With the demotion of goaltender Maxime Daigneault, Tarik El-Bashir has deduced that the Caps will use Maxime Ouellet as Olie Kolzig's backup for the coming season. Hard-hitting investigative reporting, considering that the move left the Caps with only two goaltenders in camp. According to the snoozer of an article in the WaPo, Ouellet could see upwards of 20 starts.Dave Fay wasted less space saying the same thing and spent the remainder of his article talking about how the rule changes are good for hockey. Zzzzzz.
CNNSI.com's Darren Eliot has his preview of the Caps up.
There's also a disturbing rumor floating around that Alexander Semin played for Lada last night and is going to stay in Russia. Will the saga with this kid ever end?
Monday's Scoreboard:
- Columbus needed a shootout goal from Jaroslav Balastik to beat Pittsburgh 3-2, despite having 16 power play opportunities (and scoring on just one). Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 31 of 33 shots for the Pens, who played without Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby, among others.
- Martin St. Louis picked up where he left off last year, scoring a goal and adding two assists in Tampa's 5-3 win over Detroit. Freddy Modin and Kris Draper each had a pair of goals and an assist for the 'Ning and Wings, respectively, and John Grahame beat Manny Legace in a battle of two netminders fighting for their team's starting job.
- The Devils have to cut $2.22 million in salary over the next two weeks to get under the salary cap. Likely candidates to be shipped out of the swamp for a bucket of pucks are Viktor Kozlov, Sergei Brylin, Jeff Friesen and/or Jamie Langenbrunner.
- Avalanche wing Milan Hejduk has undergone arthroscopic knee surgery and will miss four to five weeks.
- Pavel Datsyuk is back with the Wings. Can Ilya Kovalchuk's return to Atlanta be far behind?
5 comments:
Why are the caps still messing with the Semin head case? Its obvious that he has ZERO motivation and desire to play in the NHL. He showed no interest last season when he was here, barely motivated enough to figure out how to get to the games on time. Compare that to the interest that AO shows every day.
I think GMGM needs to just get off the pot and drop this guy.
I disagree. The kid's got all the talent in the world and he's young. He just needs to get straightened out. I wouldn't give up on someone with that much talent so quickly. In case you haven't noticed, the Caps don't have a lot of blue chippers like he undoubtedly is. My advice? Get him over here and get a good, strong Russian vet influence for him and AO.
I had that thought too, but with Cassels, Zubrus, Halpern and Sutherby, the Caps are solid down the middle. I guess Brylin can play some wing, so it might work. I also have no idea what kind of leader/character guy he is.
I hear what you are saying, but this guy isn't going to show up. He has had TWO years to show up and play for the caps (or in Portland). He hasn't done it. When he was here, he could have cared less.
I don't think GMGM can get the kid here, and if he does through some miracle, I don't think they can motivate him. But, time will tell.
I think you're probably right, Semin probably won't be back (see today's WTimes article). But that doesn't mean GMGM should quit on him. He should do everything he can to get Semin here - it's his job.
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