Hat tip to Chris Jerina, for pointing me in the direction of this post on the HFboards this morning…

A Swedish hockey publication is reporting that Linus Klasen has been recalled by the Predators.

I don’t speak Swedish….but Google does.  It goes a little something like this (thanks to OpenWheel on the HFboards for doing the dirty work)

Klasen get the chance in the NHL – is called up

After seven goals and three assists in his first seven games in the league are former farms Södertälje Forwarder Linus Klasen gained a great start to his career in North America. Klasen has made the most goals of all players in the AHL and he is eight points in the league. And now, a well-deserved chance in the NHL.

Named in the night

According to Linus Klasen HockeyExpressen.se has overnight been named to the Nashville Predators. There he becomes teammate of Swedish duo Anders Lindbäck and Patric Hörnqvist.

Injuries open

Nashville currently has both Marcel Goc and Matthew Lombardi on the injury list of forwards and zero based on hemmais when St. Louis Blues won 3-0 on Friday night.

I’m working to get confirmation from the team…but if this is true, he’ll certainly be missed in Abbotsford this weekend.  But at the same time, it’ll give other guys the chance to step up and be the man.  (that’s as good a positive spin I can muster right now.)

I can’t imagine that this would be a long term call-up with all the injuries the Preds are working through… But I’ll be interested to see what line Trotz skates Klasen on.  Most callups don’t get top 6 minutes…and what top six winger would be sent to a lower line to accomodate him?

Stay tuned.

UPDATE 10:09 AM….. STILL UNCONFIRMED.  Been in contact with the team, and it seems this is news to them as well.  I believe them.  The Swedish story could be very premature.  We’ll see.

UPDATE 11:24 — Confirmed with the team.  Klasen has been recalled.

It’s a numbers game sometimes.  And this is the card that Mike Bartlett and Scott Lehman just drew.

Bartlett is playing on a minor league two-way deal, so he’s the odd forward out, despite the speed and effort he has consistently been displaying.  The Steve Begin signing also contributed to the move.  And Lehman becomes the 8th defender when Roman Josi is ready to play….which is expected to be this weekend in Abbotsford!

The rumors are true!  The World Famous Short Shifts Admirals Roundtable Caption Contest is back!

For those that are new to our reindeer games, here’s how it works:

– We provide you a picture
– You write a funny caption (keep it clean, please)
– We pick a winner
– If local, winner gets media room cookies at a future home game.

Feel free to submit as many captions as you like!  We’ll pick a winner by faceoff on Friday night.

So here is the first photo, courtesy of photographer Scott Paulus.  Lots of material to work with in this one….Matt Halischuk, Jaime Sifers, Drew MacIntyre, intense guy and texty girls….

Good luck!

The Admirals are going to see if lightning can strike twice.

Chet Pickard has been reassigned to the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL, after starting this season 0-3-1, and not having won in his last 13 decisions dating back to last season.

This isn’t uncharted territory, as Mark Dekanich had a similar demotion last season.  He played two games for the Cyclones at the start of December, and he gave up just one goal over those two games.

Dekanich then won his next five games for the Admirals when he arrived back in Cream City, and was noticably more comfortable in net.

So here’s hoping Chet has a productive stint in Ohio.  The Cyclones play Friday, Saturday, Tuesday, and then Wednesday.  We’ll keep you posted on his performance this weekend.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Smith has been recalled to Milwaukee, likely to be in charge of opening the bench door.

(Photo credit:  Scott Paulus)

Chet Pickard has now lost 13 straight decisions, the latest a 4-3 loss in Chicago last night.

For his last win, you need to go back to February 5th, 2010.  He still gave up 3 goals to the Houston Aeros in that game, but the Admirals provided him with 5 goals of support, including staking him to a 3-0 lead in the first 25:04 of the game.

So has it been a case of lacking offensive support in those 13 losses?

Partially.  The Admirals have averaged exactly two goals per game over those 13 losses.  And if you take out the 5 goals they scored in a game last season that Pickard lost after relieving Mark Dekanich,  that’s a 1.75 goals per game average over the other 12 games.  So the lack of offense has certainly made it a little more challenging for Chet.

Tough luck?  Maybe a little bit.  But Chet needs to be able to make his own luck sometimes.  And when we’re throwing around words like “softie”, “unacceptable”, “stoppable”, and  “weak” to describe the goals he’s allowing, he can be his own worst enemy too.

We’ve seen the talent.  But the confidence has got to be…let’s say…on the low side.

So Roundtable — what do we do about Chet?

– Have him spend some time in Cincy?  Worked well for Mark Dekanich last season.
– Have him spend some quality time with Mitch Korn this week?
– Practice, practice, practice, and just be ready for next game?
–  Other _______________ (be creative)

Man, the hits just keep coming today.

Teemu Laakso has been returned to the Admirals.  He did manage to get into a game while he was in Nashville, playing 2:43 against Dallas on a night when the Preds dressed seven defensemen.

The Preds don’t play again until Thursday, so if Ryan Suter isn’t ready to come off the IR by then, they may call someone up again to be the 7th defensemen.  Or they might roll with the 6 they have and hope that nothing freaky happens.

As for the Admirals, this may slide Scott Lehman back to being a healthy scratch.

A well deserved honor — and probably not the last award he’ll win this year.

Klasen has been named the Reebok AHL Player Of The Week.  He even gets this nice write-up on the AHL’s homepage.

Tough to argue with the stats — he’s only leading the league in scoring, and he recorded a goal and an assist in each of the three games this weekend.

Don’t know how long he is for this league, but we’ll definitely enjoy it while it lasts.

(photo credit:  Scott Paulus)

Still waiting for the official release to hit the presses, but defenseman Teemu Laakso has been recalled by the Predators.

UPDATE 1:07pm, Joshua Cooper from the Tennessean is tweeting that “Preds recall Teemu Laakso from Milwaukee per a team release.”  So it’s officially official now.

With road games on Saturday and Sunday, Nashville has apparently elected to carry a 7th defenseman on the roster.

While Laakso has had a nice start to the season, playing some solid D and contributing offensively to the tune of four assists in five games (that ties him for 3rd on the team in points), raise your hand if you are surprised that it’s not Aaron Johnson getting the call?

I’m raising my hand.

Johnson hadn’t played very well in his first four games, but he did play his best game Friday night in Grand Rapids.  Still, I thought his NHL experience would trump the underwhelming early season play.

If Laakso is up for the weekend, the Ads should still be fine on the defensive side of things, as it may open up the door for Scott Lehman to suit up for the first time this year.  And if Laakso is up for awhile, we’ll still be fine, as reports are saying that Roman Josi may be ready to go in about another week.

Game two of the Admirals’ first 3-in-3 set is tonight at the Bradley Center.

More update — Josh Cooper (who is still pretty awesome) has a blog post out there saying that part of the reason for Laakso’s call-up is due to some defensemen who are a little under the weather.  He may or may not play, but it’s good to have the flexibility just in case Cody Franson is horking up his lunch.

(Hat-tip to ManInTheBox for pointing me to this story.).

The Copper And Blue blog is the Oilers version of Ontheforecheck.com .  The Oilers AHL team is the Oklahoma City Barons, a team that one might argue stocked up on 4A players, and spent some good cash to get them.

So with the help of capgeek.com, they put together some spreadsheets of each team’s opening night payroll for the conference.  I encourage you to check it out, as the info is very interesting.

Some payrolls are high due to one-way contracts — Michael Nylander is making 3-mil to play in Rochester this year.  But even taking him out of the equation, Rochester is still paying two players over $200,000.

The Wolves have 8 players making over $100k.  Patrick Rissmiller (you may remember him from the game tying goal on Friday night) is making a million, Jason Krog is making $550k, Drew MacIntyre at $500k, and Darren Haydar 200k.  Does this make them the Yankees of the division?

Just the salaries of Rissmiller and Krog eclipse that of the entire Admirals roster.

Tough to find any kind of correlation between payroll and team performance so far…we’re just too early in the season and the sample size is way too small.  But let’s revisit this after teams play about 20 games.  I’m hopeful that the smaller payrolls will make some noise and that playing with heart will elevate their performance.  Tough to say how much heart 4A players still have once they’ve realized that they’re likely to be 4A players for awhile.