Badger Alumni updates

I should title this post "Stealing from Paul Capobianco", because I'm stealing a bunch (but not all) of this from his weekly Men's Hockey Insider email.

Capo tells us that 11 Badgers have skated in the NHL so far this season: Dany Heatley (SJS), Rene Bourque (CGY), Davis Drewiske (LAK), Jack Skille (CHI), Tom Gilbert (EDM), Joe Pavelski (SJS), Brad Winchester (STL), Steve Reinprecht (FLA), Brian Rafalski (DET), Brian Elliott (OTT), Ryan Suter (NSH).

As of today, Heatley is 6th in the league for goals (5) and total points (5). Bourque is tied with a gazillion players for 11th in goals (4) and is tied with 6 players for 10th in total points (9). I guess Heater likes being a Shark, and Rene likes being a Flame.

Pavelski is out with a lower body injury, but I'd expect him to be back soon as he was expected to miss about 2 weeks, and that'll be up in a few days.

Adam Burish (CHI), of course, was injured during the preseason and is expected to miss most of the regular season.

Brian Elliott made his 1st start this season in the Senators' 4-2 win over the Thrashers on Oct 10. Unfortunately for Els and for Badger fans, Leclaire has gotten the start in the subsequent games.

If Todd were still a Badger Hockey beat writer, he'd keep track of updated stats for NHL/AHL/ECHL Badgers, but alas, that's not the case, and I just don't have the ambition. (Miss ya, Todd!) However, I'm in the process of adding a feature on the left with links to stat pages for this year's NHL Badgers. Hopefully I'll remember to add players when they're called up. (For the time being, you're SOL on AHL/ECHL Badger stats.)

Speaking of AHL Badgers, as we previously posted, Chris Chelios has been skating with the Wolves, and while he didn't play on Wednesday when we were there, I can report that he seems to like the chicken dance and that he may have liked our Wisconsin jerseys. (I swear he gave us a little smile when he saw the jerseys, but nubeetle says he didn't see a smile. At the very least, he acknowledged the jerseys as we walked by.)

Capo also has links for Jack Skille's 1st goal of the season: video, article.

And he also offers us a couple of Ryan Suter links: Car racing, Suter's business

Oh, and I picked up some random trivia Wedensday from a very nice Wolves' photographer. Remember Chris Nelson from the 1990 championship team? After 4 years on the Badgers' blueline ('88-'92, 144 GP, 11-31-42), Nelson bounced around the IHL/AHL/ECHL/WCHL for about 10 years before playing several years of roller hockey, in which I understand that he was quite good. But obviously that's not the trivia. The trivia is that Chris Nelson apparently got into modeling. Who knew?