Dear Washington Capitals,

We here at the NFOT – (NHL fans of other teams who didn’t make it to the playoffs and are pinning our hopes on your sorry asses), hereby release you from all prosecutionable actions for game 5. You can proceed with all larceny, including grand theft (stealing of any available pucks),  battery (hitting, blindsiding, plain-old-knocking-into-next-week, any and everyone holding said available pucks, not rocking the red), B n E (forcibly entering the Ranger zone with intent to commit mayhem) and of course assault with intent (landing as many shots on Lundy as possible from any and all angles with the sole intention of scoring as many embarassing goals as humanly possible). If we missed any potential crimina activity that you might like to attempt, we are very good at cut n paste and can edit this immunity after the fact, so feel free to improvise as necessary.

Regardless of what you or Coach Boudreau may think about the Rangers “awesome” defensive positioning, we would like to issue you this “immunity from prosecution” letter. We understand that you have been planning w/ malice aforethought, an assault of some type (see recent transcript of planning session) and we applaud both the plan AND the execution of the dry run during game 3. The plan worked very well  and should be implemented full force, ASAP. We realize in Game 3 you pulled off a lil’ B & E, breaking and entering into the net area. Obviously you did this without the Rangers permission and must’ve been distinctly nervous about King Lundqvist calling in the police to take you away should you try to get to the front of the net and poke a rebound in ever again. This letter is to ensure you that you will not get prosecuted if you refuse the Rangers detour to the outside and instead decide to revisit this “dangerous” area known as the crease.

We here at NFOT will do everything we can to prevent retaliation from the brigades of NYR fanatics who will undoubtedly try to invade the Verizon Center and prevent you from stealing another win from their King. We will even return Greenie from the Witness Protection Program (he mistakenly entered it too early and disappeared during this series) but will hopefully be returned to you pronto. *it should be noted for future needs that our program is very effective – exhibit A… it looks like someone named Mike Green is on the ice, but it is appearant to all, that it is not the same person who scored 31 goals this season* We regret that Greenie or Mr. Smith as he is known in the program, was spirited away prematurely. (we believe some NYR fan activated his disappearance in order to create chaos and give those sorry bastages a chance at winning).

Sooo, Mr. Ovechkin, please take this letter into the lockeroom with you and translate it for Mr. Semin and Czarlamov so that they will understand that they are safe from any repercussions  and can get busy whuppin some Ranger azz… err I mean so that you can all proceed with the Plan as outlined by Mr. Laich and yourself and we can all see as you promised. Mr. Smith should be replaced by Mr. Green by the time this immunity letter reaches you and should also be present during this translation session. You may not see us but rest assured we are out there, watching, waiting and doing our part. Carry on.

Sincerely,

Your No Longer Silent Supporters at NFOT

Psssst! Pssst! (we’re getting a forum!) grand opening tommorow… whoo hooo!

Mueller – A- The kid is awesome, no doubt in my mind he will be a top center in this league for years to come. But I think we can all agree he has lots of work ahead of him despite the good year he had. How cool is the fact that he got hattied up, his first year out? How cool were his shootout performances?

Of all rookies he was {3rd for goals and 4th in the race for the Calder?}. He also had a pretty impressive performance on the PP despite his slow start (remember WG sitting him in the press box to get the big picture?)

When he learns to keep his feet moving at all times and to bull his way around the ice when necessary w/ that big frame I think he becomes that 1st line center we need for real (at least until KT puts on some muscle and bumps Mules to exceptional 2nd line center or 1B center like Malkin is to Crosby, we can only hope).

Locker room views:

“I give him an A-. Once he got relaxed he really started to shine. For a rookie he became very comfortable against any one. His work on point on the PP was great…I think that’s what made Jovo step it up too. He was a -13 though and that’s why he gets an A- and not an A or A+ from me.
The kid has a certain cockiness about him but not in an arrogant and offensive way…I like that.”

“Mules gets an A in my book. For most of the year he led the rooks in goals. This kid is on his way to the top.”

“Mules gets an A from me. I love this kid … he’s not afraid to learn and to grow … a good sign of a first tier player. He came in a little afraid to step up, but what rookie wouldn’t with TGO right there? But after being sat in the press box, he stepped up and allowed his natural talent to start shining through.”

“While not a Calder finalist, achieving 54 points in your rookie campaign is nothing to sneeze at. The kid made a believer out of me and was able to work effectively with Shane Doan. While he can continue to work on his skating and defensive play, once he and Shane work with a legitimate center to anchor them, expect an onslaught of offense for the Coyotes.”

More: http://www.azsportshub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=715

And to add a hearty… sign him already!

Send an email to Don and Co to get this done and over with for all the saint’s sake. This is turning into the same sort of fiasco as Ballard’s extention for cripes sake… and we all know where Bally ended up doug.moss@phoenixcoyotes.com he’s always happy to hear from us and its time for our voices to be heard once again.

Carcillo - B Oh shut up! The kid did have issues. Big Issues! Then suddenly a light went off over the boy’s head. There was always potential and he always battled hard. He stuck up for his team mates with the ferocity of a wolverine… but he had no stopping sense. That guy woulda earned a C-.

The post San Antonio crackdown-Carcillo is the guy who will make the NHL sit up and salivate. The last 6 weeks of the season, DC finally grew up. The Carcillo Hattie ( a minor, a fight and a misconduct) w/ only 10 minutes of TOI is no more. The kid was on his way to a PIM record breaking season. But somewhere in his *hindbrain* something woke up and JeebusMerryandJosephat was it ever a revelation! A Carcillo with a multiple point game rather than a multiple PIM game… a Carcillo with an NHL recognized Hattie, a Carcillo that played whistle to whistle and still took no prisoners … (hey Barch! How’s the glass jaw?)

THAT’S the guy I want playin for my Yotes. THAT’S the guy who earned the B.

He shoots! He scorzes!

http://www.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?hlg=20072008,2,1216&event=DAL542

Carcillo’s house of pain, now serving #324. Who gots next?

You either love him or you hate him… but here’s a few takes from the Locker Room crew.

“This team needs Danny Carcillo and I hope we see an offensive minded DC after the end of the year showed he has a serious offensive upside. We still want him to kick some ass and we hope he remembers Roenick. I hope he gets some support some of his teammates when it comes to aggression coz we need to be a team that no-one likes playing”

“He will battle in the corners, he will hit (although, he misses his target a lot), and he is fast.” 

“And there were so many games there for awhile where the guys just didn’t have the energy that they did before… once DC went out- the whole game would change, and not just the fighting…”

See more of the Crew: http://www.azsportshub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=741

Ok I guess its time to finish the last few report cards since GMDM seems to be slowing down on his maneuvering.

Doan – A our intrepid and fearless leader gets the A for his heart and effort. (He wasn’t the hardest working guy on the team in my book… he worked really hard but TQ gets my vote).

Breezy was our backbone, Carcillo was often our pulse but Doan is our soul. As our captain went, so went the team on any given game day. When our captain is ON our team is damn near unstoppable. When our captain is OFF, the whole team develops issues.

Any guy who can make the showing that Donor did (playing like a fiend even with a broken hand and fighting Neon Dion are just a few examples of his warrior mentality). Leading the way in scoring, stewarding young Mueller’s rookie debut, exhibiting personality plus at any and every fan event as well as community and charity volunteer extraordinaire, Doan was THE man.

Fearless in the corners, on the boards or straight up the middle, Shane gives new meaning to the term power forward. Off the ice there isn’t a nicer, sweeter, friendlier guy. On the ice there isn’t anyone I would trust more with the care and development of a rookie or the outcome of a game.

Goals, points, fights and the quick start as opposed to his usual craptastic September and October lull, all contributed to Donor grabbing his A and keeping it all season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i1wFhct2uI

Is there very much more to brag about? I love this guy, if you can’t tell and so does the locker room crew.

“Ok, I want to see pissed off Doan more. When he’s pissed he just goes on a tear!”

“A+ from me. The best Captain in the league. Gets down and dirty with the boys, holds nothing back, and works really well with the youngsters….”

“Grade: A+

Doan had a career year in terms of assists (50) and points (78) while closing the season out with a +4. He kept the play responsible and fought when he had to. He’s been great for the team and set a great example for all of the young players on the squad.”

http://www.azsportshub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=747&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=0

One more Bullet b4 getting to Rhino’s report card… June 23 – 28th is newcomers camp if you wanna see the rookies and prospects do their thing and on June 25th is a rookie open house from 6-9pm with Mueller, Turris, Porter, MacLean at the Job.

Reinprecht B+ For a 32 year old, not as fast as he used to be center, Rhino did alright this season. He got shifted off Doan’s line and came to life.

Rhino always seemed to be the guy who got them in bunches, but then again, when he went cold… it was so ugly. But often he was one of the only centers earning his bread in the face off circles too.

He isn’t a first line center anymore (that’s a young man’s game apparently) but age and treachery will still get the job done (remember the game where he faked everyone’s shorts off on the face off? He even faked out Vrbie, who barely managed to put the puck Rhino fed him into a wide open net).

Read the rest of this entry »

Morris – A- DMo is one of my favorite players on and off the ice. He improved his physical conditioning and his public relation skills. He became a shut down monster, he hit like a freight train but only had a handful of penalties. His shot from the blue instilled fear in the black hearts of opposing goalies (not to mention their shot blockers). He was focused and poised in a way that we have never seen before.

Teamed up with Ballard for most of the 82 games (they were the only 2 who didn’t misss a single game) we saw a fantastic blend of chemistry develop. But the DMo we saw would have complemented any pairing. The guy was on fire and never seemed off or to take a night off. 25 points AND a plus 8 is no joke. With some more PP time his point total probably woulda screamed off the chart. Its good to see the ‘old’ Demolition Man back.

The only reason I could see for the minus is with the shot he has and the way he moves the puck… there should have been more point production (shoot more often dammit!).

Locker room comments had a reoccurring theme… SHOOT MORE!

“A-, he improved a 100% from the season before (I was ready to send him to the chopping block that year). He is a total sweetheart off the ice. He’s got a hell of a shot. Him and ballard were up against the most talented players and did a good job shutting them down (there were a few that slipped by them *ahem nash*). He needs to use his shot more.”

“DMO get’s an A in my book. Ballard and him together were awesome. He has a physical presence that the Coyotes need. Plus if you piss him off I don’t care who you are, you better watch out. Not to mention his wicked slapper from the point. You see very few mistakes out of him….”

“I give an A-. Good solid player. He could shoot more and be more physical. He had the exact same amount of points as last year (25) but was a +8 this year instead of the (ouch) -18 he was last year. Very much improved player.”

More comments from the Locker Room Posse:  http://www.azsportshub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=721&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Yeah you already know my opinion, ad nauseum on Yentle. So in the interest of fairness… HTH will give you his take on Yandle the Mishandle, errr sorry… on Keith Yandle’s grade.

HT on Yandle, aka. Onyx’s whipping boy…

Yandle – C+ Dispite Onyx’s blatant attempt at influencing the jury with the video below of one of Keith’s mistakes (hopefully I’ve talked her into posting one of his goals as well, we shall see…), we will move on and give the rook a decent starting grade. I don’t really have the heart to give him less than that, even though some of his puck decisions in his own zone left me wanting to put a brick through the TV. I’ll chalk it up to youth of a first year Dman, and you can see the potential there from him, especially on the offensive side… dang, what a shot! I would like to see him bring more physical D and have more patience with the puck in his own zone (patience and stronger with the puck on his stick).

ExhibitA – or why Onyx was so hard on the boy

ExhibitB or the HTH defense

Some of you will flip out at this but let me explain at least and then you can call me crazy. Yandle appears to be a younger, inexperienced model of Jovo to me at this point. I know, I know… but roll with me on this for a minute.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was surprising to me not to get much feedback on Jovo. He was without a doubt one of the players on the hot seat most of the season. His price tag and brain farts were legend. The advent of another whipping boy(Yandle) and JV’s ascendency within the ranks of scoring defensemen got him off the hook.

Jovanovski – B+ waaay back at the preseason I made the prediction that Jovocop was going to be a new man (the corrective surgery combined with a long recuperation period proved me right). He only gets the B because his legendary brain farts were still evident (as Teal so rightly pointed out to me). He was stellar in point production, {10th?} of all NHL defensemen (51 points?) and he finished 80 full games, which he hadn’t done in a very long time. He scored AND he fought! Who knew he still had all that in his tank?

As the PP QB he did fairly well but the coaching staff shoulda gave him a freakin break and put some of the other guys (DMo w/ his rocket shot or Z w/ his deceptive wrister) out to take the opposition’s  focus off of him… woulda made him much more effective. A healthy and confident Jovo is almost worth his 6 million.

http://www.youtube.com/v/mRVGfyJd89U&hl=en

Comments from the Locker Room Crew and HTH and Teal were fun to argue and play devil’s advocate with. HatTrick mostly kept telling me to get off JV’s case and stick w/ my original surmise (I would often wail to the heavens that JV had been put on the team strictly to give me indigestion), Teal would just cringe and cover the camera lens at the games (I think, to protect it from getting broken watching another brain cramp).

HT on Jovo…

Jovo – B Onyx almost talked me into a higher grade, but once I started looking at his numbers and really thought about it, I ended up here. What’s wrong with his numbers you say since everyone is so happy with his production? Let’s see, 51 points for a D man is great, but what about the rest of the numbers? For the season Jovanovski was a -13… yes, read that aloud to yourself so you get the full impact of that.. minus 13. Now, consider that his hand-holding partner, none other than ultra-consistent Zbynek Michalek, was a +9 on the season. Plus freakin’ NINE! Jovo scored 24 points (I believe that count is right) at even strength, meaning the opponents scored 37 goals with him on the ice and yet his partner who had to babysit him and watch his back constantly almost all season long, was a plus 9 having only scored 17 points. You can be thankful that Jovo was the quarterback of the power play to get all those points, otherwise everyone would just be ripping him with his huge contract and inconsistent defense… and don’t even get me started about him handling the puck under pressure, in his own end or even on the OTHER teams blueline.

Read the rest of this entry »

Although I am still in mourning for Kapi, the blog must go on. And in the spirit of unsigned heroes I guess we can move on to Da Brat.

Vrbata A- They just don’t come much streakier than this guy. I have followed Vbrat since his rookie days in Colorado and not once has he been able to make it through an entire season w/ a hot hand.

But you just can’t discount what he brought to the Yotes last season. Without him we would’ve stunk (even the advent of Breezy couldn’t have saved us). The guy was brilliant for as long awhile as I’ve seen from him so far. Could next season be the year that he keeps that brilliance all the way through? I’d pay him decent money to find out.

27/29 and +6 is a whole lotta numbers people, for any team not just the Yotes. But at the tail end of the season when we needed him the most, the kid couldn’t buy a goal. He still managed a shootout here and there but could never find the back of the net in regulation time and damned if he wasn’t still trying.

I really hope (expect) that we take a chance on Vrbie next season, looks slimmer and slimmer as no word comes in, but this could be the year that the 26 year old sniper puts it all together for the run of his career. I would seriously hate to face this guy once all his nuts and bolts fall into place (when his famous streaks start being long enuff to be called hot handed into the post season).

Much talk and some honest hard looks from the locker room crew:

“We’ll have to grade him in semesters. 1st semester he definately gets an A. His scoring and puck handling was awesome. However the 2nd semester was a diffeent story. I’d have to give him a C-. He tried hard but nothing worked for him.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Boynton B-

NickyBoy had some major gaffes at the beginning of the season (most notably when we first got Breezy and Nick was bouncing pucks into our own net) but all of a sudden he just … clicked.

Boynk was pinching successfully, hitting like the blueline freight train we all loved, going to battle for his teammates (remember him trying to pull some poor assclown out of a dog pile for hittin Shane?) and even scored a timely goal or 2.

Holding rookie hands and occasionally babysitting JV and giving Z a rest made Nick a real asset this season. Many people said the ‘new’ NHL was going to be more than Nick could handle… they should take another look.

If you didn’t love him in 06-07 for this one, I’m sure 08 didn’t do much for you either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzvaoaWJ0w

I couldn’t have summed Nick up any better than this comment. “Boynton is a tireless worker, a penalty killer, and one of the toughest customers on the team. He does have the penchant for taking the bad penalty, but he isn’t afraid to get into someone’s face if they’re taking liberties with the team. The guy is absolutely gritty and would have seemingly better defensive numbers if he had a more responsible partner. All and all, he’s a Number 5 defender who can log Top 4 minutes if he needs to.”

See more Locker Room assessments:

http://www.azsportshub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=737&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a