A pretty quiet week since the Flyers Organization had the hammer come down on Hitchcock and Clarke last Sunday. We’ll see what kind of production Stevens and Holgren get out of these candy-asses against the Thrashers tomorrow night. The Philly paper says the younger players will fare better because Hitchcock wasn’t as forgiving of their mistakes as Stevens was with the Phantoms. I agree, yelling and berating people runs out of gas pretty quickly even if you have your name on the Stanley Cup. I still feel that Forsberg and Hatcher are the other cancerous presences the organization will need to ditch. Rathje is probably on his last season along with Kapanen, the guy who should be wearing the C. I’m going to wait several games to see what my revised prediction will be. Hopefully, the new management team will be given plenty of patience since any spot in the playoffs will be a miracle by the way they’ve played up ‘til now.
My other team is faring as poorly. The ‘Yotes are having the same darned problem as last season, penalties. Gretzky practically restaffed the defensemen and yet these guys can’t stay out of the box. There’s also a good grouping of vets to calm down the younger players. Nope. I see the frustration set in and off they all go, making even more dumb mistakes which result in them being shorthanded and then down another goal. I feel the Great One will have to shake up the lines and get some trades if he wants his coaching and team to be taken seriously. The Pacific Division is proving to be tougher this season with the records San José, Dallas and even Anaheim are cranking out. But that’s still no excuse since half their opposition have been outside the Pacific. As they have only completed 10 games, I’ll wait because injuries have yet to take their toll on everyone and that’s when you see which teams can go the distance.
Outside of my two teams? Just Buffalo trying to extend their undefeated start to 10 games which hasn’t happened since the 1993-4 Maple Leafs (another long-suffering franchise without a Cup in 40 years). The Sabres deserve it. They’ve been toughing it out for years, getting little respect, especially how they got rooked out of the Cup in 1999 and their previous ownership being those Adelphia crooks, now picking up garbage off the interstates of the Northeast.
I couldn’t make the Icebats opener due to my prior Ecology Action committment (see Ladytron entry in Music). Maybe if the money and wellness are there, I can catch their next home game later this week. I think I will also try to console myself by actually finishing what could’ve been for Philly and Phoenix with my NHL 06 game. I know NHL 07 is out but I barely touched the last one so I need to get my money’s worth out of it first since the only major difference between them are the lineups.