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Three (News) Stars of the Week: Maurice feels the heat, Recchi disses Canucks, Those poor defenseless goalies

Paul Maurice

“Three (News) Stars of the Week” will run every Friday. It’s our way of acknowledging the week’s big NHL stories that gave us lots of page views, thereby increasing PHT’s attractiveness to advertisers.

Third star: Paul Maurice is on the hot seat

The Carolina Hurricanes have lost six of their last seven games and the man behind the bench is starting to feel the heat. This team needs to turn it around, and soon. Maurice is tight with general manager Jim Rutherford; however, loyalty can only go so far. Then again, could anyone coach the ‘Canes to a winning record. Is it Maurice’s fault Eric Staal isn’t scoring? Maybe Rutherford shouldn’t have spent $12.75 million on Tomas Kaberle. Didn’t Rutherford watch the playoffs? Carolina hosts Buffalo tonight and Toronto on Sunday. Drop those two and something’s got to give.

Second star: Mark Recchi doesn’t care much for the Canucks

Specifically he told a Boston sports radio station, “[In] 22 years they are the most arrogant team I played against and the most hated team I’ve ever played against. I couldn’t believe their antics, their falling and diving.” Clearly Recchi didn’t watch many Canucks games prior to the Cup final if he was surprised by their antics. Vancouver didn’t become the most hated team in hockey overnight. Not that the Canucks have time to worry about what retired hockey players are saying about them. They’ve got bigger problems at the moment.

First star: The plight of the helpless goalies

Saturday in Boston, Bruins forward Milan Lucic ran over Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller. You’d think this would have bothered the Sabres, but it didn’t seem to until after the game. Miller suffered a concussion on the play, but Brendan Shanahan decided not to suspend Lucic, because Lucic said he didn’t mean to do what he did. Though let’s be honest, he totally did. On Tuesday, all the general managers, plus Shanahan, got together in Toronto and talked about protecting the goalies. Shanahan came out of the meeting and promised that, going forward, there would be “heightened sensitivity to the well-being of our goaltenders.” Translation: Lucic got away with it, but I won’t be so forgiving the next time.