USAover Canada In the Olympics

Tonight USA defeated Canada in hockey at the Vancouver Olymipics. Althought Canada out shot the Americans 44 to 25 USA managed to hold on for the win. Mainly because of the Buffalo Sabres goaltenter Ryan Miller. he stoped 41 of the 44 shots, and he made some spectacular saves in the final 10 minutes to keep the American lead when they needed it. USA lead 4-3 and got an empty net goal by Ryan Kesler with about 45 seconds left to seal the deal. Kesler won the foot race with Canada's Corey Perry and dove to hit the puck into the net. Martin Brodeur was far from perfect tonight but came up with some big saves to keep it close. USA should win their pool and advance to the semi finals. If all goes as planned Canada will finish 2nd and also make it to the semi finals. The Americans head coach Ron Wilson had this to say after the game, "In fairness, Canada out chanced us 2 to 1 for most of the game and our goalie played excellent. We've still got a long ways to go here. Personally I think Canada is the best team and Russia is right behind them with all of the skill they have up front." I congratulate the Americans with the effort they put forth in this game and hope to see a remath in the gold medal game.

Phaneuf Trade

If you follow hockey at all you have heard about the Dione Phaneuf trade out of Calgary. Calgary's GM Darryl Sutter obviously had reasons for making the 7 player trade including: Phaneuf (D), Keith Aulie (D), and Fredrik Sjostrom (F) for Matt Stajan (F), Jamal Meyers (F), Ian White (D), and Niklas Hagman (D). This does have good points for each team. The leafs hired a new GM at the start of the year Brian Burke who has won a Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks. At the start of the year he said he was going to try to make the leafs a lot tougher and Phaneuf will help reshape the team with his devastating hits and the ability to drop the gloves. The leafs have also made room up front for Christian Hanson who was a star with Notre Dame. Hanson is the son of the famous Dave Hanson from the Slap Shot movies. If he is anything like his dad in the movie this will also add alot of toughness to the Leafs.

Phaneuf who was considered one of the best defencemen from Canada will be missed in the Flames line up. The Flames also have another very good defencemen Jay Boumeister who is coming into his own. If he can step up to a little extra playing time and keep producing the Flames defence should be fine. The Flames recently have been lacking the ability to score goals so Hagman and Stajan should be able to help out offensively. Stajan right now is on pace for having a career year with 61 points.

Darryl Sutter has been a busy man as of late he has also traded away Olli Jokenin and Brandon Prust to the Rangers for former Buffalo Sabres Ales Kotalik and Christopher Higgins. Kotalik and Higgins are also goal scorers and should help out the Flames offense not only this year but for years to come. Olli Jokenin is a very good player but how could you not be playing along side one of the top players in the entire NHL Jerome Iginla.

I guess we will see if all of the trades will pay off for the Flames in the next few weeks.