Monday, December 01, 2003

12/1 notes

-- The Wings plan was to get Ray Whitney and Dominik Hasek on the ice today. I don't know how successful that was because I'm not able to go to the Wings' practices but we'll find out tomorrow whether they really were ready or not. Hasek and Whitney have missed seven games with groin injuries, which is a little ridiculous. I love ESPN's comment in this week's Power Rankings: "Have there ever been more expensive groin strains?" (The Wings are in the #10 spot, by the way) Dom will possibly be in the lineup by the end of the week. I hope he'll be in 110% better shape than he was before because I'm sick of him sitting out. My patience with him is running a little thin. Darren McCarty is still weeks away from making his return. Mac's back injury seems to have gotten worse, rather than better, in the time he's been out. It's gone from back spasms to inflated disks and now he's unable to do any exercise. His return date keeps getting pushed back. I guess that's good news for Darryl Bootland but it would be nice to have Darren back, as good a job as Booter's done. Tomas Holmstrom's separated shoulder must be pretty painful because Homer's one of the tougher players in the league considering the beating he takes every night. The Wings' PP numbers will probably go down noticeably with out the Demolition Man out front. During the Islanders game, it was said that Henrik Zetterberg is about three weeks away from a return from his broken leg while Derian Hatcher obviously won't be back until March at best. One thing's for sure, when the Wings are 100%, they'll be a forced to be reckoned with. -- During the last three games, the Wings have been perfect on the penalty kill, going 13-for-13 including a 6-for-6 stretch in the St. Louis game. Their power play hasn't been too bad either, going 6-for-19 over that stretch and boosting their overall power play percentage to 25.7%, second only to Philadelphia. -- Brendan Shanahan's old OHL team, the London Knights, retired his #19 jersey in a ceremony yesterday. Shanny took advantage of the time off given to the team by Dave Lewis by going up their to participate. He had 67 goals and 87 assists in 115 games during the '85-86 and '86-87 seasons before being drafted #2 overall by the New Jersey Devils in 1987. -- Word on the street is that the Wings are making a deal with the Caps for Robert Lang. Someone else told me that Jagr would be involved in the deal also. I don't believe that for a second and I very much hope it's not true. Jagr's the second to last player I'd want to join the Wings, the first being Eric Lindros. Jagr is a drain on the lockerroom and the problems with Sergei would seems small in comparison. Wings fans are not ready to adopt a new superstar, not until Yzerman retires, and Jagr would not get the attention he would want. Besides, he costs way too much and it would defeat the purpose of trading Joseph to acquire such a huge contract. I say let him go to New York, the NHL's retirement home for former stars. However, I'd be happy with a Robert Lang deal, though I wouldn't want to see Joseph stuck in Washington. On the other hand, the Caps would probably just turn around and trade CuJo to Colorado, which would be good for Curtis but not very much so for the Wings. The last thing Wings fans want is an Avalanche team with a capable goaltender. They're beatable now with a little good, tightly played defense but a strong goalie would make them much tougher to handle. It would be nice to have Robert Lang but I'm doubtful the Wings will get that much for a goalie everyone knows they have to move. We'll see what happens.

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