March of the Penguin

Just from a historical aspect, here's a "must-see" NHL game coming up on Wednesday night.

When he faces the Los Angeles Kings, super-rookie Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins can continue the best start by a player since the league's first season in 1917-18.

Malkin, the second overall pick by Pittsburgh in 2004, has goals in his first five games -- the longest streak by a rookie since Dmitri Kvartalnov did it for the Boston Bruins in 1992-93.

Malkin can be the first player since Joe Malone, Newsy Lalonde and Cy Denneny to score in his first six NHL games -- all he needs to do is pot one against a defense that has allowed three or more goals in eight of its first 14 games.

Only hardcore hockey fans -- the ones who understand the history of the game -- will recognize the names Malone, Lalonde and Denneny. About the time World War I was in full swing, the NHL started with four teams, the Canadiens and Wanderers in Montreal, the Arenas in Toronto and the Senators in Ottawa. There also was the Quebec Bulldogs, but they never took the ice, and the Wanderers' season lasted only six games after Montreal Arena burned down.

And in those first 44 games that comprised the 1917-18 season, Malone, Lalonde and Denneny were the reasons to watch the new league.

Over the decades, the NHL has had superstars from Mario Lemieux to Wayne Gretzky to Gordie Howe. According the Hockey Hall of Fame Web site, Malone may have been the first.

While known for his unique upright skating style and revered for his excellent conduct on the ice, what set "Phantom" Joe Malone apart from the rest was an ability to find openings and weave his way through the defensive alignments of the opposition.

Playing in just 20 games that first season on a line with Lalonde and Didier Pitre, the Quebec City native scored 44 of the Canadiens' 115 goals.

Go through the league's official guide and record book, pretty much the annual bible of all things hockey, and you'll see Malone's name still in there. Playing in his final game for Quebec in 1920, Malone scored a record seven goals in a 10-6 win over Toronto. He also was one of seven players to score six times in a game -- a feat that has not been done since Darryl Sittler for the Maple Leafs in 1976.

Though he played just 125 games over seven seasons, Malone finished his NHL career with 173 goals.

Years before suiting up for Montreal, Edouard "Newsy" Lalonde was carving out a reputation as a scorer. Playing for Toronto of the Ontario Professional Hockey League in 1907, he won the scoring title was 29 goals in only nine games.

The next season with the Renfrew (British Columbia) Millionaires of the National Hockey Assocation -- a precursor to the NHL -- he scored a record nine goals in one game.

When the Canadiens joined the NHL in 1917, Lalonde appeared in only 14 games and still scored 23 times in that initial season. He also had a mean streak, averaging nearly 4 minutes in penalties per game.

The nickname, by the way, came about because he worked in a Cornwall, Ontario newsprint plant as a youth.

Denneny was Ottawa's answer to Malone. In that initial season, the "Cornwall Colt" had 36 goals and 46 points -- just two in back of Malone for the league lead.

Denneny also had 80 penalty minutes in just 20 games, far and away the most among the league's scoring leaders in that first season. Despite his scoring prowess -- he was the league leader in career goals for most of the 20s and early 30s -- Denneny also may have been the league's first bodyguard for finesse players like Frank Nighbor and Jack Darragh.

Denneny spent his first 11 seasons with Ottawa and led the Senators to three Stanley Cups before playing his final season with the Boston Bruins in 1928-29. He retired as league's leading point scorer of all time with 331, including 246 goals.

Hockey Night in suburban Chicago

And a caption for this photo may be, "And I never liked you much during practice!"

Zdeno Chara, who left the Ottawa Senators to sign a lucrative deal with the Boston Bruins, got to face his old team for the first time on Saturday ... and got the best revenge possible. When he wasn't tangling with noted pugilist and former teammate Brian (five points, 141 PIM last season) McGrattan, Chara scored the game-winning goal in Boston's 2-1 victory over Ottawa.

The 6-foot-9 Chara, forever known by Kensohan blogstigator Chris Altruda as "Alice the Goon", downplayed facing the team with whom he spent the last four seasons.

"Yes, I was playing my former team but my main focus was on those two points," he said. "It did not matter who we played. We really needed this win and we got it and it's a nice feeling."

And I've got some land on the Back Bay I'm looking to unload ...

The Chicago Blackhawks, meanwhile, have reverted from promising to abysmal.

With a 3-0 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday night, the Hawks haven't scored a goal in 145 minutes, 10 seconds. Michal Handzus -- gone for the season with a blown-out knee -- scored in the second period of a 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Oct. 21.

That's three straight losses following a 4-4-0 start ...

The Carolina Hurricanes broke a franchise record by scoring three goals in 43 seconds during a 6-4 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Eric Staal scored the first of his two goals on the night at 8:23 of the first period, tying the score at 1-all. Nine seconds later, Kevyn scored off a rebound of Craig Adams' shot. Erik Cole broke the mark when he scored off a feed from Ray Whitney at 9:06.

The previous franchise record was 63 seconds by the Hartford Whalers in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in January 1987. The NHL record is 20 seconds by the Bruins versus the Vancouver Canucks in 1971 ...


THE GOOD...

Sidney Crosby records his first NHL hat trick in the Pittsburgh Penguins' 8-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers ...

Vyacheslav Kozlov scores the lone shootout goal to lift the Atlanta Thrashers to a 5-4 win over Buffalo, ending the Sabres' season-opening and NHL record-tying 10-game winning streak ...

Martin Brodeur made 22 saves for his second straight shutout, a 1-0 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Brodeur also moved past Jacques Plante into sole possession of fourth-place on the all-time shutout list with his 83rd career whitewash. Next up is Glenn Hall with 84.

THE BAD...

The Washington Capitals manage just 19 shots on goal in 4-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers. The Caps haven't won in Northern Alberta since Bill Clinton's second term in office ...

Goaltender David LeNeveu, a recent call-up by the Phoenix Coyotes, allowed six straight tallies in a 7-3 loss to the New York Rangers ...

Los Angeles fell to 0-4-1 in its last five games after a 3-2 loss to the Dallas Stars. The Kings have scored just 14 goals in their last 10 games ...


THE QUOTABLE...

"The bottom line is we feel we have two quality goaltenders. We describe them as 1A and 1B." -- Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle talking about netminders Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Ilja Bryzgalov, after the latter made 14 saves to shut out Chicago 3-0 on Saturday.

CHAMPIONS

^AP-APNewsAlert<,0028< ¶ ST. LOUIS (AP) _ The St. Louis Cardinals have won the World Series in five games beating the Detroit Tigers 4-2.

It took 24 years -- and four tries -- but the Cardinals finally have their 10th championship.

That's not to say that this wasn't a struggle. In 1985, Don Denkinger's blown call at first base helped the Kansas City Royals win their lone title. Two years later, the Minnesota Twins were the longest of longshots to win it all. And, in 2004, the Cardinals just didn't seem to bother to show up and were swept by the Boston Red Sox.

Consider the following:

• The Cardinals became the team with the fewest regular-season wins (83) to win a World Series. The 1987 Twins had won 85 games before their playoff run.
  
• St. Louis had a 7 1/2-game lead in the NL Central on Sept. 20, and nearly pissed it all away before getting into the playoffs.
• They needed to defeat fellow division winners San Diego and the New York Mets before facing the Tigers -- a team many expected would sweep the Series. Rob Neyer of ESPN.com fame went so far as to predict Detroit would win in three games.

"The team that wins a world championship is the team that played the best," winning manager Tony La Russa said.

But what makes me happiest about this win? Easy -- Cubs fans get to suffer for the second straight season, though I don't know what will make me smile more. Last year, it was the cross-city rival White Sox that ended an 88-year championship drought. This time around, it's the Cubs' most-hated divisional rival that gets to celebrate.

For those counting, it's been 98 years since the Cubs won the World Series.

Oh, yes, life can be good! Toasted ravioli for everyone!

The night on ice ...

The uniforms may suck, but that may be the only negative thing you can say about the Buffalo Sabres.

The Sabres tied an NHL record with their 10th straight win to start the season when they blanked the New York Islanders 3-0 on Thursday night, tying the 1993-94 Toronto Maple Leafs' record.

New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur also moved up on the all-time shutout list after a 29-save performance in the Devils' 2-0 victory over the Florida Panthers. Brodeur has 82 shutouts, tying him with Jacques Plante for fourth all-time.

Brodeur trails only Glenn Hall (84), George Hainsworth (94) and Terry Sawchuk (103).

Whod've thunk it .... almost

Now, you know no one thought this would happen.

The St. Louis Cardinals are one win away from their first championship in 24 years -- you know, the skinny ties, the double-knits, the cheesy music.

You can read more about Game 5 in their quest for the 10th championship in team history right here.

Aftermath

Been a couple of days, but I needed some time to recover from the trip to St. Louis ... I'm getting too old for this driving 700 miles in one day.

Got to see the Cardinals beat up on the Tigers -- and make it look prety easy at the same time too. Not really a whole lot to report on. At least not now ... just in one of those lulls where I don't feel much like writing about this.

Game 4 was washed out by rain Wednesday, and there are no guarantees they'll play tonight.

Show Me ... a win in Game 3

Some 12 hours from now, I will heading south on I-55 to Game 3 of the World Series between the Cardinals and Tigers at Busch Stadium.

Twenty years ago, I was fortunate to be at perhaps the greatest World series game ever for drama, which you can see below.

More later. Cardinal Nation rules!

Chicago hospital ward

The Chicago Blackhawks had a chance to be the feel-good story of the early season in the NHL.

An Original Six team that had fallen into a black hole -- their home games are not shown on any local cable or free TV station -- they made a couple of trades in the off-season that brought Martin Havlat from Ottawa via San Jose and Michal Handzus from Philadelphia.

At 4-4-0, no one is printing playoff tickets or reserving suites at the United Center, but the 'Hawks were competitive. Despite losing their last two games, all four defeats each have been by one goal.

Three weeks into the season, injuries already have taken a toll. The team announced Sunday that Handzus will miss the rest of the regular season with a knee injury suffered in a loss to St. Louis on Saturday.

This comes days after the Blackhawks lost Havlat to a high ankle sprain that is expected to keep him out for three weeks. Havlat was leading Chicago with seven goals and six assists in seven games -- he missed 58 games with the Senators last season after shoulder surgery. Handzus was tied for third with three goals and five assists in eight games.

H&H gave the Blackhawks something they've been missing the last few years: offense. Chicago has not had a 30-goal scorer since Eric Daze in 2001-02. A 40-goal scorer hasn't been seen in the Windy City since Tony Amonte in 1999-2000.

Also, goalie Nikolai Khabibulin will be out at least one week with a broken finger on his blocker hand, and highly touted but oft-injured Tuomo Ruutu hasn't played this season and still is two weeks away with a sprained knee.

Last week, on ESPN 1000 in Chicago, Teiny -- better known as Harry Teinowitz of the Mac, Jurko and Harry afternoon show -- still considered the Hawks relevant, giving them some love on air. Dan McNeill, though, said something to the effect that he was not ready to say anything about the team until the city was ready to embrace them again. If by some chance he either reads this blog (...right...) or gets a link to it, go ahead and tell me I'm wrong.

Now, if he doesn't understand the sport, that's a different matter. Perhaps putting it back on the map to try and get people all over the Midwest to "embrace this team again" would help. It's one thing to embrace winners like the White Sox and great Chicago teams like the '85 Bears and the Bulls championship teams. It's hypocritical not to include the Blackhawks, dysfunctional as they may be.

Philly free-fall

And we have our first firing and high-profile resignation of the new season.

Off to a 1-6-1 start and on the verge of becoming irrelevant, the Flyers fired head coach Ken Hitchcock on Sunday and accepted the resignation of general manager Bobby Clarke.

Hitchcock, who led Dallas to its only Stanley Cup in 1999 and is noted for having a no-nonsense style, was unable to match that success in Philadelphia -- which hasn't had a victory parade for the Flyers in 31 years. Through the first three weeks of the season, Hitchcock quickly shot up the charts to become the coach most likely to be axed first. I would've thought that honor was being saved for Columbus' Gerard Gallant.

Even more suprising was Hitchcock's dismissal happened after he was given a contract extension through the 2008-09 season during training camp last month.

He spent six successful seasons coaching Kamloops of the WHL to a pair of league championships and spent three seasons coaching two teams in the defunct IHL before joining the big league. While his style may have worked well with young and inexperienced players, he failed to realize for the second time that NHL players quickly tired of his act despite trying to change.

"If you talk to a group of 20 players, there's no impact," Hitchcock said in 1999. "You have to have leaders and let them push the message across. If I think there's a problem, I [bring] the veterans in and say, 'Here's the problem, go solve it.'"

In that interview, he called himself an "old-school" coach trying to live new times.

"This has become less of Xs and Os, and more of a people business," Hitchcock added. "I'm still running drills. Players want a similar routine. [But] I'm adapting to compromise."

The final straw for Hitch probably occurred Tuesday when he left goaltender Robert Esche in for the entire game in a 9-1 loss to Buffalo, the Flyers' most lopsided loss in nearly 13 years. Simon Gagne, Mike Knuble and the injured Peter Forsberg (sprained wrist) have accounted for 10 of Philadelphia's 15 goals in 2006-07.

Forsberg, the new Flyers captain, said he didn't think players tuned out Hitchcock.

“I think everybody knows Hitch. He demands a lot from the players, and he’s been here for a long time. But, I’m not putting all the blame on Hitch or anybody else. I look at myself. I don’t think we tuned him out, and I think Hitch is a good coach, but sometimes you need a change," Forsberg said.

Clarke, long considered the face of the franchise dating back to days of the "Broad Street Bullies," was in his second stint as GM and got them into the Cup finals in 1985, 1987 and 1997. Overall, he spent 19 years as GM.

"I felt strongly from the end of last season on, I don't know if the right word is burnt out or tired, but the decisions that had to be made, I was not willing to make them," Clarke said. "I was letting other people make them. I know I didn't do the right job for this organization."

That now falls to interim GM Paul Holmgren and new coach John Stevens -- a former Flyer who led at AHL's Phantoms to the Calder Cup in 2005, Philadelphia won't play again until Thursday against Atlanta.

Ice chips

You mean there was a World Series game on Saturday night? And the Cardinals won??

(By the way, you can read about Game 2 right here.)

With apologies to everyone from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories to Corner Brook, Newfoundland, some quick hits from the NHL on Saturday night

BUFFASLUGS UNITE!: The team with the worst uniforms in the league are 8-0 after a
6-2 win over Boston. Buffalo needs just two more wins to match the NHL record for longest win streak at the start of a season set in 1993-94 by Toronto. The Sabres continue their three-game road trip at Montreal on Monday before heading to Long Island on Thursday.

Can't go home again: Jose Theodore may not soon forget having having 21,273 Frenchies taunt him in his first game back in Montreal. Now with Colorado, the former Hart and Vezina Trophy winner gave up six goals in the final 24:31 of an 8-5 loss.

Ilya Kovalchuk regains scoring touch: Good to the see the Atlanta sniper finding the back of the net again after scoring two third-period goals in a 4-2 win over Florida. He had 52 last season, including a league-leading 27 on the power play.

Welcome to the NHL: Alexander Radulov didn't have an 11-point night like he did in juniors. He didn't even record one. In 7:32 of ice time, he didn't have a plus-minus rating and took a questionable tripping penalty midway through the third period. Preds lose 4-3 in overtime. ... Mike Smith makes 22 saves for the Stars in a 4-0 shutout win over Phoenix. Smith also had a shutout win in his AHL debut with Iowa in November.

If you had these guys on your rot team then you did pretty good:
Vancouver's Lukas Krajicek got you a game-winning goal in OT to beat Nashville...Pittsburgh's Jordan Staal scored two short-handed goals, including one on a penalty shot (and, no, I had no idea you could do that!) Evgeni Malkin scored his third goal in as many games for the Penguins in a 5-3 win over Columbus ...
Antoine Vermette and Dean McAmmond each scored twice in Ottawa's 8-1 win over New Jersey

And your NHL line of the night from the newsroom:

"Fucking widget beat my black goaltender!" -- Blog castigator and "hool-ee-gaan" Chris Altruda after New Jersey's Brian Gionta scored against Ottawa's Ray Emery in the the Senators' 8-1 win Saturday night.