The biggest news of the day, besides the lockout being over, is the defection of UNO goalie Anthony Stolarz to the London Knights of the OHL.
This comes on the heels of the Denver defenseman Dakota Mermis leaving the Pioneers, to play for the London Knight’s as well.
This comes on the heels of the Denver defenseman Dakota Mermis leaving the Pioneers, to play for the London Knight’s as well.
I admit that the Mermis defection to London is also puzzling as well. Mermis was in the Denver lineup and playing on a regular basis with the Pioneers (1g-3a—4pts) in 19 games.
Stolarz defecting to the OHL is kind of a head scratcher for me and many other college hockey fans. Stolarz is a second round draft choice of the Philadelphia Flyers and wanted to go the college route and develop his game.
Obviously, Stolarz is probably a little disappointed with his start with the Mavericks (2-5-0, 2.56 GAA, .898 save percentage) but playing time is earned in division I college hockey. I am not sure how it’s going to get any better with the London Knights who are currently stacked at the goalie position with Jake Patterson (16-1-1-1, 2.20 GAA, .924 %), Kevin Bailie (18-4-0-1, 2.50 GAA, .921 save %).
I also imagine, that you have to earn you playing time on a team lead by former NHL forward Mark Hunter as well.
Of course right away people are going to wonder what Mermis and Stolarz were offered by the London Knights?
Also, the Knights have a two headed monster in goal; Jake Patterson and Kevin Bailie are both ranked in the top six for OHL goalies with the likes of Franky Palazzese, Malcolm Subban, Jordan Binnington and John Gibson.
The part that is the most puzzling to me is how “some” of today’s athletes have such a small sense of commitment. It’s like they feel there’re owed something.
It’s this entitlement attitude, that I am entitled to top six minutes, top four defensive pairing or the majority of the starts in net. It doesn’t work that way in life. If things don’t go their way, they’ll just transfer to another team or league. What makes them think they’re going to play more at their next team? Whatever happened to working harder in practice?
Back in the day, if you weren’t playing as much as thought you deserved. Said player, might go visit with the coach. The conversation with the head coach would go something like this. Coach, ‘I am not playing as much as I would like.’ Coach would probably say something like this, ‘then practice harder.’ The conversation most likely would end with the player in question thanking the coach for his time and returning to practice.
Links of interest
Roman Augustoviz has a pretty good article on his blog today on the Hobey Baker Candidates in the WCHA. [click to view]
UND Hobey Baker Memorial Award Candidate Corban Knight is leading the Florida Panthers NCAA prospects in points. Knight currently has 10 more points than Kyle Rau and Nick Bjugstad. [click to view]
With the NHL Lockout finally being over, Michael Russo is actually going to be covering NHL hockey again and not the Minnesota Gophers. I am sure that some Gopher Hockey fans will be unhappy because Russo is one of the best in the business.
There is some good news as well. Pierre-Marc Bouchard is now symptom free and will be in training camp. Yay! It also looks like Wild Defenseman Matt Dumba will be in training camp when the Wild start training camp. [click to view]
NHL fans are asking for cheaper NHL ticket prices. Yeah, good luck with that. [click to view]
Now that the NHL is back on… One of the questions that Eric Duhatschek ask is this it for Jarome Iginla in Calgary? [click to view]
