Archive for the ‘Links’ Category

Martin Brodeur is old. Well, old for a hockey player. If you haven’t heard this lately, you probably don’t have the internet. Or a TV. Or you just don’t care about hockey. Anyway, we all know that Brodeur is becoming what I hesitate to call an “ageless wonder”. I hesitate because it’s a stupid phrase but it kind of applies, even though he’s been showing his age for a few years now. So maybe it doesn’t apply. Whatever.

We know that Brodeur is old because the media keeps telling us (hypocrisy!) and I’m half surprised that we haven’t seen a billion comparisons between Brodeur and Jamie Moyer. I like to imagine they hang out at the Old Athletes Country Club and have old man arguments.

“Paint my chicken coop!”

“Make me.”

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I saw something very odd yesterday. Like a child on the boughs of Scotland who catches a glimpse of what might be the Loch Ness Monster, I wasn’t sure I believed my own eyes. Could it be true? Could I really have seen what I thought I saw? After checking the most reputable of sources (the Internet) I was able to prove that, yes, in fact, my eyes had not deceived me, what I had seen was true.

Mike Green scored a winning goal in the 2012 playoffs.

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The terms “overrated” and “underrated” are thrown around far too much these days. So much so that they’re beginning to lose their meaning. It’s like calling somebody a hipster; it can mean so many things that it’s becoming utterly meaningless. Or maybe I’m just tired of being called a hipster. The glasses make me look cool, okay? (I don’t actually wear glasses. I made that up. Or did I?). Players can be so overrated that people start getting tired of them and then they become underrated and players can be so underrated that all people do is talk about how underrated they are and then they become overrated and force people like me to write long run-on sentences.

Sorry.

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Braden Holtby is good. Really good. Like, better than I ever expected. Mostly because two weeks ago, I didn’t know who Braden Holtby was. It’s no secret that a hot goalie in the NHL playoffs is all your team needs to find success. Whether it be, Giguere or Halak, a team with a hot goalie makes seeds irrelevant. Hell, look at the Kings (though I’d argue that Quick is less hot than just really, really good).

Holtby, of course, is slightly more interesting purely because he’s a rookie. Rookie goalies finding success is nothing new but it’s always interesting. Especially in the pressure cooker that is the NHL playoffs and especially, in Holtby’s case, in Washington where the pressure on the Capitals to actually put a winning team together grows every year. It’s one thing to be 2011 James Reimer and attempt a valiant comeback that is destined to fall short in the regular season, it’s another to be 2006 Cam Ward and lead a team to victory in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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So, the Phoenix Coyotes are up 2-0 in the Western Conference Semi-Finals. Read that again. Crazy, right? There are lots of columns in every aspect of media that hype up a team as the least likely of underdogs or whatever and I’m going to do my best to not make this one of those columns. Mostly because their roster has very little to do with what makes them underdogs. While lacking a true scoring star, though one could make the argument for Ray Whitney, the team is solid all the way up and down the roster. They don’t do anything out of the ordinary, really, and they’re not exactly the most exciting team to watch in the world but when your leading scorer is also +26 you’re going to win some games.

Also, Mike Smith.

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Around The Score offices, I made no secret of my hatred of the Devils/Panthers series. Sure, it went seven games. Sure, game 7 went to double overtime. Don’t care, hated it. I probably don’t have any rational reason for hating it so much (I rarely do), other than the fact I was kind of bored, but I do know that as soon as it ended my dislike changed to excitement for what was going to come next.

This Devils/Flyers series is going to be awesome. Really awesome. I’m excited and, if you like hockey, you should be too. Without further ado, here are five reasons why this series is going to be a whole bunch of fun.

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As we move further and further into the NHL playoffs, we begin to look ahead to what the off-season will bring. It’s already started with all the Roberto Luongo buzz because Leaf fans want to be included in discussions on TSN, and it will likely continue as we roll on. However, the NHL playoffs are kind of weird and are proving that trade buzz and signing buzz can have a generally straightforward narrative but it can also be broken down into this conversation:

“Man, Mike Smith is just carrying the Coyotes”

“Mike Smith who wasn’t good enough to play for Tampa Bay Mike Smith?”

“Yeah, haven’t you heard? He’s amazing now.”

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