Remember, remember the fifth of November. It’s Guy Fawkes Day so fire up your copy of “V For Vendetta” and then head out to your local rink tonight wearing your Guy Fawkes mask to watch some hockey. After all, if Guy Fawkes were around today, he’d be a hockey fan - it’s the anti-establishment thing to do you know.
Here’s tonight’s schedule of action and all times listed are Eastern, because that’s the closest time zone we have to Greenwich Mean Time.
7:00 pm
NY Rangers @ New Jersey
The Rangers looked rather shiftless last night losing to Philadelphia, meanwhile the Devils will be looking to build off of their win over Chicago the other night. As always, it’s worth watching to see what Rangers agitator Sean Avery does to try and get in the Devils heads, especially Ilya Kovalchuk. Think he’s got a little bit of material to work with now that the team and Kovalchuk are struggling?
Boston @ Washington
Thanks to the wonders of the NHL schedule, this is already the third meeting between these two teams with Boston winning the previous two battles 3-1 and 4-1. Tim Thomas will face off with Michal Neuvirth once again and for Washington, they’ll be looking to find a way to crack through Thomas. Working in their benefit, Thomas finally allowed more than one goal in a game in his last outing against Buffalo. Downside? He only gave up two goals in a 5-2 win. The Caps could use a breakout by the offense but looking for it to happen against Boston might be asking a lot.
7:30 pm
Montreal @ Buffalo
Buffalo is struggling. Badly. Facing a stingy Montreal team might not be the medicine they need to get things right. While Montreal might be giving up goals, they’re not giving up a ton of shots and for a struggling Sabres offense. The Sabres have to get things turned around here and cracking through Montreal would make for a good start there, otherwise the clamoring for someone to get fired in Buffalo, be it Lindy Ruff or Darcy Regier or both, will continue to get louder.
Carolina @ Florida
Two teams in search of some kind of consistency get to face off with each other in the front end of a home-and-home set. Carolina is coming off a 7-2 curb stomping of the Islanders the other night, meanwhile Florida is coming off a frustrating 4-3 loss to Atlanta where Thrashers goalie Chris Mason stopped 52 shots. For Florida, many of their losses have been in a similarly frustrating manner. Carolina, meanwhile, is hoping that their stomping of the Isles will be the spark they needed to go on a run. Rookie Jeff Skinner continues to be the pace-setter for Carolina as he leads the team in scoring.
8:00 pm
Calgary @ Minnesota
While the two are tied in the standings, the Flames are coming into the game struggling losers of three in a row. Over those three games, the Flames have allowed 15 goals against. That’s not going to win you many games averaging five goals against each night. Minnesota, meanwhile, is inconsistent but playing tough. They don’t give up many goals (they’re sixth in goals allowed in the league) but finding the net more often could help them rise up. The goaltending from Nik Backstrom has been solid and consistent, but as the offense goes, so go the Wild.
8:30 pm
Phoenix @ Dallas
The Stars are playing some good hockey so far this year and they can thank Brad Richards for a lot of that. Richards leads the team with 15 points and he’s the key setup man for them. Meanwhile, the Coyotes are hoping that the return of Martin Hanzal is what they needed. He looked good the other night in helping key the Coyotes to victory. Wojtek Wolski’s effort after being benched for a game was also much better. They’ll need them both to keep bringing it to win.
9:00 pm
Detroit @ Edmonton
If the Wings were struggling we could’ve labeled this game as “old and busted vs. new hotness.” Instead, the Wings are playing just fine and the Oilers are dealing with growing pains with such a young team. So much for predetermined story lines. Johan Franzen should be good to go after missing practice yesterday, meanwhile Jimmy Howard will get the start in goal. Edmonton will hope that their youth crew can give the old guys on Detroit a run for their money with their speed. Jordan Eberle continues to be fantastic for Edmonton.
10:00 pm
Pittsburgh @ Anaheim
An interesting battle to say the least as Pittsburgh is coming off a bad loss to Dallas and the Ducks got a shot of success against Tampa Bay the other night beating them in overtime. Recent call-up Kyle Palmieri scored in his first game with the Ducks meanwhile Teemu Selanne played a bit of “turn back the clock” playing a brilliant offensive game. The Ducks will need all that and more to handle what’s likely to be an ornery Penguins team that resorted to having Sidney Crosby dropping the gloves to stick up for his teammates.