I love that Richards is flying under the radar. Gaborik gets all the attention, still scores his share of goals, and leaves plenty of room for Richards. It's the perfect 1-2 punch.

As for the pool, at least you had a good team to begin with. Mine has sucked since Week 2. Apparently, there are only two teams in this pool that I can actually beat. That may get me to the playoffs, but I'm not winning a thing that way.

St. Louis is on IR, Koivu will miss at least a week, and Little was injured the day I picked him up to replace St. Louis. Maybe I used up all my luck in the first pool.

Rangers grab the Atlantic Division lead just in time for Christmas.

Damn, that looks nice.

Of course, they may not be at the top for long, depending on what happens in Chicago tonight.

Regardless, they're first in the East. Awesome.

Better watch out, Sens are 10 points behind the Rangers

Nine points, but the Rangers have played three fewer games.

Sens visit MSG January 12.

Sens get 3 out of 4 points in the Flyers back to back and sit 5th in the east! Watch out Rangers...

Eh, I'm not worried about the Sens.

The only team I'm remotely worried about at this point is the Bruins, and even they don't scare me all that much.

I don't expect the Sens to beat out the Rangers for top in the east/league or even the Bruins for tops in the division (even though they are closing in on them) but for a year where everyone picked Ottawa to finish dead last in the conference to see them holding down a playoff spot is just great news. Was at the game last night and it was awesome fun. City has been electric all year and it's a first time since the run to the cup finals that I think Sens fever's picking up in the city. Can't wait to see what happens here at the All Star game at the end of the month.

In all fairness I think Boston and New York are the teams to beat in the east. I give Boston a slight edge over the Rangers though just because of all the bruisers they have. i can see them repeating their championship, but I think everywhere else in the east is up for grabs and any team could beat one another in the playoffs.

From now on, whenever you read NHL Talk, you will read it as: No Hero Licking Talk.

Alright Sevens... Sens vs. Rangers tonight. Hope you're ready for pain!

I'm not the one who's gonna be hurting. Rangers become the first team to 60 points tonight.

I gotta hand it to the Sens. They played a nearly flawless road game.

Of course, if the Rangers power play didn't consist of two minutes of struggling to gain the blue line, it might have turned out differently.

They're leading the league right now, but they won't be leading anything for very long if they don't fix the power play.

Shit, the Sens are 3 points behind the Bruins! Now I didn't see that coming!!

Love the headline on NHL.com for the Rangers game:

"Gabo-rik Roll'd"

That's good.

Looks like the next outdoor game will be Detroit vs. Toronto. ugh... I don't look forward to that HBO series. I don't want to see more Brian Burke and Ron Wilson on tv. Words cannot describe how much I hate those two blow hards. They like listening to their own voices way too much.

Pretty good matchup we have going, Mr Black. You're lucky my goalies are shitting the bed.

I feel dirty for picking up Clarkson. I fucking hate him, but he'll help me more than Clutterbuck.

Yeah, good match up this week! My goalies are going pretty good so far but my goal scorers are pooping the bed. And of course I dropped Michalek in favor of keeping Bobby Ryan after Patrick Sharp came back from IR and he got two assists last night... I hate you karma...

You realize you shouldn't have gotten that shutout, right?

Tough break with Michalek, man. I actually thought about claiming him in my search for a RW, but went with Clarkson because he's producing more now. Didn't want to lose the PIMs or hits, either.

My problem is, I always seem to bench the wrong player. If have more players active than available spots at a given position, the player I bench has a big night. Never fails.

Though, you do have the #1 team right now, and if I can compete with that, I may be able to get further than I thought.

Why shouldn't Miller have that shutout? I didn't see the game, I just saw some of the highlights and it seemed that the Bruins were more in the mood to fight the Sabres then actually play hockey.

I may pick up Michalek again if he continues to produce. I actually had to take a day and think if I wanted to drop him or Ryan. If Bobby Ryan cools off again and Michalek starts scoring again (12 or 13 games without a goal) then I might switch them up but I'm pretty happy with my lineup.

Things were pretty tight in the pool for awhile. First to seventh place were just a few points away from one another, but I've gotten a little bit more of a lead the last couple of weeks and me beating out the guy in second place last week gave me some breathing room. Seems you and me are going to battle it out right until the end of the week though. And once the playoffs start anything can happen. I could be out in the first round... again...