But I digress

We received a Google alert today on Hedberg (do you use these? If you don't, sign up for them because seriously, they are the greatest things ever!) that suggested he'd want a mulligan on his season debut the other night. Which made us groan. Because golf analogies in October warrant a beating. This is a tip to every hockey writer out there - if you want to keep readers, don't use the golf analogies until at least the All-Star break, because otherwise, you're either trying too hard to show your golf knowledge, or you are way too pessimistic. Either way, no one wants to read that.

Stuff from around the league

• Good friend of FWH, Rob Schremp was called up to the Oilers Saturday night for his 2nd NHL game, and he's working on creating a regular spot for himself with the big club. We love you, Schrempy, and we know you can do it! Good luck!
• Dominic Moore was listed as a healthy scratch in the Wild's shutout last night against Anaheim. Which is hopefully good news, and indicates his abdominal strain is healed, but Lemaire wasn't expecting him to be ready just yet. Or Lemaire is being careful with him. We're not going to look for negativity in the scratch.
• Sticking with the Wild, huge props to Josh Harding who posted the shutout against the defending Cup champs, while giving Niklas Backstrom a rest for the night.
  
• Tony Salmelainen was called up to practice with the Leafs yesterday instead of with the Marlies, which can only be good news. Good luck, Tony! We're rooting for you.
• Despite Mike Cammalleri being tied with Dany Heatley for the scoring lead, the Kings have dropped 5 in a row. Good to see the Thrashers have some company there.
• The Rangers allowed 3 goals in :53 Saturday night against the Sens. Obviously, this is a trend we're hoping will continue on Wednesday when the Rangers make their way to Atlanta. Kari will have something huge to prove in this game, and hopefully Hartley will play him.
  
• The Capitals are returning to regular form after dropping the 2nd loss in a row, this time to the Sabres, who outplayed them for a score of 7-3. Thrash fans are likely nodding sympathetically. This is the third game the Caps have been outplayed in, for 60 full minutes.
  
• Despite the actions of their youngsters (addressed below), the Flyers seem to genuinely be an entirely new team, one that is out to win, and play hard while doing it. We at FWH chalk this up to the steady and quiet leadership of Gator (who had a beauty of an empty-netter the other night). That does not mean, however, that we will ever cheer for this team. We still hope they are embarrassed on a regular basis, and it seems a few of its players are doing that for them.
  

Jesse Ricebowl was awarded a 25 game suspension for his head-shot on Ryan Kesler. You know this. Longest suspension handed down in NHL history, etc. And he's a teammate of Steve Downie, who got a 20 game suspension earlier in the season for the same damned thing. We're glad they were given tough punishments, however, it's disappointing that it's reached this point. The men playing this game are just that - men. Grown men. Many with children. While it's true that quite a few of them are still in their late teens and early 20s, this collective group of men still (usually) has a maturity in them that is absent from their contemporaries, especially regarding bodily injury and harm. Your body is your paycheque in hockey. That there's so little respect for the health of your peers is a huge downfall to this game. A change needs to be made. We don't think one 20-game suspension and one 25-game suspension will do it. It needs to be addressed and handled, not ignored, and hope it will go away.

It seems the fans in Atlanta are starting to call for the inevitable trades and firing of the coach. Because 5 games into the season, we can really accurately predict where the team is going to go. Apparently the pre-season games are forgotten already. What's wrong with the team? No one knows. Hartley doesn't even know as he's told the AJC. He's a lot more worried about the team than he is about his own job - as should be the case. This is a team perfectly capable of winning and winning easily. So why aren't they? We can speculate until it snows, but the fact of the matter is, speculation doesn't matter for crap in this game. Kovy is leading by example, but he can't carry the team. Kari is clearly the team's best defenceman, but despite whatever else we might say about him here, he's not Superman. The team is missing its chemistry, and most importantly its fire.

Let's put aside all the predictions, and lets put aside career stats and let's ignore what the team is on pace for. There are three things a team needs to be a winning team. Talent, chemistry, and heart. We have the first. We probably have the third even though it's been missing lately (2nd period on Saturday aside). So the key here has to be chemistry. What's to be done? More team building exercises and trips? Sleepovers? Force linemates to hang out together away from the rink? Who knows. We hope Hartley figures it out soon. Rangers come to Philips on Wednesday. There's a playoff series to be avenged. And the first win of the season to be won.

And lastly, you might remember a few days ago when we posted Kari's complaint that the new jerseys make him look fat. We were looking around the intarwebs for photos of our favourite goalie (best pastime evar!) and came across this one on flickr. What do you know? He was right. The white jerseys make him look enourmous.

Credit to amerk21sabres9 on flickr for the photo.

Sit Down and Shut Up has a great post about some of the Thrash prospects currently populating the Wolves. Good for Haydar for wearing the C this season with Chicago, but we're not entirely opposed to him staying up with the big club. Keep up with this site for info on up and coming Thrashers.