mjlegend

Suspensions have been pretty harsh, but I'm glad they're getting guys before they get to the ridiculous Matt Cooke stage. Had Cooke (repeat offender_ done what Wisniewski (repeat offender) did, people would be calling for a half-season.

Anybody who was a healthy scratch in the playoffs had better be skating his ass off. He has a lot to prove this year.

@SlavaMalamud Slava Malamud Legendary coach Viktor Tikhonov suggests every KHL team send at least one player to Lokomotiv to salvage the team's season. With respect to Tikhonov, I think you have to wait to do any sort of resumption of hockey-based team activities. You can put 22 guys on the ice next week, with a new coaching staff, and wear the team's colours but they won't be Lokomotiv. They'd be a bunch of strangers in a very uncomfortable position. Hire a coach, hire some staff, take a year off, hit the ice running next September.

Just one day. Arguably, the biggest tragedy in hockey history happened mere hours before. There was time to make a decision to postpone. Even putting it to the afternoon would have been an improvement. I don't care if the assembled Canadian national media 'explode's over it. Ultimately, there's a bigger story, particularly given the lack of a definite time frame over his return. The issue on concussions and recovery can wait for a bit. Canada's national sports networks disappointed me greatly by devoting their time to the full half-hour press conference. Kudos to Rogers for talking about the crash before the conference and getting people on to talk about it. That's all I'll say about this as I feel a lot of you are missing the big picture and this isn't the thread for this discussion. Forty-three men on a team dead vs. one person's brain injury. Back to Crosby talk. What's to stop someone, the next game, from hitting him in much the same way Hedman did? Because I don't think that hit was among the ones that the NHL is trying to eliminate. If he gets hurt again a couple of games into a comeback, on a play like Hedman's, what have we learned? He mentioned whiplash from the Hedman hit and feeling more pain in his neck than in his head originally. If so, how would a reduction on head shots have helped Crosby if the rules were in place then? The doctors there said that they were confident that eventually he would not have any evidence of the concussion/brain injury. I'm sure this would have been news to anyone whose had a brain injury because IIRC, they stick with you forever.

Dinamo Minsk's tribute to the Lokomotiv team is on their website. http://hcdinamo.by/news/dynamo/1302.html I think a worse fate ought to face this person if the plane was overweight and deemed OK to travel.

The whole point of the conference was Crosby and doctors talking about Crosby. If that's not the Crosby Show, I don't know what is. All for: "I don't know when I'm coming back." No one outside of Pittsburgh gives a s*** about him today. Dozens of hockey players died, leaving behind families and friends forever. Sidney is having headaches and might not play for a few months, or maybe he will. The conference was a whole lot of nothing being announced, while they're still pulling the bodies of hockey players out of the Volga. Just wait one day; how tough would that have been?

Shero said two sentences about the crash and then it was the Sidney Show. During the whole press conference, I was imagining George W. Bush reading from The Pet Goat while tragedy was occurring elsewhere. Conference was carried on at least six channels here while I kept thinking of McCrimmon, Salei and the rest of Lokomotiv. EDIT If it's my call, I postpone the newser for the day and say something like "The entire hockey world, including the Penguins, is mourning the deaths the players and team officials in the plane crash in Yaroslavl. Out of respect, we will postpone the press conference until tomorrow. Our thoughts go out to the families, etc, etc."

@dchesnokov Dmitry Chesnokov The updated list of the dead in the crash now includes Ruslan Salei. This is now easily the worst off-season in hockey history.

TSNBobMcKenzie Bob McKenzie As per @DarrenDreger, Crosby'sbeen skating. Will skate tomorrow in PIT, do the newser, go to NYC on Thursday and be back skating Fri in PIT. There's been so much speculation I think they felt the had no choice but to, you know, actually let people talk to Crosby and ask him if he's ready to go. My suspicion is that he'll be ready to go fairly soon if he's skating frequently symptom-free.

Johnson would be an awesome shot-blocking coach but I don't think he cracks the top 14 unless there are some injuries. A LOT of injuries. QFT

Look out, Bruins, Caps, Flyers and Penguins, here comes Franson and Lombardi!

Here's hoping he doesn't end up with a big head over this. . . . . . . . . . I mean, Tie's head is huuuuuuge.

2012-13's Blues' marketing slogan: I Will Survive.

Once a month, players answering (selected, I suppose) questions.

The Canucks did everything they could for him when he was in their organization. Such a shame he felt he had no other alternative because he was a good role model until a couple of days ago.

White will get a whopping 14 points by the trade deadline, forcing Kenny to trade a good prospect to get another defenceman. Kronwall will garner more Norris votes than Lidstrom. Jiri Hudler will be dealt to a conference rival and score at a 50-point pace in a second-line role. Helm will score 12 goals and get some Selke buzz, but not enough to become a finalist. Emmerton will be plucked off the team on waivers and become a semi-regular with the Senators, playing 60 games. Abdelkader will lead the team in fighting majors with three. Conference finals, Nashville beats San Jose and the Rangers beat Pittsburgh. Rangers win the Cup in six games, with Lundquist winning the Conn Smythe. After the season, the Phoenix Coyotes will move to Quebec and the New York Islanders announve they will move to Kansas City by 2015.

I want to see it!

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Alexei-Kovalev-torches-Ottawa-sportswriters-ex-?urn=nhl-wp10303&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Psychotics are less delusional than how Kovalev remembers his NHL career. He berates the Ottawa media, for apparently channeling all their anger towards him and bringing beer through the airport. Just once, I'd to hear a mercurial superstar who shat away talent through multiple disputes with coaches and management say: "Yeah, I bounced around quite a bit because I had a bad attitude and I didn't listen to anyone's advice. There were years there, where I literally did not break a sweat. But that's over now and I want to contribute in a positive way to a team with great ambition." He almost says that here: But probably not Pittsburgh: http://letsgopens.com/scripts/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=54761&p=1810502&hilit=kovalev#p1810502 "Getting Malkin back and he's already signed, the need for a soft floating Euro with effort issues is going to be filled." . . . "I noticed him when he was turning the puck over. That and anytime he tried to play a puck along the wall."

He should sign with Ass-hat Pori.

"How's the world treating you today, Mr. Golubovsky?" "то - собака, едят мир собаки, и я ношу "нижнее белье" кости молока."

There might be something to that. I think this off-season has been the Webster's definition of not making any changes. Ken Holland sounds pretty content. http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/tmr/comments/ken_holland_believes_red_wings_roster_is_ready_to_go/ If Rafalski doesn't retire, the only NHL player they signed would have been Commodore. The other reason that the Wings won four Cups was incredible depth in the organization. If someone did go down to injury, another player was able to take his spot without the Wings missing a beat. Kopecky's hurt, Helm comes in. Hasek sucks, Osgood replaces him. There were always three lines worth of guys who could play Red Wings possession-game-type hockey. Now, we don't see anywhere near that, and the inconsistency has been showing up in a disturbing amount of regular season and playoff games for the last couple of years.

PICK HIM UP KENNY! just kidding.

You have to respect a team that's beaten the Wings two years in a row. Bounces, injuries, refs, whatever. They won and the Wings didn't. Period. They also don't want to rest on the laurels of losing in the WCF for the last two years. I don't think they have the chemistry to win this time around either, but kudos to them for looking outside the box for solutions and trying to find different pieces of the puzzle.

I DON'T THINK WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER GOALTENDER, BUT IF WE DO . . .

Hamilton?