When the Dallas Stars spent BIG (Mike Smith and forwards Jussi Jokinen and Jeff Halpern and a 4th round draft pick in 2009) to acquire Brad Richards from the Tampa Bay Lightning, it was seen as the final offensive piece needed to put the Dallas Stars over the hump.
In his first game with the Stars, Brad Richards had FIVE(!) assists, and looked like a whole new man. It was easy for any Stars fan to get excited about their new acquisition.
Since that game, however, Richards has just one goal and four assists in 11 games, and now finds his 'Ironman' streak at an end. Not surprisingly, Brad Richards, who was -25 with the Lightning, is -2 in his brief tenure with the Stars.
Richards said hasn't been feeling well overall and didn't play in the Dallas Stars' game in Phoenix, which the Stars won 4-2.
Richards said it's not flu and it's not lingering effects from the mono he had earlier in the year. However, he has to be feeling really bad because he will stop a streak of 354 consecutive games played by missing Thursday night's game. It was only the third game he has missed in his pro career. The other two were due to a death in his family.
The Stars are 2-7-2 with Richards in the lineup, falling from second overall in the NHL and in the Western Conference to fifth place in the west.
Apparently, Richards has been battling mono all season, and that could account for his poor play. Don't you think, however, the Dallas Stars should have realized they were getting damaged goods, in the first place? Did they not do their homework?
While I acknowledge Richards' awesome playmaking skills, I have to wonder why the Dallas Stars thought he'd fit in well with their team. Richards, despite 500 points in 564 career games, is an overall -57. Even with his great offensive output, Richards is one of the biggest defensive liabilities in the game, and not the type of player usually associated with the Dallas Stars.
If Richards can't shake off this mono cloud over his head, the Stars may very well win the award for worst trade of the season. Don't forget, Brad Richards is a mighty big cap hit for a player who has so many warts.
When one thinks of the NHL's best sharpshooters, I'm sure the name Mike Ribeiro doesn't come to mind. Notorious for his embarrassing fake-injury/dive incident years back, and for disappearing come playoff time, few expect a whole lot out of Mike Ribeiro.
Ribeiro was so pissed at being dealt away from his hometown club that he publicly exclaimed his pleasure with the Habs missing the playoffs. Few players are ever so publicly candid about wishing misfortune on their old club.
Now, here we are near 2008, and Mike Ribeiro has quietly become one of the league's better offensive players. After being given to the Dallas Stars for almost nothing, Ribeiro has found a place where he could grow his game, and is now 17th in league scoring with 39 points in 34 games. "Ribs" has an astounding shot percentage near 40%(!), and also led the Stars in scoring last season.
"I put the disappointment [about the trade] behind me, but I had this game circled for a long time," said Ribeiro, who has 19 goals and 38 points, and is a solid plus-12 for the Pacific Division leaders. "This was a big game for me."
Now, Ribeiro's talent has never been questioned, but his heart certainly has. In 24 playoff games, Ribeiro has just two goals and six assists. After leading the club in scoring last season, Ribeiro disappeared in the playoffs, as he often does, with just three assists in seven games. Hardly the stuff of a team scoring champ.
So, props to Ribeiro for maturing his game and becoming a productive player. Now, it's time to see if he can take the next step and do well in the playoffs ... or will he continue to show us why the Habs gave up on him?
If somebody asked you to name the NHL's top scoring defenseman, which names would pop into your head first? Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Pronger, Sergei Gonchar, or Tomas Kaberle, right?
Well, amazingly enough, the 37-year old Sergei Zubov is the king of d-men this year, leading all blueliners with 28 points in 31 games. Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are that Zubov is in the top spot for defensemen scoring.
Sergei Zubov is somewhere near 10th in All-Star voting for defensemen.
But he's first in the league in scoring among blue-liners.
That seems the perfect dichotomy for one of the league's most underrated players.
"He quietly goes about his job, but the guys who get to see it in here understand what he means," Morrow said. "We know how valuable he is."
Given Dallas' stifling defence-first system, and Zubov's age, it's amazing that the veteran Russian is on pace to have one of the best offensive seasons of his career.
Of course, this speaks to how little attention and respect that Zubov gets among the fans and the media. How many of you would consider Zubov a Hall of Famer? Even with 760 points in 1043 regular season games, most would not have Zubov on their Hall of Fame lists beside Nicklas Lidstrom or Scott Niedermayer, the latter of which he has more career points than. The fact that Zubov has just ONE award nomination tells you just how under-the-radar his career has been. It would be nice if he got a little more attention every now and then, wouldn't it?
Ladislav Nagy has long teased coaches and fantasy GM's alike with his immense talent. Sadly, injuries and other factors have kept Nagy from being a true scoring star, and have relegated him to the B or C-classes in fantasy leagues.
I, myself, have taken the risk a few times, only to get burnt or end up disappointed as I didn't get the expected point payoff.
Now that Ladislav has found a new home in Los Angeles, with former Blues teammate Michal Handzus, is the little punk worth taking a chance on, once again?
SEASON TEAM GP G A PTS 03-04 PHX 55 24 28 52 05-06 PHX 51 15 41 56 06-07 PHX/DAL 80 12 43 55
For the most part, Nagy has been a pretty productive player the past few seasons, except for the fact that ...
There are reports of 1000s of Canucks fans checking into Vancouver area hospitals, suffering from anxiety and panic attacks after Dallas took Game Six by a 2-0 score.
This is feeling eerily similar to the 3-1 series lead the Canucks choked back to Minnesota before the lockout. It's kind of hard to win when YOU CAN'T FRICKIN' SCORE!
Just how pathetic is the Canucks offense right now?
The Swedish Twins, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, have not scored a point since Game One! Both have just two points in the series. Neither twin got a shot on goal in Game Six, which would also make it hard to score goals.
Markus Naslund, the Canucks well-compensated captain, has just a lone goal and an assist to his name. Six million bucks a season for this? Who is he, Alexei Yashin?
Brendan Morrison, once a great play-making producer, has just one lone assist. As Tony Gallagher wrote in today's Vancouver Province:"Since Game One, it appears Brendan Morrison's jersey has been filled by Alexander Semak, once described in a scouting report as 'a feeble little forward'."
The Power-less Play is now ZERO for it's last 23, and has just one goal in 28 attempts this series. For a team with this much talent, such a pathetic total is inexcusable. It's not just that the Canucks can't score, but they don't appear to be even the least bit dangerous with the man advantage. The Stars allow the Canucks to cycle on the outside, and basically wait for the Canucks to attempt one of their three predictable set plays.
Kevin Bieksa? 0 points in 6 games and 18 penalty minutes. Bieksa has spent more time in the penalty box and scowling at referees than producing any offensive chances. It's time for Vigneault to put Brent Sopel in the #1 PP slot and give Bieksa a break.
Suffice it to say, the Stars have all the momentum heading into Game Seven, and the Canucks just seem to have no confidence or drive when they have the puck. As good as Turco has been, the Canucks have been just as bad when trying to produce quality scoring chances.
One of my co-workers took Eric Lindros in our annual office pool, hoping to cash in on an extremely risky pick in the hopes Eric might decide to go retro and score 70-80 points. The Dallas Stars, when they signed Lindros to a contract, were also hoping to catch the same lightning in a bottle.
I laughed at both parties, knowing Lindros was likely to be a big bust. They didn't listen, though, as they thought they were smarter than everyone else who knew better.
Coming off of a mediocre season with his hometown (of sorts) Leafs, where he scored just 22 points in 33 games, there were doubts that Lindros could even play half of a season's worth of games. The Stars were obviously quite desperate to expect Lindros to provide something positive, while skilled players like Yanic Perrault sat at home unsigned. It was the hockey equivalent of spending $100,000 on scratch-and-win tickets instead of investing in government bonds.
Things started off well for Lindros (and my co-worker) as "The Big Ego" started the season with one goal and four assists in his first three games with the club! Lindros had seemingly re-found his scoring touch, and brought some life to the moribund Stars power play. Still, I knew Humpty Dumpty would fall from the wall when the clock struck midnight, and all of the Los Angeles Kings' men couldn't put him back together again.
It didn't take long for an acolyte of the Hockey Gods to come and smack him with a +4 Rod of Reality, causing Lindros to go dry with just three points in his next eight games. The oft-concussed Lindros suffered a wrist injury, and was so afraid of suffering another big blow that he continued to play on the periphery like a big scaredy cat.
If the playoffs are a battle of attrition, the Canucks are not off to a good start ...
Poor Ryan Kesler is going to be out 4-5 weeks after suffering a broken finger and having pins inserted to fix it. He had just returned from a hip injury which caused him to miss more than half the season.
Alex Burrows went face-first into the boards during the first overtime on Wednesday and left the game with a concussion. Burrows says he has no concussion symptoms and wants to play in game two tonight.
Matt Cooke, who had tried a knee/hip check on Ladislav Nagy, suffered a pulled groin during the second period of game one. He is listed as day-to-day, and is unlikely for game two.
Brent Sopel, who missed game one due to back spasms, apparently suffered quite an embarrassing injury:
Brent Sopel had a fight with a cracker. And the cracker won.
The reason defenseman Brent Sopel was out of the lineup Wednesday was "He picked up a cracker yesterday [Tuesday] and his back blew out and just spasmed out," remarked Canucks coach Alain Vigneault.
That must have been some cracker! Sopel will skate this morning and see if his back is OK enough to dress for the Canucks tonight.
To compensate for the recent injuries, the Canucks have called up forwards Jannik Hansen and Nathan Smith from the Manitoba Moose of the AHL.
Upsets ruled the brackets as Dallas (6) and Nashville (4) battled each other for control of the West while Ottawa (4) and Atlanta (3) dominated the East. Mike Modano led all scorers throughout the playoffs with 14 goals, including 6 game-winning goals, while Dany Heatley lit things up for Ottawa, scoring 11 goals, delivering 15 assists, and consistently acting like the best player on the ice throughout the playoffs.
The Stanley Cup Finals featured Ottawa and Dallas battling it out in a classic seven-game series that saw Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson take control of the puck for the Senators and Marty Turco make save after save for the Stars.
Bad news for all you Sabres fans: According to the IGN sim, Buffalo falls in the first round to the Islanders. Then again, if you're from the Island, that's about as good as it's going to get this year.
While it is rather cliché to talk about Marty Turco's playoff history as a choker, the tag has stuck on him so much that he is known for little else, despite his steadiness during the regular season. Be it nerves, bad luck, or just bad technique, Turco has looked shaky in the post-season, often abandoning the fundamentals that normally make him quite a good goaltender.
While the 22 playoff games is a small sample size, the nature of the playoff beast does not allow many bad games. One or two bad performances in the playoffs can kill your chances and send you to the golf course, whereas a bad game or two in the regular season will be ironed out over a long schedule of games.
Turco's first foray into the playoffs back in 2003 wasn't all that bad, as he finished with a 6-6 record, 1.87GAA and a 91.9SV%. Sure, it wasn't anything near his jaw-dropping 93.2SV% during that regular season, but it wasn't the worst performance by a goaltender popping their playoff cherry.
It was the next two series, however, that cemented Turco as a playoff turkey.
2003-04: Dallas lost in 5 games to the Avalanche with Turco putting up a 3.32GAA and 84.9SV% 2005-06: Dallas lost in 5 games, again to the Avalanche, with Turco putting up a 3.38GAA and 86.8SV%. Just terrible numbers, overall.
There is no doubt that Turco would like to shut the critics up and forget about past history, but it will take a good performance or two to do that. Perhaps not playing against the Avalanche will help his numbers? :)
When the Dallas Stars spent BIG (Mike Smith and forwards Jussi Jokinen and Jeff Halpern and a 4th round draft pick in 2009) to acquire Brad Richards from the Tampa Bay Lightning, it was seen as the final offensive piece needed to put the Dallas Stars over the hump.
When one thinks of the NHL's best sharpshooters, I'm sure the name Mike Ribeiro doesn't come to mind. Notorious for his embarrassing fake-injury/dive incident years back, and for disappearing come playoff time, few expect a whole lot out of Mike Ribeiro.
If somebody asked you to name the NHL's top scoring defenseman, which names would pop into your head first? Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Pronger, Sergei Gonchar, or Tomas Kaberle, right?
Ladislav Nagy has long teased coaches and fantasy GM's alike with his immense talent. Sadly, injuries and other factors have kept Nagy from being a true scoring star, and have relegated him to the B or C-classes in fantasy leagues.
There are reports of 1000s of Canucks fans checking into Vancouver area hospitals, suffering from anxiety and panic attacks after Dallas took Game Six by a 2-0 score. 
One of my co-workers took Eric Lindros in our annual office pool, hoping to cash in on an extremely risky pick in the hopes Eric might decide to go retro and score 70-80 points. The Dallas Stars, when they signed Lindros to a contract, were also hoping to catch the same lightning in a bottle. 
Wednesday's 
At least when it comes to a 
