Thursday links... (Former college hockey player fight log)

I found this picture on Bisionville and I thought it was funny so I included it. 

Gopher Puck Live's Ryan Cardinal was on KFAN this morning. [click to listen]

DU’s Gwozdecky met with NHL brass [click to view] and Badgers coach Mike Eaves is unable to catch a plane out of Madtown.[Click to view].

Andy Baggot beat writer for the Wisconsin Badgers has an article on the early departures. [click to view]

Delusion of Grandeur has an interesting post this week; one might even say that it’s a head scratcher, I am not sure why a division one college hockey coach would even entertain the idea of answering his ridiculous email.[Click to see for yourself]

The College hockey blog has picked traditional doormat team Western Michigan University as his team of the week. [Click to view]

Surgery on Jesse Martin's broken neck 'very successful' Doctors see potential for Edmontonian to play hockey again. [Click to read article]

Oshie's broken ankle severely tests Blues [Click to read article]

Ex-College hockey players fight log

Former Badger Jack Skille purse fight's Sami Lepisto from the Yotes. [Click to view]

Former Princeton Tiger George Parros fights Frazer McLaren [Click to view]

Zack Stortini vs former MTU hot head John Scott. Scott works Zach Stortini like a clown. [Click to view]

Former SCSU Huskies Ryan Malone vs Jamie McGinn [Click to view]

Former MSU Spartan Justin Abdelkader vs Former Gopher Keith Ballard in a hug feast.[Click to view]

Brian Sutherby vs former BU Terrier Brandon Yip, Yip isn't going to known for his fighting skills. [Click to view]

Steve Montador vs Former Michigan Wolverine and Canadian's hack Michael Komisarek. [Click to view]

Former Minnesota State University Mankato Maverick David Backes vs Andrew Ference. [Click to view]

Mid Friday thoughts.

Check out former DU Pioneer Tyler Bozak's first NHL goal. Tyler Bozak was called up to play on a line with former Bruins and Minnesota Gopher Phil Kessel. Just think Bozak could still be playing in the WCHA scoring goals. Kessel now has points in three straight games after going 12 games and only scoring one goal.



Here is the latest hit (Bobby Ryan Hit On Oscar Moller) that may be reviewed by the NHL. Personally, I don't think there will be an additional penalties on the hit. It looked like a classic text book charge.

Sioux and Gophers

Here is the prediction on the Minnesota and Gopher series from Theresa Spisak. I am going to say split as well because the Gophers aren’t easy to sweep in Mariucci arena and are going to be playing for pride and a WCHA home series. Expect some combination of Jon Campion, Bill Mason, Don Adam, Marco Hunt, Derek Shepherd and or Todd Anderson. My bet is Jon Campion and Bill Mason because he will let the teams play hockey. Expect either WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod and head of WCHA officials Greg Shepherd to be in attendance for tonight game.

North Dakota @ Minnesota
Realistically, this series should be a split. However, even though Minnesota seems to be finding the right track, I'm going to go with the theory that UND rocks in the second half. UND sweep. [Read the rest of the article]

Travis Zajac Hot

Former Fighting Sioux forward Travis Zajack is on a tear right now and looks like he is flourishing under Jacques Lemaire defense first approach. The Devils coach wants Travis Zajac to shoot the puck more as well.

Travis Zajac has scored four goals and seven points in his last five games. Zajac broke out last season with 20 goals and 62 points and it looks like those are the kind of numbers you can expect from him going forward

The Oshie bites the home town team Minnesota in the ass with this goal and that was all the Blues needed to beat the Minnesota Wild. Both goaltenders were on their game last night.

Friday afternoon Links

My yard work isn't getting done with me sitting at the computer but there were a few interesting items out there to read about in the hockey world.

Pat Quinned was fined for saying this:

"I don't understand the players of today," Quinn said. "If that had happened in the old days he would have got hit over the head with a stick right after. It was a pretty dirty play in my opinion. He poked his feet out and then piled on top of him. Somehow they never deal with that ... and they won't let the vigilante stuff happen to deal with it. It's disappointing." [NHL.COM]

The Redwings just got some really bad news when one of their top forwards Johan Franzen will be out for at least four months. Looks like former MSU Star Justin Abdelkader will be getting another shot at playing in the NHL.
One man's loss is another man's gain.

Bad news on the Johan Franzen injury front: The Red Wings just announced that the big forward will be out a minimum of four months after sustaining a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during Thursday’s 3-2 win over Chicago.General manager Ken Holland said the team has recalled Justin Abdelkader from Grand Rapids (AHL).
[Abel to Yzerman]

Predict the score of this game between UAA and Michigan, I am predicting a 7-2 ass whooping. Nothing like a game against Michigan to lower those save percentages and raise the goals against averages.

It will be interesting to see how optimistic some remain after the Seawolves play like a big, slow, untalented, lumbering team, with little recognizable talent. I predict that UAA will get beat to the puck up and down the ice and will get into penalty trouble as soon as the Seawolves realized they can’t keep up more talented and fleet of foot Michigan Wolverines. Being an early season game the ref will be out to prove a point and there will be a parade to the penalty box.

Both of their goalies played in their exhibition win. Jon Olthius got the start and made 7 stops in a little over half the game. Bryce Christianson stopped ten pucks in the second half of the game. Christianson was the better of the two a year ago, with a 2.60/.893 to Olthius's 3.43/.877. [The Blog that Yost Built]

According to the New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella they are not playing rund and gun hockey. Sounds like they need to work on their defense.

John Tortorella wasn’t so thrilled with what he saw on the tape from the Pittsburgh game, or with what he saw on television from one of his players: “The biggest thing that we need to address tonight is puck support. If we’re going to be aggressive as far as defending, trying to jam the neutral zone, pinching in the end zone when we have opportunities, we need to have some support coming back, and I think we lost ourselves a little bit there” - most glaringly on Sidney Crosby’s go-ahead goal, with Marc Staal caught behind the play and no one helping out.

“I even heard one of our players say on a TV program or something like that before last night’s game, ‘Run-and-gun.’ This isn’t run-and-gun,” the coach went on. “This is pressure defense, pressuring the puck, defense first with support, allowing us to be aggressive, it’s not run and gun. These are the things we have to curb and make our team understand, because we gave up too many odd-man rushes. … Some was due to us just blowing up with the puck.” [The Blueshirts blog]

So is Wild forward Benoit Pouliot playing his way out of the line up in Minnesota? I don't know but I hope so, I just don't see anything that leads me to believe that Pouliot is going to be anymore than a fourth line player.

Benoit Pouliot’s got some work to do if he wants more than the five-minutes of fourth-line work he got Tuesday against Anaheim.
“He can play as high as the second line because he has that skill, but he needs to be a reliable player in his own zone and provide some energy and physical play,” Richards said.

Richards was displeased with the goalie interference penalty Pouliot took with the Wild down 3-1 in the third period. Pouliot nullified a power play he had drawn.

“He did a great job moving his feet to draw the penalty and then put himself in a position to take a penalty. You can’t do that,” said Richards. [Russo's Rants]

Cornelius Hardenbergh from the Hockey Blog Adventure was not impressed with the play of the Boston Bruins last night against the Ducks. I DVRed the game but I haven't had the displeasure of watching that game yet and if I do I might just vomit as well. I made the mistake of looking ahead of time on line to see what the score was and 6-1 kind of ruined it for me.

The Bruins powerplay sucked so hard that I was hoping the Bruins would take a penalty just to even the numbers of players on the ice. The PK managed to let old man teemu to bury 2 goals. If Tim Thomas is going to be a sieve every other game maybe the Bruins should look at this promising Rask kid soon. I expect him to play sometime this weekend, but I'm no NHL coach. [the Hockey Blog Adventure]

Monday morning Linkorama.

If Sioux fans think things are tough for the Sioux, MSU has lost 6 games in a row. In fact this is the longest losing streak since 1981 for MSU.

The Michigan Wolverines are having a hard time deciding which sieve is going to be their number one goalie because both Billy Sauer and Bryan Hogan are playing well in net right now. Their problem is offense, they are having trouble scoring.

The Miami Redhawks won their 4th game in a row and after sweeping the Michigan Wolverines in Oxford, Ohio this past weekend. The Redhawks now have swept Notre Dame, Michigan State and Michigan this season already. That is an impressive feat.

Still nothing to report in the Marian Gaborik saga, still hurt, still no contract or trade. Gabby is still skating by himself and isn't going to come back until he is 100%.

In this weeks Charlie Waters don't print that column there is a rumor of Marian Gaborik being traded to the New Jersey Devils for a package deal that includes Former Fighting Sioux Zach Parise. Yeah and I am going to win the lottery and quit my day job.

Are you confused after reading this article by Shooter? Wouldn't it be easier to say, "we have no clue when Gaborik is coming back." As soon as we hear something we will let you know. You have to wonder if this guy went to the Sid Hartman school of journalism.

Gaborik isn't going to talk to the media until he plays.

In last night's game between the Canadians and the Bruins, Habs thug/though guy/hack Georges Laraque's job was to get into a fight with Bruins forward Milan Lucic. In the previous Bruins and Habs game Lucic worked former Michigan player Mike Komisarek like a clown and Komisarek ended getting injured druing the fight. During Saturday's game the Habs were looking for some pay back. Lucic didn't end up fighting Laraque because his coach told him not to fight.

(From the same article) Former Michigan Star and current Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Hunwick has a four-game point streak after scoring a goal in Saturday's game against the Habs.

Far be it from me to give a Golden Gopher much credit but Joe Finley's favorite dance partner Blake Wheeler beat beat goalie Carey Price during the shoot out to give the Bruins their first regular season win in Montreal since Dec. 4, 2006.

Former Boston College Eagle and New Jersey Devil Mike Mottau has been suspended for two games by the NHL.

Here is the Sioux and Bulldogs game through the eyes of a Bulldog fan.

This is the same blogger that brutalized me earlier this week in the Gauntlet. Yeah that was as much fun as a root canal.