Shelley on the board

Not a whole lot to write about today as we wait for Edmonton but I gotta give some love to Jody Shelley tonight. He scored his first goal of the season and got in two fights... I only caught the second one but he won convincingly against Greg De Vries. Of course my next question is what is Greg De Vries doing fighting Jody Shelley ?

Regardless Shelley is one of those guys I'll always root for and it was fun to see him making a difference out there for the Sharks.

That game got ugly though... Sharks were up 4-0 and the Preds didn't go quietly. Tootoo got into a couple...suprise right? Heck even Joe Thornton dropped them.

San Jose is a lock for the playoffs so whenever they can knock off a team will be contending with the Jackets its a good thing. Unfortunately, as much as I hate to say it, the same goes for the Wings.

It was also cool that the San Jose player's dads made the trip to Nashville. They interviewed Shelley's dad at intermission - dude is a trip.

Speaking of the Wings... they knocked off Edmonton tonight 4-0. Edmonton has lost their past 3 and will be playing tomorrow on the tail end of a back to back. The Jackets have no excuses tomorrow but you better believe Edmonton is looking at that game as a must win.

Whom else caught the nugget from Puck-rakers about the Jackets players wanting game ops to pump up the music during games?

I'm certainly all for it as you can hardly hear it in the lower bowl and if the crowd isn't cheering, then why not blast some tunes.

I will caution though that before game ops should pump up the music, they have to actually pick some quality tunes to pump up first. i.e. no "if your happy and you know it clap your hands".. uggh.

Game ops has done a better job at replays (although they need to work on their quickness cutting to them after plays) they still have a long way to go in some areas to keep things fresh including their music selections. Hell, just let the players pick the tunes.

Finally we also heard today that Howson, at least publicly, is not currently pursuing any outside help for an extremely struggling powerplay.

Personally I can't and won't believe that. I'm sure he's kicked some tires but the price right now is probably more than he's willing to part with.

Fact of the matter though is that if the Jackets powerplay continues to sputter he's either going to have to take a hard look at re-calling Russell or giving Wilson or Sigalet a shot....or......he's got to make a move. The Jackets even strength play has been great but you can't continue to live on that all season, the Jackets are going to need to cash in on the powerplay to stay in this thing.

As I said in the previous post comments if Howson hasn't made a move yet by the deadline and the Jackets are still in the mix but still struggling on the PP, you've got to think a move is made then to bring in some offensive blueline help.

Until then its more trial and error with Chimera getting his turn. Why not right? It can't get any worse than where it sits at 30th in the league.

-LTL