Makeup

Ok, so I've been busy on holiday and now that I have returned, I am busy as hell at work and have been too lazy to update this thing. I am currently sitting on my porch in sunny California having a Marin Hefe Doppel Weizen enjoying the 80 degree weather and sun. Birds are chirping left and right and the I can hear the attractive female sun bathers at the pool talking about life.

Anyway, since the last time I posted, the Bulldogs have won a few hockey games. They are now up 3-0 in the conference finals against the Chicago Wolves. Barring a couple of catastrophes, the Bulldogs will face the Bears of Hershey, PA. Hershey is the defending Calder Cup Champions. I admit that I doubted management selecting Carey Price over Gilbert Brule in the draft a few years ago, but right now it seems like it wasn't an unreasonable pick. Price just stopped 35 of 36 shots in the latest victory.

Anyway, unrestricted free agency will be upon us in about 5-6 weeks. There are lots of Habs fans who want us to sign a UFA. Here is my response to that:

Ottawa is in the Cup Finals. They made 2 UFA acquisitions last year in Martin Gerber and Joe Corvo. We all know how well Gerber turned out.

Anaheim is also in the Cup finals. They signed Scott Neidermayer as a UFA a few years ago. They also re-signed Selanne at a "home-town" discount. Basically their entire team is home-grown.

Buffalo got a ton of slack for only signing Teppo Numinen a few years ago. They also signed Jaro Spacek in this past off-season. Spacek was benched in the playoffs. The rest of their team was basically home-grown or acquired in trades.

Detroit has the best GM in the league, so they will always be good. Many of the teams that have made the big free agent splashes the past couple of years have faltered. Look at Boston and Philly. St. Louis also spent a lot as did Pittsburgh.

Signing big name, high pirced UFAs is not necessarily the way to build a successful franchise. We need to let our highly rated prospects get some NHL ice time. $th line ice-time is no good. Komisarek struggled a lot when he first started, but we kept giving him ice time and he eventually gained confidence. He is now one of our stalwarts. We need to do the same with Kostitsyn and Grabovski.

We need to figure out our center situation. We have too many. Koivu, Plekanec, Lapierre, Grabovski, and Chipchura. One of them has to go or change positions. Lapierre is a good 4th liner. Chipchura seems like a good 3rd liner. If I'm Saku Koivu, I've seen the writing on the wall. This also explains his discontent with management that the team is perpetually rebuilding. As unpopular of a move it would be and as much as I love him, I think trading Koivu to a contender would probably be the best for him and this organization. He is coming off his best season yet, and I think he will fetch more value now than he will in the future.

Dogs take 3-2 Series Lead

Carey Price stopped 36 out of 37 shots to help propel the Hamilton Bulldogs to a 3-1 victory over the Manitoba Moose today in game 5. Now the series goes back to Winnipeg, where Hamilton will need to win one more game.

Hamilton loses again

The series is now tied at 2 games a piece. Now the Bulldogs will need to go all the way back to Winnipeg because of their inability to win 2 out of 3 consecutive home games. This is turning into a collapse similar to Montreal's collapses against Carolina in 2002 and 2006. The Bulldogs really could use Andrei Kostitsyn.

Other news this week is that the IIHF is targeting Montreal to compete in their "Champions League". Montreal would be crazy to do this. They have nothing to gain (other than $822,000) by going over to Europe and beating up on 2nd-rate teams in the pre-season. There is a reason why NFL teams don't go over to Europe to play NFL Europe teams in the pre-season...

Obscure Hab of the Day: Sebastien Bordeleau

Home Ice Advantage?

Well, it looks as though playing on home ice is not an advantage for the Hamilton Bulldogs and Manitoba Moose. So far, the road squad has won each of the first three games in the series.

I must admit, that I CANNOT STAND listening to the radio announcers for the Bulldogs. I listened to some of the games over the internet and these guys are "homers". I HATE biased home team announcers. It is the same reason why I cannot stand CBC and they morons that do the Sabres games. Other teams with atrotious TV announcers include: Florida Panthers (Denis Potvin), Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, San Jose Sharks.

Oh yeah, I saw Sydney Crosby in the store buying himself a new pacifier yesterday.

Dogs are our last hope...

Well, the Cincinnati Cyclones were defeated 5-3 in their game 7 against Dayton. This leaves the Hamilton Bulldogs as te only affiliate of the Habs playing hockey. Hamilton scored a big road win last night to take the series lead over Manitoba 1-0.

I got thinking about if Hamilton won the Calder Cup and how much it would mean. Last year, Hershey won it all. They are the Capitals' affiliate. A couple of years ago, the Philadelphia Phantoms won it and we all know how bad the Flyers were this year. We have to keep telling ourselves that AHL talent doesn't always equate to NHL talent.

With that being said, I can't wait to see all of our young guys flying around the ice during pre-season in September...



Obscure Hab of the day: Patrik Carnback