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Columbus Blue Jackets (Official Thread)

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It's actually fun to watch the CBJ now. Still can't believe it took DM 6 years to hire a real NHL coach.

I know they are a long way out of the 8th spot, but it's possible to make up 11 pts and 6 teams in 55 games, right?
 
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irght now 20 points in 27 games. 95 is usually the magic number.

that means 55games left and about 75 pts. thats 37 wins. the real number will be less than taht due to otl sol. its a tough hill to climb but currently the situation actually doesnt look all that bad



7 spot minnesota 29gp 34pts
8 flames 27gp 31pts
9 canucks 30 29
10 avs 29 28
11 la 31 26
12 hawks 27 25
13 phx 28 23
14 ladybugs 27 20

so essentially a couple of games behind on the schedule also.
12 games until the first of the year. we will know at the end of the month if its possible at all. if the guys conitune to play like they have the last few games, yes. if they revert to the old ways then no.
 
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Dispatch

All is right, even at home
Jackets improve win streak to four, set club record with five power-play goals
Monday, December 11, 2006
Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Pages, photos

Buckeye Back Talk

20061211-Pc-D1-0500.jpg
</IMG> Blue Jackets forward Rick Nash celebrates after scoring his second goal of the first period against the Senators.


Coach Ken Hitchcock credits the players, and vice versa. Someone is to blame for this. The Blue Jackets have reached a point where, if they lose a shutout in the second or third period, it?s a surprising development.
So it was, again, last night. The Blue Jackets frustrated a highly skilled Ottawa Senators team, and when the Senators finally managed a goal, the fans headed for the exits in Nationwide Arena. How surreal was this? There is an odd denouement, now, to the daily whippings.
The Blue Jackets pumped in five power-play goals, a franchise record for one game, and rolled to a 6-2 victory. A crowd of 15,797 was on hand. If that wasn?t a huge throng to welcome the team home, the Jackets didn?t quibble. They just went out and did their part to rebuild the relationship.
The Blue Jackets (10-16-2) played their previous five on the road. They lost two by o ne-goal margins, then won three in a row by a combined score of 12-1. They hadn?t played within the friendly confines in 15 days, and they heralded their return by stretching their winning streak to four games and putting their new identity in a glowing light.
"Every line out there can score right now, and we still have Z (injured forward Nikolai Zherdev) back there somewhere," right winger David Vyborny said. "We trust every night, every line, and now we know we can beat anyone. It?s not just talking about it in the locker room, it?s happening on the ice."
Ten Blue Jackets players picked up at least a point last night. Wingers Rick Nash and Dan Fritsche had two goals apiece. Defenseman Ron Hainsey had the first three-point game of his career with a goal and two assists. Center Manny Malhotra had a goal. Defenseman Anders Eriksson and Vyborny each had two assists. Forwards Anson Carter, Jason Chimera and Sergei Fedorov and defenseman Aaron Johnson each had an assist. Granted, the Sens (15-14-1) were without two of their best players, winger Daniel Alfredsson and defenseman Wade Redden, who are injured. Granted, they had lost their two previous games.
What the Jackets saw was an alien Eastern Conference team, coming off a tough loss at home, laying in wait. What the Jackets saw was an extremely talented team that put together two four-game winning streaks in a recent span of 18 days. And the Jackets were coming back home, where they?ve been known to make sawdust of their sticks.
"I think we?re finding composure in competitive areas," Hitchcock said. "We?re playing with a level of intensity, where before we were just playing with a level of emotion. When you play with emotion (alone), you end up staring at the puck, you make mistakes chasing people around the rink. We can gather ourselves from shift to shift now. We couldn?t do that before."
Goaltender Pascal Leclaire stood up to some spirited forays until he suffered a lower-body injury, perhaps a groin or a knee, late in the second period. At that point, the Blue Jackets led 5-0. They had taken the best shots, and the stupidest shots, the Senators could muster, and they had their opponent thoroughly frustrated.
How frustrated? Brian McGrattan clipped Jody Shelley, who won the ensuing fight. Dany Heatley took slashing and high-sticking penalties, Antoine Vermette got a double-minor for high sticking, Joe Corvo was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct and Andrej Meszaros took a major and was thrown out of the game for running Alexandre Picard into the glass. The Jackets set up their power play, and neither Senators starting goaltender Martin Gerber nor his replacement, Ray Emery, was able to thwart it.
"They?re a skilled team, and we wanted to jump on them and get them frustrated," Fritsche said. "That?s what happened."
It?s not as easy as it sounds right now, but everything is working. The next challenge is going back on the road with more injuries. Captain Adam Foote (lower body injury) might be able to go Tuesday in Dallas, but Leclaire is doubtful.
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Dispatch

Fans who wrote off Blue Jackets? season need to think again
Monday, December 11, 2006

BOB HUNTER
Pages, photos

Buckeye Back Talk

20061211-Pc-D1-0800.jpg
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Introductions would seem to be in order. The fans who went to Nationwide Arena last night saw the same Columbus players they had seen before. They didn?t see the same Blue Jackets team.
Regular viewers of the TV show Extreme Makeover might not have been shocked by what they saw ? hey, those human morph jobs border on science fiction ? but everybody else had to be wondering how these guys could possibly be those guys. The Columbus team that lost seven straight before Ken Hitchcock took over 2? weeks ago and the one that beat Ottawa 6-2 last night don?t even bear a faint resemblance to each other.
This is no parlor trick. This makeover is more than a little makeup, a girdle and a pouffy wig. The names are the same, but since Hitchcock became coach eight games ago, the Jackets have become a different team.
"We are," Anson Carter said. "We have a little better focus right now. We have a lot more poise, a lot more patience. We?re playing with better hockey sense. Guys in this room always worked hard, but now, we?re combining that work ethic that was here before with working smart, and we?re getting results."
The numbers don?t lie. Since Hitchcock came down from the mountain ? OK, maybe I am being a tad dramatic here ? the Blue Jackets are 5-3, including four straight wins. A dramatic improvement in offense, much of which has been created from the defensive end, demands attention.
Before Hitchcock, the Jackets worked like madmen to score one lousy goal. Now the goals seem to appear out of nothingness, in part because the players always seem to be in the right position to score. Since Hitchcock took over, the Jackets have outscored opponents 26-12, and 12 players have scored.
The past four games have been even more amazing: The Blue Jackets have outscored opponents 18-3.
If you think about where the Jackets were a scant two weeks ago, it seems hard to believe.
"It?s not hard to believe," Carter said. "This is why I signed here. This is the kind of potential I saw."
But seriously, remember those poor guys ? these guys ? with the 5-13-2 record?
Can a new system really change all that?
"I think there was a skill level here that?s a good skill level," Hitchcock said. "There were good components put here. I think a lot of people saw that, but I think to even get a chance to see what we had, we needed to play a better team game to make it easier on ourselves.
"I think now we?re playing better as a team, so our skills are starting to show. We?re not chasing the game, we?re not chasing the puck all over the rink now. We?ve got good players. The thing that has surprised me is that we?ve become a good team quicker than I think anybody probably in hockey thought we would."
They seem to have caught Columbus fans unaware. After a 12-day trip that concluded with a three-game winning streak, there were only 15,797 in Nationwide Arena. A lot of fans apparently got the impression that the season was over, a notion that certainly isn?t shared by Hitchcock.
"To us, it?s just going on the road and getting points right now," Hitchcock said. "If we can just keep getting points on the road, it sets us up for great homestands coming back in. We?ve clawed our way into single digits from getting into the playoffs, and our goal is if we can keep having positive months like December is right now, four games over .500, then at the end of the day, we?re going to make a hell of a race of this thing."
The playoff race?
It seems crazy, but then, so does this.

Bob Hunter is a sports colum nist for The Dispatch
.
[email protected]
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Dispatch

BLUE JACKETS NOTEBOOK
Victory comes at a price
Leclaire, Foote leave game, will undergo further tests today
Monday, December 11, 2006
Aaron Portzline
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Pages, photos

Buckeye Back Talk

20061211-Pc-D4-0700.jpg
</IMG> Pascal Leclaire stops a penalty shot by the Senators? Peter Schaefer in the second period.


The Blue Jackets? 6-2 win over the Ottawa Senators last night in Nationwide Arena was not without cost.
Goaltender Pascal Leclaire and defenseman Adam Foote, the team captain, left the game early with "lower body" injuries, the club said.
Both will have magnetic resonance imaging tests today.
Leclaire?s injury appeared to be the more serious. After the game, he was limping badly.
"It?s not great," Leclaire said, "not great at all. Right now, it hurts a little bit.
"We?ll know more tomorrow. Right now, I can?t say very much about it, because we just don?t know."
Leclaire, who stopped all 17 shots he faced, first appeared to be favoring his left leg after stopping a slap shot by Ottawa defenseman Andre Mezaros with 5:52 left in the second period.
Less than 30 seconds later, Leclaire went down in a heap after defending a two-on-one by Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley. Leclaire was led off the ice by trainer Chris Mizer with 5:11 left in the period, replaced by Fredrik Norrena.
Foote left the game with approximately six minutes left in the first period and did not return. He will leave with the Blue Jackets today for a twogame road trip to Dallas (Tuesday) and Phoenix (Thursday), but it?s uncertain whether he?ll play.
After the game, the Blue Jackets recalled defenseman Filip Novak and goaltender Tomas Popperle from Syracuse.
Carter?s cranium

It appeared another Blue Jacket went down later in the game, when right winger Anson Carter and defenseman Rostislav Klesla collided at mid-ice with 6:27 left.
Carter took the brunt of the impact, his head bouncing off Klesla?s right shoulder, just seconds after Klesla came out of the penalty box.
Carter lay on the ice momentarily before being helped to the bench.
"I wasn?t expecting him to be that far up the ice," Carter said of Klesla. "He came out of the box, and he was looking back and I was looking back. I got a shoulder right to the face, and it stunned me for a few seconds."
Carter could have returned, he said, but with a four-goal lead and only a few minutes left, the decision was made to send him to the dressing room. Carter said he will play Tuesday in Dallas.
"Rule of thumb," Carter joked, "it doesn?t matter if you?re on the home team or the away team, whenever Rusty comes over the boards, you have to keep your head up."
Shelley?s fight

Left winger Jody Shelley had gone more than a month without dropping the gloves.
The longest "slump" of his career was broken at 5:22 of the first period when he and Ottawa heavyweight Brian McGrattan traded blows.
"I felt like I haven?t contributed in the last few games," Shelley said. "To contribute like that, it felt great. I knew they had a guy who?s willing to go, so it was definitely on my mind.
"When you get back home after five (games) on the road, you don?t want your fans to sit there and wait. You want to get them involved."
In the new NHL, fights are hard to come by. Shelley hadn?t had a fight since a game against St. Louis on Nov. 9, and he has only five this season.
In 2003-04, he had 30 fights.
Slap shots

The Blue Jackets set a franchise record with five power-play goals. They couldn?t have come against a more appropriate opponent, because the Senators scored five power-play goals against the Jackets the most recent times the two teams met, a 5-2 loss in Ottawa on Nov. 13, 2003. ? Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock was asked who might have donned the pads if Norrena, too, was injured. "That?d be me," he said. "They?d have a tough time picking the corners."
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The outstanding play continues!!! It certainly helps when the opponent takes terrible penalties (see: checking from behind) and the goalie gives up a soft goal (Fritsche's first) and a terrible goal (Nash's first).

Let's keep it up in Dallas!
 
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jimotis4heisman;685307; said:
bk no mention of
nat%20the%20bat.jpg



hopefully pazzy will be ok.

rusty is growing up and really impressed me lately, minus taking out carter last night. but it just shows how strong hes gotten on his skates.
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Okay, I give up. I have no idea what the pooping bat is about. :!

Carter's quote about Klesla made me laugh.

Anson Carter said:
"Rule of thumb," Carter joked, "it doesn?t matter if you?re on the home team or the away team, whenever Rusty comes over the boards, you have to keep your head up."
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Dispatch

Jackets stop Stars
Columbus posts another first on road by winning in Dallas
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
20061213-Pc-F2-0800.jpg

Jere Lehtinen, center, of the Stars and Jackets defenseman Anders Eriksson compete for the puck as Fredrik Norrena looks on.
20061213-Pc-F1-0500.jpg

Eric Lindros of the Stars pressures Blue Jackets goalie Fredrik Norrena, who attempts to clear the puck.


DALLAS ? Times are such that Nikolai Zherdev is sprawling in front of Sergei Zubov?s slap shots ... on purpose. It happened last night, in the American Airlines Center, where the Blue Jackets won for the first time, ever.
There is a correlation.
The Blue Jackets beat the Dallas Stars 3-1 before a stunned crowd of 17,411 and raised their record in Big D to 1-10-1.
Last week, the Jackets won for the first time in Colorado. Is it possible, at this point, to place too much emphasis on the impact of new coach Ken Hitchcock?
Hitchcock, who once guided the Stars to a Stanley Cup, is 6-3 since taking the reins of the Blue Jackets.
His Jackets have won five in a row, including four on the road and two by shutout. Their goaltender, ice-blooded Fredrik Norrena, whose most wrenching quote last night was "good penalty kill," has been unbeatable.
Their poise has been a hallmark. Their size has been a strength. Their scoring has come from all over the roster. It all coalesced last night, when they killed seven of eight penalties, including two five-onthrees, and beat up the Stars with a python-flexing, two-goal third period.
David Vyborny, Dan Fritsche and Jason Chimera had the goals. Anson Carter had two assists. Norrena made 26 saves, 15 in the first period, which is to say he kept it tight when he had to and his mates gathered force as the game got down to its nitty-gritty.
"I know hard times can be coming," Norrena said, "but I?m just trying to be consistent. Of course, I?m excited about the wins.
"This team gave me a chance to play over here. But we can?t get ahead of ourselves. There are a lot of games left to go. I just want to continue to improve."
Norrena stood on his head in the first period, down the stretch of which the Blue Jackets killed off three penalties. They had a tiger by the tail in the second until Vyborny scored a goal under strange circumstances. He took a gift.
Stars goalie Marty Turco came way out of his net to play a puck, and then flubbed a pass and Vyborny swooped in to score on a defenseman. The way Norrena was playing, the feeling at the time was that one goal might be enough.
Norrena has won his past five starts. In his past four, he has allowed four goals and made 130 saves. He is the bedrock of a resurgence that borders on the miraculous. Hitchock is the man with the magic wand.
"I was thinking, when it was 1-1, this wasn?t going to be a tie," said Hitchcock, who, when he coached the Philadelphia Flyers, had a trio of 2-2 ties against the Stars.
"At 1-1, I knew then that something bad was going to happen, or something good was going to happen," he said.
Here?s what happened: The Stars turned the puck over, Fredrik Modin fed Carter at the blue line, Carter carried it in and got off a good shot on Turco ? and Turco fumbled the puck. Instantly, Fritsche appeared to pot the sudden rebound. That goal broke the tie at 8:14 of the third period. And it came just 40 seconds after Stars defenseman Philippe Boucher scored a powerplay goal for the Stars.
"After a goal (like Boucher?s), the biggest thing was taking the momentum away, right away," Fritsche said.
At 13:40 of the third, with the game still very much in question, Carter set up another goal from deep in his own zone. The Stars were pressing their offense and Carter, off a takeaway, simply banked the puck off the right boards and caught Chimera releasing on the fly.
"I knew Chim-dog was going," Carter said. "I was going to chip it by and go with him for a two-on-one, but once he gets going there?s nobody that?s going to catch him."
Chimera put down Turco, cut left and roofed a forehand. It gave the Blue Jackets a twogoal cushion they would maintain. Another demon was vaporized.
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Dispatch

BLUE JACKETS NOTEBOOK
Hitchcock has a connection with Stars, their building
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



DALLAS ? Ken Hitchcock, hired Nov. 22 to coach the Blue Jackets, made a lot of friends and an estimable reputation in Dallas. He coached here for seven years and his Stars won one Stanley Cup, two Western Conference championships and five Central Division titles. They also won a couple of Presidents? trophies for having the best regular-season record.
And though Hitchcock spent only a half season in the newly built American Airlines Center before he was fired in 2002, he still feels a connection to the place.
"All of us were a part of what went into the building," Hitchcock said after putting the Jackets through the morning skate in the very building to which he was referring.
"We had input on the locker room development, the painting, the fixtures," he said. "We were sitting outside the building when it opened. We were here for the Eagles concert (which was the christening)."
The only signs in the Stars locker room are two little reminders. These are pasted onto the front and back walls. One goes: "Focus, Commitment, Attention to Detail." The other says: "It doesn?t matter what they do. It only matters what WE do." Those sound Hitchy. And in the players lounge, there is a mural of hockey scenes that takes the viewer through the history of the game. Many of the scenes involve frozen ponds in bucolic winter settings. Hitchcock had the mural put there, perhaps to remind the players that their livelihood is, at its core, a game.
In a quiet moment, Hitchcock admitted that he was wrestling with a lot of feelings upon his return to Dallas. During his tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers, which went from May 2002 through October 2006, only once did the Flyers play in the American Airlines Center. That was Dec. 29, 2003, and the teams played to a 2-2 tie. In fact, Hitchcock?s Flyers and the Stars met on just two other occasions, both times in Philadelphia in the pre-lockout era ? and those were 2-2 ties, as well.
So, when the Blue Jackets took the ice last night at the American Airlines Center, their coach was, for the first time, faced with resolution against his former Stars. And he might have been a touch verklempt.
Disa and data

Winger Nikolai Zherdev, who missed the previous four games because of a shoulder injury, was back in the lineup. He began the game playing left wing on a line that had Alexander Svitov in the middle and David Vyborny on the right. "Both (Zherdev and Vyborny) like playing their off wings, so we?ll see how that goes," Hitchcock said. ? Defenseman Adam Foote (lowerbody injury) and goaltender Pascal Leclaire (sprained knee) had a light off-ice workout in Columbus. Hitchcock said both are likely to miss Thursday?s game against the Coyotes in Phoenix and Fredrik Norrena "is our goaltender for the foreseeable future." ... Filip Novak, recalled to take Foote?s place in the lineup, was paired with Ole-Kristian Tollefsen. With Zherdev back in the lineup, Gilbert Brule was moved to the fourth line and Alexander Picard was scratched. Picard, however, will play in Phoenix, Hitchcock said. ... Stars coach Dave Tippett figured that the media was making more out of Hitchcock?s return than he, or even Hitchcock, might. "A lot more," Tippett said. "People in the hockey world move around all the time. He has moved on. Time has a way of making fate. We?re engaged in our own little battles to get our teams to play as best as they can."
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Dispatch

Fedorov re-emerges
Veteran shows he?s far from being over the hill at age 37 as Jackets switch gears
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
20061214-Pc-C1-0500.jpg
</IMG> In the past nine games, Sergei Fedorov has four goals, five assists and a plus-4 rating. He also has been a presence, even when hasn?t had a point.
20061214-Pc-C1-0800.jpg
</IMG>


GLENDALE, Ariz. ? After 11 attempts in seven years, the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night finally beat the Stars in Dallas and thus exorcized another demon. The Jackets did it with excellent goaltending from Fredrik Norrena and extraordinary penalty killing, led by Sergei Fedorov ? who was the best player on the ice in the third period.
On the day Fedorov turned 37, he showed he has more than a little left in his tank. Such nights are becoming more frequent.
"(Fedorov) has been unbelievable lately," left winger Rick Nash said after practice yesterday. "He?s skating like it was 10 years ago, when he was the best player in the world."
It was just more than a year ago that Fedorov was acquired from the Anaheim Ducks. In Columbus, Fedorov was embraced as a helpful player, one who had a positive influence on young Nikolai Zherdev, among others, and covered up a lot of mistakes. Elsewhere, folks smirked at the acquisition because Fedorov came with a cap-killing, $6-million-a-year price tag and he was on the other side of his prime.
Fedorov has thrived like many of his teammates since coach Ken Hitchcock was hired Nov. 22. The Blue Jackets are 6-3 under Hitchcock and they?ve won four in a row on the road and five in a row overall. In that span, Fedorov had four goals, five assists and a plus-4 rating. He has been a presence, even when hasn?t had a point ? such as Tuesday night. He had two shots, three hits, three takeaways and zero giveaways, and won 12 faceoffs against the Stars.
"Fedorov is one of those intellectual players," Hitchcock said. "North American players, they think of the game in grunts and groans. That?s where Fedorov is intriguing. He sees the game from a flow standpoint. He understands how to create speed, and that?s everything in a transition game. He understands what will work, and when."
To talk to Hitchcock is to get the sense that he?s enjoying another view of what makes a world-class player.
"Dealing with Feds, if anything is going to work, it has to make sense," Hitchcock said. "Because if it doesn?t make sense, it?s a hard sell. The thing about the Detroit Red Wings (with whom Fedorov won three Stanley Cups) that people never talk about is they used to check you to death and it was a major victory to get the puck to center ice. They looked so fast because they never gave you a chance to breathe. And they had the skill to make plays off of turnovers. And Feds won a Selke Trophy with that team and was one of the top scorers in the league (at the same time)."
Fedorov isn?t what he once was, but he hasn?t exactly fallen off the table, either. He said 80 percent of the time he?s on the ice, he doesn?t have the puck, and that?s when he uses his head. He said he saves his bursts of speed for crucial moments because that?s what any intelligent player does to preserve himself. He says he knows he?s nearly as fast as he ever was, but some nagging, but manageable, injuries keep the revs down a couple of RPMs.
And then he talks about the system, the reads, what?s working, how comfortable he is with the whole thing. He?s a defense-first center and he?s in his element when his job is to help keep the puck out of his own net and probe for opportunities to counterattack. And then, counterattack.
He appears resurgent, and people are noticing. During the third period Tuesday night, veteran referee Don Koharski was heard to blurt, "Sergei?s still got it."
Fedorov said, "That?s a big compliment for me at this time of my career. I don?t know why he said it, but it was very pleasant. Something is telling me I still have a stride, and that?s the important thing. I just want to help us keep going in the right direction. I don?t know how much time I have left, but I?d like to play as well as I can and make a good run in Columbus."
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Dispatch

BLUE JACKETS NOTEBOOK
Current hot streak challenges records
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Michael Arace
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH



GLENDALE, Ariz. ? The folks who issue the Blue Jackets media guide have been busy thumbing through those books of late. A record seems to fall most every day, and the records that are falling are no longer titled, "Most power-play goals against, single game."
In the past two weeks:

? Goaltender Fredrik Norrena set a franchise individual record with a shutout streak of 155 minutes, 28 seconds, and he and partner Pascal Leclaire combined to set a team record shutout streak of 166:06.

? Norrena set a record with five consecutive victories, which he will attempt to extend when the Jackets meet the Phoenix Coyotes tonight.

? The team set a record with five power-play goals against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night.

? The Jackets set a franchise record for consecutive road wins with four ? another streak that can be extended tonight.

? The Jackets won in Colorado and Dallas for the first time. They were a combined 0-19-2 in those places until this season.
If the Jackets manage to win tonight, it will be their sixth consecutive victory and it will tie a franchise mark set in March. And so on.
"I?m going to start putting Post-its on pages I need," team spokesman Todd Sharrock said. "And I hope I keep going to those records with frequency."
Although the players are more or less aware of the records they are slaying, they?re more focused on fixing what few mistakes they?re making and continuing to improve. It?s all about what?s ahead.
"I think a win here is going to do a lot for our respect level," center Dan Fritsche said after scoring the winning goal Tuesday night in Dallas.
"We beat a Stanley Cup contender (Vancouver) in our building, and now we?ve come to Dallas and beat another contender in their building. I would hope teams are going to look differently at us now. We?re not far behind, and we?re coming."
A streak that died

Right winger David Vyborny went 17 games without a goal before he scored, unassisted, in the second period in Dallas. Vyborny had the gift of an open net, as Turco came way out to the left circle, flubbed a pass and handed the puck to Vyborny.
Asked whether his goal-less streak was weighing on his mind, and whether he was squeezing his stick on the play, Vyborny joked: "I was scared 10 games ago when I couldn?t score. But not now. If you think it?s never going in, you can relax."
It was planned

The Jackets put the finishing touches on their 3-1 victory in Dallas when Anson Carter chipped the puck off sidewall and the banked pass hit Jason Chimera on the fly in the neutral zone. Chimera scored on the breakaway, putting down Turco and roofing a forehand.
"That?s a play we try all the time," Chimera said. "It?s definitely a planned play, but we know it doesn?t usually work out that I get clear. But we mess around with it in practice."
Back home

Defenseman Duvie Westcott had the pin removed from his broken finger and is set for a full practice with the team Friday, coach Ken Hitchcock said. Westcott last played Nov. 3.
As for captain Adam Foote (lower body) and goaltender Pascal Leclaire (knee), they might or might not practice Friday.
"We?ll evaluate and see where they are," Hitchcock said.
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