The Two-Line Pass

Ron Wilson has taken a few. shots at the Toronto media over the course of the season, but this is his first major blow-up, the one we’ve all been waiting for.

Granted, it’s because Howard Berger asks him a dumb-ass question (”ARE YOU ANNOYED WHEN YOUR TEAM TAKES PENALTIES?”), but it’s hilarious because Wilson, who has always had a contentious relationship with the media, was bothered by a question Berger had asked him the night before.

By the way, if you ever wondered just who Ron Wilson considers the smartest person in the room, this video proves that he has two thumbs and coaches the Maple Leafs.

The Lead

If you happened to watch the Bruins/Blue Jackets game, you saw only one goal scored against an actual goalie.

For the other 67 shots you saw Tim Thomas and Steve Mason stand on their heads for 60 minutes straight, neither allowing a goal until the third period, and it was Mason who eventually earned the 35-save shutout win, 2-0, over Boston.

After watching it, I am officially convinced they are not actual human beings, but rather robotic humanoids sent from several thousands of years into the distopian future, when a team of government scientists designed a line of automatons capable of stopping bullets and in doing so providing adequate cover at the fringes of the American armies’ lines so that none of its men would be gunned down by the marauding forces of the supervillainous madman bent on world domination, a descendent of Ilya Kovalchuk. But Mason and Thomas were sent back to our time (well, really it’s an alternate and simultaneous dimension but that gets into string theory and I won’t bore you with the details) by the era’s most brilliant scientists to help America win the War on Terror™, which precipitated the rise of the nefarious Kovalchuk Army.

In sending T.H.O.M.A.S. (Tactical Humanoid Ordinance and Munitions Arresting Sentry) and M.A.S.O.N (Military Automaton for Stopping Opposing Nations) back to our time, the hope is that the future will be brighter for our children’s children’s children.

May God have mercy on us all.

(I dunno sometimes I get tired and weird.)

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The Lead

Oh that Jason Spezza. He thought he had it all figured out.

I don’t know whether he just saw “The Sting” one too many times or figured he’s on Alex Ovechkin’s level of being bulletproof to the NHL rules that apply only to mere mortals. Either way, he didn’t get one over on anybody. He ended up playing Robert DeNiro from “The Score” in this one.

Caught using an illegal stick. Such a low-rent move, and one that isn’t even working out for him or his team. He has seen his points and goals per game drop precipitously this season, though it did help his Senators beat the Maple Leafs 2-1 tonight (and he had a secondary assist on Dany Heatley’s game-winner).

But turnabout being fair play, I expect (read: hope) that Brian Burke is already busying himself with a plan to trade for Spezza using only a relatively unknown but highly-regarded goaltending prospect by the name of Sidd Finch, a native of St. Petersburg, Fla. that had briefly attended Harvard before dropping out of school and moving to Nepal.

The Senators would send Bryan Murray to the airport to wait for Finch to arrive from St. Petersburg, only to be informed after several hours of waiting and more than a few airport Cinnabons that Finch actually played baseball and, in fact, was made up by George Plimpton for a 1985 April Fools Day article in Sports Illustrated. “Shtupid Burkie,” Murray would go on to mumble for the next several days.

After the trade went through, Spezza would arrive at the American Airlines Center, whereupon Burke would give him a grand tour of the building that would end in the basement. There, Spezza would be beaten to death by Ryan Hollweg.

I think that’d be a hell of a revenge con. Like Ocean’s 11. Some people, of course, would call it murder. Whatever.

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So that Sharks game last night was going just fine and dandy. San Jose was up 3-2 on Minnesota with 7:40 or so remaining in the game.

Then Marek Zidlicky turned at the red line and put a soft, backhand dump in on goal and… well look at that he scored.

That’s now three straight games without a win, the Sharks’ third such streak since the end of January. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Todd McLellan was tanking it for his old team, the Red Wings, to take the No. 1 spot in the West. That can be the only logical explanation for giving Brian Boucher three straight starts.

Yeah, Nabokov misses three games with the flu and now has a quote-unquote lower body injury? Who’s buying that?

(Big ups as always to reader DayWalk3r for the top-notch video.)

The Lead

Oh sure, Pierre Maguire was yukkin it up yesterday.

“Haw haw haw Calgary traded like 28 things for Olli Jokinen. Pffft Darryl Sutter’s a goddamn idiot look at that Jokinen guy he might not even be a real human being.”

Well real human being or not, I think an apology for all that dressing-room-cancer, never-been-in-the-playoffs talk that transpired yesterday, because Olli Jokinen singlehandedly outscored the Philadelphia Flyers in Calgary’s massively impressive 5-1 win tonight.

Yes indeedy, Jokinen scored the Flames’ second and third goal (the former stood up as the game-winner) as Calgary positively rolled over the hapless Flyers, who got a goal from Mike Knuble early in the third period.

And yesterday people were all like “Blah blah blah waste of a first-round pick” but then I was all “Yeah well Jordan Leopold usedta be a badass” and then he scored tonight too. So did Mike Cammalleri, who also had two assists. And Jarome Iginla had two assists. Wow! It was a big night for Calgary, which was clearly pumped to have gotten some help at the deadline for f’n once.

By the way, Philadelphia’s going nowhere in the playoffs because their goalies are Anterro Niitymaki (who took the loss) and Marty Biron. Also because they thought Danny Carcillo was a good pickup at the deadline.

Hint: he was not.

Know who was? Olli Jokinen, who may or may not look like a low-level James Bond villain.

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The Lead

It would appear that, in not making any major roster changes (okay he dumped Ales Kotalik and acquired Dominic Moore, who didn’t actually play in this game, but the point remains), Darcy Regier gave the Buffalo Sabres a huge shot in the arm.

All the Sabres, who had been slumping in their last three games, got at the deadline was a brand new contract from Timmy Connolly. And maybe that was all they needed.

They entered the game three points out of a playoff spot in the East, and had just been shut out by the Islanders on Saturday (yeesh), but they beat the absolute crap out of the Habs tonight 5-1.

After a truly, genuinely terrible first 17 minutes or so from his team which the Sabres were lucky to escape at all, Derek Roy simply took over the game, scoring on the power play with just over two minutes to go in the first and adding an even-up goal just under three minutes into the second. From there, the Sabres rolled, capitalizing on every Montreal mistake the shellshocked Canadiens made.

It should be noted that Patrick Lalime, while he made 38 saves and some of them during ridiculous blitzkriegs from the Habs, also got a lot of help from his defense (who kept shots to the outside for decent-sized stretches) and especially Toni Lydman who pulled a puck off the line early in the first that basically set the tone for the game: the Habs would get chances but wouldn’t capitalize. That is until Tomas Plekanec broke up the shutout bid with 1:06 remaining in the game.

Carey Price was once again outdueled by a supposedly inferior netminder. But he was outdueled in such a way that, had this been an actual duel, Price wouldn’t have even cleared leather. I mean, 22 saves on 27 shots against the Sabres, who’d scored three goals in their last three games? Rough night.

That big contract for Connolly, by the way? Bought a secondary assist on Roy’s power play goal and a minus-1 tonight. But at least he didn’t get hurt. Only 182 regular season games to go, Timbo!

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Well golly every year, every single prognosticator prognosticates upon who was, in fact, the big, big winners and the terrible, awful losers at the trade deadline.

As we all know, I am one of the most brilliant hockey minds around (I consider myself third only to Nick Kypreos and Dwayne Klessel), so I will tell you, all the stupid hockey fans that don’t know offsides from the offensive zone, who won and lost on this deadline day.

Now, when you tell your friends what I think about today’s transactions and pass it off as your own opinion, you will look like a freakin’ GENIUS.

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The Lead

The Detroit Red Wings might’ve beaten the St. Louis Blues 5-0 tonight, but they also might have lost a whole lot more.

Early in the first period, Marian Hossa fired a shot at the Blues’ net at the tail end of a rush and was hit, completely legally mind you, by Roman Polak. This caused him to fall onto his stomach and slide face-first into the boards, where he lay on the ice for 10 minutes while medical personnel fitted him with a neck brace, loaded him onto a stretcher and took him to the hospital as a precautionary measure. Hossa waved to the crowd on his way off the ice, could move all his extremities and never lost conciousness.

This after he just missed two games with a stiff neck.

It’s excellent that Hossa is fine because that’s a scary situation. But what does this do for Detroit? What kind of time is he going to miss, if any? If he does, what kind of moves does Detroit make to make up for his absence ahead of the deadline? Lots to ponder.

Just be glad Hossa’s okay.

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The Lead

There was, of course, much complaining in hockey circles today about the quality of the Versus matchup.

And why not? No. 15 in the West vs. No. 15 in the East waging lusty battle to see which team could possibly play badly enough so as to allow the other to win.

As it turns out, the Avalanche are a far, far more dire team than even I have imagined and lost to the worst team in hockey 4-2 before, from the look of the crowd, 138 fans. Though they put 22 shots on net, Yann Danis stopped them all save for two Ryan Smyth bids to run his nice little streak to five solid games in a row (he’s only allowed five goals in that stretch but somehow went 3-2-0).

And it’s not like the Islanders’ leading scorer lit them up. The goalscorers for New York were Dean McAmmond (already rocking an “A” on his sweater after 10 days or so), Jesse Joensuu, Bruno Gervais and Jeff Tambellini, who netted their fifth, first, first and third goals of the year, respectively.

For Joensuu, who’s pictured above, it was the first of his career in his NHL debut, which is always great to see. Just look at his face. That right there is pure, unadulterated joy.

Sometimes (read: when I post on Puck Daddy) I catch a lot of crap for being too negative about everything in hockey, but seeing something like Joensuu’s first goal PLUS an embarrassing Avalanche loss? Perfect night. Couldn’t get any better than that.

Okay, if you came here looking for this week’s What We Learned, you will be positively devastated to learn that I have, in fact, had it stolen from TLP by Puck Daddy, where it will be the one of, if not the, first things posted every Monday morning from now until the end of time.

And if you don’t click that link and read WWL (or whatever they choose to call it.. I am not averse to changing the name, since it’s stupid) over there, Greg Wyshynski will actually kill a member of my family. He told me this!

But yeah, thanks for stickin’ with me. It’s times like these I almost forget I’m too talented and famous to be appreciative of you losers.