Wild send Clutterbuck’s rights to the Islanders

English: Minnesota Wild forward Cal Clutterbuck during warm-up prior to a National Hockey League game against the Calgary Flames in Calgary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This weekend, My buddy Redwing77 sent me a text to tell me that Cal Clutterbuck had been traded to the New York Islanders. The text caught me off guard. At least the Wild were smart enough to not send him to a conference opponent.

Mike Doyle, Minnesota Wild --- The Minnesota Wild has acquired right wing Nino Niederreiter from the New York Islanders in exchange for to the rights to Cal Clutterbuck and a third-round pick (70th overall) in today's NHL Entry Draft.

Niederreiter was the fifth-overall pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. In 2012-13, the Chur, Switzerland native played in 74 games with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, the Islanders' American Hockey League affiliate, scoring 28 goals and adding 22 assists. The 20-year-old was second on the team in scoring. He is the highest drafted Swiss player in NHL history.He also led Switzerland with five goals, and added three assists in the 2013 IIHF Men’s World Championship, as the Swiss earned a silver medal – its first World Championship medal in 60 years.

Needless to say, I am shocked that the Wild didn't try to re-sign their hit leader.

NHL throws book at Islanders Goon Trevor Gillies...

This buffoon just got back from a nine game suspension and on his third shift back this clown does this despicable act, apparently he didn’t learn anything on his first suspension. Here is an interesting stat, Trevor Gillies has played less than five minutes combined in his last two games and been suspended a total of 19 games. Unbelievable!!! Already Islander fans are saying that Cal Clutterbuck should have been suspended for 5 games, which is a load of crap, Cal hit the Islanders player from behind, he didn't target his opponents head, so no suspension is warrented.

NHL.COM----- New York Islanders forward/Hack Trevor Gillies has been suspended for 10 games for delivering a blow to the head of Cal Clutterbuck of the Minnesota Wild in Tuesday's game at Nassau Coliseum.

Gillies will forfeit $60,975.60 in salary.

The incident occurred at 2:23 of the second period and Gillies was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct for checking from behind.

"By targeting his opponent's head, three shifts into his first game back from a suspension for a very similar action, Mr. Gillies has forfeited his privilege of playing in the League for 10 games," said NHL Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell. "While it is fortunate there was no injury on the play, there can be no justification for a player delivering a dangerous check to an opponent in this manner."

Gillies, who was suspended for 9 games on Feb. 11 for his actions in a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, is considered a repeat offender under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and forfeits his salary based on the number of games in the season (82), rather than the number of days (186).

Cal Clutterbuck blows up Stephane Robidas

I had the misfortune of watching tonight’s game between the Minnesota Wild and the Dallas Stars. This is was one of the few highlight from tonight’s game, the Minnesota Wild’s came out and looked like a bunch of pylons and left their goalie out to dry all night long. Having NHL center I was able to watch the game from the Dallas Stars cable network FSN Southwest, these two guys Ralph Strangis and Daryl Reaugh were absolutely brutal, they are worse than the two homers from the Duck FSN crew, these two guys were continuously whining about Cal Clutterbuck and his how he loves to check, almost as bad as Clutterbuck's other fan... None the less, hockey is a contact sport and hitting is legal and part of the game and if you don’t want to get hit, avoid the check…

Maybe it's not so easy, Colorado Avalanche - Claude Lemieux

Cal Clutterbuck made quite the impression this past week (December 23rd 2010) when the Wild faced and beat the Colorado Avalanche in Denver. Apparently, Cal Clutterbuck rattled the Colorado Avalanche so much that their Denver Post beat writer went off on a Cal Clutterbuck diatribe in a fashion that would mirror a fan blog type rant, minus the profanity, fine for fan blog but it does seem out of character for beat writers of a major news paper. Here is what Adrian Dater had to say about the NHL's hit leader.

All THINGS AVS ---- Clutterbuck is who he is. A hit-and-run artist. A trash talker. A guy who has no problem catching you with a big hit, as long as your back is turned or you have no time to react from the front. If you want to get him back, he’s going to cover up, play possum, and hope you draw a penalty. And a lot of his defenders point out that he leads the league in hits every year, but also has low penalty minutes – which kind of makes my point. He’s trying to artificially jack up his hit total, but doesn’t want to back anything up with a fight or two.

Like I said, he’s good at it. But it still doesn’t change that ultimate truth about Cal Clutterbuck: that he doesn’t stand up for himself, that he wants to hit and run and cower. Teammates hate those kinds of guys, because it means their guys are going to be targeted right back since he won’t fight his own battles. These teams will meet again soon, and we’ll see if Cal is clucking as loudly that night.

Personally, I find it funny because the Avalanche don’t have the moral high ground in this situation. One could say that the Av's fans have short memories eh? Rewind to 1996 when the Colorado Avalanche employed one of the most disgusting players to ever wear a uniform in the NHL, that pukes/hacks name was Claude Lemieux. On May During the 1996 Stanley Cup Playoffs Lemieux hit Chris Drapper face first into the dasher causing him to suffer a broken jaw, broken nose, broken cheekbone, and a concussion… I don’t remember an incident where Cal Clutterbuck has committed an act of aggression like that in the NHL… To top it all off, for the Av’s fans that have short memories, Claude the Fraud never apologized for his transgression against Chris Draper. Yeah, that’s something I would be proud of if I was an Avalanche fan. So don’t come pointing your finger at the Wild and their players because your franchise had one dirtiest, disgusting players to ever put on a uniform.

First example;Claude Lemieux turtles as Redwings tough guy Darren McCarty delivers a beat-down… [click to view video]

Second example; after delivering a bush league high stick to Cam Neely Claude the Fraude turtles again... [click to view video]

Cal Clutterbuck: It’s just too easy

Surfing the net this morning; I found this blog post from the Denver Post Avalanche beat writer to be remotely entertaining, it’s worth a look. Recently, I have had this on going discussion with a friend of mine in the hockey media about fan bloggers and how some of them let emotions drive their blog posts, I am probably a little guilty of that… Fast forward to this gem, this is a blog post from a beat writer for a national newspaper that writes for an NHL hockey team… This is my text book definition definition of blatant homerism. This is like Michael Russo writing Av’s goon David Koci (114 games 2-1-3, 388 pims) is a untalented hack that can barely skate, lucky to be in the NHL and basically a punching bag…

All things Avs --- There are some players I just have to laugh at in this game, though, and Cal Clutterbuck is one of them. Nothing against the guy at all. He’s good at what he does, which is drive you crazy with the game of “I hit you first, then try to draw the penalty with your retaliation hit against me.” These guys have been in hockey for time immemorial.

That’s fine, I respect that. It’s a game. You have to play every angle, and if being the agitator who gets the opposition to lose their minds and, hence, the game is what you need to do to succeed, then by all means do it, especially if you’ll be paid a million dollars for it.

But, and part of me hates saying this in a way, because I really don’t care either way. But, Cal Clutterbuck is a cowardly hockey player. He’s Bill Laimbeer on skates, folks.

Again, if it works for you and you have success being that type of player, then you’ll actually get grudging respect from me. Anything that makes you a winner, we can all admire that in the end.

But Clutterbuck is a coward. I mean, come on, did the Wild forward really talk a lot of smack about the Avalanche tonight, after a December 3-1 victory? Really, he did?

In fact, he did. Here’s what was in the estimable blog tonight of Michael Russo, the ace reporter of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and one of my better friends among the hockey writer zeitgeist.

Clutterbuck clucked: ““There’s some guys over there, two guys in particular, I’m shocked they’re still even playing in the league. If they’re going to take a penalty, take a penalty.

“We’re on the road, we’ll take a power play any day of the week. If they want to flaunt their egos, they want to show how tough they are, well, guess what, we’re going to beat you, and we’re coming for them in the standings.”

Let’s just establish a couple of islands or irony first, before we move on. Clutterbuck talking smack after a 3-1 win over an injury-ravaged team in December, is bathed in irony considering his team hasn’t made the playoffs for two straight seasons.

Cal Clutterbuck is an aggressive player that likes to hit, Cal is far from being Bill Laimbeer of the NHL… Bill Laimbeer was a diver and a hack Clutterbuck is not. Clutterbuck has played three season in the NHL and has a grand total of 150 minutes in penalties, each season his penalty minutes have declined as well, this season Clutterbuck has gooned it up so bad that he has a grand total of 22 penalties minutes.

Clutterbuck hit on Brad Richards

Another example of a legal hit and then another player that has to fight because he hit someone legally with a text book hit. Hockey is a physical game and Clutterbuck shouldn't have to fight because he smashed someone within the rules of the game. Steve Ott proves once again that he is nothing more than a knuckle dragging nethanderal hack. Again I think fighting is a part of the game and I find it entertaining but why would you drop the gloves because someone checked a team mate? That is bravo sierra, checking is part of the game.

When you play the Minnesota Wild, you have to be weary of two things: Methodical play, and the Clutterbuck bullet train. Apparently Dallas didn’t get the memo. You know, the one released a month ago?

Resident bone crusher Cal Clutterbuck laid some serious wood on Brad Richards, then tangled with Dallas Stars enforcer Steve Ott – twice.To the doubters of Cal’s strength and whether it transitioned to his play on the ice, you will soon be silenced.

As the puck was coming out of the Dallas zone, Brad Richards tried to find a forward up ice and flicked the puck in the direction of another Star. Unfortunately for the seasoned veteran, his head was down, and Cal Clutterbuck was waiting in the wings. There’s not much else I can say about this, other than Brad Richards will keep his head up the next time Clutterbuck comes to the American Airlines Arena
[Pete Prose]