Weekend Wrap Up OR I really hate dogs

This is American power out-muscling Canadien whatever.



When you have bad hands, you should just play with Evgeni Malkin. I'm talking to you, Mike Rupp.




Hey, Todd Bertuzzi scored twice!

And this fight happened. Rick Rypien is fearless!




What did I miss?

-Bress

What you missed last night while you were angrily watching Jim and Pam's wedding

Its Friday, so its back to Hockey Haikus. There were a ton of games last night.


Flames beat the Oilers in the shoot-out, 4-3:
Khabibulin has
problems late in the third. He
is probably drunk.

Sharks beat the BJs, 6-3:
Heatley got the trick.
Joe had four assists. The Sharks
need the same in May.

Senators beat the Islanders in OT, 3-2:
Okposo had a
sweet goal. Pascal Leclaire's pads are sweet.
Does anyone care?

Penguins beat the Flyers, 5-4:
Would you really be
surprised if Hartnell does like
the taste of humans?

Rangers beat the Capitals, 4-3:
After Henrik's brain
fart, Gabby scores. When will his
groin finally break?

Thrashers win over the Blues, 4-2:
The commentator
call Tkachuk, "Big Walt." That's the
Best. Nickname. Ever.

Red Wings beat the Hawks, 3-2:
This game wasn't close
to being sold out. Detroit
has mad problems, yo.

Devils beat the Lightning in the shoot-out, 4-3:
Stamkos will not have
a sophmore slump. His release
is "lightning" fast. HA!

Predators beat the Avalanche, 3-2:
Nashville has a real
sneaky home-ice advantage.
Duchene is mad fast.

Sabres win over the Coyotes, 2-1:
Is there anyone
outside of Buffalo that
cared about this game?

Ducks beat the Bruins, 7-1:
"Perry scored off his
head. Boston sucks,"says Nemmy
in text from last night.

Kings win over the Wild, 6-3:
So far this season,
the Kings get big leads, then lose
them, but win the game.

Everybody just relax!

Take a look at this hit:






Legal hit, lofty hit. Unfortunately Kyle Okposo left the game on a stretcher and has been diagnosed with a concussion.

This is hockey, these hits happen. Don't try to slow it down and look to see if Dion left his feet (probably, but after contact) or led with his elbow (Okposo was stumbling downwards). Its a hockey hit. Is it kind of stupid that this happens in preseason? Yea, but Dion had an awful year last year and probably needs a confidence booster. So I guess the preseason big hit is kind of the equivalent of taking the fat chick home from the bar the week before a big wedding weekend. You don't want to do it, but in you need to in order get ready for the real deal.

Hopefully Kyle will be AOK, and that will be that. If the NHL got serious about "headshots" then this might be a different post, but its not. Lets get ready for the real season to start!

Crib Notes - New York Islanders

New York Islanders
Lost backup goaltender Yann Denis to New Jersey via free agency
Resigned Blake Comeau and Doug Weight
Signed both Dwayne Roloson and Martin Biron via free agency
Drafted John Tavares #1 overall at last year's draft

Questions going into 2009-2010:
Will the Isles get a new stadium built?
Is owner Charles Wang bluffing about moving the team?
Are John Tavares, Kyle Okposo and Josh Bailey enough to put bring fans back to Nassau Coliseum?
Will Rick DiPietro play this season?
If he is on his comeback schedule why did mgmt sign two potential starting goalies?
Can they do any worse than last season?
Will the Isles bring the 2Man back for another season of web video magic?

Poised for a breakout season:
Kyle Okposo was a bright spot last season. I expect this kid to make the a leap this year as long as he stays away from the bacon cheeseburgers.

If you had to buy one Islanders sweater:
Bress has a sick Pat LaFontaine throwback. Scotty has a few great ones including a dark blue Guerin and a (sleeveless?) pastel fisherman. I would get the blue throwback Weight jersey as soon as he gets named captain. I would tuck it into one side of my sweats and spend my day dangling.

Player whose game you sneaky like:
If I had a kid who was just starting to skate I would sit him down and make him watch every Richard Park shift. If the kid acted up I would make him watch the rest of the games as punishment.

Reason for jumping on the Islander bandwagon:
Team can't get any worse from here. Tavares, Okposo and Bailey will be future stars.

Reason for avoiding this bandwagon:
They might move once their lease is up. Kansas City Islanders? Queensboro Islanders?

Old guys:
Weight is 38
Park is 33
Andy Sutton and Brendan Witt are both 34
Dwayne Roloson is 39

Young guys:
Everyone else

Tough guys:
Joel "the Wrecker" Rechlicz, Jeremy Reich and Andy Sutton hit and fight. Hopefully Reich and the Wrecker make the squad.
Brendan Witt is old school.

Interesting?:
Fan favorite Tim Jackman was born in Minot, ND, the same town as Josh Duhamel, the guy from Transformers who is dating/married to Fergie.

Sneaky cool part of last year's training camp for the 2Man:
Nursing a hangover in the rink and having Eric Cairns come sit next to us to ask us about our night. All Scotty wanted to do was say, "who cares what bar we ended up at! Tell us about beating up Shayne Corson"

Nostalgia:
Garth Snow is the GM, Bryan Trottier, Ken Morrow, Dean Chynoweth, Mike Dunham, Eric Carins, and Steve Webb all have various roles in the organization. Somehow Scott Lachance is a scout for the Devils.

NHL 94 players:
Pierre Turgeon, Benoit Hogue and Steve Thomas up front
Vladimir Malakhov and Darius Kasparaitis on D and Glenn Healy in net.
David Volek was rated a 60 while his helmet tallied a 98.

YouTube:
The single greatest interview icebreaker in the history of tv. Seriously, the next time you are nervous at an interview or something just imagine your future boss hatching out of a garbage can.



- Nemmy

Finals Preview in the 2man Head to Head League

Well now that Mike Sung has officially dragged me down this morning from consistent staring at my P+L and making me lose my focus, we can talk about the finals match-up.

Please put this song on in the back-ground for the following post.


Trefo (a.k.a.) "Schmitty" takes the Spin-O-Rama squad, which has consistently outperformed the S&P 500 all year long. He brings the likes of players such as a dominant Rick Nash, street-savy Marc Savard, the big cat Marty Brodeur between the pipes with Yann Danis and Nikolai maybe he'll save it Khabibobby backing him up. He also yields the ever-impressive Jeff Carter and his sexual campaign this year with decent under-belly support in players like Patty Berglund, Joey Pavelski, Alexei Kovalev and the MTL PP domination, Michael Ryder and Mikey Kanubull.

For the next preview, place this song on please.

When I hear this song for NHL '95, I get watery a little as I remember my mom buying this for me and I just wasn't ever more excited for any other version as a kid, I don't know why. It makes me wanna play roller hockey on Mildred Drive. We would order Domino's and try to get the Seagulls to eat an alka-seltzer tab, to see if it would actually explode.

On the back-end Brad Mac brings his iron clad Omar DevOne Little squad that also has outperformed the S&P 500 all year in good form with well oiled axles from front to back. In goal he throws Niklas Backstrom alongside Dwayne Roloson, two goalies back-stopping two teams in the playoff hunt which is always good down a fantasy stretch with Bryzgalov there to support the save category. Mrs. Phelps (a.k.a. Brad Mac) yields the power I Mike Richards which is something you need in a finals matchup this year. He holds a strong D-pairing in Gonchar and Streit with Dany Heat, interesting Lucic over the last few, Stevey Sulls who will only continue his match play when and if Arnott returns, Marty Aggrippa Havlat who has crushed the street's expectations this year and is surviving and thriving in this recession. I like this team to win it for the goaltenders who will be in TOP form, and most of all for his lower line scrape. Sam Gagner, Okposo, Antropov, Stamkos, T.J. Oshie and some Jared Boll PIMs. Many of these guys have been very strong over the last month.

Should be interesting to watch. My team just didn't have it this year. A poor draft, alongside a few injuries and some missed pick-ups and you have a bottom story forming.

- Nascency in the pull-back

What you missed last night because you were visiting The Rock for the first time

Last night was my first visit to the Prudential Center, the Devils new home arena. That place is gorgeous. I don't know how I'll ever be able to go back to the Coliseum. Everything is awesome, except for one weird mural where there no heads on the players.



Islanders beat the Canadiens in OT, 3-2:
Okposo will be
playing for USA in
World Championships

Flames beat the Red Wings in the shoot-out, 6-5:
Quite a game. First the
Flames come back and take the lead,
but the Wings don't die.

Devils beat the Coyotes, 5-2:
Parise got goal
number 40. Marty is
one win from Roy's mark.

Thrashers beat the Oilers in OT, 4-3:
Here's the game winner:
It was a hail mary flip pass
tipped to breakaway

Bruins beat the Senators, 5-3:
I love slap shot goals
on breakaways. I also
love glove high snipes, Phil.

Lightning win over the Maple Leafs, 4-1:
Stamkos seems to have
developed great chemistry
with Marty. Don't trade?

Capitals win over the Flyers, 2-1:
Ovechkins stats were:
One game winner, one assist
and EIGHT freaking hits!

Rangers beat the Predators, 4-2:
Guess what everyone?
The Rangers are on TV,
AGAIN, fucking great.

Avalanche beat the Wild in the shoot-out, 2-1:
The Wild play great games
against great teams and shitty
games versus bad ones.

Blues beat the Sharks, 3-1:
On my men's league bench
someone said the Blues were the
hottest team in league.

BJs beat the Penguins in the shoot-out, 4-3:
Great comeback by the
Penguins to get at least a
point. Mason stood tall.

Stars beat the Hurricanes, 3-2:
Carolina was
hot until they lost to the
coldest team - Dallas.

Sabres win over the Panthers, 3-1:
The Sabres have no
leadership. I don't like them.
Vokoun robbed Vanek.

Holiday Weekend Wrap Up OR Seriously, what the hell is a truffle?

So I fell asleep real early on Friday night. I was getting ready for a big day on Saturday. Luckily, I didn't miss much. Mostly low scoring games, no memorable highlights.....
Saturday had some outstandingness to it.
Who knew an Oilers/Kings game would have so much punch (pun intended):


I initially thought Jack Johnson was fighting Andrew Cogliano - his old college teammate.

Mike Green set a record with this goal:

Its not the prettiest of his, not even the prettiest of the streak, but they all count.

So Friday was bleh, Saturday had its spots, but Sunday was where the NHL Center Ice Package pays for itself. Unfortunately, you really needed it, because NBC switched from the Devils/Sharks (2 best teams in each conference who played a 6-5 thriller) to Flyers/Rangers (we get it, NY is a big market).

Ovechkin had a hat trick. My favorite was his first goal. A low wrist shot snipe from the point:


The replay angle is perfect!



So the Islanders played in a matinee yesterday. Okposo tried his sick shoot-out move again and failed. Its so good.

And the Rangers lost again. Who's getting fired?

I know I missed a lot...

-Bress

Ladle and Soup - Fantasy Cross-Section

This is what I see from the bell tower people.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard who I recently dropped has been out-performing the Dow Jones with a nice little game log as of late. 3 goals and 6 assists in his last 4 games. He is known for patches of greatness than patches of sadness so keep a watchful eye...maybe trade him for someone at a peak?

Dominic Moore on Toronto has been involved as of late. 2 goals and 7 assists in his last 6 with 6 pims. Yea....yea!

Not that there is a play to be made here but Marty Turco as of late. How about that? Somehow he is still getting by over there in Dallas. Nice little win streak going at 5 games with only 7 goals allowed. OK Marty! Fantasy owners need a reprieve at some point. If it gets significantly better...get off the train and sell him high for someone better.

Jere Lehtinen is in the house. 11 points in 13 games. Pay attention. Mo loves passing to this guy and he CAN score goals...especially on the powerplay. Little Jere a Seinfeld!

Kyle OOOOOOOOposooo - 5 goals and 1 assist in his last 5 games. There is always value. ALWAYS! He has the goods, just hasn't figured out how to use them. When he does...he will be a nice addition to any fantasy squad.

Dave Bolland - Little David Black Betty Bolland is involved and alive over in Chi-town. I think he is playign alongside Havlat a little which is positive...throwing up a couple of shorties and booby miles.com. If you need a Dave Bolland, pick up a Dave Bolland.

- Scotty