- Mario actually decreed when Scotty Bowman was the coach, the GOAT of NHL coaches, that he wasn't allowed to be around for team practices -- that fans put up with because the talent has been so good much of the time over the past 35 years.

Therrien's rant is still often mentioned locally and the YouTube video of it from this article is often posted when DWFs are unhappy about a perceived lack of effort by a team:

www.post-gazette.com

Message sent: Revisiting Michel Therrien's epic, 'transformative' postgame rant 20 years later

“Watch this.” On his way to a postgame press conference 20 years ago, then-Penguins coach Michel Therrien wanted to make sure the communications...
www.post-gazette.com www.post-gazette.com
 
backrow said:
I was just gonna ask if he's Tie's son! Good one.

Btw I hate that you can fight while wearing a visor, wtf.
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The NHL used to have a lot more fights, and a lot more vicious ones where they really went after each other. Tie Domi's opponent in the first fight on the video I posted above was against Craig Berube, who was another badass fighter. After his playing career Berube became a coach and was the St. Louis Blues' head coach in 2017 when they won their first and only Stanley Cup. Berube currently coaches the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Here's highlights of Berube's fights (the first one is the same one against Domi):


​

One of my all-time favorite players is Rick Tocchet, who was a complete player, a power forward who scored over 40 goals three times and finished with 440 yet was also tough as nails and a great fighter. There aren't any power forwards like Tocchet anymore. He played mainly for the Flyers and Penguins and is still revered by hockey fans in both cities. He too is now an NHL head coach.

​
 
Freethinker said:
Don, you are correct. Sullivan is torpedoing the Rangers already. NY sports is just in a depressing sports cycle, Knicks and Yankees excluded. Not that I care deeply about either team as they are too non-White.
Click to expand...
The Rangers are currently dead last in the Eastern Conference in points. Doesn't surprise me a bit. Sullivan was wildly over-rated by the national media just as Mike Tomlin has been. I'm just glad that Pittsburgh is finally rid of Tomlin, the city's other "Mike for Life."
 
Don Wassall said:
The Rangers are currently dead last in the Eastern Conference in points. Doesn't surprise me a bit. Sullivan was wildly over-rated by the national media just as Mike Tomlin has been. I'm just glad that Pittsburgh is finally rid of Tomlin, the city's other "Mike for Life."
Click to expand...
Don, you were 100% right about this fraud of a coach. The good news with the Rangers falling further out is they can officially “reload” and possibly can this guy as a one and done.
 
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The Penguins were widely predicted to be a bottom feeder in contention for the first overall draft pick this summer, but instead they're right in the middle of the playoff hunt. GM Kyle Dubas is collecting draft picks after the team traded their top picks for many years in an effort to "win now" and as a result they have some young, talented and hungry players on the roster with more in the pipeline.

More importantly, new head coach Dan Muse has them playing with structure, discipline and accountability for the first time since Sullivan's first two years. The past half dozen years they regularly blew leads, had no discipline and took endless stupid penalties, were terrible on defense giving up unbelievable amounts of odd man breaks against, and overall were soft and had no heart. All that changed instantly when Sullivan finally was fired. Muse by the way was hired away from the Rangers, where he had been an assistant coach.
 
Patrick Kane scored his 1,375th career point Thursday night to surpass Mike Modano as the highest scoring American born player in NHL history.

But to illustrate how much hockey has always been, and remains, a Canadian dominated sport, Kane is just 27th on the all-time scoring list. The top 26 are all Canadians except for Jaromir Jagr (Czech), Alex Ovechkin (the country that shall not be named), Teemu Selanne (Finnish), Jari Kurri (Finnish), and Evgeni Malkin (the country that shall not be named).

Still a great accomplishment for Kane.
 
Congrats the Kane! An American great. Looking at the active points leaders, you have to go aways to find the next American at Auston Matthews. However at 28 years young, and already more than half of Patrick’s point total, he could eventually overtake the record.
 
The Florida Panthers, who were so dominant in winning back to back Stanley Cups in the parity driven NHL, are currently in last place in the Metro Division, well out of playoff contention with the regular season two-thirds over, huge surprise there.
 
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