Hamilton vs Toronto

[Yeti]

Hamilton vs Toronto, 7:05 PM


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[NWTHabsFan]

0-0 after 1st period.

The line of Gratts, Dags and Balej looks good. Higgs had a great move during a PP. Overall entertaining period.

[NWTHabsFan]

1-0 Dogs. Higgins from Pleks on the PP. What a move and set up by Pleks. Nice shot by Higgs.

[NWTHabsFan]

Dwyer - Rocky Thompson fight. Gordie can't win a fight in the AHL either. Medic, need a blood pack for Gordie.

[Yeti]

Another goal by Higgins. Great play by Ferland to set him up. 2-1 Dogs. Isn't that refreshing? Can we bring on Dagenais, Balej, Plekanec and Higgins for tomorrow in Ottawa?

[Disp]

5-2 final for the dogs. I enjoyed watching that.

[BCHab]

Plekanec is a good player that's for sure. I was impressed by Higgins as well. It seemed to me that Komisarek was not playing as well as last year...Entertaining game.

Cheers,

[blny]

This was the first chance I had to see them this year. Very impressive. Great communication between forwards and defence. Fowards were aggressive. Plekanec was everywhere. Higgins showed some fine hands. Perezhogin made an outstanding pass that was capitalized on, but what a pass. Dwyer wears #11 - now that's funny. Gordie got pummled by Rocky Thompson. Big time broken nose. Damphousse looked decent. Beauchemin was solid. Balej showed a lot of spunk for a little guy. At one point in the third he got tripped up by Lynch. Despite Lynch's enormous size, Josef sprung to his feet and got in Lynch's face. Nice to see stuff like that. All in all, a lot of positives.

[Kareem]

I don't why people are disapointed in Perezhogin, he's way better then Balej was last year and thats considering he's never lived in NA before unlike Balej. He's got top notch skating and stickhandling with a great shot and did you see that pass in the 3rd to Plekanec, simply amazing, my jaw dropped. Balej is good, but he doesn't always make the smartest decisions. He reminds me a lot of Berezin. Higgins is the most complete player with great skating and a heck of a nice shot. He's also very strong on his skates from what I saw.

Plekanec seems more and more like a steal in the 4th round. He'll keep on developping and I think we might have a good player. Good strength, skating and playmaking.


Is it me or does Komisarek look faster and a lot more mobile this year? He seems to have improved his skating.

Perezhogin, Balej, Plekanec, Komisarek and Higgins are all good pick ups, I'm really impressed at their skill level. If I had to make a chart based on pure skill (with our less then 25 years old) it would be:

Hainsey
Markov
Perezhogin
Ribeiro
Higgins
Komisarek(he brings much more then just skill though)
Hossa
Plekanec
Ryder
Balej
Ward

But on NHL success:

Komisarek
Markov
Perezhogin
Higgins
Hainsey
Ribeiro
Plekanec
Hossa
Ryder
Balej
Ward


EDIT: Is it me or does Perezhogin fall alot?

[seventeen]

The quality (from the limited exposure that I had to him) that impressed me about Plekanec was his character. Here's a quote from his website, where he keeps a journal of the Bulldogs' games. This was a recent game against the Chicago Wolves.


"In overtime, my teammate and I went in two-on-one and I decided the game with a perfect shot over the trapper of Kari Lehtonen...what a lucky goal! This compensated for my mistake near the end of regulation time when I took a bad penalty. Our opponents tied the game on the ensuing power play."


What a great kid! Confident enough to say his goal was a perfect shot, but humble enough to say he was lucky and to accept the blame for letting hsi team down with a late bad penalty. If only some of our major league players could see their performances in the same light.

If you're interested in following his journal, here's the link:

www.plekanec.cz/news_eng.asp