[Gameday Preview - NHL.com Preview]Not much news in Capland as the team readies for a Sunday visit from the Florida Panthers (who lost yesterday at the world's most famous arena). The WaPo notes that captain Jeff Halpern is close to a return from the injury that has forced him to miss two games already and that the team and Olie Kolzig will soon start negotiating a contract extension for the netminder, who will turn 36 in April. The WTimes apparently is too busy basking in the glow of a certain D.C.-area football team's first playoff win since Christ was a baby to cover the Caps today (by the way, hail to said football team).
In other news from around the NHL:
- Don Cherry weighed in (of course) on the Kovalchuk/Crosby incident. Not surprisingly, he trashed the Russian and stuck up for his fellow countryman. Among his always restrained and classy rantings:
"I've seen a lot of things in my life but I've never seen a guy pointing to a guy in the penalty box," Cherry said. "Someone should've broken his (Kovalchuk's) arm but they didn't."
- And what about Kovalchuk/Crosby The Rematch? Read about it here under the title "Crosby Unravels As Thrashers Beat Pens" (hint: Ilya had another two goals, Sid had 8 minutes in penalties, including minors for diving and unsportsmanlike conduct).
- Time for fun with anagrams:
Sidney Crosby: Cry. Sobs, "I deny."
Alexander Ovechkin: Calder, I. Heaven knox. - This is not necessarily hockey-specific, but people (advertisers, commentators, etc.) need to stop referring to the site of this year's Olympic games as "Torino." It's Turin. Just like if the games were held in Rome, Venice or Florence we wouldn't say they were in Roma, Venezia or Firenze. I bet 99.9% of these offenders aren't even going over to Italia for the games.
- Hart: Marc Savard (Game-winning goal, 2A, +1)
- Ross: Michael Nylander, P.J. Axelsson, Michel Ouellet, Marc Savard, Sami Salo (3 points each)
- Norris: Sami Salo (2G, A)
- Vezina: Henrik Lundqvist (38 save shutout win)
- Richard: Jaromir Jagr, Milan Jurcina, Michel Ouellet, Ilya Kovalchuk, Sami Salo, Scott Thornton (2G each)
- Calder: Henrik Lundqvist (38 save shutout win)
- Aiken: Ryan Craig (-5 in Tampa's 6-3 loss) or Ray Emery (L, 4 goals against on 11 shots in 15:33). Take your pick.
3 comments:
i think as an owner of kovo your taking cherry's comments in the wrong light. I believe cherry was putting down pitts management as they've never had a player to protect their investments. Cherry said, " if someone would have roughed up gretz like they did sid, the offender would have to pay". no one ever did that shit to gretz b/c edm/la always had someone to protect him. The pens on the other hand let mario get beat to the point he didn't want to play anymore. And you can see it coming with sid. Cherry's a little over the top, that i can agree on, but he's absoulutely right on when he says the pens need to protect sid...do you think that if one of pitts players stands up for sid and breaks ilya's arm, anyone comes after sid after that?
I don't think this is a "protect your stars" issue. Ilya hadn't taken a run at Sid, he'd hit him cleanly and subsequently taunted him. That, to Cherry, deserves an aggravated assault. Hmmm... maybe the Pens should trade for Bertuzzi.
And if the kid had an ounce of toughness in his whole body, he wouldn't need someone else to fight his battles because there wouldn't be any (see Ovechkin, Alex). Clean hits don't get you in trouble, it's the stick work.
But I will agree that I pulled the juciest part of Cherry's rant and left some of the other "protect your stars" stuff out. It's more interesting that way.
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