We’re postponing today’s scheduled mind-dump for one fun thing and a second not-so-fun thing. 

Fun thing: checking out the NHL’s Stanley Cup Betting Odds

Not-so-fun thing: discussing the Islanders injury problems.  Yes, before the season starts.

Before we get to that though, I had a friend of the blog write me and say he feels like he’s missing a lot of my best stuff because (A) I don’t update the headers at the top of my blog, like, ever, and (B) If I link to my daily article, it’s all the way at the bottom of the blog.  So basically, my (lazy) solution is that from now on, as soon as you open a blog, the first thing you’ll see will be my column from that day.  For today, they’re right here:

The Hockey News: The Isles Need To Buy Tavares Someone On His Offensive Level To Play With

USA Today: Pre-season predictions (and the jinx goes too……)

and later…

Puck Daddy: The Evolution of Coaching

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Let’s get the Islanders tear-fest over with to start….

Fuck.  Are you kidding me?  The Islanders have lost both of their assistant captains to major shoulder surgeries before the puck has even dropped on game one.

Mark Streit is out FOR THE YEAR on this piddly, every day scrimmage bump from 30 goal scorer Matt Moulson:

(It’s at the start of the video)

…and Kyle Okposo is listed as “out indefinitely” with his own shoulder deal.  Not sure what happened to him, but this is extremely bad news - temporary reasons aside, when you start having shoulder problems that young, it can be a lonnngggg career full of recurring injuries.  My buddy (and country music star, buy his album!) Chad Brownlee pretty much hung them up because his shoulders were such a wreck.

Opo wore the stupid bubble in college

Honestly, I’m heart-broken by those two injuries for two reasons:

One, I harboured real hopes that Islanders could be sneaky good this year, like Phoenix last year.  They were looking like a team coming into their own, with some nice pieces in place.  I was even thinking they could sneak into playoffs if they could just get some breaks.  By “breaks,” I didn’t mean limbs.

And two, because the team just isn’t deep enough to lose their only all-star from last year (Streit), as well as a guy (Okposo) who was on the fast track to becoming one of the top all-around effective forwards in the league.  I mean, to be that strong and talented, that young?  He’s my fave guy on Long Island right now, so I’m super bummed about him going on IR.  I seriously thought he was going to have a stat-splosion in 2010-11.

I just don’t see any way the team can maintain playoff hopes if Kyle is out for an extended period of time, unless Snow gets aggressive and tries to patch the holes.

One more thing, before we move on – in quick defense of my Hockey News piece today, about which I got some heat from a couple Islanders fans:  If you read my piece, you’ll see that I asked for an addition (help for Tavares), and made no mention of subtractions (THE REBUILD! THA REEEBBUIILLLLDDDD!).  Nowhere in there do I suggest we trade any of the core guys from The Rebuild (there’s some fat to trim at the bottom of the roster still, I promise).

Pending: face-off play or make-out session?

The Penguins were horrible and “rebuilt,” but if you remember it took some acquisitions to put them over the top.  They didn’t exactly draft Sergei Gonchar.  If Isles fans recall, Matt Moulson wasn’t a draft pick either – they signed him because they thought he could contribute offensively (and boy did he ever).  You need these additions to make your rebuild complete.

Stamkos had studs to work with on his line, and that inflated his stats – Martin St. Louis drew coverage and made plays that created opportunity for Stamkos.  My point is, right now Tavares is making plays and creating opportunities for Moulson and other linemates.  The Isles need someone to do that for him if he hopes to develop into the offensive juggarnaut we all know he can be.

And as for the “but who’s available?” question: There were plenty of players they Isles missed out on this summer by being cheap, which inspired the column.  The help doesn’t have to come immediately (though after the KO thing, it feels more pressing), but whether that means cashing in at the deadline by trading picks (we have enough “potential” already) , or signing players next summer, John Tavares can’t be a one-man show in circus tent of hopefuls for much longer.

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The following are the odds in Vegas (courtesy Vegas Insider.com, hat-tip to reader Andrew) on teams to win the 2011 Stanley Cup.  Lets discuss.

From his email:

“Aren’t the Caps and Pens at 6:1 just a horrible bet? If the Pens didn’t improve greatly over the summer, I’m not sure I like them at 20:1. (Bourne: Yup, anyone at 6:1 just isn’t worth your gamble)
Isn’t any team at 6:1 (save for the Oilers in the 80s and your dad’s teams in the 70s) a horrible bet? (Oops, you were going to say that, I see)
 
I like Boston at 18:1 and Philly at 14:1 and Buffalo in a long-shot at 30:1 .” (I like Boston more than Philly – better goaltending, better odds.  No reason to believe Buffalo will be better than last year, is there?)

Great email, thanks.

Off the top, I gotta say, I don’t like any of these bets, since I feel like the rewards are too low.  You kiddin’ me?  I NAIL a  $20 pre-season prediction on the Roberto Luongo and the Canucks overcoming the Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals and 24 other teams, and you give me $240 bucks back, a $220 profit?  Eat me.  You should get 50-1 odds on something like that, minimum.

But for the fun of discussing it, here are my thoughts: The three best and worst bets, as a balance of chance-to-win versus getting-a-worthwhile-payout.

Best Bets: 

New Jersey at 15-1
Tampa Bay at 35-1
St. Louis at 45-1 (but LA is 18-1?)

Worst Bets:

San Jose at 12-1 (fourth best team in their conference)
Montreal at 25-1 (possibly the worst bet you could make)
Florida at 80-1 (dead money)

What do you think?

So, the Mrs. rocked thanksgiving.  I accomplished the elusive six pound day – by “six pound day”, I mean that from breakfast to bedtime (according to our fancy new scale), I stuffed six solid pounds of delicious animal flesh and casseroles into my being.  Puke.

Since I’m already a Canadian cliche (career based on hockey), and spent yesterday being the American cliche (football, beer, general gluttony), today I thought I’d be a media cliche – here’s a list of (hockey writing-related) things I’m thankful for:

I got, the magic fist

Patrick Kane reeeeaally wanting his change. 

That was a fun story for everyone. 

You know those high-school movies, where they really exagerate the roles?  Nerd, jock, hot/mean-girls etc?  Doesn’t Patrick Kane remind you of one of the mean girls that makes everyone else feel bad?  I really get the vibe that he makes little sounds and gestures that make people feel bad without him ever using words.  Like “pssshh” or “cch” or just a f**king smirk.  Smug little bastard.

High Definition TV

Periodically, games on the Center Ice package aren’t in high-def, but I feel the need to check them out anyway.  It makes my eyes bleed.  Thank you, advancing technology.

"God hit 'enter' too many times between my nose and mouth, no?"

Recently discovering how ugly Pascal Leclaire is

I’m really excited to have a new punchline.  I’ve been beating up the WNBA now for about ten months now, but really, he looks worse than they play.  Okay, that’s not fair to the WNBA.  He looks as bad as they play.  ….And they play BAD.

My commentors

That one is serious – it’s tough to read most hockey forums without trying to find a way to digitally punch someone.  Most people keep it pretty smart down there, have some great insights, and are consistently more funny than me.  We’re like a little family over here – don’t be afraid to chime in. 

On that topic, I have the power to completely edit anyone’s comment.  It’s hilariously unfair.  I’m dying for somebody to write something overtly ridiculous and hateful so I can edit their entire comment to say how awesome I am and how much they enjoy my awesomeness and they look forward to reading more awesomeocity from me.  That’ll be awesome.

Finally, the chance to play with Richard Park!

God, it was agony watching an Andy Hilbert - AnyoneElse two-on-one last year.  One of those “I’m an Islander fan” years, where I’d be watching Columbus/Atlanta on another channel while their game would be on.  Thanks for finishing 30th last year, boys, you’ve made this year infinitely better.

 Ken Juba

He's lifetime-undefeated at this game. Legendary.

My mom’s brother (and thus, my Uncle), was a sportswriter/editor for the Star Phoenix, the major Saskatoon newspaper for years.  I’m saving the whole explanation of what he’s done for me for another day, just know this – he edits every column I write, he works with media for a living (so his advice is money), and he makes sure I don’t do stuff like write about how disappointed I am in John Buccigross for not plugging a link to my blog anywhere in exchange for passing on the Brendan Burke story like he said he would.  See, if he edited my blog, that sentence wouldn’t be there.

NHL on the fly

Living in the US, it’s the life-blood of the hockey fan.  Now, if we could just get Kevin Weeks/Gary Green/Dennis Potvin/Dave Reid to un-suck, the show would be killer.  I KEEP MY RATES LOW, JUST READ THE RIGHT SIDEBAR.

But Leclaire's the ugly one, right Bourne?

Ovechkin

Anytime one player is that much better than the best players in a league, it’s confusing to watch.  Is Crosby’s shot soft?  Is Malkin slow?  Why is Datsyuk so lazy?  This guy throws the scale all off.

Boobs

Thought I’d clarify the gay thing.  Big fan of boobs over here.

*****

Forgot to put this up before: The Toronto Sun issues a “clarification” here.  ….Thanks guys.  The apology for misrepresenting who I am made it into a phone call as well.

Every few days leading up to the NHL season, I’m gonna run a video blog with a couple predictions for the season.

This is my first crack at it, so cut me a little slack.  To make it easier, I’ve made the first two predictions my “safe” ones.  It’ll be harder when I start trying to defend predictions like “The Vancouver Canucks will struggle in the regular season, but have a great playoff run”.

Oh, and one other thing before the vid -- I went to the Coyotes/Kings game last night and have a crazy long list of things to write about today, so look for that in the next day or two.  Unfortunately, I won’t be linking to what I promised yesterday (my take on the Coyotes sitch) because (thankfully) the Arizona Republic bought the article to run in their NHL/Coyotes preview piece in a couple weeks.

‘

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qP9u8fPR70

(By the way -- thanks to those of you who’ve made it so I don’t have to charge for “premium content” or anything of the sort by donating a couple bucks to the cause.  Makes the time put in easier to justify!)

In sports, being slightly better has major advantages.

As Malcolm Gladwell discussed in “Outliers”, a huge percentage of NHL hockey players were born in January, February, and March.

The reason for this is as follows: At the age where we start separating kids into the ”elite” and “for fun” groups, we separate the advanced kids from the ones who do stuff like re-tape their stick without peeling off the previous layer (if you’re reading this, and you do that, feel free to feel some shame).  At eight years old, a kid born in January has had a lot more time to develop than the nearly-eight-year-old born in December, yet the kids play the same “year” of hockey.

So, the older, probably bigger kid makes the cut – in turn, he gets more ice times, better coaching, and plays with better kids (I literally summed up 100 pages of Gladwell in four really long sentences).

Its not your kids fault, its yours.

He gets better, and next year, the gap between him and that kid born in December is wider (fine, five).  And now the December kid has started wearing yellow laces and taping his stick with multi-colour fun-tape.  It’s not okay.

Thus, that slight advantage snowballs into major gains for the early-year birth (which sports-obsessed fathers have become keenly aware of. There are plenty of Dad’s trying to time the early-year birth these days).

So, in the same spirit, I thought I’d mention how players in the higher professional leagues enjoy an advantage to those players trying to work from the bottom up (and I don’t mean the millions of dollars and groupies).

This is meant to be aside from the smaller advantages, which add up in their own right: unlimited sticks, so they’re always crisp.  Better medical and training staffs.  Flights over buses.  Better meals.

The advantage is that it’s actually easier to think and play in higher leagues.

As you move higher in the ranks, your teammates have better hockey smarts.  They tend to play their position, they tend to stay in their lane.  You know you can trust that they’ll be where they’re supposed to be, and it’s easier to play (no-look a pass to the point in the ECHL and you might be icing the puck into your own zone).

This is why NHL fans see a lot of AHL players come up, play fine, not hurt the team, but never stick – it’s actually easier to think the game when it’s more controlled, as the higher leagues are.

They don’t stick because, any half-decent player can fit into a system and do fine, especially when everyone is doing their part properly.  In the NHL, and AHL, if you aren’t doing something on top of what the teams system is, you’re expendable.

Returning to the ECHL after spending time in the “A” feels like you’ve gone back to play in your high school gym class’s ball hockey game.  The entire pack of people seems to chase the ball.

But the league is extremely talented… don’t get me wrong.

People assume the NHL is comprised of the most talented players – it’s really just the most talented that managed to avoid the idiot gene.

What this means is, there are plenty of players that are just as talented, but sadly, did get beaten with the genetic idiot stick.

God I hope I never have to play with that Bourne kid.

And what that also means, is that for a lot of ECHL’ers (or CHL’ers, SPHL’ers…) trying to move up the ranks, you’re trying to figure out where Gretzky the Clown on your line is headed to next.

This is a unique problem that a guy like Kyle Okposo will rarely have to deal with (I say rarely, because he did get stuck with me as a linemate for a weekend), whereas some kid playing in “the Coast” trying to prove himself to scouts can end up minus three simply by having brain-dead linemates.

I played with a number of kids who must have had promise in junior, because they had been signed to three-year NHL deals out of junior (sidenote: all these kids get the same contract now – can we not flip Tavares an extra 20 bucks for helping the Isles sell 53,000 jerseys?).

Frankly, a lot of them (most?) weren’t very good.  But by signing that deal, it gave them the time at a high level in a more controlled game to develop their talents – an opportunity not afforded those who weren’t ahead of the game by junior.  The good thing for them is, the organization is invested in them, and doesn’t want those contracts to look like bad decisions. 

Hey, I'm here to help.