Stanley Cup Finals: Broken Down a Little at a Time...

so that the season doesn't end so abruptly.

Here's a tribute to the Conn Smyth Trophy winner, Hank Zetterberg.



This is so awful that its tasty. Like Zamboni fumes.

Also, a required read from the Slap Shot blog put on by the New York Times. If you watched the last seconds of game six, you'll know exactly what they're writing about. Tick...Tick...Tick...

Stanley Cup Finals: Game Six Preview

Jarkko Ruttu's contributions to yesterday morning's game are documented by the fine folks at Knob Hockey.



I would pay big money to walk inside the ropes with a Tiger / Ruttu twosome.

diablohockey.blogspot.com - your leader in occasional hockey coverage.

Tiger, Have You Met Ryan Malone?

Poor Tiger Woods. He's been injured for a month now with a broken something or other. Perhaps its his vagina. He, for some reason or not, cannot play a full round of golf without his va-jay-jay hurting. I write this as my 68 year old neighbor is driving into his driveway after playing a full round this morning.

So what does Tiger do yesterday? He has a press conference, presumably called to discuss his snapper. When a reporter opened up the questions with a fairly harmless, "Wings or Pens?", here's what he said...

"I don't really care," Woods replied. "I don't think anybody really watches hockey any more, do they?"

Tiger, have you met Ryan Malone?



This occurred with 1:21 to go in the second period. Malone immediately went to the lockerroom. So you'd think he'd be done for the evening, Tiger? That's a pretty wicked injury - much worse than a stinky bajingo, huh?

Nope. Malone started the next period. He looked like twelve miles of bad road and had cotton coming out of one nostril, but he went back out and smiled. He played like he had a mouthful of bees - hitting Wings, laying down in front of shots, and creating the traffic in front of the net which helped Petr Sykora net the game winner in the third OT. His expression afterwards is why the Diablos play the game.



More from Tiger's favorite paper, the Beaver County Times - Malone's Heart Was Not Injured.

Epic!!!

Petr Sykora scored a power play wrister at butt-crack thirty in the morning to bring on Game 6. Hockey Lives For One More Night!!!

Pens / Wings Game 4 Preview

Tomas Holmstrom will be back in the lineup and the Cup will be in the building as the Red Wings will try to hold off the Penguins to complete the series. Let's go to the guys at Knob Hockey for an in depth look at the keys to the game.



Fleury ought to try putting googly eyes on Holmstrom's jersey.

Playoff Preview - Detroit vs. Colorado

Update 4/24 @ 2:35 pm: Apparently I'm not the only person fired up for this series. Wings-Avs: Blood feud is getting renewal, by John Niyo from the Detroit News. Can't wait to read the Kizla rebuttal.

One of the best rivalries of the "new" NHL.

Some history: During the 96 Cup Playoffs, Claude Lemeiux from Colorado clobbered Kris Draper into the boards. Similar to Steph Veilleux's hit on Stastny during game four of the last series except Draper's head was crushed.

I couldn't find a video with only the hit - it's in the middle of this sequence - although you can see the style of Lemieux.



Colorado ended up winning the game and went on to win the Cup. After the series, Dino Ciccerelli (no stranger to thuggery) said "I can't believe I shook the guy's friggin' hand".

The next year they played four times. The first three were without incident, but the fourth and final game had a certain chippiness to it. When Peter Forsberg and Igor Larionov began a fight, Darren McCarty took the opportunity to settle the Draper score with Lemieux.

Here's the whole brawl.


McCarty ended up scoring the game winner in OT. Quite the night.

The Red Wings came together as a team and ended up winning the Cup in 1997. The next season, in their first regular season game, McCarty and Lemieux dropped the gloves on the first puck drop and settled the previous season's score. Lemieux didn't turtle this time.



The feud didn't die after that. Patrick Roy fought Chris Osgood on the following April 1st and almost fought Dominic Hasek five years later in 2002.





Disclaimer - used a lot of Wikipedia for this research.

New Diablos Playoff Team Needed

Although this will always be a pro-Wild and pro-Devils blog they're both out of the playoffs. Therefore this blog needs a new team. Unfortunately, the Caps just lost in OT, otherwise, I think the Caps would have been a good fit. Why? Ovie is outstanding and just plain fun to watch, but I think the best reason to cheer for the Caps is the fact that they've got an owner who's a dead ringer for a cleaned up Ron Jeremy.

Ted Leonsis & The King of Porn

If you have a suggestion, try to use the comments to discuss. Apparently only Todd, Jarick, and some guy named Slag know how to use them (unless Slag is Todd's alias)

Wild Out in Six; Devils in Five

Well, another utterly disappointing playoff performance has been submitted by the Wild and the Devils. Here is some video.

Wild 1 - Avalanche 2

Too many questions... not enough answers.

Game 6 Preview - Schultz In

Here's a little email conversation I had with Michael Russo from the StarTribune today...

6:40 am

Michael,

For the love of God and all that's holy...

Show Gabby the Ranger's video, or the Nashville OT winner, or Calgary's 3 goal game (with one waved off). If you're afraid of crossing the line, forward this email to Branko or Rammer or some one.

I'm desperate. Something's gotta be done.

Ted Reiff

11:40 am

Ted

I wrote about it today. Ironically, I have the room across the hall from gaborik...i jokingly told him he could borrow my laptop

Here's the write up. I hadn't read it until later today. I'm not sure if anyone remembers, but before the Rangers game, Gabby was watching Pavel Bure highlights and then before the Nashville game, Russo showed him his five goal performance against the Rangers.

Also, Russo's reporting (on the blog) that Nick Schultz is playing tonight.

Look for Nick “Willis Reed” Schultz to play tonight.

Are you playing? “I think so.”

Funny story, the second he said that, he was called into a one-minute meeting with GM Doug Risebrough, who clearly told him, “Don’t tell the media.”

Too late. It was on the blog by the time he got back. The rest of the interview Schultz, whose missed the series thus far following an appendectomy only 12 days ago, was throwing in caveats, like if I play, etc, but he’s in.

Devils 3 - Rangers 5

More Wild Bitching

Here are some Wild quotes to back up what I said in the previous post. If you're sitting within proximity of a little girl, let her read them to you so you can get the full context.

"We had energy, I would say, up until the point where they scored," center Eric Belanger said.

"We had played such a good game," center Pavol Demitra said. "We had so many shots. We just needed one goal, and it just wasn't there."

And this one sounds like its coming from a camp counselor. You know the hippy chick from Camp WannaHavaFunTime! who was always so cheerful that you wanted to strangle her by her hippy necklace?... Oh, that was just me? O.K.

"We've been coming from behind this whole series," Brian Rolston said. "It would be nice to get up, it would be nice to play with a lead. Our effort was awesome tonight. We feel very proud of our effort tonight. Nobody will be hanging their head here. We'll be ready in Colorado."

That quote screams Tuesday morning tee time.

I think I know the answer for the Wild.

They need Todd on the bench and a couple of videos of the Death Mutant Jesus Killers or whatever before the game. Sure Pierre-Marc Bouchard will be a quivering heap on the locker room floor, but if that's what it takes.

Wild 2 - Avalanche 3 (No OT)

The Wild outshot the Avalanche last night, but not enough of the pucks got behind Jose Theodore. 40-17 were the shots. Theodore was very good, but...

The Wild controlled every aspect for the game for the first two periods, but when it came down to it, they never really got a good shot off. Theodore was seeing the puck extremely well and the Wild never really got a shot off that had a chance of getting by him. Backstrom was good too - the three goals that were scored on him were on outstanding shots. The only way either team was going to score on either goalie was through the backdoor. So let's look at the first three goals.

(0 - 1) On the power play, Brunette parks his ass in front of Backstrom and when Foppa throws one out front, Bruno backhands the deflection past Backstrom who's ass over teakettle in the blue paint. Pretty much a carbon copy of his other two goals (both of which started the scoring in the previous two games).

(1 - 1) Wild power play and the boys are working it around the perimeter. Burns gets the puck on the left dot after a rebound (not many of those last night) off of a Rolston shot. He thought shot, but heard Butch who's on the opposite dot. The Av's are all collapsing on Burnsy's shot and leave a lane to Butch. Cross-ice pass, backdoor shot, goal.

(1 - 2) Colorado power play on a horrible penalty taken by Hill. Liles on the blueline cross-ice's a pass to Wolski on the top of the right dot who one-time's it for the goal. Backstrom almost got all the way across the crease, but Wolski put it in a tight hole. Can't really call it an aimed shot, but the fact that it was another backdoor shot gave it as good a chance to go in as anything else thrown towards the net.



Each one of these goals were not examples of the shooter beating the goalie, but the shooter getting open with some open net in front of him. Nothing surprising, but ask yourself..."How many more times did the Wild try to go backdoor?" There wasn't a lot of passes across the slot - many of them blocked by the Av's. Gaborik got a rebound that he juggled before backhanding it into Theodore's leg pads and Burns pinched to get a cross-ice pass, but Theodore was able to get in front and block it. I'm not sure whether the Av's Defense and Theodore were able to cut down on the opportunities or the Wild weren't either aggressive or creative enough around the net. Either way, Theodore saw 38 shots last night, missed one, and I'm not sure he cared enough on Rolston's goal.

My theory is this. All throughout this franchise's history, they've played the underdog. They've been the darlings of St. Paul with their moxie and grit and whatever. They came and replaced the beloved North Stars. Their hometown hero scored the first goal ever at the X. They made an improbable Cup run in '03. They went toe to toe with the eventual Cup Champs last year and took a chunk out of them in Game 4 before Brad May "disgracefully" punched out our "non-fighting" Kim Johnnson. The entire franchise history is filled with David vs. Goliath stories.

The only problem is Goliath always wins the Cup. Every team that wins the Stanley Cup plays the bully. Even the lower seeded teams (Edmonton in '06, Anaheim in '03) that make it to the Finals take control of the games with stifling defense and opportunistic offense. They win games by moxie, grit, and a spit in your face / piss on your grave attitude that is lacking in our boys.

It shows in how they play. Last year during game four against Anaheim, when the Wild absolutely needed a win, Mark Parrish played as if he had a nest of fire ants in his breezers. He didn't score any goals in that game, but was all over the frickin' place creating chaos in his wake. The third and fourth goals by Gaborik and Rolston were goals that were the result of chaos. They weren't pretty, but they were the result of relentless pressure and advantageous positioning. When was the last time this team was relentless in anything?

A good period of playoff hockey cannot be: "We got a lot of good looks and good shots". It has to be: "We put the puck in the net". This team needs to forget the underdog role and play the favorite, because they are the favorite. They need to be the bully, not the pipsqueek. This ain't the movies - they need to be the Biff and not the Marty McFly; the Galactic Empire and not the Rebel Alliance; the Jason Vorhees and not the six 105 pound teenage actresses with 42 inch chests. They need to be Exxon and not Joe Six Pack. They are the better team and everyone knows it. But the better team doesn't move on - the team that scores more goals does.

Devils 3 - Rangers 4

I believe it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers who so adequately said:

"GivitawayGivitawayGivitaway-blah"

Zach Parise let the puck slip off his stick to Fedor Tyutin who's slapper was tipped in by Chris Drury for goal #3. Then with 3 minutes to play, Patty Elias was trying to clear and ran into Colin White (who also ran into Marty during game one leading to a goal). The puck slid over to Straka who passed it to Staal who slapped in the winner.

Frick.

And then traitor Gomer knocks the faceoff into the Devils empty net for a pretty cool goal. I miss him so bad it hurts.

Back to the Prudential Center for Game 5 on Friday for a 7:30pm game.

Wild 1 - Avalanche 5

Holy Crap.

For the life of me, I don't know how to approach this one. First off, I slept through almost the entire game. My internet connection wasn't getting good coverage of the game and so I dozed off soon after the puck dropped - of course an aftereffect of watching all of Game 3. I woke up briefly after the first, checked the score on my phone, and when I saw 0-3 Av's, and knowing that the Wild are not capable as a Calgary-like comeback, I passed out for good.

After digesting highlights and various write-ups (Startribune, Russo's Blog, DenverPost (hacks), CBC, ESPN, TSN, Hockeyfights.com), I figured I would chime in with my own commentary with assistance from the late, great Herb Brooks.

Those guys looked like a bunch of monkeys humping a football.

Game 5 tomorrow night at the X. Let's hope that between now and 8:00pm tomorrow they each have a solid bowel movement and man up.

By the way, there are way too many videos on YouTube of monkey's humping all sorts of things, but I couldn't find one of a monkey and a football - not that I would have posted it, because this blog has certain lines it will not cross. So instead of a monkey, here's a turtle.

Wild 3 - Avalanche 2 (OT)

Dear Butch,

Hey Man, Nice Shot.



Sincerely,

The Diablos

For some good and bad commentary of last night's game, read...

Tom Powers - Pioneer Press "A Little Less Respect..."
Mark Kizla - Denver Post "Ugly Betty Hockey..."


Kizla's email is mkizla@denverpost.com. Feel free to fill his inbox with spam.

Conn Smythe Frontrunners

1. Brian Rolston.
2. ??????

Devils 4 - Rangers 3 (OT)

Dear John Madden,

Thanks. You have shown us that sometimes you have to throw the puck on the goal & hope for the best.



Sincerely,

The Diablos


Dear Devils Power Play,

Nine minutes twenty six of time, eight opportunities, three shots, two goals. Minor improvement, but still... it's improvement.



Sincerely,

The Diablos


Dear Avery,

What's your fuckin' deal? Do you have any shame?



Screw off,

The Diablos

Wild 3 - Avalanche 2 (OT)

Dear Mikko Koivu,

You are a Warrior.



Sincerely,

The Diablos


Dear Martin Skoula,

You're alright. We like you.



Sincerely

The Diablos


Dear Keith Carney,

You Magnificent Bastard.



Sincerely,

The Diablo Geezers (anyone older than 35)

Devils 1 - Rangers 2

Dear Sean Avery,

You're a bitch.



To the Devils: honestly, how the hell do you think you're going to score when you have five power plays and only four shots?

Sincerely,

The Diablos