I hope everyone had a great New Years and that 2009 brings everything you wish for.

12/26/08 Yotes VS Kings part 1

The first game on Friday night I expected a flat and sluggish group of pups to flat out get crapped on by the Kings. But I got a surprise visit from a team that (while not great) didn’t quit. We came out hot and high. The Kings tried to match us in intensity but couldn’t quite do it. On any night that Shane Doan and Ilya Bryzgalov are in high gear, my money is on the Yotes. And unfortunately for the Royals, they ran into not only the Doaner and Breezy but also into a Pistol Pete Mueller, trying to shake off the sophmore jinx. The game was a pretty routine bit of pong until Muels found a spot that Jonathan Quick just couldn’t cover. The Yotes did a fantastic job of keeping the dangerous Doughty out of the action (and on Doughty’s best run, the post assisted Breezy in spades). Sauer, Klee and Z made sure that Kopitar and Brown (despite lots of minutes) didn’t get much in the way of quality tries at Bryzzie.

Gotta give some props to the very young and very green Mister Quick, without him, the Kings would be in serious trouble while Ersberg recovers. We solidified our spot in the western top 8 and while I was hoping we could pull away from the pack… the second half of the home n home was a total ‘off with their heads’ kinda night.

12/27/08 Yotes VS Kings part 2

Going in to Saturday night I had expectations… apparently I wasn’t the only one, as the Job was pretty full and buzzin w/ anticipation. Unfortunately now I know how the King’s fans felt on Friday. “a defeat that deflated a rare full house” At least the Kingiefans only paid $11.50 to see their mess… trust me it hurt a LOT more at $60.00 bucks on Saturday. Not to mention that at least their team woke up and tried. My boys… not so much.And we had special guests that we brought to the game (Teal’s bro and sis-in-law) see how happy and anticipatory they look?

Soooo… Saturday night… The boys slept walked?…err sleep walked? oh hell, they oozed out onto the ice like a 3 toed sloth on extra strength Lunesta. Apparently it was some good shit too, cus they never woke up. lets walk thru the horror in a general looksee shall we?

0 - 9 PP *insert sounds of crickets here* ZERO for 9!… including some 5 on 3s… I do believe there just might be cause for alarm in those words don’t you? Am I the only one scanning last years stats and shaking her head? Doan and Jovo both had over 25 ppps last season… they are nowhere near on track for that this season. It hurts us preciousssss

Face offs - not quite dismal but close enough, Rhino had another off night in the circles along with everyone else, add this sorry statistic to the fact that we couldn’t pass, shoot nor hang onto a puck… ughhh

Puck possession battling was non existent. Kings were ditzing about in our zone all night long. I can’t recall more than a handful of times we came out of a puck challenge with the disk on our stick.

Sinbin parade. They musta been giving away free booze in that penalty box, there was no shame… just guys beboppin in and out of there like, no big deal… this also hurt more than I can say. Ah well, no use beating a dead horse over this stink bomb, luckily the loss hurt nothing but our pride and we had bigger fish to fry on Wednesday.

12/31/08 Yotes VS Avalanche

What is there to say about what we needed to do? We faced the Lanche on Wednesday and did everything right. Bi polar just doesn’t describe us some weeks.

Face offs - 57% Hanzal/Doan/Joker all over 50% and Rhino just barely under the .50 mark…just wish we could do this more often (and at least Marty has stopped being thrown out of the circles so often)

We did all the little things right. Like winning the battles for pucks…often just outright stealin them.

Matching hit for hit…we don’t play physical, we don’t do so well. OhHale gave Hejduk a slam he felt all over again on New Years day. (his hit and his assist kinda make up for his faux pas on the Avs goal)

Staying out of the friggin box! Only 2 PIM were assessed to our boys (IDK if the refs just wanted to get home to celebrate or if we really were that disciplined) but whatever… the defensemen were able to contribute a lot more since they weren’t dogass tired from PK’ing all night. Z on the point during the PP seemed to be making a difference too (not enough PPs to really gauge) but you gotta figure anything that helps prevent odd man rushes/short handed chances has to be good right?

Muels shook off another link in the sophmore jinx chain. Apparently Pistol Pete found a serious chink in Budaj’s armor and nailed him twice up top. Too bad he couldn’t put away the hattie point blank dead center. Ah well I’m sure he’ll take the 2 odd angle markers and hope that ’scoring in bunches’ thing is true.

The LOB line certainly lived up to its moniker. Lisin and Boedker cross the neutral at the speed of light and lob sweet passes to the high slot for Olli to slam home. Works for me and certainly worked for them in this game. I hope TGO can put the itchy trigger finger to rest for a lil while on this line. They look good together.

Ya’ll know how much I adore the Swedish Wolf. Telly Munster stepped up to the plate for this one. A little jittery to start (HEY! he’d been out a while) he quickly got into his rythm and spanked him some Yeti hind ends. Tellqvist and Mueller got the 2 stars they deserved at games end.

Both teams came into this game with 39 points…we came out with 41. We done real good to drop the Yetis and cement that 7th spot for a little while longer. The Quackers are only 1 point ahead of us and the Nuckleheads are only 4… wouldn’t it be sweet to sit in 5th place for awhile (even in a tie?) Its definitely doable with January being a really strong month for us. A game in hand on ANA and they face theose notorious Flyers next (which we should all hope that those boys hit the west coast errr flyin) and us facing a flaky yet still dangerous Isles team, Friday night could well be a big turning point for the season.

See you all at the Job! Friday night is gonna be a hellstorm with ex-Yotie Lil Mikey Comrie comin in on a hot streak.

For more of Teal’s gorgeous game day pics

Cote looks frickin scary! Glad he was the only scary thing about the Flyers tonight. The Flyboys are (1-6-2) at home and the Bullies were nowhere to be found. Thank goodness. It was straight up old time hockey minus the bloodshed.

We did it! We came from behind and grabbed a sweet rung on the .500 ladder.

Our record for wins after bein behind was lookin a wee bit battered. And so were our rookies. Carter nailed Hanzal pretty good and Cote popped Carcillo…but Carci has been so very disciplined lately. People are beginning to wonder if thats really him in that #13 sweater.  Good for you Daniel… keep scoring and drawing those penalties babe.

In the first period we failed to convert 2 PP chances and then Hartnell stung us first on a pass from Umberger. Defense really lost their minds on that one. 1 - 0 Flyers The rest of the period is a back and forth battle. 14 sogs! from us/ 5 sogs from them - seemed like a whole lot more.

So anyway… we get behind… (damn it! I hate sloppy blue line brain farts!)  Jovo gets punked at the blue and Mike Richard (I would make fun of his new contract but this goal makes the contract look valid) 2 - 0 Flyers.

The Philly players set up a game of keep away, it works for a couple of minutes then the newly installed Keith Yandle takes matters into his own hands. The first shot from Mules pops Biron in the helmet, takin him off his game and so Keith hammered in the rebound with 3 minutes left in the second period. 2 - 1 Flyers

Bally gets a silly hooking call but Briere hit a big post and then their blue line brain farts and our intrepid Captain heads into the fly zone, stops on a dime and dishes the perfect backhand pass off to Fierce Freddie on the short handed run. It is suddenly a tie game and the Flyers are on their heels leaving the ice. 2 -2! 15 more sogs!

And thennnnn… we come back in the third on both sides … feisty, scrappin, tempers flarin but surprisingly only one penalty (ughh, ours… but we killed that puppy). BRYZ! kept those Flyers frustrated. Really good communication with Boynton all period. Z pops Biron in the helmet again and has a couple of good battles down behind the net.

Oh Danny boy… Briere has some really good chances but can’t capitalize on them. We killed DMo’s penalty at the 16:30 mark on an awesome! glove save by BRYZ! (serious robbery of Timmonen!) and some scrappy play by Kapi and some ferocious defense from Bally after Dwin loses his stick.

13:30 Z lets fly and the rebound comes out past the scrum. MULES! scoops it up, spins and nails Biron with authority! 3 - 2 YOTES!  and we never look back! another 10 sogs and a post pot later YOTES WIN!

Fierce Freddie! serious point streak. Yandle first NHL goal! Mules movin up the rookie scoring ladder on his spin-o-rama. TQ=EverReady Bunny, just keeps goin.

8 Yotes with points tonight! The Yotes are on a rooollll!!! Lets go fishin boys!

Photos from the various AP services -

More pics through Ladynic/Hockeybuzz:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/neat1325/sets/72157603494308688/