Monday morning hockey tid bits.

Brian Costello from the Hockey News has an interesting opinion on the recent Doug Weight hit on Brandon Sutter. It was clean, and I agree. You know what is funny you never heard people complain when Scott Stevens was laying people out, I don't remember a lot of people having an issue with his monster hits. While I am sure the league will look at these hits, they are part of the game.

Hitting and head shots two different things
There’s only one thing sadder in hockey than seeing a player such as Brandon Sutter lose consciousness and sustain a concussion after an on-ice hit. The change-the-game backlash and pleas to ban head shots are more harmful to the game.

It was a clean hit, plain and simple. There was no head-hunting involved, there was no penalty on the play and there’s no reason for revenge or game-altering rule changes demanded by some hockey critics.

Doug Weight of the New York Islanders was the last man back on the play Oct. 25. He and Carolina’s Sutter were rushing to the loose puck and a collision was inevitable. If Weight pulls up, he risks giving Sutter a breakaway and is certainly criticized by Islanders fans.

Former Gopher Ben Clymer's has a Blog post on playing hockey in Russia and the tragic death of Alexei Cherepanov.

After dinner I settled back into my room and turned on the TV to double check if I'd missed any channels that may have been on commercial the first time. I came across a news show on Cherepanov and the tragedy that had just happened.

It was in Russian, but still rather easy to follow as they interviewed his mother. I felt so bad for her; you could see how much pain she was in and how difficult it must have been for her to lose her son at such a young age.

After the show, I walked down to Igor Ulanov's room to hangout for a bit and found out he had watched the same show. He told me how Alexei's favorite player was Jaromir Jagr and that when he heard Jagr was coming to Omsk, Cherepanov told the Rangers he was going to stay another year in Russia to play with his idol.

According to Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski it sounds like the wheels are starting to come off in Dallas, as a Wild fan I can only say, "Oh darn".

But the Stars are a different situation, because neither of those other teams publicly aired their frustration like the Stars are during their struggles (3-5-1 in their last nine games).

It's one thing to hear a grumble here or there; it's another thing for a conference finalist to have a veteran star like Mike Modano call out his teammates for "one of the most embarrassing things I've seen." Or for goaltender Marty Turco to both blame his teammates for his struggles while questioning their faith in him. Or for the team's two-headed general managers' office to threaten emphatic changes if the situation doesn't resolve itself on the ice and in the locker room.