Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Tonight's Games (Oct 18)

Nashville at NY Rangers - 7 pm
Florida at Washington - 7 pm
New Jersey at Pittsburgh - 7:30 pm
Colorado at Toronto - 7:30 pm
Montreal at Chicago - 8:30 pm
Detroit at Anaheim - 10 pm
Minnesota at Los Angeles - 10:30 pm

Game of the Night

Tonight's an easy pick - Detroit/Anaheim may be the best matchup but the game to watch will be Malkin's debut in Pittsburgh.

Despite a poor preseason and rumours that he would end up in the minors, Marc-Andre Fleury has gotten off to a great start thus far. Crosby has picked up where he left off last year but the scoring depth up front isn't great. Fortunately for the Pens they've gotten five goals from defencemen (Whitney 2, Letang 2, Melichar 1) to help ease the burden.

The Devils are coming off a loss to the Rangers so they will be looking to bounce back strong. I would expect Brodeur to get the start, even with back-to-back games in Pittsburgh and then home vs Nashville.

I went back to see how Ovechkin and Crosby did in their first games last year:

Ovechkin: 3-2 win vs CBJ, 2 G, 0 A, +1, 5 SOG, 2 PIM, 17:36 TOI
Crosby: 5-1 loss to NJ, 0 G, 1 A, -2, 3 SOG, 15:50 TOI

New Jersey is a stronger team in all facets and won't be happy about losing to their hated rivals a couple nights back. I'm predicting a Malkin goal but a Devils win.

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