Odds And Ends For Your Blackhawks Off Day
A few random things today that weren't big enough for separate posts:
- Dale Tallon is replacing Randy Sexton as GM of the Florida Panthers. This is awesome pretty much all around. I have been a big fan of DT. He took a team that absolutely nobody wanted to play for and built it into what you see on the ice today. Sure, he overpaid for Khabi and signed guys like Aucoin and Cullimore and LaPointe, but that's what it took to get anyone to play here. He eventually made fantastic trades for guys like Versteeg and Sharp (remember Bochenski and Vandermeer? Yeah...we win.) His drafting was very good. I still think he handled free agents well. It wasn't easy to show Marty Havlat the door, but he did it. Campbell is paid market price and we've all seen how sucky the Hawks are without him moving the puck up ice. In summation, I hope DT gets the money that he needs to turn it around in Florida. The Panthers are usually not big spenders, but I think Dale can create a winning team through trading and drafting. Note to Stan Bowman: don't make trades with Florida. You will get fleeced.
- The ratings are in and....drumroll please.......the Hawks-Sharks game 1 had some excellent ratings. They beat out the Cubs on WGN, Sox on CSN, and the Magic-Celtics playoff game on ABC COMBINED in the Chicago market. Try and say this city doesn't care about this team. Go ahead. I dare you. I will fight you.
- Kane is okay. There was a few minutes there where everyone was all like ZOMG KANE GOT A BOO-BOO!!111! He only missed one shift and finished the game without showing signs of any pain. He was asked a few questions about it today and was all like LOLZ STFU N00Bz.
- Niemi is one strange dude. I don't know if its just that some stuff gets lost in translation or if its because goalies are weird people, but there's something off about him. Mentally, he is just on another level compared to everyone else. He may or may not be a robot. Whatever. Just keep getting in front of pucks you strange man.
