I Watched This Game: Canucks vs Kings, April 23, 2010

I Watched This Game is a recurring feature on Pass It To Bulis, chronicling the observations and insights of two people who watched a hockey game.


Well, how about that? I feel great. I think I might keep this on the PVR forever, and watch it every night, in favour of having intercourse with my wife. It was that satisfying. Let's get right into it. (Editor's note: That was Harrison. Skeeter would like it made clear that he prefers intercourse with his wife to watching Canucks games on PVR)

• This game featured a much better start by the Canucks' penalty kill. They were so on their game that they killed off the first two-minute minor in eight seconds. Good on ya, boys.

• Anybody else catch Fin as a green man? A little late to this party, Fin, but we still like you. On the flipside, I think I saw the Green Men repeating moves tonight. I expect unlimited creativity and preparation out of you guys. I saw one King head to the box and the green guy kind of had a "maybe next time" look on his [featureless] face.

• More goals by Mikael Samuelsson. That's seven in five games. What's really incredible about his streak is that he's putting everything glove side. Like Gunner Stahl. "He's fancy. He'll go glove."

• Craig Simpson needs to consult a dictionary on the difference between complexity and complexion. He also needs to use less sexually descriptive phrases. The Kings were "getting into a nice tight box" is perhaps a smidge racy.

• For the conspiracy theorists, I hope you caught DJ Dave's tribute to you guys when "Sabotage" hit the speakers after the second penalty that led to the five-on-three in the second period.

• Andrew "Barabbas" Alberts played quite well tonight. I like his big body when he's up against forwards like Handzus and Fredrik "Is that You" Modin. And, just when we were once screaming "crucify him!" he gets an assist on the seventh goal. He actually has more points than Alex Burrows. Just sayin'.

• LA's total collapse in the third period was like those episodes of Law & Order where the criminal self-destructs and admits he did it while the district attorney is questioning him. We all know it. Just show us your true self. So gratifying.

• Speaking of gratifying, I don't know what was better. When SOB beat up on Wayne Simmonds and then flashed the shaky pistols like he was partying at the Roxy, or when Rick Rypien pounded on Clune. I'm thinking the second one, as I'm pretty sure I'm heard Glenn Healy imply afterward that Rypien was a hockey god.

• Meanwhile, on that self-destruct, Demitra and Samuelsson made Ersberg look like he was playing in the 80s, what with the shots from the wing that beat him so cleanly. Back then, even the best goalies in the world couldn't stop those shots. These days, let in a couple and you'll get pulled for the goalie that just got pulled. As Skeeter said, consistently missing the opportunity for puns tonight, "Quick was put back in the game rather swiftly."

• Roberto Luongo played great tonight. 'Nuff said.

• The Sedins have combined for fifteen points in this series. I'll tell you when home ice matters: when you have the last change. They seemed unstoppable tonight, and one of the major reasons was that Terry Murray couldn't seem to get his matchups.

• The Demitra-Wellwood-Bernier line was on fire tonight. I hesitate to say Wellwood was playing like a man possessed. He wasn't, but I saw him take a slap shot tonight. Maybe the hardest shot he's ever taken. Most times when he shoots, it looks more like a saucer pass.

A Moment of Pure Bulis

Sometimes the fever pitch reaches a critical point. When that happens, we at PiTB recommend that you take a step back, breathe in, and enjoy a much-needed Moment of Pure Bulis.


Did you know? Ryan Kesler has a dog named Muffy.

The NHL Still Knows Nothing About the Sedins

Seriously, guys, we've been in the NHL for almost a decade.

Rocky Bonanno is a staff writer for NHL.com. He seems to think that Daniel Sedin plays centre and Henrik Sedin plays left wing:

The Canucks have the most unique forward line in Daniel Sedin Henrik Sedin and Alexandre Burrows. Unique because the Sedin twins -- Daniel the center and Henrik the left wing -- have been playing together nearly their entire lives and have an uncanny chemistry that only brothers who shared the same womb can comprehend.

Ignoring for the moment that it's incredibly creepy to talk about the Sedins sharing a womb, this is an absolutely inexcusable error. The time is terrible as well, giving Canucks fans yet more ammunition for their Bias Cannons.

It's also terrible timing in another way, as Burrows was taken off the top line on Wednesday and the Sedins are set to lineup with Samuelsson tonight. What better time than to feature an article on the front page of NHL.com about how well the Sedins and Burrows are playing, with a link labeled "Top lines clicking for Canucks, Hawks" and the claim that "Sedin twins are in synch with Alex Burrows?"

Do the staff writers for NHL.com not have access to their own website's statistics page? The one that clearly shows Burrows has yet to register a point in the playoffs? What part of that would suggest that the top line is "clicking" and that the Sedins are "in synch" with Burrows?

Incredibly shoddy work from NHL.com, further re-enforcing the fact that they pay no attention to the west coast.

What New Jersey Tells us About Media Myths

I have been raised on hockey talk and sports columnists. My long-held beliefs have been ingrained into me by the Hockeycentral panel, the TSN panels, hockey experts, retired hockey players, and colour commentators whose encyclopedic knowledge of the game-within-the-game fills in the gaps between informed, descriptive analysis of exactly what I'm seeing. And I believed them all. I am a Child of Hockey Church, but Last night's elimination of the New Jersey Devils has deeply shaken my beliefs.

The Devils had it all. They got Ilya Kovalchuk at the deadline. They had the best goalie in the series. They had home ice advantage. And yet, they still lost. It's enough to wonder if the media has a slough of ridiculous cliches they trot out to fill space and build consternation among their followers, but it actually means nothing.

The trading deadline myth has been in the process of being thoroughly debunked for quite some time now. Often times, the team that pays high for the best player winds up going home early. My guess is that it's not an accident. Players of this sort demand the sort of ice time that eats into the structure and consistency of your team. The New Jersey Devils are, simply put, a different team when Ilya Kovalchuk is playing twenty-three minutes a night. It's a little different than, say, if the Canucks ice Nolan Baumgartner instead of Andrew Alberts. Those four and a half minutes arent really representative of the team as a whole.Kovalchuk was. But, if he doesn't jive with the system, if he doesn't develop immediate chemistry with his linemates--if he's never been asked to backcheck a day in his life--then the Devils system falls apart. Getting a superstar at the deadline is a little like losing an eye in a fireworks accident. Sure, you look way cooler with that patch, but you've handicapped yourself.

The goaltending issue. Is it a myth? I think, to use Ron Maclean's parlance, we can all agree that Martin Brodeur is better than Brian "The Mighty Boosh" Boucher. Brodeur has won everything. But, if he's so great, then how come he lost his starting job at the Olympics to a goaltender everyone claims looked shaky? And how come he lost a playoff series to a goalie who needed 40% of the other tenders on the Eastern seaboard to basically come down with freak cases of bonitis? We can't, in all seriousness claim that The Boosh is a better goaltender than Brodeur, can we? No? Nobody would ever say that, but if you followed the thought process of most of their criticisms of Luongo, you might be forced to come to this. We ought to admit that you can't always blame the goaltender when his team gets lit up. For all of Luongo's struggles, he's made it out of the first-round every single time. Not one of the Vezina candidates is playing for a team leading his first-round playoff series. I guess they all suck.

Home ice? Well, let's hope it's just an aberration that the Devils have been eliminated on home ice three years in a row, because Vancouver just got their home ice back. I know it has to matter. But I don't think it matters nearly as much as we've been led to believe.

Let's just hope it matters for us.

THE MIGHTY BOOSH!

With a stellar shutout from Brian "The Mighty Boosh" Boucher, the Flyers have eliminated the New Jersey Devils. The Conn Smythe watch begins here.

The Flyers started the season with Ray Emery between the pipes, hopeful that he was the answer to their goaltending woes. He wasn't. Even discounting his injury troubles, Emery was 33rd in the league in save percentage (.905) and 22nd in GAA (2.64).

Michael Leighton stepped in and posted nearly identical numbers to Emery (.905 SV%, 2.83 GAA) before he too was injured.

The Flyers, shocking nearly everyone, chose not to trade for a goalie at the trade deadline, sticking with Leighton and Boucher, trusting that Leighton would stay healthy. He didn't.

In came Brian "The Mighty Boosh" Boucher, one of the few goalies in the league with a worse save percentage than Emery and Leighton (.899). And while the Flyers were a reasonably popular choice as a first-round upset, I sincerely doubt anyone expected The Mighty Boosh to post a .940 save percentage and a 1.59 GAA in the process. But he did.

The NHL journeyman on his second stint with the Flyers after spending time with 5 other NHL franchises stepped up his game when it mattered the most and was simply better than the future hall-of-famer, Martin Brodeur, who leaves the playoffs with a sad stat-line - .881 SV% and a 3.01 GAA - continuing a downward trend in his playoff performance since the lockout.

But now is not the time to dwell on the rotund one's failings; now's the time to celebrate the greatness of The Mighty Boosh! Boosh for the Conn Smythe!

I'm not saying there's a conspiracy...

Above: Mike Murphy, according to Wikimedia Commons

The hockey world has been awash in Canucks conspiracy rumours over the last 24 hours, opining that Gary Bettman has it in for Canadian teams and has rigged the system in favor of the sun-belt, and that Mike Murphy is a Kings homer who is completely incapable of separating his personal feelings from his profession. This mostly erupted out of the terrible call made by video review on Daniel Sedin's "kicked-in" goal, as nicely summarized by The National Post and Puck Daddy.

The latest wrinkle is Gary Bettman's own apology (not in the actual "saying you're sorry for a completely brutal call" sense) for the controversy, in which he suggested that Mike Murphy's inability to defend the no-goal call was because he was tired. Perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, it would be a good idea to have a video review team on the west coast, where they might be still awake enough not to interpret twisting a toe as a "distinct kicking motion?" Just throwing that out there.

The Hockey News attempted a stab at satire and failed miserably.

As for us at Pass It To Bulis, we've made it pretty clear what we think about the disallowed goal and the questionable officiating. But a conspiracy? That's absurd, insulting, and all the other things Gary Bettman had to say.

There's no conspiracy: the officiating and decisions from the NHL front office have been universally terrible.

This has been happening for some time now and it's not necessarily the referees fault. More and more decisions are being taken out of their hands, from the automatic delay of game penalty for clearing the puck over the boards to the automatic double-minor for drawing blood with a high stick. Having a second official on the ice was meant to lower the number of missed calls, but it instead seems to have increased the number of phantom calls. Video review was designed to overturn an on-ice official's decision if there is conclusive evidence. Instead, Daniel Sedin's goal is disallowed on the flimsiest of reasons. The video review team is meant to be as unbiased as possible, yet Mike Murphy, a former Kings player and coach who has gone on the record as saying he would like the Kings to win the Stanley Cup, is the Vice-President of Hockey Operations and was in charge of the video review during the Kings-Canucks game.

This is not an issue with the NHL favoring one team over another; this is an issue of the rules being unclear and the NHL front office being incompetent at anything other than covering their own asses.

I Watched This Game: Canucks vs. Kings, April 21, 2010

I Watched This Game is a recurring feature on Pass It To Bulis, chronicling the observations and insights of two people who watched a hockey game.

Taking off my Canucks fan hat for a moment, I just want to acknowledge the fantastic entertainment value of this playoff series. In my egotistical opinion, this series has had the most drama, excitement, and fun of the entire first round. Game four was no different. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• It's a sad day when killing a single penalty is lauded like the Canucks had won a major victory. The penalty kill still needs a lot of work, but it looked stronger towards the end of the game as the Canucks put some good pressure up ice on the forecheck and clogged up the neutral zone.

• The Sedins showed why they're two of the best players in hockey, as they took over the third period with their typical sublime passing and puck control. But what impressed me most was their dogged effort, chasing down every puck, playing the body, and covering up the puck to waste time at the end of the game.

• Henrik's unadulterated glee at scoring the game-winning goal was fantastic, but my favorite part was when he immediately skated to the bench to celebrate with the entire team rather than just the four skaters on the ice. That's team unity.

• With a 2 point effort, Henrik was named the second star on the night by the NHL and first star on the night by Puck Daddy. I prefer Puck Daddy's ranking, but I'm blatantly biased. Daniel had 3 assists on the night, none better than this slap pass to Mikael Samuelsson.

• No one celebrates a goal quite like Sami Salo. I'm just glad he didn't hurt himself with the double fist pump.

• Kyle Wellwood made a couple of uncharacteristic bonehead passes in this game, but he also played solid defensively, controlled the puck well along the boards against much bigger competition, won 64% of his faceoffs, and recorded an assist. Not bad at all.

• At 0:25 of this video, Luongo gets his mask knocked off by a fan. The look on Luongo's face is priceless. Personally, I imagine the fan was thinking the same thing as the bleeding woman from Matthew 9:20-22: "If I can only touch his mask, I will be healed." And Luongo turned and saw him. "Take heart, son, your faith has healed you." Then he gets his mask back and high-fives some Canucks fans.

Harrison's turn!

Back to Vancouver we go, the series knotted at two wins apiece. I'm ecstatic that we won last night's game, but the stress of this series is killing me. My wife--normally not a hockey fan, that one--is a nervous wreck after taking in her first playoff series. Last year, we went on our honeymoon during the Chicago series and we missed all the infuriating parts. In year's before, she just avoided hockey like the plague. But, in a basement suite, with one television, the volume up as loud as ever, and, often, guests aplenty clogging up the available space, she's been forced to hop on the bandwagon with everybody else. And its stressing her out.

That said, it'll do her good to have her patience tested by the Canucks. It's why British Columbians are typically so relaxed, methinks. It's not the pot. It's the inept history of the Vancouver Canucks, which has taught us all to accept even the worst disappointments calmly. Excepting when we don't.

• It's strange to say that Roberto Luongo was better tonight when he let in four goals, but he didn't get pulled, so, he was better. That said, he was also pretty good when it counted, if we only consider specific moments where he made crucial saves as when it counted. Too much parsing. It also counted in the first period when he couldn't make the save and incurred the wrath of Tommy Larscheid on the radio broadcast. "You deserve to fish it out the back of your net," he spewed, in reference to Lu's failure to cover up a loose puck on a scramble. Ouch.

• Luongo was the better goalie tonight and I think the Canucks might have the book on Quick: the guy is the antonym of quick on the stick side. To wit: he was slow. With the exception of Samuelsson's glove-side tip on the slap-pass (called a shass by the Versus color in this highlight package, which is not a good name for it), every one of the Canucks five goals on Quick was fired across Quick's body and went just over the pads on his stick side. Expect this trend to continue.

• I agree with Skeeter on Wellwood, who has been his typical hot/cold self, but we need Wellwood, the playoff warrior ("Wellwood Smash!"), not Wellwood, the existential functionalist ("Oh, shucks"). The guy's calmness with the puck has been taken to epic levels of late, resulting in remarkable puck possession (third period last night) or horrible turnovers (the Richardson goal from the last game). Problem is, it's a coin flip on which one we'll see from shift to shift. It's also a lot of wear and tear on my arms, as Wellwood has me shaking my fist on every shift, either out of excited pride or rage. Kyle, you are making this friendship so difficult.

• I am still waiting for Ryan Kesler to show up. LA scored a couple times tonight when Kes lost his man. And yes, I'm calling him Kes. The suffix -Lord will return to his name when he earns it back. I don't see his speed, I don't see his grit, and I don't see his recently developed playmaking ability at all. The guy is tight and he's not playing like he played all season, when he could have been our MVP (were it not for that other guy, who tainted the whole ballot by being a league MVP). I don't mean to harp on Kesler and Wellwood, but the Pittsburgh Penguins are a good example of why strong play from your centers is often all you need.

• Can Vancouver collectively send Doug Wilson candies and flowers for giving us Christian Ehrhoff for nothing? He was a beast last night, giving us an offensive answer for Drew Doughty, if at least for one game. Not sure if we realize how much of our offense he generates.

• I thought Nolan Baumgartner looked shaky last night as did Tom Larscheid, who disliked his game enough to say on the radio that maybe Alberts should come back in. Matthew 27:21: which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor. "Barabbas," they answered.

• What in the heck was Shane O'Brien doing? I play basketball with a guy like him sometimes. He gets incensed about something, and then you just can't talk any sense into him. And then he elbows someone in the solarplexis on a harmless crossover. Anybody who questions Luongo's leadership should refer to the moment in which he talked SOB down after the coaching staff couldn't. Seriously. That was an excellent bit of captaincy.

• Were it nor for the referees, Wayne Simmonds might have been on the receiving end of Bieksa's patented Superman punch. It would have been nice to see his skinny chicken legs buckle after taking in The Fist that Felled Fedor(tm).

• The Canucks are brutalizing the Kings 5-on-5, outscoring them every game when the play's even. But, since the refs refuse to let us see much of this type of hockey and continue to make terrible, terrible calls, we need to win these special teams battles. Last night, it was a sawoff, as both teams went 2-for-4. That's okay. A draw in special teams means the game is decided 5-on-5. Little shock who won, then.

• It goes without saying, but Mikael Samuelsson has been the best player on the Canucks all series long. He seems to score crucial goals exclusively, he's always dangerous, he gets into open areas, he displays an unparalleled patience with the puck, and his clutchness and calmness is the perfect way to lead by example. The man has been a star, and he deserves every minute of top-line ice time he gets. The tip he made to Daniel on the Salo goal was maybe the play of the game. Terry Murray's imperative to his team to "know where Samuelsson is at all times" should really flatter the guy.
  

• I've been thinking: We've seen SOB and Samuelsson both play better when they were left off teams they should have been on. Perhaps in practice AV should exclude them off a scrimmage? SOB's seems pretty dense; they might even be able to convince him it was the real game.

• Tanner Glass looked pretty bad last night. Why isn't Rypien playing in his place? He's faster, hits just as much, has more skill, and plays the same position. Seriously, one game as a center and AV forgets he can play the wing? Even Hordichuk might be an upgrade to match the Kings' size.

• And finally, how did Gary Bettman manage to address and dispel the rumours of an Eastern bias while making it glaringly evident in his own statement? The quote: I think Mr. Murphy was trying to explain at 1 o'clock in the morning as best he could exactly what was going on and if he wasn't as articulate as those looking to parse his words, so be it." So wait, he was tired? The game was on too late? Isn't that exactly what the jingoists in the Vancouver media always claim is the real issue with the bias? The time difference and the Eastern guys' unwillingness to stay up that late? These are grown men. They can stay up past their bedtime on occasion. It sounds stupid as Hell, but here, Bettman actually admits the lateness of the games is a factor. WTF? The bizarro playoffs continue.

Quotes Taken Out of Context: Samuelsson Edition

"I like my wife's food. I have to say that. Otherwise, she'd kill me."

- Mikael Samuelsson, April 22, 2010