Colorado Avalanche: News from around the NHL August 28th, 2014

Ex-NHL enforcer has been charged with assault.

Former NHL enforcer Rudy Poeschek is facing assault and driving charges following an alleged incident in Kamloops, B.C. last month.

Poeschek, who played 364 games and racked up 817 penalty minutes over 12 seasons with the New York Rangers, Winnipeg Jets, Tampa Bay Lightning and St. Louis Blues, is facing assault, driving while prohibited and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle charges, according to Kamloops This Week.

The 47-year-old native of Terrace, B.C. is alleged to have been involved in an incident on July 5. No details of the incident have been made public.

The National Post has an articles that states a major expansion would be wrong for the NHL.

A prospective sudden jump to a 34-team league is plagued by other challenges, too, most notably that of logic. Take the three or four worst players on every team, replace each of them with even worse players, and that's the effect such a large expansion would have on the talent pool. Cover your eyes! Beer leagues might start having to issue credentials to pro scouts.

An additional four teams - in each of the spots most often mentioned as relocation targets - would also wipe out whatever leverage a current owner (and the league) has when it wants to wrangle something like a better stadium lease or arena upgrades out of its current location. It would be much harder for a team to threaten to go somewhere when there's nowhere left to go. (Save for plucky Kansas City. Arena still available!)

SB Nation takes a look back at The Americans, New York's first team.

Even though the New York Rangers are known as one of the NHL's Original 6 teams, they were not the first hockey team to call New York, or even Madison Square Garden, its home.

Instead, that honor belongs to the New York Americans, a team that lasted for 17 seasons between 1925 and 1942. Not only were the Americans the first professional hockey team to play in New York, their initial success at the box office turned out to be one of the main reasons the Rangers currently exist.

Dustin Penner is still looking for a home.

Despite rumors, it looks like the Flyers will not be offering training camp tryouts to free agent forwards Dustin Penner and Ryan Malone. The latter reportedly pleaded no contest last week on a DUI charge and agreed to a "pretrial diversion program" on charges of cocaine possession earlier this summer. It would be rather shocking to see any NHL club take a flier on him.

When Hextall was told about the Penner rumor specifically he said, "I haven't heard that."