MvsW #0120 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0120 (May 07, 2012) Question of the Day:
Your favorite team wins the Cup - which jerseys do you wish they were wearing?

Well, being a Red Wings fan, this is pretty easy, as there's not a multitude of older jerseys or such to choose from.  My personal preference is the Detroit white now-away-but-previously-home jerseys.  I still don't like the whole "darks at home" thing that was inexplicably changed after the lockout, because I really prefer most teams' white jerseys.  I think they just look a little cleaner, a little sharper, a little more detailed than the darks for most teams, including Detroit's.  With the dark jerseys, it's a big blob with some little white writing and stuff going on.  With the light jerseys, it just looks neat and clean, like someone took a blank canvas and set to putting together something great.

On a slightly related note: my wife was watching Game 1 of the Kings/Coyotes series, and was briefly confused on which team was which, because the Coyote's "whiteout" seemed to be a statement of support for the team in white...  which was the Kings, as the whiteout pre-dates the post-lockout policy of home teams now wearing their dark jerseys.  Shouldn't Phoenix now change the event to be a "maroon-out" or a "burgundy-out", similar to the Capitals' "Rock the Red"?

If anyone knows why they changed the home jerseys after the lockout, I'd love to hear why.  The only thing I can think of is some sort of really silly thing like "We notice we sell more home jerseys than away jerseys, so we should switch the jerseys so that we can get people to buy the jersey they don't already have!", but that seems like a quite a stretch.

I would also like to mention (I think I've mentioned it on this blog before, but I don't remember for sure), I think the Edmonton Oilers blue-and-oranges are absolutely hideous, and I always really liked their McFarlane-designed alternates that they wore briefly about 10 years ago.  I thought they were pretty neat and a helluva lot more sharp than the blindingly bright jerseys that they've been bringing back.

MvsW #0119 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0119 (May 04, 2012) Question of the Day:
What would make you care about the IIHF World Championships?

I think the whole problem with the IIHF World Championships is pretty obvious - it happens during the NHL playoffs.  That alone makes it a hard sell, as it's tough to get time to watch it (and don't even get me started on how stupid a tape delay is in the Information Age), but the fact that it's also not featuring all the best players in the world is a significant factor as well.

The obvious solution is to not play the event during the NHL season, which makes it more viewable, but also increases the player pool for the event.  I would personally schedule it for August.  June has the Cup Finals and the draft, and July has free agency, but from the second week of June to mid-September, there's nothing at all for hockey fans to sink their teeth into.  I always start getting my hockey jones real hard in mid/late August, and if the IIHF were on at that time of year, I'd be all over it.

The only thing that might become an issue then is if it would really mean much to be a yearly event, and if players would want to take time from their offseason plans to participate.  I'm not sure if that would be a concern or not, but if it were, I think setting it up to have a championship tournament every other year (alternating between Olympics and IIHF) would be a pretty solid idea.  I think just moving it to August would be good enough though, to significantly increase interest in the game.

MvsW #0117 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0117 (May 02, 2012) Question of the Day:
You're starting a team, which currently unemployed GM do you hire and why?

For years now, I've always maintained that I would love to see what would happen if you put a couple of the smarter minds in the NHL blogosphere into an NHL front office.  With indefensible morons like Don Waddell, Doug MacLean, and Steve Tambellini (and I'm not even touching on Matt Millen - Never forget!) able to land jobs in the NHL, often multiple times, I would love to see a new team go way off the board, and get someone completely new to run their front office.

My ultimate preference would be to replace the individual GM position with a small GM-council, of James Mirtle, Gabe Desjardins, and Tyler Dellow.  You could even make it bigger (though an odd number is probably ideal, for voting out any disagreements) and add folks like Tom Awad, Vic Ferrari, or a hundred others.  These are the guys helping lead the advanced statistical revolution in hockey, and I cannot possibly fathom a scenario in which they wouldn't at least be moderately successful.  Given the incredibly low bar set by several of the GM's in the NHL right now, it would be nearly impossible for them to end up in the bottom of the league.

This wouldn't be half as much fun though if they couldn't document the things they were doing, for our entertainment, which obviously wouldn't be very practical.  But such a thing would certainly make for one ridiculously interesting blog or reality tv show or something.  Shows like the Oilers propaganda piece Oil Change wouldn't stand a chance against this.

Of course, this also would lend itself to adding more folks from around the blogosphere in other positions.  Earl Sleek could become the director of marketing, ushering in a new era of print media promotions for the team.  Corey Pronman, Director of Scouting?  James O'Brien, Community Relations?  The possibilities go on and on...

MvsW #0116 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0116 (May 01, 2012) Question of the Day:
What is your best theory about what happened to Andrei Kostitsyn and Alexander Radulov?

I'm not the most creative person, so I don't have a good answer here.  The best I've got is that a Russian friend of mine has told me that Russian women are far better than American women.  My understanding from him is that they take much better care of themselves, and are more interested in their men, relative to American women.  In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, Alex Ovechkin has at some point said much the same.  So my guess is that Kostitsyn and Radulov were either A) getting drunk and bemoaning the state of American women and how they are lacking in comparison to the superior Russian women/groupies in the KHL, or B) trying to go shot for shot with some Russian women that they ran into at the bar, which can take a very long time, to my understanding.

Of course, whether Russian women are better or not, they don't have a song like our American women do:

It's a shame it's Heather Graham dancing, instead of Elizabeth Hurley :-/

MvsW #0115 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0115 (Apr 30, 2012) Question of the Day:
Who is the most underrated player in the playoffs so far?

You know what's interesting?  I'm still using these prompts, but I haven't even been able to listen to the Marek vs Wyshynski podcast since mid-April when I started my new job.

Anze Kopitar strikes fear into the hearts of his opponents.

Jon Quick, Mike Richards, and Dustin Brown have all been getting a lot of attention for the job that Los Angeles has done so far this post-season, and rightfully so, but I think the straw that's really stirring their drink is Anze Kopitar.  From everyone's favorite pervert, Rudy Kelly of the Battle of California, after Game 2 of the Blues/Kings series:

Kopitar rules, we all know this. He's +4 thus far with 2 goals and a pretty consistent domination in the offensive zone (game 1 here, game 2 here). Last game saw Ken Hitchcock move David Backes away from Kopitar, which is something I thought I'd never see. It'll be interesting to see if Sutter pursues that match-up in LA or if he simply doesn't care who the Blues put out against Kopitar. So far it hasn't mattered.

If you'll recall, a lot of people began singing the praises of David Backes as a Selke nominee, trying to put the 28 year old in the conversation for best two-way player in the game.  Kopitar is 24 years old, and he's playing better at each end of the ice than the trendy Selke pick of the year in Backes, at a more important time of the year.  Murray's defensive philosophies may have stymied some of the Kings' offensive potential (as well as crushed Alex Frolov's NHL career, and helped the team miss out on quality offensive players like Matt Moulson and Teddy Purcell), but I think that forcing that sort of attitude on several of the Kings players when they were young will be a good thing in the long run for the Kings.  Kopitar is probably the #1 example of that.

He was always fantastically talented offensively (seriously, watch this), but the fact that he can play well defensively is what really gives him the extra dimension out on the ice to play in any situation, and do so extremely competently.  Having the same in Mike Richards allows the Kings to play with two lines with fantastic two-way capability, along with being able to run another line with Jarret Stoll as a stopper.  That defensive depth has been one of the keys to the way the Kings have been able to get so far in the playoffs, being able to create mismatches and take advantage of them.

MvsW #0114 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0114 (Apr 27, 2012) Question of the Day:
Give us 1 lock to advance and 1 lock to be eliminated in the second round.

This is the problem with falling behind, while having tied myself to the MvsW QoD as a means to get myself to regularly try to write something.  Sometimes I end up being stuck writing about some silly things.

Obviously, we're already most of the way through the second round, but my lock to be eliminated would've been the Devils, and my lock to advance would've been the Blues.  So, that turned out well.  But hey, my round 1 prediction totally happened!  In fact, I'd like to point out that I wrote the first (that I've seen) piece on this year's "passing of the torch in the West" piece, as a lot of other people said the same thing after a tumultuous first round finally ended.

MvsW #0113 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0113 (Apr 26, 2012) Question of the Day:
Give us your two Game 7 heros for tonight's games.

Well, this just looks stupid, since the question was actually for Game 7 of the 1st round.  That night, NYR/OTT and FLA/NJD were both going to Game 7, and obviously, NYR and NJD won.  I was a bit busy that night getting ready for my trip the next day to Vegas, and on top of that, I didn't really care about either series.  Which is all to say that I didn't watch either game.  And yet here I am talking about it, 2 weeks after the fact.  Huh.

So instead, I'm going to cop out of doing a real post, and I'm going to tell you a joke.  By the way, I am a fan of bad jokes.

A man goes the doctor for a physical.  He gets to that part of the physical, and he drops his pants for the doctor.  The doctor takes one look, and says to him, "My god, you have five penises!  How do your pants fit?"

The man says, "Like a glove!"

MvsW #0112 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0112 (Apr 25, 2012) Question of the Day:
Who deserves the Vezina trophy?

Jon Quick.  Henrik Lundquist might be the best goalie in the league, and he certainly has been over the last couple years.  However, to me, the measure of a MVP (and I tend to look at the Vezina the same way) is to try to guess what would happen with to the player's team without that player on the roster.  If you took Lundquist away from the Rangers, I think they would've been a decent (but not good) team this year.  I think they would've still ended up in the playoffs.

If you took Quick away from the Kings this year...  well, they barely made the playoffs anyways, right?  If they got anything less than the stellar season that Quick turned in, it's safe to say that they would've landed out of the playoffs.  In fact, with average goaltending, I would guess that the Kings would've finished well out of the playoffs, while still being good enough to not end up in the top of the draft, making this year a colossal waste.

I may come back to this at some time and take a good hard look (with numbers and stuff!) at trying to figure this situation out.  Probably be plugging in some average and replacement level goaltender numbers in for each team and using that to get a better idea of the performance each goaltender gave their team over that line.  We'll see if I get to that, but it's certainly an idea.

MvsW #0111 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0111 (Apr 24, 2012) Question of the Day:
Who should win GM of the year?

Definitely not Dale Tallon, despite the fact that he's nominated for the award.  Dale Tallon dicked up hard, as he is prone to do, and was rewarded for it by failing into a division title because the Capitals inexplicably shit the bed for the entire regular season.  Everyone points out that the reason Tallon signed all the UFAs this off season was to hit the salary floor.  Of course, that ignores the fact that he signed 7 UFA's to hit the 2011-2012 salary floor (and notably, the last year of this Collective Bargaining Agreement), and instead of giving them money just for this year's floor, he handed out a total of 28 years and 112 million dollars.

The Panthers ended up being one of the worst division winners of the last 30 years, and Tallon will point to that (meaningless) banner as proof of his success this year.  And hey, I guess you could call it a success.  But the point is, he got a very small improvement this year, at the cost of future years.  That strategy works when you're trying to get over the hump and win a Cup, where the "future costs" will be due when your window has closed.  Instead, Tallon's short-term and uncreative accounting will have "future costs" right when this team is trying to become an elite team behind guys like Huberdeau, Gudbranson, and Markstrom.

Aside: I think there's something interesting about Tallon and Kris Versteeg's success this year.  Remember, a big part of the reason why Versteeg has wandered across several teams while scoring 25+ goals a year, is because CHI had to prematurely jettison him as a cap casualty after winning the Stanley Cup, because of Dale Tallon's supreme screw-up as the Blackhawk's GM in accidentally allowing him to become a quasi-free agent.  As a result, Versteeg (and others) ended up getting paid more than CHI would've wanted.  


In the end, Versteeg ended up getting traded several times over, until he ended up in Florida, reunited with the man who originally screwed up his second NHL contract, Dale Tallon.  It makes me smile to imagine that Dale Tallon somehow actually planned all this back when he botched the RFA qualifying offers.  "Barker is going to end up sucking anyways..." and "If I mess up with Versteeg now, then later on after I get fired, I'll be able to reacquire him 3 years later..."

Anyways, back from that tangent, I suppose I should point out that my answer to the question is probably David Poile.  If nothing else, I can point to Tyler Dellow's chart of NHL team records over this CBA (since the lockout) and note that the Predators are one of the 5 most successful teams since 2005, and have done it while spending way less than most of the rest of the league.  To some extent, I think this is probably the best argument - a GM's job is about a lot more than "right now" and more about where you're going next year and the year after, and how you're going to get there.  Of course, reaching those levels of success with obstacles other franchises don't face (namely, their finances and ownership situations during that time) makes the case even stronger.  Poile ought to have one of these on his desk.

Further than that, I've honestly been impressed with the testicular fortitude that Poile has displayed this year, while trying to walk a very fine line.  We've previously discussed the Suter/Weber situation here on StB.  Poile has been dealt a tough hand, but he's played it masterfully.  Maybe it will blow up in the end, with Weber and Suter walking out, but no one can point the finger at Poile for it at the end of the day.  Most GM's would've dragged the contract issues into the media, used it as an excuse to trade the player and save their own skins, and probably have gotten a rather poor haul in exchange for a #1 defenseman, rather than risk losing him for "nothing".

That "nothing" is misleading though - the "nothing" is a chance at postseason success, and a chance to convince the player that you're building something real, and to get them to commit to being a part of it.  Poile isn't throwing in the towel on Suter or Weber - he's trying to get them to stay, and he's playing the whole thing out publically in a manner where no one is the bad guy, helping keep things friendly between franchise and player.  In doing so, he's continued to help a fledgling fan base (relatively speaking) continue to grow, by giving it something to cheer for, rather than stomping on all their hearts and blaming a greedy franchise player for the heartache.

Poile has also handled the mess that is Alexander Radulov in a similarly masterful manner for years, which has finally culminated in his being able to bring in a first-line forward in this most critical of years for no cost at all.  Poile has committed to this season and to the fans and to his star players.  Maybe it won't work out in the end, but it's been a tough hand from day 1 in Nashville.  He's done some great things with that hand, and all of it has been culminating into this one season.

Over the last several years, we've seen a lot of GM's go all out to lose intentionally, and usually in a pretty dramatic fashion. There's a whole lot of incompetent folks at the front of NHL front offices, and the way the NHL has incentivized losing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  If nothing else, I'd like to see a GM be rewarded for being smart instead of lucky.  And I'd really like to see an NHL GM be rewarded not for going all out to lose and rack up draft picks, but to be rewarded for following a plan and building a team and going all out to win games.

MvsW #0110 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0110 (Apr 23, 2012) Question of the Day:
Which of the eliminated teams is in the most trouble?

I'd have to say the Sharks.  The Canucks might be a bigger clusterfuck, and consequently, they'll be a lot more entertaining to follow this offseason.  Of course, a large part of that comes from the fact that they still have a good team put together for next year, and are facing a lot of pressure to commit the organizational equivalent of building a brand new house and then burning it down because the wood floors got scratched.  The Red Wings have been on the downswing over the last couple seasons, so their position isn't a shock.  Additionally, most scouts that I've seen still rate the Red Wings' prospect depth as being pretty decent, with guys like Tatar, Jurco, Smith, and Nyquist.  Pittsburgh has some interesting decisions to make, but no one can deny that they have a pretty solid team entering next year.

No other team crashed the way the Sharks did.  No one else underwhelmed like the Sharks.  The Sharks watched their championship window slam shut in their face.  They lack flexibility to make significant roster changes.  They lack prospect depth to inject fresh blood via promotions to the NHL or trades to acquire roster players.  The Sharks have pretty much blown their load, as far and as hard as they could.  And it still fell well short of their goal, and they have nothing left with which to reload.

The Burns and Havlat trades were their last two shots of the cannon, and this season has largely amounted to standing on the wall of The Alamo, screaming "You'd better not try it, look at this big cannon we've got here!" and hoping no one notices that they're out of ammunition. Funny thing about the NHL though, is that you can't really hide the fact that you're all out of bullets.  Someone will always call your bluff.  Now everyone knows that they don't have anything left, and as Marleau and Thornton get older and the team slinks back out of the playoffs, they have nothing with which to pull themselves back up the standings, and will likely have to bottom out for a year or two.

MvsW #0109 QoD

More edits: As I said before, I was pretty busy between training for a new job, and housework.  Over the last week, it's been continuing my academy, and a trip to Las Vegas with two of my favorite people.  I haven't even been able to watch much hockey lately, but hopefully I should be able to start getting into a better schedule now.  Also, apparently this post was also caught in my misunderstanding of the scheduled post within Blogger, but I should be good to go on that now.  


Also, The Elder Scrolls Online!!!  I'm crossing my fingers.

Marek vs Wyshynski #0109 (Apr 20, 2012) Question of the Day:
Which band would be worse than Nickelback for the NHL awards?

If I mention Sugar Ray here, it gives me an excuse to link to this awesome post that I did at James O'Brien's Cycle Like Sedins: Rob Scuderi Hates 90's Alternative Rock.  I got a big kick out of writing that.

As for the question, I don't have a real answer.  I don't listen to the radio anymore, I don't follow pop music (I can count the number of Lady Gaga songs I've heard on one hand), and I do not have an encyclopedic amount of knowledge in the subject.  I guess my answer would have to be something really dirty, just to watch Gary Bettman's head explode, and the suspension video Shanahan would have to make as a result.

So as to not completely dodge the question, I'll point out I've personally always thought that some NHL names would make for great band names.  Todd and the Bertuzzis sounds like a Motown group.  The Zarley Zalapski Experience?  There's got to be plenty more of them out there.  Feel free to chime in.

MvsW #0108 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0108 (Apr 19, 2012) Question of the Day:
What team currently down in their series has the best chance to rally for a series win?

Edit: Again, this was supposed to get posted earlier, as in, before the Penguins were eliminated on Sunday afternoon.  Instead, I look silly saying that the Penguins had a chance to make a comeback, when they're already eliminated.  Whatever, I still think the point stands, and I think every other series going on is fairly boring.

Even when I answer these late, I try to answer them as if I were actually answering it at the time that it was asked.  In this case, this question was asked after Pittsburgh had convincingly won their Game 4, 10-3, finally getting on the board while still being down to Philadelphia, 3-0.  I don't think the fact that Pittsburgh won by such an overwhelming score means anything, with respect to the entirety of the series, outside of being further illustration of the fact that anything can happen in this series.  And that's the primary reason why my answer is Pittsburgh.

The Flyers/Penguins series is probably the strangest one I've ever seen.  Anything can and has happened.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a 1-0 game, nor a 11-10 one.  I wouldn't be surprised to see PIT make a comeback from 3-0, or to see Philadelphia settle down and skate through an Eastern Conference full of upsets to a Cup Final.  I wouldn't be surprised to see James Neal come back from a too-short suspension to score a winning goal in overtime of Game 7.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Max Talbot and Jaromir Jagr both score hat tricks in a 10-0 demolishing of the Penguins in Game 7 in Pittsburgh.

No other series has that sort of feeling.  Vancouver seems like they're lost in the woods that Bryzgalov was lost in earlier this year.  The other series in the West very much have an air of finality about them, and I don't give the slightest damn about any of the other awful series in the East.  But in the PIT/PHI series, anything can happen, and PIT coming back from 0-3 is maybe the least of it.  I wouldn't be surprised if Chris Pronger returned in Game 7 with a bloodied eyepatch (shades of Curt Schilling!), ate Sidney Crosby for a pre-game meal, declared himself Stanley Cup Champion, and dared anyone in the NHL front office to deny his proclamation.

MvsW #0107 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0107 (Apr 18, 2012) Question of the Day:
What do you expect to hear in the Flyers/Penguins handshake line?

Edit: This was supposed to get posted before the game today, but apparently I don't understand how the new post scheduling in Blogger works.  

Better question: What's the over/under on number of players who skip that handshake line?  After the way the Penguins gooned it up and earned themselves a few suspensions (though not nearly long enough), I think PHI would be totally justified to skip the handshake line entirely.  Moreover, for Philadelphia, who invented goon hockey with the Broad Street Bullies of the 70's, whose fans are noted as among the most hostile in all of professional sports, for that franchise to skip the handshake line entirely would be one of the funniest statements I could ever imagine.  I'm not sure if it would be hypocritical or ironic for Philadelphia to do so, but it would damn sure be hilarious, and more than that, it would be an absolute shitstorm for the NHL to deal with - another situation on which the league as a whole would undoubtedly screw the pooch once again. In all likelihood, it would the highest possible level of trolling we may ever see.

My answer to the question:
Bylsma: "Hey, where's Flower?  Did he skip the handshake line?"
Malkin: "Who cares, my mom made borscht!"
Crosby: "I don't know, come to think of it, I haven't even seen him around the last couple of weeks"
Meanwhile, a similar conversation happens amongst the Flyers...

MvsW #0106 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0106 (Apr 17, 2012) Question of the Day:
Who is the biggest "MIA" player so far in the playoffs?

I have never in my life seen a performance as bad as the one Marc-Andre Fleury put in for the first several games of the PIT/PHI series.  The only thing that might be close is the time I had to fill in as goalie for my rec league team, and nearly (but not quite!) blew an 8 (!!!) goal lead while my team simultaneously almost had to forfeit for not having enough eligible players after several ejections and penalties.  Of course, picking on a goalie who is rocking a 0.837 SV% after having bounced back with two decent games is easy - it's like shooting fish in a barrel, stealing candy from a baby, or taking shots on Marc-Andre Fleury!

I am extremely happy at the number of people who've taken MAF's struggles this series so far to point out the fact that he's never been that good.  The guy has never been much more than a league-average goalie, but because he plays on a good team in a bad conference, and gets a lot of national TV coverage, he has a completely bogus reputation for "clutchness" or frequently considered some sort of great goalie.  As I recall, Fleury's rebound troubles this playoff are nothing new, being something that he has struggled off and on with throughout his career, though I thought he'd more or less turned the corner on that.

All of that said, I eagerly look forward to 2-3 years down the road when he turns in some more average or sub-average playoff performances but is dragged by his teammates on another long Penguins run, and the narrative is once again that Fleury is a "money" or "clutch" type of goalie.

MvsW #0105 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0105 (Apr 16, 2012) Question of the Day:
What are your feelings on a "suspend to the injury" culture?

I already sort of addressed this the other day, but...

It's stupid and inconsistent, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if eventually it bites the league in the ass in some sort of legal manner.  I can totally see a situation in which a court declares the NHL to have been negligent in terms of allowing risks greater than could be reasonably anticipated by participation in the game to have existed and perhaps even tacitly approved of such.  When the NHL loses a massive lawsuit to players on the issues of concussions (and this day is coming - the NFL already has such a class-action suit on it's hands), then we're going to see plays like Duncan Keith's (which, by the way, I think is by far the most egregious of anything we've seen this season, regular season or playoffs thus far) punished with some big (in the 10's of games, not 1's) suspensions so that the NHL can attempt to fix the environment that has been allowed to exist in the NHL.

Aside:  I've started a new career this week, and it's the kind of thing that's pretty demanding.  I've also had some other stuff going on around the house that has needed dealt with, but I should be back to posting again this weekend. I picked a stupid time to come back to writing, knowing that I had the career thing coming up, though a good chunk of this housework was unanticipated - trying to figure out what the hell the previous home owners did with this sprinkler system is a trip.  Anyways, this weekend I'm planning on having another pretty good post on this issue.

MvsW #0104 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0104 (Apr 13, 2012) Question of the Day:
Which player or team made the biggest Game 1 statement?

A little behind (but hey, remember, I said that would happen.  I predicted the future!) but I'd have to say the biggest Game 1 statement was probably Los Angeles winning over Vancouver.  In retrospect, after the Flyers just winning Game 3 against the Penguins, maybe the way the Flyers won Game 1 is a bigger statement within the context of their series, but at the time when everyone had only played one game, I'd say Los Angeles' win over Vancouver was a bigger statement, largely because of how they played the Canucks.  The Canucks didn't look like the team that won a President's Trophy by just plain outplaying most of the league - they looked like a joke in that first game.  They were outskated, they were too busy trying to prove to everyone that they can be physical and made mistakes as a result, and they were diving in full-force.

Vancouver looked like a desperate team, and they were entering the game as the #1 seed, the President's Trophy winners, the defending Western Conference champs.  I'm not sure how much of that was Los Angeles' doing, and how much was Vancouver trying to exorcise their own demons, but in any case, it played right into LA's hands.  Most importantly (especially in conjunction with LA's game 2 demolishing of the Canucks), the Canucks are probably the biggest basketcase in the league, and the way LA beat them in the first game was perfect fuel for a fire begging to burn.  Los Angeles' win over Vancouver set the stage for some amazing organizational fireworks, and I'm excited to see who gets burned.

MvsW #0103 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0103 (Apr 12, 2012) Question of the Day:
Give us your best taunting tweet from any NHL team

This obviously stems from the LA Kings Official Twitter feed last night tweeting this:



That's just a fantastically awesome tweet.  And yet people are getting all worked up over it today.

WHO CARES?  It's some very well-done shittalking, and it's a pretty genuine sentiment - the Canucks are pretty widely reviled through the rest of Canada for being divers and complainers.  Even if it weren't true (but the fact that it is true is what makes it pure gold), who cares?  It's not crossing a line, it's not obscene, and it's not classless.  It's a smirk, it's a poke, and more than anything, it's a little bit out of the ordinary within a sport with entirely too much cliche and too little original stuff to say.  If that sort of little poke really gets you worked up, it's because you're looking for something to get worked up about, and you need to sit down, shut up, and relax.  Now, that said, my answer to today's Question of the Day:

After Pittsburgh wins the 2011-2012 Stanley Cup, and Sidney Crosby wins the Conn Smythe:
@PGHPenguins: "Sure am glad we won that lottery in 2005!  Thanks a lot Gary!  Better luck next year, everyone!"

MvsW #0102 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0102 (Apr 11, 2012) Question of the Day:
Give us one "rock solid" prediction for the playoffs.

I think this is the year that the hockey community is going to mark historically as the year that we saw a definite shift in the balance of power in the Western Conference.  Specifically, I think this is the year that we will point to when we say "This is when the Detroit Red Wings and San Jose Sharks stopped being the cream of the crop, and the baton was passed to St. Louis, Nashville, and Vancouver".  Maybe you can take Vancouver off of that list, as they've obviously been a top-shelf contender for the last two years or so, but the point is the ascension of Nashville and St. Louis, and more so, the end of the Sharks and the Wings as elite Cup contenders.

We'll point to this playoff in particular, not just because of the seedings of each team or their somewhat-less-than-expected regular season performances, but largely because of the way each will meekly bow out of the playoffs, with the new contenders climbing over the bodies of those who came before to take their place at the top of the conference.

That's not to say that these two teams will sink into complete failure and join such perennial failures as the Blue Jackets and the Oilers in the bottom of the conference.  Neither franchise may stay down long (though Detroit will rebound faster than San Jose, with a surprisingly healthy prospect pool), but the both of them will fall into the #10 to #5 seed area, where you see the teams that can regularly make the playoffs, but aren't truly contenders.  A good example of a team like this would be the Maple Leafs of the late 90's/early 00's.  Those Maple Leafs always made the playoffs, they could frequently upset a pretender, but they couldn't get past the elite contenders in their conference.  In the end, Detroit and San Jose will both be forced to yield to stronger powers in their divisions, and it will take time to reload from the losses that they're going to incur over the next year or two.

But in a few years, they'll be back.  At least, Detroit will be.  So enjoy it while it lasts, Predators and Blues.

Also worth noting: Nashville's stay at the top of the conference could be extraordinarily short.  This is an interesting situation, in that in their playoff series provides a remarkable opportunity for Detroit, allowing them a fantastic chance to crush Nashville's contendership for the next several years, and maybe in doing so, restore the Red Wings to elite status.  I'll post on this later this week.

MvsW #0101 QoD

Huh.  So apparently I come back to Blogger, just in time for them to unveil a new user interface that I don't particularly "get".  That figures.  I'll reserve judgement on the new Blogger interface for now, but my initial feeling is that I'm not going to like it much.  I'm a big fan of simplicity and clarity within a UI.  I don't need a hundred bells and whistles.  I prefer words like "Save" or "New Post" to pictures of things like a floppy drive or a pencil.  "I am a man of perfect simplicity!"

(Figures, part 2: I couldn't find the "Link" button, because it's now a button that reads "Link" rather than a picture of a chain.)

Marek vs Wyshynski #0101(April 10, 2012) Question of the Day:
Create your own NHL apology.


"Citizens of Atlanta, we, the NHL, owe you an apology.  You may hate us because we let your team be repossessed to the frigid wastelands of Winnipeg.  You would be right.  However, our greatest error was not in allowing a broken shell of a team to relocate.  Our greatest error was in allowing a team to be started in a non-traditional marketplace, with Don Waddell at the helm."

"Yes, Atlanta, the NHL is most sorry for allowing your city's second incarnation of an NHL team to be run by a complete moron.  In fact, SBN's Copper and Blue recently used a highly scientific process to determine that Don Waddell was actually the worst GM under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, and that's not even giving credit for pre-lockout blunders like Patrick Stefan and Luke Sellars, or those ugly jerseys."

"Yes, our greatest mistake was allowing a brand new team in a non-traditional market to be piledrived by Don Waddell into irrelevance.  Markets that are new to hockey demand competent leadership, out-of-the-box ideas, community involvement, and most of all, hope on the ice.  Don Waddell delivered none of these, and allowing him to single handedly ruin an entire market for hockey."

"The NHL is truly sorry for allowing a joke management group to employ a joke GM.  We hope that one day, we can return to Atlanta with a competent ownership group that will employ a quality GM with experience in an organization with a winning attitude.  Perhaps someone like Steve Tambellini, Scott Howson, Mike Milbury, Doug MacLean, Brian Lawton..."

MvsW #0100 QoD (And Day9!)

There's one significant inspiration for my coming back to write at Sacrifice the Body: one of my favorite people, the most bejujular Sean Day[9] Plott (newly added to the Inspirations group on the sidebar!) and the Day9 Daily. One of the primary points of the Day9 Daily was that Day9 didn't have the time to play Starcraft professionally, but he still wanted to do something involved with the game. Moreover, he also wanted to push himself a little bit, to make sure he actually did it, and stayed on top of it. It didn't necessarily have to be something huge or incredible each day, but the point was that he wanted to make himself do something each day.

I wanted to do something similar, here at StB. One of the challenges with writing is coming up with something original or interesting to say, especially when you're talking about a hockey blogosphere in which pretty much everything has already been said. So I tried to think of a way to give myself something to write regularly, whether it be something big or small, and the best thing I could come up with was to steal a prompt.

Specifically, to steal the Marek vs Wyshynski Question of the Day prompt. "Talent borrows, genius steals," right? It won't always be something heavy or involved, and maybe it ends up being the only thing I write for weeks at a time, but the idea is that at least I'm writing something. It also won't always be up to date, as I rarely listen to the show as it airs, but it gives me a place to start. So, with that said...

Marek vs Wyshynski #100 (Apr 09, 2012) Question of the Day:

Which goalie has the best chance of pulling a Halak/Hextall/Giguere in the playoffs?

The context for this is obviously the incredible runs that each of the aforementioned goalies have pulled off in previous years. For my money, J. S. Giguere's Conn Smythe performance in the 2003 playoffs was the single greatest playoff performance that I've ever seen. Giguere was absolutely insane, carrying an 8th seed to 15 wins and a game short of the Stanley Cup. 15 wins, with only a +5 goal differential. 0.946 SV% on a playoff-high 697 shots (over 21 games, that's over 33 shots/game). He carried a Mighty Ducks of Anaheim team that should've been out in the first round to within a game of a Stanley Cup. The dude just plain went to another level.

To me, a critical component of that performance (and one reason why I put Giguere's 2003 over Thomas' 2011) is the underdog factor. Obviously, guys like Lundquist, Thomas, and Halak could have a lights-out playoff, but they're not really the underdogs. Looking among the non-division winners, my pick has got to be Pekka Rinne (NSH). I'm not sure that Rinne and the Predators really count as an underdog, being a #4 seed, but they are a team that does have some even strength problems and makes their living on special teams, with a NHL-best PP% and the 10th PK%.

In order to make a run on your goalies' back, you have to play a brutally physical defensive style, where you win games not by scoring goals, but by not giving them up. NSH certainly has the players and the scheme to play a style like that and enjoy a long playoff run as a result, riding Rinne and the Suter/Weber pairing to a Stanley Cup, or at the least, a very deep playoff run. In a very tight Western Conference, it's a hell of a road to walk, but if anyone is going to walk that road this year, I think it's going to be Nashville.