NHL Games to watch 2/10/12-2/12/12

Here's some of the more interesting match-ups to watch this weekend

Friday's Game

Chicago Blackhawks at San Jose Sharks
This is one of the bigger games of the season. Antti Niemi will be facing the team he took to the Stanley Cup two years ago. The Blackhawks currently sit in sixth behind the Blues and Predators in their own division and need this win to keep up pace with them. On the other hand, the Sharks are two points ahead of the Kings in the Pacific and need this win to put some breathing space between them. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau have been on fire the past four games. Marleau has 3 goals and 3 assists while Thornton has 3 goals and 5 assists. Logan Couture is on a 7 game point streak with 5 goals and 5 assists. The Blackhawks have been on a miserable road stretch of late with six straight losses including getting lit up in Western Canada. They've been getting poor goaltending from both Corey Crawford and Ray Emery and the return of Patrick Sharp has not helped them. They really need a win if they want to retain any shot of winning the Central, much less, leapfrogging the Blues and Predators ahead of them.

Saturday's Games

Nashville Predators vs Boston Bruins
This essentially turns into Pekka Rinne vs Tim Thomas. Boston has been playing poorly of late with losses in three of their past four games and getting shut-out twice (once by Cam Ward, and once by Ryan Miller). They really need a big win to rebound from their losses. Nashville is also losers of three of their past four, but the problem is more of keeping the lead than a lack of scoring. They've blown chances against Ottawa and the Canucks the past two games and need a strong game to rebound. The good news is, that when you have Martin Erat playing well, the rest will follow. Look for Suter and Weber to also try and get goals for this Predators team that is looking to catch up to St. Louis in the standings.

Florida Panthers at New Jersey Devils
Florida is currently sitting on top of the Southeast division. New Jersey is currently in 5th in the East, 3rd in the Atlantic. Both team will be fighting for points. For Florida, this is a chance to get two clear of the Washington Capitals as a loss in regulation would have them swap spots with the Caps who are currently in 9th. For the Devils, they need to stay ahead of Pittsburgh and keep trying to catch-up with the Flyers. The Devils have been on fire as of late and it can be attributed to three guys. Ilya Kovalchuk, Zach Parise, and David Clarkson. In the past 6 games, Kovalchuk has 12 points and Parise and Clarkson both have 8 points. The real question will be who the Panthers put in net as neither Clemmensen nor Theodore have made a case to be #1.

New York Rangers at Philadelphia Flyers
This is the biggest match-up of the weekend. The top seed Rangers who are 4 points ahead of the Flyers will look to extend their lead while the Flyers look to shorten it. If you thought the Devils and Rangers fighting was big, wait til you see this one. I don't think we're going to go past 3 seconds after the puck drops before these two go at it. King Henrik will be looking to continue the Rangers winning ways while Ilya Bryzgalov will try to match him on the other end. The Flyers came off a big win with Brayden Schenn scoring the game winner against the Maple Leafs. These teams last met on Super Bowl Sunday when the Rangers beat the Flyers 5-2 in MSG. The Flyers look to return the favor in the Wachovia Center.

Winnipeg Jets at Pittsburgh Penguins
Winnipeg was very fortunate to get two points against the Caps on Thursday night, but Saturday will be a different story as the Penguins look to gain points on the Devils. The Jets need two points to get within one of division leading Florida, but they're going to need players to start scoring and their goaltending to bring it against Marc-Andre Fleury and the Pens. Should be a good game to watch.

Colorado Avalanche vs St. Louis Blues
The Avs are one point behind the 8th seed Coyotes while the Blues look to catch up with the Red Wings. Both teams come in on two game win streaks although the Blues haven't lost much recently as evidenced by their 7-2-1 record in their past 10 games. The real story is going to be the goaltending. Can the Blues continue to roll with both Halak and Elliott? Elliott will get the start, but expect the Avalanche to try and at least get a point out of this.

NHL Divisional realignment

So the Atlanta Thrashers are now officially the Winnipeg Jets. The NHL has decided not to re-align the divisions this year, which will result in three trips to Winnipeg for the Caps. However, should the NHL decide to re-align, how would it look? Here's some potential ideas being thrown around.

So long ATL, hello Winnipeg!

It's finally happened, Winnipeg tentatively has a team once again. The move is not official until the sale and relocation has been approved by the owners, but I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. They will most likely be renamed the Jets since the NHL owns the name and would probably give it to them if they asked. In this case, the Phoenix Coyotes and relocated Atlanta Thrashers would share the history, much like how the present day Baltimore Ravens pay tribute to the Colts who left the city as well as several other teams in other sports. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'll probably come back tomorrow and post some. In any case, right now the division alignments are screwed. The NHL is not going to change the divisions for the upcoming season, and as a result, my Washington Capitals are going to Winnipeg (about 1500 miles) 3 times a year, while the Jets are going to be traveling into the Southeast division for a total of 12 games. Now, obviously, this doesn't make any sense. Why won't the NHL re-align? Well, the problem is that the Phoenix Coyotes are also at risk to be moved out of the south. As a result, re-aligning the divisions in back to back years would be a mess and make the NHL look bad. Although our fans might be upset, it actually looks kind of ridiculous if teams are swapping divisions every year. With Winnipeg taking the Coyotes, odds are Phoenix might end up moving to Ontario or Quebec or some random city that used to have a hockey team (Kansas City anyone?) Regardless, here's how it looks now and how it probably will look after the 2011-2012 season.