Valiquette May Start Against Philly and Other Notes

Over at Blue Notes, Steve Zipay gives a report at practice today including news that Steve Valiquette could get the start against Philadelphia tomorrow...

- After practice today at the Spectrum, coach Tom Renney said he was "contemplating" using Valiquette (2-3-1, with a 2.73 GAA) rather than play Lundqvist two consecutive nights. "...(Henrik's) going to be absolutely essential to our run and I don't want to burn him out. I want him to be in a position to play as much of those as he possibly can. We're going to have to play Steve. There's no question about that. (Henrik) was good against Montreal and New Jersey and I like the day off in between."

- President and GM Glen Sather sat in the fifth row behind the bench, watching the skate, paging through stats and taking phone calls. Sather, who also was in Carolina, and I briefly exchanged greetings, but according to a team spokesman, Sather would not be available to discuss the state of the ninth-place team. "When there's news, he'll talk," he said. "Nothing's imminent."

- The players dressed at Wachovia Center and wore sandals or sneakers, bussed over and laced up their skates at the Spectrum...Renney used some colorful language during attack drills. "Everybody understand the ------ concept? Drive the net. You want to win hockey games? ------ wake up!"....At one point, Shanahan took linemates Brandon Dubinsky and Nigel Dawes to the dry-erase board attached up on the glass to discuss positioning...Near the end of practice, bare-headed Jagr fired puck after puck off the old sideboards from about seven or eight feet away.

...I actually don't have a problem with Valiquette in goal tomorrow, because if we can't score more than one goal a game it really doesn't matter whose in goal.

...god I hope Sather isn't looking at the stats of Dubinsky, Dawes, Callahan, Anisimov, Cherepanov or Sanguinetti in an effort to boost their trade value in an attempt to get an aging defenseman.

...I've definitely been tough on Renney, but it's great to see that he's droppin' f-bombs on these guys trying to wake them up.

...love the practice updates from Zipay, Weinman and Dellapina. They really give you a sense of what's going around the team.