Miller Cotinues to Dominate

Ryan Miller made 36 saves as the Buffalo Sabres rolled to another victory.

"We're just playing good hockey," said Miller, who's allowed just eight goals in five games to lead the NHL's stingiest defense. "I'm enjoying it, and I hope we can keep it up all year."

The Sabres are the only team left in the NHL without a regulation loss after the Stars fell to the Bruins.

The giant Tyler Myers scored his first NHL goal in the first to put the Sabres ahead 1-0. Later in the first Clarke MacArthur scored on a penalty shot after being hauled down by Mark Streit on a breakaway.

Tim Connolly opened the scoring in the second on a power play goal. The Islander's Matt Moulson would get this third of the season to bring the score to 3-1. The Sabres Jochen Hecht made it 4-1 halfway through and then 3 minutes later John Tavares scored on an Islanders power play to bring the Islanders within 2.

The third period saw a bit more back and forth as Buffalo's Patrick Kaleta scored followed shortly by the Islanders Andy Sutton. However, late in the third Jason Pominville would get his 100th career goal to seal the deal for the Sabres.

The Islanders were also winless in the fight department. In the first period Tim Jackman decided it would be a good idea to run at Ryan Miller. The Sabres Paul Gaustad did not approve:



The Sabres look to continue their winning streak when the Thrashers come to town tonight.

Tampa Files Molestation Charges As Senators Roll

In a decisive victory, the Ottawa Senators defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-1 last night, with a former Shark leading the way.

Milan Michalek, acquired from San Jose in the trade for Homicide Heatley, scored his first goal of the season last night. And his second. And his third. Then it was free hat night down on the ice!

Two of Michalek's goals were shorthanded. He was seen tea bagging Mike Smith and mumbling something about Smith being his bitch.

"He was flying, obviously, and he was able to find a lot of openings and he could have had a couple of more with some luck," Alfredsson said. "He's very dangerous with his speed."

Alex Kovalev, Alexandre Picard, Nick Foligno and Jarkko Ruutu, who recently gave Scott Hartnell lessons on how to bite an opponent, scored the other Ottawa goals. Ryan Malone had the Lightning's lone goal in a dismal effort.

As is customary in today's game, when a team gets down by a few on the score sheet and feels frustrated, the fists start flying.

In the second period Tampa's Matt Walker took on Chris Neil, and stood his ground against Mr. Neil:



Later in the second, Zenon Konopka, who's name sounds like a bullshit alien lord Scientologists would believe in, took on the Senators' Chris Phillips in a bout that really featured more wrestling than fighting:



Finally, in the third Steve Downie took on Matt Carkner and was promptly defeated:



The Ottawa Senators will battle the Montreal Canadiens tomorrow night.

Leafs Forget A Game Is Three Periods, Fall to Rangers

So much for that offseason defensive make over. The Toronto Maple Leafs have now let up 24 goals in 5 games after falling 7-2 to the New York Rangers.

Through the first two periods the Rangers twice had two goal leads but each time let the Maple Leafs close within one.

Ryan Callahan opened the scoring on a power play goal (well, Luke Schenn did... but he put it in the wrong net) and Wade Redden scored a few minutes later to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead. With less than a minute left in the first Alexei Ponikarovsky scored to make the score 2-1.

The Rangers started the second quick as Dan Giradi scored a goal just 26 seconds in (again, the shot bounced off Ian White's stick... Toronto is scoring just on the wrong side). Jason Blake would score a power play goal 17 minutes in to bring the score to 3-2.

Then... the third period happened. Toronto lost what little concept of team defense it had and the Rangers had their way with the Maple Leafs.

Sean Avery scored twice, Marian Gaborik extended his point scoring streak and Dan Giradi got his second goal of the game.

"We kept battling until the third period but that fourth goal seemed to discourage us completely, which was the disturbing thing," Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. "We have a number of guys who didn't want to take a hit to make a play to get the puck out of our end, and it ended up in our net."

Colton Orr attempted to bring some excitment to the game in the first, but was handled by Donald Brashear:



Unfortunately for Maple Leafs fans, the team is back in action tonight as the Colorado Avalanche come to town.

Canadiens Strong But Can't Douse Flames

In a battle of early season unbeatens (and two teams that love to get out shot) the Calgary Flames defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 while wearing some fantastic throw back jerseys.

On a night where top defenders Robyn Regehr and Dion Phaneuf were scored on at will (each had a minus three), Calgary got a lot of help from it's fourth line.

Eric Nystrom had two goals (not a typo) and Staffan Kronwall (not the cheap hitting Kronwall) had his first NHL goal in the victory over the Canadiens.

Jarome Iginla (probably the NHL's best captain, despite how often Pierre McGuire fellates Mike Richards) got his first goal of the season on a nice back hand.

Montreal got goals from Scott Gomez and his over-sized contract, Guillaume Latendresse and Tomas Plekanec, who seems to be everywhere this season.

Montreal may want to keep getting out shot as they won both games when their oppenents had more shots, but lost tonight when they out shot Calgary 30-28 (Calgary out shot the Canadiens 16-6 in the second, while Montreal out shot the Flames 15-5 in the third).

A lot of Flames fans needlessly lost their headwear as Kronwall's goal was originally credit to Nystrom, which would've been his third goal and signal the apocalypse.

Jaroslav Halak was in net in place of Carey Price who was given a night off, and let in four goals on 28 shots.

Surprisingly, only one minor penalty was called the entire game, but we did see two fights:

In the first period Greg Stewart (Montreal Canadiens) made the mistake of taking on Brandon Prust (Calgary Flames)


In the second period Kyle Chipchura (Montreal Canadiens and fabled Mexican goat killer) took on Eric Nystrom (Calgary Flames) who should probably just stick to scoring goals.


Montreal goes back to work tonight against the Vancouver Canucks and a choking Roberto Luongo.

Northeast Fight Club: Bruins Draw First Blood

There were four official fights involving Northeast teams last night (not including Zdeno Chara absolutely molesting one of the Hartford Whalers Hurricanes players who tried to cheap shot him.

The Boston Bruins met the expert cheap shot artists and resident coward Carolina Hurricanes looking for revenge... and much like a porn star the Bruins finished it on Carolina's face.

Our first fight was a second period bout that saw Milan Lucic of the Boston Bruins destroy Jay Harrison of the Carolina Hurricanes. Reports have been coming in that Harrison was seen wandering around the streets of Boston after the game asking if anyone knew his name:



In the third period, Shawn Thornton, the classiest fighter in the league, took on ex-Bruin and current Carolina Hurricane Andrew Alberts. Alberts had to get his rectum checked after the fight as Thornton completely violated him:



A little further west, the Ottawa Senators were in New York to face the Rangers and decided to fight to save face... or at least that is the excuse I am using for them.

Ottawa's Matt Carkner took on Donald Brashear, who deserves to have his face punched in. This wasn't much of a fight as Brashear did one of his famous cheap shots on Carkner and then decided to hug him. I'd give the slight edge to Carkner in this hug fest:



In our last bout this evening, Ottawa's Mike Fisher took on the New York Rangers' Aaron Voros. Mike Fisher gave his best effort but in the end Voros edged him out:

Northeast Fight Club: Regular Season

Last night the Montreal Canadiens faced off against the Toronto Maple Leafs, with the two teams squaring off in three official fights. Here we go:

The first throwdown of the evening was a bout between heavyweights Georges Laraque and Colton Orr. Laraque gets the take down, but Orr definitely got his shots in:



Travis Moen (Montreal Canadiens) squared off against Jay Rosehill (Toronto Maple Leafs). This was Moen's first fight of the night and Rosehill's 213th in the past month. I believe it is safe to say Moen came out on the losing end of this one as Rosehill manhandled him like Ovechkin manhandles his boyfriend:




The third and final fight of the night was Travis Moen trying to get revenge on one of the biggest turtles in the NHL, Mike Komisarek. As you can see, Homosarek pushes Moen into Toskala then attacks Moen when he was on the ground. Mikey then proceeds to hug him because he loves hugging men and can't fight. Komisarek sucks:

Northeast Fight Club: Pre-season

Even though it is only pre-season we have seen dozens of fights across the NHL, particular from games involving the Toronto Maple Leafs. Here are a few pre-season divisional fights for your enjoyment:


A short but spirited bought between Matt Carkner (Ottawa Senators) and Eric Neilson (Montreal Canadiens)



Ryan O'Byrne (Montreal Canadiens) and Shean Donovan (Ottawa Senators)




Sergei Kostitsyn (Montreal Turtles) refuses to answer the bell after a cheap shot against Jeff LoVecchio (Boston Bruins). Figure he would've learned to fight from his drug dealing buddies:

Northeast Fight Club

One feature we'll have here on the Adams Division Blog this coming season is the "Northeast Fight Club." Basically whenever teams for the division meet and have a fight, we'll post it here with stats, reviews, win/loss, etc. Here's a few inter-division fights from last season to get you in the mood:

Milan Lucic vs Mike Komisarek




Shawn Thornton vs Chris Neil




Andrew Peters vs Chris Neil




Paul Gaustad vs Jamal Mayers




Francis Bouillon vs Brad May