by true Citizens of Hockeytown
If you watched the Game last night, you probably noticed that the refs’ orange armbands were replaced by silver. Well, according to ESPN, the change will become permanent next year in an effort to create continuity between the League’s new logo and the officials’ uniforms.
Personally, I think it’s a completely unnecessary change because I liked being able to locate the refs at a glance and orange stands out much better than the new silver. But no one asked me, obviously.
Via Ansar Khan:
… Mikael Samuelsson’s right foot was broken Saturday night in Denver when he blocked a shot during the third period (I assume, based on the shift chart). It’s the first I’ve heard of it and apparently, the Wings themselves didn’t know until he had an X-ray taken today. The Wings will be without Mikael’s services for at least two weeks, Khan says, but have called up Josh Langfeld to fill in for now. It can’t be a very serious break if it took them this long to find out there was one and if the recovery time is so short.
… It looks like the inflammation and pain in Henrik Zetterberg’s wrist has subsided enough for him to forego another cortisone shot. The rest has done him a lot of good, apparently, and that’s great news for the Wings.
… Mathieu Schneider practiced today but will miss at least two more games. That puts his return at Tuesday night in Long Island, at the earliest. The Wings could use him back, but it won’t do them any good to rush it so I’m glad they’re taking their time.
… Neither Robert Lang nor Kris Draper practiced today due to the flu and Khan suggests that the Wings may call someone else up to cover for them in the game tomorrow night. I’ll keep an eye on the AHL transaction page in case they do.
… Lastly, as reported earlier this week, Niklas Kronwall will play tomorrow night, but will have a cage protecting his face, and could wear it as long as 2 months. He has a whopping 25 stiches in the cut across his nose from Marek Svatos’ skate and may want to consider wearing the visor a little lower once he drops the cage.
… Drew Sharp’s bi-, tri-, or whatever-monthly piece on hockey is out today and this time he’s spouts off on how the Wings need to acquire Peter Forsberg and how they need to do it whatever cost. Sharp believes that even Forsberg at 60% on the third line would be the answer to the Wings’ playoff question (in my opinion, if he comes here and is on the third line, there’s a problem). What about Forsberg at 0%? With that ankle problem, the man might not even finish the season.
The Wings have taken a risk on Dominik Hasek, another player with health questions, and have been successful so far. However, it cost them very little to go with Hasek and his health issue is entirely preventable. With Forsberg, they’d have to give up a lot to acquire him only to inherit his chronic ankle problems and have to hope some kind of solution can be found, even though there probably isn’t one.
Forsberg is an incredible competitor and will play if he can, but what if he can’t? This isn’t about throwing around money, like it was with Hasek. It’d be about throwing around the team’s present and future, as someone from the current roster and someone in the system plus a draft pick would have to go.
Say he comes to Detroit and is able to play. Great, but in the end, Forsberg will be gone this summer, especially if he ends up having a great finale and postseason. The Wings wouldn’t be able to hold on to him, whether because he’d retire or because he’d sign elsewhere. Would it be worth it? If the Wings win the Cup, of course the answer is “yes,” but not otherwise.
… Some more thoughts on the new jerseys after seeing them during the All-Star Game:
Given that the league is serious about these things, they need to start thinking about implementing an equipment change as well. The shoulder pads, especially, are too big and make the players look like they’re suiting up for the Colts or Bears.
The jerseys are too tight around the forearm.
If the League was trying to elminate individualist uniform cues a la the No Fun League, they failed. Everyone looked neat and clean before the game, but within minutes of the puck dropping, the jerseys of certain players had somehow ridden up over their pants and straps were flapping in the wind.
Other than that, they looked fine, for the most part, though the East All Stars’ jerseys were painfully white.
Update (10:05 AM): … John Niyo reports that the IIHF has proposed a new transfer agreement with the NHL that includes Russia, saying such an agreement would help the Wings’ efforts to sign Igor Grigorenko. That’s true, but, even if the NHL and IIHF don’t get a new deal, I’m not too worried about the Wings’ chances of signing Igor if they really want to. They do have some experience in nabbing Russian players, after all. - Matt
… Helene St. James looks today at the possibility of the Wings switching to the Eastern Conference if Pittsburgh ends up moving to a Western city. According to senior VP Jimmy Devellano, “if anybody from the Eastern Conference moves West, we’ll be the Western team to go East.”
Devellano sounds pretty confident there, but it doesn’t look like it’d be that cut and dry, as St. James found out from NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly:
“Detroit would clearly have a strong case, but by the same token, there are other teams in the Western Conference that kind of depend on Detroit being in the Western Conference, so … there’s always balancing involved that would involve a lot of debate, I’m sure, with respect to what you do with the realignment. But hopefully we never get there. At least at this point.”
So the Wings could continue to be screwed just so teams like Phoenix can charge double when they come to town? Nice.
Of course, we won’t know for sure until the Pens’ mess is figured out, which apparently will come soon, according to Bettman, who supplied St. James with this gem: “It’s urgent, but it’s not imminently urgent. It will be shortly.”
If the Pens do move and the League does allow the Wings to move East (rather than, say, Columbus), they’ll be ready. They’ve been wanting it for years. And you know the governors will be interested in a schedule format change if Sidney and Company move to the West. Those Eastern owners that were so selfish this time around will change their stance real quick in that case.
… David Waddell of the Windsor Star looks at what the Wings will try to get at the trade deadline: a forward. Ken Holland feels the team has plenty of depth on defense, with three players in the AHL that are NHL-capable, but they are not quite so strong up front because of youth and inexperience in the minors.
Waddell says they’d like a top-six forward and mentions the team has an interest in Peter Forsberg, should he become available. Holland, though, isn’t hung up on Foppa and believes the market will have some other big names worth pursuit.
He has $2 million to play with and by the time the deadline rolls around, 3/4 of any player’s salary will already have been paid, so they can go after a $7-8 million guy, as Waddell points out.
It will be very interesting to see what move Kenny tries and how it works out with team chemistry, which is very good at the moment. (via Snapshots)
Update (11:45 PM): Ansar Khan says there’s a positive aspect to the fact that the League is keeping the current format: it means the Wings will continue to rack up points in their powder puff division. Great, so we’ll see more short-term, regular season gains, rather than the longer-term, postseason gains that would come from playing tough teams more frequently. Didn’t we find out last year that a successful regular season padded by the results of so many intradivisonal games meant absolutely nothing in the playoffs? - Matt
According to TSN, the board of governors has decided to go with the current scheduling format for at least one year despite widespread hopes for change. Apparently, we were one vote away from seeing the League return to its pre-lockout format, as only there were only 19 of 30 votes for it, rather than the necessary 20. How typical. I’d like to know which governors voted for change and which teams voted against it.
So much for giving the fans a voice, eh? Well, we have one, they just don’t listen very well. That reminds me: has anyone gotten one of those NHL Fan Faceoff surveys lately? Neither have I. You could at least pretend that you had some input when you filled out one of those.
Update: I just went to the Fan Faceoff site and logged in only to see a short survey listed. They asked what I’d like to see more surveys on and then they asked whether or not I was satisfied with the service. Of course I said no and then I was asked why, so I told them. I suggest going there and filling out that same survey, if it shows up for you. - Matt
Snapshots, Gorilla Crouch, and Abel to Yzerman have been all over this, but it’s big enough news to repeat: according to Matt Wuest of Red Wings Central, the long-awaited arrival of Igor Grigorenko on North American soil will finally take place this summer.
Apparently, the Wings feel he’s ready for the NHL and are planning on signing him with the intent of giving him a chance at making the team. Take it with a little grain of salt because there have been reports like this before. Still, this time it seems to be for real, even with the fact that there is currently no transfer agreement between the RSL and the NHL. That is probably a good thing, though, since I believe the Wings would have lost the rights to Igor if there was one. Anyone know for sure whether or not that’s true?
Not since Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg has there been so much anticipation for a prospect, though his transfer to North America has been hampered by serious injuries sustained in a car crash, the lockout, and his long comeback from those injuries. After a couple slow seasons (during one of which he was demoted to a lower tier of the RSL), he’s putting up fair numbers again and, based on Wuest’s article, his future looks promising.
For whatever reason, he’s never been under the knife in the States, but he was here in September 2003 to see training camp and to meet with doctors. All of his operations have taken place in Russia and the feeling is he may be a surgery or two away from being fully restored if US doctors get their hands on him.
His speed is understandably down from what it used to be and he may have trouble in the speedier NHL, but the Wings have never been all that fast so he ought to fit in. I’ll always remember hearing him described as a tougher Ilya Kovalchuk* and look forward to finally seeing him, though it may be in Grand Rapids rather than Detroit. Hopefully it won’t be like the other times they said they were bringing him Stateside.
Sidenote: I got a laugh reading that old post there. I remember Henrik Zetterberg being compared to Peter Forsberg but I’d forgotten the comparison to Robert Lang.
*He played on a line with Pavel Datsyuk and Kovalchuk in the 2003 WJCs. For an idea of what he can bring to the table, he was second in tournament scoring (6 games, 6 goals, 4 assists) that year as Russia won the gold medal.
These have been floating around the internet for a while now and are probably some fan’s Photoshop work, but they provide a decent look at what’s possible. They look especially fake until you get down to the second Montreal set, but after that, they look pretty plausible and not half bad. The Red Wing version looks terrible, though, and I’d be disgusted if they look anything like that. I suspect they’d go more the Montreal/Toronto route, if these mockups are anything like reality. (via Southeast Shootout)
I haven’t been to the site in weeks myself, but Garett Rogers of Googling Google points out that the NHL’s portal on Google Video hasn’t been updated since January 8th and suspects the much-lauded relationship between the League and Google has died out. Anyone know anything to confirm it?Anything from your League contacts, Paul?
Both papers have pieces on Brendan Shanahan today. If reading about Shanny doesn’t depress you these days, here’s the one from the Freep and here’s the News version.
I’m against the Wings acquiring Forsberg because of his significant health issues and the likelihood of his leaving this summer to retire or to join another team. James makes a similar case (though better articulated) against any team taking a chance on Foppa, who does seem to be playing better lately. How long that’ll last is the question and given the fact that his ankle problem doesn’t appear to be truly solved, the answer is likely, “not long.”
