During the Rangers‘ Western Canada swing, John Tortorella made me remember why I miss him as a coach. His sound bites can be a gift. Tortorella had a 16 second postgame press conference after the loss to the Oilers. It consisted with him saying “We sucked from head to toe.“
And Torts was not the only one giving this weekend, Jay Feaster reflects on his time spent with Tortorella to the Calgary Herald. Best line? “I can’t count how many guys I had in my office, complaining: ‘He hates me.’ And my standard response was ‘Don’t flatter yourself, he hates us all. Equally.’
Here are your links for the week:
Your Lightning links:
- Marty makes it into Puck Daddy’s 7 players they’d pay to watch in an NHL shootout
- Sons of Andreychuk weigh in on whether Brett Connolly will make it past tonight
- The St. Petersburg Times on Brett Connolly and a golden tidbit on the Lightning dressing room: “Meanwhile, in the hallway in the Lightning locker room, someone has tacked an ad from ESPN Magazine on a bulletin board. It’s a picture of the Geico caveman playing horseshoes, with Connolly’s name written above it in an apparent nod to his furry chest. Alongside the picture is a message of congratulations for making the magazine so quickly.”
- Don’t Trade Vinny has this gem of a post as he compares the Lightning to Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Wondering what Oren Koules is up to? He’s involved in the Hulsizer bid to buy the St. Louis Blues. Yes, he’s looking to buy another NHL team (Lightning Hockey Blog)
- The Province editorial department decided to be hfboards for a day instead of writing about politics and suggested that the Vancouver Canucks should trade Roberto Luongo for Vincent Lecavalier
- Though he hasn’t started the last few games, Roloson’s struggles were not his fault alone (St. Petersburg Times)
The rest of your links after the jump…
Your links from around the NHL:
- Chris Pronger took a high stick to the face last night from Mikhail Grabovski and could be out for 10 days (ProHockeyTalk)
- @BroadStBull tweets that the Flyers will make Pronger wear a visor when he returns from his injury
- David Booth got traded from the Panthers to the Canucks along with Steven Reinprecht for Marco Sturm and Mikael Samuelsson this past weekend. Word is that he cried when he heard he got traded (Sun Sentinel)
- Zbynek Michalek is out for a month with a broken finger for the Pens (The Pensblog)
- The Caps beat the Wings 7-1 on the weekend and are still unbeaten this season (Russian Machine Never Breaks)
- James Reimer got injured this past weekend and has whiplash symptoms according to Ron Wilson. Jo Innes of Backhand Shelf breaks down what whiplash means medically. It’s hockey meets Grey’s Anatomy
- The NHL reached a European hockey TV deal with MTG (Ice the Office)
- The University of Alabama-Huntsville to lose NCAA Division I status after this season
- Brett Hull joins twitter and makes fun of Buffalo fans (Buffalo Rising)
- Scotty Hockey has the info on how Rangers season ticket holders can get tickets to the Winter Classic and is sounds like they could get screwed by the deal
- Justin Bourne asks: Are the Penguins still in “pick up the slack” mode, or is their roster just that good? (Backhand Shelf)
- Montreal is struggling and the Panthers‘ rookie goaltender Jacob Markstrom gets compared to a transformer (Globe and Mail)
- Bill Guerin has some advice to NBA players that are locked out: “It’s not worth it. Get a deal done”. Really good read (The Star)
- Because the NBA is having their lockout, Bill Simmons of ESPN has bought LA Kings season tickets (Grantland)
- Is the current squabbling about escrow between the NHLPA and league foreshadow another NHL lockout?? Lyle Richardson discusses (Kuklas Korner)
- RLD Hockey talks about the identity crisis that is occurring in Winnipeg. “In every major statistical category, Winnipeg is among the bottom five in the league including: Goals/Game, Goals against/Game, 5-on-5 Goals/Game, both PP% and PK% and Face-off percentage. Even in Atlanta, these guys weren’t this bad. ” So…I can’t wait to play them 6 times this year
- I think Bruce Arthur’s article applies to a lot of NHL teams: the biggest roadblock for the Canucks may be the huge expectations put upon them. (National Post)
- Stanford University’s football team is currently working with new mouth guards in practice that measure the force of head impacts, could this eventually help improve treatment and prevention in the NHL (The Hockey Writers)
- Does fewer empty seats mean better on ice results? Richard Pollock of Hockey Prospectus compares some data of home game capacity numbers against that of home to road goal differentials and found that there is no difference
- This weeks edition of Pundays (The Royal Half)
- Down Goes Brown: Getting to know the new NHL coaches (National Post)
- NSFW: LeNoceur guest posts on Couch Tarts a special 1000 games edition of Ask Joe Thornton
- For a good laugh, check out what Oilers blog Jean Shorts and Bagged Milk think of the Calgary Flames
- Laura brings you a recipe for the churro for her Puck Pies post. Her reason had something to do with Doughty and doughnuts (Thrashing the Blues)
- This is from The Onion: Citizens of Winnipeg realize they hate hockey now
- Professional hockey is back in Atlanta, at least the ECHL is. The team is called Gwinnett Gladiators and you can pick up a “Not moving to Canada” shirts at their team gear store (Fried Checkin’)
