Hockey for Bernies: NHL Cheat Sheet

Another little rundown of all of the major happenings in the NHL.

Add a Buffalo Sabres mask
and puffy eyes from nights of
crying, and you've got Ryan Miller

(1) Magnus Arvedson must have broken a mirror

Despite the legions of fantasy owners that are currently lamenting ever drafting Milo Ventimiglia earlier than the 21st round, the Vancouver Canucks could not beat Ryan Miller and the Sabres last night - or any time before that for the last seven years. Despite an impressive comeback, and a raucous overtime period (supplemented by the ever- elucidating commentary of Pierre McGuire, who at one point, actually said "This is fun!"), a miscue in the Canucks zone turned into a horrendous turnover that ended up costing them the game. While it wasn't Aaron Rome's fault necessarily, he was on the ice when the winning goal was scored, and it therefore leads me once again to ask: Why is Alain Vigneault benching $4 million worth of Keith Ballard, and icing $700,000 worth of Aaron Rome, when they BOTH are equally as sub-par? Any Canucks fans care to help me out here?

(2) At least the Canucks have their very own Jiri Tlusty

In 2007, former Leaf Jiri Tlusty was exposed (ba doom ching) by the ever illustrious Toronto Sun, claiming that Tlusty had taken nude pictures of himself on his camera phone. Sadly, it was true. Happily, he has set an example for tastier morsels like Ryan Kesler - and although my friend sent me this picture with the caption "Kesler draws ridicule from the fans, media, me", I personally support his entrepreneurial foray into underwear.

His teammates, of course, have been considerably less forgiving, with Tanner Glass suggesting to the media that it was airbrushed, and Kevin Bieksa promising to bring the ad to the attention of the locker room. I think these boys should leave Kesler and his 8 pack alone, and just thank god every day that Zdeno Chara isn't on their team.

(3) The Leafs can't lose forever. Right?

What bothers me is that it's not even statistically impossible.

The Leafs are currently 1-8-3 in their last 12 games. Saturday's loss to the Canucks marked their 8th straight loss. Kessel is grossly underproducing, which of course draws comparisons (unfair as they may be) to Tyler Seguin, and Mike Brown's moustache still hasn't fought anyone. The depression is magnified by the successes of the Senators, Viktor Stalberg (who was shipped to Chicago as part of the trade for Kris Versteeg, and is currently playing on the top line with Toews, has 10 pts, and is, most importantly and sadly, proving me right), and pretty much every other team in the NHL. BUT, I am not a hater, and so I am resolved to find at least three good things about the current team:

1. In a really endearing show of camaraderie, the Leafs have decided to show Nazem Kadri that no one on the team deserves to be playing outside of the AHL.
2. Giguere has a lot of respect for former Leaf goalies, as evidenced by his near-perfect imitation of Vesa Toskala against Mason Raymond's trickling 40 footer on Saturday.
3. Colby Armstrong is due back any day now, which is great news seeing as how a player who is currently on pace for 9 goals this season should do wonders for our offensive drought.

I'm sorry. I can't do it. I love them, and I will never leave them, but I'm bitter and depressed. I know I know - It's always darkest before dawn, you have to know the bad before you can have the good, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

(4) This just in: Sean Avery is still a giant D-bag.

Anyone who has ever read my blog or watched a hockey game with me knows that I love me my hockey fights. And bench brawls are to hockey fights what a 24 ounce porterhouse is to ground chuck - Bigger, bloodier, and one hundred times more delectable. Sunday was no exception, when the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers had a bona fide throwdown. Seeing as how these two teams are the furthest things from perennial rivals, one may ask how something like this could have happened. The answer: Sean Avery and his douchebaggery.




Word on the street is that Smid started goading Avery into a fight, and Avery turned him down, saying that he would drop the gloves off the next faceoff. When Smid started turning away, Avery sucker-punched him. It then turned into Stortini filling in Prust, MacIntyre fighting Boogaard, and Brandon Dubinsky grabbing Fraser from the bench (for which he has since been suspended). It was awesome.

Hockey For Bernies: The Western Conference

I apologize for the lateness of this week's installment of Hockey for Bernies, but despondency really stifles my creativity.

In an attempt to give my misery some company, I rallied some of my friends together for Hockey Night in Canada this past Saturday. 7:00-10:00 pm was par for the course - The ACC somehow managed to find yet another occasion/holiday/obscure 4th liner from the 1950's to celebrate in a protracted pre-game ceremony, the Leafs made me suicidal, Ron Wilson had me screaming at the television for hours, and Steve's cries of joys over the Senators' continued winning streak made my ears bleed.

Then HNIC shifted to the west coast, where the Vancouver Canucks were being visited by the Detroit Red Wings, and they played ... HOCKEY. Actual hockey - with clean goals, and crisp passes, and hard hits, and players who can skate. A few of my friends commented on how much more enjoyable the Canucks game was to watch, so I thought that this week's Hockey for Bernies could compare and contrast the Eastern and Western Conferences.

Western Conference: 9 of the last 15 Stanley Cup Champions have been from the Western (Campbell) Conference. 12 of the last 15 President's Trophy winners have also been of Western affiliation.
Eastern Conference: If playoff spots were given to the best 16 teams in the league, rather than per Conference, only 6 teams from the East would have qualified last year. Also, for those Leafs fans out there, the "Stanley Cup" is a big silver goblet given to the team that wins four playoff rounds. What are these "playoffs" that I'm referring to? Oh, never mind.

Western Conference: In order to score goals, players employ the crazy strategy of making crisp, smart passes in the other team's zone, and shooting the puck at the net.
Eastern Conference: In order to score goals, players body slam goalies and count on the fact that because they're playing Florida, no one is paying attention.

Western Conference: After particularly difficult or intense playoff games, Western Conference fans unwind by having a few beers and/or kayaking.
Eastern Conference: After particularly difficult or intense playoff games, Eastern Conference fans unwind by beating up visiting Buffalo Sabres fans, setting cars on fire, and/or taking a break from watching the annual April Leafs golf tournament long enough to wonder what all of the hoopla is about.

Western Conference: Fans revere players like Henrik Sedin, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Toews, and Pavel Dastyuk.
Eastern Conference: Fans revere players like Milan Lucic, Matt Carkner, Tie Domi, and Chris Pronger.

Western Conference: The hockey community hailed Brian Burke as a genius for pulling off a last minute trade that saw both Sedins land in Vancouver, and for taking the Anaheim Mighty Ducks from Emilio Estevez to Lord Stanley.
Eastern Conference: For a fraction of a nano-second in 2009, the hockey community hailed Brian Burke as a genius for trading worthless draft picks for scoring phenom Phil Kessel, and for turning around the struggling Maple Leafs.

Western Conference: Before a playoff game in cities such as Chicago or Vancouver, the crowd would cheer so loudly that you couldn't even hear the anthems being played.



Eastern Conference: Before a playoff game in Ottawa, the crowd would be so silent that you could hear every. single. rally cry of Eugene Melnyck dressed as a Spartan.



Western Conference: Otherwise ineffective players are at least still recognized in the media for their work in the community.
Eastern Conference: Otherwise ineffective players are at least still recognized in the media for marrying Carrie Underwood.

Sharpen your pitchforks .... I've seen enough

I have never, not once in my too-many-to-count-and-be-depressed-about years as a leafs fan, joined ranks with the pitchforking mob out for a coach's head as soon as the team starts losing. I think it's easy scapegoating, an uneducated fan's way of calling for change, and that 90% of the times when a head coach is given the ax, it's about sending a message to both the players and the fans that losing isn't tolerated, more than it's about cutting out the cancer. For Ron Wilson, however, I make an exception.

He is a poor decision maker, who lets his pride get in the way of deviating from his (as yet unproven) coaching style. Brian Burke built this team around the blue line, and so one would expect that our head coach would implement a system of play that emphasizes our defensive strengths. Wilson, however, appears to be pushing an offensively-minded system that employs wide open forechecking and constant puck cycling - strategies of play that are completely unsuited to our young, and largely talentless, forwards.

He also makes incredibly questionable calls during games, with last night's shootout loss to Buffalo proving the most recent example. Up by only a goal, with 30 seconds left in the third, and facing a Buffalo squad that was picking up momentum, had a sixth man on the ice and was desperate to quell their own media storm back home, Ron Wilson decides to man the gates with the FOURTH line. It was a thoughtless, unjustifiably arrogant underestimation of the Sabres - a complete miscalculation. And it ended up costing us the game.

It also blows my mind that Brian Burke is publicly lambasting the Leafs fanbase as "disgraceful" for booing Phaneuf so early in the season, when Ron Wilson spews verbal diarrhea at the media at every opportunity. It's like the slightly too aggressive Timbits player with the overly involved mother screaming obscenities from the sidelines - How can we blame the impressionable child with an example like that? Last night's press conference featured Ron Wilson making AIR QUOTES when talking about his first line. I suppose this was his completely mature way of criticizing the first line's floundering production, but it's also rich coming from the man who kept Luca Caputi on that same first line for the majority of their lackluster game against the Senators.

The Leafs have only two more points than they did this time last year. Our special teams are once again biting the big one, and our goal production, particularly from the center position, is atrocious. What has kept me watching the games this year has been the heart with which these boys have been playing with. They are fast, and they are gritty, and they are try-hards who will fight in the corners, throw themselves in front of pucks, and scramble for those lucky bounces. This is vastly different from last year, and I believe has proven to be the difference-maker in games that we might have otherwise lost. The heart and the motivation to have their fledgling talent cultivated is there - What we need is a "head coach" who isn't working against them, who doesn't throw them under the bus at every opportunity.

Remember 1998? No one thought the Leafs would make the playoffs at the start of that season. They were a seemingly talentless team of unknowns, backed by a goaltender (you may remember him... Curtis Joseph?) who was criticized as being past his prime, captained by Mats Sundin, a man that no one quite trusted after the Gilmour/Clark eras, coming out of back-to-back seasons of missing the playoffs. Sound familiar? The Leafs went on to make Conference Finals that year, under new head coach Pat Quinn.

What we need is Pat Quinn after Mike Murphy. Ron Wilson needs to go.

When Captains go Bad

In an uncharacteristic display of testicular fortitude, Sidney Crosby dropped the gloves against Matt Niskanen in the Pens' 5-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday. It's unclear from the video whether Niskanen was maniacally flailing, or if Sid actually managed to ragdoll something other than his ragdoll, but either way, the Kid takes the cake:



Whether or not stars should be fighting is a topic that can be debated this weekend on Coach's Corner (and by "be debated", I of course mean "be beat to death by Don Cherry while Ron MacLean interjects snippits of lucidity that go completely unheeded by a man wearing a rainbow suit"), but seeing this highlight reminded me of one my favourite brawls of all time, fought by one of my favourite star players of all time: Steve Yzerman. And the video is just so delicious, that I thought I would share. Stevie drops the gloves about a minute in, but my second favourite part is around the 2:04 mark, when Probert skates over to deliver one more sucker punch to the stomach of a player who is already laying on the ice, receiving help from one of the refs. Enjoy:



If you have a favourite star fight, let me know!

Hockey for Bernies: Movember

The Fu Manchu, the Pencil, the Handlebar, the Imperial, the Lampshade, the Toothbrush, the Walrus, the Freestyle, the Chevron.

No matter what upper lip accoutrement you're stylin' this month, prostate cancer awareness is the new black. Movember (or the month formerly known as November) marks 30 days of wax-using, cereal-catching, small comb-using hair growth to raise money for prostate cancer research. And if the size and griminess of your moustache determined how much money was raised, NHL players would be the leading donors. In no particular order:

10. Zack Sortini

Currently playing for the Edmonton Oilers. I personally appreciate the 90 degree angles on this puppy.

9.  George Parros

 
It's untamed depths frighten me.

8. Dennis Maruk

An oldie but a goodie, there seems to be no differentiation between hair line, moustache, and chest hair.

7. Harold Snepsts

A beloved former Canuck from the 1980's, Mr. Snepsts preferred to let his nose hair run rampantly down his cleft.

6. Wendel Clark

Much like Walker Texas Ranger, Wendel Clark kept another fist in his moustache.

5. Dave Babych

Lesser known Canucks fact: Tom Selleck used to moonlight as a talented NHL player.

4. Bill McCreary

Bill McCreary was never an NHL player, but I yelled "Moustache McCreary" so many times during last night's game against the Senators, that I felt that it was criminal not to include him.

3. Eddie Shack

One of the best in the biz, I'm always surprised when people remember Eddie Shack for his 12 gallons rather than his 12 inch wax tips.

2. Mike Brown

Admittedly a bit of a homer choice, no one can deny the formidable soup strainer on one Mike Brown. I can see it from the upper bowl of the ACC.

1. Lanny MacDonald

Lesser known for his cameo in Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland: