Slight hijack but I'm happy as a pig in muck. Regular season has finished in Switzerland, GSHC finished second (that got coach McSorley the "Coach of the Year" award as this was done on a peanuts budget...) and we got those great big peasant idiots of Fribour in the 1/4. Saturday for our last regular season game, we beat them at their place to post a 6/0 win/loss ratio.

Plus I will be in Switz for game 3 and 4, home and away. Wahey!

I never doubted Vesa Toskala for a second.

<quickly deletes various facebook posts and twitterings>

The Flames win 5-2 in Minnesota, and have scored more goals in two games than they seemingly did in the whole of January. Maybe Darryl Sutter does know what he's doing after all.

DM, if you're planning to visit Pittsburgh, you should make sure you can understand at least most of this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEyJjAAPy38

The 47th Element wrote:


The Flames win 5-2 in Minnesota, and have scored more goals in two games than they seemingly did in the whole of January. Maybe Darryl Sutter does know what he's doing after all.

The 'Nucks and Flames should be good one this evening. Both teams are on a roll — albeit a brief one for Calgary. The Canuckleheads annihilated Ottawa last night on HNiC, whose billing of the game as the meeting as between "the best two teams in Canada" looked plain embarrassing. For four years at least — and for the forseeable future — the two best in the country are in town tonight.

The high after their triumphant (8–5–1) league's-longest-ever road trip, coupled with Kesler, Demitra and Luongo's excellent Olympics, is bound to end soon for our lot, let's hope it isn't today.

Amor de Cosmos wrote:
The Canuckleheads annihilated Ottawa last night on HNiC, whose billing of the game as the meeting as between "the best two teams in Canada" looked plain embarrassing. For four years at least — and for the forseeable future — the two best in the country are in town tonight.
I thought Ottawa were really uninspiring when we played them on Thursday, and they really laboured in beating Edmonton on Tuesday.

I'm similarly looking forward to tonight. This is the real rivalry in this division for us, the Oilers are more looked on with amusement these days.

Brent Sutter has seemingly left the forward lines alone again (he is very much like Keenan was in that regard) so I'm optimistic Iggy and Bourque will continue to hit it off the way they have of late. We need to keep winning, because this three-into-two situation between us, Nashville and Detroit is showing no sign of resolving itself yet.

Edit: and Nashville win 3-2 in Los Angeles. Damn!

Well, except for the majestic first period by our boys in blue, that was somewhat disappointing, particularly for the Flames. Exhaustion finally kicked in big time for the Canucks in the second period. I expected them to be turned over but it says a lot for their discipline these days that they weren't.

A win is a win, though.

In other news, it looks as if Brian Campbell will now be out for the rest of the season (broken clavicle, broken rib) after Ovechkin's cheap shot the other night.

I didn't actually see the first period, because I was playing football in a game that overran. It didn't surprise me they got blown away in the first period, because that's happened far too often this season. You would think that a rested side playing a team on its fourth game in six nights - and second back-to-back - would come out all guns blazing, but no. Adversity does not bring the best out of the Flames these days.

A good effort for the final 40, but the damage was done. If we'd scored a goal in the second, who knows? Tonight's game against Detroit is possibly the season. Win and we're back in the top 8, lose and we're three points behind Detroit (who play EDM and CBJ a combined five times), and four behind Nashville (who have 9 of the last 14 at home).

It's been so long since the Wings missed the play-offs, it's tough to imagine one without them. (There'll be huge cheers from Clive's corner no doubt.) Now they're healthy you'd have to think they'll grab a spot somehow. I hope the Flames make it. I kind of admire what Nashville has done in a small disinterested market but they're basically 'Meh' on ice.

A good effort for the final 40, but the damage was done.

D'ya think? I reckon the Flames of old would have plucked us but good. Calgary had all the possession in the second and third but never made it count. The 'Nucks had 0 shots on goal in the last period, compared with 20 in the first, we let your guys back in the game but they couldn't take advantage. Too many missed passes, couldn't get off the boards and — most surprisingly — an all round a lack of grit. I mean what's with Iginla these days? His line was -2 in the first and put in no more than two decent shifts all night.

Anyhow good luck against Detroit this evening, maybe I'll take a peek.

Heh, I'm probably going to miss most of the game tonight as well; the industrial sponsors of my project at U of C are in town for me to update them on what I'm doing. I very much doubt the downtown restaurant we're going to will have the game on. My boss is an avid Canucks fan too, so he'd probably spend the duration of the game heckling.

Iginla....he only seems to really turn it on in patches now. He's still the top points scorer, but most of that came in November. He doesn't seem to want to go to the net anymore, preferring to stick handle at the blue line, or shoot from the right wing. Having played with about 10 different left wingers this season doesn't help him with consistency either. He's certainly not the player of 2004, though. Re: the lack of grit, yes, it's the subject of much conversation in these parts. "the 2004 team would beat this side up" is the general train of thought.

I can't really disagree with any of the playoff placings at present with the exception of the Avalanche, who seem to be 6th place because of smoke, mirrors and a goalie that stands on his head every night. They've beaten us 3-2 four times, and we should have won all four. But I wouldn't disagree; Detroit will qualify comfortably and we have to hope either Nashville or Colorado collapse.

Edit: Ovechkin gets a two game suspension for the hit on Brian Campbell yesterday

Has there ever been a Hart Trophy winner with three game misconducts during the season?

According to Elliotte Friedman of HNIC, a third game misconduct would have resulted in an automatic ban, if the third happened within 41 games of the second. Yesterday was game number 42.

ursus arctos wrote:
Has there ever been a Hart Trophy winner with three game misconducts during the season?

Dunno. Bobby Clarke would be a decent bet though.

This means our Henrik's in with a chance of the Art Ross again, not that he seems to worry about such things.

Detroit wins 2-1 with a very late goal. That might well be that. I've only seen the last 15 minutes after getting in from dinner, but long enough to see yet another laughable 4 minute powerplay. Tomas Holmstrom was unimpeded in front of the net to do as he pleased for both goals. He hardly had to fight the defence off at all.

Maybe not qualifying for the postseason might give the organisation a kick up the arse. Something is very wrong, somewhere.

Not the NHL, but certainly for idiots.

"It looked like that mad guy kept hitting our player with a baseball bat. The blood was all over the place. We're still in shock."

The 47th Element wrote:
Detroit wins 2-1 with a very late goal. That might well be that. I've only seen the last 15 minutes after getting in from dinner, but long enough to see yet another laughable 4 minute powerplay. Tomas Holmstrom was unimpeded in front of the net to do as he pleased for both goals. He hardly had to fight the defence off at all.

Maybe not qualifying for the postseason might give the organisation a kick up the arse. Something is very wrong, somewhere.

The boards certainly seem full of Calgary fans demanding a housecleaning if things don't turn around fast. The Sutters' approach does seem a bit old-school, or maybe I'm being unduly influenced by their appalling dress sense and collective hang-dog expressions.

"It looked like that mad guy kept hitting our player with a baseball bat. The blood was all over the place. We're still in shock."

The KHL is definitely acquiring a kind of retro-ECHL zeitgeist. Maybe we can send them Don Cherry.

If only . . .

The Wings are going to be a very dangerous 8th seed (should they make it). The Sharks must be having flashbacks already.

Cheers Vernons - apologies for the delay, I've been on holiday. Turns out we may well be ending up in Boston, though for the baseball season for the 3 game series against the Blue Jays, sometime in mid-May I think (without checking the schedules at all).

It's his stag do so I'll go with whatever he opts for, but would be good to arrange an international otfathon if possible. I'll keep you posted.

ursus arctos wrote:

The Wings are going to be a very dangerous 8th seed (should they make it). The Sharks must be having flashbacks already.

Hmmm. They don't have a clear number one goalie, and it remains to be seen whether they can pick up enough scoring to go very far. They must be kicking themselves for let Samuelsson go, he's scoring for fun right now and they only ever used him defensively.

Preds and Avs both won again tonight. It only gets tougher for Calgary.

Howard has played more than 50 games and has a save percentage of .924. That looks like a clear number one goalie to me. Sure, they aren't the dominant team they were five years ago, but they've gotten a lot of people healthy, Datsyuk has been terrific (following on a strong Olympic performance), and they haven't given up a power play goal in six or seven games.

The Wings look scarier to me than the Ducks did last year.