Being sick did knock me out of the loop on hockey for a bit. Fortunately, my Flyers had some downtime to relax, make a couple lame trades and set a new low for consecutive losses. First, new GM Holmgren fails to impress me on his two trades with the Islanders. Why trade with a divisional opponent? Even if it weren’t the Islanders, these acquisitions are still reminiscent of Clarke’s poor decisions. Holmgren gives up Fred Meyer for Alexi Zhitnik. A young, promising defenseman for a mediocre Russian has been. I guess Malakhov wasn’t available. I’m not as torn over the loss of Randy Robitaille for Mike York but a draft pick had to be thrown in. My guess is that the Flyers are just going to eat it on Calder and Hatcher as time is on Philly’s side with those bums. Second, just when it couldn’t get any worse during their 40th season, the Flyers set a new low for the history books. Even when they really sucked in the early Nineties (pre-Lindros days), the Flyers never lost more than six in a row. Not anymore. Now they’ve “lowered the bar” to 10, securing their position as the worst team in the NHL this season. Despite snapping the skid with a victory over Tampa, they also remain the only team with less than 10 wins. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, this season is a wash so let the younger players get more ice time and ditch the overpriced losers. They’re practically an AHL team wearing NHL jerseys anyway. The season is almost done too and they have 22 points.
My Coyotes have fared a little better. If they were in the weaker Northwest division, I think they’d have a prayer. They may have several more wins than the Flyers but they also can’t get out of their divisional cellar. I feel they’ll finish ahead of the Kings yet the playoffs are slipping out of their grasp. It’s going to suck to see JR finish his career on such a sour ending. I can only hope he’ll be on ESPN, Versus or NBC next season.
The news only gets better for Marty Brodeur. He is now in third place for the most shutouts, passing Glenn Hall.
Gary Bettmann is still finding ways to ruin hockey. Let’s see what the next GM/Owners’ meeting yields. I fear what the new uniforms will be like. Probably something ugly to attract, dumb, violent kids from the ghettos and suburbs who don’t know squat about hockey. Steve Coates’ preview of the new LEDs embedded in the goal posts and bars was annoying (the LEDs, not Coates). Initially I had no problem with them if they light up during a goal because the lamp behind the net is ignored on TV and I barely notice it at the games I do attend. When Coates said the NHL may use the LEDs to plug ads, I just shook my head in disgust. There’s enough of those crappy ads on the boards, the score board, the prompters and in the rink. Can’t we be spared of any more? It’s not as if these eyesores have lowered ticket prices. The talk about realigning the teams from six divisions to four and then having them organized by time zones is one idea I can get behind. It will probably fail to pass at the next meeting though. It makes sense and it probably didn’t originate from Bettmann.