The Two-Line Pass

This is what caused Jason Arnott to beat the hell out of Alex Burrows last night.

That might be a charge. Actual quote from the Sportsnet color guy at about 1:18 of the video: “The question the Predators are gonna ask as we take a look at the hit here is, ‘Did Burrows leave his feet?’ Ehhhh, it… I don’t THINK so. Well, maybe.”

Yeah, maybe.

Dr. Carolyn Emery at the University of Calgary has been doing some important research on youth hockey in Alberta and Quebec. In just year one of a three-year study, the team has already found significant evidence to back up their theory.

That theory, of course, is that more kids get hurt in checking leagues than in no-contact leagues. Shock and horror surely abounded when the preliminary results of the study were released yesterday.

In Alberta, you see, they introduce checking at the peewee level (ages 11 and 12), whereas Quebec has checking only at the bantam level (13 and 14) and only at the highest levels of bantam competition.

What they found was that peewee players in Alberta were 2.5 times more likely to get hurt and 3.5 times more likely to suffer a concussion than the peewee players they tracked in Quebec. Albertans playing peewee hockey were also three times more likely to sustain injuries that kept them off the ice for more than a week.

You don’t say! Checking leads to injuries. The news didn’t come as a shock to Hockey Calgary president Perry Cavanagh, nor to anyone else that has ever watched any contact sport in the history of athletic competition.

“That’s the expectation we would have seen — there’s nothing shocking or revealing in the outcome,” he said. “The reality is, you put a bunch of kids together in a playing area, odds are the group that [hits] is going to have a higher injury rate.”

But doesn’t this kind of draw a basis of comparison for why hockey fans tend to view Albertan hockey players as tough sons of bitches and Quebecois players as sissies? Maybe it’s because the big boys out of the prairie towns are learning to keep their heads up and absorb hits at an earlier age, where these parlezin’ pretty boys aren’t getting steamrolled until they’re almost ready for junior.

This groundbreaking study, in its final two years, intends to prove that ice is cold, pucks are black, and Sean Avery is kind of a dick.

(Just for fun, here is a peewee hockey player getting drilled for not paying attention to the play.)

The Lead

I knew the Flames would lose this game the second the Sportsnet broadcast compared the first two games of the team’s four-game road trip to the infamous six-game trip from last season that saw them win all six and outscore their opponents something like 25-16 (of course they ignored the fact that none of those six teams made the playoffs last year. That was neither here nor there). Calgary had, after all, beaten St. Louis in overtime and shut out the so-so Rangers.

What, then, could possibly go wrong against a team like the Canadiens that are, y’know, good? Oh, right, the Calgary Flames played after winning two in a row and coming off a dominant performance. Any time this year the Flames have played a good opponent after a dominant performance, they have lost because they just don’t show up every night.

Tonight, in a 4-1 loss to Montreal that, coupled with a Canucks win, saw them drop out of first place in the Northwest, the Flames were victimized by not only an outstanding performance by Canadiens backup Jaroslav Halak, but also their own disappointing lack of hockey sense and puck luck.

Halak saw 14 shots in the first period and stopped all of them, which, based upon the quality of those shots, was the only reason it wasn’t 3-1 through 20 minutes. Instead, Robert Lang scored off a goofy bounce on a centering feed that hit Mark Giordano’s leg and got behind Kiprusoff.

The second bad bounce came in the second period when a shot from Calgary’s point hit a shinpad and bounced back to center ice like it had been shot out of a cannon to spring Matt D’Agostini for a breakaway and his fourth goal in as many career NHL games. Dustin Boyd pulled the Flames back within one just over two minutes later but Lang added an insurance goal to double the Montreal lead late in the period.

But when Calgary got a power play early in the third, the game was officially put out of reach by Calgary’s own stupidity. A Habs forward broke his stick while on the PK, but instead of forcing the puck to that side and trying to draw him out to the point and create space in front of the net, Calgary kept it on the strong side and passed back and forth between the point and the man on the halfboards before eventually sending it down low. Not the worst idea in the world but it should’ve been on the other side of the ice. However, when the puck comes down low, the other Canadiens forward trips a Calgary player to draw a 5 on 3.

And this is where the insane part comes in. With 28 seconds left in the original penalty, instead of giving Montreal the puck or putting something low at the net to hope for a scrum, a rebound or Montreal control, Todd Bertuzzi backs out and tries to uncork one from a goofy angle, only to see the puck sail about a mile high and wide and bounce out of the zone and to center ice. At this point, it still doesn’t occur to the Flame that retrieved it to just give the puck to Montreal. Instead, all six Flames CLEAR THE ZONE and regroup for a rush down the center of the ice that somehow doesn’t get a shot on net. By this time, Alex Tanguay, who took the original penalty, has come out of the box and is the first Hab to touch the puck. The game was lost right there. The fact that Andrei Markov scored 39 seconds after Montreal killed the second penalty was just hilarious salt-rubbing.

This was just another game Calgary simply wasn’t prepared for and, no matter how well they played on Sunday or Friday, you have to come to play against good opponents. I would’ve thought Calgary got that note by now, but they pull this all the time. Oh and Detroit’s tomorrow night? Yeah, that should go well.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Lead

The bad news is that the Penguins blew another two-goal lead and had a really bad night on the power play. The good news is that there really, really has to be a light at the end of the tunnel at some point. Right?

Despite more strong performances from Evgeni Malkin and Sid Crosby, the Penguins were once again victimized by the poor everything-else that’s been going on with their team and fell to the so-so Sabres 4-3 despite having led the game 3-1 early in the second period.

Buffalo took about 390 penalties in the game (ballpark) but the Penguins power play, which despite its high ranking in the NHL has actually been quite bad lately, went 1 for 8 and only converted one of its three chances at 5 on 3. I can see why it’s tempting for Michel Therrien to just tell Sid and Geno to go do their thing out their with the extra space, but “their thing” seemed largely to involve passing the puck around the perimeter until someone on the Pens decides to try to send it into the box, at which point it will be chipped out harmlessly by a Sabres forward who got his stick in the obvious passing lane. And repeat. Over and over.

But Crosby and Malkin are only two men, and the other Penguins did little to help their cause despite what looks like a two-goal effort from Ruslan Fedotenko and a two-assist night for Petr Sykora. Malkin’s set-up on the first Fedotenko goal was absolutely gorgeous as he fed the puck between his legs to himself in a successful attempt to shake the defender and found Fedotenko alone in the slot. Any NHLer on any team could’ve scored. The assist, as it is with so many Crosby/Malkin setups, was the play, and the play was eye-popping. Fedotenko’s second goal was another Johnny-on-the-spot goal on a bang-bang play with Malkin and Sykora.

But to their credit and despite numerous penalties, the Sabres were still in it thanks to a Derek Roy goal that was sandwiched by the Fedotenko markers. But when Tom Vanek took a delay of game call (by falling on the puck during a penalty kill) with 20 seconds to go in the first period and Jochen Hecht was whistled for a trip 19 seconds into the second to give the Pens about four straight minutes of uninterrupted power play time, you knew that, bad man-up play or not, the puck was going in the net. And of course it was Crosby who set up Kris Letang’s first goal of the year to put the Pens up two at 1:31 of the second period.

But then everything fell apart. Buffalo cut the lead to 3-2 just 5:09 later and tied it with 5:11 left in the period. The Pens were in total meltdown mode at this point as Dany Sabourin just stopped playing the puck well and the defense did nothing at all to assist him in a meaningful way. The Brooks Orpik-Letang pairing was especially brutal, having been on the ice for both of Buffalo’s two second-period goals, as well as Vanek’s game winner (his league-leading 20th) early in the third.

Crosby and Malkin were both very good tonight and their talent alone nearly stole a point in a game in which the Penguins were given every opportunity to succeed and simply failed to do anything with them. I don’t know how much longer the team can stay in contention in the volatile East with a supporting cast of has-beens and call-ups. Crosby and Malkin (Crolkin?) can’t be expected to win them every game. Someone’s got to step up. But who could possibly do it?

Read the rest of this entry »

Because I tend to not blog on the weekends, here is a feature that will run through the entire season. It aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact about each team that played. And hell, there’s a ton of other crap for me to blather on about too. And yes, I’m totally ripping off just about every other blogger ever’s weekly column, but that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own time.

Danger: This post contains language that some people might not like. This will be the only thing on the site that regularly does so.

Yet another coaching change this week caused me to wonder just how many coaching changes we’ve gone through since the end of last season. The answer was, shockingly, 11. Exactly a third of the league has turned over its coaches in just seven months. Some, like Ottawa and San Jose, made the playoffs last year but bowed out after predictably early exits. Most were actually above .500. But not every change has been helpful, or even anything like it.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am trying to compile a list of things that the NHL has deemed less-bad than Sean Avery’s words. If you can find videos of other suspension-worthy clips, send them along. Six games for words. Unbelievable.

He’d have been better off calling Phaneuf the N word.

Other notable NHL suspensions, all with video, after the jump. Be sure to drop some I may have missed in the comments.

Read the rest of this entry »

The perfect marriage between Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane might finally be over. Their feud over which one gets votes onto the All-Star team has spilled from the dressing room and onto the internet, where the two forwards are now waging a bitter war for votes.

Toews, for example, believes Kane to be a liar and a turncoat. Not the kind of guy you’d want representing your Chicago Blackhawks at the All-Star game.

Kane, on the other hand, doesn’t think we should trust someone that can’t spell “Taves.”

Brian Campbell, by the way, is your third-party candidate.

Things are only going to get worse come January.

(Big ups to Trevor Bird on this one.)

The Lead

Start from the bottom up as far as, say, the top 20 goalscorers in the National Hockey League at this point in the season.

Slava Kozlov at 20 with 12 goals. A bunch of other guys are tied with him, like Jarome Iginla, Shane Doan, Patrick Marleau and Patrick Kane. With 13 each you have Alex Semin, Devin Setoguchi, Sid Crosby, Dany Heatley, Simon Gagne and Rick Nash. Teemu Selanne, Patrick Sharp, Zach Parise, Marian Hossa and Alex Ovechkin are all next with 14 apiece. And above all of them, just behind Jeff Carter and Tom Vanek’s 18 goals, is Phil Kessel, who has 15.

The kid had 19 in 82 games last year, and through 25, he’s already got 15 and he’s a huge reason the Bruins are tied for the lead in the Eastern Conference with four games in hand on the New York Rangers. Hell, he was a big reason the Bruins even won tonight.

The Bruins hadn’t played since last Saturday after playing its busiest stretch of the season, 10 games in 17 days, and tonight they sure looked it. They were sluggish and inattentive in the first period, where they were outchanced by Tampa about 8-2 or so. Tampa (TAMPA!) looked almost dominant in the flow of play. Marty St. Louis’ goal was a prettyish little two-on-two play, but if Mark Stuart had paid the slightest bit of attention to his man instead of Vinny Lecavalier, who had the puck, he wouldn’t have looked quite so stupid in flailing to block the ensuing pass or shot, both of which he was hopelessly out of position for. But because Tampa’s Tampa and the Bruins are the best team in the East, they only managed one goal despite the huge advantage in play. Fortunately for Boston, Tim Thomas, who made 30 saves, allowed just one goal and once strangled a grizzly with his bare hands, settled down after that.

In the second, the Bruins tried to inject a little artificial life into their game. Zdeno Chara got into a bit of an exchange down by Tim Thomas and that seemed to really fire up the bench. Within a few shifts, the Bruins were starting to compose their attack, and once Kessel’s line, that also features Milan Lucic and Marc Savard, hopped over the boards, you knew they’d be leveling the score soon enough. Kessel lifted a stick in the neutral zone, stole the puck and broke the other way on a rush, only to crush a slapshot off the far post from 50 feet out, and the pressure from Boston kept building. Kessel finally tied the game on his next shift at 12:21, converting a sexy no-look pass from the endboards and into the slot from Savard.

The score remained tied until excellent rookie Blake Wheeler blocked a pass attempt on a Tampa power play and sprung David Krejci for a gorgeous shorthanded 1-on-2 goal. His toe-drag around Paul Ranger was beautiful and the speed of his release to get the puck away just before Andrej Mezsaros got a stick in there was unbelievable. That’s a goal you’ll be seeing in a couple highlight videos, I suspect.

Kessel also added an empty netter with 0.5 seconds remaining to bump his goal total to 15, THIRD in the NHL. If you had taken a DeLorean back one year ago and said to anyone who watches the Bruins a lot that Phil Kessel would be lifting sticks, blocking shots and shooting the puck more than anyone on the team, they would’ve had you locked up. The transformation this kid has undergone is ridiculous.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because the entire world can’t stop talking about Sean Avery’s “sloppy seconds” comment (I have friends who haven’t seen a hockey game in their lives texting me about it), the story goes on and on and on. But at least one guy in the hockey world is sick of it.

Darryl Sutter was asked about it at a press conference and provided the most pointed criticism of anyone. Except Sutter directed it at the media.

“You know what? Put it to bed. You guys cover hockey. It’s supposed to be the sports page. If you guys want to cover that stuff, go ahead. It’s been pretty disgusting for three days, actually. The Dallas Stars come to town . . . two of the best spokesmen in the league, other than a couple of our guys, are Mike Modano and Marty Turco, and I didn’t see their picture or hear a story about them.

“So you guys aren’t really covering hockey.”

Attaboy, Darryl. The whole thing is, and has been, silly from the get-go, and while Avery clearly planned this whole thing, the media certainly did its part to drum up interest ahead of the Dallas/Calgary game two nights ago. While it’s impossible to say if Avery would have made the comment had the media not been working so hard to talk to him about the “Jarome Iginla is boring” thing (and I’d say he probably would’ve because, hey, he’s Sean Avery), it certainly can’t have helped him to avoid the desire to turn the game into another sideshow act.

Andre Roy, who called Avery a “dum-dum,” also had a suggestion for how the media should deal with Avery in the future:

“But maybe you can stop talking (to Avery), even if he gets a hat trick. Just leave him in the corner and don’t even mention him. That would be the right thing to do with this guy because he definitely needs attention. That’s what he’s looking for.’”

But then Scott Cruickshank, who’s usually a pretty damn good writer, went waaaaaaaaaaay off the reservation.

Is his conduct as bad as drilling someone head-first into the boards? …Or is it worse?

Actual question being posed: Is calling someone a name “as bad as” or “worse” than potentially putting someone’s life in jeopardy? Hmmm that IS a noodle-scratcher. I mean, on the one hand words HURT! On the other hand, so does a crushed vertebrae. Unfortunately, science has yet to quantify which injury is more severe and damaging in the long-term.

Think of it this way. Todd Bertuzzi almost crippled someone for life and might end up serving fewer games than Sean Avery, who said a mean thing about an ex-girlfriend.

Yeah, that makes tons of sense.

The Lead

It would appear, at the very least, as though the Rangers have this whole “beating the Penguins” gimmick figured out.

Apparently all you have to do is hold Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to an assist and five combined shots. Also, get in their face and hit them. This is a novel approach, but it seems to be working. With tonight’s 3-2 shootout win, it became the seventh time in as many games that New York defeated Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden in as many tries.

Neither star was left alone all night, especially by Colton Orr, who did his best to shadow Crosby and, in doing so, even helped draw a double minor for both tripping and unsportsmanlike conduct from Brooks Orpik on a blatant and very comical play. After Orr followed Crosby up the ice and drew a couple shoves, Orpik hooked his stick blade inside Orr’s knee and pulled. Orr went down like he stepped on a banana peel in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but at least they got a four-minute power play out of it.

The only time in regulation that either Sid or Geno did anything of note to help the Penguins was when Crosby picked off a puck inside the Rangers zone on a breakout (and boy, “own-zone turnovers” must’ve been a common phrase around the New York dressing room tonight), carried it around the net and make a perfect backhand pass through the slot to a hard-charging Mark Eaton, who put the Pens up 1-0. Other than that, you didn’t see too much of Sid, who came into the night with something ridiculous like nine points in his last three games.

A lot of credit has to be given to the pairings of Marc Staal and Michal Roszival and Wade Redden and Dan Girardi, who were out there for the majority of shifts by Malkin and Crosby, respectively. It wasn’t too often that either Pens star was skating into the zone unpressured, and for the amount of bitching from Ranger fans about a few of the aforementioned defensemen, they played like All Stars tonight and helped the Rangers secure a win that, in watching the game, you saw they didn’t really deserve.

The Rangers trailed 2-0 after a Jordan Staal tip-in midway through the second, but Nik Zherdev answered with one of his own a minute and a half or so later to cut New York’s deficit in half. Petr Prucha, in his first game back from injury and after refusing to accept a rehab stint in Hartford, scored the game-tying goal with about five minutes to go in regulation on a crafty dummy play where he let a puck go by him to Gomez, who shot wide, and went to the net to bang in the puck as it came off the end boards. Not a bad little greasy goal for the kid in his first game back, and you could tell the Rangers were happy he got it. It was his first since Jan. 31.

Once the game went to OT, it was all Henrik Lundqvist, who made 29 saves, and the defense holding back the floodgates as the Penguins mounted a TON of pressure but only managed two shots. But once the Rangers got the game to a shootout, it was a fait accompli. Zherdev, Markus Naslund and Freddy Sjostrom all scored, and only Kris Letang was the only one that could answer for the Pens. Poor Dany Sabourin was helpless.

Really, it was a night where the Rangers did all the little things right (except, as I mentioned, for not turning the puck over in their own zone). They played Crosby more physically than I’m used to seeing, they kept a lot of shots to the perimeter and perhaps most importantly when you play a team with Crosby and Malkin on the same power play unit, they didn’t take a lot of penalties. Those two were only on the ice together for six shifts in the game, and three came in overtime. If you keep them separated, you at least have a chance to beat the Penguins.

It also didn’t hurt that the Rangers dominated at the dot. Literally almost every time you looked up, the Rangers were winning a draw away from the Penguins. Only one Pittsburgh player had a faceoff percentage of 50 percent or more, and that was Max Talbot, who won 2 of 3 draws. Mike Zigomanis was 2 for 6, Jordan Staal was 9 for 19, Rusty Fedotenko and Tyler Kennedy were both 0 for 1, Malkin was 1 for 6 and Crosby was 6 for 15. In the attacking zone, the Pens as a team were 3 for 14. In the neutral zone, they were 6 for 16. And in the defensive zone, they were 10 for 22. Grand total: New York outdrew the Pens 33-19. Scott Gomez was the ONLY Ranger who lost an own-zone faceoff as he went 1 for 4. That’s taking care of the puck to an unreal extent.

But despite that, there’s still not a lot to be convinced about with the Rangers. Christ, this was their seventh shootout win of the year. If they played in the Western Conference, where it’s actually hard to win games, things wouldn’t seem this rosy on Broadway.

Read the rest of this entry »