Hype for December 28, 2009

Former NHL MVP Peter Forsberg was included Sunday in defending champion Sweden's Olympic squad for the Vancouver Games.

The veteran centre, who won two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche and was the NHL's MVP in 2003, was selected in the 23-man Olympic squad by coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson.

Forsberg, who now plays for Modo of the Swedish Elite League after 12 NHL seasons, has dealt with nagging ankle and foot problems for several years.

Caution was sprinkled in among the happiness in the suddenly jubilant Philadelphia Flyers dressing room.

A long-awaited three-game winning streak will do that for a team, even one mentioned as a Stanley Cup contender during the pre-season.

Jeff Carter snapped a tie in the second period and the Flyers beat the New York Islanders for the 13th straight time, 2-1 on Sunday night.

Tim Connolly finished off the St. Louis Blues after Mike Grier's fortunate bounce got the Buffalo Sabres going in the third period.

Grier's tip-in somehow squirted through for the tying goal early in the third, and Connolly scored the winner on a power play and iced it with a short-handed goal in Buffalo's 5-3 victory over the Blues on Sunday night.

Patrick Kane said his last-minute goal came on "one of those close-your-eyes-and-shoot plays." John Madden called his second goal "lucky." Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said his team was fortunate to win after a "crazy" third period.

Well, for a lucky team, the Blackhawks sure do win a lot.

Kane's second goal of the game with 43.4 seconds to play lifted the Blackhawks to a 5-4 victory over the visiting Nashville Predators, giving them the best record in the NHL.

Everywhere you go in Saskatoon, there are signs that a holiday classic is back.

It's not the usual winter sights grabbing people's attention, such as the annual light show at the city's zoo, or the dozens of families skating on the ice behind the historic Bessborough Hotel.

Instead, the season has become marked with the colours of Canada's junior hockey team — red, white and now green — plastered all over the city.

Who saw this coming?

Not even the most die-hard Maple Leafs fan could have predicted a win for Toronto on Sunday night against the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Leafs, after all, were coming off a disheartening 4-3 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens on home ice Saturday evening and because of the Christmas break, they hadn't practised since last Tuesday — to say nothing of the fact that the Penguins had won six of their of their previous seven contests.

Wins are just falling out of the sky for the Vancouver Canucks these days.

And for Mason Raymond, so are the goals.

The Canucks forward knotted up his first career NHL hat-trick in his hometown, a feat that included a 90-foot lob from centre ice that dropped right into the Flames goal, as Vancouver pummelled Calgary 5-1 at the Saddledome on Sunday.