Sleeksays

Columbus Blue Jackets (11-12-3, t-12th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (14-10-3, t-4th in west) No, we will not die like dogs! We will fight like lions! "Three Patos, Anaheim, California. You are very great. 100,000 pesos. Come to Santa Poco, put on show, stop. The Infamous El Guapo." In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. Sometimes that El Guapo is the Columbus Blue Jackets. Prediction: Ducks 4, Jackets 2. Goals by Little Neddy Niedermayer, Dusty Pronger, Lucky Day Selanne, and Santa Poco resident Pahlsson. Together they prune the hedges of many small villages. For your El Guapo coverage, go visit Bethany's Hockey Rants . Go Ducks.

Anaheim Ducks (14-9-3, 3rd in west) at Chicago Blackhawks (10-6-6, t-7th in west) How much will this post cost me in karma dollars? Instead of talking up this Chicago rematch, I'm going to throw my two rambly cents in on the Avery suspension. I don't like it. Now don't get me wrong; there's a lot to dislike about Avery, including this recent set of inflammatory remarks, but you have to recognize Avery for what he is -- a sensationalist media creation. Over the years, reporters have glorified his personality and encouraged his bad boy behavior (which I can understand -- NHLers are generally too boring for newsstands) . And that's the thing -- I do believe Avery's statements were intended more to feed the hungry media than they were to hurt Dion Phaneuf / Elisha Cuthbert's feelings. He was doing what he was expected to do -- agitate and entertain -- and more or less in the manner that he was trained to do. It wasn't out of line with the media character...

Anaheim Ducks (14-8-3, 3rd in west) at Detroit Red Wings (15-4-4, 2nd in west) Battle of the Hangovers For today's post I threw together a comparison table looking at how the Ducks and Red Wings have been performing compared to a specific stretch of games last season. For the Ducks, the selected stretches have been hand-picked from each season: 07-08: the first 19 games after Scott Niedermayer returned to the lineup. 08-09: the most recent 19 games (excluding the 1-5-0 first six games) . I decided to stick to stretches where the Ducks have been performing well points-wise. In the 07-08 stretch, the Ducks went 12-5-2; in the 08-09 stretch the Ducks went 13-3-3. For the Red Wings, the selection is much more straightforward: 07-08: the first 23 games of the season. 08-09: the first 23 games of the season. This one's much more obvious: I'm just looking at how Detroit's "hangover" start (15-4-4) compares to its season start from last year (15-6-2) . Now I don...

Tim Sassone, Chicago Beat Writer, November 25: Is it being a little too greedy to think the Hawks can go 6-0 on this road trip? Wednesday's game in San Jose won't be easy, but the Sharks can be beat and the Hawks almost did it last week at the United Center. The Hawks led 5-4 going to the third period then took a couple dumb penalties and wound up losing 6-5. It's on to Anaheim Friday and the Ducks aren't anywhere near as good as they were when they won the Stanley Cup. The Hawks close the trip Saturday at Los Angeles against an improved, but nothing special Kings team. Rudy Kelly, BoC Blogger, November 29: The Blackhawks have lost both California games (against San Jose and Anaheim) this weekend. Let's make it one more so Earl has to bust out the ol' rape graphic again. Well, apologies for the absence this week, but with siblings in town for Turkey Day, I was away from the computer for a bit -- but I've had myself a great week. I was even in Row B for Fri...

Colorado Avalanche (9-10-0, t-12th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (11-8-3, t-4th in west) Ah, we finally arrive at the conclusary installment of Burke Week, a five-day gander back at the Anaheim legacy of Brian Burke. Part I: Defending three "bad" Burke moves that I don't think were that bad. Part II : Criticizing three Burke moves that I don't think get enough flak. Part III : Nothing but shout-outs. Part IV : What I like about Burke the roster-builder. And now we arrive at Part V: Scattered final thoughts , where I squeeze everything I've missed into a final post for the series. We'll start with some counterpoint: Two things that I didn't like about Burke the roster-builder. Regret One: Europe, Where Art Thou? Since Brian Burke's second year in Anaheim, there has been a fairly rigid three-player maximum on players from Europe -- Teemu Selanne from Finland, Sammy Pahlsson from Sweden, and the back-up goalie (first Ilya Bryzgalov from Russia, now Jona...

Anaheim Ducks (10-8-2, 7th in west) at St. Louis Blues (6-8-2, 15th in west) Ducks had better have a better start or somebody's going to the dentist! So for Part IV of this series, I thought I'd take a look at some of the ways that Burke was a very good general manager -- things that worked for the Ducks not only on their Cup run but also looking forward. Think of these as a bit of a primer for good ol' Bob Murray, or more accurately, Part IV: What I like about Burke the roster-builder . Lesson One: If you want depth, don't acquire depth players; instead insert talent at the top of your roster. While I've stated before that I�m not overly impressed that Burke had the "wisdom" to acquire Niedermayer, Selanne, or Pronger, I don�t want to take away from the fact that Burke knew what he was going after � a superstar. His focus wasn�t on filling in his roster with supplementary depth players, though he certainly put those pieces in place as well; he was loo...

Time to take a break from my normally scheduled Burke Week -- tomorrow I'll get to the positive GM lessons we can learn from the Burke. Today instead I'm just going to toss a few links and call it a day (partially because I feel bad just tossing these at the end of a long post; mostly because I'm lazy) . First off, in keeping with Burke-themed tradition, I was a guest again on The Rink Podcast this week to talk about what the Burke departure means for Anaheim. I'm the first of three guests in a virtual All-Star Game of blog guests -- Steve Lepore of Puck the Media also talks about Versus ratings, and Alanah McGinley of Canucks and Beyond talks about Roberto Luongo's shutout streak. Not my strongest work, but then again, podcasting ain't my forte. Secondly, I wanted to give an update on the guy sometimes known as Kyle J and sometimes known as "the Swede" -- our mysterious comic book contributor here at BoC ( Episode 1: Toronto , Episode II: Detroit )...

Washington Capitals (10-4-3, 4th in east) at Anaheim Ducks (10-7-2, t-4th in west) NHL's other poster child is in town. Welcome to the second installment of Brian Burke Week, as I ponder back on the Anaheim yester-legacy of the mouthy one. Yesterday I made a case for three moves that I think Burke gets too much flak for ; today it's time for Part II: Criticizing three Burke moves that I don't think get enough flak. A few things (1) I'm not going to include the Todd Bertuzzi signing; that one's so obviously bad that I don't know if it's worth discussing. Just know that my list has these three things plus signing Todd Bertuzzi. I'm still not passing judgment on Brendan Morrison, either (he gets a free pass for a while because two knowledgeable Canucks fans I talked to were shocked that B-Mo was even playing already) . (2) I am not saying that any of these moves are guaranteed to fail -- there's still judgment to be made on all of them. It's jus...

David Amber's Q & A sessions started gaining a lot of attention about a year ago for actually getting hockey players to say something interesting. (Keep in mind this was in a time before Russian journalists were quoting Alex Semin slamming Sidney Crosby ) Getzlaf was Amber's most recent guest and it's a pretty interesting interview . It highlights Todd Marchant not as a stone-handed center but a jokester, provides some interesting insight into the Dustin Penner situation and touches on Getzlaf's older brother, who plays in the CFL. Not bad for North American media.

I've been an independent observer of this whole Dustin Penner fiasco , and like M*A*S*H* or a penis, it just gets better the longer it goes. To recap: The Oilers sign Dustin Penner to a 5-year, $21.25 million dollar deal after his astounding 43-point season playing alongside 2 scrubs named Ryan Getzly and Chris Perry or something like that. Who cares, they've never done anything anyway. There was much gnashing of the teeth from bloviating jackass Brian Burke, who criticized Lowe for ruining both teams; this was followed by a lot of back-and-forth between the outmatched Anaheim blogging contingent and the Edmonton juggernaut. But, in the end, Brian Burke was right: the Dustin Penner offer sheet not only left Edmonton with an overpaid, unmotivated baby, but also screwed the Ducks over when they had an opportunity to win a 2nd cup. To that I say, "Huzzah!" The problem with the Edmonton offer sheet from their perspective was that they were not in the position to of...

Hey, everybody! Welcome to Burke Week, where I'll take a scattered look back on what I take to be Brian Burke's legacy in Anaheim. I do have a lot to say about the guy, and rather than cram it all into one post I thought I'd break it into semi-coherent parts throughout the week. Part I: Defending three "bad" Burke moves that I don't think were that bad. For better or worse, opposing fans love to criticize Brian Burke's management style, and at times, the desire to call out Burke for a "bad" move ignores a lot of important context. Burke's first few years, of course, are now left alone because the Ducks won a cup, but since then it seems that critics are all-too-ready to point out where Burke has made his supposed mistakes. There's really two things to keep in mind when discussing some of these debatable moves, though: (1) Thanks to salary cap mechanics, it's always going to be difficult, if not impossible, to keep a championship team...

Los Angeles Kings (7-7-2, t-11th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (9-7-2, 5th in west) That strange silence you're hearing is a quiet general manager. Over the next week, I will be writing a series of posts looking back on the legacy of Brian Burke in Anaheim -- moves I liked, moves I didn't like, plus some general observations -- so yeah, look forward to that. For now, though, all I'll say is that I'm fine with the timing of the move, as there's not a lot of GMing that can really be done with the rest this year's roster. The Ducks are so close to the cap ceiling that there's not much to do except (a) promote Bobby Ryan and (b) re-sign some key players before next summer. We'll get to (a) in a second, but really the re-signing aspect is the key one: once Burke turned down a contract extension, next year's roster became Bob Murray's concern, and better to put that person in charge now than to wait until the offseason. Incidentally, I don't expect ...

LA Kings (7-6-2) vs. Nashville Predators (8-7-1) 7:30 PST, FSN West Prediction: Kings win, 4-3. I take a nap.

Well, so much for that Bucket List. I certainly didn't see this coming this fast, and I don't have much time for reaction today, but here's the link . I'll have a proper good-bye for the guy at some point, but for now, welcome to the new Ducks' GM, Bob Murray. Sleek = Stunned. Go Ducks. [Update, 11:40 am. Per the Star's Damien Cox (link via KK ), Burke reportedly will stay on as a consultant with the Ducks until the end of this season. More to come after the press conference.] [Update, 1:10 pm. James Mirtle has some quotes from the press conference , but generally it wasn't very enlightening at all. I expect Burke's next press conference, whenever it comes, to reveal a lot more of what his future holds.] [Update, 2:40 pm. Nobody can keep up with Puck Daddy. A nice piece looking at the Anaheim tenure of Burke , plus some looking ahead to what he might face in Toronto. [Update, 2:50 pm. Probably my last update today, but the OC Register has many more Burke...

As the Sharks have racked up points to start this season, I've had my attention fixed on where they'd sit after the sixteen game mark. Why sixteen games, you ask? For one, it does represent the first 20% of the season, but more importantly, it's where I mentally set the bar two years ago when the Ducks finally suffered a regulation loss in Game 17. This originally was going to be a comparison of just the 06-07 Ducks and the 08-09 Sharks, but since I started mulling the idea I've been reminded that it's not just the Ducks that started their season on fire en route to a Stanley Cup. Here's a look at the last four cup winners have performed in their (mostly) first sixteen games, with the Sharks thrown in for comparison. In the right-hand column I have included each team's record through 60 minutes -- probably more indicative of projected postseason play. Overall Records: Team Raw Record GF � GA = GD PP PK Regulation Record 03-04 Lightning * 11-2-2-1, 25 pts 0...

Florida Panthers (4-8-1, 15th in east) at Anaheim Ducks (9-6-1, 3rd in west) The truth about cats and birds. I don't have anything to say about tonight's matchup against the Cats, but I do want to recommend The Litter Box , a Panthers-themed hockey blog that I enjoy thoroughly. Whale4Ever mixes his hockey updates with plenty of awesome images and plenty of snark, and I'm much more pro-Cat thanks to his efforts. Rock on, dude. Instead, I wanted to ride the coattails of the campaign fever that's been taking over BoC, between Mike Chen's push for Seto/Gooch to the All-Star Game and Rudy Kelly's Doughty for the Calder Trophy movement that's just picking up steam. Well, just because I'm apolitical and anti-voting doesn't mean that I don't care about important issues, and there's certainly one movement I'd like to throw my negligible weight behind. As a bonus, it's not even anything I have to convince you readers to do�the primary aud...

Dallas Stars (4-6-2, t-12th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (9-5-1, 2nd in west) Can the Stars re-discover the success they left here last spring? I can't really tell you what's going wrong with the Dallas Stars this season, as I have yet to even watch a single game. Still, the spreadsheets will tell you, you don't have to look much past the 50 goals allowed in just 12 games. To put that in perspective, the Philadelphia Flyers currently lead the league in goal-scoring at 3.67 goals-per-game (excludes shootouts) . The Stars are giving up goals at a rate of 4.17 goals-per-game, half a goal higher than any team can manage offensively. There's probably plenty of culprits -- Avery and Brunnstrom not adequately replacing Hagman and Miettinen, the absence of Sergei Zubov (who I think returns to the team tonight , along with Mark Parrish) , and of course the guy between the pipes. Marty Turkey. 4.34 GAA, .837 Sv%. Still, it's still a young season, and it's certainly possib...