Malkin' a case for the MVP

Whoo boy, tonight's pun-based headline was brought to you by Chris Berman's intern-destroying rant.

Anyway, I hate to admit this (since I write about the Stars and the Pacific Division), but the Penguins have always been my favorite team. That's right. I grew up in East Rutherford, NJ (where the Devils used to play before Barry Melrose insulted Newark) but wasn't about to root for those trap-happy-soul-sucking Devils. So I latched onto Lemieux, Jagr and Co. and the rest is history you don't care about.

So, like I was saying...the Penguins beat the Kings tonight, 4-2 (including a goal by Jordan Staal, otherwise known as Rudy Kelly's BFF) and it was all-Malkin. He had 2 goals and an assist, and barely missed a hat trick at the end of the game.

In case you've been living under a rock/ignoring Gary Bettman's squeals of terror, Sidney Crosby injured his ankle and has missed 9 games already. Many people panicked and a few experts said that it could be a blessing in disguise for his teammates to develop without a Hart trophy winner.

And that's just what happened with Malkin, who is absolutely on fire. While fellow Russian/the guy who was picked before him Alex Ovechkin is being bathed in David Amber Q & A's and franchise-crippling contracts, Malkin is matching his countrymen stride for stride.

He's still a few points behind Ovechkin, but Malkin scored a dizzying 28 points in his last 16 games. Even better, he's kept the Pens afloat while Crosby is rehabbing and Ty freakin' Conklin is in net. In 9 games without Crosby, Malkin's scored 17 points including 7 goals and the Pens have gone a respectable 5-2-2. Sure, Alex O has the Caps fighting for the top spot in his division too, but I'd venture to say the Atlantic is a touch better than the Southeast.

It's enough to at least give Malkin a piece of that Ovechkin hype.

(Coming up tomorrow: ANOTHER really bad pun, this time involving the Stars and Olli Jokinen! Plus I might add a little meat to some of the Malkin analysis in the next couple days. Maybe)

Tidbits

Brian Willsie scored the 100th point of his career last night. Good for him.

***

This whole "sign guys before they hit restricted free agency" thing is getting a little insane, isn't it? Where is the team's upside to the Mike Richards deal, which pays him $5.75 million for 12 years? If he becomes one of the top 10 players in the NHL for the length of the deal then it's worth it, but that's pretty much it. If he's just good then he's not really worth $5.75 million, plus they're tied to him for 12 years. I thought you were supposed to trade money for security, like Dustin Brown did? Where's the upside for the Washington Capitals in Ovechkin's deal, other than they have him? It's the teams getting the security, not the players. And really, did they have to worry about someone offering him a deal if they were willing to give him that deal? Nobody is going to offer someone an offer sheet after they see what happens to the Oilers this summer because it completely decimates your team in order to get someone good. I love it; the owners won the lockout and the only concession they gave the players was that they'd let them hit free agency sooner. Basically, they overestimated their ability to not be idiots.

***

This is completely unfair and stupid and petty, but:

Anze Kopitar: 117 games played, 37 goals, 65 assists, 102 points.

Jordan Staal: 124 games played, 34 goals, 21 assists, 55 points.


Oh, but Staal is still leading in shorthanded goals, 7-2, so I guess he's better. Funny, though, that he doesn't have any this year. You'd think they were primarily a function of luck or something. Huh.

Someone’s Gotta Make a Stand

The NHL’s weird little award show is on tonight (I’ll bet any amount of money that the Barenaked Ladies are going to be there), but I will not be watching. It’s been over a month since hockey writers made the appalling choice to nominate Jordan Staal over Anze Kopitar as NHL’s rookie of the year, but I’m still pretty pissed about it. SI’s Alan Muir (who I think is fairly solid, if a little weird-looking) agreed, stating, “…the third finalist (for the Calder) should have been Kings forward Anze Kopitar, or even San Jose's Marc-Edouard Vlasic, both of whom earned larger roles with their respective teams.”

What do you mean I wasn't nominated?

As I have written before, I just can not fathom any position that justifies leaving Kopitar off the ballot and the only reason I'm the only one outraged about it is that it’s the NHL and that he plays for a west coast team that was out of contention most of the year. Probably the most annoying thing is that no one cares because it seems so natural. Why wouldn’t the Canadian guy with the famous brother who was on Versus 7 times and NBC 5 get more votes than the Slovenian kid from the team in LA? (In case you were curious, the Kings were on Versus and NBC once each.)

I know Earl’s position on this issue; he argues that he’d much rather get a level of performance worthy of an award than the award itself, and it’s a good point. But what bothers me is that people will look in 15-20 years at Staal’s career and mention how he was a finalist for the Calder trophy, while no one will remember that Kopitar should have been nominated. The problem is that when careers are evaluated, nobody remembers the extenuating circumstances of each season and all the little reasons that someone might have been over- or underrated. Instead, they just look at awards or point totals because it’s easier. The least the NHL could do is make sure those awards are accurate, so as not to deny a good kid like Anze Kopitar what he has earned.

I’m not asking anyone else to boycott these awards (besides, I think I can significantly affect Versus’ ratings by myself), and I know my reaction is over the top, but someone has to make a stand. I guess you could say that this makes me a hero, but I don’t like to think of it like that. I’m just a noble man out to preserve Kopitar’s honor. Okay, I guess I’m kind of a hero.

***

In other Kings’ news, Hockey’s Future has their Kings’ draft preview out, and it’s a pretty good brush-up on the Kings’ prospect situation right before the draft next Friday. Long story short, they have the Kings taking Karl Alzner, the defenseman for the Calgary Hitmen. (Oddly enough, they had the Kings taking James Van Riemsdyk when the article first went up, but they switched it about an hour later. Weird.) Who do I think the Kings should take? You’ll have to wait… (That’s called a hook, friends!)

A Humble Request on Behalf of Anze Kopitar

Get your head out of your asses, NHL.

How in the name of holy hell does Kopitar not at least get nominated for the Calder Trophy? I’m fine with the fact that Malkin will win the Calder (I mean, he had 85 points this year), and Paul Stastny getting nominated is cool, too. (He played with Joe Sakic, but still, he’s pretty good.)

HOWEVER…

Jordan Staal getting nominated for the Calder over Kopitar is one of the greatest tragedies ever instituted in the history of the world. Not to be hyperbolic, but the Indians who sold Manhattan for beads think Kopitar got screwed over. People are made saints for suffering lesser acts. To the stats!

Kopitar had 61 points in 72 games. Jordan Staal had 42 in 81. That’s all you really need to know, so if you’re short on time, you can stop reading. (Make sure you tell your friends about my great Indian joke, though.) For those who have time, keep going.

Kopitar got beat out by this guy? Jesus...

Jordan Staal had 7 short-handed goals, which some people say probably gave him the nomination over Kopitar. I don’t want to hear that jibber-jabber. That’s like giving the Silver Slugger Award to the player with the most inside-the park home runs. It’s not like Kopitar didn’t play short-handed; he had 2 short-handed goals himself. Here’s a question: who led the league in short-handed goals last year? I rest my case.

Wait, no I don’t! There’s also the matter of assists. Kopitar had 20 goals and 41 assists. Staal? 29 and 13. That’s not a point total, that’s a pitching record. I would personally have a player on my team that was primarily an assist man (like Thornton or Crosby) than a person who primarily scores goals (like Cheechoo or Selanne). There are countless examples of guy who score a lot of goals one year (Petr Prucha, Glen Murray, Rick Nash, etc.) and then have trouble repeating their success the next year. Any asshole (read: Ryan Smyth) can stand in front of the net and score a few goals. This is all a round-about way of saying that a 19 year-old who gets 40 assists is much more impressive than an 18 year-old who gets 30 goals.

Furthermore, Staal played with Ryan Malone and Mark Recchi while Kopitar played with Dustin Brown and some guy. I love Dustin Brown, but anyone who’s watched him play knows that he’s basically a moron; he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on out there. Kopitar played against a team’s best opposition and quite often made them look foolish. He single-handedly fucked Chris Pronger in his first NHL game! I mean, God dammit!

I know how you feel, Al.

The only, and I mean only, reason Staal was nominated over Kopitar was the fact that Staal got more national exposure at the end of the season. (And you have to love a league where some dude from Pittsburgh gets more exposure than the star of a team in LA.) Kopitar got a lot of hype at the beginning of the season, and then he slowed down a little bit and got hurt at the end of the season. I’m sure the fact that Staal has a famous brother (and thus a cute little story for people to write about without actually having to watch hockey) helped too. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Kopitar in that time; apparently, the voters for the Calder are goldfish.

I can’t possibly describe how unfair this is. I can only hope that Kopitar uses this as motivation for next year; a guy who wears #11 after 10 teams passed him by on draft day has to have a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. Jordan Staal seems like a nice kid (if a bit of a doofus), but I officially hate him.

(In a completely unrelated note, the Canucks are sponsored by Smirnoff Ice? I bet the Sedin twins were thrilled when they found out.)