10/5 Quick Hits
FSN Detroit Season Preview
If you missed FSN Detroit’s half hour season preview show on Sunday, you can catch it on Monday (11:30am & 7pm) or Tuesday (7pm).
Zetterberg’s play keeps improving
This Thursday, Henrik Zetterberg will celebrate his 28th birthday and a certain banner ceremony before the Wings’ season opener against Toronto. Zetterberg finished the playoffs with 13 goals and 14 assists earning him the Conn Smythe trophy. In a contract year, Hank hopes to keep improving his play and teammates don’t see him slowing down any time soon.
“Just look back to what he did last year,” Niklas Kronwall said. “I don’t think there’s a limit to what he can achieve, what he can do. If you look at his work ethic day in and day out, it doesn’t matter if it’s on the ice, off the ice, in the gym, he’s always doing it 100%. He’s so good both ways — I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him score 50 goals.”
Even more encouraging is Zetterberg’s comment in the same article hinting that he’d like to stay in Detroit. It just seems to be a matter of agreeing on a fair price that can keep the Wings under the salary cap.
“I really enjoy it here, and it’s become a home for me,” Zetterberg said. “I can’t really see a better place to play hockey, so hopefully we can figure something out that can work for both of us.”
Datsyuk returns, Hossa out
Pavel Datsyuk returned from a groin injury to play in tonight’s 3-0 win over Buffalo, but linemate Marian Hossa was out with a sore groin himself. The injury came in Saturday’s game and while he doesn’t believe the injury to be serious, it did prevent him from playing in the third period and then caused him to miss the last exhibition game. It is unknown if he’ll be up to playing on Thursday.
4 players cut from Wings roster
The Wings have cut four players from their roster in an effort to trim the team down to the 23-man roster limit by Wedneday’s deadline. There will be more to come later this week. For now, we know that Justin Abdelkader, Cory Emmerton, Jan Mursak, and Mattias Ritola will play in Grand Rapids this season. Ritola was the only one of the four to have played pro all of last season so this next year will be a great chance for the other three to get used to the crazy AHL schedule and travel.
Wolverines win both exhibition games
Michigan’s hockey team won both of their exhibition games this weekend in a 4-1 win over the U.S. NTDP U-18 team and a 3-1 victory over Waterloo. The Wolverines open their season at home against St. Lawrence next weekend and will start off with No. 2 overall and No. 1 CCHA preseason rankings. BTJ readers may see a few more UM hockey-related posts/comments as I am interning in the UM athletic media relations department right now, particularly with the hockey team.
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One Response to “10/5 Quick Hits”
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October 7th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Guess I’ll be waving at you from the other side of Yost.