« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 30, 2005
Preseason vs. Pittsburgh
Ottawa's roster pictures are available now on Getty Images.
Though the scoresheet doesn't reflect it, Marty apparently played his best game of the preseason so far last night. He got a nice pass from Meszaros in the first, was in all alone and... hit both posts. There was a similar story in the third. He also saw some time on the PK again and attempted to prove that sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
From Ken Warren in the Ottawa Citizen, regarding moving Havlat from left to right wing: "I met with Martin and told him I wanted him to play better," said Murray. "I gave him the start at right wing, which was his preference, and he responded with a good game."
Bruce Garrioch, Ottawa Sun: That meant winger Martin Havlat, who hasn't looked comfortable on the left side with Bryan Smolinski and Daniel Alfredsson, moved back to the right with centre Mike Fisher and Chris Neil on left wing.
And they were flying. Havlat hit the post behind Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury in the first and in the third, while Neil had his stick chopped away late in the first on a scoring chance. Fisher made a nifty move on Noah Welch in the second, but Fleury was able to come up with the stop.
"I spoke with (Havlat yesterday) and I told him I need more from him," said Murray. "He told me he felt he would be more comfortable on the right side."
Chris Stevenson, Ottawa Sun: I don't know how much Murray is planning on using Havlat to kill penalties, but he did a pretty nice job in the closing seconds of the game. When the other team can't get the puck off your guy, that's usually a pretty good way of killing a penalty.
Also, Havlat is opposed to the methodology of Saskin's hiring.
Posted by jz at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2005
Sitting again.
There will be no Havlat-Smolinski-Alfredsson line tonight against the Sabres, according to the Citizen. Er, as in they aren't playing, not that the line has been broken up.
Posted by jz at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2005
Toronto Take 2.
According to message board posters, the Havlat-Smolinski-Alfredsson line continues to unimpress. Despite Bochenski's three-goal performance, Marty was said to have the move of the game, as commented on by Chris Stevenson at the Ottawa Sun:
I don't know how ready Martin Havlat is for the NHL season, but he looks like he's in perfect form for the Premiership. He used his head to make a nice pass to Wade Redden at the point in the first period
Posted by jz at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2005
Pittsburgh, Toronto
Havlat played in last night's game against Pittsburgh, getting an assist on one of Brian Pothier's PP goals and scoring the first goal of the shootout as skater #5. It was eventually won by the Pens after 13 rounds. Official stats for the game are hard to come by, presumably because it took place in Wilkes-Barre.
He is expected to suit up again tonight against the Leafs in the first game played at the Corel Centre since April 18, 2004.
Posted by jz at 07:40 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2005
Not in lineup.
Briefly: Havlat is not penciled in to play tonight's pre-season game against Pittsburgh.
Posted by jz at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005
Slacking.
Since I don't live anywhere near Ottawa, I haven't been able to attend any of training camp. Posters on various message boards have had mainly good things to say about Marty: that he's fast, and that he seems to be in mid-season form already. The only negative I've read is that he and Alfredsson didn't seem to have much chemistry in the first pre-season game against Toronto, but that's something that will presumably correct itself. They've never really played together before except on the powerplay, and then Alfredsson would generally be playing the point. That said, he did get an assist on an Alfredsson goal. He also took the opening faceoff (and lost it to Lindros) due to an error on the official gamesheet.
Marty didn't take part in the physicals on the first day of camp as he was getting over an illness, and also didn't practice yesterday. From the Ottawa Citizen:
Murray hasn't been afraid to crack a few one-liners during training camp.
Asked why Martin Havlat wasn't on the ice for practice yesterday, Murray said, "It's in his contract, he can't practice more than five times a week."
When the laughs stopped, Murray revealed that Havlat was nursing a sore arm, following a slash.
I'm not sure if his sickness means that he got away once again without taking a roster picture, but that should be determined within the next few days. I recently found the pictures Hana sent from when he was playing with Znojmo, and Shamir from SensNetwork was nice enough to send me some pictures from when Dany Heatley was introduced to the community, and I'm hoping to get all of those up within the next couple of hours. Ok, I'm aiming for a couple of hours, but I'll be satisfied with a couple of days.
If anyone else out there has some pictures they'd like to share, please feel free to send them to me. You will of course be given full credit, and if you should eventually change your mind and like them removed, I can do that too.
I personally got my first taste of watching hockey again last night, in the form of the Wings-Avalanche pre-season game, and that was enough to get me excited to get this site back up to date. Even without Henrik Zetterberg playing, who is clearly Marty's evil Swedish twin.
Posted by jz at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2005
Catch-up 2
Ken Warren: Martin Havlat isn't expecting any extra attention or nasty crowd reaction when the Senators travel to Boston to play the Bruins tomorrow. It's his first game against Boston since he received a five-game suspension for kicking the Bruins' Hal Gill in the groin on Oct. 15.
"I don't think so, I didn't hurt anyboday and I've done my time," Havlat said. "We'll see what is going to happen (tomorrow), but I think it will be like every other game. Every game is the same. You've got to be aware of other players and players trying to hit you."
Havlat has no intentions of talking or apologizing to Gill about the incident.
"I apologized to my teammates. I did a stupid thing. It was not the smartest thing. I'm not not going to talk to (Gill) unless he wants to talk to me."
Posted by jz at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)