In Lou We Trust

No, really. It'll be on Versus and CBC Sports. It completely sneaked up on me, too. Best of luck to Martin Brodeur and John Madden, who are up for the Vezina and Selke Trophies, respectively. Links from NHL.com.

In the world of hockey, the Los Angeles Kings have fired Marc Crawford according to TSN. It's easy to say that he was fired because he didn't turn around the Kings from their status of Western Conference doormats. It's also true to a point, though he did only have two seasons to work with the team. Anyway, hopefully the general manager and his scouting team has a plan for their sixteen picks in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. For a Kings fan's take, check out Rudy Kelly's at Battle of California. Stating that your teams' first poor game in a while at the end of a 10 game losing streak? I'm starting to think that was a clue, of some sort.

Coaching news is everywhere in the league. San Jose is announcing tomorrow Detroit assistant Todd McLellan as their head coach. Mike Babcock gets a well-earned 3 year extension from Detroit. Ex-Sharks head coach Ron Wilson gets to try his hand at salvaging the Toronto Maple Leafs as now he is the new head coach. Funnily enough, the Maple Leafs are looking to stick with their interim general manager, Cliff Fletcher, which I'm sure has all the Leafs fans happy about that. Lastly, Ottawa is still looking for a head coach. All of this news is from TSN.

In player news, Vancouver Canucks legend Trevor Linden has retired from hockey (link goes to announcement on the official Canucks site). James Mirtle has a bit on his legacy. Surprisingly, I found out that the NHL and NHLPA met on goaltender equipment issues today when reading through TSN. The theme of this report is that we should expect changes soon. The only specific changes are the elimination of extra padding that isn't necessary for protection and a common measurement system will be applied to all goaltenders to regulate padding sizes. These seem like sensible changes and the meeting wasn't devoid of goaltenders - Martin Brodeur, Rick DiPietro and Ryan Miller were all present. This won't affect some goaltenders like Brodeur, who never had to rely on that extra padding. It should affect others notorious for this sort of behavior, such as Jean-Sebastian Giguere. I'm a bit skeptical to be honest, having heard all throughout the late 1990s that obstruction would be eliminated - and it took until after the second lockout to come close to enforcing that. And even this season some of those little hooks and slashes are returning to the game. My point is that I've heard pronouncements to change the rules before, I want to see it actually happen this time.

Tom Gulitti has announced that the Record has a new forum for Devils fans to talk hockey. The link to the forum is right here and it's brand new. Join up soon to be one of the first of many.