If the sound of crickets didn't give it away - this blog is not currently active with new posts. Dave & East of Here continue to sling their puck-wit, it just stays in the privacy of their own respective crowds.
I totally hurt my knee last night jumping up and down after Joki's game-winner last night.
lawdahmercy I'll check back with whatever loyal few of you remain here on Thursday!
"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" - the Hurricanes won a hockey game! New president! Raleigh is effin snowed in! People spontaneously combusting! Hide your families! Chad LaRose is all that is man! Cam Ward is Conn Smythe!
Ugh. Back to the Holy Shit Buffalo's Cold Arena tonight for the Hurricanes tonight. Attempting to snap the skid - this easily still looks like a team that could lose a few more before they right the ship.
Some random thoughts for you on a frozen tundra of a Saturday:
Paul Maurice's performance as coach so far hasn't blown away anyone. In a way, deep down I'm sort of glad he's not killing-it-good as I eagerly await the eventual hiring of Ronnie Francis as the new head coach next summer (ready or not).
Tim Gleason is never one to stop short of providing some good press. He's dropped some jewels this year including the now infamous "That's what happens when you suck" and accurately summed up the Toronto effort as "piss-poor".
I like coffee. A lot.
D-Lee is an underground Sabres homer, apparently. How sweet of him. (I kid, of course - David is my hero.)
Like the Canes, the Sabres have been riding the "meh"-boat this season. They certainly have the talent and have shown the potential to dominate games but have lacked the consistency on a game-to-game basis. Sounds familiar right? There are several worthy Sabres blogs out there, but my choice is the vintage BfloBlog.
Lindy Ruff is a great coach, but I still think he's an ass.
Staal did his Hay-zeus Christo impression during his goal celebration Thursday night. I likes.
I heart the NHL Network. What the hell would we do without it? Further more, why isn't Carrie Milbank working for Versus full time yet? Of course she's a stone cold stunner of a beauty - but she's entertaining, accurate, enlightening and knows her hock-ah-jah-wee-ah pretty well.
Speaking of Versus - I still don't understand why they can only show two games a week. Monday & Tuesday nights are apparently the only nights that important games are played in the US of A. Johnny Forslund has been a stud on his VS appearances though. I always dig reading what Steve Lepore has to say about the pucky media. Check him out.
You will freeze your nips off outside today. The Leafs came and brought their weather with them as they came and shat on the South (they beat the Thrash Friday night). Stay inside by the fire all day. Watch TV. Cuddle up with your doggy or kitty.
If you're a drinker - try this recipe for BunWarmers and you'll thank me later.
Go Canes.
and a special shout-out to Coach Kay Yow, who is an inspiration to us all. Hang in there, Coach. 
Apologize for the lack of new material here lately. The Wuffy family is in the process of a lengthy move-in, while East is preparing for his offspring to be born... We'll be back up and running in due time.
The day that would never come.
Opening Night is Friday October 10, 2008. As in tomorrow. Really.
At the RBC Center? No more of "The Wiggles Live!":
Windows 95 low-bit MS Paint creation. 
Weird. This picture is gonna take some getting used to.
If you folks want to follow Erik Cole's year in Edmonton - do yourselves the favor and check out the many outstanding Oilers blogs. My favorite one is Covered In Oil. He seems pretty darned happy up there.
H/t Kukla on the link.
So JR went out and bought himself a Soviet Sniper. Is this a good thing? Or is this just window dressing? Either way, it's too early to tell. But, upon being prodded for my thoughts on the matter on the CanesCountry forum, I decided to be cautiously optimistic. And in the spirit of laziness, I will just cross post those thoughts [with a few retrospective edits] about the Samsonov acquisition:
Remarkably, I was on the fence about it, but leaning towards cautiously optimistic for several reasons. Just hear me out...
First, at half price, his salary wasn't that big a hit considering he's got to be better than Aucoin or Bayda.
Second, even if he can't score, he can at least skate with the puck, catch a pass, and make a pass (the little things the rest of our team has periodically forgotten how to do).
Third, he is in a pinch where he either performs, or is forever forgotten in this league. So, the odds are, he will at least give 110% effort; and that's more than we are getting from our superstars on a regular basis. If he wasn't willing to give the effort, then he probably would never have showed up to play for us in Boston in the first place.
Fourth, as long as Atlanta doesn't acquire a defenseman named "Delilahnov", we should have an advantage in the division. (Additional COI commentary: Someone pointed out that he currently has a shaved head. If this is the case, in keeping with my bad joke, he can only get stronger; so long as they keep him away from the clippers. I'd make him room with Commodore. That should do it.)
Fifth, we currently have more broken forwards than a bad transmission.
Sixth, how can I ever hope to make a movie inspired joke about a line called "the Big Letowski" line, if we don't have a white Russian?
Seventh, he was free. And free is generally good. Unless you are talking about hookers. Then, you should be suspicious. Very, very suspicious. Not that I'd know anything about that. I'm just saying...
Eighth, we've already got a German, a Czechoslovakian, a couple of Americans, a rash of Canadians, a Dubai-ian, a Swede, and a whatever the hell people from Minnesota are supposed to be. We needed a Russian because everybody knows that a wider range of diversity is a good thing. Now, if we only had Anson Carter and a token "Freedom" Canadian, we'd at least be EEOC compliant, if not unstoppable.
Ninth, the dude was sucking lately, and the Canes were sucking lately, so it seems like a match made in heaven.
Tenth, there's gotta be several dozen of those wannabe "trendsetter" fans, who are, as we speak, logged onto NHL-dot-com furiously trying to order the "first" Samsonov Canes jersey to complement their collection of "Hlavac", "Gove", "Storr", "Vrbata", and "whatever-other-obscure-flavor-of-the-week-player-we-managed-to-acquire" jerseys. And that is extra revenue for the team.
[Side note: I've got $5 (or a cup of coffee, the good third world exploitation stuff they sell at the kiosk) that says that within the next three 24-Game pack games (gotta allow time for shipping and handling), I can get a picture of one of these asshats at the RBC in their trendy new Samsonov Jersey and post it here.]
