Shrapnel - 12/2/11

Did you go to bed when Rene Borque scored? Or perhaps when Blake Comeau scored?

In the words of Dave Attell, "Duuuuuuuuude, you should have hung out, man. You should have hung out."

When was the last time a Blue Jacket was one of Puck Daddy's three stars for the night? Especially one not named Rick Nash? Yet there Nikita Nikitin is.

Check out DBJ and TMM for their reactions as well.

The other big news for the Blue Jackets last night came from a press release by agent Allan Walsh, representing Derick Brassard. Walsh called out head coach Scott Arniel for his repeated scratches, and presents Brass as a "fall guy" for Arniel. Scott Howson's response was brief and immediate, while Arniel simply referred questions to Howson or refused to answer.

While I do agree with the camp that says Brassard can be a good scoring player, and should be utilized more, the Law Firm of Howson & Arniel are also 100% correct that Brass hasn't shown the team much this season, even when he was getting top six minutes - and I'd even argue that he's been something of a disappointment compared to the rest of his draft class.

Leaving aside the top three picks of that draft (Jonathan Toews, Jordan Staal, and Erik Johnson), you have Niklas Backstrom, Phil Kessel, Kyle Okposo, Peter Mueller, Claude Giroux, and Michael Grabner just from the first round. Expanding out the field gives us Milan Lucic, Nikolai Kulemin, and Blake Geoffrion, all of whom have become impact players. Peter Mueller has missed more than 30 games in each of the last three seasons but still manages to have played in 6 more NHL games than Brassard, and has 13 more points in his career.

Even though Brass has been scratched for 7 games, he's still played in 18 this season and only has four points and a -11 to show for it. Kyle Okposo is generally regarded as having a terrible season on Long Island, yet he's outscoring Brass and has a better +/- figure despite playing in the same amount of games.

You're a top 10 pick from what turned out to be a VERY strong draft class, making 3.2 million this year. It is time to step up and MAKE the team play you, not play passive aggressive games while your agent bangs a drum to the media, because I strongly doubt that many teams are looking to add that kind of salary for the league's 407th overall scorer.

For more on the matter, check out what Kat has to say at Strait-Jackets.

Well, now that that's out of my system, on to the rest of the news.

Scott Howson sat down for an in-depth Q&A with Steph Greegor of the Other Paper, and a few of his answers raised eyebrows.

Fox Sports Ohio has officially hired Natalie Taylor, late of Channel 6 (and formerly a rink side reporter covering the Atlanta Thrashers) to replace John Michael when he leaves next week to become the new voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers. DBJ has a positive reaction, and we offer our own congratulations and welcomes to Natalie, and a fond farewell to anti-Raffi John.

Since this is going out late we'll skip the general news and just stick to LTL discussing Job Security around the NHL.

Happy Friday!