[Insert random title here]
Sunday, March 11, 2007
I found myself further vexed, as I watched last night's game, at the fact that Geoff Platt continued to be relegated to fourth line duty ever since Alex Svitov returned.
There's really only so much I can say about that situation before I go in to the blame game, or start to question who is responsible for this decision. While last night I did say that this was Hitchcock's move, I have to consider the possibility that other powers in the organization might be behind giving Svitov more time.
Remember earlier this year, when Joe Motzko started to receive a lot of praise from Hitch after being called up. It was only a little bit later that Motzko was traded away, along with Mark Hartigan, to the Ducks for Zenon Konopka and Curtis Glencross.
Remember that Svitov is a draft pick ... a high one at that, even if he was picked by another team (Tampa Bay). More is expected of Svitov, and so he might be given more opportunities to shine. I won't discount the possibility that this may all very well be a matter of Hitch's decisions, but I can't help but question whether Doug MacLean had a hand in this. This is all just presumptions and theories, of course ... so don't this all too seriously.
The point is that leading up to the Stars game, that top line was working so well. Why try to fix something that wasn't broken? And more suspicious is the fact that not only was Platt dropped from the top line, but that he was dropped to the fourth line, alongside Jody Shelley. That makes this whole situation even more curious. If he's scoring a goal and getting assists, why do that? Why not put him with some other scorers like Nikolai Zherdev or Fredrik Modin?
Well, there isn't much else to say about that, I guess. I can only hope that there's some method to this madness.
As for the game? I don't know. To tell you the truth, half of my attention was elsewhere, but the other half was on watching the game. And what I saw when it came to the two goals against the Jackets was frustrating. The first goal by Paul Kariya was a direct result of more than one miscue by Fredrik Modin, both in coughing up the puck, then not properly playing the puck in his own zone.
The other goal annoys me more, though. The one that David Legwand got. Legwand was all but left totally unmolested in front of the net. Admittedly, Legwand all but came streaking right in to the zone, and in less than five seconds of flashing across the screen from the neutral zone, he looped around the net, and knocked a rebound in past Fredrik Norrena. But even factoring in Legwand's speed, no one even tried to pick him up. Marc Methot was too busy diving to the ice to block a close shot, and so he never had a prayer when it came to getting up, and doing anything about the rebound.
Other than that, well ... it's already painful enough that the Predators, the hated expansion rivals, have swept the Blue Jackets this year. If anything, you could say that this is the most perfect, most prime example of the gap between the two teams in their development over the years. Where the Predators are threatening for a Stanley Cup, the Blue Jackets are threatening to take over Jack Niclaus' golf course here in Columbus yet again.
A couple of one-timers before I set to work trying to better update the draft post, and then watch tonight's NBC game.
-I was mistaken about FSN Ohio picking up the game against the Blues on March 25th just to be nice and help out. Or rather, they're still doing it to be nice and help out, but contractual obligations require FSN to now drop a game so that they continue to air only 75 games this season. The game they're dropping? This Wednesday's game at Anaheim.
I don't know. I don't really like that decision, to not air an away game, but pick up the home game. Now CBJ fans are stuck having to listen to 1460 The Fan or CD101 if they want to hear anything on the game. And while George Matthews and Bill Davidge are one-of-a-kind when it comes to their coverage of games, it's still not enough for the visual aspect that we'll be missing.
-On Friday, we happened to get some new types of memorabilia sticks in to sell at The Blueline! A month or so ago we'd run out of our other sticks, which were two CBJ sticks and two NHL Draft sticks (wooden, and a goalie stick and forward stick for each type). I'm not trying to advertise them, but I really like these sticks. Why? Because they have the Union Army cap logo on them now. There's also this new font used to write out "Columbus Blue Jackets" on the shaft of each stick, which I find really appealing. Which brings me to my final comment today ...
-With the retiring of the Jackets' "CBJ" logo at the end of this season (and the switch to the third jersey logo), what happens with the font that is used when writing out the team's name on things such as the jerseys, and on their helmets, and the like? For those not sure about what I'm talking about, I'm referring to this:
If the "CBJ" is being retired, it only stands to reason that this way of writing out the name would also be retired ... maybe. I know I'd like to hear about whether or not there'll be a change in the team's font use when writing out the name, just because I really liked what I saw on our new wooden sticks.
But that's it for me. With no games until Wednesday (and then no games I can even watch until Friday), things might be a little quiet. But that also means an opportunity to finally work on my draft post. Hurrah!
There's really only so much I can say about that situation before I go in to the blame game, or start to question who is responsible for this decision. While last night I did say that this was Hitchcock's move, I have to consider the possibility that other powers in the organization might be behind giving Svitov more time.
Remember earlier this year, when Joe Motzko started to receive a lot of praise from Hitch after being called up. It was only a little bit later that Motzko was traded away, along with Mark Hartigan, to the Ducks for Zenon Konopka and Curtis Glencross.
Remember that Svitov is a draft pick ... a high one at that, even if he was picked by another team (Tampa Bay). More is expected of Svitov, and so he might be given more opportunities to shine. I won't discount the possibility that this may all very well be a matter of Hitch's decisions, but I can't help but question whether Doug MacLean had a hand in this. This is all just presumptions and theories, of course ... so don't this all too seriously.
The point is that leading up to the Stars game, that top line was working so well. Why try to fix something that wasn't broken? And more suspicious is the fact that not only was Platt dropped from the top line, but that he was dropped to the fourth line, alongside Jody Shelley. That makes this whole situation even more curious. If he's scoring a goal and getting assists, why do that? Why not put him with some other scorers like Nikolai Zherdev or Fredrik Modin?
Well, there isn't much else to say about that, I guess. I can only hope that there's some method to this madness.
As for the game? I don't know. To tell you the truth, half of my attention was elsewhere, but the other half was on watching the game. And what I saw when it came to the two goals against the Jackets was frustrating. The first goal by Paul Kariya was a direct result of more than one miscue by Fredrik Modin, both in coughing up the puck, then not properly playing the puck in his own zone.
The other goal annoys me more, though. The one that David Legwand got. Legwand was all but left totally unmolested in front of the net. Admittedly, Legwand all but came streaking right in to the zone, and in less than five seconds of flashing across the screen from the neutral zone, he looped around the net, and knocked a rebound in past Fredrik Norrena. But even factoring in Legwand's speed, no one even tried to pick him up. Marc Methot was too busy diving to the ice to block a close shot, and so he never had a prayer when it came to getting up, and doing anything about the rebound.
Other than that, well ... it's already painful enough that the Predators, the hated expansion rivals, have swept the Blue Jackets this year. If anything, you could say that this is the most perfect, most prime example of the gap between the two teams in their development over the years. Where the Predators are threatening for a Stanley Cup, the Blue Jackets are threatening to take over Jack Niclaus' golf course here in Columbus yet again.
A couple of one-timers before I set to work trying to better update the draft post, and then watch tonight's NBC game.
-I was mistaken about FSN Ohio picking up the game against the Blues on March 25th just to be nice and help out. Or rather, they're still doing it to be nice and help out, but contractual obligations require FSN to now drop a game so that they continue to air only 75 games this season. The game they're dropping? This Wednesday's game at Anaheim.
I don't know. I don't really like that decision, to not air an away game, but pick up the home game. Now CBJ fans are stuck having to listen to 1460 The Fan or CD101 if they want to hear anything on the game. And while George Matthews and Bill Davidge are one-of-a-kind when it comes to their coverage of games, it's still not enough for the visual aspect that we'll be missing.
-On Friday, we happened to get some new types of memorabilia sticks in to sell at The Blueline! A month or so ago we'd run out of our other sticks, which were two CBJ sticks and two NHL Draft sticks (wooden, and a goalie stick and forward stick for each type). I'm not trying to advertise them, but I really like these sticks. Why? Because they have the Union Army cap logo on them now. There's also this new font used to write out "Columbus Blue Jackets" on the shaft of each stick, which I find really appealing. Which brings me to my final comment today ...
-With the retiring of the Jackets' "CBJ" logo at the end of this season (and the switch to the third jersey logo), what happens with the font that is used when writing out the team's name on things such as the jerseys, and on their helmets, and the like? For those not sure about what I'm talking about, I'm referring to this:
If the "CBJ" is being retired, it only stands to reason that this way of writing out the name would also be retired ... maybe. I know I'd like to hear about whether or not there'll be a change in the team's font use when writing out the name, just because I really liked what I saw on our new wooden sticks.But that's it for me. With no games until Wednesday (and then no games I can even watch until Friday), things might be a little quiet. But that also means an opportunity to finally work on my draft post. Hurrah!
Labels: Blue Jackets, coaches, post-game, Predators, ranting
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At 3:06 PM,
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At 6:07 PM,
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At 8:18 AM,
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Anon #1: The most specific things I've heard concern things like the possibility of both shoulder patches involving Civil War-esque references. Like maybe two of the current Union cap patches instead of one. But that's just speculation more than anything.
TS & Anon #2: Sadly, I think Doug would force Svitov to get a more prominent role, not just because he's paid more and thus MacLean prefers to see more bang from the one getting more bucks (like TS said), but also because he probably expects more from Svitov overall.
I like Svitov. But he's neither as good as, nor as hot as Platt is (or was) right now. Whoever made the move made a dire mistake.
I don't know about the "Blue Jackets" underneath the current logo, but I believe they're keeping the same font style for the names and numbers on the jerseys for next year. I'm more curious about what the jerseys will look like next year. From what I understand from the Dispatch article that talked about the logo change, MacLean said there would be some modifications to the uniform design too. Also I've read that there will be no 3rd jerseys for any team next year due to Rebook making sure that all the re-designed regular jerseys are ready to go. Possibly 2008 will see the return of 3rd jerseys.