Monday Monday

Great start to the week....it's -47C with the wind chill here in Calgary. That's -53F for those of you reading this south of the border. I know the weather is crappy all over the western part of the continent though so I won't complain too much since I'm sure everyone has their own problems right now!

Oddly enough, that's not as cold as Brandon goaltender Joe Caligiuri was at the Saddledome yesterday. But we'll leave the poor guy alone. Just say that if Brandon is going to make any kind of a playoff run befitting their once-lofty place in the standings, they'll need their goaltender to make routine saves. Brock Nixon of the Hitmen had the hockey equivalent of baseball's hitting for the cycle, scoring even-strength, powerplay, and shorthanded goals. The only other way it is possible to score a goal in hockey is on a penalty shot....I think Mario Lemieux did that once in the NHL, score ES, PP, SH, and PS goals in one game.

Back to goaltenders though, Portland's Kurtis Mucha may finally be feeling the weight of carrying that team. He had some interesting comments in the Portland paper on Friday in which he basically said some of his teammates don't belong in the league and some other ones think they are far better than they are.

Rare to see somebody talk publicly about their teammates like that.....and if it were anyone else on that team but Mucha, it would be a lot easier to heap some scorn on him too. But that guy is about the only thing that has stood between that team and an oh-for-72 season, so I think he has earned the right to point out some people who aren't pulling their weight.

Here's some numbers to chew on: the goalies with the highest average number of shots faced per 60 minutes of action:

Jordan White (POR) - 42.12
Kurtis Mucha (POR) - 39.97
Real Cyr (P.G) - 35.14
Steven Stanford (P.A) - 34.77
Alex Archibald (EDM) - 33.77
Tommy Tartaglione (P.G) - 33.77
James Reimer (RDR) - 32.45
Dustin Butler (P.A) - 32.22
Dalyn Flette (EDM) - 32.08
Morgan Clark (RDR) - 31.38

And at the other end of the spectrum:

Tyson Sexsmith (VAN) - 21.23
Juha Metsola (LET) - 22.92
Dan Spence (CGY) - 23.48
Michael Maniago (LET) - 23.81
Martin Jones (CGY) - 23.93
Kevin Armstrong (SPO) - 24.63
James Priestner (KAM) - 24.87
Ryan Holfeld (M.H) - 24.89
Dustin Tokarski (SPO) - 25.11
Joe Caligiuri (BRN) - 25.9

Portland's goalies - Mucha and Jordan White - face on average nearly twice as many shots per game as Vancouver's Tyson Sexsmith does. Twice as many! Yes, I think Mucha has earned the right to complain about lack of support.

To the NHL for a second; the All-Star weekend was once again (in my opinion anyway) something to get over with quickly so we can get back to games that the players care about. The league hypes the All-Star game as some big event showcasing the best players in the sport, but what you get is a weekend of no-hit, no-defence hockey which is in no way a showcase of anything but a bunch of millionaire athletes goofing off. The NFL and NBA have the same problem with their All-Star games.....none of the players care. Maybe the NHL needs to do what baseball does; baseball has the only All-Star game that the players seem to care about and perhaps that is because the winning league in the MLB All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series. I suppose there's still players on teams whose teams are out of playoff contention by the All-Star break who still don't care, but it has to be better than what hockey has right now.

The skills competition is another thing....personally, the only part of the skills competition I care about is the breakaway competition, since none of the other events (obstacle course, accuracy shooting, hardest shot, fastest skater) are applicable to game situations. But breakaways and shootouts, that's part of the game. But for some reason this year they decided to have judges give points for each players' attempt, hoping this might spur some creative moves, similar to the NBA's slam-dunk competition. And we did see some creative stuff, but one big thing was overlooked by the judges, I think: NONE OF THEM SCORED! I mean, I think the only guy who actually scored on any of his attempts was Datysuk and he got the worst score of the competition from the judges for it. I could care less that Alexander Ovechkin can flip the puck in the air and take a baseball swing at it....he missed on the swing (twice!) and the whole point is to put the puck in the net. So how about making whether the player actually scores be part of the judging, eh? At least in the slam-dunk competition, the players actually complete many of their efforts by actually scoring the two points.