What's Up, Ya Sieve

Nicky B and iCarly hosted a hockey school yesterday.  First John goes on vacation with Mike, now this? [video]  It’s like an all-out offensive being launched against me and Gator.

It’s great to see Backstrom doing anything these days.  We have not heard that he’s skating or even working out, though he looks energetic here.  Apparently iCarly’s dorky high-five doesn’t count as contact.

As happy as this makes us… Nicklas, we need to talk about your pants.  John’s are excellent color and fit, plus “distressed” or “vintage” if you must.  But yours… is that stonewash?  With black shoes?

They could almost be skinny jeans – I’m not really even sure how you got them on over those legs.  If they’re borrowed from Ovi, you should give them right back.  Unless you’re trying to make that girl in the head-to-toe shamrock romper feel better about what she wore to work.

There are certain things we’re willing to put aside for the love of hockey – Mike’s problem with ‘your’ vs. ‘you’re’ and James Neal’s personal pronoun confusion.  But these jeans and that camouflage Under Armor on Matt Duchene are close to the line.  You’re so perfect and European but even we have limits.

Regardless, we love you.  Come back soon.  Wear hockey pants, they look weird on everyone.

Attention hockey players,

Behold reason 2,369,067 to wear a helmet.

Warning! Warning!  This may make you queasy.

Taylor Frankenhall

You are begging….nay –  PLEADING with you all.  Please, for the love of Dear Lord Baby Jesus and Tim Tebow – wear your freakin’ helmets!  We don’t care that it is just warm-up.  We don’t care that it might mess up your luxurious hockey flow.

Do you want this to happen to you?  Do you want to have railroad tracks on your melon?

No.  I didn’t think so.

We just can’t take injuries like this.  When you hurt, we hurt.

So, please listen to your mother.  Wear your helmet.

Taylor didn’t listen to his mom.

Look at how that turned out.

Scott Arniel is the latest NHL coach to catch a case of the shpilkis.

He’s out at Blue Jackets head coach.  Todd Richards is in.

Exit...Stage Right...

This morning the Blue Jackets announced that assistant coach Todd Richards will be taking over coaching duties of the struggling team (on an interim basis) for the rest of the season.  Richards joined the team as an assistant in June of 2011 and will make his head coaching debut on Tuesday when the club takes on the Chicago Blackhawks.

Scott Arniel now joins the every increasing list of fired NHL coaches this season – Davis Payne (Blues), Paul Maurice (Hurricanes), Bruce Boudreau (Captials), Randy Carlyle (Ducks), Jacques Martin (Canadians), and Terry Murray (Kings) – and we feel sort of bad for him.  He had a rough start to the season without James Wisniewski and a grip of players out with injuries.  They seemed to pick it up in Nov/Dec but have floundered as of late, essential sending Arniel off to collect unemployment.  Columbus is in dead-last place in the NHL, with just 27 points and 20 points out of a playoff spot.

There is no doubt that all the teams who have lost coaches this season have talented players peppering their rosters, so how come they aren’t winning?  Are the coaches not motivating the players enough?  Is their style of coaching not suited to the caliber of players on the team? Are the players being lazy? Or are they just not as good as we think they are?  Has the management just not put the right pieces of the puzzle together to build a winning hockey team?

So with this recent firing, we want to pose a question to our WUYS readers.

When a team is struggling & not winning games, who’s really to blame?  The coach?  The players?  The management?

I’d like to float the idea that we may have misunderstood the rapture.  It wasn’t coming for us, it was coming for hockey.  And it’s pretty much called up everyone from the Pittsburgh Penguins (I knew they were the best.)

James Neal out “weeks” with a broken foot.

Jordan Staal out 4-6 weeks with a knee injury.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

There are no words.  How can one team be so unlucky?  Is it me?  Should I just leave because of all the trouble I’ve caused?

Click for dramatic reenactment.

Bylsma discussed the injuries in this video [link] and talked about next steps for the Penguins.  What else can you do?  The Pens have played through some touch injury combinations over the past few seasons, but this one takes the cake.  I hope Geno’s arms are feeling really long.

Real time photo of Pants as Disco Dan was talking.

I’m trying to be hopeful.  Heck, I’m already crazy.  Crank up the “Don’t Stop Believing” and see where the season takes us.  4-6 weeks can sometimes be 2-3 weeks, and the rest of the Penguins squad is solid enough to pull of some miracles.  But today, if you need me, I’ll driving aimlessly in the Nealmobile in my Pens sweater and stopping at every drive-thru that sells ice cream.

(And because that’s not enough, in last night’s game vs. San Jose, Mike Green left halfway through because of returning “tightness” of his groin injury.  Hunter says they’re just being careful, letting him take it easy.  It wasn’t like they were going to win that shitslide anyway.  Hopefully he was brushing Nicky’s hair in the locker room and resting up.)

And I’m not talking about the Universe….

I’m talking about the Philadelphia Flyers and goaltending.

For years now, the Flyers organization have had issues  finding just the right goalie to lead them to the Stanley Cup.  They came close in 2010 behind the tandem of Brian “Bobby” Boucher and Michael Leighton, but it just wasn’t enough. The team has lacked that netminder who brings consistency to the starting goaltender position and who hold on to the starting position for an extended period of time.

If the Bruins Stanley Cup run has shown us anything, it is that in order to win the Cup, you need to have goaltending. Tim Thomas was otherworldly last season and it is his stellar play along with the play of the entire team that brought them the ultimate hockey prize.

Any hockey fan can recognize that the Flyers are talented.  Claude Gingeroux might be one of the best young players in the NHL.  They have a solid core of young talent mixed in with veterans like Scott Hartnell, Danny Briere, and future NHL Hall of Famer Jaromir Jagr.  Coach Peter Laviolette has won a Cup before with the Hurricanes, so he’s proven that he can take a team all the way.  

I truly believe that the Flyers thought that bringing in Ilya Bryzgalov would solve their twine troubles.   He won the Cup in 2007 with the Ducks.  He is a 3-time Olympian, has won numerous international medals, was the runner-up for the Vezina Trophy and a top 5 finalist for the Hart Trophy in 2010.  He is, by all accounts, a top-flight NHL Goalie.

Flyers spend a pretty penny on signing Bryz in the off-season, to a nine-year,$51 million dollar contract.  The team believed in Bryz so much that they even went as far as to pull off two high-profile trades before the signing was announced in order to make room for him under the salary cap – Jeff Carter to Columbus and captain Mike Richards to Los Angeles.  Granted Flyers did receive some great young talent like Jakub Voraceck, Wayne Simmonds, and Brayden Schenn, and a grip of draft picks in return, but was it really all worth it?  Have the Flyers really gotten what they’ve so desperately desired?

Some might say yes, while others will lament that the Flyers made a terrible mistake. At yesterday’s Winter Classic, a marquee NHL event, you expect to see your #1 goalie on the ice.   Bryz rode the bench.   The Flyers’ other netminder, Sergei “Bob” Bobrovsky got the start. Probably not a terrible idea to go with Bob over Byrz since he’s been winless in his last four starts, going 0-3 and giving up 16 goals on 87 shots and Bobrovsky is 3-0 in his last three starts, giving up 6 goals on 88 shots.  

But it really didn’t matter who started.  Flyers lost anyway.

While the season is still a long way from over, it seems that despite the organization’s best efforts, the Flyers’ goaltending conundrum continues. 

Now, by no means, do I actually want the Flyers to win.    As a Bruins fan, it is not in my DNA to allow that.  But I am a hockey fan and I appreciate the struggle and desires of players and fans, and the hope an entire city places in 20 men on their quest to obtain the pinnacle of hockey supremacy.

The Capitals have fired Bruce Boudreau and replaced him with NHL alum and first-time head coach Dale Hunter.

It’s the same sort of surprise when you fall out of a tree hit the ground.  It was probably inevitable, but you’re still a little shocked to find that this is the time.   You thought it might take longer, maybe the laws of gravity would alter.  Maybe someone would catch you.

Sorry, very busy.

Let me preface this with an Unpopular Hockey Opinion:

I strongly dislike Alex Ovechkin.

Obviously I have some kind of Mike Green-and-geography induced Stockholm Syndrome going on that makes me a Caps fan.  And Ovi can be an electric player whose raw talent raises the game of his teammates.  I can’t say I hate him.  But I think his lackadaisical attitude permeates the Caps and makes his teammates salmon swimming upstream against the blahs.  Except Semin, who busts out his inner tube and cruises the Lazy River.

Now, before Dawn calls in a hit on me, this is not permanent.  Ovi shows flashes of greatness that have nothing to do with the way he scores – he can lead this team.  Most nights he simply chooses not to.  And that’s why BB had to go – he couldn’t lead Ovi.  Ovi’s contract and personality make him more powerful than the head coach.  Or at least they did.

So while I generally despise the firing of head coaches to shake up teams, I think GMGM made the correct and necessary move here.  If Dale Hunter comes in with a take-no-shit attitude, he could zip this team into the superhero suit they should be wearing.  Ovi made BB look bad.  This is what happens to people who make Hunter look bad:

I am also in favor of taking the C from Ovi.  If you’re making waves, might as well make ‘em big.  I believe the C belongs to the hardest working guy on a team – not necessarily the highest profile or most prolific scorer.  I don’t recall anyone ever saying that about Ovi.  (Hate on Crosby all you want, but….)  Brooks Laich or Mike Knuble seem like better candidates to me.  And it would send a clear message that Hunter and McPhee lead this team, not The Usually, Mostly, If He Feels Like It Great 8.  Piss him off.  Make Ovi earn the C back and he’d be unstoppable.

PS: I know there are more issues with the Caps that just Ovi, but I believe in trickle-down solutions.

Last night’s game between the Bruins and the Hurricanes was pretty good….

until this happened.

Who farted?

PARTY IN THE PENALTY BOX!

But this is a party you wouldn’t really want to go to.  The food is bad.  The champagne is flat.  And someone clogged up the toilet.

It was ugly, people.  Oooglay.

And like Nine Inch Nails, we were headed into a downward spiral.

Chris Kelly – perhaps the most unassuming, gentle man on the Bruins – even got into a fight.

CHRIS KELLY!

Chara goes all Godzilla on this guy…

I’m not one to complain about the officials but they were a little suspect last night.

I'm sensing a pattern here....

Bruins = 72 PIM.  Hurricanes = 22 PIM.

Really?  Only 22 minutes?  Both teams were chippy and throwin’ bows but somehow only the Bs got the minutes.

Chuck no likey.

Neither does Coach Claude.  He got tossed.  Pretty sure if he could have chest bumped the refs MLB-stylo, he would have.

Grumpy Bear.

If they do wrong, give them the two minutes (or four…or ten).  Make them feel shame.  But don’t be one-sided in your punishment.

BTDubs – Shawn Thornton, 2 minutes for “Abuse of officials”?  Never heard that one before.

Sean Avery has been placed on waivers by the Rangers.  It’s like the episode of 24 where Kim Bauer went hiking in Los Angeles, got cornered by a cougar and had to be rescued by a hillbilly in a bunker.  If she were real, she’d still be dating this jackass.

Read all about it on Puck Daddy.

Will someone pick him up?  According to the NY Post it would cost a team $1 million to have Avery for the year.  His salary is $4 million: the Rangers would pay $1 mill and the Dallas Stars are still paying $2 mill.  That’s right, two teams would pay a combined 75% of Avery’s salary to NOT have him on their rosters.  Ask The Situation how it felt when Abercrombie offered to pay him not to wear their clothes.

Avery’s effectiveness as an annoying bastard is undeniable – he rattles other teams – but he draws tons of penalties in the process.  To the equation, teams must add the likelihood Sean will do something off the ice that speaks louder than anything he does on it.  I just don’t see the point of Sean Avery.  I think any number of guys can do what he does (we’ve got “your mama” jokes galore) with a lot less headache.

This is real. I didn't Photoshop in these glasses.

So with two teams already putting their money where Avery’s mouth is… what happens now?

rest in peace

This is just sad. Another hockey player gone way too soon. Rick Rypien was found dead on Monday by a family member. No official word yet about the cause and quite frankly it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that yet another young hockey player is gone.

we all need more of this!

He took an extended leave of absence from the NHL for personal reasons and had just signed on with the Winnipeg Jets on what some say was a career comeback.

Derek Boogaard died a few months back; a mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs found in his system.

While we all joke about fighters and fights – I’m just as guilty – I love a good fight(s), and the NY Islanders having a viewing party of their game against the Penguins, some players have a hard time leaving it on the ice when they leave the ice.

My heart and prayers go out to the Rypien family and to any hockey player out there having personal issues. Please go get help – talk to some one, any one. You are more important than the game. You matter to someone. You make a difference. There is a sparkly rainbow on the other side – trust me.

better to remember you by

So Sean Avery is a moron.  In other news, water is wet.

Avery was arrested early this morning for shoving a Hollywood, CA police office who was responding to a noise complaint about a loud party at Avery’s house [link, and yes I picked the TMZ one on purpose].  He must have had The Hangover turned up all the way because we can’t imagine anyone hanging out with this prize.  He was taken to jail and bail set at $20,000.

John Buccigross, the most effective fact-tweeter in the business, pointed out that Dallas still pays half of Sean Avery’s salary. They’re paying $950,000 a year to keep him away.  Can they get a portion of his bail, like an economic stimulus package?

It’s a shame, really, because we applaud Sean Avery’s efforts on behalf of legalizing gay marriage in NY.  It actually made us like him for a minute.  But supporting a good cause has not shaken the stupid out of him.  Being an NHL instigator and being a moron are not the same thing.  NY1 News Video here.