Boston has been grinding out wins, as the team has recorded five of a possible six points since Marc Savard and Milan Lucic got injured.
The Sabres have to decide soon whether to keep Tyler Myers in the NHL or return him to junior hockey. (Writer’s note: This is not much of a decision, Myers should clearly stay.)
The Flames’ depth on offense is evident so far this season, as the team is leading the NHL in goals-per-game.
Roberto Luongo is now the Canucks’ franchise leader in shutout after last night’s 2-0 victory over Edmonton.
Mathieu Schneider made his season debut last night for Vancouver.
Bob Roberts
•“We’re really poor in our own zone right now,” said Ken Hitchcock after the Blue Jackets’ loss at Los Angeles.
•Even though the Blue Jackets have lost three of four, the team is still 6-4 which is the best start to a season in franchise history.
I don’t know if Ken Hitchcock has the flexibility to loosen the reins a little or not, but that’s what he needs to do. He has a top G and a solid D, and an elite F and several young guns at F; what he seems to lack is the ability to back off his system just a little bit. He needs to give his guys some freedom, and that will show them he has confidence in them and not just rigid faith in his system. That team can be much better.
•The Red Wings are going to need Daniel Cleary and Todd Bertuzzi to both improve on their total of two combined goals this season.
Mike Babcock has had Bertuzzi with Dan Cleary on the other wing most of the season, and he put them with Kris Draper two games ago to free up Henrik Zetterberg to play with Pavel Datsyuk… something had to be done to get Datsyuk going.
A tough thing for the Wings thus far is that they play such a great team game. Why is that tough? Well, when you play a great team game it isn’t just a matter of getting one star like Datsyuk going (and I still say there’s something not right with him) — they’re not winning because they’re not “going” as a team. Lidstrom is looking human, Osgood’s much talked about off-season regimen hasn’t done it, Jimmy’s not ready,…But hey, they always have a run of 5 or 6 L’s in a row at some point…all teams do, except that one Hab team in the late ’70s.
•In other news, Mike Richards somehow avoided suspension for his hit on David Booth.
Same thing as the Mitchell hit: why? By all means take him out, but not like that. Where is the respect that the players talk so much about? It disappoints me that Mike Richards would do that — he’s always played hard, but I wouldn’t have expected that lack of respect from him.
http://www.illegalcurve.com Richard
Bob,
I agree with you on Columbus, although I think the Hejda injury is way more important than people realize. That defense, still has holes even with him there, but when he’s absent they are pretty thin in terms of big defensive defenseman.
In terms of Detroit, I have said it already, I think they need a netminder. I think they need to change their style of play a tad and need better goaltending in order to do that. That said, they still did almost outshoot Colorado 2-to-1 on the weekend and got a bit unlucky and lost.
As for the Richards hit, the hit to the head is what bothers me most. Slow down, knock him in the shoulder. I thought it was a suspendable offense.
