Staal and Girardi are terrible, as is Clendening, who gave away the puck about 6 times in the Rangers zone tonight, however his offense is appealing, we need 2 NHL dmen in a trade starting with Brendan Smith...
My buddy is convinced Shattenkirk is coming here but what can they really trade for him ? Teams only want Miller and I don't think a package of a 1st, Fast, Lindberg, and Klein/Clendening would even get it done.
Hack, center (and Derek Stepan in particular) aside, after today you can call me obsessed. Time after time after time CBJ forwards regularly camped out ALL ALONE in Hank's face while NYR fowards weren't granted 1/2 that "courtesy" by the CBJ defenseman at the other end. Stand-in-the-crease garbage goal artists like Steve Vickers, Johnny Bucyk, Ken Hodge et al would feast against this group. And much as I liked Holden's great sliding block to prevent a goal, his "brain cramp" giveaway at mid-ice along the boards (which lead to Columbus' 4th goal) was Stu Bickel-like brutal.
I agree with everything but Vickers, Joe, Steve had a great shot too, but like you said he was fearless in front of the net and a very feared pugilist
"Sarge" did have a good shot Matt. What I was referring to was his other nickname of "2.5" that was playfully given to him to describe some of his "2.5 ft." goals. He was a cruiserweight Clark Gillies-type; very good player who didn't look to scrap but could bring it when needed. Decisioned Kurt Bennett (Atlanta Flames) as a rookie (whom Marv Alpert described as "one of the better fighters in the NHL") and along with Ron Harris was one of the few NYR with any balls in that disgraceful SF series loss to Philly (when Park/Hatfield left Rolfe out to dry) and who said "we choked" after game 7. Earlier in the series Ross Lonsberry got a "3rd man in" when Vickers smacked Dornhoeffer around. Don Marcott of the Bruins also remembers #8:
Smith is a ridiculously good shot suppressor, but with AV you never can count on a Dman being used properly. This should be a very good move but we'll have to wait and see. AV used Yandle like he was only a slightly better player than John Moore so I'm skeptical.
