Tuesday, December 16, 2008

flames v. blues: the return of lundmark

i'm not gonna lie: i was entirely skeptical about sutter's mental capacities when he re-signed jamie lundmark during the offseason, but the former bigleaguer-come-veteran-AHLer has done a helluva job. leading the qc flames in the points race (7-23-30), lundmark has been a team leader allaround. let's not forget how strong he looked in pre-season action....

tonight he'll get back to the ice for the big club, with the loss of curtis glencross (sniff), who's out with some mysterious 'lower body' injury that presented itself following the well-fought game against the panthers on friday [note: glenX's parents braved the cold and snow and made their way from provost to sit two rows behind me at the dome]....

i have no idea how the lines will work tonight, but i would imagine something like this:

cammalleri-conroy(*ugh)-iginla
bourque-lombardi-boyd
bertuzzi-langkow-moss
nystrom-lundmark-roy

i would say, interchangeably, lombo/boyd/lundmark, and i would not be surprised to see conroy demoted to the fourth line by the end of the game in lieu of any of the three aforementioned centremen.

my bootuzzi +/- prediction is: -1 on the night, which is generous on my part. bertuzzi had a meeting in toronto yesterday on the steve moore incident, and is said to have come face to face with moore for the first time since that fateful matchup in 2004. already emotionless on the ice, for the mostpart, i would imagine him to be even more scattered and sloppy tonight. if he does go -1, it will bring him to a -16 on the season and into a tie with the ranger's dmitri kalinin for second worst in the league. only rod brind'amour (-21) is worse...

too bad, with primeau (foot), prust (jaw), and vandermeer (ankle) already out, keenan doesn't really have the luxury to bench bertuzzi for much --if any-- of the game.

i'm still hoping for a win. we sure could use one....

:)

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