Stupid NHL.com Articles

With the Penguins fresh off their sweep of Carolina to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second consecutive year, the Philadelphia Flyers are still crying.

Honestly, we are three rounds past that series and the NHL is still publishing these kinds of stories? The Flyers still feel like they outplayed the Pens! Even though they got bounced at home after six games. Flyers captain Mike Richards is the latest to speak up about how much it hurts...

"Last year, give them full credit, they beat us and dominated us in a lot of parts of the game," Richards said. "I would never make excuses and this year they beat us and they're having a lot of success, but we thought we had a lot of success against them, outplayed them and outshot them, but we just couldn't beat Fleury. They had great goaltending and they're an opportunistic team. They capitalized on their chances.

"In playoffs, all the teams are so close and you need a couple of bounces to have success. Even though they have a great team, they got a couple of bounces and we didn't. It's not an excuse, though."

Let me summarize his comments, "WAAAAAAAAAHHHHH." Anytime you say this isn't an excuse and then use the word excuses twice, it's an excuse. Sure, there are a couple of bounces that go either way in every series and every game, I agree with that. But it's not like the Flyers lost on a last-second shot in Game 7 in overtime. They got beat on home ice in only six games for the second straight season. Get over it, Mike. Get over it, Philly. Move on—break out the irons and set up the tee times cause nothing's going to change. And NHL, please stop publishing these "oh whoa is me" loser stories.

The Year 2008 in a Blog Post

Can you believe the year 2008 is almost over? Another year passes by and I still feel like it was just yesterday that it was 2003 when the only care in the world I had was if I was going to finish that research paper by deadline. But here we are on the final day of 2008, and there's no better time for The Wheelhouse 2008 Recap! I'm going to do a quick rundown of the top five sports stories in 2008 that held my interest the most. We'll start with ol' numero uno...

1. Super Bowl XLII - Easily the number one story of 2008, at least for me, was the Giants stunning win over the Patriots in SB XLII. This game had it all. Undefeated team, upstart six seed from the NFC, stars like Tom Brady and Eli Manning. We wrote a lot about the game on this blog leading up to the game about how everyone wrote off the Giants and how the media had already handed the "greatest team ever" title to the Patriots. Well as the saying goes, that's why they play the game. Eli Manning's scramble through about five New England defenders to launch it in the general direction of David Tyree and Tyree's unbelievable catch on the Giants game-winning drive will go down in Super Bowl history as one of the greatest catches ever. If you watched this game and hated the Patriots, you were going absolutely ballistic when the Giants pulled this game out. I remember telling my friends that I was more excited at the end of that game than I would have been if the Steelers had won it all. That probably wasn't true, but it proved how thrilling of a finish it really was.

2. Michael Phelps Mania - No one can really explain how it happened, but in mid-August 2008, the country fell into Michael Phelps mania. Phelps dominated the swimming competition at the Beijing Olympics, rolling to an Olympic-record eight gold medals while shattering world records in the process. Suddenly everyone was into swimming, terms like individual medley, butterfly, freestyle, world record were being thrown around by people who I don't think ever watched a swimming meet in their life. Phelps captivated millions during his amazing run at Beijing and easily was the story of the Olympics...if not the entire year. Out of his eight gold medals, none was more exciting than his seventh in the 100m butterfly as he rallied to win the gold by 0.01 second over Serbia's Milorad Cavic. The replays were analyzed over and over, but clearly showed Phelps touch the wall just before Cavic. I don't know if we'll ever see someone dominate like Phelps again at the Olympics, but I'll always remember where I was during Phelps mania in August '08.

3. Penguins Stanley Cup Run - While this subject gets buried in mainstream sports media, if you were a fan of hockey or the Penguins this run to the Cup Finals was a memorable one. Even though the Pens came up short in the finals, losing to the Red Wings in six games...it was an exciting Stanley Cup finals that did its best to save hockey and excite newer fans to the game. This had been building in Pittsburgh since the strike ended and a salary cap was in place in the NHL. The Pens got the number one pick in 2005 and drafted the phenom Sidney Crosby. They also had drafted Evgeni Malkin in 2004 and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury in 2003. Everyone was waiting for the team to finally click and put it all together and they exploded toward the end of the 2007-2008 season and rolled through the Eastern Conference in exciting fashion. Everyone in Pittsburgh had Cup fever for the first time since the early '90s. I had the opportunity to attend Game 2 of the Cup Finals in Detroit and while the Pens forgot to show up to the game, I don't regret it for a minute. While the first two games ended up being one sided, the Pens got their act together and made the next four games all close games, including their thrilling 4-3 victory in three OTs in Detroit for Game 5. The series posted the best ratings since the NHL had returned from strike in 2004 and was pretty much a 100 percent increase from the previous finals.

4. The Brett Favre Saga - Not all these stories can be things that were good for the sport. The will he or won't he question for Brett Favre continued on even after his "official" retirement in March of 2008. After sitting around for four months, the Favre rumors started hitting in July that he contacted the Packers about the possibility of coming back. And what followed for the next month was something I don't think the sport has ever seen. ESPN basically camped out in Green Bay and Louisiana for weeks and in the process, we heard about secret meetings, phone calls, text messages between Favre and coach Mike McCarthy and GM Ted Thompson and then the owner flying down to Louisiana to talk him back into retirement and on and on and on. And then there was the press conference that sealed the deal and the Packers finally stating that they met with Brett and that they were moving on in another direction with Aaron Rodgers. Thompson sat there looking like a deer in highlights while all McCarthy could do was say the word "mindset" more times than Allen Iverson said practice in his famous clip. This whole farce finally ended with Favre being traded to the Jets and that was that. Packers moved on with Rodgers and the Jets got their man in Favre. And as we now know, both teams aren't going anywhere but home for the playoffs. Just for the record, this was not a story I enjoyed hearing about, instead it was incredibly annoying and come July I didn't really care who Favre played for, but the story was a memorable one. Get ready for the Favre question to come up again in 2009...I can't wait.

5. Tom Brady's Injury - Unless you are a Patriots fan or a female, you were cheering Tom Brady's injury in week one of the 2008 NFL season. You purchased your Bernard Pollard shirt and secretly or publicly stated that Brady deserved it. Even if he did or not, you loved every moment of it and you were waiting for the collapse of Bill Belichick this season. While the latter didn't happen, the Pats still went 11-5 with a high school quarterback, but missed the playoffs anyway. How far the mighty has fallen. Just 12 months ago, the Patriots were undefeated and cruising to their fourth Super Bowl title...then came fate with the Giants in the Super Bowl and then the devastating injury to Brady. It was about time things fell apart for once for the video-taping cheaters.

As for me, 2008 was just another year to add to the madness. I had the good fortune of making it out to Chicago a couple times for a White Sox-Pirates game and also a Cubs-Pirates game at Wrigley Field. Like I stated above, I went to Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Dtown. I also went to Central Michigan's primetime game as they hosted Ball State (random, yes I know). I was in attendance to watch Ohio State roll Sparty and Michigan State in East Lansing. And I made my second trip to the Sky Dome...er Rogers Centre for a Blue Jays-Red Sox game in September. Also, 2008 will be remembered as the year Todd and I launched this site after years of talking about it. Overall, not a bad year at all.

What does 2009 have in store? We'll find out shortly. I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!

The Inexperienced Penguins Were Supposed To Be Swept, Right?

Win or lose tomorrow night in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, you can't talk about the Penguins lack of experience anymore. Not after last night's (or this morning) triple-overtime thriller that ended with a 4-3 Pens win and at least one more game in the Finals. Media members and NHL "experts" talked about the Penguins lack of playoff experience being the reason they would falter in this series. Everybody had Detroit down as their champion, except for the Pens of course. They heard that reasoning throughout the entire playoffs about them being too young and inexperienced.

I never bought into that argument. There are plenty of instances over the last decade of sports that disprove the no experience theory. Anybody remember the 2003 Florida Marlins? That went into Wrigley, scored eight runs in an eventful eighth inning and went on to knock off the veteran-laden Yankees team in the World Series. No experience for that team and they walked into Yankee Stadium on the game's biggest stage and stunned New York. How about the New York Giants in the past Super Bowl. Most of that team had never sniffed the big game and they walked in and defeated the undefeated, experienced, been there before New England Patriots. Give a young team a chance and things will happen.

I'm tired of hearing about the Pens lack of experience. The perseverance they showed last night on the road, rallying for a game-tying goal with 33 seconds remaining in their season and then fighting through three overtime periods for a victory was unreal. Crosby and Fleury are growing up before our eyes on national television on hockey's biggest stage. The Penguins have proven they can win games against the Wings...even on the road in a hostile environment. In the past three games, both teams have been battling and fighting for every loose puck in games that have all come down to the wire. Lack of experience? Forget about it.

If the Pens' Stanley Cup run does come to an end tomorrow night at the Igloo, it won't be because lack of playoff experience. Keep doubting this young Pittsburgh team and they just might have enough to win two more and pull this series off. Let's Go Pens!

Brooks Orpik Lays The Wood

I've watched a lot of Penguins games in my lifetime and in the five years of watching Brooks Orpik play defense for the Pens, I have never seen him become possessed and start annihilating people like he did in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. Hell, I haven't seen anybody take over this way before...



Wow. I could watch that all day.

Hold on Detroit fans. Cancel the Cup-winning parades. There's still a series going on. It's not over yet.

Here's hoping Orpik stays possessed for the rest of the series and Osgood stops his classless diving for cheap calls. LET'S GO PENS!

The Series That Could Save the NHL?

Maybe save is not the right word for the headline. More like could this be the series to bring the NHL back? It's no secret that the NHL is suffering from lack of exposure in the media eyes. More people are going to the games than ever before (well, except Hockeytown), but the problem is the league's terrible TV deal with Outdoor Life Netw....er, Versus. ESPN doesn't bother showing much of the NHL playoffs and when they do, it's only the top plays of the day or about a fight or injury that occurred. Needless to say, the Penguins-Red Wings series could be huge for the future of the NHL. Is this the best possible series that the NHL could of asked for? Possibly, maybe having a team in Canada would have been more beneficial, but I don't think anybody can be complaining about this matchup.

What's not to like about this series? You have the best two teams in the league with the Wings winning the Presidents Trophy in the regular season and the Pens being the number two seed from the Eastern Conference only one point behind the one seed. Both teams have major star power with Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Nicklas Lidstrom for Detroit and Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marian Hossa for Pittsburgh. You have two hot goaltenders that will be facing off against each other. You have two great hockey cities and you have the young, up and coming Penguins pitted against the wiry, veteran "been there before" Red Wings.

Plus Detroit and Pittsburgh are both teams that have rich hockey history that older fans can remember the days of back-to-back Cups with Mario Lemieux or the days of Steve Yzerman. The last three Stanley Cup victors have been Anaheim, Carolina and Tampa Bay. Not exactly the three Meccas of hockey. I'm sure kids growing up in Southern California just can't wait to hit that frozen pond in their backyard and maybe someone would of cared about Carolina's victory if they were still in Hartford (at least Chris Berman would). Tampa Bay...come on. It was hard for people to get into watching those teams and I can't blame them. Hopefully this will change with Pittsburgh and Detroit.

I don't think you will see a sweep or a five-game series either way. I believe this series will live up to expectations and be a strong, hard fought six or seven-game series that could help acquire interest in hockey from all over the hockey world again. The NHL is banking on it.

Fleury Reason for Pens Success

Let me just say how great it is to have the Penguins back in the playoffs. It's been a long time coming for them to get back. It's not only good for Pittsburgh, it's good for hockey and the NHL. The league isn't exactly in its best days at the moment, but you wouldn't notice by looking at Pittsburgh. The Igloo was rocking, just like they were when Mario captivated the city with two Stanley Cups in the early '90s. It's good to see. Period. Well unless you are the New York Rangers....

Today, the Pens defeated the Rangers 2-0 to take a two-games-to-none lead over the Rangers in the second round and improve to 6-0 in the playoffs. Everybody talks about the Pens offense and the talented goal scorers they have, but the reason they have been so dominant in the playoffs so far is Marc-Andre Fleury. If the Penguins were finally going to take that step toward the Cup, it was going to be with Fleury becoming that shutdown goalie he was drafted to be. And he's done just that. He missed a good chunk of the season with an injury but has returned and played nothing short of amazing. Give him the credit he deserves. Maybe it was the yellow pads he dumped that changed him. Who knows, whatever the reason it's crucial to the Pens playoff success.

I remember being at Fleury's first NHL game. It was a 3-0 loss to the Kings. Despite the loss and the fact that Fleury gave up two goals (the other was an empty net)...he faced 48 shots and had a hell of a game to keep the Pens in it. We all chanted "Fleury, Fleury, Fleury" in the crowd and couldn't wait to see where this kid's future would go. He struggled over the next couple of years as any young player can, but this year he turned the corner. The future is here. The crowd in today's game repeated the Fleury chant and it reminded me of that first game and seeing something special from him.

Since then the Pens have drastically changed the scenery around Fleury and the team is currently soaring, probably better than us at The Wheelhouse had expected in the playoffs. And it's not just Fleury stepping up...the defense is playing another level of hockey I haven't seen in a while in the 'Burgh. The defense has been the Achilles heal to the Pens over the past couple of years, but not anymore. I've never seen so many blocked shots by Penguin defenders than in today's game against the Rangers. Gonchar, Gill, Orpik, Letang, Whitney...hell even Scuderi is playing good D.

With the defense playing great and Fleury playing the best hockey of his life to go along with the high-scoring offense, the Pens have the ability and confidence to make a run at the Cup after all. It's been a long time coming for Pittsburgh.

Thank you Nicklas

If the Pens go on to capture the Stanley Cup this year, I think Sunday's game against Washington is the game you can look back on as a turning point. Huge game against the Crapitals and it ends with one of the greatest things I've seen in a while. NBC's mic on Crosby was the icing on the cake...



"Did he shoot that in his own net?" - Crosby

Ah yes...thank you Nicklas, have fun playing golf in April.

Marian Hossa

The Pittsburgh Penguins made the big headline today during crunch time of the NHL trading deadline by shipping forwards Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, prospect Angelo Esposito and a first-round draft pick to Atlanta for Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis. I probably looked like a giddy school girl when I first heard the news...the Pens are really going for it all! When I saw who the Pens had given up for him, I was disappointed to see Colby and Christensen go, but it had to be done to acquire Hossa. After talking with some of my fellow Penguins fans and random co-workers, the general consensus was the Pens gave up too much for Hossa. I don't understand where that's coming from. Yes, in basic numbers of the deal, we gave up more pieces (4 to 2) but the talent in return makes the Pens offense absolutely scary and overall a better team.

Hossa is a legit goal scorer in the NHL. He was the biggest name on the trading block this year and plenty of teams were vying for his services. Through 60 games this season, Hossa has 26 goals, 30 assists after scoring 43 goals, 57 assists for 100 points last year, good for sixth in NHL scoring. He's also scored 30 or more goals in the past six seasons. And the Pens are putting him on the same team with Crosby (who was leading the NHL in scoring before his injury) and Malkin (who is currently leading the NHL in scoring after tonight). Hossa's a premier scorer and All-Star so you know what you're getting.

Now let's talk about what the Pens gave up for Hossa. The Pens dealt two fan favorites away in Armstrong and Christensen, but let's not go overboard here on them. Armstrong is in his third year and has declined since his rookie year when he scored 16 goals in 47 games. Last year in a full 80 games, he only scored 12 and through this year he only has nine goals and just 24 points. And his numbers are inflated (as anybody's would be) playing on a line with Crosby. Army's a third liner that will score about 35 points a season...you can find those guys anywhere. Christensen is another forward in his third year and he showed signs of a prospect last season with 18 goals in 61 games...but this year he has only 20 points through 49 games. Like Armstrong, Christensen is a third liner on most teams in the NHL. Look, the Penguins were not going to win the Stanley Cup with Army and Christensen...but they sure can win it with Hossa, Crosby and Malkin. Let's also not forget that the Pens did receive another player in this deal and Dupuis has 10 goals on the season (more than both former Penguins traded) and he's a bruising forward who can help Laraque give the Pens a little more punch.

But wait, the Penguins also dealt a future first-round pick and a prospect to the Thrashers. Trading an NHL draft pick is not that big of deal. Unless you have the top three picks, you probably aren't getting a given superstar like a Crosby or Ovechkin and plenty of stars in the NHL are found in the later rounds (Zetterberg, Hasek, Datsyuk, Alfredsson). There's about a two percent chance that draft pick would pan out to be anything productive for Pittsburgh. Plus the Pens already have four solid number one picks on their team, there's no room for another one and since the Pens won't be drafting high anyway next year...what's the point? Originally, Atlanta wanted Jordan Staal in exchange for Hossa and that would have been a disaster to lose Staal. But the Pens didn't give in to that and worked out a deal where they still got Hossa and kept Staal. If draft picks had to go, so be it.

The key to this deal is if Hossa will be a "rented" player for the rest of this year and then leave as a free agent next season. I really don't think Ray Shero made this deal to rent Hossa for two months and then let him go. I believe the Pens will do everything they can to sign him for a 2-3 year deal after the season and stay under the cap. And if Hossa helps Crosby, Malkin and the boys bring the Stanley Cup back to Pittsburgh this summer then the deal was worth it all the way whether Hossa stays or not.

Obviously the Stanley Cup is not guaranteed because of this trade, and there are plenty of other things the Pens need to fall into place to have a chance...like their defense showing up, Fleury and Crosby getting healthy and a little bit of luck along the way. But you have to be willing to take risks and put your team in a position to be lethal when you decide that you're going for it. Former Pens GM Craig Patrick did it back in 1991 when he dealt three players to Hartford for Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson. Two Stanley Cups later, I think that worked out well for Pittsburgh. Let's Go Pens!