Spirit loses four straight to start January
It was not a perfect ambiance in the lockerroom after Saturday night's 5-3 home loss against Edmonton; the fifth straight loss by the Spirit, a fourth one in January.
Coach Sutter was in a bad mood as he was clear in his statement:
"The team is not working. We're finally good enough to run for the playoffs, but will have to show some determination out there because we're playing like shit and there ain't no chance we're gonna make it that way. We better see a new team on Wednesday in Philadelphia cause otherwise the guys aren't going to enjoy the trip."
A complete lineup change is in sight for Houston and here's what we saw in practice today:
Gordon-Sandler-Reasoner
Novoseltsev-Wagner-Boldin
Ruutu-Gaustad-Letowski
Winchester-Kraft-Tomanek
Welch-Commodore
Skriko-Aucoin
Eaton-Majesky
Caron
Meanwhile, the World Junior Championships have started in Czech Republic and 4 Spirit Prospects were invited:
RW Jonathan Shank [USA] - 31st overall pick in 2007 - 13th forward
G Aapo Nousiainen [FIN] - 144th overall pick in 2008 - Starting Goaltender
D David Driver [CAN] - 122nd overall pick in 2007 - Healthy Scratch
D Carl DeWolf [CAN] - 103rd overall pick in 2007 - 2nd pairing D