–The Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch writes about last night’s game (link), where Paul MacLean praised his bottom-six group, “They’ve been very good on all three games on this road trip. Now, we’re getting some goals out of them and that takes an awful lot of weight off of Spezza’s line and (Daniel Alfredsson’s) line to score multiple goals. If we can continue to get that kind of contribution from our third and fourth lines it’s going to make us a way better team.”
-Garrioch picks up the Aaron Portzline story (link) that’s been buzzing around about Nikita Filatov (link). I don’t doubt that he was told the story, but I have two problems with the story: 1) why didn’t Portzline report it at the time (or at least when he was traded in the summer)? 2) I find it hard to believe that Filatov was dumb enough to say that (referring to himself in the third person and telling the coaches he wasn’t going to go for rebounds?). If he lacked that much common sense this wouldn’t be the only story indicating it–he also would not be getting the kid-glove treatment from the Murray’s, MacLean, or Kleinendorst. In the same vein, Garrioch can’t help but quote Zenon Konopka who makes yet another irrelevant comparison (Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry (the former played 17 games and the latter 19 in 2005-06)).
-Yesterday Brian Stewart was recalled from Elmira; Louie Caporusso and Jack Downing were sent down
eyeonthesens 