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The Playoffs Are Coming. It’s Manitoba’s Best Year Ever.

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

This was a big week around the National Hockey League.

Jonathan Toews and the Chicago Blackhawks clinched a playoff berth, Travis Zajac continued to have the best year of his career as he leads the New Jersey Devils into the post-season and Barry Trotz, the head coach of the Nashville Predators, keeps the Preds winning even though they don’t have enough personnel or enough star personnel to be as good as they are.

Some notes from a week in the hockey trenches observing the brilliance of the Manitoba kids in the NHL…

1) This is as good a time as any to praise the Finnish Flash, Teemu Selanne. Last Sunday night, Selanne scored his 600th career goal to become only the 18th player in history to reach the 600-goal plateau.

Congratulations to a great guy, a guy who scored his first 147 with the Winnipeg Jets.

2) When he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg-born Alexander Steen appeared to be spinning his wheels, going nowhere fast. Now, as a member of the St. Louis, Steen is having a career year.

Through 60 games, Steen has 21 goals and 21 assists and is a plus-five on a minus team. He’s the Blues third leading scorer and is tied for the team lead in goals even though he’s played 10 and 11 fewer games than the two players ahead of him.

After struggling in Toronto and often being a healthy scratch, he has become a big time offensive player in St. Louis. At 26, he is developing into one of the two or three best players on the Blues.

3) If there was one player who could have played on Canada’s Olympic team and didn’t, it was Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos. Now, as the season winds down and Tampa misses the playoffs, Stamkos, who was a great friend of 92-CITI-FM and the old Cosmo Show, has a chance to show how good he really is.

Heading into the weekend, Stamkos was tied with Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin for the NHL goal-scoring lead with 45. Could Steven Stamkos win the Rocket Richard Trophy? You bet he could.

4) The Calgary Flames, and the red-hot Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg, have an uphill battle to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, but we will know by this coming Sunday whether the Flames have what it takes to reach the post-season.

The Flames started a five-games-in-seven-days stretch with a 4-3 loss at Minnesota on Sunday. They beat the Anaheim Ducks in Calgary on Tuesday night, but lost a big game to the Islanders, 3-2, on Thursday night. They play at Boston on Saturday and at Washington on Sunday and if they don’t win both of them, they’ll be pretty much done.

5) Manitoba’s top young players have had rock solid seasons in 2009-2010.

Winnipeg-born Duncan Keith, a Chicago Blackhawks defenseman, has 13 goals and 52 assists for 65 points, 31st overall in the NHL and second among defensemen. He’s also a plus-18.

New Jersey rightwinger/centre Travis Zajac has 23 goals and 38 assists for 61 points, 34th in scoring in the NHL. He’s also a plus-16.

Winnipeg-born Patrick Sharp (plus-22) of the Blackhawks has 22 goals and 39 assists and is also 34th in NHL scoring.

Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews, the captain of the Blackhawks, has 22 goals and 37 assists for 59 points and is a plus-20. He’s 43rd in scoring.

Winkler’s Dustin Penner has 27 goals and 28 assists and is a plus-5 on a very minus Edmonton Oilers team.

Meanwhile, Alexander Steen of Winnipeg and Eric Fehr of Winkler each have 21 goals while Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg has 13.

This might be Manitoba’s best year ever in the NHL.

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Three more little things bouncing around among my gray cells…

Posted on July 6, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

After a wonderful weekend of sports brilliance and silliness, I had a few little things banging around in my noggin. Here goes…

1) Two of the world’s greatest athletes rose to the occasion on Sunday. (Fact is, it was quite a day for Nike and Gillette. Their two most prominent spokesmen were both big winners.)

At Wimbledon, Roger Federer defeated Andy Roddick, in a marathon, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 to win his record 15th Grand Slam title and the sixth Wimbledon championship of his career.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods, made birdie at 16 to go 13-under and win his own tournament, the AT&T National at Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C. It was his third win of the year, the 68th of his career and moved him to the top of both the money list and the FedEx Cup standings.

I don’t think there is any doubt. We are now watching the two most remarkable individual-sport athletes in the history of, well, individual sport.

2) The National Hockey League’s free-agent frenzy continues and there were a number of local (Manitoba) moves this weekend.

Neepawa’s “Sherriff” Shane Hnidy signed a one-year, $750,000 deal with the Minnesota Wild; Winnipeg’s Tyler Arnason signed a two-way deal with the New York Rangers; Jason Krog left the Manitoba Moose and signed a two-year deal with the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers; Jason Jaffray left the Manitoba Moose and signed a two-year deal with the Calgary Flames; and of the 20 players who selected salary arbitration, two were Winnipeggers, Nigel Dawes will go to arbitration with Phoenix while Travis Zajac will go to arbitration with New Jersey.

Throw in Colton Orr’s four-year $4 million deal to beat people up on behalf of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Cam Barker’s semi-legal RFA offer from the Chicago Blackhasks and it was quite a week for our local hockey stars.

3) It’s Week 2 in the Canadian Football League and it starts on Thursday with Edmonton at Montreal. 

On Friday, Calgary plays right here in Winnipeg — it’s the 2009 home opener — while Hamilton is at B.C.

On Saturday, Saskatchewan plays at Toronto. All four games are, of course, on TSN.

Meanwhile, over in Bomberland, 1,000-yard receiver Derick Armstrong, who refused to play in last Thursday’s game, did not practice Sunday or Monday and was apparently being shopped to other CFL teams. He’s probably finished as a Blue Bomber and a whole load of fans are righteously pissed at head coach Mike Kelly (even though Armstrong refused to play when called upon last Thursday and in a  team game, that’s just about as selfish as it gets).

Win or lose, it’s going to be a very, very interesting football season in Winnipeg in 2009.

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Calgary and Phoenix, among a group of big winners (depending on your point of view) on Deadline Day

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Wednesday was trade deadline day in the NHL…Here are the highlights…

The first deal: The Ottawa Senators made the first deal of the day, trading winger Antoine Vermette to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for goaltender Pascal Leclaire.

 

The Calgary Flames did very well. First they welcomed back defenceman Jordan Leopold, re-acquired from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for defenceman Lawrence Nycholat, defenceman Ryan Wilson and a second-round pick. Then they acquired veteran forward Olli Jokinen from Phoenix in exchange for stone-handed Matthew Lombardi, young forward Brandon Prust and a first-round draft pick. 

 

The New York Rangers got better. GM Glen Sather acquired veteran defenceman Derek Morris from Phoenix in exchange for defenceman Dmitri Kalinen, Winnipeg’s own Nigel Dawes (the only Winnipegger involved in the deadline dealing) and underachieving forward Petr Prucha. Then, the Rangers grabbed forward Nik Antropov from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for a second round pick and a conditional pick. 

The Edmonton Oilers got better, as well, as they have acquired forward Patrick O’Sullivan in a pair of deals involving four teams. The 24-year old O’Sullivan was originally shipped along with a second round draft pick from the Los Angeles Kings to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for forward Justin Williams. The ‘Canes then turned around and dealt O’Sullivan and the draft pick they received from the Kings to the Oilers. The Oilers were not done there as they sent a second round draft pick to the Buffalo Sabres for forward Ales Kotalik.

The Boston Bruins acquired veteran forward Mark Recchi and a second-round pick in 2010 from tampa in exchange for two prospects and then Boston picked up veteran defenceman Steve Montador from Anaheim for forward Petteri Nokelainen.

 

The Pittsburgh Penguins acquired defenceman Andy Wozniewski from St. Louis in exchange for blueliner Danny Richmond. Later Pittsburgh got veteran forward Bill Guerin from the Islanders and gave up a conditional draft pick. 

The Senators agreed to a three-year contract worth $3.7 million a season with defenceman Filip Kuba taking him off the market.

Philadelphia acquired defenceman Kyle McLaren from San Jose in exchange for a sixth-round pick and then dealt veteran forward Scottie Upshall to Phoenix in exchange for young forward Daniel Carcillo.

The Buffalo Sabres acquired goaltender Mikael Tellqvist from Phoenix for a fourth round pick and then got Dominic Moore from Toronto in exchange for a second round pick. 

 

The Toronto Maple Leafs claimed goaltender Martin Gerber off waivers from the Ottawa Senators, and made a deal with tampa in which they acquired goalie Olaf Kolzig and defencemen Jamie Heward and Andy Rogers.

The Dallas Stars claimed centre Brendan Morrison off waivers from the Anaheim Ducks.

 

Last year, there were 25 deals on deadline day, involving 45 players. This year, just 22 deals involving a record 47 players. 

 

So who were the big winners?

 

Edmonton did well, getting Kotalik, young O’Sullivan and a draft pick for, essentially, Erik Cole. Antoine Vermette should help Columbus make the playoffs for the first time ever and the Rangers did extremely well, getting Morris and Antropov for Prucha, Kalinin and Dawes. Toronto did alright because it added draft picks (However, by the time those draft picks turn into actual players, we’ll be celebrating the 50th anniversary of “No Cup in T.O.” Good thing the Hockey Hall of Fame is in Toronto, or the actual existence of the Stanley Cup might just be a rumour to those people.)

 

Meanwhile, nobody did better than Calgary or Phoenix.

 

The Flames were big winners because they added Leopold and Jokinen — two solid hockey players — and made themselves much better right now. They’ll be a force in the playoffs.

 

The Coyotes won because they dumped their second highest paid player, Jokinen at $5.25 million, and their fifth highest paid player, Derek Morris at $3.95 million. They also dumped another $1.8 million in contracts for a total of $10.8 million. In exchange, they added five veteran players who will cost only $6.8 million next season along with three draft picks. Financially, it was a great day for a financially struggling franchise.

 

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Hossa scores winner as Pittsburgh advances to All-Pennsylvania Eastern final. Game 5: Pittsburgh 3, NY Rangers 2 (OT).

Posted on May 4, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Marian Hossa, the trade-deadline acquisition who made good, fired the winning goal at the 7:10 mark of the first overtime as the Pittsburgh Penguins put the New York Rangers out of their collective misery on Sunday afternoon.

 

The Pens won Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinal, 3-2, but the score was not indicative of the play. Pittsburgh outshot the Rangers 40-22 and outhit them 41-22 as the Rangers carried a game to overtime that should have been all over by the end of the second period.

 

OK, at this point we’ll give the Rangers a little credit. They did score two unanswered in the third period as Lauri Korpikoski and Winnipeg’s Nigel Dawes tallied for the Rangers to send the game into overtime, but if it hadn’t ben for the brilliance of Rangers’ goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, this game might have been 6-0 before the Rangers woke up.

 

Pittsburgh was clearly the better team in this series. When you win a series in five games, you’ve pretty much made a statement. But in this case, the Rangers foubnd a way to comeback and then abandoned the strategy in Game 5.

 

In order to win Game 4, 3-0, Rangers head coach Tom Renney dressed Colton Orr and, essentially, gooned it up. OK, he didn’t send his guys out to fight, but he did send them out to hit and face-wash and bodycheck and elbow and stab and just wreak general havoc.

 

The strategy worked as the Rangers outhit Pittsburgh 40-35, outshot Pittsburgh 34-29 and kept the Pens on their heels for 60 minutes.

 

Yesterday, however, for reasons known only to Renney, Orr didn’t dress (Renney dressed Korpikoski “on a hunch”) and so the Rangers coach left himself with a lineup that failed to include it’s toughest fighter (Orr) and its nastiest pest (the injured Sean Avery). The Rangers can’t skate with the Pens, but they can play tougher. Yesterday, in Pittsburgh they did neither.

 

As a result, they’re calling the country club for starting times this morning.

 

Renney had a good chance to come back in this series, even without Avery, but he decided he’d go out a wimp instead of trying to stay in as a goon. Reggie Dunlop would be mighty pissed off today.

 

In the meantime, how about Penguins GM Ray Shero? He’s the guy who went and got Hossa at the trade deadline and yesterday, that decision paid big dividends. Hossa was terrific yesterday and not only scored the game’s opening goal, but added the winner in OT. He now has five goals in the playoffs and is responsible for eliminating the Rangers in five games.

 

Well, OK, he and Renney are responsible. 

 

Now, the only question remaining is: Which Pennsylvania team will face the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup final?

 

Pittsburgh is certainly favoured, but if the Flyers goon it up, they can win it.

 

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Rangers steal home ice, Gomez terrorizes his former team

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

nigeldawes Rangers steal home ice, Gomez terrorizes his former teamAs the first round of the playoffs progresses, we’ll try to take a close look at, at least, one game each night.

On the opening evening of the 2008 post-season, last night, we spent most of our time watching three Manitoba kids – Travis Zajac and Arron Asham of the New Jersey Devils and Nigel Dawes of the New York Rangers – as they faced each other in that beautiful new building in Newark, New Jersey.

Now back on Sunday night, we picked the Rangers to win this series in seven games and, as it turned out, we picked the Rangers for every reason the Blueshirts won last night’s game – they have more pure scorers and those scorers came through, and Henrik Lundqvist outduelled Martin Brodeur.

Fact is, if the Rangers are to win this series, what happened last night has to happen three more times.

In the first period, the Devils did a great forechecking job and, for the most part, had territorial control, but there was just a sense that the Rangers would ultimately win this game simply because New Jersey had a couple of great breakaway chances and couldn’t finish.

No finish, no win. Especially in the playoffs when good chances usually are quite dear.

In the second period, Brendan Shanahan opened the scoring for the Rangers and the Devils answered 12 ½ minutes later. That goal seemed to spark New Jersey, but the third period was all New York, thanks in no small way to a huge gaffe by Brodeur.

Then again, it was really more than a gaffe. He should have smothered the puck, but instead, handed it to Ryan Callahan who was alone in front. It was a shorthanded goal and a complete screw up by a guy who doesn’t screw up very often.

After the goal, you could see New Jersey sag. When your leader, your superstar, screws up, it can be more costly, psychologically, than anyone knows.

New York added a goal by Sean Avery at 17:07 and then Lloyd Dawes young son scored his first playoff goal, thanks to a classy pass from Shanahan.

In the end, Scott Gomez had three assists against his former team and played a whale of a hockey game while Shanahan, Martin Straka and Jaromir Jagr were solid and the Rangers’ did a nice job of keeping the Devils off balance – at least, after that shaky first period.

Still, this game was a lot closer than a 4-1 score might indicate. Both teams had 27 shots at the opposing goaltender (Dawes’ empty netter gave the Rangers 28 shots, officially), the Devils had more hits (34-27), the Rangers won more faceoffs (31-25) and New Jersey, which ultimately DID have territorial control missed more shots (15-7).

But while Gomez put three points on the scoresheet and received most of the kudos from the TSN broadcast crew, the real stars were Lundqvist and the Rangers’ backcheckers. New York players blocked 16 shots and when you toss in New Jersey’s 15 misses and the four posts they hit, it becomes apparent that New Jersey had plenty of chances to put this game away and couldn’t get the job done.

After Game 1, I still think this is going to be a long series.

However, if the Devils don’t bear down around the Rangers’ net, New York might put this one away quickly. See the highlights on YouTube below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OEJGCAfgSc]

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Here’s to our local Manitoba boys in the Stanley Cup playoffs!

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

TylerArnason Heres to our local Manitoba boys in the Stanley Cup playoffs!If you’re a casual, or even regular, visitor to www.rivercitysports.com, you might not know – or care (we certainly understand that) – that River City Sports is a proud Winnipeg company.

OK, so we’re not particularly proud of the fact that Winnipeg gave up its beloved NHL franchise, but some things are out of our hands.

The fact remains, that here at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, we’re deeply proud of the hockey players who learned their craft in this province and we’re especially proud of the 14 players and one head coach who will participate in this spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

As the first round opens on Wednesday, April 9, we want to wish the best of luck to…

• Shane Hnidy of Neepawa, a defenceman with the Boston Bruins.
• Dustin Boyd of Winnipeg, a forward with the Calgary Flames.

Dustin Boyd Interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOKa10TNVQY&feature=related

• Tyler Arnason of Winnipeg (OK, so he was born in Oklahoma City, OK., when his dad, Chuck, played in the Central League, but he and his family are Winnipeggers) a forward with the Colorado Avalanche.
• Cody McLeod of Binscarth, a forward with the Colorado Avalanche.
• Derek Meech of Winnipeg, a defenceman with the Detroit Red Wings.
• Jordin Tootoo from Churchill, via Nunavut, via the Brandon Wheat Kings who lives in Winnipeg and is a forward with the Nashville Predators.
• Barry Trotz of Dauphin, head coach of the Nashville Predators.
• Travis Zajac of Winnipeg, a forward with the New Jersey Devils.

Travis Zajac Goal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2WJm5Ru-MQ

ArronAsham Heres to our local Manitoba boys in the Stanley Cup playoffs!• Arron Asham of Portage, a forward with the New Jersey Devils.
• Bryce Salvador of Brandon, a defenceman with the New Jersey Devils.
• Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg, a forward with the New York Rangers.

Nigel Dawes goal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7hDFSdsfM&NR=1

• Colton Orr of Winnipeg, a forward with the New York Rangers and a recent winner of the Players’ Player Award in New York.

Orr-Cote Fight
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tS8EaB9SSzU

• Riley Cote of Winnipeg, a forward with the Philadelphia Flyers.
• Jody Shelley of Thompson, a forward with the San Jose Sharks.
• Eric Fehr of Winkler, a forward with the Washington Capitals.

It wasn’t that long ago when there weren’t 14 players and a coach from Manitoba in the entire NHL. However, thanks to the wonderful programs run by Hockey Canada, Hockey Manitoba and the National Coaching Certification Program, the NHL is now loaded with Manitobans and we get to watch 14 of them play on the most important stage in the game – the Stanley Cup tournament.

If you happen to be in Manitoba this week, don’t forget to join two hockey dads, Lloyd Dawes and Doug Orr for their big parties at Boston Pizza. On Wednesday night, for the opener of the Rangers-Devils series, they’ll be at the Boston Pizza on McPhillips and on Friday night for Game 2, they’ll be at the Boston Pizza in St. Vital.

Manitoba has some great hockey memories and many more to come. Remember Teemu Selanne’s rookie goal record in Winnipeg? Watch it below and get excited all over again.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vtk6yVqDy3Q]
 

It’s Cup Time, it’s Winnipeg and while we don’t have the Jets to cheer for anymore – even though former Jets’ Teemu Selanne (Anaheim), Randy Carlyle (Anaheim’s head coach), Aaron Ward (Boston, the Jets No. 1 pick in 1991), Kris Draper (Detroit), Dallas Drake (Detroit), Paul MacLean (Detroit’s assistant coach) and Stu Barnes (Dallas) are all in this year’s playoffs – we do have plenty of local guys on the Road to the Stanley Cup.

Let’s party!
 

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