With the brutal news that vetern Sami Salo will be out for a month with an upper body injury. The team has called up Kent Huskins from the minors to be on spot duty as a 7th d-man..
Sami had this to say about his injury, "Its tough news to take.. I'm hoping I heal quickly and can get back into the lineup before the end of the playoffs. I only have till end of the season before my contract runs out and i want to impress the team and show enough to make them want to offer me a good contract this summer. I'm going to do everything in my power to get back to full strength before the end of the playoffs and hopefully help this team bring home a cup."
During practice the line-up seemed to have changed ALOT, the lines we saw were: Olli Jokinen centering Ales Hemsky and Dany Heatley. Shane Doan centering Jochen Hecht and Eric Cole and the third and 4th lines stayed the same with the coach not wanting to mess with the chemistry on the third line after thie 5 goal series against the Habs, Jordan Staal will still be centering jay pandalfo and chris neil. 4th line is Eric Belanger centering Johan Franzen and Matthias Tjarnqvist.
on defense the pairing were a little more spread out than at the end of the habs series which saw the two rookies young guys paired together (smid-ranger) today the pairs were: Zdeno Chara paired with Paul Ranger Fedor Tyutin paired with Sheldon Souray and the combo of Smid-Staios looked very good aswell.
In net disgruntled goalie Ray Emery actually challenged coach Trotz to a fight before Chris Neil started pounding on him... Zdeno Chara and Sheldon Souray jumped in and started pounding on the ****y netminder aswell.... Look to see the goalie traded come the offseason.. (yet play a role somewhere in the playoffs in a shootout kinda game where the starters get pulled in fhl.)
At the other end Henrik Lundqvist was assured that he was the teams number one goalie no matter the leaks to the press about his being benched..
After practice the coach was asked about the incident and he just laughed and said, "thats one experiment that the g.m made that isnt working out. which isnt to big of a problem because he took some gambles and they have paid off, Rod Brindamour was becoming a problem hear being stuck in the second line center role. and chris chellios made it very clear he was not ok with being a healthy scratch in Atlanta. The g.m took a risk in trading them two proven vetern guys to land Olli but he has been a perfect fit hear and with his unreal play and positive attitude while playing 2nd line I think he looked good in his first practice on the top line with our franchise guys Hemmer and Heater.. To make the move G.M Shuck had to have believed in the two young d-men we have already RangerRick and Lads and both have played more than expected this playoffs and have more than just filled time they have contributed big time. Lads has chipped in a goal and 2 assists and is a +7 in 6 games. RangerRick has played well enough to get promoted up to top pairing with 2 goals and 3 assists in 6 games with a +4 rating. We hope he can contribute and by us time until we get Sami back.."
