The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Did you notice the other kid (Corrado?) asking the refs to save him from the meat-grinder of Tinrodi's fists? Wow!

Have you guys seen this?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYB38PpmYVE&feature=player_embedded Tabernac. A questionable hit in that the guy's face gets mashed, but holy crap - Tinordi looks like a one-make wrecking crew on this clip. Crushes his man like a bug, then kicks the living snot out of the kid who comes to try to 'punish' him. Obviously it'll be different in the bigs, but it's hard not to be tantalized by a clip like this!

Good top-4. Bad bottom pairing - which has been my concern all along. For my money, you're better off mixing vets and rookies rather than having Emelin-Weber paired off. I think you have to keep Weber around because, other than Subban, only he has any plausible chance of representing a threat from the point. Conversely, that Diaz frees up Spacek to play on his natural side is a major argument for sticking him in the lineup. Spacek will be a key guy for us given the injuries and the absence of Hammer, so we need to put him in a situation where he can eat minutes and succeed.

Shanahan has to stick to his guns. Right now the players are shocked and somewhat befuddled - witness Brodeur's idiotic bitching. But another few weeks of this and they will begin to realize that it's they who will have to change. So typical of this team to raise its game when the outcome mattered at least a little bit. These guys will be fine, barring problems on the blueline.

ARGH!

Some things are too painful...don't bring up Roy please

Following in the proud tradition of Latendresse and Ribeiro

If there is ground for concern, it shouldn't reside in the preseason performance. We still have a week for the team to keep practicing, the veterans to start actually playing, and systems to gel. Any concern should lie with factors intrinsic to the make-up of the club: e.g., the D Wamsley laid out above is substantially weaker in the bottom-pairing than last season's; we have a number of question marks (Markov's knee, Gorges's knee [will be fine, I say], Pacioretty's development, Eller's health/development; PK's 'sophomore jinx,' the absence of a proven faceoff man, Gomez); and we have made a significant change in the coaching staff that constitutes at least some sort of X-factor. Of all of these, I'm only worried about defensive depth, but I rate that as a significant concern. Stop fretting about meaningless games and attend instead to what we know these players and coach can and can't be expected to deliver.

OBVIOUSLY we should have kept Ribeiro, but give me a break, a big preseason game is hardly relevant to that argument, and like Dalhabs says, it's ancient history. Let it go.

Wamsley, of the D-men you list, there's only one who can remotely run a power-play, as far as I can see. The drop off in the bottom-pairing is considerable and Hammer arguably had better offensive tools than Gorges. I agree that Hammer was not Superman, but we lost BOTH him and Wiz - and it took both of them to paper over the loss of Markov. You can argue that Gorges replaces Hammer (I doubt this is true offensively), but subtract Markov and that blueline still looks shaky to me. Agree that we've upgraded at forward, though (although the lack of a decent faceoff man is a glaring problem that'll need fixing). I'm not preaching doom and gloom here - we do have the potential to be better than last season - but since I don't rate either Diaz or Yemelin as NHLers because they have not yet demonstrated that they are NHLers, and since Weber has been disarmingly mediocre, I think our D may still prove to be an issue. And Hammer is just the type of solid, reliable, minutes-eater that would assuage that concern. C'est tout.

Our forwards have not gotten any smaller in the offseason and did not get 'easily pushed around' last season. Players such as Pleks, Cammy, Gio, Cole and Patches can all be expected to ramp up the intensity once they stop playing shinny. You're absolutely right about the back end, though. I really hope I'm wrong, but I've said consistently that we absolutely should not have let Hamrlik walk. I was even one of those few who said we should have at least made a meaningful effort to keep Wiz. People on this board instead argued that Yemelin and Diaz were the answers. I fear they may be on the wrong end of the argument - but like I say, I hope not.

It's legit to be concerned about our blueline (as I have been saying all along), but that should be based on an assessment of the personnel rather than the preseason. Defensive zone coverage is as much a function of team play and commitment as it is talent. JM teams always are tightwads defensively; I'd expect the coverage to improve once the season starts. Campoli made some nice plays, but I notice he missed the net repeatedly with his shot. Isn't that part of the book on him - that he can't get his shot on net with consistency? Maybe we should get used to it.

I'm not worried. Preseason, shmre-season.

If any team can, it'd be us! In truth, though, are all those guys gonna be around in 2-3 years, when Gallagher (realistically) will be a major lineup regular, assuming he makes the NHL at all? (Also, is Gomer Pyle realy 'small' per se? He's listed at 200 lbs. Really, he's not so much 'small' as 'not big'). I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I'm no expert on Campoli, but at face value I like this signing. Better this, than wasting picks in mid-season like we've done for two of the past three years in order to fill holes on defence. I have said for some time that it is naive to rely on unproven commodities like Weber, Diaz, and Emelin to provide quality NHL minutes, and given Markov's recent history we need proven NHLers who can move the puck should #79 miss a lot of time. A perfectly sensible acquisition. (I wouldn't proceed to move Weber, though. Of the three players listed above he is the one with at least some meaningful NHL experience; better to let him and Campoli fight it out for that roster spot).

For any lingering nervous nellies: I remember one year in the late 90s, we finished first or second overall in the preseason. Everyone was excited. Well, it didn't take long to come back to earth and relearn that our team was a wretched pile of lizard guano. Preseason means EXACTLY nothing. How a veteran performs means nothing. How a team performs means nothing. How a rookie performs means only that he may be given a chance in the regular season; but a strong preseason rookie performance is still almost meaningless as an indicator of how he will do once the games start mattering. This whole thing may be necessary in order for players to shake the rust out and coaches to implement new systems. But it is a farce in terms of competition - at best a curio allowing you to distinguish which rookies seem further along in their development. Any further inference should be avoided.

Can you imagine if he turns out to be injury-prone all season and Markov stays healthy?

Glad to hear that MaxPac is scoring. Preseason means diddly-squat, but under the circumstances, it's huge for him. A good preseason will send him into the real games with confidence in his body and himself - just what the doctor ordered.

No question. Look, in the old days, players just didn't do this sort of thing to each other nearly as often; you couldn't do it, in a helmet-less age, without killing guys or crippling them for life, and those norms lingered for many years even after helmets became standard. So it is perfectly possible for players to control themselves. The challenge is to put back into the game a basic 'respect' that has been taken out of it. The only sure-fire way to do it is to make penalties so serious that players will be forced to unlearn these bad habits.

Aha! Thanks. So: 1. Illegal play (as per 'new boarding rule,' which is excellent) 2. Player was injured on the play 3. Offender has suspension history I don't like the weight Shanahan gave to #3, because it still gives an escape-hatch to a player like Chara who, while normally law-abiding, develops a clear vendetta against a specific opponent and acts it out. On balance, however, Shanahan did NOT make reference to 'intent' but rather focuses on the action itself (yay!) and gives a clarity to the process that has never before existed. An outstanding first move by Shanny.

Can I ask - did Shanahan make reference to 'intent' when he handed down these verdicts? Because that's always struck me as the most inane aspect of NHL discipline, this presumption to understand the inner psyche of players that ultimately resulted in well-liked players like Chara getting off scott free where an unpopular guy like Cooke would have been crucified.

A rejuvenated Spacek will make a big difference to our bottom-pairing options on a blueline that has me somewhat worried over its lack of proven, quality depth. There's the usual excitement over junior-age players who may never amount to a hill of beans, but this is the bit of news from camp that's really promising if you ask me.

Habs29 is sharp to observe that these guys are no-names and that the acid test is still to come. As for Brian's comment, the question is whether Shanahan is his own man or Bettman's lackey. I have a hard time believing that Brendan Shanahan - champion, hard-nosed SOB, independently wealthy - is anybody's lapdog, but time will tell. I don't see how anyone can deny that this is a good start at least.

Two thumbs up. And thank God, because the NHL *had* to get this right - both from a marketing standpoint and, more importantly, for the sake of simple human decency. If they keep this up, in a few years nobody will be able to believe that the Chara hit was dismissed as a 'hockey play.' You go, Shanahan!