Da preview: Playoffs Round One - Hurricanes vs. Devils 2009 Edition

For this round of playoff preview fun, we bring together two bloggers from each respective fanbase. Yours truly will cover the Hurricanes while some other dude named Greg Wyshynski reminisces about his boring-ass favorite hockey team. Enjoy.

The month was April. The year of our Lord was 2001. The scene was set in Barry's favorite town, Newark, NJ.

Wyshynski: The New Jersey Devils were defending Stanley Cup champions, and the Carolina Hurricanes were the annoying jerkweed eight seed trying to ruin their fun.

During the regular season, it was easy to be intimidated by the Canes ... what with former Hobey Baker winner Scott Pellerin and the unstoppable Rob DiMaio on the roster. And Carolina also had Arturs Irbe between the pipes, which might have fucking mattered if the Devils were the Red Wings.

The Devils won the first three games of the series, as Bobby Holik scored two game-winning goals. It's performances like that which eventually earned him a $97 million contract from the Rangers to be their checking center.

Then things got annoying, as the Hurricanes won two in a row and made a series out of things. Then the Devils ended it in Game 6, as human rag doll Sergei Brylin had the game-winner and Marty Brodeur huffed and puffed his way to a 5-1 win.

---

Of course, the series is most memorable for Scott Stevens forever altering the career of Shane Willis with a clean and completely legal hit, and then sending Ron Francis somewhere near Pluto with a check later in the series. Sure, Stevens would later get a karmic kick in the ass when he himself suffered a career-ending concussion. But no one remembers when the wrecking ball stopped working; just how it wrecked'um.

Suddenly, you are whisked away on a magical flying cheeseburger that lands at the RBC Center grounds in Raleigh. The April month was the same but 2006 'twas the year.

McBrayer: The Devils came into the playoffs on some kind of ridonkulous winning streak which continued with a 4-0 sweep over the NY Rangers. Marty Brodeur was busy being Marty Brodeur and the Devils were resilient on playing trappy hockey despite "The New NHL" and it's wide open, supposedly exciting fresh style. The Devils fans were happy and were busy doing fun things like arguing over which turnpike exit is cooler errr going to the beach errrrr driving to New York City? I'm clueless.

Meanwhile, the folks down in Carolina were busy tailgating their asses off and celebrating their come from behind win over the Habs and Cristofail Huet in the first round. The weather in NC is outstanding this time of year and if/when the Canes make the playoffs, the bandwagon overflows in Raleigh. Visiting teams' fans generally love coming to the RBC Center for the post-season just to see/experience the massive tailgate party that is a Hurricanes pre-game tailgate. You can also expect your NCSU Wolfpack football fans who laid the groundwork for the RBC Center/Carter-Findley grounds to show up and appreciate the festivities.

So as the Hurricanes held home ice with the #2 seed, the first game was in Raleigh. As Carolina seemed to barely sneak by the Canadiens, the common conception was that #30 and the Devils would continue their steam-rolling buzzsaw.

Not so fast.

Eric Staal, Cory Stillman and what seemed like 1/2 the team all scored easily against Marty in a 6-0 game one victory. Game Two was one for the ages. It was an evenly played and equally checked game that ended with Scott Gomez scoring a fluky deflection with half a minute left. But Eric Staal and his oh-face managed to score a garbage goal with one second left in regulation to send it to overtime. Niclas Wallin (AKA the 3rd pairing defenseman who's slightly overpaid but sometimes is awesome) snuck in on a breakway from a Rod Brind'amour pass and slid the puck under Brodeur for one hell of a finish to one hell of game.

The series seemed to weigh in the Hurricanes' favor after that game as they went onto a confidence building 4-1 series victory before the seven game, Eastern Conference semifinal series with Buffalo.

Pictured: a young Martin Brodeur searches for inspiration among his peers.

The magical flying cheeseburger quickly absorbs you (and your ugly ass playoff beard) to present day, April of 2009.

Wyshynski: as a Devils fan, my first thought on the series is that the Hurricanes are not from New York or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, so I wonder what the attendance will be for the first two home games ...

My second thought is this: The Devils are, without question, a team built for the postseason. They've got more ugly veterans with their minds on the money than the worst strip club in town. One assumes they'll answer the bell.

Did I like the way they finished? Nope. They played inconsistent, downright awful hockey at times, and Marty looked like what we all figured Scott Clemmensen would look like when he replaced Marty. I'll say that losing Patrik Elias for a few games through things into chaos, because for all the good numbers the team put up its offense is about as deep as the psychological underpinnings of "High School Musical." The third one.

The Devils will win the series if they can solve Cam Ward, which no one's really been able to in the second half, and if they're special teams outplay the Carolina Hurricanes in four of the seven games -- and that's a tall order.

I'm optimistic as a fan that the Devils will look like the team that chewed bubble gum and kicked ass earlier this season, and that Brodeur's rust will be gone and his rest will pay off.

I'm pessimistic as an individual with free thought.

Wyshynski's Prediction: Canes in 6.

McBrayer: Historically speaking, when the Hurricanes decide that they want to be in the postseason - they're going to rip shit up. Since 2002, the Hurricanes have only been to the big dance twice but both times skirted all the way to the SC Finals. When they're in - hold onto your nips.

Between the Hurricanes/Old Fatasses, the four games played during this regular season were all rather impressive for the Canes, not including the final game last Saturday that saw backup goalie Michael Leighton have a few "D'oh!" moments. Yes, the 3rd game featured Kevin Weekes in goal for Jersey and a team that was probably hungover as hell from the previous evening. But Carolina matches up fairly even statistically speaking with Jersey's finest.

I'm sure that it's really intimidating on opposing teams at The Rock but Coach Brent Sutter and his gang had better be glad that they hold home-ice advantage in the series. Because three games of ear-splitting, building-shaking and decibel-record-setting raucous at the RBC Center are easier than four games.

Many pundits have the Canes listed among teams on the Upset Watch for this year's playoffs. While I don't think it would be an upset - the Hurricanes should win this series based on team play alone over the past two-ish months. With the likes of Joni Pitkanen / Anton Babchuk / Jose Corvo patrolling the blue line and creating offense, Carolina has too much fire power on all lines for Brodeur and the Devils to overcome. Cam Ward is somehow playing even better than he was during his rookie year Conn Smythe run if that is even possible.

I'm biased but I'm right.
McBrayer's Prediction: Canes in 6

Trade Deadline LIVE BLOGTACULAR at BMR today

Head on over to www.barrymelroserocks.com today for an entertaining and off-the-wall perspective on the wheelings and dealings of Hockey Rumo(u)rs Christmas Day. While I won't be partaking in the live-blogging because of a real job and all, I'll be lurking like stink on a turd.

Things you could do while awaiting a west coast puck drop

As the Hurricanes head out on a three game, west coast road trip against Vancouver, San Jose and Phoenix - all of us East coast players are doomed to staying up until at least 12:30 at night just to see the team on TV. With a 10:00 start, you might find yourself getting just a tad anxious for the game. With that being said - be glad that we here at COI are by the people, for the people, of the people and we're here to keep you occupied while you anticipate your Pacific time zone game.

Here's some things that I'll be doing and maybe you should try too:

You could drink a beer or twelve.

You could step on over to the new and improved Canes Country via the ever expanding SB Nation. Congrats to Bubba and Cory who are professionals at this game by now.

You could drink a Smithwick's. Dark, smooth, yet not too heavy.

You could scope out the competition's bloggers, with my personal favorites being Waiting for Stanley on the Canucks end, Five for Howing for all your Coyotes action and Fear the Fin is great for the Sharks. Also including the Sharkies is one of my all time favorite blogs - the Battle of California. Earl Sleek (even though he's a Ducks fan) is one of the most free-thinking, creative and entertaining hockey bloggers out there today. His twisted mind is on par with only a select few in the elite of the blogosphere. Here's a favorite from his series of "Pucktoons" with Sir Sleek:

You could drink a Fat Tire, if you're anywhere in the Nashville area or further West. What a great MF beer. (For the longest time you couldn't get the Colorado brewed beer anywhere East of the Mississippi. If it hits NC and you find out, let me know and the first rounds on me.)

You could congratulate East of Here on the birth of his first born this week! While he's obviously not going to be around here too much in the coming months if at all - enjoy a little collection of the best of East's twisted mind:

The Professional Chotchkes Union Must Be On Strike East breaks down the Eric Staal bobblehead

About those shoddy Hurricanes car flags they tried to skimp on

We're boned, seriously: regarding East's assurance that the return of Paul Maurice meant the inevitable return of dump and chase (as well as being teh Suck).

Congrats again there, bud.

You could drink an Eye of the Hawk beer. Strong at 8% but the copper, amber color with the caramelly (is that a word?) flavor take the edge off. Good stuff. It's kinda fun to start squawking like you're some giant bird of prey while you drink this too.

You could check out the qual that my cohorts have been spewing over at Barry Melrose Rocks, or view only posts written by yours truly if you must. I also highly recommend the author's thread of Kevin Schultz at the NHL Fanhouse for AOL Sports.

With Mardi Gras right around the corner, you could appropriately drink a "Hurricane". Duh.
You could rip some bingers swim like an Olympic champ.

You could check out my favorite new blog, F You, Penguin. An excerpt:

"This jerk refuses to be my friend"

"What the hell, Dog? Like I'm not good enough for you. I have 6,000 friends on Facebook! YOU'RE NOT EVEN ON FACEBOOK BECAUSE YOUR PAWS WOULD MAKE TYPING IMPOSSIBLY AWKWARD. What am I doing wrong here? We hung out that one time, and I thought things were going pretty well. I made some jokes, you ate your own poop, WE HAD A NICE DAY TOGETHER."

You could go and drink dozens of different beers at any of the Carolina Ale House locations, with the Cary location on Walnut St. hosting a Cool Bars with the Storm Squad there on Saturday night for the Phoenix game.

You could also head on up to Hillsborough to check out the UNC vs. Duke hockey game on Saturday. It starts at 4:15. Guarantee you that one will be a chippy affair. Let's just hope that you staying up so late is warranted by a Hurricanes team worth watching. That is - they don't ride west only to crap the bed in a different time zone.

Canes @ Senators - Will Uh Oh Corvo strike again?

Tuesday night has the Canes finishing up a brief, three game road trip in Ottawa before a home game against the Leafs on Thursday. Not to pile on, but in case you didn't already know - Ottawa isn't very good this year.

Okay, they're terrible.

After a dominant run through the 06-07 playoffs that ended with a defeat to Anaheim, they mother-trucked their way through the first half of the season compiling a franchise best winning streak at the start last year. Then, they started to slide. They made the playoffs last season (largely in part because the Hurricanes shit the bed didn't) but were easily swept by the Penguins.

This season, the slide continues as they currently sit 29th out of 30 NHL teams just above the Drive-For-John-Tavares NY Islanders. Fans are calling for GM Bryan Murray's head. They're calling for Coach Craig Hartsburg head. Amidst all this clamo(u)r - the Senators bloggers have been keeping us all entertained.

Where the Hurricanes have been using the team slogan of "Our Team. Our Tradition.", if you visit the Ottawa Senators front page, you see "A Force United". With the disappointing play over the past year - the Sens Army has formed an underground rebellion of sorts titled "A Farce United".Above is friend to COI, Senators Lost Cojones, seen shortly after drowning his sorrows in his bitchin man room. SLC runs the hysterical blog, Five For Smiting. SLC was kind enough to give us a bit of a scouting report on his favorite team of underachievers:

"we're a mess. We can't score, can't stop getting scored upon, the goalies can't be trusted (Young Master Elliot aside), the coaching staff have no clue how to fix it, the GM just sits there and scowls, the playoffs are nothing but a pipe dream, and the howling mobs are so discouraged, we've put away the torches and pitchforks and pulled out the "Welcome John Tavares!" banners. I think that just about covers it. Good luck on Tuesday. Please be gentle."

Thanks for stopping by SLC, and may Joe Corvo & Patrick Eaves haunt your soul both score hat tricks give you a big high-five!

Ottawa has all the talent needed to win on any given night but hasn't. Carolina could easily be walking into a trap here. We'll see what happens I suppose!

Go Canes!

I'm Still Alive

So Mrs. Wuffy and I bought a house at the end of November and spent the majority of December refusing to do anything but drink getting settled in. Any free time I got outside of the usual hey-day and my vegetable impersonations went towards either painting, raking, cleaning or some other "honeydew" chore.

So alas, we are now Cary-ites and happy homeowners. But COI is not so happy. I'm more than displeased with the fact that there's been nothing but crickets around here. East jumped in when he could (and delivered some dime-pieces, thanks again East) - but I slacked on my blogging big time. For that my friends, I am sorry.

The other day I got an e-mail from Kevin of Barry Melrose Rocks /AOL Fanhouse fame. Seems he's got a super secret internship that requires him to step away from the blogging scene for a bit. He asked me to join in the fun over at BMR to cover his stead while he's away. Naturally, how could I say no? One of my favorite bloggers asks me to hold the reins - you're damned right I'll do it! That's almost like the beer samplers at Miller Brewing calling and asking to come and work for them.
"You mean I get to sample beer for a living? and you're gonna pay me? Like US Dollars?"

With that said - I'm not dropping COI off at the dump. Not by a long shot. But I am entertaining offers if anyone thinks they'd like to give this blogging gig a try. CarolinaOnIce@gmail.com if you're interested, lonely and need to chat, or should you have any questions.

See you around. Go Canes!

It's Pens vs. Canes, Pensblog vs. COI

Pittsburgh still flying high into Raleigh tonight even as they lost to the Rain-jahs in a shootout last night. Everyone is curious to see how the team will react to one-eyed Paul being back behind the bench.

Oh yeah, and it's back-to-back nights of Staal Wars for Jordan as he played brother Marc in NY last night.


Interestingly enough, I'm squaring off against Pensblog Charlie this week in the Barry Melrose Rocks fantasy league. I'm off to a decent start through last night's games:

uh, "Do it." ?

Go Canes.

Picture: Coach Lavi searches far and wide for the power play

h/t to Barstool Sports on the pic find

The Comeback Kings are back: Canes with weekend sweep

Fan A: "Down by two goals again."

Fan B: "We got 'em right where we want 'em then"

The Hurricanes displayed some serious heart and effort in both the opening night 6-4 win over the Panthers and again Saturday night at Tampa with a 4-3 OT decision. What a wild, 24 hour ride for the Caniacs!

Friday night's game:

The opening entrance was pretty cool. I feel sorry for anyone who sat in the lower bowl (Lexus Club side) that had their view obstructed by the impromptu hanging TV screen during all that. The leftover fog seemed to linger around the ice for half of the first period.

Florida came out prepared and walked through an almost non-existent Carolina D to score a few beauties. The Cats made true on their power play chances and Stiller's tip-in goal had the good guys down 2-0 early on. (Methinks Cory Stillman will have a great season with Florida based off Friday's observations and the lack of talent surrounding him.)

After that however, the Canes put on their shit-kickers and started generating pressure by maintaining the offensive zone. Tim Gleason borrowed Wallin's nickname of "The Secret Weapon" and railed out three assists in the game. Pitkanen looked great and scored, as well as Brindy. LaCouture and B-Sutter were workhorses and their efforts paid off as Danny had the game-winner on a feed from Brandon.

Sutter will score at least 3-4 shorties this year - bank it.

In a quip borrowed from the fine folks at The Battle of California, here's your entrusted blogger enjoying the action last night:


Those aren't my usual section 102 seats, but they surely didn't suck. A big thanks and shout-out to reader Bill who provided Wuffy with an adult beverage during the 1st intermission.

On to Saturday's game.

I got home in time to start watching the Tampa game at the beginning of the 2nd period. As I saw the Canes slack around the ice, the Bolts appeared to be taking advantage of a weary Carolina squad. But lo and behold, they crept back into it by waking up and forcing Tampa goalie Mike Smith to do his drama queen act. aside:To Smith's credit, he is a great goaltender that can flat-out play with a suspect defense in front of him. But when he lets in a goal or disagrees with a call, he's more dramatic than the ladies from Desperate Housewives. Exhibit A being the shattering of his stick over the crossbar tonight.

The third period saw Carolina completely dominate play and Tampa in fact looked like the team with tired legs.

In fact, the Canes ate up the Tampa defense, spit them out, swallowed them again and then crapped them out. Outstanding play to come back from being down 3-0 and finish them off with a beautiful Whitney-to-Staal two on one OT marker.

To borrow a line from the boys of The Pensblog:

Happy Birthday D-Lee!

Unlike David Lee from Red & Black Hockey, this photshoppin job never gets old:Happy Birthday, David. May you stay forever like my maturity level - 12 years old.

Had enough season previews yet?

Seeing the previews everywhere gets a bit old but when done right - it's downright entertaining. The best laugh I've had all day was reading Rudy Kelly's Kings preview at The Pensblog. There will be more to come, but here's Jennifer Hammer's Hurricanes preview that she did for her site and for MYFO as well Greg Wyshynski's "yearbook" preview. There will be another 'Canes preview popping up somewhere soon from yours truly.

850 The Buzz & My Boy Jimmy answer everything

As this post is being typed, I'm listening to the lengthy interview of Jim Rutherford today by Adam Gold & Joe Ovies on 850 the Buzz. Must say that it is rather outstanding, as they ask the Canes' GM all the burning off-season questions:

The Return of Captain Hot Topic and his ability to play left, right or center if needed. All signs have pointed towards O'Neill looking sharp in Camp Brind'amour.

The health of Matt Cullen and his dome-piece / skating / "feeling great. 100%".

David Tanabe is expected to come to training camp. If the team could legally buy him out they would have, so the only thing JR can do - is expect Avi to show up to camp in three weeks. Check out D-Lee's coverage on the Tanabe situation over this summer, he's been following it closely.

Rutherford on Brandon Sutter - "he's got a chance to make the team" - COI Translation: Sutter will be a Carolina Hurricane this year, you can bet your first born on it.

AG & Joe Ovies do it respectively as always, but certainly didn't hold much back for this interview. Towards the end of the clip, the conversation shifts to the fact that since the championship 2006 season - it's been two dissapointing, playoff-free years in a row.

Listen to the rest over at 850's site. It's certainly a good listen.

Is it just me, or does Jim Rutherford sound like the years have taken its toll on him? Listen, I'm a huge JR fan and there is a reason he's the longest tenured NHL GM. Perhaps it is just this YouTube clip that makes me think he's still a strapping young lad.

Hockey <3's Baseball

G-dubs, aka Puck Daddy, posted last week about the Binghamtom Mets minor-league baseball team having a hockey night in conjunction with the Binghamton Senators (the Ottawa farm team). They had former B-Sens on hand as well as the IceGirls at the ball game. They showed clips during intermissions from the movies Slap Shot and The Mighty Ducks. The baseball players were wearing uniforms that looked eerily similar to the B-Sens uni's.

Seeing all this made me think of the Durham Bulls and the Hurricanes previous ventures together.

After the the Canes won the Stanley Cup, there was a night of celebration in Durham as several Hurricanes threw out the first pitch and the Stanely Cup was on site. Needless to say, it was a sold-out, packed house and it wasn't because of the Durham Bulls vs. Richmond Braves big match-up. It was a lot of fun and seeing the evening's festivities (from a Caniac standpoint) compensated for the fact that it was 101 degrees w/ 100% humidity.

Also, as recent as last week Chad LaRose himself was the guest of honor at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park to deliver the first pitch, albeit a dead duck of a throw. What hasn't Rosey done this summer? He's on hand for RBC Centura bank grand openings, Caniac Fun Fests, baseball games... I'm waiting for the announcement that he'll be an honorary scooper at Bruster's Ice Cream in North Raleigh for a day (or insert shameless promotion x.here).

Apparently there are some Durham Bulls fans that are also Carolina Hurricanes fans, contrary to what some will tell you.

The Canes can make the playoffs again if...

(image via Flickr's Kaatiya)

Some of them are saying that this will finally be the year that the Hurricanes make it back to the postseason, while others are still not convinced. After giving it some thought, I'm still undecided on what to expect from this year's team. The past two seasons have seen squads loaded with talent that either couldn't play because of injury or perhaps because of complacence.

I see the Canes being either Division Champs or at least playoff-bound again IF they can avoid their evil twin named "Slackass".

Don't remember him? Let me remind you:

December 12, 2008. Ottawa Senators are in Raleigh to take on the Canes. The Sens were still the hottest team in hockey and hadn't completely dismantled themselves yet. Carolina was coming off of a rather mediocre streak. They played at the Bell Centre in Montreal to remind themselves how to win. Less than 24 hours later, they had to play the eventual SC Champion Red Wings in Detroit and lost 5-2 (but sort of played them respectively).

So in comes OTT on the homecoming for the Hurricanes and instead of playing tough, they let the Sens walk all over them and it led to bloggers posting stuff like this:

East of Here's: Just What Am I Paying For?

and Caniacs in general either drank the sorrows away that night or cried in their collective pillows.

Fast forward a month. The NY Islanders are in the RBC Center. With the exception of Samsonov joining the team, January has sucked for the Canes as they are still losing to teams they can take craps bigger than. The Isles squad manages to score all 3 of their first goals on shorties. It's a NYI record. Outstanding. And D-Lee noted that two of them were on the same Carolina power play. Wade Dubielewicz (and his imposing stature) allows 3 Hurricanes goals but stands on his head to make 44 of 47 saves in a 6-3 win. Pathetic.

---

Unfortunately, there are a number of other games that I could have chosen to reference. If the Hurricanes can avoid games like those - they'll hopefully find themselves in a position where they don't have to win their final game of the season to make the playoffs.

Lowetide's Reasonable Expections for Erik Cole

(edmonton journal)

The outstanding Edmonton Oilers blog, Lowetide, has been doing a series of player previews for the upcoming season. LT's breakdown of where Erik Cole will fit in among the lines and personnel is worth a read.

He's spot on in his examining that Cole was constantly up against other team's top lines and didn't necessarily get paired with the top talent. Look for him to be an anchor veteran to the Oil's strong, young developing team. Best of luck to the classy Mr. Cole this coming season.

Rolling Blackouts & You act like you don't know

Any of you folks out there have insider's access to the new black 3rd Hurricanes jersey before it comes out?

There seems to be mixed opinions on them, but this guy can't wait to get his paws on one. I read on a newb's blog "Eye of the Storm Is Upon Us" that they are considering the Red Wings game in October as the first game to wear them. Call me pessimistic, but I'm not sure I want to associate getting creamed 6-2 by Detroit as the first appearance of the black uni's. If that ends up happening, maybe they should reconsider the design and go with CasonBlog's suggestion.

I'll bet East Of Here's shiny wooden nickel that the Hurricanes' marketing dept. will have "Blackout Nights" this coming season in conjunction with the darkness jerseys. It kind of makes sense I suppose -- most of us North Carolinians are used to their power going out during hurricanes / tropical storms. I'm sure that the team can come up with a cooler slogan for those nights than something like "Rock The Red". Cheese factor 84% loaded.

In regards to the old and/or clueless people surveyed that don't know / don't care about the Carolina Hurricanes, I can say this: Naturally the average person in North America doesn't usually associate the words "North Carolina" and "hockey" in the same sentence. But like Mr. Hurricanes Insider said so well, "Tradition to us is going to the Stanley Cup finals, on average, once every 4 years or so. That's tradition in this market."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Happy Birthday America & A Salute To The Blogosphere

First off, let me say that I love being an American. I always have and I always will. Thanks to all those who unselfishly make the sacrifice because they too love their country.

Second, I'd like to take this time to salute the entire hockey blogosphere and my fellow Caniac bretheren. In particular: Bubba of Canes Country, D-Lee of RBH (who's been blogging like its his job), her majesty AQ and even the in-and-out of hibernation Scotty Cason. I was a big fan and loyal reader of all those folks and the only reason this site came to be is because they stopped updating on the regular for a while. Thanks to those guys and thanks to you, too.

See ya next week.

Random thoughts

Writing in complete sentences is hard and stuff.

-Is it October yet?

-Bubba @ Canes Country is the Champion blogger. When none of the restavus Canes bloggers have anything to update about - he pulls out all the stops with some full analysis or interviews some V.I.P.'s. Keep up the great work, bud. Something tells me that the team will be embracing your talents soon enough.

-As far as free agents go - don't expect any big splashes. Remember last summer when our big acquisition was (drum roll) - Jeff Hamilton? I just don't see my boy, Jimmy, going over the top for any of the big names. JM Liles would work out well in this system but is probably going to land a much more lucrative deal elsewhere this summer. If I had to gamble on one - I'd put a shiny wooden nickel on Commodore returning. Also expect someone you may have never heard of.. (AKA an affordable guy).

still can't get used to seeing this

-Speaking of Green Eggs & Hamilton - I feel the need to send him off properly. After a kickass start to the season, I was shouting on high how smart JR was for signing this guy. He had a rocket of a shot, he seemed to pickup an assist every time there was a power play goal and by all reviews of him - he was a great character guy.

As his point total started to decline, so did his ice time as other teams started to crack down on the "Five Forward Power Play" that had worked so well. It's unfortunate that heart doesn't win you games - because Jeff Hamilton has plenty of it. Best wishes, Hammy.

(image via Flickr user MaesMama)

-I've been wanting to do a post about the whole free agent frenzy using the dude, "I Need Money" from the movie How High. Oh well. There it is.

-WTD with Chad LaRose? Management wants to get bigger on the 4th line? What does that have to do with The Chuck Norris of Hockey? Why even associate 4th line and Chad LaRose in the same sentence? Come on, dude.

(image via Flickr user [Keith] )

-What's Sergei Samsonov doing this summer? Wodka, Wodka, Wodka?

-Roddie Brind'amour is a beast. Something tells me that next season is going to be a career best for him. Just sayin'.

-$5 bucks says Matt Cullen has more points next year too. Oh yeah! Carolina On Ice is now the sponsor of his page at hockey-reference.com! I can't even remember how long ago that started.

-Darcy Hordichuk can suck one.

-Sure, I spend a good amount of time on hockey blogs and hockey related sites. I think I've seen this girl staring at me - ohhhh - I'll guess about 700 times in the past 30 days.

She's everywhere!!!!

Stanley Cup Finals can't start soon enough

I will certainly make the most of seeing the final 4 to 7 games that are left of the NHL season, as it has been brutal going almost a week without any hockey to watch.

It seems throughout every round of the playoffs, most bloggers offered up their picks on who would win each series. I didn't bother with any of these, because if I use my previous history in picking things like the NCAA Tournament bracket, I'd just embarrass myself.

I have read quite a few good reviews and predictions though.

My favorite so far for the Pens / Wings series that begins Saturday was Dave Lozo's of Why Don't We Get Drunk & Blog, which included the obligatory Sudden Death clip with Iceburgh the Pens mascot.




Talk about your mid-90's flashback!

But I'll happily pull for the Pens in this one. Go Jordan Staal. (and hello to the stalker fan who has searched this blog over 600 times for "Jordan Staal", here you go. At least you're loyally consistent.)

A Wooooo for two newbs

The Nature Boy and I would like to introduce two new faces to the Caniac blogosphere and COI blogroll.

All-American Hockey Girl & Up To The Rafters

Howdy folks! Welcome to the fray.

Use Canada to catch your hockey World championship highlights

For example, you read on Red & Black Hockey, "Tuomo Ruutu had the game winner for Finland last night." You say to yourself, "Damn, wish I could have seen that one."

Thanks to TSN and a broadband connection, you can.

Here ya'll go.

You can catch most any Canadian highlights as well up there.