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DEVILS’ JAGR WON’T SEEK DEADLINE TRADE
The Star-Ledger wonders if Jaromir Jagr might be dealt to a contender before the March 5 trade deadline if the Devils are having problems securing a playoff berth.
“I’m not going to ask for a trade if everything stays the same. I’ll fight to the end. I like it here too much,” Jagr told The Star-Ledger. “I would hate to go to some team just to help them. I’d feel like a rented guy.
“They’d use me the way they want to, not because they need me. They’d already be happy with their team. I don’t think I’d play the same way. I need my 18-19 minutes. I need to play a lot in the third period when the game is on the line and guys are getting tired. I hope I stay. Everything can change, but I’ve had fun. I like the system we play. Even though it’s a more defensive system, I don’t mind it at all.”
More Jagr, who will turn 42 in February, via Fire & Ice: “I’ve had a great career, but what I did, it always was done before. Maybe that moment is going to come. It’s not here. Maybe I’m going to do something nobody did before. Maybe at age 42, 43, I might be still effective.”
He added: “I just remember my father’s words when I was young. He said, ‘If you’re going to be like me, you’re going to be the strongest around 40.’ That’s what he always he said. He said he was the strongest between 40 and 50. So, maybe he was right.”
AGENT HOPES CAPITALS TRADE NEUVIRTH
Capitals goaltender Michal Neuvirth’s agent tells CSNWashington.com it’s time for the Capitals to let Neuvirth play somewhere else.
“All Michal wants to do is play,” Stefan said. “He’s 25 years old and he knows he can play. He’s been working hard at practice, but from my side, he’s my client and I ask Washington that if he can’t play there then give him a chance somewhere else. It’s time to move on. He’s been in the stands for a week. Hopefully, something is going to happen sooner or later.”
More Stefan: “My hope is that Michal gets moved,” he said. “I mean, I don’t see anything changing. He’s a third guy, he’s in the stands. Michal is not the type of player who is going to say, ‘I want to be gone.’
“Michal is a professional hockey player who wants to be playing. He’s 25 years old. He wants to play. My job is to make sure it happens. If it’s in Washington, great. But you know what? My opinion is, and what I have seen from the start of the season, is he won’t have a shot there. So give him a shot somewhere else.”
The Washington Post had this quote from Stefan: “My whole goal is that Michal gets moved. It’s come to the point that Michal is not even dressing, he’s in the stands and as a goalie that’s a really tough situation. He’s 25 years old and if given a chance he can be the guy for an NHL team, but he’s got to get a shot and a chance and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be in Washington.”
RUTHERFORD LOOKS TO STOP CANES’ SLIDE
Telling quotes Monday from Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford, via The News & Observer. His team has lost eight of its past nine games.
“We need to change some things and we need to change them quickly,” Rutherford said. “We need to stop the slide and stop it now.”
On the subject of a deal: “We may make a trade to change the mix of the team, but with the (salary) cap system it’s not easy to make trades,” Rutherford said. “It’s not like the day before Christmas where you can run over to Target and pick something off the shelf. You need a trade partner.”
Rutherford said a deal involving a goaltender also remains a possibility, noting the Cane need to return to a two-goalie system.
NHL STARS ADDRESSES OLYMPIC SAFETY CONCERNS
The Washington Post relays that Capitals star right winger Alex Ovechkin expressed his sadness and sympathy to those affected by the recent Russian bombings.
“It’s awful. I don’t know why people doing that kind of stuff. I feel sorry about the families and the people who died in this is tragedy,” Ovechkin said. “When you hear this kind of situation happens to your home you just feel bad. I don’t know how to say it, people just live your life. Why you have to carry a bomb on you, push a button and destroy you and destroy everybody?”
Ovechkin on Sochi Olympic safety concerns: “It’s kind of situation when somebody wants to make [others] afraid of people, do some bad things out there. I don’t think it’s going to happen in Olympics because there’s going to be lots of security out there. I’m sure Russian government is going to do everything that’s possible to protect the people and athletes there.”
A few Olympic members of the Red Wings were also asked their thoughts. Via The Detroit Free Press:
Henrik Zetterberg, who will be on Team Sweden, said, “hopefully they will get squared away before the Games get started. I think the security at every Olympics I’ve been on, the security has been really high, so I think it will be the same way in Sochi.”
Fellow Team Sweden player Johan Franzen said, “bombs are scary, but I’m sure after this their security will be higher. I think they’re going to do everything they can to make it as safe as they can.”
Flyers star Claude Giroux, via The Philadelphia Inquirer: “For the athletes, it’s kind of dangerous, but I’m sure they’ll do a good job of protecting everybody and making sure everybody is having a good time over there.”
SENATORS’ LEHNER DOWNPLAYS OLYMPIC CHANCES
Senators goaltender Robin Lehner, via The Ottawa Citizen, on his chances of being selected to Team Sweden for the Sochi Olympics as one of the two goalies behind Henrik Lundqvist.
“There are a lot of good goalies,” he said. “I don’t think my chances are too good. We’ll see. I haven’t played that much back home in Sweden and don’t know if the coaching staff knows me a lot. I think they know more about the other goalies, Gustavsson, Fasth and Enroth. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”
More Lehner: “Lundqvist, when he’s playing, he’s one of the best in the world — probably the best in the world when he’s going,” said Lehner. “He’s going through a little rough patch right now and they might want some more experienced guys if something doesn’t pan out with him. I think he’s the best goalie in the world.
“He has the first dip of his career, but usually he’s the most consistent goalie in the world.
“It’s been a little (bit of a) tough season for him so far, and I don’t know if the national team will take that into account.
“Enroth kind of locked up his spot by winning the worlds, but that other spot is going to be crucial.”
NOEL: PAVELEC IS JETS’ NO. 1 GOALIE
Despite the recent struggles of Ondrej Pavelec, The Winnipeg Free Press indicates Jets coach Claude Noel stressed Monday afternoon that Pavelec will remain the Jets’ number one.
“You kind of go with what’s going, and it’s just part of the management of it,” Noel said of the decision to start Montoya in Colorado. “I thought Al played a pretty good game. But it doesn’t remove anything from Pavelec. Pavelec is still our number-one goalie… the guy we lean on.”
EAKINS TO YAKUPOV: EARN IT
The Edmonton Sun points out that Oilers winger Nail Yakupov will be benched for the third time this season Tuesday. Head coach Dallas Eakins and the 20-year-old each counted their 45-minute chat as productive.
“We talked about life, about hockey, we had a good chat,” Yakupov said. “It was a happy end. We just chatted me and him, so it was good. We have a deal between me and him, so we’ll see what happens.
“It’s hockey, I’m 20 years old, you have to be strong and keep working, keep practising, keep listening to the coach and get things going.”
Eakins had many complimentary notes about Yakupov. Bottom line though?
“It’s still back to, you have to earn it,” Eakins said. “You have to earn it and you have to do a number of things on the ice every day. Every day, it can never change. We cannot give things to people, you have to earn them. You earn them a whole lot of ways.
“Our veteran guys, they have a bit of an off-game, they’ve already earned the right for a second chance through their experience. That’s the other challenge of being a young guy. You have to take your knocks a lot of the time early on in your career. It’s a lot of different things with Nail. But the biggest thing he’s run into is maybe not so much his play, but it’s the play of others at his position.”
OKPOSO MATURING FOR ISLANDERS
Insightful quotes from the father of New York Islanders star Kyle Okposo, Kome, via Newsday.
He admitted his son has “always a been a slow starter, even in college,” but Kyle’s excellent first half of this season, after spending the second half of last season and the summer on a new workout regimen, comes from a place of newfound self awareness.
“I think he worked hard to change that, mentally,” Kome Okposo said of his son. “It’s maturity. He seems to know his game a little bit better now. And as a father, I have so much pride in watching him play and succeed like this. This is what he really expects of himself.”
Kyle and his wife, Danielle, are expected their first child any day now.
ROY LIKES GETTING UNDER OPPONENT’S SKIN
The Denver Post has reaction from Avalanche coach Patrick Roy concerning Dustin Byfuglien glove-punching Semyon Varlamov following the Jets’ overtime winner Sunday.
“I’m not going to make a big story of this. It was unnecessary. I mean, I don’t think he had to do that. But at the same time it’s positive. In which way? It shows Varly gets under teams’ skin,” Roy said. “The more Varly plays like this, the more you’re going to see an incident like that, which is great in some ways. At the same time, it was classless, there’s no doubt.”
Roy loved when opponents focused on him as a player.
“It happened to me many, many times. I love it. I love it,” Roy said. “It means you’re under their skin. They’re mad at you. You’re a problem to them. Varly is a problem to (opponents) right now. He should be flattered . . . Same thing for a forward. When a forward starts scoring what do you think the coaches do? They send an agitator after him, a glove in the face and try to get you off your game. Varly is playing so well teams are going to try to get in his face a little more.”
HAWKS’ LEDDY SHOOTING MORE OFTEN
The Chicago Sun-Times observes that Blackhawks defenseman Nick Leddy has been noticeably more active offensively this season. The 22-year-old has tried to adopt teammate Duncan Keith’s mentality that any shot attempt could lead to a goal one way or another.
‘‘If you look at the top guys in the league, if you look at [the Ottawa Senators’] Erik Karlsson, he has, like, eight or nine shots a game,’’ Leddy said. ‘‘You wonder how a defenseman does that when I can barely get one or two. But you have to have a shooter’s mentality, and the offense will come if you keep putting pucks on the net — whether it goes in for you or gives someone else a chance.’’
MORROW: I’M JAMIE BENN’S BIGGEST FAN
The Dallas Morning News shares St. Louis Blues forward Brenden Morrow’s emotions upon returning to play in Dallas, where he once the captain of the Stars. Morrow was one of the first to congratulate Jamie Benn when he was named Stars captain this year.
“I’m his biggest fan. I loved him from day one, his attitude and the things he brings to the team,” Morrow said. “I thought it was a no-brainer that he was the guy. I’m sure he’s going to do great things for this organization. He’s already well on his way.”
THEY TWEETED IT