NHL Playoffs Round #2

Of course I could be wrong but I doubt it? Oh yeah boys…I was 8 for 8 in my 1^st round predictions (don’t look at what I picked for in how many games). 8 for 8! When I picked the Flyers to beat the sexy pick and favourite Caps many laughed. When I selected the Stars to beat the former champs people thought I was nuts. Who is laughing now? Mind you Philly had help from the refs and Dallas really out played the Ducks but its official and I am correct.

East

1 Montreal Canadiens vs 6 Philadelphia Flyers

The Canadiens were the biggest disappointment out of the winners in the 1^st round. 7 games to the Boston Bruins. Carry Price is the real deal though and without him they would not have won the series. A shutout in game 7! Wow. The Habs are fast and #1 in the pp. With great goaltending they can beat anyone.

The Flyers had a tough match-up with the young guns of Washington. Semin, Backstrom and Ovechkin were all over these guys and they found a way to win. Biron proved the Sabres that he was a #1 goalie as he looked calm in game 7. #2 pp was the Flyers.

In the regular season battle Montreal owned Philly 4-0. But this Flyer team is playing great. They are hitting, scoring and getting good goaltending.

I don’t think anyone can stop Daniel Briere (6 goals and 11 pts in 7 games!).

My 1^st upset goes to my Flyers in 6 games.

2 Pittsburgh Penguins vs 5 New York Rangers

Ottawa was the worst playoff team playing a young, fast, and talented Penguin team. And NY did exactly what I said in proving too much offense for Brodeur to handle by himself.

Lundqvist was nominated for the Vezina and Malkin will be nominated for the Hart. This series could go either way. I think Lundqvist is going to see what kind of power this Pittsburgh team has as they will shoot a lot of rubber his way. The Rangers have assembled a good team as well. But Jagr isn’t the same Jagr of the past. Adding Drury and Gomez helps a lot but they need Avery to be his annoying self in order to beat the birds. Fluery is ready to make a statement that he is ready to go to the next level.

Here’s an interesting couple of stats:

- Pittsburgh ranked fourth in the league on the power play, with a 20.4% success rate. New York ranked 22nd at 16.5%.
- Pittsburgh ranked 23rd in the league in penalty killing, with an 81.0% success rate. New York ranked sixth at 84.6%.

The series will be close as they were 5-3 in the regular season battles but Pittsburgh will be too tough for the Rangers. Penguins in 6.

West

1 Detroit Red Wings vs 6 Colorado Avalanche

This series has the most history. The epic battles of the Wings and Avs have been fantastic and this series will be a great one too. Forsberg and Foote add needed Colorado playoff depth and experience. Detroit seems to be ready to make a run.

What I question the most is the Red Wings goaltending. Will Hasek be ready or will Osgood need to be the starter? Either way both these guys have enough experience to do the job but will they? On the other side, Jose Theodore looks amazing playing his best in years. The difference will be this…Colorado has more depth in their forwards. Hedjuk, Forsberg, Sakic, Stastny, Smyth, and Wolski will be difficult to stop.

Another upset in the making the Avalanche in 6.

2 San Jose Sharks vs 5 Dallas Stars

This won’t be the best series to watch but it will be close. It will be a war and when the dust settles many will be shocked. This goalie battle will be interesting. The favourite has to be the Sharks and why wouldn’t they be? Nabokov is a Vezina trophy candidate. Thorton is a top player. Marleau and Cheechoo cause major problems when playing well. With Campbell they have barely lost. Roenick is a playoff vet who produces. Clowe has been a pleasant surprise.

The Stars are very similar to the Flames. Hard working, hard hitting and hard to beat. This blue collared team is hungry and ready to make some noise. Turco has to get the playoff monkey off his back and will have the chance to this series. Captain Morrow should be the leader on this team. Richards is making his $ so far and Modano just seems to never die (great draft pick).

I was not impressed with the Sharks vs Calgary and wondered if they were going to lose. If Kipper played better in game 7 the Sharks would be cleaning up their lockers.

Going with my 3^rd upset here…Stars in 7.

So my predictions have 3 out of 4 series with major upsets. You might laugh now but may I remind you again I was 8 for 8 in round 1 and last year I picked the Cup winner before the playoffs started with the Ducks.

Of course I could be wrong but I doubt it.

Nonis FIRED! What's next for Canucks?

When I first heard of Dave Nonis being fired from the Canuck organization I was surprised. Just as he cleared a bunch of cap space for the Canucks off season Free Agent frenzy he's canned. Canuck owner Aquilini obviously didn’t feel comfortable with Nonis signing free agents and resigning & drafting players.

At his press conference this week, Dave Nonis was a class act and I would have been shocked if he was any different. He didn’t rip into management or the players.

One thing he did say that did shock me was in response to the "would you change anything now after knowing you would be fired" question. His answer was no. He mentioned if he would have made deals that would have made them make the playoffs to save his job he would be acting like a 'coward'. His best intentions where the Canucks not just this year but in the years to come. I wish they gave him 1 more year.

The fact is, that under Dave, the Canucks have missed the playoffs the last 2 out of 3 years isn't acceptable. And they lost 8 of the last 9 going into the playoffs? If they won only 1 of those games they would have made it but gotten pummelled vs Detroit. Yes they missed 175 man games to defensemen this year but we should have been in the playoffs regardless. Maybe Nonis told Aquilini that he was thinking of resigning Naslund and Morrison and that and missing the playoffs got him fired. Who knows.

But maybe letting Dave go was the best statement to all the fans that we are going to shake things up on all levels. Maybe coach Vigneault is next? Hopefully Naslund and Morrison too.

Thanks Dave for not trading away our young talent on an overpaid, now decent players like Brad Richards. You have put us in a great spot for this summer I just hope the next GM will sign the right guys.

After being surprised the Canucks let him go I saw this overview of Nonis’ moves and my view of the whole opinion changed…

Nonis was promoted to General Manager and Senior Vice President on May 6 2004.In his tenure, Nonis made the following moves:
- July 2004: signed Jonathan Aitken, Joe DiPenta, Lee Goren, Wade Flaherty, and Jeff Heerema. Besides Goren, none of the above were used in a Canucks lineup.
- August 3, 2005: traded Brent Sopel to the Islanders for a 3rd round pick in 2006.
- August 22, 2005: traded the 3rd round pick in 2006 to Atlanta for Steve McCarthy.
- September 9, 2005: traded future considerations to Tampa for Craig Darby.
- October 7, 2005: traded Fedor Fedorov to the Rangers for Jozef Balej and a conditional pick.
- March 9, 2006: traded a 4th round pick in 2006 (TJ Miller) to the Devils for Sean Brown
- March 9, 2006: traded a 2nd round pick in 2006 (Jhonas Enroth) for Mika Noronen.
- March 9, 2006: traded Brett Skinner and a 2nd round pick in 2006 (Bryce Swan) in exchange for Keith Carney and Juha Alen.
- traded Steve McCarthy to Atlanta for a conditional 7th round pick in 2007 (Charles-Antoine Messier)
- traded Tomas Mojzis and a 3rd round pick in 2006 to the Blues for Eric Weinrich. Ouch.
- June 23, 2006: traded Todd Bertuzzi, Alex Auld and Bryan Allen to Florida for Roberto Luongo, Lukas Krajicek and a 6th round pick in 2006 (Sergei Shirokov).
- July 1 2006: Signed Willie Mitchell as a free agent.
- July 14, 2006: traded a 4th round pick in 2007 to the Sabres in exchange for Taylor Pyatt.
- July 20, 2006: signed Marc Chouinard as a free agent.
- July 25, 2006: signed Jan Bulis as a free agent.
- traded, Dan Cloutier to the Kings for a 2nd round pick in 2007 (Taylor Ellington) and a conditional pick in 2009.
- August 18, 2006: signed Rory Fitzpatrick as a free agent. The "Vote for Rory" campaign soon followed.
- October 4 2006: claimed Dany Sabourin off waivers.
- December 30, 2006: claimed Jeff Cowan off waivers.
- February 26, 2007: traded a 2nd round pick in 2007 for Brent Sopel.
- February 26, 2007: traded a conditional pick to Chicago (who picked Akim Aliu) in exchange for Bryan Smolinski.
- June 23 2007: traded Jason King and a conditional pick in 2009 to the Ducks for Ryan Shannon.
- June 23 2007: traded Jesse Shultz to the Thrashers for Jim Sharrow.
- July 2 2007: signed Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister as free agents.
- July 3, 2007: signed Curtis Sanford as a free agent.
- July 9 2007: signed Aaron Miller as a free agent.
- August 1, 2007: traded Francois-Pierre Guenette to the Blues for Zach Fitzgerald.
- August 21, 2007: re-signed Trevor Linden.
- February 26, 2008: traded Matt Cooke to Washington for Matt Pettinger.
(copied from http://hockey-madness.blogspot.com/ Zanstrom’s hockey blog and a pretty good one that I check out sometimes)

4 things that Nonis did well and the rest bombed. Personally I liked Nonis but looking at that list if he didn't make the Luongo trade happen he was a bad GM. But he DID move Bert (who is done), Allen (who is average) and Auld (who is decent/done) for Luongo (a goalie stud), a decent dman in Lukas Krajicek, and a draft pick.

#1 move was the Luongo deal.
#2 move was signing Willie "I might be the next Canuck captain" Mitchell
#3 move was getting T.Pyatt from Buffalo.
#4 move was dealing Cloutier's salary and getting a pick in return.
oh yeah and #5 would be getting Shannon off Burke for Jason King.
Other than that he didn't do much except try and get Marc Chouinard, Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister to do something in Van. Didn't work.

Now the new question is who will replace Nonis as GM of the Canucks? That decision will make or break us. Rumours are flying but don’t deceive yourself Brian Burke and Pat Quinn are not coming back to Vancouver. I have no idea who is coming but I hope it’s someone solid who isn’t afraid of signing a couple scoring Free Agents.

Canucks: More than Disappointed

Mad, frustrated, ticked off, basically not happy with my ‘beloved’ Canucks.

What in the world is going on..we missed the playoffs??? Again!? Here I sit trying to motivate myself to watch the NHL playoffs without being able to cheer for my favourite team. Many people don’t like this next statement but it’s so true. Every Canucks fan needs a secondary team to be devoted to as well. Why? Because this garbage happens and everyone else is jacked about this time of year except for us.

I am mad. This team not only made the playoffs last year but won a round vs a tough Dallas team led by Turco and then lost to the Cup champs the Anaheim Ducks. What happened this year? Very similar to the same thing except most teams improved in the off season with some key additions while Vancouver did jack squat. I know that Nonis was trying to make a deal for a quality centre when Morrison went down with an injury but couldn’t find a dancing partner. At the dead line he was really pursuing a deal with Tampa Bay to acquire Brad ‘I cost too much’ Richards. I am so glad they didn’t deal our young talent for Richards. Not that I don’t like the guy but you are paying him BIG $ for past success that hasn’t done much in the last couple of years.

I am frustrated. In the second to last game of the year we played Edmonton. This was a must win game for us becoming the biggest game of the year. We lose 2-1. You know who was the only person to score in that game? Alex Burrows! Where are the twins or Naslund or Morrison? You guys are supposed to be our go to guys, our big time players, our we need a goal guys. That was our problem most of the year that our ‘stars’ were not our stars.

I am ticked off. Tony Gallagher The Province columnist wrote an interesting article about the lack of scoring Canucks. He basically is blaming our coach Vigneault. I don’t think I agree with Tony because Vigneault was the coach of the year last year. But in the article this quote by Henrik Sedin took me to new levels of anger, "We started thinking too much. You're thinking, 'We should change our game.' It was similar to what happened in the playoffs last year. We didn't trust in our instincts. We didn't trust in our cycle."

The cycle! The cycle! Henrik are you serious! Now don’t get me wrong there are is no one in the league that can control the boards like the twins. But the problem is no one is in front of the net because you can’t score from behind the net Hendrik!

I am not happy about how my ‘beloved’ Canucks ended the year. I believe we need big changes. I know every Vancouver fan seems to say that but I think we have had this core together too long and it’s now time to remodel. Let’s face it the twins should be 2^nd line players. I believe the Canucks should not bring back 5 players for sure: Naslund, Morrison, Linden, Ritchie, and Miller.

Markus Naslund – This guy has been a great Canuck over the years and I personally like him a lot but he’s making $6 mil. The only way I would bring him back is if he would sign for $3-3.5 million. But I think in today’s free agency frenzy where teams love to over pay for mediocre talent (Chara $8 mil?) he will get $4 mil or more from some team with less pressure on his shoulders.

Brendan Morrison – he’s making $3 million and he needs a change of scenery. He is talented but his injury problems are making him watch more games than playing games.

Trevor Linden – actually I wouldn’t let him go. He’s only making $600,000 and I would keep him to play on the 4^th line, killing 5-3 penalties, and playing in the playoffs. But it seems the writing is on the wall the last game as he got the curtain call and much love from the fans. He will be missed.

Byron Ritchie – I don’t know why we signed this guy in the 1^st place but Mike Brown can take his spot now. That frees up $675,000 to spend somewhere else.

Aaron Miller- $1.5 million would be great to have signing someone else. Bourdon needs his spot anyway.

Unrestricted Free Agents we should consider this summer:

Mats Sudin – I don’t think he’s going any where but resigning with the Leafs. But I would love to have him.

Marion Hossa – if he’s smart he will take less $ to play with Crosby and Malkin but is he smart? If Vancouver gets him at least we spend the cash on someone who has the ability to put the puck in the net.

Brian Rolston – this guy seems to be the most realistic FA signing for Vancouver. He’s tough, talented and can score. Plus I am tired of seeing him in a rival’s uniform.

Sean Avery – yes I put him on the list. He causes major problems for the opposition and he does score every so often. Is his up side worth the pain in the butt he is to chemistry?

Nicklas Lidstrom – There is no way he’s leaving Detriot but I would LOVE to get him and so would every team in the NHL.

Ladislav Nagy – I think he has the potential to have some good years in our league.

Brendan Shanahan – I know he’s old but he’s good! Scoring is the thing he does best. Sign him up.

Vaclav Prospal – Not many people in the NHL seem to want him but I think he would be a good fit in Vancouver. Not a stud but solid and will be a consistent scorer.

Ryan Malone – why would he leave Pittsburgh? The same reason many people in this world make the same mistake…MONEY.

Brian Campbell – If he goes somewhere other than San Jose it will be back to Buffalo but I hope he is in Vancouver next year. Not going to happen but I like to dream.

As you can see there are some really quality players available but who will actually sign with the Canucks remains to be seen.

Bingo bango bongo it’s Roberto Luongo. This is a stud and we need to keep him. But if we don’t change the core of our franchise and quickly you will see #1 in a Red Wings jersey, a Capitals jersey, and dare I say it…a Leafs jersey. Now Roberto did not play well to end the season. His mind was obviously on his wife and 1^st born child (especially when there are complications). Maybe this is where Vigneault might have started Sanford but Chris is making $600,000 and Luongo is making $6 million.

I am happy Nonis didn’t move all our young guys to get an Unrestricted Free Agent who might sign somewhere else this summer. For the 1^st time in a LONG, LONG time we have some quality young guys who have cracked this lineup. We should be building upon Kesler, Edler, Raymond, Shannon, and Bieska. Of course trade any of them if we can get a stud like Malkin or Spezza or whoever but its unlikely those guys are available.

Hind sight is 20/20. Now that we didn’t make the playoffs what we should have done at the deadline was this…traded Naslund and Morrison for whatever draft picks they could have gotten.

As for these playoffs my secondary team (like always) is the Philadelphia Flyers. But this summer better have big changes for Vancouver. Until then Go Flyers!

2008 NHL Playoffs Round 1

Okay everyone the NHL playoffs are HERE! State your predictions for the 1^st rd and give me your final.

East

1 Montreal vs 8 Boston
Lovin’ the battle of the original six. These games will be hard hitting. This will be a total domination by the Habs. SWEEP! Enough said.

2 Pittsburgh vs 7 Ottawa
I wish this one would be close but I can’t see it going like last year. Pitts owns them in 5. Crosby, Malkin, Sykora, Hossa, etc but the real problem is Marc Andre Fluery is on FIRE right now. Ottawa is hurt, struggling and are cracking under pressure.

3 Washington vs 6 Philadelphia
Everyone is happy that the Caps made the playoffs. They improved at the deadline to over take Carolina for the division on the last day. But they will need more than one player to beat the Flyers. Semin, Federov, and Backstrom must step up for it to be close. The problem is the Flyers have a better team with a ton of young talent. Briere, Carter, Richards, Lupul, Upshall, and Hartnell will prove to be better than the one man Caps. Philly in 6.

4 New Jersey vs 5 New York
Broduer is one of the greatest goalies of all time. The problem is the Rangers are clicking and have great goaltending themselves with Lundqvist. What the Devils don’t have is enough scoring or defense this year. Rangers win in 6.

West

1 Detroit vs 8 Nashville
I want to go with the Predators here. Looking at these 2 teams I can’t over look the powerhouse of the Red Wings. Hasek and Osgood are the best tandem in hockey so either one will give them a shot every night. Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom, and others are going to shell shock whatever Nashville goalie is playing. Detroit in 5.

2 San Jose vs 7 Calgary
I really like the Flames going into the playoffs. Iggy, Phanuef and Kipper are 3 guys you want to go into battle with. The dilemma the Flames face is the play the worst case 1^st round scenario the SJ Sharks. This Shark team is hungry and looks to make a serious run in the West. Brian Campbell has put this team over the hump and Nabokov will not be stopped. SJ in 5.

3 Minnesota vs 6 Colorado
The Wild are big, strong, hard working and play well defensively. It doesn’t hurt having Backstrom in net. The Avalanche have finished the year very strong. Forsberg is back and lovin’ being back in Colorado. This teams nucleus is in tact with Foote, Sakic and Hedjuk. But what will keep the Wild spinning is the stellar play of the 2 young guns Paul Stastny and Wojtek Wolski. You wonder about the Avs goaltending? Don’t worry any longer Theodore will be able to do the job. Colorado in 6.

4 Anahiem vs 5 Dallas
Everyone and their dog is talking about the Ducks doing really well like last year. Well I think BIG D will have something to say about it as they play the role of the underdog. Turco is a stud and will prove that he can win in the playoffs as well as the regular season. The experience of Brad Richards will help the Stars defeat the Ducks in 7.

Finals prediction: San Jose Sharks beats the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Of course I could be wrong but I doubt it.