Seeing as I’m sick at home with some kind of hell-cold thing, it’s a good a day as any for one of these.
In case you missed it last night, it was a huge evening for the Pacific division, with Dallas falling to San Jose for the division title, while LA and Phoenix continue their dogfight to pass the Stars and squeak in.
At TMM, Jeff used last night’s game to springboard a discussion of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Truly a classic of American Cinema produced entirely by Italians.
If you’re hoping for LA to make the playoffs (and award us their 1st rounder), keep an eye on Friday’s matchup between LA and the Flames. It could decide which club gets the edge going into the final week of the regular season.
Over at CTF, it’s the Minor League / NCAA prospect week in review, including the end to Will Weber and Trent Vogelhuber’s NCAA careers at Miami after their elimination from the tournament. Interesting to see if Weber gets an ATO from the Falcons this week – Vogelhuber is also an outside shot, but he hasn’t been as impressive.
It won’t shock you, but CBC’s Elliott Friedman’s excellent “30 thoughts” column mentions that Columbus is heavily scouting Nail Yakupov. What’s more interesting to me is that Buffalo apparently has a bunch of scouts following him, despite Ryan Miller single handedly pulling them into the playoff picture.
Jhonas Enroth has been damned good, and a lot of people think he could be a true #1. Why would Buffalo be scouting the #1 overall pick when they’re currently outside a lottery pick? Maybe it means something. Maybe it doesn’t. I can’t help but wonder, though.
Finally, over at Backhand Shelf, Jo has a pre-playoff Quiet Room, former Jacket Scottie Upshall has one of the worst cost per point contracts in the NHL, and a strange story of Jay Bouwmeester’s career away from the postseason.