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That broken wrist he suffered last month isn’t keeping him out of fights. From the Toronto Star-
This isn’t how the Maple Leafs hoped Mikhail Grabovski would be spending his Olympic break.
The 26-year-old centre was arrested at 2:30 a.m. Saturday by Vancouver police and kept in jail overnight after allegedly being involved in a street altercation.
Grabovski was apparently released to his parents at about 9 a.m. Saturday.
Leafs GM Brian Burke said in a news release he was “aware” of the incident. “Since we are presently investigating this matter, the team will not provide any further comment at this time.”
The details of the incident are unclear, but apparently an argument on the street escalated into a situation in which punches might have been thrown, possibly at least one by Grabovski. No charges had been laid as of late Saturday evening.
The wrist injury took place on January 2nd. He was scheduled to play for Belarus in the Olympics.
IMHO Grabovski is an overpriced NHL player and just another example of why Toronto is one of the worst run teams in the NHL. They are paying nearly 3 million dollars for a player with 7 goals and 12 assists scored this year.
There will not be another NHL game for two weeks. From AP-
Ryan Getzlaf made a strong case to keep his spot with Team Canada, scoring twice and adding two assists in his first game back from a sprained left ankle to help the Anaheim Ducks beat Edmonton 7-3 on Sunday.
Saku Koivu, Corey Perry, Scott Niedermayer, George Parros and Bobby Ryan also scored for Anaheim, which trails Calgary by two points for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference as the NHL heads into the Olympic break.
Ryan Potulny, Ethan Moreau and Lubomir Visnovsky scored for the NHL-worst Oilers.
Getzlaf banged a rebound past Jeff Deslauriers off a scramble on a power play at 5:27 of the third period, then added another with the man advantage off a pass from Niedermayer with 3:02 left.
Before I saw this article, I had thought last night’s games was where NHL play halted. The Florida Panthers aren’t the barometer to measure the NHL by and I should know it.
The NHL’s trading deadline is March 3rd and while the Olympics are going on, there is trade ban in effect. IMHO there will be a lot of silent work resulting in a bunch of trades shortly after March 1st. Florida is definitely a seller but I just don’t know many quality Panthers are really available at this point. GM Randy Sexton says no one is untouchable but I believe that about as much as I do the team’s promises of a more successful franchise.
Note- Anaheim has 8 players participating in the Olympics. How will that affect the team’s performance when the Olympic break is over? Particularly against teams who are better rested. Anaheim is currently 30-25-7 and 2 points out of the last Western Conference playoff spot
He only spent 48 games in a Panther uniform. From AP-
The Florida Panthers have traded center Dominic Moore to the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round pick in the 2011 draft.
Moore, signed by the Panthers as a free agent after the start of the 2009-10 season, had eight goals and nine assists in 48 games for Florida.
Moore is a six-year veteran who has also played for the Rangers, Penguins, Wild, Maple Leafs and Sabres.
Moore’s best season was 2008-09 when he scored 32 points, 13 of which were on goals.
I liked Moore in his brief tenure with Florida. He always seemed to hustle. I don’t think he is worth a 2nd round pick, so IMHO Florida came out great on this deal. The bad side- It will be 4-5 before Florida has something to show for this trade. Unless they deal the make a trade with it in order to get a scorer.
This trade tells me Florida is throwing in the towel on the 2009-10. The team is 12th in the Eastern Conference at 24-26-9 but more importantly have lost 4 games in a row in which the team looked absolutely horrible. Over the last 11 games, the Panthers have only scored 13 goals. I was never optimistic about this team’s playoff chances. Now I’m writing Florida off for sure.
His health issues and the emergence of Ondrej Pavelec have made the 2nd overall pick of the 2002 NHL draft expendable in Atlanta. From ESPN-
The Atlanta Thrashers have agreed to trade goalie Kari Lehtonen to the Stars, Dallas general manager Joe Nieuwendyk said on Tuesday.
The Thrashers will get prospect Ivan Vishnevskiy as well as a fourth-round draft pick in exchange. The 21-year-old Russian defenseman was the Stars’ first-round pick, 27th overall, in the 2006 NHL entry draft.
The deal was first reported by ESPN.com’s Pierre LeBrun.
Lehtonen will take a physical for the Stars on Wednesday.
Lehtonen is earning $3 million this season and is a restricted free agent July 1. The Thrashers deemed him expendable with the tandem of youngster Ondrej Pavelec, 22, and veteran Johan Hedberg, 36.
The acquisition of Lehtonen looks risky to me. That due to the fact he has had back surgery twice in the last year.
Dallas will likely need a new starting goaltender for the 2010-11 NHL season. Veteran Goalie Marty Turco is a unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.
You won’t win many games in the NHL when your team only makes 13 shots on goal. From AP-
Ales Kotalik and Mark Giordano scored, and Miikka Kiprusoff made 12 saves in the Calgary Flames’ 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Friday night.
The Panthers had a season-low 13 shot on goal.
Dennis Seidenberg scored for Florida, and Tomas Vokoun stopped 38 shots.
Calgary won for just the fourth time in its past 16 games and ended a four-game road losing streak. Florida has lost three of its last four games.
Calgary took a 2-1 lead on Giordano’s power-play goal with 2:42 left in the second period. The Flames won a facoff in the Panthers’ end and Giordano’s shot from the right point got cleanly past Vokoun, who was screened on the play.
Calgary opened the scoring with 10 seconds left in the first period. On a power play, Kotalik passed across the crease toward Matt Stajan at the side of the net. The puck glanced off a Panthers players’ skate and into the net to give the Flames a 1-0 lead. It was Kotalik’s first goal for the Flames since joining the team Sunday in a trade with the New York Rangers. Jay Bouwmeester and Niklas Hagman, both former Panthers, were credited with assists on the play.
Panther fans booed Bouwmeester tonight. I been a die hard Florida for three years and I hold no animosity towards the defenseman. Unlike someone like Nick Saban, Bouwmeester didn’t pretend he would be staying in South Florida.
Calgary Flames Jarome Iginla and Daymond Langkow played their 1000th and 999th career game respectively tonight. Iginla who was originally drafted by the Dallas Stars, has played his entire NHL career in Calgary.
The Panthers offense is seriously MIA at this time. No forward has scored a goal in the team’s last 3 games. Overall Florida has scored just 10 goals in its last 9 games. Vokoun has been magical in goal but not the greatest Goaltender in the world can win with that kind of support. Florida is 24-24-9 at present. I still can’t make myself believe the Panthers will make the playoffs even if they stand just a few points out of a playoff spot at present.
Note- I was happily surprised tonight to learn that Saturday’s game against Atlanta will be on NHL Center Ice. Before the 2009-10 season began this game it was reported this game would not be on any form of television.
The long anticipated deal finally took place. From ESPN-
The New Jersey Devils have won the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes, acquiring the superstar winger from the Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday night.
The Devils have struggled of late, especially scoring goals. Veteran Devils GM Lou Lamoriello didn’t hesitate, swooping in and acquiring the biggest rental player available on this year’s trade market.
In exchange, the Thrashers get rookie forward Niclas Bergfors, defenseman Johnny Oduya, prospect Patrice Cormier and a first-round pick in this year’s draft.
Oduya has two more years on his deal after this season at a $3.5 million salary-cap hit. Bergfors will be a restricted free agent July 1. Cormier was suspended for the rest of the season in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for an elbowing incident but he’s a highly regarded prospect.
In addition to Kovalchuk, New Jersey also gets defenseman Anssi Salmela, who was originally a Devil and sent to Atlanta at the trade deadline last year.
Kovalchuck is still a free agent at the end of this season. The Devils may have acquired a rental only. If Kovalchuk doesn’t get New Jersey to the Stanley Cup finals at least before fleeing for greener pastures, this deal will rate as a total bust.
Here is another concern with the dea- How well will Kovalchuk, 31 goals and 27 assists in 49 games this season, play under the system, sometimes referred to as ‘neutral zone trap’ used by NJ Devils Coach Jacques Lemaire? It is very defensive oriented. I think Kovalchuk will adapt but may slow scoring goals and assists till the Olympic break.
It is less he took the NHL franchise to its first ever playoff appearance. From AP-
The Columbus Blue Jackets fired defensive-minded coach Ken Hitchcock on Wednesday, less than a year after the club made the postseason for the first time.
Assistant coach Claude Noel was chosen to lead the team on an interim basis.
General manager Scott Howson announced the firing a day after the struggling Blue Jackets blew a 1-0 lead in a listless 5-1 loss at Colorado. Columbus stands 14th of the 15 teams in the Western Conference with a 22-27-9 record and 53 points.
*****
The Blue Jackets play their next game at home against the Dallas Stars on Thursday night.
“You’re going to see some changes,” Noel said. “But I’m not going to reinvent the game.”
The 54-year-old Noel joined the Blue Jackets as an assistant coach in June 2007, after spending four seasons as the head coach of the American Hockey League’s Milwaukee Admirals. During that time, he led the club to a 183-94-12-31 regular-season record, three 100-point seasons and two West Division titles.
Built around star forward Rick Nash, the Blue Jackets made it to the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs a year ago before being swept by the Detroit Red Wings.
“*****
Hitchcock, who is also an assistant coach on Canada’s Olympic team, picked up his 500th career victory behind the Columbus bench a year ago, but the team appeared stagnant after a fast start this season.
The club got off to a 12-6-2 record through Nov. 19 but then wilted. The Jackets won just three of their next 24 games, spiraling out of the playoff picture. The defense sagged at times and even when last year’s rookie of the year, goalie Steve Mason, had a good game, the offense fell apart.
Mason, who was Rookie of the Year and Vezina finalist last year, has been nothing short of terrible this year. His 3.28 GAA and .890 are I think is the biggest reason the Blue Jackets have done so poorly this year.
I think Hitchcock will be a head coach again in the NHL. He led Dallas to a Stanley Cup Championship and had good records in Philadelphia and Columbus. Who knows maybe Florida will hire him when they fire Peter DeBoer. The Panthers certainly could do a lot worse than Hitch.
Someone in Atlanta should give Antero Nittymaki the key to the city. From AP-
Ilya Kovalchuk couldn’t break Antero Niittymaki’s “curse” on the Atlanta Thrashers. Instead, the Thrashers captain broke his stick in frustration.
Niittymaki stopped 26 shots for his 16th straight win over Atlanta and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Thrashers 2-1 on Tuesday night for a rare road victory.
Stephane Veilleux and Martin St. Louis scored first-period goals and Niittymaki protected the lead, giving up only a second-period goal to Todd White.
“Sometimes you get a game like that where you can’t get a goal behind,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. “The curse continues, I guess. A little frustrating.”
Kovalchuk, the Thrashers’ star who is the subject of trade rumors, broke his stick against the net at the end of the game. He has no goals in the three games against Niittymaki this season.
******
Niittymaki improved to 13-9-5 overall this season. He is 5-1-1 in his last seven games.
*****
The Lightning improved to 4-1 against the Thrashers this season with their fourth straight win in the series, including three victories with Niittymaki in the net.
Niittymaki, in his first season with the Lightning after five with Philadelphia, improved to 11-0 at Philips Arena.
Tampa has split its goaltending duties between Nittymaki and Mike Smith, but if I were Rick Tocchet I’d hand the job to Nittymaki. His stats(2.47 GAA and .918 save pct) is far better than Smith’s (2.97 and .904).
As for Nittymaki’s mastery over the Thrashers, some players get so hut against a particular team it starts getting into people’s heads. I know it did when I played high school sports and competitive chess. Some teams or players always appeared unbeatable.
Tampa(23-21-11 57 pts) and Atlanta(24-23-8-56) are both in the midst of the 8-team Eastern Conference playoff shuffle. One point separates the teams but the Lightning stand in 8th place and Atlanta 11th. I expect alot more movement between now and April.
The Kovalchuk saga in Atlanta is playing out similarly to what went on between the Florida Panthers and Jay Bouwmeester last season. Will Atlanta trade their best player or do what Florida did, keep him for a playoff push? I think Kovalchuk will end the 2009-10 season in Atlanta but will be playing somewhere else in the NHL next season.
From ESPN-
It took a while, but the proposed trade between the New York Rangers and Calgary Flames was finally completed late Monday night.
The Rangers shipped forwards Christopher Higgins and Ales Kotalik to the Flames in exchange for center Olli Jokinen and rugged winger Brandon Prust, a deal that was nearly consummated Sunday night but was delayed a day.
Kotalik’s limited no-trade clause and his ability to nix the deal was partly responsible for the holdup, but he ultimately agreed to the move, a source told ESPN.com.
The trade call between both teams occurred following Calgary’s game Monday night.
Calgary is scheduled to play Florida on February 5th. Which would have enabled the Panthers all-time leading scorer(Jokinen) to make his first South Florida appearance since he was traded to Phoenix after the 2008-09 season. That has now been delayed till April when the Rangers come to town.
The Panthers beat writers have been hammering the Jokinen return to death IMHO. Does the Miami Herald’s George Richards or the Sun Sentinel’s Steve Gorten care to tell us that Jokinen will now be coming to Florida two times a year rather than once every two years? Jokinen is in the last year of his contract, but that isn’t pointed out but I don’t see mention of that or the chance of Jokinen coming to Florida two times a year if he should stay in New York.
As for the deal, both teams rid themselves of players who either couldn’t get along with their coach(Kotalik vs. the volatile John Tortorella) or a underachiever who isn’t supposedly giving a full effort(Jokinen). I think the Rangers come out better on this deal if they re-sign Jokinen but its a close thing. This was Jokinen’s third trade in less than two years and he is now working on his 6th NHL team.
George Richards in a blog post about this trade, made a huge sportswriting blunder.
Of course, Olli isn’t headed east to New York just yet. According to reports, he’s on his way to California to meet up with the Rangers in Los Angeles. Sports is funny this way, yes? Olli’s NHL career started with the Kings. They then traded him to the Panthers where he enjoyed his most professional success. Olli didn’t want to leave the Panthers, know that.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Jokinen is heading back to a NY area team for the second time in his career. He played a year with the NY Islanders. And how did the Florida Panthers acquire him?
June 24th 2000- Jokinen and Roberto Luongo traded to Florida in exchange for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish
Florida only got a great goaltender and its all-time leading scorer in the same trade. This was only the biggest transaction the team ever made that went the right way for the Cats. Forgetting this trade is like a New York City baseball reporter forgetting the New York Yankees got Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox.
Next thing George will be doing is tell us Jacques Martin didn’t coach in the NHL prior to Ottawa (like at least one other Panther beat writer did) and that Martin had great confidence in Craig Anderson!
I attended the game in person tonight but I’ll use the AP article to lead off this blog post.
It took a swing through the Sunshine State for the Anaheim Ducks to salvage a 13-day road trip.
Jonas Hiller made 33 saves to earn his second shutout of the season, and the Ducks beat the Florida Panthers 3-0 on Monday night.
Ryan Getzlaf, Teemu Selanne and Corey Perry each scored for the Ducks, who wrapped up the six-game trip and snapped Florida’s five-game winning streak at home.
Hiller’s other shutout this season came on Nov. 5 in a 4-0 win over the Nashville Predators. Hiller, who has six NHL shutouts, was coming off a 30-save effort in the Ducks’ 2-1 shootout victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night.
*****
Florida’s Tomas Vokoun stopped 22 shots. Vokoun was coming off his seventh shutout of the season, a 33-save performance in the Panthers’ 2-0 win over the New York Islanders on Sunday.
*****
The Ducks went ahead 3-0 on Perry’s goal at 17:18 in the third. He scored with a slap shot from the right circle after taking a pass from Getzlaf from behind the net.
Selanne gave Anaheim a 2-0 lead with a power-play goal in the final second of the second period. James Wisniewski’s shot ricocheted off the left post and hit Vokoun in the back, and Selanne then tipped in the loose puck.
After a scoreless first period, Getzlaf netted an unassisted goal at 15:17 into the second. He picked up the puck on a turnover by Keith Ballard and scored with a wrist shot from in front, beating Vokoun on his stick side.
Corey Perry scored the final goal of the game with under three minutes to go in the game. I was already out of my seat and getting ready to leave but saw the goal go in the net. Just prior to this the Panthers had two consecutive power plays, which overlapped one another for about 30 seconds resulting in a 5-3 for the cats. The score of the game tells you how Florida fared with those advantages.
Florida got thoroughly outplayed tonight. This was one of their worst home efforts of the 2009-10 season.
Now some random comments and occasional barbs related to my night out at the Bank Atlantic Center.
*- Tonight was my first visit to the BAC. In fact, I haven’t seen a professional team sporting event in person in almost 20 years.
It took me a while to find my way around the parking lots on arrival but did ok. On the way out, I found my car with ease and got out of the parking lots but headed in the wrong direction on the Sawgrass Expressway. South instead of north to Palm Beach County.
*- Food prices at sporting events is ridiculous. $6.00 for a hot dog. I can buy a package of buns and a 8 pack of hot dogs at the grocery store for less. 20 oz. Coke was a ‘cheap’ $5.50. If sodas were priced were priced the same amount times over hot dogs were, they would have been $10.00 or more tonight.
How does a family manage a night out at a game? Even with half off Monday, the family of three in my row had to cough up about $170 for their tickets. That doesn’t include food and anything else bought at the stadium. You better be upper middle class to go see a game or expect to make a car payment to see 60 minutes of hockey.
*- My seats were 6 rows behind(Section 102) the Panthers bench and almost right on center ice.
*- Now I know why Florida has a ticket promotion called ‘Half Off Mondays’. The BAC was only half full tonight.(Or worse)
That meant I had half a row to myself with no one seated on my right for 3 seats and only people seated on my left but with an empty seat between us.
*- Anyone attending a Panther game should bring earplugs. The BAC does what they call ‘Rock the Rink’. Loud Rock music that I could have done without. It blared incesantly all through the pre-game warmups.
*- Dumb rude fan moment of the night. A person in their twenties wanted to get out of my aisle. At the time I was standing up, he could have said excuse me and I would have moved. Instead he climbed down a row, stepping on a seat in the process. Wouldn’t you love to be the fan who had to sit there later on? NOT!
*- Should Panther fans forced to view the back of Peter DeBoer’s head all night get a discount on their tickets?
*- The Panthers have a team mascot named Stanley Panther. There’s a kids version, little stan or something. I got nothing against Mascots except they are blocking my view when the puck is in the opponent’s end of the ice. Get your big heads down!
*- One of the reasons I chose tonight’s game to attend, was the fact there was zero television coverage of it. As part of the imbecile deal the NHL made with the devil Versus, no other games are allowed to be aired during that Network’s ‘Game of the Week’.
*- BAC has a computer area where someone can check email etc before the game or during intermissions. I did exactly that between the first and second periods of play.
*- Anaheim Duck Teemu Selanne played tonight. Wasn’t he supposed to be out for over a month with a broken jaw?
*- The Florida Panther who came closest to scoring a goal tonight? Goalie Tomas Vokoun and he almost put one in for Anaheim! The Panthers were on a Power Play and the Ducks shot the puck out of their zone. Vokoun went to handle it and passed it across the goal mouth. I swore the thing was going in for a moment.
*- Florida Panther David Booth played in his second game since suffering a concussion. He played well for two periods but looked fatigued in the 3rd.(He did similarly in a game yesterday but managed an assist.)
That’s about it. Did you have enough already? I needed something to do to help unwind in preparation for bed.
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