Posted on 05/01/2012 4:42:42 PM PDT by RitchieAprile
NASHVILLE -- The Nashville Predators announced on Tuesday morning that they will hold top-six forwards Andrei Kostitsyn and Alexander Radulov out of Game 3 of their Western Conference Semifinal series with the Phoenix Coyotes on Wednesday (9 p.m. ET, CNBC, TSN) for an unspecified violation of team rules.
"The Nashville Predators have a few simple rules centered around doing the right things," general manager David Poile said in a statement. "We have always operated with a team-first mentality and philosophy. Violating team rules is not fair to our team and their teammates."
Poile expanded upon that statement in a brief session with reporters.
"I've been a general manager for 30 years and I always try to treat each individual player with care, but I never put the individual player ahead of the team. In this situation, both these players violated a team rule," he said. "They have both been made aware of it; I met with both them this morning. They know that they are not playing in the game. [The situation] has been no more than a big distraction to our hockey team.
"I wanted to make the announcement today just to get the distraction out of the way so our players could get better prepared for Game 3 [Wednesday] night. It is very disappointing -- anytime something like this happens, it's disappointing. In the playoffs, it is even more so, to take out two of your better hockey players. It was a pretty easy decision. Our creed has always been to do the right thing. I try to do that in my personal life, so I certainly should do it in my business life. We've done the right thing by putting the team ahead of a couple of individual players. We will see where we go from here."
(Excerpt) Read more at nhl.com ...
Radulov stunk up the arena the other night. Lamest backcheck and laziest skater in NHL history.
Too bad about Rady because at his best his offense dazzles.
I still think, my PREDATORS will do just fine...!!!
GOOOOOO PREDS...GET THOSE DOGS...!!!
Your Preds just looked plain out of sync Sunday. I think they will be just fine, too. They are a wounded animal (just slightly wounded) and very dangerous. Should be a crazy (and entertaining) series.
GOOOO YOTES!!!!!
They did it! Whoo!
Go Mike Smith!
I’m still in a daze! Wow! Mike Smith is a beast. Two more series to go.... Dethrone the Kings!
Someone sure lit a fire under his behind ‘cause he wasn’t playing this well for Tampa Bay.
I met him twice ;once during a fan fast and the other after a game. He came over to us; most of them sign from their cars.
He’s pretty cool.
Are you in Arizona?
Have you seen those ‘Peggy’ Capital One credit card commercials? I love the one with Tim Thomas.
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