The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

(Oh yeah, like I wasn’t writing about this one.)

That much-heralded Dion Phaneuf/Milan Lucic tilt didn’t happen (boooooo, Ference and Iginla), but that was not enough to prevent the Flames and Bruins from playing a pretty decent hockey game tonight in Calgary.

Phaneuf scored and added a helper and Lucic picked up one assist, but the Flames emerged 3-2 victors and spoiled Boston’s perfect road trip. For the Flames, it was their fifth win in a row.

For the Bruins, it was the first time they allowed more than zero goals (really) on their three-game swing through Western Canada. And really, all it took was one bad period to doom the Black and Gold. Boston gave up four power plays in the second and Calgary capitalized on two of them to first level at one and then take a lead. Phaneuf’s goal came first when he followed a Jarome Iginla shot and tipped it over a diving Tim Thomas. The second came when Mike Cammalleri tipped a patented Dion Phaneuf rocket from the point. That was all Calgary needed, essentially. Dustin Boyd’s early third-period goal was very nice and proved the eventual game-winner, but once Calgary went up, the Saddledome was alive and the Bruins didn’t stand a chance.

That is not, however, necessarily their fault. Tim Thomas had an extraordinarily busy four-day trip, stopping 58 shots in Edmonton and Vancouver on back-to-back nights and getting the shutout both times, and then facing a 38-shot onslaught tonight. Something had to give, and the goals that Calgary scored were on a rebound, a redirection and another rebound. Two were on the power play. None were exactly his fault. Plus you have to question the fairness of the NHL supercomputers that schedule the B’s for a game in Edmonton Monday, Vancouver Tuesday then head back to Calgary Thursday. Why not two Alberta games back-to-back? So much for the NHL going green, eh?

The Bruins have to leave Calgary happy with the results of the road trip overall, but disappointed in the offense. Only four goals in nine-plus periods is not the best output in the world, even if you allow only three over that same stretch. But Boston will also return to the east coast with its No. 1 starter firmly established. Thomas made the point clearly and emphatically that Manny Fernandez, for all the cash the Bruins are dumping into his lost-cause contract, deserves to be on doorman duty until such time as Thomas asks for a night off. You only give up three goals on 96 shots during a road trip and keep the Bruins in a game in Calgary where they were outshot 20-8 in the second period, you earned that No. 1 spot. Let Fernandez get his requisite 15 starts the rest of the way and nothing more, because this is and, despite the Bruins’ silly insistence to the contrary, always was Tim Thomas’ job.

Across the rink from Thomas, Miikka Kiprusoff continued his hot streak, surrendering two goals on 31 shots and generally looking impressive. The only goal of the first period came when Kiprusoff made a mess of a handled puck behind the net and Patrice Bergeron picked his pocket for an ugly wraparound. Blake Wheeler’s goal midway through the third was an awful pretty shot following a cross-ice pass and and was also awful unstoppable.

(Note to Peter Chiarelli: Psst, I heard the Blues, Kings, Thrashers and Islanders might need goaltending help. Just sayin’.)

P.S. For those keeping score at home, this is Calgary’s second win in which Jarome Iginla goes without a goal.

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For years, everyone was passing Hugh Jessiman by. Eric Fehr, Shawn Belle, Tibor.

Well no more! The Rangers called up Jessiman, the only first-round pick in the 2003 entry draft to have never played an NHL game, earlier today. He’ll finally get his chance with the Blueshi… oh he got traded to Nashville. For future considerations. Ouch.

Jessiman, who is 6-foot-6 and 235 pounds, has split the four seasons he’s been out of college between the AHL and ECHL and has 57 goals and 62 assists in those four seasons. He has no points in six games this year and has apparently been pushing his agent for a trade because the Rangers aren’t giving him a chance.

Memo to Mr. Jessiman: The reason the Rangers, who aren’t exactly lighting the world on fire offensively, aren’t giving you a chance to play in the NHL is because you are not good at hockey. You have had ONE (1) good season in your entire hockey career, that being the 24-23-47 freshman season at Dartmouth that got you drafted No. 12 overall in the best draft in hockey history, ahead of guys like Mike Richards, Ryan Getzlaf and Zach Parise. You are injury-prone at worst and a mediocre player at best. That’s why you’ve never played an NHL game, and likely never will. You’re an answer to a trivia question, not someone that’s earned a shot in the best hockey league in the world.

Give the KHL a whirl or something. Hockey on this continent is a dead end for you.

(Yes, I am still bitter about Jessiman scoring a hat trick against my college that freshman year, thanks for bringing it up.)

Last night, buried deep within the writeup of the Anaheim-Detroit game last night, I talked a little bit about the dirty hit Chris Pronger put on Pavel Datsyuk. Here’s the video of the hit.

For all the people that bitched at me via e-mail about my stance on the Weight hit on Sutter, this is what I consider to cross the line. That’s a dirty hit. Look where the puck is in relation to the collision, look how Datsyuk can’t even fathom that someone would come in on him at all, let alone come in high. But this is typical Chris Pronger, trying to gain an edge by taking a run at a team’s star player. And as is typical of the NHL, the officials looked the other way because, hey, it’s Chris Pronger and he plays physical hockey.

I agree with Jordin Tootoo, who did an interview with Wyshinski on the issue. “Hitting’s part of the game. It’s a man’s game. You gotta keep your head up there.” Absolutely. Perfectly put.

The point is also made that Pronger is a full 6-foot-6 and thus most of his hits are to the head, which is true enough. But there’s no excuse for this hit at all. It’s not part of the game, it’s part of Chris Pronger’s desire to drill every opponent’s top forward any time he can. The fact that he didn’t get penalized in the game isn’t surprising, nor will it be surprising when the league doesn’t do a thing about this.

But with a history like Pronger’s, the league has to do a better job of supervising him. The reason this is a special case is that Chris Pronger is a special kind of scumbag.

Daniel Alfredsson re-signed with Ottawa today to a cap-friendly deal worth $5.5 million a year over the next four. When the contract expires, he will be 39 years old.

As reported first by Sun Media this morning, the Senators have called a 12:30 p.m. press conference today at the BankAtlantic Center to announce the club’s captain has signed a four-year, $22 million deal.

Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is flying in front his ranch in Ocala, Fla. to participate in the press conference with GM Bryan Murray and Alfredsson. Getting him signed is a huge relief for the club because he had the ability to go to unrestricted free agency next season.

This is a very good thing for the Senators in theory. They get to keep their franchise player for below market value (if you think Alfie couldn’t get $6.5 from someone, you’re crazy) in favor of keeping the band together. Whether or not said band is capable of winning anything is up for debate, but it at least puts the Sens in a position to re-sign some guys like Mike Fisher and Antoine Vermette or the entire Sens D corps save for Chris Phillips, whose contracts are up in the next two years, if they’re so inclined.

But the contract will also allegedly contain the dreaded “no-movement clause” which, ehh, it’s not so good for the team. Now, regardless of whether or not he’s earning his $5.5 million in three years, he’s going to be making it in Ottawa until he’s 39. Even if they could move him for something that helps the team long-term, Alfie probably wouldn’t want to go, which isn’t helping anyone but Alfie.

The Lead

Looking at the scores from the last few Red Wings games, you don’t get the feeling that this is the best hockey team we’ve seen in almost a decade.

4-3 over the Kings, 6-5 over the Blackhawks, 5-3 over the Thrashers, 4-3 over the Blues, 5-4 over the Rangers, and a 4-3 overtime loss to the Canucks.

That’s a lot of crooked numbers there. The Red Wings, in fact, haven’t allowed less than three goals since Oct. 13 against Carolina. Tonight’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Ducks didn’t help assuage the growing worries in Hockeytown.

This was the first Wings game this year I actually sat down and watched all the way through and I feel like I saw everything that’s good about them (the power play, ability to keep the puck in the offensive zone, the pretty little passing plays, etc. etc.) and everything that’s been wrong with them for the last two weeks (an ineffective breakout, the penalty kill, d-zone weak-side coverage, stupid penalties, lazy neutral zone play, faceoffs, etc. etc.).

The Ducks, led by Teemu Selanne’s power play hat trick and Ryan Getzlaf’s five helpers, played to these weaknesses perfectly, and, despite four two-man advantanges, still needed part of overtime and an iffy goal (I think it was a high stick, personally) to beat them. That’s how good Detroit is on the attack.

That Detroit power play, too. Wow. The way it moves the puck is barely comprehensible to the human mind. One second it’s at the point and the next it’s behind the goalie and both he and the viewer are left wondering how the hell it got there until a slow-mo replay reveals that Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Zetterberg somehow went uncovered in the middle of the ice and redirected a shot through the screen and in. Both scored goals exactly in this way tonight.

They both also added even-strength goals and each was just as pretty. You forget the kind of skill these guys have until you watch them, and then you go, “Jesus Christ these guys are good. How did I ever forget that?”

But for how good both those guys were, neither held a candle to Selanne tonight. Teemu picked up two identical power play goals, wristing the puck from a low angle on a cross-ice feed. The misfit, his second, was an attempted cross-ice pass that went off Andreas Lilja’s skate and in.

The two ugliest goals of the game proved the most important for Anaheim. Brian Sutherby followed the play of Corey Perry and Getzlaf and put a rebound off the crossbar and in to put the Ducks up 4-3, and Francois Beauchemin swatted a puck out of midair (it sure as hell looked like a high stick, but I’ll defer to the war room in Toronto) at 1:39 of overtime to wrap up the game.

JS Giguere got the win in making 38 saves, while Chris Osgood managed to stop 29.

(But I’ll say this about the game: it reminded me, despite my dislike of the Red Wings because of their spoiled fanbase, just how hateable the Ducks are. They play an ugly, boring game (conceding most of the neutral zone in favor of dropping three behind the blue line on every rush makes hockey awful) and pretty much act like jerks the entire night while holding onto a “Who? ME!?” attitude every time someone is called for shoving a Red Wing into his teammate. This specific example happened twice. Selanne shoved Tomas Holmstrom into Osgood and negated a goal, and late in the game Scott Niedermayer pushed Pavel Datsyuk into Marian Hossa, who had the puck along the boards. Both times, the players reacted with disbelief, and the Ducks’ announcers scrambled to say that it was indeed Holmstrom and Datsyuk who were at fault.

And if you want to see what I think is a dirty hit to the head with the arms down, check out Chris Pronger’s hit on Pavel Datsyuk (if you can find it anywhere online.. I can’t) in the third period. Well after Datsyuk dumps the puck in and begins to turn to chase after it, Pronger throws him a quick shot to the jaw that dropped him pretty quick. Totally intentional, malicious, calculated hit from one of the true scumbags of the NHL. For the huge deal that was made out of the perfectly clean Weight-on-Sutter hit, this one won’t get 1/10th the coverage because Datsyuk was fine, and it was easily a more egregious attempt to injure an opponent. Who could expect anything less from a douchebag like Pronger though?

Another hateable thing about the Ducks is their broadcast. They INSIST on using the low-level “ice view” cameras stationed at the top of the glass between the penalty boxes and above the goal judges. Both angles make the game unwatchable. You can’t watch the rush develop through the neutral zone and you can’t see the puck go in the net on power plays. The X-Mo replay is a great feature but we didn’t see the puck go in the net from a proper camera angle once tonight. Another problem with the broadcast: it’s so busy showing commercials that it missed eight faceoffs, the start of the second period (by 27 seconds!) and the start of a fight. It was unbelievable and I can see why people in Anaheim don’t care very much about the Ducks.)

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The good news is that a front-row seat for the Winter Classic costs $75. The bad news is that the nosebleeds cost $325.

Not sure I get it either.

Yeah, the NHL released its Winter Classic seating charts yesterday and, well, you figure it out.

What a disaster this turned out to be. Seats out in center field that are an easy 250 feet from the rink cost $75, the same as seats that are closer to 100 but apparently have obstructed views of some parts of the rink. Why only three pricing levels? Why so expensive? Why no seats on the field? It’s going to look stupid with a full baseball outfield of NOTHING as the backdrop to the game.

At least Gary Bettman isn’t Bud Selig, right? Right?

The Lead

Here is an ice-time comparison for a few Tampa Bay forwards as of the end of the second period.

Martin St. Louis: 13:00
Vinny Prospal: 12:48
Jussi Jokinen: 11:58
Vincent Lecavalier: 11:32
Mark Recchi: 11:06
Steven Stamkos: 8:31

Try to guess which of these forwards, at this point, had two picturesque goals in the hockey game.

Hint: It was Lecavalier.

How does this happen? How is it that Vincent Lecavalier is keeping the bench warm for ANYONE on the team? The answer, obviously, is Barry Melrose.

It’s insane, too, because they spent a lot of the early coverage of the game on TSN talking about how Lecavalier was unhappy that he hadn’t played more than 20 minutes in his previous two games. Even with Lecavalier’s point that he deserves to be on the ice for as much of the game as he feels like playing in being made emphatically, he still ended with just 17:49, third among Lightning forwards.

I know Melrose is scouting, scouting, always scouting, but maybe he should have taken a peek at this game and seen that big No. 4 was DOMINANTING the Maple Leafs. He had a gorgeous breakaway dangler on his backhand to put the Bolts up 2-1, then extended the lead on a power play early in the second with another pretty backhander off a draw. Somehow, this did not warrant his getting more ice time than Prospal.

Meanwhile, Stamkos ended with just 12:58 of ice time despite picking up his first career point (an assist on Lecavalier’s second goal).

But Melrose and his boys, who didn’t play especially well but benefited from three separate puck-over-the-glass D.O.G. penalties by Toronto (Lecavalier’s power play goal came five seconds into one of these), will take the two points mainly because of the incredible play of Mike Smith, who made 37 saves, with a number of those being just jaw-dropping. Smith pulled several that got past him back from the line. Toronto may have had two power play goals, but both were on second chances, and with the first goal, you can make a credible argument that the play should have been whistled dead.

Not that the Leafs played badly or anything. They were thoroughly mediocre on everything but the aforementioned power play. When up a man, they put 10 shots on net in six opportunities and had it not been for the play of Smith, could have probably had four or five. It was very impressive despite the so-so results. The same can’t be said for the rest of the Leafs’ night, which was so-so with less than impressive results. But you expect that going in, right?

So it turns out that incompetent coaching doesn’t always cost your team. You just need your Top-Five-In-The-League superstar player to score twice despite a relative paucity of ice time and have your goalie make almost 40 saves.

That Barry Melrose. What a genius.

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The Lead

All it took for Buffalo to lose in regulation was a healthy dose of irresponsibility with the puck and Jason Spezza.

Spezza had two goals and an assist, all in the second period, as the Sens pounded Buffalo 5-2 and handed the Sabres their first regulation loss of the year. And what a fine mess the Sabres were the entire night. They were bad at pretty much everything for the entirety of the first two periods and really they just didn’t show that resiliency I’ve seen in them the first few games.

Ottawa went at them hard early and it really seemed to rattle the banged-up Sabres who were playing without either Craig Rivet or Henrik Tallinder. Without the defensive stalwarts that helped Buffalo to a best-in-the-league 1.6 goals against per game, the Senators were free to shoot from where they wanted and pass it around the zone with impunity, and what really killed the Sabres were giveaways. A TERRIBLE clearance attempt on the penalty kill led to Christoph Schubert’s goal to open the scoring and things got little better from there.

Dany Heatley’s goal, set up by Spezza and also on the power play, was the result of no one on the Buffalo defense even noticing that he was streaking into the slot. How in the hell do you not cover 15? Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t he have close to 150 goals in the last three seasons? Might wanna keep an eye on him on the PK especially. Just a thought.

Spezza’s two goals, like Schubert’s, were both the end result of giveaways. First Jarkko Ruutu dispossessed a Sabre in the attacking zone to spring Spezza for a breakaway goal, and then a failed clearance attempt led to a scrum out front that Spezza was Johnny On the Spot for. Even Sean Donovan’s goal was an embarrassment for the Sabres. How do you leave ANYONE that open in the slot for a redirect. This is Sean freaking Donovan for Christ’s sake! He got stopped on a breakaway by a HIGH SCHOOL KID! You have to get a stick in that passing lane instead of having two guys standing around in it.

Buffalo deserved to lose this game. They played like crap even if they did score a pair of late goals. And yeah, Sabres fans will whine about injuries but the fact is they only went 2 for 10 on the power play. If you get 10 cracks at going a man up, you gotta pop in more than two when the game is well out of hand. It’s really that simple.

Patrick Lalime, of course, didn’t help his cause with the number of big, fat rebounds he gave up tonight, though. He made 23 saves on 28 shots, and that’s never going to win you a hockey game. Alex Auld, meanwhile, was perfectly alright at the other end.

This was more the Buffalo I expected to see this season, but depending upon how quickly Tallinder and Rivet get back, things could unravel quickly in Buffalo. Too many soft forwards that try to make fancy plays instead of doing the straightforward thing in getting the puck to the net, too many bad penalties, and no sense of composure or leadership in their own zone. Just stupid play after stupid play. I know it’s only one loss, but this was a total 180 from the Sabres of this weekend.

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Somehow, I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere.

Friday night, Minnesota State played North Dakota in a WCHA matchup and the craziest goddamn thing you will ever see in a hockey game happened.

Zach Harrison scored a natural hat trick consisting of nothing but shorthanded goals.

Midway through the second period, Zach Harrison picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and broke in one-on-one with a NoDak defender, then wristed a nifty little shot past Sioux goalie Adam Walaski to make it 3-1 to Harrison’s Mavericks.

In the third, he outhustled four Sioux on a power play breakout, got to a loose puck first, took it wide, and beat Walaski to put the Mavs up 4-1. Then, late in the game with two Mavericks in the box and an empty net 185 feet away, Harrison shoveled the puck out of the zone on a backhand and saw it bounce into the goal.

Natural. Shorthanded. Hat trick.

Of all the things I’ve ever seen in spending my life around hockey, nothing has ever compared to how zany this is. Harrison’s stick from that game is on its way to the Hockey Hall of Fame. The HHOF says that this might be the first natural shorthanded hattie in the HISTORY of hockey.

Said Harrison of the feat: “That’s not really something you even dream about.”

Yeah, you might say that.

So today I’m just looking around at old college hockey teams and I come upon a name I vaguely recognized: Ben Lovejoy. Kid went to Boston College and was pretty good from what I remembered, but I kind of lost track of him after he transferred to Dartmouth and out of Hockey East.

Well turns out he’s playing for the Baby Pens now and has his own blog, which is seemingly independent of the team’s website. That’s awesome. I wish more players would do that so we can get stories that are actually funny or interesting, rather than some middle-of-the-road defenseman saying, “Went to practice today. It was really hard but we’re playing good hockey right now and we’re just focused on doing our jobs.” No one cares.

But Lovejoy, in his two posts this season, has been pretty funny. The story he posted Friday was a riot.

A fan made a mixtape called “Songs about Love(joy)” full of songs where the word “love” is used in the title.

Every time the word love was mentioned for the rest of the CD, the song would cut out and a voice would come on and say, “joy.” For the next 8 tracks on the CD, they all did this. It was one of the funniest, and creepiest, things I had ever heard. I was almost embarrassed that someone had taken the time to make a CD like this for me. After listening to the CD (not the whole thing, just skipping from track to track) I took it out and put it in the side panel of my car door where it stayed for a month or two.

Eventually, a teammate found the CD by accident and brought it to the dressing room, much to the delight of all of Lovejoy’s teammates. Danny Richmond has since burned a copy of the CD for friends and family and put it on his iPod.

We really, really need to get some audio of this mixtape.