Crawford from Austria
Thanks again to the folks at LAKings.com for providing audio today. Here's what Marc Crawford had to say about his goaltending plans for the two-game series in Austria, plus his impressions of what the exhibition series means.
``No, we won't play (Bernier) tomorrow,'' Crawford said. ``We're going to play Jason LaBarbera tomorrow. Jonathan played a great game, but we also know we've got two other great goalies here, in Jean-Sebastien Aubin and Jason LaBarbera. We're going to give Jason the start tomorrow and then we'll decide, for the following game, who we'll come back with. But we've been pleased, certainly, with Jonathan and how he's played and we're hoping that Jason has a great outing tomorrow. I know he's looking forward to it.
``What will happen, I'm sure, is that many of the teams we're playing, or all of the teams we're playing, will be extremely motivated to play the National Hockey Leaguers. There's lots of ex-NHLers on all the teams, especially the teams from the Swiss elite league and the Swedish league. There's a couple former players on the Red Bull, and with that motivation I'm sure there will be a little emotion and a little bit of passion in the game. We've got to stay focused on the preparation that we've got for our game against Anaheim. We want to really zone in on how we're playing in our own end, make sure our line combinations and our penalty-killing combinations and power-play combinations are continuing to develop and continuing to improve.
``Having said that, you're always trying to win, and the competitive juices will take over once the emotion of the game starts to stir up. ... You've not only got the motivation of different leagues playing against each other, you've got different countries playing against different countries. Any time you can add a little bit of nationalism into a sporting event, I think it adds a little bit of luster, and this exhibition series will probably be the (start) of something that will continue to happen.''
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J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey.
E-mail J.P. at jp.hoornstra@inlandnewspapers.com.
Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews
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Vincent Bonsignore is a sports columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. E-mail Vinny at vincent.bonsignore
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I'm really pumped about the Red Bull Tournament. It seems that it's not getting the attention it deserves. I know that it's just a "pre-season" game but I'm more nervous about these two games than I am about the season opener with the ducks.
Something about OUR Kings player teams from completely different countries and leagues is extremely intriguing. I'm really surprised that there isn't going to TV coverage for this.
I can't wait to see how we do.
FYI, over at LGK, there is a link to a free downloadable internet TV program that will allow you to watch the games in Austria. Check it out!
Go KINGS!
keeping fingers crossed for no injury issues coming out of austria.
Rich, Heard Jeff Guiliano was placed on waivers.
Would somebody explain why Lombardi would sign him to a contract this summer (only a couple of months ago) just to put him on waivers.
I mean why would anybody sign him in the first place. Let the poor player explore his options with another team.
I meam its madness.
So, can someone explain the rationalle to me.
I would think that they wanted Guiliano for veteran leadership in Manchester and the fact that the 4th line center spot of the Kings is up for grabs. Brady Murray won the spot, but that doesn't mean there can't be competition.
Guilian signed that contract, he knew what he was getting himself into. He has to clear waivers I think anyway b/c of his age or amount of NHL games played...
Peter Harrold's demotion to Manchester is on the Monarch's homepage, but nothing has been listed yet on Jeff Giuliano. I too figured he'd be assigned there once he cleared waivers...
I'll have to check on this. It appears as though he hasn't officially been assigned to Manchester yet, because there's no record of a transaction. Probably something that got held up because of the flight to Austria.
Thanks for the recap Rich - been reading your site the last 6-8 months or so and information available here has been posted afterwards elsewhere on the web. Appreciate the hard work and the coverage.
Along the lines of Guiliano, I am also curious to know about Kanko; on the ESPN Kings board it was reported that he was also Waived along with Cloutier, Buckley and Tverdovsky.
The 24 hour Waiver expiration period is well past, yet no word on the other three and assignments.
Kanko is the one of concern to me, as Buckley and Tverdovsky really have no value to another team - any way you can find out about this one too?