Who cares what those know-nothing keyboard warriors have to say.
Much more interesting? Last night, I recorded the HNIC coverage of our game and today watched the pre-game, intermission, and post-game (After Hours) to see what they had to say about our guys (well, Celebrini in particular, though as a bonus there was some very complimentary talk about Askarov after the first period with Kelly Hrudey having some positive stuff to say, including that he likes his cockiness/confidence).
There was a lot of gushing over Celebrini. Kevin Bieksa may conjure up bad thoughts for Sharks fans, but he's a huge Celebrini booster; he's known him since Celebrini was like six, after all (in Vancouver). They showed his highlights from the Vegas game (Smith got some kind words there, too) and Bieksa said the way in which Celebrini can just dominate opponents in winning the puck off of them along the boards reminds him of Pavel Datsyuk. High praise!
Later, they were talking about how he sort of whips shots toward the net, and that elicited comparisons to Paul Kariya and how he would shoot sometimes. It was pretty interesting getting these outside perspectives, especially Bieksa's, since he says basically because of Celebrini, if he sees a Sharks game is on, he'll turn it on and watch. He sounded like a certain brand of Sharks fan when he said, "Take away the first nine games and the past six games and they have a surprisingly good record!" which drew some jokes from the rest of the panel.
Oh and he also said he wishes Celebrini had been put on the Four Nations roster, even to just be a power play specialist and get comfortable with the others on the roster in advance of the Olympics. And then I think Ron MacLean said that he agrees that Celebrini will be on the Olympics roster.
All very good stuff!