The Two-Line Pass

Well another Festivus is upon us and since I can’t write a post about a metal pole or a meatloaf dinner (although…), I figure I’ll do what just about every other blog on the planet must be doing today and write a post about the stupidest things that happened in hockey this year, and then call it The Airing of Grievances in a hat tip to both Seinfeld and Glen Rock, New Jersey’s greatest export, scumbag rockers Titus Andronicus, who have an album by the same name that you should definitely buy and are incredible.

In poking around this stupid site just now in preparation for writing this malarkey, I also noticed that I did the exact same thing on this date last year, but due to my being a moron, failed to connect the dots and actually make it more Festivian, which I think is a word I invented just now but oh well.

Anyhow, here is a list of the hockey-related things by which I felt particularly aggrieved this year.

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The Lead

Martin Brodeur, like the team with which he has spent every single game of his career, has his critics.

They say the Devils, thanks to their mastery of defensive hockey, are boring. They say their approach robs the game of its fast-moving, free-flowing charm. They say that along with stifling their opponents’ offensive chances, they also strangle out any enjoyment to be derived from the sport. They say they’re responsible for the decline in the sport’s popularity and therefore the 2004-05 lockout.

He did it all behind a dull team, so it somehow only kind of counts. Makes perfect sense.

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The Lead

Tonight provides a wonderful example of the reason John Tortorella is perfect for the New York market.

After watching his Rangers, who seem intent to play with an ever-increasing lack of passion or skill or even basic competence and understanding of the game, get embarrassed by the sorta-crosstown rival Islanders, he kinda went off in the postgame presser.

He dropped f-bombs. He dropped s-bombs. He even used one of my favorite terms: “horsesh*t.” (Christ I feel like such a dink using that asterisk, but I have to feign respectability apparently.)

I will now intentionally violate my “Don’t use quotes in Good Night” policy because just wait until you read these kneeslappers.

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The Lead

Rick Tocchet had had just about enough of the crap outta his team. He benched Jeff Halpern. He benched Alex Tanguay. He was going to dress eight defensemen against the Predators. He was sending a message.

The message, from what I could glean from their allowing Nashville to pop in seven tonight, was that Rick Tocchet is coaching a team that has managed itself into such a terrible situation that they couldn’t beat anyone no matter who he benched or how many defensemen he dressed. Even with eight freaking defensemen on the line chart tonight, the problem was that these were eight defensemen that play for the Tampa Bay Lightning, which immediately puts anyone behind the eight ball.

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The Lead

OH BOY ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN WHEN THESE TWO TEAMS GET TOGETHER!

Yup, I remember when the League was like “Yeah Winter Classic at Fenway you guys pumped?” and everyone was all, “Yesssss do we get to see Ovie play outside because we love Ovie and the rest of the Caps are pretty cool too great job NHL!” And then they were like, “Capitals? Noooo, the Bruins aren’t playing them.”

A little confusing. But okay, maybe the Rangers. Boston/New York. Those towns hate each other. League wasn’t having that either. They said, “How would you guys like to see the Bruins play the FLYERS?” I mean, I guess I kinda do. Two pretty decent teams. Fun hockey can come from that. Oh and they fight a reasonable amount as well. Bonus points there. On paper it seemed like this harebrained scheme might not be the worst one the NHL ever cooked up.

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The Lead

Admittedly I don’t watch many Islander games. Something about how boring it is to watch a one-line team get beat in ways that are, on a night-in-night-out basis, not very interesting. Any time I do happen across an Isles game, it seems like they’re playing juuuust badly enough to be out of reach of their opponents; two- and three-goal deficits, that kinda thing.

And such was the case tonight when I had no choice but to watch their game because that was the only thing on at 7 o’clock. I had literally no interest in a Habs/Sens game that started a half hour later because I didn’t if Alex Kovalev got booed for leaving (even though he’s worse now than he was in Montreal so I don’t see why Habs fans would care). Same for Canucks/Predators at 8, talk about two boring-ass teams.

And so I figured, sure, why not? If nothing else someone’s going to get blown out and the game could get pretty scrappy much to Peter Laviolette’s chagrin. So okay. Flyers/Isles it is. I don’t have a rooting interest. Off we go. If nothing else, this Johnny Tavares kid has been getting his tires pumped a lot this season so maybe I’ll just sit down and watch him all night.

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Good night

“Troubled,” they said. “Disappointing,” too. And “unhappy.” “Disgruntled,” as well. “Unwilling” got tossed around. And those are some of the tamer adjectives that were applied to Guillaume Latendresse during and then immediately after his time in Montreal.

So when Bob Gainey traded him to Minnesota for another troubled, disappointing, unhappy, disgruntled, unwilling former highly-regarded pick in Benoit Pouliot (presumably because his name sounds French-Canadian and that should keep the vultures from picking at the slowly-dying body that is Gainey’s remaining time with the Canadiens), there was.. well I guess to say there was rejoicing is overstating things. But there was a general agreement that this was a trade that had to be made even if the return was uninspiring.

And while Pouliot has yet to play for his new club, which was so badly embarrassed by Toronto(?!) last night that Kyle Chipchura got traded immediately thereafter as though that would do anything for the Habs, tonight was just Latendresse’s third game with the Wild, so I imagine there was a bit of curiosity in both cities as to how the kid, who has never come close to living up to the high standards placed upon him by the Montreal press, would do.

How’s “best player on the ice” sound?

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The Lead

Excuse me, excuse me. What in the world are you thinking? Keith Ballard, I’ve been with you for a lot of years and to see you join up with the likes of these men absolutely makes me sick to my stomach.

The Thrashers may have scored a goal to go up a goal early in what would end up as a 4-3 win over the Florida Panthers, but that wasn’t the big story. The big story was Keith Ballard being the Thrashers’ third man and committing the biggest heel turn in the history of professional hockey here tonight.

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