Eastern Conference Playoff Spots

Bear with me, hockey fans… In my last blog, I made a couple football predictions – I said the Colts would beat the Jets 24 – 17 with a late pick thrown by Sanzchez:  Colts beat the Jets 30 – 17 with a late pick thrown by Sanchez.  I also said the Saints would win on a late field goal, 31 – 30:  The Saints won on a late field goal, 31 – 28.  Damn.  I should make this a football blog.

Now that my back has been sufficiently patted, I’ll move on.

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Dennis Wideman, a member of my fantasy hockey team, was minus three when he got hit in the face with a puck last night.  He celebrated by returning and moving to minus four.  I’m celebrating by publicly chastising him on my blog.  Dennis Wideman sucks.

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Spots 6 – 13 in the Eastern Conference standings are separated by three points right now (55 points to 52 points), with the Senators in 5th, ahead of the pack by five points (60).  Unfortunately for Ottawa, they could be on the wrong side of the line come playoffs. 

If we bring them into the mix, because lets face it, they are in the mix, that means there’s nine teams vying for four spots.  Here’s the who’s out/who’s in predictions, according to my dumb self:

5th, Ottawa Senators, 53 games played, 60 points

As I just alluded to, I don’t like the Sens team this year.  They’ve got one of the best lines in the NHL with Spezza and Alfredsson, but that’s really the only leg they’ve got to stand on.  Mediocre goaltending, suspect D, and just not enough firepower to get it done (also, they have to play essentially shorthanded when Kovalev is on the ice notgivingafuck for a living).  They’ll be in the battle for the eight spot in April.

6th, Philadelphia Flyers, 51 games played, 55 points

Didn’t I just write about them being a scary low seed?  Apparently they made a push.  Philly is definitely one of the teams who’ll stick, and with the return of Emery, I think they’re looking at the five seed, just high enough to “upset” a then-staggering Buffalo or New Jersey.

7th, New York Rangers, 52 games played, 55 points

I remember thinking the Rangers would finally be one of the leagues top teams this year, but with Torterella proving himself to be more of a yeller/motivator than a guy focused on strategy and keeping his team level, I’m not sure what to think.  I can see them getting into playoffs as a seven seed, and, anytime you have a legitimate goaltender in playoffs, you’re going to stress out your opponent.  Maybe they can pull it together by then.

8th, Montreal Canadiens, 53 games played, 55 points

I’m calling them “in”, but if I’m wrong anywhere, it’s here.  I think we knew they’d be a team fighting for a playoff spot this year, so every night matters.  That means they need to stay healthy to squeak in – either way, the Capitals are going to ROLL OVER them if they earn this spot.

9th, Boston Bruins, 51 games played, 54 points

The Bruins will make the playoffs, probably as a six seed, and why not: proven goaltending, some good d-men including shut-down defender and Norris winner Zdeno Chara, and enough pieces up front (when healthy) to put the puck in the net.

10th, New York Islanders, 52 games played, 54 points

My Isles need to fight tooth-and-nail to win every possible point on every possible night, cause it’s a long-shot.  Coaching and goaltending are keeping them afloat right now, so two things have to happen down the stretch for them to have any hope (barring trading for Kovalchuk or someone else substantial):  The d-corps will have to play way over their collective head (after Streit, their D are basically all 5th/6th d-men on most teams), and the young guns (Tavares, Okposo, Bailey, Moulson) need to find some way to keep/improve their pace as the point-getting gets tougher after Christmas….  It always does.  Here’s to hoping!

11th, Florida Panthers, 52 games played, 53 points

Losing David Booth buried the Panthers this year.  They’ve actually got a pretty squad over there – not many teams can afford to have a 30 goal guy miss the season (while banking six million of your teams money), especially not perennial strugglers like Florida.  Their hopes hinge on him returning sooner than later.

12th, Atlanta Thrashers, 51 games played, 52 points

Only Carolina and Toronto give up more goals than the Thrashers, and they’re talking about trading the major cog in their offensive machine in Ilya Kovalchuk.  They need Kari Lehtonen to be who he can be ASAP if they’re to have any hope.  Which they don’t have much of.

13th, Tampa Bay Lightning, 51 games played, 52 points

Tampa’s a good team.  I mentioned my “Tocchet is a bad coach” theory before, and after a little roster evaluation, I’m even more certain of this.  Lecavalier, St. Louis, Ryan Malone, Stamkos, and Tanguay can all play, while they’ve got some good role players, average d-men and good goaltending.  I see them battling for that 8th spot with Ottawa and Montreal come April.

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That’s all folks!  Agree?  Disagree?  Let’s hear it!

Clark Gillies is the Chardonnay of Men, Apparently

I can’t help but laugh at this:

The NHL Alumni Association is selling wine.  It appears they’ve partnered with “Ironstone Winery”, put the names of a few random NHLers on the bottles, and are giving an unspecified “percentage” of the sales to the charities of the players on the bottles.  But that’s not the funny part.

"A chilled glass of refreshing, fruity white, please"

Clark Gillies….. is on the bottle of Chardonnay? 

How did they chose to assign guys to types of wine, comedic value?  I love that their description of Clark as ”a ferocious competitor whose rugged play led his teams to win championships” is one of the first lines under “Clark Gillies: Chardonnay”.   …Ooo, you beast, you.

On a somewhat related note, his charity – the Clark Gillies Foundation – does raise sizable chunks of money (recently gave a million dollars to a local hospital) and can always use your help.  Forget “percentages” – check out the video about his charity here if you haven’t seen it yet, and feel free to donate… the money will go straight to helping children on Long Island.  Also, I’ll give you a dollar if you don’t cry after watching it.

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 Marty Brodeur is the NHL’s all-time shutout leader, taking over the lead from Rollie Melanson.  Or some other old goalie.  On a somewhat serious note, the most impressive part about Marty’s career has to be his durability, right?  70-75 games a year at that high level? 

So, whaddya think?  Best in the history of the NHL?  (By the way, can we really try to compare Brodeur to guys like Johnny Bower?  What a wasted conversation that is.  Let’s keep it apples to apples, not apples to no-mask-stand-up-goalies-taking-shots-from-guys-using-tree-trunk-sticks-on-roller-skates-in-a-completely-different-game.)

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For the first time since Richards decapitated Booth, the Flyers played the Panthers.  And thank god, the Panthers beat the stuffing out of the Flyers – four goals and four fights is a decent response to Richards knocking four months of Booth’s lifespan.

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The Blues hung seven goals on the Oilers, exacerbating the misery that is being an Oilers fan in a year where the Flames don’t suck too.

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The Coyotes won their seventh straight home game.  A certain blogger is starting to think they’re good.  How could he not?  Have you seen their roster??

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 Congrats to Nate Thompson for scoring his first of the ye- … wait.  So that empty net miss would have been his first of the year?  *head in hands* …ho-ly shit.

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That’s all I got for now folks – my brother is here, and since its the 22nd, we need to start Christmas shopping, dude-style.  ….At Lowes.  (Ratchet sets for everyone!)

Dustin Brown, The Flyers, The Preds

Did you see the Kings/Flames highlight package from last night?  Mark Giordano pwned Dustin Brown so many times I thought they accidentally clipped one highlight and ran it on loop.

Brown’s a fantastic player, but by the third time he was in the neutral zone trying to hustle around a forward wide with the puck all I could think was ”…dude, even a puppy learns from a few newspapers to the snout…”

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Villains always lose in the end...

Not sure if you saw the Deadspin article about the Flyers yesterday, but it was stirring the pot about rumours than Jeff Carter is, um, affiliated with Scott Hartnell’s wife.  TMZ stuff aside, I actually learned a few things about the Flyers in it, and I was wondering what was true.

Do Pronger and Richards actually not get along?  Does the team party too much?  Do they simply hate each other?  I gotta call some people.

I will say this about the Flyers (especially in the wake of Neil’s Flyer-hating comments on the “sports hate” blog) -- it feels right that they’ve resumed their role in the league as the WWE-like heel.  Just bad guys being bad guys, villains that every team wants to destroy.  After going through their roster, I can tolerate four players.  I like Gagne and van Riemsdyk, while admiring the skill of Briere and Carle.  That is all.

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The Predators of Nashville have accumlated a record of 235-6, or something.  (21-11). Say wha now?  I’ve been doing Power Rankings every two weeks and was utterly oblivious that they were doing so well.  And you know who else is still rocking the party that rocks the party?  The Phoenix Coyotes.  Tell your friends.  Go buy tickets.  Do something.  The West is chaos!  The East is chaos!  THE NHL IS CHAOS THIS YEAR!

"*sob* it was horrible *tear* ...they made me wear 17!"

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Our rec league team has accpeted the challenge to play a local midget team (not little people.  High school juniors/seniors.  I wish it was little people.)  Full contact.  I’ll post pictures of the black eye I have from fighting some kid who had the audacity to hit me.  Or of my collapsed lung, from having to actually hustle.  Whichever happens first, I’ll take a picture of it.

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Dear Flo, from Progressive commercials:  I loved you, we had our fling, but it’s over.  Stop making commercials now, please.

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(The clipped line is: “But is having this minor skill worth being so unattractive?”  …all jokes people, just jokes.)

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Big ups to Islander not great Nate Thompson, for reaching number one on ESPN’s Not Top Ten.  Here’s bad footage that doesn’t do his empty net shot proper (in?)justice:

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“…and SOMEHOW Thompson missed!” — Gotta admire that hustle though.

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Have a great weekened everyone!  Thanks for reading!

NHL’s Quarterly Review

Alright, NHL, let’s do a little quarterly review and see if you deserve a raise.

Mmhmm…. yep… mhmm… everything looks pretty good.  Off to a real nice start.  Just a couple things:  We’ve discussed head shots a few times now, and it doesn’t appear you’ve done anything to fix that problem.  You see, we’re attaching a cover sheet to all our TPS Reports now…

Oh, and, tone down the injuries.  Then you can get your raise.

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Our USA Today bi-weekly Power Rankings came out today, and look pretty good.  My own Top Ten Teams is little different – here’s how I see it thus far.

1. Chicago Blackhawks
2. New Jersey Devils
3. San Jose Sharks
4. Washington Capitals
5. Pittsburgh Penguins
6. Calgary Flames
7. Colorado Avalanche
8. Buffalo Sabres
9. Columbus Blue Jackets
10. Detroit Red Wings

We aren’t all going to agree, but feel free to sway my opinion – why am I wrong (or right) on this?  Oh, and keep in mind, it was submitted before last nights games.

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And the race for the Hart Trophy?  Here’s how I see the first quarter:

1. Alex Ovechkin
2. Ilya Kovalchuk
3. Ryan Miller
4. Anze Kopitar
5. Marion Gaborik

Thoughts?

What about D-Rol? Can we call him D-Rol?

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How much higher would Dwayne Roloson’s status be if his name wasn’t Dwayne?  Dwayne has to be the english language’s worst male name.  Y’know, aside from some ahem… football player names (see: D’Brickashaw). 

Like Blaze.  Blaze Roloson.  We’d be like… “Damn.  That Blaze is quick.  What an apt name”.  Just like that.  That’s what we’d be like.

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Congrats to college teammate Jay Beagle on his first NHL goal.  Excuse me while I take a kerosene shower in a room full of candles.

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When USA Today ran my article on gay slurs, a lotta stuff happened.  All the sudden I was on the phone with GLAAD, discussing getting media trained to speak on TV about the issue.  And, courtesy a few less-than-polite readers, I found out that, apparently, contrary my own (or fiance’s) knowledge, it turns out that I myself am  not-so-into the ladyfolk.

Most note-worthy was an email I got from Brendan Burke, son of Leafs GM Brian Burke.  After that, I corresponded with him and his brother, and got the go ahead from big Burke to write Brendan’s story.  That same day, Brendan found out he had the opportunity to have his story be seen by more eyes, and heard by more ears, so I let the story be told with the most exposure possible.  ESPN’s John Buccigross posted Brendan’s story today (and did a nice job), and tomorrow, he’ll be plugging Bourne’s Blog and running a little response I gave him during our email correspondance.  So everybody be on your best behaviour when our new guests arrive then.  Dress nice.

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Anybody else get the vibe that Detroit is gonna limp around all year, beat some teams, lose some games, start getting healthy in Febuary, start clicking in March, and be the world’s scariest 6/7/8 seed?  Y’know, assuming Jimmy Howard gets hot too? (insert “Chris Osgood is a Hall-of-Famer” comments here.  ….Yeah, and maybe he’ll bring Kurt Warner as his date to the induction)

I do love me some hip-hop culture though.

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I’m really looking forward to the Flyers getting home ice in playoffs (again), looking nearly unbeatable (again), putting up a really good fight (again), and having their hearts ripped out by weak goaltending when they need it the most (again).

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I’m also really looking forward to the chaos that is playoffs, since some of the best teams in the league have mediocre goaltending.  I think Chicago and Washington have the best teams, but by having ”decent” goaltending (too generous?), the door gets opened up for teams like Calgary, San Jose, and… and… f**k.  Why am I having trouble convincing myself New Jersey is a top team, especially after such a great start?

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Thanks for your continued support of the blog.  If you don’t already, you can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/jtbourne

The Perfect Salary Loophole

In an attempt to postpone the slow but steady journey from hockey player to fat cynical writer, I’ve given these so-called “Perfect Pushups” a try.  I gotta believe any product with “perfect” in it’s name is probably not the most reliable item to exchange legal tender for, but c’mon…  that guy on the box is jacked.

Anywho, they’re money.  They really are.  They better be, cause it’s shirt-off weather in Phoenix about 13 months a year, and I need to make some changes.  Apparently, a day of writing burns roughly four calories, and that sack of chocolate covered pretzels I just humbled contained a number similar to the national debt.

Moving on.

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How about those shade-ball owners in the NHL abusing the salary cap loophole?  I mean, come on.  For the Flyers to claim with a straight face that they think Chris Pronger has seven good playing years left is pretty feeble, isn’t it?  He’s got the operating speed and mobility of an early 90’s desktop computer, and they didn’t think it was just a little too obvious that they were trying to circumvent the salary cap?  I’ve seen more subtlety in Andrew Dice Clay jokes. 

Pleasedon'tmakemecrossover, pleasedon'tmakemecrossover...

For the uninformed, here’s a quick rundown of how and why you’re seeing massively long contracts:

NHL teams have a salary cap of $56.8 million for the 2009-2010 season.  The cap hit that each player costs is simple: the dollar total of their contract, divided by the amount of years.

Thus, in the case of Marion Hossa and Chris Pronger, they were signed to long term deals where they make the league minimum in the last few years, so the teams yearly cap hit comes down.  For example, Hossa signed for 12 years, roughly 60 million dollars.  But, he actually makes nearly 8 mill a season for the first seven years, then peanuts for the last five.  Instead of taking an eight million dollar cap hit (which is what they’re paying him), his contract works out to a five million dollar hit (60/12=5), so they Hawks are free to spend more money.

And now, an outside firm has been hired to figure out if the teams were intentionally signing guys to contracts that they weren’t actually going to play out.  Apparently, they’ve called the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, and the Scooby-Doo crew to crack this difficult case.  Pronger, $525,000 (league minimum) at 40?  Noooo, I’m sure he intends to play, right?

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Everytime I think about writing a book (which is becoming more often), this clip brings me back down to earth with a laugh.  Then I make a martini.

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Ahhhh, crap that’s funny.

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So, our first celebs arrive tomorrow to hang out for a day or two before our Hockey Greats Camp starts, and I’ve got good news:  I will be blogging.  I’d be a fool not to.  Last year one of these guys told my Egyptian friend he looks like a half-chewed caramel.  These guys are a gold mine for material.

Over the  next day or two, the following is the group of gents we’ve enlisted to help make our camp a success (chosen on a formula of what great guys they are times how good they were):  Dave Semenko, Bryan Trottier, Steve Shutt, Billy Smith, Gary Nylund, Clark Gillies, Doug Bodger, Dale Hawerchuk, Ron Flockhart, Cliff Ronning and Larry Melnyk.  27 Stanley Cups between em.  Not bad.

I’ll be tweeting the frequent gems that stumble out of these guys booze-holes as the week goes on.

(Last year, the same tale was rehashed a half dozen times: A player gets beat when an opponent - frequently cited as being Pierre Laroche -- puts the puck between his feet and goes in to score.  After getting berated by his coach, the player says “Gee, I guess I shoulda kept my legs closed” to which the coach responds “No, your mother shoulda“.)

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And last, one more thing - Brianna gets here on Tuesday, marking the start of “NeverApartEverAgain time”.  Married men, pour one out for me.  Looking forward to it, honey!