The Two-Line Pass

Flyers prospect James van Riemsdyk closed the USA’s World Juniors tournament with a pretty awesome goal to give the Americans a 3-2 overtime win against the Czech Republic in the fifth-place game. If you remember the move Marek Malik used to win that long shootout against Washington in 2005-06, it’s like that, only during real game action rather than a silly skills competition.

Video quality right now isn’t the best (it’s just of the replay on the jumbotron), but the goal was disgusting. Sadly, it’s still only the second-best goal of the tournament.

In the dying moments of 2008, roughly three hours before the ball dropped in Times Square, the United States and Canada were playing in a rollicking back-and-forth game in the group stages of the World Junior Championships in Ottawa, and Dustin Tokarski made the unequivocal save of the year.

With the Canadians up 5-4, USA forward Colin Wilson, who has three goals and three assists in three WJC games to go with the 7-14-21 line he’s amassed in 16 games so far this year at BU, picked up a loose puck in the middle of the slot and had Canada’s Dustin Tokarski dead to rights.

Except not.

Canada went on to win 7-4 after a pair of empty-net goals.

I think Pierre McGuire may have had an orgasm over this save. Not that I blame him.

Because this blog is quickly becoming the clearinghouse for all sick college hockey videos, here is a goal from Denver’s Joe Colborne that was set up by an audacious little pass from Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick Tyler Ruegsegger on Friday against Minnesota State.

That was more than a little disgusting by Mr. Ruegsegger, and if the related videos are to be believed, he does this ALL THE TIME. Somehow he only has 8-4-12 in 19 games this year though.

This is what caused Jason Arnott to beat the hell out of Alex Burrows last night.

That might be a charge. Actual quote from the Sportsnet color guy at about 1:18 of the video: “The question the Predators are gonna ask as we take a look at the hit here is, ‘Did Burrows leave his feet?’ Ehhhh, it… I don’t THINK so. Well, maybe.”

Yeah, maybe.

I am trying to compile a list of things that the NHL has deemed less-bad than Sean Avery’s words. If you can find videos of other suspension-worthy clips, send them along. Six games for words. Unbelievable.

He’d have been better off calling Phaneuf the N word.

Other notable NHL suspensions, all with video, after the jump. Be sure to drop some I may have missed in the comments.

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The perfect marriage between Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane might finally be over. Their feud over which one gets votes onto the All-Star team has spilled from the dressing room and onto the internet, where the two forwards are now waging a bitter war for votes.

Toews, for example, believes Kane to be a liar and a turncoat. Not the kind of guy you’d want representing your Chicago Blackhawks at the All-Star game.

Kane, on the other hand, doesn’t think we should trust someone that can’t spell “Taves.”

Brian Campbell, by the way, is your third-party candidate.

Things are only going to get worse come January.

(Big ups to Trevor Bird on this one.)

I was watching this fight between Zach Stortini and Krys Barch from yesterday’s Stars/Oilers game, and it wasn’t bad. Never mind the post-Thanksgiving miracle that is Stortini not trying to bearhug his opponent to death like King Kong Bundy.

What makes it an all-time classic is the line the announcers get out right as the fight ends. In explaining that Barch’s job — sticking up for teammates who are more or less indefensible — was one of the toughest in sports, the color commentator says, “Krys Barch’s first job was working something called ‘the anus vaccuum’ on the killfloor of a slaughterhouse.’”

I don’t think I even want to know what that means, but one suspects David Frost is involved in some way.

By the way, Krys Barch is to be known as The Anus Vacuum henceforth, obviously.

Reader Robert Soderlind sent this in while I was out participating in the American night-before-Thanksgiving tradition of drinking with people you haven’t seen since you graduated high school:

Anyone that gets deked out of their Vapours by Johan Franzen (and isn’t within three inches of the crease) probably isn’t doing their job properly.

Ryan O’Byrne, who had his second gaffe in as many games, got smoked like a Lucky Strike on this one by a guy whose skill is bordering on Jeff Taffe levels of mediocrity.

Seriously, the Habs need to trade O’Byrne to a junior B team in Chicotoumi yesterday. At this point, NHL players are just embarrassing him.

My internet and television have both been spotty as hell tonight so I didn’t watch any hockey games. I did, however, get this sent to me by reader “Lexus Prime,” which I am assuming is his real name. As a consequence, you will get no Good Night. Settle for this and take your issues with my lack of posting up with Comcast.

Check this out: On a delayed call for the Habs, Ryan O’Byrne is pressured by Doug Weight back into his own zone and puts the puck into his own net. O’Byrne’s side of the story is that he was unaware of the delayed call and thought he could pass it back to Carey Price, who was enjoying some Gatorade on the bench. You see where this is going. Bill Guerin was credited with the goal.

The goal tied the game at 3-all inside of five minutes to go in the third period and the Habs ended up losing to the Islanders in the shootout. Also, it’s important to note that this happened IN Montreal, and the fans understandably got on him for the rest of the game.

This could be the best thing that ever happened. O’Byrne’s reaction is my new all-time favorite gesture. But he has to be traded now, right? He’s been awful all season, but this must be the end of the Ryan O’Byrne era with Les Habitants.

Last night during the Oilers/Avalanche game, Ian Laperriere and Zach Stortini got into a bit of a tussle over the fact that Craig MacTavish kept sending thugs like Stortini and Steve MacIntyre out there just to cause a problem.

Laperriere didn’t like Oilers coach Craig MacTavish taking a shot at him either. “He kept sending those guys out there when it was 4-1 and I don’t think it was to score goals. Cracked me up a bit. It’s kind of funny a guy who never fought, sends those guys out there.”

So Laperriere eventually dropped the gloves with Stortini and you can see the result here.

As is usually the case, Stortini wanted no part of actually trading punches (Calgary fans call him “Huggy Bear” for a reason), and Laperriere took exception to that.

“He’s (Stortini) 240 pounds and he comes after a guy like me who’s 195. I have a hard time with that. And he keeps punching when guys are down. He’ll learn, he’ll find his match,” said Laperriere, who got a counter-punch from Stortini. He also was stung by the verbal roundhouse right.

This has been the argument against Stortini almost from the time he broke into the league with Edmonton. If you’re going to fight, great, someone has to. But what Stortini does most of the time isn’t fighting so much as it is tryouts for the more romantic scenes of movies like The Notebook. For similar fights, look here, here, here, here, here, and here. And also worth noting is that I wrote all those “here”-s without actually searching out Stortini’s huggable fights. I went in knowing I could find half a dozen no problem.