Blueshirt Boggle

Drawing Conclusions, Deflecting Criticism

Steve Rucchin wears one of three A's for the Rangers. But he was nowhere to be found after last night's shocking come from ahead 3-2 OT loss to the Flyers. Jaromir Jagr and Michael Nylander were part of a massively blown line change that allowed Joni Pitkanen to score the game winner, but they didn't shy away from the media glare afterwards. Coach Tom Renney has no choice, he has to face the press after each game, but he did not shy away from taking personal blame for blowing the line change. Tom Poti does not wear an A, but he spoke to the press after the game even though he was the one who blew the coverage when Mike Richards scored the game tying goal in the final moments of regulation time.

But Rucchin made himself scarce -- no, non-existent. If only he was non-existent in the game, that would have been better than what he indeed accomplished. Two goals up with ten minutes to play against a team that hadn't scored in over 120 minutes with an unbeatable Henrik Lundqvist in net, there was no way the Rangers could lose this game. That's where Rucchin comes in. On his way to another dismal night on face-offs (a team-worst 3-7), Rucchin lost a defensive zone draw. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then stuck out his skate and deflected Pitkanen's point shot over Lundqvist, who was poised to make a routine save on the long unscreened shot. That gift goal put the Flyers back in the game, gave them a chance, brought them to life. Without that goal, the only question is whether the final score would be 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, or 3-0 Rangers.

So where was Rucchin after the game? He was there after the Buffalo game, crowing to the world that too many of his teammates failed to show up for the game, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was foremost among them. This time, everyone showed up and played a whale of a game -- except for him. He blew it. He lost it. And he wasn't there to face the music afterwards.

In a game in which both teams were throwing bodies around, at first in equal doses, but eventually in the Flyers' favor to the tune of a 40-25 edge in hits, Ryan Hollweg sat in street clothes. You wouldn't have wanted to bench the guys he normally goes in for -- Marcel Hossa played another strong game in limited ice time, using his body to throw checks, separate opponents from the puck, and get into shooting position, and Ville Nieminen rose to the challenge after several sub-par games by leading Ranger forwards in hits with four. But what about Rucchin? Hollweg could have helped the team in this game, where Rucchin only hurt.

The 6'3 215-pound Rucchin has been credited with 10 hits in 49 games -- that means only once every five games on average does he deign to even finish a check let alone hit someone. How can a coach abide that in a player of his size on a team desperate for toughness wherever they can find it? After earning a reputation in Anaheim as a good face-off man (he was 54% in his last two full seasons there), Rucchin is an abominable 46.6% as a Ranger, with some single-game performances that are simply awful, including this one. And it's not as if he has made up for with offense -- his 19 points in 49 games ranks him down with the defensemen and checking forwards despite his being second line center much of the season, and his five power play points in over 120 minutes of power play ice time is as counterproductive as just about everything else he has done. Factor in his salary, his age, and his negativity as an alternate captain, and you have to wonder what Rucchin has done for this team that has earned him immunity from the type of accountability that has effectively motivated some other players.

Jaromir Jagr didn't want to look at this game negatively -- he was satisfied with the team's overall performance. But he has to face facts -- the Rangers haven't been able to get over this hump against the best teams in the league, finding ways to lose against them even when they outplay them. And this was a seriously depleted Flyer team that has slumped badly of late. With Lundqvist playing as well as this, no less than a win is really acceptable. Someone noted that Kevin Weekes would have been roasted for allowing an overtime goal like this one, but the truth is that a) Lundqvist has earned some slack, b) the shot was a perfect top corner bullet, and c) it was a four on two rush.

It was four on two because no one was ready to replace Nylander when he came off the ice. Why he came off after only 20 seconds without having gotten the puck deep was perhaps a mistake. Renney blamed himself for not having someone ready to replace him. He was more worried about replacing Jagr, who was way behind the play, practically unable to skate after a hard 1:20 shift. Replacing Jagr wouldn't have made a difference -- a timely change for Nylander would have placed a defender right in Pitkanen's skating lane, as Renney noted. But as Jagr said, what was the use of dissecting the overtime goal when you should never have let the game get to that point?

Martin Rucinsky had his right shoulder massively wrapped after the game, but he said it was nothing important when asked about it afterwards... Lost in the shuffle was the clutch penalty kill by the Rangers late in regulation time... Also lost in the shuffle was Poti's positional blunder on the Richards goal... One of the cheapest shots we've seen in a long time was Donald Brashear hitting Rucchin high and hard while he had his head up from a high-stick. Three Rangers jumped him in retaliation, but no penalty was called other than the high-stick. In the new NHL, it seems that anything goes -- except even the most minor of hooks. The cross-checking, interference, elbows, and post-whistle roughness was all quite fine with the officials in this game, but we're still waiting to see what exactly was done wrong on some of the penalties that were called.

Rangercentric game reports from the News, Journal News, Post, Times, and Newsday. Philly-area game reports here, here, here, and here. AP report has some extra stuff. Ville Nieminen will give the Rangers an even ten Olympic participants, according to notes in the News and Journal News.

Light Reading

With such a big game on tap tonight at the Garden vs. the slumping first place Flyers, there is precious little news coming out of a calm Ranger camp. Game day previews in the News, Post, Newsday, and Journal News, and a piece on the Rangers' "arrival" by AP beat writer Ira Podell. The only news from Philly is the naming of Derian Hatcher as interim captain while Keith Primeau recovers from a long-term injury. Hartford won its last game going into the AHL all-star break, Charlotte was shut out badly (5-0). That's it!

Rangers Soar Past Pathetic Penguins

Funny how different things look live vs. on TV. Watching at the Garden, I turned early on to the person next to me and said, this is going to be a blow-out the way Fleury is playing, fighting the puck and leaving juicy rebounds. The Penguin defense didn't look that bad, it was more the Rangers pounding the puck to the net and Fleury giving it right back to them for more shots. And when I asked Rucinsky and Moore about it after the game, they both confirmed that yes, when you see a goaltender struggling like that, you want to make sure you get shots in on him. Tom Renney also mentioned what a tough game the young netminder had.

But on TV, Fleury was standing on his head, singlehandedly fending off a relentless Ranger attack behind a defense that made the Keystone Kops look like a Jacques Lemaire coached outfit. He got just enough of Michael Nylander's gimme in the first period to push it up onto the cross-bar, and he dove across to get his blocker hand on Jaromir Jagr's open net gimme on a play that when viewed live looked like Jagr shot the puck back into him. And the NBC announcers seemed to confirm that assessment by crowing over some of his spectacular saves and skewering a defense they said was playing man to man, something almost unheard of in the NHL (and for good reason).

Of course, the answer is that both were true. When you make 44 saves in the NHL, some of them have to be big league saves. But when you make that many saves in the face of a 51-shot barrage, that also means you gave up seven goals, and some of them were not pretty -- especially the one that got that the Rangers on the board in the first period and the one that put them back into the lead late in the second period. The first, on the draw that ensued from the big save on Jagr, Fleury dropped Rucinsky's fluttering deflected shot and watched Jason Ward fire the rebound past him. Rucinsky himself scored the second when Fleury allowed his eminently stoppable shot to slip through some unseen and unfathomable hole between his pads.

The Rangers were loathe to say afterwards that Pittsburgh was overmatched, preferring to take credit for their own performance. But with the Rangers handing the Penguins their 30th loss of the season in the process of winning their 29th, with the Rangers coming off four days' rest during which the Pens played twice, and considering the astounding totals on the shot clock (as close as 51-14 only because of four late shots when the score was already 6-1, by which point Jagr himself had outshot the Pens 11-10), the truth is the Rangers did only what they were supposed to do to the worst team in the conference -- something they had been unable to do in all but one of the two teams' previous meetings, and one that was in fact in doubt past the halfway point of this game when the score was still 1-1 despite the Rangers' domination in all phases.

Incredibly, despite the shot totals (83-32 overall including blocked and missed shots), fans were shouting for more shots, and both the coach and Darius Kasparaitis agreed that the Rangers should have shot more. "We shot the puck a lot and I appreciate that," said Renney. "And I wish others would shoot more," he added when told that Jagr had 11 shots himself. But: "I think on the power play we could shoot the puck much more." When the game was still 1-1 and 2-1, the Rangers had four power plays totalling eight full minutes, and got only seven shots on goal (they ended up with 14 power play shots in nearly 13 minutes of power play time). They ended up 1-for-7 with the man advantage, though they did get two other goals as play continued after the expiration of power plays.

The new line configuration appeared to work well, but even Renney reserved judgement given the state of the opposition, and would not commit to sticking with the lines when Philly comes in Monday night. Reuniting Nylander with Jagr and Straka makes sense. Putting Ward out with Sykora and Rucinsky may seem to make some sense from the point of view of adding a defensive conscience to the line, plus Ward's straight ahead speed, but dropping Prucha back down to a line with the massively underachieving Steve Rucchin and once again ineffective Ville Nieminen does not make any sense. Trying to get Marcel Hossa untracked and committed to the team's work ethic by putting him on a line with Dominic Moore and Jed Ortmeyer makes sense, but scratching spark-plug Ryan Hollweg in favor of Hossa, Rucchin, or Nieminen is extremely disappointing -- the Rangers thrive on what Hollweg brings to the table, and the other three have not come close to doing their jobs, or even try very hard.

Sidney Crosby is losing friends fast. The guy who was supposed to save the NHL is going to leave himself behind as other rookies like Ovechkin and Lundqvist zoom past him not only in performance but with their off-ice personalities. Apparently having taken entitlement lessons from his mentor Mario Lemieux, who was every bit the whiner when he first came into the league, Crosby has not only lost the respect of the refs, opponents, and fans, he is also alienating his own teammates. The guys on NBC kept saying that this is now Crosby's team -- and it showed in the results.

Game reports: Post (roasting Penguin veterans Recchi and Gonchar), Times (focusing on the shot totals), News and Journal News (on how overmatched the Pens were), Newsday (tuning up for the Flyers, whose 6-0 loss to Tampa made it 13-1 vs. the NHL in Pennsylvania on NBC), and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (the Pens eating humble pie, plus interesting game notes) and Tribune-Review. Sunday columns: Larry Brooks (Post) on CBA issues, with an interesting tidbit near the end on Don Maloney spending a couple of weeks in what Brooks calls "New York's sixth borough", the Czech Republic, looking at Jan Marek, Martin Richter, and Karl Rachunek. Jason Diamos (Times) on Jagr and Lemieux, and Pavel Bure. Sherry Ross (News) on NHLers in the Olympics. Andrew Gross (Journal News) on Peter Laviolette. Hartford rebounded to beat Lowell a night after being routed by them. Charlotte bounced back to win too.

Pre-Game Perusal

Rangers had new lines at practice yesterday, according to Newsday -- Nylander centering Jagr and Straka, Sykora centering Rucinksy and Ward, and Rucchin centering Prucha and Nieminen or Hossa (the HMO line remained intact). We hope this was just for practice. Lundqvist will be in goal today. Jagr is getting better, according to the Journal News. And both the News and Post report that the Rangers are intent on starting the game strong. Pittsburgh papers have one article on Jagr, another piece that has bits on Prucha and Rozsival, and a third report on the newest Penguins, including one-time Ranger Cory Cross. Hartford was routed 8-2, and Charlotte lost too.

Friday Funnies

Rangers respond to Buffalo's silly whining about Kasparaitis: Post, News, Journal News, Newsday. More silliness (from the Post): Told that Colin Campbell deemed Kaspar's hit on him legal and not even worthy of the penalty handed out during the game, the Devils' Grant Marshall resorted to calling Kaspar names -- so now a noted NHL hitter thinks a clean check is cowardly! More yuks (from the Post and News): the Isles interviewed Phil Esposito for their opening at GM -- Espo denied that his first move would be trading for Bobby Carpenter and Marcel Dionne. The biggest joke of all (from Newsday): the Isles are considering a move to the Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center (add your own punch line). Seriously good stuff: Henrik Lundqvist, at FoxSports.com by Blueshirt Bulletin contributor Shawn Roarke; Al Montoya, from Bruce Berlet of the Courant, along with Hartford's week ahead; Rory Rawlyk's all-star night; and translated excerpts of a Petr Sykora interview with a Czech daily from Hockey Rodent.

Issue 129 Out Today

Issue 129 of Blueshirt Bulletin comes out on Friday. The cover story, as you can see from the image that appears in the sidebar at right, is no surprise -- Messier Night. We have a four-page spread on the Captain's big night [two of the pages can be seen at left], plus other material here and there. We also have a six-page mid-term report on the Ranger organization -- New York, Hartford, Charlotte. And as always, we have ample prospect coverage -- Fedor Tyutin, Marc Staal, Hugh Jessiman, Ryan Russell, and Billy Ryan.

Many of our frequent contributors are back in this issue -- Ranger beat writers Andrew Gross of the Journal News, Steve Zipay of Newsday, and Colin Stephenson of the Star-Ledger head this distinguished group. Bruce Berlet of the Hartford Courant and Cliff Mehrtens of the Charlotte Observer check in with news from the farm. Blueshirt Bulletin reporters Jess Rubenstein and Ron Boesgaard reprise their patented acts, Jess with the Russell interview, Ron with his Views From the Blues. Kevin Greenstein of InsideHockey.com and the New York Sun, Joe McDonald of NY Sports Day and the Wave, and Shawn Roarke and Rob Picarello of FoxSports.com add a breath of fresh air to our breadth of coverage. Mitch Beck of the Rangers Review has a good Messier story for us. And as always, we take a spin All Around the Rink courtesy of Ranger historian par excellence John Halligan of the NHL.

Many of the visitors to this web site have already lent their support to the print publication by subscribing. To them, once again, our thanks. We hope you've enjoyed the unparalleled amount of exclusive Ranger content that you can only get in Blueshirt Bulletin. Those who haven't taken the plunge, if you like what you get here, we guarantee that you will get even more out of a Blueshirt Bulletin subscription, and you will help keep this site going, since the magazine pays the bills.

There's a lot of material all over the place, but Blueshirt Bulletin is the only place where the prime directive is to get Ranger fans the information they want and need, because we're Ranger fans ourselves who understand what it is you want and need. Please help us keep it going -- you will not be disappointed. Thanks!

The Question

Cake: To have it or eat it, that is the question. Dress Colton Orr as an enforcer? That would mean scratching Ryan Hollweg more often than not, once Ville Nieminen got his punishment out of the way, and would take away all possibility of rehabilitating Marcel Hossa's work ethic. That would mean limiting fourth liners Dominic Moore and Jed Ortmeyer to penalty killing duty and the odd shift here and there, and rolling three lines, which neither coach Tom Renney nor the core fan base ever thought was a good idea.

Those are the options. Renney has been taking questions on toughness since the start, many of them directly from Blueshirt Bulletin (either from me or from reporters writing articles for the Bulletin). He has lamented the absence of an enforcer who can play the game -- unwilling to abandon his four-line rotation, he wants someone who can play. He has said that he would ask for protection from management if teams began targeting his players -- as much as the Rangers tend to get outhit, the appropriate response right now is hitting back, not fighting.

Renney has said that the Rangers need to rely on team toughness, and he is getting it from some quarters -- Darius Kasparaitis is third in the NHL in hitting, Ryan Hollweg is 50th despite limited playing time compared to others on the list, and Jed Ortmeyer gives the Rangers three guys in the top 60, higher than the average of two per team. None of which suggests that the Rangers shouldn't elevate their physical game to match opponents. But the way they need to get there is by getting 6'3 216-pound Steve Rucchin to throw more than 10 hits in 47 games, for example, or 6'4 221-pound Jason Strudwick to outhit 170-pound Petr Prucha (Prucha leads 28-22) -- dressing a fighter would seem to take a lower priority.

Renney has said that a big part of team toughness is being able to absorb hits and keep going, both in terms of maintaining focus on the game and in maintaining discipline. Tops on that list is Prucha, who takes a licking and keeps on clicking and inspires his teammates in the process. North American unwritten law purists can argue all they want that Kasparaitis should defend himself if he's going to throw dangerous hits, but Kasparaitis has something else in mind:

"It's always nice to suck the guys in from the other team and draw some penalties," he said. "You hope the team is going to score and it may be the difference of the game. That's how I play. They tried to confront me but I'm thinking about winning the game." What Kasparaitis is suggesting, and what Renney said way back when we asked him how you respond to a Colin White running roughshod all over the ice, is that a big part of countering toughness is making the opposition pay on the scoreboard -- reviving the power play is more important right now than resorting to fighting.

To sum up: There are several things the Rangers need to do to counter opponents' use of physical play as an effective tactic. They have to elevate their own physical play beyond the top three hitters (paging Niemo, Ward, Rucchin, and all the defensemen behind Kaspar). And they have to solve their power play woes. If they needed more fighting, bet your bootie Strudwick's time in the penalty box would skyrocket. Rest assured, Renney knows this, knows that these are among his biggest challenges right now. He has accomplished a lot of what fans felt was important -- give him a chance to solve these problems. Just because he has accomplished so much so quickly doesn't mean he can do it all with the snap of a finger.

The Sabres remain up in arms about the hit to Tim Connolly (see the Journal News, Newsday, and the Buffalo News today). "I just seen him coming and I hip checked him," Kasparaitis explained. "It was nothing, anything. That's how I hit all my life. Unfortunately I'm not using it more often. I used to hip check guys all the time. Even when I played the Rangers before [coming here], they called me a dirty player. It's a lost art. I play all my life like that. Every time you hit someone [and] you hurt them, they're probably going to call you a dirty player. What are you going to do? I'm not looking to be friends there -- I'm looking to play hard and try to make them pay the price to come in our end."

Memo to Lindy Ruff: Would you expect anything less of your players? No? Then shut your trap! Memo to Mike Grier: Headhunting is OK? Breaking noses against the glass is OK? But hip checks aren't? Shut your trap too, you hypocrite!

Memo to Colin Campbell: Listen closely to what they're saying about retribution, Colie. Sound familiar? As in Markus Naslund, Todd Bertuzzi, Steve Moore? Colie, grab a hold of a copy of the replay, jump on a plane to Buffalo, sit the buttheads down and show them that it was a legal check, that Connolly was hurt when he tried to jump over it, that this is the NHL and that's what players risk when they try to take on tough defensemen, and that they are not allowed to exact retribution for a legal check, either during the course of a game or in the future, in any way other than with a legal check. Or else.

In other news today (not much of it), the Rangers held their five-game segment meeting one game early in order to address their performance vs. Buffalo, according to the Post. And Thomas Pock led Hartford to a win last night, according to the Courant.

Buffalo Cry-Babies

The Sabres were up in arms over the Darius Kasparaitis hit that knocked Tim Connolly out of action for six to eight weeks with a knee sprain. Coach Lindy Ruff and winger Mike Grier had some harsh words for Kasparaitis, according to the Buffalo News. They apparently failed to watched replays of the hit, which was clearly legal, not too low, and not meant to cause injury. That it resulted in injury was mainly because Connolly tried to jump over it. Memo to Mssrs. Ruff and Grier: Heartless and gutless was Grier's headhunting check into the glass that broke Kasparaitis's nose last time the Rangers were in Buffalo. Look in the mirror before saying such stupid stuff.

Ranger game reports were all pretty much the same -- the Rangers excoriating themselves for their poor performance. See the News, Post, Journal News, Newsday, and Staten Island Advance. The Times report focuses more on Jagr. The Post and Journal News got Jagr's take on Mario Lemieux's retirement. Our favorite line didn't make it into either article -- Q: Just how big do you think Mario was? Jagr: 6'4? Other stories: Post on Henrik Lundqvist, Courant on Hugh Jessiman, SI.com on what to expect from Eastern Conference teams the rest of the way (Rangers' primary need: defense).

Retrograde Rangers

Tom Renney thought his team carried some passengers tonight. Steve Rucchin felt that not enough guys came to play. Darius Kasparaitis didn't think the Rangers were ready to play in the first period and doesn't believe Buffalo is any speedier than other opponents, that they only looked that way because the Rangers kept letting them get by. Henrik Lundqvist didn't think the Rangers were ready to play in the first period either, felt the Rangers lost the game by not taking advantage of the power play, and said that they should have made things harder for Sabre goalie Ryan Miller by driving to the net more. Jaromir Jagr didn't stick around long enough after the game to weigh in.

Lundqvist could say whatever he wanted to, being the guy who kept the Rangers close enough to win or tie despite their awful start and inability to capitalize on man advantages. Kasparaitis did his job, throwing a huge hip check on Tim Connolly that invited retaliation to the tune of two Ranger power plays, lamenting as well that the Rangers could not take advantage. Jagr tried to do as much as he could, playing nearly 25 minutes despite being dragged down by a nasty cold, even getting a power play goal against the second best penalty killing team in the league, but overall was ineffective and unable to pull his team out of this mess. Rucchin didn't appear to do much beyond calling "shotgun".

And the coach didn't make any adjustments, at least no obvious adjustments to a) get his top line forwards to shoot the puck more, b) get his power play to overcome its woes in all three zones, and c) get his defense to stop letting the Sabres sprint in alone on Henrik Lundqvist.

No one would point a finger at Lundqvist in this game -- Kasparaitis said the margin would have been far wider without him. No one could point a finger at the HMO boys, who were the only guys getting anything done in the first period. Maybe Ville Nieminen could be applauded for playing with some purpose -- until his senseless offensive zone penalty in the closing minutes. Kaspar gets points for his hit and Strudwick for his fight.

Beyond that? We lost count of how many times Ranger forwards threw the puck out of the Buffalo zone past point men who were out of position, but we do know both Buffalo goals ensued after such miscues, the game winner as play continued and Marek Malik committed an awful turnover to Ales Kotalik ("Any defenseman under those circumstances," said Renney, "if you don't have the outlet, it's eight feet of glass, that's a teammate too."). We can't count how many times Ranger forwards passed up shots to make risky passes that had no chance of connecting, often resulting in odd man rushes the other way (the Rangers should be thankful that Maxim Afinogenov is, as one observer noted, Pavel Bure without hands -- Bure, by the way, was in attendance tonight scouting for the Russian Olympic team).

"Maybe we got too full of ourselves after our last game, figured we arrived," Renney said after the game. "It's not about arriving -- it's about working to get somewhere. We didn't work tonight, not nearly as hard as we had to. I'm angry that we didn't respond to a really terrfic challenge for us, another step to becoming better and nailing down respect. We passed up a lot of shots as a team. We want to manufacture the perfect goal, it's gotta be a highlight reel goal every night for us. You don't score if you don't shoot the puck."

Renney doesn't like to mess with his game plan once the game starts, but in a case like this, he has to make adjustments. He felt the team was properly prepared for the game, that they just didn't execute in the first period or at all on the power play. He felt that some players tried too hard to do things on their own and therefore abandoned the team game. To him, this kind of performance is all that stands between making the playoffs and doing some damage once there. If he could tell that some players were coasting, playing individually, failing to execute, he had it within his power to send them a wake-up call.

[The Rangers announced a minor deal during the game, sending Jeff Taffe back to Phoenix for career minor leaguer Martin Sonnenberg, 28, a veteran of 63 NHL games, though only 5 since 1999-2000. Incredibly minimal return for Jamie Lundmark, who has 13 points in 29 games since his trade to the Coyotes, but only one goal and one assist in his last ten despite decent playing time.]

Open Issues

Ryan Hollweg told us this morning that he suffers no lingering after-effects of his head injuries from several years ago, and that he is not going to change the way he plays the game. He does not go out looking to fight, but the way he plays the game often invites challenges, and he will not go running scared from challenges. Judging from the fact that Colton Orr and Marcel Hossa stayed on the ice today long after the rest of the team completed their game day skate, we should expect no line-up changes tonight -- although Hossa has been skating, his injured mouth is nowhere near game-ready.

Jaromir Jagr didn't skate this morning, but he attributed that to the lingering cold that had him coughing and sniffing in the locker room afterwards. He suffered no knee injury the other night -- he left the ice because of his still-injured pinky, and when MSGN cameras caught him testing himself during a TV timeout, it was a skate problem, his edge dulled by an opponent's stick. Because of Olympic drug testing, Jagr cannot take anything for his cold. Although he says he loses sleep because of it and is therefore fatigued, he ruled out taking any games off at this point.

Coach Tom Renney is concerned about the lack of enforcer on the team. "I've talked to Glen and Donnie, and I know they're conducting their due diligence around the league," he told the New York Post. And he told Blueshirt Bulletin in an article in our upcoming issue (going to press today), “It could be in a toughness aspect, where we feel we need to cover ourselves. As teams begin to figure us out and pay attention to particular people in our lineup, we may have to provide some protection."

Renney also told the Post that he will have to find a way to get Kevin Weekes some work in net, hard as that might be with Henrik Lundqvist going so well. Other stories today: Daily News on Jagr, Journal News on the new all-Czech first line (Renney reminded us this morning that Petr Sykora came into the NHL as a center and played there his first few seasons), USA Today on Olympic goalies (leading wiith Lundqvist), and the News on Neil Smith vying for the Islander GM job.