Guess its a good thing we have all these defenceman stocked up, aint it?

Why do I say this? Because Mike Van Ryn is out for a month.

As we all mostly know (if you don’t, see the video below), Tom Kostopoulos was doing his job being an energetic human smasher, and managed to hit Van Ryn from behind, get a boarding penalty, and get kicked out of the game. Van Ryn would end up having trouble getting up, and being sent to hospital.

Turns out that the hit caused him to break his hand.

And his nose.

Oh, and throw in a concussion.

Thankfully for the Leafs, we still have Kubina, Kaberle, Schenn, Finger, Colaiacovo, Stralman, Frogren, and White. In fact, I think we can afford to lose two more defencemen without major hassle. Hopefully it doesn’t happen, but I’m just saying…it won’t really hurt unless those two are one of the “big two” and Schenn.

By the way, I’m kind of shocked Grabovski wasn’t the victim tonight - how many times was he hit? Apparently he wasn’t happy either. I haven’t heard his interview yet, but I did hear that he basically called everyone but Koivu on the habs unprofessional. Bad blood? You bet.

As promised, here is the video (thanks to Whitby4Bob, as for some reason I can’t get WMM to take my recordings on this new tuner. Say, does anyone know of a good basic free video editing program to use just for trimming?).

So this is my first blog, hopefully it doesn’t totally suck.

I think the first blog is definitely going to be the hardest to find something to write about, but I believe to have found a good subject.

First of all, I’m a goalie, I play for my HS team and I play for the Leitrim Hawks. now onto my point, my high school received a huge boost 2 games into our season when a kid by the name of German arrived from Russia and joined our team, our first game he had no goals, but neither did anyone else on our team, possibly because he is so much smaller then most people. He may not have scored but we noticed several things from him. He has mad dangles, amazing speed and his head is on a swivel. Our second game with him finished in a 4-4 tie, where he scored 2 goals, the first goal he just had good body position and the puck went off his leg and in. The second one he got a partial breakaway yet got haled down, but we received no penalty shot… because even while sliding on his front he managed to poke the puck through the goalies legs and in. I would have to say it wasn’t a fluke, cause he did that twice for us. He played 4 games I believe for us and scored 4 goals, and got 3 assists. However he can no longer play for us because his transfer agreement was signed and he is now playing for the AAA Jr 67s and because it is contact he cant play in our non-contact league. Let me tell you though, me and the starting goalie both noticed something in him, when he goes down on a full out breakaway, he doesn’t do much with the puck, he moves his body which throws you off way more. Keep an eye out for this kid to make an appearance in the OHL.

As well, I’m a sens fan and hate the Leafs, probably always will, but I love watching them now and I love how everyone gives 100%. More teams should implement the system Wilson has. Some players(Blake) need to work on not taking stupid penalties though, or in low scoring games the Leafs will get burned.

Also, regarding the goaltending situation in the NHL (I might focus a small section of each blog to this part), there is a huge problem, brutal teams have amazing goaltenders, so you dont really notice the skill, for example Vancouver, Columbus, LA, (labarbera is a good quality goalie), Atlanta. While talented teams have lower quality goalies or their stars are injured as in Ottawa(Gerber, Auld), New Jersey(Brodeur injury), Detroit(Osgood), Boston(Thomas, Fernandez), thats the reason some of the teams are not in playoff position, lack of a number 1 goalie. Look at some of the top teams, Montreal has Price, San Jose Nabokov, Buffalo Miller.

I’m going to finish my blog with a rumor. Supposedly Lehtonen is up for trade, because Atlanta wants Pavelec with them but want to keep Hedberg as a backup. Could Lehtonen and Kovalchuck be packaged to somewhere like New Jersey in exchange for picks and a young dman?