flames v. wings: D-day

so i had a dream last night that i was on a lush island in a village of thatched huts and a handful of people when a plane went down in flames.... am i watching too much lost ? well, according to dreammoods.com:

To dream that a plane crashes, suggests that you have set overly high and unrealistic goals for yourself. Your goals may be too high and are impossible to realize. You are in danger of having it come crashing down. Alternatively, your lack of confidence, self-defeating attitude and self-doubt toward the goals you have set for yourself is represented by the crashing airplane; you do not believe in your ability to attain those goals. Loss of power and uncertainty in achieving your goals are also signified.

if you substitute "you" for "the flames" then i think we might be on the right track, here. tonight is the first night in the next month or so that will go a long way in deciding whether or not the team that sutters built will get a taste of postseason action.... personally ? i have absolutely no idea who to suggest for a win tonight.

my buddy, lanny (totally the dude's real name) suggests that the wings are gonna "beat up on the flames tonight for some vital points" and that could well be the case. i have to wonder if the bounces haven't started heading north for the flambés and that we might get a few past jimmy howard with a rested kippy on the back-end.... who knows ???

anyhow. it's datenight with my pops so i'll be having a burger and a pint during the early 5pm start. hopefully tonight i can dream of flaming Cs playing into june..... buuuut probably we're gonna get destroyed.
;)

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 6]

monday randoms: cleaning off the desktop II

i want to reiterate once again just how totally proud i am of the work that duncan, mikeH, and i have been putting up here with relative frequency as of late, and to remind everybody that hitthepost is not the epicentre of statistical debate, but instead a forum to offer opinion, commentary, and sometimes quirkiness.... with that said, some of today's monday randoms will have absolutely nothing to do with hockey, but i've got nowhere else to share the following items that all make me laugh like crazy....

1. the handsome men's club
this sketch is almost ten minutes long, but i assure you it's all funny. god bless kimmel... ;)


2. i don't even know where i found these but they're so incredible.... kinda makes you wish you had a poodle, don't it ? poooorrr dooggies... :(






















3. a closer look at iggy's gold
...is a little like this. h/t to sjc for unknowingly allowing me to put this up... thanks. ;)


4. preds fan pics
apparently the preds have re-named their town "smashville" and have a greenscreen situation at the rink where you can take your pic with a cup-inspired background.... i would really love to show you the most adorable example of my friend's two boys, but it wouldn't be right to post pix of someone else's kids.... suffice it to say, i think it's rad that the team promotes such fun stuff, and i will gladly argue with anyone who thinks nashville doesn't have a hockey fanbase.... i bet you dollars to donuts one of those kids will grow up to play hockey. ;P

i guess that's it for today. slow day ? maybe.... or maybe i just think that's enough for one person's brain to absorb in a twenty-four hour period....

;)

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 5]

accountability for the msm

in the post-game analysis of today's 5-2 flames victory over the minnesota wild, either john shannon or mike brophy (i wasn't watching, just listening, so i'm not sure who actually voiced it) made note that jarome's improvement in the past few games has to do with all things olympic being behind him. while i have no problems with that theory as speculation on his current (two game... it's only a two game) upswing, they announced that now that "jarome isn't busy doing olympic ads" in his downtime, his focus is back squarely on his nhl club....

um.... WHAT ???

the MSM has been under a microscope for some time now by the blogging community, largely for presenting opinion as fact or for disregarding statistics when supporting their theses. longtime commenter, R.O, called out fan960 overtime host, pat steinberg, over on flamesnation a few days ago, for ignoring the advanced numbers when he suggested that langkow "hasn't played well enough to earn a spot beside Jarome" in response to a caller post-game on friday.... steinberg continued (in the comments of the lefebvre column) that "he hasn't been playing well. He's not creating, he's giving up the puck, and he hasn't been great in his own zone." when challenged by both R.O and yours truly with my two cents, steinberg then defended his stance by using catchphrases like "stating an opinion," and by insisting "I'm NOT an expert, nor do I have any great knowledge of the inner working of the team or the game. Never played, only have watched as a student."

[note: steinberg spent a bit of time defending langkow today on the fan, using at least one of the excuses i served to him two nights ago on FN when he discussed part of #22's troubles of late having to do with a "cavalcade of wingers." ... well done, pat. you made it more about opinion while still maintaining your position... also ? he totally mentioned "a guy on flamesnation" jumping all over him for saying langks wasn't very good.... and then called him a great two-way guy and, essentially, a bonafide 2nd liner.... ;) ]

the problem is (and i'm certainly guilty of this at times, as well ---but i don't have thousands of people reading/listening to my opinions) that when he argues with folks, he doesn't often make it sound like an opinion, he makes it sound like a fact.... and i'm only using steinberg as an example, here. many of the panelists/pundits/talkingheads do the exact same thing (i like to think bob mckenzie, kelly hrudey and to some extent ron maclean are pretty successful in describing a VIEWPOINT).... hey, i'll be the first to admit that the line is a fine one.... but there SHOULD be some accountability for the time-filling "falsehoods" propagated by so many media personalities.

and to shoot down brophy and shannon's allegation about iginla's on-camera distractions, i'm not even suggesting that iggy DOESN'T shoot commercials during the season, i'm saying that he DIDN'T.... the nike "destiny" spot was filmed in toronto in august (where, fyi, he threw a slapshot down the barrel and obliterated a camera)..... every other commercial currently on-air with jarome was filmed in september: samsung on sept 8th:



scotiabank on the 9th & 10th:



and coca-cola on about the 11th or 12th when jarome's bit was shot on a greenscreen at a studio in the northeast.... [ps: why was jarome in whistler in this spot ????] [pps: there is no youtube video of this spot that includes jarome eating a sandwich.... i'm not sure why.... meh. at least we all saw it during the games. ;) ]



i'm pretty sure that it's possible to get a couple of hours of printshoot stuff on a day off, but i don't think a lot of in-season time is spent doing this kind of high-end press with pro athletes... additionally, the sponsors and the player agents/handlers work out the number of hours they spend on set, and you absolutely cannot exceed that. on a 12 hour shoot, i believe we were allowed jarome for 6 (and if i remember correctly, we had wickenheiser for 8). i remember working with catriona lemay doan once and she had a very low number of hours in her deal (i think it was like 3 or 4), while i did a GM ad with jordan staal when he was still in the OHL and i think we had him for about 8...

anyhow, i guarantee you that neither mike brophy NOR john shannon have a clue about the stuff i wrote above, and yet they certainly didn't hesitate in offering it up to the general public as newsworthy information. i get pretty annoyed when the talking heads present these myths as FACT. because it’s not a fact, yet nobody is there to correct them, and (inevitably) someone will turn up at work tomorrow and suggest around the watercooler “hey, so jarome was so tired-looking because he was doing all these commercials in january —-he shouldn’t be sponsored so much.” and the rumour will propogate itself.

....and even moreso when it's a hockey-related opinion stated as truth..... i mean, seriously. is it THAT hard to drop an "in my opinion" or "i think," "i see," or "i heard" every once in awhile ?

responsible commentary would be preferrable, please and thank you.

rant: over.

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 4]

the mathematics of winning

congrats on a big flames win last night, but i don't really want to get too excited about it until we see a bigger trending towards the type of gameplay from the last two periods... i'm also not superkeen to discuss the latest flames trades, the sad cap situation for next year, and/or my thoughts on sutter(s). i'm gonna go with a subject that was deliberated at length with both mikeH and my buddy dan whilst in vancouver; one that i'm totally and completely underqualified to analyze (cause i'm not so strong at maths):

which is "harder" to win: the stanley cup or an olympic gold.

i've deduced that the evaluation is two-pronged (this, btw, is NOT a play on words describing the horrible nightmare i had the other night where i was blissfully. married. to. chris. pronger.... *shudder*):

1. making it onto an NHL team vs. making it onto an olympic squad
2. the number of wins needed to win one championship over the other.

let's begin, shall we ?

1.A) number of players
without talking about the makeup of teams or player types (see B), in a pure mathematical way there are 30 teams in the NHL, each generally carrying 20 players, and thus there are 600 NHLers (give or take) during any given year. as for the olympics, there are 12 teams with 22 players (=264) but since it only comes along every 4 years, that number should technically be divided by four (66). 600:66 basically says it's ten times more likely for a player to make an NHL team vs. an olympic team.... right ? ;)

1.B) calibre of player / player types
in (A), i don't take into account that there are 60 goalies in the NHL and 24 (÷4) in the olympics, or that there are 180 defensemen in the NHL and 84 (÷4) in the olympics.... so from a basic numerical perspective, which position a person plays factors into the odds.... beyond sheer numbers, there are also probably more than a dozen "pure goons" like bryan mcgrattan in the NHL, who would NEVER exist in an international tournament like the olympics.... like stevie Y said in pre-2010 team selection interviews (and i'm paraphrasing here), "we're not looking for strong checkers, we're looking for strong players who can check." clearly, only the upper echelon of NHL players (be them goalscorers, playmakers, defenders etc) will ever be named to an olympic squad.

1.C) NHL v. european leagues
while 100% of the gold and silver medal teams at the 2010 olympics were made up of NHL players, many of the other countries populated their mens' teams with european league players. the emergence of the KHL as a legitimate hockey league, and with the swedish/finnish elite leagues producing young high-end athletes, means that not all players who lace up for their countries will ever step foot in the NHL. a good example of this is norweigian captain tommy jakobsen, who played in the swedish, norweigian, deutsche, and austrian leagues in addition to nearly two decades of international games, but not a split second of NHL play... admittedly, this is the exception to the rule as the majority of elite players (ie: those who would be candidates for national squads, and certainly their captaincies) will stream to the unparalleled top north american league.

1.D) country population / olympic recognition
i like to call this the "anze kopitar" sub-heading because, while there is absolutely no doubt that he would be listed within the NHL's elite players (and would be named to any country's international squad), he is slovenian. slovenia has a total population of about 2million, of which only 0.05% (980) are registered with their ice hockey federation, and their national team is ranked 17th by the IIHF.... so while the player, himself, has undeniably beat the odds into elite-hood, and would most definitely be an olympian on any of the 12 teams in the tournament, the calibre of his nation's hockey team will (most likely) prevent him from ever attending. on the same subject, but on a different tack, canada has an enormous pool of potential players and the mathematical probability of making EITHER the nhl OR the olympic team is MINISCULE, but definitely not IMPOSSIBLE (as is kopitar's current case).

2.A) 4 stanley cups for every gold
as difficult as it is to play 82 regular season games + AT LEAST 16 postseason matches to win a cup, every year the slate is cleaned and players get to try for it again. with the olympics coming along only every fourth year, and with players getting injured, older, and their roster spots usurped by up-and-comers, i would suggest that most elite-level NHL players would be active for two or three olympics (5-12 year careers/stanley cup opportunities), and in the peak of their play for only one or two of those.

2.B) regular season v. round robin
this section is a joke because, let's face it: in the nhl you have a 16/30 chance of making the playoffs and in the olympics' current format, you have a 12/12 chance of getting out of the round robin. sure, 4 teams in the olympic tournament don't have to play a qualification playoff game (QP), but realistically you can tank in the round robin and still win four in a row and gold medal. post-lockout NHL parity makes it increasingly more difficult to get INTO the post-season, so that 53% chance of playing the "second season" seems less than that.... also, and i'm not smart enough to elaborate on this, the three-point-game system has truly effed up the .500 system (since somehow now teams with losing records can still find themselves sitting above .500).

2.C) 16 of 28 wins v. 4 winning straight
to win a stanley cup, a team must win 16 games out of 28 (4 x best-of-seven series). to win an olympic gold, a team must win 4 games straight (QP, QuarterFinal, SemiFinal, Final). in truth, depending on the pool, if a team wins two in the round robin, they could still feasibly lose the third game (in shootout?) and get a bye into the QF. ie: technically, a team in the olympics only has to win 3 games in a row (*ahem, the last three), or 5 of 7 total. physically, a seven game tournament is FAR easier on the body than a potential 28 game playoff run. conversely, there is a lot of emotional duress involved with single-game eliminations....

i bet you were expecting me to have a decision here, at the end, where i suggest it's harder to win one over the other. if pressed, i would say that it would be mathematically more difficult to win olympic gold (certainly more difficult to make an olympic TEAM), but to be honest i think you only have to be HOT to win that medal. even mediocre teams, made up of average players, can feasibly be streaky for four games, but it takes a very solid, dependable, and deep squad to crack the top 16 and endure the two months of NHL playoffs.....

anyhow. that was fun. please throw your comments in if you're so inclined....
:)

[sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 3]

blog updates: backlund on backlund

firstly, congratulations to freddan for knocking up his ladyfriend... he announces it in swedish over on his blog (that i will continue to read cause i still love that guy). ;)

mickis has also updated his blog and it translates loosely as follows:

"6 benefits 1 loss on the roadtrip, NHL now! Yes, our roadtrip during the Olympics went really well for us! We started to play against Toronto on and won with 5-1, where I had 2 goals. Then we flew on to Providence and played 3 matches in 3 days only to Providence, where we lost 2-4 I had 1 assistant then drove (2 hours bus) we have to Bridgeport and played and won by 1-0 then ended the weekend in Providence where we took revenge and won 5-2 and I had 1 goal. After the weekend we had 1 days off and then I took the opportunity to take care of my body so I and Kronwall went to the Westin Hotel and drove hottub and steam room! Then later that day I took a full body massage at our hotel.

The second week of our roadtrip began in Bridgeport and we won the match 3-2 o I had 2 ass. After the game we drove to Worcester (2.5 hours bus) and when we arrived it was time to check out Sweden's quarterfinals and it was not so good as you all already know! It was very disappointing in my room and Kronwall threw things about themselves in sheer frustration! Roadtrip ended with two matches against Worcester and we won both, the first after penalties and the other during the regular time, I had 4 points in those games.

So in total we won 6 matches and lost only 1, it will also be added that the team had played two matches before I flew over there and they won both of those as well so it was a really good roadtrip, 8-1-0! For me, it was also really good, I had good speed in skates and created very positions and played with a cruel good self-esteem! I was also praised for my game as Player of the Week in AHL during the second week of the roadtrip! So it was really fun to have such a nice prize!

We flew home on Sunday to Vancouver again and landed in the early 3e period in the Olympic final so after we got our luggage, we looked at the match at the airport and it was good pressure there! All watched the match over the entire airport! A very exciting and good game! We took the bus also home to Abbotsford, and I got on the road know that I would be named later on Monday or on Tuesday. So I went home and packed, washed and got into the apartment.

On Monday I went down the hall to run a bit fys and the ice bath and then I got my plane ticket to Calgary and later on Monday evening, I landed in Calgary! I was so happy to be named again, although I knew the roadtrip that I probably would be named if I'm good! It was a nice feeling to sit on the flight back to Calgary and it felt really good at training on Tuesday. Yesterday Wednesday we played our first match after the break and I can not exactly say it went well, we lost by 0-4 at home! For me, it was however quite good but it felt good to lose lodge first game after the break, and especially not at home! So for us pulls us up to tomorrow's match at home against New Jersey!

So we play at home tomorrow and then we play away against Minnesota on Sunday and gone to Detroit on Tuesday! Must be great to play against all the Swedes in Detroit and in particular against Lidas!

It feels so good to be cruelly named again and I hope to stay here in the NHL now, the rest of my North American career! I've been playing really well at the end since I was named the first time and the coaches and management are pleased with me so I'll just continue to show them that it is in the NHL that I'll play!"

this is pretty much the only happy news in flamesville, but i gotta say i'm stoked for the guy....
maybe shep shed some light on what word always translates to "cruel good" and "cruelly" (but both mean good things). anyhow....
:)

a boatload of trouble

i will be the first to admit that when you attend a game, you see different things than you would by watching a broadcast but from my eye, the calgary flames are a thoroughly deflated club and might not actually win another game this year. they were consistantly stood up at the offensive blueline by a non-playoff team and, on the occasion they were able to penetrate the zone, lost the puck within seconds in board battles. what opportunities they had on net (and there were a handful) were whiffed or covered by a steady wild squad.... the bottom line is that we are in a boatload of trouble.

i know i'm gonna sound like a homer when i say this but the only guys who looked GOOD last night were backlund and gio (and i mean this in a hockey way, not a boy way). i thought backlund was, HANDS DOWN, the hardest worker in red last night and was rewarded with a couple of nice little opportunities. i gotta say i miss the third B in the killer Bs line (moss just doesn't cut it, i'm afraid) but there's some nice chemistry between backlund and bourque. and while brent insists on playing gio on the third pairing, he did a lot of things right; my dad even said, at one point, that gio was the best offensive AND defensive player for the flambés, and he's not far from wrong. he notched a couple of shots on goal on the scoresheet, and sent another couple of BEAUTIES towards the net (i'm pretty sure he's been practising a shot that sizzles inches wide of the net at about knee height that bounces straight off of the back wall and out into the slot.... now we just need someone standing out front with the wherewithall to tip that puckhome).... he also seemed to enter the zone at will, unchallenged, with the puck on his stick. oh, and did i also mention the two awesome hits on his nemesis, clutterbuck, and the highlight of the night that you'll NEVER see: a perfect dodge of a flying c'buck in the corner, reminiscent of the dustin brown elbow dodge of months back.

a couple of guys get hat-tips for effort last night, and here i'd say hagman, iggy, nystrom, higgins, and kipps. the rest of the team looked like a bunch of chumps who couldn't care less about winning. stajan was downright invisible. kotalik was only noticeable for being terrible. same goes for jaybouw, i'm afraid....

too many point shots. too many passes. too many fancy plays. not enough deep pucks. too many shinpads.... y'know ---the same old story.... and somehow, sutter's solution was to bring in the bigger, older dude on the blueline.... no joke, we are gonna get absolutely DESTROYED on friday against joisey. picture it: the kovalchuck unit or the ZZ POP line will surely make a regehr-staios pairing (c'mon.... we all know it's gonna happen) look downright silly, and there is no way in hell that the jaybouw/sarich duo could handle'em either......

note: i would like to see a hagman - iggy - higgins line just so we can call it the higgy line.... hey, with the separation of the johnson pardy, brent should do this just to make me happy.... seriously, i mean ---it's not like we're gonna win anymore games anyways... ;)

sutter(s) dismissal countdown: day 1
;)

Darryl Sutter, Ken King and the long, slow road to continuing disappointment

So ...

Here's what I wrote about Darryl Sutter in the summer of 2008.

And here's what I wrote in November of 2008.

So, it's a bit bittersweet that, in March of 2010, my Flames fan bretheren agree with me.

I don't care how many get-rid-of-Vandermeer secret deals Darryl Sutter has in the hopper, today was a joke. And I wish it was the final indication that I was right about the guy but, obviously, things were clear well before the Lombo+1st for Jokinen deal (which is about when WI got over him).

Please don't get me wrong: I HOPE I'm wrong. I hope that Toskala finds his form in his backup role, that Staios turns back the clock and inspires his new teammates with shot-blocking and selfless play while fitting perfectly into the system and that, uh ... well, there's no way the Boyd-for-a-fourth deal goes well, so I'm not even going to try it.

But the, even of those things happen, let's look at this a different way: What could $5.7 million in cap space score you on the open or trade market this summer? Probably a pretty good player, right? But, hey, at least the Flames get Ales Kotalik and Steve Staios next year. They will obviously be better than replacement players at the league minimum.

Two other takes I like: WI's (here) and Kent's (here).

Once again, let me emphasize: Darryl is not the owner of the team, nor its president. He's just a longtime incompetent in the GM's chair allowed to continue by his bosses. Ken King is a corporate/media guy, and Darryl Sutter plays him like a fiddle. If Sutter goes after the season, and King doesn't, I won't expect improvement.

Because I feel like I need to be full in my assessment of recent days, I do like the Stajan signing, I think that money's appropriate for his history and position on the team, and that he'll be a complimentary player going forward, particularly with Conroy on the way out and Backlund looking like a guy who's going to stick around.

But, that's also saying that in relation to the Flames' current personnel situation which, well, is less than optimum given the team's decision on player movment the past two seasons, which has been mostly abysmal.

Lookin' forward to that squeak-in first-round exit that'll save Darryl's job, too. GOOD TIMES.

darryl sutter is walking the path of doug risebrough

well, that's the last straw for this girl.

it's sortof funny cause a year ago on this day, i thought that darryl fell pretty hard off of his untouchable perch when he traded a vyable centreman (lombo), a good utility guy (prust) and a first round draft pick (enter name of future NHL superstar ---just watch) for olli effin' jokinen.... the GM, once treated like a deity in this town (hahahaha"in sutter we trust"), made a trade that had the instantaneous potential to be one of the worst in franchise history, and he's followed it up this season with two other blockbuster deals that changed the face of the team in mid-january (debatably for the worse). ultimately, we're now looking at a roster where 5 out of 20 (25% of) players were skating for the worst team in the league only one month ago.... and somehow he's gonna try to convince flamesnation that this is a good thing.

while i'm still skeptically positive about dealing dion, the subsequent trades have all been complete jokes. we will look back someday and say to each other "remember early 2010 when darryl sutter lost his MIND ??!?" then we'll shake our heads and be glad that he's no longer driving this bus. dumping jokinen was necessary but picking up kotalik's contract (and a UFA higgins) was godawful. swapping backelhinney for toskala is fine for this season, but will leland be ready to make the jump next year ?? (i doubt it).... and finally, hopefully what will be the last trade darryl sutter ever makes for the flaming Cs: steve mafackin' staios [in'eresting stats here] for a whole other year at 2.7 million for aaron johnson and a 3rd rounder ? how is that trading UP ??!

so my question is this: is darryl sutter trying to re-build the team for the future, to win the cup, or to save his job ??! the trades are all a big muddle of mediocrity ---which has been the theme of his tenure in calgary. he does next-to-nothing in the summers, and consistantly deals massive blows to team chemistry mid-season [albeit ONE move was well warrented in january this year]. his identification of important player qualities is set in the pre-lockout era, and he's building cup-winners for 2002. we don't need older and bigger, darryl, we need younger and faster.... look around. you're a relic.

here is a pic of my fridge. in january 2008 (two years ago), i posted the team pic that was printed in the calgary herald.


here's who's still around :
langkow, nystrom, conroy, sarich, moss, regehr, iginla, kippy

here's who's gone:
huselius, hale, dion, yelle, eriksson, nolan, nilson, cumac, aucoin, mark smith (!!!), godard, lombo, primeau, tanguay, boyd, warrener.

while i say good riddance to a lot of those guys (i'm talking to you, anders), i also think he's missed the boat on lombo, primeau, tanguay, huselius, and boyd. of the guys that remain, i think nystrom, sarich, and conroy (obviously) are totally replaceable. of the guys he's since brought in, i really only think bourque, dawes, gio, glenX, higgins, and backlund hold any real value (with the jury still out on hagman and stajan, and an overpaid kotalik). then you've got a boatload of pluggers....

i don't know. i think daz's job is on the line and i think he's throwing down the gauntlet.... will the new-new-look flames be enough to make the playoffs ? if not, well then my guess is that we won't make the playoffs for years to come either, since we'll look an awful lot the same.

sorry for being so scattered, i'm pretty pissed about boyder.
we'll miss you, buddy. i hope you turn out like lombo and notch a bunch....
i think you'll like nashville.
see you next year.
:)

deadline day: nsfw players

with the emergence of the awesomeness that is grant clitsome (dude got two points last night !!!), and with the trade deadline looming, a couple of us were joking around that daz should create a team based on NSFW names; kent suggested semin, legwand, wellwood & dykhuis.... it was actually justin azevedo who came up with the idea but i'm gonna take credit based on this clip that actually played on the radio a few years back, out in toronto...

just sayin'.....

this dude just got called up to columbus, and i find him currently FAR more interesting than bourque or stajan's new contracts, and how they affect the tradeability of cory sarich or dustin boyd:



also: as expected (albeit a couple of days late), mikael backlund has been recalled to the calgary flames. this means conroy is either still on IR, or we're about to deal a roster player.