Ryan Miller seems to be the beneficiary of Sidney Crosby’s media shyness.
Crosby’s agent has now said Crosby didn’t do Letterman after the Olympics because his schedule was too tight.
I’m not sure if Team Crosby turned down any other high-profile gigs, but it’s hard not to notice Miller is now everywhere and Crosby isn’t.
Miller did the [...]

The Blues firing coach Andy Murray was interesting in that many people are saying Murray’s big issue was being too old to relate to his players.
Murray is 58. He was replaced by Davis Payne, 39.
Jeff Gordon said a bigger issue was Murray’s reluctance to develop the team’s young core, perhaps a side-effect of Murray’s age.
I [...]

David Pollak had an interesting take on the Sharks’ recent troubles, via coach Todd McLellan: The team simply wasn’t playing frequently enough to establish a rhythm.
The Sharks have won their last two, with a victory over Anaheim Thursday and a win over Dallas last night. Since there were quite a few days between the games, [...]

Last night was kind of interesting. There were 10 games played, with four shutouts.
Goalies Steve Mason (CBJ), Ryan Miller (BUF), Ty Conklin (backup; STL), and Nik Backstrom (MIN) each kept the red light off behind them.
So is this a sign defense is back in the NHL? Is the NHL reverting to its pre-lockout lockdown defensive [...]

It’s hard to know what to say about the Blues and their 20 points in 21 games.
On the one hand, you could say they’re a team that’s struggling. On the other hand, they also struggled last season and then made a miracle push into the playoffs. So maybe this is just a team that just [...]

Tim Panaccio took a quick look back at Brett Hull’s career.
That amazing wrist shot from the circle? It was actually his dad, Bobby Hull’s, idea. Which is shocking, since Bobby Hull is synonymous with the slapshot. But the elder Hull said the quicker NHL game required a quicker shot.
It’s funny how we’ve come full circle. [...]

What a crazy season.
Jeff Gordon says he’s already hearing trade chatter from certain NHL GMs, with many already thinking about giving up their season and trying to dump salary.
What separates NHL GMs from most other sports, is that NHL GMs only seem to think about salary implications after a contract is signed.
Vinny Lecavalier, under [...]

After the lockout, everyone talked about the new NHL, and how a premium would be placed on offense.
In the new NHL, we were told speed and talent would matter. Players would be free to actually play, and wouldn’t spend entire periods with sticks embedded in their abdomens.
It seems that crazy-sounding idea continues to blossom.
We’re [...]

The Long Island Press is reporting Charles Wang, owner of the Isles, has walked away from the Lighthouse project, apparently feeling it would never get done.
The project would have resulted in a new arena for the Isles.
One interesting, if completely unconfirmed, wrinkle is Sam Fischler’s assertion during last night’s Rangers game that the Islanders don’t [...]

The start of the season is tough, because you always want to make grand statements about teams when you’re really just working off of a small data set.
Watching last night’s Rangers-Devils, on Versus (I’m one of the 50 people left with Versus), I was very impressed by the Devils. They didn’t look like a typical [...]