SB Nation User Blog: SlamDunkTheFunk

Heatley to the Oilers

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:38:14 -0000

Heatley to the Oilers

And the NW just keeps on rolling along...

A Look At European Avs Prospects

SlamDunkTheFunk — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:44:35 -0000

A Look At European Avs Prospects

Courtesy of Hockey's Future.

With Jori giving us all the scoop on our North American prospects, HF takes a glance at the shallow (I already read it) talent pool we have across the pond.

Some big-time SFA Love

SlamDunkTheFunk — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:09:05 -0000

Some big-time SFA Love

I don't have anywhere else to put this, so here it is. SI.com lovin' the Lumberjacks. Ahh, yeah!

Caption reads: "Northeastern's Chris Donovan (23) skates away as Boston University celebrates a...

SlamDunkTheFunk — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:58:46 -0000

Caption reads:

"Northeastern's Chris Donovan (23) skates away as Boston University celebrates a goal during the Beanpot championship game. BU prevailed 5-2 to win the 57th annual tournament. (Winslow Townson/AP)"

I love this picture. Just a reminder that while everyone is slinging shit at each other about who to trade and who not to and whose blocked shots mean more, this franchise still has a future.

Want to learn how to play goalie?

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:48:40 -0000

Want to learn how to play goalie?

This is ultimate training video for anybody looking to play goalie.

LEM Update #2

SlamDunkTheFunk — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:39:31 -0000

Another trip to Houston by our beloved Mini Avs, the Lake Erie Monsters, for me and another post of random babbling and occasional hockey insights for you. Sounds fair, right? Good, because that's how it is.

The game itself was really, really boring. Very little intensity, absolutely zero up and down action (that's what she said), and the most exciting thing that happened was Per Ledin coming off the bench and me immediately freaking out. Yes, that's right. In my notes it reads in huge letters " PER LEDIN SIGHTING!!!!". The Monsters would take 2 shots in the first period, their first coming at the 14:53 mark when we all cheered for their momentous accomplishment. They would end the game with 13 shots, one goal, and a 2-1 loss in a game they were completely dominated in.

Completely dominated in a 2-1 loss? Thanks to Tyler Weiman's outstanding play, the game was close throughout, and got down right tense (at least in comparison to earlier) in the last ten minutes of play.

Because I'm feeling extremely lazy, I'm going to just write out my notes almost verbatim. Some things will be added in to make coherent thoughts out of my scribbles and chicken scratches.

Per Ledin-Would have been the savior of our season had he been healthy and not stuck in Lake Erie. He would have been the 5th line. Just kidding. He isn''t very good. He at least throws the body around pretty well.

Tom Fritsche (Maybe that's how you spell his last name, maybe not. I just call him "Fries")- He's not bulky enough to handle the AHL right now. He collapses on D on nearly every shot, leaving his guy open constantly for rebounds, which there were plenty of. Useless on defense for much the game, I was pretty underwhelmed by the kid from Ohio State.

Matt Hendricks-Because we traded Boychuk for him, I figured I would keep an eye out for him. I came away with one note about him: "He really sucks, dude." The most interesting part of this note was that I was apparently talking to someone. Maybe myself in the future, which would presently be the present.

T.J. Galiardi-His coach at Dartmouth said he was "a wizard offensively." In the two games I've seen, I've yet to see wizardy of any kind. His slow decision making, especially on the rush, negates nearly every single positive thing he does on the attack. He doesn't have soft hands, makes a lot of passes that end up as rushes the other way, though one of those mistakes he made up for by hauling ass back and breaking up a 2-on-1. I should be fair and say that he's an AHL, and I've seen the transition handled a lot worse than how he's done so far. I'm still excited for his future, but the two games I've seen have been disappointing.

Nigel Williams- My minor league mancrush. I watched him like a hawk tonight, and the potential for him to be a Top 4 D-man is pretty obvious. First of all, he's really big. Not just his height and weight, but his overall frame is high and wide. Once he puts on more weight and learns to use his body better (he relies on his stick waaay too much), he's really going to be a force. He broke up multiple 2-on-1 chances tonight with his ability to read the puck carrier and either pokechecking it away or blocking the pass. Offensively, I was hoping he would unleash his slapshot a few times so I could really get some kind of read on it. As luck would have it, I got a few pretty good looks at it, though his best scoring opportunity was wasted when his stick snapped in half 3/4 of the way through his shooting motion. The first big blast caused a defender to actually duck, which made me laugh, and ended up in the glove of Aeros goalie Nolan Schaefer. Interestingly, Schaefer was seen taking his glove off and flexing his hand. Coincidence?? You decide! Physically, Nigel got into a couple of post-whistle scraps and showed a mettle, but during the play is still way too passive of a player. He has a big body, and needs someone to teach him how to throw it around.

Tyler Weiman- I saved him for last because he's the one people are probably most interested in. He played outstanding tonight, as his statline will show that he stopped 27 of 29 shots and the two goals were ones anybody would have given up. The first goal was on a bang-bang pass & shoot (on the PP too, I believe, but not 100% on that) where the defense left a man wide open and he just tucked it home. Weiman was a little slow to react, but had he been any quicker it still would have gone in. His glove was fantastic all night, as nothing, not even shots destined for the boards, was getting behind him. He was in perfect position all night, and the second goal he gave up was a direct result of stopping 4 in a row and sliding across the crease back and forth several times as the defense completely abandoned him. Because of all the sliding, there was just enough room for Aeros forward Jason Ryznar to sneak the puck into the five hole (lollll) and break the Weiman Wall. A great showing by the kid and as a result of his hard work, received a standing ovation when he was announced as the #3 star of the game. If there was any offense whatsoever for the Monsters, he probably would have stolen this game for them.

Now, on to the non-hockey related tidbits that I feel the need to include.

For Mike, there is indeed a 4th stripper, and you correctly called which one it was. Well done, sir. The other 3, well, maybe later.

It was "Chillypalooza" at the Toyota Center today, as Aeros mascot and wunkerkind Chilly The Dog celebrated his 13th birthday (more on that later). Because it was an event day, the first 3k people were given something free. In this case, a children's book, which I absolutely love. It's super awesome, and the main character (a dog named Douglas) cracks me up throughout all 20 picture-filled pages.

On a more unfortunate note, one of the TC (Toyota Center) ushers was a huge jerk to this guy and his son. During warm-ups, he had gone down to the glass and was holding his son and pointing out all the different things happening on the ice. The kid looked like he was having the time of his life, but the usher couldn't handle anybody in his section experiencing any happiness, so he went down and told them they had to get to their seats. Naturally, they had tickets at the top of the section and the kid started bawling as they went back up. Sad story. The usher is new, so he got a ton of dirty looks and people saying less than friendly words to him over the incident.

Speaking of warm-ups, that drill the players do at the end when they all crowd around the goalie and try to bang one home is always one of my favorites. Today, however, Cash managed to keep the puck out of the net for a solid 45 seconds before they finally scored it. Loved seeing the goalie fight back in that drill.

The first intermission featured epic entertainment. First up was the on-ice entertainment of MITES VS. MASCOTS. Mascots from various Houston sports teams and attractions (the aquarium has a mascot named "Sharkie", apparently) all flocked to the TC for Chilly's birthday celebration and took on a group of kids in the meantime. It was pretty awesome as I was standing and cheering for Sharkie, the MASCOTS goalie and he was pushing shots away left and right before his defense bailed on him (literally) to go hang out with the cheerleaders and the MITES pounded 4 quick goals on him. Clutch, the Houston Rockets mascot, somehow lost his Rockets clothes, revealing a pink thong. While trying to run off, the Houston Dynamo mascot, Diesel Dynamo, sprinted over and tackled him and knocked his head off, which was hilarious. Diesel followed that up by pushing one of the kids onto the ice, which resulted in a MASCOT brawl as some defended the little kid and others defended Diesel. My friend called it the "Fur Pile", which is a double entendre. Anybody familiar with furries will understand why this was so hilarious. High quality entertainment! Final score was 4-0, MITES, btw.

The second piece of LOL worthy entertainment came in the dance contest they do, as the super cool guy got beatdown by a little kid who does the best sprinkler I've ever seen. The guy was attempting to bump n grind on the kid, which was awkward enough to make the crowd boo him when it came time to vote on who rocked more. I'm still loling while typing all this, actually.

Apparently, popular emo band Fall Out Boy (No arguing that they're an emo band. If you defend them, your razorblades aren't sharp enough) apparently has made a cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It", which is stupefying to think about if you happen to be my age and experience the insanity around them when they made it big. My note actually says "Please kill me." Ahahahahahahaha.

The basic trivia game they played tonight was especially awesome because the chick answering the question was so horrifyingly stupid. The question was "How old is Chilly in dog years?" Because it was his 13th birthday, and they TOLD HER A DOG YEAR WAS SEVEN YEARS, the answer ending in 1 should have been automatic, but no, she was INSISTENT the answer was 13. When she got it wrong, she seemed totally baffled and heartbroken. Unbelievable. She probably has a driver's license, too.

All right, I'm all out of notes, so I'll leave you with a quote from a sign at the game tonight:

"Hockey is my religion, and I'm in church."

Canucks Acquire LaBarbera

SlamDunkTheFunk — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 07:29:22 -0000

Canucks Acquire LaBarbera

I lol'd.

Hard.

Hopefully they send Schneider back to the AHL and LaBarbera sends them on a tailspin.

LEM Update

SlamDunkTheFunk — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:39:57 -0000

Tonight the Lake Erie Monsters travel down to my neck of the woods to take on the Houston Aeros, and barring anything major happening, I'll be there to take in all the action. I'll have my trusty Prospect Notebook (I finally get to add an "Avs Prospects" page to it!) with me. There are a few guys I'll really be keeping an eye on, but if any of you have anybody you want me to make sure to watch, I'll gladly compile a few notes and include them in my wrap-up.

When I get home from the game, I'll update this post to include all of my notes and results of the game.

EDIT: Okay, I'm at work and finally getting a chance to type all this stuff up. I have no idea how to do it, and I really don't want to do it in a game recap form because the game itself is fairly immaterial in my mind.

Just for the hell of it, the Monsters beat the Aeros 6-2, despite being dominated for most of the game, as they scored 5 times in the third, all of them coming with under 10 minutes to play. Now, on to the prospects...

The guy who stood out the most to me, without a doubt, was Kyle Cumiskey. Every single time he would strip his man of the puck, which was pretty often, he was either outlet passing up the ice or starting the rush himself. This happened all night long, and it's obvious that his skating ability is way above that of your average AHL dude. Also, the coaching staff seems to trust the hell out of him because he was on the ice for every big situation, and he didn't disappoint. He was beaten only once all night, and Nigel Williams (I loved seeing them on the ice together. It only happened once, but it was still really exciting) covered for him, so he got away with it. He uses his speed to his advantage every chance he gets as he was constantly pushing the puck up the ice and flying down the ice to get back on defense. His speed especially stood out when he was partnered with Wes O'Neill, whose got nothing resembling speed whatsoever, for most of the night.

Another guy I went in wanting to keep an eye on was T.J. Galiardi. All of the success he had in college is having a difficult time translating to the pro game for him, because he struggled throughout most of the evening. His best work of the night came on the PK, and offensively he only stood out once when he deked a defender, created some space using his body, and got a quality wrist shot that landed in Barry Brust's glove. Good chance, no twine. That was about his only highlight of the night as he played his 6'2'' frame more like he was 5'10''. I was definitely disappointed in his play, but when the Monsters come back in two weeks I hope to see a little more fire from him.

Moving along was a recent call-up who none of us really seemed too familiar with in Phillippe Dupuis. From his first shift on, he was the best forward on the ice for either team. He consistently threw his body around, created scoring chances for himself and others, and it was reflected at the end of the game when he finished with a shorthanded goal that started the LEM comeback and an assist on a first period goal by Mark McCutcheon. I don't remember anything about his time with the Avs, but I definitely was impressed with how well he played tonight. He was an animal from start to finish.

The guy I was most excited to see tonight was Nigel Williams. Of all our prospects not named Shattenkirk, Nigel Williams is the one who excites me the most. He's listed as 6'4'' and plays a little bigger than that. He gave a little too much room in front of the net for my liking, but when the puck got anywhere near him, he transformed into a vicious manbeast and was clearing everything away. Very impressive showing. His work in the corners and against the backboards was stellar as anytime he went back there, the man he was marking either turned it over or was taken out of the play completely. That being said, his work with the puck was, in a word, atrocious. I had read reports that he has some offensive acumen and tonight I honestly had trouble seeing it until the end. He didn't move the puck very fluidly, and in one sequence he got so flustered by the forecheck that he ended up turning the puck over and taking it away from the same guy three time in a row before he finally lost it for good and Weiman had to bail him out. That was his worst effort of the night, though, and I FINALLY got to see him wind up and take the slap shot I had read about. My notes say "Nigel finally shoots it. Wow. Missed by about 3 inches. Had it been on goal, might have gone through goalie." No joke, that thing was a missile.

The biggest surprises tonight were how Ray Macias and Michael Vernace play like they are exactly the same. Seriously, I had some trouble telling which guy was which. Macias obviously had the monster night as he finished with a +5 (!) and an assist, whereas Vernace didn't grace the scoreboard at all. Both guys moved the puck well in their own zone but were running around a lot on the PK and looking really unsettled. Uneven play for both guys, with Macias obviously having the better night of the two.

Now, onto the guy most people are probably reading this for. Tyler Weiman got the start tonight, and I have to say, parts of the night were impressive for the kid. He had a save early in the game that shut down an electric crowd for several minutes as he let a fat rebound come off his right leg right to an unmarked Aeros winger who had an open net to shoot at. The result? A scrambling Weiman got the paddle of his stick up and swatted it away. An awesome display. As usual with AHL goalies, you get some great and some really terrible. in Weiman's case, the terrible came when a lazy wrister from the blueline landed harmlessly in his glove, only to see him drop it, creating a damn good scoring chance that Nigel Williams negated by hustling his man into the corner and the puck eventually being covered back up. He basically gift wrapped a beautiful scoring chance and laid it at his feet and luckily for him, his teammates were able to cover his ass. Positionally, Weiman was solid overall, though occasionally turning routine saves into great saves because he was sliding so much. Now, I want to say that this is a very common thing in Houston and I don't know if it was Weiman himself, or just the ice here. Funny things happen at hockey games here (the boards are a bit of a "choose-your-own-adventure", and the ice gets sloppy pretty quickly), so I don't want to put too much blame on Weiman for this. His glove was a little slow on multiple occasions and if shots hadn't missed the net, they would have been goals. His blocker was pretty damn solid all night as he shut down that side of the net all game. The first goal he allowed wouldn't have been stopped by anybody. It was a slapshot from the point by Tomas Mojzis and hit off what appeared to be two (but maybe three) Lake Erie players and and found its way in. Weiman had no chance on the play. The second goal was another point slapper from Mojzis, but this time it was just a rocket that headed for the corner and grabbed a ton of iron on the way in. Great shots beat even the greatest of goalies. One minor quibble was that Weiman seemed to play small when the play was right in front of him. I'm not sure if that makes too much sense, but he definitely seemed to give a lot of ground and shrink into a little turtle shell when the action was right in his face. I don't have any idea how to be a goalie, so take what I say about them for what you will, it just seemed like he could have been a bit more assertive when things got hectic in his face.

Burki has been briefly covered in the comments already. I'll just say that he had a hell of a lot of jump in the second half of the game and helped drive the nail in the coffin of the suddenly hapless Aeros. For the record, I would like to say that nearly all of the goals scored by LEM would go into the "soft" category, with the closest one to being an exception being the first goal by McCutcheon (who scored two). It wasn't your average shot, just well placed as Barry Brust's glove was downright Raycroftian tonight.

That's about it for the player notes. Since I wrote them down, I figured I would share my random notes as well.

The Houston Aeros dancers, called the "Lady Dynamics" were terrible tonight. Usually their effort is much better, but you can tell they missed their captain tonight as they were all out of sync and off their game.

The "Guns 'N Hoses" promotional event going on was to honor the police and firefighters of the city. They had a battle royale for supremacy at center ice during the 1st Intermission by having several departments duke it out with ON ICE TUG-O-WAR! Wonderful idea! For those of you wondering, one of the firefighter groups one, but in my mind cheated because they had what I dubbed the "Ass Crack O Doom" on their side. This guy was a beast and was the anchor for the winning team. Everytime he bent over, you could have mistaken him for your stereotypical plumber. Very frightening.

Alex Penner of the Monsters got served a serious beatdown by the Aeros Matt Kassian. Seriously, Penner needs to spend some time figuring out this whole "hockey fighting" thing. That was sad, sad, sad.

The 3 stars of the game were:

3. Dupuis
2. Rowe
1. McCutcheon

And that's all I've got.

AHL Live Free Preview Sunday, Dec. 14

SlamDunkTheFunk — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:54:59 -0000

AHL Live Free Preview Sunday, Dec. 14

The AHL will be allowing their broadcast center, AHL Live, a day of free previews for those of us interested in checking in on our favorite team's primary development team. Our Lake Erie Monsters will be taking on the St. Louis Blues' farm team, the Peoria Rivermen at 5:00 ET. Chances are I'll be around then and might throw up a thread for anyone who wants to watch the game, so come join in for some live prospect watching. Plz?

OT: Avs win, 3 Stars debate rages on.

SlamDunkTheFunk — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:58:32 -0000

Really? I have to post at least 75 words? This sucks.

Regardless, the Avs snuck a nice 2 points from the former division leading Canucks, though the gain ultimately ends up at 1. Nonetheless, we won, and they didn't. So ha.

Because I have a word limit, I'll mention that Dater is supposedly the one who selected the 3 stars of the night and managed to leave Budaj off the list, despite making several great saves, including a game-saving stop on a breakaway towards the end of the third. Not only that, he was so inclined to select Bernier as the first star, whose two goals weren't enough to drive the Canucks to victory.

Some of us are still here, so this is where we take it.