Flushing the System

Miss a few days with the flu and look what happens around here.

Bruce Boudreau is fired in Washington, Paul "the Gangster of Love" Maurice is fired in Carolina and Randy Carlyle remains employed as coach of the woefully uninspired squad in Anaheim.

Maurice is a little closer to my heart, first for allowing to make my former colleagues in Southern California chuckle when I added the Steve Miller Band reference to his name. And also for being a guy who understood his circumstances and appeared to be loyal.

In his first stint with the Hurricanes, he and his team came in and did not have a particularly good game against the Anaheim's then not so mighty waterfowl in jade and eggplant. The beat writer from Raleigh was banging out his copy in the press box and missed the first elevator down to the dressing room area at the Pond. Apparently he missed the second and third elevator down, too. But Maurice would not start the postmortem until the Raleigh beat writer appeared.

I wonder how fast the Gangster of Love started his pressers when he was coaching Toronto. And what a change to go from one, to too many, and back to one on the road, perhaps.



Before I got the flu, I was wondering what what happening to the Capitals. (As were many others, of course.)

George McPhee makes it clear the coach had lost the room, which many had said long before. Well, we cannot help but think the room needs to be adjusted. Maybe Dale Hunter can take charge, but it is one thing to coach a bunch of teenagers willing to do most anything just to make the NHL. It can be another task entirely to get a room of men to head in the same direction.



A team headed nowhere fast, which is a funny fact with freeways all around the home rink, exists in Anaheim. Can't stop goals from going in. Cannot score enough. Carlyle appears to be safe, we are told, but why should we believe that. The stench coming from the Honda Center is hard to ignore. The Orange County Register's Mark Whicker has managed to navigate around East Katella Avenue.

The verdict. Nothing is working, and the quotes reveal more questions than answers, more ifs than butts moving toward a positive outcome.

Last night I stuck with the Maple Leafs/Ducks game through its conclusion only because I was a little late in doing laundry. Halfway through folding towels I noticed that I was working harder than the Ducks. (Hard to believe, I know, but go with me a bit on this.) Carlyle was looking for help. Perhaps I should have offered him a fresh towel to hold over his nose.