Updates on Previous Posts

 

Mike Milbury out at NBC Sports…

 Back in August, I posted an article about Mike Milbury and how “he needs to go” after his controversial comments about women (read article here). On January 11, NBC Sports announced Milbury will not be returning for the 2021 NHL season. NBC Sports also announced Mike Babcock will be joining the broadcast team. I don’t think that was a smart move by NBC.

The reason why I say that is that Mike Babcock has been known to be verbally abusive towards players during his tenure with the Detroit Red Wings. Both Chris Chelios and Brendan Shanahan have stated how Babcock had been verbally abusive towards players—with Chelios giving an example of an incident involving Babcock and Johan Franzen during a game and Franzen ended up confirming the incident did take place in a response to CBC (read full article here.) What was NBC thinking when they decided to bring Babcock on? Did they not learn anything after the backlash of Milbury’s derogatory comments about women (among other comments about two NHL players)? Apparently not. I’m not a fan of Babcock as a coach. How long is it going to be before Babcock makes similar remarks to the ones that got Milbury in trouble and what NBC is going to do? Only time will tell on that one…

And no, I’m not impressed with Mike Babcock on NHL on NBC either.  I would rather watch Pierre McGuire than Mike Babcock at this point…

Then, on January 22, NBC Sports announced that its NBCSN cable channel will be shutting down at the end of 2021 and their sports programming is going to be moved to USA Network and to NBC’s Peacock streaming service. That will make things interesting since the NHL’s current TV deal with NBC in the United States ends at the end of the 2021-2022 season…

The Goaltending situation with the Wild…

The Wild’s season opened on January 14^th and as expected, Cam Talbot is the Wild’s starting goalie with Kaapo Kahkonen and the #2 goalie. With Alex Stalock now out indefinitely, we’re going to see Kahkonen get starts for the Wild due to the condensed 56 game schedule. So far, he’s 3-3-0 with a 2.86 GAA and .903 SV%. Are we going to see Stalock at all this season? At this point, who knows. There is no indication on how long he is going to be out for (article on situation with Stalock is here) or even what his injury is.

So, for the time being, the Wild are going with the tandem of Talbot and Kahkonen…and I’m perfectly okay with that.

Marco Rossi may NOT be in a Wild Uniform this season…

 After Austria’s dismal performance in the World Juniors tournament in Edmonton, Marco Rossi looked all set to join the Minnesota Wild, the team that drafted him with the 9^th overall pick. (My post introducing him is here).

Well, Wild fans are going to have to wait longer to see Rossi in a Wild uniform. Wild fans waited for FIVE years before Kirill Kaprizov joined the team, so we’re used to waiting.

Shortly after joining the Wild in Saint Paul, Rossi was put on injured reserve with an “upper body injury.” Granted, we all know Austria had a dismal performance in the World Juniors, and before that, he only appeared in one game with the ZSC Lions in Switzerland before a league-wide outbreak happened. On January 29, it was announced that Rossi was heading home to Austria for six weeks. I certainly was stratching my head, thinking what exactly is going on. Then the Wild announced the next day that his “upper body injury” was actually complications from having COVID-19 back in November.

Say what? Let me get this straight—Rossi had COVID back in November. He was then cleared by Zurich and then Team Austria to play in the World Juniors in December? That doesn’t seem right and a couple of weeks ago it now comes out he’s had complications? So, why the rush to get him to play? I know he was probably the biggest name on Team Austria and that the World Juniors would have given North American hockey fans a good look at him. Seriously, couldn’t this kid get some time off to rest and recover?

Rossi is supposed to return to Saint Paul some time in March. All I have to say is let this kid get some rest and time off to fully recover. There is NO rush to get him in a Wild uniform in this condensed season

Sources:

Hockey Wilderness: https://www.hockeywilderness.com/2021/1/29/22256584/minnesota-wild-marco-rossi-injury-austria-center-covid-19

Mikko Koivu unexpectedly retires…

 

Yesterday brought the news that Mikko Koivu decided to hang up the skates and call it a career after 16 seasons in the NHL. He spent almost all of his career with the Minnesota Wild and had spent part of this current season with Columbus.

 Am I surprised he retired yesterday? I actually thought he would have retired after Wild GM announced he was moving on from the first full-time captain in Wild history (the link to my article about Koivu's time being done here with the Wild is here.) He surprised a lot of people by signing a one year deal to play in Columbus. At the same time, I’m not surprised he retired after giving it the old “college try” to play at least one more season. He’s not getting any younger (he turns 38 in March) and he’s also two years off of a knee injury in which he needed surgery to repair a torn ACL and meniscus--which I think he appeared to be slower on the ice after coming back. 

So, Koivu’s decision to retire yesterday came completely out of the blue and the announcement came on an off day for the Blue Jackets. Andrew Steele-Davis of Fansided stated this about Koivu’s decision to retire:

 “It was a huge shock to many in the National Hockey League and the decision appeared to completely come out of the blue, with Koivu stating that he wasn’t happy with his level of play this season and, as a result, decided that it would be in the best interests of all concerned to hang up the skates…He played the game of hockey the right way, he never took a shift off, he was a fierce competitor in all three zones, he was a model professional, a perfect role model for his younger peers and there is no doubt that, when all is said and done, Mikko Koivu’s famous No. 9 jersey will be the first jersey to be hung from the rafters at the Xcel Energy Center.”

Aaron Portzline (who covers the Blue Jackets for The Athletic) stated that Koivu had spent the last couple of weeks becoming frustrated with his own play and after watching Monday’s Blue Jackets’ win over Carolina as a healthy scratch, he realized it was time to retire.

After 1,035 career games (all but 7 of them in a Minnesota Wild Sweater), Koivu hangs the skates up...and he left it all out on the ice. 

From the NHL on Mikko Koivu's retirement (@nhl on twitter)

Sources:

Andrew Steele-Davis https://puckprose.com/2021/02/09/columbus-blue-jackets-mikko-koivu-walks-off-sunset/?utm_campaign=FanSided+Daily&utm_source=FanSided+Daily&utm_medium=email

Aaron Portzline https://theathletic.com/2378453/2021/02/09/mikko-koivu-blue-jackets-retirement-wild/?source=dailyemail