The Fifth Liners

The Chicago Blackhawks stuttering start to their new campaign continued with a 5-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild at the United Centre last night- this defeat leaves the Hawks record as 6-1-3 which after their glorious start last year, is making them look slightly awkward. Zach Parise got the Wild started after he scored a rebound on a powerplay after 12.39 of the 1st period played after Corey Crawford had saved the initial effort! But then Niklas Backstrom made an excellent save from Marion Hossa on the break away with six minutes remaining! Minnesota's lead was then increased to 2-0 when after only 1.03 of the second period, Kyle Brodziak tipped in Marco Scandella's shot to leave Hawks fans bewildered! Their frustration grew when Backstrom denied Jonathan Toews and then the post denied another potential goal to still leave Chicago behind, they also had a goal waived off for a high stick before Bryan Bickell finally smashed one in for the home side to reduce the scores to 2-1 ...

As I awoke from my slumber on this cloudy and possibly rainsoaked Manchester morning, I found Mike's question of the week sitting in my phone, which read thusly, "Imagine if you will, a Seven Days In Hockey Hall Of Fame. Sounds like plan. But there's a catch. You can only have one player of each nationality.Which do you pick and why?" This will be quite possibly the toughest question I have ever faced! So as always, let's go to war!! To the other talent players left out of this list- its not a personal, I just didnt have space! Seven Days in Hockey Hall of Fame Canada Wayne Gretzky : We'll start with the most obvious candidate in our hall of fame- The Great One's achievements are the ones that we mere mortals only dream about and during his glorious 21 Year career which took in four Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, LA Kings , St Louis Blues and the New York Rangers , he held over 60 hockey records at the time of his retirement, including...

Last night the Detroit Red Wings evened the score against the Anaheim Ducks to tie the series. It's tough being a Detroit fan, no doubt there was lots of shouting at the TV coming from Michigan. The Wings took an early lead in the first period, netting twice to no reply. After Johan Franzen scored a third, it looked like the Wings had this one in the bag. Then something happened, either Anaheim turned up or Detroit switched off; cos the game was turned on its head. Saku Koivu put the ducks on the board in the second and at the start of the third, the Wings found themselves 4-1 up. Goals by Ryan Getzlaf , Kyle Palmieri and Bobby Ryan brought parity to the proceedings and it was down to Detroit's Gustav Nyquist  to score the winner in overtime. Justin Abdelkader and Damien Brunner also scored for the Wings. The next two games are at the Joe Louis. Anaheim did well to come back from a three goal deficit and will be disappointing to have not taken any...