SBNation.com User Blog: A.J. Haefele

Dallas Eakins and the Avalanche: A Perfect Fit

A.J. Haefele — Mon, 06 May 2013 08:25:48 -0000

I'm not the world's biggest believer in things like destiny and fate. Leaps of faith require a certain "close your eyes and hope for the best" panache that I've long been incapable of. Still, sometimes things that go bump in the night make the hair on your neck stand up and demand the immediate attention of your senses. Such is the case with the Avalanche and their increasingly eerie transition from the old guard of constant Stanley Cup contention to the new, frustrating era of rebuilding.

In a day and age where comparisons of the new to old are common, from prospects to coaching regimes to overall team-building strategies, it's become easy to see parallels from past Avalanche glory days to the current era, one which we hope is on the precipice of replicating the previous regular season dominance experienced. Such was the case when Joe Sakic retired on Matt Duchene's rookie night, Gabe Landeskog made his debut on Peter Forsberg night, and presumably Seth Jones will don the Avalanche 'A' for the first time on the same night the Avs bid farewell to the great Adam Foote, so to are the Avalanche presented with the possibility of replicating past coaching success by plucking a young, up-and-coming coach from the minor league ranks.

As fans hope for the Avalanche to eschew their all-too-familiar nepotism in hiring positions of great importance, I urge the organization to look to a familiar place for their new head coach: the hockey mecca itself, Toronto. Prior to the 1994 season, the then-Nordiques took a chance on the hot shot coach of Toronto's AHL farm club, the St. John's Maple Leafs. The hiring of Marc Crawford paid immediate dividends as his ability to coax greatness from an array of talented youngsters sparked Quebec, and later Colorado, to its still-standing NHL record 9 consecutive division titles, with Crawford at the helm of 1 Stanley Cup winning team.

Today, the Avs vacancy would be filled beautifully with the addition of Toronto Marlies coach Dallas Eakins, whose Marlies teams have improved in all 4 years of his coaching the team while also developing several players who would go on to be instrumental pieces in the current playoff run of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Eakins, whose coaching career began as a Marlies assistant in 2005, is a very well-respected AHL coach thanks to his strong ability to communicate with his players and provide them the expectations and goals needed to excel in the pressure-filled environment of Toronto.

"He’s the glue that keeps the puzzle together. He’s the quarterback, so to speak, that gives us all the faith and confidence that we need to be successful… words can’t describe what he’s meant to me… When you have a coach like him, you just want to win so badly for him." -Nazem Kadri

He’s a great players’coach. He involves his players. He treats us with respect. He’s also a great motivator. His speeches before games and in between periods get the most out of us. He always finds the right words to fire us up. As players, you see how hard that he works every day. He lives the way he wants us to live and he sets a great example. -Korbinian Holzer

Like most coaches today, Eakins is considered more of a defensive-minded coach but profiles as much more of the classic "players" coach than the old school taskmasters so often found in the defensive-minded mold.

Players refer to him as a player’s coach. They say he’s fair — and firm when he has to be — but never holds himself up as an example in his arguments. He’s a former grinder with eight NHL teams, one of the fittest people in the hockey world, and has been tagged by some as a can’t-miss NHL coach.

The idea that Eakins is ready now for an NHL job is widely held, as current Maple Leafs GM Dave Nonis actually pushed hard for the team to hire Eakins before then-GM Brian Burke ultimately gave the vacant Maple Leafs job to old friend and retread Randy Carlyle in March of 2012.

When the club was looking for a coach to replace Ron Wilson in the grim days when last season transformed itself into a lost season, NHL sources say Nonis went to bat for Dallas Eakins, then and now the coach of the AHL Marlies. Nonis and other front-office executives were of the belief that Eakins is everything a modern-era coach should be; progressive but hard-nosed, communicative with players but never friends with them.

As far as how his teams have performed statistically in the all-important special teams, the Marlies have finished in the top half of the league in PK every season under Eakins' watch, peaking at first overall last season with an 88.1% success rate, which was significantly higher than second place Oklahoma City. Offensively, the Marlies have struggled mightily, with their highest finish in the Eakins era being this season's team at 19th.

Unfortunately for the Avalanche, Eakins' success as Marlies bench boss prevents the team from making an immediate push to bring him into the fold as a clause in his contract prevents him from speaking with other teams about job openings until his current season is finished. The Marlies push for the Calder Cup continues this Friday, May 10, with Game 1 versus Grand Rapids (who just dispatched my beloved Aeros in their final game in team history. RIP Aeros <3) so should the Avalanche key in on Eakins, the wait could be a lengthy one as the team's off-season moves ahead without a coach. Hopefully the Avalanche show the proper patience in order to perform due diligence on one of the hottest coaching prospects in the league.

With a proven ability to develop both offensive and defensive talent, Eakins would be an ideal fit for the ultra-young Avalanche as they continue to search for an identity and a leader. While fans have been quick to bemoan the Avalanche's tendency to dip into their familiar bag of tricks, I'd say bringing Dallas Eakins on board represents the kind of history worth repeating as the Avs embark on their next steps into the future.

Northwest Check - "Chaos Begins" Edition

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 08:31:55 -0000

Awww yeah.

With the majority of the teams in the division already 21% of the way through their schedule, I suppose we have a lot to talk about, what with this being the first legitimate Northwest Check since the second-to-last week of last season. Since them, an awful lot has happened just with our own team, let alone the drama queens we inhabit standings space with.

Calgary did like Colorado and set fire to $16 million only Euro'd the crap out of the name and went with "Jiri Hudler" because it was more exotic sounding than David Jones. Unlike Colorado, they didn't stop the money fire pit there and went cash crazy with the acquisition of Dennis Wideman (7p in 8gp, aka more points than our entire defense combined) and held onto Jay Bouwmeester. Must be nice to be owned by rich people, eh? I digress. Calgary, despite their shiny toy distraction additions, still isn't very good and entirely reliant upon Miikka Kiprusoff to bail them out most night. Seeing as how Kipper is 36 and already hurt, I'd say the outlook in Calgary is excellent. At least from an Avs fan perspective :D

Edmonton...lol. Their big off-season moves consisted of signing ultra mega hyped defenseman Justin Schultz and drafting first overall...again selecting a high-scoring forward with little defensive acumen and hoping Devan Dubnyk can live up to his billing as goaltender of the future in the present. As you'll read below, 10 games have come and gone and the Edmonton media is up in airs and cannibalizing itself in search of pointing the finger at the right guy. Justin Schultz is the prized free agent pickup of the season and despite lighting up the AHL has struggled to find his defensive legs in the NHL quite yet. It's only 10 games, though, so don't go getting crazy and making any drastic movies, Tambo. Also please keep playing Ryan Whitney. The rest of us are enjoying it immensely.

Minnesota found themselves stealing the July Darlings title of the phantom but totally real Silly Season Summer Championship titlebelt from The Genius George McPhee and the Washington Capitals because of their hypocritical $198 million commitment to two whole players. Sadly for the Wild, they're still waiting on vaunted defensive star Ryan Suter to show up to camp. If any of you see him, btw, don't bother telling him the Wild are looking for him. Life is more fun this way. Unfortunately for the Wild, things like growing pains exist for younger players so Baby Granlund hasn't evolved into Superstar Granlund...yet.

I hate talking about Vancouver. That Kassian kid looks legit and the Sedins are still co-captains of the Flop All-Stars. I can barely watch their games without having horrible nightmares of Manu Ginobili tumbling over with every breeze (and let's be real, the way that guy plays defense means there are a lot of breezes). Hopefully the monster Gillis has created by refusing to part ways with Roberto Luongo ultimately backfires and swallows the team whole in their next inevitable playoff letdown. At least I have that to look forward to :D

See you all on the flip <3

Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver	10	6	2	2	14
Edmonton	10	4	3	3	11
Minnesota	10	4	5	1	9
Calgary	8	3	3	2	8
Colorado	10	4	6	0	8

(updated 1.20.2013 at 1:12 AM MST) <---lol

All standings related info taken from NHL.com...

Calgary Flames

Last Week: 2-0-1 2-3 OTL vs. CHI, 4-1 W @ DET, 4-3 W @ CBJ

Conference Standing: T-12th

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 3.00 (9th)
Goals Against: (25th)
Power Play %: (6th)
Penalty Kill %: (28th)

This Week: The Flames actually play some games (finally) this week as they finish off a 3-game roadie in Vancouver Saturday night before heading home for a Monday night tilt versus Minnesota. Assuming they can manage to get off the mat after a hard fought contest with last summer's July Darlings, the Flames welcome to town a mediocre at best Dallas team Wednesday night. I can't wait for that game to go into overtime!

News: Danny Taylor's journey back to the NHL appears delayed as he has spent his time in the AHL this season playing on skates that are deemed illegal in the NHL. This is such a Flames story.

The recent injury to G Miikka Kiprusoff has sparked talks of the team looking to trade for a new backup to help keep the team afloat while their long-time netminder is on the mend. Ben Bishop is specifically named as a potential target, but only because he's so big it couldn't be avoided.

Here we have a call to arms of sorts for former Av Alex Tanguay to step his game up in the absence of Kipper. Personally, I was moved.

Leland Irving's body is ready.

Colorado Avalanche

Last Week: 0-2-1 3-1 W vs. EDM, 2-3 L vs. DAL, 0-3 L vs. ANA

Conference Standings: 14th

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.10 (27th)
Goals Against: 2.60 (13th)
Power Play %: 9.1 (29th)
Penalty Kill %: 78 (18th)

This Week: Just two games for the Avs this week (hooray) as they finish up their homestand when the visiting Phoenix Coyotes come to town Monday night before heading back up to Minnesota where this chaotic train wreck started for a Thursday night contest that guarantees to bore most of us.

Shameless Self Plug: Yesterday I did a podcast with the Burgundy Brigade. It's lengthy, totaling about an hour and 40 minutes but it includes me melting down about Ryan O'Reilly. So that's fun.

Edmonton Oilers

Last Week: 0-1-2 1-3 L @ COL, 2-3 OTL vs. VAN, 2-3 OTL vs. DAL

Conference Standing: 8th

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.30 (22nd)
Goals Against: 2.60 (12th)
Power Play %: 28.3 (4th)
Penalty Kill %: 87.2 (7th)

This Week: Edmonton continues their best season in years by going wheels up for a back-to-back Saturday in Detroit and Sunday in Columbus. I'm looking forward to them returning home Tuesday against Dallas because both of those bad defenses should test the might of their goaltenders, making for great viewing for me. Hooray!

News: I'm not sure what I found more surprising: that the Oilers might finally be healthy or that someone was paid to write this article.

Then there's this article, which seems to totally contradict the first one I linked. Edmonton press, go home. You're drunk. Also the Oilers are bad at faceoffs.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN EDMONTON NEEDS DEFENSE?

There's a decent chance the Oilers current roster sends as many players to the most recent WJCs as to next year's Olympics. That's fantastic.

Minnesota Wild

Last Week: 0-3-0: 1-3 L @ ANA, 1-2 L @ PHX, 1-4 L vs. VAN

Conference Standing: 11th ($200 million goes a long way, people)

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.10 (28th)
Goals Against:2.80 (17th)
Power Play %:16.2 (21st)
Penalty Kill %:82.9 (11th)

This Week: The July Darlings continue their march towards mediocrity with a busy slate of games, starting Saturday versus Nashville and continuing Monday and Tuesday with a delightful back-to-back at Calgary and Vancouver, respectively. The Wild finish their week with a home tilt against the vastly superior in every way including and especially in pretty people Colorado Avalanche. Bring it, uglies.

News: 10 games into the season, the Wild are already asking: "What else can we do?"

The quotes in this article almost sound surprised about what they got in Mike Rupp. You'd think they would scout these guys, amirite?

The fourth line is the new cool place to be in Minnesota. It could be worse, Avs fans. We could be fans of these guys.

Our Rangers SBN brothers break down the Mike Rupp trade. Sort of.

Vancouver Canucks

Last Week: 3-0-0 2-1 W vs. CHI, 3-2 W @ EDM, 4-1 W @ MIN

Conference Standing: 3rd

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.60 (18th)
Goals Against: 2.10 (6th)
Power Play %: 15.7 (22nd)
Penalty Kill %:76.7 (20th)

This Week: The Canucks continue their drive for another Northwest Division title with a relatively light schedule of games, beginning Saturday vs Calgary and ending Tuesday vs Minnesota. Pretty boring week for the division's marquee team, eh?

News: This Keith Ballard puff piece includes Ballard admitting he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing last year. I guess "play defense" was a concept too complicated for him to grasp.

I think there's a higher chance Mike Chambers writes about Kyle Quincey's lack of roommate woes before he gets around to writing something silly like this about the Avalanche. Still, this is an amusing read about how the Canucks players are adjusting to life on the road alone.

Henrik Sedin quietly nears the franchise record point mark of Markus Naslund.

WE SAW THE CANUCKS GM IN WASHINGTON, LUONGO IS BEING TRADED.

Surprise! Ryan O'Reilly Terminates Contract With KHL Club

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:15:16 -0000

How quickly things can change, eh?

With the news breaking yesterday that Steve Downie's knee injury will force him to miss the remainder of this season, the speculation began to ramp up that the Avalanche would work harder to bring unsigned Restricted Free Agent C Ryan O'Reilly back stateside with a shiny new long-term contract.

Helping to connect these dots is news now that O'Reilly and his Kontinental Hockey League team, Metallurg Mg, have mutually agreed to terminate his contract. The press release states two primary reasons for the decision to part ways: O'Reilly's recent injury was exacerbated by playing in Metallurg's most recent game and contract negotiations with the Avalanche continue.

The release also points out the KHL's transfer window, which ends on January 31, played a factor in this decision. The transfer window closing essentially means the players on the roster at that time will be eligible to play for the team in the playoffs

What does this mean for the Avalanche? On the surface, it appears O'Reilly has agreed to give up the leverage the KHL afforded him in negotiations with the Avalanche. Furthermore, it would appear the KHL's transfer window required O'Reilly to make a commitment for the remainder of the season and he was unwilling to give up the possibility of returning to the NHL at some point this season. All of this feels like it points towards O'Reilly coming to terms with the Avs in the very near future and returning to the NHL but it might just be my biased optimism at work.

If O'Reilly was injured enough he wasn't going to play in the next 7 days before the transfer window closed, it made sense for both he and Metallurg to part ways so as not to take away the team's ability to field a complete roster for any postseason play should O'Reilly leave for the NHL at any time. The injury should also be a concern to Avs fans as any hope of losing Downie and sliding O'Reilly into the lineup, presumably allowing Mark Olver to take Downie's vacated position, would be premature.

Huge glovetap goes to Eurolanche for originally breaking the news and MHH friend vtcapsfan for helping fill in some of the details. I'm sure there will be more to this as the day goes on.

Training Camp Essentially Ends With...More Drills.

A.J. Haefele — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:58:58 -0000

So the scoop from our very own Cheryl Bradley about Bordy making the Avs has put me way behind the 8-ball in getting the final day of training camp report up so the sleeping pills I took 35 minutes ago are starting to kick in and we've reached now or never time. tl;dr this will be brief. Same format as previous days applies.

Lots of people here. Local news finally paying attention to the Avs. Lots of stands closed off. Gotta make it look packed

Boys have taken the ice, back in line jerseys. Id love one of those orange ones, man. Even better cause they're no contact during the season

Lots more jump early. Looks pretty pretty.

I'll skip the "Vary hurt" tweet as it's been gone over already. No big deal.

Jiggy robs Duchene, crowd erupts. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY GLOVE"

Wilson has disappeared during drills. Not like he's invisible, like he's not physically out there. Cue trade speculation....now!

Rink buzz today surrounds the Avalanche apology letter. Excited to collect extras to give to people for future transgressions. #imsorry

So EJ is ultra pissed at Elliott. ULTRA PISSED. Like ten minutes later he's still glaring at him.

Special teams work! Duke working the non ej point with stastny line. INTERESTING.

If Ryan Wilson is a coyote by the time I get home, I will chuckle heartily. O'Reilly/Wilson for Yandle. #BOOKIT

Kobasew...awful PKer. Gettin lit up out here. EJ has been very vocal today. Barrie bossin around Parenteau, both manning points.

Barrie looking great on point. You can tell the game is starting to slow down for him. Last year he was in panic mode when pressured

Duchene working the half boards on PP unit, playing two man game with Elliot. Stef showing some life but not passing with confidence

New drill starting, sacco finishes instructions with "Make good passes!" First pass too far for EJ. Lol.

Love the small details. Receiving passes on the rush, Parenteau, Duchene, Hejduk all pick spots to shoot at quickly. Downie locked on puck

And that was it.

So no scrimmage today but I'll post some thoughts about a couple guys and camp in general.

Basically, I've had a few people ask why guys like Hejda/O'Byrne/Johnson haven't been talked about much by me. Answer is pretty simple: low contact drills and scrimmages take away a big part of what makes those guys so effective. The same way Sgarbossa kicked it into gear when scrimmages began, those three will likely start to look quite a bit better when they're allowed to hit people again. Of course, the low contact rules didn't stop O'Brien from throwing the body. At least he and Steve Downie didn't get into it today. That was a nice change.

Moving on, I thought my favorite PP unit I got a chance to see was Barrie manning the point with Parenteau playing a roaming point man on the other side with Dutchy working the half boards and Downie and Landy clogging up the middle. Dutchy looked comfortable on the half boards and was the crux of what the unit was trying to accomplish and Parenteau's vision and passing acumen were on full display as they worked the puck around nicely. They created a couple nice scoring chances but were unable to bury any of them.

The unit that did bury a couple chances but were feasting on the weaker players opposing them (McLeod-Kobasew as forwards, Hunwick and I THINK Zanon as D) was Elliott playing point alongside Hejduk with the Stastny line up front. Going against teams with weaker PK units (thinking the second unit of MN as an example) is going to have trouble keeping up with the creativity we can ice with either of these two units.

No real notes about the PK because I only got to see the units littered with guys who aren't likely to see many PK minutes this year (all the big guns were at the other end of the ice, a rather curious decision imo).

As far as specific players go, I made a dedicated effort to keep an eye on Steve Downie today and wasn't disappointed. I think he's due for a sneaky good year, especially if O'Reilly ever returns from his self-imposed exile from sanity. When he gets his Charles Manson look going (see picture above) and isn't suffering from a serious shoulder injury, Downie is going to be a guy that finds ways to contribute that will never be reflected with traditional statistics. If we can get him to muster of some goal-scoring punch, that would just be some delicious gravy for this mashed potato lineup.

Chuck Kobasew's days as an NHL player ought to be nearing an end very soon. He simply doesn't have a much of a purpose on this roster anymore.

Tyson Barrie has looked great in camp but like the Hejda/Johnson/O'Byrne trio is punished in this format for their physical play, Barrie looks like an unstoppable force because he hasn't had to stop anyone himself and nobody is laying the wood on the kid anytime he tries to make a move with the puck. He's had the freedom and space to do whatever he wants and show his skills. Good on him for taking advantage of his opportunities but he by no means did enough to force the Avalanche to keep him around. I think he's in line for the first call up and will undoubtedly spend time in Denver this season. It's only a matter of when, not if, for Barrie this year.

That's all for Avalanche training camp from me this year. Tomorrow' session will be a closed affair at the Pepsi Center and Friday's practice will be little more than a light skate as the team prepares to head to Minnesota that night for the season opener. Thanks for all the compliments and questions regarding the coverage those of us at MHH have been lucky to provide for the past several days. Hope you all enjoyed the experience as much as I have. Until next time! /wave

Training Camp Day Three: More of the Same

A.J. Haefele — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:05:27 -0000

Boy was it ugly today. The team as a whole just didn't seem all that focused on what was happening on the ice. Missed passes, guys falling down, flubbed shots, the works. Shane O'Brien even accidentally stumbled into Varly at one point, nonchalantly tapping a bewildered Varly's pads as if to say "haha, oops". It was that kind of day. Sticking with the format from the last couple days, I'll post my tweets from the event followed by a couple additional thoughts on specific players.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Varly first out, per usual. Huzzah. Its all happening

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

This whole goalie coach working with the goalies everyday is...foreign.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Goalies working on clearing pucks off the glass. Jiggy appears to be mastering the art of the delay of game penalty.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

And the entire team streams onto the ice together. Training camp must be powerleveling their team unity.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

See the Altitudes here doin some work. Hooray. Drills uneventful so far. Sloppy play from near everyone. VDG missed a pass entirely.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Hejda with a snipe that pleases the crowd. GG big man

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Bordy took a pass and celebrated by immediately falling down in embarrassing fashion. I am amused.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Such a sloppy session so far.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

O'Brien getting a talkin to from one of the coaches. Didn't catch which one. Shane just can't resist the tug of another mans skates

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Barrie eats the ice in the body divet Bordy left earlier. This is quite the gong show so far.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Oh my god PA Parenteau. Oh my god you are fantastic sir

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Duchene is still SPIN TO WIN

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Kobasew running Landy....not what I wanted to see.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Scrimmage on. Dutchy, Parenteau, EJ played beautiful 3 man breakout up the ice to produce quality scoring chance. Love it.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

O'Brien runs Duke at center ice, gives up odd man rush as result. The carpet is lava, Shane.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Hunwick stripped Sgarbossa clean and made a cute pass up the boards to streaking Parenteau.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Jones stops two rushes with great back checking. Dat puck possession

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Elliott gets chance on offense, immediately turns it over. His TC spot is being wasted.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Stastnys outrageous hockey iq on full display as he combines with Sgarbossa and McGinn on the prettiest team goal of camp. Wow

The Stastny to Sgarbossa to McGinn goal ended the day's session.

Speaking of Paul Stastny, everyone's most vilified $6M man lit the place up today. He's been having a great camp alongside McGinn but I watched him very closely today and you can see how smart of a hockey player he is. He's almost always in the right position, rotates and talks to his teammates very well, and has the uncanny ability of creating scoring chances with his excellent vision and occasionally sublime passing skills. This is the Paul Stastny that everyone forgets is so great. I think he's going to lead us in scoring this year.

PA Parenteau is another guy who has put together a solid camp but really shined through the clouds today. He made a gorgeous spin move in front of a crowd to tuck a backhand home before Varly could close the pillows (Look, I miss Pierre McGuire okay). The play drew out the biggest showing of life from an otherwise docile crowd. Later during scrimmages, he repeatedly broke down the opposition's scoring chances with responsible defensive work that led to breakouts going the other way. He has vision, great hands, a sneaky shot, and plays a sound two-way game. Even without playing with John Tavares this year, I think Parenteau will do some damage to opposing teams, especially early if they dare sleep on him.

Ryan Wilson was the only defenseman worth any positive note today. This is honestly the best I have to say for our defense today. Just sloppy. Not saying everyone was bad, just that nobody stood out in a positive way. Not even Jan Hejda.

The last guy I'll give a bit of a glovetap to today is David Jones. The guy didn't do a lick on offense, even being replaced for several shifts on the Stastny line by Sgarbossa (who looked great on the wing for all of the 10 minutes they had him there), but his backchecking today was aggressive and at times downright ferocious. Twice his aggression stopped odd man rushes going the other way (where he was admittedly out of position and his guy all alone...nice communication, guys) and turned them into puck possession for his team. What happened next, his whole "OH GOD IT'S A PUCK WHAT NOW" routine caused him to cough it up right away but the positives still stood. If Jones can find ways to positively contribute in ways other than scoring goals, he's going to go a long way to prove the Avalanche right for all the faith they placed in him with that amusing contract.

There you go, c6. I made fun of somebody. Now Twigg can post that that .gif with the guy beating the dead horse. I love that .gif. Stupid horses. Until tomorrow, my friends.

Training Camp Day Two: It Continues

A.J. Haefele — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:33:30 -0000

Despite Chambers reporting a scrimmage starting at 10:30 today, we instead got another morning showing of drills, followed by some specific 5-on-5 work, followed by a short scrimmage to finish it off. Today's post format will follow yesterday's with me just posting all my tweets from during the action as well as getting into some scrimmage specifics that I didn't cover on Twitter because my phone died (my bad). And we're off!

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

So.....exciting stuff so far. Nothing happening. Some clean ice, though.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Bordy wearing the 3rd orange jersey today. Looks like fan favorite Kobasew will be taking his place. Can confirm @DarioinDenver is elated

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Opening up with some drills. appears all players are accounted for.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Nothing of interest so far unless you count Quinn absolutey being our future head coach. More drills.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Sgarbossa's biggest asset so far remains his nose. Holy beak

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Stastny line still rockin today. Parenteau and Dutchy struggling to click here. Kobasew pocket picked by Hunwick. Picked cleaaaaan.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

How was Jamie McGinn on the third line in SJ? Seriously he looks phenomenal. Almost as good as Lindstrom last year #perspective

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Barrie just took the body on Bordy. Seriously. These one on one drills have been dominated by the excellence of Matt Hunwick.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Defense largely dominated the one on one drills. Wilson got beat a couple times but nothing major. Hunwick dominated. DOMINATED.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

2 on 1s happening now. As you might imagine, the offense is gettin some of it back. Bordy also appears to be a player favorite.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Sgarbossa playing with some confidence today. Goin for corners and taking the action to the defense.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Scrimmage time. About time Chambers was right about something. Hopefully its not the last time this season that happens.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

So....not really a scrimmage. Five on five, though. Inch ever closer to chambers nailing a scoop

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

This herky jerky five on five so far has been...something. Sgarbossa really coming to life in this portion.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

O'Brien is now sweating a sad face on his lower back. I feel like Dan Dierdorf for even noticing.

At which point my phone died, which means of course the "important" stuff started happening. The scrimmaging kicked off with the team's top two lines going against each other. The starting defensive pairs were the same ones we ended last season with as Hejda-O'Byrne and Wilson-Johnson took to the ice. Shortly after the pairings began lots of mixtures because of the odd number of defensemen in camp this year. The most consistent pairing that stood out was Hunwick-O'Brien, if only because Shane O'Brien had a god awful day of turnovers, being wildly out of position, and leaving poor Hunwick hanging every chance he got. Forward lines remained the same as yesterday, with Kobasew taking Bordeleau's place on the line with Olver and McLeod. Dario was not pleased.

Overall, the scrimmage was pretty herky jerky with semi-frequent interruptions from Sacco and lasted just about 20 minutes. It's very difficult to discern anything of real value but I know the hockey junkies will be happy with who looked good and who didn't so I'll just post some of my thoughts about the happenings of the day.

I really liked what I saw from Matt Hunwick today. Really liked it. He was skating well (big shock), moved the puck with confidence and even was able to hang on for dear life while O'Brien was doing everything to sabotage the pairing. His work in the drills portion of the session was exemplary and he shut down all comers in the one-on-one portion before surrendering a couple quality chances in the 2-on-1s. I know a lot of people, certainly myself included, were befuddled at the Avs bringing back Hunwick on a 2 year deal but he didn't look out of place at all today.

Greg Zanon again looked like quite the find in the drills portion and came crashing back down to Earth once the scrimmaging got under way. Zanon's beard has been the talk of camp so far but his work during defensive drills has also been quite impressive. Unfortunately, once the scrimmaging started and decision-making became a factor, some of the shine immediately came off Zanon. He twice decided to attempt to hold a bouncing puck in at the blue line with forwards putting heavy pressure on him and he misplayed the puck, leading to one 2-on-1 break against and one flubbed breakout attempt. I know he wasn't signed for his work with the puck but I'm looking for safer play than that from a guy with 56 points in 449 NHL games.

Michael Sgarbossa was a guy who had been wholly unimpressive during the drills portion of camp but when the scrimmage started, he kicked his play into a whole new gear. He showed some quality skating, an ability to play with the puck at high speed (both sending and receiving) and some creativity when faced with creating scoring chances on offense. I loved it. Personally, I don't think he's the guy for our current roster but I love the potential. I think he's positioning himself to be the first guy called up in case of a high profile injury but I think Mark Olver's versatility will keep Sgarbossa in the AHL for the beginning of the season.

I don't really feel the need to expand further on Shane O'Brien's day but I do feel the need to simply state it was a bad day for him. From almost hitting me driving to the arena to playing like dogshit, O'Brien should be thankful there's a few more days in camp to impress

I think if Gabriel Beaupre had been brought to training camp instead of Stefan Elliott, I wouldn't have even noticed. The guy has been invisible in drills aside from being yelled at by Zanon a couple times yesterday and once today and made zero impact offensively during the scrimmage. He made one sweet move with the puck behind his own net to get out of trouble and start a breakout but outside of that his lack of physicality remains but the aggression he needs to have with the puck has thus far been absent. It's still early but Elliott's showing so far is a bust, much like his AHL season up to this point.

I like John Mitchell. I can't stop seeing Dan Hinote every time I look at him but his game looks simple and efficient. For a guy with a specific role, that's exactly what I like. His work in drills was solid if unspectacular but his scrimmage work was enjoyable and you really got a teenytiny glimpse at what the Avs saw in him. He works hard, is active in the center of the ice, and was even a bit chatty with his linemates throughout, often taking the conversations to the bench. For a new guy acclimating to a new system and teammates, it's exactly what you'd like to see.

Jan Hejda is really good, dude. He's picked up where he left off from last year. His understanding of leverage is outstanding. So good. I'm expecting a great season from him.

Speaking of potentially great seasons, Jamie McGinn has been hands down the best player in camp in my eyes. He's playing with all kinds of confidence, scoring on both goalies with relative ease. He's scoring the kinds of goals you don't see from guys stashed away on third lines. If he and Stastny continue this play into the regular season, Pauly might finally score enough points in assists alone that people will finally see more than just a contract. McGinn looks like he might match last year's point scoring pace (which would be a 22 goal season this year...your move Jones).

That's all I've got for today. As always, with these guys standing out today, I'll try to keep an eye on some guys other than them in the coming days. Thanks for all the positive feedback on yesterday's notes. Many hearts to you, MHH readers <3

Training Camp Day 1: It Begins

A.J. Haefele — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 21:54:00 -0000

It's been a while, eh? /waves

With the season officially kicking off with the beginning of training camp, I made the familiar trek to the Avs practice facility and took in the first day of Avs action (with coaches and everything) as classic trusty sidekick to superstar Cheryl. What follows is me just copy/pasting the tweets of both Cheryl and myself from the beginning to the end of the session. I'll add a few thoughts for the sake of polish and will try to be as active in the comments answering any questions as I can. Most importantly, though, is pleasepleaseplease remember this is the first day of camp and it was a drills-only day of work, with very few instances of guys going above about 60-70% effort level.

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

At Fam Sports Center, ready for some hockeyyyyy

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Okayyyyy here we go folks. T minus ten minutes

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Going to be weird not seeing O'Reilly out here

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Sherman in the house

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

And the boys take the ice to huge cheers. Peeps definitely boycotting, pissed off for sure. Lol

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Olver, Bordy, McLeod. Stastny, McGinn, Jones. Duchene, Parenteau, Landeskog. Downie, Mitchell, Hejduk

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Sacco just totally ate it, falling against the boards. Rare smile coming from him

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Starting out with drills. Can really tell the guys who played in Europe. #inshape

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Varly just flashed the glove to deny McGinn

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

@DarioinDenver is missing his buddy. Kobasew not on the ice. (does tweeting it count, Kobario?)

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Sakic in the house too

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

@pbordy making O'Byrne look average #bigboy

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Zanon just rocked Bordy hard against the boards

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Landry just ripped one past Varly. #sexy

Cheryl Bradley ‏@cherylcbradley

Coaches still out, ice being cleaned, looking like scrimmage coming up

Okay tweeps, I'm gonna pass the updates to @BaconCrush for the scrimmage #GoAvs

At which point everyone became subjected to my point of view. Huzzah!

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Taking over the tweet duties. This zamboni is lookin spry. Could have a future in the bigs if he can keep this pace.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Looks like more drills are on the way. Hooray...ish.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

McGinn lighting up 5 on 2s. Jones is quite th spectator lolol. Zanon has been real impressive defensively.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Zanon giving Eliott a talkin to. Lots of guys have been in Stef's ear today. Not a good showing at all.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

EJ and O'Byrne pairing doin some work. Cheryl points out Wilson and Quinn engaged in lengthy chat.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Duke has spent all morning pickin corners. Would love to see that carry over into primetime.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Zanon is all over the place. Pairing with Hunwick sufficiently doing some work.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

McGinn looks outstanding with Stastny holy shit. Defensemen haven't mattered. They're playing unstoppable two man game from all areas

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

EJ throwin an elbow up high to VDG along the boards. Intensity has picked up, obviously.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Stastny lines run of excellence finally slowed by Landy workin the boards and Duchene being in great defensive position.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Steve Downie with an impossible pass to Duke who slides it past a helpless Varly. #whoa

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Sgarbossa working damn hard along the boards. Love the effort, was simply outgunned

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Stastny line picks it up again against a pretty helpless obrien/barrie combo. Parenteau responds at other end with a gorgeous snipe

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Top two lines engaging in a hockey version of horse right now. Anything mcginn can do, parenteau can do better it appears.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Finally some life from Elliott. Finally. And it came defensively.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Attention drifting as speculation about Kobasew being traded for rolls of tape so Zanon won't go without begins to ramp up

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Yay skating. As expected, Bordy is not shining.

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Hour 45 min limit reached. Think this will probably be the end. For the fangirls, Landy lookin all captainly in the center of the stretch

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Quinn leading the defensive meeting. Yes, that is absolutely our next head coach.

And the all important last guy off the ice...

AJ Haefele ‏@BaconCrush

Last off the ice...Duchene.

Bam. That was day one. Pretty much all the big moments of the day were snagged by one of us as the guys just ran through formal drills. Because people always want to know about who "looks" great and who could really benefit from another day at camp, I'll toss up a quick list.

Looked good, stood out as an overall positive: Duchene, Parenteau, Stastny, McGinn, Zanon, Downie, Hejduk, O'Byrne, Landeskog.

Can't wait for tomorrow's scrimmage to make up for a bleh bad day: Sgarbossa, Elliott, Bordeleau's conditioning, O'Brien, Johnson.

Guys I didn't really notice at all, positive or negative: Barrie, Olver, Hunwick, Wilson, Mitchell, Jones. Everyone else not named, I suppose.

With tomorrow's session expected to be a much more serious intra-squad scrimmage, the write up for tomorrow will be more extensive and have more analysis-y type stuff in it. For all of those planning to make it, come by and say hi! For those who dropped by and said hello today, it was greet meeting all of you and I hope to see you all again in the morning :D:D

The Buddy Cop Movie

A.J. Haefele — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:05:28 -0000

The internet, man. It's just a funny place. Sometimes it's literally funny, with quips and comics delighting the masses and sometimes it's that different kind of funny, the kind you never see coming that can produce the kinds of life-altering changes you never knew you always needed. For me, the internet has provided plenty of both.

It was a couple years back here when I was a regular commenter and predominantly game threader in the early days of MHH, making random internet friends and just chatting about life as much as anything else. MHH helped me reconnect to a particular frozen sport that I had lost touch with after my dad had died back in 2003. My fiance at the time didn't understand my need to watch sports and talk about them on the internet with "strangers". Funny how quickly things changed and how it still feels like a million years ago.

When I moved back to Denver in the summer of 2009 from my previous domain just outside of Houston, Texas it was largely because of a need to kick start my life in a dramatic way and I wanted to be here in this city I love with people who loved the same things as me. I wanted to be closer to MHHers. I got to Denver and realized "lol, life is still hard bro" and the reality of a new city with no job, no friends, and no real prospects sent me spiraling into the depression I had become so familiar with during my time in Texas.

After a few months, something weird happened. I made some friends on MHH, got realllllly brave, and ended up going to a big gathering of MHHers for a specific event downtown involving certain rivalries and shit. I ended up hanging out with some awesome people and...kind of had an amazing time. Here's the link to the recap with some pictures if you're interested in a piece of MHH history. The one at the bottom was the most important one to me. You know, the one with Cheryl and me being all awesome and drunk and shit. Yeahhhh. I had found myself quite the kindred spirit that night.

Cheryl and I became pretty good friends after that, culminating in me taking a last minute trip to California to visit her and hang out and go to specific events on back-to-back days that I occasionally refer to as the SoCal Swing in my weekly Northwest Check columns. Turns out, Cheryl and I had a deeper understanding of each other than we initially knew. While in California, we had ourselves one of those "I'm gonna remember thisfor the rest of my life" as we walked around on the Santa Monica pier and talked about life, our painful histories with mental illness, and the bad ass guy Jamaican guy banging on a drum that I couldn't wait to give (Cheryl's) money to.

A few months later, Cheryl herself made the move back to Denver and after a couple of excruciating months ended up in the same apartment complex in some digs across the street from me (btw, Cheryl, there are some goofy folk living there now who watch Mexican soaps frequently...if only they knew...) and suddenly I had myself a partner in crime.

I had been diagnosed a manic depressive when I was 17 and, after the first year, completely refused any and all medications for it. I dealt with the depression on my own because I was stubborn and had this gamer mentality of "Hard mode is the only mode". Also, have you ever tried opening up to insanely spoiled rich kid teenagers about mental illness and the crippling effects it has? Well, I did. I picked silent self-punishment over ever trying to open up again because it was just a colossal waste of time. The ups and downs of the teenage years made even more insane by the constant aura of tragedy that shrouded my life all added up to make the whole "dealing with being bipolar" pretty much impossible. I insulated. I stopped living my life. I hid in games, books, the internet, music, ANYTHING that wasn't related to my real, everyday life or the problems I had getting out of bed everyday. I'll never understand why I got brave and showed up at the "MHH Madness" that night. I thank any and all deities that may exist that I did.

I never imagined the one thing I feared most, human contact, would be the thing that got my ass in gear and helped pull me from the depths of the despair that had so consistently plagued my life. It honestly never occurred to me that finding someone of similar mind would help ease the pain of being thought of as "crazy" and dismissed by most people who found out I was bipolar. I figured we would agree to be friends and then never see each other because leaving home sucks because pants and sunlight and overstimulation of the senses and all that shit just screams "Yo, stay home where it's quiet, you're alone, and completely safe". Welp.

It's funny how one decision can lead to so many good things. The friendship Cheryl and I have shared over the last couple of years has helped completely change my life because we were able to confide in each other and push each other to new heights (her doing a lot more pushing than me...I'm a pacifist). She pushed me to believe in myself, believe I was a quality human being worth spending time on this Earth, helped crush the suicidal thoughts that have stalked me for years. She was there through all my highs (uhh...) and lows (getting fired for the first time, rebuilding the heart after the fiance and I parted ways less than amicably, death, etcetc). Having someone who gets it just changes you.

A little over two months ago, I got back on a medication program and finally got myself back into regular therapy sessions. I finally decided I was in a healthy enough place where I could ask for help from a stranger and trust I could handle the outcome. I got onto a medication, worked my way through the doses, and am enjoying a bi-monthly therapy program that I believe in and helps me immensely. I'm in a better, healthier place now than ever before in my life and I have the amazingly supportive friends, Cheryl obviously included, who never abandoned me despite all the darkness I dragged them through to thank. All of you guys have helped make it worth it.

I never intended to write a piece today. I had no idea what Cheryl was posting or going to run with in her time slot that we had all scheduled and setup and when I got home from work I was all ready for the sleeps when I saw a picture of this amazing solar flare (in case you were curious) and felt like sharing. I saw Cheryl on, linked her to it, we talked about how bad ass it was, then transitioned into more natural conversation. She told me what her non-hockey piece was about and I mentioned in how cool it would be if I posted something about my own struggles with bipolar disorder over the years because of how intricate a role the disease has played in our friendship and how having a person to lean on has really made the disease much easier to cope with. She jumped on it and told me there was still plenty of time. Always with the pushing.

The internet, man. It's a funny place. If you're in need of the kind of funny I was, please never hesitate to reach out and get help. None of us should ever have to do this alone. <3

Daily Cupcakes - September 7th, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:37:48 -0000

Yeahhhhhhh I sidelined Sandie's cupcakes for the day so sit back and enjoy, suckas.

We'll start today off with some ground-breaking stories, as both China and California had the pleasure of earthquakuuu hitting yesterday and early this morning. The stronger of the two in China was registered at 5.6 magnitude while the California quake came in at 3.5 but it was in Beverly Hills so famous people cared which means we all should a care significantly more than usual. Scoffscoffscoff.

More than 20,000 houses were damaged by the quakes, according to Xinhua.

Hundreds of local residents had gathered on streets littered with bricks and rocks, television footage from state-run broadcaster CCTV showed.

Beverly Hills Police Department Watch Cmdr. Todd Withers said he felt a "sharp jolt" followed by a slow roll. The department received calls from residents, including some about burglar alarms going off, but no damage or injuries were reported.

Now enjoy this video of a douchebag caring way too much about a piece of sports equipment he could easily buy at a store for under $5. At least it shredded that girls obvious sense of entitlement that she'll likely regain once she hits high school and puberty. Except mommabear gave the drama queen just what she wanted. Awesome.

When a Marlins player tosses a ball into the stands, it was obviously meant for one of the two kids standing in the area. But a rude adult boxes out a little girl and grabs the prize, leaving the kid very sad.

At least someone in Miami knows how to box out. Sup, Joel Anthony? Anyway.

Elsewhere in the world of sports, Novak Djokovic and David Ferrer put on quite a display last night as each man defeated their opponents to advance to the semifinals of the Men's Draw at the U.S. Open. Djokovic's display of skill was especially noticeable in an 84 minute second set in which he and opponent Juan Martin Del Potro, who ended American Andy Roddick's career in his previous match, staged a phenomenal back and forth set that included a 17 minute 12th game won by Del Potro to push the set to the tiebreaker. Seriously, y'all. It was amazing tennis.

The high point came late in the back-and-forth, 84-minute second set — 11 minutes longer than Djokovic's entire first-round match — when del Potro forced a tiebreaker by saving three set points to win a game that extended to eight deuces and lasted 17 minutes.

Second-seeded Djokovic won the tiebreaker 7-3, but really it was the 20-shot point that made it 6-3 that finished it off.

This also happened last night. Congrats to all involved for managing not to punch, maim, or otherwise mutilate each other. Your maturity is an inspiration to us all.

One Direction had the girls screaming, Frank Ocean gave a soft, poignant performance and Chris Brown and Drake were in the same venue with not a bottle thrown. Save for a saucy Rihanna number and a few off-color jokes, the MTV Video Music Awards were a rather tame affair this year.

The world's fascination with NASA's Curiosity might have been short-lived but that doesn't mean the inquisitive robot is done working. Far from it, apparently, as it opened it's robot breathers and sucked in some Martian air for sampling as the team openly wonders about the presence of methane. Great stuff here.

The Sam analysis is ongoing but no major surprises are expected at this stage - carbon dioxide will dominate.

CO2 is the chief component of the Martian air, as the Viking probes found. Of keener interest will be whether a signal for methane has been detected by Curiosity.

Nerds alike should appreciate this as a new super stretchy hydrogel has been created. Oh, Harvard, you always know how to make a man smirk in the wee hours of the morning, don't you?

The hydrogel also is biocompatible, which is important if it is ever to be used as artificial cartilage or some other implant. It is not limited to that one use though as artificial muscle could benefit from this stretchiness and it could even be utilized as a covering for wounds. Only time and further research will tell us what it is capable of.

Before 'Gangnam Style' captured the imagination of...just about everybody lucky enough to see it (Youtube is saying 116 million of us), Gangnam was a very different place. Complete with pictures!

However, the Gangnam of today really started to emerge around the 1988 Seoul Olympics, as the Games helped create even more rapid, and impressive, urbanization. The Trade Tower, viewable above, was built in 1988 and is one of the country's tallest buildings.

This isn't newsworthy or anything but it's a great read, especially in light of our MMORPG conversations the other day. Enjoy :D

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are a psychological test we pay to fail. We've looked at the biggest dick moves in online gaming before, but multiplayer games are just like the rest of the Internet -- no matter how big a dick you've seen, somewhere there's an even bigger one doing unspeakable things to people.

Alla y'all enjoy your Friday and drink responsibly. Except you, Cheryl. Get cray, girl. You deserve it. <3

Guild Wars 2: The Game Gamers Have Been Waiting For

A.J. Haefele — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 04:21:25 -0000

I assume most of you know I'm a pretty serious gamer and those who don't can just trust that I am based on this post alone. First off, some history. Nooch.

Guild Wars was a pretty popular MMO released way back in 2005 and eventually sold a little over 5 million copies world wide. No great shakes but in a genre absolutely dominated by World of Warcraft, a respectable number. It gained notoriety early on for high money tournaments in the Player versus Player realm, or PvP, but the scene quickly fell into itself and the game slowly turned into more a niche game. For me, the game was a breath of fresh air, giving life to a genre that had never interested me because of the notorious "grind" involved. Guild Wars was originally built around its PvP system and added the story modes, the Player versus Environment (PvE, for short), in order to actually, you know, sell the game. It was a uniquely balanced combat experience that both fascinated and engulfed me and my vast amounts of free time (back when I was a loser, see).

When the sequel was first announced and subsequently delayed in Blizzardian fashion and given vague release dates and few details, my expectations went through the roof. Arena Net was going to shock the gaming world with a fresh outlook on the game. Everything the developers were saying, and trust me when I say it wasn't much nor very often, centered around "fresh perspective" and "breaking the MMO mold". Now, I had always felt Guild Wars accomplished this in a lot of ways but A-Net was looking to more thoroughly bridge the gap between the vast (and increasingly bored) MMO community and people like myself. They wanted to create the perfect MMO. When I tell you I feel like this extremely lofty goal just might have been achieved, I'm dead serious.

The release of Guild Wars 2 should forever change how MMOs are made. Because I doubt more than 15 people are still reading this far, I'll just skip into telling you the big reasons why the game has rocketed up my list of favorite games.

The game respects the gamer's time.

This is far and away the biggest gripe I ever had with...essentially every MMO experience outside of Guild Wars. There was a huge level cap and an incredible grind (called that because every person grinds their teeth into dust while trying to accrue enough exp to go from level 79 to 80) that changed the game from hobby to chore but the player pressed on. GW2 breaks this mold by rewarding the player for essentially everything. Running to explore that huge gulf on the map? Have some experience points. Killing the baddest monsters you can find? Here, take some exp. Helping the locals by cleaning up graffiti around town or shooing away mean looking characters? Why, they have some exp for you! Skipping the PvE portion of the game to get straight to killing other people? No problem, let's reward you on your travels...with a bundle of exp. It covers basically every type of person who is going to pick the game up. Intrepid explorer just looking to run around and unlock the map? Don't be surprised when you level up without ever killing something. Bad ass slayer of all creatures? No worries, you'll level just fine, too. That enormous gap in between the light-footed pacifist and the bloodthirsty Rambo wannabe? Yeah, they have plenty for you, too. Everywhere you turn, the game is waiting to throw exp at you for doing something, ANYTHING. You can focus almost solely on running around gathering crafting materials (which has an extremely stream-lined system that every other MMO in the future will likely be copying) and hanging out leveling up your crafting abilities...and being rewarded with a bundle of exp. Essentially, if you log in and plan on doing pretty much anything at all, at some point you're going to pick up exp along the way and by golly you're just going to have to deal with that. You aren't going to find yourself aimlessly wandering around GW2 and saying to yourself "what am I even doing out here?" because the game leaves you to your devices about 15 minutes after they drop you into the world (which is pretty minimal hand-holding for a game with so many systems to learn). Feel respected? Moving on.

Everything is based around intelligent scaling systems.

I spent a good 20 hours just running around my starter area, making sure I 100% cleared out every section before moving onwards down the path of my personal story and into the world of Tyria. Naturally, I went from my starter area to the starter area of the four other races (Five races, each with a unique section of the map their players start in. Makes sense, right? Practically everything in this game does) to wander around and see what was going on there. I was surprised to see I was still gaining levels, albeit slower but that damn exp just wouldn't stop rolling in, and the areas enemies remained a threat to my well-being because of one of the many examples of scaling. Being level 22 in a field of level 9 enemies didn't matter at all because the game auto-corrected my level down to 11, reducing my HP and DPS (If you're still reading, I'm just assuming you know the lingo by now). The game has things called "dynamic events" where conversations and subsequent actions regarding NPCs trigger a big event of some kind, whether it be an assault on a nearby camp that you have to defend or a crate of supplies that need to be protected on the open roads during transit. The more people who assist in these events, the harder the event becomes, the higher the reward becomes. I've done some events totally alone, got a minimal reward for my efforts, come back later and done the same event with 40 strangers and rolled in the various rewards. The game rewards you based on participation, so showing up and standing around while people do stuff isn't going to cut it. The more you help, the better your benefits. Intelligent scaling, man. Interested in dropping into the extremely large and overwhelming realm of World vs World vs World (pitting 3 servers constantly in battle with each other in an unbalanced, enormous world mode that is as much chaos as anything else) right from the start? Not a problem. Create a character, press B, go into WvWvW, and you scale up to level 80 while earning exp along the way. You can absolutely go from level 1 to 80 without ever touching the PvE realm. I have a friend who did it in the first four days of the game's release (uhhh...virgin alert). I plan on doing it with my recently-created Guardian. Scaling, man. It's pretty choice.

There are no monthly fees.

I actually wanted to avoid talking about this because most people don't have the same problem with monthly fees that I do but it is a big deal and A-Net is trying to show everyone how you can "survive" the MMO world without monthly fees. First off, the necessity of fees was always bullshit and anyone who happily paid $15 per month for the life cycle of WoW hurt the gaming industry on the consumer side far more than they helped because now developers are constantly trying to find ways to snake $5-$15 from us after seeing people buy a game...and then continue to pay to play it. So thanks for that. Regardless, I'd rather like to avoid a massive pissing contest (if anyone is still reading...) about whether or not you feel justified in lighting your money on fire in the name of monthly fees so let's just focus on how GW2 costs no money to play after the initial purchase of the game. You know, how it should be. There is an in-game store that allows you to spend real money on Gems, which can then be traded for a whole host of things, including things like experience boosts or cosmetic add-ons. The beauty of this trading system is that the real money spent on things gives the players spending that money no real advantage over those of us who prefer to keep our money in our pocket. These gems can also be purchased with in-game currency, meaning you can obtain absolutely everything in the game without spending a single real world cent. This is how free-to-play models should work moving forward. I'm honestly MORE inclined to spend real money with a system like this one because I don't feel disrespected by the developer for choosing not to do so. Speaking of the developer...

ANet cares.

They've launched the game to great fanfare and criticism alike but they have been extremely open about the processes ongoing in the game's continued development and are very active...on reddit, of all places. Members of the support/development teams create and respond to threads on a daily basis updating players of the current status of the game and any big news (such as the reporting of 3,000 permanent bans to players exploiting loopholes) in the community and answer specific questions to the best of their ability. Last week there was a particularly amusing thread in which members of the support team responded to inquiries about why players had been banned by publicly outing them with their in-game chat transgressions (you know, the typical racist jargon that permeates throughout these types of games anytime kids get behind keyboards). They've been very active about keeping the chat channels clear of the bullshit by actively reviewing and taking action against people who make the experience miserable for everyone else. Essentially, they're very hands-on and their commitment to reaching out to the community and openly discussing "the issues" is a great change from so many other developers, including the original Guild Wars.

Okay, I'm at 1700 words and I'm not even close to finished describing everything that makes the game so incredible so just go buy it, give me your in-game info, and let's make some internet memories together rampaging through Tyria slaying beasts and exploring the vast lands. We're basically best friends waiting to happen.

tl;dr version

The game doesn't waste your time with bullshit, the scaling systems are prevalent and excellent, buying the game is the only monetary cost, the developer hearts you. Bam.

Northwest Check - Calgary Flames Off-Season Review

A.J. Haefele — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 18:07:32 -0000

Awwwww yeah. It's about that time again where we're close enough to the end of the off-season to look back and take a look at exactly how Flames GM Jay Feaster plans to keep his team treading water at the bottom of the playoff picture for the next few years. Before jumping into what Feaster did to get his team into position to finish in 9th place again, let's first focus on what he didn't do as the team let go of one interesting name.

Key Departures:

-Olli Jokinen: The former Panthers star could easily be seen as the face of the recent disappointments in Calgary. Plenty of talent and a feeling of "almost there" but never consistently pushed it over the top to become the force they probably should have been, Jokinen's tantalizing skillset never reached the apex of his glory days in Florida and he drew the ire of Flames faithful and became a a prime target for criticism. A top point producer for Calgary last season, Jokinen managed to put up a respectable 23/38/61 line and played in all 82 games. With no clear cut replacement for his spot in the Top 6, Jokinen's departure to Winnipeg stands as the biggest blow to Calgary's hopes for digging themselves out of the perpetual cycle of mediocrity they've found themselves mired in the past few seasons.

-David Moss: Letting go of their own version of David Jones, the Flames allowing Moss to walk ends a strange tenure in Calgary that included some pretty solid goal numbers for an otherwise unspectacular hockey player. Being predominantly a goal scorer and not a whole lot else, Moss reverted back to his "every other year I'll be productive" form last season and managed just 2 goals in an injury riddled season in which he played only 32 games. Unfortunately for him, the Flames did not seem to feel the need to reward his goal-scoring burstiness with a comical overpayment and allowed him to leave for the Phoenix desert where I won't be the least bit surprised if he turns into a 25 goal scorer that everyone dismisses because he's a Coyote.

Scott Hannan: While Hannan has yet to sign anywhere yet, the former Av and forever hobbit will no doubt leave a hole on the Flames blueline as his calm, steady play combined with all that veteraniness hockey folk love is a valuable, albeit unspectacular asset on the blue line.

Jay Bouwmeester: Wait, what? He's still in Calgary? Making HOW MUCH? Oh. Oh.

Key Arrivals:

Roman Cervenka: After years of dominating the Czech league and recently leading the KHL in goals scored, Cervenka finally made the move across the pond to put his skills to test against the world's best when he inked a 1 year, $925K deal with bonuses that push the cap his to just under $4M. For a team pushed so heavily against the cap, this is quite a chance the Flames are taking that the 26-year old's skills will translate to the North American ice. In a rare move of clarity, GM Jay Feaster managed to contain himself by only giving 1 year to the Czech sniper instead of his customary 4+. Of all the deals the Flames made this off-season, this one impresses me the most as the risk/reward factor could heavily favor Calgary this time next year.

Jiri Hudler: Speaking of David Jones, the Flames made the same mistake the Avs did by overpaying a very mediocre hockey player and even tried to help justify the hilarious Jones deal by giving Hudler the same exact terms. Instead of re-hashing the for 250928239025th time what a terrible deal the Jones one is, I'll just thank Feaster for replacing David Moss with the defensively clueless Hudler. Tell that mean ocean, Todd.

Dennis Wideman: Ahhh, yes. The big splash. The headliner. The signing that caused poor SteveHouse to injure his hand from slapping the desk in fits of maniacal laughter. One of the most polarizing moves of the entire off-season, the Flames acquisition and subsequent signing of former Caps D Dennis Wideman rocked the sanity of the hockey world. A five year deal worth a shade over $25M total, making Wideman the 23rd highest paid defenseman in the NHL was the crown jewel of the Flames' off-season efforts. While SteveHouse did much rejoicing at the idea of Matt Duchene undressing Wideman with an array of spin moves, I tried to focus on the unfortunate truth that Calgary's hockey team is better with Wideman than without him. If Wideman shows the regular season form that made him so strong in Washington last season, the Flames will be significantly more dangerous offensively and on the PP. If the dreadful playoff form is the dominant Wideman in Calgary, the Jay Feaster better be prepared to come under some serious heat for such a bold move (pick me, NHL.com!). I expect the truth, as it so often does, will lie in the murky waters of the gray area that exists between the two extremes and while being a potentially albatross of a contract 3 years from now, for at least this upcoming season I expect the Flames will take an important jump in productivity as they move from the Anton Babchuk era to the Dennis Wideman era.

Key Re-Signings:

Lee Stempniak: I've spent a solid 10 minutes trying to figure out if Stempniak's return to Calgary actually qualifies as a "Key" anything but screw it. Stempniak is pretty well known amongst fans and I can't quite figure out why. He's never been anything particularly special outside of one solid year in St. Louis but that was back in 06-07 and clearly the CheeChoo Career Outlier. He's not a BAD player but bringing back mediocre players is kind of what Calgary does, man. Speaking of Cheechoo, did you know his middle name is Earl? Fascinating. Also fun, I once heard to Lee Stempniak referred to as "Ninja". So there's that.

Cory Sarich: In another move straight from the Avalanche playbook, the Flames did their best to collect as many defenseman as they could handle and bringing back. Like Stempniak, Sarich is an average NHL player with some upside and stretches of good play but who will also occasionally disappear and drive a fan base crazy with a month of god awful hockey. By my count, Sarich's return and the lack of a Bouwmeester salary dump leaves the Flames with an avalanche of defenseman (admit it: you chuckled, even if sadly).

Akim Aliu/Mikael Backlund/Paul Byron/Blake Comeau/Blair Jones: "Please, young fella, step your game up and provide us with a reason to give you a Classic Calgary Flames Over-Extension. As a reward, we promise we'll give you a full No-Trade Clause in your next contract if you take lots of money over a bunch of years"

Basic Overview:

With this renewed commitment to aging hockey players and mediocrity, the Flames have put to rest any personal fears I have that they become a legit threat in the Northwest Division for the next 2-3 years but this is still a team worthy of a watchful eye. They have a goalie who never seems to slow down, an offensive stud that refuses to be stopped, and a fading star defenseman who can return to previously dominant form on any given night. Still, there just doesn't seem to be enough overall improvement to make a significant jump from the group expected to battle for the final playoff spot to the top 4 area where separation actually occurs in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. Their one big wildcard lies in the ability of a young star who could come in and take the team by storm and add to their arsenal of intriguing offensive weapons. To you, Sven Baertschi, I ask of you: Please, please don't be as good as I think you're going to be.

tl;dr:

Jay Feaster spent money, Flames got marginally better in some areas & worse in others, Dennis Wideman got paid how much and for how long? Welp.

Daily Cupcakes - July 6, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 09:11:42 -0000

Today concludes my week long guest Cupcaking for Ms. Sandie and naturally, it's by far the most boring of them. Enjoy!

Dater did a mailbag over at Sports Illustrated full of mostly meh stuff but there was one question I really liked so I figured, eh why not.

Hey, Adrian, here's a solution for the long-term contract dilemma. For any deal over five years in length, the cap hit is equal to the amount that is actually paid each year, not the average of the contract. That way, a hugely front loaded deal won't work as well because you won't be able to use "low paying" years at the end of the deal to lower the average.

Shea Weber apparently was not the happiest guy to hear the news of Suter abandoning him to play with Tom Gilbert.

"He's still in disbelief," Kevin Epp told ESPN's Pierre LeBrun on Thursday. "They were so close this year in terms of the team's chances. They really had a shot. Shea believed there was a good chance that Ryan would stay there. So right now, Shea is still processing this news."

Missing out on the real big fish this year, the Flyers turned to the state of New York to fill some of their roster holes.

The Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday signed forward Ruslan Fedotenko and defenseman Bruno Gervais. Terms of the deals were not released, but ESPN.com is reporting Gervais' contract is for two years at $825,000 per season, while Fedotenko will make $1.75 million on a one-year pact.

As free agency this year has shown every one, the bigger markets are no longer shoo-ins to win the off-season sweepstakes anymore as both small-time Minnesota and Edmonton walked away big winners.

Money will always play the biggest role in free agent negotiations, but players are realizing the money is going to be similar no matter where they go. It wasn't money that sealed the deal for those two players, who could have received the same contract elsewhere. It was about Parise's parents, who live in Minnesota, being able to attend his games, and it was about Suter's wife being from Minnesota. It was about the friendship between Parise and Suter.

Bobby Ryan apparently should be more coveted than Rick Nash because of a higher ceiling (????) and more efficient shooting.

Last season, both Nash and Ryan played all 82 games, with trade rumors serving as a possible distraction at various points throughout the season. Nash scored 30 goals, his fifth straight season and seventh overall reaching the benchmark tally, while Ryan netted 31 goals for his fourth straight campaign over 30. In addition to scoring one more goal than Nash, Ryan did it on 102 fewer shots on goal—of the 30 players in the NHL who scored 30 or more goals, Nash was the only one to do so with shooting accuracy of less than 10 percent.

And just for our good Professor Fauxk, I leave you with the link to Washington's latest re-signing.

The Washington Capitals secured centre Mathieu Perreault's services for two more seasons on Thursday, signing him to a two-year contract extension worth US$2.1 million.

In 120 career games with the team, the five-foot-ten, 185-pound centre has posted 27 goals and 26 assists for 53 points. He had his best season in 2011-12, notching 16 goals and 14 assists for 30 points in 64 games.

/drops mic

Daily Cupcakes - July 5, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 08:59:52 -0000

First and foremost, hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday. Onto what everyone I'm sure wants to read more about: The greatness that is the Minnesota Wild starting lineup (cause the rest...not so scary).

Yes, they both signed in Minnesota. Glad to see the NW getting some salt back in it. This softy schedule crap wasn't fun, anyway. For both player, family played a huge role.

Parise grew up in Minneapolis, the son of J. P. Parise, the former Islander and Minnesota North Star. Suter, the son of the 1980 Olympian Bob Suter, grew up in Madison, Wis., and his wife, Becky, is from Bloomington, Minn. Parise and Suter are friends who played together for the United States at the world junior tournament and the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

From the real ice to the virtual ice, EA gives everyone a look at what's to come in this year's NHL series installment with an interesting developer blog.

We’re doing that through two major gameplay innovations – True Performance Skating and EA SPORTS Hockey I.Q. We’ve spent more time working on our A.I. this year, than over the past three years combined and the result, EA SPORTS Hockey I.Q. – an innovative new A.I. system governing the behaviors of players, goalies, and team systems – is something that our development team is truly proud of. We can’t wait for you to experience it.

Blahblahblah obligatory CBA story.

The league's collective bargaining agreement expires in September, and that means changes are coming to a salary-cap structure forged only after a painful process that saw the entire 2004-05 season canceled by a lockout. Any new contract needs to make sense under an economic system that's yet to be determined.

And the bigger question, of course, is whether that system can be hammered out without another work stoppage.

John Tavares: from prodigy to legit NHL star, one who cares about the league having an upcoming season.

aft. But Tavares is determined to have a significant off-ice role as well. He's the youngest NHLPA team player representative by far and one of the few cases where a franchise's marquee player has thrown himself into the heart of the process of negotiating a new CBA to take the place of the one that expires Sept. 15.

The Avs lost out on a homecoming of sorts when Matt Carle accepted Tampa Bay's lucrative six-year contract offer to join stalwarts Eric Brewer and Victor Hedman on a suddenly imposing Lightning blue line.

The Tampa Bay Lightning announced that they had signed him to a six-year deal. TSN reported that it was worth an average of $5.5 million a year. He averaged $3.4 million in his last contract.

And lastly, a happy article to read as the Detroit Free Press tries to look on the bright side of failure, also known as the entire Red Wings off-season.

"I'd rather go with our kids," Holland said. "I think we can compete. Are we going to win the Presidents' Trophy? No, but you don't have to anymore."

It is pretty hard to be excited about the Wings' defense as it is right now, but a dark horse who could make it look better is Brendan Smith. He played just 14 games last season, but he's smart, swift, moves the puck well, likes to shoot and has an edge to his game.

Daily Cupcakes - July 4, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 07:17:42 -0000

First off, Happy Independence Day to all of our American readers! Please celebrate responsibly - it's still a Wednesday, after all. On to the links!

The hockey world waits on the two biggest names in free agency, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, to make their decisions about where to play next season.

Parise and Suter are both 27 years old, and both are facing decisions that will define the rest of their professional lives, not to mention determine where they will live for the next decade or so. Imagine being in their shoes. Do you take the most money? Do you stay loyal to a team that you just led to the postseason, a city where you've spent pretty much your entire adult life? Do you sign with that team's divisional rival, in Suter's case the Detroit Red Wings? Do you consider your family?

While business has been slowed a bit by the delays of Parise and Suter, the show continued to go on a bit around the NHL as plenty of work still is getting done.

Suter's indecision could be holding up the market for defenseman Matt Carle, who is not going to command Suter money or term but arguably is the second-best defenseman still on the free-agent market. Carle is 27, has played deep into the playoffs and is a two-way, puck-moving blueliner.

A couple of players did find new homes on Tuesday, while two others opted to stay where they were.

Dallas continued their bizarre off-season by adding their second 40-year old forward since the start of free agency, signing former Flyers F Jaromir Jagr to a one-year contract.

He also proved that regardless of diet and workout routines, time waits for no man, and it did not wait for the 40-year-old, as he started to wear down as the season went along. By the time the playoffs rolled around, Jagr was hardly a factor, especially in the second round when the Flyers dropped four straight games to the eventual Eastern Conference champion New Jersey Devils.

The recent deal between Buffalo and Dallas that landed the Sabres agitating forward Steve Ott was all about changing the culture, says SI's Allan Muir.

The Sabres of the last few years have been an unbalanced lot, too high on the skill, too low on the will. Anyone who saw five guys in blue shuffling their feet after Milan Lucic plowed over Ryan Miller knows that all too well.

This was a team that desperately needed a bit more spit and vinegar in the lineup. There may be no one who brings more of that than Ott, a guy who takes pride in how hated he is around the league.

Finally, well wishes to former top Coyotes prospect Brett MacLean after he suffered a "cardiac episode" yesterday while playing hockey in his native Canada. You always killed my Aeros, Brett, but I hope you get better soon!

Brett received CPR on site and was taken to a local hospital by ambulance where he was treated,' Coyotes general manager Don Maloney said in a statement.

He was then transported via an air ambulance to Knight University Hospital in London, Ontario, where he was admitted to the cardiac ICU.

Enjoy the holiday, everyone!

Daily Cupcakes - July 3, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 08:45:14 -0000

Let's start off with the funnies as Calgary handed Jiri Hudler a familiar contract and a bunch of people around the NHL had a hearty chuckle. Also ESPN continues to pump out not terrible NHL material 0_o

He scored just 10 goals that first season back, less than half what he had tallied in his previous season in the NHL, and while he hit a career-high 25 goals last season for the Wings, it is telling that a team with loads of cap space that is looking for offensive help chose to let Hudler walk away to sign a four-year deal worth $16 million with the Calgary Flames on Monday

Big dawg Zach Parise continues to inch his way closer to breaking Minnesota's heart and allowing the rest of the league to get on with their business.

"I still don’t know," Parise said late Monday afternoon after leaving the offices of Wade Arnott of Newport Sports Management Inc., his representative in the talks with several NHL teams, in Mississauga, Ont. "The list is still there. We’re getting closer, that’s all I can say.

One of the biggest deals of free agency's second day was a restricted free agent re-signing with his current club as Montreal ace netminder Carey Price agrees to backstop the Canadiens to top 10 draft picks for the next 6 years.

"It kind of made sense to me," Price said on a conference call from Williams Lake, B.C. "It will take me to until I’m 30 years old and generally that’s about the peak of goaltenders, so I’m hoping by then to have a couple of Stanley Cups and have a good re-negotiation when I’m 30."

The hockey off-season is full of buzz and vitality but it won't be for long as the dog days of summer loom large on the horizon.

And this weekend we entered hockey’s equivalent of cabinet shuffles and new governments: the free-agency frenzy that, as of suppertime Monday, had amounted to a few backbenchers being shuffled about and a few very minor crossings of the floor.

It’s pretty hard to get excited, let alone care, where the likes of George Parros, Joe Corvo, David Moss, Adam Burish, Aaron Rome, et al. end up, but there were, nonetheless, a few changes worth noting – even if only by an arched eyebrow.

Aaaand we have the NHL easing up on Raffi Torres for some reason or another. Way to walk tall and carry a big stick, Gary.

After re-hearing the case against the Coyotes forward for Torres' illegal hit to the head of the Blackhawks' Marian Hossa during Game 3 of the Western Conference quarterfinals, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced Monday that he is suspending Torres 21 games.

Allan Muir over at Sports Illustrated takes a stab at deciding the always premature "best and worst of free agency". Pretty much only linking this because he, like so many of us, approves of newly-acquired P.A. Parenteau in Denver.

The Avs are taking a lot of heat for signing P-A Parenteau to a four-year, $16 million deal, but I think it makes sense. He's hardly a safe bet -- he didn't become a full-time NHLer until age 27 -- but his recent success wasn't strictly a product of John Tavares' largesse. It's more a result of cashing in on his first real opportunity to play. He'll continue to get that in Denver, possibly with Matt Duchene saucing up the chances for him to finish. Not much of a drop off there.

Parenteau can definitely be an adventure -- he has a proclivity for coughing up the puck and his edginess can lead to some frustratingly ill-timed penalties -- but he's versatile (he can fill an obvious need on Colorado's port side), he can really fire it, and he has something to prove. This looks like a win.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Daily Cupcakes - July 2, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:26:20 -0000

Some reaction from around the NHL about the Avalanche signing of former Islanders F P.A. Parenteau, starting with ESPN's Scott Burnside.

You can argue all you want about whether P.A. Parenteau, he of the 49 assists and 67 points for the New York Islanders last season, is worth the $16 million the Colorado Avalanche spent Sunday to bring him into the fold for the next four years. What is indisputable, though, is that GM Greg Sherman refuses to stand still in his efforts to rebuild the Avs into a Cup contender.

Puck Daddy also takes a quick glance at the deal and throws a significant wrench into the "Tavares carried Parenteau" theory.

Thing is, the Tavares argument might be a non-starter. The Avalanche aren't looking for Parenteau to be a primary offensive player; they're looking for him to do the same thing for Matt Duchene that he did for the player drafted two spots ahead of him.

Even TSN took some time away from stalking Zach Parise long enough to write about a transaction that involved exactly zero Canadian teams while also bringing up a downside not much talked about to this point.

One area in which Parenteau could improve in his new home is in terms of discipline. He had the second-worst penalty differential among Islanders forwards (via www.behindthenet.ca, only Marty Reasoner was worse) and his 13 combined slashing and tripping penalties was third-most among all NHL forwards last season.

Moving away from the Avalanche but sticking with the Islanders, New York made one of the more intriguing moves on Sunday with their extremely affordable signing of former 40-goal scorer Brad Boyes, who believes it wasn't all his fault his play declined so sharply in recent years.

"There were situations at times where I wasn’t put in the right position where I wanted," Boyes told the Gazette by phone Sunday afternoon. "I was playing first-unit power play, and there were times I don’t think I took advantage of that situation as much. And there were times I thought I was playing well and I didn’t get an opportunity. So I think it was on both sides.

The Center of the Hockey Universe made nary a splash in free agency's first day but they did finally acquire a Colorado center they've long lusted for. Sadly for them, it wasn't the one most were hoping for. Good luck in Toronto, Jay!

McClement, born in Kingston and a Tier 2 junior there, was the Leafs only NHL move Sunday. He was considered one of Colorado’s top penalty killers, a unit that jumped from 30th to 12th last season.

"He’s strong on faceoffs and in the last minute of a game, if we’re protecting the lead, he’s going to see the ice," Burke said.

Enjoy Day 2 of free agency, where hopefully the big pieces make big decisions and the market for impact secondary players gets moving along a bit. And for the last time, guys, Erik Johnson is not being traded. Sheesh.

Colorado Avalanche Sign F P.A. Parenteau

A.J. Haefele — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 20:37:50 -0000

The Colorado Avalanche have signed F P.A. Parenteau, agreeing to a 4-year, $16 million deal. Parenteau, most recently spotted skating for the New York Islanders, enjoyed a breakout season in just his second full NHL campaign last year, notching 18 goals and 49 assists for a career high 67 points.For his career, Parenteau has tallied 41 goals and 88 assists for 129 points in 188 games played. All but 9 of those points have come in the last two seasons.

The 29 year old Parenteau comes into the Avalanche organization with the expectation of playing top 6 minutes to inject some much-needed firepower into the NHL's 24th ranked offense and will likely be tasked with helping C Matt Duchene re-discover the scoring touch that eluded him last season. Avs fans wanted the team to spend some money on legit scoring players and the Hull, QC (or Gatineau, apparently?) native certainly fits the bill.

"The Avalanche Song"

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 01:09:31 -0000

"The Avalanche Song"

A very talented member of the Avalanche fan community drops some awesome on all of us. <3

Avalanche Final Grade 2012: Matt Hunwick

A.J. Haefele — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:12:10 -0000

Matt Hunwick

#22 / Defenseman / Colorado Avalanche

Height: 6-0

Weight: 190

Born: Mar 12, 1986

2011 Cap Hit: $1,550,000

2012 Status: UFA

It was a strange year for Matt Hunwick as he spent the first half of the season as the anonymous man of the defense, never being seen or heard from except for those who attended practice and reported he was still in fact alive, kicking, and definitely working hard. When injuries and disappointing play started to plague the occasionally lethargic Avalanche defense, Hunwick was finally called upon and didn't really turn back. Looking almost nothing like the league-worst defenseman of the previous season, Hunwick was playing sound defense and even attempting to initiate on offense. It was quite a sight to see this recently-terrible hockey player experiencing the fruits of constant effort and really symbolizing the Avalanche as a whole as the season wore on. While he faded towards the end, Hunwick proved himself the ultimate professional this season and should prove to be a valuable addition in the off-season to whichever team takes a chance on him.

2012 Outlook: With a glut of young D prospects ready to make an impact in the NHL, Hunwick is unlikely to return (Sorry, Emy) to the Avalanche but should have at least played his way into a chance during training camp in another city.

AJ's Take: Since I'm writing this after having already read over what Cole and Cheryl have to say below and knowing I have nothing significant to add, I'll just remind everyone that MATT HUNWICK DID THIS. Whatever the future holds, Hunny, I wish you well. You'll always be better than Shawn ;)

Cole's Take: After an abysmal 2011 season, Hunwick really turned around his game this year. Surprisingly, Hunwick seemed like a calming influence on the blue line down the stretch and his work ethic was absolutely infectious. My gut says he wont be back, because Guance, Wilson, Elliott, Barrie and Siemens is just too much coming through the pipeline.... but I really will miss Hunwick. Great attitude, hard worker and all around good guy, who laid it all out on the ice every night. I only hope he can find another team to play for next year. Thanks for the good times Hunny! (and for the bad ones, there were plenty of those too after all) B+

Cheryl's Take: I'm sure there's already been a lot of talk about Hunwick's skill and level of play already, so I'm going to focus on an area in which no one can reasonably deny he gets an A: professionalism. As you all know, I hit practices as often as I can. Never once have I seen Matt Hunwick doing anything but working hard, supporting his teammates and maintaining a positive disposition. Even when he saw rookies getting ice time while he was still a healthy scratch, Hunwick did not change the way he approached the game. When he was finally called upon for an extended amount of time, he showed the reason why the Avalanche traded for him in the first place. Given that performance and the endless praise he gets from coaches, teammates and management about his professionalism and dedication, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he's re-signed.

	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	PPG	SHG	GWG	GTG	SOG	PCT
2011 - Matt Hunwick	33	3	3	6	-3	8	0	0	0		40	7.5

Poll

Please grade Matt Hunwick's 2011-2012 season

A

22 votes

B

67 votes

C

61 votes

D

13 votes

F

2 votes

165 votes | Poll has closed

Avalanche Final Grade 2012: Jay McClement

A.J. Haefele — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:40:27 -0000

#16 / Center / Colorado Avalanche

Height: 6-0

Weight: 190

Born: Mar 12, 1986

2011 Cap Hit: $1,450,000

2012 Status: UFA

After a very rocky start in Colorado following his trade from the St. Louis Blues, Jay McClement found his game a month into the season and never looked back. McClement settled in very nicely as Colorado's sometimes 3rd but usually 4th line center and he became the team's most reliable PK forward with the offensive emergence of Ryan O'Reilly. Often trusted to be on the ice in late game defensive faceoff situations, McClement excelled in the role and finished 44th in the NHL with a 51.3% success rate on faceoffs. On the surprise side, "Silent Jay" chipped in with a very respectable 10 goals, most of which were pretty pretty.

2012 Outlook: The Avalanche have a very busy off-season of player evaluations but re-signing McClement should be high on the list of things to get done. The Avs were very deliberate in their desire to build down the middle first and with 4 legit centers it's hard to imagine the team let's any of them walk away for nothing. At a very reasonable $1.4 million last year, I think it would be pretty surprising to see anybody, especially the Avs, give McClement a significant bump in salary but I could definitely see the team giving him a two-year deal and letting him lockdown the PK/4th line role he filled so well last year.

AJ's Take: If the Avs don't bring back McClement, I sure hope there's a good reason for it that doesn't include the word "cheap" or any of its unflattering synonyms. Jay was great for the Avs in playing the role he did and it was obvious the coaching staff trusted him when he was on the ice with O'Reilly in nearly every important defensive situation. His 17 points would be pretty easy to replace but the statistically-difficult-to-define areas of the game he contributes regularly in are not. This was the guy the Avs thought they were getting when he was included in the EJ (dat scrub) trade and the Avs would be foolish to let him walk away.

Cheryl's Take (somehow this didn't make it into the final version. I spent a full two minutes on it! It's going in.): Oh so underrated by so many Avs fans. Want to know why the penalty kill was so much better this year? It had much to do with Silent Jay. Coming in on the trade, he was billed as one of the best defensive forwards in the league. That billing was dead on. The guy was probably the most consistent and reliable player on the team. You rarely saw McClement have a bad game. I wish he garnered more Selke love, but perhaps his fourth line minutes count against him. Of course, I think more weight should be put on the fact he led the team in short-handed TOI, but what do I know? He's a UFA this season; the Avs would be boneheaded not to re-sign him.

	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	PPG	SHG	GWG	GTG	SOG	PCT
2011 - Jay McClement	80	10	7	17	-8	31	0	1	1	0	95	10.5

Poll

Please assign a grade for McClement's 2011-12 season.

A

92 votes

B

118 votes

C

21 votes

D

5 votes

F

0 votes

236 votes | Poll has closed

Avalanche Final Grade 2012: Jan Hejda

A.J. Haefele — Tue, 01 May 2012 00:04:19 -0000

Jan Hejda

#8 / Defenseman / Colorado Avalanche

Height: 6-4

Weight: 237

Born: Jun 18, 1978

2011 Cap Hit: $3,250,000

2012 Status: Signed for 3 more seasons.

During one of the many threads we had here on MHH for the first day of Free Agency last July, I pre-emptively mocked whichever team was going to overpay Jan Hejda in what had been a bananas market for veteran D. Then it ended up being the Avs who signed him...to a totally reasonable contract money-wise. It was exciting to see the Avs take a step towards shoring up their atrocious defense and getting EJ a partner who would play a safer defensive game and allow him to blossom into an offensive force.

While the Hejda-EJ pairing was an utter disaster, it took coach Joe Sacco some time to find the right fit for Hejda as he struggled initially but eventually settled into a comfy role as Colorado's most consistent defender. As Hejda's confidence in Colorado grew, so too did the responsibility handed to him by Sacco. Hejda would end the season as one of the three main reasons the PK improved significantly as the season wore on (Varly and O'Byrne being the other two) and all of his fancy stats (as you'll see below) indicated what a quietly strong year he had.

2012 Outlook: Hejda will return to Colorado's blue line and likely continue to be the anchor of the PK unit and a mainstay in the top 4. Hopefully the Avs make a move to get him some help but should they choose not to, Hejda proved this year he could handle the responsibility of being given the toughest minutes every night.

AJ's Take: I'll leave all the nerdy snortsnort stuff to Steve (<3) and just fanboy out for a minute. I love Jan Hejda. When we signed him, I was totally stoked to be getting a guy who could produce the quietest points ever (how many of those 19 points can you name?) while playing the kind of reliable, shut down defense the Avs were supposed to get from Scott Hannan back in the day. While Hejda didn't set the world on fire at any point throughout the season, he definitely showed the Avs knew what they were doing when they inked him to an extremely reasonable contract (just watch Quincey get paid higher this summer) when the rest of the league was busy falling all over themselves to overpay defenseman (hi, Christian Ehrhoff). Watching his play steadily improve, first with O'Byrne and then with Wilson while O'Byrne was hurt, and make his partner up his defensive game was fantastic for a defense-first nerd like me. I hope come training camp this next summer that Hejda takes Cameron Gaunce under his wing and teaches him to defense like a champ.

Steve's Take: I just thought I'd add some advanced stats from Behind the Net and a couple of conventional stat oddities for Hejda. He was roundly abused by Skipper Joe in that he was tasked with tough competition and too many starts next to Jiggy/Varly. He faced the 3rd-most difficult competition by Qualcomp measures, only behind O'Reilly and Landeskog. He also sported the 3nd-lowest percentage of offensive zone starts (35.9%), only worse than common partner Ryan O'Byrne (32.8%) and Jay McClement (34.3%), but still ended in the offensive zone 47.3% of the time. (That differential is again only third to O'Byrne and McClement.) IN ENGLISH, Hejda faced very tough opponents in his own zone and frequently took them into their zone. He also led defensemen in even-strength TOI (17:33/G) and shorthanded TOI (3:03/G, also 25th in the league among defensemen). Bizarrely, he's even credited with a faceoff win. And speaking of things that make no sense, Hejda was -17 on the year. He was -2 at home and -15 on the road. You can't explain that. (AJ: I can. Plus/minus is stupid)

He hit (142), he blocked shots (134), and he was a stalwart of a very much improved PK that finished 12th in the league (behind 10 playoffs teams btw) despite being called on way too friggin much. For about a third of the year, while the new defense and goaltending collectively adjusted, Hejda earned a big fat D from me. For the second two thirds, I'm looking at an A type of game to be honest. That averages to a B and a very solid acquisition for the Burgundy and Blueline.

	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	PPG	SHG	GWG	GTG	SOG	PCT
2011 - Jan Hejda	81	5	14	19	-17	24	0	0	1		78

Poll

Please give a final grade for Jan Hejda for the 2011-12 season.

A

28 votes

B

122 votes

C

50 votes

D

7 votes

F

0 votes

207 votes | Poll has closed

Avalanche Player Grades 2012: Semyon Varlamov

A.J. Haefele — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:20:16 -0000

Semyon Varlamov

#1 / Goalie / Colorado Avalanche

Height: 6-2

Weight: 209

Born: Apr 27, 1988

2011 Cap Hit: $2,833,333

2012 Status: Avs #1 goalie moving forward.

Colorado's acquisition of precocious netminder Semyon Varlamov was the most shocking move of the NHL's first day of free agency in 2011. The Avs, who seven days earlier had used the second overall pick they earned thanks to a disastrous 68 point season, surrendered their first round pick in the 2012 draft and a conditional second round pick to free the restricted free agent from an increasingly contentious situation in Washington.

While seen around the league as a colossal overpayment by a team most viewed as still in midst of a full-blown rebuild, the Avs were crucified for the move and the noise only got louder when Varlamov struggled to find consistency in the first three months of his Colorado career and eventually lost his hold on the #1 job.

Given frequent nights off in lieu of the excellent play of fellow goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Varly was given the time to settle down and re-focus on getting back into top form. Uhh...it worked. Starting with the turn of the calendar to 2012, Varlamov won 14 games, posting 3 of his 4 shutouts on the season and leading the Avalanche to the edge of the playoffs. For the year, Varlamov set career highs in wins (26), games played (53), and shutouts. Varly was also dominant in the shootout, going 8-0 and allowing just 2 goals on 24 attempts for an absurd .917 save percentage.

2012 Outlook: By mid-season, the Varly trade had everyone really nervous. We had seen glimpses of the great talent he possesses but nothing resembling consistency. Shots against him gave me the same sickly feeling I got watching people throw pucks at Budaj or Elliott last year. It was all bad, man. Whatever switch got flipped need to stay in that position because when Varly started to figure it out, he became the highlight of the season for me. Shots against were suddenly opportunities to see something great and with his otherworldly flexibility, a lot of times that's exactly what we got: great performance after great performance. Moving forward, Varly is the unquestioned top dog in the Avalanche net and easily the most exciting player we've had at the position since 2003.

2nd Opinion (by Sean): We all saw Varly’s positives – flexibility, explosive energy, and a hot streak towards the end of the season to validate the Washington trade – so, I’ll only get into potential concerns:
1. Rebounds. At times he gave up too many. A full-time goalie coach would have helped.
2. Outside the crease. Lapses in the defense may share the blame, but he could learn how to be a more fluid 3rd defenseman a la Marty Brodeur. For a young goalie, this is hardly a long-term worry.
3. Playing style. He likes to crouch low, and he does it often. Starting from his hips and extending down to his feet, he’s putting a lot of strain on himself. It’s no wonder he was viewed as having a "glass groin" in Washington – actually, his body is no weaker than any other netminder, it’s just the way he plays. Hopefully it was his new training regime (and not a lucky year health-wise) that prevented any significant injuries.

	GP	MIN	W	L	EGA	GA	GAA	SA	SV	SV%	SO
2011 - Semyon Varlamov	53	3151	26	24		136	2.59	1564	1428	.913	4

Poll

Please give Varly a grade for the 2011-2012 season.

A

50 votes

B

227 votes

C

19 votes

D

1 votes

F

1 votes

298 votes | Poll has closed

Playoff Primer - The Varsity Conference

A.J. Haefele — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:26:58 -0000

Somehow I ended up volunteering to do a little playoff preview here at MHH but when I sat down to write it, I decided the only games I really cared about were the ones in the Western Conference. I'll definitely watch the East (Pens-Flyers should be a blast, go Caps!) but when it came time to say anything about them, I ended up staring blankly at a screen until my brain said "Screw it, the East sucks anyway". So there you go. A playoff primer for only one conference. Hopefully you guys forgive me for my brain's laziness.

#1 Vancouver vs. #8 Los Angeles

Outlook: For Vancouver, another President's Trophy just means hanging another relatively meaningless banner on Opening Night next year if they don't bring home the only hardware that matters this time of year. The Canucks have a tough opening round opponent in the suddenly resurgent Los Angeles Kings, whose awful offense was ignited with the acquisition of Jeff Carter from Columbus in February. For LA, the matchup with Vancouver is punishment for blowing a golden opportunity to steal the surprisingly winnable Pacific Division as they backed into the playoffs with back-to-back losses to San Jose. Whoops.

Season Series: 2-2

Players to Watch: For Vancouver, most people are going to look towards the pipes and the controversial post-season play of Roberto Luongo as the central story in Vancouver. I see the guy is a headcase but the guy's career playoff numbers are nearly identical to his regular season numbers and when he's staying out of his own way, he's easily a top-notch netminder. For my money, I see the key to Vancouver being F Ryan Kesler. After a breakout year last year that saw Kesler score 41 goals and provide badly needed secondary scoring to the Sedins, Kesler saw his goal total plummet all the way down to 22 goals. If the Canucks are really going to make a Cup run, they're going to need Kesler to re-discover his scoring touch and provide additional scoring to take the pressure off the Sedins.

In Los Angeles, to me the most important player to keep an eye on is easy. G Jonathan Quick produced a Vezina-worthy season and carried the lackluster Kings on his back into the playoffs with a a ridiculous 1.95 GAA and .929 save percentage. Those are crazy numbers, people. Where the big question lies for Quick is whether or not he can maintain that level of play when the lights get brighter. For all the talk of Luongo's playoff failures, Quick is the goalie in this series with the questionable posteason history (albeit in a smaller sample size) as his numbers balloon to 3.32 GAA and a .900 save percentage in 12 playoff games. Those numbers are going to need to see significant improvement if the Kings are planning to see the second round of this year's postseason tournament.

#2 St. Louis vs. #7 San Jose

Outlook: St. Louis start off the year looking like it was going to disappoint a lot of people who were predicting playoff success but a coaching change that saw likely Jack Adams Trophy winner Ken Hitchcock take the reins ignited this Blues team and they slowed only when they lost their footing towards the end of the season and fell to the second seed. Still, winning the league's most intensely competitive division is nothing to scoff at and big things are expected of this Blues team in the postseason. Also, their goalies played at an insanely high level all season. That really helps things. San Jose, on the other hand, was a big disappointment but in the regular season this time! The Sharks are still loaded with plenty of talent and their mid-season acquisition of spare parts from Colorado paid off big for the Avalanche (huehuehue) but provided only a minimal boost for the Sharks. The story in San Jose is the same as previous years: Can this team of perennial playoff disappointments get out of their own way and make their way to the Stanley Cup Finals in the rugged Western Conference?

Season Series: 4-0 Blues

Players to Watch: For St. Louis, the player I think everyone needs to keep an eye on is stud D Alex Pietrangelo. A sleeper Norris Trophy candidate, Pietrangelo excelled on both ends of the ice for St. Louis this year but the 22-year old built upon his first full season in the NHL last year and managed to scrape out a whopping 51 points for St. Louis. Flying mostly under the radar thanks to the explosion of Ottawa's Erik Karlsson, Pietrangelo is one of the next superstar defenders in this league and should St. Louis have legitimate title hopes, the man nicknamed "Petro" is likely going to be leading the way.

In San Jose, the onus always falls on big Joe Thornton to lead the way. I really don't feel the need to say too much about Jumbo Joe and his playoff history because anybody reading this very likely knows all about the posteason failures of San Jose's wide-bodied center. Thornton really needs to step his game up and lead the Sharks offensively in a way he never has in the postseason because there's no Colorado in the cards for Joe Pavelski to light up and carry the offense. This is Thornton's team and as he goes, they likely will, too.

#3 Phoenix vs. #6 Chicago

Outlook: For all the chatter yesterday about Edmonton winning the draft lottery, there has to be a feeling that Chicago won the playoff matchup lottery in the Western Conference as all 6 of the other teams who made the postseason field have the talent on offense to exploit a very shaky Chicago defense. Instead, the Blackhawks landed a first-round series with the dry-as-unbuttered-toast Coyotes who are fresh off winning their first division title in franchise history. Led by a career year from G Mike Smith and a "where the fuck did that come from" season by 39-year old Ray Whitney, Phoenix comes into the postseason as the winner of the division nobody wanted to win and in my eyes as underdogs to a Chicago team that may not be as strong as in recent seasons but certainly should have the upper hand over the Coyotes. If Phoenix is to go anywhere in the postseason, Smith is probably going to need a few more of those 50 save games.

Season Series: 3-1 Coyotes

Players to Watch: For Phoenix, I hope everyone pays especially close attention to precocious defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. A strong two way games drives this 20 year old stalwart and while plenty of attention goes to Keith Yandle for his offensive accolades, Ekman-Larsson is the kind of force that can change a game on any given night in multiple facets of the game. If the Coyotes plan to make a run towards Lord Stanley's Cup this year, Ekman-Larsson is going to need to translate his regular season success to hockey's second season and be one of Smith's personal bodyguards as well as a consistent offensive intiator from the blueline.

In Chicago, I'm going to say Duncan Keith is the man the watch here. While his 40-point season was solid, his overall game has taken a significant dip since winning the Norris Trophy just a few short seasons ago. The Blackhawks are going to need Keith to have a return to that form and hope his defensive buddies follow his lead because this much-maligned defensive corps has very little room for error with the on-the-cheap goaltending management has stuck them with.

#4 Nashville vs. #5 Detroit

Outlook: This series is looks to be the prime series out West as the Central Division rivals square off with each team in unfamiliar territory - Nashville with home ice advantage, Detroit without. The Predators had a fantastic overall season and appear primed to make their deepest run in the playoffs to date. Led by two Norris Trophy candidates in Shea Weber and Ryan Suter, Nashville boasts the kind of defensive talent every other team in the NHL is envious of. With All-Star goalie Pekka Rinne manning the pipes, the Preds main concern lies on the offensive end of the ice where they will throw their wide array of skillsets at Detroit netminder and demigod Jimmy Howard. For Detroit, an NHL record home winning streak essentially carried them to the standing they finished in as their poor road record sabotaged the team's quest to avoid startnig the playoffs on the road. As such, the Red Wings will have to overcome their road woes as they enter the postseason with more question marks than they have had in maybe 10 years.

Season Series: 3-3

Players to Watch: For Nashville, the Big Three in Suter, Weber, and Rinne is an obvious choice but so is enigmatic and controversial F Alexander Radulov, whose return stateside caused quite the uproar, namely from the three teams who finished ahead of Nashville and appeared to be looking in their rearview mirror with wider eyes than they anticipated. Already a tough out, Nashville's offense and lethal powerplay was enhanced by the return of the highly-skilled Radulov, whose wide array of offensive talents were on full display when he netted 7 points (3g, 4a) in his 9 regular season games.

In Detroit, I honestly don't want to watch any of those clowns play so I don't really want to pick one but I'll go the cop out route and say D Kyle Quincey, whose loud and abrasive exit from Colorado caused an entire fan base to almost unanimously and instantly turn on the former Avs rearguard. I really don't want that man to do well. I just don't.

BAM. Consider yourself primed.

Northwest Check - "That Hurt" Edition

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:17:49 -0000

There's not anything good to say this week. I've said all season I never expected the Avalanche to make the playoffs but to come SO close and fall short is painful. Starting with the kick to the nuts last Saturday at home, the entire week ended up being a prolonged punch in the face and disposing of the body in the river with the rest of the Western Conference loling the entire time.

Still, I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of the Avalanche as a team in non-Stanley Cup winning years. To be the cheapest and youngest roster in the NHL and coached by a guy who is just in just his 7th year as a coach at all and 5th as the big boss, the Avalanche hung in a playoff race until the very end with teams led by guys like Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton, and Anze Kopitar & the Former Flyers. The Avalanche roster is filled with promising young players, many of whom actually underachieved this year, and are still going to just barely miss the playoffs.

Instead of hanging their heads after a rough 5-1 shellacking at San Jose, the Avs came out and blitzkrieged the Canucks with an all-out assault but were denied by a guy who is going to be a very good starter in this league when the Canucks can no longer keep him tied to the chair he currently inhabits. The Avs did what every fan wants: they kept plugging away, playing hard despite the circumstances, and for the love of Roy they didn't close up shop and call it a season with 30 games left to play again.

Maybe most importantly, the Avalanche put the rest of the Western Conference on notice: Watch out, doods, them there Yeti monster things are a comin' with the fury of blades of lightning next season. The kids essentially had 3 straight weeks of playoff-level hockey and there's a very good chance they learn from this experience and use it next year.

As sad as I am about this season ending the way it has, I'm already excited as hell for next season. The Avs aren't quite back, but they're close and they're coming for all the teams who finish ahead of them. Especially you, Detroit.

Go Avs.

Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver	77	47	21	9	103
Colorado	79	40	33	6	86
Calgary	78	35	28	15	85
Minnesota	77	32	35	10	74
Edmonton	77	31	37	9	71

(updated 3.30.2012 at 1:01 AM MDT)

Team capsules after the jump.

All standings related info taken from NHL.com...

Calgary Flames

Last Week: 1-2-0 1-4 L @ DAL, 5-4 W vs DAL, 0-3 L vs. LA

Conference Standing: 11th Place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.38 (25th)
Goals Against: 2.64 (12th)
Power Play %: 17.5 (15th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.9 (11th)

This Week: The Flames desperately try to hold on to their playoff hopes when they host fellow flounderer Colorado on Friday night before heading to Vancouver Saturday for a very tough back-to-back and then enduring 4 days off before finishing their week by hosting Vancouver Thursday.

News: The Flames need about the same amount of help as the Avalanche do, making Friday's game essentially an elimination game.

Flames F Tom Kostopoulos was pretty unhappy about a fan's show of displeasure during the team's loss versus the Kings earlier this week.

Jay Bouwmeester is on the brink of the kind of history no player wants any part of.

The Flames ownership continues to branch out, buying stake in the local CFL team.

Transactions: Assigned Roman Horak to Abbotsford, signed Brady Lamb.

Injuries:

Mikael Backlund is on IR with an upper body injury.
Derek Smith is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
T.J. Brodie is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Cory Sarich is day-to-day with an upper body injury.

Colorado Avalanche

Last Week: 0-2-1 2-3 OTL vs. VAN, 1-5 L @ SJ, 0-1 L @ VAN

Conference Standings: 9th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.48 (22nd)
Goals Against: 2.68 (15th)
Power Play %: 18.5 (12th)
Penalty Kill %: 81.6 (19th)

This Week: At Calgary Friday, five days off, host Columbus Thursday. Ugh.

Edmonton Oilers

Last Week: 2-1-0 2-1 W @ FLA, 6-3 W @ CBJ, 1-3 L vs. DAL

Conference Standings: 14th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.64 (14th)
Goals Against: 2.94 (25th)
Power Play %: 21.7 (1st)
Penalty Kill %: 82.2 (14th)

This Week: Edmonton has plenty of chances to stick it to California as they play 4 games this week, starting Friday vs. LA and continuing on to the infamous SoCal Swing with Anaheim on Sunday and LA again Monday. The Oilers then return home for a Thursday date with...Anaheim again.

News: Yes, please Oilers, PLEASE let these guys continue taking NHL ice time next season.

This guy, too. He's a stuuuuud.

This article seems to believe Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is the "favourite" for the Calder Trophy. lol how cute.

Justin Schultz may be Edmonton bound and is referred to as "the missing piece".

Transactions: Naaaaaaaaah.

Injuries:

F Taylor Hall out indefinitely with concussion.
F Lennart Petrell is day-to-day with a groin injury.
F Shawn Horcoff is day-to-day with a back injury.

Minnesota Wild

Last Week: 1-3-0: 1-3 L @ BUF, 0-3 L @ WSH, 2-3 L vs. NYR, 3-2 W vs. FLA

Conference Standing: 13th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.14 (29th)
Goals Against: 2.56 (10th)
Power Play %: 15.4 (25th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.3 (12th)

This Week: Minnesota, finally getting a bit healthier, finishes up the season in the thick of playoff races (still...) as they host LA on Saturday before heading to Chicago Sunday and Nashville Tuesday and promptly returning home for another Chicago matchup. So glad the Wild are helping determine playoff seeding in both conferences.

News: Hahaha it's still funny.

Jason Zucker had a whirlwind week as his DU career ended and his NHL journey began.

Marian Gaborik....not such a bad guy.

The Wild finally embraced the North Stars heritage even though it wasn't their idea. Huzzah!

Transactions: Signed DU kid Jason Zucker to ELC, reassigned F Chad Rau to Houston

Injuries: Lazy copy/paste mode ENGAGE.

Guillaume Latendresse has been diagnosed with concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard has concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Mike Lundin has been shut down for the season after having surgery on a sports hernia.
Matt Kassian suffered a sports hernia and is shut down for the season.
Jared Spurgeon has a concussion.
Matt Cullen has had surgery on a broken finger. He will be out for the remainder of the season.

Vancouver Canucks

Last Week: 3-0-0 (REDACTED), 1-0 W vs. LA, (REDACTED)

Conference Standing: 2nd place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 3.06 (4th)
Goals Against: 2.29 (5th)
Power Play %: 21.4 (3rd)
Penalty Kill %: 86.7 (5th)

This Week: Vancouver returns to action with a nice back-to-back Friday and Saturday as they host Dallas and Calgary, respectively, before awaiting the arrival of Anaheim on Tuesday and then jetting off to play their final road game of the season at Calgary on Thursday.

News: lol that this even exists is seriously embarrassing.

"Everyone is worse but the division is terrible so we're still getting by."

Manny Malhotra is the Vancouver nomination for the Masterton Trophy.

Canadian teams are bad at putting together Stanley Cup-contending rosters. Canucks are the only real hope left...again.

Transactions: None. They just chillin.

Injuries:

Steve Pinizzotto is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury
Aaron Volpatti is out 4-6 months with a shoulder injury.
Andrew Ebbett is out 4-6 weeks with a collar bone injury.
Keith Ballard is out indefinitely with an upper body injury.
Daniel Sedin is out "indefinitely" with an upper body injury.

Northwest Check - "Losing is Stupid and Yes I'm Mad" Edition

A.J. Haefele — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 02:22:04 -0000

Calgary doesn't deserve to be a playoff team. They just don't. They have 6 fewer wins than Colorado, who is only 4 wins behind Vancouver, btw, and have left the arena with losses in 41 of their 75 games. As in, Colorado is just as many wins away from Vancouver as Calgary is losses from Edmonton and Calgary is still in the playoff race. The schedule last week couldn't have been anymore perfect for them to make a move in the playoff race as they played the three worst teams in hockey as well as a Colorado squad they had beaten 10 consecutive times. The result? They lost every game but walked away with 3 of a possible 8 points and remain in the thick of the playoff race simply because they managed to not lose in regulation. Just because you can lose every game and still have a more productive season than the Minnesota Wild doesn't mean you should be in a playoff race at any point.

Edmonton, you're clearly doing the losing thing wrong. You're already trying to steal Calgary's highly successful "building around winger(s)" model so you might as well try the "hope to make the playoffs despite losing more games than winning" model. Hell, you're already the masters of the "losing" part, you don't even have to make a huge leap to do the rest of it.

Minnesota is finally getting healthy-ish, which means they'll absolutely start winning a bunch of their games because injuries are the only reason their season was derailed and not at all because it's a roster assembled with mostly shitty hockey players who belong in Houston making annual minor league championship runs (seriously, just send them all down where they belong so my Aeros can win the Calder Cup). So we have the Wild fanbase's inevitable "WE TOLD YOU SO" after they win 7 of their last 8 games to look forward to. I'm excited.

Vancouver suddenly sucks but because they play in a division of hilariously inept teams their recent struggles have largely been ignored because everyone is too busy worrying about their own playoff races to bother hating the Canucks right now. Don't worry, Vancouver. You can have your "WOE IS US Y DO U ALL HATE US BAAAAW" membership card back in about 3 weeks when, rest assured, we will all be hating you again :)

Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver	74	44	21	9	97
Colorado	76	40	31	5	85
Calgary	75	34	26	15	83
Minnesota	73	31	32	10	72
Edmonton	74	29	36	9	67

(updated 3.23.2012 at 1:12 AM MDT)

Team capsules after the jump.

All standings related info taken from NHL.com...

Calgary Flames

Last Week: 0-1-3 1-3 L @ EDM, 1-2 OTL vs. CBJ, 1-2 OTL @ COL, 2-3 OTL @ MIN

Conference Standing: 11th Place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.38 (25th)
Goals Against: 2.64 (12th)
Power Play %: 17.5 (15th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.9 (11th)

This Week: After a super easy week on the schedule, the schedule difficulty gets significantly tougher this week when the Flames head to Dallas on Saturday and return home for the back end of the home-and-home with Dallas on Monday and then hosting streaking Los Angeles on Wednesday.

News: A funny twist of fate has a defenseman taking the spot of another.

Curtis Glencross has carved out a nice career for himself.

Goals = wins, wins = playoffs.

The equipment aces of Calgary are keeping them in the playoff race. !?

Transactions: Assigned G Leland Irving to Abbotsford and F Sven Baertschi to Portland (WHL).

Injuries:

Lee Stempniak is out with a high ankle sprain.
Blair Jones is on IR with a fractured ankle.
Mikael Backlund is on IR with an upper body injury.
Chris Butler is on IR with a leg injury.
T.J. Brodie is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Michael Cammalleri is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Lance Bouma is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Cory Sarich is day-to-day with an upper body injury.

Colorado Avalanche

Last Week: 3-0-1 3-2 W vs. EDM, 3-2 W vs. ANA, 5-4 W @ BUF, 0-1 OTL @ NJ

Conference Standings: 9th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.48 (22nd)
Goals Against: 2.68 (15th)
Power Play %: 18.5 (12th)
Penalty Kill %: 81.6 (19th)

This Week: Like Calgary, the Avs schedule difficulty increases quite a bit as they take on Vancouver at home Saturday and head to San Jose on Monday and then straight to Vancouver to finish the season series with the Canucks on Wednesday.

Edmonton Oilers

Last Week: 2-0-2 3-1 W vs. CGY, 2-3 OTL vs. PHX, 6-3 W @ NSH, 2-3 OTL @ TB

Conference Standings: 14th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.64 (14th)
Goals Against: 2.94 (25th)
Power Play %: 21.7 (1st)
Penalty Kill %: 82.2 (14th)

This Week: The Oilers finish off an Eastern back-to-back Friday at Florida before heading north to Columbus Sunday and returning home versus Dallas on Wednesday.

News: An Oilers goalie whose name I hate trying to spell because of a randomly placed h or two recently received a warm reception in Tampa Bay.

The poor Oilers stellar defense is being betrayed by an unsure goaltending situation.

Poor Bruce McCurdy clearly doesn't understand the Music City Miracle so let's all laugh at his stupidity.

Time for the kids to step up, right? In late March, with the season essentially over. Nice.

Transactions: Signed G Tyler Bunz to 3-year ELC.

Injuries: F Taylor Hall out indefinitely with concussion.

Minnesota Wild

Last Week: 2-1-0: 3-5 L vs. CAR, 2-0 W vs. VAN, 3-2 W vs. CGY

Conference Standing: 13th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.14 (29th)
Goals Against: 2.56 (10th)
Power Play %: 15.4 (25th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.3 (12th)

This Week: Amazingly, the Wild are still playing a pivotal role in the playoff races in both conferences as they become extremely important points for the East this week, starting Saturday at Buffalo and continuing Sunday at Washington before returning home to host the Rangers on Tuesday and Florida on Thursday. Every one of those teams needs to beat Minnesota this week. I'd say they have a decent chance. Because Minnesota sucks. neenerneener.

News: Despite a lost season, there's plenty of silver linings to be found for the Wild.

The Wild front office apparently expected a 40 goal season from Dany Heatley. This is why the Wild are terrible.

Matt Cullen is really frustrated. Video linx.

Transactions: Reassigned G Matt Hackett and F Nick Palmieri to Houston.

Injuries: Lazy copy/paste mode ENGAGE.

Guillaume Latendresse has been diagnosed with concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard has concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Mike Lundin has been shut down for the season after having surgery on a sports hernia.

Vancouver Canucks

Last Week: 2-1-1 4-3 W vs. CBJ, 0-2 L @ MIN, 1-2 OTL @ CHI, 2-1 W @ DAL

Conference Standing: 2nd place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 3.06 (4th)
Goals Against: 2.29 (5th)
Power Play %: 21.4 (3rd)
Penalty Kill %: 86.7 (5th)

This Week: The Canucks had better fucking lose twice this week to a divisional opponent because they play at Colorado on Saturday before heading home to win Monday versus Los Angeles and then hosting what had better be another fucking loss Wednesday versus Colorado. Any other results will cause a riot in my apartment.

News: lol Vancouver bad.

The title of this article is so MHH. You're welcome.

Hahahahahahahaha.

y so arrogant, Canucks?

Transactions: Signed G Joe Cannata.

Injuries:

Steve Pinizzotto is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury
Aaron Volpatti is out 4-6 months with a shoulder injury.
Andrew Ebbett is out 4-6 weeks with a collar bone injury.
Keith Ballard is out indefinitely with an upper body injury.

Northwest Check - "With The Strength of a Raging Fire" Edition

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:46:39 -0000

Gonna make this relatively short because my new job has me dead tired and badly need to relax and dip my feet into a vat of ice. Calgary is living up to its name and has absolutely caught fire. Cool story for them as they're still behind Colorado. Games in hand be damned, the Flames have won a bunch of games in a row and still haven't caught the Avs. Nooch.

Edmonton never amounted to the spoiler role I thought they would play perfectly. They did manage to beat Columbus, however, which is extremely important because it likely brought to an end any hopes the Blue Jackets had of catching and surpassing Edmonton for most ping pong balls in the NHL Draft Lottery. Had the Oilers gotten first overall pick, GM Extraordinaire might have deemed it necessary to draft Nail Yakupov, best known for BEING A WINGER. The Oilers might have just saved themselves from the incompetency of their GM. Bright days in Oil Country, amirite?

Minnesota...hahahahahaha.

Vancouver is absolutely worthless. They're Eastern Conference level of useless. Beating the occasional bad team but losing to the teams that would help Colorado, the Canucks sputtering offense and leaky Luongo has fans jumping aboard the "if they don't care, I don't care, bring on the playoffs" mentality. I hope they get swept in the first round.

Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver	70	42	20	8	92
Colorado	73	38	30	5	81
Calgary	71	34	25	12	80
Minnesota	70	29	31	10	68
Edmonton	70	27	36	7	61

(updated 3.16.2012 at 1:16 AM MDT)

All standings related info taken from NHL.com...

Calgary Flames

Last Week: 4-0-0 5-3 W vs. WPG, 4-3 W @ MIN, 3-2 W vs. SJ, 4-1 W vs. PHX

Conference Standing: 10th Place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.38 (25th)
Goals Against: 2.64 (12th)
Power Play %: 17.5 (15th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.9 (11th)

This Week: Calgary takes their suddenly red hot circus show on the road Friday to Edmonton for the second night of a back-to-back. If Edmonton is ever going to help the Avalanche, it's going to be that game. Calgary then returns home for a Sunday night tilt against Columbus and then heads on the road for contests Tuesday at Colorado and Thursday at Minnesota. They legitimately should come out of this week with 8 points.

News: The Flames are hothothot sizzlesizzlesizzle, baby.

Alex Tanguay is lying at the end of this. Or maybe he's telling the truth because the Flames are accomplishing their goal yet again.

Sven Baertschi's fairy tale could end any day now but he wasted no time in making an impact on his teammates.

Matt Stajan is alive. Maybe for real this time.

Transactions: Assigned F Krys Kolanos to Abbotsford, recalled G Leland Irving from Abbotsford.

Injuries:

Lee Stempniak is out with a high ankle sprain.
Blair Jones is on IR with a fractured ankle.
Mikael Backlund is on IR with an upper body injury.
Chris Butler is on IR with a leg injury.
T.J. Brodie is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Michael Cammalleri is day-to-day with an upper body injury.
Tim Jackman is day-to-day with an upper body injury.

Colorado Avalanche

Last Week: 3-0-1 3-2 W vs. EDM, 3-2 W vs. ANA, 5-4 W @ BUF, 0-1 OTL @ NJ

Conference Standings: 8th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.48 (22nd)
Goals Against: 2.68 (15th)
Power Play %: 18.5 (12th)
Penalty Kill %: 81.6 (19th)

This Week: After several straight weeks of playing 4 games, the Avalanche get an extra day off this week with just 3 games on the slate, beginning Saturday night at Madison Square Garden where Eastern power New York Rangers await the Avalanche. The Avs then head home to lose to the visiting Calgary Flames on Tuesday and hit the road to lick their wounds at Phoenix on Thursday night.

Edmonton Oilers

Last Week: 1-1-1 2-3 OTL @ COL, 2-3 L vs. SJ, 3-0 W vs. CBJ

Conference Standings: 14th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.64 (14th)
Goals Against: 2.94 (25th)
Power Play %: 21.7 (1st)
Penalty Kill %: 82.2 (14th)

This Week: Edmonton continues to play out the string and play an important role in the playoff races of both conferences as they host Calgary Friday and Phoenix Sunday before hitting the road to give points to both Nashville on Tuesday and Tampa Bay on Thursday.

News: Corey Potter has received the Edmonton Oilers nomination for the Masterton award.

This is not an argument that should be made but because it was, let's all read it and giggle.

Speaking of Tom Renney, homeboy was steamin mad after the team's pathetic loss to reeling San Jose.

Were the Oilers seriously ever thought to be tanking to draft another winger?

Transactions: Recalled LW Teemu Hartikainen.

Injuries: F Ben Eager is day-to-day with a back injury.

Minnesota Wild

Last Week: 0-2-0: 3-4 L vs. CGY, 0-1 L vs. DAL

Conference Standing: 13th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.14 (29th)
Goals Against: 2.56 (10th)
Power Play %: 15.4 (25th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.3 (12th)

This Week: Minnesota's failure of a season continues swirling down the toilet in front of their beloved home fans Saturday versus Carolina in a battle for draft pick positioning and Monday versus Vancouver in a game where the Canucks will surely break out of their funk. Minnesota finishes their week by handing over an important 2 points to Calgary at home on Thursday. Yay.

News: I guess the season is considered lost by EVERYONE because all anybody wants to talk about is Zach Parise.

See what I mean?

....and then there's this, one of the funniest things I've seen all season. State of Hockey GET.

Transactions: None.

Injuries: Lazy copy/paste mode ENGAGE.

Guillaume Latendresse has been diagnosed with concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard has concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Mikko Koivu is currently out with an upper body injury. He has been shut down until March 13, when he will be reevalutated. He did skate with the team on Tuesday morning but did not take contact.
Mike Lundin suffered a lower body injury and was placed on injured reserve on February 19.
Niklas Backstrom suffered a lower body against Montreal on March 1 and is out of the lineup.

Vancouver Canucks

Last Week: 0-2-0 1-4 L vs. MTL, 4-5 L vs. PHX

Conference Standing: 2nd place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 3.06 (4th)
Goals Against: 2.29 (5th)
Power Play %: 21.4 (3rd)
Penalty Kill %: 86.7 (5th)

This Week: Vancouver continues the troll train as they'll probably beat Columbus at home on Saturday and Minnesota on the road on Monday but then lose both road games at Chicago Wednesday and at Dallas Thursday. Lose the games we need, win the games we don't care about. Typical Canucks.

News: The poor, poor Vancouver Canucks. Seriously Tony Gallagher is a fucking clown.

Committing to leaning on your veterans for leadership but not committing to giving them any playing time is a curious decision. But hey, Alain Vigneault is a genius, right?

The Sedins - suddenly not so elite.

As crunch time nears, Roberto Luongo is already starting to show his true colors - again.

Transactions: None.

Injuries:

Steve Pinizzotto is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury
Aaron Volpatti is out 4-6 months with a shoulder injury.
Andrew Ebbett is out 4-6 weeks with a collar bone injury.
Keith Ballard is out indefinitely with an upper body injury.

Daily Cupcakes - Links From Around the NHL, March 15th, 2012

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:05:12 -0000

The NHL's unstable labor situation is leading the league to cancel the league's European season-openers next year.

The uncertainty surrounding the NHL's collective bargaining agreement has prompted the league to call off next fall's games in Europe.

A senior league source confirmed Wednesday that the season-opening overseas games have been cancelled.

It will be the first time since 2007 that teams won't kick off the regular season overseas. As many as six teams have been involved in European games in past seasons.

All the noise recently coming from Florida, where the GM Meetings concluded yesterday, and yet not a single piece of news or speculation or...anything about the looming CBA issues. Harrumph.

NHL general managers ended three days of meetings Wednesday with little discussion about upcoming collective bargaining negotiations between the league and the NHL Players' Association.

The current agreement, that ended the season-long lockout in 2005, expires Sept. 15. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told the general managers to conduct "business as usual'' according to the current agreement, including working under the salary cap of between $63 million and $64 million

The trapezoid continues to be a divisive and curious topic around the NHL. Puck Daddy takes a look at a few different angles of the argument.

As Shanahan and Mike Gillis both said, goalies aren't going to be as adventurous because the forecheck is so aggressive — and could be made even more so with further rules changes. But that doesn't mean the trapezoid should remain, or remain unaltered. In fact, as Gillis said, it renders it pointless.

The San Jose Sharks continue to be one of the big stories in the NHL as the season winds down to the final 3 weeks. Unfortunately for them, it's for all the wrong reasons.

The floundering Sharks find themselves in an unexpected dogfight just to reach the playoffs. They've won only six games since January, have struggled to score goals and are mere shadows of recent San Jose teams.

A sampling of observers who cover the league indicates a general opinion that the Sharks will manage to somehow find their way into the postseason, and perhaps even be a dangerous team once there.

Two nights ago, NHL history was nearly made. Nearly.

But in Tuesday night's 4-3 shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center, as the Blues were going for a mark that hasn't been accomplished in over a decade, there was finally a chink in the armor.

It wasn't for a lack of effort, but the Blues' penalty killers were taxed.

Brent Seabrook finally snapped the Blues' penalty-killing streak at 51 kills in a row, which was two shy of the Washington Capitals' mark of 53 in a row set in 1999-2000.

Out East, the Washington Capitals have been playing their way into a solid foothold in the playoff race but experienced bad news that may have an impact on the potential Alex Semin Sweepstakes this summer.

Evgeny Kuznetsov, the Caps’ No. 1 draft pick in 2010, recently named the top NHL prospect in the world by the Hockey News, has decided not to join the team next season. His decision was announced earlier today on "The Icing Show" on KHL-TV channel.

‘To be honest, my decision has been reached," the 19-year-old phenom said. "It is my intention to continue my career in the KHL. At the same time there is no clarity as to which club it will be."

Oilers @ Avalanche, Game 70 Preview

A.J. Haefele — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:17:54 -0000

Remember that time the Avalanche played host to a team at the bottom of the standings with nothing left to play before because their GM was inept and their roster full of hilariously over-matched soon-to-be AHL players and then lost 2-0 and caused the fan base to nearly set itself on fire?

Yeah. Let's not do that again.

The Avalanche come into today's afternoon contest versus the Edmonton Oilers with just 13 games remaining on the schedule and the pressure of the playoff race only increasing with every game. The Avs, now in 11th place after Calgary's Friday night victory over Winnipeg, are still very much alive in the race for the Western Conference's final playoff spot but need to convert the opportunities given to them by the NHL schedule gods starting today.

There is no more time for moral victories, no more looking ahead to a slate of games and saying "we'll get 'em later". The Avs must make a move upwards in the standings today. They can't control all the games in hand other teams have on them and they can't control who wins or loses games they don't take a part in. Truth is, if the Avalanche just focus on winning the games they play in and controlling what they can control, they'll put themselves in a position where other teams are having to root for them to lose.

The Avalanche cannot let a Saturday afternoon home game against the hapless Edmonton Oilers slip away. They need two points. It's a must-win game. For realsies this time.

Northwest Check - "Swift As A Coursing River" Edition

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:20:12 -0000

I'm really starting to respect Calgary for their consistency. As a fan of a team whose season has been a roller coaster from the very beginning, the Flames must be really easy to root for. They've gone 1-1-1 each of their past three weeks and while they haven't made any significant moves up the standings, they've barely given up any ground as each of the teams around them continue to be very inconsistent. As much as I make fun of Calgary for insisting on collecting as many mediocre hockey players as possible and then re-signing them for too long and too much money (lol Anton Babchuk), at least they've figured out how to really compete for 12th place in their conference. They'll always have that!

Colorado continues to be a maddening team to write about. One week it's totally fun and we're winning games and rolling in the points and the next we're getting blown out by Pittsburgh and then scoring 7 goals just days later before losing on the road in a game we were sosososo close to stealing a point in. They're driving me insane. I'm sad there are only 13 games left because this team is a clear improvement over the one we watched fall apart last year but I'll be glad when the ride finally stops. These guys are exhausting.

Edmonton was a team I seriously was afraid of once they started getting healthy. Their potential to play major spoiler was pretty high because that offense can smoke any team on any given night. Unfortunately, I was blinded by the beacon of optimism given off by the Edmonton media and forgot they have a shitty defense and comically inept goaltenders. Not quite like Toronto but they give them a decent run for their money. Needless to say, my comfort with seeing them on the schedule this weekend is probably a really bad sign.

Speaking of comically inept, you have the entire Minnesota franchise. Beset by terrible injury problems, the remaining terrible hockey players just couldn't continue to play as far over their heads as they did at the beginning of the year. As much as I love the Houston Aeros, at least now I know just how bad it would be if they were competing in the NHL instead of the AHL. Maybe they'll get a Top 5 pick and and their scouting staff will finally manage to not screw up a first round pick. Maybe.

Vancouver, as you will read below if you click dem links, is struggling mightily on offense with the Sedins suddenly finding themselves unable to carry the rest of that team. I imagine the regular season is just boring that entire franchise at this point because even their media is openly rooting for the playoffs to start so the team can begin it's real season. Unfortunately for them, their obscenely comfortable lead in the division (as in, you know, they'll be clinching it here in the next 2 weeks) isn't indicative of their standing in the Western Conference as they've been overtaken by St. Louis for the time being. If the Canucks can't refocus, they could be in for a much tougher first round playoff series than they were expecting. Excellent....

Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver	68	42	18	8	92
Colorado	69	35	30	4	74
Calgary	67	30	25	12	72
Minnesota	68	29	29	10	68
Edmonton	67	26	35	6	58

(updated 3.8.2012 at 10:37 PM MST)

All standings related info taken from NHL.com...

Calgary Flames

Last Week: 1-1-1 (for the third straight week) 2-3 L @ ANA, 2-3 OTL vs. DAL, 5-4 W vs. MTL

Conference Standing: 11th Place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.38 (25th)
Goals Against: 2.64 (12th)
Power Play %: 17.5 (15th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.9 (11th)

This Week: Calgary is guaranteed not to have another week of 1-1-1 as they play a whopping four games this week, beginning Friday at home versus Winnipeg. The Flames then will enjoy taking the easiest 2 points in all of hockey when they beat Minnesota on the road Sunday afternoon (bold prediction GET) and head back home for two monumental enormous huge whoamg clashes Tuesday versus San Jose and Thursday versus Phoenix on the front end of a challenging back-to-back.

News: Seems the rest of the NW is picking up Colorado's slack on the injury front this year. Good for them.

Top prospect and 2011 draftee Sven Baertschi was called up from the WHL and will make his NHL debut Friday.

This article laments Calgary's inability to pick up extra points in games that extend past regulation. Oddly, no mention of the loser point keeping them in the race. They did manage to take a shot at the Avs ability to win games in OT/SOs, though. Always with the luck.

Winning isn't always pretty but the Flames will take it any way they can get it.

Transactions: Assigned G Leland Irving to Abbotsford, recalled F Guillaume Desbiens, F Krys Kolanos, F Greg Nemisz from Abbotsford.

Injuries:

Lee Stempniak is out with a high ankle sprain.
Blair Jones is on IR with a fractured ankle.
Mikael Backlund is on IR with an upper body injury.
Chris Butler is on IR with a leg injury.

Colorado Avalanche

Last Week: 2-2-0 1-5 L vs. PIT, 2-0 W @ MIN, 7-1 W vs. MIN, 2-4 L @ NSH

Conference Standings: 10th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.48 (22nd)
Goals Against: 2.68 (15th)
Power Play %: 18.5 (12th)
Penalty Kill %: 81.6 (19th)

This Week: The Avs continue to put a stranglehold on 10th place in the West with home contests against inferior beings Edmonton on Saturday and Anaheim on Monday before heading out East for a challenging back-to-back Wednesday at Buffalo (Vanek at the Disco, amirite UZ?) and a Calder Trophy Showdown Throwdown Thursday at New Jersey.

Edmonton Oilers

Last Week: 1-3-0 1-3 L vs. DAL, 2-4 L @ ANA, 3-2 W @ SJ, 3-5 L vs. MTL

Conference Standings: 14th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.64 (14th)
Goals Against: 2.94 (25th)
Power Play %: 21.7 (1st)
Penalty Kill %: 82.2 (14th)

This Week: Edmonton continues to be bad at their spoiler role but will surely find a way to dick over Colorado in Denver on Saturday before heading to San Jose on Monday night. The Oilers then take a trip to Columbus where the hard-charging Blue Jackets no longer appear interested in the first overall pick. Classic Battle of the Bads.

News: Sam Gagner is dying to get a taste of the playoffs. Also included is a confusing insistence on bringing up his 8-point night. Just for funsies, I guess.

The Oilers are bad.

Inevitable comparisons between Peyton Manning's recent departure from the only NFL home he has known and Wayne Gretzky's abrupt disappearance from Edmonton started almost immediately.

Since having an AHL roster has been Edmonton's go-to the last few years, apparently bringing in an AHL coach would also be wise ;)

Transactions: Recalled F Linus Omark.

Injuries: None again. Yikes.

Minnesota Wild

Last Week: 1-3-0: 0-6 L @ DET, 0-2 L vs. COL, 1-7 L @ COL (hahahahahaha), 3-2 W @ PHX

Conference Standing: 13th place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 2.14 (29th)
Goals Against: 2.56 (10th)
Power Play %: 15.4 (25th)
Penalty Kill %: 82.3 (12th)

This Week: Slowin their roll a bit, the Wild have just two games this week. Of course, they're ultra important for the playoff race they're no longer realistically a part of when they host the Calgary Flames on Sunday and Dallas Stars on Tuesday before getting a delicious 3 day break from losing. lolbad

News: Gettin blowed up is fun as hell. The Wild love to do it. It's so fun and awesome, right guys?

I wonder if this article is still true several days later....

Since their playoff hopes are essentially done for, the Wild players might as well take time to reflect back on their glory years.

My favorite part of this was that Matt Kassian was a second round pick. Nice.

Transactions: Reassigned F Chad Rau to Houston, recalled G Matt Hackett and D Steve Kampfer from Houston. Both recalls played vital roles in getting blowed up by Colorado. Thanks, guys!

Injuries: Lazy copy/paste mode ENGAGE.

Guillaume Latendresse has been diagnosed with concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard has concussion symptoms and is on Injured Reserve.
Clayton Stoner suffered a lower body injury on February 4 and was placed on injured reserve on February 9. He could return on Thursday if Tyler Cuma does not arrive in Phoenix on time.
Mikko Koivu is currently out with an upper body injury. He has been shut down until March 13, when he will be reevalutated.
Mike Lundin suffered a lower body injury and was placed on injured reserve on February 19.
Niklas Backstrom suffered a lower body against Montreal on March 1 and did not travel with the team on its current road trip.

Vancouver Canucks

Last Week: 1-2-0 3-5 L vs. BUF, 2-5 L vs. DAL, 3-2 W vs. WPG

Conference Standing: 2nd place

Overall Rankings:

Goals For: 3.06 (4th)
Goals Against: 2.29 (5th)
Power Play %: 21.4 (3rd)
Penalty Kill %: 86.7 (5th)

This Week: I am so tired of this team. Chances are they'll beat the teams we don't care about, like at home versus Montreal on Saturday, but lose the games we need them to win in regulation, like at Phoenix on Wednesday.

News: Kind of cool that reporters in Vancouver can openly root for the Canucks.

Overreacting when elite teams struggle late in the season is silly. Seriously just stop it.

Chris Higgins, a fourth line role filling addition last year, has apparently earned time on the second line. Tony Gallagher might be his biggest fan.

Waaaahhhh the world is ending.

Transactions: None, I guess?

Injuries:

Steve Pinizzotto is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury
Aaron Volpatti is out 4-6 months with a shoulder injury.
Andrew Ebbett is out 4-6 weeks with a collar bone injury.
Keith Ballard is out indefinitely with an upper body injury.

Avalanche @ Predators, Game 69 Preview

A.J. Haefele — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 04:20:34 -0000

Colorado's mad dash to the end of the season continues tonight in Nashville to play a Predators team stuck in sort of a weird position in the standings. While the Avalanche are in a big ball of teams trying to make the playoffs, Nashville is in a pretty comfortable position in the standings with nobody really around to threaten them on either side.

The Predators currently in 5th place in the Western Conference and are 6 points behind 4th place Detroit and 4 points ahead of schizophrenic 6th place Chicago. With the Blues and Red Wings running away with the division in a battle the conference's top spot, Nashville sits comfortably behind in 5th place and should feel just as comfortable with the unreliable Blackhawks likely to put together any kind of sustained run to catch the always solid Predators.

6-3-1 in their last 10, Nashville comes into this game fresh off a 5-4 loss Monday at home versus the LA Kings, a game Colorado really could have used Nashville winning. On the other side of the ice, the Avalanche come in winners of 5 of their last 7 and look to build off of a dominant and utterly comical 7-1 beatdown of the pathetically inept Minnesota Wild.

If the Avs have legitimate postseason dreams, they need to continue building upon the home-and-home sweep of Minnesota earlier this week in a matchup of strength on strength as the 4th best home team in the West takes on the 6th best road team. Smart, disciplined hockey will be a key to tonight's game because any cheap penalties taken could very easily wind up in the back of the Avalanche net as Nashville sport's the league's second most efficient power play, scoring 21% of the time. If the Avs have made the proper sacrifices to the hockey gods and draw some penalties, the recent practice time spent working on the PP could come in handy against the Preds' 12th ranked PK.

Two very important points are on the line every time the Avalanche take the ice but with all of the team's closest competitors sitting with several games in hand, the Avs might just run out of chances to accrue the necessary points to make the NHL's second season. With time running out quickly for the Avs to keep pace with suddenly unbeatable Dallas, two points against a quality opponent are like so totally needed.