Wishes are typically thought of in terms of acquiring wealth, prolonging health, finding love, or bringing about a similarly positive outcome in one’s life. However, when asked what he wanted on the heels of his knockout win over Chris Leben at UFC 125, Brian Stann responded by expressing his desire to face a MMA legend [...]
Five Ounces of Pain
The Bears have won five straight and Brian Urlacher is very passionate about his team’s play. Here is what he had to say the other day about the Bears:
“Remember, we have them at home … the same like Philly,” Urlacher told Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune. “When we played Philly, everybody was saying they were the best, right? It’s the same situation, and hopefully the same result.
“New England is the best team in the NFL, record-wise. But I feel like we’re the best team, period. That’s why I say record-wise. They have the best quarterback, numbers-wise. And everybody likes to go by numbers, right?”
“Right now, (Brady) is playing better than anybody,” Urlacher said. “There’s no doubt about that. Comparing with Peyton Manning, they’re just different. Well, maybe they’re not different because both run their offenses. Whatever they want to do, they do it. But Brady’s doing it better right now.
“He doesn’t make any mistakes with the football. You’re not going to trick him. You just better stick to your roles.”
all quotes from nationalfootballpost.com
Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren told reporters on a conference call yesterday that he expects to carry three goalies for “the short term” when Michael Leighton is ready to be activated from long term injured reserve.
Leighton will return to the Adirondack Phantoms for two more games this coming weekend after the Flyers were granted an extension for his conditioning assignment by Gary Bettman’s office. Of course, you read more on that here.
To make a long story short, the Flyers are going to be forced to make a roster move in order to squeeze Leighton onto the roster while complying with the league’s salary cap. As it stands right now, the Flyers have no cap space according to CapGeek.com.
Rather than continuing to speculate what potential moves Philadelphia will make when the conditioning loans expires this weekend, let’s move towards the future and look at the battle for the backup for when the orange and black carry three goaltenders “for the short term.”
What exactly does that mean? Essentially, it’s saying there will be a goalie move at some point in the near future. Whether it’s next week or a month from now, Holmgren will move either Brian Boucher or Leighton to solve his problem of an overcrowded crease.
For those wondering what happens to Sergei Bobrovsky when Leighton returns, here’s your answer: nothing. Holmgren only confirmed that when he said during his conference call that “Sergei seized the opportunity, and we certainly have no intention of sending Sergei down.”
The 22-year-old Russian rookie got a chance at the starting job when Leighton went down to injury, and ran away with it. He has a .925 save percentage, a 2.21 goals against average, and leads all rookies with 14 wins, which is also third among all goalies.
And that brings us back to who should serve as Bob’s backup, Boucher or Leighton?
Let’s take a look at what Boucher brings to the table. At 33-years-old, Boosh is a veteran who has been in the backup role in the past, and has excelled at it. In San Jose, Boucher played a huge role for the Sharks when Evgeni Nabokov suffered an injury.
In Nabokov’s absence, the Woonsocket, RI native had a .917 save percentage and a 2.18 goals against average with a 12-6-3 record along with two shutouts. After that season, he signed with the Flyers to act as the backup.
Last year, Boucher played in quite his fair share of games due to injuries to Ray Emery and Leighton. In 33 games, Boosh was 9-18-3 with a 2.76 GAA and a .899 SV%. He had a miserable start to the season, but he caught fire down the stretch when the Flyers needed him most.
When Leighton suffered a high ankle sprain that kept him from playing the final month of the regular season, Boucher took over as the guy. In doing so, he led the Flyers to clinching a playoff berth in a shootout in their final game against the New York Rangers
Then in the playoffs, Boucher carried the orange and black to a first round win against the Devils until he suffered an injury of his own in Game 5 against the Boston Bruins in which Leighton, who was dressed for his first game since his injury, came in and took the job over.
Coming into training camp, Boucher was going to be the backup to Leighton, however that changed when it was announced that Leighton had a herniated disc in his back. Since then, Boosh stayed in the backup role, and done so a great job.
He’s 3-3-2 with a 2.57 GAA and a .901 SV% in eight games this season.
On the other hand, Leighton is the guy who earned the starting spot with his play in the regular season and the playoffs. He signed a two-year contract to be the team’s starter, and goalie coach Jeff Reese was looking forward to working with him.
After years of moving around the NHL, Leighton seemed to find a home when the Flyers claimed him off waivers from Carolina. At 29-years-old, the 6’3′, 186-pound netminder played extremely well for Philadelphia.
In 27 regular season games, Leighton was 16-5-2 with a 2.48 GAA and a .918 SV%.
Professional sports is an unfair business, and players lose starting spots to injuries all the time. Heck, look at how Leighton was acquired; an injury to Emery, Holmgren was desperate to add a goalie so he took a flier on a goalie his team scored six goals on before being waived.
For several reasons, it makes total sense for Philadelphia to keep Boucher over Leighton as the backup, and trading/waiving Leighton.
First thing’s first, Boucher makes $ 625,000 less than Leighton. Money factors into every roster decision, and the Flyers currently have no cap space. Financially, it’s for the best to keep Boosh over Leights.
If I’m doing the calculations right, if the Flyers want to keep Leighton over Boucher, they would have to move another player to boot to stay under the cap. That means losing two players for one. Doesn’t compute in the common sense department.
Next, Leighton is a confidence goalie. When he’s a confident player, he’s good, but when he’s not, he’s equally as bad. You don’t gain confidence sitting on the bench for a significant amount of time.
On the other hand, Boucher has experience doing that. In fact, he’s doing that right now. He’s able to sit out games, and then when his number is called, be able to step up and give the Flyers a chance to win. While Boosh is streaky, he certainly doesn’t need all the confidence in the world to succeed.
Boucher and Leighton are not far apart in terms of pure talent. Actually, Boucher may be a more sound goalie than Leighton. Who’s the better goalie? That’s up to you to decide.
At the end of the day, Holmgren will have to decide who he deems is the better fit for the Flyers.
My prediction: He places Leighton on waivers unless another team steps up in a trade.
Brian Kelly’s first Notre Dame team delivered on the field yesterday by beating Purdue 23-12, and they made NBC suits happy as well – the game’s 2.3 overnight rating represented a 77% jump over the Irish’s opener last year.
It’s worth noting that last year’s opener was against Nevada, a lower-profile team than Notre Dame’s opponent yesterday – and likely a contributor to last year’s lower ratings. But undoubtedly, most of this year’s spike came due to an interest in Kelly and his vaunted spread offense.
It’s hard to believe a guy who was coaching Division II Grand Valley State (albeit to that level’s national championship) seven years ago would be inspiring such excitement at the most storied program in the land, but winning will do that – and yesterday, as he usually does, Kelly won.
We asked NBC Sports (whose PR arm spread the word about ND’s robust ratings earlier today) how yesterday’s ratings compared to the debuts of the last two Notre Dame coaches (Charlie Weis and Tyrone Willingham), and how the increase over last year compared to their first games as well. If we hear back, we’ll update this post.
For now, the early returns on Kelly are nothing but positive for the Fighting Irish. Certainly, yesterday’s result gave us no reason to believe that he won’t get it done…and we think NBC will be more than happy to keep restructuring its advertising for Notre Dame’s games if Kelly keeps delivering numbers like yesterday’s.
H/T Darren Rovell via Jason McIntyre
AP photo, via
When Brian Kelly arrived at Notre Dame, he set out to change a lot about the program, from the style of offense to the mindset of his players. But his most significant change might be to his team’s TV coverage.
NBC – with whom, of course Notre Dame has its own TV deal – likes to take long commercial breaks. Kelly’s fast-paced offensive style, unlike Charlie Weis‘ pro set, is not conducive to such breaks. So Kelly and the network had a little chat:
“We’ve talk to NBC about the way we like play game versus how it was played in the past,” Kelly said. “Those conversations have taken place. There is certainly a need for us to address it. We are working with NBC to make certain they get what they need out of it from an advertising standpoint. But also as the network that carries Notre Dame that we are able to do things we need to do as well.”
Of course, it behooves NBC to let Kelly run his program the way that works best for him – the better Notre Dame is, the better the ratings, and everyone’s happy. Kelly said he’s “very confident” the two sides will work something out.
If any issue proves how much a head coach has to deal with besides the game itself, this is it. It’s an “only at Notre Dame” scenario – no other school has a major network TV deal of its own like this – just the kind of thing many wondered how Kelly would handle, since he’s never been at a program this high-profile.
What such doubters have to remember is that Kelly’s part-politician. He lives for smoothly handling situations like this. There’s no doubt he’ll handle this one – just one more reason that, love Notre Dame or hate them, Kelly’s going to make them winners.
H/T Fang’s Bites
Photo via