In the End it Won't Matter: Some NHL Preseason Notes

Frustratingly, The Black Hawks have added former Hawk and ersatz tough guy Daniel Carcillo to their training camp roster.  I actually did a fist pump when I learned that Car Bomb had been traded for an opened pack of stick tape to LA prior to the beginning of last season.  In the fifty-or-so games he participated in with The Hawks he may have played a handful of shifts in which he was not a liability, a nuisance or an embarrassment.  And now they've brought him back into the fold, even after he failed to make the Pittsburgh Penquins.  Remember when this clown skating on The Hawks' top line was a thing?  Those were the days!

Seriously, I cannot divine the point of this.  Is there an outside chance that Carcillo could usurp Brandon Mashinter's death grip on the team enforcer/waste of space role?  Is this a maneuver to ensure that Mashinter doesn't get complacent, even after he recently bested titans no less than Cody Bass and Pierre-Cedric Labrie to "earn" his job?  It's probably not as elaborate or as sinister as I suspect but if Car Bomb in the lineup on opening night I might find myself wishing for an Antoine Roussel sneak attack, as awful as that sounds.

I feel bad for Stéphane Robidas.  Not because he broke his leg eight times in the last year, or because his nose fails to point in any discernible direction, but because the Toronto Sports Network continues to lionize him as a possible cure for The Maple Leafs' perennial defensive woes.  Robidas seems like a nice guy and has certainly been a capable defender over the years but, at age 37, how much is he likely able to provide?  Look for the lynch mob to assemble the first night Robidas ends up a minus, which will almost certainly be opening night.  Of course, this is the team that allowed the likes of Mark Fraser and Mike Kostka to have regular spots in the d-rotation...and Fraser couldn't even stick with The Oilers last season.  I wasn't paying attention at the time, but I'll bet those guys played alongside (or slightly ahead of...*huff *puff*) Dion Phaneuf, making their own shortcomings less apparent.  Anyway, I feel bad, Robidas will feel bad and might even find himself longing for another compound fracture of the fibula very soon.