Nothing to report to you from practice, because quite frankly, I didn’t make it. Flight delay out of Seattle got me here to rainy Vancouver late.

But I was told I missed nothing. Only a few players skated during an optional practice.

From an NHL source, the NHL reviewed Darcy Tucker’s low hit on Wild defenseman Nick Schultz from last night and a decision to fine or suspend Tucker will come before the Avalanche’s game Saturday against Nashville.

Adrian Dater from the Denver Post sought Tucker’s reaction today. On whether or not Schultz’s allegations in today’s Star Tribune are true that at the end of the second period he threatened to take out Schultz’s knees, Tucker said, “I don’t want to discuss anything that might have been said on the ice. I’m an energy player and I go out there and play the game as hard as I can.”

Most NHL players play the game as hard as they can in an honest fashion. But Tucker, year after year after year, shows he’s unable to do that. Now you know why a big part of NHLPA Executive Director Paul Kelly’s fall tour is talking to his union members about showing respect for their fellow combatants.

It wouldn’t be an issue except for the fact the league continues to have a few head-hunters, or in Tucker’s case way too many times, knee-hunters.

But maybe in this case, the NHL will do the right thing and throw some sort of disciplinary action Tucker’s way even though luckily Tucker didn’t accomplish what he meant to accomplish.

As for tomorrow’s game, the Canucks are on a roll. Roberto Luongo’s coming off back-to-back shutouts, and the Vancouver captain has four shutouts in 13 starts. His career numbers against Minnesota are not good, however, as you can tell by his .886 save percentage. Niklas Backstrom is 5-0-1 against the Canucks with a 2.02 goals against average and .931 save percentage.

There won’t be a Slovak vs. Slovak matchup tomorrow. Both Pavol Demitra and Marian Gaborik are injured. There will be five other meetings between these teams, so both have to be healthy at the same time during one them, right?

I’ll talk to you after tomorrow’s morning skate (or afternoon skate back in Central Time).

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Practice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.