The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

I’ve been sitting here for a while now trying to think of the best way to write about this Sharks/Red Wings game, which certainly had its share of storylines.

Goal reviews, both upholding the original calls and overturning them. An absurd call for a penalty shot that ended up not mattering. Clowncar goaltending of the highest order from both netminders, who each gave up no-angle goals. Joe Thornton having his best game of the postseason, and maybe the best postseason game of his career. Pavel Datsyuk looking pretty damn bad all night. The exchange of bad line changes that led to Detroit’s ultimate ruin.

In short, the game itself was a mess.

And really, that probably tells you everything you need to know about these Detroit Red Wings of 2010.

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The Lead

If past performance is indicative of future results, and we have at no point in the history of performance-to-result comparison been given any reason to find that this is not the case, then Antti Niemi is going to concede roughly 213 goals on 214 shots in the next game and Chicago will lose and therefore it will be all Niemi’s fault.

Hell they talked about it at length on Versus tonight so it must be true.

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The Lead

For real if I controlled an army (one day, Lambert, one day…) I’d be parachuting my troops into Colorado like Red Dawn right this very second.

Last night I didn’t happen to write about the NHL because a. I was busy freaking out over one of the best Lost episodes ever, and b. I was crying.

Well, not really on that second one. Calgary, thanks to its inevitable loss to San Jose plus Colorado’s shootout win in Vancouver, where they hadn’t won all season, was eliminated from the playoffs. I saw it coming. Any idiot on the planet had to have seen it coming. This whole season was an unmitigated disaster from the word go for reasons I won’t get into here, both for the sake of brevity and my sanity, so yeah, not making the playoffs was an eventuality for which I’d been preparing myself for some time.

I don’t even begrudge Colorado, a team I normally can’t stomach and which had been playing terrible hockey for like a month or whatever, making the playoffs in Calgary’s place. Whatever. Hell, the fact that the win was in a shootout didn’t bother me that much, so you know for sure that I was pretty much not all that concerned.

But now the Avs have to go and lose to Edmonton tonight? Really? The OILERS!? The EDMONTON Oilers!? Now that’s something over which I’m pretty goddamn well upset. This is the universe screwing with me, right? Yeah, Craig Anderson played the more important and less-winnable of the two games of this all-road back-to-back, and therefore Petr Budaj, who sucks and is terrible, had to go tonight. But five goals on FORTY-FIVE shots? Whaaaaaat the hell, man. It’s like this night was specifically designed to piss me off. Well, National Hockey League, mission freakin’ accomplished.

The only solace I take is that everyone on the Avalanche is gonna get their heads handed to ‘em by Chicago in about a week’s time. Four games and out. Book it. That’s going to be awesome. They deserve it for losing to the Oilers.

Blackhawks! Avenge me! Avenge me!

Elsewhere…

New York Rangers 5, Toronto 1

Even Aaron Voros had a goal tonight. I think I read he’s been a healthy scratch for 40 games this season. Something crazy like that. Also I’m pretty sure this loss guarantees Toronto finishes in 29th place, which sucks for them but not so much for me because my life is immeasurably worse.

Detroit 4, Columbus 3

Jimmy Howard gave up three goals on 24 shots and still got the win. Last night on Twitter some idiot was trying to tell me that Howard deserves the Calder more than Tuukka Rask, who is first in the league in both GAA and save percentage. Because he has more wins. Yeah guess how many games Rask woulda won playing for a team with an offense like Detroit’s: all of ‘em.

Chicago 6, St. Louis 5

Keith Tkachuk retired. I am very sad about this.

Phoenix 5, Nashville 2

Wojtek Wolski had a goal and an assist for the Coyotes. He has 6-10-16 and five multi-point nights in 16 games since he was traded there. That deal is working well for Phoenix, I think.

The Lead

Alexander Ovechkin has 46 goals and 58 assists in 69 games. He’s two points out of the league lead despite having played 10 fewer games than Henrik Sedin, who’s out in front. He’s also a goal back of Sid Crosby in the Rocket Richard race despite eight fewer games played. He’s the league leader at plus-42. He leads the league in shots by a healthy margin. He devours minutes.

And he’s not the Capitals’ MVP.

Washington’s most valuable player, rather, is Nicklas Backstrom, who will likely break 100 points for the first time in his career over Washington’s remaining three games. While Ovechkin is off rifling goal after terrifying goal past opposing goalies (and getting himself suspended), Backstrom is doing everything else that makes the Caps such an offensive juggernaut.

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The Lead

For a while there it was pretty cute.

“Ha ha ha,” the hockey world said, “Chicago sure is playing pretty bad.”

But we were saying that two weeks ago, when Chicago had been playing badly for a week. At the time, they’d won just one of their last five, and needed OT to beat the Kings (and we all know how crap they’ve been of late). But now? It’s officially time to start fretting.

Chicago lost tonight. To St. Louis. And gave up four goals on 30 shots. The sad part? That’s almost an average goaltending performance for them, at least of late.

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The Lead

So the Bruins lost to the Sabres tonight. Not really that surprising.

Not that big a deal either. The Bruins have a supercomfortable two-point lead on the Thrashers for the eighth spot in the East and so why not lay down against a team that’s got the Northeast Division pretty much wrapped up by now?

Lots of blame to go around in this loss, as you’d expect. The first two Sabres goals went in off stupid Dennis Wideman who’s been complete crap this year. The third one was also his fault because he turned the puck over and went back to the bench instead of playing the guy to whom he’d just given it, because his stick was broken (or so he’d have us believe!).

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Don’t forget about the prizes!!! It’s the last day you can win them. Winners will be notified around noon so if you aren’t notified then be funnier next time I have hundreds of dollars worth of prizes to give away, which will be never.

The Lead

Man the Sharks have been drizzling cat turds lately, huh? Oh the laughs we’ve shared.

An overtime loss to the Panthers. They put 39 shots on net and lost 3-2. Hahaha! A 4-2 loss to the Ducks. Dany Heatley goes minus-3. Oh ho ho! An 8-2 loss to Dallas. Evgeni Nabokov and Thomas Greiss stop 23 of 31 shots. Tee hee! A 3-2 loss to Vancouver. Ryan Johnson scores the game-winner for the Canucks. Haw haw! A 4-3 loss to Calgary. Doug Murray finishes minus-4. Loff loff loff! A 5-1 loss to Edmonton. Devan Dubnyk actually gets a win. That’s just pathetic!

And then, for an encore tonight, the Sharks… oh they beat the absolute piss outta Dallas.

Well, it had to happen sometime.

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Don’t forget about the prizes!!!

The Lead

For those of you unlucky enough to have actually sat through James Cameron’s epic “Avatar,” who then found yourselves additionally luckless to have suffered through tonight’s Ranger game, which was broadcast in 3D, you probably noticed some parallels.

When Avatar begins, there is a single blue speck floating apparently nearer to you than the screen. You can almost touch it. As the hero, whose name I forget, pulls himself from some sort of cryogenic sleep pod and out into the cabin of the ship, the full scope of the movie’s groundbreaking film-making is made apparent. You’re overcome with a definite sense of wonder at what you’re experiencing.

Likewise the first period of the Rangers/Islanders game. The Rangers came out flying, particularly and not surprisingly driven by the Gaborik line, pouring 15 shots on net, getting a little physical and generally outplaying the Islanders. They paid for every mistake they made. For most of the 20 minutes, it looked as though the visitors were standing still while Gaborik picked up a pair of first-period points, and it was 3-0 by the first intermission.

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Don’t forget about the prizes!!!

The Lead

The Edmonton Oilers have won three straight games.

I’ll say that again: the Edmonton Oilers have won three straight games. Against NHL teams.

And not just any NHL teams either, if that’s what you’re thinking. They’ve beaten the Sharks, Red Wings and now the Canucks. From last Friday until right this very minute, the Oilers have picked up literally 1/8th of their entire win total.

I don’t know why this is happening. Every day, another Oiler seems to come down with some sort of crazy injury — I think I read Andrew Cogliano contracted a case of Fisherman’s Madness or something — and another tragedy, beyond even living in Edmonton, befalls the squad itself. Today’s hysterical mishap saw Devan Dubnyk (who has a girl’s name) get an “infectious gastrointestinal disorder” which in my medical opinion basically means his butt is infected.

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Don’t forget about the prizes!!!

Thee Lead

October 1, 2009:

Dear Diary,

The NHL season is starting soon and all the so-called “experts” on the internet are trashing my beloved Colorado Avalanche. Sure is going to be an awful year. You remember that Sakic guy? The one who stuck his hand in a snow blower and retired? Yeah, HE RETIRED. Now I can’t think of a single player on the 2001 Avalanche who wasn’t long-time member of the team Ray Bourque (we retired his number!). Anyway because he retired the oldest guy on the team after Milan Hejduk is Chris Stewart and also our starting goalie was the backup on the Panthers like six months ago. Also we have a rookie head coach. And our best player is Wojtek Wolski.

Sincerely,
Some idiot.

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