When asked to share his opinion on Stars forward James Neal’s hit on Blue Jackets winger Derek Dorsett, which cost Neal two-games via disciplinary action from the NHL, Roenick didn’t pull any punches in labeling the Stars’ leading goal scorer.

‘’If Neal would have done this 20 years ago, he would have been blackballed from the league,’’ said Roenick. ‘’If you’re going to get challenged, then drop your gloves and go to it - fight, but don’t come back later on and then give a cheap shot to a guy who has already challenged you.

‘’To me, that’s kind of gutless and I’m sure a lot of guys in the league think that’s gutless also.’’

more from Roenick on different topics…

One of the most overlooked front office jobs in hockey is that of a scout. The scout provides preliminary information on players, and his reports are the first to be analyzed by the personnel people.

There are different types of scouts. One might specialize in watching junior players and try to project what a 16- or 17-year old might become by the time he is 22, 23 or 24 years old. Other scouts, like Pete Mahovlich, ride around sections of North America looking at minor-league talent or taking in NHL games to evaluate players.

Mahovlich, now a pro scout for the Atlanta Thrashers, has been scouting talent for a long time after a very successful NHL career.

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So many of you have been asking to see what these new third jerseys look like, well, this is pretty close.

I think.

The team has done a good job of being secretive about these jerseys and this is what I would call an ‘’artists’’ rendition*.

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Dallas Stars left wing James Neal was suspended two games by the NHL on Friday for a hit from behind on Columbus Blue Jackets right wing Derek Dorsett at 13:01 of the second period of Thursday’s game.

Dorsett was among a group of players battling along the wall for the puck when Neal came charging in. Neal appeared to leave his feet to deliver a blow to Blue Jackets defenseman Marc Methot, but instead he hit Dorsett in the back. The force of the blow drove Dorsett face-first into the glass. He fell to the ice and could not get up.

In case you missed the hit, watch it here.

As the 1,230-game schedule passes the quarter mark with tonight’s games, seven clubs that did not qualify for the 2008-09 Stanley Cup Playoffs currently hold a top-eight Conference position – four in the Western Conference (#2 Colorado, #4 Los Angeles, #7 Phoenix and #8 Dallas) and three in the East (#3 Buffalo, #6 Ottawa and #7 Tampa Bay). The Islanders and Thrashers are a whisker behind the Eastern pack through a first quarter-season that saw outstanding individual and team performances along with stunning last-minute, game-changing dramatics.

Continue reading "The NHL At The Quarter Mark"

Former NHL Players Association Executive Director Paul Kelly fulfilled his wish to stay in hockey by accepting a job as executive director of the newly-formed College Hockey, Inc.

The Hockey Commissioners Association created the organization for the purpose of raising the profile of Division I hockey. Kelly will be in charge of that mission.

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I never liked writing things in under 140 characters anyway. Couldn’t stand writing abbreviated words like “abt” for about or “2″ for too or two. And I didn’t like the “na na, na na na” aspect of how many followers one had. Nobody in the media will admit it, but those who have lots of followers love to sit and feel superior to those with not as many. You can feel it creeping into the zeitgeist some.

Absolutely no one told me to do it, but I just deleted my twitter account and am done with it. Apologies to my dear 1,220 followers at the time of parting, but you’ll find other Pied Pipers of Puck, of that there is no doubt.

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But even with the season still relatively in its infancy, there still are plenty of questions, so let’s get to the answers now.

1. How come there have been no coaching changes?—A number of teams made their changes over the summer, and some teams that have gotten off to disappointing starts, like Carolina and St. Louis, are coming off playoff seasons, so there hasn’t been as much impetus to make a move. With this being an Olympic year, the guess is any changes will come prior to the Winter Games, so teams can hit the ice hard for the sprint to the playoffs in February.

2. Pick one—Chris Pronger or Dany Heatley?—No disrespect to Heatley, but I build from the goal out, so I’ll take Pronger, who as legendary Scottish announcer Hamish MacPherson once described Cam Neely, is “a beast of a man.” Any time you can add a proven defenseman who is playing over 26 minutes per game, you do it.

read on

The Senators will also be without fourth-line winger Shean Donovan tomorrow and maybe for the rest of the season. He sustained a right knee injury on a knee-on-knee hit by Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke. The exact extent of the injury won’t be known until more tests are completed today, but Senators general manager Bryan Murray said it was serious.

“It’s his MCL (medial collateral ligament) for sure and he’s having an MRI to see if it’s the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), too. We won’t know until tomorrow,” said Murray.

He contacted NHL executive vice-president of hockey operations Colin Campbell to discuss the hit, but Murray said he didn’t expect there would a suspension coming for Cooke.

“If it was any other player, you wouldn’t say anything, but it’s happened several times,” said Murray of Cooke.

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The line between journalism and gossip has become a very thin one in recent years (and with some in this business, it doesn’t exist at all), and there is an ongoing discussion about whether Twitter is or isn’t journalism. Regardless, when journalists tweet, those 140 characters can carry some professional authority that civilians’ tweets don’t.

Should journalists be held to a different standard of tweeting than the rest of the world? The answer to that is part of the larger discussion now taking place about Twitter and journalism (more on that here from the blog of the University of British Columbia’s Alfred Hermida). Suffice to say, when it comes to hockey journalism and Twitter, there are conventions, rules and ethics still to be worked out and instituted.

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Adam – Gordie Howe has, for the past couple of years, expressed much admiration for Alex Ovechkin. So, even though he is just 24, I’m ready to put Ovechkin as the first team left wing on my all-time all-star team, which would have Howe at right wing, Gretzky at center and Bobby Orr at one of the ‘D’ positions.

The great Red Army goaltender, Vladislav Tretiak, strikes me as the all-time best goalie, but I could be convinced otherwise. Who would you put at goal and at the other all-time ‘D’ position?

Ovechkin would be on my all-time team as well, as would Gretzky, Howe and Orr.

However, I think your supposition that Tretiak is the best netminder would cause many a longtime hockey observer to wave his hands in the air as if he did in fact care and demand you consider Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur or Glenn Hall in that category instead.

Personally, I’d go with Brodeur. And my other defenseman would be Nicklas Lidstrom – although I could probably be persuaded to slot Ray Bourque in there.

more Q & A…

Two things seem abundantly clear this morning.

One, this notion that sending big-money Leafs to the minors — Jason Blake is the most obvious target — will somehow fix what ails the club is just wrong. Blake may not be much use this season, but unless he is clearly a detrimental figure in the dressing room, just getting rid of him is essentially pointless and probably just symbolic.

Unless you have a replacement, dumping a player isn’t much of an answer.

Two, whatever is wrong with this team, Ron Wilson seems powerless to fix it.

The Leafs were the worst defensive team in the NHL last season and the worst penalty killing team. Today, they are the NHL’s worst defensive team and worst penalty killing team.

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Here’s a look at some of the key numbers from the first few weeks of the season:

0—Home losses in regulation by the Tampa Bay Lightning (5-0-4) and San Jose Sharks (6-0-2)—the only teams that haven’t dropped a home game in 60 minutes so far this season.

6—Dany Heatley’s plus rating in the San Jose Sharks’ 6-3 win against Columbus on Oct. 8. He’s the first player to go plus-6 in a game since Ottawa’s Andrej Meszaros did it in an 8-4 win at Tampa Bay on Jan. 24, 2008.

7—First-period goals allowed by the Philadelphia Flyers in their 18 games, by far the fewest of any team in any period.

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• The St. Louis Blues’ Paul Kariya, coming off surgery on both his hips last season, scored two goals in his first game of the season – over in Sweden, against the Detroit Red Wings – and had a respectable five points in his first six games, but has been in a dismal slump ever since and thus far has managed zero points in November. The three-time Olympian had hoped that a fast start might put him in the mix for a fourth Olympic appearance in his hometown of Vancouver. So far, he isn’t on the radar screen.

• Meanwhile, Dallas Stars captain Brenden Morrow had managed just one point in the month and might have been slipping down the chart for Canada’s 2010 Olympic team until a rib injury sidelined the Los Angeles Kings’ Ryan Smyth for a minimum of four weeks. The link between Kariya and Morrow: Both are veteran players, coming off major operations (Kariya hip, Morrow reconstructive knee surgery) who haven’t come close to returning to their previous form.

• How much of an effect will Smyth’s absence have on Anze Kopitar, the NHL’s leading scorer? Hard to say, but the chemistry is demonstrably different with Alexander Frolov playing on the top line. Smyth likes to go to the net; Frolov generally does whatever he can to stay on the outside. If coach Terry Murray sticks with that line, it means Justin Williams will need to do much of the dirty work on the line

much more from Eric…

With Marian Hossa’s debut with the Blackhawks looming, coach Joel Quenneville is formulating plans on how to utilize the high-scoring winger.

Hossa participated in the Hawks’ morning skate before Thursday night’s game against the Flames and is on track to play during the Hawks’ six-game trip, most likely Wednesday against the Sharks in San Jose.

“There are going to be a lot of options for a coach to have,” Quenneville said. “He’s going to get a lot of ice time. We’re looking forward to him being useful in a lot of ways.”

Hossa has begun doing line drills in practice and Wednesday skated with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.

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One win doesn’t cure their ills. And it won’t send the scouts home. The Ducks still have goaltending issues to resolve and a defense that’s short on toughness since Chris Pronger was traded to Philadelphia last summer. A better and more physical defense should make the goaltenders look better and help them to at least give the Ducks a chance to win.

Thursday’s victory probably forestalled a fire sale but didn’t cancel it. The team that began this homestand might not be the same as the one that’s here at the end, for better or for worse.

-Helene Elliott of the LA Times.

While the messes in both Phoenix and at the NHLPA are of concern to the league, the glut of superstars stuffed in the trainers room should be the NHL’s most pressing issue at the quarter pole. As injury lists go, this one has been unprecedented.

(Ken) Holland sees two reasons for the trend.

“First off, it’s a freak occurrence,” Holland said. “To have so many top line guys go down, what else can you say?

“Secondly, it shows that those who claim the regular season doesn’t mean anything are wrong. There are so many teams so close to each other in this age of parity, every game means something. Guys are going that extra mile, blocking shots, sacrificing their bodies, because they know every point matters.

“In a cap world, with the majority of teams within five points of a playoff spot, guys who are bigger and stronger than ever before are playing very intense hockey.”

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Canadiens head coach Jacques Martin had a simple explanation when asked why goaltender Carey Price has turned his season around in the past five games.

“I have to say he’s been working a lot harder lately,” said Martin, who confirmed Price will start his fourth consecutive game Friday night when the Canadiens play Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals (7 p.m., TSN, RDS, CJAD Radio-800).

Martin said Price’s competitive spirit came to the fore when Jaroslav Halak went on a four-game winning streak at the end of October.

“I think when Jaroslav had a good stretch for us, it was a good message for Carey that he had to improve his work ethic,” Martin said.

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