Random Notes for a Friday

- NHL All-Star Ballots are out and three Predators are on it, Shea Weber, Ryan Suter and Pekka Rinne. Online voting is open at nhl.com.

- Lots of attention on Nashville’s franchise this week as the Predators play their 1,000 game on Saturday night. Hockey Night in Canada will be here, Barry Trotz appeared on the NHL Hour with the Commish last night and there are big plans for the game tomorrow. Limited tickets are still available.

- Nice post on Puck Daddy yesterday about Craig Smith… here's the link. Get past the rather silly snark in the piece and there is actually some decent content.

- Bad news in Montreal as Mike Cammalleri couldn’t go last night for the Hab’s as they beat Phoenix. He is listed as day-to-day because of a knee injury he suffered early in Tuesday’s game against Edmonton.

- Another game, another loss for the Columbus Blue Jackets and another minor trade. After picking up Mark Letestu earlier this week, the Jackets traded Kris Russell to St. Louis for Nikita Nikitin, talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Five points in 15 games… the deathwatch continues in C-Bus.

- Before the season… If I would’ve told you that the Eastern Conference division leaders would be Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Florida and Western Conference divisional leaders would be Chicago, Edmonton and Dallas… you would’ve have asked me what I was drinking?

- Boston certainly got its wake up call… last nights win over Edmonton was their 4th in a row.

- Guess those closed door meetings helped, Toronto went into St. Louis last night and squeaked out a 3-2 shootout victory over the Blues.

- Speaking of the Blues, their new coach has lit a fire under them. Ken Hitchcock has had an effect as St. Louis is playing with a LOT more jump.

- The NHL announced their answer to NFL Films… sort of… they announced the creation of NHL Original Productions as a partnership with 24/7 Executive Producer Ross Greenburg. Greenburg certainly has the “Sabol-like” vision to make this work.

- Provocative column for Adam Proteau in the Hockey News. He believes that Rick Nash would be better served by being traded. Check out the column link.

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On the next SlapShot Radio

The podcast for Wednesday night’s show is posted… We had a very special interview with hockey fan and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Alice Cooper! We discussed the bad situation in Columbus with Aaron Portzline from the Columbus Dispatch and previewed Nashville's 1,000th game with The Voice of the Montreal Canadiens, John Bartlett
That’s all on this week’s podcast of SlapShot Radio.

More past episodes are also posted on the SlapShot Radio website.

Click here to listen or download.

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