Complete with the authentic mouth guard, the Patrick Kane bobblehead.  Little Patty left Sunday’s game against the Lightning after suffering a cut above his left eye.  He scored a goal before leaving, and the Hawks took the game 4-0.

Anyone who envisioned Cristobal Huet backstopping the Blackhawks to a Stanley Cup must have forgotten that Huet’s favourite position is “chilling” on the bench with a ball cap.  Puck Daddy was almost on the money this morning:

More than a few pundits and fans that have Committed To the Indian this season have done so despite Huet, who has never won a playoff series and never served as a franchise’s clear-cut No. 1 starter without a David Aebischer or a Nikolai Khabibulin to do half of the season’s work. It’s all a bit like predicting “The Godfather Part III” would win Best Picture despite the presence of Sophia Coppola in the cast.

Aebischer and Khabibulin weren’t the only pieces of the equation to Huet’s run of being second best, though.  Carey Price was the reason why Huet was traded to the Washington Capitals from Montreal.

Price, the Saviour loves drinking, fighting, and smoking almost as much as I do.  I respect him for that, but his immediate future is bleak with the Habs’ banged-up blueline.

Patrick Kane and his dickhead cousin reached a plea deal today (read: they did it, all of it).  The Kane boys pleaded guilty to a non-criminal charge of disorderly conduct and have been ordered by the courts to issue a written apology to cab driver Jan Radecki.

A written apology, that’s it?  A superstar athlete that can’t handle his booze and ego roughs up a cab driver for 20 cents change and he doesn’t even have to acknowledge it in public.  Plaxico Burress shoots himself, not another human, in the leg and gets 2 years in prison on weapons charges and a written apology is all the courts could throw at pretty boy Patrick Kane.

I’m not an idiot, Plaxico Burress shouldn’t be walking around with a piece strapped next to his cock, but you can kind of see what I’m getting at here right?  The justice in swine, Kane is hardly being held responsible for his shithead actions.  The little fucker apologized to his family, the people of Buffalo, the fans, oh especially the fans, and the Chicago Blackhawks organization; would it be too much to ask him to address the victim in all of this?

“Obviously I want to apologize to my family, the city of Buffalo, my team, the whole Blackhawks organization, obviously all the fans out there, my fans especially, just for being in a regrettable situation,” Kane said. “But it’s behind me. It’s time to move on.”

I’m moving on too.

Anyone recall Dany Heatley’s quick brush with video game fame when he adourned the cover of NHL 2004 before being replaced by Joe Sakic?  EA Sports chose to replace Heater after he attempted to travel back in time in his Ferrari and ended up killing his Atlanta Thrashers’ teammate Dan Snyder.  Considering Patrick Kane’s act of incredible stupidity (robbing a cabbie), it wouldn’t be surprising to see him replaced as this year’s cover boy for NHL ’10.

Chicago Blackhawks right winger and South Buffalo native Patrick Kane and a relative face robbery and other charges after allegedly assaulting a cab driver and failing to pay their fare after getting a ride from Chippewa Street early this morning.

Check out the full story at TSN.ca if you haven’t already.  Here’s the kicker… their fare was $13.80 and the assault and robbery was over $1.20 change that the cab driver did not have on his person.  What?  No tip?

***Update*** (BuffaloNews.com has archived the original article, so I give you TSN.ca.  Reports now saying the dispute was over 20 cents change.  Whatever, Kane’s image is going to take a hit… cocky little fucker he is.)

Pogge Sent Packing

Tuukka Rask Justin Pogge was once the goaltender of the future for the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Pogge has reportedly been shipped to Anaheim for nothing (for now) where he’ll likely assume the role of number three on the depth chart.  My buddy Eyebleaf takes it easy on Pogge upon his departure, I’m not so sure I could have been so kind.

Speaking of the Toronto Maple Leafs, remember a few weeks back when I was championing the cause for the club to name a captain? It looks like Leafs’ Nation is on board, and they’re tired of watching a captain-less squad.  Maple Leafs Hot Stove has your nominees, I’m going with Komisarek.

Donald Brashear, Riley Cote, and Jeff Carter Hang With the Doggfather

Stick-taps to The700Level.com for the photo and story.

NHL players have been the slowest professional athletes to grab hold of the Twitter craze.  Where other sports’ personalities have built legions of followers and crafted clever online identities, hockey players stand in the background scratching their collective heads at this advanced new social technology.  That was, until Martin Havlat began pouring his emotions out like a skinny jean-wearing hipster about how the Chicago Blackhawks had offered him nothing in the way of loyalty and honour.

Some social-media enthusiasts took to debating the pros and cons of hockey players using Twitter as a form of engagement for fans, that’s another direction altogether from where we’re going here.  There’s some great discussions going on via Kyle at NHL Digest and the brothers Nadeau at The Hockey Zen, if that’s your thing.  What’s got Hockeyhead all fired up today is the incessant crybaby shenanigans on Havlat’s part while his former team is trying to move past the ugliest offseason a Conference finalist has seen in recent memory.

Much has been written in the past few days regarding John McDonough‘s handling of the Dale Tallon mailing snafu, and how Havlat has taken the opportunity to fan the flames that encompass his former team all the while having signed a much more lucrative deal than Chicago (no matter who was in charge) would ever have been prepared to offer him.  This is where I stand:  Martin Havlat is a shitbag, he’s a shitbag on John McDonough’s level but with much smaller balls.

To Havlat’s credit, as was already pointed out on Puck Daddy; it was Havlat’s responsibility to speak to his comments made on Twitter regarding how his contract situation was handled by management.  Havlat spoke with TSN’s Darren Dreger (who for the record believes Eklund is “real”), and expressed his discontent with his former team in more than 140 characters:

“My negotiation with Chicago was not between Dale and my agent, it was between Dale and McDonough,” Havlat said “Why? Because McDonough couldn’t stand that Dale was so successful and getting the credit for building the Hawks from a last place team to making the Conference Final in three short years. Remember, we were also the youngest team in the NHL last year.”

“I was too closely identified with Dale,” he continued. “McDonough knew long ago he was going to fire Dale. He wanted someone he could claim as his own He wanted to stand up at the convention and claim credit for signing this guy or that guy.”

Thank you Martin, for coming out and providing some form of clarification on your demands for fans to reconsider their season-ticket money.  Frankly, everything you said there is a load of shit, though.  The negotiations were between Dale and McDonough because during that quick three year turnaround you were largely absent.  Out of 246 games during the three years Havlat spent in Chicago, he did not play in 74 due to a range of injuries.  In fact, through Havlat’s eight NHL seasons he has averaged just below 59 games played per.  When Havlat wasn’t hamming-up an injury for an extended absence, he was sitting in the press box serving one of a few suspensions for either kicking someone or using his stick as a weapon.

Havlat would also question the direction of the team, and state that most of the players’ allegiance lies with Tallon during his conversation with Dreger.  The direction of the team?  There’s no doubt that Chicago has the makings of a financial disaster on their hands, but they’ll also be pretty competitive while the Bowman kid sorts out the money mess.  Of course the players’ side with Tallon, he’s the guy that was throwing all that fucking money at them.

The players need not be worried about the loss of their “father figure”, McDonough offered a lousy rebuttal to allegations that he wanted the spotlight for himself while making it clear that Tallon would be “around the United Center” next season (via The Score 670 radio in Chicago, via the ever helpful Puck Daddy).  So there you go, although Tallon will receive the recently paroled uncle treatment from the Blackhawks, he can spread his fatherly virtues around to his boys as long as he doesn’t have time alone with them.

Somewhere lost in all of this is an element of truth to Dale Tallon’s dismissal.  John McDonough may be guilty of jealousy and used Tallon’s unfortunately timed deals with several RFA’s to cut him loose of his post at GM.  Then again, it could have just been the second coming of Paul Coffey money he threw at Brian Campbell, the some $12 million he tied up in goaltending last season, or ultimately the 12-year contract given to Marian Hossa.  Martin Havlat just perpetuated this mess by offering his ill-thunk ramblings via Twitter.  In Havlat’s case, it came down to the team letting him walk out the door with his hefty demands, and they’re better off for it.