Okay, a couple news and notes as we kick off the Jeff Merrick Show here, Matt Marcasey,

and for one final day this week and Jeff will be back tomorrow.

I believe he's flying back today, and what a day to fly back because it is I thought it was cold yesterday. How about today?

My goodness. It's like minus a thousand here in Toronto.

All right, Dylan Strom, five times five from the caps and you know this feels like a bit of a miss by the

Blackhawks. They didn't qualify him and became an unrestricted free agent.

Probably a guy that you could have traded and got an asset for at the deadline,

especially considering it's coming off of a 20 goal season last year.

And, you know, he's 36 points and 52 games this year with the caps will be 26 in March

and a player that has really worked out well for the capitals.

They got him as, like I said, an unrestricted free agent because he wasn't qualified.

And he's played very well for this capital's team and you know I wouldn't say a big reason but one of the reasons why

the capitals are still in the mix for the playoffs in the Eastern conference.

Another note from, this was a little bit later last night and a very curious one.

A firing in the AHL and it's Troy Mann who's the Belleville, who was the Belleville

Senators head coach, he was fired after a win last night in Rochester. Now it's not

that the Belleville senators are having a great season and that's the part that's a

shock. It's more just the kind of murky details surrounding it.

So we'll talk about that with Elliot Friedman in just a few minutes,

but it's Skills Competition Day.

And I know that people get really up in arms about the all-star game and all-star weekend and the skills competition and

you know when I when I look at the skills competition I think of Ray Bork's 4 for 4 in the accuracy

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