Mid-Week Musings and Notes

It's hard to believe that once again the playoffs have been upstaged by an off ice story about the Phoenix bankruptcy and the swooping in by the vulture Jim Balsillie into the middle of the mess to, depending on your perceptive, screw the Coyote fans, or save the franchise for the NHL. I defer to Forechecker for his analysis of the facts. Mark from the View from 111 also has it covered. The Tennessean has the AP story.

There has been plenty written at this point so I won't dwell on the topic other than to point to my commentary from earlier today where I remembered how Nashville fans felt two years ago when we almost lost the team. I really feel bad for the true fans in Phoenix that I'm sure are on the same emotional roller-coaster that we rode for months as the Predators situation was resolved.

In game action last night, the Vancouver team that we expected to see in the playoffs, finally showed up and seemed to have taken control of the series after being very inconsistent during the first two games.

In the late game, the Wings were surprisingly cool in spite of a whistle call that nullified a possible game tying goal by the Wings in the closing moments. The Wings clearly outplayed the Ducks in the third period and had the goal been allowed, I feel that they would have won in overtime play. I think this will insure that the series will go to seven games. Puck Daddy details the Wings getting hosed by the refs.

News about the Predators...

Surprisingly, the Milwaukee Admirals lost Tuesday night and are now down 2-1 to Houston. The Ads held Houston to 16 shots but unfortunately allowed three goals. Ryan Jones was the lone scorer for the Ads. Here's the view from Houston on the game provided by the Third Intermission.

The quarterfinals of the World Championships get cranked up today with a marquee Predators match up when Team USA plays Pekka's Finland team. The video is available on Universal Sports. In early action this morning Russia eliminated Belarus.

Forechecker has a great article on Steve Sullivan's value and what the market would show that he is worth. The article piggybacks on one by Jim Diamond that I missed previously. A lot of ground with facts and figures are thrown out in the two postings.

I received my invitation for the Predators open house and select-a-seat day on May 17. I've got more tickets than I need but for those who don't, this is your chance. They have some great incentives for those wanting to add tickets.

Paul McCann, Brandon Felder and Mark McGee will meet up for HockeyBuzz Radio tonight at 6:00 on 560 AM. Today is Brandon's last day of college so he will be on cloud nine. Paul talks about the vulture in his post today. I'm sure the word Balsillie will be mentioned repeatedly on the show.

On Twitter, there is a new address allegedly an "official NHL Draft Twitter... manned by our office" to follow the Pred's draft info. @PredsNHLDraft

Around the League...

Ryan at the RLD checks in on the alleged overtime debate in addition to his daily pre-game postings.

Chris at The Program voiced concern recently that there was less hockey news lately for his BlogTalkRadio show tonight from 9:30 to 11:30 Central but he can thank Jim Balsillie for stepping in and stirring things up.

@dani3boyz has the second big New York City Tweetup tonight and Glen Anderson is scheduled to attend. That would be a fun one to attend as it looks like folks from all over are converging on the city for tonight's party.

From Blue Jackets Buzz, it's a Blue Jacket theme for Mozilla Firefox. I want one for the Preds!

More later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

Additions

Team USA outlasted Finland 3-2 in an exciting game this afternoon. Ryan Suter had the game winning goal for the USA. I have to admit that in spite of being a good American, I was really pulling for Pekka to get to the finals. Finland has played much better to date than the US team and I really thought they had a shot at a medal. With Robert Esche in goal, I don't have much confidence in the US team to win the next one.

In spite of trying not to get sucked in to the Balsillie thing any more than I am, here are several posts by Mirtle that bring the matter up to speed. I really like the fact that Bettman "fixes" cities as opposed to moving them. I think David Freeman fixed nashville for us.

From the Twitterverse - Forechecker confirms that @Sully26 is really Steve Sullivan.

Way Off Topic - I really like this picture slide show from the Tennessean from May 1964. I was 8 years old and this brings back childhood images.

New post from Sarah Connors at For Pucks Sake on the Boston game tonight.

Puck the Media reports that Denis Potvin is out as color analyst in Florida. I really like listening to him on XM's Hockey This Morning.

Phil Esposito speculates that Paul Fenton will be the next Minnesota GM on XM204.