Off Wing Opinion

Today's big news is the trade of Caps center Brian Sutherby to Anaheim for a 2nd round draft pick. Tarik managed to talk to Suts this afternoon to get his thoughts.

There's a lot of emotions. Right off the hop, you're excited about getting an opportunity to go play, and for a very good team. Then you sit back and think about all the good times you had here, all the guys and good teammates I've played with.

For more on the trade, check out:

A great look back by Mike Vogel at Dump 'n Chase
In The Room
On Frozen Blog
The Peerless Prognosticator
A View From the Cheap Seats

The trade opens up the space needed for taking Semin off the IR for tonight's game against Florida. As usual, the pregames are coming from everywhere, most notably Japers' Rink and The Peerless Prognosticator. Says JP;

Up until this point, it's been perfectly fair to judge each of the aforementioned members of the Caps brass on their job performance, but any such analysis has been somewhat incomplete. Sure, it's a GM's job to put together a team with enough depth to handle some injuries, and it's a coach's job to adjust when players miss time - both men can fairly be judged against those performance standards. But we all know that the "if we were healthy" talk has some measure of merit to it (obviously a significant amount of merit, in fact, to the powers that be), so now that the team is healthy, it's time to see what they - and the suits - can do to try to save this season.

Indeed. With their full compliment of skaters, the Caps need to come out strong tonight, and get this train back on track.

And The Peerless gives us a short Q & A from Dan and Jane in his "Point/Counterpoint" segment.

OK, let

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 5:28 pm by Joe Dumas and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

With the Caps off until Thursday, the blogosphere is a little light today. Both Dump 'n Chase's Mike Vogel and The Times' Corey Masisak are up in Toronto for the Hall of Fame inductions. While up there, they got a chance to go see the Oshawa Generals and their star, John Tavares. Says Vogel;

We got to see the highly touted John Tavares and were not disappointed, except for the fact that he was ejected for kneeing early in the third period. He is just a real smart player, a guy with a nose for the net who makes everyone on the ice better when he is out there. He circles the net like a piranha, and sometimes even sets up behind the net without the puck, coming around either side for a quick and sneaky deflection bid. Tavares is not the skater that players like Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are, but he gets where he needs to go without dificulty. We saw him net the game-tying goal

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 6:19 pm by Joe Dumas and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Today's roundup is one of milestones. First and foremost a congratulations goes out to On Frozen Blog's OrderedChaos, whose wedding countdown clock ran out over the weekend. By all accounts, it was an event never to be forgotten by all in attendance. Next up, Hall of Fame coach Al Arbour returned to the Islanders' bench one more time to coach his 1,500th regular season game with the Islanders. Said Arbour, "I talked a little bit, not a lot. It was nothing spectacular. I bit my tongue a little bit." Jeremy Roenick netted his 499th career goal last night against the Kings. He'll have a couple days to think about #500, as the Sharks host Dallas Wednesday night. And lastly, the Caps signed defenseman Josh Godfrey to a 3-year entry level deal. Currently playing in the OHL, Godfrey was a 2nd round pick for the Caps, and almost certainly will be patrolling the blue line for the Caps in the future.

Another big deal is the staggered debut of the NHL Network. Us Yankees have been waiting a long time for something like this. According to Eric here and at TSN, it's been "Three and a half years since the ESPN empire pulled the plug on NHL2Night and robbed hockey fans in the lower 48 of the only regular outlet for out-of-town NHL highlights anywhere on American television." DC Sports Chick at OFB chimes in as well, and sums it up perfectly; "...who can complain about hours and hours of hockey-centric programming?"

The Globe and Mail is reporting that Peter Forsberg has had a setback in his return to hockey.

Forsberg has been hedging about a possible return to the NHL, until he could test his chronically unstable ankles in competition. Apparently, he didn't pass his own personal test and afterwards apologized to everybody who'd bought tickets for the tournament to see him play. He said he realized he'd "made a fool of himself" and simply acknowledged: "I just can't do it."

Forsberg has been reluctant to discuss his plans for the upcoming season until he gave himself a chance to properly evaluate his ankle, but said Monday: "It doesn't look good. I have to say, I've never been so close to saying my career is over right now." Indications are that before Forsberg makes anything official, he will consult with doctors in North America to see if there's a medical issue that can be overcome with treatment.

Such news will certainly disappoint the several NHL teams who have been keeping an eye on him.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 5:03 pm by Joe Dumas and is filed under Hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.