Wednesday Morning NHL Papers (Western Conference): Patrick Sharp deals with trade rumors, players comment on Keith Ballard incident and fans starting to believe in the Kings

Remember that tonight is the IllegalCurve.com Radio Show.  Tonight’s guests are: Mike Harrington (Buffalo  News), Jeremy Rutherford (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and David Pollak (San Jose Mercury News).  The show starts at 7pm Central time.  Hope you tune in!

Central Divison

• Marian Hossa made his home debut for Chicago last night and registered two assists, but it was Brent Seabrook that ended up being the hero.  Last night’s victory was Joel Quenneville’s 500th in the NHL.  Patrick Sharp hears his name in the odd rumor or two and wants fans to know he’d like nothing more than to finish his career in Chicago.
• The Blue Jackets lost in a long shootout last night and Steve Mason wasn’t a happy camper after it was all said and done.  “It’s a significant loss,” said GM Scott Howson about the team’s loss of Rusty Klesla for six weeks.
• Johan Franzen is a very shy individual and has battled social anxiety, writes Steve Schrader.  George Sipple talks about the Wings giving back to the community.
• “You’re not going to be able to practice a whole lot, so you put the responsibility on a lot of the players,” said Barry Trotz about the lack of practice time in this Olympic season.
• December sees the Blues play 15 games in 29 days, so this may very well determine whether the Blues are a playoff team or not.  Here is a look at the teams the Blues play this month.

Northwest Division

• Some worried about a difficult November schedule for Calgary, but the Flames played some dominant hockey and came out in a great place in the standings.  The line of Dawes-Langkow-Moss has gelled quited well for the Flames.  Bag skates actually helped Curtis Glencross score a goal, but don’t tell the coaches!
• Adrian Dater takes a look at how close the NHL is to having many more serious injuries occur. 
• Sam Gagner hopes everything is okay with some tests he underwent.  Jeff Deslauriers has a good attitude for a young netminder whose been struggling as of late.
• The Wild players reacted to Keith Ballard’s stick-swinging incident and Michael Russo has the story.
• Roberto Luongo may be in tough trying to earn the Team Canada job away from Martin Brodeur, writes Jason Botchrod.  “We’re close, we’re friends, but it’s not like we’ll be going out for dinner or anything like that tonight,” said Luongo.  Alain Vigneault wants his team to improve its poor road record, explains Ben Kuzma.

Pacific Division

• “There were parts of that game, the start of that game, where we just didn’t play the way we need to do to try and win hockey games and they did,” said a frustrated Scott Niedermayer.  At least the Ducks’ defense is starting to play better hockey.
• The trio of Brad Richards-James Neal-Loui Eriksson all know they need to pick up their games.
• It wasn’t pretty, but the kind of win L.A. registered last night counts just as much as any other win.  With every win, more people start believing in the Kings.
• Jim Gintonio of the Arizona Republic features Daniel Winnik in this morning’s paper.
• The spotlight was on Dany Heatley, but Patrick Marleau stole some of it with his two-goal performance last night against the Senators.  What did the Sharks think of the Keith Ballard incident?  In roster news, the Sharks claimed defenseman Jay Leach off waivers from Montreal.

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