Last night's game against the Wild started off innocently enough. Daniel Sedin opened the scoring right in the first minute of play, but then the Minnesota offense struck. It was already bad enough being down 4-1 in the middle of the 2nd period when this happened. Now, before I get started, allow me to say that I'm a huge fan of Rick Rypien, and that he is one of my favourite Canucks. But what he did last night was completely unacceptable. I would not be surprised if he gets as many as 10 games for his suspension (Yankee already reports that he is being suspended indefinitely for now, and there's a hearing Friday), and I also think it's very likely that the Canucks organization will add even more punishment onto that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he's earned himself a one-way ticket out of the league. I loved you, Rypper, but now you're in the doghouse, and it's a doghouse that is very hard to get out of in my books.
The Canucks ended up losing that game 6-2 in a horrible effort that even saw Cory Schneider coming out for the 3rd period. They visit Chicago to take on the Blackhawks tonight, and quite frankly, I'm not too thrilled about it right now. Links after the jump (and I'll do my best to get other stories in here).
- Added (11:44 am): Some good news from Manitoba today: Nolan Baumgartner has been officially named as new captain for the Moose. Marco Rosa and Joel Perrault will be assistants.
- Canucks.com items: Recap of last night's game, and preview of today's game.
- Last night's scores, and today's games.
- You think we are being harsh on Rypper? You should see what they think at Hockey Wilderness.....
- Obviously, since this is the biggest headline of the day, everyone has their take: Puck Daddy, Weekes and Button on NHL Network, Pierre Lebrun at ESPN, TSN (speaking of TSN, they're showing our game against Chicago tonight, so tune in a half hour early to see their panel talk about it), Vancouver Sun, and The Province.
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TSN looks at how wild this season is already turning out to be so far.
- A THN writer remembers meeting Gordie Howe.
- Is our 3rd line now good enough for the Cup?
- Here's a good open topic question for today: What was Rypien thinking? ESPN already has a couple guesses.