4 days left...

The NHL season officially opens in 4 days and the Penguins FINALLY confirmed that Crosby would not be starting the season. A monkey living in the rainforest in South Africa could have told you this, but they felt it was important to let everyone know. They even wrote a special story about it for their site as did the NHL.com writers. Um, he still hasn't been cleared for contact in practice, so who in the world figured he'd be playing? Apparently some delusional folks in the world. Too much logic went to into figuring this mystery out I suppose.

Brendan Shanahan has been busy making lots of video's about suspensions and rule breaking hits and it's only the preseason. Ryan Malone of the Tampa Bay Lightening should get a prize for realizing before he left Montreal last night that he should wait by his phone for a call from Shanahan. He is well aware he will be facing some sort of discipline for hitting Chris Campoli in the head even though he didn't intend to. Maybe this is what Shananhan is trying to do. Make the players realize before he calls them out that they made a bad play or decision.

Sean Avery who is one of the most outspoken hockey players might be taking his talents to Hartford. He's one of 2 players up for the final cut from the Rangers to join the farm team. Avery is infamous for his "sloppy seconds" comments about a fellow hockey player dating his ex which got him exiled from Dallas. And of course this summer he threw a party in LA and allegedly punched cop. He's a bit of a PR nightmare when in the mood but Hartford, CT is a nice little city so I hope he doesn't poison it since NYC is pretty immune to his type of behavior. Since he's in the final year of his contract I don't see him being resigned regardless of where he lands. This could very well be his final season of professional hockey.

Don't think I ever posted this but forgive me if I did. Mike Comrie who has played for a string of NHL teams, but who is better known for his wife (Hilary Duff) and family's business (Canadian furniture company Brick) has decided to take the year off to recover from surgeries that marred last season. Since he was a last minute pick up for only half a million by the Pens right before camp last year, odds are his career is also done.

Finally players get hurt all the time and obviously another player is usually the reason for the injury, but players understand its the nature of the beast and deal pretty well with it. Until fans take advantage of social sites like Twitter that can let you basically have at anyone who doesn't block you. If I was Eric Nystrom, I'd be blocking the world right about because everyone has been attacking him for a legal play (that most believe shouldn't have been legal for years now) that broke Taylor Fedun's femur after they raced for the puck after an icing. Fans have been going after Nystrom on his mirco-blog for injuring Fedun. How Nystrom hasn't had a nervous breakdown from all these attacks is amazing because I'd be losing my mind. Tough skin for sure. And for the record, Nystrom said he feels terrible for what happened so it's not like he's unaware of the injury. People really need to give the kid a breather.