A little hard to do an actual open thread when the game’s not being broadcast. On the other hand, just think of the thrill it’ll be watching a recreation of those thrilling days of yesteryear when live sporting events were “broadcast” via telegraph to either be read aloud by someone at the local radio station (or more likely Western Union station), or simply printed and read. That’s the way it’ll be with tonight’s blog comments. Let’s hear it for modern technology enabling us… to reenact 1920.
According to a note on the Sharks Web site, Jeff Friesen will be on the ice this evening. They must have become quite tired of the phone calls and e-mails when he didn’t play in a couple of games. There is one thing a tad annoying about the announcement:
Former fan favorite Jeff Friesen, a non-roster player trying to make the Sharks, will be in the lineup tonight vs. Phoenix. He’s played in two games so far and has an assist.
Uh… “former?”
According to David Pollack, the lineup tonight is expected to bear a strong resemblance to what we’ll see come Opening Night. He notes that Devin Setoguchi will be on the first line with Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, while Ryan Clowe will be on the third line with Marcel Goc and Mike Grier. That said, it’s not a demotion for or slam against Clowe, but rather an effort by Todd McLellan to shore up the line in the absence of Torrey Mitchell. The second line will be Joe Pavelski, Milam Michalek and Jonathan Cheechoo, with the fourth line consisting of Jody Shelley, Jeremy Roenick and Tomas Plihal. Ah but wait, you say; what of Friesen? Pollack’s post which was written this morning makes no mention of his playing tonight. He comments on this in his blog. I’ll let you know how the lineup shakes out. Oh yes — on defense no Douglas Murray (flu or reasonable facsimile thereof), but expect to see Rob Blake along with Dan Boyle, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Christian Ehrhoff, Alexei Semenov and prospect Derek Joslin.
See you in the Comments area.
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