Blake Geoffrion Considers Retirement (and other links)

Originally, I was going to start this article by making some jokes about the Ottawa Valley Farm Show, which is running in the nation's capital as we speak, but some sad news broke this morning and I thought it'd be inappropriate. Thus, I'll just get down to business. I'm introducing a new segment to the daily links called "Know Your Enemy." On game days, I'll share some links from writers that follow that day's opponent. There's some great stuff out there in the blogosphere so hopefully it'll be worthwhile. With that out of the way, here are your links for the day:

Habs News and Analysis

• We begin with the aforementioned sad news. Canadiens' left winger Blake Geoffrion, the 25 year old, former Hobey Baker winner who suffered a skull fracture back in November, has informed the organization that he is seriously considering retirement.
• Here's a quotation, care of ESPN's John Buccigross, from the Eye on Hockey article: "I love the game of hockey more than anything and this decision tears me up inside," Geoffrion says, "but we are talking about my brain."
  
• Other than that, things are relatively quiet on the roster front. Super hunk Raphael Diaz has not yet been cleared to resume skating, Petteri Nokelainen participated in team drills today, and Greg Pateryn is expected to draw into the lineup for tonight's game.
• Jeff Mezydlo of the Associated Press has a preview of tonight's game up on CBC Sports.
  
  

Know Your Enemy: Ottawa Senators Edition

• Things are also quiet on Ottawa's roster front. Robin Lehner will start tonight's game while Chris Neil and Sergei Gonchar are expected to play despite not practicing Tuesday.
• Bryan Murray went out and bought a dump truck yesterday, picking up Matt Kassian from the Minnesota Wild for a 2014 sixth round pick. According to Gord Miller, he will not be in the lineup tonight.
• Chris from The 6^th Sens is not impressed with the deal, citing Darryl Sutter's philosophy on goons.
• Silver Seven's Peter Raaymakers is neutral to the deal, hoping that Kassian can skate well enough to crack the fourth line. (A man can dream, can't he?)
  
• Chris from The 6^th Sens breaks down Ottawa's scoring chances at the half way point of the season. Not surprisingly, the Sens "chances for" percentage has dropped considerably from the first quarter of the season. In games 1-12, they were chugging along at 52.1%, games 13-24 saw that drop to 45.4%. Kyle Turris is getting spanked, rocking a chance differential of -6.59 per 60 in the second quarter.
• In case you've been living under a rock, or were prepping for the Farm Show, Kaspars Daugavins had the shootout attempt of the year on Monday. The Bruins managed to complain about it for some reason.

General News and Analysis

• Corey Perry delivered a hit on Minnesota's Jason Zucker last night that has garnered a phone hearing with the NHL. The folks over at Anaheim Calling and Hockey Wilderness have their own takes.
• I initially thought this was a parody article, but Scott Howson is indeed joining the Oilers' front office as a scout. Oilers blogger Lowetide has a preliminary report. No joke is necessary.
• Copper ‘n' Blue's Derek Zona evaluates NHL Ownership by winning percentages. MLSE is not that bad, I guess.
• It's kind of off topic, but the IIHF has released the results of their annual European attendance survey. To my surprise, the Swiss National League A was the most attended league in 2012, setting new records, while the Elitserien dropped to fourth overall in average attendance.
• The Chicago Blackhawks are the first team to crack a national Sports Illustrated cover since 2010. Some fans are not impressed with the tone of the cover and Chris Peters from Eye on Hockey breaks down the reaction.
• Laura had an awesome exchange with the Los Angeles Kings' Official Twitter Account. Check it out!

Archive Material and EOTP News

• Here are Olivier's recaps of the first three Habs-Senators games: January 30^th, February 3^rd, and February 25^th.
• For reference sake, here is EOTP's 2011-2012 First Half Review.