The Two-Line Pass

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. And, well, 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.

By the time you read this, I think we’ll be something like nine days and change out from the 2009 NHL Trade Deadline. Exciting!

And what a way to kick it off: the Senators traded Dean McAmmond and the San Jose Sharks’ first-round pick (so call it No. 28-30?) for Mike Comrie and Chris Campoli. Woo! Wake the kids and give them the big news. Comrie’s headed back to Ottawa.

Now, this might surprise you, but I am not a National Hockey League executive. Far from it, in fact.

I am, however, a rational human being, and thus find this trade to be, ummm.. ridiculous. The Senators, at the time of the trade, were 13 points out of a playoff spot and had just lost Dany Alfredsson to a fractured jaw (albeit for one game).

Bryan Murray, it appears, had mistaken for buyers when they should, in fact, be sellers. With this in mind, and considering we’re rapidly approaching what could be one of the weirder deadlines in a while, I thought I’d help explain which teams should be sellers or buyers as a service to Mr. Murray so that he does not make any further trades of this variety.

Group 1: Surefire sellers (teams six points or more out of their confrence’s playoff spot, i.e. YOU!)

In the East, the Islanders already moved two key players, so it’s safe to assume that they fit in here. Ditto the Atlanta Thrashers. You might also have heard that Tampa Bay is looking to move some center.. cannot recall his name currently. It’ll come to me. Toronto, too, should be looking to sell just about anyone they can lay hands to that doesn’t have a no-trade clause (which, of course, is no one at all).

Out West, the Avs and Blues are two teams full of players other GMs would want to trade for (BJ CROMBEEN, ANYONE!?) and the Coyotes, while not technically six points out, are so bad, broke and young that they have to sell any non-Shane Doan veteran with an even moderately-sized contract.

Group 2: The nebulous will-they/won’t-theys (Teams that are currently out of the playoffs, but might make it with some help)

In the West, there is my personal favorite darkhorse: the LA Kings. Great little team with some very, very good young players. They’re five points out with a couple games in hand, but they’d need to weigh the value of a quick postseason exit this year versus an excellent shot at doing damage next year. They have the prospects to pull someone decent for sure. Also, the Oilers and Predators probably fancy themselves playoff contenders (they’re not, but won’t listen to reason), and the Ducks do have a perfectly legitimate shot of squeaking in, but should sell anyway.

In the East, both Pittsburgh and Carolina will buy, but I’m not sure if either should. What would be the point?

Group 3: The buyers

This is everyone else. But not you, Bryan. Your team stinks and is going nowhere.

Hope this helps.

What We Learned

Anaheim — The Ducks are apparently meeting with league officials to figure out why they go to the penalty box so, so often. Yeah, I have no. idea. why.

Atlanta — So Darren Dreger thinks the Flyers should trade James van Riemsdyk for Kari Lehtonen. Not a bad idea, one supposes, since the Flyers probably still owe Don Waddell for that ridiculous Coburn-for-Zhitnik trade a few years ago. Along those same lines, Hotlanta should also see about getting some of those picks back for the Keith Tkachuk rental.

Boston — So Mark Stuart fought Gary Roberts today. Interestingly, Gary Roberts was almost born exactly 631 years before Stuart.

Add another Embarrassing Jack Edwards Moment for “Ohhhh he popped the old guy in the face.”

Buffalo — Ryan Miller: out indefinitely. This means Buffalo trades for a goalie, right? Can’t go into a battle for the postseason with Jhonas Enroth, with his so-so AHL numbers (2.65/.917), and Patrick Lalime, with his so-so NHL career. I hear the Bruins might have someone available (he only gave up four goals to Tampa today!).

Calgary —Fun fact: Dion Phaneuf is broken. Not in the literal sense that he has some sort of an injury or anything like that, but last night in the Battle of Alberta game, he just skated around listlessly and was terrible. Been like that for a few, oh, a few months. Great.

Carolina — Matt Cullen had a hat trick yesterday. That makes 19 goals for him this year. If I had a gun to my head and was asked how many goals Cullen would have on Feb. 23, my guess would’ve been nowhere near 19. But interesting (to me at least) is that a whopping 43 NHL players have hat tricks this year. The most surprising hatty of the year in my book: Mark Parrish.

Chicago — The Blackhawks sure are grumpy that they lost to the Wild yesterday. Boo hoo the trap is so boring. Sorry guys, you don’t get to throw a trap-related temper tantrum when you put 45 shots on goal and score once.

Colorado — I cannot stress to you enough how happy it makes me that the Avs are dead last in the West. Should they trade Ryan Smyth or Ian Lapierre or any other veteran? For god’s sake, of course they should! Why is everyone in the Avs-related blogosphere acting like this is lunacy?

Columbus — I really like this Blue Jackets team, and it seems like Columbus might be starting to as well. All that drippy fan mail because Ken Hitchcock won his 500th game? Jeez.

Dallas — And the award for Least Surprising Blog Headline goes to: “Steve Ott gets 10-minute misconduct penalty.” Richard Durrett would also like you, the reader, to know that water is wet.

Detroit — Chris Osgood is living the dream, as far as I’m concerned. “Hey, Chris, you’re awful at your job. How would you like 10 days off. Also, we will pay you.” Man, sign me up for that gig.

Edmonton — Ales Hemsky hasn’t been playing well lately (apart from, y’know, that goal on Saturday). Mainly because he apparently misses Denis Grebeshkov and Lubomir Visnovsky. So if your team has any one-dimensional Russian defensemen laying around, you might be able to pry something half-decent from the Oilers.

Florida — The Panthers had an awful tough week. They hosted the Caps, Devs, Blackhawks and Bruins and came out 2-2-0 with shutouts over New Jersey and Boston. Peter DeBoer has to be your Jack Adams winner, right? Just has to?

Los Angeles — Wow did Helene Elliot let the Kings have it after their loss to the Coyotes the other night. Everyone that covers them seems to think they should be selling like crazy. They’d know, I guess.

Minnesota — Josh Harding was just phenomenal against Chicago on Saturday. I mean, 44 saves against that team and only one goal against? That’s stand-up-and-take-notice stuff. Unbelievable. Gotta wonder how this kid is still a backup.

Montreal — Honestly, I have been doing nothing this weekend but changing quotes from The Godfather Trilogy and Goodfellas to be about the Kostitsyn brothers. “Now go get your f’n skate sharpener.”

Nashville — David Poile thinks it’s unlikely that anyone will make any significant moves at the deadline. He also won’t ask any of Jason Arnott, JP Dumont, Martin Erat or David Legwand to waive their NTCs. Which seems stupid since he’s, y’know, GM of a team that should be selling.

New Jersey — Last week the Devs were unstoppable. They beat Boston and San Jose, the two best teams in the league back-to-back. This week, they got shut out twice, by the Panthers and Islanders (what?), and juuuust snuck by Tampa in a shootout. Forget all that “There’s no need to rush Brodeur back” talk. Rush him back immediately.

New York Islanders — Garth Snow is quietly becoming one of the better GMs in the league. Of this I am thoroughly convinced. His early moves weren’t all that bright *coughDiPietrocontractcough* but these last few trades have netted the Islanders some useful role players and good picks. He is, at the very least, running a rebuilding process correctly, which is more than you can say for most GMs in similar situations.

New York Rangers — Oh the Rangers lost again yesterday, this time to the Leafs. Speaking of teams that should be sellers, huh? If Tom Renney seriously isn’t fired by this time next week (the Blueshirts play Toronto in the back end of that home-and-home and white-hot Florida over the course of the next few days), I will be astounded. But then no one ever accused Glen Sather of making good personnel decisions either.

Ottawa —From my buddies at Sports Argument Stadium, home of the best hockey discussion on the internet, comes this terrifying, disturbing video of Sens prospect Janne Kolehmainen just demolishing some poor schulb. I don’t understand the music choice at all, but then I don’t make those calls.

A warning: You might not want to watch this video.

Philadelphia — If you haven’t seen Marty Biron’s amazing game-losing non-save, head on over to The 700 Level for both video of the save and postgame reaction from Biron. Biron’s massive understatement of the month: “I just made a bad play.” Yes, throwing the puck to Sidney Crosby and leaving the net wide open certainly falls under that umbrella.

Phoenix — The near-weekly reminder of how badly the Coyotes are doing comes from the Hip Shot Blog, which is positively reveling in the fact that Phoenix beat the Thrashers. The THRASHERS!

Pittsburgh — Boy, Sid Crosby had a rough go of things Sunday afternoon, eh? Caught a bunch of crap from the Caps bench, the crowd was on him all game and he got a serious case of the boohoos cuz Alex Ovechkin shoved him.

A reporter said it seemed like Crosby was unhappy with Ovechkin at times, and asked whether it was “just hockey.”

“Yeah,” Crosby said, “I guess.”

I try very hard to not get lumped in with the “Crosby is a whiner” crowd (probably too hard), but come on, Sid. This is supposed to be a rivalry. Two best players in hockey and all that. There’s going to be shoving. Suck it up.

San Jose — Congrats to Jeremy Roenick, who picked up his 700th assist on Sunday. Of his career, obviously. Not of the season. That would be crazy.

St. Louis — St. Louis Game Time is seriously one of my favorite hockey blogs. Exhibit A as to why comes from Saturday night.

Tampa Bay — Gary Bettman continues to wallow about happily in his contentious stance with any members of the hockey media who may have legitimate questions regarding the financial health of the league or its franchises. To wit: when asked if OK Hockey, the company that owns the Lightning, was in dire financial trouble (and there had been many reports to this effect) Bettman started in with the finger-pointing and possibly jumped up and down vociferously, stating, “Teams all go through up and down phases. You make it sound like the team is in some kind of trouble when it’s not.”

“You,” of course, being anyone who dares question the wisdom of the great Gary Bettman and the 30 owners that cut his paycheck.

Toronto — I had nowhere else to put this, so it may as well go here. At the end of a rather pedestrian Coach’s Corner, Don Cherry had maybe the line of the century when a strange dog licked his face: “I know Blue is watching at home, and I just want to say that bitch didn’t mean a thing to me.”

Ron MacLean: “Oooookay!”

Vancouver — Not everybody was happy to have Mats Sundin back in Toronto on Saturday.

Washington — Bruce Boudreau was not happy with the way his team played against the Avs on Friday and put the boys through their hardest practice of the season. Message delivered. The Caps annihilated the Penguins.

Play of the Weekend

Oh like it wasn’t going to be the Turco save. Come on.

Gold Star Award

Even though his team got clowned out by Washington, Crosby had a hell of a weekend. Two goals, including the game-winner, and two assists against the Flyers on Saturday and then a helper yesterday.

I honestly cannot tell if he’s happy or furious here.

Next week’s game I’m totally going to watch on Center Ice if I’m home

San Jose travels to Detroit on Wednesday in a matchup of the two best teams in the West.

Event that should replace the shootout and would be just as relevant to hockey skill

A hockey version of H-O-R-S-E. Only instead of goals, it’s done with open-ice checks.

“I bet I can lacerate his spleen.”

Movie of the Week

You might think it would be Slumdog Millionaire since it just won all those Academy Awards. Well you would be mistaken. The MotW this week is actually Woody Allen’s “Manhattan.” I’ve just been feelin’ it lately.

Perfect HFBoards trade proposal of the week

User mig174 comes up with a proposal that I cannot believe no one has ever thought of before:

WAS ships out:
Ovechkin

PIT gives up:
1st 09,10,11,12,13,14,15
Crosby captaincy to Ovechkin

good deal no?

this solves PIT problem of not having any wingers and makes Crosby friends with Ovechkin.

GMGM then deals the 1st rounders for 3 or 4 1st overall picks and gets a juggernaut of a team.

Yes, that works nicely, I think. Especially considering the salary cap limitations.

Signoff

Alright see ya.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am and is filed under What We Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.