Ooo, Scary Trojan Man ...

So there is the new Senators logo. I am unimpressed. Perhaps they are trying to cash in on the dvd release of the 300?? I don't know. All I do know is that the Senator isn't all that intimidating, which I think is the intended effect of having him stare straight out of the logo. Ah well, that franchise is going downhill anyways.


Personally I think their original jerseys looked best, as modelled by one of my favourite goalies of all time - Peter Sidorkiewicz. Picture courtesy of Sports E-cyclopedia's great Sens page. Sidorkiewicz was an NHL All Star and looked well despite being quite beleaguered in both Ottawa (and Hartford before that) and is thus remembered as a Legend of Hockey. For those wondering, he is now coaching in the OHL with the Erie Otters.

And I don't want to look to happy with glee, as the Rangers may very well trade for him at the deadline, but Mike Peca signed with Ken Hitchcock in Columbus. My feelings about Peca are well-known (or just read older posts on this site), but personally I think Hitch is a good coach. Unfortunately for him, I think it will take a lot more than a third line center to get that team to the playoffs. Good luck tho. As they are in the Central, they are not our problem this year. Gotta love the NHL scheduling.

A Coupla Notes This Monday Night

Since I won't watch preseason Monday Night Football on ESPN, I instead watched the Rangers Fan Favs game on MSG - the Leafs game early in the season where we continually blow leads and have to come through in a shootout.

None other than Mike Peca made some good defensive plays that led to Toronto goals in the game and I still think that the talk of the Rangers signing him this summer would be foolish. We signed an aging defensive forward who won faceoffs, his name was Brian Skrudland and it was in 1997 (and amazingly I can't even find a picture of him in a Rangers jersey so, as you can see, I used the second best thing - him beating on Lindros, lol).

Skrudland got a three year, $5 million contract and went on to play 59 games and put up 11 points on a horrid squad that wasted a 90 point season by Gretz - in the second to last tour of his career. That same season Marc Savard only saw action in 28 games and had six points. Once he left the Rangers and started seeing top ice time, he turned into one of the top playmakers in the league. He had 96 points for Boston last year ... Boston!


Skrudland was exentually dealt to Dallas in a package and we got Todd 'Heartbeat' Harvey, who was great for what he was, but the Rangers limited his ice time because he was ... young. The next season, 1998-99, John MacLean got a ton of ice time while Harvey didn't and Mac had 55 points in 82 games while Harvey had 28 points (and 72 pim) in 37 games. If youth had been served, who knows how Gretzky's last season would have ended????

To limit a young talent at the expense of an aging veteran is a fantastic blunder. Great teams need young legs to get through long seasons and let's face it, their youthful ignorance helps because they don't realize the implications of what is going on. This has been proven time and time again in NHL history, and last year was no different when the Ducks run to the Cup was powered by Ryan Getzlaf, Dustin Penner and Corey Perry. To think that a pair of old legs like Peca's will bring Lord Stanley to New York is foolish and would be a big mistake. And that's all I have to say about that, because I want to stand next to the Cup again, and I want it to be in the Garden next time!

Isles Replace Hill, I'm Still Not Impressed

So with their druggie, I mean, gritty defensive leader gone to Minnesota (who, by the way, is still full of shit), the Islanders signed lumbering defenseman Andy Sutton.

Sutton is 6'6 and blocks a ton of shots. One can hope that by doing so he will throw off DP or deflect a few past the pain-in-the-ass whiner. But Sutton is also the slow-of-foot joke that the Rangers went around and through on their way to sweeping the Thrashers last year. Sutton isn't particularly tough, he got into one fight last year and that was against Olli Jokinen of all people.

Now from new Isles to old ones - Mike Peca. There are a ton of rumours that the Rangers may be interested in him to be the third line center. This would be a HUGE mistake for many reasons: He hasn't been good since he was on Buffalo. He is slow. He is old. He has had several injuries and doesn't play as fearless as he once did. Oh, and he is a rude scumbag (I interviewed him once, I experienced it firsthand). The Rangers need to let Dubi, Anisimov and Brodie Dupont fight it out in training camp. We should let the kids give it a shot rather than waste money on a geezer like Peca-head. We already learned the lesson that great teams are built, not bought.