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PERRON PASSING HITCHCOCK’S LESSONS TO OILERS
The Vancouver Province details how valuable winger David Perron has been for the Oilers this season, noting how Blues coach Ken Hitchcock had to hammer the rudiments of the game into a player who wasn’t always willing.
“He’s definitely a coach that I’m going to look back on later in my career,” said Perron. “I find myself telling the guys in our room some of the stuff he was telling me and the team in St. Louis. This is a different team and a different fit for me, but we still have to clean up the mistakes and having a coach like him really helped.
“But Hitch is Hitch. He can say whatever he wants about changing. He’s always going to be the same coach and that’s his biggest strength. That’s why he’s had success and he’s not going to go away from that. I’ve just got to bring what I learned here and bring best effort.”
VERSTEEG MARVELS AT KANE’S TRANSFORMATION
In illustrating the phenomenal campaign Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane has enjoyed, The Chicago Sun-Times reminds readers Kris Versteeg last played with Kane in 2010 before rejoining the Hawks this season. Versteeg is amazed at how far Kane has come.
‘‘I think he’s a bigger goal-scorer because his physical maturity has come a long way,’’ Versteeg said. ‘‘He’s turning into a man; he’s not a little boy anymore. He definitely has always been the best player I’ve ever seen in my life on edges and the way he can get away from guys and get away from checks and create room for himself. Now, when you get older and stronger, that’s just going to create more for him.’’
NISKANEN EMERGING FOR PENGUINS
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review looks at how far Penguins defenseman Matt Niskanen has come.
“It was all about rebuilding his confidence,” said assistant coach Todd Reirden, who oversees the team’s defensemen. “He was an admitted throw-in to a deal that involved James Neal and Alex Goligoski, and he knew it. When you do know something like that, it has to take something out of your confidence, and that was the case for him.”
Is Niskanen a top-four defensemen, given how he has thrived with all of the team’s injuries on the back end?
“I think a very strong case can be made that he is,” Reirden said. “He had something to prove, and he’s done it. Right now, he’s our No. 1 defensemen, and he’s been great.”
KINGS’ RANFORD EXPLAINS GOALTENDING INJURIES
The Edmonton Journal caught up with former Oilers goaltender Bill Ranford, who has been the goalie coach for the Los Angeles Kings for awhile now.
Ranford says butterflying isn’t to blame for the rash of groin injuries, it’s the compressed schedule.
“(It’s) caught up to the goalies,” Ranford said. “The lockout and then this year with the Olympic break. The off-seasons are shorter, the guys haven’t got the rest. Those guys who are hurt played a ton. It’s muscle fatigue, that’s how you pull groins.
“It’s going side to side night after night.”
But the run-up in goalies needing hip surgeries — “That’s the butterflying,” Ranford said. “It’s either ankles, knees or hips that go. We’re seeing fewer ankle injuries (sprains), but the knees and the hips? There’s just too much stress.”
FLYERS’ VORACEK THANKFUL FOR HEALTH
Flyers winger Jake Voracek tells The Philadelphia Inquirer this will be a very special Christmas. It’s the first one since his May 22 car crash in the Czech Republic that wrecked his blue Ferrari, but left him without serious injury.
“I think of it on a day-to-day basis,” Voracek said. “Sometimes I think about it when I’m home and watching TV by myself. I start thinking about how fortunate I was. I get chills over my arms when I think about it and how things could have been different. If I was going slower or faster, it could have been worse. You just don’t know.”
SALARY CAP/ TICKET PRICE RELATIONSHIP
The Buffalo News wonders: How will the rising salary cap and floor impact ticket prices?
“The reported increase in the salary cap for next season alone will not drive our ticket-pricing decisions,” Sabres President Ted Black said. “With the current season not yet half completed, we have not made any decision on ticket pricing for the 2014-15 NHL season.”
The News notes the CBA dictates that clubs that receive revenue sharing must keep pace with the league’s average ticket price.
“With any revenue-sharing club, and I’ll speak specifically to the Sabres, to not jeopardize that you have to keep pace with what the league average growth is in ticket revenue,” Black said. “That’s the benchmark in order to not jeopardize that revenue source.”
BOOK EXPLORES GOALIES’ PSYCHES
Between The Pipes author Randi Druzin shared with The Windsor Star some of her insights from researching her book about goaltenders.
“I expected to find out that they were all crazy, because that’s been the popular notion about goalies for decades,” Druzin said. “I found out some of them are slightly eccentric, but there’s so much more to the goalies. The eccentricity isn’t across the board, but the one thing that is across the board is this incredible ability to focus and a supreme confidence.
“Every single goalie that I spoke to and learned about had this incredible confidence that I hadn’t seen in other players to the same extent.”
ASHAM READY WHEN RETIREMENT ARRIVES
New York Rangers winger Arron Asham shared with The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review his perspective on retirement. This is his 15th NHL season and he does not expect a 16th.
“I took somebody’s job when I came in,” he said. “Somebody is going to take mine.”
The end is near.
“I am looking forward to it,” he said, smiling.
More Asham: “It’s true when you hear guys like me say the players are bigger and stronger than ever. There are always going to be hits. Guys are always going to get hurt, but I think there are some liberties being taken that maybe weren’t when I started.
“It’s a different game now in some ways, but I broke in a long time ago. Everything has to change.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m enjoying every minute that I’m up with the big club because it could always be my last game,” Asham said. “When it is, I’ll be ready. I have things to look forward to after I’m done playing.”
BRODEUR ADMIRES GELINAS’ GAME
Fire & Ice points out New Jersey Devils rookie rearguard Eric Gelinas’ powerful point shot has added a weapon to the Devils’ arsenal that goaltender Martin Brodeur can’t remember the team having in is 20 seasons with the team.
“As of late, he’s definitely one of the guys that just brings a different dimension that I don’t remember having that on our team,” Brodeur said. “Just the way he jumps into the play all the time and he’s always lurking and has a good stride and he’s always involved and skating all the time and his shot, it’s just going to help us more and more. When teams will start to understand how hard he shoots it, it’s going to open up so many other things for us. It’s going to give other players space. Like when play (Alex) Ovechkin, we try to keep him away, but it opens up other areas of the ice.”
HORACEK HAS PANTHERS FOCUS ON POSITIVES
The Miami Herald indicates Peter Horachek has been accentuating the positives during his time as the new head coach of the Florida Panthers, and the team has responded well.
“I don’t really talk about what they did or what they didn’t do, I just talked about what we have to do and what we are going to do and the way we have to play. It’s important not to talk about the negative. The negativity was all over [the place]. They felt it with every move. You have to get by it and get into a position where you feel confident and you feel everybody trusts each other,” he said.
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