Commodore clears the air

Puk-rakers got an explanation from Commodore on "the photo" which I will also share here:

No. 1 -- The photo was taken by a friend in February while Commodore was still a member of the Carolina Hurricanes.

No. 2 -- The money pictured is his winnings in from a Hurricanes' Super Bowl block pool.

No. 3 -- The photo was taken in a spare room of his Raleigh-area home.

No. 4 -- The photo was posted on a friend's web page without Commodore's knowledge several weeks ago.

No. 5 -- Commodore learned about the photo from a contact in the Ottawa Senators public relations department four days ago and called his friend and asked him to remove the photo. By then, of course, it began to spread.

Jackets management is satisfied with the explanation and will not speak to Commodore about the photo. Commodore signed a five-year, $18.75 million deal over the summer.

Not sure I buy the whole "spare room" in his house line... looks like a hotel or door room to me. Either that or he really needs to redirect some of those benjamins towards an interior designer!

Regardless, go out and knock some heads tonight Mike and believe me everyone will quickly forget about this (well maybe not the skoal can....or the curtains.....or the..okay....moving on).....

Also a few more updates. Russell gets the scratch tonight while Methot in is. Malhotra is also in and looks to be centering Picard and Dorsett.

I'm scratching my head over the Russell scratch but I'm sure Hitch has his reasons. It was hinted at in the paper today that Russell was told he needs to move his feet more.

Personally I don't get it.

We know he's undersized and his game isn't to hit so its no surprise he's only been credited with 1 (which is tied with Backman)..his game is all about positional play, skating and an active stick which I think he's done well at. He's also only a -1 which is tied with Backman for best +/- for defensemen who skated in the first 5 games. He's taken zero penalties. First in shots taken for defensemen. Has more blocked shots than Backman with 4. Has 1 giveaway and 1 takeaway.

He's out there to generate points from the blueline which he hasn't done a lot of but I really think they are coming for this kid. I know Methot played great in Nashville so you have to keep him in the lineup so perhaps at the end of the day its just a numbers game and its just Russell's turn to take a seast? Or maybe Hitch just wants to match up bigger bodies against a grind it out Vancouver squad?

With Russell out I look for Voracek or Brass to man a point on the PP.

UPDATE: Puck-daddy has a new article up about this with some great quotes from Commodore. Check it out here.

Fire away - how do you feel about Russell getting the scratch tonight? What am I missing?

-LTL