Friday, January 27, 2006
Friday Fun Links
1) "Dominek Hasek" gives his take on goalie interference on The Fan 960 morning show (~20s .mp3 clip).
2) The Stars' Jussi Jokinen is still perfect in shootouts (as is the team), and is clearly starting to feel pretty bulletproof:
Dude: karma. He has had help, though: Sergei Zubov is a respectable 4-for-7, and Dallas has the 2nd-highest S/O SV% in the league. (They trail only Montreal; remember Crosby's S/O goal on Theodore that sent both the water bottle and Pierre McGuire about 15 feet in the air? Only S/O goal the Habs have allowed this year.)
3) Darryl Sutter explains himself:
Man, he doesn't exactly leave room for a bunch of follow-up questions, does he? That said, my two cents is that he's playing with fire. If you're going to call out a guy that harshly (and half-fire him), you'd better be damn sure that the rest of your players see the same problems in Sauve as you do. Otherwise you seem capricious, and your credibility with the team starts on a downhill slide to CrapTown.
2) The Stars' Jussi Jokinen is still perfect in shootouts (as is the team), and is clearly starting to feel pretty bulletproof:
"I've used the same move and the same shot on all my shootouts," said Jokinen, who is 7-for-7 using the backhander in shootouts. "So why change up on something that is working."
[...]
"I've used the same move on Budaj in a preseason and a regular season shootout this year," Jokinen said. "He might have known what's coming, but he never stopped any of them."
Dude: karma. He has had help, though: Sergei Zubov is a respectable 4-for-7, and Dallas has the 2nd-highest S/O SV% in the league. (They trail only Montreal; remember Crosby's S/O goal on Theodore that sent both the water bottle and Pierre McGuire about 15 feet in the air? Only S/O goal the Habs have allowed this year.)
3) Darryl Sutter explains himself:
"I'm a firm believer, if you have a clear-cut number-one goalie, he's a 65- to 70-game goalie in the National Hockey League. That's what the top guys do and they win 60 percent of their games," Sutter said. "Your backup goalie, at the most if you're healthy, is a 15-start guy and I expect him to win 10 games. If he's not, then I'm going to try somebody else.
"With Philippe, I believe your backup goalie should give you a chance to win every night, not a chance to lose, and I don't think we've got that this year.
"He's got to be our best practice player, he's got to be your hardest-working player, should be your most improved player if he's a young player. That's not an ask thing, it's a demand thing, that simple." [My emph.]
Man, he doesn't exactly leave room for a bunch of follow-up questions, does he? That said, my two cents is that he's playing with fire. If you're going to call out a guy that harshly (and half-fire him), you'd better be damn sure that the rest of your players see the same problems in Sauve as you do. Otherwise you seem capricious, and your credibility with the team starts on a downhill slide to CrapTown.
# posted by Matt @ 10:29 am 
