Week 16 of NHL 2005-6

Mario Lemieux retired yesterday. Maybe this time he’ll stay retired and I think he will. He stepped down from his executive post with the Penguins since they’re for sale. I don’t have any particular opinion of him that was seriously positive or negative but I do hate to see a successful player retire on a low note. The Penguins are terrible this season. The franchise is in jeopardy of moving because the people of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania don’t want to pony up a new arena. However, I agree on that. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize the billionaire owners for a team that stinks on ice. Anyway, so long Super Mario and congratulations on having a career with the same team the whole time which borders on impossible in this day and age. 
 
As with the Flyers, they finally snapped their losing streak. What a relief! They’re still only up five points on the NY Rangers and I think they can maintain that lead. Pittsburgh is out of the running for the Atlantic with the NY Islanders not too far from being knocked out as well. Then there was a surprising and expected trade. First the expected trade of Jon Sim to Florida. He was an okay player but just not someone who’d help in the long term with the Flyers’ surplus of utility forwards. The bigger surprise (which shouldn’t have been as I have analyzed GM Bobby Clarke’s patterns) was the trade of defenseman Dennis Seidenberg to Phoenix for aging forward Petr Nedved. I figure that Keith Primeau is probably done for the season so once again we grab another player who is having a disappointing run with the Coyotes (remember Tony Amonte?). What the Flyers need to get that Cup (which I got to touch last week) are faster defensemen and forwards, not big, aging guys on the last days of their careers. Nedved has been okay in his first two games, an assist and a goal. Amonte started off better too when he arrived. Then he became a $5 million albatross with John LeClair’s salary. 
 
Now on to some matches with Conference opponents that need to be defeated often since most of them may be appearing in the playoffs.