6/18/09

Will It Really Happen?

Well my looking back was a good time, let's look forward! Below I'll list my Top However-Many-I-Come-Up-With highlights of next season:

1. Luke Schenn will hospitalize 3 men, one of which will be a Penguin (seeing his penchant last year for exploding Malkin and rag-dolling Kennedy)



2. Mikhail Grabovski will get 75 points next year



3. Kulemin scores 20 goals (10 against Carey Price)



4. Tyler Bozak returns to Junior form and makes the team out of camp



5. I find better ways of utilizing Youtube

6/16/09

Did It Really Happen?

So the season is over for real now. Now the question I have for myself is: did this season really happen? What did the average(read: non-games-going) Leafs fan get out of it? My list is below:

1. Luke Schenn blew our pants off with his stay at home, Adam Foote-like, bone-smashing hits
2. Mikhail Grabovski wowed, bored, then wowed us again as he worked through getting his work ethic consistent(honorable mention; Grabs double flipping off the Habs fans)
3. The emergence of Niklas Hagman as a leader and bonafide two way player with offensive upside
4. Nikolai Kulemin turning into the next Michael Peca(when Peca didn't suck)
5. Ian White (and his mustache) being so overrated that I almost gave up on life
6. Poni having a career year and making it possible to trade Antro at next to nothing
7. Brian Burke bringing his own personal brand of dynamite to the head office
8. Pogge completely destroying any chance he had of being a Leafs starter(yes, the ridiculous way that Wilson/Burke played him didn't seem fair....but it helped in assessing his progress, as it made Pogge accountable and revealed how he would respond to pressure down the road)
9. John Mitchell being a potty-mouthed third liner playing on the first line
10. Matt Stajan absolutely shitting the bed after a freak eye injury(if the rest of the team had only allowed him in their pretending to be European, he could have had an 80 point season)
11. Jason Blake rebounds with a 63 point season and plays with the grit of a wet rat(yes, I like him again)
12. Jeff Finger passes the 100 game plateau, earns eleventy-billion dollars per game
13. Boyd Devereaux, other than being a metal-head, proves he still belongs in the NHL, so the Leafs will probably let him go

You know, I thought this list would be short and to the point. After rambling for 13 points of fact, maybe I will pick this up again another day. Three posts in three months. I'm starting to look like He Score/He Shoot, but without the humor.

6/11/09

Final Finally!

Although I've skipped the entire playoffs, I thought I'd pipe up to let everyone (one at the most, heh) know that I am still around. Going into tomorrows game I have little emotional attachment to it other than the fact that the Stanley Cup will be won. My wife did notice that my swearing was up a bit on Tuesday when Pittsburgh let in their only goal against. This lead me to believe I must want Pittsburgh to win. Better yet, I want Detroit to lose. I've been told that a dynasty sets the bar by which other teams can be measured. I think it gets boring for the fan that is heavily vested in a favorite team. In the 80's I actually got bored of the Oilers in the finals every damn year. It's like, hey, we get it, Datsyuk was drafted eleventy-billionth in his draft year and wow, isn't Detroit's drafting AWESOME. Step aside, old man, give the kids a shot. Or better yet, how about a Canadian team actually win a Cup in the next 10 years. I won't get into that ex-NBA commisioner's ideas of selling the game to Americans that are more interested in betting on bowling than watching a Stanley Cup final, but let's just say I'm still waiting for my chance to jump off my couch when a Cup is won. Even if it's not the Leafs.