Brian Burke Week Part III: Nothing but shout-outs

Time to take a break from my normally scheduled Burke Week -- tomorrow I'll get to the positive GM lessons we can learn from the Burke. Today instead I'm just going to toss a few links and call it a day (partially because I feel bad just tossing these at the end of a long post; mostly because I'm lazy).

First off, in keeping with Burke-themed tradition, I was a guest again on The Rink Podcast this week to talk about what the Burke departure means for Anaheim. I'm the first of three guests in a virtual All-Star Game of blog guests -- Steve Lepore of Puck the Media also talks about Versus ratings, and Alanah McGinley of Canucks and Beyond talks about Roberto Luongo's shutout streak. Not my strongest work, but then again, podcasting ain't my forte.

Secondly, I wanted to give an update on the guy sometimes known as Kyle J and sometimes known as "the Swede" -- our mysterious comic book contributor here at BoC (Episode 1: Toronto, Episode II: Detroit). Well since his BoC debut, Comic Book Guy has taken the new name "Good Kyle", and has started his own multi-faceted blog: Good Kyle Versus Evil Kyle. I've added the link under "Hockey + Cartoons = Awesome", even though hockey cartoons seems to be a small portion of what that blog is offering. Good Kyle assures me that there's more hockey-themed artwork coming, though, and sent this image as a token of good positivity:

Why so sad?
And lastly and leastly, I also stayed Burke-themed on today's PuckToon. It was a rush-job, no doubt, but I'm not dissatisfied with the result. Enjoy!

Bobby Ryan = Positivity! Go Ducks.

When blogs battle, everyone wins

Battle of California (0-0-0) vs. Behind the Jersey (0-0-0)
Round One -- Single Elimination

I really should have been promoting this semi-event more (I've had it in the sidebar for a few weeks, I think), but I guess BoC was one of the last entries in the field. Anyhoo, the NHL Arena messageboards are running an online Battle of the Blogosphere, where 128 blogs are stacked head-to-head in an NCAA-style vote-off for a champion. You can read about it here.

Before I link to the list of match-ups, though, I do want to mention a few things, and first is a quick profile of why you should vote for BoC's first round adversary, Behind the Jersey. If you're unfamiliar with the site, Christy Hammond is a Red Wings blogger, and if information is your game, she's all over it. Take a scan of her posts, and check out her profile page, and you'll see that she loves her Wings pretty dearly. And while I'm a guy who holds plenty of hate for Wings fans, that's never an issue with Christy.

You may notice that I've had BTJ in an exclusive group on the sidebar called "BoC Inspirations", which I guess I should explain a bit. It's not meant to be a "best of" list or anything (there's plenty of blogs not listed there that you should definitely be tracking -- Puck Daddy, The PensBlog, FHF1, FHF2), but it definitely includes some of the best. Really what the "Inspirations" listing represents is the sites that turned Sleek into a blogger today (plus I added Fanhouse when they paid me to draw cartoons). The primary reason why BTJ made that list was because of the series that Christy ran, Behind the Blog. It's one series that I'd recommend any aspiring blogger to read (especially the questions about "Why do you blog?" and "What advice would you give?"), because I think it offers plenty of great perspectives -- I know I was influenced especially by the BoA take and Mirtle's offering, plus here's one by our pal Mike Chen (and one on PJ here).

Anyways, I've been stalling long enough -- here's the Battle of the Blogosphere. Be warned, it is a long listing, and I don't recommend voting for each and every contest. My advice? Scan the list, pick out your favorites, cast a vote (registration is free), and when you're satisfied, stop. Here's where you can win, though -- if you catch yourself on the trailing side in any poll, it's probably worth giving the other entrant a read. Of course, I don't assume that this Battle of the Blogosphere will categorically determine anything (popularity contests rarely do), but that's not to say it's a waste of time; it does at least offer a wide glimpse of the variety of fan sites out there. What's stunning to me, actually, is how many quality blogs aren't even in the running -- this blogosphere experiment grows and improves by the week, it seems.

If you'd rather skip all that and just push BoC to round two so I can campaign for another quality opponent, though (or eliminate BoC so I don't write about this again), here's the direct link for BTJ vs BoC.

Go Blogs.

BoC Gameday Part 2: You say 1-4, I say 5-0

While Sleek is calling for positivity from the Ducks side (for you fellow indie music geeks out there, "Positivity" is probably the worst song ever recorded by Suede), things are moving a little smoother here in the Bay Area. In terms of lineup changes, it sounds like Douglas Murray is out with the mysterious "upper body injury" while Tomas Plihal is still out. Which, if the Sharks had made the fan-pleasing move of giving Jeff Friesen a minimal contract (say, a weekly pizza and some old Friesen merchandise), would have been the perfect time to debut that new #13 Friesen jersey. Easy money for the Sharks, a team that's had a habit of money-grubbing from fans.

As for the rest of the team? I can spout off about what I like (shots from Rob Blake, speed through the neutral zone, Devin Setoguchi driving the net, Jonathan Cheechoo one-timers) or what I don't like (Joe Thornton looking a tad bit lost away from his usual half-board position, Marc-Edouard Vlasic trying to shoot on the power play, effective puck clearing during the penalty kill) but it's all kind of moot right now. Right now, the pluses far outweigh the minuses, and the minuses are all nitpicky things that you figure a team will work out over the coming weeks.

This team will hit a slump eventually; all teams do, and it's how the react that makes a difference. For tonight, though, I think they have to be wary of a pissed-off, frustrated, and desperate Ducks team. This could be either good or bad for the Sharks depending on A) whether Anaheim figured out that taking penalties is generally not a good path to victory and B) whether Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf wake up. My personal theory is that Getzlaf is off looking for that patch of hair that used to be on his head, but that's just speculation.

This is uncharted waters (heh) for the Sharks, who are traditionally an awful-to-mediocre October team. What any team in this situation wants to do is avoid being the 2007-08 Ottawa Senators or the 1998-99 Phoenix Coyotes. So boys, make sure that the wins are coming because everyone is working together, not because everyone is overachieving and waiting for the bottom to fall out of it.

And as for Todd McLellan, I bet he loves it when a plan comes together. (That one's for you, Sleek. Positivity!)

Prediction: Sharks 4, Ducks 2. Goals by Cheechoo (2), Blake, and Thornton.

P.S. Ever wondered how I'd stand up in a Star Wars trivia contest on a hockey radio show? Now you can find out by checking out my appearence on LCS Hockey. Since Sleek was on it last week, this leads to the ultimate Star Wars-A Team mashup joint appearence sometime in the future. The world will never be the same.

P.P.S. Ever wondered how I'd sound on local Bay Area radio? Now you can find out by checking out this week's ChompTalk on 1220 AM Sunday night at 9 PM (or you can listen online).  You might recognize one of the hosts.

Bertuzzi, The Karate Kid and Forgiveness

Cobra. Fucking. Kai.

Aside from linking the Hockey Orphan for the Kings, Stars and Sharks this should be the last bit of shameless self-promotion for quite a while. And, if I do say so myself, it's a damn doozy.

In order to break up some of the monotony that is Tuesday, I'm starting up a tradition on Cycle like the Sedins called "Bertuzzdays."

Basically, it is a weekly tribute to the most shameful and sometimes hilarious moments in hockey history. This week, naturally, begins with a study of The Todd Bertuzzi incident.

Then quite unnaturally, it devolves into a troubling comparison between that Vancouver Canucks team and Cobra Kai from "The Karate Kid." Eventually, "The Jesus" makes an appearance and all hell generally breaks loose. It does end with an intriguing question, though: what would Bertuzzi have to do to gain your forgiveness (or at least your respect)?

Hopefully, you'll find this Bertuzzday as entertaining as I find it psychologically damning.

I need your suggestions for hockey orphan

Very quickly into my perusing of the hockey blogosphere, it became clear that there are a ton of NHL team blogs and sometimes very little to suggest that one is empirically or artistically or functionally superior.

We all gravitate to blogs that feature our favorite teams and, once we've covered our teams, then maybe our favorite writers. Or Photoshops.

I figured posting this on BoC first would be the best move while Cycle like the Sedins works through its training wheels stage.

Simply put, I want to know what other blogs BoCers follow: blogs that capture the spirit of their team or at least deliver a helluva one-liner.

Naturally, teams such as Washington, Edmonton, Detroit and Pittsburgh are covered very nicely (not to mention the BoC teams of course).

But what about other teams? Are there some heavyweights one cannot ever forget? What about some "diamonds in the rough"? Feel free to nominate your own blogs, your best friend's blog or a blog owned by someone you want to see naked. It matters little to me.

Don't be shy.

BoC Gameday—What Scares Me About Your Team

Anaheim Ducks (t-1st in west) at San Jose Sharks (t-1st in west)
Winner of tonight’s game is on top of the west!

Ah, the beauty of a new NHL season afoot, and what better way to kick it off than with a good ol’ Battle of California (competitive version)? Yeah, I know there were some "counting" games already played in Europe, and Ducks/Sharks is the only game on tonight's schedule without some version of national coverage, but I can’t care. Because tonight is Ducks-Sharks, one of my favorite matchups since the lockout. It's a measuring-stick game, a pride game, and an awesome way to start the NHL season (assuming the Sharks have paid their electricity bill this year).

To open this set of Gamedays and this NHL season, Mike Chen and I devised a little cross-state exercise. You know Mike, of course, from Battle of California, though I heard he has some side gig too. Anyways, instead of rehashing our own previews again, we instead decided to write about the opposition this time with three answers to: "What Scares Me About Your Team", a nice outsider's perspective to start the new year.

What Scares Sleek about this year's Sharks:

1. Joe Thornton plus offensive defensemen means trouble

The last three seasons, the highest scoring San Jose blueliners have been Craig Rivet 07/08 (74 gp, 35 pts), Matt Carle 06/07 (77 gp, 42 pts), and Tom Preissing 05/06 (74 gp, 43 pts). In each case, it's a career scoring high—none of them have demonstrated tremendous scoring ability away from Jumbo Joe. The lack of a true offensive talent on the blueline has been the Sharks' Achilles Heel, their missing ingredient in a sense. Finally at the end of last year the Sharks inserted an actual offensive defenseman – Brian Campbell – and the results were stellar. In 20 gp, Campbell recorded 19 points, and while that 78-point-season pace might not have been sustainable for a full year, it still showed the potential of using a creative talent behind San Jose’s glut of forwards.

Bring in Dan Boyle, and to a lesser extent Rob Blake. Boyle is a guy who’s already registered a 63-point season and two 53-point years, so he’s shown the ability to play well with top talent in Tampa. I haven’t watched a ton of Lightning games, so I can’t say for sure, but if Jumbo Joe is able to bring out a career year out of the Sharks’ new blueline threat, San Jose threatens to be a Pacific monster this year.

2. Red Wing motivational tactics

I’ve been reading some of new coach Todd McLellan’s motivational quotes over at the Seagate Broadcaster’s Blog, and his overall message has me worried. Not so much the “I don’t just want a hockey player, I want an ingredient” bit; other than some cannibalistic overtones that message is pretty routine. But how about this McLellan gem? “At this point in the season, the words ‘Stanley Cup’ aren’t part of the vocabulary.” First off, McLellan, I don’t think that’s very fair to Marcel Goc, who doesn’t have a very wide vocabulary to begin with. You’re going to take away two of his possibly twenty cohesive words?

But all kidding aside, I think McLellan seems to be doing the right things as a new coach for what’s been a tremendously successful team. He’s making the players better understand their roles for the team’s success, and is making sure that the short-term details that contribute to winning don’t get lost in the long-term goal. Of course, media quotes and on-ice performance can often be two different things, so I’ll reserve judgment, but I have to imagine the Sharks will be well-prepared for opening night.

3. Jonathan Goddamn Cheechoo

Yes, I know that Cheechoo is coming off his worst offensive campaign since his rookie year, and his preseason performance still has some Sharks fans worried, but that doesn’t make things less scary on my end. Cheechoo is the very definition of streaky – even in his good seasons he got hot and cold very fast. I wrote a post in the latter part of the 06-07 season that pointed that out: “4 goals in 2 games against the Ducks, which was preceded by a seven game goalless streak, that followed a 5 goals in 7 game stretch, that followed a 1 goal in 9 games slump, and well, you get the picture.” Also revealed in that post was the trend that Cheechoo scored at a much higher rate against the Ducks and Kings than against any other opponent.

The Sharks figure to have a very good team this season even if Cheechoo has another off year. However, if he gets anywhere near his pre-injury form, the Sharks will be awfully tough to keep up with in the standings this season. I guess my main hope is that Coach McLellan finds Cheechoo to be a very tasty ingredient and eats him, but that probably violates the CBA.

And now, heeeere's Mike Chen!

What Scares Mike Chen about this year's Ducks

1. The Complete Mighty Ducks

Picture this. You sit down and you really want to have a kick-ass marathon of the Mighty Ducks movie trilogy. You've got your shiny Mighty Ducks DVD and your old VHS copy of D3: The Mighty Ducks, but you don't own the second movie and you can't afford the gas to drive to Best Buy and pick it up. But halfway through your viewing of D3, a buddy calls and says that D2 is on the Disney channel RIGHT NOW so turn the channel immediately. That convoluted movie-viewing experience is kinda like what happened to the Ducks last season without Scott "My Captain C, Damn It!" Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne to start the season.

You take those guys out of the mix, add in some bad broadcast-on-cable-TV replacements like Todd Bertuzzi and Doug Weight and it's just a chemistry experiment gone awry. And while Scotty N played well upon his return, you could sense that something wasn't quite right with last season's Ducks, even from all the way up in the Bay Area. So now Brian Burke's guys have no off-ice distractions, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf are a year older, and the Norris Twins get a full 82 games together. Yeah, that's not good.

2. Brendan Morrison

Oh, stop laughing. I'm not talking Brendan Morrison by himself, I'm looking at what Brendan Morrison could possibly do for the rest of the team. Morrison's a playmaker. Teemu Selanne's a goal scorer. Goal scorers need playmakers to make them even better (see: Cheechoo, Jonathan). If Morrison clicks with Selanne in an Andy McDonald-minus-the-freakish-neck-muscles kind of way, that gives the Ducks two pretty strong forward lines. We know Perry and Getzlaf will get their points but what about secondary scoring?

Last season, I don't think I was the only person who laughed when Burke signed on Todd Bertuzzi's diminished scoring abilities. We know that Selanne still has it but if Teemu's got a partner that can actually dish him the puck, he becomes that much more of a threat. Teams with one scoring line don't usually accomplish much (hello Vancouver), but when you start spreading that around, that's when the proverbial shiznit hits the fan.

3. Pronger/Niedermayer

You could say that this point is an extension of the first one, but that one was really more about off-ice distractions and general roster discombobulation. This is about having two Norris-quality defensemen who can handle 30+ minutes a night, play special teams, send out a great outlet pass, and shut down the opposition's top scorer. With all due respect to the Detroit blueline, there's simply no team that can match what Anaheim can do -- that is, have one Norris-candidate on the ice at all times.

Put it this way -- the old adage of line matching doesn't work if you have either a healthy Pronger or Niedermayer on the ice. You can't try to avoid the shutdown defenseman because they're both capable of it. Hell, stick me out there with my limited beer-league skills and I'd still probably be a +30 for the year (Burkie, I'm a free agent and I'll sign for the league minimum). This combination scared me when Pronger first came to Anaheim and it still scares me today. And it's just not fair.

So that's our takes, looking trepidly at some of the new aspects of the opposing team. How about you, readers? What in particular this year scares you about facing either of these teams? Feel free to leave your own answers (even if you aren't a Ducks or Sharks fan) in the comments.

Prediction: Ducks 3, Sharks 1. Goals by Perry, Pahlsson, and Morrison. Just like in the Ducks opener of the 06-07 season, though, Rob Blake actually scores Corey Perry's goal. Adds Mike Chen, "By the way, Sleek's watching the game on Tivo so everyone text him 'Pronger broke his leg' intermittently."

Update 10:01: Mike sneaks in a prediction too: Sharks 4, Ducks 2. Goals by Marleau, Boyle, Roenick, and an empty netter by Grier. And soft crying in the rafters from Jeff Friesen.

p.s. I posted a PuckToon today that mixes metaphors about strange cap-motivated roster moves made throughout the Pacific Division. Enjoy!

[9:30 am edit -- even more Sleek guest appearances on the ol' internet! In addition to posting on James O'Brien's new blog, I was also a guest on the LCS Hockey Radio Show last night. I haven't even heard the whole thing, but feel free to give it a listen as we push through some technical difficulties, I hurriedly mis-describe Patrick O'Sullivan as "a poor man's Brian Rolston", and I pull a correct Caspian Sea trivia answer out of my ass.]

Go Ducks.

If you need a break from the Battle...

There's a ton of great blogs out there and BoC is certainly one of them. But after posting here (and facing the existential crisis of: does anyone want to read about the Stars?) I would often get the itch to talk about the NHL as a whole.

So, after coming up with some silly gimmicks I decided to roll out a blog that (hopefully) will be a celebration of the hockey blogosphere: Cycle like the Sedins.

Please keep in mind it's still a bit of a work in progress, as I expect it to be considerably "prettier." Aside from shameless self-promotion, there are two other reasons I want to bring this to your attention:

1. There will still be some posts relevant to the BoC - and get this - there might be some familiar faces on the blog! We've already had a Earl Sleek sighting and expect to see Rudy Kelly at some point.
2. The blog is designed to include commentary from all kinds of sources, so it's quite possible that your ideas and thoughts could see the light of day.

So I'd love for you kind folks to take a look at the blog. As the season goes along, I'll plug posts that are particularly BoC-relevant and try to resist being excessive.

Sleek's hockey orphan: Anaheim Ducks

My take on the Ducks

My list of stupid predictions, which includes a certain BoC team raising the Cup

Finally, all you bloggers out there, I have a section called "Hockey orphan" and my goal is to get as many bloggers involved as humanly possible. Let's get the whole dysfunctional hockey family together for this.

Please?