| Hockeyoutsiders Stanley Cup Notebook |
 |
 |
| Written by FRE | ||||||
| Thursday, 10 June 2010 19:13 | ||||||
|
Now that hockey is officially over for another season, Hockeyoutsiders sits down with their Stanley Cup notes from an epic David vs. Goliath matchup. Only in this instance, Goliath won. Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks, your 2009-10 Stanley Cup Champions. Anyway, on to the notebook: -Philly and Chicago just set back goaltending 100 years. Think guys like Turco and Nabokov liked watching these finals as they saw the bags of cash that were suppose to be thrown at them this offseason, turn into possible signings with the KHL? The new goaltending model is to spend no money on the position, have a solid defense and skilled forwards and look like a genius. Any team spending over $3MM next year in goaltending is going to look really foolish. Vesa Toskala should stay glued to his phone because that dude is going to make more money than he should this offseason thanks to Michael Leighton.  The Blackhawks got the last laugh -So the curse of Marian Hossa is finally over. Also apparently the hockey gods are fine with painting murals of players with the Stanley Cup, draping statues in jerseys and planning the parade prior to winning anything. Perhaps the only curse still in place today is the touching of the conference championship trophy. Or perhaps just the city of Philadelphia is cursed and doing these things only matters if you are a fan of that team. Maybe if you’re from Philly you should consider becoming an atheist today. -Any talk of a Chicago dynasty should die within the next 2 weeks when the full magnitude of Dave Tallon’s horrible management of the salary cap ensures that probably 2 or more key members of this year’s squad get different addresses for the start of next season. Just a quick glance at the payroll numbers show the Blackhawks about $5MM over the estimated cap already, which means they have to take Huet outside and shoot him just to get back to the cap. Then they need to sign 9 more players with no cap space, which means we sure hope Brian Campbell enjoys playing for the Rockford IceHogs. It probably also means Versteeg, Sharp and that black dude that everyone in Chicago loves, but fans of every other team hate (no, not Chris Pronger) is probably going to be playing elsewhere watching the Blackhawks raise the Stanley Cup banner to the rafters in the United Center on their television. -As to the Flyers, they seem to have less issues going into the offseason then the Blackhawks other than in goal, which we have already discussed. Our bet is that it will be another 10 years before we see this team in the finals again by virtue of the fact that how often in the playoffs do you get to face three teams in the bottom half of the NHL in terms of offense in the playoffs? Not since the 1987 Edmonton Oilers has the road to the finals been as easy as it was for the Flyers this year. It’s not their fault that Pittsburgh fucked their chance up so epicly by choking to the smurf-like Montreal Canadiens in round 2. -As long as there is playoff hockey, there will be whining about officiating. For most of the series, Chicago was whining about the refs even though they were winning. Then when the stripes finally put away their whistles during the third period of game 6, the Flyers got robbed by a late 3rd period call that should have been made. Every hockey fan should just take a step back and accept the fact that there is no solution to this problem. It’s inevitable like death, taxes, and Pierre McGuire’s man-crush on Mike Richards. Officiating is going to be bad regardless of which team you root for. Ice is cold, water is wet, Gary Bettman will die before he gets replaced as the commissioner and your mother-in-law is a bitch. Get used to it. Or maybe it’s just way too much fun to rock that tin foil hat you’ve been making for the last few years. -Finally, be thankful you didn’t have to watch Detroit and Pittsburgh in the cup finals for the third straight season. I doubt Bettman allows that to happen again on his watch. He’s already assured that one of either Washington or Pittsburgh will be in the cup finals next year by virtue of putting them in the Winter Classic game together. Thanks to all our loyal followers and readers of Hockeyoutsiders. We hope that this season has been as enjoyable for you as it has been for us. We like the LA Kings chances in 2011!
Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0alpha3
!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved." |
||||||
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 June 2010 19:25 ) |
Ilya Kolvachuk
RSS Feed
| HockeyOutsiders |
| HockeyOutsiders - Where we pull our goalies daily! |
|