Sleeksays

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 )...

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...

Well here's something I thought I'd never live long enough to see: an Anaheim Duck atop the league leaderboard?! Congratulations to Getzlaf, Perry, and Selanne for continuing their offensive surge, including a combined 4 goals and 2 assists against the injury-depleted Blues last night. The Sharks should probably beat up the Blues again tonight, especially with Paul Kariya leaving last night's game in the second period with an ever-vague lower-body injury. The Ducks' 8-0-1 record within their last nine games has pulled the team briefly, at least, within three points of the league-leading Sharks. While the Ducks have played at least two more games than 28 NHL teams, it's still brought them up to the third-highest point total in the league, which is the subject of today's PuckToon . It's still difficult to tell you how good these Anaheim Ducks are or can be, but one thing is true: they are winning games in a lot of different ways, and are becoming awfully diffi...

St. Louis Blues (5-5-0, t-10th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (8-5-1, 3rd in west) Yeah, I was yelling "Blue-urns". Well, another moderately-deserved two points snatched in L.A. last night, but I'll tell you -- the 2nd and 4th lines looked pretty outmatched through most of the night. Brendan Morrison is still struggling to produce, though I still don't mind his overall positional play, but I also think that Teemu's not fighting through enough checks, and Todd Marchant hasn't carried a scoring line since ever. But hey, today's a new day and a new opponent -- the St. Louis Blues. Fun Fact: Did you know that St. Louis is in the Central Division, home of the Detroit Red Wings? Yeah, of course you knew that, but I'm horrible at segues. But now that we're talking about Detroit, our friend, now mysteriously known as "The Swede" (though tireless research has revealed he doesn't live in Sweden ) , has produced another comic book masterpiece, thi...

As you are all probably aware, Fox Sports West has been experimenting with a new method of presenting a hockey game, called "Rinkside View." The view fucking sucks attempts to give the viewer a more up-close view of the action through cameras right above the penalty box and behind both nets. It was an interesting notion, but the view has been an overwhelming failure with the fans and is quickly becoming an black mark on the network and the Los Angeles Kings. Look at this poll on Inside the Kings : fans have risen up in protest against Rinkside View. If it were a bill, fans could override a president's veto to dismiss Rinkside View. The problems with Rinkside View are voluminous so I hardly see the need to discuss all of them, but I will take time from my busy schedule making my cat chasing a laser point to point out just a few flaws. 1) YOU CAN'T FOLLOW THE GODDAMN PUCK. Ahem, excuse me. The patricians that sit right near the glass won't tell you this, ...