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Three (News) Stars of the Week: Talented teenagers, Montreal Canadiens and Ilya Bryzgalov

Ilya Bryzgalov

“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: A bunch of teenagers who are good at hockey

A number of the top picks from the 2011 draft were under the microscope this week as teams had to decide whether to keep their highly-touted prospects or send them back to junior. Most of the big names survived the cut, including Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Adam Larsson and Sean Couturier. Ottawa’s Mika Zibanejad didn’t make it, so he’s clearly a bust. It will be interesting to see if any of the teams made mistakes keeping their young guys up instead of giving them more time to develop at a lower level. Kyle Turris was rushed into the NHL too soon, and his career’s a mess right now.

Second star: Somebody had to pay for Montreal’s slow start

The Canadiens lost to Florida on Monday at the Bell Center, dropping their record to a disastrous 1-5-2. It was the Habs’ worst start since dinosaurs roamed the earth, so the city was in quite the tizzy. Calls for coach Jacques Martin’s head came from both the fans and media. Sensing this unrest, GM Pierre Gauthier took decisive action and fired assistant coach Perry Pearn. Why he did this isn’t entirely clear. Some have speculated Martin had become too reliant on Pearn’s advice and wasn’t listening to the other people in the organization. Those other people must have had some useful things to say, because as soon as Pearn was gone the Habs started winning.

First star: Ilya Bryzgalov is a basket-case

The Flyers thought they’d finally put their biggest issue to rest this summer when general manager Paul Holmgren signed goalie Ilya Bryzgalov to a huge contract that doesn’t run out for a long, long time. Many long-time hockey watchers considered it a risky move, as the 31-year-old Russian with the peculiar personality boasts no record of playoff success and has never played in a big hockey market like Philadelphia. Bryzgalov started out well with his new team, but he quickly fell on hard times. After a poor performance Wednesday in Montreal, he was forced to come off the bench Thursday against the Jets in relief of back-up Sergei Bobrovsky. Bryzgalov allowed four goals on 10 shots and Winnipeg won 9-8, after which the distraught goalie bared his soul to the media, admitting he had no confidence in himself, saying he was lost in the woods, and generally crumbling in front of our very eyes. Bryzgalov is scheduled to start Saturday in Carolina.