“Wrong sport, Charlie!”
Welcome to Friday, folks!
It’s the last Friday in August, which means summer is pretty much over, so Happy Halloween.
Hopefully you enjoy the weekend, whether you have big Labor Day Weekend plans or will be laying low.
I decided to do another Morning Skate today in place of a player rating so there’d be an open thread for people to pop into over the weekend. We should get back on track with the ratings on Monday.
Sky had you covered yesterday with news of the Bruins’ 14 nationally televised games for the upcoming season, including the season-opener against Florida (which makes sense).
Elsewhere, Charlie McAvoy found himself at #7 on the the latest “ARGUE ABOUT THIS ONLINE” list from the NHL Network, their “Top 20 Defensemen Right Now.”
Ahead of McAvoy on the list were (starting at #1) Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, Victor Hedman, Roman Josi, Miro Heiskanen, and Gustav Forsling.
Rounding out the Top 10 behind McAvoy were Adam Fox, Evan Bouchard, and Devon Toews.
We can call this post the Morning McAvoy if you want, as a search for an image for the post led me to find that McAvoy was one of a few familiar faces who played in the FM Championship Pro-Am at TPC Boston (which is actually 25 mile from Boston) earlier this week.
Yes, that photo does feature McAvoy, Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys, and the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Trophy, so…we’ve got crossover episodes all over the place this week!
Elsewhere, former Bruin and current NESN guy Andrew Raycroft had some interesting thoughts on the Bruins’ ability to “fix” Joonas Korpisalo, speaking to Boston.com:
“You go all the way back to these guys that have come in here — like Jaro Halak — to rehab themselves, they have all done pretty well. And I think that Goalie Bob and this team has that track record that you should be positive about. … If you can flip Korpisalo into half of what Ullmark is, then you have a great asset.”
Edit (8:34 AM): Unfortunately, the horrific rumors from overnight were confirmed this morning.
Columbus Blue Jackets statement on the passing of Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew. pic.twitter.com/V2aFykgKIs
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) August 30, 2024
Brutal. Thoughts and prayers to the Gaudreau Family.