2008/09 NHL Thread

If it's turmoil in Cowtown there should be rioting in the City of Champions. another blow out loss, this time 8-3 to Detroit. It was 3-0 before they knew what hit them and 5-0 before the first was done. Fucking brutal. Retarded call on bringing up no one to replace Horcoff. Sorry, I like Brodziak, but he has about as much right being on the top line as Liam Reddox.

They have now lost three of four and five of seven and have been outscored 25-12 over those 7 games.

Changes need to be made NOW!

 

Sean Avery, to no one's surprise, clears waivers.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/23233-Report-Avery-clears-waivers-likely-AHL-bound.html

My bet is he'll be back with the Rangers.

 

Will he be back in time for a Devils-Rangers game (they do play tonight) this season after Marty's return?

 

Not sure. He's got to get his legs back in the AHL and prove that he is not going to be someone his teammates want to lynch. So the Stars are going to moke quick on this I think, so he doesn't have time to alienate the entire Hartford dressing room. I give him two weeks in the minors before they bring him back in on re-entry waivers, at which time the Rangers will likely claim him.

 

http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=266522&lid=sublink05&lpos=headlines_main

Another call to ban fighting, this time from the concussion birgade. The story adds absolutely no statistics or evidence to back their message. Am I arguing that you can get a concussion from a fight? no, but I am arguing the frequency.

The biggest change that needs to be made, if they want to make some change, is eduactaion, especially at the minor hockey league levels.

I had six concussions growing up, five of them from hockey, none of them from fighting in hockey. My first three came in a three month span (one a month) while I was in atom hockey (one of those was the off-ice incident). I got two when I was in peewee hockey (only a month or two seperated those) and then I got a major concussion in my final year of midget. On all three I came back too early. The final one I was mocked by my coach because in all his years in hockey he "never had a player miss a game due to a concussion." I missed more than a month -- I wasn't even allowed to curl during phys ed -- and like I said I still came back too early, more out of wanting to play the last two games of my hockey career.

Hockey is a contact sport played on ice for crying out loud. They could bubble wrap every player on the ice and concussions will still happen.

Education, especially that of treatment and recovery, is the biggest area they can effect change in, and a change that will actually make a difference to the health of the players. I think at the pro level they are slowly starting to take the hint, but I question the consistency of that knowledge and message below that.

 

Unless Avery developed goal scorers' hands, he is not what the Rangers need. Yes, he brings piss and nasty and muscle to a lineup that needs those attributes. But, more than anything, this is a team that needs someone who can routinely score goals.

Arguably, the Rangers could trade someone like Dmitri Kalinin or Michal Rozsival to Ottawa for Chris Neil and a pick, without having to deal with Sean Avery.

 

Lightning finally reveal that Mike Smith has been suffering from post-concussion syndrome.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/feb/09/sp-smith-suffering-from-effects-of-concussion/sports-lightning/

 

Well, Avery is a competant second or third line winger who will provide some piss and vineagar for them. His last season with the Rangers he had 15 goals and 18 assists in 57 games. Very respectable numbers. He's definitely more capable offensively than Neil and he won't cost them a thing interms of assests. The risk of course is how quickly he sours the dressing room. The Rangers survived with him for two years already over that span the numbers weren't even close on how much better they were with him than when he was out of the lineup due to injury.

Still due to the locker room issues I wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot electrified pool. But I understand the Rangers thinking.

 

Well yeah, that's an upper body injury. I guess.

 

The difference is that the Rangers had Brendan Shanahan in the room to keep Avery relatively in line. Who is the leader that will keep Avery from being Sean Avery?

Kalinin's deal expires after this year and Rozsival is signed for the next three and a half years. Ottawa needs...well, everything. But you can make an argument that the organization needs help on defense.
Kalinin or Rozsival are, at the very least, serviceable on the blueline.

The Rangers need cap relief and someone to play a physical, annoying style. Trading for Chris Neil gives the Rangers those attributes and cap room. From there, Sather could make another deal for a top flight scorer.

 

Believe me I think it's a recipe for disaster. I think Slats is far overlooking the effect Shanny had on Avery.

Also the Rangers aren't going to be able to add a top flight scorer this season before the deadline. I can't think of many that would be available, unless you still consider Tkachuk and Guerin to be top flight scorers -- maybe bringing in one of them would help keep Avery in his place, could actually be the thinking. And the few that are available -- I think I heard somewhere Frolov out of L.A. may be available, certainly not an untouchable and depending on what the Sens do decide to do with the Big 3 -- well everyone in the league just about is looking to add a top-six forward. I just don't see it happening.

The big thing is there are only a handful of surefire sellers league wide right now, and they wouldn't be sellars if they had an over abundence of legitimate assets. Out West only St. Louis is really out of it, while in the East your sellers would be Toronto, Atlanta, Long Island and Ottawa. That's five teams, and I don't see many big offensive weapons being moved. More will probably eventually join that group but the big blockbuster deals usually take some time to put together especially with the cap and all of it's considerations.

 

Colton Orr dropped Mike Rupp with an overhand right in the Rangers' 3-0 loss to New Jersey last night.