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It’s a Hate-Fest. And it’s not Surprising.

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

For the past 24 hours, two prominent athletes have been taken behind the barn by sports fans and beaten senseless. Talk about a hate-fest, we’re in the middle of one right now.

The two victims brought the wrath of sports fans down on themselves, but maybe I’m getting soft. Maybe, after two days of this relentless thrashing, LeBron James and Roberto Luongo deserve a break.

After all, both led their respective teams to the championship round of their respective sports and while one lost, the other one is very much alive.

LeBron has taken an incredible beating over the last 48 hours and he’s taken that beating for two reasons: 1) He told the world on a TV show last summer that he was leaving Cleveland and taking his talents to South Beach and 2) he and his new teammates celebrated winning a championship before they’d even had one practice together. Bad form on both counts.

Certainly, LeBron was not good in the championship final, but he didn’t really deserve the length and breadth of the hate that was heaped upon him. For instance:

1) John Kasich, the governor of Ohio named the Dallas Mavericks honourary “citizens’ of Ohio for avenging James’ defection and praised Mavericks’ series MVP, Dirk Nowitzki, for “keeping his talents in Dallas.” Ouch.

2) Sommee Cards, an electronic greeting card company, offered this epithet for sale on-line: ”Thanks for being less disappointing at your job than LeBron James.” My goodness. That’s a greeting? In fairness, they offered up another one that read: “I hope to someday will myself to succeed as effectively as I willed LeBron James to fail.”

3) A large group of, what we’re told were originally Cleveland-based tweeters,  proclaimed Monday to be “National LeBron James Day.” Anyone celebrating the holiday would be allowed to leave work 12 minutes early.

On Twitter it got a lot worse. At my radio station, Streetz 104.7, it was just one giant LeBron joke after another.

Granted, he brought it upon himself, but anyone who ran into him on Monday still wanted his autograph. He’s still a star and who knows, he might win next year. Maybe.

Regardless, he lost four basketball games out of six. That’s really all he lost. After awhile, all the hating, just seemed silly.

Meanwhile, poor Roberto Luongo couldn’t buy a polite comment after the Bruins beat his Vancouver Canucks 5-2 on Monday night. Of course, Luongo was yanked after eight minutes and 35 seconds, trailing 3-0. Frankly, I just get the sense he can’t see very well in that rink in Boston.

It got so nasty on Monday, there was even a takeoff of “The World’ s Most Interesting Man” going around that had Luongo pictured with his Dos Equis beer bottle saying, “I don’t always play like a bag of shit, but when I do, I prefer the playoffs.” OK, so it was funny, but the fact is, Luongo just came off a shutout at home and could very well get another one on Wednesday night. That would give Vancouver the Cup, for those keeping score at home.

Meanwhile, it’s nice that American hockey fans were ripping Luongo, but those people south of the border should have been less concerned about the Bruins clubbing the Canucks 5-2 and be more concerned about the fact that Monday night’s game on NBC was down 37 per cent in the ratings from last year.

And American hockey fans think Atlanta will be the only team to vacate? Right.

 

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Busy Weekend, Lots to Know

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

When one wakes up on a Saturday morning in the sports business and knows he’ll go non-stop for the next 17 hours, he also knows there is nothing better in the world.

Let’s check the daytimer:

10 a.m. Winnipeg Goldeyes Open House, team practices from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

2 p.m. Radio in Ottawa with A.J. Jakubec on the TEAM 1200.

3 p.m. Assiniboia Downs, 137th running of the Kentucky Derby.

7 p.m. Induction Ceremony for the Manitoba Softball Hall of Fame.

In between all that we have to sneak around to watch the Canadian Football League draft,  the Nashville-Vancouver Stanley Cup playoff game, the Sugar Shane Mosley-Manny Pacquiao WBO Welterweight Title Fight, the Oklahoma City-Memphis and Miami-Boston NBA playoff games and a whole slate of Major League Baseball games that just can’t be missed.

It’s one of the days that when it ends, you say to yourself, “Thank the Lord I’m alive and someday, if things ever get quiet, I just might get to play golf.”

While we rush around from place-to-place, here’s what we need to know:

1. We like Dialed In in the Derby because ever since Big Brown, we have always bet the Florida Derby champion at Churchill. Haven’t always won, but in a 19-horse race that is as good a strategy as any.

2. The Canadian Football League draft, although billed as “a franchise-changing day” for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, is and, well, isn’t.

It IS because the Bombers finally have some draft picks. It ISN’T because players who are selected in the Canadian draft tend to a) fail miserably or b) play for every other team in the league at some point in their career, anyway. Perhaps the best player drafted No. 1 overall in the last 10 years was Steve Morley by Calgary and he now plays for the Bombers.

3. Vancouver can eliminate Nashville at home tonight and probably will. Despite the brilliance of Preds head coach Barry Trotz, the Canucks are just better at every aspect of the game.

4. Now that Dallas has the Lakers’ backs to the wall at 3-0, can Memphis take out Oklahoma City. Memphis hadn’t won a playoff game in franchise history until this year and now the Grizzlies have won a series. If they can win two games at home — starting tonight — they just could be the first NBA Cinderella team in a long, long time.

5. Pacquiao will take out Mosley in three rounds.

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This Should be Barry Trotz’s Year

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Now that he has been nominated — again — for the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the Year, maybe this is it.

After all, year-in and year-out, there is no better coach in the National Hockey League than Dauphin, Manitoba’s gift to the NHL, Nashville Predators bench boss, Barry Trotz.

For the sake of full disclosure, I am the president of the Barry Trotz fan club. I have, without apology, been campaigning for Trotz since the early 2000s. There is no better coach in the game.

And already this spring, he has proven it. First with a six-game victory over the Anaheim Ducks and now with  a Round 2 Game 1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks IN Vancouver.

“I’m happy because I think of the resiliency of the group that worked so hard all year, and I’m relieved because there is a little bit of a cloud that we wanted to get to the next level,”  Trotz told reporters after his Preds dispatched Anaheim. ”And if we never got there in this series, I think there would be a little bit of a carry-over.”

“We got help from everybody. Everybody contributed. That’s sort of what we do. That’s our DNA. To win this series, we needed everybody and everybody contributed.”

Certainly the country’s hockey mavens  know the players who toil for Trotz. However, for the average hockey fan, the Preds are one of the game’s greatest collection of no-names. Nick Spaling, Marcel Goc, Matt Halischuk, Cal O’Reilly, Joel Ward, Colin Wilson, Kevin Klein (he’s an actor, isn’t he?), Shane O’Brien, Cody Franson, none of those guys conjures up thoughts of Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Alex Ovechkin or Joe Thornton. If the Preds have a “superstar” it’s Shea Weber and he’s a defenseman with 16 goals. The only forward with a “big” name, even in Nashville, is Martin Erat because he’s played his entire nine-year NHL career in Nashville. He had one more goal than Weber this season.

Call it odd, but the Nashville Predators didn’t realize what fame was until their general manager, David Poile (the only GM they’ve ever had), made a deal to acquire Mike Fisher. Fisher is a grinder who is only famous because he’s married to American Idol Carrie Underwood.

If there is a lunch bucket team in the NHL, it’s the Predators. And to their credit, they can all carry their lunch buckets into the second round of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

And the man who is truly responsible for this year’s success is a) the fiercest looking coach in the NHL and b) the nicest man in the game today.

Trotz is the only coach the Predators have ever had. He’s been in Nashville for the entire time the Preds have been the Preds. He has coached 985 consecutive games in Nashville. That’s the NHL record for most games coached from the start of a franchise’s history.

In fact, the 48-year-old Trotz, has been with the Predators since their inaugural season in 1998. His overall record is 455-398-60-71 and while that doesn’t sound like much, one must consider that the expansion Preds didn’t have a winning record until the 2003-04 season. However, since the 2004-05 lockout, Trotz’s Predators have gone 272-174-0-50 and on Sunday night, as the Preds reached the second round of the playoffs for the first time in history, it had become apparent that no coach in the NHL does as much with as little as Barry Trotz.

This past season, the best coach in the NHL coaxed his team to a 44-27-11 record, fifth in the West. He’s now taken out the No. 4 team in the conference and won’t know his team’s next opponent until, at least, tomorrow.

Trotz, who was born in Dauphin, spent three seasons with the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats and then went to the University of Manitoba where he still believed he could make it to the NHL one day. Trouble was, he’d been injured in the off-season when he was 19 and the pain just wouldn’t go away.

“I hurt my back in the summer of 1982 and it just never got better,” Trotz told me in 1999. “It was my lower-back and I tried to play through the pain for a year at the U of M, but I just couldn’t do it. It got so bad that I could barely walk. With some rest, I tried to go out to training camp the next year, hoping I could get back by Christmas, but I had nothing. It wasn’t coming around and then one day, the head coach at the U of M, Wayne Fleming, asked me to become his assistant.”

The next season Trotz took over as coach and general manager of his hometown Manitoba Junior Hockey League club, the Dauphin Kings, but then moved back to the U of M as a 26-year-old head coach while Fleming went to Europe on a sabbatical. When Fleming returned, Trotz stayed on as his assistant and picked up a side job as a regional scout with the Washington Capitals.

In 1990, the Capitals asked him to join their farm team, the Baltimore Skipjacks of the AHL as an assistant and Trotz jumped at the chance. He eventually became the team’s head coach and when the Skipjacks folded, he took a job as head coach of the AHL franchise in Portland, Me. There, he won a Calder Cup, and when his old boss, former Caps GM Poile became the first GM of the Nashville Predators, he immediately hired Trotz as his first head coach.

They have seldom missed a day together since.

“Barry is the fairest-minded, most honest coach in the game,” Poile once said. “His players love him and will do anything for him because there are no mind games, no favorites, no phoniness. Barry Trotz is a very good human being and as a result, an extremely good coach.”

Indeed. And now, maybe, just maybe, this year he’ll finally be recognized as the best coach in the National Hockey League.

(Portions of this updated post originally appeared at www.fantrax.com)

 

 

 

 

 

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Great First Round of the Playoffs. Now it’s on to Round 2

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

There is only one Canadian team left in the Stanley Cup playoffs and let’s be honest, the Vancouver Canucks were lucky to move on.

Meanwhile, we had a pretty darn good record in Round 1, finishing 7-1 (our only miss was Nashville over the Ducks). With a game on Thursday night, it’s time to take a close look at Round 2:

2011 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS ROUND 2

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Series I: No. 5 Tampa Bay Lightning (Defeated Pittsburgh in Seven Games) at No. 1 Washington Capitals (Defeated NY Rangers in Five Games).

Season Series: Washington won 4-1-1

The Capitals looked awesome in taking out the Rangers in five games. Ovechkin is back, Semin scored a couple of big goals and the checking lines were great. Tampa can score, no doubt about it, but in their win over Pittsburgh, the Lightning had some very bright spots defensively. In fact, that 1-0 win on the road in Game 7 against the Pens was a tribute to both goaltender Dwayne Roloson and the defensive unit in front of him. I loved the way Tampa battled back and I’ve developed a great deal of respect for coach Guy Boucher, but I just think Washington is the best team in the East.

Key player; Dwayne Roloson, Tampa Bay Lightning.

Our pick: Washington in six.

Series J: No. 3 Boston Bruins (Defeated Montreal in Seven Games) at No. 2 Philadelphia Flyers (Defeated Buffalo in Seven Games).

Season Series: Boston won 3-0-1

It’s the same thing every year. If the Flyers get the goaltending they require, they will win and advance. If they don’t, well… Boston won the season series quite handily and beat a much better team to get to the second round. Boston has significantly better goaltending and Philly will go down for the same reason it goes down every year. If your goaltender isn’t your best player, you can always lose. Once again, Philadelphia is likely to lose.

Key player: Tim Thomas, Boston Bruins

Our pick: Boston in six.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Series K: No. 5 Nashville Predators (Defeated Anaheim in Six Games) at No. 1 Vancouver Canucks (Defeated Chicago in Seven Games)

Season Series: A split 2-2.

If you are a regular reader of fantrax.com, you know I’m a huge fan of Predators head coach Barry Trotz. On Monday I wrote that he should be the NHL’s coach of the year. However, I also think his hard-working Preds might need some divine help to get past the Canucks who just got a real scare from the Chicago Blackhawks – proving that defending champions do not go down easily. The Preds don’t score a lot, they don’t have a of bog name stars and they seldom look like a playoff worthy team at the start of the season, but this year’s Predators are as good a team as there is in the West. Trouble is, they get to face the best team in the NHL and one suspects the Sedin Twins will wake up this time.

Key player:  Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks

Our pick: Vancouver in five.

Series L: No. 3 Detroit Red Wings (Defeated Phoenix in Four Games) at No. 2 San Jose Sharks (Defeated Los Angeles in Six Games).

Season Series: Sharks won 3-1-0

This is a great matchup because in recent years both of these teams have been very good and yet both have choked in the playoffs. Detroit looked like a buzz saw, taking out a pretty good Coyotes team in four straight games. If Pavel Datsyuk is a as good as he was in Round 1 and the checking lines continue to dominate, the Wings could have an easy time. Henrik Zetterberg is also expected back for Round 2. The Sharks finally got past the first round and looked good doing it, although they did take out a banged-up Kings team that just wasn’t up to snuff offensively without leading scorer, Anze Kopitar. However, Joe Thornton looked good in Round 1 and that might bode well for the Sharks.

Key player: Jimmy Howard, Detroit Red Wings.

Our pick: Red Wings in six.

 

 

 

 

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Nobody Better Than the Canucks

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It’s one of those accomplishments worth shouting from the rooftops.

This past week, the Vancouver Canucks reached the 50-win plateau for the first time in their 40-year history. In the meantime, the Canucks backup goalie, Cory Schneider made 39 saves to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 to improve to 15-3-2 on the season as the Canucks extended their road winning streak to eight games. That winning streak reached nine with a 3-1 victory over Nashville and then, last night, back home at Rogers Centre, the Canucks beat L.A. 3-1 to win their fifth straight game and reach 113 points (52-18-9), the most in franchise history.

They also wrapped up the President’s Trophy.

The Canucks are the first Canadian-based team to win the Western Conference title since the current playoff format started. They have home ice advantage throughout the playoffs, but it doesn’t look like that matters. After all, wiuth that win in Nashville, this is a team that has won nine straight on the road.

It’s been awhile since we’ve been able to call a Canadian-based team the best in the NHL, but you can’t help but do it now.

Meanwhile, it is now, officially, the final week of the regular season in the National Hockey League and only half the teams in the playoff hunt have been decided.

Five teams in the East have punched their tickets: Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay and three in the West: Vancouver, Detroit and San Jose.

In the East, Montreal, Buffalo, the Rangers, Carolina and Toronto are still fighting for the last three spots while in the West, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Nashville, Anaheim,. Chicago, Calgary and Dallas are in the race for the final five spots. It’s going to be a sensational final week.

 

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Vancouver and Pittsburgh Are Both Gone. It’s on to Plan B

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

FARGO, N.D. — When we predicted, confidently, that the Vancouver Canucks would meet the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup final we forgot to consider a handful of very bad things:

1) We did not believe Jaroslav Halak would do to the Penguins almost exactly what he did to the Washington Capitals.

2) We did not believe Sidney Crosby would fail to score in the final four games of a series… any series.

3) We did not believe Roberto Luongo would be as weak as he was against Chicago — again.

4) We did not believe the Sedin Twins would completely disappear.

5) We did not believe Montreal could be as good as they were against Washington and Pittsburgh and we did not believe Vancouver could be as bad as they were against Chicago.

So it’s on to the NHL’s Stanley Cup Conference finals. No Pittsburgh. No Vancouver. But we are armed with a Plan B. After going 1-3 in the semi-finals, we’re now 7-5 this spring.

Here’s our look at the Conference championship series…

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks (1) vs. Chicago Blackhawks (2)

The Hawks proved against Vancouver that they simply skate too well. The Hawks are fast, skilled and gritty. They have everything a Stanley Cup champion needs, especially leadership. If Antti Niemi gives them any goaltending at all, they should win a game in San Jose and cruise at  home and that’s all they’ll need. The Sharks are shedding the “choke” label, but losing to a No. 2 seed is not choking. The Hawks are the best No. 2 seed we’ve seen in a long, long time. If Chicago does win, they won because they were, as we suspect, the better team.

Chicago Blackhawks in six

Eastern Conference

Philadelphia Flyers (7) versus Montreal Canadiens (8)

It just seems as if the Habs are this year’s team of destiny. With great goaltending from Jaroslav Halak and a load of scoring from their little guys, Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta and Mike Cammalleri, who leads all scorers in the playoffs with 12 goals, the Habs have ousted first-place Washington and No. 4 Pittsburgh. No small feat. However, while the Flyers look like a pushover for a team that has been so emotional and so dedicated, they deserve a lot of credit themselves. The Flyers checking lines have tied the opposition in knots and Mike Richards and Simon Gagne always seem to be around when they’re needed most. I like the Flyers, but I’m taking…

Montreal Canadiens in six


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Ready to Call a Vancouver-Pittsburgh Stanley Cup Final

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs told us three things: (1) Henrik Sedin IS the most valuable player in the National Hockey League this season, (2) the Pittsburgh Penguins appear ready to defend their Stanley Cup crown and (3) nothing beats a great goaltender.

How ’bout that Jaroslav Halak? He made 53 saves in Game 6 and 41 saves in Game 7 as he led the Montreal Canadiens to the biggest upset of this playoff year. The Habs were down 3-1 in the series when Halak decided to win it himself, stopping 131 of the final 134 shots he faced to give the Canadiens a 4-3 series win over President’s Trophy champion Washington Capitals. So much for Alex Ovechkin in this year’s post-season.

It was the fourth time in eight years, the No. 8-seed had beaten the No. 1-seed in a first-round series, and it means we went 6-2 with our picks in the opening round.

Let’s take a look at the second round:

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks (1) vs. Detroit Red Wings (5)

The Sharks looked good in round one against Colorado and appeared to get rid of the playoff jitters. The aging Wings, who just don’t play very well at home these days, looked great on the road against Phoenix. This will be a great series, but I think it’s the Sharks in a close one.

San Jose Sharks in seven

Chicago Blackhawks (2) vs. Vancouver Canucks (3)

The Canucks finished strong against L.A., scoring 17 goals in the final three games. The Hawks were lucky to get past Nashville. The Canucks gain some revenge from last year.

Vancouver Canucks in six

Eastern Conference

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) versus Montreal Canadiens (8)

In a year of upsets, I don’t see one here. Sidney Crosby is on a mission and the tiny Canadiens will tire, Jaroslav Halak or not.

Pittsburgh Penguins in six

Boston Bruins (6) versus Philadelphia Flyers (7)

Tuukka Rask is a better goaltender than we think and Boston gets Marc Savard back. This one is still a toss up. The Flyers will win if Brian Boucher matches his first round heroics.

Boston Bruins is seven

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Big Week for Pennsylvania Hockey. Canucks Look Like Real Contenders.

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

Sunday night, the Vancouver Canucks eliminated the Los Angeles Kings in six games in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

That’s not a surprise by any stretch, but the way in which the Canucks eventually woke up and drilled the Kings was quite telling. The Kings took a 2-1 lead in the series after winning 5-3 in Los Angeles in Game 3 and then, it would appear, Vancouver got pissed.

The Canucks went on to win 6-4, 7-2 and 4-2 as Henrik Sedin, who really should be the NHL’s most valuable player this season, had a goal and four assists in the final three games of the series. When a team puts up 17 goals in three games in a Stanley Cup playoff series, that team is really on its game.

Now look, we picked the Canucks to win in six and so did a lot of other generally misguided pundits, but I think we all believed Roberto Luongo’s goaltending would be the difference. That wasn’t the case. In this series, it was the Canucks offence that made the difference and quite frankly, if that keeps up, it will make the Canucks a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup.

Meanwhile, it was a big week for the two Pennsylvania teams. The Philadelphia Flyers, who were 5-1 against the New Jersey Devils during the regular season, continued to take it to the Devils and ousted favoured New Jersey in five games. We picked Jersey in seven, but we did not believe that Philly would put a blanket on the Devils the way they did. We also didn’t expect goaltender Brian Boucher to be as good he was (1.59 goals against average and a .940 save percentage) and yet he was clearly the pleasant surprise of the series.

It was a little tougher for the Pittsburgh Penguins who needed six games to take out the Ottawa Senators. The Sens were feisty in this one and despite a serious stomach problem, Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson did everything he could to keep the Sens alive. Unfortunately for Ottawa fans, it wasn’t enough against a Sidney Crosby-led Pens team that really looked like the defending Stanley Cup champions when it counted. Crosby finished the six game series with 14 points and appears to be on the way to a Conn Smythe Trophy.

The San Jose Sharks took out Colorado in six games and I’m surprised it went six. The San Jose players finally got rid of the knots in their collective stomach and won a playoff round with ease. It’s about time.

Before the week ends, Boston, Washington, Chicago and, yes I still believe Detroit, should wrap up the remaining four series. That will leave us at 7-1 in the opening round and ready to predict a Vancouver-Pittsburgh Stanley Cup final.

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Our Picks for the Opening Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

You have to love the way the 2010 National Hockey League season turned out. The New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers went to the shootout on the final day to determine the last playoff spot in the East, the Phoenix Coyotes proved that Wayne Gretzky couldn’t coach a dog in from a snowstorm with a pork chop and Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos and Alexander Ovechkin went down to the wire to determine a Rocket Richard Trophy winner (or two).

If the playoffs are half as good as the season that just ended (and you know they will be), they’ll be as good as hockey gets.

Let’s take a look at the first round:

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks (1) vs. Colorado Avalanche (8)

The Sharks never play well in the post-season, but this is a different Sharks team. Colorado was lucky to make the playoffs.

San Jose Sharks in four

Chicago Blackhawks (2) vs. Nashville  Predators (7)

The Hawks are the better team but Barry Trotz is the best coach in hockey. This will be closer than people think because the Hawks goaltending is horrible.

Chicago Blackhawks in seven

Vancouver Canucks (3) vs. Los Angeles Kings (6)

If Roberto Luongo is better than he was last year (remember when he got bombed in Chicago in Game 6?), Vancouver will romp.

The Kings had a great year, but Vancouver is a Cp contender.

Vancouver Canucks in six

Phoenix Coyotes (4) vs. Detroit Red Wings (5)

The Wings are healthy again. Enough said.

Detroit Red Wings in five

Eastern Conference

Washington Capitals (1) versus Montreal Canadiens (8)

The Capitals are simply better. Jaroslav Halak could steal one or two in Montreal.

Washington Capitals in six

New Jersey Devils (2) verus Philadelphia Flyers (7)

Philadelphia owns the Devils. The Flyers were 5-1 in six games against New Jersey. The Devils are a better team with better goaltending, but Philly matches up well against these guys.

New Jersey Devils in seven

Buffalo Sabres (3) versus Boston Bruins (6)

Our first round upset. Neither team has enough scoring, but Ryan Miller won’t be as good in April as he was in February.

Boston Bruins in seven

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) versus Ottawa Senators (5)

Should be a good series, but the Penguins are Stanley Cup champions until the day they aren’t. Pittsburgh has too much offence and a good goaltender.

Pittsburgh Penguins in five

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Deadline Day Can Tell Us a Lot About the State of the NHL.

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was trade deadline day in the NHL Wednesday and it was a good day for… the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose. Amazing.

Moves by the Moose’s parent club, the Vancouver Canucks, meant that Vancouver’s AHL affiliate got to add centre Yan Stastny and veteran defenseman Brad Lukowich. That just about summed up the 2010 NHL trade deadline day. It didn’t do much at the NHL level, but quite a lot at the AHL level.

It also meant that the Ottawa Sun’s 300 rumours were all wrong. Or made up.

There were a record 30 trades made on deadline day involving 55 players and 27 draft picks and not one of them could be called a blockbuster. In fact, here was the trade deadline in one, single word: Dull.

Of course, that’s what a salary cap will do.

Because of the cap, instead of taking a big plunge in a search for stars that could lead teams to a Stanley Cup – oh, yeah, and cost a lot of money, too — the buyers made a lot of small deals that didn’t change their cap levels much. That’s why, after making seven small deals and being well under the cap, the Phoenix Coyotes were Wednesday’s big winners.

That didn’t make the other NHL owners happy, but by adding a bit to their own payroll, the Coyotes got considerably better. They acquired Derek Morris from Boston, Wojtek Wolski from Colorado, Mathieu Schneider from Vancouver and Lee Stempniak from Toronto. Sure, when a team the league bought for $140 million is likely going to lose between $50 million and $70 million this year, it would definitely piss off the some of the owners of other NHL teams because they not only have to foot the bill for the losses, but also to improve the club.

Of course, if the Coyotes don’t make the playoffs, they’ll lose the $70 million end, not the $50 million end. With only six weeks left in the season, the players acquired at the deadline won’t really cost that much.

Meanwhile, deadline day was a perfect time to illustrate the wait-until-next-decade attitude of the Toronto Maple Leafs. On Tuesday the Leafs dealt Alexei Ponikarovsky to Pittsburgh for defenseman Martin Skoula and middling prospect Luca Caputi.

The Leafs then sent Skoula to New Jersey for a fifth-round draft pick. In other words, the Leafs sent a big forward who will play on a line with Sidney Crosby – and was probably their best player — to Pittsburgh in exchange for a fifth-round pick and the slow, journeyman Caputi.

Now isn’t that an illustration of the state of the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Deadline day was good for something.

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