Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Maybe the Fans Won't Even Notice

The Devils waived Vitaly Vishnevski today. The big Russian was terrible last season, accumulating the worst +/- on the Devils despite only playing 15 minutes a game. Still, he has a reasonable cap hit (2 years left at $1.8 million) and he's a left-handed shot. He's basically a better Denis Gauthier and could help out on the penalty kill. The Kings would still need a defenseman to play on the power play, though.

Ducks' fans, any thoughts on Vitaly?

16 comments:

Earl Sleek said...

I'm not a credible source on Vishnevski, as my fandom gets pretty close to puck-bunnyish around the big Double-V.

Put it this way: for years, my only rule for judging a Ducks GM was that I could support any trade or any signing, so long as Sammy Pahlsson and Vitaly Vishnevski remained on the roster.

Nowadays, I'm more of a Pahlsson-only kind of guy, but that's where I'm coming from, anyway. The guy is a whale of an open-ice hitter, and that gets a lot of points in my book.

Earl Sleek said...

Oh, and Copper & Blue offers a pretty reasonable (bad) assessment of Vish-dog, too.

The guy did get to play against easy competition on the bottom pairing in Jersey, and still got outscored by a goal every 60 minutes. Spreadsheet-wise, those are some pretty awful numbers.

So there's that perspective, too.

Earl Sleek said...

Oh boy, another 3-comments-in-a-row streak for Sleek.

While we're on the subject of former Ducks, though, I thought this item was interesting:

A well placed source has told Sharkspage that Jeff Friesen has been invited by the San Jose Sharks to their training camp.

What may be most shocking, though: Friesen is only 32?

Anonymous said...

I certainly don't want to see Vish in Kings uniform checking and hitting Ducks players. He was a mad man when it came down to checking.

BTW, what the heck? Friesen is only 32, for real?? I thought he's be very close to his retirement.

Unknown said...

Vitaly is great if you want someone to run round and hit people (HITS not fights!). Only problem is he will run round to hit people. As a ducks fans it would hurt a little to see him on the kings - but not thaaat much!!

Unknown said...

Didn't Friesen start when he was 18?

Earl Sleek said...

Didn't Friesen start when he was 18?

I guess so. Per Hockey-Reference.com (which is quickly becoming one of my go-to sources on the internet, btw), Mr. Freeze played 48 games as an 18-year-old.

Mike in OC said...

Yeah, Vish would go out of his way...WAY out of his way to hit people. The only problem was when he missed, or only grazed them, he was WAY out of position.

But the best open ice hits I've seen in Ponda are his.

Anonymous said...

Would have been so much better if Lubo was still on the roster - then get Vishnevski, too, and start a pool on how long before an announcer strangled on his own tongue trying to pronounce both names.

What a missed opportunity. :)

Unknown said...

Don't worry, Bob Miller has quite the residual memory. If the Kings signed Vishnevski it would be a very long time before he got through a game without calling him visnovsky.

Earl Sleek said...

Heck, I remember from the '06 playoffs (well, I took a trip down memory lane by clicking on our "Vishnevski" tag) how NBC/Versus swingman Neil Smith refused to call Vitaly anything BUT Visnovsky.

That was silly.

Sarah said...

Crap. If Friesen is 32, that means I'm old. He was the next big thing when I was in high school.

Alexander Dubcek said...

Don't worry, Bob Miller has quite the residual memory. If the Kings signed Vishnevski it would be a very long time before he got through a game without calling him visnovsky.

Nut, that's an understatement. I remember watching opening night in 1995, when Colorado played in L.A. for the first time as the Avalanche, and Bob Miller even joked in the intro about making a reference to the Rockies who would be Devils, and sure enough, later in the game, he made exactly that screw up.

VeryProudofYa said...

One of my favorite memories of Vishnevski came in a game against the Panthers the year after the lockout. He lined some random panther up and moved in for the kill. For whatever reason, said panther tried to duck or cower or crouch or something, and vishnevski knocked the everliving fuck out of him.

I recall, quite distinctly, the prone body lying still save for the occasional involuntary twitch.

The ducks won the game 1-0 or something and the hit didn't really seem to impact the game, but my god did he drop some hammer.


Also, I'm all for Vishnevski on the kings, since the pacific is full of dirtbags that could use a big hit. (Avery, Ott, Perry, etc).

Kent W. said...

A well placed source has told Sharkspage that Jeff Friesen has been invited by the San Jose Sharks to their training camp.

Bwahahahahaha!

I mean...*ahem*...good for Jeff.

Anonymous said...

Um...russian...russian league!