Puck Headlines: Accused coach Pravilov dead; more Tim Thomas heat; Junior team goes nuts post-shootout
Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• Sean Avery's print ad for Hickey Freeman that appeared in Vanity Fair. One must look their best when being driven around downtown Hartford. Via reader Missy Haines, who writes: "I wonder if he's wearing plaid shorts as well?"
• Ruslan Fedotenko isn't traveling with the New York Rangers to face the Philadelphia Flyers after that hit to the head by Dominic Moore last night. [NYDN]
• Wow: Federal officials tell the AP that Ukrainian hockey coach Ivan Pravilov committed suicide in his jail cell while in custody in Philadelphia on child-molestation charges. [AP; our previous reporting on this can be found here.]
• Thomas Vanek returns to the Buffalo Sabres tonight against the Dallas Stars. Sheldon Souray, however, is out for the Stars with an injured foot. [Sabres Edge]
• Are Mike Knuble's days in Washington numbered? [CSN DC]
• Great piece by Dellow on the Edmonton Oilers: "With 24 goals and 30 assists to date and 28 games left in another pointless Oilers' season, Jordan Eberle is almost certainly going to break the 70 point barrier. This is very good for Jordan Eberle. There's a pretty good chance it will turn out to be bad for Oilers' fans." [mc79hockey]
• The Pittsburgh Penguins just got a bit more dangerous: Jordan Staal is back from injury this Saturday against Winnipeg. [Penguins]
• Ken Campbell on why he thinks Tim Thomas needs to engage the hockey media in a debate about politics: "But I also fear that if Thomas keeps this up, he risks becoming a cartoon character. Until this season, Thomas was known as the champion of the underdog, a guy who emerged from meager beginnings, clawed his way to the NHL by playing for years in obscurity in Finland and became an NHL star and won a Stanley Cup. It's his right to do so, but he's starting to tarnish that legacy." [THN]
• Patrice Bergeron makes a shocking admission about the impact of Tim Thomas's Facebook politics: "It's only in the media where they talk about it a lot, in the room it's not even mentioned." [CSN NE]
• Perhaps the NHL spoke too soon on fan ownership of the Phoenix Coyotes. [Puck Drunk Love]
• Great piece by Ellen Etchingham on the speed of the game. [Backhand Shelf]
• Bobby Holik puts Mats Sundin in some lofty company: "I wanted to write this piece because it seems more hockey people appreciate what Mats Sundin did for the game of hockey in 1990s and first decade of 2000s. He will, or at least should be, a first ballot hall of famer. He was a dominant player during two decades full of dominant players like Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Eric Lindros, Mark Messier and Peter Forsberg to mention a few. I would rank him above Forsberg, Sakic and Lindros. He was that good, but I am very biased. Big, strong, great talent and skill-set, and right-handed? That's as good as it gets in hockey for me." [Holik on Hockey]
• The Winter Classic puts the emphasis on Ann Arbor as a hockey town. [Hoag]
• Looking back at Stephane Riche's battle with depression. [Toronto Star]
• Eric Duhatschek: "How often does this happen in the NHL? Young goalie arrives for his full first season in the league and wows them, from start to finish, looking super human. Then Year 2 comes along and all of sudden, there are issues with his mortality after all. It is the Steve Mason story, but it is also the Blaine Lacher story, the Jim Carey story and the Tom Barrasso story." [Globe & Mail]
• Jarret Stoll heads to the IR for the Los Angeles Kings. [LA Kings Insider]
• Dan Cleary's knee has been drained and he'll miss 2-3 games. [Red Wings]
• Mike Yeo is awesome. After the Minnesota Wild's loss to the Vancouver Canucks last night: "You'd think that we would look at a team that skilled and has scored as many goals and say, 'Wow, they score goals like that, that might be a good idea for us to try it.' Or we might say, 'We we don't have that much skill, it might be a good idea for us to do that,' yet it's tough to get that across right now." [Star Tribune]
• The annual Vancouver Canucks bandwagon fan cheat sheet. [Pass It To Bulis]
• Infographic coolness: Here's a graphic look at the NHL's first-round picks since 2001. [Silver Oak Casino]
• Finally, via Neate Sager of Buzzing The Net, a really amazing story about how Kingston Voyageurs goalie Justin Gilbert was called three times for coming out of his crease before Cobourg's Dylan Goddard touched the puck on his shootout attempt. Gilbert was ejected, and Goddard scored on his fourth attempt against the backup goalie. Kingston got a total of 24 game suspensions and $1500 in fines; at one point, a Kingston player swung his stick in the direction of a fan while leaving the ice.
