AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > February > 15
Friday, February 15, 2008
Hossa hasn’t ruled out summer return
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Naturally there was a crowd around Marian Hossa here in New Jersey after the morning skate. Watching the crowd, somebody mentioned aloud how well Hossa is handling this situation, and the constant questions in each city and I agree. And today there was a nice little scrum surrounding him. He was asked to respond to the “slim” comment from today’s AJC. And he reiterated that feeling, although this time he made the point of saying, “I never said I can’t return this summer, I like it here.”
Interesting stuff, and this is such a huge decision for the Thrashers. If you talk to five different people around the arena, you get five different opinions on what the Thrashers should do. Everything from, they should trade all their UFAs with trade value for the best prospects and draft picks to keeping Hossa and letting him walk. I’m starting to think the riskiest play is keeping Hossa because if you keep him and this team still doesn’t make the playoffs, wow, that would be rough. I think this will be debated until something is done. And rightly so.
Blues raising tickets too: One of the most interesting items from the notes network that relates to what is going on here comes from St. Louis. Jeremy Rutherford is reporting that the Blues will be raising prices 3.5 percent on average for tickets. Apparently owner Dave Checketts tried to raise prices in 2006, but the backlash was so high, he had a change of heart and ended up lowering ticket prices eight percent.
But he’s trying it again.
“This is something that we’ve thought through carefully … certainly much more carefully than our first round (of increases),” Checketts told Rutherford. “We thought long and hard about this. This takes us a step in the right direction without really hurting people, I think.”
I think the fact that the Blues made a nice splash in free agency last year, adding Keith Tkachuk and Paul Kariya, helps his cause a little more this time around.
Prospal goes off - I’d heard about this from a couple other writers, but I hadn’t heard the follow-up from Torts. On Tuesday against the Canadiens, Vinny Prospal scored two goals and then went off on during a post-game interview on the local TV feed that was also piped onto the scoreboard at the St. Pete Times Forum. In the interview, Prospal calls the game one of his career highlights because he felt like he stuck it up someone’s backside. That someone being Torts, who moved Prospal off the top line with Vinnie Lecavalier and Marty St. Louis. Here’s what Tortella had to say about it afterwards.
“”We’ve had enough distractions,” Torts said to the St. Pete Times. “I pick up the paper (Wednesday), did the Tampa Bay Lightning play? It’s a team sport and I’m pretty happy with how our team played as a team. Team, that’s the operative word.”
Great stuff. I now expect Bob Van Dillon to get players to rip Thrashers coaches during his intermission interviews on the scoreboard at games.
Morning skate report: Everybody was out there except Mark Recchi, who skated yesterday during an optional practice. Like I mentioned yesterday, Johan Hedberg will start in goal and I don’t anticipate any other changes.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
