Beauty takes on many forms

Don't ya think?

Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?

Ever seen a grown man cry? I was close, I'll admit it. Tears of rage really. And it wasn't so much the fact the Canucks lost 2-0 (believe me, this year, I can expect these things in advance).

It was being subjected to the Boston play by play guy refer to Bieksa as "Beeska" ALL NIGHT LONG. I gave him one or two mistakes as a courtesy, but the game got longer and longer every time that mouthbreather had to share the fact he missed the media guide with us by dropping such wonderful gems as "The puck squirts around the board and there's Beeska to retrieve and start the rush out of the Vancouver zone." Thank god we only see them once every 72 years under Bettman's schedule.

Bring on the Blue Jackets. Let’s see how they can embarrass this squad to round out another memorable road trip. Hell, the Wild beat Luongo on their first shot and Boston shut 'em out, so Hitchcock will have to get crafty to keep the great Vancouver suck going. How about an Anson Carter natural hat trick before the game is two minutes old and Federov beats up Matt Cooke and breaks his jaw with a nasty uppercut?

Sabourin In Net Means Free Shots (maybe)!

A rare trip east (maybe the closest they get to the NYC metro region in fact...and I can't go because I need to find a damn xmas tree. Ugh) brings the Canucks face to face with the wily Bruins. Both teams are quite similar: each 'reloaded' in the offseason (Chara/Luongo respectively), both are 5th in their respective divisions and both are on the outside looking in towards the playoffs. In contrast, both are coming off of different outings; the Wild smacked the Canucks around to the tune of 5-2 while Boston kicked Ottawa around 7-2.

Three things stand out to me for this evening:

1. Marco Sturm is on fire and, as Yahoo! tells me, “has 12 goals and 24 points -- both career highs against any opponent -- in 30 lifetime games against the Canucks.” That’s just so damn typical…someone go find me someone on Boston who’s worst point production comes against Vancouver. For that matter, is there ANY player who falls into that category?!
2. Boston is 38-7-0 with seven ties at home all-time against Vancouver. Well fuck…
3. Bruins powerplay is top 5 in the league (although their PK sucks). It would be just super if the Canucks could stay out of the box tonight. Especially considering that…
4. The Sun says Luongo is starting, but the Team1040 and the wacky CDC says Sabourin.

Seeing how Boston may light up Slippery Sabby (did VCOE/C&B ever come up with a name for him?), I'm going to just forgo an actual prediction and, rather, suggest tips for how to treat your bartender with care so you can get nice and liquored up to the point where you can't actually decipher the numbers on the scoreboard (and that, my friends, quite possibly is a good thing).

A wild second round

So…it did go in. So what? As Lui said, Todd White kicked one in during the previous matchup, so chalk it up to fate. Besides, do you know how many bounces didn’t go this team’s way in November?!? It’s about time something did!

As for tonight, I think the Canucks can take this home and home and that’s huge going into two more road games before the middle finger that is the xmas holiday barrels down on them. Call it a 3-2 win for Vancouver…goals from Bieska, Naslund and Daniel.

History Is Fun!

There are only three "legion of dooms" I know of - one was Superfriends related, one was two hilarious looking wrestlers in the WWF and the last (one that was, you know, REAL) was the name of the top Flyer line during the short-lived period of the 90's when the Flyers were great. Their LOD included the manchild Lindros centering John LeClair and Mikael Renberg which existed a bit longer then the politically incorrect "twin tower era" of Lindros and Primeau, but at any rate, they were great line of guys all more or less in their prime.

Unfortunately, the Flyers LOD never lead them to the Promised Land. So what of them now?

Eric "Lex Luthor" Lindros - A couple concussions + a collapsed lung / daddy yelling at trainers = Bob Clarke wants you dead. And by dead, he wants you to suffer in the purgatory known then as the Rangers. Lindros briefly flourished when he centered a fun line with Theo "One for the Road" Fleury but he got another concussion eventually and was told to retire. And by retire, that meant go to Toronto where Lindros would be permitted to extend his time in purgatory while keeping his injury streak going with a phantom wrist injury. He was last seen somewhere in Texas where that wonky streak of his just keeps going.

Mikael "Sinestro" Renberg - The soft cuddly one of the three, Mikael had the dubious honor of being moved for perennial underachiever Chris Gratton before coming back two years later with little success. He would eventually be traded to Phoenix for Rick "SnakeEyes" Tocchet before stopping over in Toronto for a three year layoff before his return to Sweden where he is today (local legend says if you say his name three times in the mirror at the stroke of midnight, he appears behind you with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk).

John "Black Manta" LeClair – The longest to stay on the Flyers, LeClair was a rock until the lockout and the new CBA saw teams shed excess salary and old players as a nice way of saying “hey thanks now off to old folks home with you”. LeClair, not one to take such evil words lightly, responded by signing cross state rival the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sadly, LeClair had no idea that the Pens still had one more giant year of megasuck in them before turning the corner so LeClair’s stock didn’t exactly skyrocket. In fact, it’s plummeted to the point where any GM, for the low low price of 125 one dollar bills, can now have a LeClair all to themselves!

I don’t know if LeClair is that bad anymore, but I have to assume he is if that’s the going rate now. I would have suggested the Canucks take a run at him for scoring purposes, but it looks like they’ve turned a slight corner in recent games.

As for tonight…who is this Iginla character people keep falling over themselves about? Never heard of him…sounds like a flash in the pan. A one and none kind of guy. No need to worry about him. And Kiprusoff? Sounds like a fabric cleaner. Another guy riding some sort of hot streak? Bah, nothing for the likes of the vaunted Bulis and shapeshifting Sedins to worry about. The media won’t talk about it, but you heard it here…the Sedins can bend time with their mind. However, being Swedish, they know better than to abuse this power. We could all learn from their example.

Oh yeah? A prediction? 3-2 Canucks. The Flames come on strong at the end, but Luongo closes the door and Daniel, Bieska, and Kesler do the rest.

Smithers...are they booing me? Uh, no sir, they're saying "Boo-urns!"

They wanted Anson Carter to come back, but Anson wanted the money. When Anson came back, he was deservingly booed like the money-first guy that he is. Similarly, they wanted Ed Jovanovski to come back, but in this new era of a salary cap and on the heels of a failed season, it simply couldn’t be done. Jovo got his 7 million a year down in the desert and the Canucks eventually got Luongo for a bit cheaper.

Tonight, the second uncomfortable reunion will take place this year as Jovocop returns as an opponent to GM Place. I can’t imagine the Canuck faithful will boo him since, unlike Carter, Jovo gave the fans some kickass, strange, and energetic memories for many seasons. Despite his frequent defensive gaffes, he was the rockstar of the Vancouver defense for six seasons. So don’t boo the man, please.

In fact, if you HAVE to boo, the Coyotes give you the perfect guy for that: Jeremy Roenick. Here’s a cheatsheet for you:

1. His best season was back in 1994. The top music in 1994 included auditory assaults from Sheryl Crow, Boys II Men, Gloria Estefan, and Ace of Base. So nothing made sense that year; see that season’s Stanley Cup finals for more information.
2. His website has an incredibly annoying audio loop on the main page.
3. I don’t know what this is, but it annoys me too. Stop it.
4. Why?
5. He abuses dogs. At least the middle one. Do those look like happy eyes to you?
6. Other career highlights include: getting out-trashed talked by Patrick Roy, asked “spoiled” fans to “kiss his ass” during the lockout (out of context or not), claims the American Olympic committee blackballed him, and publicly declared wanting to play in Canada before signing with the Coyotes. Clearly, it’s tough being JR.
7. He currently has six points this season. So does Alex Burrows.

(Note: I am kidding about #5. All the rest is true.)

Prediction: Canucks 4-1. If two games are any indication, the Canucks are kinda…sorta…maybe…learning how to score more then two a game. I assume if they can beat up Ward and Kipper then a tired Cujo shouldn’t be that tall a chore for them. Dave Scatchard will score because he’s an ex-Canuck with at least one noteworthy story on his resume. Daniel Sedin, Naslund, Morrison, and Tremblay will get the rest.

An aside: This is terrible. Honestly, I don’t know much about Kessel; I’ve seen him on the TV twice this year and he was invisible. But that doesn’t matter, I hope gets better quicker then anyone can imagine. A guy with his future certainly doesn’t deserve this. None of us do.

Do it for Wiggles

To Cam Ward:

We recognize you live and work in the hilarious Southeast, so you may not be aware of the how bad it's getting up here. Simply stated, we can't score. We're quite close to a full on 'suck' actually.

So, due to our current offensive ineptitude, I regret to inform you that we've kidnapped this kid (nicknamed him Wiggles). We didn't want to do this, but it's getting bad and, besides, Ohlund's summer job is human trafficking so you go with what you know right?

If you care about Wiggles (and as the Conn Smythe cup winner rookie that you are you have a reputation to uphold), all we ask in return you take a mental hiccup a few times on Friday and let our forwards put some shots past you. I have Dan Cloutier's cell if you need some assistance on how to properly suck and let in 50 foot slap shots.

So what if you got embarrassed passing through Alberta? We do that a few times a year whereas you get to travel down to Florida and smack Alex Auld around every other week. And need I remind you that it was I, Master Nonis, who removed Luongo and gave you Auld to smack around? Where's my xmas card for that huh? Not even a meatlog??

Look, screw the card. I have my job to worry about. So let's be clear here: we'll give the baby back if you let us score a goal. If you let us score two, we'll stop kidnapping babies all together for the rest of the year (2006 that is). If you let us win, we'll trade Bulis to Florida so he can put you on the powerplay more often thereby allowing you to further destroy Auld's save percentage ok?

I do want that meatlog though. Seriously. A boy's gotta snack.

- David Nonis

Bartender, we'll need a few more over here...

Team 1040 just reported that Pyatt is gone for 2-4 weeks with a partially torn ligament in his shoulder. I missed Rypien's injury but it sounded like a slight groin tear which is closer to 8 weeks. Salo is looking more like a 7-10 day injury.

The Pyatt and Rypien injury are just complete punches in the gut consider one can actually score and the other can actually fight.

So now Santala and Chouinard will get plenty of ice time! That'll solve all of the problems...no? OK, how is that farm team support looking now? No good? Oh, well, we can always trade for some help...right? Oh, we can't do that either? OK...

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the gutter...

LOL, LMAO, ROFL...

Truth is stranger then fiction:

Winners of one straight and two of their last three, the Canucks can tonight claim top spot in hockey's goofiest division with a victory over Edmonton. - Vancouver Sun

Well, ok then! Here's hoping the boys can win over the Smyth-less Oil and enjoy the NW penthouse for a whopping 24 hours before it changes again.

It's great to see Rypien come up and immediately provide a spark in Saturday's win (it's nice to be remotely accurate sometimes). Here's hoping Lui's play stays steady and the Canucks can score more then two goals. Slow and steady...

Fist? Meet Wall.

I often find myself so annoyed at someone or something that I simply cannot cognitively process the information and condition my vocal chords to emit a sound in the accepted enunciation of curse words fast enough to adequately exemplify the accurate level of my anger.

You follow that? Sweet.

Anyway, the latest reason there's a hole in my apartment wall (hi neighbor!) is this authorless gem of an article reviewing the NHL off-season. Let's review their take on the two Vancouver acquisitions they deem are ‘in limbo’:

Luongo has lacked consistency, while Bertuzzi's back is wonky. Krajicek vs. Allen is a wash.

I can accept Krajicek & Allen, but if the entire point of this article is to see who the early winners/losers of the off-season are, how is this not a slam dunk for the Canucks? We can assume Bertuzzi was going to be injured wherever he was and the idea of the same Cloutier-backed Vancouver squad without Bert seems awful in the ultra-competitive Northwest division. So the fact Luongo has played 25 games (over three times as many as Bert) would suggest to me that Vancouver has won this trade…completely…at this moment…period! Not to mention that Luongo is 12-11-1 which would suggest that, aside from a blowout here and there, he's consistent at keeping Vancouver in most games; they’re near .500 because they can’t score, not because of Luongo’s play. Go find me a GM who would rather have Bert on the sidelines for what could be half the season instead of the option of using Luongo for 60 minutes every game.

Pyatt has scored goals when on a line with the Sedin twins, but where would he play in Buffalo?

This could be the worst reasoning I've seen a long time. Pyatt is on pace for a career year; he has more goals now then he did all of last season and is tied for the lead in team power play goals. Outside of the Sedins and Naslund, he's been one of the few offensive threats. But the Pyatt acquisition is ‘in limbo’ because Buffalo is stacked? Pyatt would still be 10th in scoring on the Sabres now (!); you think Regier would rather be icing Stafford or Mair ($675,000) if they could add another scoring body like Pyatt for $700,000? Well, shit, if that's your logic you better go back and review every single off-season acquisition: Shanahan is doing great in New York but Detroit has a better record so that acquisition is in limbo. Besides, Detroit has a youth movement on their hands and Zetterburg, Holmstrom and Maltby are at LW so where would Shanny play anyway? If that makes any sense to you, then fine, Pyatt's in limbo.

Under their ‘loser’ moves, they do score some points by noting Cloutier is basically terrible and that Carter would be better almost anywhere except the Blue Jackets fourth line (something Hitchcock recognized between servings of buffalo wings), but they seem to be perfectly happy with both the Bulis and Chouinard signings. Christ, at least Carter plays whereas we're paying a million dollars plus for Chouinard to warm a seat (or miss beautiful 2-on-1 passes a la the Anaheim game). And Bulis, at this point in the season, defines "bust": He was bought in to replace Carter on the Sedin line, then he played with Naslund, then he played with Morrison, then he played with Vigneault's kittens, then he got free happy meal coupons and still nothing. Bulis has the same amount of points as Carter and, yet, Carter makes the loser list?