Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Gonchar Joins Whitney on the Shelf

I feel bad for anyone who picked Sergei Gonchar in their fantasy league. What was initially described as a short term injury has turned into a 4-6 month stint on the IR.

I don't feel as bad for the Penguins, who are now seeing the down-side to karma after winning the Crosby lottery. Pittsburgh better hope that Fleury and Orpik are ready to live up to their big contracts.

Here's the link to TSN's article on Gonchar's condition.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=251217&lid=sublink05&lpos=headlines_nhl

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

1st Day of Rangers Camp

Steve Zipay at Blue Notes has line combinations and defensive pairings for today's practice...

WHITE (which will open in Ottawa, possibly with some tweaking, on Saturday)
G---Valiquette, Wiikman
D---Rozsival/Staal, Potter/Mara, Denisov/Kondratiev, DelZotto/Murray.
F---Dawes-Drury-Prucha, Voros-Nedved-Rissmiller, Sjostrom-Anisimov-Parenteau, Byers-Moore-Jessiman
BLUE (home opener vs. Ottawa Monday and NJ)
G---Lundqvist, Lafleur, Mike BrodeurD---Redden/Girardi, Kalinin/Fahey, Pock/Sanguinetti, Busto.
F---Naslund-Gomez-Zherdev, Fritsche-Dubinsky-Callahan, Korpikoski-Betts-Orr, Dupont-Pyatt-Jamtim

My thoughts: Naslund-Gomer-Zherdev could be nasty. I also like Fritsche-Dubie-Cal as an energy line. Hate Prucha on the second line. Would prefer Shanny there but don’t see him on the list. I think that Riss might wind up with Voros and Sjostrom in the regular season.

They have so many forwards. Time to start making some moves. Maybe (hopefully) they are trying to showcase Prucha. I think Rozy/Staal and Redden/Girardi are probably a lock for the top two d pairs. Schneider anyone?

Thoughts?

Monday, September 15, 2008

Radulov back to NHL?

So now the rumors are that Radulov wants to leave Russia and come back to play in the NHL. Just when you thought this situation could not get more ridiculous, it does. The link has some crazy Paul Kelly quotes about this circus. I would really have to think hard if I was Poile (Nashville GM) about taking Radulov back.

//sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/NHLPA-director-Radulov-wants-to-leave-KHL-rejo;_ylt=Atpl6f0qhopYghwFuqfrLvd7vLYF?urn=nhl,107077

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Lang to Montreal - Gainey's Plan B

It seems that Gainey had finally finished waiting for Sundin to make up his mind on whether he was "mentally prepared" to play the 2008-09 season and made a move for additional depth with his remaining cap space. I'll have to say that, if anything, Sundin helped to keep my interest in hockey this past off season as I was checking the rumor blogs daily in hopes of learning that he had done the impossible and signed with the Habs.
Mats would certainly have put the up Canadiens over the top and would have solidified their position as a contender for the East as well as for the Cup. Not to take anything away from guys like Koivu and Plekanec, but in watching the Habs over the last few seasons it was very obvious that there was a real need for them to acquire a physically dominant, top line center.
What Montreal has is a fast team that rolls 4 lines pretty much equally and who have one of the most underrated defensive corps in the game. They are a group of guys who demonstrated several times last season that they refuse to give up (you Ranger fans can attest to that...) and towards the end of the season they started to play like a team with a lot of confidence.
So what does Robert Lang bring to the Canadiens? From what I know of him he's a big body and an experienced centerman. When I watched him play it always seemed to me that he was a slick passer who was extremely difficult to knock off the puck. Looking at his stats he seems to have put up decent numbers (8+ consecutive 50+ point seasons) and and has been a + player during that time. If I had to guess at what Carbonneau will do when it comes to the lineups I believe Lang will play on the 3rd line centering Higgins and Sergei Kostityn. Pending a positive rating in the faceoff circle, he should also be able to secure his role on the #1 PP unit.
At 37 this upcoming campaign may be Lang's last season in NHL. Regardless of how he performs I believe this will give Montreal some serious depth at the center position and will create some healthy competition amongst the younger guys like Lapierre and Chipchura, who are still trying to secure their full time spot on the team.
October 10th is the big day. Habs open vs. Buffalo. Seeing as it will be the Canadiens 100th season, I was finally able to convince the wife that we needed to acknowledge this momentous occasion by purchasing a widescreen plasma. Here's hoping that Lang will look good with the Habs in HD.
Go Habs Go!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

What kind of NHL player/personality would you be?

As a former college teammate of the Toe Drag crew joins the Rangers and embarks on the next phase of his NHL career, I've been thinking about this more and more. Our buddy is very low key and claims that he's not planning to be a part of the whole glamorous professional athlete in NYC thing. Whether or not that holds true is a different story. Either way, it got me thinking about what kind of NHL player I'd be. Would I be well-liked by the fans? Would I be vocal in the media? Would I be a presence in the social scene? Then it got me thinking about what type of NHL player the rest of the guys on this blog would be. I'll start it off and let the discussion go from here:

J Dubbs: Sean Avery...without the fashion sense.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Chris Chelios is a God (with a capital G)

The Red Wings officially announced yesterday afternoon that Chris Chelios will be back for his 25th NHL season. Believe it or not, Chelios was drafted the same year as Dale Hawerchuk, Bobby Carpenter, Ron Francis, Grant Fuhr, Al McInnis, Bruce Driver, Gerard Gallant, and John Vanbiesbrouck (in what was a pretty sick draft). The linked Hockey News article tracks some of the events that have occurred in Chelios's career, and is a pretty cool read.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/17766-Top-Shelf-The-Chris-Chelios-timeline.html

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

These Girls Really Bul-ow

Bul-garia's women's team lost to the Slovakian women's team 82-0 in an Olympic qualifying game. 82-0!! The Slovaks outshot them 139-0. Now, I normally have no interest in watching women's hockey (sorry ladies..and Swivel who used to coach chicks as a college coach), but that would be a game I'd consider watching. How did they average 1.37 goals per minute? I'm hoping someone finds a few clips on youtube. I think we finally found a team that Frosty can make at his age.

At least we know they're good at one thing: Sucking!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/more/09/09/bulgaria.hockey.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

32 Days...

Until the season starts. Starting the get psyched.

What will the Rangers do about Shanny? Are they waiting on Sundin? What are the odds Prucha is on the opening day roster? 5-1 is probably a fair guess.

How many goals will Rissmiller score this season? Anyone think he can put up double digits?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

This blog sucks

Nuff said.

2010 Team Russia

Continuing the discussion (or lack thereof) from a few weeks ago on the Vancouver Olympics, my Team Russia is below. Once you get past the obvious, this is not an easy team to select because so many of the best Russian players are home and we never get to see them. (Surprising fact of the day - last season, only 28 Russian players (excluding goalies) suited up in the NHL. I was surprised at how few. There were 47 Swedes, 30 Finns, 55 Czechs, and 21 Slovaks. ) These forwards are sick. The D aren't so hot, but they won't need to be.

Ovechkin Malkin Semin
Kovalchuk Datsyuk Kovalev
Radulov Kozlov Morozov
Zaripov Frolov Mozyakin


Volchenkov Zubov
Gonchar Markov
Tyutin [insert Russian league defenseman]

Nabokov
Khabibulin