Quick Hits for 1/8/10

Hello all, Buotte blogging here from freezing cold Atlanta, Georgia. Since I couldn't watch any games last night while I was in attendance at the Rangers/Thrashers game from Philips Arena, I can't comment too much on what I saw around the league last night. A few observations, however:

-Alexandre Burrows had his 2nd straight hat trick last night when he scored 3 against the Coyotes last night. He had three against Columbus the night before. I don't like the guy; his hair-pulling antics were absolutely pathetic, but obviously he's carrying the bulk of the goal-scoring up in Vancouver. Roberto Luongo pitched his 50th career shutout in the 4-0 blanking of the 'Yotes.



-Daniel Carcillo was fined $2,500 for his throat-cutting gestures at the Toronto bench Wednesday night. Yay.

-No new news in the Ilya Kovalchuk situation. He played pretty okay down here in Atlanta last night but missed again in the shootout, which brings up an interesting point: why does Thrashers coach John Anderson continue to put Kovalchuk in the shootout when he has shown he is clearly useless? The guy is 9 of 35 (25.7%) in his career, so why keep trotting him out there? Slava Kozlov has certainly proven his merits as he sits at 27 of 46 (58.7%) and one of the deadliest in the game in the one-on-one skills competition. Whether or not the shootout should be there may be dissected in a future blog.

-Flames GM Darryl Sutter says that Dion Phaneuf trade rumors are "crap". Wait, a trade rumor that's crap? Unfathomable.

-Poor Kings fans. They had to watch University of Maine alumni Jimmy Howard stonewall their team as the Kings launched 52 shots at the Wings tender. The Kings lost 2-1 on a goal by sniper Darren Helm. The first Wings goal came with one second left in the first. It was a tough night in L.A., for certain.

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT:

“I can’t say I’m the number one goalie, that’s for sure,” Howard said. “I mean, there’s a guy sitting right over there that’s got three Stanley Cups and almost 400 wins. I’m just going out there and playing.” - Wings goalie Jimmy Howard after turning aside 51 of 52 Kings shots, including all 27 he faced in the second period.

MATCH-UP OF THE NIGHT FOR 1/8/2010

Frankly, there's nothing that cool tonight. But for some reason I'll take the Flames/Blue Jackets match-up. The Flames are struggling to score as of late and the Blue Jackets ugly defensive system could play right into that. The Jackets could be playing to save coach Ken Hitchcock's job, although who knows what's going on in that room. By the way, I'm currently 0-for-4 on predictions, so based on that, I'd go to Vegas and bet the farm on the Flames.

Prediction: Blue Jackets, 3-1

That's all for Buotte in Atlanta. Mike Nick will be chiming in with more Nonsense in the near future. Don't forget to become a fan of our Facebook group and to follow us on Twitter for more exciting hockey news.