– I believe it won’t be too long until the Blue Jackets are no longer mired in the stink of the past.  I think they will turn it around in a few seasons.  Of course, I thought that a few years ago, when they had a decent roster of players and made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.  The problem was that the roster never gelled as a team.  They looked like a lot of names on the back, not logo on the front.  It’s cliche, but it’s cliche for a reason.

– How much longer will the Coyotes be owned by the league?  I remember doing a “special edition” of The Rink with the news that the team owner was going into bankruptcy court, and that was a long time ago (heh, remember The Rink? No? Damn).  The league may want to keep the team in Glendale, but I just can’t see it happening.  The great hockey fans in Arizona aren’t numerous enough to justify keeping the team there, and they are only part of the equation.  The biggest part is arena management.  That’s how Florida remains in business, and plenty of other teams that are hurting at the turnstiles.  Don’t be fooled: the prevailing attitude may be that the NHL is a gate receipt driven business, but that is only part of it.  The larger part is arena management and arena deals.  That Taylor Swift concert is as much a concern as the thousands of fans at the game.  The harder Glendale makes it for a prospective owner to get to those dollars, the harder it will be to find a new owner willing to keep the team in place.

– Or think of it this way: if the NHL were the owner of the team for the next five years and knew that were the case, would they keep the team in Arizona?  Would they subsidize the team with the money from 29 other owner’s pockets, or would they move the team to a place they didn’t have to dip into the coffers as often?  Business wise, what would you do? I’d send them packing.

– Fact: I could read Roy MacGregor writing about shopping for canned goods.  I swear, he could find a way to make it interesting.  If you don’t know his work, find it.

– A 7-0 curb stomping of the Islanders is not going to fix the Flyers, but it’s something to build on.

– I call them jerseys, not sweaters.  You can call them what you want, but for me, they haven’t been sweaters for a long time.  They certainly stopped being sweaters when Reebok came out with the EDGE jersey.  Before that, you could go either way and be fine.  Jerseys. Book it.

– No one cares about your flag football team.  Kickball?  Softball?  No one cares one damn bit.  Your rec league hockey team?  Hey, that’s hockey.  That’s different.  Tell me more.

– Matt Duchene was so far offside, you have to wonder if the ref knew whose team he was playing for.

Pure linesman fail.  But what I was more interested in was what Barry Trotz was upset about on the next goal.

Maybe it was the line change?  At the game, we couldn’t tell, but the coaching staff kept holding up three fingers on one hand and two on the other, and waiving them back and forth.  Oh well, but yeah, that Duchene goal should have never happened.  Mind you, Mason was letting everything in, so I’m sure Duchene would have gotten around to it.