So the NHL awards took place tonight, finally putting the 2010-2011 to bed. Let’s take a look at those who won, and those that should have been winners:
Norris Trophy (Best Defenseman)
Nominees:Zdeno Chara – Boston Bruins, Nicklas Lidstrom – Detroit Red Wings, and Shea Weber – Nashville Predators.
Winner:Nicholas Lidstrom, Detroit Should’ve Been:Shea Weber, Nashville
While the Lidstrom win, his 7th, is not surprising, I think Weber was the correct choice. Weber finished The season with 16 goals, 32 assists, +7, and 211 hits. Weber, along with Pekka Rinne, is the reason behind Nashville’s successful season and playoff run.
TNT’s new original series Falling Skies kicked off last night with a two-hour premiere. The new sci-fi drama is executive produced by none other than Mr. Steven Spielberg, and stars Noah Wyle of ER fame. The show picks up 6 months in to a hostile alien invasion in Boston, and everything has already gone to hell in a hand basket. We learn from the opening children’s drawings that the invaders are killing off all adults, and capturing and enslaving the children they come across, referred to as ‘harnessing’. To underscore how bad things are truly going the show opens with the destruction of Boston and the retreating of all Massachusetts Resistance Forces and survivors.
Porter, the leader of the resistance fighters, decides to break up the remaining fighters and civilians into three separate groups, and send them into retreat in 3 separate directions to rendezvous later. It is here where we learn that our main man Tom Mason, a former history professor turned resistance fighter, (Wyle) is assigned to be second in command in the 2nd Massachusetts Resistance, led by Captain Weaver (Will Patton), and that his middle child Ben has been harnessed by the aliens. We also learn from the meeting with Porter that while they are trying, there is no way to remove the harness from captured children without killing them. At the conclusion of the meeting, Tom is left with explicit instructions to do whatever it takes to protect the civilians assigned to them, which foreshadows the impending conflict he will inevitably have with Captain Weaver.
When trying to come up with the words to describe the play of the Vancouver Canucks, after games one of two, all that comes to mind is the words from one of the greatest Detroit Lions coaches of all time – Bobby Ross.
What the hell happened to the heavy favorites? Sure you can put some of the blame on Luongo. He certainly deserves it giving up 15 goals, and being chased out of the net twice in 4 games, but everyone knew how easily rattled he can get when things start to fall apart.
No, most of the blame has to put squarely on the highly touted offense/power play that has disappeared for the majority of these finals, scoring only 4 goals in the past four games, and on the coaching staff for not doing enough line adjustments in time to generate a spark. Rather than focus on the pitiful play of the Canucks, lets pay tribute to the efforts of the underdogs…
Finally, after 82 regular season games and 14 playoff series we have finally reached the promised land. THE STANLEY CUP FINALS BITCHES!! Whose pumped besides this guy?!?!? …and Canada??? This year we have the pleasure of watching the ‘President’s Trophy’ winning Vancouver Canucks vs. the defensive minded Boston Bruins battle for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
Looking at how the two teams arrived to the promised land, it’s hard to make an argument for the Boston Bruins to win this series. With the exception of their round 2 series (which is more telling of the Flyers than the Bruins), Boston has just been lucky enough to survive seven game series against far less talented teams in Montreal and Tampa Bay when compared to Vancouver. Their offense has been anemic at best and their special teams are just flat-out terrible. Boston’s power play unit is about as useful as nipples on the Bat-suit. Thanks Joel Schumacher!!
Anyways, Boston’s only saving grace is that they have two of the best at their positions protecting the net, big bad Zdeno Chara and Tim Thomas. I know the plus/minus stat is garbage in the grand scheme of things, but I’ll go ahead and inform you Chara is boasting a +11 in the playoffs. Tim Thomas is certainly doing his fair share in carrying the team with a 2.29 GAA and .929 save percent average. If Boston is going to have a shot at this, they are going to need to have Tim Thomas stand on his head and get a shut-out or two.
So, with that all said, I’m going with Vancouver in 5 for their first Stanley Cup win. The Sedin twins are just unstoppable and showed it in the conference finals against San Jose. Ryan Kesler appeared to find his game at the end of the series, so I would expect for him to carry that over to the finals. Not to be forgotten is Roberto Luongo, who will be the toughest goaltender the Bruins have faced in the playoffs. Sorry Boston, maybe next year it will be your turn……… after 40 years of coming up short.
So Canucks in 5, and Henrik Sedin wins the Conn Smythe.
Looking at this series it should not be a surprise to anyone that the Canucks are up on the Sharks 3 games to 1. While I can’t deny that the four games have been interesting to watch, I do have to say they have been interesting for all the wrong reasons. Looking at the series on paper one would expect to see exciting, fast paced and well executed hockey games coming from both ends of the ice, but that’s not what we’ve seen.
The perks of being in the ‘Sin Bin’
What we have gotten in four games is wonderful opportunity to watch both teams decide to take turns parading players in and out of the penalty box, and watch the other team capitalize on the bone-head plays. San Jose started this cycle in game 2 when they decided to try to combat Vancouver’s high-powered offense with over the top physical play, and earn 51 penalty minutes led by Ben Eager. By the way, congratulations to Mr. Eager for earning my coveted ‘Douchebag of the Conference Finals’ award with the celebration of his goal, and follow-up taunting of Luongo when his team was still down by 4 GOALS!! Stay classy Eager.
In game 3 it was Vancouver’s turn to try to show how physical they could be. Needless to say this led to 32 penalty minutes, and allowing 2 power goals in the first 10 minutes of the game. And then there was second period of game 4 – San Jose decided to do what they do best and ‘Go San Jose’, for lack of a better term. Three ‘five-on-three’ situations and allowing Vancouver to score 3 power play goals in 1:55. All I could say was “Woooooooow” and feel bad for Melanie Wilcox. Sorry Mel.
So that brings us to tonight’s game 5 in Vancouver. Whose going to win?? What team is going to show up at each end? I’d place my bets on the Canucks to finish the Sharkies off tonight. The Sedin twins are pretty much having their way with the Sharks defense combining for 34 points in the playoffs, and Kesler seems to finally be coming alive in the series.
Metro-Detroit Native (Livonia) and member of the 2010 USA Olympic Men’s Hockey Team – Ryan Kesler
To make matters worse for the Sharks, they’ll be taking the ice with hurt Joe Thornton. With so much of their offense in these playoffs coming thru the play of Captain Joe. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, he brings tonight. If San Jose is going to have a chance looks for Clowe and Marleau to step up and fill Jumbo Joe’s shortcomings, and Neimi will need to stand on his head.
Prediction: Vancouver for the series win tonight. And boom goes the dynamite!
Ok this is going to be a quick one, since I am juggling a new-born baby, a recovering wife, and my want to share my hockey opinion with you all. God, I am so generous. You’re welcome! Anyways, let’s do this….
After overcoming a dismal Game 1 start, it appeared Boston was set to take the Eastern Conference Title with the games 2 and 3 wins…but then game 4 happened. Wow, what a meltdown. Allowing 5 unanswered goals after securing a 3 goal lead in the first period, embarrassing.
So now we have a best of 3 series with Home Ice advantage currently with the Bruins, but the momentum is clearly with Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay’s offensive domination has been simply amazing, minus the game 3 hiccup, scoring 15 GOALS IN 4 GAMES with St. Louis and Lecavalier leading the charge with 17 playoff points each! While I expect Tampa to come out firing in game 5, and continue their game 4 domination, one thing that can’t be forgotten is Tim Thomas’s ability to bounce back from a shelling and win a game for his team (unlike the goaltenders in the Bestern, I mean Western Conference, who can get easily rattled after poor performances).
If Boston is going to make it out of this series alive, it’s going to have to be on the shoulders of Thomas and hope he puts on his Vezina hat and pull off more game 3 shut-out performances.
Prediction: Tampa Bay in 7 and Steve Yzerman GM of the Year…Ride the Lightning baby!!
So the NHL awards took place tonight, finally putting the 2010-2011 to bed. Let’s take a look at those who won, and those that should have been winners:
Winner: Nicholas Lidstrom, Detroit
Grizzly Bomb 