NHL Morning Papers (Monday Edition): Brian Burke returns to Anaheim, Martin Havlat returns to Chicago and John Tortorella’s doghouse

Tonight Brian Burke’s winless Leafs take on his former team in Anaheim.
The extent of Ilya Kovalchuk’s foot injury won’t be determined until sometime today.
“Right now, his confidence is what’s lacking,” said Bruins coach Claude Julien about Blake Wheeler.
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.
Paul Maurice knows that nobody is going to feel sorry for the Hurricanes, so the team better get going quickly.
Joel Quenneville says he sees some progress in Jonathan Toews and Brent Seabrook, so it is possible they could both play tonight against Minnesota.
T.J. Galiardi is off to a quietly effective start in Colorado this season.
Adrian Dater didn’t think Ryan O’Reilly would even stay in Colorado all season long, but now he’d be his vote for the Calder Trophy.
“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.
After a terrible 2008/09 season, Marty Turco seems to be back to his old self, writes Mike Heika.
The Red Wings are going to need Daniel Cleary and Todd Bertuzzi to both improve on their total of two combined goals this season.
The positives that come from the Red Wings struggles is that the team is doing a lot of things right, it just needs some lucky bounces.
“It was kind of a sleeper game … we had some passengers,” said Oilers head coach Pat Quinn after last night’s loss in Vancouver.
In positive news, Gilbert Brule is recovered from the flu and was back in the lineup last night.
In Florida, injured winger David Booth is expected to be out at least one week with a concussion.
Here are more details on Booth’s condition from Steve Gorten of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Even without Justin Williams in the lineup, the Kings fired on all cylinders last night, defeating the Blue Jackets.
Martin Havlat returns to Chicago tonight for the first time since leaving as a free agent.
The Habs are improving both on the penalty kill and on the power play since returning home.
Ever wonder how Rogie Vachon is doing? Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette has the story.
Barry Trotz is sure riding his top defensemen this season, writes John Glennon.
The Devils are concerned that they may have lost Paul Martin to a broken arm and Jay Pandolfo to a dislocated shoulder.
Scott Gordon wants his team to improve on clamping down defensively in the third period.
Brandon Dubinsky is just trying to move on after being bench by John Tortorella on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Dubinsky is not alone as Chris Higgins is also in Tortorella’s doghouse.
Tortorella has stressed that his team has to stop cheating and, instead, needs to get on the right side of the puck.
Sure questions surround the Senators, but Don Brennan of the Ottawa Sun says at least the team is headed in the right direction.
Brian Boucher was anything but stellar in his first game against his former Sharks teammates, as the Flyers lost 4-1 at home.
In other news, Mike Richards somehow avoided suspension for his hit on David Booth.
Flyers rookie JVR continues to impress the Flyers’ brass.
“The people who deal with off-ice issues, they’ll deal with those. We can only control what happens on the ice,” said Cootes coach Dave Tippett about answering any off-ice questions.
Matt Cooke tries to contribute to the Penguins in his own way, although he has a more verstaile skill-set than people think.
The Penguins have a terrific record, but it doesn’t mean they will overlook their drawbacks.
The Sharks could have mailed it in and still had a successful road trip but they didn’t and the result was an impressive win over the Flyers.
San Jose played last night without Devin Setoguchi and Ryan Vesce.
It appears Blues enforcer D.J. King has a broken hand.
The Lightning has to make a decision on James Wright but he has some support from Vincent Lecavalier.
Speaking of Lecavalier, his scoring slump is over, so he thinks the floodgates will open.
“I wish I was coming back with a better record,” said Brian Burke about his return to Anaheim.
Jonas Gustavsson is expected to get the start tonight in Anaheim.
Who is responsible for the Leafs’ early season struggles?
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.

NHL Morning Papers (Monday Edition): Brian Burke returns to Anaheim, Martin Havlat returns to Chicago and John Tortorella’s doghouse

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