Morning Buzz: Back to the grind! Shootouts, salutes, and suspensions

Well, the holidays are officially over. It's back to work for me today after being off since the 22nd. The letdown of knowing you have to go to work in the morning is almost as big as watching a professional sports contest end with a skills competition.

Lots of links, videos, and other assorted goodness after the jump.

Vancouver Canucks news & notes:

• Hey, a positive Cody Hodgson ice time stat! He's 4th amongst Canucks forwards in PowerPlay ice time behind the Sedins and Kesler. As for his overall ice time, I still think he's getting enough. [PITB Twitter]
• Henrik Sedin is the NHL's 3rd star of the month for December. He recently overtook Phil Kessel and Claude Giroux for the NHL scoring lead. Way to go Hank! [Canucks.com]
• CHB previews the week to come for the Canucks. [Canucks Hockey Blog]
• The latest King of the Rink with Dale Weise made me laugh. Chris Higgins has great taste in music and clothes, and he knows it. He also seems to think he's a riot on road trips, but Weise disagrees. [Canucks.com]

NHL news & notes:

• One of the biggest stories of the Winter Classic was Mike Rupp's 2-goal performance, and his Jagr salute after the first one:

• Jagr's reaction is great. He seems baffled that anyone would see it as a slight towards him. This scrum just reeks of a bunch of reporters looking for a quote to run with, and Jags is not biting:

• Notice anything else strange about Mike Rupp's celebration?
• Raffi Torres has been suspended 2 games for his charging incident on Nate Prosser of the Minnesota Wild. Just Raffi bein' Raffi. Also, who the hell is Nate Prosser?

• Pierre Gathier apologizes to fans for hiring a coach who can't speak French. [TSN] This whole situation has been handled poorly by the Canadiens from the start. Having your head coach knowing that he'll be on the outs at season's end, coupled with the beating he's taking in the media can't have him in the best mindset for coaching a team. Why not stand behind him at least a little bit if you're Gauthier, rather than apologize for hiring him in the first place?
• After a very successful December, the year ahead holds many questions for the Winnipeg Jets. Interesting that Randy Carlyle could possibly find himself in a head office position with the club. [The Hockey Writers]

Extras:

The movie "Goon" comes out February 24. Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it:

Sean William Scott as an enforcer who has to take on Cody Hodgson lookalike Liv Schreiber? My early review:

via www.gossipcop.com