Here are your Morning Puck Headlines: A glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• Sean Avery entered the penalty box twice for the New York Rangers last night at the Carolina Hurricanes, and Canes fans obviously came prepared. Did they have one for a five-minute major ready? [5-Hole]
• As expected, fighting has emerged as a very hot topic in the GM meetings down in Florida. Bruce Dowbiggin of the Calgary Herald has a really solid piece that focuses on former journeyman pugilist Brantt Myhres, who gives one of those great "darker side of hockey fighting" interviews. From the piece: "(I would) put a whole bunch of Vaseline on my face, and as I was doing that looking at myself in the mirror putting Vaseline on, I'd say 'What the hell am I doing with my life right now?' And then it was time to shut out. I'd usually try to get (the fight) over with my first shift so I could breathe normally the rest of the game." [Calgary Herald]
• The Detroit Red Wings aren't a fighting team per se, but support fighting in the NHL. Fights after clean hits? Not so much. [Windsor Star, via Snapshots]
• Good interview with Scotty Bowman about fighting and other issues. From Scotty: "It's hard to stamp [fighting] out but they can curtail the helmets coming off and stop the stage fighting; the fights that start three or four seconds after the puck is dropped." [Examiner]
• Mike Heika looks the etiquette and honor in fighting, along with the potential injuries. Like when Steve Ott's finger popped so loudly that the guy he was fighting heard it and asked if he was OK. [Dallas Morning News]
• Damien Cox reports that the NHL could have a rule proposed "possibly making it mandatory for helmets to be kept on during fights" before the meetings are out. So no "ban," which is right. As we've said before, there's a difference between the generational filtering of fighting out of the sport, and the NHL attempting to "ban" it. Let the Game decide whether it needs fighting. [Toronto Star]
• New Jersey Devils Coach Brent Sutter sounds like a man who won't be the New Jersey Devils' coach next season. [National Post]
• Pension Plan Puppets has some ridiculously thorough coverage of the Jason Spezza illegal stick situation from last night's Leafs game, making some compelling arguments for player accountability. [PPP]
• We're starting to understand why the Canadian media has such a fit about attendance in non-traditional U.S. markets. The Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs stink slightly worse than the economy. They drew 18,898 fans last night, which is impressive but short of a sellout (19,153 capacity, 20,500 standing room). Drawing nearly 19,000 fans on a Monday night is important enough news to warrant placement in a story before the goal-scorers in the Sens' victory. OK. [Sun Media]
• Gary Roberts rides off into the sunset officially. [Lightning]
• Scott Nichol is scheduled to make his return to the Nashville Predators after a 38-game absence. Awesome. [Tennessean]
• Great analysis piece by Tarik El-Bashir that looks at the Washington Capitals' secondary scoring, or lack there of. [Washington Post]
• The upside: Hilary Duff gets to watch her man play for the Ottawa Senators. The downside: Getting leered at by Frank Mahovlich's dirty uncle. [Sens Town]
• Litter Box Cats looks at the scary prospect of the Miami Herald dropping, or lessening, its hockey coverage. But it also mentions something interesting: The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which dropped the Florida Panthers beat earlier this year, appears to be back on it in some capacity. Which once again proves that hockey-ignorant newspaper editors only understand to things: attendance and success. [Litter Box Cats]
• No Petr Sykora for the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight. [Penguins]
• Rev up the bandwagon for the Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup journey. [Sun Media]
• Finally, our photos of Washington Capitals fans celebrating Sidney Crosby's visit to their fair city ended up featured on ESPN's "Rome Is Burning" yesterday (they asked), as Rome spoke about the Crosby/Alexander Ovechkin rivalry:
