 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Paul STASTNY (STAS-nee, PAWL) |
Colorado Avalanche |
|
CHIP OFF THE OLD ICE BLOCK: STASTNY AN ALL-STAR
Rick Sadowski writes in the Rocky Mountain News, "The Avalanche hasn't had much reason to feel good about its play in recent days, so the news Thursday that Paul Stastny will take part in the 2008 NHL All-Star Game comes as a refreshing change. The 22-year-old center will suit up for the Western Conference as a reserve in the Jan. 27 contest at Philips Arena in Atlanta after participating the night before in the SuperSkills competition... "It's always exciting, the first time for anything. To be selected with all these other players is just an honor. Hopefully, I can soak it up and enjoy it as much as I can." |
STASTNY ‘LUCKY, HONOURED' TO WEAR NO. 26
Tony Gallagher writes in the CanWest News Service, "When Paul Stastny bagged 78 points as a rookie with the Colorado Avalanche last year, he became the fourth-highest first-year scorer in franchise history, giving Evgeni Malkin a late run for the Calder Trophy. The other three players ahead of him on the team's list all happen to have the same name, and it also happens to be Stastny. We speak here of his father Peter who had 109 points with Les Nordiques back in 1980-81 when the team was in Quebec City, the town where Paul was born some 22 years ago. Then came his uncle Marian who had 89 points the following season. Third on the list is uncle Anton, who accompanied his father defecting from then Czechoslovakia and rang up 83 points the same year Peter burst on the NHL scene." |
A CHIP OFF THE OLD EASTERN BLOC
Jim Matheson writes in the Edmonton Journal, "The father in Peter Stastny, not the Hall of Famer, says his boy, Paul, had a far tougher road to the NHL than Evgeni Malkin did last year, which is why he feels Paul should have won the Calder trophy rather than the Russian centre. The old man says going from college hockey at Denver U to the bigs with the Colorado Avalanche was a much harder chore than Malkin's – auditioning for two years in the best league outside the NHL. Peter is probably right, although the NHL media voters didn't see it that way. Malkin was a landslide winner with 120 of 143 first-place votes, while Stastny only had 16, even though he had the longest point streak (20 games) for a first-year player in NHL history. Wayne Gretzky never did that. Neither did Mario Lemieux." |
|
|
|
