This and That: GM meetings and trade rumours

The GM meetings will go on Tuesday and Wednesday in Toronto...so Lawton will have to back from his trip from Finland before the start.

Oh, you didn't hear about Finland? Well neither did I. It came up, I'm a little embarrassed to say it how, but in Angelina Lawton's (the GM's wife's) twitter account. So the tweet on Nov 7 was:

Brian in Finland for the weekend to see 4 games in 2 days.Can you imagine going that far just for weekend~ wants to see prospects himself !-@AngelinaLawton

I can only assume, this means he's checking out the Karjala Cup...but which prospect warrants a trip to Finland that he is personally checking out? I hope by 'prospect' they mean prospect and not Forsberg...

Trade Rumours
Now take this with a grain of salt because it is coming from Bruce "Malkin to the Kings" Garrioch:

• "The Bolts haven't been thrilled with the play of Andrej Meszaros and there's talk GM Brian Lawton is trying to move the 23-year-old blue-liner who has five years left on a deal he signed with the club in September, 2008. Making an average of $4 million, the Bolts will find it difficult to find anybody to take" -The SUN
  

Andrej "The Butcher" Meszaros

So I was reading an article about Andrej Meszaros on the Lightning website the other day that reminded me about my family. So for those of you who don't want to click on the link to read the story yourself, the summation is:

On January 3 of this year, when the Lightning played the Hurricanes at home, with 22.7 seconds left in the second period, Meszaros takes Babchuk's slapshot to the face. He skated off to the locker room and got 64 stitches. What a man. But there's more:

He was diagnosed with a displaced fracture of the maxilla extending from just above his upper teeth to his nose. An oral surgeon on call that night realigned the fracture by hand. Shit. He then sat through an hour of getting the stitches. He wanted to go back to the game, but the doc took too long stitching.

The team then flew to Atlanta for the next night's game. He only slurped shakes through a straw. He face swelled twice its natural size. They pureed his food. Coaching staff expected for him not to play.

He insisted that he take the warm-up and then played one of the best games of his year. He logged 15:31 of ice time with two shots, two hits and a blocked shot. "I wanted to help the team," Meszaros, 23, said. "I knew we had a couple of guys banged up. I said I wanted to play every game if it's possible. It's not like it's a broken arm or leg. You have to suck it up and go."-St. Petersburg Times.

What a beast.

So why does this remind me of my family? Well last summer, my cousin married her fiance Zoltan in Hungary, she became Mrs. Meszaros (no not related in any way to Andrej). Now I don't speak a lick of Hungarian or Slovakian (Andrej is a Slovak), but my cousin had told me that her new last name meant "the butcher". There is even a Meszaros (Butcher) street. So it doesn't surprise me that our defenceman named the "the butcher" is such a beast. Just don't every drink with a Meszaros. They will drink you under the table.