NHL Morning Papers (Thursday Edition)

With the holiday season having come and gone, Illegal Curve is looking forward to providing you with as much hockey information as you can handle in the upcoming year. Before we return to our regular posting schedule, I would like to wish a Happy New Year to all our readers.

Here are the national morning papers:

• The NHL is ecstatic with the ratings that the outdoor-game garnered this weekend writes William Houston of the Globe & Mail.
• Rangers winger Brendan Shanahan is happy with the changes the NHL has made post-lockout writes Eric Duhatschek of the Globe & Mail.
• According to Mark Spector of the National Post, finding a balance between experience and skill has been a difficult task for Canada's World Juniors coach Craig Hartsburg.
• The USA's path to the World Juniors gold medal is unsurprisingly going through Canada writes Kevin Allen of the USA Today.

Here are the Eastern Conference morning papers:

• The Thrashers gained some ground on the Hurricanes last night with an important 5-4 overtime victory in Carolina. (Writer's note: If you missed Ilya Kovalchuk's goal last night please see this link. It will be worth your while.)
• Barbara Matson of the Boston Globe has the details behind the Brandon Bochenski trade from Boston to Anaheim. Here are some notes about the Capitals/Bruins heading into tonight's game at the Banknorth Garden. Meanwhile, the return of David Krejci to the Bruins lineup is a testament to the youngster's work ethic.
• With the distraction of the outdoor game in the rear-view mirror, the Sabres will now shift their focus to the Ottawa Senators writes Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News. In positive news, things are looking up for Sabres forward Drew Stafford after he missed the team's past three games with a concussion problem.
• The Hurricanes felt like they missed out on too many opportunities before losing in overtime to the division-rival Thrashers. (Writer's note: The Hurricanes need to get their goaltending in order. I mean, this team seems to be letting in five goals every time they play.)
• In typical Devils fashion, they feasted on the Panthers' mistakes and came away with a 3-2 victory on home-ice. Florida's hopes of having Cory Murphy return to the lineup appear to be a ways away.
• Habs coach Guy Carbonneau was very impressed with the play of his youngsters on the team's most recent road trip writes Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette.
• Devils coach Brent Sutter had a talk with team captain Jamie Langenbrunner and it seemed to pay immediate dividends after he scored a goal to lead the Devils to a 3-2 home victory over the Panthers.
• Jay Greenberg of the NY Post was unimpressed with the Rangers' performance in the team's 4-3 loss at Calgary last night. "At the end of the day, with all due respect to our opponent, I think we beat ourselves," coach Tom Renney said.
• Over on Long Island, the Islanders players believe that the outdoor game was good for the sport of hockey.
• After missing fifteen games with a broken finger, the Senators can't wait to see Anton Volchenkov return to their lineup tonight versus the Sabres.
• According to Tim Panaccio of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Flyers winger Simon Gagne will not return to the team's lineup until next week.
• The Penguins have the second most shootout wins in the NHL this season writes Shelly Anderson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Apparently the outdoor game outdrew Wayne Gretzky's last NHL game. (Writer's note: I still cant believe the game outdrew Gretzky's last NHL game. That is ridiculous. How does a mediocre mid-season game outdraw the last game of the greatest hockey player of all time? )
• Lightning coach John Tortorella is unsure of his team's mental toughness right now writes Erik Erlendsson of the Tampa Tribune.
• Rosie Dimanno of the Toronto Star says that it is time for the Leafs' youngsters to act like men.
• The injuries to Alexander Semin and Tom Poti do not look to be overly serious writes Tarik El-Bashir of the Washington Post.

Here are the Western Conference morning papers:

• As Dan Wood tells us, it wasn't pretty but the Ducks pulled out a 2-1 victory over the Blue Jackets on home-ice last night.
• After last night's 4-3 victory over the Broadway Blueshirts, the Flames are now only one point out of first spot in the Northwest Division standings.
• It looks like the Blackhawks will be without rookie phenom Jonathan Toews for approximately 2-4 weeks as the former UND Fighting Sioux forward injured his knee in Tuesday night's 9-2 loss at Los Angeles.
• The Avalanche lost for the fourth straight time last night at home to the up-and-coming Coyotes. (Writer's note: With Joe Sakic on the mend, the Avs need Paul Stastny to turn it up a notch and lead them through the next portion of the schedule.)
• The Ducks' experience came in handy on Wednesday night as they defeated the young Blue Jackets 2-1. Meanwhile, the Jackets are hoping a demotion to Syracuse will get Gilbert Brule turned around. Here are the Jackets' projected lines for tonight's contest versus the Kings.
• The Stars needed a better performance from their top players last night as they were defeated by the powerful Red Wings 4-1 at the Joe Louis Arena.
• With last night's victory, the Red Wings officially completed the most successful first-half of the season in franchise history. Even though Chris Osgood played well versus the Stars on Wednesday, Dominik Hasek is slated to get the start in net for the Wings on Saturday when they take on Dallas, once again. In other Wings news, winger Kirk Maltby is shooting for a return to the lineup within the next ten days.
• The Oilers pulled out an important 3-2 overtime victory over the Blues last night writes Joanne Ireland of the Edmonton Journal. Off the ice, the Oilers' board of directors voted against selling the team to Edmonton billionaire Daryl Katz.
• Lost in Ladislav Nagy's five-point effort on Tuesday night, was the play of Kings forward Alexander Frolov writes Dan Arritt of the L.A. Times.
• You can't say Jacques Lemaire doesn't back up his players, after the veteran coach defended the struggling Martin Skoula to the Minnesota media on Wednesday.
• Predators defenseman Shea Weber had a setback in his rehab and will be out of the team's lineup for at least another week writes Jessica Hopp of the Tennessean.
• Former Colorado forward Steven Reinprecht had four points on Wednesday to lead the Coyotes to a 5-2 victory over the struggling Avalanche.
• The Sharks have no problem winning on the road (they are currently on a ten-game road win streak) and will try and use that road success to turnaround their suspect home record.
• The Blues outshot the Oilers 33-24 on Wednesday, but their powerplay did them in writes Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Note: For those of you looking for Vancouver Canucks stories, I encourage you to email the Vancouver Province and Vancouver Sun and tell them to post their articles at an earlier time. Both of these sites consistently don't have the day's articles up by around 8am/9am CST.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Richard Pollock.

NHL Morning Papers (Thursday Edition)

Here are the national morning papers:

• Eric Duhatshek and Alan Maki of the Globe & Mail examine the affect of the soaring Canadian dollar on small-market U.S. clubs.
• With Eric Lindros scheduled to retire this afternoon, Stephen Brunt of the Globe & Mail reviews his controversial career.
• Hockey Night in Canada fans will enjoy this week's Hot Stove as it will include journalists for this weekend's Hall-of-Fame game broadcast between the Rangers and Leafs.
• Mark Messier believes that leaders aren't born, rather, they are made.
• Damien Cox argues both sides of the Eric Lindros Hall-of-Fame debate in this morning's Toronto Star.

Here are the Eastern Conference morning papers:

• It is easy to detect the excitement in the voice of Chris Bourque (son of Ray) heading into the second game of his NHL career.
• With the struggling play of the Leafs so far this season, frustration has begun to set-in for Jason Blake. With the expected return of Bryan McCabe and Darcy Tucker this weekend, the Leafs' roster could be near 100% healthy.
• The Bolts finally got a 3-1 victory over the Panthers last night and one of the reasons for their victory was their ability to keep things in perspective during the team's recent struggles.
• The Penguins found out this year's version of the Flyers is far more difficult to play against than last year's team as they were defeated by Philadelphia 3-1 on home ice last night. Expect Marc-Andre Fleury to get the start in net tonight as the Penguins take on the Rangers. Pens' defenseman Ryan Whitney hopes to be back in the lineup for tonight's game.
• Flyers' center Daniel Briere says last night' s victory was a big confidence boost for Philadelphia. It looks like coach John Stevens made the right line changes last night as both Mike Richards' line and Daniel Briere' line tallied markers.
• Ray Emery will get the start tonight against Washington, however, John Paddock has been very displeased with the goaltender's work ethic in practice. Jason Spezza won't be in the lineup tonight versus the Capitals, but the center is shooting for a return this weekend.
• Even though he hasn't been scoring goals lately, Mike Comrie has still made quite an impact for the Islanders writes Greg Logan of Newsday.
• Tom Renney wants to get his team out of its scoring slump and is stressing more shots on net in the process. Henrik Lundqvist will get his 16th straight start in net tonight when the Rangers host the Penguins. (Writer's note: I understand the schedule has been quite spread out during the early part of the season, but 16 games in a row is far too many. Renney, and a number of other coaches who are overplaying their top players, will regret their decisions come April or May.)
• Patrik Elias initiated a talk with Devils' coach Brent Sutter to make sure the coach knew he wasn't slacking off. Martin Brodeur says he has to adjust to the Devils' new style of play.
• Rookie goalies will be the story in Boston tonight as the Bruins give Tuukka Rask his first NHL start versus fellow rookie Carey Price of the Habs.
• Tomas Vokoun's frustration was boiling over after last night's loss to the Lightning; the veteran netminder can't help but stress the importance of these early-season intra-division contests. "You can't tell me we were ready to play," Vokoun said.
• The Hurricanes scoring depth is one of the main reasons for the team's early season success writes Lorenzo Perez of the News Observer. The Canes hope to add to the Lightning's road struggles when they host them tonight.
• Clarke MacArthur made the coaches decision to put him on the ice in overtime look great, as the winger converted on a pass from Drew Stafford to give the Sabres a 2-1 victory over the Bruins.
• The Bruins are working hard they just can't seem to catch a break writes Stephen Harris of the Boston Herald. Bruins' rookie Milan Lucic was right back in the lineup last night after being a healthy scratch over the weekend.
• The status of sniper Ilya Kovalchuk is up in the air for Friday night's game versus Florida after the winger left Tuesday's game against Washington with back spasms. Meanwhile, former Thrashers' winger Scott Mellanby thinks that the team should already have named current assistant coach Brad McCrimmon the team's new head coach.

Here are the Western Conference morning papers:

• Even though the Ducks lost to the Coyotes in overtime last night, goaltender J.S. Giguere wants the team to focus on the fact they came back from a 4-2 deficit and salvaged a point. The Ducks really miss Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer writes Mark Whicker in the morning's Orange County Register.
• Dion Phaneuf's leg injury will not force him to miss any time so the workhorse defenseman will be in the lineup tonight as the Flames take on the Canucks.
• The Blackhawks impressive 5-2 victory over the Blue Jackets was overshadowed by the loss of Kevyn Adams to what looks like a season ending injury. Patrick Lalime picked up the victory last night for the Hawks, and coach Denis Savard said after the game, "Whoever's hot is going to play."
• The Avalanche demonstrated their great depth last night as neither of their first two lines could create offense, so their third line accounted for all three goals the team scored in its 4-3 shootout win over Edmonton. Terry Frei reminds Avs fans that impressive youngster Tom Gilbert was once property of their favorite franchise before being traded for Tommy Salo in 2004.
• Nevermind their impressive 3-1 victory over the Stars, Mike Modano became the all-time leading U.S. born scorer last night with two goals in San Jose. (Writer's note: While there, arguably, may have been better American players than Modano, there were none more exciting to watch as a fan of the game.)
• While they didn't register a victory last night against the Avs, the Oilers played a spirited hard fought game. "Our effort was outstanding I thought, we worked our tails off tonight and played a real good game," said coach Craig MacTavish after the contest.
• Red Wings' winger Henrik Zetterberg broke the team record for consecutive games with a point to start the season in the Wings' 3-2 shootout victory over Nashville on Wednesday night.
• The Predators were happy that they were able to comeback from two goals down in the third period against one of the best teams in the league and salvage a point. The Predators wouldn't even have had a chance to comeback if not for the stellar play of goaltender Chris Mason who turned aside 43 of the 45 shots he faced.
• Wild coach Jacques Lemaire is hoping to have Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra back for the team's next game Sunday at Colorado but he isn't getting his hopes up.
• Kings' coach Marc Crawford has been happy with the team's goaltender play as of late.
• Coyotes' coach Wayne Gretzky was very happy with the team effort he received last night as his young Phoenix team knocked off the defending Stanley Cup Champions on the road in overtime.
• Mike Modano stole the show last night in San Jose writes David Pollak of the San Jose Mercury News.
• In an attempt to spread out his team's offense, Blues' coach Andy Murray has swapped centers Keith Tkachuk and Jay McClement.
• The Canucks' penalty killing, which was so good last season, is hurting the team's performance this year writes Elliot Pap of the Vancouver Sun. Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province chronicles the similarities between the Canucks' start last season and this season.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Richard Pollock.

Nightly Recap: Carolina Suffers First Regulation Loss

• Montreal wins a wild one over Carolina 7 - 4. It was Carolina's first loss in regulation; the Canes were unable to stay out of the penalty box and it cost them as Montreal scored four times with the man advantage. BEAST of the night Thomas Plekanec had 4 points for the Habs.
• After snapping a five game losing skid on Wednesday, Washington may be primed to start a new losing streak as they lost 3 -2 to the struggling Canucks. Chris Clark did have two assists for the Caps, and since he moved to the first line with Alexander Ovechkin the feisty winger has recorded four points in two games. Unfortunately for Clark, he had to leave last night's game after taking an Alexander Ovechkin slapshot to the head.
• Detroit pummeled San Jose 5 - 1 last night. After allowing 15 shots to Vancouver in their last game, the Wings were even better at preventing shots last night by only allowing the high-powered Sharks to tally eleven shots on Wings' backup Chris Osgood who moved to 4-0 with a 1.50 GAA. Meanwhile, Henrik Zetterberg continues to light the lamp; the Swedish star scored twice and he now has 20 points on the year.
• Ryan Miller stopped 33 of 35, as Buffalo defeats Florida 4 - 2. The winning goal was scored by Drew Stafford after the puck bounced high in the air over the net Thomas Vokoun had no idea where it was and Dan Paille tried to bat it into the net and missed, but the puck went behind Vokoun and into the net. If Paille had touched the puck above the crossbar it would not have been a goal.
• Ryan Smyth scores 23 seconds into overtime to give Colorado the 3 - 2 win over Calgary. Joe Sakic scored his 1,600th career point and Joel Quenville notched his 400th career victory.

Tomorrow's Games (all times Eastern)
4:00pm PHI@BOS (pushed up early for all you Sox fans out there)
5:30pm SJ@CLB
7:00pm MTL@PIT, OTT@NJ, CAR@NYI, TOR@NYR,
7:30pm BUF@TB,
8:00pm NSH@FLA
8:30pm WSH@STL, ATL@CHI
10:00pm DAL@PHX, EDM@LA

Fantasy Watch: ZzzZzZz Sleepers

Every year a few players fly under the radar and end up being just as beneficial to your fantasy teams as some top round selections. Here at Illegal Curve, we bring you five 'sleeper' picks who have the potential to breakout for this upcoming season.

Five sleepers:

F Drew Stafford, Buffalo Sabers

A frequent call up last year, Stafford became a force in Buffalo's offense, scoring 14 goals and 27 points in 41 games. Had he been an everyday starter last year, the young forward would have surely made more noise, seeing as how he registered 16 points in the Sabres' last 17 games. Finishing the season strong, Buffalo rewarded Stafford with a spot on their playoff roster giving the young forward some much needed playoff experience. With top players, Daniel Briere and Chris Drury no longer on the team, Stafford will be given an increased role, and has the chance to breakout playing within Buffalo's high powered offense.

F Scottie Upshall, Philadelphia Flyers

Beginning last season on Nashville, Upshall only appeared in 14 games before being shipped off to Philadelphia in the trade that brought Peter Forsberg to the Preds. Buried on Nashville's depth chart, Upshall had trouble cracking the lineup and only ended up playing a total of 77 games for the club that drafted him sixth overall back in 2002. In Philadelphia, Upshall came to a team that was dead last in the league and was looking for any positive way to finish off the season. Instantly gelling with Philly's young talent, Upshall provided a scoring boost, recording 9 points in his last 12 games with his new club. Signing a two year deal in the offseason should give Upshall more confidence as he begins his fresh start in Philadelphia.

F Tim Connolly, Buffalo Sabers

After announcing that he would be out indefinitely to begin last season, some owner in your fantasy league probably thought they were really smart by using a late round pick to grab the forward, hoping that he would pay dividends come mid-season. Unfortunately for them, Connolly only played two regular season games last year, as it took him an entire season to recover from post-concussion syndrome. Healthy enough for the playoffs, Connolly recorded four points in eight games while averaging over 15 minutes per contest. Entering this year at full strength, Connolly should see plenty of ice-time as he looks to regain his 2005-06 form, where the former sixth overall pick scored 55 points in 63 games played.

F Alexander Radulov, Nashville Predators

Radulov was Nashville's first round pick back in 2004 and after tearing it up in the QMJHL, the dynamic Russian forward finally cracked the Pred's starting lineup last year. A pure goal scorer, Radulov collected 18 goals and 34 points in 64 games played with the club. What also should be noted is that Radulov was plus 19 last year, third best on Nashville. With Steve Sullivan out indefinitely due to back problems, and the organization's many losses to free agency, look for the Preds to lean on Radulov a lot more to begin the year; this should result in a significant increase in points for the young star.

F Kyle Wellwood, Toronto Maple Leafs

Wellwood started last year on fire, scoring 11 points in the first month of the season. Slowly emerging as a legitimate center, Wellwood went down with a slew of injuries over the next few months and only appeared in 48 games last season. Nonetheless, the young forward managed to rack up 42 points giving him a new career high. If Wellwood is able to stay healthy for the entire year, a 65-70 point season is not out of reach.



For Illegal Curve, I'm Jonny Remis