Monday Morning Recap - Tuesday Morning Edition

The U of A Golden Bears are ranked #1 in the country and head to Thunder Bay, Ontario to take part in this years CIS hockey championships. They will be joined by Saint Mary's (AUS champ), Western (OUA champ), UNB (AUS runner-up), McGill (OUA runner-up) and Lakehead (host). Shout out to Whitey, hope he brings us home a 14th title! Also, U of A hold just about every CIS Championship record including: titles, games played, wins, loses, goals for, goals against and most appearances. With that said,

Here are my NHL thoughts of the week...

1 a – Daily Oiler Bashing – And yes, this is the BASHING portion, there is no love here for the Oil. They whip Colorado 8-1, miraculously beat Chicago 5-4 in a SO on the 2nd of back-to-back nights and should feel pretty good about themselves... Then they go and lose to Minnesota, 3-0. Congratulations on spoiling an opportunity to take advantage of your game-in-hand.

1 b – Their next few games don't look too bright either... DET, @ PHX, @ ANA, MIN, ANA, SJ and VAN... I said earlier that they would LOSE to DET, SJ, VAN... BEAT PHX and SPLIT with MIN and ANA. So, somewhere around .500... Is that going to be good enough?

1 c – A lone bright spot (no not Gagner, he should have been doing this all damn year, not the past 6 games, he gets no love here) for the Oil, 7 of their last 10 games are at Rexall (including a 6-game homestand).

1 d – Here is ESPN's take on the Jagr/Omsk/Edmonton deal... It actually interested me that such a loophole exists AND has been used before. These are exactly the things Edmonton needs to do more, exploit the system, just don't exploit it with Penner... Frick...

'The Oilers could have tried to use a loophole in the system: Had they officially signed Jagr to an NHL contract on March 4, therefore making him eligible to play in the playoffs, he would have gone on waivers during the 24-hour period leading up to March 5 at noon ET.

Any other club that would have claimed him then could not have used him in the playoffs because any player added to a team's roster after the March 4 trade deadline cannot be eligible for the postseason.

Follow us here? Tricky, indeed. The Washington Capitals pulled this off 11 years ago with Brian Bellows, bringing him over from Europe and adding him to the roster for their Cup finals run.
However, in this case, we believe the NHL would have considered this to be a circumvention of the new collective bargaining agreement and likely would not have allowed it.

The reality is, it never even reached that point because the Oilers couldn't get around the fact that Jagr was still under contract in Russia. The Oilers can't sign the guy if he's still under contract with Omsk, and that's where it all started and ended. In the end, a non-starter. Why would Jagr agree to rip up his deal with Omsk, who is paying him $7 million a year, to play for the $2 million or so the Oilers had left under the cap? Makes no sense if you're Jagr.'

2 a – You guys who didn't like #8's celebration are retarded. In my eyes, he could have whipped down his pants and mooned the fans (they were IN Tampa) or got down on one knee and prayed to God or even have made out with one of the Tampa Ice Girls, I don't care. It was his 50th goal and he joins Gretzky and Bossy as the ONLY players in NHL history to have 3 50-goal years in their 1st four. If you don't want Alex The Great celebrating, then don't let him score. It's that simple. Don't make Alex the scape-goat in this situation, Rick Tocchet, when you didn't prepare your team well enough and develop an effective gameplan to stop the league's most dominant scorer.

2 b - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUyPlvJ-d5M

2 c – Milan Hejduk is a PIMP.

2 d – Bossy actually started his career with 9 consecutive 50-goal years, yep, best PURE scorer the game has ever seen... Right, Sporer? Ha.

3 – We always look at the West races, so I thought I would give my opinions with the East...

Boston 102 – The Class of the East judging by Sunday's whipping of Brodeur & Co.
NJD 97 – 3.03 G/game, this is a different New Jersey team this year.
Washington 96 – The most skilled team in the entire NHL.
Phili 88 – I want to believe, but I just can't shake 'pretender' out of my mind.
Pittsburgh 86 – Malkin for MVP, I like this team to advance to the 2nd round.
Carolina 85 – Always flies under the radar, always. They must be good to be sitting in 6th...
NYR 84 – New players, new coach, new attitude. Love it.
Montreal 81 – Tom Petty said it best... 'Free Faaaaaaaallin'
Florida 80 – I hope they miss the playoffs, serves them right for letting Jay Bouw leave for nothing.
Buffalo 76 – By contrast, I hope the Sabres knock out the Habs.
Ottawa 74 – I'm still against breaking up the 'Big 3'.
Toronto 73 – They are actually a .500 team, who would have thought that?!

3 b – What a 100th season for the Habs. It was supposed to be filled with magic, winning and a Stanley Cup. The All-Star game went well, but since then, the Habs have been the worst Eastern team in the 2nd half and are headed to an early summer. Where does it start? Well, Hab fans were chanting 'Ha-lak, Ha-lak' and 'Car-bo, Car-bo' on Saturday night. Which leads me to believe that Carey Price hasn't been the same phenom he was last year and that firing Charbonneau was a mistake (1 win in 6 games with Gainey behind the bench).

3 c – Let's not forget the K's of the Canadiens... Kovalev, Koivu, Kommasarek, Kostitsyn... They have ALL under achieved this season. On a side note, I would like to remind everyone that I said Kovalev would under achieve this year (just check his stats, look at the pattern) while some other blogger I know said he was going to be the best thing since sliced bread...

4 a – Fuck my Stars. Brad Richards' FINALLY returned from his wrist injury, Saturday night, but then proceeded to break his OTHER damn wrist! Seriously! What kind of shitty luck is that?! They have scored the most goals of any Wstern non-playoff team, but have lost 11 of their last 15 and it doesn't look like they will be playing hockey in May...

4 b – What's happened to your Flames, Drew? Vancouver can smell blood in the water and are only 3 points behind Calgary and have been flip-flopping with Chicago for the final home-ice-advantage spot, no thanks to Mats Sundin though.

5 a – Marian Hossa has, apparenly, told his agent (Rich Winters) to exhaust every option in trying to stay with Detroit, even if it's for less money. Winters is already looking to extend the one-year-deal with Ken Holland (talks have been taking place) into a long-term relationship.

5 b – You want over-rated? Listen to what the NY Post has to say... 'There remains no more overrated coach in the NHL than Jacques Lemaire, whose teams have combined to win three playoff rounds (one with the Devils as a conference No. 1 seed in 1997, two with the Wild in 2003) since leading New Jersey to the Stanley Cup in 1995. But that's what happens when a coach believes systems and not players win championships.'

5 c – You want under-rated? Mike Knuble has 6 consecutive 20-goal seasons.

Here are my non-NHL thoughts of the week...

1 a – Duke for life.

1 b – UNC & ND suck.

1 c – My bracket is pretty well intact. I had all 1,2,3 seed in each region advancing, so it's not a whole loss this year.

2 a – Jay Cutler... You know, I don't know how I feel about this whole story that has erupted, but I'm starting to think Cutler is a whiner. I mean, you look at his record, and he's 17-20... yea, under .500; however, that stat is somewhat misleading since he is 13-1 when his defence allows less then 21 points in a game. Still, what every player just decided to 'sit out' because their coach was listening to offers? Think about how boring Trade Deadline Day would be! Don't get me wrong, Cutler nor the Broncos have done anything to piss me off, but Cutler is starting to get on my nerves.

2 b – How has Torry Holt or Marvin Harrison been able to find a home yet?!

3 a – What the fuck is Twitter? And why is Shaq and other NBA players sending 'tweets' at halftime? Is it like facebook, but better? I don't understand, but it's good to know where their focus is...

3 b – Idea. The next time someone 'posterizes' an opponent... or hits a grand-slam... or scores their 50th goals... pull out the laptop and Twitter... Ya, you heard it here first...

4 a – Hear is something that was really surprising to me... The NFLPA has NO DESIRE OR INTEREST to change the current OT rules. It's not so much a surprise that they aren't going to change it, but it does come as a surprise that there was NO INTEREST AT ALL! Apparently, a committee of current and former players went to the commissioner and lobbied to keep the OT rules as they are.

4 b – 28 of 72 (39%) OT games have ended on the first possesion.

4 c – Of those 72 games, the coin flip winners have chosen to receive 72 of 72 times.

5 a – I just love International sports. There is almost nothing like it. It's kind of like an All-Star game, but with so much more passion and pride.

5 b – Tired of March Madness? This bracket might cheer you up...











https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzu6x1gUJ33ApG7Sg-uOOKLA_5-PFhT957QzsPzlgGt1PDhdBU2ARzYmMVhQFLjJqK9Ockg0i5dfOTpNHV5TBsq3WR9s3PFPn7mINT4p_VHK4XSlmV7SopORiFH5TwGhUfhV-VHDT8m-O/s1600-h/cougar_madness.jpg

5 c – The website speaks for itself... http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

Cheers.
-Smith

p.s. Tuuka Rask's outburst was outstanding. Pure gold.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVGz0MVy