Captains Announced

Matt Hunwick has been named Michigan's captain for next year with Hensick and Dest as alternates. I like the choices. Hunwick was the better option of our returning captains from last year. They can't very well strip Hensick of his A, and Dest has probably earned the right to get a letter.

Hopefully that's a good sign that Hensick and Hunwick will stick true to what they said in last week's Ann Arbor News article that I linked a couple posts back, and return for their season seasons. It sounds like Hunwick is for sure back, Hensick's been more quiet about it. I don't think I've seen any direct quotes from him on the matter.

Trevor Lewis's Des Moines Buccaneers advanced to the USHL Championship Series, sweeping last year's champion Cedar Rapids 3-0. The Bucs are 6-0 in the playoffs now, and Lewis leads his team in scoring with a 2-9--11 line and is +5. Aaron Palushaj has a 2-3--5 line and is +2.

According to MaizeOut on the Yost Post, Wisconsin has offered Pat Kane a scholarship starting next December when he'll become elgible. If that's a route he's interested in taking, the Wolverines absolutely have to get in on that. We were his favored college choice before, but it looks like he's falling into a Peter Mueller type situation, where he wants to play college hockey, but might not want to spend another year killing people with the U-18s. The OHL has been the rumored route as of late, but if Michigan could bring him in in December, that would be absolutely HUGE for this team. He'd add a fourth potentially great player to this lineup of forwards (Hensick, Lewis, and Cogliano are the others). It'll be interesting to see if Spath or Bob Miller can find anything out from their sources on this one.

Good news in the NHL. Right now San Jose is whupping on Anaheim, meaning that it's more likely that the Sharks will get the #5 seed and face Nashville in the first round, leaving Anaheim to take on Calgary. Meaning that either Kiprusoff or Giguere will exit the playoffs in the first round. With Vokoun already gone, that bodes well for Detroit's chances. We'd have to root hard for Calgary in that series (unless you'd rather face Giguere than see the Sharks), and then either Kiprusoff or Turco would exit before a potential matchup with the Red Wings. This is setting up nicely.

It's either Edmonton or Colorado in the first round. Probably Edmonton, unless Colorado manages to lose tonight to a Canucks team with nothing left to play for.

One music note: The John Butler Trio kicks ass live. Saw them last night at the Blind Pig. They're just phenomenal, even if it was like 95 degrees in the venue and everyone came away looking like they just went swimming. That was miserable, but the show was great. JBT played for 2 1/2 hours....great stuff.