Tuesday notes

Notes on Trade Deadline Day minus four.....

Gregg Drinnan reports that Portland will bring in 19 year old Czech goalie Tomas Vosvrda now that the World Juniors are over. Vosvrda played last year in the WHL for Medicine Hat but was dropped by the Tigers at the import draft, a move I personally thought was surprising at the time (and even more surprising that no other WHL team picked him up) since I thought he was better than Ryan Holfeld last year. He was good enough to play for the Czechs at the World Juniors this year too and now he'll get another crack at the WHL.

But, the bigger story here (I'm speculating anyway) is that this could mean the Hawks are preparing to trade Kurtis Mucha to a contender. They already have three goalies on their roster even without Vosvrda: Mucha, Ian Curtis, and Keith Hamilton. Curtis will no doubt be sent back to Jr A but the 16 year old Hamilton is the future of the Hawks in net, he's not going anywhere. And they're not going to keep three goalies, two of them 19 year olds. So is this opening the door for Mucha to find a new home after 3.5 years in Portland? And if so, which of the main contenders this year need a #1 goalie? Looking at rosters, I don't see any teams who you'd hang the "contender" label on who really NEED a new #1 goalie except maybe Kelowna if they're really not happy with Lazaruk's play. Brandon is another possibility but unless they were sure Mucha was coming back as an overage next year for their Memorial Cup run, then the Wheaties pursuing him doesn't make much sense.

Oh, and apparently there was a hockey game played last night in Ottawa....some of you may have watched it. :-)

I was surprised at how well the Canadians shut down the Swedes, to be honest. Sweden had very few serious scoring chances in the game and even on their many powerplays they never even got off a single good shot in many cases. Canada's defensive play and penalty killing was just that good. Great to see the Canadian kids come to play as a team for 60 minutes when it really counted. They scored in the first minute of the game, which in their situation had to pretty much be a coach's dream - get the Swedes on their heels early and get 20,000 screaming fans right into the game off the hop.

Rocket-to-be (we'll see in the next day or two I guess?) Mikael Backlund was a non-factor in the game apart from two really stupid penalties which cost his team two Canadian powerplay goals. Ditto for ex-Bruin Oscar Moller, not much of a game from him either.

That Swedish goalie, Markstrom, might be a stud prospect for the Panthers but has a long way to go before he has the maturity to play in North America. The Canadians were in his kitchen early and every time he felt so much as a breeze from a passing player, he was flopping on the ice, helmet flying. Maybe they don't crowd the crease as much in Europe, I don't know.....but he better get used to people being in his face and bumping him at the edges of the crease if he wants to play in North America someday. Apart from Dalla Rovere's stupid targetting of Markstrom on the delayed penalty, every single episode of contact on Markstrom was legal, and/or unavoidable, and definitely not a penalty. Which is more than can be said for the couple times the Swedes ran Tokarski in the crease.

Speaking of Stefan Dalla Rovere, why was he on this team anyway? The only thing he did all tournament was take stupid idiotic penalties at bad times. The cheap shots against the USA (for which he was benched) and the plowing of Markstrom last night were the only things he did all tournament to get noticed. I get that he was on the team as an agitator but if you can't stay out of the penalty box, you're hurting the team instead of helping.

I forget where the refs were from, but the fat ref, the one with the facial hair, should go back to watching ballet or whatever manly sport he prefers. He was terrible and his calls made no sense. He would let go some blatant infraction right in front of him and then call something weak away from the play.

The Tavares vs Hedman for #1 overall sideline on the game didn't live up to its billing.....Tavares wasn't as much of a factor for Canada as he was in other games, although I think he has probably cemented himself into the #1 spot based on his play in the tournament overall. Hedman was more noticeable but not for good reasons. The jumping of Esposito, a couple ill-timed rushes that left him scrambling to get back, and then getting beat really badly to the outside by Evander Kane for a breakaway. Hedman recovered on the breakaway by slashing the stick out of Kane's hands for a penalty....maybe the fat ref can explain why that wasn't a penalty shot.