after reading Hammond's blog about today's practice...

It's wearing thin, honestly. This daily game of mix and match... and really, it all doesn't much matter because the team isn't very good... certainly not as good as most of the teams they have played, regardless of line matchups, shots on goal, shots against, etc.

The goaltender is a below average NHL netminder, who can't handle the puck, period. The rebounds are juicy, his stick handling is absurdly pathetic, and honestly, if there wasn't a Doughty, or an O'Donnell, or a Quincey back there to swoop away rebounds, he'd look every bit as exposed as he did when it was Stuart, Modry, Dallman and the like.

This constant juggling of the forwards in some pseudo-reward system is just boring. I like Terry Murray, mainly because I loathed Marc Crawford, and had worn tired of Andy Murray and was embarrassed to say I was a season ticket holder for a team coached by John Torchetti. But this crap is goofy... all this "I never saw O'Sullivan play, so I don't know what he can do..." or some of his other stock answers are just ridiculous. You don't set people up to fail. That's all I've seen him do with O'Sullivan at even strength all season. Boyle doesn't hit... yeah, I get that. Boyle is 7 feet tall and weighs 630 pounds, yeah, I get that... so what is it about Boyle's game that you DO like enough to put him on the team and not put him in Manchester? OK then, Coach... live with it, and work him in within that framework. Richardson has won 61% of his draws... That might seem boring and useless to you, but I've been watching a Kings team that hasn't won 50% of their draws in a decade. He has value. Armstrong sucked when he was relied on for 16 minutes a game. You figured out a way to make him less offensive (in more ways than one) in 7 minutes a game, and then you bench him. Ivanans seems to have naked pictures of you, because he plays constantly, doesn't fight, barely hits, and skates and stick handles like he belongs on the Food Network, not the NHL Network. Why do we need to see him constantly? Simmonds is way overmatched, game in and game out. He doesn't win battles, shoots from the perimeter, and adds nothing to the "magic" that is the 3-6-1 LA Kings... Oh, he's black... You and I both know that's not why he's here, so let him go play in Manchester and learn the pro game. Manchester is sucking worse than the Kings so it's not like there's much down there to ravage.

And DO NOT get me started on Peter Harrold playing right wing. That was worst than last year when Crawford put Kevin Dallman at CENTER!!!!! Oh, and by the way, Dallman is the Mike Green of the KHL... 22 games, 12 goals, 8 assists... maybe not the litmus test for all NHL 7th defenseman rejects, but he's doing it... and doing it as well as he could have done here if Crawford had not screwed with his head so much.

I'd MUCH rather have Dallman than Harrold... I'd much rather have Maude, than Harrold.

I'd much rather post this to MY blog than this one :) But then NO ONE would read it :)

Don't expect a win vs. the Ducks on Tuesday, so please start LaBarbera. I don't want you to set Ersberg up to fail the way you so eloquently have done with Moulson, O'Sullivan, Calder, and just about every other forward over the first 10 games of the season (Moller being an exception.)

Proof? Just go back and read this blog. Every friggin practice it's something new, and some dumb comment attached to it that supposedly justifies this reward/punish system. You're not God... you're a hockey coach, coaching players that are just good enough to be bad enough to lose in the NHL. Get over it.