Week in Review

I have not been blogging in a while, but let me catch you guys up on what happened this past week. In a 2-1 OT win over Florida, we got back a newly recharged Frank Kaberle. Joe Corvo, one of our best players as of late, had a goal and assist and Rod Brind'Amour notched his 700th career assist. Our power play finally looked as if it is doing some as we scored in the first period off a Justin Williams shot. It was 1-0 until late in the third when ex-cane Cory Stillman intercepted one of Williams's passes and scored on Ward. Joe Corvo pulled one of the coolest moves I have ever seen him do on our 37th shot, and he knocked in the puck backhand. Both Tim Gleason and Brandon Sutter got in fights. Brandon Sutter's fight was his first in the NHL and Tim Gleason pummeled his guy. Seidenberg deserved the 32+ minutes of ice time he got as he blocked 5 shots. 

On Saturday, we lost 4-2 against the best team in the East. They gave us our first loss in 6 games but we put up a fight keeping the game within one goal for a long time. We got our first goal from Joni Pitkanen as he received a nice pass from Rod Brind'Amour. Boston tied it about halfway through the game when Marc Savard did some nice moves and scored. Dennis Seidenberg laid a big hit on Patrice Bergeron and he has a concussion. After, David Krejci and Shawn Thornton added on to the score, Ray Whitney had a nice goal. We tried hard for the extra goal, but they got an empty netter. Ward looked sharp in net except on the Thornton goal. I also noticed Pitkanen played decently the entire game. According to LSB, Dan LaCouture told Jeff Daniels he is staying in Albany. 

In a 3-2 Overtime win vs. Montreal, the Ruutu-Staal-Samsonov line dominated the game with 7 total points. Each had a goal and during their average 19:21 of ice time they all made nice plays. Neither team completely dominated the game, but there was a lot of nice plays and big hits. Roman Hamrlik and Matt D'Agostini each had a goal for Montreal. Chad LaRose got more playing time but we saw less of Brandon Sutter and Patrick Eaves. Who said Maurice is that bad at 4-2-3 since he has gotten here? 

LaCouture to KHL

The Russians are taking all of our hockey players. First Matt Murley, now Dan LaCouture. The great TSN reports:

"Carolina Hurricanes forward Dan LaCouture is believed to have left the team for Russia, however, the Hurricanes remain unclear as to which Kontinental Hockey League team LaCouture is attempting to join.

The Hurricanes intend on suspending LaCouture, who was signed as a free agent in October, if he doesn’t have an immediate change of heart.

If LaCouture walks away from his contract with the Hurricanes this will fuel the ongoing feud between the KHL and the National Hockey League as, once again, the Kontinental Hockey League would have apparently abandoned its policy of respecting NHL contracts."

I really liked watching LaCouture play.  He had two goals in the eleven games he played for us. I think he deserved a better chance to play than he actually got and he must of felt like he was only going to play in the minors. This is probably the reason for him to leave for Russia. Plus, every sportsperson in Russia gets monster salaries. LaCouturov (My new nickname for him), as previously mentioned, will be the second player to leave the Canes this year as Matt Murley is currently playing for Amur. LaCouturov, is accustomed to playing as he has played in 43 games for the Swiss league. If he does play in Russia, I wish this 31 year old luck.