Photos: 11/26/08 (+4), more irresponsible journalism

First, when and why did NHL Network stop covering, or even mentioning, fights? Dom Moore and Jason Smith fought in the 2nd period of the TOR/OTT game (not that I would know, since I was watching that trainwreck the Thrash put on). I'm not sure if that's like, a fantasy come to life, or horrifyingly mis-matched, and thank god for the YouTubes, because NHL Network didn't even MENTION it. Not only did they not show clips, but they glossed right over it as if it never happened. When did this start happening? Dominic Moore drops his gloves and takes on Jason Smith and that's not worth mentioning? Even casually as an aside, perhaps? Dumb dickheads.

There weren't a lot of great photos for this game. Clearly the photographer(s) was a homer, because there's a lot of photos of Caps.

Today's round up

Jason Smith signs with the Ottawa Senators for 2 years. Amount undisclosed. EPIC FAIL!

St Louis signed Steve Bernier to a one year, $2.5m offer sheet. Vancouver has 7 days to match. You might remember Vancouver signed David Backes, also to an offer sheet, from St Louis. Should Vancouver not match the offer, they will get St Louis' 2nd round pick in '09. Well played, Blues.
ETA: Vancouver matched the Blues offer, and St Louis matched the Canucks offer on Backes. Checkmate. Brilliant move, JD. I am impressed. In a beautiful segue, Lowe, Burke, pay attention.

Gary Bettman instructed Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe to shut their pie holes. Because they're apparently still in high school and haven't learnt to pick their battles.

For those of you who obsessively use Google Image Search (GIS), they just re-indexed their data, and have crawled Blogger/Picasa, Photobucket, Flickr, and Daylife for inclusion. That means A LOT MORE, NEW-TO-YOU PHOTOS people! To wit:


Good stuff, eh? I would put this around mid to late summer 2007. And hey! You're famous!

Remaining unsigned FA goalies:
Scott Clemenson (RFA)
Ray Emery (UFA)
Erik Ersberg (UFA)
Johan Holmqvist (RFA)
Jimmy Howard (UFA)
Pascal LeClaire (UFA)
Kari Lehtonen (RFA) ←
Jocelyn Thibault (UFA)
Hannu Toivonen (RFA)


If anyone needs me, I'll be in a bottle of vodka.

Pens/Flyers recap. Also, change of format?

Maybe a change of format coming here soon. I love the Thrash but I love hockey as a whole, so I might soon be flipping this from Thrash-centric to NHL on the whole. Because seriously, what writer DIDN'T want to write about last night's Pens/Flyers game?! Good thing the Thrashers don't give out press passes to bloggers, eh? They'd be yanking mine right back, hah!

Onto Pens/Flyers.

Any game that starts with Gator beating the shit out of a guy nicknamed Bugsy, well, that's one to keep watching. In case you missed it:

In the meantime, here's Sid Crosby screaming like a little girl (note: I love Sid, but doesn't it look like he's bitching out?!):

And look, not that Triz or I brag much, but we totally deserve to today. FRIEND OF FWH, JOFF "How's Pitkanen working out for ya, KLowe?" LUPUL PUT UP 6 POINTS LAST NIGHT! First time in over 10 years a Flyer has done that, the last being Eric "Which way did that truck go?" Lindros. Here is one of Looper's many goals:

And lastly, cause I gotta show the Gator love... Here's Captain Smith with RJ "I'm FROM Pittsburgh, BITCHES! WHAT NOW?!" Umberger, after one of RJ's 920382093 goals as well:


If anyone's got any shots of Gator's fight with Bugsy, SEND THEM MY WAY!

And if this doesn't speak of one of the best NHL games in a long time, you don't know what the fuck you're looking at.



Thrashers by 1 tonight, Johan in nets, look for at least 2 by Kovy.

Recapping the first full weekend of hockey

2 - 5

Probably one of my two regular readers here was expecting a recap of the Tampa game. But you know what? I'm not recapping poop. And that's how the Thrash played. Like poop. You can't polish a turd.

Where is the defence? Is Zhitnik really the only capable D-man we have? What the hell is going on with Exelby? He looks like Steve Eminger out there. Someone tell him to unglue his ass from the goalpost so Kari and Johan can make a few more saves. Also, forechecking would be nice. Just sayin'.

Team's off til Wednesday, which, thank god. Maybe Hartley will work them all to death with mountains and suicides - we can only hope. I know it's early, blahblah, still working on chemistry, blahblah, but hey - the October points are just as important, if not moreso, than the April points. If we put up the points in October and November, we're not going to be facing 20 consecutive MUST WIN games in the Spring.

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From the AJC, on subject of the new jerseys:

THEY MAKE KARI LEHTONEN LOOK FAT

"They're tight at the top and get looser as they get closer to the waist," said Lehtonen, and that isn't flattering. "I saw one picture on the Internet, I think they make me look fat," Lehtonen explained. Jim Slater, the club's player representative on the competition committee, refused to blame the new jerseys for that. "I don't know of many things that don't make [Lehtonen] look fat," Slater said. "He's a big boy no matter what — he's got the butt on him, the legs — all that stuff."

Awesome, Slats! Way to chirp your own teammate!

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In other team news, Jason Smith made his return to Edmonton Saturday night with the Flyers. They lost. There's nothing I can say about that game, and a picture says a thousand words, so I'll let Gator sum up everything I've got:


We love you, Gator, wherever you may play.

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What's up with the Caps winning 2 in a row, and looking good while doing it? We may have to reluctantly slink back to the fandom of this team that we abandoned mid-season 2 seasons ago. Or was it last season? Time flies. At any rate, perhaps it will be a seamless transition. We're friendly with both Sashas on the team, and it's a thrill to see them play together any day of the week, especially with ... that Swedish kid between them. I keep thinking Enstrom, but he's on the Thrash. The other one! Anyway, they've got a 2pm matinee today against the Isles (and will be facing old friends Witter, Si and Zubie!), which we're recording at home since our company doesn't believe Columbus Day is actually a holiday worthy of celebrating. No spoilers please! Although we'll probably listen online. But our prediction is Caps by 2.

4 more sleeps

Who cares that technically NHL's begun for the Ducks and Kings? Who cares that it begins on Wednesday for many other teams. For us, and for many of our fellow fans of the A-T-L, the season doesn't begin until Friday, and really that's as it should be. No one sits in trembling anticipation of Wednesdays, ferchrissakes! But Friday, nearly everyone looks forward to Fridays! And now that anticipation is increased, oh, hundredfold. Four more sleeps until the 07-08 season begins for us. We. Can't. Wait!

Do you read other blogs and articles about hockey and the league? If you do, and like us, tend to stray to media in other markets, you may have noticed that many articles written during this pre-season, concerning the Thrashers, seem to've been written by Chicken Little. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" they proclaimed, certain the twinge in Lehtonen's groin was indicative that his season was, if not over, at least heavily delayed. After learning of the almost-injury and writing their dire predictions, most prognosticators wandered off, forgetting of the Thrashers almost entirely, and putting them in the bottom of the league for a finish. I guess no one bothered checking the scores to see that not only did Kari play 2 consecutive games, he also stopped 58 shots. And yes yes, against the Panthers, but this is the form we want for our starting goaltender. Oh, you haven't heard?

Lehtonen will start Opening Night

By Craig Custance | Monday, October 1, 2007, 02:19 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Seriously, that's all you need to know. I mean, there's other stuff in there worth reading, you can go check it out on your own. But Lehts will be in his rightful place between the pipes when that banner is raised and those anthems sung, as it should be. I hope his form comes as a shock to all the writers who stopped paying attention when they heard the words "Lehtonen" and "groin strain."

Also on the subject of the Thrashers, there's a nice article in the Laval (PQ) paper about Eric Perrin finding a home in Atlanta.

Moving on to other teams:
Filthy Flyers - named Jason "Gator" Smith their captain today. Possibly the only redeeming thing they've done in many years.
Minnesota Wild - Dominic Moore dropped the gloves last night with Martin Lapointe. I know, right?! That's what I said. What the hell, Dom!

That's all we've got, really. Hey is there some sort of prize for having probably the ONLY Kari Lehtonen blog? Cause we totally nominate ourselves for it!

Oh, lastly, because it can't NOT be mentioned: Britney Spears lost custody of her kids today to ex-husband K-Fed. Or Fedtard. Also known as Cletus. Seriously, how awful of a parent do you have to be for that tool to be the responsible parent in the pairing? Think that one out, BritBrit. Oh how the mighty have fallen. To go from world's biggest star to cautionary tale in 2 short years, that's impressive. Downgrade of our generation, eh?