This Week in the NHL

The Wild blew a 3-1 lead with a little over 4 minutes to go to lose in OT to Buffalo on Thursday night.



The only reason I show these highlights is because Rick Jeanneret is hands down, the best announcer in the NHL and even though the Derek Roy scores the game winner, it's an absolute joy to listen to his exuberance.

So the Wild are 4-0-0-1 and I am beyond frustrated with this squad and their management. Without going into a full blown rant, I need to voice my frustration by the absolute paucity of scoring chances. In the last two games I can't remember seeing one legitimate scoring chance. All of the goals (three in two games) were goals by M&G'ers (muck & grinders), unless you count Ryan Miller being rushed into shooting it in his own goal as a finesse goal. Jacques, ya gotta loosen up the trap and allow the boys to wheel & deal rather than toss it in.

At the beginning of the pre-season, I stated that I had some bad feelings about letting Gaby on the ice without a new contract. Unfortunately, that was too prophetic because Gaby has now had his third annual October "lower body injury" which makes it impossible to move him. Mike Russo reported that Bob Gainey and Montreal have shown interest and would possibly consider offering Chris Higgens and Ryan McDonaugh, the kid from Cretin. That's all fine and good, but there's a gap of about 5 million in cap space, so that deal is going nowhere.

Every day that Gaby remains with the team means less and less value for him. This will get uglier before it gets resolved. Read more of Russo for more info - if you can stomach it.



Poor Manny Legace. He trips on Sarah Palin's carpet before the game and strains his hip flexor. Apparently her fifteen minutes of fame aren't up.



Speaking of ugly, how about the Flyers coming into the Rock last night and throwing six past Marty? Brutal. Not to mention that the boys scored three of their own in the first period. Scary - although Brent Sutter probably saw that and told the boys that only Parise and Elias were allowed cross the blue line in the second and third periods. To make matters worse, it was Philly's first win of the season. And to make matters even more worse, it was Philly.

I love defence as much as anyone, but the only way you score goals in this league is if you're around the net. How is it possible to backcheck when you are constantly in the neutral zone?

Captain Langenbrunner left the game with a "lower body injury" and didn't return. He's going to make the bus trip to Philly tonight and see how he plays. That's cool - they take the bus on "local" road trips. I wonder if there's beer on the bus. I hope Rolston doesn't bring his guitar and lead the team in Beetles tunes.

Holy Crap - It's Been More Than a Month!!!

I just visited the blog for the first time in a while just now and I looked at the date on the last post: Aug 17th. Frickin' A - that's a whole flippin' month!?! So what's new?

- The Wild have opened camp at the Ralph (Nelson is getting sick right now).
- Gaby hasn't signed anything resembling a new contract.
- The KHL's season has started.
- Sabre's GM Darcy Regier signed an extension prompting this guy to go batshit crazy.
- St. Louis Blue's former #1 draft choice and former Holy Angels student of mine, Erik Johnson sprained his knee trying to put the brakes on a golf cart - no kidding.
- There's a new DiabloHockey fantasy hockey league. If you'd like to attend the draft, it will be at Joe Senser's in Roseville on Tuesday, Sept 23 at 8:00pm.
- Jacques Lemaire still wants to coach, but does he want his team to score?
- Mats Sundin has worn out his 15 minutes of "Shall I retire or shall I play for Vancouver". (If that was the choice, I'd retire)
- Smelts (with Nelson & Blas & the orange sock version of the Hansons) won the Div 4 AHA Summer League.
- Bucci and I are counting down the moments to when we go to the record store (I'll be heading to the Electric Fetus) and pick up Ben Folds - Way to Normal. On sale Sept 30th.



True - its no Slayer or Cannibal Corpse, but he does sing the word "blood".

Reading Between the Lines

I gotta say, when Mike Russo posts, I jump. I cannot find anything on the internet that comes close to making me get all tingly as when I see that there's a new post on his blog. And yes, that includes boobs.

His post this morning and his subsequent piece is good stuff. (I'm sure that I'm not the only one who finds the irony in that statement) Make sure you read that first before you go on.

I've been reading Russo's blog since day one and the insight he brings is unheard of. However he is also handcuffed by the fact that his access comes because both the management and players trust him absolutely. He cannot be too frank with his information and he cannot hypothesize about meaning and intention.

Therefore, I declare that it is Diablohockey's duty as hockey bloggers to take the honorable Mr. Russo's information and read between the lines as any two-bit hack is able to do. This is done from a purely unbiased standpoint. Let's break it down.

(Italics are Russo's printed stuff)

OK, I’m back in the Twin Cities. Almost one month until training camp starts.

"Geez I miss Florida already. Time to get out the flannel shirts. As soon as it hits 72, I'm flying back."

I talked to assistant GM Tom Lynn yesterday and here’s a story on management’s meeting with Marian Gaborik in Slovakia.

"Where the boring information for the folks that still have dial up is."

Unfortunately, Gaborik’s voice isn’t in the story, although, trust me, I’ve tried to get him and his agent for weeks. So keep in mind, this is one side.

"No Love from Trencin. What is that all about? What is the temperature in central Slovakia in late August? I might need to fly out when I get too cold. Anyways, this is a bad sign. Usually I can get an email. Even when Brian Rolston was bailing out of Minny, he still texted me."

But Lynn said at no point in the meeting did Gaborik tell the Wild he wanted to move on.

"Of course, Lynn mentioned that Gaborik said he'd rather be caught in a MSP airport bathroom tapping toes with Larry Craig than spend another season playing for Jacques Lemaire."

If he did, I think the Wild would let that be known simply to prepare its fan base that a trade is coming. At the end of the day, who knows if the Wild will be able to get Gaborik signed, but as of now, the Wild at least believes it’ll be able to sign him.

"Wait - but I just did prepare the fan base that a trade could be coming. Darn it, that crafty Tom Lynn. He's always getting me to say something in the blog that I wasn't meaning to. At least he hasn't done this to me...



You can bet that one giant part of this meeting had to do with questions from Gaborik about the team’s inability to land a big free agent this summer and its inability to make a meaningful trade deadline acquisition the last two seasons.

"And more questions from Gaborik about the lack of quality Slovakian restaurants in Saint Paul. I mean, how can a city have a Kurdish restaurant and nothing from Slovakia? Unfortunately, Gabby's not the brightest bulb. That was also evident in his lack of grasp of the most recent collective bargaining agreement. He kept asking Lynn if Pavel Datsyuk or Hank Zetterberg were available."

This is from Russo's aforementioned piece in Sunday's Strib.

Gaborik could not be reached to comment, but Lynn called it a "great dinner and meeting."

Lynn's words: "A great dinner because I had Wild Side catering send a slab of the leftover roast horse they sell to the stooges up on the club level and a great meeting because Gabby smiled when I told him a joke about the horse, a priest and a hooker."

"We showed him a lot more info than any player has ever seen before -- how we scout, how we measure players statistically," Lynn said. "We also listened to his opinions.

Lynn's words: "I'll listen to his opinions even though Jacques doesn't give a sh!t about them. At least I'm pretending that I'll be able to convey Gabby's wish to skate in the neutral zone during the penalty kill."

"We just talked about the team, how we operate and where we are going, and then his performance and place in the future. So I would say it was a good meeting in that (a) it happened, and (b) Marian had good input, observations and understanding."

Lynn's words: "I'm thankful it happened because I wasn't sure when that customs agent in Bratislava was going to let me have my Blackberry back. Oh, and in regards to (b), did you know that Gabby wants me to figure out a way to break Hank Zetterberg's contract with Detroit and then resign him here for 2.5 million a year? Apparently, this Tishchenko fella from Spartuk, Moscow said he knew a way. Crazy, I know."

One objective for Risebrough and Lynn was to prove to Gaborik he's not being impeded from scoring in Minnesota's defensive-minded system.

Lynn's words: "Did you know that before I started working for the Wild, I was a magician?"



"Mmmmm... I still think I can get him to think he'll score here."

Another HOK Sport Arena

Pittsburgh just broke ground on their new arena yesterday (8/13). They also placed a video of renditions and flyovers on their website.



Remind you of anything? What if the Xcel Energy Center (designed by HOK Sport) had hypothetical sex with the new Twins Stadium (also designed by HOK Sport) and had a bastard arena child? This style of arena looks like it might be the new Three Rivers Stadium / Riverfront Stadium / Atlanta Fulton County Stadium / Busch Stadium clone that made going to a ballgame in the 70's akin to visiting Roswell.




Another similarity? James Mirtle's blog comments on how Mario Lemieux and Co. dangled the idea of moving to Las Vegas or Kansas City in order to scare the officials in Pittsburgh to speed up the pace of paying for a new arena. Hmmm... where do you think they learned that? Norm Green? Nah - how bout the Pohlad boys?

Xcel Energy Center Dismemberment: Week Three.



Nice Rigging.

Crosstown Traffic

Wow - in the past four days we've almost doubled the traffic we've accumulated in all of last year. After asking around a little, I found out that the Gabby's a Goner post was linked to by Greg Wyshynski at PuckDaddy (a oft-visited site by DiabloHockey) and also forwarded by HockeyFutures.com. Muy gracias go to Greg and ranold26 at HFBoards.

So if you're new here, you might be asking yourself, "What kind of blog is this?". That's a question that is often echoed in the DiabloHockey newsroom. Here is a brief history and explanation of Diablohockey.blogspot.com.

The Diablo's Hockey Club is a group of guys - at least half of them cops - that play hockey together in the Adult Hockey Association based out of the Twin Cities. We formed last year and played in the D1 level. After a practice or two, I (ballgame) suggested that we put together a website that would cover our team and rather than put it on a cookie cutter type website, I figured we could blog it and link up to the stats and schedule page at AHA. After some discussions about style and what type of videos everyone liked, we went live.

The early days had recaps and the occasional holiday tiding. Perhaps, out of boredom, there would be the random video with no explanation. All the while, the Diablos began to play good hockey and climbed their way from fourth to first in the division. And while that was exciting, there was too much hockey not to be commenting on throughout the week - so we branched out to cover our favorite teams, the Wild and the Devils, and made the occasional comments about hockey in general. A lot of the time, the topics would blend together in the same post.

A few more links to some favorite posts...
Tiger, have you met Ryan Malone?
There is an overtime system in the AHA, but we did manage one one tie vs. the Ak Bars.
A Scrimmage vs. the AHA Lumberjacks.
Okay... Melrose.
Nelson said What?

Without YouTube, this might be the most boring site around.

So for all you die-hard hockey crazed maniacs, this site might be a nice diversion. We're not too hard-core, and we like to mix it up a little. Thanks for stopping by and come back often.

Oh, yeah - for the first year of existence, the Diablo Hockey Club finished second out of 14 teams and is expanding to two teams next year.

Minnesota Wild 08-09 Promo

One of my favorite YouTube Channels, ALittleProduction, has a new video previewing the Wild's upcoming season. Chills.



Let's see, what do I love about this video?

1. The Music
2. The Carved Wild Logo on the locker room doors.
3. I never get sick of the little kid with the flag.
4. Butch to Mikko for the wrister which was his payback goal against the 'nuks.
5. Burns. Toedrag.
6. Gabby doing the "Superman" after his breakaway vs. Nashville with :03 on the clock.
7. Skoula's Eruzione impersonation.
8. The Butch dustup vs. Vancouver.
9. The Koivu Shoutout vs. Vancouver.

Hmm... why do most of these moments occur vs. Vancouver?

Mysteries of the World: Solved - Part I

The WKRP in Cincinnati closing credit song lyrics.



Many thanks to sewerewes.

Branko's New Gig

Branko Radivojevic's new team is Spartak Moscow in the new KHL Superleague in Russia. Spartak finished in the middle of the Russian Superliga last season with 21 wins in 57 games. In the same article that was mentioned in yesterday's post, Branko spoke with Sports Express about his new team and his old.

A couple of quotes...

On his new team...
- (The) option with "Spartak" has been very good. In Russia, I came because I hope to get much playing time here.

On his knee (Branko ruptured his ACL in Game Two of the Playoffs vs. Colorado)...
- At the end of the season at Minnesota, I postponed the operation on the broken (ligament). I now feel fine. Another couple of weeks - and fully restored.

On his former team, the Wild (the question leading up to the statement: "Your former club - Minnesota - for its defensive style in general, few loves...")
- Yes, because it is (smiles). In the two years that I spent there, we all just on defence and thought.

I'm not saying that its sour grapes, but sounds kind of similar to what's been coming out of Mark Parrish's mouth the last couple of days.

I also understand that the respected Mr. Tishchenko, may not be the most reliable source of information and it's not like there was more than one source on the last post. However, the story out of Spartuk is another piece of information which has me feeling that Gaborik is pretty much out of Minny and I think that stinks. This franchise has given everything that Mr. Gaborik has asked for over the past eight seasons with the exception of allowing him to skate circles in the neutral zone while his teammates are trying to clear the puck (yep - I'm pretty sure he asked for that). They even gave him the "C" for cripes sake.

Until he's out of town, I'm going to have a bad feeling about this season. I hope I'm wrong.

I hope I'm wrong.

UPDATE... Those boys at ESPN.com/hockey have really been getting to work. They've ranked the top 75 fantasy hockey players for this season. One, Ovie. Two, Sid. Three, Marty. I could go on, but coming in at #23, Gabby.

Where in the world does #23 = $8.5 million? Minnesota, maybe. Of course, if he's dealt to Pittsburg (Eklund thinks the Pens will pay 9.0 mil, with Buffalo & Washington interested - but that' s Eklund he's hit or miss at best) his fantasy ranking will improve significantly.