I talked to Ruskowski and Adam Rivet after practice to get some quotes for my preview of the upcoming games in Colorado, which will run in Friday's paper. I had wanted to talk to Serge Dube, as well, but he wasn't at practice today. Ruskowski said he will make the trip out to Colorado and play on Friday, though.
There were some line shakeups at practice today, with Alex Goupil replacing Rick Kozak on the top line and Kozak moving to the Jason Dixon line with Igor Agarunov. That leaves Erick Lizon, Bobby Russell and Ryan Salvis on the other line, but Matt Miller will likely split shifts with Lizon and take the majority of them when he meets up with the team in Colorado.
I was a bit surprised by the change to the top line, but not at all because I don't think Goupil is worthy. He's proven himself to be a very talented, hard-working player, but he also has great chemistry with Dixon. We'll see how that works out. But, with the team's top three point-getters on the same line, I'm not sure Ruskowski will get the three lines that can score for which he is always looking.
We have an early deadline tonight due to the holidays, and finding material to put in the section for tomorrow was not an easy task. At this point, it's time to finish up pages then go to the post office in hopes that it is holding regular hours. Apparently it's impossible to get in touch with a real person when you call there.
There are no games today in the CHL or NHL, and tomorrow's lone contest is the game between the Oklahoma City Blazers and Tulsa Thunder. I thought this was interesting, though:
So then I looked into it. Apparently, Casey was signed to play only in last night's loss to the Colorado Eagles and make the night a "Ftorek family affair" on behalf of his brother Sam. Their father Robbie, a former NHL coach, helped lead practice on Monday and dropped the ceremonial first puck for the game. Cute.
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