NHL Trade Deadline Review: Golden Gods And Worthless Pieces Of Crap

Thursday after the NHL Trade Deadline: The day every hockey site on the internet issues their Deadline “Winners and Losers” or “Deadline Report Cards,” always qualifying the lists with the standard admission “We won’t really know who the real winners are for months or years to come…” but proceeding with the gimmicky analysis nonetheless.

It’s true that some of the trades can’t be definitively analyzed the day after they occur, and the majority of the trades are too inconsequential to even merit either team being dubbed a “winner” or “loser”, but who wants to read a level-headed, non-kneejerk, middle-of-the-road writeup about a bunch of third-line wingers getting traded for draft picks? The answer is that no one [effing] does.

That’s why, instead of backing down from a Deadline Winners/Losers column, I’m taking an even more extreme step and naming my Trade Deadline GOLDEN GODS and WORTHLESS PIECES OF CRAP, i.e., teams that will definitely win the Cup because of their deadline pickups versus teams that will plunge into a ten-year pall of defeat because of their actions at the deadline. NO IN-BETWEENS. Let’s get started.

GOLDEN GODS:

Phoenix – Added F Wojtek Wolski, F Lee Stempniak, D Mathieu Schneider, D Derek Morris, F Alexandre Picard, G Miika Wiikman, F Petteri Nokelainen

So many dudes!!! Wojtek Wolski is a top-tier talent with 30-goal potential who needs a change of scenery, and Derek Morris and Mathieu Schneider are required to get dealt at every trade deadline, so they should bring some solid having-been-traded experience to the Coyotes’ blue line! Phoenix is our first GOLDEN GOD and is now the favorite for the Stanley Cup.

Pittsburgh – Added F Alexei Ponikarovsky, D Jordan Leopold

Awwwww yeahhhhh Alexei Ponikarovsky’s name has been said a lot the last few weeks and now the Pens got him and also they got Jordan Leopold so OUTTA THE WAY conference this team is a DEADLINE GOLDEN GOD and are now the favorite for the Stanley Cup!!!

Anaheim – Added D Lubomir Visnovsky, D Aaron Ward, G Joey MacDonald, G Curtis McElhinney

Lubomir Visnovsky is a legit veteran power play specialist who can take the reigns from Scott Niedermayer when he retires, and Aaron Ward is veteran veteran veteran Cup! Two more goalies and moving Vesa Toskala’s contract? The stuff of GOLDEN GODS. Anaheim has just won the Stanley Cup.


WORTHLESS PIECES OF CRAP:

Ducks Fans Fight Over Scott Niedermayer’s Stick

I wrote the other day that the Anaheim Ducks are in total disarray right now.

I was wrong.

NOW they’re in total disarray:

Penguins 5, Ducks 2: Anaheim Probably Needs To Fire Randy Carlyle

The Anaheim Ducks are in last place in the entire Western Conference. It’s early in the season, sure, but they’ve played 19 games — roughly a quarter of their season — and currently sit right next to Minnesota, below Nashville, Phoenix, and waaaay below upstart Colorado, all teams which really can’t compare to the Ducks in terms of total talent on paper. Denial is a powerful force, and the Ducks were at the end of an East-coast road trip last night, but I’ve watched Anaheim play five times this season and in every game they’ve been completely disorganized defensively, their penalty killing — a discipline that doesn’t even require talent so much as effort and coaching — has been deplorable, they’ve taken constant lazy penalties (Getzlaf barely even moved his feet last night), and for the most part, have appeared content to rely on their giant dudes’ giantness to just somehow result in enough down-low cycling to generate enough goals and possession to result in wins. It hasn’t.

This puts the Ducks in an extremely unenviable position, and one with which us Pens fans were all too familiar a season ago: They probably have to fire their coach. The extenuating problem in the Ducks’ case, however, is that Randy Carlyle already coached their team to a Stanley Cup victory and has kept them competitive every season in his tenure, including a first-round upset victory over the Sharks in last year’s playoffs. The Pens had a hard enough time firing Michel Therrien after he lead the team to a Finals appearance (and an equally improbable playoff berth the year before), and now the Ducks are supposed to turn on a coach who’s been nothing but effective since the day he arrived? AND the team’s formerly-suspended owner Henry Samueli was just re-instated by the NHL; how would it look if his first major act after his reinstatement was cutting loose the most successful coach in the team’s history?

For these reasons, I don’t expect the Ducks to fire Carlyle any time soon, but honestly, which scenario is more likely:

1) Despite keeping the same players and coaches, the Ducks miraculously start caring, playing great defense, solving their penalty kill, and make a run in the West.

2) The Ducks’ talented bunch continues their malaise, their front office continues to weather questions about Carlyle’s job security and Scott Niedermayer trade rumors, and no action is taken until they’re even more buried in an extremely rough conference.

Maybe it’ll take a 35-1 loss to the Maple Leafs for the Ducks’ GM to ultimately pull the trigger on a coaching change, but right now, it’s just impossible to watch Anaheim play and not believe Randy Carlyle has fallen into the sad but true “do we really have to fire this coach we love?” NHL state. I’m sure he’ll get a job with another team and have success in the future, but unless he’s secretly Lindy Ruff wearing a Mission Impossible rubber mask, he’s hit the inevitable NHL coach wall.

As for the Pens’ 5-2 victory, it was nice to see Jordan Staal get on the board, Deryk Engelland and the WBS defensive corps continue to perform as non-liabilities and occasional defensive sparks, Fleury played pretty well, and despite a few lazy defensive breakdowns brought upon by the Ducks’ lack of effort lulling the Pens into a false sense of security, the Penguins had this game in hand from the first period on.

And, lo and behold, the Pens even scored a power play goal, improving their PP to 1 for [ERROR: NUMBER TOO HIGH TO DEFINE] over the past month.

Penguins 4, Ducks 3: You Gotta Play A Solid, Complete Fifty Minutes Of Hockey

My brother is currently on a West-Coast Penguins trip, attending the Ducks, Kings, and Sharks games this week as a (jealousy-inspiring) birthday gift from his wife Chancy. After the second period of the Ducks game last night, we exchanged the following texts at the end of the second period after Crosby fed a wide-open Pascal Dupuis at the blue line and he proceeded to do what he so often does: do the farthest possible thing from scoring and spastically just fall down untouched. The exchange –

Me: Get used to that Crosby to Dupuis fall down at the blue line play on this trip

Mike: I told Chancy Dupuis is terrible. She said quiet, his brother could be sitting next to you

Me: Did the guy next to you get handed a drink then immediately fall down?

[Dupuis scores to put the Pens up 4-3]

Me: No way

Mike: He heard from his brother at the half. No way he has 3 goals. Ray Lewis stat

Long story short, the Pens got a go-ahead goal from Pascal Dupuis and proceeded to balance the karma by playing a suicidal last ten minutes against an extremely talented Ducks team and miraculously surviving. I wasn’t even doing my typical “have to make myself worried about the lead because I’m any fan” third period nervousness, I was past that and into “clearly Anaheim’s going to score, so hopefully they can just squeeze this one out in a shootout.” Thanks to a double pad-stack by Sidney Crosby, an improbable Fleury glove save on Saku Koivu (his typical Fleury “ridiculous save to make up for frustrating goal”), and about ninety lucky Pens bounces, they escaped with a 4-3 regulation win.

I have no idea how the Ducks are 4-7-2; every player on their team is 6’4″ and skilled, and Scott Niedermayer looks like he hasn’t lost a step on D. Jonas Hiller didn’t play impressively, but I can’t imagine the Ducks won’t crack that Top 8 in the West before the final 178 regular season games are up, and with their size and ability to create traffic in front of the net, I can still see them going far in the playoffs once they start fully clicking.

Also, Gonchar being out is no excuse for this Penguin power play sucking. It’s just not. Letang and Goligoski are two exceptionally qualified point men, and you have Sidney effing Crosby out there for two minutes with every man advantage. You could throw two cones out there at the wings and still at least go ONE for six on the power play.

Whatever, still another win. Let’s see if the Pens can play even worse in the final 10 minutes against the Kings and win by even more.

Watch Out, Ducks: Danny Bylsma Is Back

Empty Netters found this awesome Dan Byslma backhand goal against the Thrashers from 2002:

With the Pens’ depleted forward lines, think it’s time for DB to suit up for a game like Roger Dorn in Major League 2?

Wait, no, that was terrible. And could lead to Major League 3: Back To The Minors. Leeeeeeeet’s just stick with Chris Conner a little longer…

ESPN’s Headline Writer Has Been Doing Some Serious S.A.T. Studying

This morning’s ESPN.com homepage sidebar:

They don’t just call him “Indefatigable Jonas” because it’s catchy – he’s also indefatigable.

Personally, I would’ve gone with either “assiduous” or “pertinacious” — I mean, this is a five-word headline we’re talking about here, gotta keep things simple.