I find it completely bizarre that Babcock would scratch Modano against the Wild, preventing him from reaching his 1500th game milestone this season (he's at 1496 with 3 games left now). Modano has been skating hard and generating opportunities, and the Wild are a non-playoff team...was this really necessary?
Scratching Miller against the Sabres earlier in the season when his whole family was in attendance also seemed like a **** move.
This isn't just about being claimed by a perennial bottom feeder, it's about being claimed by one of the most poorly managed franchises in all of professional sports. How can anyone blame the man for not wanting to deal with the consistently bad decisions made by Garth Snow and Charles Wang? Of all the teams to possibly be claimed by, the Islanders are definitely a nightmare for any player.
"In September 2010 Ellis went all crybaby (on Twitter) about how much money he makes as a professional athlete. Given the climate of the 2010 recession no one is impressed."
Do the Wings even make the playoffs last season without Bertuzzi single-handedly winning a stretch of several games when everyone else was injured or slumping? Without those 6-8 points the answer could easily be no.