Two games in a row at home, constituting a proper, albeit abbreviated, homestand, following a three day lull, and a day off between games. How very civilized.
The Stars will be hoping to take advantage of the scheduling as the Jets arrive tonight in the midst of a tough four-game stretch on the road. An overtime loss in Nashville started it off, and following tonight’s game Winnipeg will play tomorrow night against Colorado and Tuesday against St Louis. An unenviable run of games, and yes I’m including Dallas in that. I mean, the Stars have Alex Chiasson and his perfectly sustainable shooting percentage.
In other news, there isn’t a lot of news. Ryan Garbutt practiced with the Stars, but only as an alternate as there are still four games left on his suspension. Lindy Ruff took the time to weigh in on that situation.
“There’s no condoning or defending the Garbutt hit. I told him after the game, you are going to get suspended for it. There are some that can be accidental, maybe a guy is bent over at the last second. But it is clearly stated that it is your responsibility. He came from a long ways away… Those are the situations we want to stay away from. It’s something we’ve talked about as a team. Obviously, we don’t want to lose any more personnel… You turn the highlights on every night and you see someone going into the boards and I think you’ve got to err on the side of caution because the more of these that happen, the history is, the penalties get more severe.” [Sports Day DFW]
But Garbutt says he can’t change the player he is. Let’s hope he can make a few small adjustments though when he does return from his suspension. [ProHockeyTalk]
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Notes on tonight’s game, written before the game happens. Sometimes known as previews. [NHL.com] [CBS Sports]
Mike Heika had to watch a lot of late night television in order to write this article about Thursday’s win. And as a result was called ‘the delirious Mike Heika‘ by SI.com. Quite the accolade. [Sports Day DFW]
Goligoski’s thoughts on the healthy scratch: “If you want to take a positive out of it, you rest up a bit, watch a game and get back to what makes you successful. You kind of reset mentally too.” Good man. Let’s be positive. Here are more notes from Friday’s practice. [Stars Inside Edge]
I was browsing the Jets site for anything up on tonight’s game, and instead came across an article on Advanced Hockey Analytics, otherwise known as Fancy Stats. What they are, how they’re useful, what we should do with them. All laid out real pretty like by tonight’s enemy. [Arctic Ice Hockey]
So Ryan Lambert took a lot of flak for this article yesterday. A lot. Starts off by slamming John Scott and the hit on Loui Erikkson, then goes off the deep end and the piece turns into a rant about the entire Sabres organization. John Scott has been suspended indefinitely, and has a hearing on the hit scheduled for next Thursday. Funny enough, without him in the lineup the Sabres won their second game of the season. Who’d a thought? [Puck Daddy]
Everything you wanted, or didn’t want to know about the last few days in the weird wonderful world of hockey, as seen from Down Goes Brown’s curiously illuminated perspective. [Grantland]