The Maple Leafs and Canucks got an early jump on the off-season. Some thoughts:
-Toronto did the right thing in firing Paul Maurice. It gives him the whole summer to find a new job, and it also gives the new GM a free hand to name his own bench boss. It appears as if they Leafs will have that new GM in place before the draft. Obviously Dave Nonis is a candidate, but I'd also look at Doug Armstrong and Dave Taylor.
-The Canucks named player agent Mike Gillis, who seems eager to put his stamp on the roster. From his comments that the Canucks are, ..."not close at all" to a Stanley Cup, it seems any player not named Luongo could be dealt. I expect Gillis to try and make a big splash, either in free agency or at the draft-or even both.
-Anyone else think that the Leafs are considering Keith Acton for the head coaching job because he resembles Verne Troyer's character in "The Love Guru"?
-It's a lot of fun for me as a Flyers fan to read that they were lucky to beat Montreal and Washington. I suppose there will be sore losers in any group. For the most part Habs and Caps fans were gracious in losing and gave the Flyers some credit. The ones that didn't still babble about luck.
-The Florida Panthers continue to be a joke. Owner Alan Cohen is a prime example of a bad team owner-meddlesome, myopic and constantly making knee jerk manuvers with his hockey personnel.
-It was kind of surprising to me that Joel Quenneville was let go as Colorado's coach, but after hearing some Avs fans, he apparently stifled the team's best youngsters-and one even said they made the playoffs in spite of him, not because of him. I don't know. I know that under his hand Paul Stastny has been a breakout player, Jose Theodore had a semi-rebirth, and a team with more injuries than Pickett's Brigade at Gettysburg made not only the playoffs, but got to the second round. Some blame has to land on GM Francois Giguere's desk. He didn't do much at the deadline to fill holes-adding an obviously injured Peter Forsberg and an ancient Adam Foote.
-Did Paul Holmgren really get Braydon Coburn for Alexei Zhitnik?
-Is it just me, or does Versus do a piss poor job of covering the sport? Why do they show close ups of guys' faces and the bench DURING gameplay? Makes me yearn for the heady days of Fox's robots and glow pucks.
Good job as usual.Thank God we get the games on CBC and TSN up here, versus is a joke and does a horrid job on hockey coverage.Go Flyers.
Interesting observations - the "Mini Roundup". Thanks for the insights and thoughts JS. As to Quenneville, the scalp hunters will always voice the loudest opinions. Meanwhile, I don't expect this move will solve the problems, both real and imagined, that the Avs face. I think parting ways (as both sides put it) was not in the best interests of the team. Obviously, that's just a hunch and a wild guess on my part. Time will tell.
Nice blog, JSaq. I couldn't agree more about the VS nonsense. They refuse to show replays during stoppages in play unless it's a goal review or something protracted. Last night when Downie buried a Pens defenseman behind his own net, my son wasn't looking and I was hoping they would show it again. Then I remembered in was VS, so no chance. I guess they assume we'd rather watch Lasse Kukkonen drinking water at the bench or Hatcher having a facial convulsion...
Yeah...and we got Freddy Meyer for Alexei Zhitnik first. Why couldn't we have traded him for someone a little better? Meyer has turned out to be a solid 5th dman, and shows potential to improve, but Coburn is way ahead of him. It's very unsatisfying. And yes, Versus is terrible. Bring back ESPN PLLLLLLEASE. Gary Thorne was the best.
glow pucks may be on the way back according to the news i heard this morning. an "updated" version of course
Glow pucks would be good in Dallas...WTF is with the standing for 60 minutes?