-The Sens roster for tonight’s game against Toronto has been released and the lines are: Michalek-Spezza-Ryan, Greening-Zibanejad-Neil, Prince-Pageau-Petersson, Kassian-Grant-Schneider; Karlsson-Methot, Claesson-Wiercioch, Wideman-Phillips; Anderson will get the start, with Lawson playing a period. The Leafs feature: Raymond-Bolland-Kulemin, Broll-Kadri-Abbott, Van Riemsdyk-Colborne-Clarkson, Devane-McClement-Ashton; Percy-Phaneuf, Gunnarrsson-Marshall, Rielly-Ranger; Bernier gets the start.
–Bobby Ryan repeatedly says there are no hard feelings towards former coach Randy Carlyle and that whatever friction once existed was all part of his maturation process.
–Nichols transcribes Bryan Murray’s latest interview on The Team 1200 and there isn’t much to take from it save the following comments:
We’ve got a couple young guys that are just starting – they’ve played part of one year or a full year in the American (Hockey) League only – that look like they’re kicking at the door [this presumably applies to Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Mark Stone, and Shane Prince]. (Buddy) Robinson looks like he is a candidate. He’ll probably have to start (in the minors) at this point, but he sure looks like a player to me so… There are is a good number of young people here that are going to play games at some point during this year. You want players to have the chance to play in the National Hockey League and it’s not fair to hold people back after you’ve worked with them and they’ve worked really hard within your organization to be recognized and become members. But, because of numbers, you can’t do it for them right now. It would be very hard to lose them, but we’ll try to do what’s right for the organization and then hopefully, if it doesn’t work out for an individual, hopefully get him to a place where he gets a chance to play in the league.
It sounds like an acknowledgement that the logjam at forward will ultimately be resolved by player moves, as well as confirming that Robinson (and likely all of the other names bandied about) will start the year in Binghamton. Nichols references Murray not getting much back if he has to move a player, the reasoning for which comes from the quote here:
The GM [Murray] said he’d look to trade these guys for a ‘soft pick’ and look for teams that may have injuries, or where they may address a need
Travis Yost (the link above) speculates the most likely candidate to be moved is Stephane Da Costa and I have to agree. He was a late signee and Binghamton is brimming over with forwards. I’m not sure how much value he has as trade bait, but definitely more than the other waiver-eligible players on the roster.
–Travis talks about how much he likes Kyle Turris‘ contract and in the midst of that posits these points which I fully agree with:
This is one or more of: (a) textbook late-bloomer; (b) a player more comfortable in a new, expanded role; (c) a player maybe misused in his previous role; (d) a player who decided to grow-up.
–Darryl Dobbs looks at roster battles in the Eastern Conference and hits the nail on the head for Ottawa:
J-G Pageau vs. the numbers game
–Brian McGrattan unintentionally explains one of the reasons why enforcers are a dying breed:
I’m always willing, it’s just that there’s not anybody willing to fight me.
If he runs out of dance partners, what will he do?
–Ryan Kennedy writes about the non-suspension of Jordan Nolan and gives us this chestnut:
But could he not have at least let up a little bit, still separating Klesla from the puck, but not from the Czech’s senses? I’ll let an expert on the subject weigh in: Raffi Torres
I love that that’s who Ryan turned too–the guy with every reason in the world to tell people no one has any choice when it comes to making hits (it’s a great example of confirmation bias, cf Mark Parisi yesterday). There’s no point in browbeating Kennedy on the subject, but it’s worth bringing up his sentiment because it’s so common in hockey media. The way to get hits like this out of the game is to suspend them heavily–they will disappear overnight.
-Elmira news: they’ve signed defenseman Dylan Quaile, who played for them briefly last year after finishing his CIS career; they also signed Alexandre Carrier, a QMJHL tough guy who spent last season in Trenton (after a year of pummeling players in tier-2 Austria).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
Leave a comment
No comments yet.
eyeonthesens 
Leave a Reply