Hockey Thoughts

The Rangers have eliminated the Thrashers, with Jagr gettting the empty netter to seal the game four victory. Not only that, the team is clearly 'feeling it'. They have a hot goalie and, grit and lots of skill. And now, they think they can win it all. Meanwhile, Kovalchuk has one of the ugliest highlights ever, as a mere 32secs into game four he's caught on camera heading to the bench as Jagr goes by him to create an odd-man rush that ends in a back-door feed by Jagr to a streaking Nylander. Game and series, thanks for coming out Ilya.

Speaking of 'feeling it', how about Sean Avery and New York City? Avery went from being Mathew Barnaby with a hotter/more famous girlfriend, into grittier/lighter scoring Ron Duguay. If the transformation hadn't happened in front of my eyes I would never have believed it.

Alexei Yashin...where are you?

My advice to the Maple Leafs? Fire the Gm. Keep the coach. Blow it up. Keep Mats Sundin. But only on one year $1m deals. More than anything, they need a plan. I'm available. Call me.

Here's the thing, the head says 'Jason Spezza is a playmaker, and playmakers collect more points than goalscorers'. And then I see another Lecavalier highlight reel goal, and my heart says 'He's next years first FP pick for sure'. For sure. Playmakers may win the scoring titles, but goalscorers are dead sexy.

Ollie Jokinen is the next Mats Sundin. A brawny power pivot from Scandinavia whose stats don't reflect how good he really is - and his stats are very, very good. Jokinen is ripe to be moved in a foolish Florida house-cleaning should mgt. get itchy trigger fingers, or should Jacques Martins completely lose his mind. If so, some lucky team will get the franchise cornerstone they need. Until then, he will rot in Florida.

Bertuzzi looks slow and out of sorts. Until that one shift where he looks like a runaway bulldozer. I hope Calgary recovers its composure as a team before Toddzilla get's his game all the way back. He's also one of the more fascinating sub-plots for next season. Is he a first rounder? Where will he sign? Is he an explosion waiting to take out your season?

In my last interview with the GM of the Shadowmen he declared that he thought the Knights Templar can replace both FP's with current roster talent. That means that Vanek has to maintain the level he's reached (40+goals over a ppg) while Radulov still has to climb there. From what I've seen of both, this is not so far fetched. At least, its no more far fetched than building around the Sedin's and Naslund.

Doug Maclean has been relieved of his duties. Finally. The Foote signing was a cap disaster. The Fedorov deal (sending Beuchemin to Anaheim!) was even worse, and he should have been let go for either of them. He should also have killed the scout who told him Pascal Leclaire would be a franchise goaltender. Other than Rick Nash, and once a month from Nik 'full moon' Zherdev, there is no all-star calibre talent on the team.

If the Flames pull it out over Detroit, look to Iginla's picking-the-far-side goal on Hasek in game three as the real turning point.

Malkin is a bust in the playoffs? Really? He's over a ppg! (ok, ok, so he hasn't scored a goal).

Mike Modano, now THAT Is what a bust in the playoffs looks like.

The reason the Canucks will advance is because Luongo is a better goaltender than Turco. Period. Turco is playing awesome, but Luongo is in a completely different zone.

The stats for the last couple of years say so, but it wasn't until I saw him rifle a wrist-shot to the shelf on Kiprusoff that I believed it could it could actually be true. Pavel Datsyuk could be an FP. If he signs elsewhere than Detroit though, all bets are off.

Ottawa v Pittsburgh is a case where I wish both teams could win. Anaheim v Minnesota is a case where I wish both teams could lose.

Whither Daniel Briere? He's due a massive raise and Buffalo might not be able to afford him. So where does he go? More to the point, who can afford to spend big $ on an undersized #1 pivot with limited defensive abilities? Even more to the point, is he a Franchise player? Would ditching a Jovanovski., Elias, or Sundin to take Briere make sense?

Another thing the Shadowmen GM and I agree on is that Scott Gomez would look good in Columbus (Nash!), but could be fantastic in Atlanta (Hossa! Kovalchuk!).

Oh yeah, the GM of the Highlanders and I had it out over goaltending stats. The upshot of which is my bias against Dwayne Roloson has got the better of me. The stats for goaltenders are exaggerated slightly, but not enough to warrant rolling them back. At least, not yet.

Is their a franchise more pathetic than Phoenix? The latest from the ex-Jets is that Wayne has fired the teams mgt, and is looking for someone 'he doesn't know' to come in and turn things around. Lets hope for his sanity's sake this happens.

Gabriel Morency (Hardcore Sports Radio) had a rant about Wayne that was worth commenting on. "Is it possible that Rick Tocchet was running his gambling operation without the knowledge of Wayne?" With Janet involved in Superbowl bets, I'd say that is impossible to believe. So there you go.

He also made another point, journalists, especially sports journalists have all sorts of inside information on players, injuries, etc. Yet, nobody is concerned that these information experts are unfettered from placing wagers at any time. Indeed, can you imagine a sports journalist who didn't place the odd March Madness, boxing, or playoff pool wager?

Alexander Semin was just kicked off the Russian world squad. Does anyone know why?


My prediction of the NHL awards:

Norris: Lidstrom. Again.

Selke: Mike Fisher: he takes key face-offs and shadows the elite offensive forwards of the other team. Stephane Yelle deserves consideration, but goes way under the radar in Calgary.

Hart: 'It depends on what you mean by....' blah blah blah. It's Crosby. We should probably get used to it.

Jack Adams: Lindy Ruff.

Calder: Malkin. Stastny (too my surprise) will be a deserved second, but I sort of think Anze Kopitar is getting jobbed. He was clearly one of the most dangerous players on the Kings and carrying a heavy offensive load as a rookie, and for three quarters of the year, held the space right behind Malkin. It was around the 45-50 game mark that Kopitar started to burn out, and coincidentally, it was at the point where Stastny's offense freaked out, but for the rest of the year, I would have had Kopitar as number two.

My awards:

Top FUNHL defenseman: Sheldon Souray - by a country mile. His combo of career high in points AND PIM make him the leagues runaway best defenseman. Not bad for a 12th rnd RFA match.

FUNHL Rookie of the year (Best P1): Paul Stastny-C Col. Worth noting, he was a 2nd rnd prd pick, and my third of that draft (Backman and Frolik went ahead of him), and that I very nearly selected Edmonton's Alexei Mikhnov-L instead.

FUNHL MVP: Given his late season heroics to get the Highlanders back to the promised land, Joe Thornton-C SJ. When points were needed most, Jumbo Joe put up ridiculous stats on the order of 2ppg+ to launch the Highlanders permanently into orbit.

Top FUNHL Goaltender: Roberto Luongo. For most of the year the Bladerunners were in 2nd place (or first!) thanks to Bobby Lu. Brodeur may have had slightly better stats, but Luongo's were key in having the Bladerunners contend for a 2nd straight cup.

Unexpectedly good player who came out of nowhere award (or as I like to call it the 'UGPWCOONA'): Kevin Bieksa-D Vcr. I live here and still didn't see this guy coming.

Worst performance by a 1st rnd pick: Henrik Zetterberg. You can trace the problems the Scourge had to Zetterberg's horrific first quarter. He made up for it over the rest of the season, but that slow start was crippling.