2013: The NHL season that almost wasn't

Guy Boucher fired as head coach in Tampa Bay.

No matter who coaches them, they still need a goaltender.

 

Should have traded Boucher to Montreal for Gerard Gallant...Boucher will surface behind the Habs bench one day and Gallant was Yzerman's winger in Detroit for a lot of years...bet he's on the list of potential successors.

 

We somehow missed this. Because the Penguins, who have won 12 in a row after theier 2-1 win over Philly tonight, needed to get a whole lot better, they traded prospect defenceman Joe Morrow and a fifth round pick to the Dallas Stars for their captain Brenden Morrow. Points are way down this year, the final of his contract, but he will be a stud come playoff time.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/teams/players/bio/?id=1108

 

Rumor is Jagr and Roy are also on the trading block. Whitney can also probably be had.

The Stars seem set on ripping a page from Jon Daniels' playbook across town: Raid the bargain bin and flip them for all they're worth.

 

Jagr's actually having a decent year. Might be a valuable piece on a contender. Roy probably has a longer shelf life.

 

It would be bush league if the Owen Sound Sun Times reported it about an Attack player with zero context, as the Star did here.

 

What a great guy Jeremy Jacobs is and this is the guy who essentially runs the league. This is the type of scumbag you support when you take the owners side.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2013/03/26/jeremy-jacobs-mark-bellissimo-wellington-florida/

Jacobs, a man of the people.

A particular flashpoint came in 2010, when Bellissimo contracted out the center to a promoter staging a concert by the hip-hop artist Akon. “That didn’t go over too well,” said Mason Phelps, a former equestrian who today serves as a Jacobs family spokesman in Wellington. “Nor did we want to attract the kind of people the Akon concert would attract to this community…. The people that go and listen to and like Akon are not Wellingtonites. It’s just a different crowd of people. I don’t mean to sound like a snob, but this is a fairly upscale community, and we don’t need to bring the low- and middle-income hooligans into town and have them all of a sudden say, Wow, good pickins’ out here.”

 

Rich assholes fighting and conniving - sounds like an episode of "Dallas."

This picture makes me laugh too. It's not the swimming pool at Mario Lemieux's house, but, whatever.

 

Puckheads looking for an entertaining read should check out Journeyman by Sean Pronger, Chris's older brother. Not as well-written as Dirk Hayhurst's books about the big-league dreams of minor-league ball players, but it is a pretty good look at life on the fringes of the NHL.

 

Bruins vs. Canadiens tonight (7:30 ET) on the NBC Sports Network. Teams are tied for first place in the Northeast Division and have played a couple of good one-goal games already this season.

 

Jarome Iginla a healthy scratch for Calgary at home vs. Colorado tonight. Rumors that a trade could be imminent.

 

Boston appears to be the likely destination, according to Twitter.