NHL Morning Papers (Thursday Edition): Penner still angry at MacTavish, Lecavalier not mad at Strachan and the Henrik Lundqvist situation is clarified

Here are the morning papers for Thursday the 20th of November:

• Joe Sakic is going to miss tonight’s game at home versus the Flames.  The Avalanche has to be impressed with the recent play of Peter Budaj.
• It appears that Nikolai Khabibulin may be earning the number one goaltending spot in Chicago.
• Bruce Dowbiggen pulls out every possible church analogy when describing the Flames’ play.  Can the Flames finally pull off an impressive encore tonight in Denver?  That won’t be an easy task, as the Flames are 3-6 on the road this season.
• Oilers center Shawn Horcoff feels like he is back on track, writes Joanne Ireland.  With the Wings in town, Jim Matheson has a piece about the team’s embarassment of riches.  Veteran hockey writer Scott Morrison thinks that Craig MacTavish is a terrific head coach.  (Writer’s note: I agree.)  While many think MacTavish is a good coach, there still appears to be some hard feelings between Dustin Penner and his coach.
• If Habs fans are worried about their favorite squad, take solace, at least you aren’t Senators fans.  Meanwhile, the Tanguay-Koivu-Kovalev line still has a lot to prove.  Randy Phillips tells us of one of the main reasons why Patrick Roy was so good at what he did.
• With Mike Fisher and Chris Neil both out of the line-up for the next little while, the Senators need to put together a solid team effort tonight versus Montreal.  Here are some details on the Senators’ third jerseys.
• Ron Wilson thinks Vesa Toskala needs defensive help from his teammates.  With three days off before the team’s next game, Wilson took the opportunity to skate his team into the ground on Wednesday.
• The Canucks went into MSG and ran Henrik Lundqvist out of the net with a five goal barrage only halfway through the game.  Let’s just say Roberto Luongo proved to be the superior netminder in last night’s battle.
• The Stars will be looking to record their first two-game winning streak of the season tonight versus Chicago.
• No one works harder at rehabilitation than Hurricanes winger Justin Williams.
• Vincent Lecavalier isn’t mad about the report on HNIC that he was the main reason Barry Melrose was fired in Tampa.
• Thrashers forward Bryan Little was only recently told to get comfortable in Atlanta and get his own place.
• The Penguins are hoping Marc-Andre Fleury can return from injury on Saturday afternoon to face Vancouver.  Tonight will be the first time that friends Sidney Crosby and Colby Armstrong play against each other on the ice.  Uncharacteristically, the Penguins have been very strong in the faceoff circle this season.
• Erik Johnson’s surgery on Wednesday was successful.
• Coyotes head coach Wayne Gretzky has some words of advice for new Lightning coach Rick Tocchet, in this morning’s Arizona Republic.
• Looking at Martin Biron’s stats, you can tell the Flyers’ season is very much dependent on how well he plays.  Ed Moran of the Philadelphia Daily News has an interesting article about head shots.
• Predators center Jason Arnott is lucky he wasn’t seriously injured on Monday and he is hoping to be back in the team’s line-up this Friday.
• With Rostislav Klesla on the injured list, the Blue Jackets decided to call up a forward from the AHL instead of a defenseman.
• Henrik Lundqvist was called off the ice last night in the Rangers’ loss to Vancouver, so that should put to bed the rumors of him just skating off the ice.  Last night’s performance was so poor, the Rangers called a team meeting after.
• The Wild players have been happy with their record but they do realize they need to put more offense on the board, writes Brian Stensaas.
• Panthers head coach Peter DeBoer put his players through an extremely physical practice on Wednesday.
• Devils center Brian Rolston has been out of the team’s line-up for five weeks and there is still no word on when exactly he will return.
• The Sabres need to get better defensively and that was never more apparent than it was in their 7-4 loss last night at Boston.
• Alexander Ovechkin gave the fans of Anaheim a treat yesterday with a four-point effort.  Meanwhile, with the injury to Francois Beauchemin, the Ducks are trying to look for three workable defensive pairings.
• Red Wings veteran netminder Chris Osgood understands and respects the company he is in on the all-time career wins list.  In other Wings news, Darren McCarty cleared waivers for the second time this season.
• Doug Weight isn’t on the Island only to mentor, he feels like he has far more responsibility, writes John Jeansonne.
• Stephen Harris of the Boston Herald tells us that the Bruins are one of those teams that just find different ways to win games and that was very apparent on Wednesday night.  Fluto Shinzawa wonders how much Red Bull the Bruins and Sabres threw back before game-time last night.  Meantine, Bruins coach Claude Julien believes Michael Ryder and Patrice Bergeron are starting to develop some chemistry.
• The Caps proved that their practicing of the team power play has worked with three early markers on the man-advantage last night.  Washington forward Tomas Fleischmann has impressed the Capitals brass.

For Illegal Curve, I’m Richard Pollock.

**Last night I appeared on the NHL Arena Podcast with Chris and Rick from the NHL Arena Program (check it out).  The guys had me on for a while and we talked about a myriad of topics.  Here is the link to the podcast.**