That’s right I’m sayin it right now… When I put up the Redwing recap/postmortem or whatev you want to call it…don’t bother to bash my boy. you will be met with an extremely hostile reaction…it will be graphically rude, mean and terminally Boneshequa.
Be back with that soon
Guess I won’t have to put Versteeg on my slap this bitch list. The NHL did it for me… slapped that lil bitch that is. Versteeg gets the fine and the suspension and the really laughable part is… he says KT challenged him to fight! What a joke this kid is… Own yer error dude…all buck20lbs of Kyle Turris couldn’t have hurt you, game was over, what was the point?
I really thought Gretzky was gonna blow a serious gasket… we’ve seen him pissed before but never like last night… and go to YotesTV and hear what Doaner has to say about it… Hey! Coach Q… better start thinkin about Verpiggy bein a healthy scratch next Yotes game…
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=258967&lid=headline&lpos=secStory_nhl
Well … in a rare appearance of our alter egos we go down like the famous and mythical bird that bears our name. Hopefully to rise again in 08 stronger, more resilient, faster and more experienced. Dropping games in ugly succession to the Oil, Nucks and now the Kings… ouch. Barring a miracle of Biblical proportions the boys are now playing for pride, learning and chemistry development.
We got swept by the Oily bohunks. It was ugly, the problem was they are just as fast as we are, they don’t have any BIG stars they too are rolling a lot of small threats every game, their goal tending can be just as streaky as ours. We got caught on days when their goalies were hot as hell(check out Rollie’s stats … some of his best games were against us) and although we tried, we just couldn’t establish OUR tempo and ended up playing to their tune and 1 step behind all 4 games. The last game we actually managed to score more than 2 goals! and managed to keep tying it up too. But as the 4 - 8 score indicates we totally lost our lil minds in the third and left the ice on the ends ot the Oiler’s series brooms.
We also got caught in the Linden backlash. The Canucks got the Gipper speech from Trevor Linden and totally morphed into the Power Puff Girls or something. Suddenly the wonder twins managed to get their rings together and become harder to intimidate and harder to catch, much less hit. Of course we happened to be in full out crapitude mode from our net to our forecheck which is NEVER a good thing. The 2 goal shuffle we were mired in didn’t help either.
AP photo
So the last mathematical possibility is just about over and with all of our enemies too far to catch w/ out divine intervention… we faced the Kings to begin our battle back to the team from January (I hope). Booyah! We score 5 goals! The scoring committee was back! Even Rhino found a lil puck sense. (Poor Vrbie is still in the wickedest slump evah!… his agent could just cry right about now) Without Jovo and Hanzal and with Z playing in spite of the fact that he shoulda been nursin a bad wing, we didn’t do too bad. The new King’s goalie Ersberg is amazing. No wonder the Kings are playing with renewed vigor and confidence. If he had been in net at the season start those boys mighta had a real good shot at a run. So anyway… the Kings finally get by us 5 - 6 final after a shoot out… poor Telly he just seems to get caught in those long running shoot em ups.
But at least these 3 losses did not go for nought. With the playoffs out of reach maybe reality can set back in and we can get back to Plan A - the rebuild. I hope the plans for the off season include a little chat w/ the people responsible for the referees about some fairness and safety for Carci.
AP photo
I mean this is becoming ridiculous, foolish and is definitely buffoonish. Calling the kid for everything under the sun is one thing, calling the kid for majors no one has ever seen b4 is another, but letting the kid get beat to death is a whole nother story.
AP photo
The refs are supposed to be fair and objective, the arbitrators of fair play. Instead they are turning into vindictive and petty dictators who skew the games due to a predjudice that has no place in their calls.
Who is looking forward to a delicious Duck dinner? I know I am… without all this white out talk getting in the way, maybe the boys can get their teeth into some good old fashioned hockey again. Coyotes style. Forechecking, (hip checking too please Bally), scoring committee, Breezalicious, Coyotes style hockey. Play hard, get deep and score like Hiller is made of cream cheese!
~pics from BTinAZ~
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bleedintealinaz/sets/72157604153391788/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bleedintealinaz/sets/72157604189002148/
Damn! this keepin the faith stuff is hard isn’t it?
The bad old days are long gone, you remember when you just showed up, ate ( in your seats… continuously… all game), talked to your friend (the only one who would go with you… cuz well, its the Yotes…eww), maybe catch 15 or 25 minutes of half way decent hockey, go home and bitch for 3 days… repeat ad nauseum. No muss, no fuss, no adrenaline or quite frankly no real investment required.
Now, is a whole nother animal.
You wait with barely contained anticipation, you discuss, hypothesize and agonize on lines, player’s health, goalie status for every day they aren’t on the ice. You grab your now beloved jersey (that you actually customized cuz you are that heavily invested), drive out to the Job with a sense of purpose in spite of traffic and the temptation of FSN. You meet your newly aquired group of fanatical friends to discuss further and eat early (cuz you don’t wanna miss anything on the ice while shoveling nachos in your face).
And then you watch 20 min or 40 minutes or that rare and elusive animal, the 60 minute hockey game. Occasionally with the 20 minute version we’d still win, more often we’d slide thru on the 40 minute one but the 60 minute one was worth every moment of agony.
Now we have playoff dreams. And we are getting kicked in the teeth by the 20 and 40 minute showings by our beloved team. Damn it hurts. Other teams are kicking into high gear (chicago! cough, cough) and are basically going to overrun us even with injuries (colorado! cough, cough).
Its time for this team to man up and do more than talk the talk. Time for Verbie to earn that 3 year contract he wants (he’s aleady earned the raise in pay), time for Rhino to come out of the shadow of Doan and prove he’s a #2 center, the kids and the role players are doing their jobs pretty much every night. Doan and Jovo and Mules can’t do it alone. 5 of the 7 D have been adequate for most of the season, they need to help generate some offense while the chips are down though, (I know they’re mostly workin their asses off… but its playoffs, I’m sure if they dig they can find at least another 1 or 2 goals between the 6 of them). The goalies have been doing everything except score and if they could, they’d probably do that too.
Sorry … just a wee bit frustrated myself after the Canadiens game….
Play off push:
whoo boy… we have dug ourselves one incredibly deep hole… and its filled w/ caca…
Myrtle calls it pretty well when he displays the probable numbers needed to make the play offs by sayin we pretty much need to go 11-4-1. Just ouch! when measured against the March schedule.
http://mirtle.blogspot.com/2008/01/playoff-push-95-points-or-bust.html
PB has some pretty interesting things to say as well:
“The experience that these players are going through now is just invaluable - earn every point possible in regulation, play desperate whistle to whistle, be physical and force the opposition into making plays that they don’t want to, and find ways to score that ugly goal because if the ugly one goes in, that pretty one is not far behind.”
http://www.onefansperspective.com/2008/03/flames-dominate-coyotes.html
The deadline trade:
Maybe GMDM is looking a lot further down the road than most folks. We have Telly for only 1 more year and then he’d make excellent an excellent UFA trading chip and we bring Monty up to take 20 -25 games for Breezy to rest up. Or if Monty has proven GMDM correct and excelled in the A, Monty himself might become that chip. Win-win
Sjo has been a great guy for us. (hell I miss him so much I actually started following NYR games) but with he definitely needed a change of scenery. Hopefully NYR doesn’t expect him to score like a 2nd liner and just accepts him as is: scoring occasionally in bunches, playing soundly on the defensive end and making the 3rd or 4th line look brilliant in comparison to what they had b4 he came on board.As one of our 1st round picks, much more was expected of the Swedish Weeble and much as it hurts to say it, wasn’t delivered. Hossa ain’t too bad. Once he gets his feet under him and shakes off the rust of injury he may find a goal or 3 in his pocket. As long as he doesn’t hurt us defensively it’s pretty much a uni swap that got GMDM’s goalie into the fold.And that pick we might have to give up? The Coyotes will surrender their fifth pick in the 2009 draft only if the following conditions are met:
- The Rangers do not sign goaltender David LeNeveu.
- Goalie Al Montoya plays in 15 games for the Coyotes next season.
Not thinkin those things are BOTH gonna happen, so Montoya cost us bupkis… GMDM - all about gettin the free stuff.
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/JimGintonio/18205
Consider all the possibilities.
Peter Mueller’s Fugue:
Even TGO has made mention of it recently. “Everybody’s human, and it wears on you because you want to do well,” he said. “The bottom line is, anything Peter does offensively, the goals he gets, that’s a bonus for us. He’s 19 years old, and he’s played pretty well this year. What I see in Peter right now, he’s standing around too much. He needs to keep his feet moving, and he needs to get into open ice, things he was doing when he was scoring.”
This is a very tired 19 year old who is carrying a load of expectations that would fell an elephant. He’s never played so long at such a high level before and has been exceeding beyond everyone’s imagination. Hopefully he’ll be able to find some kick to finish with. But I have been delighted and amazed by him most of the season.
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/JimGintonio/18409
What we really need now:
We need the big guns to step up. Its been all about the secondary scoring lately. Kapi, Winnie, hell even Z have scored, but not a peep out of our big guys except Jovo. We really need Vbrat and Rhino to get their shite together and get back on the board. We need Donor to heal faster so he can start energizing the team again. We need Jovo to continue to be that blueline rocket launcher and Mules to stop thinkin and start trusting his instincts again. It would of course be best if the scoring committe just went on a serious tear w/ everybody contributing but I’d settle for some multipoint games from any of the major players right now.
And for a very good goalie tandem to step up into unheralded reaches of zen theft mode… we need every point we can scratch, eke, borrow and outright steal.
It’s funny… I really do believe they CAN make the playoffs. I don’t know if they have the WILL to do it.So far everytime they get close to the cliff of success, they have basically backed away. The roster is not laden w/ the best of talent for sure but like most great efforts the sum is greater than its parts and can seriously produce something special.I am afraid to get my hopes up too much. They have given so much more than they were supposed to already and expecting too much more seems so unfair but dammittt! They’ve gone and given me high expectations!
What we are missing is consistency. Without it we are too often lucky rather than good and steal games or run into good teams having bad days at just the right time or even worse, our biggest competition runs into a hot goalie at just the right time.
A GPG player would make this team a serious contender rather than an insistent challenger. There have been so many nights when 1 goal could have made a difference for us. (imagine all of our 1 point regulation losses being ties and having those loser points added to our totals!… ANA parlayed that same thing into a cup run last season). Our scoring committee can put up enough ’secondary’ scoring to get us by but we really need that duo (think getz/perry or zets/dats) that can consistently be counted on to lead the committee. Doan *when healthy*/Mueller or Rhino *man if he had just one ounce more talent* /Vrbata is as close as we have come to our own duo and they are all pretty streaky.
I don’t know if they have the experience to knuckle down and grind to a play off berth. But that is basically what it will take. The slow starts and broken efforts at 60 minute games kill us… which is too bad since we have shown that we can out do nearly every team when we are focused. 1 or 2 hot periods per game just won’t get it done at this time of the season and certainly won’t get far in the actual playoffs. And we clearly can’t expect to win when giving opponents 12 to 18 sogs vs our measily 5 or 7, our goalies have definitely made grand theft of games an art form lately.
Replacing the (invisible for 18 games at a time guys) and the (defensively responsible but offensively challenged) players like York, Ziggy and *sorry to say it* Shoe for players with more consistent production next season… ala McLean/Porter will definitely propel us into the next level. Getting our resident wild child(Carci) and the grand old man of the old style NHL (Boynk) to stay out of the box would really help too.
With Breezy/Telly next season getting that hot start rather than the 50/50 jumping bean start on 07 will make a difference also. (think about where we’d be right now if we had won even 2 or 3 of the 7-7-0 games we played b4 Bryz! dropped into our laps).
I guess I still have meagre hope and I still believe but the boys will have to seriously get it together or we will soon have threads that consist of planning and scheming for 08 and speculating on the draft while they sit around picking out their golf clothes for days spent on the greens rather than the ice.
When I can follow my sainted mother’s advice (Keep your yap shut if you can’t find a damn thing nice to say) I will finish this one… right now it is too full of vitriol and ichor to post for public consumption……. and of course I would never deprive you of BTinAZ’s pics… so it will go up… soon
ok back…
This game blew chunks in so many ways I cannot begin to describe. When your captain drops the gloves less than 2 minutes into the game the least you can do is respond. We did not in anyway take his lead and get some life. We were flat and disorganized and played like bush leaguers.
The Flames not only out played us, they ran rings around us all night. The players who had been leading the charge all disappeared. Every, single, one of them. Dwin and Carcillo were the only 2 players who continued to battle all night. That is unacceptable. Getting beat is one thing… rolling over and playing dead is another and although we haven’t seen much of it this season… we can’t keep doing this.
Carcillo is definitely on a (s)hit list. Not only with other team’s players (such an easy PP draw for them since he’s almost certain to respond w/ force to any and all provocation) but also on the ref’s part too. Daniel was pummelled, elbowed and sat on through out the night and never recieved a single call no matter how blatant the infraction( oh yeah Nolan and Kipper I AM talkin about both of your shameless antics).
The cap of the crappy night was the disallowed goal. The NHL should take a good look at that call and tell that asshat not to have any more opinions, just call what he sees not what he wants to see or whatever the hell that was all about.
We did not need any help to blow that game, we were doin THAT just fine on our own with our crappy play. We need to sit down and figure out how to keep the game simpler at home. How to bring some of that road warrior mentality into our own building.
The season is called a marathon for a reason… for 60 games its a long distance endurance run and the last 20+ games its a sprint. We are in that last leg and cannot seem to find a consistant kick. I hope we can do so soon. If we don’t well… plan A goes back into affect.
You guys do remember plan A right? Slow rebuild w/ youth and gain experience over the next several seasons until all the pieces are in place for a true Stanley Cup run? Oh yeah THAT plan A! We are actually in plan X mode right now folks (how can you plan for what is happening w/ the Yotes this season? hope yes, plan…umm not even close) … our youth have exceeded expectations and our vets and xtra bit players have performed beyond the norm and so we find ourselves waaaay ahead of the curve here in this strange 07-08 season. So don’t lose sight of the main objective (which appears to be building something of a dynastic team lol) to contend for the Stanley Cup now and for many years into the future.
We are young and have many, many trials and tribulations ahead of us. I refuse to let this horrid game cause doubt. If NHL hockey was easy, every one would play and the Stanley Cup would spend some even more interesting days and nights in places it has no business being seen.
Placing this game firmly and deeply into the shadow box of lessons learned will be good for this team as long as the lesson sticks with the team for future use.
~photos from BTinAZ~
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bleedintealinaz/sets/72157603956458390/
The Kings need better guards or better locks. The Yotes keep gettin in and makin off with the points.
Tonight was no exception to the rule. We can’t solve the Sharks but we pretty much have owned the royals so far this season. We’re in their heads at this point and they can’t seem to shake us. Some pundits (I hesitate to use the word journalists for these twits) have made a big deal out of Blake being punted out of the game (like he coulda stopped the Yotes all on his lonesome). C’mon people even with Blake in we have spanked the Kings, game after game. (And yes I am still pissed about Blake roughin up my boy Z) so this post may be a wee bit more critical than usual.
Plain and simple facts: Bryz >>> all the King’s goalies combined. Yotes scoring committee >>> all the King’s talent combined. Game over, Yotes win… again.
Stopping the big gun (Kopitar) and the mini automatic (Cammelleri) seems to do the trick. Everyone else just seems to cover up and hand over the crown jewels. But gotta give props to Dustin and JS, they did give their all.
This was a big one for us. The win helps put us on good footing when we start our long Eastern road trip. We’ll need every bit of confidence we can muster goin out to play places like the MSG (scary place for a buncha of noobies). But first we got a stop on the Island to face Nolan and his shaky gang of mutts.
The Isles have play off aspirations…those are dreams with legs. They will be looking to take advantage of us to get their heads in the right space. Their coach seems to be ready to take off the kid gloves and go medieval on them if they don’t start living up to expectations. ( “I’ve given guys plenty of opportunities, but patience can only go so long,” Nolan said. “We’re in a business. You have to produce and you have to play hard.” ~ Ted Nolan) http://scores.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=271212002
Comrie needs to be looked after too. (I know he was one of ours once but still…) whup him like he stole somethin! Ex Yotes have a way of doin a lot of damage (errr Nagy exepted).
Do NOT let Suitcase Sillinger eat all the face offs! FOs = possession and we need to get that momentum on our side so we can shell the hell out of DP.
Shoot early, shoot often (worked for us last time and worked for the Sabres the other night), DP is no slouch between the pipes this season (yeah I made fun of his overpaid patoot last season) but never under estimate a desperate goalie. ( Rick DiPietro, making his fifth consecutive start, finished with 36 saves. “They put a lot of traffic in front,” DiPietro said of the Sabres. “That was effective.”)
We really need to get rollin quick on this road trip. Facin all the News (Isles, Rangers, Devils) is gonna wring us dry before headin in to face the Flyers, Briere is one of the keys there. Shutting him down will require our quickest and most creative boys to be on their toes.(heads up and shields high boys! the Broadstreet Bullies can be had, but there will most likely be bloodshed) then all the way back to face the team that has owned us all season (nuthin like fending off a Shark attack after an Atlantic swim marathon with a buncha parahnas). This is gonna be the most important test of our new goalie and the fortitude and stamina of the kidlets. Lets go get ‘em Yotes!
EDIT: thanx to T and Kir for catchin my weird crossover (and for those who read it early… Briere still plays for the Flyers ) roflmao
Apparently the Coyotes showed up for a hockey game but there was a swim meet being held. The best dive of the night goes to Armstrong! +10 Interesting game. Lets start with the bad/ugly and finish with the good this time around shall we?
Bad and ugly is that we got beat by the Pens…again. Ugly is that we got beat on special teams…again. Our PK had to work too hard all friggin game and at the tail end of a tough road trip that is a recipe for a distaster. Sad is that a team with so much talent resorted to petty diving and whining at the refs to get a couple of undeserved power plays. I never believed the hype about the whine and dive til I saw this game…Always figured it was sour grapes from team fans that lost to the Pens. Well now I know. The rest of the ugly penalties were our cross to bear for getting out of hand in the face of such wickedly strange reffing.
The good - we showed some mettle and hung tight with a much more talented team.
(gotta give props to my favorite baby Pen ’Geno’ and the most of the boys for their absolutely awesome level of talent)
We didn’t get slaughtered like the last outing. Bally, Donor and Bryz worked their tails off (Doan with the only goal and Bryz keepin the game from becoming a rout). Carcillo! stayed outta major trouble again.
But Bryz summed up the game the best: “We took too many penalties tonight,” Bryzgalov said. “It’s hard to get any scoring chances, hard to get going. We were in the box for half the game.”
Ah well, back to the den to lick our road wounds and get ready to kick the Kings around some more.
~photos from GhettyImages - Gregory Shamus/Contributor ~
I’ll get to the Ducks redux in a lil bit. Something is on my mind (yeah its my mind so it’s a small something).
Passion… for the game of hockey. Comes in a whole lotta degrees and expressions. There are a whole lot of words that substitute for it. Fervor, zeal, ardor, excitement and enthusiasm to name a few.
We fans are examples of the ardent nature of passion for hockey. We follow our team with an exuberant enthusiasm. We watch the games and cheer (or boo) with great zeal and excitement. It often carries over off ice for us and we blog about it, we argue incessantly about all of its aspects on message boards and in discussion groups. We’ll even show up to meet the objects of our sport obsession at the official events, brag about casual meetings in the mall, movies or local Starbucks.
There is another side to passion. Not exactly a ‘dark’ side but definitely a side in sports that has negative connotations and often a dangerous and perilous side affect on the game we love. That side is described with words like fury, ouburst, rage and furor.
Daniel Carcillo has a deep and abiding passion for the game of hockey. Anyone who has seen him play can see it (he practically vibrates with it).He needs to find a way to keep it under control. His passion can erupt in outbursts of fury. We saw it last night, we’ve seen it before, he is fairly well marked by the refs and (as we saw last night in the Duck’s game, by the players).
We all love that he plays the game with that edge but it is a VERY fine line to walk and he hasn’t mastered it yet. Hopefully one of the most passionate players from hockeypast (Tocchet) will get here in time (early February) to help young Carci channel, control…whatever, his passion before he or someone else gets hurt.
Some of the worst hits, injuries in the history of our game have been caused by players whose passions overflowed. It happens. Daniel hasn’t got a mean bone in his body…when he’s under control. Last night he wasn’t in control. He truly deserved the ULC he got for refusing to disengage from the fight where he clearly had the player down on the ice (hell he was sittin on the guy and still pummeling) it appeared like the refs had to talk him out of his fighting fugue and off the player. That is sooo not good.
I was not a fan of Carcillo at first. Too chippy, too mouthy, cost us too many penalties. But I have come to love the kid for his energy, his never-say-die attitude and his willingness to step thru the gates of hell (this kid doesn’t back down to any one, no matter what size they are) for his team mates. He has talent (in spades) and contributes regularly to helping us win.
The beginning of the season showed us the huge impact this kid can have on the team (he didn’t play any less passionate….just waaay more disciplined) what the hell happened to set him off? I want him to stay whole, I want him to stay in the games and I want him to succeed in the NHL. Carci has to learn to pick his battles better (play smarter if you will) and to recognise the point when his emotions are overriding his common sense ( and HEY WAYNE! you need to learn that flash point too, Carcillo probably shouldn’t have been on the ice in the last minutes of the game in his state). I just hope he can learn….soon… for his own sake and for the sake of the team.
Glad to have gotten that off my mind. It probably isn’t as bad as it appears but it does need to be addressed before it escalates (another side affect of passion).
