Tuesdays with Dani: Playoffs Linkage April 17, 2012

Not a whole lot of Lightning-related things this week, with thanks to the off-season, but lots of 2012 NHL playoffs stuff after the jump.


Here are your links for the week:

Your Lightning links:

• Joining Brent Sutter and Kirk Muller, Guy Boucher was named assistant coach for Team Canada for the IIHF World Championships that will take place in Sweden and Finland starting May 4th (The Tampa Tribune)
• Nate Thompson and J.T. Brown will play for Team USA at the IIHF World Championships while Teddy Purcell will play for Team Canada (Tampa Bay Times)
• Great open to this article: "The last time the Norfolk Admirals lost a game, the Giants had just won Super Bowl XLVI, the Daytona 500 was still weeks away, and pitchers and catchers had yet to report to spring training."
• Nate Thompson 1- shark 0 (@natethompson44) and if you aren't already following him on twitter you should fix that because he's been on fire tweeting from Minnesota grocery stores and while fishing
  

The rest of your links after the jump...

Your links from around the NHL:

• Caps fans troll Tim Thomas with giant Obama faces. No, really, they did. Want your own Obama face sign? RMNB has you covered (Puck Daddy)
• Nicklas Backstrom received a match penalty in last night's Boston Bruins / Washington Capitals game for the cross check on Rich Peverley's face and could receive a suspension from it. Dumb decision by Backstrom (The Washington Post)
• Even with the Tim Thomas tauntings, the Bruins took a 2-1 series lead over the Caps (Stanley Cup of Chowder)
• The St. Louis Blues took a 2-1 series lead over the Sharks last night (St. Louis Game Time)
• Daniel Sedin flew to Los Angeles yesterday and will practice with the team today. If all goes well, he might be in the lineup on Wednesday (The Province)
• James Neal and Arron Asham will have their hearings with Brendan Shanahan today (TSN)
• Dan Bylsma was fined $10,000 for the fight that Craig Adams was in during Game 3 and Adams is suspended for Game 4 for instigating a fight (TSN)
• Justin Bourne was not a fan of Crosby's antics in Game 3 (Backhand Shelf)
• Don Cherry has become a Sidney Crosby fan again (Puck Daddy)
• The Penguins-Flyers series is drawing huge numbers, with Game 3 drawing a 2.3 overnight rating which is good for the best overnight for a non-Stanley Cup Final playoff game since 2002 (Puck the Media)
• What is it like to watch NHL playoff hockey from Europe? A great read on trading sleep for hockey watching (Not Another Hockey Blog)
• A good read by Ryan Lambert on the current NHL concussion culture (Puck Daddy)
• How the playoffs turned ugly by David Shoalts and Allan Maki (Globe and Mail)
• The Canucks desperately need Alex Edler to find his game. I know the games are on late but he's been the worst player on the ice in the Vancouver-Kings series (Globe and Mail)
• Want to see all 17 goals that Marc-Andre Fleury has let in? Sure you do (Deadspin)
• How about the 12 that Ilya Bryzgalov has let in? (Backhand Shelf)
• Can the Penguins win in 7? Would that be crazy? Not according to mathematical law (PensBurgh)
• A neat story on how Ryan Callahan was drafted by the Guelph Storm of the OHL on a favor between an agent and a coach (NY Times)
• A writer named Dave Bossmin talks about being inside a straight locker room when you are gay and how being on a gay team is exactly the same (Xtra!)
• The Islanders announced today that assistant coaches Dean Chynoweth and Scott Allen have been let go. Because clearly the assistant coaches were the problem right? (Islanders Hockey Blog)
• Alan Robinson on twitter via The Pensblog, says that multiple people have said that Jordan Staal is not happy with his current role win the Pens
• For their Game 3 preview of the Canucks-Kings game, The Royal Half took a look back at 1968 which was when the Kings first entered the NHL