Monthly Archives: February 2009

Just One of Those Nights

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Chris Clark had surgery yesterday. He will miss the rest of the season.

Brent Johnson is about to have surgery. He most likely will miss the rest of the season.

Victor Kozlov is hurt and will miss a few games.

Brooks Laich is hurting after taking a shot in the calf.

Mike Green is on his way to getting his 20th goal as a D man.

Alex Semin got his 20th goal, three seasons in a row for him, after 15 seconds of the game starting.

Alex Ovechkin scored his 200th goal in just four seasons to put him in historic company, one of only four players to do so.

It was Military Night with the brass all out in full force.

We laid an egg in an exciting game to watch but a game that was played down a level instead of playing up to our high standards.

We will shake it off and get ready now for a very tough game against Florida on Saturday. They are sneaking up on us in the standings and we play them five more times this season. They will play this game like it is a playoff game. We must be ready to match their intensity.

Mike Green

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Mike is an All-Star. He is a Norris Trophy candidate. He is a foundational player within the nucleus of our young core group.

He is a great teammate and a great kid. And he wants to win a Stanley Cup more than get individual recognition.

We are blessed as a franchise to have such positive attitude and a singular focus as an organization.

My bet is that the NHL will start to market Mike as one of the league’s brightest young stars. The recognition is deserved.

Ain’t as Easy as It Looks

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When someone is running against an incumbent - in politics or in business - it is always easy to critique and to say, “That is wrong. Here is how it should be done.” If you say it with enough conviction, people will believe you too.

Shadow boxing and saying “I can do better” is a good way to get elected or sometimes to get the new job or promotion.

But the day to day reality of leading and managing an enterprise comes with a series of tough decisions and life is complicated and full of surprises. Sometimes things don’t work out with no fault of your own.

Our new President had a tough day. Two key folks that he supported withdrew their nominations. Add these nominations to Bill Richardson at Commerce. Ouch.

Three bad choices for key management positions, you just know someone is keeping notes and tabs on the other side and will use this information the same way our new President would have done with this info against the incumbent.

The circle of life will continue.

Same old same old.

Blame. Recrimination. Gotcha.

We are For Real

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Don’t you think?

We have played a pretty tough schedule post All-Star game: Boston. Detroit. Ottawa. New Jersey.

We have garnered 7 of 8 points.

We have played quite well against the tougher foes in the East. We have a 14 point lead over the number 2 team in the Southeast division.

But we are all still restless. We know we can play better defensively and play better on the penalty kill. We still seem to be bitten by the injury bug with Clark, Johnson, Kozlov and Pothier.

As an aside, I knew Mike Green would play with a chip on his shoulder post All-Star team snub. He is looking like a first team All-Star on D to me of late!

Hey Puck Daddy

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Isn’t it time that you threaded Fanhouse content into your blog?

Or took Japers’ Rink content and placed it as a widget onto your home page?

Or pointed to NHL.com and opened up?

Why not take Offwing Opinion photos and get them all over Yahoo Sports?

Or encourage ESPN message board folks to come on in and take over your comments pages?

What is the issue? Open up - why the silo? Make the tent bigger. It is a lot more fun to share space with rivals. Let the enemies invade the stands. I will point to you if you point to me in your blog roll. Whaddya say?