The last week was full of action at NHL. Some players made great impact while some of them were simply let down. One of the key players of this season, Jamie Benn made a promising impact. His performance is one of the major reasons for the success of Dallas Stars, which is now in the top eight in the West. However, in the last three seasons, the team missed being a part of the playoffs. In the last match against Edmonton, Stars won the match 4-1 and Benn scored twice in that game. Benn grabbed 82 points pace, which is much better than his last season’s 57.
Other players who made mark include Jarome Iginla, Lars Eller, Shane Doan, Semyon Varlamov, and Joffrey Lupul.
Jarome Iginla- He created history by entering the league of 500 goals at NHL. Though the 500th goal was not among the bests in his career, but that hardly makes any difference in his glowing career. The goal is not being cited as one of his artistic scores because he attempted a pass that was pinballed off by two players of Minnesota and the ball entered the net. Iginla became the part of the elite club as the 42nd player to score 500 NHL goals.
Lars Eller – This Danish forward made mark this week as he became the second player to score four goals. His penalty shot against Winning Jets on Thursday was excellent.
Shane Doan – He was scoring two goals since 38 matches and missing the chance of hat trick at NHL. This week it happened against the Islanders on Saturday where he scored two goals early. He had sixty minutes to get the third goal and he did that when the remaining time of the match was :00.1. This thrilling feat created 5-1 win for Phoenix.
Semyon Varlamov — The goaltender of Colorado Avalanche is the biggest reason for the team’s success this week at NHL. He just allowed one goal last week and allowed on seven since the Christmas break.
Joffrey Lupul — Lupul made his mark in spite of the presence of Linemate Phil Kessel. In fact, this is best season with seven points and two goals in three games of Toronto that took place last week. In 41 games, he scored 47 points and 19 goals.
Apart from these players who made mark at NHL, there are also some players who did exactly the opposite.
NHL Player’s Association has not given its consent on the realignment plan as many players and team executives of NHL expected it. The delay of the realignment generated mixed opinion as the Player’s Association did not consented to the changes that League’s Board of Governors adopted last month. Last Friday, it was decided that the plan of realignment would not be available for the session of the 2012-2013. However, in the first part of December 2011, this plan was approved by BOG.
The plan involved the movement of thirty teams of the League from the present alignment of two conference and two divisions into an alignment of four conference plan. In fact, the format of Stanley Cup Playoff was also sought for changes such as four leading teams of every conference would make post season and there will be playoffs of first two rounds within every performance.
The reason behind the delay is being cited as the lack of convincing information regarding the benefit of the realignment. Craig Adams, the representative of Pittsburgh Penguins NHLPA team said that they have an issue regarding lack of proper documentation to find out weather the National Hockey League has conducted any travel projection. They want to know if changes in the current setup would cause any change to the financial and the officials of NHL did not clarified this stand. Craig Adams also added that they are yet not turning down the idea, but they have not seen anything that would convince them to give consent to the changes.
On the other hand, the League stated on Friday that NHLPA’s delay to approve the changes has forced them to maintain the present alignment for the session of 2012-2013 so that there is no delay in the schedule and other aspects of the tournament.
However, there are supporters of this change that will bring four conferences. Particularly, the teams in the middle of the Canada and US preferred this format. This will provide benefit to the teams like Winnipeg, Dallas, Columbus and Minnesota as they will be able to play against their geographic rivals and also get better timings for television viewership. “We are disappointed with this development as we were expecting that there will be some changes as discussed earlier,” said Jim Lites, the CEO and President of the Dallas Stars. Similar feelings were expressed by the team executives from Minnesota and Columbus.
