Another Fantastically Coached Game

Don't know about you guys, but I know I always play my under-achieving, non-performing players more than anyone else. It is crucial they are out there not trying as hard as they can and taking terrible shots. I mean who else would I play? Oh anyone else you say. Yeah that would work.

Ryan Kesler performed, again shocking that a regular season performer would show-up in the playoffs. This concept is completely foreign to the Sedins and Alain. Just because you have a team in a position to eliminate them doesn't mean you have to...I got that from Alain's book "Win With The Least Amount Of Effort." 

Alain is a joke. This is just more proof of what a joke of a head coach he is. How many times are you going to have a team in this position and not finish it Alain? You are a joke, this team wins despite your awful decisions and coaching. This team would be waiting in the Western Conference Finals if it wasn't for awful coaching, and gutless leadership. I have held off on the "gutless" tag, but thats exactly what they are. They don't increase heart or energy for the playoffs. They treat every game, whether pre-season or post-season, the same.

Thats what pisses me off though. If these idiots would show just a little bit of passion and heart it would be no contest. But they are just fine with coasting by. They are gutless, and are a disgrace to the "C' and "A" they were so wrongly awarded. I would sooner make Cody Hodgson the Captain before I would make those lazy bastards. A complete joke. Keep coddling them though Alain, its worked so far, right?

He Ain't Got Time To Bleed

Well, well, well (to quote Joel Gertner) Nashville just had to keep poking the bear. They weren't happy enough eeking out one goal wins, and relying on Rinne to save them time and time again. Kesler has been a man possessed the last two games. He is stepping up big time now, plus Burrows has been on lock-down since Game 6 against Chicago. Raymond has been stepping his game up too. The points aren't quite there yet for May-Day, but he is flying around and hitting everything.

Its also nice to see one of the regular season beasts for the Canucks com through. Hear that Morphine Twins? Maybe if you showed half the heart Raymond has you would have more then 2 points in 4 games. But what do I know? I am sure playing with the same energy and heart as you would in December will work out in the long run. Not like anyone ever takes it up a notch in playoffs anyway.

James Norris and Mattias Ohlund Trophies

The three nominees for the 2011 James Norris Trophy are not really surprises, and all really worthy of winning. First is the defending Best Defenseman Zdeno Chara. He had a solid year with 14 Goals, 30 Assists, and was an impressive plus 33. He held down the Blueline on PPs, PKs, and, as always, a physical presence while on the ice, just ask Max Pacorietty.

Shea Weber was also nominated this year, and he will probably win, because lets face it, he is a big Canadian Defenseman that had a decent year. The Canadian media goes insane over these guys: Chris Pronger, Barret Jackman, Eric Brewer, etc. I am not taking anything away from Weber. He had 16 Goals, 32 Assists and was a plus 7. He was the best Defenseman on a defensive minded team. However, he has had some glaring problems. For instance in the 12 games his line mate Ryan Suter missed, Weber was a shocking -14. Thats the one major difference between Weber and the other two in this category. You could pair Chara and Nik Lidstrom with Ron Ward (Google it) and they would still put up the numbers.

Our last nominee is of course the aforementioned Lidstrom. He posted 16 Goals, 46 Assists and a -2 rating. He also only had 20 minutes in penalties, which is less than half of both Chara and Weber. He lead the Wings in ice-time, and damn near the league, and also on the first PP and PK units. Oh yeah, he is also 41 years old. The CBC recently did a poll, where it asked all NHL players various questions. One of which was: Who would you most like to build a franchise around? Lidstrom got second...he is 41! Lidstrom wins his seventh and likely last Norris.

As for the Canucks, it was a tough decision. Mainly because there were so many injuries to the Blueline this year. Hamhuis, Ballard, Salo (shocking, I know), Bieksa, Edler, and Alberts all missed significant time with injuries. All the fill-ins, Chris Tanev, Aaron Rome, Evan Oberg, and Yan Sauve filled in admirably, the first two carrying a lion's share of the load. This award has to go to Christian Ehrhoff though. He had 14 Goals, 36 Assists, and was a plus 19. He also played in 79 games, the most by any Canuck defender all year.

NHL GM Award, Which I Will Call The Norman "Bud" Poile Award

There is no name for this award, well at least one I couldn't find. So I decided to name it after the Canucks first GM. That and you can never go wrong by naming a trophy after a guy named Bud. Rather fitting as well considering his son, and 2001 winner, David Poile is nominated again. He is joined by Mike Gillis and Steve Yzerman.

Nothing against the junior Poile, but his teams are always the same. They play tight defense, have limited scoring, and rely heavily on their goaltending. They usually make a veteran pick up at some point, this year it was Mike Underwood-Fisher. They do develop young talent though and for that he should be commended. But the best GM? Sorry junior, not this year.

Next up is our very own Mike Gillis. Mike was sneaky good this year. I remember last summer being a little confused as to his additions, Dan Hamhuis, Keith Ballard, Manny Malhotra and Raffi Torres. Adding more defense seemed mind-boggling to me, but he was smart to sure-up the third line, which Malhotra and Torres did. The only major subtraction turned out to be Michal Grabner, who turned out to be fairly good. His deadline add-ons of Max Lapierre and Chris Higgins turned out to be great.

The third nominee was Steve Yzerman, who hasn't even had an entire year in the position, but has done wonders. He immediately went to work completely changing the culture of the team. He picked up key third and fourth line players, traded for Simon Gagne, and later in the year acquired Dwayne Roloson for essentially nothing. He stole Guy Boucher from Columbus with a visit, and turned an 80 point team into a 103 point team.

In my mind their is no doubt the First Annual Norman "Bud" Poile Trophy goes to the boy from Cranbrook, BC, The Captain, Steve Yzerman. True that Mike Gillis had to be more cautious with his cap space, and he would have won, if Yzerman had made on mistake, which he didn't. Not that its all that surprising, he has excelled at everything he has done. 

Jack Adams and Pat Quinn Awards

This award was the one that caused the most head-scratching. The nominees: Alain Vigneault, Dan Bylsma, and Barry Trotz are well enough. Alain, coach of the best team in the league, Dan Bylsma, team loses its two best players and makes the playoffs, and Barry Trotz...Barry Trotz. It seems like every year he is up for the award, which I have nothing against the guy, but give him one already. Its getting a little old.

The absences are the biggest questions on this list. Randy Carlisle did a good job this year, and Todd McLellan also coached a great regular season. One could also make a case for Peter Laviolette took essentially the same team and had a much better regular season. 

But the biggest glaring omission has to be Guy Boucher. Tampa finished last season with 80 points, this season they had 103. Yes a lot of that was due to the new GM Steve Yzerman, but Boucher got the stars back on track and was able to incorporate new acquisitions and rookies. The guy was everything Yzerman thought he could be and more.   

I think we all know where I stand on Alain. And I think thats obvious since the team has been winning despite his terrible decisions. Also whenever anyone mentions the Canucks, they always mention how great the defense has been under Rick Bowness. So great job Alain, you hired great assistant coaches. Not really award worthy.

Dan Bylsma did a great job as well, but his team had built a decent lead on most of the Eastern Conference when his stars started to drop like flies. They held it together for a good finish to the regular season and was able to get scoring out of everyone on the roster. 

Barry Trotz was the same old story: He got a lot out of a little. Like I said its the same every year. Not even going to acknowledge it.

My choice has to be Guy Boucher, and I know its lame because he was not officially nominated, but guess what? I am not going to take nominees overseen by an organization run by Gary Freaking Bettman. Guy Boucher is the clear winner of this award and the fact he is not nominated shows how ridiculous these awards can be.

My choice for the Inaugural Pat Quinn Trophy is of course Rick Bowness. Not so much for my hatred of Alain and his incompetence, but because he did put a patch-work of defenseman together this year, and they performed admirably. He really seemed to know what he had, and what his players were capable of. Congratulations Rick.  

Vezina and Kirk McLean Trophies

This one is one of the more closely contested awards of the season. All three nominees, Roberto Luongo, Tim Thomas, and Pekka Rinne, can have a case made for them. Roberto Luongo would be the obvious choice here, 2.11 GAA, with a .928 S%going 38-15-7, with 4 Shutouts. Add that to his team having a patch-work defense in front of him almost the whole year.

Pekka Rinne also had a fantastic season, posting a 2.12 GAA, .930 S%, going 33-22-9, with 6 Shutouts. He carried the Predators throughout the year, and is obviously the whole reason they are in the second round. Rinne is the goalie Nashville has been looking for to compliment their defensive play. Also known as: A goalie to help their team that can't score.

The obvious winner of the Vezina though is Tim Thomas. The guy had a historic year: 2.00 GAA, .938 S%, going 35-11-9, with 9 Shutouts. At one point in the year his S% was at a staggering .958, and it wasn't in December. He was unbeatable, and the whole reason Boston was anything this season. The guy was amazing and has continued to make huge saves. Clear cut winner.

My Inaugural Kirk McLean Trophy has to go to Roberto Luongo. This was kind of tough, because Cory Schneider came out of left field and had a great year himself, but we have seen backup goalies come up with big seasons every now and then. The decision was easy when I looked at Luongo's previous seasons: his lowest GAA ever (by about .017 as well), third highest win total and second lowest S%. It's clear who deserves this trophy.

NHL Awards - Selke and Larionov Trophies

There have been some surprising nominees for the NHL Awards this year. It will be interesting to see who wins. I am usually pumped when award season rolls around, but lately they have begun to be more political than based of actual merit. A perfect example this year will be when Shea Weber gets the Norris when Nick Lidstrom is clearly better. But Weber is Canadian, and anytime a Canadian has a decent year they are automatically the front runner...Barret Jackman anyone?

I am going to go through all the awards and pick my winners, and who will probably win. I am also going to pick the player that corresponds for that award on the Canucks. Kind of like a one club NHL Awards if you will. First off, the Selke:

This might be the toughest one, and I am already eliminating one of the nominees. The three finalists are: Jonathan Toews, Pavel Datsyuk, and Ryan Kesler. Nothing against Toews, and this has nothing to do with my hatred of the Blackhawks (I am mature enough to recognize skill over personal opinion), but he is a distant third in this. This is pretty much Datsyuk's trophy to lose every year. He has been lock down, but in my opinion Kesler gets the edge this year. I know the voters love voting for the guy with the most goals, which defeats the purpose of this award, but Kesler was locked in this year. He won key defensive zone face-offs on the PK and kept that machine, lowest GAA (2.20) in the NHL this season, rolling.

Datsyuk is like the guy who is steady every year. He is always going to be a great defensive player, who stays out of the box, as he shuts down the opposing teams top line, but every few seasons another player comes along and has a stellar season. That season is this one, and that player is Kesler.

Surprisingly, Kesler is not my pick for the best defensive forward on the Canucks, which I am naming the Larionov Trophy in honor of Igor Larionov. That award goes to Manny Malhotra. This is not because of his injury, however, in some respects it is, because the true value of Malhotra's presence was seen. He was the engine that ran that line. Hansen and Torres fed off his energy and heart. I said it all season and it was true all season, that was the best thrid line in all of hockey, no doubt about it. 

The proof is in the third line since Malhotra went out. There have probably been about 12 different incarnations of it. Jannik Hansen has been the only one to continue along as well as he was before, and he has been shakey at times. Manny was the man all year on that team, but just didn't get enough goals to be considered as the best defensive forward...no you read that correctly.

Thanks For Proving My Point Alain

I would have preferred you proved me wrong Alain, but for some reason you like proving me right. Once again your awful coaching cost the Canucks a win. Hey but its not like your team only had 15 shots in regulation. Oh they did. But hey its not like they got a one goal lead and just sat on it. Oh, they had FIVE shots on goal in the third. But hey you did do everything to help your team stay motivated. Oh wait you continually put out the Valium Twins, who are combined -13.

Barry Trotz is over there running out four lines, keeping his big guns fresh. Alain is double shifting his worst forwards, and ignoring the fact his team is sitting on a one-goal lead. Give this guy the Jack Adams Trophy right now! 

Yes Luongo shouldn't have given up that goal to Suter, obviously. But guess what Alain?! When you give up a goal with 67 seconds left, and only have a one goal lead you go to overtime. When you have a two goal lead, you most likely hang on for the win. But how is one to generate these extra goal leads? Maybe getting more than 15 shots on one of the best goalies in the NHL.

How do I know these guys sat on a one goal lead and didn't try to score more. They had 11 shots in the first overtime period alone, four short of their regulation total. That and they almost won the game in the last 66 seconds of the game. 

This is exactly what I wrote two posts ago. You have to play a tight game against Nashville, because their game-plan is to keep it close and capitalize on mistakes. What does Alain do? Lets his team sit on a one-goal lead. No thats not a mistake at all. I said it before and I will say it again, this team wins DESPITE their leadership (coaching and Valium Twins). The whole team should get the Masterson Trophy.