I would love nothng more than seeing PK Subban carry the Stanley Cup into Montreal Children’s Hospital. I would totally get behind Pekka Rinne’s name on the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. I’d even sing along if Carrie Underwood twanged her way through a cover of The Good Ol’ Hockey Game by Stompin’ Tom.
Sadly for @PredsOnTheGlass and all the other country-fried hockey fans in Nashville, it’s not meant to be.
Sidney Crosby is going to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to back-to-back championships, the first time a team has repeated since Steve Yzerman captained the Detroit Red Wings to consecutive Cups in 1997 and 1998.
The Pens are just too deep, too good, and they’ve been here before. Nashville are rested, yes, but they’ve also had time to cool off since their wins over the underwhelming Blues and the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ Ducks. From Sid and Evgeni Malkin down through rookie Jake Guentzel and beard salesman Nick Bonino, Pittsburgh just gets things done.
Nashville is an impressive unit, and they’ve earned their spot here in the final, but it will take a minor miracle (or some strategic injuries) to unseat the champs. Let’s just hope every single game is good hockey, because thus far this post-season has been damned entertaining. It would be a damned shame if the Preds’ first final appearance — and Sid’s third Cup win — was a dog.
Pens in six.
Sid wore this badass Gladiator helmet after winning the Cup last year. This year, will he go Lord of the Rings?
My calls for the last round were pretty good, actually, all things considered. I tapped the Rangers, Senators, Penguins, Blues, Ducks and Capitals; my only misses came from Edmonton — but the ageing Sharks had injuries across the board, so I give myself a pass on that one — and Nashville — a sweep, seriously? Nobody predicted that.
Record so far: 6-2.
Pekka Rinne played out of his mind for that first round. I mean, did you see this? PK Subban’s energy has to be rousing that locker room just as much as the sea of mustard at Bridgestone Arena, and Peter Laviolette behind the bench has the Preds playing as well as I’ve ever seen them play. Still, the boys from St Loo are just too deep, and it’s Vladimir Tarasenko’s year, methinks. Blues in six.
The addition of Connor McDavid has instilled an actual work ethic in the Edmonton dressing room. For a few years now, they’ve been fun to watch, but half of that was in anticipation of the inevitable self-inflicted immolation. I thought it had happened again when the San Jose Sharks scored a touchdown in Game Four of the first round, but the Oilers impressed with two straight wins directly afterward. All of this points to a Western Conference powerhouse for years to come. However, this year their goaltending is going to let them down. Anaheim can feel the window closing on that core of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, Jakob Silfverberg and Cam Fowler. I hate to give those shitty webfooted jerseys another round, but I’ve got to call Ducks in six. I’ll be thrilled if the Oil can prove me wrong.
Erik Karlsson is my second favourite NHL defenceman (after Drew Doughty, natch), and Craig Anderson’s personal situation makes the Sens an easy emotional choice. Hell, they’ve even got Alex Burrows gutting out shift after shift to pull on my heart strings. Karlsson is rumoured to be playing on a wonky foot, however, and Burrows is done as far as slaying dragons is concerned. Across the ice is a squad just one year removed from a Stanley Cup loss to the LA Kings; Henrik Lundqvist has all but said that his window is about shut, and Alain Vigneault knows how to get teams deep in this tournament. Rangers in six.
Aha, the pièce de résistance. Sidney Crosby versus Alex Ovechkin. So far in their careers, Sid the Kid has owned Ovi8; sure, the big Russian has won more Rocket Richard trophies for scoring the most goals in a single season, but Sid has two Olympic gold medals, a couple of Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe, and too many other awards to count. Just last year, the Penguins followed Crosby’s lead to one of the strongest second half / playoff combinations we’ve seen in recent memory. This year, Sid was dominant, winning his second career Richard trophy and finishing second in league scoring. The Pens are as deep as the day is long, and are a serious threat to repeat as Cup champions. All of this aside (not to mention Malkin’s 11 first-round points against the Blue Jackets), this is Ovechkin’s year. Brayden Holtby is just plain better than Marc-Andre Fleury between the pipes, and the Caps have TJ Oshie, Kevin Shattenkirk, Nicklas Backstrom… and you never, ever bet against Justin Williams in the playoffs. Caps in the most entertaining seven-game series we’ve seen since the ’94 Canucks-Rangers final.
You have no doubt become aware of this, yet I still feel it necessary to warn you that the hockey team you follow is terrible. Languishing low in the league, Vancouver, despite its stated intention of competing for a playoff spot, seems instead destined to once again offer its fans the cold consolation of a lottery pick.
We at Pucked in the Head appreciate weirdness. Odd scoring plays, in particular, bring us equal parts unbridled joy and unsolicited hate mail. Consequently, we are happily wary to present this, the second installment of Weird Goals. (The inaugural Weird Goals post can be found here.)
Loui Eriksson starts off his Canucks tenure with a bang From horrible trades and season-long injuries to embarrassing contracts and mysterious coaching changes, the Vancouver Canucks have had a rough go of things since gifting the Boston Bruins the 2011 Stanley Cup final. The latest bit of bizarre came on the opening night of 2016-17 against the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ Calgary Flames.
After signing a big off-season free agent contract, Loui Eriksson was making his Canucks debut. Less than ten minutes into the first period, Troy Brouwer drew a penalty; Ryan Miller skated to the bench for an extra attacker, as the Canucks had possession. Eriksson found himself hounded by four — count ’em, four! — Flames, and despite having the delayed penalty on his side, panicked. He threw the puck back to his defenseman, but WAIT! The D were thinking line change and/or attack, so the puck slid the length of the ice and directly into the Vancouver net. Brouwer got credit for the snipe before heading to the box for an ineffective Canucks power play.
Interesting point: after this game, Canucks goalie Ryan Miller had a perfect 1.000 save percentage, and courtesy of a Vancouver shootout win, a 1-0 record. However, he was not credited with a shutout because of Eriksson’s blunder.
Twitter just it up, as you can imagine. BTW, after nine games in Canuck blue and green, this remains Eriksson’s lone goal of the season.
Flames score as Dumba goal as you’ll ever see What the hell, Calgary? You get all these bizarro goals and you’re still a Pacific Division stinker? I mean, sure, you’ve got that one win for Lanny back in ’89, but jeez Louise, you’ve gotta turn all of these awful gimmes into more than one lousy Cup.
Devan Dubnyk has no chance at all when a shot by David Jones goes off Mike Reilly’s stick, then caroms off Matt Dumba’s head into the net.
Marc Bergevin throws the puck into his own net
Who says the San Jose Sharks only have bad luck? Early in this game against the St Louis Blues, Marc Bergevin decides to gift some karma to Mike Ricci et al with a shortstop-worthy flip into the back of his own goal. Gary Suter dumps the puck in; Bergevin gloves it and tries to fling it away from the onrushing Sharks forwards. Instead, it flies past a stunned Roman Turek into the Blues net. Tie game.
Ed Belfour gifts Mike Gartner, 1993 All-Star Game Mike Gartner isn’t supposed to play. An allegedly hungover Ed Belfour probably shouldn’t. Together, they make magic in the first period of the 1993 All-Star Game.
Belfour comes well out of the net to prevent the fastest skater in the league from catching up to an Adam Oates clearing play, and lets the puck through the wickets with hilariously bad form. Gartner, added to the lineup to replace injured Rangers teammate Mark Messier, scores his second goal in 22 seconds to put the Wales Conference up 2-0 early. (He goes on to score two more and earn MVP honours before the game is out; Belfour allows six goals in his 20 minutes of duty.)
Bonus: the 1993 All-Star Game in its entirety. Watch Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque, Patrick Roy, Steve Yzerman, Pat Lafontaine, Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny and Adam Oates, among others, as the Wales Conference beats the Campbell Conference 16–6. Twenty years ago, the ASG was actually watchable.
It’s been four years since I last joined a hockey pool. I’ve enjoyed the game far more in years that I don’t have a horse in the race, you know? This season, though, I thought I’d throw caution to the manure-flavoured wind and join a workmate’s keeper fantasy league. Here’s how my draft went (part one):
Round One – Vladimir Tarasenko (RW), 8th overall pick Even if he plays for the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ St Louis Blues, Vladimir Tarasenko is bloody exciting to watch. He’s an explosive player whose speed and agility recall a young Pavel Bure, and I loved watching Pavel play. This guy can score from just about anywhere, and last year he did — 40 goals was good for fourth overall in the NHL in 2015-16. Tarasenko is on the cover of EA Sports NHL 17, and ranked at #6 overall by Greg Wyshynski over at Puck Daddy. Picked 8th overall, just after Steven Stamkos — how the hell does Stammer go 7th?!?!? — and one before Joe Pavelski.
Vladimir Tarasenko of the St Louis Blues is the EA Sports NHL 17 cover dude, and my first round pick. Photo cribbed from the St Louis Blues website.
Round Two – Erik Karlsson (D), 17th overall pick Karlsson’s 82 points was good for fifth in the league last year (well, tied for fourth but Joe Thornton had three more goals than Karlsson). Buddy had 66 assists despite playing on the woeful Ottawa Senators. Again, a joy to watch this guy play the game. It’s easy to cheer for someone who makes plays like this. Picked 17th overall, just after Carey Price and one before Ben Bishop.
Round Three- Artemi Panarin (LW), 32nd overall pick Artemi Panarin was lightning with Patrick Kane last season. Sure, there are rumours the Blackhawks might split them up to start the year, but he’ll still be on a line with Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa. How , oh how will he ever score 77 points again with those losers on his line; huge loss for the plucky sophomore. Yes, I just wrote ‘plucky sophomore’ — mainly because of this:
I was all kinds of cynical coming into the World Cup of Hockey. “Who cares about Gary Bettman fellating Toronto for two weeks?” I asked. “It’s just a glorified pre-season cash grab.”
It’s easy to stand by those remarks. Many of the world’s best hockey players — Phil Kessel among them — aren’t spending these couple of weeks in Hogtown wearing their national flags. In the case of Team Europe and Team North America, even the players who are there are wearing shirts with meaningless, made-up logos.
Just sitting around the house tonight w my dog. Felt like I should be doing something important, but couldn't put my finger on it.
It’s easy to laugh at the States — Tortorella, Kesler & Co. just take themselves so seriously — so Kessel’s jibe on Twitter is too joyfully snarky to shake off. But let’s admit it: the Yanks weren’t that bad. They outshot the Czechs by a wide margin, and put a pretty good scare into Canada for ten to fifteen minutes of the first period. Even when that elimination game was a foregone conclusion, the good guys up by three goals in the third period, America the beautiful hit three posts and even scored one to make it interesting. Face facts, and it was a lucky bounce off of Corey Perry’s gut that proved the turning point in Canada’a game two romp.
I’m not upset at the U.S. getting knocked out, especially after the clusterbleep of Americentric propaganda coming out of the Rio Olympics. What kills me is the elimination of Team North America. That entire team played with jump and grit nearly every shift. Their breakneck speed and puppy-like enthusiasm brought fans out of their seats, coaching systems bedamned. Mistakeswwre made multiple times per shift! It’s what makes the World Juniors such a blast every year — even goals against are spectacular.
Coach Todd McLellan saw the speed and skill of the kids and decided to play — gasp — a fun style of hockey. After all, if you peer through the bluster of hockey media and clear away the vast sums of money that lather up those precious athletic egos, fun is what the game is supposed to be about, isn’t it?
But back to Mother Russia. Tarasenko and his comrades issued a 4-3 comeback against the younguns featured a colossal second-period meltdown that must have felt pretty familiar to the Maple Leaf fans in the building; the only difference here was that Team North America very nearly scored their way out of the problem. Russia was merely lucky not to let these kids into overtime.
Mans so we have a Saturday night loser-go-home tilt between Canada and Russia. And somehow it feels like meh.
It’s hard to believe that Sid the Not-A-Kid-Anymore versus the Great Eight is a letdown, but damn it all, that Team North America was just so bloody entertaining, it’s a shame to see them sit after just three games. We may never see Connor McDavid set up Auston Matthews for another goal again. Ever. And that’s hard to swallow.
Damn it, even Team North America’s goal song was fun.
The good news is that the Toronto Star says the Crosby-Ovechkin rivalry still exists. You know, except that one of them has won multiple Stanley Cups, Olympic gold medals and a long-running Tim Hortons contract. The other? Sure, he’s got a Rocket Richard trophy or two — Ovechkin can snipe all the live long day — and some World Championship titles, but you only win those when your team is out of the playoffs early. Fact: Alex Ovechkin will forever be judged by the hardware he hasn’t won. Right now he’s in the mix for the Best Player Who’s Never Won a Cup award with the Sedins, Marcel Dionne and Darryl Sittler.
Alex Ovechkin is the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ bastard who robbed us of a Canada-Team North America semi at the World Cup of Hockey.
Even if he does manage a miracle, and gets Russia past Canada this Saturday, even if he then helps win the best-of-three final against either Sweden or Team Europe, a pre-season, cash grabbing World Cup of Hockey trophy won’t bring him up to Crosby’s level.
If July 1 brings talk of trades, arbitration and free agent contracts, then August 1 is when hockey fans get down to the serious business of being impatient pricks on Twitter.
Goodbye, Bonino Phone
Brandon Sutter is the newest Canuck, and the latest victim of attacks from Vancouver hockey fans. Gregory Shamus photo cribbed from a Bing image search.
The Canucks sent Nick Bonino and prospect Adam Clendening to Pittsburgh for career third-liner Brandon Sutter. On the whole, people in Vancouver were not happy. Imagine the sadness emanating from the Raffi household, for example. There just wasn’t time to record that Boninophone track that dammit should have happened no matter what you say, and BOOM, the Canucks essentially traded Ryan Kesler to the Ducks for Brandon Sutter’s 3rd line minutes.
Of course, once Bob McKenzie confirmed the trade, hand-wringing, hair-pulling and all-around whinging ramped up in seconds.
YVR haters don’t even stop when a player leaves the Vancouver roster. Ex-Canuck and Scrabble aficionado Tanner Glass takes one on the jaw in chart form: the Glass-to-Crosby scale, based on production vs possession, favours the Penguins. Fancy stats people tend to dislike Sutter, generally speaking.
Cooler heads made an appearance, too. (Jeez, I can’t believe I’m on the same side as Tony Gallagher on this one. The difference? I make more hockey-related supporting arguments in 121 characters than ol’ Radio Face does in 500 words.)
I like the acquisition of Brandon Sutter for the #Canucks. Good grit and flexibility to play middle six minutes & PK/PP2.
As always, the jury is out until we see results on the ice. But let’s be honest: the Vancouver Canucks are not going to play an entertaining, up-tempo brand of firewagon hockey, a la 2011. Brandon Sutter gives them some consistent sandpaper, however, to compete against a never-say-die Flames squad and those dirty, rotten, stinkin’ bastards who call themselves the Anaheim Ducks.
Current crop of Canucks lacking personality
Vancouver fans are still stinging from the dump of Eddie Lack’s meagre salary. Do I think he’s a number one goalie? No. Should he have been given away for meaningless late draft picks? No way, Jose. There goes our boy Ed showing off his new pads, which alas feature the Carolina Toilet Flush:
For those who don’t like to gram the insta (did I do that right?), those pads look like this:
Eddie Lack introduced his new Carolina Hurricanes pads via Twitter and Instagram.
How many goalies will paint the Great Wall on their masks?
The 2022 Winter Olympiad will be held in Beijing, which means the NHL will be under more pressure to extend its agreement to allow players to play for Olympic gold. There’s so much money involved in China, both above board and under the table, that not even Gary Bettman can let ego get in the way of a deal.
If you thought Puck Daddy’s Jersey Fouls posts were entertaining before, wait until you see a generation of new fans wearing counterfeit Team USA Crosby sweaters.
I only hope Dave Bidini, he of the wonderful book Tropic of Hockey, gets a piece of the action somehow. Outside of ex-pat teachers lacing up the skates in backwater rinks of Mongolia, ol’ Dave was the first person to give hockey in Asia any serious attention.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing, China. I hope Dave Bidini gets a piece of the action. Photo cribbed from a Sports Illustrated article.
Russell and Jason go with off-season hockey for episode 70: mostly Canucks stuff, but we throw some Brandon Saad and Phil Kessel in there for good measure. Bonus CanCon with Trooper hitting up the outro track.
Introduction
Sofa Surfer Girl by the Orchid Highway
Scars, plasma and exposed dermis, oh my!
Canucks bleeding out
Sell low, buy pretty much nothing
So long Eddie, so long Shawn, so long Juice
Vancouver media and their goldfish attention sp…
Prust is trade bait at the deadline
What about Ryan Miller & the twins?
Brandon Saad gets PAID
Will Phil Kessel finally hit 40 goals?
Three Dressed Up as a Nine by Trooper
Thanks for Listening
Adios, Mr Kassian. May your IQ be always in your favour.
Ex-Canucks forward Zack Kassian is an ugly man. Photo stolen without shame from a Pinterest page devoted to ol’ Zack.
Russell and Jason wax poetic on a range of hockey topics, from Mike Babcock’s monster contract to Brian Burke’s monster ego and Ilya Kovalchuk’s monster cajones.
• Introduction
• Pop Tart Girl by the Orchid Highway
• The Russians have left the ice
• McKayla is unimpressed with Ilya Kovalchuk
• Kudos to Alex Ovechkin
• Mike Babcock is a Leaf. What a shocker
• Kessel & Phaneuf, your days are numbered
• Brian Burke, one ego to rule them all
• Will there be apotheosis for Babs in T-dot?
• Who will be GM?
• The Wreck of the Maple Leafs Season — a parody by Peter Gross
Even McKayla Maroney was unimpressed with the Russians’ lack of sportsmanship at the recent World Championships.
A tough week for Vancouver sports fans, as the Canucks, Whitecaps and Stealth all lose on home turf. Is there light at the end of the rainy, oil-slicked tunnel?
• Introduction
• Sofa Surfer Girl by the Orchid Highway
• Vancouver Canucks: plosion guards extraordinaires
• Russell sucks at basketball brackets
• The Canucks outperformed expectations
• The Flames deserved the win
• Stats don’t apply to the Calgary Flames
• Call-in shows feature some… interesting people
• Breaking: Willie Desjardins is 114 years old
• Don’t bring a nativity scene onto the ice
• If you don’t like the twins, you’re a bad person
• People still talk trash about Luongo
• The Sediins & Bobby Lu will be in the Hall of Fame
• Russell: Break up the Sedins
• Vrbata-Bonino-Higgins: a great third line
• Refrain: The twins need help
• Help! by the Beatles
