Lots of Reading For Ya…. Columns
Posted by jtbourne on December 7, 2010 · 4 Comments
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Okay, I’m a little behind on posting links, so there are three pieces for you to go scrape your eyes across:
1. USA Today Power Rankings - where Dallas goes from #17 to #6 in two weeks (which is too high, but still, good hustle).
2. The Hockey News – preparing for back-to-back games as a player
3. Puck Daddy – This time of year is The Lull – why it matters so much and why coaches make a difference. (Be up soon, make sure to come back for this one.)
Annnndddd…..
I’m on Puck Daddy radio at 1:30pm EST…. so like, now.
I'm a hockey player turned writer. After playing for Alaska Anchorage in the WCHA (NCAA), I carried on with an NHL tryout (New York Islanders in 2007) before spending a couple seasons in the AHL/ECHL (last year was 2008-09). My father, Bob Bourne, won four Stanley Cups with the Islanders in the '80's, as did my fiancee's dad, Clark Gillies. I'm now the web editor for theScore's hockey blog "Backhand Shelf."
On the power rankings article: I think some people need to watch a few more Thrashers games before deciding that Byfuglien is a good all around defenseman. It was mentioned that he doesn’t kill penalties, but in the games I have watched and the one game that I broke down, Ramsay was trying to match Byfuglien up against 3rd and 4th lines, while the opposing coach was trying to get his best players out against Byfuglien. Furthermore, in the game I broke down(last Thursdays game against the Pens) he didn’t make a single breakout pass. He either tried to rush the puck out, went off the glass and out or just threw the puck around the boards, often without looking, and often being intercepted. He has yet to lose the forward instinct on defense as well. A couple times that game he got caught running out to the point, and a number of times he picked up the wrong guy (or no one) in his own end (which led to one of Crosby’s goals). And I don’t know what Rob Rossi has been watching. He’s the Penguins guy, yet somehow he didn’t notice that Freddy Meyer was on the ice as a forward for many of Byfuglien’s shifts against the Pens and on many of those Buff jumped up into the play and finished out the shift as a forward.
Byfuglien is great offensively from the back end, and no one in the game can rush the puck quite like he does. But the guy is a train wreck in his own end, or maybe at best a work in progress. How can anyone possibly justify giving the Norris to a guy who doesn’t kill penalties and ideally doesn’t play against top players. Isn’t the proper comparison here Mike Green? How did he get dismissed so easily as a Norris candidate the last couple years and yet people are talking seriously about Byfuglien?
except Mike Green does kill penalties and he’s seeing a lot of time against opponents top lines this year…
I don’t know what’s worse: the Norris Trophy turning into a Gold Glove Award or the high volume of Thrashers chatter.
Full disclosure: I often post on Puck Daddy as “A Yahoo! User” and it’s true, I actually am unemployed.