NHL Daily Fix: What's on tap for Wednesday, Jan. 23

Here is what's happening around the NHL and a look at Wednesday's schedule.

By Brian Stubits

Jan 23, 2013 at 10:01 am ET • 2 min read

The NHL Daily Fix is your morning wake-up call with news and notes for the day's hockey action.

Morning Buzz

The best of the NHL on Tuesday

In the video above, Matt Duchene reminds you how incredibly tough (or simply insane, take your pick) hockey players are. He took a Drew Doughty slap shot right to the fact, and the aftermath as you can see was pretty ugly. Oh, by the way, he didn't miss a shift.

• Speaking of slap shots, they continue to be slowly phased out of the game. It is by no means a dinosaur, and I doubt it will ever disappear. But the numbers show fewer and fewer goals are being scored by the slapper in favor of the snapper.

The Toronto Star did some number crunching and found that the best/most common spot to score from is about 11-15 feet from the net with a wrister. Nothing terribly earth-shattering there by any stretch, but interesting to see the numbers. (Toronto Star)

• Troll, troll, troll your boat, gently down the stream. ...

Pittsburgh writer Dejan Kovacevic has ruffled some -- OK, a lot -- of feathers north of the border with his column wherein he said forget Montreal, Toronto and anywhere else, Pittsburgh is the new mecca for hockey. Have fun with that inbox, Dejan. (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

• Sabres broadcaster Rick Jeanneret, a Hall of Famer, will miss the broadcast of his third straight game to open the season due to illness. The man and his voice are synonymous with Sabres hockey. Hopefully he's back ASAP. (Buffalo News)

• Flyers forward Danny Briere is getting closer to returning to the lineup, but he's not there yet. He isn't expected to be back until the weekend.

With the Flyers sitting in an 0-3-0 hole and having scored just three goals, maybe they're missing him more than they thought they would. (CSN Philly)

• One guy who won't be coming back too soon is Red Wings defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo. He's out three to four weeks with the shoulder injury that he suffered earlier this week. Good thing the Wings signed Kent Huskins. (Bob Duff)

Wednesday schedule

Toronto at Pittsburgh (7 p.m. ET)
Boston at N.Y. Rangers (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Net)
Columbus at Phoenix (10 p.m. ET)
Calgary at Vancouver (10 p.m. ET)

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