Ponds and Pucks

Time for my weekly look and the wonderful and wacky world of NHL standings.

Standings fun:

• Ottawa continues to own the east with nine wins. Detroit has the same in the west.
• At the other end of the spectrum, Atlanta has surged to win three games, tying them with follow bottom feeder Phoenix. And it only took Atlanta 11 games to do it!
• Every team in the Northeast Division is .500 or better, with only the Sabres sitting right on the .500 mark.
• Islanders, Lightning, Coyotes and Blues have all played only 9 games, while Anaheim leads the league at 13 games played.
• Washington and Florida are ahead of New Jersey and the NY Rangers. Who says parity is dead? There’s no such phenomenon in the west… everyone is well ahead of Phoenix and Nashville, surprising no one.

Elsewhere in the NHL:

• To most it’s just a Sunday night matchup between two struggling teams, but to the Ducks and the Oilers it’s another chapter in the feud between their respective GMs. Give this round to the Oilers. Of course, the focus was on Dustin Penner. His comments and attitude in the story are actually pretty classy. The bonus was that GM Brian Burke presented Penner with his Stanley Cup ring in the GM’s office after the game. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall for that little scene?



• Bruins fans are a hardy folk, how else could they get through so many seasons of misery with barely a whimper? The latest in their string of misfortunes, the injury of Patrice Bergeron — one of the few bright lights in the Bruins organization — might be less serious than previously thought as Bergeron was released from the hospital Sunday. Tests showed no injury to Bergeron’s head and neck.

Plus a big congrats to the Boston Red Sox on their World Series win!

Dustin Penner, Brian Burke, Patrice Bergeron

Tonight’s games:

NY Rangers at Pittsburgh Penguins - Rangers are 2-4-1, Pens are 4-3-0. Jordan Staal and Marc Staal will be playing against each other for the first time. Rangers recently lost Straka to injury and are in a 3-game losing skid, while the Pens are hoping to extend their winning streak to 3.

Atlanta Thrashers at Toronto Maple Leafs - Atlanta is 1-7-0, while Toronto is 3-4-2. Both teams have had disappointing starts, Atlanta’s coach was fired last week. The rest is too depressing to mention, between defensive woes and goaltending nightmares, winless streaks and goals against. Click the link if you really want to know. Or skip the whole thing and watch Family Guy instead.

Columbus Blue Jackets at Chicago Blackhawks - Columbus is 3-3-1, Chicago is (5-3-0). These division rivals have languished at the bottom of the league for years, so it’s nice to see some improvement on both sides. Chicago’s highly touted rookies Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane have made all the difference, and are both among team leaders for points. Columbus goalie Pascal Leclaire already has an amazing 3 shutouts this season, and Rick Nash is leading the team with 5 goals.

Anaheim Ducks at St. Louis Blues - Ducks are 4-5-1, Blues are 4-2-0. Blues are another Central division team that has taken off early in the season thanks to free agent signing Paul Kariya and to solid netminding from Manny Legace. The Ducks are struggling and currently mired in their longest season-opening road losing streak ever.

NY Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Jordan Staal, Marc Staal, Straka, Atlanta Thrashers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, Chicago Blackhawks, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Pascal Leclaire, Rick Nash, Anaheim Ducks, St. Louis Blues, Paul Kariya, Manny Legace

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the sparring match between Anaheim Ducks GM Brian Burke and pretty much anyone connected with the Edmonton Oilers (GM Kevin Lowe and Head Coach Craig MacTavish in particular), but some of it seems forced, and some is just silly. I mean, “blowhard”?

If you’ve been living under a rock, Burke and Lowe continue to use the media (particularly Sportsnet.ca. I’m not saying that means anything, but….) to discuss their off-season battle for Dustin Penner, a player who 90 per cent of hockey fans had never heard of before the Oilers decided to sign him to an offer sheet and make him a trivia question subject for life. Don’t we have something better to talk about?

With the season finally under way, and a clean slate for nearly every team in the NHL (sorry Columbus), do we really need a couple of childish managers hogging the airwaves and front pages of hockey web sites? I’m all for airing of dirty laundry and public spats, but we’re in the exciting hockey days here.

Vincent Lecavalier is looking amazing. Mike Keenan is already starting to twitch. Daniel Briere is settling in nicely with his new team. Daniel Alfredsson continues to frustrate the Leafs, and that’s just good clean fun for everyone.We need to save the back-biting until at least November — you know, usually about the point you realize your favorite team’s off-season changes have amounted to zilch, while their biggest rival is being heralded for signing the second coming of Gretzky for half a million dollars.

If not then, we’ll still need some good fodder for that hockey news wasteland between the All-Star game and the trade deadline.

By that point, Penner’s true worth should be revealed and at least one of the combatants will get to add a layer of smugness to their shots. Then we can really sit back and enjoy the show.

Brian Burke, Kevin Lowe, Craig MacTavish, Dustin Penner, Columbus, Vincent Lecavalier, Mike Keenan, Daniel Briere, Daniel Alfredsson

Anaheim Ducks

Notable moves and changes: Signed D Mathieu Schneider (was with Detroit). Signed F Todd Bertuzzi (was with Detroit and Florida). Both Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne are on leave from the team while pending retirement.
Starting goalie: Jean-Sebastien Giguere
Summary of last year:Can’t quite remember… something involving a large, shiny, Cup-shaped sports trophy….
Prediction for this year:The year defending a Cup is always tough — every team plays you hard every night — and the Ducks are going to find it even tougher without the services of Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne. It remains unknown what their plans are, but for all intents and purposes, the Ducks must soldier on without them. The additions of Todd Bertuzzi and Mathieu Schneider are nice (depending which Bertuzzi shows up), and the team will remain a contender, but the cries of “dynasty” might be a tad premature.

Anaheim Ducks, Mathieu Schneider, Todd Bertuzzi, Scott Niedermayer, Teemu Selanne, Jean-Sebastien Giguere

• Cost to buy the Tampa Bay Lightning: $206 million. Listening to John Tortorella slam the team’s previous owner? Priceless. (Fan590 audio link is here).
• Edmonton Oilers resign Brodziak and Roy. Craig Simpson’s out, Brodziak and Roy are in. Somehow I think they’re going to need a little more to get back into the playoffs.
• By the way, Simpson is now saying he’s leaving coaching because he realized he’d never be the next Scotty Bowman. There’s so many snarky comments I can make there I’m not even sure where to start…
• Staal brothers offered deal. And why not? Young men busted for drinking too much at a campground during a stag…. I know a lot of guys who call that “Saturday”.
• Hawks extend Savard’s stay. Good on ‘em. One of the best things to happen to the Hawks in years.
• Bruins sign their first round draft pick, Zach Hamill. The Bruins need this kid, both for their team and to keep their fans’ hopes alive.
• Hawks sign James Wisniewski. The Hawks on the other hand destroyed their fans’ hopes years ago…
• Coyotes ink Joel Perrault. Coyotes continue to be a mystery team… how will they do this year?
• CHL Schedule released. Colorado Eagles will begin their defense of the CHL championship title.
• Karel Pilar signs with Thrashers. Pilar’s been out of the NHL for nearly two years battling a heart condition.
• Chris Chelios testifies in murder trial. Nothing funny here. A former Cheli’s restaurant employee murdered two of his former co-workers, one right after Chelios spoke with her.
• Ducks’ Joe DiPenta thrills sick kids with Stanley Cup. Feel-good Cup story of the week.

Tampa Bay Lightning, John Tortorella, Edmonton Oilers, Zach Hamill, James Wisniewski, Coyotes, Joel Perrault, Colorado Eagles, Karel Pilar, Thrashers, Chris Chelios

Tonight’s Game 5 could be the end of the NHL season, the last hockey game for the season. All of us who want a longer season need to root quite hard for the Senators. But I don’t think they’ll be able to pull it off. They have been outplayed at every level by the Ducks.

If they want to win, then Ottawa needs to execute on defense and maintain some level of consistency on offense. They’ve yet to do either. ESPN2 has a stat on their bottom line about how outscored the Senators are in the 3rd period. They need to win every period. It needs to be a blowout. Otherwise it’s just a delay of the inevitable — a loss in the final frame of what will be the last game of the season.

NHL, hockey, Senators, Ducks, Ottawa, Stanley Cup, Anaheim

So there it is. The Senators had a chance to win, but let this one go. Part of the blame has to go to Ray Emery, whom I love, and who got caught off-guard leaving the net wide open for the game-winner. Ray, I love you, but you need to not let that happen.

The Ducks played well, of course. They were crisp and they seemed to be putting the puck where it needed to be, where the defense wasn’t. Contrast that with Ottawa who played better last night but still not good enough. They seemed more chaotic, less structured. They put the puck on the net but didn’t seem to know what to do after that. They were not in any way as efficient as they should have been.

The Senators need to spend their offseason fixing their major weakness. They are too reliant on a few players and not set up to capitalize. They need to work on some set plays. Right now they look like a midget team just running down the ice as quickly as possible without looking.

Senators, Ducks, Ottawa, Anaheim, NHL, hockey, Stanley Cup

If the Senators had lost on Saturday night, I would be writing now about how the Ducks were going to sweep. If the Senators had lost on Saturday night, I would be writing right now about what went wrong and how can they fix everything. I would be writing right now about what they need to do in the off-season to correct a total meltdown.

But they won on Saturday night.

Don’t get me wrong. Ottawa is going to be in for a really tough time and if they think that they are going to make a comeback. Down 2-1, they still need to win 3 out of the next 4 games. And they only have 2 more at home. They need to protect their barn and win one at the pond. Is it doable? Yes. Is it likely? No.

The main criticism from the first game was that Ray Emery looked nervous. He shook off some of those nerves for game two and again on Saturday. But on Saturday, he gave up 3 goals. That’s 7 goals for the series. It’s a dangerous thing to be that loose. His team needs to have his back and Emery needs to calm down.

And he will. Watch him at the next game and he’ll be back to Game 2 form. Emery will be the star of the series. But it won’t be enough. Ottawa made its move too late and is just not good enough. Anaheim has figured out how to shut them down.

Senators, Ducks, Ottawa, Anaheim, NHL, hockey, Stanley Cup

Watching last night’s hockey game, we can only come to one conclusion.  Ray Emery is grossly underpaid.  For 60 minutes, he kept his team in a game that they seemed to have no interest in playing.  The much vaunted Heatley/Spezza/Alfreddson line has produced bupkis.  That may be a function of the Anaheim defense, or it could be indicative that Ottawa has problems.  You be the judge.  The stat of the game though, speaks volumes.  JS Giguerre saw 16 shots.  Emery saw 31.  In the final minutes of play, the Senators couldn’t maintain the pressure in the offensive zone to let Emery get back to the bench.  Emery should have won this game, the offense in front of him lost it.

I was supposed to pick the series and I never did.  For the record, I thought Ottawa would handle business in 6.  I suspect that I will be wrong.

hockey, Anaheim, Ottawa, Senators, Ducks, NHL, Stanley Cup

My bad, I didn’t break down the cup finals yet and give my prediction.  So even though it’s probably cheating a bit, I will do that tomorrow.  Today, let’s look at one aspect of the game that was played last night.

This was a good game, with very few mistakes.  But the stars of the game need to be Ray Emery and J.S. Guiguerre.  What you got if you watched the game was a highlight reel of amazing saves.  Don’t be fooled by the goals that they let up, look at the overall body of work.  For both goalies this was a star performance.  And this is what they will need to continue if they want to drink from Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Both Ottawa and Anaheim have some major offensive forces.  But if the goaltenders can keep the pucks in front of them — by any means necessary — they’ll remain the story.

Ottawa, Anaheim, Senators, Ducks, NHL, Hockey

I had them losing in 7, but they lost in 6.  Pretty close.  Not very surprising.

Detroit never looked as good in this series as they had in the previous two. Anaheim, on the other hand, looked and played tight.  They skated well and they put the puck on net as needed.  They played a higher level of hockey, there’s really no debating it.

Now I’ll admit that I missed the third period last night.  After watching the first 2, I didn’t think that the Red Wings had a chance.  It turns out that I was right, but I’ll put it out there.

The Ducks showed that they were the far superior team.  At the end of this, there’s not a lot of breakdown to be done, it’s really just something to accept.

That and I’m really tired today.

Detroit, Anaheim, hockey, Red Wings, Ducks

I was not happy on Friday when there was no hockey, with the NHL electing instead to have a game on each Saturday and Sunday.  I was annoyed.  I was wrong.

The NHL got two great games on TV in front of national audiences this weekend.  Had the Sabres lost their series on Friday then Sunday would not have had a game on for people to watch.  The Senators would have been victorious before the weekend started and it would be a quieter weekend.  On the whole, I think the league did a great job and the games were great — which I suspect only raises the prestige of the league.

I do, however, have a gripe with NBC about Saturday’s coverage.

I was in Rochester over the weekend, so I watched the game in the Buffalo area.  For me, the game stayed on NBC.  For most of the country, however, when the Ottawa/Buffalo game went into overtime, they switched over to Versus because they wanted to cover the Preakness Stakes.  I’m all for that, since I am a huge horse racing fan.  But the Preakness wasn’t to be run for another hour.  What they wanted to do was offer the human interest stories about horses, jockeys, trainers and other assorted crap.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love horse racing and I wanted nothing more than to watch the race.  But I don’t need to hear from the jockey who lost a beloved second cousin to cancer and is dedicating the first quarter mile of the race to her.  Show me the race.  Before it starts, show me other races.  NBC chose to switch the overtime of a series-ending game to Versus instead of sticking with it.  That hurt because a lot of viewers don’t have Versus.  NBC made a big mistake here.

I am going to hold off on breaking down the Buffalo game until tomorrow, when I break down the series.  However, I will go through the Ducks/Red Wings game.  On Saturday, one of the NBC analysts asked “if Anaheim was favored to win without Chris Pronger, shouldn’t they be favored to win with him?”  This was an excellent point, but was he a deciding factor?  He had an assist in the game-tying goal but not in the game-winner.  So I’ll make this my first poll: Is Chris Pronger a key to Anaheim winning the series?  Vote below.

The Ducks managed to score in the final minute of the 3rd period to tie the game.  I was surprised by the goal, and my reasoning is simple: they were anything but crisp.  The Ducks were flailing about but managed in the end to put the puck in the net.  They got lucky.  If they want a chance to finish off this series, they need to work on pressing their advantage on man-up situations.

5-0
That’s it.  5-0
There’s really not much more that can be said about the game.  It was nothing short of complete and total domination.
Anaheim knew they lost and started getting punchy, which I guess I can understand.  But I don’t know how you let yourself lose that badly.  They were undisciplined and lethargic.  They gave up too many penalties and at the end of the day deserved to lose.
I really have no good commentary.  It wasn’t a game worth watching and it certainly didn’t match what I had expected for a playoff game.
Hopefully, tonight will be better.

Anaheim, NHL, Stanley Cup, Hockey, Detroit, Red Wings, Ducks, Playoffs

Red Wings/Ducks
Season Series Tied 2-2

This is another difficult one to pick.  Anaheim has coasted thus far, dominating their opponents.  Detroit, coming off of a first round that ran more like a clinic at times, ran into some problems in the second round.  Can they come back against a team that has been tight thus far?

Dominik Hasek is the key to this series.  If he plays as well as he has thus far, then Detroit will win the series.  If Pronger can get the puck past him, Anaheim will win it.  This series will test their endurance, as they will have to go 7 games to put it away.  But the Duck have the talent and I think they’ll be able to finish the Wings off in the end.

My pick: Anaheim in 7

No trophy update today, I will pick it up tomorrow.

Red Wings, Ducks, Anaheim, Detroit, hockey, NHL, Stanley Cup

Anaheim knocked the Canucks out last night in the second OT period.  What is the biggest stat of this game?  Vancouver had a total of 27 shots on goal.  The Ducks had 63.  Vancouver didn’t have double-digit shots in any frame.  Luongo was amazing in this game, keeping a weak Vancouver defense in the game but the loss was inevitable.  You cannot let the opposition put EVERY shot on net and still expect miracles from your goalie.  Defense wins championships, and for proof, look at last night’s results.

It appears that Bill Guerin will be out for the next Sharks/Red Wings game on Saturday.  He took a puck to the face and might have to be a scratch.  Thus far this series, Guerin has had a whopping 0 points and is skating at -2 (all from game 2 of the series; he is at 0 for the rest of the games) so it’s easy to think that this isn’t a big loss.  But his 36 regular season goals tied him for 16th both overall and among forwards.  I will grant that this isn’t a huge loss right now, because he has not performed, but Billy was a good player this year and he’s due to find his groove.  Add to that the fact that the replacement will most likely not be as high-quality as Guerin so this is not a good thing for the Sharks.

End of Season Awards
The Frank J. Selke Trophy (Outstanding Defensive Forward)
The Finalists:

• Rod Brind’Amour (Car)
• Samuel Pahlsson (Ana)
• Jay Pandolfo (NJD)

Brind’Amour is a mainstay in this category and it’s a shame that he won’t win it.  It’s between Pahlsson and Pandolfo this year because these are two of the best defensive teams in the league.  The Devils are weak on offense but it’s become clear that they are a defensive juggernaut.  Anaheim has proven the same thing this season.  Surprisingly, both are in the negative and neither had a great season scoring-wise.
Who should win: Brind’Amour
Who will win: Pandolfo

Anaheim, Canucks, Vancouver, Ducks, Sharks, Red Wings, NHL, Stanley Cup, Playoffs, Hockey