The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

Mike Keenan sure is a retard.

His Flames are absolutely beating the christ out of Vancouver, outshooting them something like 42-22. Despite this, they trail 2-1 on goals from Rick Rypien and Mattias Ohlund, who hadn’t scored in 20-something games.

But no matter: Shane O’Brien, who has been having an absolutely atrocious night, gets whistled for holding Todd Bertuzzi early in the third period. Then, 54 seconds later, Willie Mitchell, who has been having an absolutely magnificent night opposite Jarome Iginla, puts a rolling puck over the glass.

At this point there’s still like 17:30 or so to go in the game. Prudent to sit on that timeout even if the power play is 0-fer on its last 32 or so chances. And indeed, that Flames do a great job pressuring the Vancouver net, putting three shots on net. In over a minute of 5-on-3 time.

About five and a half minutes later, Rypien runs Kiprusoff and that’s another Calgary power play. So Keenan rolls out the top power play unit which, for some inexplicable reason, includes Bertuzzi, who turns it over twice in the resultant man advantage and Calgary is held without a shot on goal.

Still seems like a bad time to take a timeout, huh?

So then Matt Pelech gets called for a hold. Fine, no biggie. Keenan rolls a PK unit that includes Jordan Leopold who, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you at this point, was pretty much directly responsible for both Vancouver goals. Shock of shocks: Leopold takes a penalty by cross checking Alexandre Burrows into the net from behind and gives Vancouver a two-man advantage.

Now would be a truly terrible time to use a timeout and settle your team, which is playing for the division title on the road in the second night of a back-to-back.

Calgary kills the Pelech penalty despite a pretty threatening Vancouver attack, and nearly has the Leopold penalty squared away as well when… Curtis Glencross slashes Ryan Kesler, which prompted me to say this on a popular sports message board: “mike keenan should really take a timeout at the next stoppage cuz the flames look like [sex word]ing idiots right now.”

Shockingly, he did not heed my advice.

Just 74 seconds later, Ohlund put another one in the net. That’s 3-1 Canucks with 5:09 to play. Ballgame. Actually, not really. Because Henrik Sedin scored 2:37 later. And that’s when I heard Canucks play by play announcer John Shorthouse say this: “And Mike Keenan is shuffling his lines now.”

Yes.

AFTER IT’S FOUR TO F’ING ONE WITH TWO AND A HALF MINUTES TO GO IN A GAME THAT COULD HAVE CLINCHED THE DIVISION, MIKE KEENAN DECIDES THAT THE LINES THAT CAN’T GET MORE THAN ONE GOAL PAST ROBERTO LUONGO ON FORTY-SIX SHOTS NEED TO BE MIXED UP!

His solution, and I’m not making this up, was to put Bertuzzi on the ice again. With Daymond Langkow and Jamie Lundmark.

What an idiot.

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The Lead

A word problem with a multiple choice answer:

Say you’re the Montreal Canadiens, right?

You’ve got four games left and you’ve got a tenuous hold on the No. 7 slot in the East, three points ahead of both the Rangers and Panthers. Your remaining games are against the lowly Senators, the aforementioned Rangers with whom you are competing for playoff position, and a pair of unstoppable juggernauts in Boston and Pittsburgh.

Do you want to at least TRY to win the easiest game on your remaining schedule?

Circle one:

a) Yes.

b) Obviously.

c) Of course.

d) No thanks, because we are coached by a complete idiot stupid moron retard who wants to have our team play unwatchable hockey in the third period of a one-goal game so we can give up two goals on five shots in the third period and we’ll lose 3-2.

FOR ZERO BONUS POINTS: Do you also want to go 0 for 4 on the power play and miss a penalty shot?

If you answered selected Choice D (”No thanks, because we are coached by a complete idiot stupid moron retard who wants to have his team play unwatchable hockey in the third period of a one-goal game so they can give up two goals on five shots in the third period and we’ll lose 3-2.”), you’re…………

…..

….

…

..

BOB GAINEY!

Yup, ol’ man Gainey and the boys pooched it against a bad team that’ll be golfing by this time next week. Even if it doesn’t happen (it probably won’t; New York has the Habs then two with the Flyers and Florida has Philly, Atlanta and Washington), the Habs deserve to miss the playoffs for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is losing this fairly important game.

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Even though his team lost 5-4 to the Blues last night, Johan Franzen was not jokin’ around. Yeah, he scored a goal while being legchecked by MIke Weaver, but look at the velocity he gets on on the shot despite being in midair.

My god.

Maybe Detroit will also try to sign him to a $6 million dollar contract that hamstrings the team for when the cap goes down to the mid-40s in two years. Marian Hossa, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg simply wouldn’t be enough in terms of high-skill talent up front.

The Lead

Even though he did it against a goalie that plays for the Red Wings, you gotta think David Backes still had a very good night.

Because he was so insanely jealous of Mike Green’s accomplishment last night, Backes scored a Texas hat trick, including the game-winner in a 5-4 win over Detroit, to also reach the 30-goal plateau for the first time in his professional career.

It is, in fact, the first time he’s scored 30 goals since a USHL season in 2001-02. It’s a dramatic improvement from last year’s campaign, in which he scored just 13 goals in 72 games. This is just Backes’ second multi-goal game of the season (the previous one was a two-goal night against Florida).

Backes is also part of the reason the Blues have played so well of late and made this very nice little playoff push. After tonight, he’s scored 12 goals in his last 14 games (compared to 18 in the prior 64). That’s not to take anything away from the play of The Oshie (14 points in his last 15 games) or Chris Mason (14-5-1, 2.35 GAA, .914 sv% in his last 20), of course, but David Backes has had an incredible improvement in production this season despite having so-so linemates. Brads Boyes (okay!) and Winchester (eesh) are his most regular partners this season after being paired with Jay McClement and Lee Stempniak for the bulk of last year.

Tonight he was paired with Boyes and Andy MacDonald. Andy Murray might wanna consider keeping that line together.

But still, think about that: he scored 30 goals with Brad freakin’ Winchester on his line. Wow!

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The Lead

Are you kidding me, Mike Green?

On what planet must a defenseman have been assimilated to have the ability to score that many goals in a season?

Tonight Green scored the game-tying and game-winning goals in Washington’s nervy 5-3 win over the Islanders, both after assisting on Alex Ovechkin’s 54th of the year. The assist was No. 40 of the season for Green, who now has more assists than any defenseman who’s not on the Detroit power play, and the goals were Nos. 29 and 30. Repeat: 29 and 30. In his 63rd game.

It’s the first time a defenseman has done THAT in 17 years (Kevin Hatcher — who? — was the last). His goals per game is 14th in the NHL!

This year and for much of last year as well, one supposes, Green has been an unstoppable offensive dynamo on the Washington offense, not that you didn’t know that. He scores, he passes, he eats big minutes, and his team, despite a really fairly shallow defensive pool from which to draw and not-great goaltending, doesn’t give up the amount of goals it probably should.

The knock on Green, obviously, has always been the fact that he seems to be only an offensive defenseman which, given the numbers (70 points!), is not unreasonable assumption, but in his latest look at the best defensive defensemen in hockey this year, James Mirtle pointed out that Green is also having the 10th-best season among NHL defensemen in his own end (this number is based on goals against per 60 minutes at even strength and shorthanded, plus quality of competition). Not that 10th is an outstanding number, but it is certainly better than I imagine most would suspect.

He’ll also isn’t afraid to get a little physical (see his hit tonight on Timmy Jackman) and he blocks a good amount of shots (101 in 63 games).

So there goes the argument that he’s soft and one-dimensional.

Why is there even a discussion about who should get the Norris? We should be seeing Reagan/Mondale numbers come awards season. (Not that Mike Green cares for awards. He is not programmed with humon emotion.)

In terms of everything he brings to a team, and the fact that he’s.. my god, he’s only 23 … he might be the best all-around defenseman in the NHL today.

You can’t name a better one, anyway. And if you come in here with that Lidstrom or Chara nonsense, I will see you right back out again.

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