In case your wondering, James Neal, Jordan Staal and Craig Adams have joined the party. Neal has a broken foot and is out indefinitely. Staal has a torn MCL and out is weeks. Adams re-injured his knee in practice this morning and is questionable. Lets just go with he's on a little vacation. Crosby I think fled the country, and Letang might have joined him. Of course since they have concussions, I wonder who is leading who. Aaron Asham also apparently wasn't interested in playing and has something wrong with him, but won't tell anyone. Dustin Jeffery (remember him) is still having knee issues from last season. I'm thinking at this point he's just scared he goes and plays one game and then he'll end up hurt again. He might as well just stay where he is with one injury. The situation has gotten so bad that Dupuis who typically is a winger (for the MIA Crosby) is playing center somewhere in the lineup. Where is the bubble wrap for the 3 uninjured players on the team? Wrap them up and ship them off to a vacation.
The team already has lost 250 man games to injury this far and it's January 8. Currently they are in first place in this category. They ended last season with 350 man games lost and at the pace they are collecting injuries as opposed to points, they could blow that number away by over 100 games. Glad to know they are good at something. I hope the trainers are being paid well because they earning their keep this season. Just for good measure, former Pen Mark Letestu has a
broken hand. It's a curse.Predators Shea Weber has been cleared to play from his concussion. Senators Chris Phillips has been diagnosed with one. Here's a great list of concussions (it has some suspensions also but still a worthwhile timeline for this season). I'm starting to wonder if the All-Star concussion team should be playing the starting lineup for the Penguins IR. Between the head cases and wonky knees, not sure if they could even last a period.
In some feel good news, Coyotes Captain Shane Doan scored his first hat trick. It only took him 16 seasons, 1,161 games and 308 previous goals to reach this accomplishment. With 38 games where he scored 2 goals, even he wasn't sure the hatty would happen for him. Talk about a jeopardy question.
The NHLPA voted against realignment on Friday. Many players cited reasons such as travel budgets, extra time on the road (longer trips) and how playoffs would look having 2 conferences of 7 teams and 2 of 8. Granted the 7 and 8 is a bit strange, but this solved so many issues and evened out the Western travel a bit by forcing Eastern teams to travel a bit more. The NHL said they are considering filing a grievance against the NHLPA. In case anyone was wondering, the CBA battle has unofficially began and it's not looking like it's going to be pretty. Also of interest, Winnipeg will still be a part of the Southeast division. Because that's not messing with their travel budget one bit...
The final episode of 24/7 this season aired Thursday night and boy did it blow last seasons out of the water. Thanks to the horrible officiating in the 3rd period and Torts being Torts and speaking his mind, he was fined $30,000. Hopefully he views this as the best $30,000 he has ever spent because unless you are blinded by your Flyers love, you know that those last calls were just bad. Torts will be gracing us as a coach at the All-Star game. Can't wait.
Till then, here are my thoughts and opinions on the final episode of Rangers-Flyers
-Sean Avery is a space cadet who was dropped into this world. Free refills on OJ, sunglasses at breakfast? Your not hungover and Brandon Prust is trying to be nice and sit with you. Really not sure if anyone on the team will ever miss him. Also Torts interview on the plane where he address' the Avery being sent down situation was perfect. Avery is more a character than a hockey player and when a guy like Marc Staal is ready to play, you remove space cadets in favor a real player. No questions asked.
-Bryz is on the verge of being an over paid backup goalie who is a loudmouth that goes against organization policy. When your winning, you get some lax and leeway but when your losing and being pulled in favor of your backup in an event like the Winter Classic, you might want to learn to control your mouth a bit. They have a kindergartener on their hands that is making $51 million dollars on a 9 year deal. I think Philly might really be cursed in the goalie position. The major plus for them about Bobrovsky is he still has no command of the English language and uses a translator. So he can't really speak out of line since someone else is really speaking for him.
-Brandon Prust at the bench saying he wanted to punch a Panthers player that sucker punched Michael Del Zotto but didn't because he didn't want to risk a Shanaban. Mike Rupp took over with no fear (and no suspension). This was great to see a player using his brain and realizing everything could have a consequence. Either he's really that smart or Shanahan has truly gotten his message across (at least to some players).
-The projector dying while Torts is having a film session in the hotel on the road was hilarious. You've got guys singing and Torts and company cursing like the Titanic just hit the ice burg. Wonder if they knew it wasn't that serious.
-New Years Eve and Dubinsky's grandfather tells them all to drink up. The family appearances
this season are priceless.
-"If your life is complicated with people in town, make sure you get rid of the people." Sure. No problem. Are we going Soprano style or what?
-Mike Rupp giving plain and simple advice to his teammates before the game. He knew how bad conditions could get (like last years pond) and managed to become the hero of the game with 2 goals. The chirping from the Flyers about him scoring the first goal was great since right after they said he scores once a year, he got the 2nd one on net. Brad Richards got the winner since he likes to constantly remind people that he was actually worth his 9 year contract for $60 million.
-Claude Giroux asking Lundqvist if he can just have one goal tonight. Henrik said no, but Giroux did in fact score on him later.
-The embellishment call on Callahan is still crap. Danny Briere penalty shot in slo-mo was cool, but the whole sequence never should have happened. Even Torts said so.
-They ended this season showing us smiling facing. They opened this season showing us faces of serious guys. No smiles allowed. The bookends to it tie it up in a neat little package they way we like things to be.
In case you wanted to know why the Rangers won the Winter Classic and why they are just on fire right now, here are the 8 reasons according to nhl.com. Good stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment