Via Habslegends: Ralph Backstrom and the Super Street Skate
After 13 seasons and 6 Stanley Cup championships in Montreal, Backstrom went to GM Sam Pollock and requested a trade in 1970. The Habs sent Backstrom to Los Angeles, one of his requested destinations, in exchange for Gord Labossiere and Ray Fortin.
“It was very refreshing for me to play in Los Angeles. It was one of the most enjoyable times in my hockey career. The environment, the lifestyle everything seemed to be new and different,” says Backstrom.
It was in California that Backstrom first began experimenting with the first inline skates.
“A friend of mine, Maury Silver, had a concept back in 1971 when I was playing for the Kings,” recalled Backstrom. “His idea was to put wheels on the bottom of my skate boot instead of the blade. I remember taking my blade off and trying out the wheels. As a matter of fact I would train during the off-season with the so called super street skate.”
Backstrom and Silver’s “Super Street Skate” was the forerunner to the inline skate. While neither were involved in the evolution to the inline skate, Backstrom would later go onto be a big part of the success of Roller Hockey, serving as the commissioner of Roller Hockey International.
Myopic, Narcissistic Kings-Related Congratulations to Dan Bylsma
And Boucher too. That was Boucher, wasn’t it?
Patrick O’Sullivan vs. Jordan Eberle
A good read for POS fans at the EDM blog, The Copper & Blue.
From After the Whistle: Klemm Asst Coach (or as they used to engrave on the Cup, Ass Coach) in Spokane
Spokane added former player and NHL veteran Jon Klemm as an Assistant Coach next to Hardy Sauter.
Lauri Tukonen? – HFBoards
Last season Tukonen could not fullfil the expectations of 1st line winger in Ilves Tampere and moved to Lukko Rauma where he was “ok” in a minor role. His season ended to a knee injury that required a surgery.
He made a 4-year contract with an NHL clause to Lukko and has stated that he will try to claim a spot in a Lightning roster via training camp.
via commenter “Phenomenon” on Lauri Tukonen? – HFBoards.
Match the Pathetic Quote to the Pathetic Shark or Flame (with bonus Cammalleri “tell”)
Both the San Jose Sharks and Calgary Flames went into the playoffs with hopes of playing deep into the post-season. For the Sharks, they thought a President’s Trophy and a dynamic regular season was a sign that they were on the right track. For the Flames, they thought the addition of Olli Jokinen gave them a talented final piece.
Whoops. A day after both teams found themselves on the outside looking in, members of both teams started spouting out pretty much the same cliche. See if you can figure out which team each quote came from. Answers after the jump.
1: “This was the best team, no question. The organization gave us the opportunity to go deep and to win and we didn’t get it done.”
2: “It’s tough—I really enjoyed [note past tense] playing here, and I really thought we had a lot of hockey left. I thought we were going to do something special.”
3: “It’s really disappointing with the expectations we had this year and we didn’t come through again.”
4: “You don’t expect this to happen when you have such a good team. We expected more out of ourselves and we didn’t live up to that.”
5: “This is something I didn’t expect. I figured to be playing a lot longer than this. We really thought we had a special team. And to end the season the way we did, it’s not fun.”
6: “I was pretty disappointed in what happened and in my play, too. I really don’t have answers to anything, right now. I’m disappointed that we couldn’t do more individually.”
1: Calgary, Jarome Iginla
2: Calgary, Michael Cammalleri
3: San Jose, Evgeni Nabokov
4: San Jose, Patrick Marleau
5: San Jose, Jonathan Cheechoo
6: Calgary. Todd Bertuzzi
via KuklasKorner : Mike Chen’s Hockey Blog : Shark or Flame? .
Eulogy: Remembering the 2008-09 Calgary Flames – Puck Daddy – NHL – Yahoo! Sports
Mike Cammalleri set career highs in all categories but it didn’t matter because his 39 goals and 82 points are off for free agency. But that’s okay, because even though the Flames have no money to bring him back with, those six playoff games were worth the 17th overall pick — right?
via Eulogy: Remembering the 2008-09 Calgary Flames – Puck Daddy – NHL – Yahoo! Sports.
Ken Campbell @ The Hockey News: “Shhh, be vawy vawy qwiet…”
When I close my eyes and listen to Andy Murray speak, I feel as though I’m listening to Elmer Fudd.
via The Hockey News: Campbell’s Cuts: Campbell’s Cuts: Playoffs provide plenty of lessons.
St. Louis Dispatch: Andy Murray Goes Ballistic
A day after the Blues’ 3-0 loss to Vancouver, television highlights continued to focus on the postgame tirade of head coach Andy Murray on the team’s bench.
Murray was incensed because after Vancouver scored its empty-net goal, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault put his physical fourth line of Darcy Hordichuk, Ryan Johnson and Rick Rypien on the ice.
Murray, meanwhile, had sent out David Perron, T.J. Oshie and Patrik Berglund.
“I didn’t particularly like the line that (Vigneault) sent out,” Murray said. “I could have sent out Brad Winchester and B.J. Crombeen. We were alerted by the league that there’s no messages to be sent at the end of the game.”
Murray was witnessed screaming at Vigneault from the Blues’ bench, telling the Canucks’ coach to “Use your head … Use your head.”
via 04/19/2009 – Kariya will practice with Blues Sunday – STLtoday.com .
Calgary Herald: Cammy vows to rebound hahahahahahaha
Dropped into a slippery series hole, frustrated by otherworldly netminding, playoff light growing ever dimmer, Michael Cammalleri insisted he isn’t depressed.
He feels…well . . . fortunate. Blessed even.
“Our mindset is–we better thank our lucky stars that we’re good enough to beat anybody, even down two-oh,” Cammalleri said Saturday after the Calgary Flames fell 3-2–again–to the Chicago Blackhawks in the National Hockey League’s first-round series. “We’re not a team that’s going to get buried. We’ve made it hard on ourselves. We would have liked for that not to have happened . . . but thank goodness this group is confident enough to beat anybody.
“We’ve got five games left– we have to get four wins.”
[five games? Um, probably not]
Countering that optimism with a dash of realism, here’s a fun fact to gnaw on–Chicago, in franchise history, is 16-2 when winning the first two games of a series. Game 3 goes Monday in Calgary.
[also, statistically, if you lose the first two games at home, in 90% of the playoff series ever played...you are done.]
Puck Stops Here: Cammalleri Non-Suspension B.S.
The main differences that the NHL has played up in explaining the lack of a suspension in this case is that it was a close game (so the resulting penalty mattered) and Cammalleri is a skilled player as Calgary’s top goal scorer this season. Cammalleri is not a goon. At 5’ 9” and 185 pounds he is on the small side for an NHL player. Thus Cammalleri is not a repeat offender and he was not “sending a message” at the end of a game.
Effectively these rulings make it OK for “skilled” players to do things that “goon” players cannot. It makes suspensions depend upon the person who commits the act instead of the act itself. This allows the NHL a coherent sounding reason to not suspend key players who will sell tickets and influence games, while suspending the fringe players.
In the playoffs, the NHL wants to send the message that suspensions will occur as usual (if needed) by suspending Carcillo, while also sending the message that they will not make unnecessary rulings to punish one team and hasten their playoff elimination, by not suspending Cammalleri. They cite the fact Carcillo is a repeat offender. They cite the fact that Carcillo was not playing in a key part of the game (which follows from him being more of a fringe player who does not play the most important minutes for his team). The NHL has setup a framework where they can cite a consistent set of principles and get away with only suspending only fringe players. The only problem is when a top level player becomes a repeat offender (as Chris Pronger has).
Suspending Carcillo and not Cammalleri for similar offences is the way the NHL usually operates. The more important a player is to the league and the more important the games the player will miss, the less likely he is suspended. Suspensions are for fringe players. These are the players who tend to become repeat offenders and tend to play in the points in the game where one might “send a message”.
via KuklasKorner : The Puck Stops Here : The Cammalleri Non-Suspension .
Adam Proteau’s Blog: Flames, Sharks scorers cause costly losses
Cammalleri … erred terribly when he drilled Blackhawks forward Martin Havlat in the head after a faceoff; Cammalleri almost certainly will (and definitely should) be suspended for the same swinging motion to the head that got Philadelphia’s Daniel Carcillo banned for Game 2 of the Flyers’ series against Pittsburgh.
Cammalleri was playing his first NHL playoff game and it showed. And because he allowed himself to mentally unravel in front of Havlat, Cammalleri now will probably handicap his team with his absence from the lineup in Game 2.
Meanwhile, Havlat, who had waves of Flames hurling themselves at him all game long, quickly shook off Cammalleri’s egregious punch and exacted his revenge – you know, “sent a message” – the right way: not by swatting back, but by scoring the game-tying goal late in the third period, then adding the overtime winner just 12 seconds into the fourth frame.
Hickey will wear number 37 in Manchester
Hopefully he will wear #4 with the Kings. Although I guess he would be the greatest player in Kings history ever to wear #37 (assuming he’s better than Denis Grebeshkov and/or Bob Kudelski).
The Manchester Monarchs, the primary affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings, have added defenseman Thomas Hickey to their roster, Monarchs Director of Hockey Operations Hubie McDonough announced today.
Hickey, 20, recently finished his fourth full season with the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds. As captain of the Thunderbirds, the 6-foot-, 191-pound native of Calgary, Alberta, led the team’s blueliners with a career high 16 goals and 51 points (16-35=51) in 57 games. Hickey’s 51 points also ranked 10th among WHL defensemen. In 262 career games with the Thunderbirds from 2004-09, Hickey collected 177 points (39-138=177) and 208 penalty minutes.
In December, Hickey was named Canada’s team captain for the 2009 World Junior Championships in Ottawa. The tournament ran from December 26 to January 5 and Hickey recorded three points (0-3=3), two penalty minutes and five shots on goal in six games as Team Canada won the gold medal with a perfect 6-0 record.
Hickey signed a three-year entry level contract with the Kings on July 17, 2007. He will wear No. 37 for the Monarchs.
The Calgary Sun – Lundmark decision
Jamie Lundmark has always had the talent to be a regular in the NHL.
Keeping things simple instead of looking to capitalize on that natural ability every shift is what has landed him his current role down the stretch in a second go-round with the Calgary Flames.
He made a splash in his first stint, coming over at the trade deadline in 2006 and putting up 10 points in a dozen games.
The follow-up was disappointing, and he was shipped to the Los Angeles Kings after earning just four assists in 39 games with the Flames in 2006-07.
This time last year
I wanted to remember what it was like to be a Kings fan this time last year. In March, Rich’s question was, who is the Kings’ best defenseman? The choices? Rob Blake, Kevin Dallman, Peter Harrold, Jack Johnson, Jon Klemm, Tom Preissing, Lubomir Visnovsky.
Seems like about a million years ago.
Kings Lead the League in Scoring
Dallman
Wrong league though.
An article about Jagr possibly playing for Edmonton next year linked to the scoring stats for the KHL (link below). Jagr finished 7th in scoring, a couple of points ahead of Era Pirnes, and five points behind (5th overall) Kevin Dallman. Dallman leads all defensemen in points, and by a mile. Meanwhile, former Kings prospect Jan Marek is 2nd in scoring in the league. Rounding out the top fifty: Joseph Stumpel, at #48.
http://www.eliteprospects.com/league.php?leagueid=KHL&season=2008
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