Turns out, my little scoop yesterday about Scott Parker was correct. The Sheriff will start the season on the IR with concussion symptoms (it’s worth clicking the the link just for the picture of Parker).
Just throwing this out there: could the Avs be eyeing someone on the waiver wire? It seems odd to IR Parker now, since they don’t need the roster space.
AD updated his earlier blog post. Here are the lines for tomorrow:
Wolski-Sakic-Jones
Smyth-Stastny-Hejduk
Tucker-Arnason-Svatos
McLeod-Guite-Laperriere
Tucker and Sakic are seperrated!! I like that Wolski/Jones matchup with Sakic a lot better. Lots of defensive concerns on that Arnason line, better have a strong defense on the ice when those boys take a shift.
I’m going to listen to the coaches show on the radio tomorrow and see if Granato has some reasoning behind carrying 22 players now.
Will the Fan still do a coach’s show? At 8 AM?
Yeah, The Fan is still doing the Coaches show. Thursdays at 8am.
im stunned Tucker and Sakic are apart, though I don’t mind Jones with the WW-Sakic pairing at all. that 3rd is really scary defensively, bad scary. We’ll see!
holy fuck…those are MY lines!
As if anyone should be surprised that you and Dater have the same “inside scoop?”
frankly, any time I get anything right, I’m shocked.
The coaches show didn’t get going until pretty late because they brought in Mike Richter who is good friends with Granato. I guess Richter is coming in to town for the US Hockey HOF deal.
Anyway the best questions and answers were these three:
Why did you send down Hensick? The aswer was basically that in the NHL there’s very little time with travel and the schedule to practice and it would hurt his development to sit. He emphasized that Hensick would get his shot this year but right now he would just basically stagnate and possibly regress if he wasn’t in Cleveland. He said this also applied to Ledin.
Will Sakic play the point on the power play? Yes, Sakic will play the point with Liles on the first unit. The front three will be the Stastny line.
Will Granato have a quick hook on the goaltender if he has a poor game and put in Raycroft? To paraphrase, “I’m not that kind of coach. Peter is our guy, there’s no question. Not going to pull him if he lets in a poor goal, he’s going to get the opportunity”.
The other stuff was pretty general but I thought those were the most important. Not thrilled with Sakic at the point but very encouraged by Granatos very public support of Budaj.
no, not thrilling news on Sakic. But pretty much all of those answers are as we thought they’d be.
Of course Sakic is on the point!!! OF COURSE HE IS!!!!! Why or WHY would we change up a PP formula that was so effin’ lights-out last year??!!!?? THANKS FOR NOTHING TONY!!!
I’m not so upset about the PP having Sakic on the point. Last season it didn’t work, but it worked the year before (if I remember correctly). I think with Smyth actually playing in the crease, instead of behind the net, the potential is there for the set up to work. But Sakic (and the whole team) needs to actually shoot the puck for anything to happen. We can’t have 1 or 2 shots on the PP and expect to score.