- Joe Yerdon of Pro Hockey Talk: Jon Rosen of Fox Sports West talked with Jaromir Jagr,
“Hopefully the season’s going to start. It would be very sad for everybody for us me and Teemu especially,” Jagr said. “We don’t have many games left. The separation, the goal separation is only two goals. It’s the final countdown. It would be kind of special, but you never know what’s going to happen.”
- Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun: Injured NHLers still collect their pay, including Chris Pronger who received a $1 million bonus last month and will get his full salary of $7.2 million. He likely won’t play again and has $19.2 million left on his contract.
- Genadi Boguslavski via twitter: Andrei Markov will miss at least the next 3 games for Vityaz.
- Damian Cristodero of the Tampa Bay Times: Lightning goalie Anders Lindback signed with Ilves Tampere.
- Adam Jahns of the Chicago Tribune: Jahns notes the fans deserve better than this and both sides are to blame, with most of the fault on the owners side.
But the fans — especially the die-hards — deserve better. The NHL’s lockout of its players insults them. It insults their loyalty and their financial sacrifices.
They deserve to root for a league not plagued by work stoppages. Fan-driven events such as the Winter Classic and the All-Star Game shouldn’t be used as bargaining chips.
Both sides are to blame for this mess.
But if you had to assign fault, 85 percent belongs to the owners. Maybe it’s because the players are allowed to explain their side while the owners have been silenced by commissioner Gary Bettman and his bylaws, but it’s tough to see where the owners are coming from.
- Brad Ziemer of the Vancouver Sun: Roberto Luongo touches on trade rumors.
“I don’t want to speculate on anything because there are a lot of rumours,” Luongo said.
“Obviously, when the time comes and I do have to make a decision we’ll make one with the best interests for myself, the team and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “But for now I think my focus is just on being ready to play no matter where that is.”
“Mike never asked me for a specific list, so I have never given him a list of five teams or anything like that.” he said. “We did speak over the summer about certain teams, but that was nothing concrete.”
“At this point in time, I think we all know what the situation is with me, but there are many teams out there that I’ll consider for sure.”
“We’re just going to wait and see. I’m getting ready as if I am coming back here for training camp when it’s over and if things change we’ll take care of that when it comes.”
