Its been a busy week for Sabres 2011 first round pick and future sniper Joel Armia.
On Monday, the Finn began his required military service at the Armed Forces Sports School in Lahti, Finland.
Late Friday new broke about the possibility of Armia being offered his entry level contract by the Buffalo Sabres.
Finnish website, www.satakunnankansa.fi, reports that Armia has until next Friday, June 15, to sign on the dotted line.
Before we jump to conclusions, it should be noted that Armia will have to honor his mandatory military commitment before he can play in Rochester or Buffalo. Might there be a way for his representatives to negotiate a shorter term stay in the military? Not sure. Armia has a year left on his present contract with his Assat club team.
For now, lets just say that Armia will become an option to the Sabres for the 2013-14 season.
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Rick Jeanneret, will be inducted into the Hockey Hall Of Fame in Toronto in November. Jeanneret has been bestowed with the auspicious Foster Hewitt Award for his broadcasting excellence.
Roy MacGregor of The Globe and Mail is the Elmer Ferguson Award winner.
You know where "RJ" place his trophy?
Top Shelf Where Mama Hides The Cookies!!!
Congratulations, Rick and Roy!
From our ears, to your lips, thanks for the 41+ years of memories. They will last us a lifetime!
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Devils Captain, Zach Parise was asked on Thursady if winning Game 4 in LA has given his team an immediate jolt of adrenaline and confidence.
Naturally, Parise and his team mates feel better about themselves, having finally scored on Jonathon Quick. Will there be a carry over effect in Game 5 in Newark on Saturday night?
Here's the transcript of Parise's media session from Thursday.
Q. Do you believe you changed their aura of invincibility by winning Game 4?
ZACH PARISE: Hopefully. I mean, I don't think there was much difference in the way we played. Games 2, 3, 4 we just weren’t fortunate enough to end up on the winning side. We don't know what they are saying in their locker room or anything. But in our minds, we hope so.
Q. How is your ankle?
ZACH PARISE: Fine.
Q. Would you tell us if it wasn’t?
ZACH PARISE: No.
Q. There’s been a lot of talk about your line.
ZACH PARISE: We are getting good chances ?? unfortunately right now, just for whatever reason, it's not going in for us. I think we've been playing fine. I don't think that we need to change anything about what we are doing. We are working. We are working hard. We are making plays and we are doing a decent job of spending time in the offensive zone. Of course, you always want to do more of that. But I think that we're playing fine. We just have to score and then we don't have this conversation.
Q. Can you talk about your coaching staff and the job it has done getting you ready for big games and making changes?
ZACH PARISE: We were talking about the whole way through, they have done a really good job, whether it's been switching lines or tweaking forechecks or things like that, breakouts. And we find, whatever we seem to change, we see the results right away. We believe in what they are saying and the way they want us to play.
So throughout the whole playoffs, we have played a couple of games a certain way and then find a different thing to do and find out that that works. So they have done a good job.
Q. How important was it to finally break through against Jonathan Quick?
ZACH PARISE: I think it was just... I don't know if it was so much him or just the fact that we were missing great opportunities, missing the net, not executing five-on-three. I don't think it was so much like, for example against Lundqvist, we were throwing 35, 45 shots at him and couldn't get anything by him. I think this team, they don't ?? Quick is getting a lot of credit, and he deserves it, but the whole team should get credit for how good of a job they have been doing limiting our opportunities. It's nice for us to score goals, but I think it wasn't so much, you know, ‘What can we do to beat this guy?’ type of attitude.
Q. How big was it for the team that Kovalchuk scored a goal, even if it was an empty-netter?
ZACH PARISE: It's important for players’ confidence. Of course, whether it's an empty net or the goalie is in there, it's important for a player to get on the board and just feel better. For us, that's going to go a long way when he's feeling good about his game.
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