It's a little funny that signing immediately bring me out of a terrible writing funk. I'm not going to complain though, it's always fun to see a new player in action, especially when it can mean good things for the Blades.
- We may have lost Justin Shugg, but we signed a forward with a Kelly Cup Championship ring in his place. Kory Falite won last season with the Alaska Aces, and was playing in Norway. Now he's all ours. His stats:
- The Lightning have sent us defenseman Charles Landry. His stats:
- Some bad news: Alex Hutchings was moved to the 21 day IR list. Not good at all.
- I didn't take that many pictures at the Teddy Bear toss because all the seats in my favorite section were bought before I could get to the arena (and then NO ONE SAT IN THEM, grrrr). This is my favorite though. Pat Nagle chilling with his new bestie.
- I'm super proud that I've had one of my photos appear in an actual magazine! It was included with a story on how amazing the Jr. Blades have been playing this season (if you still haven't been to a game, you suck). Skip to page 15 for the story (and my photo).
- The Blades start a three game in three days road series tonight in Gwinnett. They're eighth in the conference and last in the division. Losing is not an option at this point.
- Must mean it's time for a doggie picture then, eh?
The Blades kicked off their second home series against the Jackals last night. With a severely gutted roster, the Blades had no choice but to play smart.
The first goal of the night was pretty much the way the Jackals goals would be all night. Slightly flukey, slightly goalie Pat Nagle's fault, all bad news. The Jackals first goal, 14 seconds into the game made it 1-0. The score remained that way until a little after the nine minute mark when a power play goal from David Rutherford tied it up (assist to Beca and Fischer). The period ended with things all tied up 1-1.
The second period saw the weakest tripping call ever on Trevor Bruess. Of course the Jackals were able to convert on that power play to take a 2-1 lead 3:35 into the period. About a minute later, the Blades responded with a goal from Matt Beca to tie it up once again (assists to Tardif and Lawson). 23 seconds later the Jackals took the lead for the third time, but the Blades tied it right back up a minute later with a goal from Luc Tardif (assisted by Donald).
About 30 seconds later the Everblades took the first lead of the night with a goal from Trevor Bruess (assists to Van Dyk and Fischer). Unfortunately, another weak call on the Everblades allowed it to be tied up 4-4 with a Jackals goal in the closing minutes of the period. The score remained tied 4-4 when the buzzer sounded on the period.
The third period was quiet, for the most part. the ref decided to put his whistle away and let the guys play. Unfortunately, the Jackals were able to score in the latter half of the period to make it 5-4. The Blades tried their hardest, but they couldn't beat the Jackals netminder and the period enede with the blades losing 5-4 to the Jackals.
Some thoughts:
- I really thought the Blades were the better team. They held Elmira in their end for long, intense, stretches.
- I still think that Elmira's goalie is beatable. The guys just need to be ready to pot a rebound.
- I don't know if it was the ice was an issue. The puck seemed to be bouncing a lot more than usual and a lot of guys were having skate issues.
- A few people have mentioned that two Blades goals were not called because the ref was out of position. I'm not sire if that's true or not, but the ECHL's officiating isn't spectacular so I'm not surprised if it is.
- I'm underlining this for impact: The Blades need to stop looking for calls after every slightly illegal play or move from the opposing team. Either the penalty will be called or it won't. The game continues until the ref blows the whistle, no exceptions, don't stop playing, don't stop pressuring.
There is some good news though. The Checkers have returned forward Justin Shugg. I, for one, am happy to have the Shuggernaut return when we need offensive firepower desperately. The Blades signed goalie Billy Sauer yesterday. You may remember him, and his fight with Bobby Goepfert, from last season. I feel like I should make a sign that reads "It's OK Billy, Big Bad Bobby Goepfert isn't here anymore. You're safe... for now."
One more thing, Toys for Tots tomorrow night. If I see anyone in a Blades jersey walk up without a toy you're getting Clacksoned (I'm using this to describe jumping someone from behind and beating them up from now on). Also, Teddy bear toss Saturday. I look forward to getting pelted with stuffed animals and I hope any of you who sit close to the glass do as well.
- The Jr. Blades won both their games this weekend. They are undefeated so far this season. The team has tweeted a preview of the game notes for this weekends series against the Atlanta Hawks.
- You can check out the game summaries for the two games against the Road warriors here and here. I have no idea why they announced the three stars wrong on Friday (they said McColm [who didn't even play], Raymond Nikiforov), but they seem to have corrected it.
- One of our affiliates has finally sent us a goalie. The Charlotte Checkers have reassigned Bobby Goepfert to the Everblades.Check out his stats:
- The Checkers have also assigned defenceman Kyle Lawson. His stats:
- I have to link to this blog post that talks about the growth of youth hockey in Florida. Especially because of the mention of two local boys R.J. Boyd and David Bohem.
Here's a quick update on the news from this weekend.
- The Jr. Blades won both of their games against the Tampa Bolts this weekend. There should also be a fight video going up at the Jr. Blades YouTube channel at some point.
- Woody has a great story up on how training camp has been going so far. The opening day is here, and today's report is here.
- In case you didn't click that second link, Francis Lemieux and Shea Guthrie got into a fight. This is funny when you consider they rode back from Norfolk together. I guess you can't blame Lemieux though, Guthrie looks like the kind of person who sings (off-key) in the car.
- In case you missed my tweets over the weekend- McColm, Paquet, Guthrie, Raymond, Imbeault, Sarazin, Hendrikx, and Egener were all released from their try-outs and are either back in town or expected to arrive in the next few days.
- That brings the roster to 21 players, plus the 6 players on try-out (Richie Smith was cut yesterday) brings the grand total to 27 players. The ECHL only allows 20 players (they don't count players on the injured reserved list). There still may be some more players arriving from our affiliates (one should be a goalie coming from Norfolk). Cuts will be announced Saturday.
- Most importantly... the Alumni Game is tomorrow!
The All-Star game goes down tonight at 7 (and is free on B2). But yestreday was the skills competition, you can see all the details here. The Blades sent three guys to the All-Star game, and although two are not with the team at the moment they all did pretty well in the competition.
Brandon Buck, who was with the Aeros but seems to have been reassinged, was the fifth fastest skater clocking in at 14.735.
A.J. Thelen won the hardest shot competition! His shot clocked in at 101.9, the 2nd place finisher only managed 101.5.
Jacob MicFlikier won the American Conference individual puck control relay.
The American conference did end up losing to the National Conference. But who really cares about the winner of the skills competition? The real challenge is tonight when both conferences take each other on.
I'm back after a bit of a hiatus (Christmas and HughesNet's poor service conspired against my blogging efforts), but thanks to the updated wireless system at work I can get some blogging done. My Christmas was pretty awesome, I got two awesome books that I must reccomend. First Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey, was a great biography of one of the greatest goalies in hockey (it actually makes me want to hate habs fans a little less). Also, Saving Face: The Art and History of the Goalie Mask, has the most beautiful pictures and covers the history of the goalie mask. There has been a lot of news while I was on break, including a lot of roster stuff...
-Ernie's back! So is Elgin Reid.
-Brusty has left, and it looks like he'll be in Houston for a while.
-Forward Bryan Leitch (Stats here) has been assinged to the team.
The Blades are playing the Checkers tonight, and are going into the game with only one goalie on the roster. I'm not sure if Nate Zervos was unavailable, or if they plan on using a backup provded by the Checkers. Either way it looks like Morrison is a lock for starting tonight. I should be able to listen to the game, though I can't predict what will happen in this madhouse from one minute to the next. I'm thinking that scheduling some filler posts ahead of time is a good idea, it doesn't look like my Internet issues will be solved any time in the next decade, and it's not hard to come up with some random posts to keep the blog from getting stagnant.
-Thelen was called up to the Amerks (look what hack blogger was quoted in the story!)! This is a big chance for him and I'm crossing my fingers that the Panthers see something. I know he's been the target of my ire more than once, but the dude has been putting up some very nice numbers (12th in the ECHL for points among defensemen) .
Some videos of the goals from last Wednesdays game, as well as the great save on McJannet...
Can you tell that we've discovered video editing? It's pretty fun, and I'm hoping we can work a bit of magic on some old videos if we get the time. The Blades will be playing game two of the series against the Nailers tonight, and I'm still not sure if I'm going. If I don't I'll still be tweeting live updates while I listen to the radio broadcast. Now I'm off to try and pull of a miracle on my very last final of the year.
- The 3rd Intermission is reporting that Goalie Anton Khudobin was sent back down to the Aeros from the Wild. The question is, does this mean Brusty be returning to the Blades?
I'm still coming down off the high from the 6-1 stomping the Pens gave the Flyers last night. I'm also excited to see the Nailers play, not just because their the Pens affiliate, but because I've never seen them play. I love the ECHL doing their best to get more teams into town, and I'm sure the guys on the Nailers are appreciating the warm weather we've been having (77 degrees here compared to 19 degrees in Wheeling). As always I'll be tweeting live from the game and adding my own twisted view to whats going on.
Did you hear the collective sobbing of the Brusty Fan Club yesterday? Because Aeros goalie Anton Khudobin (I still miss him) was called up to the Wild, Brusty has been called up to fill the empty spot. To fill our empty spot Nate Zervos will more than likely be getting a call, unless Beckford-Tseu is coming back from the Amerks of course.
The Blades also made a trade with the Grizzlies for forward Shea Guthrie (stats here), in exchange for rights to Simon Ferguson. This is a good deal in my opinion as Ferguson has yet to play a game with the Blades since signing.
- You may have seen this, but here is the video I took of the penalty shot from last Saturday's game. You can see all the other videos on our YouTube channel.
(come back soon Brusty, or send Khudobin)
- Wikipedia hockey page "Torpedo System" I am so ready for the Olympics!
- Here is an amazing story about a Ref in Sweden saving a player's life by preforming CPR on him.
I will be tweeting live from tomorrows game, as usual. I'm crossing my fingers for this series against Wheeling (I'm also trying very hard to ignor the fact that they are the Pens affiliate).
As I write this the Blades are playing their second to last away game in Cincinati. They have had a pretty good road trip losing one game in regulation, and one in OT. They have one more game in Cincinati on Saturday. There have been some roster moves lately...
-Flick (the ECHL player of the month!) has been called up to Albany.
-In return forward Matthew Pistilli was sent down (stats here), and a recent video...
-Aiello was traded to Stockton for future considerations (anyone know what this means?)
-Buck is back from Houston!
There are some promotions coming up, including the snow day this Saturday. Remeber to bring your canned food for the home games next week, you'll get a free ticket to see the College Classic (Cornell, Main, Princeton, and Colorado this year)! Friday is Mac & cheese night, and the Saturday after that is the Teddybear toss.
And finally, some random bits and pieces...
-Great article on my favorirte D-man Zanon, I'm really going to lobby for his nickname to be Big Red anyone disagree? No? Good... Zanon is now Big Red.
-I love that my new favorite Penguin got a hat trick a few hours after I posted the link to the Wikipedia page, I also love that the Rags lost twice. Lets see if this works... Goalies who have scored a goal in an NHL game.
-You won't be able to hear the game on the radio, but you can stream it from SportsJuice.com (Thanks to my Twitter buddy CVClyde for the fix).
- I'm sorry I haven't posted one of these in a while, I think this hideous thing makes up for it.
Got a few loose ends to tie up before the game tonight.
-Mcflikier was named the ECHL player of the week! I'm thinking his hat trick/6 point night may have had something to do with that. He is also tied for best +/- in the league with a +9. I can't think of a player more deserving than him, he always seems to be giving everything he has when he plays, and I'm very happy he does that for us.
-Hartlieb is back in town, he played just one game for Rochester
-Baker is on the IR list till Saturday. Gajic is on the 21 day IR list. But Reid and Buck will be playing again
-Woody over at the NDN Blades Blog spotted a new player practicing. He seems to think it's a player by the name of Ahren Nittel (stats here). If he's correct (and the dude is pretty distinctive looking), this is a pretty interesting development. It took me some time to find a video of him playing, mostly because he likes to tape himself lifting weights (I'm not joking do a YouTube search), but I did find this one from 2006/2007.
I will be Tweeting live from the game tonight, so follow us on Twitter for live updates!
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have found something the Blades were missing this year. I give you Mike Hoffman!
Beautiful fight, right? He is a 6'5", 248 pound defenseman, and has spent most of his career in the AHL (Stats here). Too be blunt, he's an enforcer. His fight card over at hockeyfights.com is extensive. I'm sure this signing might get some fans panties buched up, but this guy is so badly needed. The big thing I noticed at the games I went to was the amount of liberties the other teams were taking. Once this big boy makes it clear that none of that crap is going to happen when he's around the other guys are going to be able to concentrate on their jobs(I do recommend this movie if you want to see how important these guys are to a team).
Also, Beckford-Tseu, and Mcflikier have been sent back down. And Steve McJannet has been put on berevement leave, I'm sure everyone's thought are with him and his family.
