Zibanejad Practicing In Ottawa
Senators recall forward Mika Zibanejad from Binghamton.
— Renaud Lavoie (@RenLavoieRDS) January 28, 2013
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The AHL All Star break is the official explanation for the timing of the recall, and the scuttlebutt seems to be he's still unlikely to play tomorrow, but with Alfie getting over/still suffering from the flu you never know. Judging from the plaudits MacLean sent Mika's way during his 9 game stint last year ("he's an NHL player, blah, blah, blah)…I wouldn't be totally shocked to see him thrown in the lineup. Exciting times.
A noice Z-BAD goal of late.
I Keep Forgetting Mike Lundin
The head coach had an update on the health of Lundin in an appearance on In The Box this morning:
"He's not close (to playing), I think he got the pins out of his fingers, I"m gonna say yesterday or the day before. But he's still not skating with the team yet until he gets the proper flexibility, and that could be…I"m gonna take a guess and say another ten days at least before he gets that, before he'd be able to skate with us. And it could be another ten days before he even gets in the lineup, but we'll see how it is. We're looking forward to getting him, first of all just getting him to see him in practice."
Original timeline from Murray had Lundin getting healthy right about now. I guess we'd all be talking about this guy a lot more if the D was struggling as much as many of us expected.
Good Lehner Quote
Since returning to Bingo, Robin has started two games, won both, and stopped 78/80 shots in the process. Prettay good. He was also saying all the right things in comments to the Press & Sun-Bulletin Saturday night:
"It's a little bit hard for me. People like to put me as immature or whatnot, but the guy that likes to get sent down probably won't get called up again. I really like this team and city and I've grown to love this arena. We've had our ups and downs through the years. It started with tough love and it's been going uphill from there. Last year, speaking for myself, I wasn't having any fun. It was not a great atmosphere and this year has been awesome. when you play happy, you play better."
Relative Improvement
Ottawa was ranked 29th last year in PIM/G, through 5 games they're being penalized more per game (14.8), but have still managed to leapfrog 16 teams into 13th place. I love small samples!
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