The Lockout Cuts Deeper

Per NHL, “NEW YORK -- The National Hockey League announced today the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through October 24. A total of 82 regular-season games were scheduled for Oct. 11 through Oct. 24.

The cancellation was necessary because of the absence of a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players' Association and the NHL.”

And there it is.  The beginning of the end?  Stay tuned ….

Chris Botta makes the best point thus far, “Interesting how there never seem to be any contract squabbles when an NHL star takes a job in Europe.”

Isles Notes:

Per Chris Johnston, “Michael Grabner is heading back to his hometown in Austria to play for Villacher SV. Five sponsors are footing the bill.”

On October 2^nd, Per Chris Botta, “Source close to Pat LaFontaine told me tonight that Pat is not involved with anyone in any way in an Isles bid.”

Eric Hornick, “Without Isles, no NVMC arena events until Nets gm Oct 24.13 event nights at Barclays in that span.”

Sound Tigers take on Providence Bruins tonight in Preseason, Game 1:

Projected forward lines - Niederreiter-Nelson-Kabanov, Halmo-Sundstrom-Backman, DeFazio-Watkins-Riley, Gallant-Clark-MacKay.

Projected defensive pairings - Ness-Landry, de Haan-Wishart, McIver-Cantin...Anders Nilsson will start in net, Kenny Reiter will back up.

Update:

"I thought he was the difference in the game." - Scott Pellerin on Anders Nilsson who made 34 saves in tonight's 3-1 W over Bruins.

Other News:

Per Dmitry Chesnokov, “Hockey on ESPN. The KHL has announced they reached an agreement with ESPN to broadcast its games in the US on ESPN3.  The upcoming ESPN KHL schedule is Dynamo - Lev - SKA (10/6), Slovan - Dynamo (10/7), CSKA - SKA (10/8), Lev - Dynamo (10/9).”

@KeithLHHockey points out, Isles fans can see Visnovsky on the 10/7 broadcast.

** Please take a moment to visit superty.org/  and learn about Ty and his family.  This is not a hockey related story, just a human one. **