The X Factor

Super Coincidence or Super Fixed?

2011-02-07T13:29:00.001-05:00

The Super Bowl. Is there a bigger event in sports today? The NFL is the most popular and most successful business in the sports world and their championship game is so popular its watched by millions around the world. It cost $3 million for a 30 second ad during the game. With this much focus and attention being drawn to one particular game, its important for the NFL to "put on a good show". In the 80's and 90's, it wasn't always a good game. There were quite a few blowouts. The Bears blowing out the Patriots 46-10, San Francisco blowing out the Broncos 55-10, then blowing out the Chargers 49-26, the Cowboys destroying the Bills 52-17... I think you get the idea. These games were over by halftime. The Super Bowl was getting to be known as the "Super Blowout". Nobody was watching by the second half and advertisers were not interested in buying ad time during the second half since less people would see it. The match ups were somewhat boring as well. What story was there behind San Diego vs San Francisco? They're both California teams... so what? Dallas and Buffalo... nothing in common, no story. There was hardly any story behind the match ups. Well that was until the 2001 season. Everything then magically changed.

St. Louis Rams vs New England Patriots 2001 - In wake of 9/11, the NFL decided to make the theme of the Super Bowl a "patriotic" one. This was the year of the infamous "tuck rule". Oh you know, that play where Brady does a pump fake, resets, gets hit, fumbles, Oakland recovers the fumble, Brady goes the sidelines and puts his head down, Belichick takes off his headset, Oakland gets ready for a kneel down... but suddenly the refs get together, review the play and say that the fumble was actually an incomplete pass. Uhhh yeah sure... The Patriots were allowed to keep the ball, they score a TD, win the game and then go onto the Super Bowl. The Patriots playing in the patriotic super bowl, what a coincidence! Not only that, but they go on to win with a last second 48 yard field goal. The whole nation (except St Louis) was so happy to see the Patriots do our our country proud by winning the Super Bowl!

Oakland Raiders vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2002 - The Raiders old coach Jon Gruden leaves Oakland and takes the head coaching job in Tampa. Less than a year later, wouldn't you know it, Gruden is facing his old team in the Super Bowl. What are the odds of that happening?

Carolina Panthers vs New England Patriots 2003 - The Patriots failed to make the playoffs in 2002, which gave some conspiracy theorists a reason to believe that what they did in 2001 was the work of the NFL especially with the whole "tuck rule" incident. Well that Pats make it back to the Super Bowl and its almost an exact replay of the game from two years ago. Ricky Proehl scores a late TD for the other team to tie it, Vinateri kicks a field goal to win it in the final seconds. Yay for "America's team" again.

New England Patriots vs Philadelphia Eagles 2004 - Not since the 70's Steelers have we seen 3 Super Bowl victories in 5 years. What a story it would be if "America's Team" the Patriots won 3 out of 4. They would be a dynasty and possibly the greatest team of all time!

Seattle Seahawks vs Pittsburgh Steelers 2005 - In this season the Super Bowl location is Detroit. Kind of an odd place for a big game, but not unprecedented, it was there in 1982. Wouldn't you know it though, future Hall of Famer and Steelers RB Jerome Bettis was born in Detroit and he let it be known that this was going to be his last year. What a way to go, winning the Super Bowl in your hometown. Going out on top! What a story!

Indianapolis Colts vs Chicago Bears 2006 - For the last several seasons, the Colts were one of the top teams in the league, but could never quite get over the hump. They had great regular season records and every year you would hear about Tony Dungy possibly being the first black head coach in the Super Bowl. Finally it was he year and wouldn't you know it, he would be coaching against another African American coach Lovie Smith. The two were already very good friends and would make history together by being the first two black head coaches in the Super Bowl with one of them being the first black coach to win the Super Bowl. Great feel good story!

New York Giants vs New England Patriots 2007 - It was discovered earlier in this season that "America's Team" was a fraud. They got caught cheating during their championship seasons and the public was outraged. Outraged that it happened and outraged that the NFL merely gave them a slap on the wrist when they were caught (They also destroyed the evidence of the cheating, which is very odd to say the least). People were starting to say that the cheating was the only reason they won. What could save the face of the NFL and the integrity of the league? Ohhh how about a 16-0 regular season without cheating? Then go into the Super Bowl 18-0 with the chance to be called the greatest team of all time. Unfortunately for the NFL, the Giants won the Super Bowl in the final minute causing the Patriots to go 18-1. But you know what? A team blowing their chance at perfection in the final minute of the last game is a huge story!

Pittsburgh Steelers vs Arizona Cardinals 2008 - When long time head coach Bill Cowher retired, the Steelers had a choice to make. Who do they make the next head coach? Current OC Ken Whisenhunt, offensive line coach Russ Grimm or Rooney Rule candidate Mike Tomlin. The Steelers, of course, went with Tomlin, while Whisenhunt and Grimm went off to the desert in Arizona. Wouldn't you know it, one year later, its Tomlin vs Whisenhunt and Grimm in the Super Bowl? What are the odds, right? Especially since the Cardinals hadn't even been to any type of championship game since 1947. The Steelers win, Tomlin shows the Rooney's they made the right choice and Pittsburgh is known as "Sixburgh".

New Orleans Saints vs Indianapolis Colts 2009 - In the Saints 42 year history, they have never even made it to the Super Bowl. They were the laughing stock of the league for decades. The "Aints", as they were called, only had one good player even worth mentioning and that was QB Archie Manning. He was the lone bright spot on a very dark franchise history. With Hurricane Katrina destroying the city of New Orleans it really is a fantastic story that this city was able to be rebuilt and recover. Wouldn't it be great though if the Saints actually went to the Super Bowl too? Heck, not only would it be great if they went to the Super Bowl, but what if they were to go up against Archie Manning's son, Peyton?! Wouldn't that be an awesome story?!

Pittsburgh Steelers vs Green Bay Packers 2010 - Green Bay's first round pick from 2005, Aaron Rodgers, didn't get to start in his first NFL game till 2008 thanks to the "evil" Brett Favre holding him down. At the beginning of the year, Favre wanted to give it one last go to win a Super Bowl before retiring. However the "evil" Favre wasn't very good, he lost to his old team twice, got injured numerous times, watched his consecutive games streak come to an end as well as his career. Meanwhile, in the city that the "evil" Favre used to dwell, a new hero comes to the light in the form of Aaron Rodgers, the guy Favre was trying to hold down. Rodgers first championship season is also Favre's last year. As Favre's light is extinguished, Rodgers light shines brightly through the NFL world as he offers more promise to Green Bay than the "evil" Favre ever did.

That's a pretty incredible span. 10 games in a row with an intriguing storyline. Half of them were decided by 4 points or less. Only one game was won by more than 14 points. With the exception of the Patriots lost perfect season, all of them are considered to be "happy endings", at least in the minds of the NFL/average American football fan with no interest in either team. A dynasty, history being made, going out on top, former allies matched up against one another. It was quite the decade huh?

I'm not saying that the NFL is "fixing" their games, but its naive to think this is all happening naturally. It went from being just two really good teams playing each other, most of the time it ended up in a blow out, to every game is really close and has an intriguing back story for the media to hype for two weeks prior to the game being played. The NFL needs this game to have it all and for the last 10 Super Bowls, it has. Coincidence or fixed? You tell me.

Penguins headed in wrong direction

2010-07-12T13:07:00.001-04:00

This past spring, the Pittsburgh Penguins had probably the easiest path the Stanley Cup Finals that I can ever remember. Ottawa, Montreal and Philadelphia, none of which would have even qualified for the playoffs in the Western Conference. It looked promising, but they fell flat. The same can be said for the Penguins off season. The Penguins wanted to bolster their defense and were rumored to be interested in guys like Anton Volchenkov and even traded for the rights to Dan Hamhuis. On July 2nd came, the Penguins didn't get either. Not only did they not get neither Volchenkov or Hamhuis, but they also lost their best defenseman, Sergei Gonchar as well.

I understand that Gonchar is 36 and he was looking to remain a Penguin until he was almost 40, but so what? Its not as if Gonchar's skills were clearly diminishing. As I mentioned in my previous post, Gonchar had just 4 less powerplay points than Crosby and played in 19 less games. He was second in the NHL in powerplay assists. If you thought the Penguins had problems on the powerplay before, how well will they do without one of the league's best powerplay quarterbacks? I know a lot of you expect Kris Letang to "step it up" and be that guy but I haven't seen any evidence of him being able to do that. Gonchar finished with 30 powerplay points last year in 62 games. Letang played in 73 games and finished with 5. They played on the same powerplay unit together. Gonchar got points, Letang did not. Gonchar has that big heavy shot that you need on your powerplay. Letang has a big heavy shot too, unfortunately most of the time, that shot is smacking off the glass.

The Penguins did manage to snatch up a couple of defensemen though. Not the ones they wanted, but Shero was determined to not let that cap space burn a hole in his pocket. He signed Zbynek Michalek, a shutdown stay at home shot blocker from Phoenix for $4 mil a year for 5 years. So they let Rob Scuderi, who does the exact same thing for less money, walk away last year and they get this guy. Devoting that much money for that long to a guy that just blocks shots is a little puzzling. Mark Eaton, who is a smart shot blocking defenseman went to the Islanders for $2.5 mil.

Shero wasn't done yet though. Rather than sign Gonchar for $5.5 mil for 3 years, he goes out and gets former NJ Devil Paul Martin for $20 mil over 4 years. That's right, instead of having one of the best defensemen in the league for just a half mil more, he signs an offensive minded defenseman that is nowhere near as good as Gonchar. Five million a year for 4 years for Paul Martin?? He's a fast skater and a decent passer, but he's actually worse than Gonchar defensively (which is the reason a lot of yinzers wanted Gonchar gone) and his shot isn't impressive. He's been the Devils go to guy for offense from the blueline for several years and the most points he's ever had in a season was 32. Martin missed almost the entire year with an injury in 09-10 and the Devils finished with the second best record in the conference, so he won't exactly be missed by them.

What Ray Shero needs to understand is that there's this thing called a "salary cap". In a "salary cap" era, you need to make smart decisions. You're not going to be able to fill all of your team's needs, you're going to have holes somewhere. When the Penguins signed Crosby, Malkin and Staal to big contracts, they made it apparent that this was going to be an offensive minded team. Get what you can defensively and spend money on forwards. Acquire players that will enable you to get the most of your big investments (Crosby, Malkin, Staal). When the Penguins won the Cup in 09, Eaton, Gill, Scuderi, Orpik and Letang were all under $4 mil. The bulk of their cap space was spent on forwards, as it should be. The Penguins are now in a bad spot. Outside the big three, what do they have? Kunitz? Cooke? Talbot? If guys like Cooke and Talbot are playing on your second line, you have problems. However, they don't have any cap space left to sign anyone thanks to Shero's wasteful spending. It should also be noted that Volchenkov and Hamhuis each signed deals worth $4.5 mil, which means the Pens could have gotten the defensemen they wanted for the same price they got Michalek and Martin.

I hope you like look of this Pens team, because barring a blockbuster trade or a huge raise in the salary cap, this team is pretty much set (or stuck) for the next 2-3 years. I keep hearing Pens fans say they'll be alright because Eric Tangradi will be on the big club this year. The same Tangradi that scored just 17 goals in the AHL last year?

Even though Ilya Kovalchuk isn't signed yet, its being rumored that the teams interested in him are trying to sign him to one of these huge contracts (10-15 years) that lower the cap hit. Kovalchuk is looking at a $5-6 mil cap hit because of this. If *I* was in Shero's place going into the off season, I would have re-signed Gonchar and Eaton. Then traded Fleury and his $5 mil a year contract. He's not $4 million better than Brent Johnson and its been proven by the Wings, Flyers and Blackhawks that you don't need a high priced goalie to win in the NHL. Finally, I would have made a strong pitch to sign Kovalchuk to one of those mega deals. The $5 mil they're spending on Fleury SHOULD be spent on a much needed goal scoring winger. Kovalchuk is one of the best scorers out there and would be far more valuable to the team than Fleury is now.

Ray Shero is failing as the Penguins GM. It doesn't take a genius to know that you need to re-sign Crosby and Malkin when their contracts expire. The money he's paying Staal is too much for his current role on the team and the money he's spending on Fleury, Martin, and Michalek is unbelievable. He's had 5 years to get a winger for Crosby and aside from the brief stint he's had with Hossa, his best linemate has been Chris Kunitz who's never had more than 60 points in a season. That's pretty pitiful considering names like Heatley, Kovalchuk, Gaborik and Kessel have all been up for grabs in the past couple years. If the Penguins are going to head back in the right direction, its going to take big moves, moves that Shero has proven he doesn't have the stones to make.

Factoring In: 06/30/2010

2010-06-30T12:44:00.000-04:00

- Yesterday, the Dallas Stars said that they would not offer the 40 year old Mike Modano a new contract despite his desire to still play hockey. To me, this is a classless move by the Stars organization. Modano has been the face of that franchise since they were the Minnesota North Stars back in the early 90's. If he wants to play another year, you sign him to a one year deal, he won't cost that much and you put him on your third or fourth line. He's earned the right to choose when he retires and if he wants to play another year after all he's done for your franchise, the Stars should be glad to have him back. Now Modano has to decide between choosing another team or retire. He really only has three options at this point. Play for the Minnesota Wild and end his career in the same city he started it in. Play for the Detroit Red Wings so he can play his final year in his hometown and have a legitimate shot at the Stanley Cup. Or retire. I would love to see Modano in a Wings jersey. He's a smart, classy, two way player that would fit in really nice on our third line. For the right price, I think this is something Detroit needs to consider. How great of a story would it be to see Modano win the Cup in his hometown and both he and Lidstrom end their illustrious careers as champions.

- With the NHL free agent frenzy nearing, the Penguins have yet to come to terms with defenseman and powerplay specialist Sergei Gonchar. I've heard pretty much every Penguins fan I know say "Ohhh we don't need him", "He's too old" or "Did you see how Travis Moen blew past him in Game 7? He's terrible". I strongly disagree. First off, the Penguins DO need him. His presence on the powerplay is critical. Gonch finished with just 4 less powerplay points than team leader Sidney Crosby and played in 19 less games. He was also second in the NHL among defensemen in powerplay assists, one point behind Mike Green. Last season, Gonchar missed all but 25 games during the regular season. The team struggled badly on the powerplay until he returned. The year before that Gonchar was 2nd in the league in powerplay points, including forwards. His defensive skills have always been questionable, but that's not his role. His role is to supply offense from the blueline and there are very few people in the NHL that have done that as well as Gonchar. You can say "We don't need him" and "He's too old" now, but in the Fall when the Penguins can't score on the man advantage, somewhere in the back of your mind, you'll think, "Hey, maybe that Gonchar guy wasn't so bad afterall".

- I've never really been a fan of the NBA, but the rumors about free agents LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh getting together and forming a mega team in Miami are really interesting. Three of the best basketball players in the world all joining the same team at the same time. A lot of current NBA fans are saying its bad for the game to have one team with that many stars and it takes away from the competitive spirit of the game. Let's put it this way, I had ZERO interest in the NBA before this. If this does happen and all three sign with the Heat, I will find myself watching NBA games this season. I want to see this mega team tear through the NBA. It would be really something to behold. It would be fun for Heat fans, obviously and it would be fun for non-Miami fans because just imagine how amazing it would be if this superstar team lost and your team beat them. These three joining the Miami Heat would be one of the greatest things to happen to the NBA in a long time.

- Sticking with basketball, people are saying that LeBron should stay in Cleveland and that he would be a traitor if he left and a coward for joining a team of all stars. He's been with the Cavs for 7 years and made it to the Finals once. From my understanding, he was the whole show that year and had very little support. He continues to receive virtually no support from his teammates today. LeBron James wants to win a championship. The Cavs had 7 years to put together a good supporting cast around him and haven't done it. Its time to move on. If he joins Wade and Bosh in Miami, they could become the greatest NBA team ever. Ever! If LeBron really wants to make a name for himself, being the best player on the greatest NBA team ever is a good way to do it. Some people have written that it would tarnish his legacy or make his championships less impressive. Absurd. Were the Jordan and Pippen championships less impressive? Were the Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar championships less impressive? How about the Kobe and Shaq teams? Besides, where would you rather live during the winter... Miami or Cleveland?

Eric Lindros should be in Hall of Fame

2010-06-17T12:41:00.003-04:00

Fifteen years ago, I had an Eric Lindros picture taped to a dart board hanging in my room. I couldn't stand him and said "I don't care who wins the Cup as long as HE doesn't." Today, I'm writing a blog post saying why the guy should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Recently, the retired center became eligible and "Puck Daddy" of Yahoo Sports gave Lindros 25-1 odds that he would be part of the 2010 class. Many people feel that he shouldn't ever be in the hall of fame, much less a first time ballot inductee.

When he was 16 years old, Lindros was expected to be the next Mario Lemieux. He wasn't and in the minds of a lot of people, that means he was a bust. I'm sorry, either you're the greatest hockey player of all time or you're a bust? Those are some pretty high standards to live up to. Lindros also managed to make himself hated by all hockey fans throughout his career too. When he was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in 1991, he said he wouldn't sign with them, forcing Quebec to trade him to Philadelphia. So that pretty much ticked off all of Canada. Then he was playing for a team that everyone hated, the Flyers. He became of the focal point of everyone's hatred for the Flyers. NHL fans cheered against Lindros for years, celebrating every time he got another concussion. On April 1st 1999, Lindros suffered a rib injury that was misdiagnosed by the Flyers team trainer and said he could fly back to Philly the next day. Fortunately, his teammate Keith Jones insisted on taking him to the hospital right away and it turned out to be a collapsed lung caused by internal bleeding. The doctors in Nashville said that if Lindros had listened to the trainer, he would have died. Lindros criticized the team doctors, while Flyers GM Bobby Clarke criticized Lindros and basically called him a wuss. Yeah, Bobby, your franchise player nearly dies and you're calling him a wuss. As if we needed another reason to hate you and your organization. A lot of the Flyers fans however, sided with Clarke and essentially ran Lindros out of town. With Philly fans against him too, he had 100% of hockey fans hating his guts. However, if you can push your hatred aside and take a look at what he did during his career, you'll see that even though he wasn't as good as Mario Lemieux, he was one of the best, if not the best hockey player in the 1990's.

To me, the hall of fame, in all sports, is about honoring the greatest players to ever play the game. In order to become a member, you should have, at some point in your career, been considered the best player in the league during your era. As a 19 year old rookie, he scored 41 goals in just 61 games. In 1995, he tied Jaromir Jagr for the most points in the league and won the Hart Trophy (writers MVP) and Lester B Pearson (players MVP) awards. In 1997, he led the league in playoff scoring and the Flyers to their first Stanley Cup finals appearance in 10 years before losing out to the Red Wings. Lindros was a dominating force. In the first 5 years of his career, he averaged 1.47 points per game. To give you just an idea of how good that is, Sidney Crosby averaged 1.36 points per game through his first five seasons and Alexander Ovechkin averaged 1.34 in his first five. After the concussions and other serious injuries, Lindros' career average dropped to 1.14 points per game, which is still pretty impressive. Its still a higher career average than Jarri Kurri, Bryan Trottier, Pavel Bure, Brett Hull, Bobby Hull, Mark Messier, Adam Oates, Gordie Howe, Ron Francis, Rocket Richard, and Luc Robitaille. Just to name a few.

A lot of people believe Lindros shouldn't be in the hall of fame because he was a dirty player and he whined a lot. Ironically, I hear a lot of this from Pens fans that worship Sidney Crosby who is guilty of having those same traits. Eric Lindros was a big guy at 6' 4", 240 lbs. When you're that big and you play for the Flyers, you're going to play physical. As I mentioned in my "Ovechkin vs Crosby" post, when you play a physical type of game, you're going to occasionally cross that line. When you play physical, not all of your hits are going to be clean. Its impossible. The game is too fast. Lindros was the league's best power forward for almost a decade. Using his size to be a great power forward was his strength, but it was ultimately his downfall as well. His physical style of play invited other physical players to take shots at him and being as big as he was, its not like he could get out of the way. Now he took a few big hits because his head was down, but I think it was more of the everyday physicality that destroyed his body and made him injury prone near the end of his career.

People always talk about his injuries when they talk about Lindros and the hall of fame. Injuries were a significant part of Eric's career, however it shouldn't stop him from going to the hall of fame. When he played, he was arguably the best player in the game. He has the MVP trophies to prove it. So he never won a Stanley Cup, once again, as I've stated in previous posts, the number of championships doesn't determine your worth as a player. The Stanley Cup is a team trophy, not an individual one. One person doesn't win the Cup by himself. In his first three playoffs in Philly, Lindros averaged 1.21 points per game. He did everything he could, but Ron Hextall / Garth Snow / Sean Burke and whatever other shooter tutor Philly put in net couldn't stop pucks and this is why Lindros isn't a Stanley Cup champion today.

I understand why people dislike Eric Lindros. I get it. He was physical, he was tough, he was a Flyer. Big E looked like he was going to turn the hated Flyers into the next hockey dynasty and turn 1975 into just another number, but you need to get over it. I disliked him as much as anyone, but its time to let it go. Its been 10 years since he played his last game for the Flyers and its been 3 years since he played his last NHL game. Its time to put that hatred aside, take a look at what he accomplished, take a look at his numbers and come to the only conclusion that makes sense... Eric Lindros is a hall of famer.

The Tampa Bay Lightning? Y not?

2010-05-26T12:56:00.002-04:00

This morning I woke up and checked NHL.com, "Yzerman, Red Wings icon, named Lightning GM". "Damn!", I thought to myself, "it wasn't a dream". Shortly, thereafter I logged onto Facebook, pulled up the Tampa Bay Lightning fan page and clicked "Become a Fan" (or Like). Within minutes my wife posted on my wall "You like the Tampa Bay Lightning?! Come on now..." I thought to myself, Y not?

When the news broke yesterday that my favorite player and legendary Red Wing Steve Yzerman left Detroit to take over as GM for the Tampa Bay Lightning, I couldn't believe what I was reading. Is this a joke? I thought what probably every Wing fan thought at that time they heard the news... "F$%&*$!" While none of us thought this was possible, deep down, we all knew that this was bound to happen. He was going to have to wait a long time to become the GM in Detroit and fresh off his success as the GM for Team Canada in the 2010 Olympics, now was the time. What a great situation to go into too. The Lightning have some really good, young, talented players to build around. Guys like Steven Stamkos (age 19), Victor Hedman (age 18), and Vinny Lecavalier (age 29). The Bolts have a new owner, Jeff Vinik, who has deep pockets and a commitment to winning. Plus, you get to live in sunny beautiful Florida year round! What more could you ask for? While it hurts us Red Wings fans to see him leave our franchise, most of us will continue to cheer on The Captain as GM for the Tampa Bay Lightning. A good number of Wings fans have already said that Tampa Bay will be their second favorite behind the Wings. So get ready Lightning, your fan base is about to get very big, very fast.

A few Wings fans that didn't take the news so well said things like, "I hope the Lightning do terrible, so they'll fire him (Yzerman) and he'll come back here" and "I hope he doesn't tarnish his name trying to save this cheesy Mickey Mouse franchise". First, hoping that a guy that spent 27 years of his life turning your team in a winner fails is ignorant. Plain and simple. Second, no team starts off as the Detroit Red Wings. Everybody starts off as a "cheesy Mickey Mouse" franchise. Who took the NY Yankees seriously before Babe Ruth? Who took the 49ers seriously before Joe Montana? Who took the Penguins seriously before Mario Lemieux? Everybody starts off as this franchise that everybody points and laughs at. Then that one guy shows up, leads you to greatness and changes everyone's perception forever. Yzerman can do that with the Lightning. He can take them from being this unpopular Florida based hockey team and turn them into the Red Wings of the Eastern Conference. He has the smarts, he has the support and he has the young stars to build around.

I also think its very ironic that Yzerman went to Tampa Bay. The Wings colors are red and white. The Lightning's colors are blue and black. The exact opposite. Detroit is so far north, its almost in Canada. The Lightning couldn't be farther south. The best player on the Lightning is a 19 year old, right handed shooting, first round pick named Steve that was given the task to not only perform, but to renew interest in this hockey club. Wasn't Yzerman given that exact same assignment 27 years ago? Steven Stamkos also wears the numbers 1 and 9 on his back, except in the reverse order (91). The Bolts also have a young 18 year old Swedish defenseman named Victor Hedman that is supposed to be one of the next great defensemen in the game. Its like Yzerman went to the bizarro Red Wings. Everything is so similar yet different.

Its a very exciting time for Steve Yzerman and it should be an exciting time for his loyal fans. Yzerman and the Lightning have a lot of work to do, but they are on the cusp of something great. O CAPTAIN! my Captain! Good luck with your new team and us Wings fans will be there to cheer you on every step of the way!

Ovechkin vs Crosby: Part 1

2010-05-13T12:08:00.002-04:00

Every great sport has its rivalries. Sometimes its between teams, players, colleges, coaches, fans. The NHL is blessed with a great rivalry right now between Washington Capitals franchise winger, Alexander Ovechkin and Pittsburgh Penguins crown jewel, Sidney Crosby. Two great players, but only one can be called "the best". Its fine to say you like one more than the other, but don't go saying one is BETTER than the other because of that liking. I think its just amazing how Crosby fans will ignore the numbers and just say, "Crosby's the best". It seems like everyday now I get into an argument with someone about "Who's better? Crosby or Ovechkin?". Its funny because last year Crosby wasn't even mentioned in the "Who's the best?" discussion. It was "Malkin or Ovechkin?". Crosby wasn't even a consideration. But now, I get some Pens fan trying to justify his or her position with lame arguments that Crosby is the best. Take off your black and gold glasses for a few minutes and look at these facts:

FACT: Ovechkin and Crosby were both rookies in 05-06. Crosby had Lemieux, Palffy, LeClair, Recchi, and Gonchar. Ovechkin had Dainius Zubrus and Jeff Halpern. Ovie did better and beat out Crosby for the Calder Trophy which goes to the league's top rookie.

FACT: Ovechkin and Crosby finished with the same number of points this year (109), while Sid had just one more goal. Crosby also played in 9 more games than Ovechkin. I'm quite certain that if Ovie had played in those 9 games, he would not only have more goals and points than Crosby, but he would've won the Art Ross for a second time.

FACT: Both have one Art Ross trophy

FACT: Ovechkin has 2 Hart Trophies as the league MVP, Crosby has just 1.

FACT: Ovechkin has 2 Lester B. Pearson Awards (which goes to the league MVP voted by the NHLPA). Crosby has just 1.

FACT: Ovechkin also owns 2 Rocket Richard Trophies as the top goal scorer in the league. He wasn't a co-champion either like Crosby is this year with Steven Stamkos.

FACT: 2 is a greater number than 1

I do expect the Hart Trophy numbers to be evened up this year when the awards are given out though. The winner of the Hart Trophy is determined by a panel of hockey writers aka the hockey media. The same media that is ramming Sidney Crosby down our throats every chance they get. A good portion of that media is from Canada. Who do you think they'll vote for? Their fellow Canadian that scored the "Golden Goal" in the Olympics or the "dirty Russian"? They're already saying "this is going to the player that's most valuable to their team" which is what they say whenever their opinion doesn't match the stats. This wouldn't be the first time this happened though. In 88-89, Wayne Gretzky won the Hart over Mario Lemieux, despite the fact that Mario had 31 more goals, was a +15 better and played in 2 less games than the "Great One". What did exactly did Wayne do that year? He got traded to the LA Kings and got married. The Hart is more of a media popularity contest than it is an actual award based on talent.

Despite all of these FACTS, people persist that Crosby is a better player:

"Sid's a more complete player. He plays defense." - First off, let me just say that in today's game, you don't rack up over 100 points AND play defense. Coming from someone who's watched a lot of Wings games with players like Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Yzerman, Fedorov... neither of these guys play defense. I don't recall either of them laying down to block a shot or back check on every shift. However, between the two of them, Ovechkin is better defensively. No, that's just not my opinion either. Let's consult the numbers shall we... This year, Crosby is a +15. Ovechkin is a +45. Both have the same number of points and both have about the same number of power play points. So it seems to me that opponents are scoring a heck of a lot more when Crosby's on the ice than when Ovie is. Sooo, how is it Crosby is better defensively? Isn't defense about keeping the puck out of your own net?

"Ovechkin plays in the weak Southeast, while Crosby plays in the tough Atlantic" - The same "weak" Southeast division that produced 2 of the last 5 Stanley Cup champions? Don't get me wrong, the Southeast has its flaws, but people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. The Devils are no where near as good as they were since their last championship in 2003. They've been knocked out of the playoffs in first round in each of the last 3 years. The Rangers haven't been good since '97 when they re-united Gretzky and Messier and even that team was iffy. The Islanders have been in rebuilding mode since 1985. The Flyers are the closest thing to a good team and they have lousy goaltending, inconsistent players and bad coaching.

Here's the 09-10 breakdown:
Crosby vs Atlantic - 1.83 points per game, +14
Ovechkin vs Atlantic - 1.75 points per game, +17
Crosby vs Southeast - 1.10 points per game, -7
Ovechkin vs Southeast - 1.52 points per game, +10

It seems to me that both got big numbers in that "tough" Atlantic division and didn't do quite as well in the "weak" Southeast division.

"(After Canada beats Russia in the Olympics) Once again Crosby proves he's better than Ovechkin" - Huh?? First off, neither of them scored a point in that game. Second, Team Canada is MUCH stronger than Team Russia. Canada has a Hall of Fame goalie, one of the best coaches in the NHL and all-stars on their 4th line. Russia had players from the KHL. You really can't compare two individual players based on the outcome of a game between two teams, especially when those two teams are not equal.

"Crosby beat Ovechkin in the '09 playoffs, so he's better" - Crosby's team did beat Ovechkin's team in a 7 game series where it all boiled down to one game. A game in which Caps rookie goalie Semyon Varlamov, who was playing in just his 19th career NHL game, came unglued and gave up 4 goals on 18 shots. While playoff battle tested Marc-Andre Fleury just gave up 2 goals on 21 shots. What exactly did Ovechkin have to do with Varlamov's meltdown? The Penguins team was better that day. It had nothing to do with Ovechkin vs Crosby. Its not like Crosby out produced Ovechkin. In fact, Ovechkin slightly outproduced Crosby in the series. Crosby finished with 8 goals and 5 assists, Ovie with 8 goals and 6 assists. Crosby's team was better than Ovechkin's so that makes him a better player? Ovie's great, but he can't score, play goalie and coach. The Caps have the same problem the Red Wings did prior to 1997. They're not built for playoff hockey. The Penguins on the other hand, are built for playoff hockey. This doesn't make Crosby better than Ovechkin, it makes him lucky to be with a franchise that knows what it takes to win in the playoffs.

"Crosby has a Cup and Ovechkin doesn't" - This is like when people said Gretzky was better than Lemieux because he had 4 Cups and Lemieux had zero. It was ridiculous then and its ridiculous now. Gretzky played on a team that was stacked with talent, while Lemieux had to pretty much do everything himself. The same can be said here. Crosby's team is loaded with high end talent. Malkin (2nd overall pick), Fleury (1st overall pick), Staal (2nd overall pick), all high draft picks. Ovechkin has Semin (13th overall), Varlamov (23rd overall) and Backstrom (4th overall). If Crosby and Ovechkin switched places, Ovie would have a Cup (maybe more) and Crosby would have zero. This is the weakest argument a Crosby supporter can make. Kris Draper has 4 Cups, does that make him better than Crosby?

"Ovechkin always chokes in the playoffs" - Oh really? In 28 career playoff games, Ovie has 20 goals, 20 assists, and a +14. He owns a 1.43 points per game average in the playoffs which is actually better than his regular season average of 1.34 points per game. So if anything, he's actually BETTER in the playoffs. Crosby averages 1.36 points per game in the regular season and 1.32 in the playoffs.

"Crosby always beats Ovechkin everytime they meet up" - That was true in the beginning. Back when both were non-playoff rebuilding teams, the Pens beat the Caps many times. Something like 10 out of 11 times. However, since both became elite teams, those numbers have really changed. The Penguins and the Capitals have played each other 15 times (including the playoffs) in the last two years. The Caps have won 10 of those games.

"(After the Capitals lost Game 7 to the Canadiens) Who's the best player in hockey?? Crosby!!" - Wait... what? How does the Capitals losing to the Canadiens make Crosby better than Ovechkin? I'm confused. Is it because Penguins won their series and the Caps lost theirs? The Capitals ran into white hot goalie, Jaroslav Halak. A guy that took Team Slovakia to new heights just a few months ago in the Olympics. The Pens played against shooter tutor Brian Elliot. However, Pens fans spoke too early though because the Pens played against the same Montreal Canadiens team that knocked Ovie out of the playoffs and also lost. Well almost the same. The worn out Canadiens, who had one day off in between the two series, lost the services of their best defenseman Andrei Markov in Game 1 against the Penguins. Let's take a look at the numbers, shall we?

Ovechkin vs the Canadiens
5 goals, 5 assists, 10 points, +5 in 7 games

Crosby vs the Canadiens (minus Andrei Markov)
1 goal, 4 assists, 5 points, -1 in 7 games

Crosby and Malkin vs the Canadiens
2 goals, 6 assists, 8 points, -3 in 7 games

Ovechkin not only did better than Crosby, but he did better than both Crosby and Malkin combined! It should also be noted that Crosby's lone goal came in Game 6, which also just happened to be the game Hal Gill didn't play in. Ovechkin also had a goal disallowed on a bogus goaltender interference call.

"You just don't like Crosby because he beat your Red Wings!" - My dislike for Crosby, a player that used to be one of my favorites, actually started at the end of Game 4 of the 2008 Finals. After the Wings had taken a 3-1 lead in the series, Crosby skated over to the Wings as they were heading into the locker room, got into Henrik Zetterberg's face and started talking trash. About 10 minutes prior to this disgraceful act, Zetterberg had stopped Crosby on the doorstep of the goal on a 5-3 powerplay. Apparently being shutdown at a critical point in the game (and series) offended the Sid the Kid. That was the first of many classes moves by Crosby and he lost me as a fan. The result of the '09 Finals was irrelevant. Regardless of the outcome of that series, I would not like Crosby today. As it relates to this blog post, I have always said that Ovechkin is a better player than Crosby. Even before the Pens and Wings played against one another and I was a Crosby fan...

"..Ovechkin in my opinion is the best player in hockey (sorry Sid). Ovechkin is the Mario Lemieux of the NHL right now, while Sid is the Gretzky. I always said Lemieux was better so I have to stick with my guns here. "
- Fantasy Friday chat transcript
Friday, January 25, 2008
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08025/852218-61.stm

A lot of people will say that Ovechkin is classes or dirty for some of his big hard hits. Ovie plays a physical game and there's a fine line between being physical and being dirty. When you play physical style, sometimes you are going to cross that line. Its unavoidable. Its funny though, Pens fans didn't have a problem with Ulf Samuelsson being physical and sometimes crossing that fine line into "dirty" when he was matched up with Cam Neely in '91 and '92. Nor did they have a problem with Francois Leroux when he knocked out Pat LaFontaine and pretty much ended his career.

I believe the root of the problem here is that most Pens fans don't know an era in which they didn't have the best player in hockey. Let's face it, how many Pens fans today, were fans before 1985? Whether it was Lemieux or Jagr, the Penguins were considered to have the best player in the league for close to 20 years. Today, they have two great players in Malkin and Crosby and cannot accept the fact that there's someone out there that's better and that they don't have the best player in the league. Ovechkin is better than Crosby. Its an air tight case. You can argue this point all you want, but you'll be wrong. Who knows, maybe 5 years from now, things will be different. Maybe Crosby will have more goals, points, wins, Cups, trophies, whatever, but as of right now, it is undeniable that Alexander Ovechkin, the Great Eight, is better than Sid the Kid.

Factoring In: NHL Playoffs 5/6/2010

2010-05-06T12:08:00.006-04:00

- How lucky can one team be? Last year, the Penguins played their beat down toys, the Flyers, the Capitals who had a goalie with 11 games of NHL experience entering the series, a worn down Hurricanes team and then a worn down and injured Red Wings. Fluky events (Brodeur's meltdown, Boston blowing it at home against Carolina) had the Penguins miss playing Penguin killers, New Jersey and Boston. This year, the top three seeds in the East fall in the first round, the Penguins get a Senators team that is a shadow of its former self, a worn down Habs team that is missing its best defenseman and then will either play their beat down toys again or a Bruins team that just lost one of its best scorers. Yet again, the teams the owned the Pens during the regular season (Devils and Caps) are out. All three teams the Penguins will play in the Eastern Conference playoffs, wouldn't have even qualified for the playoffs in the West. This is as easy as it gets.

- I really liked the guts the Ottawa Senators showed in the first round. They were over matched, but it didn't stop them. They layed down and blocked every shot, fought for every inch of ice. If they had ANY talent at all, they would've knock off the Pens.

- Has the "greatest goalie in the history of the NHL" Martin Brodeur, lost a step? The Devils have been eliminated from the playoffs in the first round in each of the last 3 years.

- I said this about the Pens when Therrien was in town and I'm saying it about the Caps now too. They'll never win the Cup with Bruce Boudreau behind the bench. His unwillingness to make any changes while his team struggles to put away an 8th seed is all the reason you need. They also need to give up on Semin. Great shot, great hands, but is way too soft. If the Caps setup Ovechkin with as many opportunities as Semin, we would be talking about a Ovechkin vs Crosby Conference Finals.

- With the season on the line in a shootout, how do you not put in your 42 goal scorer Marian Gaborik? Instead they went with... Olli Jokinen? Dumb. You didn't deserve to go to the playoffs.

- Same old sad story for the Flyers. "We're tough, we're physical, we're built for the playoffs, but we have no goaltending." I hate this team and even I'm getting annoyed by the fact that they refuse to go out and get a competent goaltender.

- You know, I really don't hate Marian Hossa anymore. I haven't for sometime now. I was mad when he left the Wings to sign with the Blackhawks, but I'm over it. He's a good guy and a great player and while I would still like to see him in a Wings jersey, I wouldn't burn my Hossa t-shirt like some idiots might.

- I've never seen a 3-0 series as closely matched as the Sharks and Red Wings. It could easily be 3-0 Wings, but the bounces aren't going their way and they're losing by one instead of winning by one. Meh, it happens.

- I bet everyone knows who Craig Anderson is now.

- Roberto Luongo must be a Britney Spears fan. Ooops, he's doing it again!

- The Nashville Predators had a 3-2 lead in Game 5 on the road, were on the powerplay with less than a minute left in the game and found a way to lose. No wonder they don't have any fans. I got sick to my stomach watching that and I didn't care who won.

- Great performance by the Coyotes in their first playoff appearance in years. Great system, great coach, now if they could get a few snipers so they don't have to rely so much on Shane Doan, Radim Vrbata and Wojtek Wolski to score goals. They're $13 million under the cap and Illya Kovalchuk would do wonders for them.

What does the Stanley Cup playoffs mean to me?

2010-04-19T12:12:00.000-04:00

Last week Seth Rorabaugh of the PG's Empty Netters wrote a blog post entitled, "What is it?". He wrote, "If someone were to ask us what the Stanley Cup playoffs mean to us, we'd have a hard time giving a simple concise answer". He then goes on to name quite a few memorable moments in playoff history like:

-It's Bobby Orr leaping through the air.
-It's Steve Yzerman blowing a slapper by Jon Casey from Livonia.
-It's Doug Weight lifting the Stanley Cup with one shoulder.

All good stuff. If I could, here's a few I would like to add to that list:

- It's having my two favorite athletes of all time dropping the puck before a Penguins / Red Wings Stanley Cup Final.

- It's Chris Osgood making the so called hockey experts look foolish for calling him the weak link as he shuts out the high powered Penguins twice.

- It's "THE KILL".

- It's Henrik Zetterberg making the greatest defensive play in the history of the Finals on one of the league's greatest players.

- It's Sidney Crosby unable to deal with losing.

- It's Marc-Andre Fleury's butt knocking the puck into the net for the eventual Cup clinching goal.

- It's Osgood having to make an incredible save on Marian Hossa to win the Cup.

- It's a guy named Nick picking up the Cup in Pittsburgh in an arena that's just down the street from where my son Caleb Yzerman Fruscello was born.

- It's the victory parade down Woodward Avenue.

- It's Nick Lidstrom playing hockey less than a week after getting his "inflamed testicle" worked on.

- It's the Red Wings picking up right where they left off by dominating Game One and Game Two.

- It's Evgeni Malkin unable to deal with getting beaten, taking an instigator penalty in the final 5 minutes, but for some reason NOT getting suspended for Game 3.

- It's Malkin recording 3 points in Game 3 to win 4-2.

- It's the Penguins playing with 6 guys on the ice for 20 seconds and not getting penalized.

- It's Pavel Datsyuk coming back early from a broken foot and making a huge difference.

- It's Max Talbot slashing Datsyuk's recently broken foot.

- It's the Penguins taking one cheap shot after another.

- It's the Wings capitalizing on all of those dumb penalties.

- It's Orpik icing the puck, but not having it get called.

- It's the new Claude Lemieux scoring the eventual winning goal.

- It's motivation for future playoff runs.

- It's the villain stealing the Stanley Cup out of Hockeytown.

- It's the good guys bringing it back. (link pending)

Jagr vs Yzerman

2010-04-14T11:46:00.006-04:00

Last week on the Mark Madden show, he started a debate on top 10 all time NHL forwards and said that Jaromir Jagr would be on the list. I had to think about it for a minute, but I don't think Jagr would quite hit the top ten. Here's my list:

1. Mario Lemieux
2. Wayne Gretzky
3. Gordie Howe
4. Mark Messier
5. Guy Lafleur
6. Phil Esposito
7. Marcel Dionne
8. Steve Yzerman
9. Brett Hull
10. Joe Malone

I respect Jagr and his talent but I think top 10 all time, is a little much. I would rather have any of those players over Jagr. At least one caller thought so too, which then drew a challenge from Madden for the caller to name 10 forwards better than Jagr. The caller named a lot of people on this list and also named Ron Francis and Steve Yzerman. Madden scoffed at the Yzerman response and replied, "Jagr won 5 scoring titles. How many did Yzerman win? Huh? How many?". The caller correctly replied zero. Steve Yzerman was in his prime at the same time as Lemieux and Gretzky. Its next to impossible to win a scoring title when you're up against the two greatest players in the history of game. Jagr won his scoring titles matched up against Eric Lindros and Peter Forsberg. That doesn't exactly carry the same weight as Lemieux and Gretzky. Yzerman had six straight 100+ point seasons and in 5 of those seasons he scored over 50 goals. When Scotty Bowman came to Detroit he asked Yzerman, "Do you want points or Cups?" Yzerman wanted to win and dramatically changed his game to be more than just a scoring machine, but also backcheck, block shots and focus more on defense. His individual stats took a hit, but the Red Wings went on to win 4 Campbell Conference trophies, 5 Presidents trophies, the 1996 team finished with more wins than any other team in history, and won three Stanley Cups. "How many Cups did Jagr win? Huh? How many?" Saying that Jagr is better than Yzerman because he has more scoring titles is asinine. By that logic Martin St Louis is better than Yzerman, Messier, Sakic, and Hull.

Madden, unfortunately, wasn't done. The self proclaimed "Super Genius" continued, "Yzerman scored that one Game 7 goal in the playoffs, but what else has he done? Jagr was always clutch and scored a ton of big goals in the playoffs." Jagr did score a big goal in the 92 Finals against the Blackhawks, but he must not have been too clutch if all he has is two Cups and he had little to do with those championship teams. Those two Cups that he has were won by Lemieux, Stevens, Recchi, Francis, Murphy, Tocchet and Barrasso. Aside from just a couple plays, Jagr kind of just went along for the ride. Yzerman, on the other hand was very instrumental in his teams' success shutting down the opponents top line and scoring big goals at the same time. Yzerman won the Conn Smythe Trophy in '98. You can't get more clutch than being the playoff MVP of championship run. "How many Conn Smythe's did Jagr win? Huh? How many?"

Its one thing to love your team and the players that played for it, but when getting into a hockey debate, let's use a little common sense. Jagr was great for the Pens and did a lot of things for the franchise, but calling him one of the greatest of all time, that's a bit much. Steve Yzerman is widely recognized as one of the greatest leaders in all of sports. To not rank him in the top ten of forwards would be a crime. As for Jagr, I would probably rank Jagr around 15 right now and 10 years from now, he'll probably be over 20.

Caps vs Pens: Game Report for 4/6/2010

2010-04-08T12:51:00.002-04:00

The other day I was fortunate enough to fall into some free hockey tickets (thank you Dave Cannone) and was going to see Crosby vs Ovechkin in what will most likely be my final game at the Mellon Arena. What a great matchup to close it out.

We got the arena at 6:50pm, but the game didn't start till 7:30pm (thank you Versus) so we had some time to kill. We walked around the arena, got a couple drinks and headed to our seats which were fantastic! Section C, to the right of the goalie, on the side that the Pens would be shooting at twice. We were right behind one of those special sections that had TV monitors. By the way, I never realized how huge the delay was between what they telecast on Versus and what was going on in the game. Its at least 20-30 seconds. Don't talk to someone at the game on a cell phone unless you like knowing well in advance what will happen.

Anyways, the Caps come out first, Alexander Ovechkin was in front... "booooo" went the Penguin fans. Ovie takes one of the Penguins practice pucks and blasts it into their net before skating over to his side of the rink... "BOOOOOOOO!!!!" It was like putting a drop of blood in a piranha tank. As Ovie headed over to his side, I began to make my way down to the glass to get some pictures. As I'm heading down, my path down the aisle gets blocked by none other than Seth Rorabaugh, the Post-Gazette's Penguins blogger. I was going to say "Hi", but we would probably start talking about hockey or the PG and take up a lot of time. So it was either talk to Seth or see two time NHL MVP Alexander Ovechkin up close during warm ups.

As I avoided eye contact with Seth, I pulled out my iPhone and made my way down to the glass. I make a point to do this before every game ever since I watched the Red Wings do their warmup back in 1996. Its always exciting to see these guys up close and it never gets old. I snapped a few of Ovie, a few of the Washington goaltenders and got a picture of some of the Caps throwing a few of the practice pucks over the glass to some kids in the front row. As I kind of expected, when all the other Caps players started making their way back their locker room, Ovie stayed out there (first one on, last one off) and took a few more blasts at the net. A few of the shots that missed the net, banged off the glass and made a sound so loud you would have thought the roof was caving in. This is why he's the greatest goal scorer of our time and scores 60 goals when everyone else is barely reaching 40.

When Ovie finally left the ice, I went back up to my seat and uploaded some of the good pictures I got onto Facebook. During the warm ups, I noticed Evgeni Malkin heading into the locker room. As it turned out, he wasn't feeling well and was a late scratch for the game. Their was a definite "GASP" amongst the crowd when that was announced. One Pens fan exclaimed, "Great! Geno's out again. Now we're going to have to beat them without one of our best players." On a side note, Caps defenseman Mike Green, who led NHL defensemen in points, was not in the lineup either.

As the game started, a "Lets Go Pens" chant started. I didn't see a lot of red Caps jerseys in the crowd, but I did hear "Lets Go Caps" pretty clearly and sometimes overtaking the Pens chants. Now the Penguins were getting to see what it was like to have the shoe on the other foot. It was a pretty even 1st period until Pens defenseman Alex Goligoski apparently forgot how to skate backwards and Alexander Semin blew past him, fired a perfect shot past Fleury and gave the Caps a 1-0 lead. A few minutes later Ovechkin received a slashing penalty and you would've thought the Penguins just tied the game when it was announced that he was the one getting the penalty. The Penguins powerplay did what it does best, not score, and the period ended 1-0 in favor of the Caps.

The Caps came out of the locker room and into the second period like they were shot out of a cannon. I grabbed my iPhone and got my camera ready, as I could tell a goal was probably going to be scored soon... and I was right. Forty two seconds into the period, Mike Knuble (former Wing whooo!!!) fired a shot at Fleury that he should have easily had, but it trickled through and into the net. Ovechkin, who had been charging for the loose puck before it went in, jumped and slammed himself into the glass in celebration of the goal. Unfortunately, when I took the picture, it all came out as a blur, soooo... no pic. Sorry.

The Pens came back though. A Mike Knuble penalty (former idiot Flyer) went off for holding. None of the Penguins seemed to be able to hit the net until Sidney Crosby wristed in his league leading 48th goal of the year. The place went nuts and the Penguins were back in the game... until 21 seconds later when Tomas Fleischmann received a pass from Alexander Semin and ripped it past Softie McFleury. Just like that, the crowd was out of the game again and speaking of out of the game... shortly after Semin passed the puck to his teammate, Max Talbot threw an elbow into Semin's face knocking him to the ice. As the over enthusiastic announcer read off the Crosby goal, Semin laid on the ice holding his head. Now every team has its "bad fans", but the Penguins seem to have a lot of very bad, outspoken fans that really need to chill. One fan not far from me was yelling, "Get up!! Get up you bum! You're not hurt you, f****t. Get up!" Really dude? Then when Semin got to his feet, the trainers helped him back to the Washington bench, a lot of the Pens faithful booed him. You're booing an injured player, Pittsburgh? Really? I'm not exactly Alexander Semin's biggest fan either, but booing an injured player is disgraceful and ignorant. Semin wasn't the only player leaving the game either. Coach Bylsma yanked Fleury and put in backup Brent Johnson. Fleury smashes his goalstick as he now sits in the runway leading to the Pens locker room and watches the rest of the game from there.

The Pens did manage to get back into the game once again when Jordan Leopold blasted one from the blue line that hit off a Caps players' foot and into the net. They nearly tied it when a Sergei Gonchar blast smashed off the crossbar. Before the period expired, former Penguin Matt Bradley scores a nice deflection goal with Brent Johnson having no chance. The Caps regained their two goal lead, 4-2.

During the second intermission, I looked around at a few souvenir stands, hoping to get something for the kids, but everything was way overpriced. Its bad enough that professional sports teams gouge their fans for tickets just to get in to see a game, but do they have to gouge us for money inside the arena/stadium too? How about making things affordable for us normal people that love, fund and support YOUR franchise?

Anyways, back to to the game. Despite only giving up 2 goals, Caps goalie Semyon Varlamov looked beatable. Toward the end of the second period, he looked as though he was fighting the puck and if the Pens could get some shots on him early, they could get back in the game again... and they did. Forty nine seconds into the period, Jordan Leopold scored, pulling the Pens within 1 goal again. At this point, the Pens should have just started throwing pucks at the net because Varly looked rattled. Unfortunately for the Pens, Pascal Dupuis fired a shot wide of the net, breaking the glass (the same glass Ovie was blasting earlier) behind Varlamov. There was a 10 minute delay in the game to fix the glass, killing the Pens momentum. While they were fixing the glass, it was announced the Sidney Crosby recorded his 100th point of the season on the Leopold goal. All of the fans, scratch that, MOST of the fans gave Sid a standing ovation and started chanting "M-V-P, M-V-P!" I didn't agree with that and neither did someone else in the building... the current reigning league MVP, Alexander Ovechkin.

This ovation for Crosby, just ignited Ovechkin who has been struggling to score goals lately. Bill Guerin received a high sticking call giving the Penguins their first penalty of the game. Ovechkin just needed 4 seconds. Backstrom won the face off, Ovie picked it up, moved into the slot before anyone else could even blink and fired it past Johnson, restoring the Caps 2 goal lead. It was Ovechkin's first goal in 5 games. He wasn't done yet. On his next shift, Ovie showed off another side of his game, his physical side. He slammed Max Talbot into the boards, crushed Kris Letang a few seconds later, then leveled Jordan Staal right in front of where we sat. My buddy Dave exclaimed, "Oh man, Ovie's a beast! He's destroying everybody out there right now." I smiled and quietly clapped my hands and chanted in my head "M-V-P". Watching Ovechkin brought back memories of Mario Lemieux and how he would just take over a game and there was no stopping him. Just like with Mario, I found myself no longer following the puck, but following the player. You just knew Ovie was going to do something awesome with or without the puck.

With a few minutes left, the Pens pulled their goalie and Ovie was on the ice. When he got the puck, Pens fans were irate, "STOP HIM!!! You can't let HIM score!" Gonchar dove to the ice to knock the puck off Ovechkin's stick which he did with 6 seconds left. However, Ovechkin, with Nicklas Backstrom's help, managed to get the puck back a few seconds later and was all alone with the empty net. I looked up at the clock and it read 1.2 seconds, with all the fans cursing his name, he cruised towards the empty net as if he had all night. I slipped up just this one time and yelled, "Shoot now you idiot!!" Ovechkin buried it into the empty net with 0.2 seconds left on the clock. He was now tied with Crosby for the league lead in goals with 48. It was the final goal, in the final seconds, of my final game at Mellon Arena. Sorry Ovie, you're not an idiot. I got a little wound up there.

The game was over and the Caps surrounded their goalie while celebrating their 6-3 win and sweeping the Penguins in the season series. As we rode the T back home, a Pens fan was whining about Ovie's empty netter, "I'm so pissed off! You're going to win the scoring title because you can put a puck into an empty net. Aren't you so great?" Just as an FYI, Ovie is 6 points ahead of Crosby in points, tied for first goals and Ovechkin played in 8 less games. He won't win the scoring title because he scores into empty nets, he'll win it because he's better.

Here are the highlights in case you missed it:

So in all likelihood that will be my final time at the Civic/Mellon Arena. Lots of great memories in that building. I witnessed so many events like WWF, NHL Draft, Dane Cook and countless hockey games. I witnessed the greatness of Mario Lemieux. I got to see Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Henrik Zetterberg, Nick Lidstrom, Chris Osgood, Pavel Datsyuk, Dominik Hasek and all of "my" Wings in person. I watched Illya Kovalchuk score a game winning goal in the final seconds of overtime. I saw Lemieux and Jagr record their only points of the '96 Eastern Conference Finals in Game 2 of that series. In 2008, the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in that building just a few months after my son Caleb Yzerman Fruscello was born at Mercy Hospital, which is just down the street from the arena. There's a lot of great things to look forward to at the Consol Energy Center though... taking my kids to their first hockey game, taking Caleb to his first Red Wings game, arena football, NHL All Star game, playoff games, wrestling events and most likely another Stanley Cup. It will be sad to see the old Igloo get shutdown, but those of us that were lucky enough to experience it, will have great memories that will stay with us forever.

McNabb traded to Washington; Eagles give up on winning

2010-04-05T11:36:00.008-04:00

After I got home on Easter Sunday, I turned on ESPN to catch some of the Yankees-Red Sox opener. The BottomLine had breaking news and was giving us general facts about quarterback Donovan McNabb. I thought, "Oh, so the Eagles traded him afterall. Can't wait to see what they got." I continued to read and was floored when I saw who he was traded to... the WASHINGTON REDSKINS??! Wait a minute... did the NFL realign their divisions again and I missed it? These two franchises are bitter division rivals. Why in the world would the Eagles trade away their pro bowl caliber franchise QB and most successful player in franchise history to a team that plays them at least twice every year? Didn't the Red Sox trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees teach them anything about trading within your division, let alone trading a future hall of famer to your opponent? What did they get in return for possibly the best player in franchise history? Draft picks. Not even a first rounder either. Un-freaking-real.

Sadly this isn't the first time the Eagles and Redskins have been involved the trading of a franchise QB. Back on April 1st (I know, almost to the day too) 1964, the Eagles traded their 30 year old pro bowl QB Sonny Jurgensen to the Washington Redskins. Vince Lombardi called Jurgensen the "best I have seen." The Eagles finished over .500 just once over the next 14 seasons. Jurgensen finished his career considered as one of the finest passers of his time and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983.

Fast forward to today. Under McNabb the Eagles soared to new heights. They finished with 11+ wins in each of his first 5 seasons. In 2004, he lead the Eagles to a 13-3 record and into the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1980 season. He never won a Super Bowl, but he won a lot of games, went to the Pro Bowl 5 times and brought respectably to a franchise that really needed some. Now he's gone. He was given away to a division rival in exchange for some draft picks.

The Eagles do have two younger QB's waiting in the wings with Kevin Kolb and Michael Vick, but as of right now neither could hold a candle to McNabb. Hell, a couple years ago Vick was in jail. Kolb showed some potential last year, but only played in two games. He's supposed to carry the franchise now? If he falters, they'll turn to Vick. So you're going to rely on an ex-con to save your franchise? Does any of this seem dumb to anyone else? To trust your franchise in the hands of an unproven rookie or an ex-con.

Some are saying that the Eagles wanted to do the right thing with McNabb and didn't want to trade him to Raiders or the Bills where he would be miserable. They wanted to trade him to a team that wasn't a disaster. While the Redskins are not exactly the model franchise, they will now be forced to play against McNabb at least twice a year. Trading him within the division is idiocy. My favorite quote is from Andy Reid, "We thought this was the best for Donovan and the compensation was right. We surely took into consideration Donovan's feelings.'' HA HA HA HA!! You took his FEELINGS into consideration? Will he consider your feelings when he's throwing for 300+ yards and 3 TDs against your team? Will he consider your feelings when his Redskins beat your Eagles twice, preventing you from making the playoffs?

This trade won't start a dynasty in Washington, but it will move the Eagles a step closer to becoming the new Detroit Lions. Philadelphia doesn't have a lot of patience and watching their Eagles go from potential Super Bowl contenders to basement dwellers won't sit well with the Eagles faithful. There's an expression, "You don't know what you have until its gone." Well the Eagles are going to find out what they had real quick and maybe 46 years from now that will prevent them from trading another franchise pro bowl QB to the Redskins. Of course, this is the Philadelphia Eagles and there is a reason why they don't own a Super Bowl title.

Sidney Crosby is real life Shooter McGavin

2010-03-23T13:10:00.005-04:00

In 2005, the Penguins won the draft lottery which gave them the first overall pick in the NHL draft. It was a no brainer as to who they were going to pick. Sidney Crosby was the most hyped player entering the draft since Mario Lemieux twenty years earlier. This was going to be a banner day for hockey in Pittsburgh. The next "Great One" was going to fill Lemieux's throne and carry the Penguins into a new era. Growing up, he idolized Steve Yzerman, probably one of the classiest players in the history of the game. The teenage Crosby was also going to be living with another class act, Mario Lemieux. Pittsburgh thought that had a combination of class and skill, but over a few years, what they found out they had, was a real life version of Shooter McGavin.

For those of you that don't know who Shooter McGavin is (and shame on you if you don't), he was a character in the movie "Happy Gilmore". McGavin was an incredibly talented golfer that believed he was the best and that it was "his time". When things were going well and he was on top of his game and winning, he always said the right things, smiled for the cameras, etc. However, when Adam Sandler's character Happy Gilmore showed up, things started to go down hill for McGavin and his demeanor changed. There was some question as to who the better golfer was, the aggressive, physical Happy Gilmore who owned the best shot in the game and loved to showboat? Or Shooter McGavin who simply couldn't handle losing and did everything in his power, legal or illegal, to win? Hmmmm... do these two sound like anyone else we know? **cough** Ovechkin / Crosby **cough** Man, this cough is terrible.

I had heard a rumor in which Crosby said to Ovechkin, "Just stay out of my way... or you'll pay! LISTEN to what I say!" and Ovechkin responded with "Hey, why don't I just go eat some hay, make things out of clay, lay by the bay? I just may! What'd ya say?"

Crosby's antics are tainting his image and ruining him. I noticed this early on in his rookie, year, but I figured he was just trying to make a name for himself. Even Lemieux was feisty in his rookie season. But as the years went on and Crosby gained more responsibility, nothing changed. If anything he got worse. The real eye opener was Game 4 of the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals against the Detroit Red Wings. The Penguins were down 2 games to 1 and needed to win at home. The Wings were up by a goal late in the game and the Penguins were going on a 5-3 powerplay. That's when Henrik Zetterberg made one of the most incredible defensive plays in the history of the Finals, defending Crosby and knocking the puck off his stick. Had it not been for that play, Crosby would have easily scored and tied it up. Zetterberg went on to dominate on the penalty kill and the Wings won the game. After the game ended and the Wings were skating to their locker room, Crosby, the captain and poster boy of the NHL, goes after Zetterberg, gets in his face and starts talking trash.

That was my first indication that something wasn't right here. The next season, Crosby was going head to head with his rival Alexander Ovechkin in the second round of the NHL playoffs. In Game 2 in Washington, Ovechkin scored a hat trick, putting his Capitals up 2-0 in the series. After the game, Crosby, who scored a hat trick of his own in that game, complained about how many hats were being thrown onto the ice after Ovechkin scored his 3rd goal. Seriously? Would he be complaining about how many hats hit the ice if he scored a hat trick at home? I didn't think so. As the hats were raining down, some Caps fans said they could hear Crosby yelling, "Damn you people. This is hockey. Not a rock concert!"

Later in the same playoffs, Crosby met the Detroit Red Wings and Henrik Zetterberg yet again. Crosby started off the game with a blind side hit on Zetterberg, you know the kind that gets you suspended... oh wait... no it doesn't. Just ask Matt Cooke.

Zetterberg, however, shut him down yet again and the Wings won Game 1. After the game ended and the Wings were headed off the bench to congratulate Chris Osgood for his win, Crosby decides to slash Kirk Maltby in the foot. Now granted, it was a small slash and Maltby has probably feels more pain from a stubbed toe than this slash, but what is that about?? You're the captain of a championship caliber NHL team. You CANNOT do stupid things like slash a player after the game is over. When the series switched over to Pittsburgh and the Penguins got back into the series, everything was fine with Sid. The Penguins looked strong, everything was going his way and then Game 5 happened.

The Wings got off to a fast start and began to rout the Pens. Crosby, out of nowhere decides, he's going to two hand Zetterberg in the knee:

There's another Pennsylvania team that plays hockey like that. "We're not going to win, so we'll just injure you to make sure we win the next one". I've always said that kind of sportsmanship has no place in hockey and always cheer against whomever plays against the Flyers. You should want to beat your opponent when they are at their best. Trying to injure your opponent to give you an advantage in the game is cowardly.

Last night was just another example of Crosby being a sore loser. Once again, Zetterberg shut down the Penguins captain and held him pointless. In the final seconds of a 3-1 game with Crosby on the wrong end of the scoreboard, he just flat out assaults Zetterberg with his stick and starts punching. The Detroit faithful rained down chants of "Crosby sucks" during the fight. I wonder if he was thinking to himself, "Damn you people. Go back to your shanties."

THIS is garbage. Talent wise, he's unbelievable and without question one of the best in the game. But his character really comes into question when he acts like a thug. Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Wayne Gretzky, Guy LaFleur, Joe Sakic... these guys never did anything like this. They were talented AND classy. They respected the game and the players in it. They didn't take cheap shots at opposing players that were getting the better of them. They just worked harder, became better players, which is why they eventually became unstoppable. Crosby needs to clean up his act if he ever wants to be mentioned in the same breath as the players I mentioned above. However, if he stays on this track...

Saints did not win it, the Vikings lost it

2010-01-27T13:18:00.001-05:00

Now I'm a guy that will give credit where credit is due. If a team goes out there and outplays the other one, I'll give them credit, even if I don't like them. This past Sunday, the Saints moved on to their first ever Super Bowl after getting past the Minnesota Vikings. Heading into the Super Bowl, I would love to say that the Saints beat them by outplaying Minnesota, but that's just simply not true. The Saints are going to be marching into a game that they should not be in, instead of watching the greatest quarterback of all time face off head to head against the best quarterback in the game today on the grandest stage in sports. I have nothing against the Saints, but they don't deserve to be there.

5 Vikings Turnovers: When you turn over the ball this many times, its pretty tough to win against any team. Let alone against the number one seed in the Conference Championship. However, despite all of these turnovers, the Vikings still had a very good chance to win the game. How does that happen? How can a team make so many mistakes yet still have an opportunity to win? These dumb mistakes were devastating to the Vikings, but really they did it to themselves. You could make the argument that the Saints "forced" the turnovers and in some cases you're right. But what did the Saints have to do with the Adrian Peterson fumble at the Saints 4 yard line at the end of the first half? Peterson couldn't handle the hand off from Favre and he lost it.

Unnecessary roughing: I really hate these overprotective rules that protect the quarterback, but rules are rules and you can't pick and choose when you're going to follow them. Midway through the 3rd quarter, Brett Favre was picked up and basically slammed into the ground by a Saints defender. Unnecessary roughness was called and the Vikings received 15 yards and a first down. The Saints faithful were outraged and booed mercilessly. Four plays later, two Saints defenders get to Favre, one hits him below the waist after the pass is away. Correct me if I'm wrong, but by rule, if you hit the quarterback below the waist, its an automatic 15 yard penalty. On the play, the pass was intercepted and rather than charge the Saints with another 15 yard roughing the passer penalty, give the ball back to the Vikings, and upset the fans any further, the refs ignored the rule book, looked the other way and allowed the Saints to have the interception. Lesson learned here, you can only get one roughing the passer penalty per drive. After that, you can do pretty much whatever you want to him, the refs won't call it, because God forbid that penalty gets called more than once on a single drive.

Missed opportunity: At the end of regulation, Favre drives the Vikes right down the field, and into field goal range. On 3rd down, instead of going for the 50 yard field goal, the Vikings decide to run another play to get closer. Inexplicably, after a timeout, the Vikings have 12 men in the huddle, pushing them back 5 yards, making it a 55 yarder. The Vikings now feel they have to throw the ball to get those yards back. Favre gets flushed out of the pocket, has at least 5 yards if he runs it himself, but instead throws back across his body to the middle of the field and its picked off. If it isn't for Favre's poor decision, the Vikings are kicking a game winning field goal and going to the Super Bowl, despite all of the mistake they made throughout the night.

Awful officiating in OT: After winning the coin toss, the refs did everything except kick the ball through the uprights for the Saints. The refs make a questionable holding call on 3rd and 7 that extends the drive. A few plays later, the Saints come up short and decide to go for it on 4 and 1. Pierre Thomas leaps into the air, gains the first down, but a Vikings defenders' helmet hits the ball, knocking it backwards behind the line of scrimmage. This wasn't like breaking the plane of the goaline or being pushed backwards after his forward progress was stopped. Even though he held onto the ball, it wasn't where it needed to be for a first down. Sorry Saints fans, but it should have been the Vikings ball at their own 43. The very next play was even more outrageous. Drew Brees throws a pass well over the head of his intended receiver David Thomas. However on the play, Thomas falls over while backpedaling and being covered by Vikings LB Scott Fujita. The two never even made contact until the ball was beyond Thomas. If you're going to call pass interference on a play that pretty much guarantees one team a trip to the Super Bowl, you better be damn sure you're right. They were not. It was an AWFUL call. No way to sugar coat it either. I'm not saying the league "conspired" against the Vikings. I'm just saying that the refs made very bad calls at very big moments and it may have cost the Vikings a trip to the Super Bowl.

Vikings Luck: I talked with a Vikings fan online the other day and he was feeling pretty lousy about the loss, but said he's used to the disappointments. He went on to list of number of things that were unbelievable, but all true. Here is what he had to say...

The Vikings have had the worst luck of any Pro team in sports history other than the Cubs...102 years and counting....
- 4 Superbowl losses
- 5 NFC Championship game losses
- Jim Marshalls wrong way run
- The "Hail Mary" pass Drew Pearson caught against the Vikes in 75 NFC championship to give Dallas the win in the final minute.
- The Herschel Walker trade in which Vikings gave Dallas three 1st rounders, three 2nd rounders, plus a 3rd and a 6th rounder in addition to 5 players. Walker lasts only 3 seasons in Minnesota
- Korey Stringer dies in training camp.
- The love boat incident
- Gary Anderson who had just completed the first perfect regular season in NFL history (not missing a single extra point or field goal attempt the entire year), missed a 38-yard attempt with less than 2 minutes remaining in NFC championship game that most likely puts Vikes in Superbowl in 98.
- Vikings despite being favored, lose 41-0 in NFC championship game in 2000.
- Green Bays Antonio Freeman makes one of the all time great miracle catches in overtime to defeat Vikings
- In 2003 Arizona's last second touchdown on 4th and 28 against Vikings eliminated Vikings from playoffs. The moment of Arizona's touchdown was actually the first moment the entire season in which the Vikings hadn't led their division. The Vikings became the second team in football history to miss the playoffs after getting off to a 6–0 start
- ADD TERRIBLE DEFEAT 31-28 OT to the Saints in the 2009 NFC Championship game..... why did Childress not kick a 50 yard field goal on 3rd down to win it before the Moronic 12 man in the huddle penalty !!!! CMON MAN, how bad of a decision is that ???? Longwell was good to at least 55, CMON MAN!!!!!! and then Favre could have run it AGAIN to the 35 for another 52 yard field goal try. You blow it twice!!!!! CMON MAN !!!!!!!

I knew the Vikings had bad luck, but look at all of this! I never realized it was this bad. As much as I would love to say the Saints beat the Vikings, its simply not true. Whether it was because of bad officiating, bad breaks or just bad luck, the Vikings had more to do with their loss than the Saints did with their win.

SteelerNATION spoiled

2009-12-07T11:48:00.009-05:00

So yesterday the Pittsburgh Steelers lost their fourth straight game and it was at home to the lowly Oakland Raiders. This loss drops the Steelers to 6-6 and puts their playoff hopes in jeopardy. While it is tough to see the Steelers lose to bad teams that they should crush like Oakland, KC, Cincinnati and Chicago, nothing will ever change the fact that this team won the Super Bowl just one year ago. Ben Roethlisberger is still an elite level quarterback. Rashard Mendenhall is justifying the first round pick the Steelers spent on him last year with his strong play. Santonio Holmes is having a breakout season we expected. Mike Wallace is a great 3rd receiver as a rookie and will only get better as time goes on. The defense, although shaky at times, is still better than most defenses in the league and has the stats to back it up. This team will remain one of the better teams in the league for years to come yet listen to the talk shows. Read the newspaper. Read message boards. You would've thought the Steelers lost their 16th game of the season. All you'll find is dumb beer drinking yinzers whining about how lousy the team is, that Mike Tomlin needs to be fired and that the Steelers should tear apart the franchise and rebuild from the ground up. Unbelievable.

The Steelers have been one of the NFL's most successful franchises over the past 17 years which includes 12 playoff appearances, 10 division championships, 7 AFC Championship appearances, 3 Super Bowl appearances and 2 Lombardi Trophies. Some franchises don't have those kind of credentials after 40 years, let alone 17. Unfortunately, with that success the Steelers now have a legion of fickle bandwagon fans that "bleed black and gold"... as long as they're winning. There's nothing more frustrating than having to cheer side by side with someone that will turn their back on the team the minute things don't go their way. Some of them will complain about the coaching and demand that "Mike Tomlin be fired immediately". In his first two full seasons as the Steelers head coach the Steelers have won two division titles, led the league in defense and won a Super Bowl. Yes, that's right yinzers. Those of you that have had too many Iron City's probably don't remember the fact that the Steelers won the Super Bowl just 10 months ago. Not 10 years, 10 months. But that doesn't matter right? You and all three of your remaining brain cells think that Tomlin needs to be fired, the defense (which ranks 1st against the run and 5th in total yards) needs to be rebuilt and something needs to be done with this Ben "Roethenburger" guy, all because the Steelers lost a few more games than expected this year.

I keep hearing yinzers refer to the Steelers as a "bad" football team. You think this team is bad? When I first started watching football (1986) Mark Malone was their quarterback. For a bit, I thought he was pretty good. I mean, he completed one out of every three or four passes. Then I saw other QB's in the league and how their passes would actually be to a receiver and not 10 feet over their heads or hit the ground 5 yards in front of them. They lost three games very badly that year, 30-0 to Seattle, 31-7 to Minnesota and 34-0 to New England. Funny... I don't recall anyone calling for Chuck Noll's head after that season and he hadn't won a Super Bowl in 7 years. The reason for this is because their wasn't any bandwagoners at this time. Just REAL Steeler fans. They went 8-7 in '87, 5-11 in '88 and those were some pretty brutal teams. I always roll my eyes when I hear some yinzer bashing Ben for a bad play. Clearly, they never watched the legendary quarterback that went by the name of "Bubby". Take the worst game you've ever seen Ben play. Now imagine him playing like that week in, week out for three years. When you've suffered through the Mark Malone / Bubby Brister days, a guy that occasionally throws a bad pass doesn't seem so bad. It didn't really matter though, no offense was going to be able to keep up with the number of points the defense was giving up. They were ranked 28th in 1988 and and 22nd in 1991. Today, they're ranked 5th despite injures to Troy Polamalu and Aaron Smith, but you're right yinzer nation, the defense needs blown up and rebuilt because despite having the number one ranked defense in each of the last two seasons before this one, they've clearly lost it now.

SteelerNATION has been spoiled over the last 17 years and unfortunately a good number of us have forgotten how to lose. Losing a few games, no matter who its against, is not the end of the world. Whether or not they make the playoffs this season is irrelevant. This core group of players has proven twice now that they are a Super Bowl caliber team and will make a lot more noise in the years to come. If the Steelers are not a good franchise, then nobody is. You can't win all the time. Losing happens to everyone and all you can do is suck it up and deal with it. If you can't, then don't watch sports because no one can win all the time.

Factoring In: 10/22/2009

2009-10-22T13:47:00.008-04:00

- So the Bears signed franchise QB Jay Cutler to a huge contract extension that means he will be with the team through the 2013 season. Not a bad move considering its been since... well since Sid Luckman in the 1940's that the Bears have had a franchise QB. But is Jay Cutler a franchise QB? Don't get me wrong, he's good. He has a rocket arm and pretty good accuracy, but is he good enough to deserve this much. Have the Bears seen enough of Cutler to know he's their guy? I've always said that Chicago is where NFL quarterbacks go to die. The only thing worse than having a lousy quarterback is having one that is sucking up a lot of salary cap space and not making an impact as big as his contract. In Week One, Cutler was picked off 4 times. The 4th one coming in the final minute of the game with Green Bay sitting back in prevent defense and the game on the line. A few weeks later he barely passed for over 100 yards at home against the Lions. Just this past week, Cutler was in a similar situation to Week One where he was facing a prevent defense in Atlanta and needed to score a TD in the final minute. Once again, he failed. To me a franchise QB drives down the field in that situation and scores. I don't want to hear, "He doesn't have the receivers". A franchise QB finds a way to get it done with or without great receivers. The Bears are a 3-2 (a 2-3 team if Jeff Reed doesn't miss two FGs) football team right now and I can honestly say I don't think things would be much different if they had kept Kyle Orton instead. Jay Cutler is a good quarterback, no doubt, but is he a franchise quarterback? Well the jury is still out on that one.

- Every year the San Jose Sharks look great in the regular season, get into the playoffs, expect to go far and choke. Joe Thornton is one of the best playmakers in the game and his numbers have steadily dropped since overpaid flash in the pans like Jonathan Cheechoo and Milan Michalek were placed on his line. Wisely, the Sharks get rid of the excess baggage trade them to Ottawa and get disgruntled superstar Dany Heatley in return. Thornton and Heatley make up one of the most dangerous combos in the league today. However, this is the response I read from Sharks fans: "When Heatley scores, I'll cheer but for the team and not that SOB", "Why did we get this cry baby?", "Heatley is a cancer!". Dany Heatley is a two time 50 goal scorer that led the Ottawa Senators, a team like the Sharks that used to choke in the playoffs every year, to the Stanley Cup Finals. His shot, playmaking ability and hockey smarts makes him one of the most dangerous and underrated players in the game today. Shark fans, you should be thanking the hockey gods every day since the Heatley trade. You have two phenomenal hockey players, in their prime, playing side by side on the same line and you're whining about his past and how he left Ottawa, etc. Who cares? You'll have a lot of excitement, win a ton of games and eventually break through and lead your team to the Finals.

- A couple weeks ago the New York Yankees won a critical Game 2 against the Minnesota Twins in the AL wildcard round. In the top of the 11th inning, Joe Mauer sliced a hit down the left field line, it landed in fair territory, but the umpire made a mistake and called it foul. Had it been called correctly, the Twins would've had at least a two run lead, maybe more. Instead the Yankees got out of the inning and went on to win the game in the bottom of the 11th. A few days ago the umpires made another bad call that favored the Yankees. Neither Jorge Posada nor Robinson Cano were standing on the third base, Angels catcher Mike Napoli tagged both of them, however, for whatever reason, only Posada was called out. In this particular instance, the outcome of the game was not affected as the Yankees won 10-1, but the media is going crazy saying its the "worst call ever in all of sports". First off, the worst call in all of professional sports is the "New England Snow Job" back in Jan 2002 when Tom Brady fumbled and the referees said it was an incomplete pass. That bad call not only cost the Raiders the game, but the Patriots went on to win their first Super Bowl in the creation of their "dynasty". But I digress... All of you people that are up in arms about umpires helping the Yankees, get a life. Nobody cares about the Twins. Take a look around, you don't see people wearing Twins hats all over the country. You don't see people talking about the Twins as being one of the most storied franchises in all of sports. If the Twins managed to knock out the Yankees in the first round, it would have been a tragedy for baseball. The Yankees have the history, the superstars, the stories, and the interest of most the country. Whether its to cheer for them or against them, people watch when the Yankees are involved. If the Twins made it to the ALCS you would've heard this loud unified clicking sound. It would've been the sound of America changing the channel and no longer caring about baseball. As for the Angels, one bad call doesn't put the Yankees up 3 games to 1 on the Angels. So quit whining about a call that had no effect on the series, get that rally monkey off his ass and start praying for a big comeback.

Steelers > Patriots: Get over it

2009-09-21T10:26:00.018-04:00

I was watching the CBS NFL pregame show yesterday and Boomer Esiason was asked "Which team would be better head to head? The Steelers or the Patriots?" and without much hesitation, Boomer said the Patriots. Why? Tom Brady. Its the answer everyone in the media gives whenever asked about the Patriots.

Who will win the Super Bowl?
The Patriots
Why?
Because of Tom Brady
What about the aging defense?
Tom Brady
What about the poor offensive line and the lack of a running game?
Tom Brady
What about...
Tom Brady

I'm sick of it! Enough is enough! Its been 5 years since the Patriots won their last championship and the media still talks as if we're in the middle of their dynasty. Ben Roethlisberger has won two Super Bowls since the last time Brady held the Lombardi trophy, yet every year, its "the Patriots are the favorites because they have Tom Brady". Instead of just blindly throwing out the name "Tom Brady" when asked about the Patriots, actually take a good long look at the team around him. Lets compare the Steelers and Patriots as they are right now:

Ben Roethlisberger vs Tom Brady:
Brady is a great QB. He owns the record for TD passes in a single season. He won three Super Bowls, two SB MVPs awards and was the league MVP once. But right now, he's a great pocket passer, that can't really move that well and his offensive line is old, slow and isn't doing a good job of protecting him. Meanwhile, Ben is a playmaker. If he's given time to sit in the pocket, he'll kill you. If the pocket collapses, he can run around, make a big play and kill you that way. Pick your poison. I'm not going to go as far as to say that Roethlisberger is better than Brady right now, but he's pretty close. Advantage: Tie

Steelers RBs vs Patriots RBs:
The Steelers running game has gotten bad over the past couple years, but its better than the non-existent one of the Patriots. Brady has thrown the football 100 times so far this season. For you math majors out there, that means he's throwing an average of 50 passes per game. Who could blame them though? The offensive line gets virtually no push and the guys handling the ball are an over the hill Fred Taylor and a never will be Laurence Maroney. Meanwhile the Steelers have Willie Parker, Rashard Mendenhall, and Mewelde Moore who are all victims of a poor offensive line, but should that line suddenly get better, these guys are a much better option than what's in New England. Advantage: Steelers

Steelers WRs vs Patriots WRs:
Randy Moss is one of the best in the game today and Wes Welker is a great underneath receiver that makes a lot of tough catches in heavy traffic. On the other side we just have a couple of Super Bowl MVP's. Holmes is really breaking out since the Steelers have decided to pass more and Hines Ward is the toughest receiver in the NFL and nobody makes tougher catches in heavy traffic better than him. The Patriots have a decent third receiver with Joey Galloway, while the Steelers have a great TE in Heath Miller. Really tough to decide this one. Advantage: Tie

Steelers OL vs Patriots OL:
What can you say about these guys? Neither can open holes for the running game. Neither can protect the quarterback that well. Advantage: Tie

Steelers DL vs Patriots DL:
Vince Wilfork, Ty Warren and Jarvis Green are good, but they're not Casey Hampton, Brett Kiesel and Aaron Smith. Hampton is probably the best nose tackle in the game and Kiesel and Smith are very difficult to contain and open up a lot for their linebackers. Advantage: Steelers

Steelers LBs vs Patriots LBs:
Ha!!! This isn't even close. The NFL defensive player of the year James Harrison, tackling leader and big run stopper James Farrior and two young dynamic LB's that get better each week Lawrence Timmons and LaMarr Woodley. Adalius Thomas is the only good LB on the Patriots defense. No question who's better here. Advantage: Steelers by a lot

Steelers secondary vs Patriots secondary:
This is something that the Patriots keep patching together and it ends up working out, but I think ole Bill Belicheat is out of duct tape. They have never really been that impressive since Ty "I'm allowed to commit pass interference" Law left. The Steelers on the other hand have a great shutdown corner with Ike Taylor and the best saftey combo in the league by far with heavy hitting (just ask Wes Welker) Ryan Clark and the tasmanian devil Troy Polamalu. Not even close. Advantage: Steelers

You can feel free to dispute this, but you'd be wrong. The Patriots are a shadow of the team that won the Super Bowl in '04 and the '07 seems just as distant. They've lost a lot of key components; Mike Vrabel, Teddy Bruschi, Ty Law, Richard Seymour, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel and they've been replaced by garbage. Defense wins championships and the holes on the New England defense is why they haven't won one in 5 years.

So while the media keeps boasting Tom Brady this and Tom Brady that, reality will definitively show the world that Tom Brady is NOT the answer to everything.

2009 Super Bowl Prediction

2009-08-31T12:02:00.009-04:00

At this time every year, every sports media outlet comes out with their "Super Bowl Predictions" and about a month into the season, most of those predictions are blown out of the water. If you want a good laugh, check out the Sporting News prediction for this upcoming season. Yes, the same Sporting News that predicted a Charlie Batch lead Lions team would win the SB one year. Lots of people picked the Patriots to win it all last year. Then Brady got injured... the end. The Steelers had the toughest schedule in football in '08 and were a 10-6 team in '07. They go on to win the Super Bowl. Predicting who's going to win the Super Bowl is like trying to predict the weather without any equipment. There's too many variables to be able to accurately predict something so unpredictable... but that doesn't mean I won't try. So without further ado, I'm going to make my SB XLIV prediction.

AFC East: The Jets regressed from Favre to a rookie QB, the Dolphins won't take anyone by surprise this year although they are headed in the right direction and the Bills are still the Bills. The Patriots win this division by default.

AFC North: This will be Brady Quinn's "get used to the league" year, so the Browns will be bad, but at least they're progressing. The Bengals will show the league for another year why no one takes them seriously. The Ravens will be a tough team, as always and if Flacco can build off what he did last year, they'll be a great team once again. However, the defending SB champion Steelers are still the class of the division and should claim the division title.

AFC West: You have to love this division. It was won by the Chargers last year via a tie breaker with the Broncos. Both teams were 8-8. The Chargers should be better this year. LT is healthy, Shawne Merriman is back while the rest of the division has gotten worse. The Broncos traded away their franchise QB for a serviceable starter. The Chiefs haven't changed much except for their coaching staff and QB. The Raiders continued their tradition of wasting high draft picks on "reaches", "projects" and "busts".

AFC South: Don't expect the Titans to repeat as division champs this year. They're a good team, but they will not be 13-3 this year. The loss of Albert Haynesworth is a big one. The Colts are the best team in the division, but its going to be a slug fest for the title. The Texans finally look ready to make a big impact with all of their offensive weapons, while the Jaguars feature one of the most versatile back in the game with Maurice Jones-Drew.

NFC East: I keep reading about how great the Giants are and how they're going to return to the Super Bowl. They stumbled through the second half of the season without Plaxico Burress then got knocked out by the Eagles in the playoffs. Without Burress or Toomer, who is Eli Manning supposed to throw to? The Cowboys will not be a better team without TO. Sorry, but they needed him. The Redskins upgraded their defense in a big way with Albert Haynesworth, but their offense is still boring and they're not going anywhere with Jason Campbell. The Eagles were the hottest team in the league at the end of the season and into the playoffs last year and playoff performances always seem to act as a precursor of things to come in the next year. The Eagles will take the NFC East.

NFC North: Vikings and Lions and Bears, oh my! Oh yeah and the Pack too. The Lions are in for another long season, but it won't be an 0-16 season. The Packers always bore me, but they're dynamic offense and Dom Capers led defense could make a lot of noise this year. This division race will be between two teams, the Vikings and the Bears. The Bears drastically upgraded their QB and the defense is still solid, but the Vikings have the best RB in the game today, the best offensive and defensive lines and now have Brett Favre. Even if Favre is average, it'll be better than what they've had over the last several years.

NFC West: This is the division everyone likes to have on their schedule. The Cardinals, Seahawks, 49ers, and Rams. Ironically enough though, each of these teams have played in the Super Bowl in the last 15 years. So it can't be that soft right? The 49ers are getting better, but very very slowly. Too bad that Alex Smith didn't pan out else they would be there already. The Rams are clearly in a rebuilding phase. The Seahawks are clinging to their 2005 SB team and are slowly getting worse. The Cardinals made it to the SB last year and have a cupcake schedule this year. As long as Warner stays healthy, the Cards will romp through this division.

NFC South: This will be the toughest division to pick. The Saints have the most explosive offense in the game, but still no defense. The Bucs have a HUGE hole at QB although their RB situation is the best its been in a long time. I like the Panthers, but I have serious doubt about Jake Delhomme after watching him meltdown in the playoffs. The best team in the division coming into the year is the Atlanta Falcons. As long as Matt Ryan doesn't suffer from a sophomore slump, they should come out on top in the division.

AFC Playoff Seeding:

Patriots

Steelers

Chargers

Colts

Ravens

Texans

NFC Playoffs Seeding:

Vikings

Cardinals

Eagles

Falcons

Bears

Giants

Wild Card Round:

Chargers over Texans

Ravens over Colts

Eagles over Giants

Bears over Falcons

Divisional Round:

Patriots over Ravens

Steelers over Chargers

Vikings over Bears

Eagles over Cardinals

Conference Championships:

Steelers over Patriots

Vikings over Eagles

Super Bowl XLIV:

Steelers over Vikings

Go ahead, call me a homer, but I think the Steelers are one of the more complete teams in the game today. Best defense in the league and one of the best playoff QBs I've ever seen. The Steelers have a great shot at repeating as SB champs and if they do, they'll have as many SB championships as the Patriots in this decade leaving us with, "Who is the team of the decade? The Steelers or the Patriots?" But the people that know football, already know the answer to that question. Hint: It's not the team that got caught cheating.

Factoring In 8/28/2009

2009-08-28T11:41:00.009-04:00

- Its being reported that Brett Favre's arrival to the Minnesota Vikings is causing problems within the team. Basically some people are happy to have him, while others would rather go with Sage Rosenfels or Tavaris Jackson. Look, I don't like how Favre acted like he was going to join the team, then re-retired, only to come back half way through the preseason and become the unquestioned starter either. However, to stand up for the Texans former backup QB or T-Jack, against one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game is foolish. This isn't like last year when the Jets discarded Chad Pennington for Favre. The Vikings QB position is sore spot on the team and has been for a number of years. Sports is all about winning. Its not about lessons or hurt feelings, its about winning. Brett Favre at age 40 is better than Rosenfels and Jackson in their prime. Brett Favre gives the Vikings the best chance to win a Super Bowl. Brett Favre is going to be their starting QB whether they like it or not so they may as well stop whining and focus on winning.

- Is anyone else as annoyed with Team USA's new hockey uniforms for the 2010 Olympics as I am? I'm all for nostalgia, but if you want to have a throw back jersey, just make it the third jersey, not your primary uniform. The light and dark jerseys are the boring and unimaginative. Now they do have a third jersey, that really appeals to the New York Rangers fans since its basically a carbon copy of their white away jersey, but to the rest of us its garbage. It was like the designers were sitting around at a table and one of them said, "Hey! Who's a red, white and blue team in the NHL?" Someone else says, "The Rangers!". "Perfect, we'll just use their uniforms, remove "Rangers" and put on "USA". That wasn't so hard!" I just feel bad for Scott Gomez who thought he would never have to wear that uniform again.

- The future of Chicago Blackhawks franchise is riding on the young, super talented winger, Patrick Kane and he beats up a cab driver over 20 cents... soak that in for a second. A player that will sign a contract next summer that will make him a multi-millionaire. A player that is the face of EA Sports' NHL 10. A player with a very bright future ahead of him, pleaded guilty to the charge of disorderly conduct and was ordered to send an apology to the cab driver he was accused of roughing up over 20 cents. 20 cents!! You can find quarters laying on the street! There's people making dumb decisions while their young and then there's this.

- Former Steelers wideout Plaxico Burress has done a lot of dumb things. Spiking the ball after a catch BEFORE your tackled, leaving the Steelers right before they win 2 Super Bowls, driving without insurance and getting into an accident, but none of them were as big as when he shot himself with his own unregistered gun. He was charged with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon. He'll now go to jail for two years with an additional two years of supervised release. So let me get this straight, Michael Vick can fund a dog fighting operation, assist in the brutal deaths of losing dogs and gets only 23 months in prison. Plaxico shoots himself and gets 24 months. Maybe its just me, but being stupid and accidently shooting yourself with a gun is no where near as bad as knowingly and purposely killing dogs in a savage manner.

- Speaking of Vick, the played in his first game last night to standing ovation from the Eagles faithful. So Philadelphia boos Santa Claus, pelts JD Drew with D batteries, booed Donovan McNabb on draft day, cheers for an ex-con. I would ask what's wrong with this picture, but then I think to myself, "Its Philadelphia". That pretty much explains it all right there.

-My favorite MLB team, the New York Yankees, have the best record in baseball, a 6 game lead on the Red Sux, and have as good of a chance as anyone to win the World Series... and I could care less. I watch SportsCenter to see if the Yankees won and if they did, I smirk a little, if they lose, I dismiss it quickly. With football revving up and hockey right around the corner, baseball season is already over. When the World Series is being played, I'll watch if the Yankees are in it, but if they're not and there's a hockey game between the Rangers and the Wild on, I'll watch the latter.

Factoring In 08/10/2009

2009-08-10T11:17:00.012-04:00

- Despite owning a black Michael Vick Falcons jersey, I'm not a big fan of him. In fact, I think he's an idiot. He threw away everything and for what? Dog fighting. It makes me sick to think about what he did to those dogs and if it were up to me, I would've thrown his ass in jail for life. But its not up to me and now Vick is back and looking to get back into the NFL. Despite my dislike for him as a person, he is a great football player and can single handily turn a loser into a championship caliber team. He already did it once with the Falcons. People forget that he took a 5-11 Falcons team in 2003, turned them around into a 11-5 team in 2004 and led them to the NFC championship game and pretty much did it all by himself. In order to be successful in anything you do, you need to be willing to do whatever it takes. The people that are willing to do whatever it takes, will always have an advantage over the people that are not. Nothing Vick did off the field should be considered when making football decisions. He is an exciting, 3 time Pro Bowl quarterback and if I was running an NFL franchise and my QB position was in bad shape (like a lot of teams are), I would've been trying to acquire him the second he stepped out of the jail.

- "Super Bowl Champion Peyton Manning is the highest paid player in football". That seems about right. Three time MVP, threw for over 4000 yards 9 times, threw 30+ TDs 4 times in his career. How about if I change one word in it? "Super Bowl Champion Eli Manning is the highest paid player in football". What?? So let me get this straight. A guy that has never won an MVP award or passed for more than 4000 yards in a season or thrown more than 24 TD passes is the highest paid player in football? What a complete waste of money! He's a solid quarterback, but highest paid player in football? Really Giants? Really? You know just because the Yankees spend like there's no tomorrow doesn't mean you can. There IS a salary cap. Instead of wasting that money on Eli, maybe they could have saved some of it and acquired a wide receiver to replace Plaxico Burress. This is simply wasteful and careless on the part of the Giants and it will bite them in the ass down the line.

- So "Big Papi" David Ortiz was outed for performance enhancing drugs. He appeared on the 2003 list of players that tested positive for drugs. I have been saying for 5 years now that Ortiz was on something and people looked at me like I just swore at the Pope. In 2002, good hitter, but by no means anything special. By 2004, he was giant, power hitting MVP candidate. Take a look at Ortiz prior to 2003 and take a look at him now. Huge difference in body type. Take a look at his numbers. In 2002, he had 20 homers and 75 RBI. After that year, his homerun totals increased fast (31, 41, 47, and 54). Once the league announced that they would punish PED users, his numbers suddenly began to drop, 35 HR in 2006, 23 in '08 and just 15 so far this season. Ortiz also had heart problems last year. According to BodyBuilding.com, heart problems can be a problem for steroid users. Now Ortiz is denying it. After all that's the baseball way. Deny, deny, deny and then when there's a mountain of indisputable evidence against you, you apologize, say you made a mistake and everybody's happy.

- Lots of people have been asking me "What do I think of the Red Wings off season?" expecting me to say "Ohhh we're doomed. We lost Hossa, Samuelsson and Hudler and now we have no one." The Wings won the Cup without Hossa in '08, Sammy has been replaced with Jason Williams, who already knows the Wings system and Patrick Eaves will be every bit as good as Huds, if not better. Plus, the Wings will now get full time contributions from Darren Helm, Jonathan Ericsson and Ville Leino who will be a Calder finalist this upcoming season.

- The New York Yankees own the best record in baseball. They have a $192 million payroll. The Pittsburgh Pirates have the 3rd worst record in baseball. They have a $49 million payroll. Baseball needs a salary cap. Despite there being 30 teams in MLB, in reality there's only about 6-8 teams while everyone else is simply a farm club for them.

Pirates starting over... again

2009-07-30T14:32:00.002-04:00

I hate to write it. You hate to read it. We hate to experience it... again, but the Pirates are wiping the slate clean and rebuilding. Its not the rebuilding that bugs me as so much as it is the people doing it. When you rebuild, you start with good young players. Guys that will still be around when the rebuilding is complete and you are contending for a championship. What bothers me is every year at this time, the Pirates trade away everyone of any value and you're basically starting from the ground each spring. Rome wasn't build in a day and the Pirates won't be built in one season.

Lets take 2003 for example. That year the Pirates looked pretty decent. They were much better than the 2001 team that finished with an embarrassing 100 loss season. They had two great hitters in the middle of the lineup, Brian Giles and Aramis Ramirez. Pirates fans had heard about the greatness of Ramirez for years and how he was going to be one of the cornerstones of the franchise. In his first full season (2001) he had a big year with 34 HR and 112 RBI. The next year, his numbers dropped a bit due to injuries, but in 2003 he was right back to where he was. Management decided that with the team at 44-53 and 9.5 games out of first, nothing special was on the horizon and decided that they would trade away players. That's fine. Reggie Sanders was a 35 year old journeyman who was swinging a hot bat that year, plenty of teams would love to add him to their lineup for a post season push. Plus, he was playing with just a one year deal anyways. Kenny Lofton was another veteran having a solid year that could be traded for prospects. But instead of trading one of their older expendable players, they trade 25 year old Ramirez! The young cornerstone that you could build around. On July 22nd, 2003 the Pirates threw away a franchise player along with Kenny Lofton to the Cubs, a division rival, and in return received pitcher Matt Bruback (who never made it to the majors), 2B Bobby Hill (who was batting .167 in Triple A at the time) and SS Jose Hernandez who led the league in strikeouts. What a slap in the face. Not only did they trade away a critical piece to the rebuilding process, but they get the worst players the Cubs had in their organization.

So let's fast forward to 5 years later. The team is still bad, but its showing signs of improvement. A 25th round draft pick named Nate McLouth was a godsend. He could hit for contact, hit for power, he was fast, he was good in the field, he was the total package. They also had the X-Man, Xavier Nady showing that he could be counted on to be an everyday outfielder. Catcher Ryan Doumit surprised a lot of people with his power and is one of the better hitting catchers in baseball. Despite not winning a lot of games, this team had a pretty good offensive lineup. Nate McLouth, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady were statistically one of the best outfields in baseball in 2008. Add Doumit and 2006 batting champ Freddy Sanchez to that lineup and 5 out of the 8 position players are pretty good. Just imagine if they had kept Ramirez. I was legitimately interested in the Pirates again. They weren't winning, but they had an offense. Going into the next year, all they would need to focus on is pitching. However, that optimism was short lived. On July 25th 2008, Nady was traded to the Yankees for prospects. Six days later Bay was traded to the Red Sox for more prospects. Then the following year, McLouth is traded to the Braves for prospects. Yesterday, Freddy Sanchez was traded away for prospects. Well, so much for that offense that you could have built around. Now instead of having hitting and no pitching, they have no hitting or pitching.

The few die-hards that are still with the team will argue, "They need prospects.", "Bay's contract was up and they would never be able to afford him", "The farm system is a mess, they needed to do this". Actually no, they need to build a winner! The Pirates have had high draft positions for the last 16 years, if you can't mold high draft picks into big league ball players, why is taking someone else's (questionable) prospects and sticking them in your farm system going to make it better? You had good players on your team. They had something to build around. Trading Bay and getting pretty much nothing in return gives you nothing. Nothing on the big club and nothing in the minors. I will concede that right now, trading Nady and Marte looks like a pretty good deal for the Pirates and I think trading Morgan for Lastings Milledge was a good deal as well. But trading Bay and McLouth was a waste of talent. They traded Bay, their best player and franchise cornerstone, and didn't even get one of the Red Sox best prospects. The same goes for McLouth. The same went for Aramis Ramirez. Could you imagine if they spent the last 7 years just accumulating and holding onto the talent they had instead of "trading it away for prospects"? The Pirates will now attempt to "rebuild" off players that have little or no major league experience. Plus, let's say for instance that all these prospects they acquired do pan out and turn into stars. What evidence is there that would suggest the Pirates will sign them? Its an annual tradition in Pittsburgh to trade away All Stars for more prospects. Why will the Pirates hold onto these players when/if they become stars? They didn't hold onto the other prospects they had that turned into stars. Why will these group of prospects be any different?

To say I'm throwing in the towel because the Pirates traded Sanchez, Wilson and Snell yesterday would be ridiculous and wildly inaccurate. I gave up on this team 6 years ago when the franchise looked every Pirate fan in the eye, said "We don't really care how well this team plays. We just want your money" and traded Aramis Ramirez. Since then, I've cheered for the Pirates to lose 100+ games in hopes that if they get bad enough the die-hards that defend this franchise and their bad moves will turn against the owners, quit going to games and maybe, just maybe, force the owners to either sell the team or stop giving away good players. Albert Einstein described insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The Pirates have been trading away established talent for prospects for 16 years. The result has always been the same... a losing season. Continuing to do that is, by definition, "insane". I may sound like a frustrated fan, but the truth is, I'm far worse. I'm a former fan that has lost hope in the team and is losing hope in the sport altogether.

How do you solve a problem like Maria-n?

2009-07-07T14:53:00.003-04:00

On July 2nd, 2008, my wife picked up my buzzing cell phone as I had just received a text message. It was from my brother and he was cursing out unrestricted free agent Marian Hossa. I figured, "Oh well, I guess he left the Pens. I kind of figured that might happen." Maria continued to read the message saying that Hossa was on the Red Wings. My eyes were wide open with shock, "What?!". Hossa had turned his back on the Penguins for a team that almost everyone in the city hated. Hossa leaving was one thing, but going to the Red Wings was another. The city was outraged, while I was excited to have a top notch talent added to my team.

It made perfect sense. Even before Hossa was traded to the Penguins, he expressed a desire to play in Detroit. The Wings system and his style of play were a perfect fit and his good friend Tomas Kopecky was on the Wings as well. They signed him to a one year deal worth $7.45 mil. With Zetterberg and Franzen set to become free agents in the next off season, I kind of figured that Hossa was on the team for just this year and I was fine with that.

As the season started the addition of Marian Hossa proved to be big for the Wings as they were dealing with a Stanley Cup hangover and the usual dominant Detroit defense was sloppy, creating a lot of high scoring games. Hossa was up to the challenge as he bailed out the team on several occasions. He finished as the teams leading goal scorer with 40 goals (8 game winning) and was becoming a fan favorite. He did everything. He scored, he back checked, he even got into a fight with the Predators Ryan Suter at the Joe Louis Arena to chorus of cheers. The players, coaches and fans were embracing this player that passed up big money elsewhere to come to Detroit and try to win a Stanley Cup.

Despite his actions, Wings GM Ken Holland opened up the franchise checkbook and locked up, future captain, Henrik Zetterberg for life with a 12 year extension and power forward Johan Franzen with an 11 year extension. Fans were a little worried that with the salary cap, this would squeeze Hossa off the team, but Hossa said time and time again that he would be willing to take less to stay with this team and Holland said he would reach out to Marian with the best offer the team could make.

As the playoffs got underway, Hossa looked nothing like his regular season self and looked more like the poor playoff performer he was labeled before going to Pittsburgh. His defense was good, but his offense was non-existent. He scored just 2 goals in each of the first three rounds of the playoffs. Despite his absence on the score sheet, Detroit was able to make it to the Finals for the second straight season and play his former team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. In this championship round, Hossa went from being a playoff choker to a playoff joke. No one had more pressure on him in that series, but still he failed to score a single goal in the seven game series as his team lost by one goal in the final game. A crushing loss for the Wings, an even more crushing loss for him as he got to watch his old team hoist the Cup.

I felt bad for the guy. He passes up more money because he wants to win a championship so badly, comes to Detroit and falls just one game short and now his former team and fans gets to rub it in his face. There was always next year though. The team will be more focused, better defensively and will have their hunger back. Ken Holland offered Hossa a deal that would keep him a Red Wing for life. It was somewhere around $4 mil per year cap hit, which means he'd still make around $6 or $7 mil for the first 6 years of the deal, then it would trail off to lower the hit. At that point, he would either retire, get bought out or renegotiate a new deal. For a guy that has expressed such a strong desire to play in Detroit, it seemed like a no brainer. Then it happened. On July 1st, 2009, less than one year after he signed with the Wings, Hossa turns on his old team yet again and joins a team that his old team and fans would hate... the Chicago Blackhawks.

I don't get it. I don't get it from every point of view. I don't understand why he would leave the Wings, a team that he fit in with and came within one game of a championship with, to join the Blackhawks, a team that the Wings beat in 5 games without Datsyuk and Lidstrom. I don't understand it from the Blackhawks angle. They're a good young team with a lot of young superstars whose contracts will be up for renewal at the end of the the 09-10 season. They have their own version of Crosby and Malkin with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. With Hossa's contract on the books for 12 years, they risk losing these players along with a few other good young players. I don't get why Hossa would sign a lifetime deal with a franchise he's never played with before. Typically, if you sign a long term deal like this, you know what you're getting yourself into. In this situation, he doesn't know the city, the management, the coaches, the players, or the system. He could flop right out of the gate. Its a bizarre move for both Hossa and the Blackhawks and another tough loss for the Wings less than a month after suffering a tough loss in the Finals. No, Pens fans, the irony isn't lost on me.

Before July 1st, I said I would support and cheer for Hossa even if he left the Wings because I didn't want to be like the Pens fans were this past season with the hatred towards this nice, quiet, "shys away from confrontation" kind of guy. But blowing off the Wings, to sign with their rivals for just a little more cash... I can't do it. He could have signed with the Kings, Wild, Rangers, Sharks, Bruins, whomever. But the Blackhawks, nope. Can't do it. He's even making the same stupid mistakes this time around as well. When asked why he left Detroit, he said, "They have a chance to win the Cup". Hasn't he learned anything from what just happened to him this past season? Now he gets to play his spurned former team at least 6 times a year for the rest of his career. Will this guy ever learn? Now I along with other Wings fans can join Pens fans in bashing this mercenary that just keeps making one bad decision after another with his career.

Why am I a fan of the Detroit Red Wings?

2009-06-30T15:05:00.005-04:00

It's the question I've been asked over and over and over again. How can I be a fan of the Detroit Red Wings? What is wrong with me? With the Wings playing against the hometown Penguins in the Finals in each of the last two years, this question has been asked even more frequently. No one can understand WHY. Why would I cheer against my hometown team? How can I be so connected to a franchise that isn't in my hometown? Am I from Detroit? No. Are my parents from Detroit? Nope. Am I Mike Illich's long lost son? Doubtful. In this blog post, I'll answer this question and it'll either help you understand WHY or you'll think I'm completely insane. Either way, you'll never need to ask again.

I was about six or seven years old and my first full football season (that I cared to watch) had just ended. With baseball months away, I still had a hunger for sports and discovered the sport of hockey. I asked my parents what was this game and how come we didn't watch it like we do with football? I was told that the "Penguins suck" and were not worth watching. "Sucky" or not, I was going to feed my hunger with a healthy dose of hockey. I'm pretty sure it was a Friday night since that was the only time the Penguins were on non-cable TV back then and the Penguins were playing at the Joe Louis Arena against the Detroit Red Wings. After just one game, I was a fan of the sport. Lots of speed, shooting, action, hitting and if I remember correctly, lots of scoring too. Both Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman recorded hat tricks (ahhh 80's hockey), but it was the Penguins that came out on top in the end. Being an impressionable kid, I became a huge fan of both Lemieux and Yzerman and their teams. I watched the Penguins every Friday night and listened to Red Wings games here and there on a crackling AM radio station in Detroit that I could barely pick up.

Over the years, hockey became more popular. Around 1994-1995, more and more games were being nationally televised. Finally, I was able to see the Red Wings play someone other than the Penguins. In addition to being able to see them on TV, hockey merchandise, other than Penguins merchandise, became available in sporting goods stores. I remember this one store at Century III mall that had tons of hockey jerseys. I remember looking up at this purple and black Sergei Fedorov Western Conference All Star jersey like it was the Holy Grail. I got everything I could. Red Wings t-shirts, hats, jerseys, etc, to show my support for my other favorite team. As I wore my bright red Wings t-shirt and red hat to school, it became obvious to everyone that I was a Wings fan. That's when it started.

In 94, I wore a Chris Osgood t-shirt/jersey to school pretty often. That year, Chris Osgood had a first round playoff meltdown against the 8th seeded San Jose Sharks and the Wings were bounced in the first round. Boy, did I ever hear about it! You would have thought "I" was Chris Osgood with the amount of verbal abuse I took that spring. "Hey Osgood, you suck!", "Osgood? Its more like Osbad!", "Did you catch that Red Wings game the other night? HA HA!" and the typical "Red Wings suck!" every time I'd walk by. This experience didn't make me less of a Penguins fan, but it made me a much stronger Red Wings fan knowing that everyone I know, my whole world essentially, associates me with that logo, that team, those players. The Wings began to feel like MY team. In 95, the Wings destroyed everyone en route to the Stanley Cup Finals, but were then swept by the Devils. It was a tough loss, but the very next day I proudly wore my Wings t-shirt to school and still showed my support despite all the heckling.

On Friday, January 5th 1996, I got to see the Red Wings in person for the first time as they were in Pittsburgh to play the Pens. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. I got to the game early, moved down to the glass and watched the Wings up close during their pre game warm up. To this day I remember Sergei Fedorov flying past me several times during the warm up. I remember I could see individual beads of sweat on Paul Coffey's forehead. I could see the stitchings on the back of Yzerman's jersey. My brother and I were standing right next to Chris Osgood as he stood off to the side while Mike Vernon took a few shots. A slapshot from Dino Ciccarelli missed the net and loudly smacked the glass right near my head, scaring the heck out of me. It was awesome! Before the game everyone was asking me, "Who am I going to root for?". I made a choice and I decided to wear my Penguins jersey to the game and cheer for the Pens. As the game got underway, it felt weird. It felt weird to cheer against a team I have stuck up for, for years. If I remember right, it was a close game going into the second period, then the Pens broke it open. Lemieux and Jagr scored goals and taunts of "Os-good, Os-good" rained down. I was not one of those people as I barely cheered for the Penguin goals. In the third period, Ciccarelli found a lose puck in front and buried it on the backhand. For a brief second, I forgot where I was and who I was "supposed" to be cheering for and nearly jumped out of my seat and cheered. The game ended with the Penguins winning 5-2, but as we left the arena I promised myself, never again. I would never cheer against MY TEAM, under any circumstances.

That year the Wings finished with the greatest single regular season record of all time, but once again fell short in the playoffs getting knocked out by the Colorado Avalanche in 6 games. It was another devastating loss and of course, I had to hear about it at school as if *I* played for the team. That spring/summer, people couldn't talk to me without pretending to "choke". Hilarious. In 97, my senior year of high school, I would get the last laugh. The Wings shook up their roster a bit, got tougher and were built better for the post season. Going into the conference finals, the Wings would have to get past their arch nemesis and my 2nd most hated team, the Avalanche. I missed my senior prom to watch Game 1, which they unfortunately lost 2-1 making that night, that much crappier. But after that, it was all Red Wings. They won 4 of the next 5 games and were headed to the Stanley Cup Finals to play everyone's most hated team, the Philadelphia Flyers who had only lost 2 games in the first three rounds and captain Eric Lindros seemed destined to win his first Stanley Cup. Leading up to the Finals all I heard was how the "Big Invincible Flyers" were going to destroy my "little Russian Red Wings" and that MY TEAM didn't have a chance. The Wings taught me and probably the entire NHL a valuable lesson that year; speed kills. The Wings skated circles around the "big" Flyers and swept them in 4 straight, claiming their first title since 1955. It was a great win for Detroit, the Red Wings franchise, Steve Yzerman and a great graduation present for me as I would get the last laugh at all those jerks I had to put up with over the years. Its so true, whomever does laugh last, laughs best.

The next year, my first year away from home and in college, the Wings did it again. With fallen teammate Vladimir Konstantinov on their minds, the Wings played inspired hockey and triumphed over the Washington Capitals in 4 straight. I don't remember much from that playoff run, but I do remember Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals in Dallas. I had to get up early for work that day as I was supposed to work from 7am to 3pm. Unfortunately, the person that was supposed to come in at 3pm, didn't so I had to work a double shift. I ended up working till 8:30 or so. I was exhausted, wasn't in the best of moods and the game was starting later because it was in Dallas, but my Wings were one game away from the Finals and I thought, "As long as they win, it won't matter that my day sucked." I put on my red Chris Osgood t-shirt/jersey (since it was a road game and they were wearing red, I had to match) and got ready for the game. The Wings played well and were leading 2-1 in the third period. The Stars scored though, pushing the game into overtime, causing this long day to be even longer. Then it happened... Stars forward Jamie Langenbrunner took a slapshot from center ice and it got past Osgood for the game winning goal. That was it for me. I checked out of this game and this day and checked into Psychoville. After using up a lifetime worth of swear words in the quiet sleeping house, I stomped up the stairs, ripped off my Osgood t-shirt, slammed it into my drawer, punched it a few times and then attempted to go to sleep. Two days later in Detroit, Ozzie played one of the best games of his career and the Wings won 2-0. Not only was all forgiven, but now I felt like an idiot for ever doubting him. From that moment on, no matter how much I want to, I never doubted Osgood again.

The Red Wings wouldn't make it to the Finals again until the 2001-2002 season. In the beginning of the year the Wings made a bold move and acquired All Star netminder Dominik Hasek from Buffalo. When the UFA's saw this move, everyone was flocking to the Wings. Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille passed up big deals with other teams and took less money to play for the Red Wings. Despite all of the star power this team had, they fell behind the 8-ball early in the playoffs. The Canucks won both games in Detroit in the first round and it looked as though this dream team may have a nightmarish ending. During tough times like these, you look to your leader and the Wings had the best one to ever play the game of hockey... Steve Yzerman. He had missed 30 games during the regular season due to a severe knee injury. The doctors told him that if he got surgery, not only would he be done for the year, but as his age, probably his career. Yzerman wouldn't let his guys down and played on the bad knee. Opposing players kept knocking him over, tripping him and each time Yzerman would struggle to get back up, but he did over and over again. Sometimes using his stick as a crutch to get back onto his skates. His gutsy performance inspired this team of veterans, all stars and future hall of famers and brought them together to work towards a common goal. The Wings came back in the series against Vancouver and won 4 games to 2. The team followed their leader through the playoffs and to another Stanley Cup victory. It was the gutsiest, most inspiring performance I have ever seen. Remembering how Stevie sacrificed himself and played through the searing pain, inspires me today to never give up in anything I do, no matter what the circumstances. I think about this whenever our family is going through a tough time too. I think about how its important to have someone lead, keep everyone together and show them that their is always light at the end of the tunnel as long as you're willing to work hard enough to get there.

In 2005, I met the woman of the dreams, Maria. Actually, she's better than the woman of my dreams. She's more than I ever dreamed possible. The two of us fell in love fast and hard. We would do anything for one another. For our first Christmas together, she showed just how far she'd go. My Christmas gift was two tickets to go see the Red Wings at the Joe Louis Arena on New Years Eve! I was FLOORED. "I'm going to Detroit! I'm going to the Joe Louis Arena! I'm going to the Hockeytown Cafe!", I thought to myself. It was the perfect gift from the perfect woman. Then I thought to myself, "Why stop with a Wings game in Detroit? Let's go for it all." A week later, I bought an engagement ring. Not just any engagement ring either, the one she had been salivating over for quite some time. With the excitement of the trip, the game and, of course, the proposal, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We went to Hockeytown Cafe, which was incredible, then to the game. Each of us wearing Red Wings jerseys, we entered the Joe and it was like stepping into a painting. I've seen it in pictures and on TV for years, but finally, I was actually there in person. Its like a Red Wings hall of fame in the corridors and like heaven to me. The game was great! The atmosphere was great. The Wings were playing the Blue Jackets, who had long time Wings star, Sergei Fedorov playing for them, so the crowd was really into it. The Wings scored 5 times, including a Mikael Samuelsson hat trick and they won, 5-2. After the game ended, it was my turn. It was either going to make it the greatest night ever or make it the worst. I thought about proposing to her in the Joe, but I already had a plan and I was too nervous to change things up at this point. Plus, if she's says no it'll taint the JLA forever for me. We got back to the hotel, we watched the ball drop on TV and it was 2006! We kissed for a second then when she turned around to get more champagne, I turned around and grabbed the ring. With me in my Wings jersey and with her in her Wings jersey, I got down on one knee said that I wanted to "start off 2006 with a bang" and asked "Maria Catherine Williams, will you marry me?" She looked at me stunned and said "Are you kidding?" At this point, I was wondering "maybe I should have done it at the Joe. Maybe with all the people around us, it would have forced her to say yes or at the very least prevented me from jumping off the balcony". But Maria immediately followed up with "YES! OF COURSE!". Visit the arena, Wings win and getting engaged. My own personal hat trick was complete!

On December 23rd 2007, almost two years to the day since I visited Detroit, Maria gave birth to our second child and my first boy, Caleb. With my stepson already having a unique middle name, "Aragorn", giving Caleb a unique middle name wasn't out of the question. I picked it, we both discussed it, both agreed and his full name is Caleb Yzerman Fruscello. My family looked at me like I was nuts, but I felt it was perfect. To me, when I hear the name "Yzerman", I think of such words as "leader", "honorable", "classy", "good guy", "unselfish", "loyal", "winner", and "respectful". I want my son to have all of those qualities. But then who wouldn't?

During that same NHL season, the Red Wings made it to the Stanley Cup Finals and would play against, none other than the Pittsburgh Penguins. Of all years for this to happen, it happens the year Caleb was born. It was a hard fought series and my little man was right there with me in the rocking chair watching it. As the thrilling final seconds of that series ticked off the clock, I jumped up and celebrated. It was almost too good to be true. The Red Wings captain who shares the same first name as me, Nick Lidstrom, would pick up the Stanley Cup in the Mellon Arena, two minutes away from the hospital Caleb Yzerman was born in just 6 months ago. It was the greatest sports moment of my life and I don't think any championship will ever be able to top it. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in my warped perception of reality, it was like the Red Wings were winning the Cup in Pittsburgh for my son. Years from now, I cannot wait to take him to the Joe, point up to the rafters and show him the "2007-2008 Stanley Cup Champion" banner and say "They won that in Pittsburgh the year you were born."

This year with the Stanley Cup rematch, things didn't quite work out the way I had hoped. We fell one game short, but that's how things go sometimes and how you deal with those kind of disappointments says a lot about you as a person. It hurts, but it doesn't hurt any more or less than when they lost to the Ducks two years ago or to the Oilers three years ago. A loss is a loss and it sucks no matter how or when it happens. Now its time to look ahead to next year and think about how exciting it will be to watch the Wings go after another title.

When the Penguins lost last year people would come up to me and ask "So are you happy the Penguins lost?" to which I replied, "No... I'm happy the Red Wings won." I made a point not to "rub it in" as I know how bad losing can feel. I didn't print out any pictures of the Wings with the Cup and tape it on my desk. I didn't talk about hockey unless someone else started the conversation. I didn't go around asking Pens fans "Hey! Did you catch that Pens game the other night?". For over a year, I rarely wore my Wings championship t-shirt and when I did I made sure I wasn't going to be around any die-hard Pens fans that day. Yet when the Penguins won the Cup this year, most people (not all) couldn't wait to rub it in my face. People that I haven't heard from in years went out of their way to find me, just to rub in the Wings loss. I just rolled my eyes and shook my head. If that's how people want to be, that's their problem. One famous Yzerman quote is "When you lose, say little. When you win, say less." I think those are good words to live by.

I consider myself to be have been very lucky to able to witness the greatness of this franchise over the past 16 years. The Wings experienced a 42 year championship drought that included 6 losses in the Finals and several last place finishes. Since they ended the drought in 1997, they've won 4 Stanley Cups, 5 Campbell Conference Trophies, 4 Presidents Trophies and built a new championship team through the draft despite having the last draft position. No team in any sport has done what the Wings have. They were able to rebuild and win championships at the same time. Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk have picked up right where Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov left off and didn't miss a beat. As a diehard fan, its a dream come true. As a sports fan, its an amazing feat to behold.

For me, the Red Wings have become more than just a hockey team that I follow. Its become this entity that's tied itself to a lot of personal memories. It was there when I first started watching hockey. It was there when I graduated from high school (1997 champs) and started college (1998 champs). It was there when I finished college (2002 champs). It was there when I got my first job (2002 champs). It was there on my chest when I asked my wife to marry me. It will be with my son for the rest of his life (middle name, 2008 champs). Its shown me the importance of having leadership, respect and class.

When the Red Wings win, I'm proud and I celebrate. When they lose, I'm there to show my support. This is why I wear a team jersey that matches the players for each playoff game. This is why I get hyper over every win. This is why I get mad after every loss. This is why I defend this franchise and these players, day in and day out. This is why I gave my son the name "Yzerman". This is why the 2008 championship felt so good. This is why the 2009 loss made me feel numb. This is why their next championship will taste so sweet. This is MY TEAM. This is why I am a fan of the Detroit Red Wings.

2009 NHL Season Wrap Up

2009-06-18T12:40:00.019-04:00

Pittsburgh Penguins

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins on winning the 2009 Stanley Cup! It was probably one of most improbable championship victories I've ever seen. The team was ripped apart last summer via free agency and the team was getting pounded by basement dwellers like the Islanders and Maple Leafs before finally firing coach Michael Therrien in February. Enter Dan Bylsma. He comes in and installs a new, aggressive forechecking strategy that plays more to the players strengths. The change in strategy combined with a couple of trades and the Penguins were right back to being one of the elite teams in the league. They then climbed out of 10th place and skyrocketed up the standings. On the last day of the regular season they won the 4th seed and actually had home ice advantage during the first round of the playoffs.

As incredible as it was to see them rise so quickly, it was just as amazing to see them blast through the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Flyers remained on the wrong end of the leash in the first round. The new Capitals look just like the old Caps getting knocked out of the playoffs by the Penguins. In the conference finals, the Penguins pounced on a worn down Hurricanes team and won their second straight Prince of Wales trophy.

In the Finals, it was very apparent that the Penguins were simply the hungrier team. I don't know if it was because their former teammate, Marian Hossa, was on the other side or because they had just lost it the year before but a lot of the Penguins players played above their usual talent level and this gave them the edge they needed. For the most part Crosby and Malkin were shutdown by the Detroit defense and if the Pens were going to win it they would need big contributions from other players and they got it. Guys like Jordan Staal and Max Talbot scored big goals. Rob Scuderi and Brooks Orpik played outstanding defense and Marc Andre Fleury played probably the best hockey of his life in games 6 and 7. The Penguins proved that they are more than just a "two man show" as many skeptics had called them and the TEAM was very deserving of the Cup this season.

Looking into the off season, the Pens front office has their work cut out for them. Evgeni Malkin's contract extension will kick in next year and his cap hit will go from $3.8 million to $8.7 million. Jordan Staal who was making less than $1 million will now make $4 million. That's close to $9 million less to work with going into next season with guys like Satan, Fedotenko, Guerin and Scuderi all unrestricted free agents. The current salary cap is $56.7 million and if it stays the same the Pens will have about $8 million available to sign these players. However, the cap is projected to go down to $55 million due to the struggling economy. Whatever the cap may be, the Pens need to resign Rob Scuderi. He was a fantastic shot blocker and just a real good shutdown defenseman throughout the playoffs. He needs to be their top priority. Next, will be a top two line winger. Guerin will probably want too much, Satan isn't worth the equipment he wears, and I'm not a huge fan of Fedotenko, so the Pens will be better off looking elsewhere.

With the salary cap crunch going into effect, the Pens will need to get creative with their lines. I think the Pens will need to put Crosby and Malkin together on the same line and give Staal more responsibility as the second line center. Doing this gives Crosby and the elite winger he should have, validates giving Staal that bigger contract and gives the Pens two good scoring lines as opposed to having them all on separate lines and spreading their talent thin.

Stanley Cup Runner Up

Detroit Red Wings -Well this wasn't the ending I was envisioning (or hoping for), but the Red Wings have fallen just one game short of back to back championships. It's a tough pill to swallow, but as Henrik Zetterberg mentioned in an interview, the team will learn from this and use it as motivation for next year, just as the Penguins did this year. Losing in the Finals can be a great motivator for future playoff runs. When the Wings lost in the Finals in '95, they dominated the league for the next three years with the best regular season record of all time ('96) and two Stanley Cups ('97 - '98). Winners take negatives and turn them into positives and I believe this team knows that and will be back soon.

Before this playoff run began, I felt that Henrik Zetterberg was one of the best two way players in the game. Today, I know, without a doubt that not only is he the best two way player in the game, but he's one of the best players period. The Red Wings may have come up short of their objective this season, but it wasn't due to the lack of effort on the part of Zetterberg. His assignment going into this series was to shutdown two of the most dynamic offensive players in hockey and without his Selke nominee and teammate, Pavel Datsyuk, for most of the series he was going to have to do it by himself... and he did. Sidney Crosby recorded just one goal and two assists in the 7 game series while Malkin was limited to just 2 goals equaling the output of the Wings black ace, Justin Abdelkader. Z will probably never win the Art Ross or Hart Trophies, but his drive, leadership and talent should win him the trophy that matters most, the Stanley Cup, several times before the end of his career.

Going into this off season, like the Penguins, will have to make some tough decisions especially with the possibility of the salary cap shrinking. Zetterberg will get a $4 million dollar raise next year and Johan Franzen will get a $3 million dollar raise himself, giving them about $5 mil of cap space, $3 mil if it goes down. The biggest question mark is Marian Hossa. His disappearance in the post season will surely hurt his market value, but will it bring down his price enough for the Wings to resign him? The rumor right now is that the Wings are looking to lock him up, long term at $4 mil cap hit per year for the remainder of his career. Its up to Hossa now whether he wants to finish what he started and go after that elusive Stanley Cup with the team he believed he could do it with or jet off to somewhere else, take the big money and probably never get his name engraved on hockey's holy grail. As a Wings fan, I hope he takes a hometown discount and stays with the Wings. His style of play fits this team perfectly and his presence on the second line gives them the best second line in the NHL. If Hossa leaves, I would like to see the Wings go after Mats Sundin or Marian Gaborik or use that extra money to sure up the back end of their defensive corp because Lebda and Lilja are at times downright scary in their own end.

2009 Stanley Cup Finals Preview

2009-05-28T13:00:00.010-04:00

Detroit Red Wings (2) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (4)

Here we go again! The 2008 Stanley Cup Finals were so exciting we figured we'd do it all over again. Why not? Its good for ratings, good for the NHL, good for the fans... not so good for people like me that like BOTH teams, but whatever. I can endure a knotted up stomach and a painful headache for a couple weeks for the good of the game. With the way the NHL scheduled the games, the players will have to endure a lot more than what I'm going through. Despite both teams finishing off their conference finals opponents in quick fashion, both teams will be thrown right back into action this weekend with back to back games to boot. This bizarre scheduling could also affect the outcome of the series. Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar is playing with a bad knee and playing 3 games in 4 days at this stage in the season won't help. As for Detroit, they are currently without team captain and Norris Trophy candidate Nick Lidstrom as well as MVP and Selke candidate, Pavel Datsyuk. Both teams, Detroit especially, wouldn't mind having a few extra days to heal up, especially since both had a short offseason and are now here again.

Forwards: The Penguins have two of the best offensive forwards in the game today and they are both currently on fire. Their talent has sparked others and made them legitimate scoring threats as well. On the other side, Detroit has entire roster full of two way forwards led by the two best in the league, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. Under no circumstances can I see the Penguins having the edge in this category. While Pittsburgh's forwards mirror that of the 1980's Oilers, the Wings are built and play just like the 1970's Canadiens with the defensive forwards that can also score goals. Defense wins championships.

Defensemen: People will make the argument that Detroit's defense isn't as good as it was last year and that's true, its not, but that doesn't make it bad. As long as Nick Lidstrom is wearing the winged wheel, Detroit will have one of the top defenses in the league. The Wings second pairing of Kronwall and Stuart is better than most teams first pairings. The Penguins have a solid defense themselves, however each defenseman serves a specific role whereas Detroit's defensemen are more well rounded. Assuming Lidstrom comes back off his injury and isn't limited, the Wings win out here.

Goalies: Statistically, Chris Osgood has been the better goalie in these playoffs, however, I don't know if you'll find many people out there that would rather have Ozzie over Marc Andre Fleury. Fleury, all by himself, can steal a game which is one of the reasons why the Pens are so tough to beat. He does have his occasional lapse here and there and will give up a softie, but for the most part, Fleury is on his game and a tough playoff goalie to beat. Meanwhile, Chris Osgood has 3 Stanley Cups and still no respect. He's not the type of goalie to steal a game, but he is the type of goalie that won't cost your team a lot of money and does what is necessary to win games, year in, year out. He's not as flashy as Fleury, but he's just as effective. Still, I'm giving the advantage here to the Penguins.

For the Penguins to win this series: They need to harness all that emotion and hunger they have and use it in this series. The Pens are the younger, hungrier, healthier team and will want it badly. Guys like Talbot, Fedotenko, Satan, Kennedy, Staal, Kunitz, Guerin will all need to play at a higher level to overcome Detroit's depth advantage. If they can do that and Crosby and Malkin can continue to play at the high level they're at now, the Pens will win the series.

For the Red Wings to win this series: They need to be healthy. They won't beat the Penguins with 47 year old Chris Chelios playing defense. They need Lidstrom and Datsyuk. With these two in the lineup, Detroit will be able to nullify Crosby and Malkin, which would seriously cripple the Penguins ability to score goals. At that point, Detroit can use their superior depth to overwhelm Pittsburgh and win the series.

Prediction: With so many unknown factors going into this, its tough to say either way. If the Wings are healthy and Osgood doesn't have a meltdown, they'll take this series in 5 games. If they're not healthy, this will be a 6 or 7 games series and I think if it gets to that point, the Pens may have more in the tank to win it in the end, but really its a toss up. My official prediction is the Wings will get healthy and win back to back Cups.

The eliminated teams

Chicago Blackhawks - Ohhhhh those young Blackhawks. They came in ready to light the world on fire and instead got lit on fire by the defending champs. This Blackhawks team has a lot of good, young talent and will be in the playoff picture for years to come, but as far as the Western Conference Finals were concerned, they were taken to school. They didn't seem as desperate to win as the Wings. They didn't seem to go the extra mile. I read a quote from Patrick Kane saying that he's "here to score goals, not block shots". Its the playoffs, you do whatever is necessary to win. If it means sticking your face in front of a shot, you do it. This year's Hawks were compared to last year's Penguins by many, but this Chicago team is no where near as mature as the Pens.

While they have a bright distant future, they have a rocky near future. Chicago has over $12 mil tied up in two goalies, neither of which played well in the playoffs and $7 mil wrapped up in Brian Campbell who had a let down season and a forgettable playoffs. The Hawks have a lot of money invested in players that really aren't worth what they're being paid and with guys like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews approaching new contracts, one has to wonder what lengths Chicago will go in order to free up money to keep those two under the salary cap. They will have some interesting decisions to make in the next couple off seasons.

Carolina Hurricanes - Wow! What can you say about the Canes? They upset the Devils and Bruins in back to back series, then play probably the worst round of hockey I've ever seen against the Penguins. After two energy draining 7 games series, the Canes just simply didn't have it for this round and at no point in this series did it look like it was coming back. Crosby and Malkin just did whatever they wanted and Cam Ward played like he was "unconscious" in goal. Eric Staal, who had been a beast for the first two rounds, registered just two points and finished with a -7 rating. The Canes were lucky to be where they were, plain and simple. This is a two man team. Staal and Ward and that's it. Ward was off his game big time and Staal, with no one to pass to, was just swarmed by the Penguins defense. First up in the off season, sign Ward to a long term deal. He was amazing up until the Conference Finals and if Carolina ever wants to even think about returning to the Finals, they need to have him signed long term. Second, give Eric Staal someone to pass to. The poor guy is out there, basically by himself. Give him a legitimate scoring threat and it would do wonders for this club. If neither one of those are done, they may as well change their colors to dark blue, green and gray and move back to Hartford.

2009 Western Conference Finals

2009-05-15T14:33:00.006-04:00

Detroit Red Wings (2) vs Chicago Blackhawks (4)

And then there were two. The two left in the West are two teams that met each other many times back in the day when there was only six teams total. I'll be honest, I didn't expect the Hawks to make it this far. They're a young team that had zero playoff experience coming into the postseason. Now they're in the Conference Finals where they'll face a team with tons of playoff experience and lots of bling to go along with it. The Red Wings will be playing in their third straight conference finals while Chicago will be playing in their first since 1995 since they played the Wings. I believe the Wings faced their toughest opponent in Anaheim and should have an easier time against the inexperienced Blackhawks, but there is one wild card in this. The same wild card Detroit has in every round... Chris Osgood. Osgood played Chicago once this year and lost, while backup Ty Conklin owns a 4-1 record. If Ozzie struggles at all in this round, I wouldn't be surprised to see a switch. Prediction: The Wings have better depth in their forwards and on their defense plus they have the experience which is invaluable when you make it this far into the playoffs. It'll be a tough scrappy series, but the Wings will take it in 6 games.

The eliminated teams

Vancouver Canucks - Canucks goalie and team captain, Roberto Luongo made $7 million this year. Any chance they could get a refund? The Canucks most expensive player couldn't have played worse. In Game 1 he blew a 3-1 lead, only to be bailed out by his offense late in the third period. In Game 2, he was lit up for 5 goals and he was shaky the rest of the way. Nobody expected the Canucks to do anything this year, but nobody expected them to go out like this. If anything they were expected to lose because they couldn't score goals, not prevent them.

Where does Vancouver go from here? Well Sundin should retire. Both Sedin twins are UFA's this summer and Luongo is in the final year of his deal and will become a UFA next summer. This team is at an interesting crossroads and could re-invent themselves over the next couple years. They're a good team, but they're not exactly one player away from a championship. They're kind of in the middle of the road right now and don't appear to be moving forward and if you're not moving forward in the NHL, you're moving backwards.

Anaheim Ducks - You have to give credit where credit is due. I don't like the Ducks at all. They play a physical goon style brand of hockey which I think it absolute garbage. They have annoying players that make me want to jump over the glass and cross check them into oblivion. But, they beat the Presidents Trophy winning San Jose Sharks and pushed the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings to the brink in Game 7. No other team had a tougher task than the Ducks in this postseason and they stood up to the challenge, met it and fell just short. I can't stand the Ducks, but you have to respect them for how well they played in these playoffs.

Unfortunately for them, this may be the end of the road for this particular version of the Anaheim Ducks. Teemu Selanne and Scott Niederymayer may both retire and Chris Pronger is entering the final year of his contract. The good news though is that they shouldn't have a problem bouncing back. Ryan Getzlaf is one of the top 5 forwards in the NHL right now. Corey Perry just keeps getting better and better and will be a 40 goal scorer in this league soon. Bobby Ryan showed why he would've been the number one overall pick if Crosby wasn't in the same draft class as him. He has the potential to be the next big 50 goal scorer. Plus, let's not forget rookie goalie Jonas Hiller coming out of nowhere and stealing the number one job from JS Giguere. All of these players mentioned are 26 or younger. So while this version of the Ducks that won a Stanley Cup two years ago will fade away, Anaheim Ducks 2.0 looks to be just as good as the original.

2009 Eastern Conference Finals

2009-05-15T13:33:00.004-04:00

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) vs Carolina Hurricanes (6)

So the only thing standing between the Penguins and their second consecutive trip to the Finals are the Cinderella Carolina Hurricanes. Wow, did things break in the Penguins favor or what? Instead of having to deal with New Jersey or Boston, they get to play the team that knocked both of those teams out. No disrespect to the Canes, but I'll take the old Hartford Whalers over the Bruins and Devils any day of the week. On paper, this should easily fall in favor of Pittsburgh, but everyone thought that in the first two rounds too and the Canes are still here. The play of goaltender Cam Ward is the key to this series. He was a major factor in each of the upset wins. If he can continue his strong play, we're in for another long series. If not, the Pens will roll over them and roll fast. Prediction: I picked against the Canes twice and was wrong both times obviously. Well, third times, a charm... Pens in 6.

The eliminated teams

Boston Bruins - This one is a head scratcher. How do you go from being so dominant one minute to losing Game 7 in your own building after making a HUGE comeback? This Bruins team was strong, it was playoff ready, it had a strong defense, a top notch goalie, forward depth and yet still snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The B's can take away one thing from this though, a lot of their young players got some valuable playoff experience and you can never underestimate how important that is. Keep your heads up Bruin fans, you have a very bright future ahead of you.

Washington Capitals - While people are still debating on who's better, Ovechkin or Crosby, one thing is for sure, the Penguins still own the Caps in the playoffs. Their really wasn't a doubt in my mind as to how this was going to turn out. The Caps have Ovechkin, the Pens had Crosby. The Pens had Malkin, the Caps had... umm.. uhh.. you know that guy that looked like he was trying to break the plexiglass with the puck... Semin. The Penguins just simply had too many superstars, while the Caps have a bunch of guys that like to run their mouths (Semin), complain about their sticks (Mike Green) and whine about the pressure of having to play Game 7 at home (Bruce Boudreau).

After watching this series, I think Alexander Ovechkin is, without a doubt, the best player in the NHL. How could I possibly say that after he just lost to Crosby? This next sentence will clear everything up for you. Ovechkin scored 8 goals and picked up 6 assists against Marc Andre Fleury and the Penguins defense. Crosby scored 8 goals and picked up 5 assists against rookie goalie Simeon Varlamov and the Caps defense. Ovechkin, needless to say, had much tougher obstacles to overcome than Crosby. Not taking anything away from Crosby, but he had a much better team around him than Ovechkin who basically had no support from anyone but still managed to push this to a 7 game series. Without Ovechkin the Capitals are a lottery team. They have NOTHING beyond his line. They're basically just a bunch of warm bodies filling out uniforms. Varlamov may turn out to be a franchise goalie, then again he could be the next Jim Carey for them. Right now, they're a mess and really don't have a great team. They have one great player. If this franchise is able to give Ovechkin a supporting cast, they will be serious contenders for a Cup every year. Till then, its going to be Alexander the Great trying to cover up for all the Caps "great" gaping holes in their lineup.

2009 Western Conference Playoffs: Round Two

2009-04-29T14:42:00.014-04:00

Detroit Red Wings (2) vs Anaheim Ducks (8)

"Revenge is a dish best served cold" or in this case served "on" cold. In the 2007 playoffs, the Red Wings dominated the Ducks, yet still found a way to lose in 6 games. Two years later, these two meet up with each having won a Stanley Cup since that playoff encounter. Coming off a huge upset of the Presidents trophy winning Sharks, the Ducks are now looking to knock off the defending champs. Sorry quackers, but it isn't happening. The Wings are a better team than they were in 07 and even better than they were last year when they won the Cup. Unless Chris Osgood has a meltdown, there is no way the Ducks should come out of this alive. Anaheim gave the Sharks a lot of powerplays in their series and if they do the same to the Wings in this one, it'll be over quickly. Wings get revenge take this series in 5 games.

Vancouver Canucks (3) vs Chicago Blackhawks (4)

Its been so long since the Canucks have played a game it probably feels like they've been eliminated. Going into this series, that could be a problem for the Nucks as the Blackhawks will have had enough time to rest, but not get rusty. It should be another tough series for the Hawks and will probably go 6 or 7 games. Luongo did great against them in the regular season while the Bulin Wall was shelled by Vancouver twice. Its a tough call, the series looks to be pretty even, but I like the Canucks, with the extra rest, to come out on top in 7 games.

The eliminated teams

San Jose Sharks - My first reaction to seeing the Sharks upset by the Ducks was surprise, but then I thought to myself, "Why am I surprised? Its the Sharks! They can change that logo of the Shark eating the stick to a Shark choking on one." Despite racking up 117 points and winning the Presidents Trophy, the Sharks once again choked hard in the playoffs leaving their fan base and hockey experts shaking their heads in disbelief. The problem with this particular team is simple, the parts don't match machine their trying to build. Former Wings coach Todd McLellan came to San Jose with the idea that he was going to install Detroit's system and they would play like the Wings. The only problem is the personnel didn't match the system. The Wings system requires a good puck moving defense, three or four lines of speedy forwards that can backcheck, pass and possess the puck most of the time. The Sharks simply don't have those kind of players. The defense looks strong, although Rob Blake will most likely retire leaving a hole on the blue line and I'm starting to question whether or not Nabokov can be counted on to be a good playoff goalie after letting in some soft goals in this series. As for the forwards, beyond Thornton and Marleau, who do they have? Setoguchi? Cheechoo? Michalek? These are fringe second liners on most teams and should not be counted on to score most of your teams goals.

The Sharks don't need to "clean house" as some people have suggested, but they do need to make a few big changes starting with Joe Thornton. Thornton looked out of place in this series. He was forcing passes, not taking shots and showed no leadership qualities at all. He commands a big salary and will never fit in this particular system. So I would get rid of Jumbo Joe and look to replace him with a Marian Gaborik and/or Marian Hossa type of player. Which, by the way, are both are UFA's at the end of the season and both fit with what the Sharks are trying to do.

Calgary Flames -Alright, I think its time. They've proved it every year since reaching the Finals in 04 and now they are deserving of this glorious label... overrated. On paper, this team looks stacked. Iginla, Jokinen, Cammalleri, Phaneuf, Kiprusoff, but when it gets to crunch time, this team simply doesn't have the guts to get it done. For all the praise and hype Jarome Iginla gets, in three of the last four years he's scored less than 40 goals. He's a good goal scorer, but not an elite talent like everyone seems to think he is. Kiprusoff also hasn't lived up to the hype. His win total stays around 40 every year, but his GAA has gotten worse and worse and didn't look like himself at all in the playoffs. The addition of Olli Jokinen made them a darkhorse in some people's minds entering the playoffs, but once again the Flames burnout quickly and have to some tough off season decisions to make regarding personnel.

St. Louis Blues - Wait a minute. The Blues were in the playoffs? No seriously, the St Louis Blues. They were in it? Hmmm... I must have missed that. It seemed like before the playoffs really got underway the Blues were out of it. Andy McDonald looked really good for the Blues, but that was about it. Chris Mason looked good as well, but good isn't good enough in the playoffs. It'll be interesting to see next year if this playoff appearence was a sign of things to come or just a fluke.

Columbus Blue Jackets - The Blue Jackets waited ten long years before qualifying for the playoffs. Unfortunately, they'll have to wait a little bit longer to get their first playoff win. The team and franchise that had zero playoff experience ran into a team that couldn't have more, the defending champion Red Wings, and were swept. That's a very tough first draw for anyone. Super rookie Steve Mason looked very Clark Kent-ish with a GAA way over 4.00 and the Jackets offense scored a grand total of 2 goals in the first 3 games of the series. So they gave up a ton of goals and at the same time couldn't score any. Well at least they can say they were there, right? That's something.

2009 Eastern Conference Playoffs: Round Two

2009-04-29T12:05:00.018-04:00

Boston Bruins (1) vs Carolina Hurricanes (6)

After decimating their old rival the Canadiens in the first round, they'll meet another old friend from the Adams... sort of. The Bruins looked every bit like the number one seed in the first round and are looking to flex their muscles against a team that literally stole their first round series. Cam Ward was spectacular, but the Canes won two games they had no business winning in the final minutes of their series against the Devils. Their magic won't work in this series and the B's will take this one in 5 games.

Washington Capitals (2) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (4)

Don't be worried, everything's alright. That giddy little creepy laugh you hear is just Gary Bettman. He has the dream series he's been looking for and the national networks will be sure to cram it down everyone's throat, making every non-Penguin and Capital fans hate Crosby and Ovechkin even more. The series itself should be great though. Yours truly predicted a Caps comeback after going down 3-1 to the Rangers, but this round will be much tougher. The Rangers had ZERO scoring and relied on King Henry to play like a god throughout their first round series. This Penguins team can score. Caps rookie goalie Simeon Varlamov hasn't really been tested in the NHL, so its too early to tell if he's the real deal. So with the question mark in goal and the fact that the Penguins have the experience and are better built for the playoffs, I have to give the edge to the Penguins but I don't see them taking it in less than 7 games.

The eliminated teams

New Jersey Devils - Wow, when I saw how the Flyers were eliminated from the postseason, I thought "That is the worst way you can lose a series". Then the Devils had to go ahead and one up that. They were 80 seconds away from playing the Caps in the second round. However, once those 80 seconds ticked away, the Devils were no longer in the playoffs. This Devils team had all the components to make a long playoff run this spring, but nobody really played up to their talent level. The defense was bad, the offense was highly ineffective, mostly due to Cam Ward, and Marty Brodeur, "the greatest goalie in the history of the game", blew a lead at home in Game 7. It will be a long summer for the Devils who will have a lot to think about while they're watching everyone else compete for the Stanley Cup.

Philadelphia Flyers - My favorite headline from Philly.com, "Penguins steal series from Flyers". Seriously? The only time the Flyers even looked remotely like a playoff team was when the Penguins didn't play their "A" game. My detailed, well thought out assessment of the Flyers is... they suck. They were dominated last year and they were dominated again this year as far as I'm concerned. They blew a three goal lead, at home, with the season on the line. There's no excuse for that. Biron was lousy again. The coaching was bad again. Richards actually played worse in this series compared to last year. Their was never any doubt in my mind as to who was going to come out on top in this series. I would've bet my house on it.

Having said that, this team isn't that far from becoming a serious contender. They need to drop the dead weight. They need to fire John Stevens and for the love of God, get a goalie already! Its been the same story for the last 20 years with the Flyers. Great team, crappy goaltending. I thought Bobby Clarke was just simply blind to this defect, but apparently the entire front office can't see this either. Personally, I hope they never figure this out, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.

New York Rangers - I really can't say that I'm surprised by this. Aside from having an elite goalie, what exactly did this team have going for them and don't say a 3-1 series lead. The fact that they made it this far with this little offense is astounding. In a 1-1 elimination game, the Rangers registered exactly ONE SHOT on goal in the third period. Way to show a sense of urgency guys. This team was simply not that good. Take away Henrik Lundqvist and the New York Rangers become the New York Islanders with older players.

Montreal Canadiens - Sorry that the 100th year anniversary of the franchise had to end with a loss to one of your most hated rivals, the Boston Bruins. But that's what you get for cheating in the all star voting. This may be the last time we see the Habs in the playoffs for a few years. They need a massive overhaul and if they're lucky maybe they'll be able to unload Carey Price on some unsuspecting team before they realize they bought a lemon. This is a franchise with a long history of success and greatness, but its time to rebuild. Just making the playoffs isn't good enough for this city or any Canadian city for that matter. Every off season it seems like they put a band aid on a bleeding gash and wonder why it didn't hold. Its time to start over, build from scratch and get back to being the Montreal Canadiens.

John Stevens = Michael Therrien

2009-04-16T14:07:00.011-04:00

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Once upon a time, a young, talented hockey team in PA struggled and finished with the worst record in hockey. During that season they turned to their minor league coach to get his young crew in order and help develop them into stars. After failing to make the playoffs, they turned things around dramatically, finished with over 100 points and made the postseason the very next year. But since then, his team has out grown him and they need someone better than a minor league coach. Sound familiar? It should, it's the story of former Penguins coach Michael Therrien. It's also the story of current Flyers coach John Stevens.

Unlike the Penguins, the Flyers are holding onto their dead weight. Apparently, getting decimated in the Conference Finals by your cross state rival isn't enough to lose your job. Apparently, falling apart at the end of the season and losing home ice advantage on the final day of the regular season when you held it for months isn't enough to get fired. Apparently, not getting the most out of your players is good enough for the Flyers these days.

Watching Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarter finals against the Penguins had to be agonizing for Philly fans. This playoff match up picked up right where it left off with the Pens beating the hell out of a poorly coached and undisciplined team. It was just one dumb penalty after another. Also, can someone please explain to me why Martin Biron is still in the net for the Flyers? Can someone check backup goalie Antero Niittymakis' butt? I think he may be super glued to the bench. I'm not saying that Niittymaki is the answer, but when you send out someone that gets murdered time after time against a specific team... QUIT putting him in! Biron had a 3.37 GAA with a .877 save percentage against the Pens in the regular season this year and in last years' conference finals, Biron surrendered 4 goals or more in 3 of the 6 games played. It's quite clear that the Penguins own Biron and putting him out there is as gruesome as the natives serving a scantily clad woman to King Kong.

There's a saying that you "get what you pay for". The Flyers are paying for a minor league coach and are getting what they deserve for keeping him employed for this long. As I said with Therrien and the Penguins, this Flyers team will never win a championship with John Stevens as their head coach.

2009 Western Conference Playoffs

2009-04-13T14:22:00.018-04:00

San Jose Sharks (1) vs Anaheim Ducks (8)

In the final days of the regular season, the seedings at the bottom of the stack got shaken up quite a bit. Unfortunately, it did not shake in the Sharks favor. The President's Trophy winning Sharks will get their biggest division rival and 2007 Stanley Cup champions in the first round. Lucky them. An upset isn't out of the question here, the Ducks have played the Sharks very tight all season, but I think the worst that will happen to San Jose is that they're unable to eliminate the Ducks quickly and will have to endure a long series against a team that loves to play physical. Sharks in 6.

Detroit Red Wings (2) vs Columbus Blue Jackets (7)

The defending champs will start their quest to defend their title against a team that will be making its first ever playoff appearance. The regular season series between the two is 3-3, but again, none of that matters in the playoffs. This Columbus team is very young and inexperienced. Despite the huge disadvantage in goaltending, the Wings should roll over the Jackets in 5 games, 6 if Osgood continues to play poorly.

Vancouver Canucks (3) vs St. Louis Blues (6)

For a while it was looking like it was going to be a goaltending duel between Roberto Luongo and Steve Mason of the Blue Jackets. Instead it'll be Roberto Luongo and CHRIS Mason of the Blues. This watered down version of a good series is still very intriguing though. The Blues have been red hot in the second half and could possibly have Paul Kariya back for Game 1. If you're looking for an upset in the first round, here it is. Blues in 7.

Chicago Blackhawks (4) vs Calgary Flames (5)

This isn't exactly where the Flames envisioned themselves finishing after acquiring Olli Jokinen at the deadline. Nevertheless, they're in the playoffs and are always a pain to eliminate. That's good news for them as they'll play a team that hasn't eliminated anyone from the playoffs since 1996, the Chicago Blackhawks. This young Hawks team has beaten the Flames all four times they played each other this season, but is entering their first post season in seven years, while the Flames have a lot of playoff battle tested players on their roster. Flames in 6.

2009 Eastern Conference Playoffs

2009-04-13T11:26:00.031-04:00

Boston Bruins (1) vs Montreal Canadiens (8)

Ahhh yes, nothing like an old Adams division rivalry to get it started. It won't have Ray Bourque or Patrick Roy, but that shouldn't make it any less exciting. These two teams met in the first round of the 2002 playoffs with the Bruins owning the number one seed and the Habs knocked them off in 6 games. I hope Habs fans got their fill back then because history isn't going to repeat itself. Montreal's goaltending is shaky at best with Carey Price and they will be without the services of Mathieu Schneider and Andrei Markov. The Bruins beat them 5 out of 6 times in the regular season and I don't see this ending any differently. B's in 5.

Washington Capitals (2) vs New York Rangers (7)

Last season, the Caps were knocked out of the playoffs because they simply didn't show any guts. The Flyers pushed them around, did whatever they wanted to Cristobel Huet and lost out in 7 games. This year, they better show some balls because they have Sean Avery and the New York Rangers to deal with. The Capitals have infinitely more talent than the Rangers, but if they don't show up looking to play "playoff hockey", they'll get upset again. Having said that, I think the Caps will bombard Lundqvist with shots and knock out the Rangers in 5, maybe 6.

New Jersey Devils (3) vs Carolina Hurricanes (6)

Here's an interesting matchup between two teams going in opposite directions. The Devils looked like they were going to grab the top seed, then fell apart at the end. The Canes on the other hand have been streaking late in the season and grabbed the 6 seed. Of course, none of that matters now. Its playoff hockey where everything changes. The Devils have the depth, the scoring, the defense and the fresh goaltender in Martin Brodeur to make a big postseason run. Devils in 5 games.

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) vs Philadelphia Flyers(5)

Congratulations Penguins! You worked really hard to get that home ice and will now get to face... the Philadelphia Flyers. Yay. This is like in the Price is Right where you pass on the good showcase in hopes of getting something better, but you get a fridge and a dining room set. You could have gotten something better if you had stayed put, but now you're getting something lousy. Sure, the Pens will beat the Flyers, there's no doubt in my mind about that, but its not going to be a quick 5 game series like it was last year. Its going to be a rough and tumble six or seven game series that will leave the Pens tired and beat up going into the second round. Not the kind of first round opponent you want to play when you're hoping to go deep into the playoffs. Penguins in 7.

Cujo deserved better

2009-04-09T12:33:00.011-04:00

It wasn't even a month ago that we were celebrating Martin Brodeur as the winningest goaltender in NHL history. Last night, we turned our attention to the other end of the spectrum when Toronto Maple Leafs goalie, Curtis Joseph lost to the Buffalo Sabres 3-1, tying him with Gump Worsely for the most career losses (352). A lot of Cujo's critics are using this as the opportunity to gloat and make such ridiculous remarks as "See? I told you he sucked and now he has the record to prove it!". Well for starters, he's tied for the record and unless he plays this Saturday, which he isn't expected to, the 41 soon to be 42 year old goalie probably won't play another game ever. As for him "sucking", nothing could be further from the truth.

Joseph never won the Stanley Cup or any personal award for his performances, but he did win 454 games, good for 4th all time. That puts him ahead of guys like Sawchuk, Plante and Esposito. That's some pretty good company for a guy that "sucks". He was the ultimate hard luck goalie. Joseph never fell into the right situation. Everything he accomplished was done almost entirely by himself. He started out with the Blues where he got absolutely shelled, night in, night out. For two straight seasons, Joseph faced more rubber than any other goalie in the league. Before the start of the 95-96 season, Joseph was traded to the Edmonton Oilers where he began to really make a name for himself. In the 97 playoffs, Joseph engineered a huge upset over the heavily favored Dallas Stars in the first round. Cujo just made one incredible save after another and it wouldn't be the first time he would do it either in the playoffs. The very next season Joseph and the Oilers fell behind the favored Colorado Avalanche, 3-1 in the first round. At that point, Joseph took over, surrendering only one goal in the final three games of the series leading to another stunning upset.

With his reputation as a big time playoff performer growing in the summer of 98, Cujo signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs where he would blast into super stardom over the next four seasons. Joseph won over 30 games in his first three years with the Leafs (29 wins in the 4th season), finished as Vezina runner up twice and led the Leafs to the Conference finals twice. In 2002, Joseph turned in another spectacular playoff performance leading the Leafs to the conference finals. Playing a broken left hand, Joseph nearly pulled off another big playoff win, but fell short in 6 games.

With his unforgettable and gutsy playoff run still in everyone's mind, the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings signed Cujo to a huge contract to replace the retired Dominik Hasek. For the first time in his career, he was playing on a team that actually played defense and he wouldn't be counted on to be a one man defense like he had been. Unfortunately, Joseph's seasons in Detroit were very rocky. In 03, he played well, but lost to a red hot goalie in JS Giguere. In 04, he posted a 1.39 GAA, but still lost out in the second round to another hot goalie in Miikka Kiprusoff. In both years, Joseph was the scape goat for the losses and left Detroit after the NHL lockout. With Joseph entering his late 30's, there wasn't many takers for his services. He played his final years for Phoenix, Calgary and then back to Toronto.

Cujo deserved a better ending to his career than what he got. A goalie that can steal a series and single handily beat some of the best teams in the league deserved better. He deserved to have his name on the Cup or at the very least, have a shot at it. If he had played his entire career in Detroit or played for a team like Colorado or New Jersey, people would be debating on whether he's the greatest of all time. He played for bad teams almost his entire career and the fact that he still won 454 games says a lot more about him, than the 352 he lost.

Ravens afraid of Steelers

2009-03-24T09:03:00.010-04:00

The Ravens have a lot to be proud of after last season. They finished with an 11-5 record, boasted the league's second best defense and finished in the final four of the NFL playoffs. Even though they lost to the Steelers three times last season, they are still a very tough and feared team in the NFL. That was until they showed off their newest addition to their uniforms which has a bright yellow streak down the back of their jerseys.

The Ravens asked the NFL not to schedule any night games against the Steelers in Pittsburgh. This request prevented a Week One prime time match up between the Steelers and Ravens on Thursday night. If I could, I would like to ask the Ravens organization one question? At what moment, exactly, did you lose your "testicular fortitude"? Did you lose them in one of your losses to the Steelers? Maybe it was after you watched the Steelers claim their 6th Super Bowl. You don't want to play the Steelers at night in Pittsburgh?? Can a Raven fan ever hold up their head again after this incredible act of cowardice displayed by their team? This intense, physical, hate filled rivalry can't be played during prime time because the Ravens are... well, lets face it; they're scared.

Mike Preston, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun, however thinks this is a good idea. He wrote "The organization knows how to work the crowd. The Steelers always bring back their old-timers for the games, and it gets the crowd in a frenzied mood. The Steelers introduce former players like Jack Lambert, Jack Ham and Andy Russell before the game or at halftime. It doesn’t sound like much, but it definitely helps get the crowd going." The Ravens are the Steelers biggest rival. The crowd is going to be in a "frenzied mood" regardless of whether the old timers are there or not. Your team is turning into a pack of purple cowards that are not only being intimidated by the Steelers themselves, but apparently by the Steeler fans as well.

The Ravens are embarrassing themselves. They went from being a tough, hard nosed football organization to a whiny little pack of crybabies. Why don't the Ravens just ask the NFL to schedule both games against the Steelers in Baltimore? Then they won't have to worry about the Steelers "frenzied" fans knocking them off their game.

They should want to play the Steelers on prime time. They should want to prove to themselves to the league that they are capable of beating the defending Super Bowl Champions. That they are tougher and more physical. They should want to come to Pittsburgh and ruin the Super Bowl celebration and beat the Steelers on their home field. But instead, they're choosing to avoid the Steelers and avoid the national spotlight.

The Ravens are moving in the wrong direction. Winners don't look for the easy way out. Winners look to prove themselves when presented with a tough situation. The Steelers had the toughest schedule in the NFL last year and they finished with a championship. Winners want the ball at the end of the game. Winners view going into enemy territory as a challenge, a challenge that if met can prove greatness. Winners don't beg out of a prime time contest against their division rival.

Brodeur great, but Roy still better

2009-03-18T11:25:00.015-04:00

Last night, Marty Brodeur broke the record for career wins by an NHL goalie surpassing former Canadiens/Avs goalie Patrick Roy. On St. Patrick's day, no less. He did it quicker than Roy and he looks like he'll rack up quite a few more before its all said and done. You could make the argument that Brodeur is the greatest goalie in the history of the NHL. You COULD, but you'd be wrong.

I don't mean to rain the parade of Marty's great accomplishment. He is, without a doubt, the best goalie in the NHL right now. If I could pick any active goalie in the NHL going into a 7 game series, I would pick Brodeur without hesitation. Of all the goalies currently in the NHL, no one has won more trophies or championships. He is the best today, but not of all time. Those that want to anoint Brodeur "Lord of the Goaltenders" now because he owns the all time wins record, have very bad and very short memories.

Damien Cox, a columnist for The Toronto Star, seems to think that 5 years from now there won't be a debate and that Brodeur will unquestionably be the greatest goaltender of all time. Conveniently, he glosses over the fact that Brodeur has played for defensive minded New Jersey and had some of the greatest blueliners of the time (Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer) playing in front of him. He also states, "...for someone to argue somewhere down the line that there was a better NHL goalie will mean essentially ignoring the record book and relying totally on opinion or aesthetics." Or the fact that Roy beat Brodeur head to head in the Finals. It's okay, as a columnist knowing all the facts isn't really that important. Hey, you may want to cover your mouth, the room you're reading this in is suddenly started to fill up with sarcasm.

Patrick Roy is the greatest goalie of all time. It cannot be disputed. His butterfly style of goaltending inspired a new generation of goalies, including Brodeur, to idolize and mimic him that changed goaltending forever. Roy showed his greatness from the moment he entered the NHL in 1985. As a rookie, he led the Montreal Canadiens to a Stanley Cup at just the age of 20 and he wasn't just there for the ride either. He won the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. Roy went on to win that award two more times. Once in 1993, when he defeated Wayne Gretzky and the LA Kings. Then again in 2001, when he out dueled Marty Brodeur and the Devils to win his 4th Stanley Cup and his record setting 3rd Conn Smythe trophy. Roy currently owns the record for playoff wins with 151 and playoff shutouts with 23. He was a big game goaltender. When the game was on the line, he was on his game. The bigger the game, the taller the 6'2" goaltender stood. As a die hard Wings fan, I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly frustrating it was to watch them play against Roy. The Wings could dominate the play for the entire game and still lose, simply because Roy just didn't give up anything. He was that good. He was a one man defense and made so many big incredible saves, you started to wonder how this guy ever lost. Roy retired in 2003 after posting the second best numbers of his career. In 2004, Roy was selected as the greatest goalie in NHL history by a panel of 41 writers, with Roy receiving 19 votes. The next closest to him was Hasek with 7 votes. Then in 2006, he was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Its one thing to be excited about a great player breaking the record of another great player, but let's not go overboard here. Brodeur is the best goalie in the league right now and will be considered one of the greatest of all time when he retires, but a lot of people are getting caught up in the moment and forgetting the greatness of the older players.

Penguins are playoff ready

2009-03-09T17:30:00.005-04:00

It really wasn't that long ago. The Penguins were in 10th place in the conference, Crosby was suffering between two wingers that couldn't bury the puck into the Grand Canyon and the team was playing some ridiculous defensive system. Now, that's all changed. As most underachieving teams do, the Penguins were looking for a turning point. A comeback win against the Red Wings or the Lightning. A shootout win against the Sharks. A blowout win against the Islanders. The true turning point was the firing of Michel Therrien. Some people will argue that this wasn't all his fault. That Gonchar returned at about the same time Therrien was fired and that Gonchar is the spark that turned this team around. Or they'll say that the trades turned everything around. Well I'm sorry but I'm going to have to inform you that you're wrong. Dead wrong. The Therrien firing was the turning point period.

The Therrien firing brought about change. It brought about change in the locker room terms of style of play. I love hearing sports reporters that pretend to know something about hockey say "I don't think the Penguins really changed their style that much. They just seem to have more energy now." They have "more energy" now because more guys are active in trying to score goals. Offensive defensemen like Sergei Gonchar, Ryan Whitney, Kris Letang or Alex Gologoski now have the freedom to skate with the puck, cross over the blueline and take a shot on goal. The past two Stanley Cup Champions believed in this and it worked out pretty well for them. This strategy also opens up space for the forwards because now defending forwards can't collapse down low in their own end. New coach Dan Bylsma also taught the Penguins to be more aggressive and attack the net, another drastic change in the style of their play. Use their talents to their fullest extent to try and to score goals, not sit back and try to defend. Didn't "change their style"; These people just simply don't get hockey and they sit there and act like they're experts on the sport when in reality they don't have a clue. Never have and probably never will.

To accommodate the new style of play Shero went out and made a couple of deals to strengthen it. First, they deal away Ryan Whitney who became expendable once Kris Letang and Alex Gologoski showed they can play in the NHL. In return they acquired a hard nosed, playmaking winger in Chris Kunitz . Then on trade deadline day, Shero plucked away Islanders captain and power forward Bill Guerin in exchange for a conditional draft pick. Crosby not only had a competent winger to play alongside with, he now had two! The Crosby, Kunitz, Guerin line is the best non-Malkin line he's play on since entering the NHL in 2005. These trades solve a lot of immediate problems like toughness, leadership and overall talent at wing.

With two lethal top lines, puck moving defenseman now being asked to play to their strengths along with the majority of the team, this makes the Penguins a very scary playoff team now. They have the grit, the speed, the leadership, the momentum and of course now, the good coaching to get them far into the playoffs. This team is much better than whatever seeding they'll finish with when its all said and done, one of the top 4 teams won't be happy that they drew the Penguins in the first round. Don't think its possible? The 1992 Penguins barely made the playoffs tying the Devils for 3rd in the division (back then the top four teams from each division made the playoffs) and won the tiebreaker because they had one more win. That team finished the post season winning 11 straight and captured their 2nd Cup. The playoffs are a whole new game in the NHL and right now the Penguins look ready to play.

Throwing away $20 million

2009-02-27T15:56:00.003-05:00

Going into the off season, the Steelers have just one glaring weakness... the offensive line. Our franchise quarterback was sacked 46 times last season good for second in the NFL. Despite winning the Super Bowl, this line needs to be fixed badly. First, the Steelers franchise Max Starks again. I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, "Well they did that last year and everything worked out, so I guess this is fine". Then they make a contract offer to Willie Colon. Okay, so its only for a couple million, I can live with that. He could be a backup. Now here's where things really take a turn for the worst and I just can't take it anymore. With long time Colts center and all pro lineman Jeff Saturday expressing an interest to play in Pittsburgh, the Steelers cut loose Kendall Simmons. I don't know if the two are related, but it was shocking. Yeah, Simmons missed all of last season injured, but he's still a former number one pick and a much better guard than what the Steelers have now. Saturday then went on to resign with the Colts.

The Steelers were running out of options and needed a guard fast so they throw $20 million at Chris Kemoeatu. Are you kidding me?? Four million a year for a guy that was simply awful in the Super Bowl and I mean AWFUL. It was Kemoeatu's man that deflected Ben's pass up in the air that led to the interception. It was Kemoeatu that got in Ben's way and didn't block anyone when he tried to scramble up in the middle on 3rd and goal in the second half. Resigning Kemoeatu is a horrible move. Replacing him with Simmons would have been a significant upgrade, but instead they're keeping together one of the worst offensive lines in the game. They're poor run blockers, poor pass blockers and you can forget about getting any kind of push up the middle with this line. Gary Russell would have an easier time punching a football through steel than punching it in from the one yard line.

I'm not going to say the Kemoeatu signing is a stupid move, but its very illogical. The Steelers are rewarding mediocre play with a long term contract. Simmons was a much better option at guard and he would have cost the Steelers about the same amount of money ($4.7 for Simmons, $4 for Kemoeatu). Making bizarre off season moves isn't new for the Steelers and it usually works out for them in the end. Hopefully this is one of those times it works out. If it isn't, you're at risk of losing the best quarterback your franchise has ever known and you can't spell risk with without ChrisKemoeatu.

Crosby - Winger = Shero

2009-02-19T19:28:00.008-05:00

Alright Shero, this has gone on long enough. Its time to give your franchise center what he needs in order to be the next "Great One". Rotating guys like Andy Hilbert, Colby Armstrong, Pascal Dupuis, Miro Satan, Petr Sykora, Ruslan Fedotenko, Tyler Kennedy, Max Talbot, Matt Cooke, etc, with Crosby isn't working. Crosby is a playmaker and a very good one at that. He can use his speed to setup a thousand scoring chances, but if he doesn't have someone to bury it, it goes to waste. How great would Wayne Gretzky have been WITHOUT Jari Kurri. Kurri scored 40+ goals in seven straight seasons. In some of those years he scored around 70. This garbage of putting a sub par sniper or a grinder with Crosby and hoping he'll produce is like throwing crap against the wall and seeing what will stick. This is Sid's 4th year in the league and aside from his brief stint playing alongside Marian Hossa, he's never had a competent winger that can bury the puck. Its ridiculous.

For me, the clock is ticking for Penguins GM Ray Shero. If the Pens open next season without a good scoring winger for the top line, then Shero needs to be fired. He's had plenty of chances to acquire this winger in the past. In the 2006 draft, he drafted Jordan Staal over goal scoring snipers Phil Kessel and Peter Mueller. He may still use Staal as a bargaining chip to trade for a winger, but I'm not sure what he's waiting for. There's no need to hang onto a third line center (as talented as he may be) when you have such a glaring weakness on your top line that is affecting your best players' performance. Yeah, so Crosby is third in the league in scoring. This is mostly due to the fact that he's been paired up with Malkin for most of the season. They shouldn't be on the same line. Putting Malkin and Crosby together makes the Penguins a one dimesional, one line, fringe playoff team. I do NOT want to see Shero half ass this again. I don't want to see Milan Hejduk, Keith Tkachuk, Jonathan Cheechoo or Mark Recchi. I want to see Illya Kovalchuk, Marian Gaborik, Dany Heatley or Dustin Brown. No more of this, "Well he had 40 goals 10 years ago" or "He had that one big year". I want to see an elite winger on the top line. I want someone that can produce by themselves and compliments Sid. Not someone like a Rob Brown that just sponges up points and goes along for the ride.

In the next few weeks before this years' trade deadline or during the off season, something needs to be done. On opening night next season, if Crosby's lined up with a couple of "past their prime" or "hustle and grind" players, Lemieux should drop a pink slip on Shero's desk the same time that puck hits the ice on the opening faceoff. Not acquiring a good scoring winger for Crosby is like the Yankees sending A-Rod to the plate with a wiffle ball bat. If you want to get the best out of your players, you have to provide them what they need.

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Don't let the door hit you on the way out

2009-02-16T11:59:00.003-05:00

Eight months ago, Michel Therrien was in the Stanley Cup Finals with an uber talented Penguins team. Today, he's unemployed. I never like to see anyone get forced out of his or her job, but the Penguins needed to do this. As I stated back in July when he was given a three-year contract extension, he was not going to lead this team to a championship. I made this statement on an extremely popular Penguins blog and verbally assaulted by a bunch of know-nothing yinzers that think hockey season starts in February. "Hey, Fruscello - stick with Fantasy Football!", "...stay home and ponder your NHL roster moves on your computer, rather than take an active interest in something that seems to be a bit out of your realm of expertise." Out of my expertise eh? The team has the top two scorers in hockey and is 10th in the Eastern Conference with a little less than two months left in the season. Maybe now all the dirty, lowbrow yinzers that jumped on me for saying that the Therrien contract extension was a mistake, will learn shut their mouths when a sports expert tells you like it is. Where are all the "Therrien's a great coach, what a great signing!" people now? Is 10th place where you want to be? Is the team scrambling to just make the playoffs what you want? Sorry, but it was painfully obvious that no matter how talented this team was, they were always going to be out coached and that they would need to rely on just their talent to win games.

Last year in the Stanley Cup Finals, it was very obvious what needed to be done. Therrien was outcoached very badly. His only strategy in that entire series was to complain about obstruction (aka stop letting the Red Wings defense shutdown my teams' offense). The team looked pretty good in Game 5, but as soon as Wings coach Mike Babcock changed the lines in the third period, Therrien had no answer. The Wings scored two goals, outshot the Pens 14-4 and nearly won the championship right there had it not been for Max Talbot's late heroics. Even though the shots were only 14-4, I can't ever remember seeing the ice tilted so badly in favor of one team.

Fair or unfair, I put the blame on Therrien. Several times, the Pens would get matched up against a lesser team with a good coach like the Islanders and lose. How can a team with so much talent lose to a bottom feeder? I'm not saying it's impossible, you'll have down games, but to consistenly struggle against teams with no talent, but good coaching, suggests there's a problem with the coaching. The deathblow finally came last Saturday when the Pens played in Toronto. The Maple Leafs are in a rebuilding process and a lot their guys are fighting for a roster spot. Who's their coach? Ron Wilson, a guy that knows how to get the most out of his players. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead, the Penguins collapsed and gave up 6 unanwersed goals. Are you kidding me? Six?! To the Maple Leafs? That wasn't the first time they were gashed by the Leafs either. They gave up 7 on December 20th and 5 on January 31st. They gave up 6 goals to the Panthers on January 3rd. These are not exactly the best teams in hockey that's tearing them up here. On the other side of the spectrum, sometimes they have a hard time scoring goals. They were shutout by the Lightning on December 23rd, 2-0.

I don't want to hear Therrien fans complain about "Well Gonchar was gone and we lost Hossa, Malone, Roberts, etc". That's not an excuse. Lots of teams have turnover from year to year and they deal with it. They still have two of the best players in the game and your franchise goaltender. The Pens lost Hossa, but so what? They were already a pretty good team before he even showed up at the trade deadline last year. Roberts spent almost all of last season injured. Adam Hall was a 3rd or 4th line checker that spent most of last year as a scratch. Malone is missed, but you don't go from the best team in the conference to 10th because of Ryan Malone. Gonchar is the only real key component missing to this year's team and he would have helped on offense, but how much would he have really helped on defense, where they need the most help? Sure he was great last year, but the year before that he was a minus 5 and the year before that he was a minus 13. I don't see his presence making that much of a difference.

The Penguins appear to be headed for the unthinkable (missing the playoffs after reaching the Finals) and it has mostly to do with Michel Therrien. He makes bad decisions with line combinations and doesn't get the most out of his players. I was positive after the way the Pens were beaten by the Wings in the Finals, that they would've changed their style to be more like Detroit who play a puck possession style of game and rely a lot on their passing. With as many puck moving defenseman as the Pens have and with a great passer like Crosby, it just makes the most sense. Instead Therrien has them playing some sort of 1-2-2 trap that utilizes the talents of no one. I think this move comes too late, but at least someone in the Penguins front office woke up and realized what I already knew back in July, this team was never going to win a championship under Therrien.

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Brett Favre retires... again... maybe...

2009-02-12T11:32:00.005-05:00

After playing in the NFL for 18 seasons, Favre is hanging them up... again... I hope. Hopefully, in August we won't be talking about "Which team will Favre play for next??!" Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Brett Favre. In 2003, he won a fantasy football championship for me after his 4 TD, 399 yard performance against the Raiders on Monday Night Football. But the way his career ended in Green Bay and the way he took an 8-3 Jets team and drove them into the ground to miss the playoffs shows that not only can he no longer play in this league, but he should have retired years ago.

In January 2007, Favre threw his final pass as a Green Bay Packer, right into the hands of Giants defender Corey Webster. The Giants went on to kick a field goal, send themselves to the Super Bowl and send Favre into retirement... or so we thought. After saying over and over again that he was retired and done with football he decides to un-retire and reclaim his spot on the Packers. Problem was the Packers had already moved on with Aaron Rodgers. Now one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time needed a home. The New York Jets saw this as an opportunity to put themselves over the top and get past the Patriots. They pushed aside Chad Pennington like the ugly girl at the prom and asked more popluar and flashier Favre to dance. It was a match made in heaven, big time quarterback in a big time city.

The Jets were ready to make a run at the playoffs. Unfortunately, that popular, flashy player they asked to take them to the playoffs turned out to be just an old 39 year old quarterback, who turned over the ball so often people were starting to wonder if he remembered what team he played for. In the final 12 weeks of the season, Favre was intercepted 18 times. With teams like the Bengals, Chiefs, Raiders, Rams, Seahawks and 49ers on the schedule during that time, that shouldn't be happening. The final week of the regular season against the Dolphins, Favre dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" in the phrase "Spectacular Failure" as he threw 3 picks with the last one being the worst. He pretended to spike the ball, only to actually throw a pass to a receiver that wasn't looking for it. Meanwhile over on the other sideline, that "ugly girl" that Favre replaced, finished second in the MVP voting and led his team to the AFC East crown.

Even if the worst should happen and Favre does decide to come out of retirement again, the NFL needs to learn a lesson from this. This man CANNOT help your team. PERIOD. If he had stayed retired, the Jets would have made the playoffs with Pennington. Guaranteed. Everything fell into their favor this season and Favre couldn't get them into the playoffs. They had a good running game, a strong offensive line, a soft schedule, an injury depleted Patriots and their biggest threat was 1-15 last year. I'm sorry, but whether Favre wants to be finished or not, he's finished.

Favre gave us many memorable moments and games and for that, NFL fans are eternally grateful. He will go down in history as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, but right now this is the best thing for Favre and the NFL right now. If he continues to play, he will only ruin good NFL teams with his inconsistent play and continue to tarnish his legacy. Let the fans remember you as you were, a gunslinger that fired all over the field, broke a lot of records and won a lot of games. Not some old guy that keeps shooting himself in the foot every time he reaches for his gun.

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In defense of the best defensive player

2009-02-11T11:35:00.003-05:00

One of the story lines, I was surprised to hear a lot about was the "thuggery" of James Harrison when he took a personal foul penalty for unnecessary roughness against the Cardinals Aaron Francisco.

Obviously Cardinals fans will have a problem with it, its one of their guys is getting killed by one of ours. But the backlash I'm hearing from Steelers fans is absurd. "He should have been ejected!", "That's not Steelers football, that's acting like a dirty thug!", "His act of violence tainted a great night for the Steelers". Give me a break, Steeler Nation.

I've heard nothing but negative comments in regards to this. Yes, he got penalized and that pinned the offense deeper in their own end. But so what? Nobody called for Jack Lambert's ejection when he slammed Cowboys all pro safety Cliff Harris to the ground after Harris taunted Gerela for missing a field goal in Super Bowl X. Where was the "he's disgracing Steeler football" then? This nobody for the Cardinals, tries for a low block on Harrison's knees. It rubs him the wrong way and gets extremely physical with him. A little too physical apparently. Actually, I'm not sure it should have been a penalty. The play was still going on and Harrison was simply blocking. Yeah, he hit him, but it wasn't with a closed fist. He pushed him back hard with an open hand. This is football people. If you're not a fan of hitting, the Pirates season is right around the corner for you. You won't see any hitting then.

James Harrison won the NFL defensive player of the year award because he's stronger, tougher and plays more physical than anyone else in the league. So Harrison beats the hell out of a couple safeties that get in his way. So what? You won't care about him being too physical when he runs over a 300+ pound tackle and sacks the quarterback. Or when he's the only guy that plows through the line on 4th and inches and stops the running back cold in his tracks. Or when he's intercepting passes on the goaline and running 100 yards the other way for a touchdown. Harrison is a monster and you can't have a monster without him smashing a couple buildings every now and then.

Super Bowl XLIII

2009-02-10T13:30:00.005-05:00

It was another big game for the ages. It was another game that went down to the wire. It was another game with big plays to go along with the highs and lows. It was another game that showcased the NFL at its finest. It was another game that has the fans of the losing team complaining about the referees and saying they would have won if it had not been for the bad officiating. There was so much to that game. I was up till 1:30am watching highlights. There was so much to digest. Ben not getting in the end zone on the first drive of the game, Ben's interception that was batted up into the air and gave the Cardinals life, the 100 yard INT return by Harrison, the Cardinals committing three personal fouls on one drive that only led to a FG, Warner fumbling the ball but the call gets reversed, the Cardinals making a come back, the safety, the big Fitzgerald TD, Ben driving down the field in the final minutes, Holmes making an unforgettable catch, Woodley causing the fumble to end the game <catching his breath>. That is what the Super Bowl is all about. If you didn't like Super Bowl XLIII, then I've got two words for ya! Quit watching. If big plays and drama like this doesn't do it for you, then make like a Cardinals fan and don't watch.

Speaking of Cardinals fans, when the game ended I was interested to hear what Cards fans (all 14 of you) had to say about the game. I read message boards, article comments, articles by professional journalists, watched video, etc. I'm not going to bash the entire fan base, a lot of the comments were very respectful and were good sports about the game. A lot of them were the opposite. Here are some of my favorites:

"We had it in the bag! We... had... it... in... the... bag" - I heard this from one Cardinals fan on an AP video and a lot of Cards fans feel the same way. They had it won and they blew it! Hmmmm... there was 7:33 left in the game and the Cardinals were down 20-7. I never knew being behind by two touchdowns with only half the 4th quarter left, constituted having "it in the bag". Funny, two weeks earlier, I didn't hear anyone say the Eagles "had it in the bag" when the Cardinals gave up a big lead and had to come back in the end to win. Its funny how it works like that.

"We dominated the Steelers but we couldn't beat the refs." - Dominated eh? Your best offensive weapon caught one pass in the first half. Your high octane offense put up 7 whole points 3/4 of the way into it. The Cards had a hefty 33 yards rushing for the game. Where exactly was the domination? My eyes were glued to the big high def TV I was watching the game on and I didn't see any Cardinal domination. Not even a hint.

"Warner shredded that <expletive> Pitty defense" - I can see why one would think that. Especially to the untrained eye of a Cardinals fan that has probably watched as much football as my 14 month old, but let me educate you. When the Cardinals scored all those points, made their big comeback and nearly stole the game from the better team, the Steelers defense played a little thing called "Prevent". In the "Prevent" defense the safeties drop way back, the corners give the receivers a huge cushion and defense only attacks the QB with 3 or 4 players while the rest are in coverage. Its designed to "Prevent" the big play by keeping everything in front of you, but all it really does is it prevents the defense from being able to stop anyone. Not to take anything away from Warner, who is a great quarterback, but Ryan Fitzpatrick could have driven down the field with no pass rush and the defensive backs giving 15-20 yard cushions. When the Steelers played their usual brand of defense, the Cards did nothing. Don't take my word for it. Again, Fitzgerald with one catch in the first half and only 7 points in the first three quarters. To be fair, the Cardinals employed the same type of defense on the final drive in which Ben drove down the field and won the game. Why do defenses still play the prevent if it never works? That's a pretty good question.

"The fix was in for the Steelers, just like in XL." - I'm not a 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure a bitter Seahawks fan wrote that. If the "fix" was in for the Steelers, why wasn't Warner penalized for removing his helmet on the field when he fumbled? Why did the Steelers get a holding penalty in the end zone, not only negating a Steelers first down, but giving the Cardinals two points and the ball and 2:58 left? Why did they penalize the Steelers on the first play of the final drive making it 1st and 20 deep in their own end? If the refs were trying to help the Steelers win the game, they did a really bad job.

"Was Holmes' catch too unreal?" - The wonderful folks over at the Arizona Republic posted this article and these photos a couple days after the Super Bowl. This article and these photos are meant to make people believe that the Cardinals got ripped off and the Steelers were given a TD they didn't deserve. They have several photos of Holmes' feet crossed with one foot not touching the ground. To which my reply is... Are you kidding me??! The play was reviewed over and over again using high def monitors and played, slowed down and played again. It was probably the most reviewed play in history, but this genius over at Arizona Republic has conclusive photographs proving otherwise. Let me let you in on a little secret, all your photos of his feet crossed were AFTER the catch had already been made. As long as you have two feet in bounds and possession of the ball, its a catch. What's really incredible is that in photo 12, it shows just that. Quit trying to stir up controversy. It was a great catch and your team lost. Now show a little class.

It will go down in history as one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time and in my opinion is the greatest Steelers Super Bowl ever. Before the game, my wife and I were at a party reminiscing about the Steelers / Colts game back in January 2006 and said we'll always remember where we were during that game. This Super Bowl was one of those kind of games and no one will ever forget where they were when they watched it.

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Welcome!

2009-02-10T12:03:00.000-05:00

Welcome to "The X Factor", the sports blog that DOESN'T have to do with fantasy sports. Here you'll read everything I can't say in The Fantasy Factor about the world of sports.