I’m short on time today, so I’ll have to refer you to my Icesheet at the FanHouse rather than do a separate post. Sorry about that.
Links
My first post at the NHL FanHouse is on the Wings’ new European signing, Ville Leino.
Helene St. James reports that Fabian Brunnstrom has informed the Wings that he will not sign with them. He has apparently chosen Dallas instead. She speculates that the sticking point was playing time. The Wings wouldn’t give him a guarantee that he’d be in Detroit for longer than the first month of the season.
Bruce Ciskie has a preview of the Western Conference Finals up at AOL FanHouse.
Helene St. James and George Sipple have a little blurb in today’s Wings notebook about the octopus twirling ban (otherwise known as the “Poile Rule“):
The Wings have been told rules are loosening up regarding twirling the octopus, so maybe, just maybe, Al Sobotka will get to make his moves again this round. The NHL threatened him with a $10,000 fine if he did so because debris comes off the slimy creatures and embeds itself in the ice.
If that’s true, I’m thrilled, but still mystified as to the reasoning behind the rule in the first place. The League has itself a bit of a situation here: Keep the rule in effect and look stupid. Or, relax the rule and look stupid for not standing behind whatever reasoning they had for instituting it.
Kukla’s Korner has the transcript of the Johan Franzen, Nick Lidstrom, and Chris Osgood conference call here. I like Osgood’s comments about the six-day layoff, but the highlight of the the call comes from Johan Franzen:
Yeah, records, I don’t want to talk about the records. I just want to win eight more games this season.
Kukla’s also has the transcript from the Ken Holland and Mike Babcock call. The highlight of this one is Babcock’s commentary on Nik Kronwall, which included this gem:
But the dimension that makes him different than Rafi and Nick is he’s out there hunting you down. He’s looking for you. He’s going to get somebody in this series, I guarantee it.
Bruce MacLeod has a look at Marty Turco’s puck handling ability here.
It’s certainly going to be a challenge for the Wings and one players like Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are no doubt looking forward to facing. Marty will have to be careful where he puts the puck when those two are on the ice.
Ansar Khan reports that Ken Holland has not heard anything new on Fabian Brunnstrom, though a report out of Toronto indicated he’s going to make a decision tomorrow.
Also, the Maple Leafs, who just fired their head coach, have a press conference scheduled for 3:00 PM ET today. James Mirtle suggests that it’s possible they could be making an announcement that they have signed the Swede.
Mark at Andrew’s Dallas Stars and NHL Blog has the latest on the Stars injury situation.
Greg Wyshynski asked me to do a eulogy for the Avs over at the Yahoo! NHL Experts Blog. And here it is.
