The Other Off-Season Game Plan: The Columbus Blue Jackets

In which I hammer out my advice to NHL teams for free and without any proof to back it up, unlike Scott Cullen over at TSN, whose Off-Season Game Plan I am blatantly ripping from.

The Columbus Blue Jackets Edition

AKA The most huggable team in the Eastern Conference

First, in total honesty I have yet to figure out where Columbus is on a map. I know it is in Ohio but until recently I thought it was somewhere around Wyoming, the Saskatoon of America. Don't get me wrong, I love their flying rebel bumble bee logo and I also love Nic Foligno who I drafted lower-down in my hockey pool and who became one of my better players.

Columbus is known for 2 things. Hockey isn't one of them. It's in Ohio and named after the explorer that started a mass genocide of indigenous people 500 years ago that still has repercussions today, sor of like the NHL player's strike/walk out in 1992. And oh yeah, Rick Nash played there for 10 years.

2014 Hockey Playoffs - The Year of Iggy

We get it, you're Canadian. You're bummed out because your name is Greg and the Montreal Canadians are the only Canadian team to make the playoffs and you know that you will have to suffer the pain of defeat eventually. You will have to maintain a sliver of hope that the Habs will overcome being the Habs but deep in your heart you know you are destined for heartbreak, as if you were no better than a Canuck fan.

To make matters worse, if the NHL had kept their same format as last year all the other Canadian teams still wouldn't have made the playoffs.

So to everyone besides Greg, let's just forget that we have any type of local geographic or childhood allegiance to our sports teams and let's pick another team to pin all your hopes and dreams on as you avoid all other issues in my life. So for that, let's pick the Boston Bruins, President's Cup winners, all-star and Theon Greyjoy look-a-like Tukka Rask in net and Alberta's other favourite son, Jarome Iginla, on a quest to cap off his career with the Stanley Cup.

One is Lilly Allen's brother, the other is
named Tuukka. 

   
Someone (@ionthesparrow12) has already done a lot of the grunt work for you by making this handy flowchart, making it easier to make that selection;

But Ogie is here to review our 1st round match-ups and boldly predict what everyone else already predicts...

What's a Deadline? the Metropolitan Division

Yes, it's nearly 15 games into the season and some sports shows/reporters/bloggers are starting to talk about the 'playoff picture' as if we were going to jump 4 months into the future and forget that ever since Bettman instituted that 1 point OTL rule (the Bettman rule) all games are pretty much meaningless in terms of a 'playoff picture' until after the all-star break. Recent past history has shown that by the time the All-Star break rolls around (this year postponed for the excessive elitist tournament of nothingness called the Olympics) there are only usually the Edmonton Oilers and perhaps two other teams that are already out of playoff contention.

So, to start talking playoff picture is ridiculous, especially since I haven't even blogged my season opening predictions of this new god-awful named Metropolitan Division which should eventually lose the 'politan' portion of that and be shortened to the 'New Metro' Division or more appropriately the 'non-travel' division, with most all teams being within a couple hours drive of each other.

But let's just get this over with so the season can officially start with Ogie's permission.

The Metro Division

So then I said, well there has to be a Metropolitan Division and they agreed!

 

New York Rangers - I know that the Rangers have surprised everyone by getting off to such a shitty start despite Alain Vigneault being behind the bench. The reason is simple. AV's a nice guy. Just think of the Rangers as that woman who finally got rid of that abusive, tough love asshole and are now dating that nice guy who everyone praises as being the perfect guy for her. She's used to the tough love and isn't used to this easy-going approach. She's still afraid that if she steps up into the neutral zone she's going to get verbally abused and therefore is still playing the game out of fear. Once she realizes that this AV guy is genuinely a nice guy and just wants her to go out and play the best hockey she can, that he's proud of her no matter what the score, the points and wins will pile up.  He just has to get Rick Nash to stop pouting in his room and come play. Then it's all going to be good in the Stinky Apple.

New Jersey Devils - the Devils surprised everyone by acknowledging that Martin Brodeur may one day retire and so went out and picked up the Canucks goalie of the present and Roberto Luongo nemesis Cory Schneider. Then they also surprised everyone again by announcing that Ilya Kovalchuk determined there was more to hockey than just money, which caused his agent's head to explode and mass panic among other agents as they rushed to remind their clients that it is all about the money.



 

Pittsburgh Penguins - the Penguins are just waiting for the Trade deadline so that they can once again destroy team chemistry and Stanley Cup hopes by looking for that Ray Bourque of deadline deals. After Iginla's botched stay, the pickings are getting slimmer on finding that career player who has never won the Cup and therefore should forgo his present team to come torpedo the Penguins. Joe Thornton, Daniel Alfreddson, and the always popular deadline day rental player Jaromir Jagr. Then again, the Penguins may have to suffer through Marc Andre Fleury's playoff meltdowns and the media analysis that will happen for the week before the first game of the playoffs as to why he's the Penguins weak link.

Philadelphia Flyers - the Flyers are an enigmatic team that are always good for a Stanley Cup appearance once every 5 or 6 years, unlike the Canucks. It is said their biggest problem is goaltending so they decided to commit years and millions on an ok Russian goalie only to drop him after a year of typical Flyer-like goaltending'. They then went picked up Steve Mason and Ray Emery leaving Brian Boucher once again on the corner of Heartbreak Lane and When the Fuck Will He Learn Street. Brian will back again in a few months as one or the other goes down to a chronic hip injury or in the case of Emery, being suspended for going mental.

New York Islanders - the Edmonton Oilers of the East Coast, look for them to occasionally pop up in the sports highlights, primarily when they are playing any of the top 10 teams that usually get the press coverage. Almost a carbon copy of the Oilers, the Islanders are a good young team on paper with a defense that would be hard to pick out at a Keg salad bar and a goalie that sounds familiar so that means he must have been good once, right?





Washington Capitals - Ovechkin is now under the tutelage of Adam Oates and much has been made of his amazing scoring since switching from left to right wing, or vice versa. Remember Mike Green? Neither does he. And Brandon Holtby surprised everyone by agreeing to be one of the goalies that will be cut for the Canadian Olympic team. Mikhail Grabvoski is a nice addition to the team and should complement Ovie nicely.

Carolina Hurricanes - Well, they have 2 Staal brothers on their team, which should cut down a bit on their parents' travel schedule. So they have that going for them.






Columbus Blue Jackets - Columbus is one of those teams on the cusp of being forgotten as continually vying with the Oilers for last place. The team seems to now win as many games as they lose since the departure of Rick Nash. so, I'm not saying Rick Nash was a problem in Columbus but Rick Nash might have been a problem in Columbus. One of these days I will have to try to find Columbus on a map but Google search keeps redirecting me to Quebec City.

The Winners and Losers of Draft Weekend in the NHL

Let's get the obvious out of the way; if you live in Canada and stayed home to comment or provide in-depth coverage of the NHL draft via twitter on the Canada Day long weekend instead of going camping or dredging out your basement if you live in Calgary you have bigger issues that need to be addressed.

Things are happening outside right now.

The only thing sadder than watching CTV News anchor report on whatever is going on with Justin Bieber would be a grown man who actually takes an active interest in the future employment opportunities of teenagers that have been groomed since birth to get paid way too much money to either shoot a puck or stop it. I defy any NHL prospect to actually admit that they dream of going right to one of the bottom feeders of the NHL, which is what makes the whole circus so funny. The top 50 players in the junior leagues are all but guaranteed huge contracts just by being picked by any of the 30 teams - and their signing bonus will most likely equal a year of your salary - but hey, that's hockey life - it doesn't mean we have to support it.

But, that being said...

The Other NHL Awards

The Others Awards budget is pretty, pretty tight thanks to
GARY BETTMAN

It's that time of the year again, where we all get distracted by the confusing scheduling of the NHL Awards and Ceremonies right at the height of the Stanley Cup Finals. While most leagues prefer to wait until after the ceremonial booing of the commissioner, the NHL says 'Bullshit' to that idea and instead hosts a highly visual and star-struck affair (if one considers current and former hockey players stars) in the heart of the Stanley Cup Finals because that will probably be the last time anyone really cares about hockey until July 1st.

So while the NHL vets itself and it's players, placing a little extra weight on stupid reporter questions about what winning an award means to the two involved that are still competing for the biggest award in pro sports (Jonathon Toews and Patrice Bergeron), let's take a look at some other not-so-popular awards that will be handed out in the back alley behind a dumpster to homeless people on the morning of the Awards.


The Best Name in Hockey Award Goes To;  Johnny Oduya, Chicago Blackhawks. 

Runner Ups, Johnny Boychuk (Boston Bruins), Brooks Orpik (Pittsburgh Penguins)

His family, friends, coaches and teammates just call him '14'

With a name like 'Johnny' where else can you be still taken seriously but in hockey?

While Boychuk got points for being able to substitute boychuk woodchuck in the ancient tongue twister:
 'how much boys could a boy chuck chuck if a boy chuck could chuck boys?'
Oduya's last name is so phonetically great as it's own comeback that it takes my pick for name of the year.
'I think I will just go around this Chicago defenseman here who isn't Keith or Seabrook.'
'Oduya.'
'Oh, I do all right. Just watch me.'

Honorable Mention to Brooks Orpik, named after legendary USA coach Herb Brooks, which sadly shows that here was a boy who had no choice in life but to play hockey to please his hockey-loving father.

Bizarro NHL Notes

Random Notes on Another Week in the NHL 

BOBROVSKY!

BOBROVSKY! - Columbus's goaltender posted another shut out on Tuesday night, a 4-0 blanking of the San Jose Sharks.  This makes BOBROVSKY!s fourth shut-out, which ties him for the Columbus Blue Jackets shut out record, sharing it with all the other franchise goaltenders combined since their inclusion into the league in the year 2000, when nobody thought we would live past Y2K anyways.

Nobody was more relieved that James Reimer when
the two finally embraced and admitted their true feelings
to each other. Meanwhile, play continued.

As of today, April 10th, with less than 10 games remaining for most teams, the New York Islanders and Toronto Maple Leafs both are currently in the playoffs, which is causing Toronto sports shows call-in phone lines to go berserk in trying to have someone get Gary Bettman to have the playoffs start on Friday.

Ray Emery at work.

Ray Emery is currently 15-1 with 3 shut outs, which makes him only the 2nd best goaltender on the Chicago Black Hawks.

Alex Ovechkin has returned to form, which is scoring goals and is currently tied for the league lead with other Southeast division hotshot, Stephen Stamkos of Tampa Bay. Apparently it just took this long to get rid of Dale Hunter's influence on OV and for Coach Adam Oates (of Hull & Oates fame) to put him on the opposite wing, which is apparently causing havoc for goaltenders used to him shooting from only one side of the ice.

this photo captures the very last second John Tavares won anything
meaningful and his life was full of optimism. 

Speaking of goal scorers, the guy in 3rd place plays for another low expectations team called the New York Islanders (John Tavares). The highest goal scorer in the west comes from the LA Kings (Jeff Carter) and 7 of the top 10 are from the eastern conference with 2 Chicagoites, Toews and Kane filling it up for the west, which really tells us nothing about what it takes to be an elite goal scorer nowadays.

This has nothing to do with hockey.
It is a picture of the Canadian Prime Minister's cat, which i happen to think is
pretty awesome that it has more fans than me. 

Who looks like the 2013 Trade Geniuses; 1st Day on the New Job

It's always important to judge a trade by the very first game that the recent victims/rental players participate in with their new team. After all, they don't know anybody yet, nobody has tried to hit on their girlfriends and reporters are madly trying to get their first angle for a news story on the 'new guy'. So here's the immediate winners from the NHL trade deadline day;

Tampa Bay Lightning;

the O on his jersey could be called 'fore-shadowing'or 
amount of Lightning fans who had heard of Ben Bishop.

Ben Bishop earns a shut out with his first game of the Bolts, the first in new Coach Cooper's career with a 5-0 rout over the always dangerous Carolina Hurricanes, champion of both North and South Carolina.
Bishop stopped 45 shots for his first win for Tampa Bay which unfortunately means that unless he continues to post a 1000 save % for the rest of the season, there is nowhere to go but down.

I am extremely happy with you guys right now,
don't confuse this with my mad face.

New York Rangers

This team looks like geniuses right now (yes, tortorella is still their coach). Ryan Clowe gets 2 goals and an assist, Derek Brassard formerly of Columbus gets 1G 3A and John Moore also scores a goal in their first showing in Rangers uniforms. Clowe gets calls from Mark Messier asking to be in on the next photo op, but Clowe wisely declines.

The 2013 NHL Trade Deadline Recap (for realsies too)

so much hockey bullshit to feast on...

After a testosterone-laden 8 hours, the NHL trade deadline has passed with only one surprise to me; that  an old-fashioned real trade that could easily be emulated in certain hockey pools run by competent, efficient team managers that understand it takes something to get something. Unfortunately, I'm not in one of those types of pools so i will just have to sit back and wait for Edmonton to return to it's former glory.
Thankfully, Columbus and the New York Rangers did something that made waiting 6 hours for TSN updates worth it.

It was a busy morning as sports anchors and analysts tried to look busy in finding something to say about the deadline, as per annual tradition and it wasn't until near the end of the day that things apparently heated up. By then, GM's finally had responded to all their emails that had accumulated from various opinionated arm-chair coaches and did their thing.

Here's my few worthy observations;

Biggest Surprise of the Day; Marian Gaborik would waive his no-trade clause to go to Columbus
Maybe he just doesn't know where Columbus is (technically, neither do I) but it's a good fit; Gaborik can go score goals somewhere nobody has heard of him and Columbus gets that potential goal scorer to replace Rick Nash. Plus, Columbus is doing surprisingly okay this year with Bobrovsky in net, making Steve Mason expendable, which i will get to later.

Finally, the Columbus hockey fan can now weep openly...

In the lamest block buster trade of the year, Rick Nash who is probably the only 'bona-fide' superstar to have never played in a playoff game (apparently he did drive to 4) is heading to the New York Rangers and in return, Columbus doesn't have to answer any more of Nash's emails. So it's a win-win-win.

If you have a Rick Nash playing card you can get one indistinguishable Russian, one funny-named guy, a young defenceman that couldn't make the Calgary Flames and a first pick next year which will most likely be somewhere in the top 20.

Columbus moves someone who showed all the leadership potential of a young Alexandre Daigle and the scoring ability of Alexei Yashin (or vice versa).   New York moves The Dube and New York potheads have to try and find some drug-related nickname for Nash.

And exactly 4 seconds after the trade was announced, all nhl pundits turned to the Roberto Luongo situation and tried to pinpoint exactly where Mike Gillis was for a reaction.  He was found somewhere between 'don't-give-a-shit lane' and 'seriously, go-get-laid avenue'.  

A Vancouver and Columbus win-win situation?

In hindsight, the PA announcer shouldn't have
 started playing "Riot" by Three Days Grace.

First off, on behalf of all of the province of Vancouver I apologize for the lackluster effort put forth by the Canucks in refusing to win 16 straight games to win their first Stanley Cup for the third time.  We can only blame Roberto Luongo for so long  for failing to win the cup in 012, 94, or 82 where i heard he actually didn't even watch one game of the FINALS because he was busy playing with his GI Joe action figures. 

Not saying that Canuck fans are still feeling burned by last year's debacle, but I'd go so far as to suggest that as you read this, someone is working on building a time machine to go back to 1978 and shout 'Luongo sucks' at his parents as they were copulating so that he would never grow up to become a professional goaltender, thereby not disappointing the entire Canuck nation by not stopping each and every goddamn puck that was sent his way by someone in a Boston Bruin sweater.

In all reality i would have nothing against Luongo if he played on any team but the Canucks however let's face it, Vancouver is like the Toronto Maple Leafs of goaltending.  It's where good goaltenders go get verbally assaulted by scrawny or overweight sports reporters that are breathing heavily just holding their microphones up. Vancouver is a black hole that sucks up talent and morale and leaves an empty husk of a man; it is the Jennifer Lopez of NHL cities.

But it's summer and the only hockey news right now is when and where is Luongo going to take the remaining decade of his luuuu-crative contract.  Some dreamers (read Torontonians) want him to don the blue and white so that they could find out if it's theoretically possible for someone to have two assholes torn into them by their rabid fans. I have on good authority that Luongo is hoping to be moved somewhere where he's not expected to have a .990 save percentage, cure leprosy and personally escort every fan to their seat before the game so hello...    

Florida. Considered a favourite for no other reason than that's where his wife is from and nobody will know him. Toronto is considered a favourite because that's where Brian Burke is and Vancouver desperately wants to pay them back for that whole Mats Sundin thing. Plus, Toronto fans mistakenly believe everybody wants to play for them despite the one glaring fact they then would be playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs.  

So while Cory Schneider gleefully wrings his hands at being given the opportunity to crack under pressure once Luongo leaves, all i can say is that i don't blame the guy. I mean after all, he won 75% of his games last year against sub .500 teams. And he very nearly won 2 whole games against the eventual Stanley Cup winning LA Kings. Plus this year he will find out who the hell this Jason Garrison guy is that everyone is talking about. 

We all know goals wins games so in a perfect and sane hockey world (usually only found in my hockey pool), Roberto Luongo goes to Columbus for Rick Nash. Columbus gets a decent goalie that most of Ohio will have no expectations of and Nash gets to play for a team that already has at least 6 other scapegoats to blame when they don't win the cup again next year. It's a win-win.

In unrelated news, Canada's social health care system breathed a sigh of relief in hearing that Sami Salo has decided to head to Tampa Bay to join their IR list.