Back in the Swing of Things

The CHL announced the nominees for its first "Performance of the Week" honors for the 2008-09 season earlier today, and Bucks rookie Darryl Smith's debut hat trick is on the list.

Obviously, Chris Richards' seven points on Saturday and Tulsa netminder Kevin St. Pierre's 55 saves (in a loss, poor thing) are pretty impressive stats, but a hat trick in someone's first professional game is quite a feat in its own right.

You can read about the nominees here and vote in the poll here.

Meanwhile, here is my notebook that ran in today's Times. There are a few other things I wanted to touch on that I didn't have the space for, but I think I'll save it for now to see if I can go more in-depth as the season progresses.

Over in Corpus Christi, Greg Rajan has word that IceRays defenseman T.J. Reynolds will be suspended for his actions during one of the many altercations between the IceRays and Tulsa Oilers on Saturday night. I still can't believe how many penalty minutes were served in that game, and over the weekend in general.

In Wichita, the 0-2 Thunder received some bad news as captain Mike Batovanja will need surgery to repair a torn ACL and could miss the rest of the season. He has currently been placed on the 30-day injured reserve but will obviously miss more than that amount of time.

Speaking of the Thunder, they are currently losing 2-0 to the Oklahoma City Blazers (2-0-0) at the first intermission of their game tonight. In tonight's other CHL contest, the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs (2-0-0) lead the Mississippi RiverKings (1-1-0) 2-0. I'll update with final scores when those games are finished.

Last night in the NHL, the Pittsburgh Penguins topped the Boston Bruins 2-1 in a shootout, the Dallas Stars beat the New York Rangers 2-1 in Sean Avery's not-so-quiet return to Madison Square Garden, the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Florida Panthers 3-1 and the Colorado Avalanche picked up another close win, this one in a 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings.

Right now, the Bruins are tied with the Buffalo Sabres 2-2 , the Columbus Blue Jackets lead the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 and the Anaheim Ducks lead the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1, with all three games in the final period. The Tampa Bay Lightning hold a 2-o lead over the Atlanta Thrashers at their second intermission, and the Washington Capitals and Calgary Flames are set to face off at 8:30 p.m. our time.

UPDATE: Here are the final scores: Mudbugs 6, RiverKings 2; Blazers 5, Thunder 1; Ducks 3, Maple Leafs 2 (SO); Sabres 3, Bruins 2 (SO); Blue Jackets 4, Canucks 2; Lightning 3, Thrashers 2 (OT); Flames 2, Capitals 1.