Michael Stuart: Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Balanced Scoring Leads Lightning to Victory

Kucherov looks really worried about what people think.

Have any of his critics ever been under the knife in a major surgery? Nobody is going through that hell for the purposes of circumventing the salary cap. It's phucking ridiculous to say it. Not to mention the type of competitor that Kucherov is. He would never sit out the season because some accountant told him to, unless it was 100% medically necessary.

There is an article on Hockey Writers dot com that makes the argument that Rutta is not that bad. Really. The entire article is basically paragraph after paragraph about Rutta being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being a victim of a bad bounce, or just unavoidable circumstances. It then compares him to Schenn, as if anyone is going to look bad in that comparison.

What the article fails to do is give one example of a Rutta highlight play. It throws out his +/- instead, while failing to acknowledge that being stapled to Hedman would give a random hobo a positive +/-

I know Gardiner is washed up, but I gotta think claiming him off waivers from the Hurricanes couldn't be worse than Rutta or Schenn. But, with less than zero cap space, that won't be happening.

Ugh. McElBackup is in net today, instead of Vasi. Spencer Martin is dressed as backup. I'd rather start Martin, but hopefully we don't see him today, because that will mean McElBackup got shelled and pulled.

We should just forfeit any game that Vasi can't start. Just take the loss and don't run the risk of amassing injuries. McElBackup is washed. He's done.