2009-2010 Season Preview: The Central Division

As we count down the final days leading up to the 2009-10 regular season, let's take a look at each of the 30 teams with the official DGB Season Preview. Today, we look at the Norris Central Division.

Chicago Blackhawks

The good: Signed Marian Hossa to a 12-year deal, which will turn out to be a great move as long as he doesn't end up suffering some sort of serious injury to like his shoulder or something.
The bad: Have not won a Stanley Cup in 48 years, the second longest active streak in the league behind the Maple Leafs' 42 years.
Biggest question mark: Hey, did anyone remember to mail Dale Tallon's severence cheque?
Fearless forecast: Dustin Byfuglien will secretly enjoy no longer being the only Hawk who can't get a cab.

St. Louis Blues

The good: Are highliy motivated to make a deep playoff run, just to keep Erik Johnson off of a golf course.
The bad: Team employs Ty Conklin, yet incompetent NHL hasn't even told them where their Winter Classic game will be held.
Biggest question mark: Keith Tkachuk? They still make that?
Fearless forecast: Brad Boyes goes into a career-destroying slump after somebody reminds him he's a Leafs draft pick.

Columbus Blue Jackets

The good: Gained experience while being crushed in the playoffs by the Red Wings, which will prove invaluable the next time they have to get crushed in the playoffs by the Red Wings.
The bad: Signed Rick Nash to an eight-year contract extension, making it marginally more difficult for the Leafs to sign him as an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Biggest question mark: Will the team fall into complacency now that they've made franchise history by going three months without changing their logo?
Fearless forecast: Despite his Calder win last year, you will continue to have no idea which Mason goalie plays for Columbus and which one is on the Blues.

Nashville Predators

The good: Offense should get a boost from Wade Belak's triennial goal.
The bad: If Chris Hanson is on the Leafs roster for their January visit to Nashville, we'll all have to endure three million variations of the same "Why don't you have a seat over there" joke.
Biggest question mark: Can Masterton trophy winner Steve Sullivan continue his inspirational story that has seen him, through sheer determination, achieve a successful career despite being forced to play pro hockey in Nashville?
Fearless forecast: Will probably be the best team in the division without a color in their name.

Detroit Red Wings

The good: The team did what all smart teams do after a tough Cup final loss: get rid of Marian Hossa.
The bad: Niklas Lidstrom suffered a "catastrophic" testicle injury, making him the only Red Wing player last year who grabbed a cup.
Biggest question mark: What other kind of testicle injury is there?
Fearless forecast: Still upset over the handshake line snub, the Wings decide to teach Sidney Crosby a lesson about class, sportsmanship and respect for the game by sending Todd Bertuzzi to break his neck.

The NHL's secret plan to regain its popularity

Gary Bettman predicts the Phoenix
Coyotes' 2009-10 season ticket sales.

The NHL received some harsh news last week, with the release of a study that declared that interest in the NHL is dropping in Canada. Combined with the well-documented struggles of many American teams and a worsening economy, it would appear that the league is facing a potential crisis.

Luckily, NHL leadership is aware of the problem and has enacted several initiatives to face the issue. I've obtained a top secret NHL memo which outlines 15 strategies the league will be implementing to regain its popularity.

• Kill off formerly popular "wacky neighbor" character played by Jeremy Roenick.
  
  
• Reconsider plan to have entire 2009-10 marketing campaign managed by Dany Heatley's agents.
  
  
• Effective immediately, Alexander Ovechkin plays for all 30 teams.
  
  
• Make sure any league decision is in the best interest of the fans by constantly asking "What would the Toronto Blue Jays do in this situation?", then doing the exact opposite.
  
  
• The next time NBC executives ask the league to play a crucial playoff game outside of prime time, Gary Bettman will look them straight in the eye and say "no" before immediately assuring them he was kidding, refilling their coffee cup, and scheduling the game for 3:00 a.m.
  
  
• Encourage financial responsibility among star players by reminding them to insist on receiving their full change after cab rides.
  
  
• Offer a boost to struggling franchises in Tampa Bay and Florida by having them play each other in this year's Winter Classic in Miami.
  
  
• Encourage US fans to attend regular season games in person instead of watching them for free on TV by making sure the games are broadcast on a third-rate network nobody has ever heard of.
  
  
• In the Western Conference, I don't know, maybe try letting somebody other than the Red Wings be good every now and then?
  
  
• To better attract southern US fans, zambonis will now travel 190 mph, only turn left, and occasionally crash into the end boards and explode.
  
  
• Have Gary Bettman give one of his "everything is going great" press conferences. Those always work.
  
  
• Continue taking the advice of marketing consultants by changing uniform designs, swapping home/away colors, and encouraging teams to come up with new third jerseys every year. Because nothing builds fan loyalty like a fun game of "wait, which one of these teams am I supposed to be cheering for?"
  
  
• Goaltenders must now twitter during shootout attempts.
  
  
• In order to encourage success in the crucial New York market, pass a new rule forcing less-important teams to take on the Rangers' bad contracts via horrible trades (rule already enacted).
  
  
• At all costs, avoid moving any teams into Canada's declining market, and instead keep them in places like Phoenix where hockey's popularity hasn't changed in 100 years.

Maple Leafs Overtime Heroes: Mike Foligno vs. the Red Wings

This post kicks off a new series where we'll occasionally look back at memorable Leaf playoff overtime goals. Today's goal is Mike Foligno's winner against the Red Wings in game five of the 1993 playoffs, which gave the Leafs a 3-2 series lead.

Any Leaf fan over the age of 25 should remember Mike Foligno's overtime goal against the Red Wings. Probably the most famous goal of Foligno's long career, it served as turning point in the Leafs' eventual series win that launched the rebirth of the Leafs as quasi-contenders.

Heading into game five in Detroit, the series had been predictable: the heavily favored Wings had won two blowouts at home, while the underdog Leafs had won two squeakers at MLG. Mid-way through the game it seemed like the pattern would hold, as the Leafs were trailing 4-1.

Thanks to a furious comeback by the Leafs and some Toskalish goaltending by Tim Cheveldae, the two teams went to overtime for the first time in the series. And just two minutes in, this happened:

The video pretty much speaks for itself, and I could just end the post here. But I hope everyone realizes by now that that's not the way things work around these parts.

No, instead we're going to analyze the entire clip in ridiculous detail. Here are nine interesting things about this goal:

Probert's giveaway
The play starts with one of the worst overtime giveaways in recent memory. Bob Probert has an easy path out of the Wings zone, but sees a check coming from Foligno and throws the puck carelessly along the blueline instead.

Now a lot of people will criticize Probert for this one, but I'm going to defend him. Put yourself in his position. He's trying to make a play along the boards when out of the corner of his eye he sees somebody skating towards him wearing a Maple Leafs jersey with the numbers "1" and "7" on it.

Every other time this happened to Probert in his career, he spent the next few days trying to poop out shards of his own teeth. So I don't think you can blame him for going into full-on panic mode here. I think he actually showed a lot of restraint by not finding the nearest exit, sprinting down the hallway and pulling the first fire alarm he saw.

Anyways, the puck slides almost all the way across the ice before two players converge on it.

Clark vs. Lidstrom
Yes, that's a young Nik Lidstrom trying to stop Wendel Clark along the boards. Clark winds up with the puck. Lidstrom winds up with a nicely framed diploma, because he gets taken to school.

Here's an approximate transcript of Nik Lidstrom's thought process on this play:

"Here comes the puck, I should probably go and... oh god almighty, here comes Wendel. OK, stay calm. Hook him. Hook him again. Don't make eye contact. Hook him a third time. He's not stopping. Dear god why isn't anybody helping me? Now he just slammed on the brakes and left me standing here by myself. Good, I'm going to just aimlessly skate backwards and let somebody else deal with this. Hey, did somebody just pull a fire alarm?"

After Clark is done shrugging off a terrified Lidstrom he spins back and executes a backhanded saucer pass to a streaking Foligno, who Clark was no doubt able to spot because of...

Foligno's helmet
Three things you need to know about Mike Foligno's helmet.

• He made it himself out of an old salad bowl.
  
• It had a white stripe around it for absolutely no reason.
  
• For his entire Leafs career, it was always a slightly different shade of blue than everyone else's

And yes, I listed those in increasing order of how much they annoyed me. And still do.

The goal
Not much to say about this one, except to point out that Cheveldae executes one of the great overtime "losing goaltender sprint off the ice" moves of all-time. I love those.

There are only two types of athletes who are allowed to react to crushing defeat by storming away as quickly as they can: sobbing five-year-olds whose parents signed them up for sports against their will, and NHL goaltenders. And when they build a hall of fame for losing goalie sprints, the first inductee will be Ed Belfour.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh right. Moving on...

The Foligno Leap
Every Leaf fan knows the Foligno Leap, and at least 25% have suffered a serious ACL injury trying to replicate it.

But here's a question: why did Mike Foligno have his own patented goal celebration? Has any other player in NHL history had a specific goal celebration that was unique ot them? I don't mean one-time deals like Ovechkin's hot stick or Selanne's air rifle, I mean specific celebrations that they did every single time they scored. I can't think of any.

Doesn't that seem odd to you? Journeyman grinder Mike Foligno somehow became the only player to get his own patented celebration. This would be like if the only NFL wide receiver to ever do an endzone celebration was Waybe Chrebet. And yet everyone in the hockey world was fine with this.

So Foligno does his leap, the Leafs pile onto the ice, and we get a rare sighting of...

Darren Puppa
Is it me, or is Puppa a little bit too involved in the post-goal celebration? He's only been on the team for a few weeks, but he's right in there, aggressively looking for somebody to hug but not finding any takers.

True story: I was once at a wedding reception with Darren Puppa. A friend and I decided to play a game called "how many reception pictures can you take that have Darren Puppa somewhere in the background?" After a few drinks, we were basically posing for pictures in his lap.

He probably hates me.

Alright then, moving on...

Todd Gill's celebration
This was an important goal scored by the Leafs during the 1990s, so you're no doubt assuming that Todd Gill was on the ice. And he was, as you can see on the right-side of the screen during the replay at the 0:50 mark.

Watch his reaction. When the goal goes in, Gill raises his arms in the air and appears to do a 360-degree twirl. He doesn't head for Foligno, or towards another teammate. He just stays where he is and spins around by himself.

It's a bizarre was to react to a goal, but it felt vaguely familiar to me. And then it hit me: arms raised... random spinning... no interaction with teammates...

Todd Gill is doing the goal celebration from NHL '93!

The only thing missing is an occasional fist pump, an annoying siren, and my college roommate desperately trying to check him headfirst into the boards from behind and then making me watch the replay of that seven hundred times.

Pat Burns' reaction
This is the single greatest "holy crap, I can not believe we actually won" reaction of all time. Burns doesn't even try to contain it. He can not believe the Maple Leafs actually won this game.

He's still smiling a minute later as the players are coming off the ice. He's in such a good mood that we get to see a series of awkward high five attempts, even though Burns is holding either a pen or a Virginia Slim cigarette. I think you can tell which players on the team were cool by how they react to the high-five. Doug Gilmour handles it smoothly, while Mike Krushelnyski has no idea what to do.

Also, Burns is wearing suspenders. I don't know why this makes it so much better, but it does.

The old man strut
At the very end of the clip, you can see Foligno leave the ice and walk into the dressing room. Except he doesn't walk. He lets out some sort of warrior scream, then proceeds to strut into the dressing room like he's Ric Flair fighting a stomach flu.

As an added bonus, Kent Manderville tries to leap into Foligno's arms but mistimes it and winds up awkwardly landing by himself.

Homework assignment: at some point this week, you must enter a room strutting like Mike Foligno. And that includes the pre-strut scream. I'd suggest a crowded elevator, a church service, or a conference room at work during a meeting you were not invited to. Report back here when done.

Update: Commenter kidkawartha adds a tenth moment: at 0:42, does Foligno seem to be... um... "getting to know" Bob Rouse?

A word about those "classless" Red Wing fans

So by now you've no doubt heard about the NHL's latest scandal.

On Friday night, during the most important game in recent league history, Detroit Red Wings fans actually cheered when Penguins' captain Sidney Crosby suffered a knee injury in the second period.

For that sin, Wings fans are taking heat today from the media, blogs, and just about everywhere else.

They stand accused of the one apparently unforgivable sin among hockey fans these days: not being "classy".

Yes, it's time to break out the top hats and monocles. Because while the NHL can forgive fans for being fickle, apathetic, and even just plain non-existent, the one thing we simply can not tolerate is a lack of class.

What happened to us?

Years ago, Ranger fans would throw sugar packets at Bobby Clarke because he was diabetic. But today, fans are expected to treat NHL contest like a peewee house league game: lots of encouragement, hearty cheers for trying hard, and all the players get taken out for ice cream at the end of the game.

Wings fans are only the latest ones to be branded with the scarlet "C". Remember when Leafs fans were classless for cheering when Mark Bell crushed Daniel Alfredsson? Apparently any injury must be met with bowed heads, reverent silence, and perhaps some ceremonial candle lighting.

This should be the rule when it comes to injuries: Unless the player is laying motionless or squirting blood into the stands or otherwise showing sign of a career-threatening injury (i.e. the Michael Irvin Exception), there's nothing wrong with cheering a big hit. Nobody likes to see an injury, but hockey is a contact sport and a few bumps and bruises are part of the deal.

But what about Crosby? "When somebody's injured, I don't think that's something to cheer about," Crosby told reporters. Shouldn't Wings fans have taken his feelings into account?

Please. A 21-year-old multi-millionaire tweaks his knee, and some laid off auto-worker in the stands is supposed to worry about making him feel bad?

The bottom line is that Crosby's injury made it more likely that the Wings would win the game -- which, as you may recall, was game seven of the Stanley Cup finals. Does anybody really expect Wings fans to be upset when Pittsburgh's best player leaves the game?

Of course not. Because after all, this isn't about the fans actually doing anything wrong.

It's about the hockey world's most annoying new trend: fake outrage. And it doesn't take much these days to get hockey fans up on their soap boxes.

Every bad call is a conspiracy. Every bloodied nose should be a suspension. And if any crowd makes the slightest bit of noise in support of someone other than your personal favorite team, go online and start calling them classless.

Mike Milbury made headlines this year when he talked about the "pansification" of hockey. Maybe he should have been talking about the fans.

So enough with talk of being "classy". It's become a cliche. We need a one-year moratorium on the term. If you really feel the need to take aim at another team's fanbase, at least work in the tiniest shred of originality.

And besides, all these fans whimpering about "class" should be careful what they wish for.

After all, do you know which fans are indisputably classy? The ones in the lower bowl of the ACC in Toronto. Those fine folks can always be counted on to applaud politely, never raises their voices, and drink their mineral water with their pinky fingers extended.

Yep, they're classy through and through. They're also the worst fans in the entire league, an absolute embarrassment to real hockey fans everywhere.

And it will be a sad day if Detroit fans ever start taking lessons from them.

Hossa and Heatley: the NHL's two biggest losers

Raise your hand if you're
an overpaid goal-suck.

Wow, that guy up there is a dick.

What do Dany Heatley and Marian Hossa have in common?

Four things come to mind:

• They're both in the news this weekend
  
• They were once traded for each other
  
• They were both responsible for tragic, careless accidents that we've all apparently agreed to never mention under any circumstances
  
• They're both losers.

Let's look at Hossa first. As everyone knows by now, Hossa was part of last year's Cup losing Penguins squad, turned down a big offer so he could jump ship to Detroit because he thought they had a better chance of winning, then lost against last night to the same Pens team he snubbed. In other words, he might want to check if his Magic Eight Ball is still under warranty.

Hossa's failure to win means one of hockey's strangest facts still holds true: the Senators have never drafted a player who has won a Stanley Cup. Anywhere. Ever. (Update: Except for Stan Neckar? See comments.)

They're at 0-for-151 and counting. Even the Leafs, a team known for screwing up all those rare draft picks that they didn't trade away for senior citizens, have managed to pick at least three four Cup winners since the Sens joined the league.

Three is the loneliest number

At the end of game seven, I wondered via Twitter if Hossa was the only player from the game who wouldn't have a Cup ring. A few folks pointed out that Ty Conklin and Jonathan Ericsson would also fall into the category.

So there you have it. Out of forty players from last night's game, three went home without a championship on their resume: a rookie, a backup goalie, and a veteran superstar who chooses his team based on whoever he thinks has the best chance at winning. I'm not sure if that should make Hossa feel better or worse.

One thing you can say in Hossa's defence: at least he's a loser against his will. At least he wants to win. Which is more that we can say about Dany Heatley.

Yes, Heatley. The guy who was perfectly happy playing under coaches like Craig Hartsburg and John Paddock even though the team was awful. After all, he was getting his ice time, racking up the stats, and being coddled by coaches who certainly weren't going to ask him to do anything crazy like play defence or actually work hard.

Then along comes Cory Clouston. Now, Clouston's winning record in the second half of the season is over-hyped (the Sens didn't face an actual starting goalie after November). But he deserves credit for at least trying to demand some accountability from Ottawa's notorious band of primadonnas. Apparently, that was just too much for Heatley to handle.

And while the rift with Clouston has been the big news, apparently there's more to Heatley's unhappiness. According to GM Bryan Murray, Heatley felt that "being questioned by the media wasn't fair, so I was told".

Let's take a second to digest that: Dany Heatley can't handle the Ottawa hockey media. The glee club. The pom-pom brigade. The group that does everything but form a human pyramid in the press box.

Brennan comes clean

Even the Sens' head cheerleader, Don Brennan, admitted as much earlier this week, saying that once Heatley was gone he'd "long for the day he was back in Ottawa, where for various reasons he was an object around which a lot of tip-toeing was done."

If Heatley can't handle Ottawa, how's he going to do in a market where the media is actually allowed to get critical? As Brennan rightly points out, "Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons would make Heatley cry like a schoolgirl".

Since it's virtually impossible to find a team with a more homer-ish media than Ottawa, Heatley will apparently just need to find a city where hockey gets no coverage at all. So that narrows his choices down to just, oh, two-thirds of the western conference.

For once, Sens fans really do have something to cry about

It's almost impossible to feel bad for Senators fans, a notoriously insecure group of front-runners who fundamentally misunderstand their place in the hockey world. But in this case, you have to offer up some sympathy. Dany Heatley stabbed them all in the back, and now they're going to have to watch Murray make a three-quarters-for-a-dollar trade just to get rid of him.

(And just wait until he starts using his NTC to veto potential deals...)

So here's a little tip for Marian Hossa, a soon-to-be-UFA who'll be able to once again pick whichever team he thinks has the best chance of winning next year: Wait until Heatley is traded before you sign.

That way, you'll have at least one team you can definitely cross off your list of contenders.

Seven signs that your team is not winning Game Seven

A seasoned hockey fan knows how to look for the subtle signs that a team is headed to victory: The steely look of determination in a captain's eye... the small but crucial lift provided by a raucous home crowd... the calming confidence of a veteran coach...

Then again, sometimes the signs point to a devastating defeat. And as a Leafs fan, that's sort of my specialty.

So Wings and Pens fans, I want to help. After all, if you're team is going to lose the biggest game they'll ever play, you might as well know in advance. So here are seven subtle signs to watch for on Friday night to alert you that your team just might not be winning the Cup.

Penguin fans

Your team is probably not winning Game Seven if you notice that...

• Sidney Crosby is playing so poorly that Pierre McGuire has stopped blowing him, and is now merely dry-humping him.
  
  
• The announcers repeatedly describe Marc-Andrew Fleury as being in "WJC gold medal game form".
  
  
• Eklund just posted that his inside sources tell him that the Penguins are winning.
  
  
• Detroit is so far ahead that Red Wings fans have actually shut up with their inane Gary Bettman conspiracy theories for five god damned minutes.
  
  
• During pre-game skate, Red Wing players appear extra motivated by moving locker room plea to "Go out there and win one for Nik Lidstrom's testicle".
  
  
• One of your so-called veteran leaders let himself be photographed next to a sign mocking the other team. No, just kidding, nobody would be that dumb.
  
  
• The game turns out to be one of those flukey contests where the winner is decided purely based on which team has better hockey players.

Red Wing fans

Your team is probably not winning Game Seven if you notice that...

• For some strange reason, tonight Pascal Dupuis is playing on Crosby's line, is having the game of his life, and looks suspiciously like a slightly overweight Mario Lemeiux.
  
  
• Due to tough economic times, traditional "octopus" thrown on the ice appears to actually be two house cats staple-gunned together.
  
  
• As the clock ticks down, excited Penguin teammates can be seen explaining to former Maple Leaf Hal Gill what the "Stanley Cup" is.
  
  
• The official Cup engraver can be seen wandering the hallways asking if anyone knows how to spell "Goligoski".
  
  
• Announcers mention that prior to taking the ice, the Wings received a fiery pre-game motivational speech from Matt Millen.
  
  
• Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski is busy working on a post acknowledging that the Penguins might be almost as good as the Capitals.
  
  
• During the third period, Marion Hossa is sitting in the press box negotiating a new contract with the Penguins.

Stanley Cup preview: Who has the edge?

By now you've no doubt read dozens of Stanley Cup final previews, all of which followed the exact same format: quick blurbs about each team under the categories "Forwards", "Defense", "Goaltending" and "Special Teams", with an "edge" awarded to either side.

Well, sure, all those things are important. But what about everything else? Clearly there's more to winning hockey than just having skill at forward, defence, goal and special teams. After all, the Leafs didn't have any of those things last year, and they still managed to win six games.

So as always, it falls to me to dig a little deeper. Here's a Cup preview based on ten critical categories that everyone else is overlooking.


Did they touch the trophy?

Detroit: Acting captain Henrik Zetterberg refused to touch the Clarence Campbell Bowl.

Pittsburgh: Captain Sidney Crosby picked up Prince of Wales Trophy, skated it over to teammates, then took it home and made sweet tender love to it for three straight days.

Edge: Detroit


Fan Participation:

Detroit: Fan spend entire playoffs cheering on home team, debating every nuance of each game, and counting down the days until they can once again cheer the hoisting of a Stanley Cup.

Pittsburgh: Fan spend entire playoffs sending photoshops into The Pens Blog.

Edge: Even.


The Malkin Factor

Pittsburgh: Media unanimously agrees that Evgeni Malkin is the most unstoppable playoff performer in NHL history.

Detroit: Media will unanimously agrees that Evgeni Malkin is the greatest playoff choker in NHL history as soon as he has one bad game.

Edge: TBD


Playoff Beard Quality

Detroit: Entire team looks like Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies.

Pittsburgh: Sidney Crosby looks like Adam Morrison's kid brother.

Edge: Detroit


Motivation

Pittsburgh: With a win, perhaps NBC will finally start paying some attention to this Sidney Crosby kid.

Detroit: Stanley Cup drought now up to a franchise record 12 months.

Edge: Even


Does Marion Hossa play for them?

Detroit: Marion Hossa does play for them.

Pittsburgh: Marion Hossa does not play for them.

Edge: Pittsburgh.


Injuries

Pittsburgh: Are relatively healthy, assuming nobody has tried to skate around Alexander Ovechkin lately.

Detroit: Have been without future Hall-of-Famers Nik Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk, forcing team's other twelve future Hall-of-Famers to somehow carry the load.

Edge: Pittsburgh


Defensive zone strategy

Pittsburgh: When an opposing player enters the defensive zone, the team reverts to a passive zone system, attempting to keep the puck on the perimeter and use speed and skill to create turnovers for quick strike counter-attack offensive opportunities.

Detroit: When an opposing player enters the defensive zone, Niklas Kronwall kills them.

Edge: Detroit


Ex-Leafs

Pittsburgh: Roster includes former Leaf Hal Gill, who was signed as a free agent by John Ferguson Jr. and coached on defensive positioning by Paul Maurice.

Detroit: Have no ex-Leafs on roster.

Edge: Detroit


Strength Implied by Logo

Pittsburgh: The penguin, a pathetic little creature that waddles around helplessly, can't fly, and is easily gobbled up by seals and other predators without so much as putting up a fight.

Detroit: The red "winged wheel", a symbol of Detroit's auto industry.

Edge: Pittsburgh

The final four: Who should Leaf fans be cheering for?

For the sixth season in a row, the NHL's final four is taking place without an appearance by the Maple Leafs. That means that the league's largest fan base has nobody to cheer for. And with the second round elimination of the Canucks, there's not even a Canadian team left for Leaf fans to pretend to be cheering for while secretly rooting against.

What's a Leaf fan to do? Yes, OK, but besides watching John Tavares highlight tapes and fondling themselves, what's a Leaf fan to do?

I'm not here to give you the answer, but I do want you to make an informed decision. So here, from a Leaf fan's perspective, are some of the reasons to root for (or against) the four remaining teams.

---

Detroit Red Wings

Plus: In this economy, having the Stanley Cup stay in Detroit for another year increases chances that Maple Leafs will eventually be able to buy it in a Windsor pawn shop.

Minus: Their second round victory over the Anaheim Ducks provided disturbing evidence that teams built by Brian Burke can sometimes still lose.

Plus: As the top remaining seed, are the team most likely to win the final round in a sweep. Which, based on the schedule, is the only way these playoffs are ending before July.

Minus: A raucous Stanley Cup celebration could endanger us all by startling Zombie Chris Chelios.

Plus: Occasional news of a Red Wings championship is the only joy left in the life of Bob Probert, as he spends his post-retirement days in the concrete underground bunker he constructed to avoid Wendel Clark.

---

Chicago Blackhawks

Plus: Sort of tough to root against the team that gave us Stu Grimson, Dave Manson, and the quivering corpse of Mike Peluso.

Minus: Their upset win over the Canucks brought on the start of Kyle Wellwood's off-season much earlier than expected, possibly leading to summer-long food shortages in Western Canada.

Plus: An appearance in finals might lead to someone mentioning that the Hawks have the longest current NHL championship drought, which would be news to the majority of Canadian hockey fans who assume that the Leafs do.

Minus: If the Hawks win a Cup, a gleeful Toronto media will no doubt produce a flood of stories about the Leafs drought now being the NHL's longest, including one article produced solely by Howard Berger dry-humping his keyboard.

Plus: Are proving that a team can win despite overpaid and sub-par goaltending, which might help create an off-season market for Vesa Toskala.

---

Pittsburgh Penguins

Plus: Offer hope to Leafs fans by proving that a decade of constant losing, front office incompetence, and almost total irrelevance can result in a pretty darn good roster.

Minus: Every game they win means a few more days of having to look at Sidney Crosby's child molester moustache playoff beard.

Plus: Jordan Staal's showdown with brother Eric will inevitably result in TSN doing a "top ten hockey brothers of all-time" countdown, and it will be nice to see Luke and Brayden Schenn in the #1 spot.

Minus: Not really fair for them to win this year's Stanley Cup, since they're already pencilled in to win the next five or six.

Plus: Feature an inspiring feel-good story in form of defenceman Hal Gill, the only player ever signed by John Ferguson Jr. who is still playing in the NHL.

---

Carolina Hurricanes:

Plus: Each win results in more momentum for the idea of Cam Ward starting for the Canadian Olympic team in place of Roberto Luongo, which is great news assuming you're among the 99.5% of the world's population that isn't from Canada.

Minus: Sometimes, their runs to the Cup final result in Leafs getting stuck with their loser coach.

Plus: If they win, Leaf fans won't have to put up with annoying trash-talk from die-hard Hurricanes fans, since there aren't any.

Minus: Yet another Cup ring for Frantisek Kaberle might make brother Tomas start to have second thoughts about this whole "have zero interest in ever playing for a winning team" policy.

Plus: A championship run would help with publicity for Scott Walker's admirable new charity, "Beat Cervical Cancer by Sucker Punching it in the Face".

---

The bottom line: I think when you weigh the evidence, the final verdict is pretty clear. Leafs Nation, we can all agree on this, right?

Yeah, I thought so. Pass the Tavares highlights.

Round two scouting reports

A few days ago, we took a look at the NHL's 22 losers that are sitting at home. Now let's turn our attention to the teams that are still alive, with a round two scouting report.

---

Washington Capitals

Strengths:

• Are wisely keeping starting goaltender Jose Theodore extremely well-rested.
  
• Have so much depth that they were somehow able to win a game seven despite absence of Donald Brashear
  
• Intimidating fans are known to loudly questions opposing players' sexuality, which is pretty rich coming from guys who chant "We Want Semin".

Weakness:

• Star player Alexander Ovechkin often spends as much as four of five minutes every period just sitting on bench, doing nothing.

How to beat them:

• Let Ovechkin get a few goals early; hope he tires himself out celebrating.

-- vs. --

Pittsburgh Penguins

Strengths:

• Feature a roster full of excellent young players due to strong scouting, patient coaching, and drafting first overall ten years in a row.
  
• Have drawn inspiration from undisputed locker room leader, the mummified corpse of Gary Roberts.
  
• In the long history of talented players to come out of Russia, Evgeni Malkin will quite possibly go down as the second best one to ever play in this series.

Weakness:

• Extra slippery ice at Mellon Arena sometimes causes team's star players to fall down for no reason at all.

How to beat them:

• Don't punch the crap out of Maxime Talbot, apparently.

---

Carolina Hurricanes

Strengths:

• Coach Paul Maurice has referred to leadership core as "easily the most dedicated group of players I've seen in, oh, three years".
  
• Enjoy unrivaled home ice advantage thanks to savvy fans who save up energy by only remembering that hockey exists once the playoffs start.
  
• Is probably not mathematically impossible for them to win the Cup this year.

Weakness:

• Are still, when you get right down to it, the Hartford Whalers.

How to beat them:

• Employ a goalie who is not so fat that he gets winded at the very end of every close game.

-- vs. --

Boston Bruins

Strengths:

• In recent big games, have been pretty good at remembering how many players you're allowed to have on the ice.
  
• Zdeno Chara able to calmly clear puck from goalmouth scrambles without leaving bench.
  
• Will be feeding off the energy of an entire state full of douchey, bandwagon-jumping sports fans who haven't had a championship to celebrate in like ten whole months

Weakness:

• May be rusty coming off of first-round bye.

How to beat them:

• Remind Tim Thomas that he is, in fact, Tim Thomas.

---

Anaheim Ducks

Strengths:

• Roster was largely assembled by Brian Burke, who is unanimously considered the smartest man alive.
  
• Disorient opponents by annoyingly playing all their home games way later than everyone else.
  
• Virtually every player on roster is an experienced fighter not intimidated by violence, which will come in handy if team bus breaks down on way to arena in Detroit

Weakness:

• It's possible that Ryan Getzlaf may have got some choking loser germs on him while fighting Joe Thornton.

How to beat them:

• Somehow trick them into thinking it's the regular season.
  

-- vs. --

Detroit Red Wings

Strengths:

• Are known for superior conditioning, which will allow players to recover more quickly from Chris Pronger cheapshots.
  
• Are so solid defensively that even terrible goaltender Chris Osgood can win multiple championships for them.
  
• In a pinch, some guy they drafted 200th overall last year will just emerge as a future hall-of-famer.

Weakness:

• Might be getting bored of winning the Stanley Cup by now.

How to beat them:

• Get to overtime of game seven. Let tiny Russian man-child do the rest.
  

---

Chicago Blackhawks

Strengths:

• Winning percentage is significantly higher indoors than out.
  
• Martin Havlat has bought into team's disciplined approach so much that he hardly ever kicks anyone in the groin any more.
  
• Somehow managed to turn an old man dying of cancer into a feel-good story.

Weakness:

• Winning game one of the Flames series 12 seconds into sudden death was a foolish waste of an opportunity to amass valuable overtime experience.

How to beat them:

• Hold all games in a nightclub that checks ID, thus eliminating most of the Hawks best players.
  

-- vs. --

Vancouver Canucks

Strengths:

• Have this guy named Sedin who is so lightning quick that he often sets himself up for one-timers.
  
• Own an excellent record when scoring first, largely because their goalie gets a shutout every game.
  
• Are lead by veteran Mats Sundin, for whom "winning a Stanley Cup" is unquestionably a top ten non-poker-related personal goal.

Weakness:

• Players run slightly higher than average risk of contracting lice due to habit of pulling opponent's hair when getting ass kicked in fight.

How to beat them:

• Hope that Roberto Luongo's wife has a baby three or four times during the series.

10 Memorable Playoff Fights

The playoffs are here. And you know what that means: the usual suspects will start endlessly pointing out that there's no fighting in the post-season.

Which, of course, isn't true. While there's certainly far less fighting in the playoffs, it doesn't disappear entirely and never has. In fact despite the league's steady stream of rule changes and near-constant finger wagging from the media, some of the more memorable fights in recent years have come when there was the most at stake.

We've already done the fighting debate song and dance around here, so let's save that for another day. Instead, let's just enjoy ten of the most memorable playoff fights of the instigator era.

Thanks to all the fine folks at hockeyfights.com for their help with this list.

#10 - Tie Domi vs. Donald Brashear
2003 Eastern Conference Quarter-Finals

Domi always seemed to have trouble against much bigger guys like Brashear. And by "always", I mean "always, except for here".

Odd stat: Donald Brashear is now 0-2 lifetime in the #10 spot of DGB Top Ten Lists.

#9 - Bob Probert vs. Chris Simon
1996 Western Conference Semi-Finals

Veteran heavyweight Bob Probert takes a run at Joe Sakic. Bad idea, as it turns out.

This fight was important because it allowed the 1996 Avalanche to get all that violence out of their system before their upcoming series against the Red Wings.

#8 - Colorado Avalanche vs. Detroit Red Wings
1997 Western Conference Finals

This isn't one their best efforts, but it's not bad. And I can't do a "best fights" list without including these two teams somewhere.

And no, I have no idea how Patrick Roy didn't wind up in the middle of this.

#7 - Zdeno Chara vs. Vincent Lecavlier
2006 Eastern Conference Quarter-Finals

Two things we know for sure about fighting: it doesn't exist in the playoffs, and only no-talent goons do it.

Why are two franchise guys like Chara and Heatley fighting for the Senators? Well, that's what ends up happening when your so-called tough guy does stuff like this earlier in the game.

#6 - St. Louis Blues vs. Detroit Red Wings
1997 Western Conference Quarter-Finals

Gary Bettman can change the names around all he wants... sometimes the Norris is still the Norris.

Nice cheap shot by Pronger. Guess he was mad that he couldn't find anyone to elbow.

#5 - Shane Churla vs. Darin Kimble
1991 Norris Division Semi-Final

Five seconds to go in the game, and these two are not kidding around.

Hey, remember when "setting the tone for the next game" meant doing stuff like this, not whining to the media about how you weren't getting enough power plays?

#4 - Shayne Corson vs. Eric Cairns
2002 Eastern Conference Quarter-Finals

This gong show of a series is still the most vicious I've ever seen. This is the fight that saw Corson suspended for trying to knee Cairns in the head, one game after Tucker and Roberts eliminated Peca and Jonsson. I blame you for all of this, Steve Webb.

And since I feel dirty for posting a fight that a Leaf lost, here's what happened a few minutes later to cleanse your palette.

#3 - Garth Snow vs. Steve Shields
1997 Eastern Conference Quarter-Finals

Garth Snow does a masterful job of looking tough, right up until the moment when the fight actually starts.

This was the most one-sided beating of Snow's career. Or at least it will be, until the next few weeks when he tries to talk trade with Brian Burke.

#2 - Jarome Iginla vs. Vincent Lecavlier
2004 Stanley Cup Finals

The two best players in the Stanley Cup finals decide to drop their gloves. Other than that, pretty standard.

Needless to say, the crowd is outraged and boos throughout the entire incident.

#1 - Wendel Clark vs. Marty McSorley
1993 Campell Conference Finals

This is not just the greatest playoff fight of all time, it's also the greatest moment in all of human history.

And of course, a glove tap to Todd Gill and Dave Taylor on the undercard.

A few honorable mentions:

• Jarome Iginla and Francois Beauchemin drop the lids.
  
• Islanders vs Capitals - You know in hindsight, Hunter's hit may have been a little late.
  
• Felix Potvin and friends vs. Dino Ciccarelli, which I can't find on youtube but featured Bob Cole's infamous "Oh, there's gonna be a donnybrook here!" call.
  
• Ryan Getzlaf vs Dion Phaneuf. Again, remember, stars never fight.
  
• Brent Burns vs. Corey Perry
  
• Ryan Whitney eats Wade Redden's lunch
  

Wendel Moment #10 - Clark debuts as captain

On November 22, Wendel Clark's #17 will be raised to the rafters as the team honours its former captain and arguably the most popular player in franchise history.

In the lead up to that night, Down Goes Brown will feature a countdown of Wendel's Top 17 Greatest Moments.

Expectations weren't high for the Maple Leafs heading into 1991 season opener. The team was coming off yet another disappointing season and wasn't expected to contend for much of anything.

There was reason for optimism, though. New GM Cliff Fletcher was on board, and had swung a blockbuster deal to acquire Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson in the off-season. And the team had a new captain, having bestowed the honour on Wendel Clark in August.

In his first game as captain in Toronto, Clark single-handedly dominated the Red Wings, both physically and on the scoresheet. He notched three goals and added two assists in an 8-5 Leafs victory. Combined with his three points in the season opener in Montreal, that gave Wendel eight points in two games to start the season.

The game was a wild one. The Wings peppered 50 shots on Fuhr, and the two teams combined for 13 goals plus two more that were disallowed thanks to the league's wonderful new "in the crease" rule. Former Leaf Allan Bester even made an appearance for the Wings.

This game would serve as one of the few highlights of the the 1991-92 season (the other being the acquisition of Doug Gilmour in January). But it served notice to the league that Wendel Clark was back, and he was angry. With Gilmour and Pat Burns on the way, Leaf fans would soon find out just how much damage Clark could do.

Top 10 Norris Division Tough Guys

The Leafs opening week schedule felt like a blast from the past, a link back to the old glory days when hockey was truly at its best.

No, no, not the Habs game. Screw those guys. I'm talking about the matchups against the Red Wings and Blues. With rare games against both teams in the same week, Leaf fans could be excused for feeling like for a few short days they were back where they belong: in the Norris Division.

Ah, the Norris. Perhaps the greatest division in hockey history, at least as long as you don't count meaningless stats like wins. While the rest of the league was busy winning championships, the Norris squads were pounding the crap out of each other for a solid decade. And fans loved it.

So before we go back to playing the Northeast division every single game for three months, let's take a moment to look back fondly at those Norris days. Let's tip our caps and bang our sticks on the ice for ten guys who made the division what it was. Let's honor the 10 Greatest Norris Division Tough Guys.

First things first
For sake of history, the Norris Division technically existed from 1974 to 1993, when Gary Bettman realized that hockey fans really loved the division names and wisely decided to change them to something non-fans in Alabama would like instead.

However, everyone knows that the real Norris Division was the 1982-1992 version that features the Leafs, Wings, Hawks, Blue and North Stars. That's the version we're talking about here. Sorry Lightning, you never counted.

Tough guys who played in the division outside of those dates aren't eligible, which is why you don't see guys like Tie Domi or Tony Twist. I've also focused on enforcers who were primarily there to fight, which is why you don't see power forwards like the Sutters, Gerard Gallant, and especially Wendel Clark who would have occupied all ten spots of the list if I'd included him and for the record could (and did) punch all the blood out of any guy listed below.

On to the list...

10. Kelly Chase
Norris team: Blues

Chase had two runs with the Blues, one Norris and one post-Norris. He was a classic Norris enforcer: always willing to drop the gloves to protect a teammate, to avenge a wrong, or just because the game was getting a little bit boring. This old Saskatchewan farm boy was fixture in St. Louis in the early 90s.

On a side note, Chase recently made news when he announced that he's been diagnosed with a brain lesion. Get well, Kelly.

Here's Chase standing tall with Ken Daneyko:

9. Mike Peluso
Norris team: Blackhawks

Peluso's best year as a Norris slugger was 1991-92, when he managed an impressive 408 PIM. Of course, Peluso rarely won his fights, but he makes the list based on sheer volume.

True fact: Peluso is one of the two best Mike Pelusos to ever play for the Blackhawks. (Editor's note: Pelusoes? Pelusi?)

Here's Peluso trading haymakers with the Missing Link:

8. Ken Baumgartner
Norris team: Maple Leafs

The Bomber only played parts of two seasons in the real Norris, although he had a lengthy run in Toronto -- first as the undisputed heavyweight, and later as Tie Domi's wingman. But he makes the list by virtue of being arguably the best technical fighter of his generation -- he was one of the few guys who could switch hands easily, and his ability to hold off an opponent meant he virtually never suffered a clean loss.

He was also the first enforcer to intentionally remove his jersey before a fight, making him largely responsible for the league mandating tie-downs. I'll leave it to the reader as to whether that's a plus or a minus.

Here's a classic bout with Cam Russell with a unique ending:

7. Stu Grimson
Norris team: Blackhawks

Like Baumgartner, Grimson would be higher on the list if he had played more than two years in the real Norris. Still, he gets in by virtue of his nickname ("The Grim Reaper"), and his general level of insanity.

Here's Grimson going looney tunes against the Maple Leafs:

6. Dave Manson
Norris team: Blackhawks

Manson comes close to being disqualified due to an under-rated level of skill. He was a solid defenceman. But he was also a scary guy (especially later in his career when his shattered voicebox made him talk like a movie villain) and had a memorable running feud with Scott Stevens.

Like most Blackhawk tough guys, Manson did his best work against the Leafs. Here's the best thing he ever did, breaking up the Leeman/Savard debacle and earning the rare triple-game misconduct in the process:

5. John Kordic
Norris team: Maple Leafs

First, the bad news. Kordic was nuts, was a heavy drug-user, and eventually died during a struggle with police.

The good news, at least as far as this list goes, is that he was a top-ranked heavyweight who brought desperately needed toughness to the Maple Leafs. Long-time readers already know why Courtnall-for-Kordic was a good trade, but here's the quick summary: at the time, the Leafs were a wimpy team who were getting killed in the Norris, and Kordic changed that in a hurry.

Here's the classic Kordic-McRae scrap. God I miss the Norris.

4. Shane Churla
Norris team: North Stars

Churla was the Stars policeman from the late 80s through the end of the Norris era, before he was tragically murdered by Pavel Bure.

Here's Sugar Shane in a classic with Darren Kimble:

3. Basil McRae
Norris team: All of them

Yes, McRae gets a special mention for playing for all five Norris teams at some point in his career. But his best work came with the North Stars from 1987-1992, a string that included three straight years of 350+ PIM.

He was never one of the most feared fighters in the league, and was rarely the biggest guy in a fight. But he was the prototypical grizzled veteran who never backed down from a chance to defend a team mate. If you don't respect Basil McRae, you don't like fighting.

Here's a classic playoff bout against The Reaper:

2. Joey Kocur
Norris team: Red Wings

Kocur is the smallest guy on the list at barely 6'0, but may be the downright nastiest. He wasn't even the toughest guy in his family (that would be cousin Wendel), but he was the toughest guy in just about every fight he ever had. Like Wendel, Kocur didn't have a jab. It was all haymakers, just like starting up the lawn mower in Kelvington, and Kocur sure knew how to land them.

Here's Joey's infamous destruction of Jim Kite:

1. Bob Probert
Norris team: Red Wings

We have some fun with Probert around here because of his many losses against Wendel Clark. But if losing to Wendel Clark meant you weren't tough then this list would have zero names on it, and besides Probert at least managed to skate away from all of his Wendel scraps which is more than most guys can say.

Beyond that, all you need to know about Probert is that he was so fearsome that when he did lose (Tie Domi, Troy Crowder) it was front page news. And he always took care of business in the rematch.

Here's Probert's all-time classic against Craig Coxe of the Canucks:

Agree? Disagree? Who did I leave out? Square off in the comments section, but don't forget to wait until a half-second after the puck drop.

Opening night quick hits

Some disjointed thoughts on The Greatest Upset in the History of Hockey...

• What's the over-under on "plan the parade" jokes tomorrow? I'm going to say 8.5.
  
  
• Tonight was a nice reminder that nothing should be taken for granted in sports. The Leafs were brought in for the Wings home opener to basically play the role of Iron Mike Sharpe, and instead they stole a win.
  
  What does it mean? Not much, to be honest.
  
  We've had weeks of predictions and analysis and projections, and virtually none of it will even come close to being accurate. I'm not going to go math geek on everyone, but plain old random chance plays far more of a role in pro sports outcomes than anyone us want to admit. You just never know.
  
  Can the Leafs shock everyone and make the playoffs? Sure they can. Do I think they'll be terrible? Absolutely. And there's nothing contradictory about those two sentences. The old cliche is true: anything can happen.
  
  None of that means the Leafs won't be a bad team. But it does mean that anybody who tries to tell you that any result in pro sports is impossible -- including this Leafs turning out to be pretty good -- just flat out doesn't know what they're talking about.
  
  
• On Pavel Kubina's goal, it was nice to see Chris Osgood do the same thing I do six times a game in NHL 09.
  
  
• Is there anybody left who likes the puck-over-the-glass rule? Anybody? And is the NHL the only pro league in the world that have rules that everybody agreed was moronic and not bother to change them? Don't answer that. Of course it is.
  
  Hey, let's combine stupid rules and make all games with a puck-over-glass penalty in them worth three points! Somebody call Gary Bettman!
  
  
• Damien Cox was blogging between periods. It was really good. I hope he keeps that up.
  
  ...
  
  No, seriously. It was good. No punchline. I hope Cox finds some ways to turn "The Spin", his quasi-daily web-based column, into an actual blog this year. This is a good first step.
  
  At this rate, maybe he'll even be using those "hyperlink" things by December.
  
  
• I haven't decided yet how many goals Dominic Moore needs to score before I decide to drop my irrational dislike for him. I'll let you know, though. I'm thinking 30.
  
  
• Was anyone else watching the final minute, as the Red Wings stormed the Leafs net and desperately jammed away in search of a game-tying goal, and yelling at the TV screen "DAMMIT, WHY ISN'T SCHENN ON THE ICE?"
  
  No? Just me? OK, carry on.
  

Congratulations to the Red Wings

Despite the longstanding rivalry with the Leafs, I've always respected the Wings. Their current roster was built without tanking or top draft picks -- just great scouting, good coaching, and an overall commitment to excellence that starts at the top and works down through every executive, coach and player.

A note to Leaf fans: The Wings have now won four Cups in 12 years. But before their win in 1997, they went 42 years without a Cup. That was 42 years of misery, including a very long stretch where the team was a complete non-factor. Then they got their act together, and the rest is history.

It can be done. Know hope.

P.S. A note to any Red Wings fans: click here.

Have we seen this before?

A few Hockey Day in Canada thoughts...

- The Leafs beat the Wings in overtime, thanks to their European forward tipping in a low point shot from the pinching defenceman. I could swear this reminds me of something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Any Red Wing fans want to help jog my memory?

- Linesman Pat Dapuzzo getting kicked in the face, suffering a broken jaw and 60-stitch cut, and then shoving the ref out of his way to go break up a fight was the most badass thing I've seen all year. The NHL should use that clip in their advertising.