Canucks At Blues Open Thread

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Captbrit.jpg

guess everyone is at the game or on radio only so not much chatter. watching in on puter i’d have to say exciting but fustrating game. if legace is human do the blues always lose? some excellant vision and passing to genrate killer blues breakaways and chances, but some sloppy d as well. the power play is still painfull and brewer on the right point is brutal. in a 15 second span, he misses the pass back to him, takes the puck that manny had laid out in the high slot behind his own net, rushes up the right side, alone, gets the puck in deep, alone, loses it, and goes to the bench while the nucks ice it,

backman is showing his o side again, if he continues to do that, he might have some hope.

and on this trade brewer or trade backman bit.

a) im sick of people telling me i hate brewer cos we traded pronger to get him. No i hate larie for that. i hate brewer for being reward to take massive dumps on home ice

b) while i wont miss backman if this is what he is going to offer the rest of his contract, i can’t hate him since the deal he got (at the time) was reasonable. and his defense was always suspect. is his lose of ofense his fault? probably. but i suspect it is also murray/‘s fault as well. again, i don’t hate players for sucking. well not a lot, they are never my most hated player, they just suck. i hate players who suck and are rewarded for sucking :)

c) i also lay of them when they stop sucking. someone find the last mean thing i said about jammers :)

15:53 Backman just pinched in and fed McDonald on a nice play. Someone must have replaced his decaffinated coffee with Folger’s Crystals.

14:23 EJ with a nice physical play to dislodge the puck behind his own net. Then he gathered in the puck and started the breakout. He’s learning, getting more comfortable.

if you are watchign the nucks feed one thing i thought interesting is they mentioned that there are several (UNNAMED) blues players complaining about not having a team captain :)

one last thing, backman has been better on d the last few games, actually made several rather standard, but steady plays at the blue line. makes me wonder if getting alittle taste of o has changed his mindset and confidence level on d.

if so, andy needs to give him the o, if for no other reason than “asset management”

backman is +1 to this point in the game.

brewer got the minus :)

8:47 I LOVE BOYES!

Four in his last three games. Sweet. Tied 3-3.

CT, I’ve been in and out of the room and had not heard that comment about players complaining aboot no captain. Interesting.

i like who you didnt discribe it. can’t be done. bad claer attempt by the nucks then it was good followed by more good followed by great followed by a finish. you’ll have to make up the images in your minds…

they said blues one of two teams with no capatin (other is chicago) andy murrays view that it makes everyone more responsible and make more people try to be leaders yada yada yada, then followed it up with the players not liking it cos they would rather “have one individual to look towards”.

was during an intermission :)

johnson down. shot to the face. looked relativly harmless at it wasn’t a rocket, and ej was upright ofr a bit, but then he went to knees and trainer came out with a towel. has tobe chicklet or jaw related. at least ej wears a visor…

I agree with the “unnamed Blues’ players.”

This team needs a captain, one guy who is the undisputed leader on the ice and off, the guy who the rest of the players will follow into thegates of Hell, and the face of the team to the public.

I nominate Jamal Mayers.

Hmm… apparently Brewer just made an excellent defensive play.

B.

BTW, I was watching the Michigan/Western Michigan game on CSTV before dinner, and before I came upstairs to listen to the Blues on the ’puter.

That Palushaj kid can really fly, and his line gets a lot of ice time for Red Berenson’s Wolverines.

B.

0:01 Andy McDonald nearly ended it just a breath before the horn. Damn.

Blues now buzzing in the OT.

canuck announced mentioned that the blues are rotating the a’s. but there is “one player who doesn’t rotate” and always has the a.—- jackman. so my guess is that if andy id give out a C it would be to bj.

the nuckleheads claimed the obvisou choice for the c is KT.

S
H
O
O
T
O
U
T

Boyes, Kariya and McDonald

Boyes first:
Lost the puck, no real shot. Damn.

Kesler for Van.
Fake forehand right, swooping move left to the backhand, Legace came out aggressively to cut the angle, no goal.

Kariya, shooting all the way, Luongo with a sweeping save.

Edler
Not much of a move, snapped it five hole and it’s good.

McDonald shooting all the way, looked like an easy save. No goal

And that’s all she wrote.

Shit.

yep exciting but ultimately fustrating. backman has played 2 or 3 strong games in a row. triple his salary!!!

I hate shootouts. Easiest way to steal a point.

The shootout must go. A point in the standings is just to important to be handed out for winning a skills competition…

Marcus is dead on.

I wonder what the hell was wrong with a good, old-fashioned tie in the first place?

Hell, the Colorado Rockies made the playoffs for their one and only time in Denver by virtue of 21 ties in one season. Yeah, they got swept by Philly in the silly-assed first-round best-of-three series they played back then, but still…

It was an achievement, and something that the (absentee) owners in Denver could have built on if they were interseted in keeping the franchise there, and not waiting for the first chance to move it to friggin’ Jersey…

If ties were good enough for Gordie Howe and Stan Mikita, by God, they oughta be good enough for Bettman, who couldn’t carry their skates.

This emphasis on “there must be a winner” in the regular season is flat ridiculous. Playoffs, yes… regular season, there’s not a damn thing wrong with playing for a tie.

B.

I agree partially. I hate shootouts, but overtime is usually great hockey. Plenty of excitement and (usually) action. Why give a team 3 chances to get the 2 points? Having a shootout as “backup” just enables the “we’ll play it safe and defensive in OT and take them on in the shootout” strategy.

I’d much rather see the teams go all-out in OT.

I have been a proponent of shootouts. They can be exciting (I think the Blues have been shutout in three straight or something very close to that) and I think Americans generally don’t like ties. That’s why college football adopted overtime.

But the more I see them and realize how skewed the standings are because of them, the more I think there’s something wrong with them. I don’t think they will ever go away now.

It’s not the shootout that skews the standings; it’s the overtime-loss “effort point” that causes the problem. Some games are worth two points, and some are worth three; THAT’S the real problem.

The league either needs to adopt a three-point-per-game system (three for a regulation win, two for an OT/shootout win, one for OT/shootout loss, zero for regulation loss) or eliminate the “gosh, you tried” point and make every game a winner-take-all two-point affair. I’d lean toward the latter; but that’s me. I’m an aggressive gambler. Mr. Vegas.

if you like shootouts the fix (which has been proposed several times at ownership meetings and always rejected) is to make a hockey game worth 3 point. then all games are the same:

winner in reg 3 points, loser in reg 0 points—- game = 3 points

winner in o/t shoot out 2 points, loser in o/t or shoot out= 1 point—- game = 3 points

not only is would all games be the same, would actually force some teams to not play lockdown hockey with a 1 goal lead (or zero goal lead) and time running out. a point is ALWAYS available to be won in the real game. and fake games do not add points to the loser that didnt orgianlly belong there.

I mean seriously a team that is 20-10 with all twenty wins in reg SHOULD be vastly superior in the ranking than a 20-10 team with no regulation wins.

it is a fix so obvious and sane that buttman refuses to consider it.

go figure