mjlegend

Marleau and Gina Kingsbury. Gotta love a lady from Uranium City, Sask.

The fact TSN needs Brian Burke's reaction to EVERYTHING. "It was snowing today, Brian. Your thoughts?" "I already told you I'm not trading Kaberle."

Damn it all anyway, I forgot to make public my pre-game prediction of "two point games from both Shane Hnidy and Derek Meech."

Craig Ludwig is crossing his fingers. I'll take Gainey's word about Laraque being a distraction over anyone else's. Gainey rarely talks in these kjinds of terms about anyone else. 28 PIMS in 28 games isn't enough if you want the tough guy role.

God, I hope you're right about that. Because I get cold chills when I think about the potential of the end of a close Game 7 next year and Lidstrom isn't on the ice.

I think every problem the Wings have with focus this year can be remedied by having a 30-minute staredown from Yzerman. Just get the offending player to go into Stevie's office for half an hour, and all he'll do is just glare at them with an icy glare that would melt steel. "Ville, it's your turn again. Step into Mr. Yzerman's office. You of course know if you want to summon the EMTs, you can always press the buzzer underneath the chair...." "O, paska."

Yzerman.

This is kind of a sad way for Brind'Amour to fizzle out. He just won't quit, which is in some ways admirable but it still sucks he can't quite do it this year like the last couple of years. I hope he can Nieuwendyk his way into mid-season retirement and join somebody's front office.

Noticed Price trying to pry Hamrlik off of Janssen. I don't think that would have gone well for Mr. Price.

Someone with Cujo-itis; announcing a retirement at midseason when they haven't played in months. http://www.nationalpost.com/sports/story.html?id=2459702 Let the Hall of Fame argument begin now. Just kidding. If he wasn't hurt/in contract disputes all the time, he might have been a great player. Two Selke Trophies in his career, which is impressive. He was noticably slower in his Edmonton/Toronto/Columbus years, and it's kind of a shame that's the last memories we'll have of him.

Heh. Luckily for them the Wings never get to the Final... I don't know the waiver order right now but I wouldn't be surprised to see Pitts grab him again. Somebody will pick him up at $1.6 mil.

To be fair, I hate the Vikings for this exact reason. I don't think anyone in the top three in the conference, let alone a heated rival like Chicago, wants to play the Wings in the first round.

I congratulate and thank you for your personal service in WWII, Gordie, Sid, Sid, Sid, Crosby, Crosby, Sid, Crosby and Crosby. You must have served near to where both of my grandfathers served.

I could care less about that. So Mike Richards or Colby Amrstrong or (insert favorite elbowing cheap shot guy here) doesn't get to buy another yacht. Boo hoo. Bert got a ton of time for his shot to the head, deservedly so IMO, plus he missed the playoffs. The money being paid to the offending party should be the last consideration Campbell takes into account. I want hitting but blind elbows to the head aren't part of what I want to see in an NHL game. The public at large - many of whom might be potential NHL fans - have lost their taste for headshots like this and other hits in the NHL which have gotten piddly one or two game suspensions. Like Bob McKenzie said a few weeks ago, the NHL is going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the public debate.

I'll pile on here. 20 games, minimum. You can't suspend him for the Sweden hit (the IIHF didn't feel it necessary) now. What a pointless, textbook unnecessary elbow to the head. If Cormier never plays on Canada ever again, I wouldn't mind. The fact this is in junior means the punishment will be a lot more severe. Colin Campbell probably lets him off with a warning for this.

This policy has intent to blow.

Had he not gotten hurt in the fight now been out indefinitely, he probably all but guaranteed a spot in the NHL until at least the rest of the year. Making 12 times your minor league salary would be a hell of a motivator. As it is, now that he re-aggravated his shoulder injury, he's up anyway. Win-win for Bloduc. Unless for some reason he doesn't like having a separated shoulder. If I'm AV and I send a marginal player out to start a fight and he gets his ass kicked AND re-aggravates an injury, I probably don't sleep all that well at night. From Minnesota's perspective, why the hell do they have both Boogaard AND Scott, who are essentially doing the exact same job?

The most outspoken membership of the NHLPA is the more well-heeled players from all nationalities. Canadians too. If you have a nice, long 12-16-year professional career playing the game there are only so many chances you ever get to acquire money for your family for generations. If anyone thinks, say, Jason Spezza or Dany Heatley or John Tavares wouldn't move to the KHL for a $10 million raise/year they'd be foolish. Right about now, Sheldon Souray would probably pay for his own flight and accomodation to get out of Edmonton. I bet no one here would have questioned Larionov and Fetisov for coming over to NA for a quick cash grab in the early 90s.

I take it the search for the guilty culprit is going about as well as OJ's search for the real killers.

Ahhh, just wait a couple of years or it'll look outdated when they put Homer's 96 up there. (meltdown sequencing... time counting down...10...9...8...7...)

Ish. Too soon.

St. Mary's University = CIS hockey, in Halifax. Their rules are a little less stringent about "professionals" playing the game.

I can't wait until Howard plays a real playoff-calibre opponent, like San Jose and Los Angeles on this road trip. Errrmmm.... Well, two that are newer at least.

To be fair, Kipper's a rich immigrant, too. Generally, in a battle of rich immigrant vs. rich immigrant, I'm staying the hell out of it.

He should have pulled a Freddie Olausson and played his NHL last year with the Wings, but congrats to him anyway.