Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:57 pm EDT
Here are your Morning 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 entered the penalty box twice for the New York Rangers last night at the Carolina Hurricanes, and Canes fans obviously came prepared. Did they have one for a five-minute major ready? [5-Hole; thanks to Bill from Rangerland for the picture.]
• As expected, fighting has emerged as a very hot topic in the GM meetings down in Florida. Bruce Dowbiggin of the Calgary Herald has a really solid piece that focuses on former journeyman pugilist Brantt Myhres, who gives one of those great "darker side of hockey fighting" interviews. From the piece: "(I would) put a whole bunch of Vaseline on my face, and as I was doing that looking at myself in the mirror putting Vaseline on, I'd say 'What the hell am I doing with my life right now?' And then it was time to shut out. I'd usually try to get (the fight) over with my first shift so I could breathe normally the rest of the game." [Calgary Herald]
• The Detroit Red Wings aren't a fighting team per se, but support fighting in the NHL. Fights after clean hits? Not so much. [Windsor Star, via Snapshots]
• Good interview with Scotty Bowman about fighting and other issues. From Scotty: "It's hard to stamp [fighting] out but they can curtail the helmets coming off and stop the stage fighting; the fights that start three or four seconds after the puck is dropped." [Examiner]
• Mike Heika looks the etiquette and honor in fighting, along with the potential injuries. Like when Steve Ott's finger popped so loudly that the guy he was fighting heard it and asked if he was OK. [Dallas Morning News]
• Damien Cox reports that the NHL could have a rule proposed "possibly making it mandatory for helmets to be kept on during fights" before the meetings are out. So no "ban," which is right. As we've said before, there's a difference between the generational filtering of fighting out of the sport, and the NHL attempting to "ban" it. Let the Game decide whether it needs fighting. [Toronto Star]
• New Jersey Devils Coach Brent Sutter sounds like a man who won't be the New Jersey Devils' coach next season. [National Post]
• Pension Plan Puppets has some ridiculously thorough coverage of the Jason Spezza illegal stick situation from last night's Leafs game, making some compelling arguments for player accountability. [PPP]
• We're starting to understand why the Canadian media has such a fit about attendance in non-traditional U.S. markets. The Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs stink slightly worse than the economy. They drew 18,898 fans last night, which is impressive but short of a sellout (19,153 capacity, 20,500 standing room). Drawing nearly 19,000 fans on a Monday night is important enough news to warrant placement in a story before the goal-scorers in the Sens' victory. OK. [Sun Media]
• Gary Roberts rides off into the sunset officially. [Lightning]
• Scott Nichol is scheduled to make his return to the Nashville Predators after a 38-game absence. Awesome. [Tennessean]
• Great analysis piece by Tarik El-Bashir that looks at the Washington Capitals' secondary scoring, or lack there of. [Washington Post]

• The upside: Hilary Duff gets to watch her man play for the Ottawa Senators. The downside: Getting leered at by Frank Mahovlich's dirty uncle. [Sens Town]
• Litter Box Cats looks at the scary prospect of the Miami Herald dropping, or lessening, its hockey coverage. But it also mentions something interesting: The South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach Post which dropped the Florida Panthers beat earlier this year, appears to be back on it in some capacity. Which once again proves that hockey-ignorant newspaper editors only understand two things: attendance and success. [Litter Box Cats]
• No Petr Sykora for the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight. [Penguins]
• Rev up the bandwagon for the Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup journey. [Sun Media]
• Finally, our photos of Washington Capitals fans celebrating Sidney Crosby's visit to their fair city ended up featured on ESPN's "Rome Is Burning" yesterday (they asked), as Rome spoke about the Crosby/Alexander Ovechkin rivalry:
Puck Daddy is an NHL blog edited by Greg Wyshynski. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.

Philadelphia 3, New Jersey 2 (Feb. 8)
Posted Feb 7 2010
San Jose 3, Toronto 2 (Feb. 8)
Posted Feb 7 2010
Phoenix 6, Edmonton 1 (Feb. 8)
Posted Feb 7 2010
Edited by MJD
Edited by 'Duk
Edited by J.E. Skeets
Edited by Greg Wyshynski
Edited by Matt Hinton
Edited by Chris Chase
Edited by Jay Busbee
Edited by Jay Busbee
Edited by Steve Cofield
Edited by Chris Chase
Edited by Chris Chase
Edited by Brooks Peck
Edited by Andy Behrens
55 Comments
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Obviously, the reviewer must know the recent history between the two team, but that should be hard. The commentators usually have all that info PLUS clips.
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Crosby should have done the jump into the glass... have some fun man! I wonder if Don Cherry is prepping his "Canadian way BS speech for this weeks coach's corner, did you see the shameful, "goofy" way those Penguins celebrated thier victory... it's an outrage!!! Must be the bad influence of those damned visor-wearing metrosexual europeans!!!"
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Thanks for the shout, tho...
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2 = two
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Hopefully Sutter will get a chance to raise the cup before he decides to pack up shop and go back to Alberta.
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I'll fix'er up.
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Sorry Big Rich, to throw another movie quote in - "Yeah....I"m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one"... Duff is skanky, horse teeth is just one of her problems.
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If you don't like fighting - go watch the euro leagues! Or the Red Wings, its the same thing.
Babcock SUCKS!!!
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Measure the eye-holes on a goalie mask. Particularly measure the hole-size on metal-mesh type masks (the Hasek type ... Osgood may be the only one still using one of these, I'm not sure.). Measure the hole-size on the same types of masks worn by many junior and college players. What is the minimum-sized object that can fit through these openings? Thus the toe-of-the-stick regulated size. These masks are designed to prevent a stick entering through a hole. If players shave down the toe, they are placing players, particularly goalies, at risk of losing an eye. Spezza should be forced to wear a jock for the rest of the season which is so small it only covers one testicle.
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Way to go Cap's fans...... yeah, that got'em.
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Totally explains why real hockey fans instinctively found Crosby a punk in his attack on Bret MacLean (I think that was the guy anyway) despite Crosby's attempt to justify it after the fact. Crosby broke two of the four rules of the code, rule 2) don't jump a guy and 3) don't hit a guy when he is down. [I don't expect him to wish his opponent good luck though.]
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