The Associated Press reports that aging Swedish stud Peter Forsberg has ruled out a return to the NHL this season.
Forsberg told Sweden's national broadcaster SVT on Friday that if he's able to play at all, it will be for his hometown club Modo in the Swedish league.
"There won't be any NHL this season, that's totally clear," Forsberg said. "If I can play it will be in the (Swedish) Elite Series and Modo."
That's an unfortunate break for poolies hoping to use him down the stretch, but given his past foot issues it's not exactly a total shock.
It's interesting how he phrased that though.
"There won't be any NHL this season."
When the "Forsberg return" rumours started a few months back, it seemed as if it was going to be this season or he was totally done any NHL comeback attempts.
Now?
I guess we'll see. But the door may be open for next season, so at least keep it in the back of your mind.
JSG SAYS IT'S MENTAL
If you've got Jean-Sebastien Giguere in your pool, you're all too familiar with his struggles this season.
His 12-12-4 record is one thing, but he's lugging around that horrible 3.08 GAA and .904 SV%. He did show some signs of life in November and December, but his first and fourth months have been heavy anchors that have killed his overall peripherals.
The Orange County Register notes that JSG has been putting in work with longtime coach Francois Allaire, but he said technique has little or nothing to do with it.
"At this point I just think the whole thing is mental - not getting down when you give up a goal, not being nervous when you give up a goal," he said.
"It becomes a mental game after a while. It just wears on you ... it makes it hard to come to practice and hard to come to the game."
Gee, that sounds promising for poolies for the rest of this season.
Don't give up if you've got him though. He hasn't.
"It's a challenge thrown at you and you have to find an answer," he said. "It might be tomorrow, it might the next day. It might be next week. I don't know. But it's got to be soon. Obviously the team needs me and obviously I want to be successful. I want to get some wins and play some games."
In the meantime, Jonas Hiller has a fairly similar 12-10-1 mark but with much steadier 2.15/ .926 splits. He also just got back-to-back starts this week, which is something that hadn't happened for either Ducks goalie this season until then.
GONCHAR CLOSER THAN THOUGHT?
There was an interesting note buried in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article today on Miroslav Satan's brutal goal-scoring pace and it dealt with injured blueliner Sergei Gonchar, whom poolies are hoping can get back into action quickly.
He still hasn't been cleared for contact, but there is what's being called "an undercurrent of optimism" that he could return in two to three weeks rather than early March.
He may not be able to log huge minutes right off the bat, but all he needs to do is work some of that Gonchar magic on the power play to make an immediate impact for poolies.
SULLY HELPS PP
The Tennessean reports that in the six games that Nashville forward Steve Sullivan has played, the power play has scored seven goals in 28 attempts. That's a 25 percent success rate, a significant jump from the 13-percent range that the man-advantage unit has inhabited most of the season.
Sullivan has only recorded assists on two of the seven power-play goals, but he was on the ice for two more of the scores and is being credited with injecting a little more unpredictability in the extra-man attack.
"Our power play has confidence that when something gets taken away, he has the ability to think outside the box,'' Coach Barry Trotz said. "He understands where people are and sort of freelances a little bit. Our power play has gone from being more static to a little more freelance concept, just by having him there.''
The downside to Sullivan's totals so far is the -5 rating he's accumulated after only six starts.
Still, keep in mind that over his career with Nashville before this recent comeback he had racked up 158 points in 150 GP. Of those 158 points, 73 came with the man advantage. The guy knows how to get things done when the other team is down a man, which is actually a lot harder to do than it sounds.
Just ask the Rangers.
Few free agents in your league will be able to provide his level of offensive punch on the whole, especially if assists and power play assists are a category in which you could use a boost.
After getting his legs back for the first few games, he's back up in the 16-18 minute range per night in ice time and he'll get as many PP minutes as he can handle.
BRODEUR ON TARGET
The Star-Ledger reports that Devils GM Lou Lamoriello will not discuss the progress being made by goalie Martin Brodeur, who is recovering from surgery to repair a torn tendon in his left elbow.
That said, Brodeur is skating in pads and facing light shots from the team's strength and conditioning coach and according to the article Brodeur appears to be on target to return in late February.
How quickly he can become Brodeur-like and how well Scott Clemmensen is playing at the time will likely determine how many starts the legend gets off the bat. I read an article in one of the Jersey papers this week where coach Brent Sutter basically said he'd cross that bridge when he got to it.
The team will have to combine the need to win as many games at that time as possible while also getting Brodeur ready for what the Devils hope will be a long playoff run. Due respect to what Clemmensen has done so far, but it's got to be Brodeur between the pipes down the stretch and into the post-season.
VOKOUN REGAINS FORM
In today's South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Panthers coach Pete DeBoer's acknowledged Tomas Vokoun has asserted himself as the top guy between the pipes again. Vokoun started for the eighth time in nine games Thursday against the Canadiens.
"He's been good the second half. I thought last game he was our best player," DeBoer said after the morning skate. "And the reality of races like this is your best players have to be your best players.
"We know [Craig Anderson] is there and if we throw him in, he's capable of going on a six-, seven-, eight-game run, but Tomas is getting in a little bit of a zone where he's feeling comfortable. And we haven't overused him the first half of the year. ... We're going to keep going with him."
In January Vokoun is sporting a 6-1-2 mark with 2.05/ .930 splits. He finished December with a 3-2-1 record and 2.45/ .925 peripherals too after enduring some ugliness in the first few months.
All in all, he's got a 2.60 GAA and .919 SV% on the season, which is actually fairly similar to what he ended up with in his first campaign with the Panthers in '07-8 (2.68/ .919).
