Around the NHL: 2024-2025 Season

[Second Line Center]

Looking over Colorado’s numbers - Casey has 2 goals; 11 points since October 28.  
 

24 points in 38 games.  
 

He is somehow minus 15 on that team.  It looks like he’s no longer their 2nd line center.  
 

But he had a nice game yesterday.  A goal and was a plus 2.  
 

 

[ska-T Palmtown]

7 hours ago, Andrew Amerk said:

I had no idea the game was on NYE this year. 

I woke up this morning to see when the game would be on - and discovered it had already been played. 

I found out when I tried to go get a hair cut in the neighborhood adjacent to wrigley and it was a total mess with the game traffic 😞

[LTS]

14 hours ago, SwampD said:

When did they move it to NYE? It's always been on NY Day, no? Is it because of the NCAA football playoffs?

I watched it, and even thought about posting about it. I was going to say that I thought that the NHL was smart to have the Sabres play both teams in the week before the game, as that market always shows the strongest ratings in League events.

Moving it to the EVE was stupid as everyone is usually busy.

They moved it this year and yes, it was done specifically because of the NCAA football playoff changes.

What likely did not help is that in the Sabres first TNT game this season they kept saying New Year's Eve for the game but the graphic they put up said it was on January 1.  So imagine a bunch of people watching games on TNT and seeing Jan. 1.

I did watch part of it, but at 5pm I am busy eating or planning food if I were going to a party.  It's a serious miss and they'd be better off moving it to a weekend game.

Also, it was raining during the first part of the game at least. The performances were cringe worthy. Find videos of Smashing Pumpkins and Chance the Rapper from that game... it's not good.

The game itself was boring because Chicago sucks.  Seriously 0-5 in outdoor games.. let's not have them in it any more.

[HumanSlinky39]

The Sabres suck, but the Rags are in a steeper death spiral and just lost the only really good thing about their team. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

[PerreaultForever]

13 hours ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

The Sabres suck, but the Rags are in a steeper death spiral and just lost the only really good thing about their team. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

and they beat the Bruins who can't score a goal to save their lives on any night. 

One of the funniest things now is watching Zadorov shoot. I remember watching a playoff game with Vancouver where he rifled one into the net and I though wow, he's developed a cannon with his size behind it and I guess Sweeney saw that too. Trouble is that was his 1 out of 100 shots that actually hit the net. Somebody needs to get that man a pair of glasses. Shoots wild is an understatement. 

Point to my mentioning this is Sabres have blown another season that has teams falling and opportunities there for the taking as Washington has done. 

[inkman]

On 1/1/2025 at 7:57 PM, inkman said:

The NHL has an outdoor game on New Years Eve and not one post in a hockey forum about it.   I’m sure it’s partially due to the Sabres irrelevance but we used to have threads dedicated to these games.  Now, I’m not sure how many people here actually knew there was a game.  The NHL destroyed a unique fun experience but forcing the fans to drink from a few hose.  You love outdoor games?  We’ll give you ten a season.  What’s that, you don’t care anymore?  Well put it at 5 o’clock on a day dominated by other sports and for good measure well throw 12 of our own games on to compete.  This league has a gun permanently aimed at their foot.  

 

On 1/1/2025 at 9:07 PM, SwampD said:

When did they move it to NYE? It's always been on NY Day, no? Is it because of the NCAA football playoffs?

I watched it, and even thought about posting about it. I was going to say that I thought that the NHL was smart to have the Sabres play both teams in the week before the game, as that market always shows the strongest ratings in League events.

Moving it to the EVE was stupid as everyone is usually busy.

 

On 1/1/2025 at 10:08 PM, PerreaultForever said:

No I think it was because of the teams in question. They obviously favor big cities and big stadiums but they expected Chicago to be rising this year and they want to market Bedard. What they got though was bottom of the barrel against mediocre so like who cares? 

If the outdoor game had been Buffalo vs. Detroit nobody outside of those cities would have watched it either. 

It’s even worse than we thought. 

 

Edited yesterday at 07:04 PM by inkman

[LTS]

1 hour ago, inkman said:

 

 

It’s even worse than we thought. 

 

Good god, that's brutal. I think the NHL needs to pick another day and time of the year entirely.

[Wyldnwoody44]

Maybe with the clear signs of warming, I would opt for maybe a February date where chances of cold and no rain are best. 

[PerreaultForever]

It's looking like Ottawa was just riding the Ullmark wave. With him injured they've fallen back to looking, well, basically about the same as the Sabres. 

[mjd1001]

On 1/3/2025 at 5:07 PM, Wyldnwoody44 said:

Maybe with the clear signs of warming, I would opt for maybe a February date where chances of cold and no rain are best. 

It does vary from region to region, but I think, on average, the 'coldest' week of the year in the northeast is the 2nd or 3rd week of January.

In Buffalo its January 19

Chicago January 23

Boston, January 25

Nashville, January 17

 

Then you have some cities that are a lot different:

Seattle its December 23.  By early Feb temps are 3-4 degrees warmer there on average

St. Louis January 7

Denver December 30

Salt Lake City December 31

Calgary Jan 3

 

So if its in the Northest or Great lakes area, Late January, Early Feb might be the best.  But if the game is out west, Feb is WAY too late,is been getting warmer there for weeks.  Right around New years is the coolest time of the year.