It Is What It Is

For the past twelve or so hours, the Internet has been on fire with people talking about the Dion Phaneuf hit on Kyle Okposo. As we all know, Okposo was stretchered off the ice last night; he was later diagnosed with a mild concussion and was cleared to travel home with the team. Botta put it best - Islanders fans will see this as a dirty hit, while Flames fans will see it as a clean hit.

There's no sense in pointing fingers. What happened last night is over. Phaneuf won't dress Saturday, there will be a ton of fights between fringe players, and nothing will be solved. The fact remains that Kyle Okposo is still injured and the Islanders now have to live without the services of their best forward.

We can argue forever about whose fault it was (nobody's), whether the hit was clean (it was), whether this kind of hit has any place in the pre-season (again, clean hit), or any of the other things that people are worrying about. Instead, let's look at the two facts we can draw from this.

- We have to worry about Kyle Okposo suffering from more concussions. After you have your first concussion, you're that much more likely to suffer from another one.

- After the hit, Okposo's teammates went out of their way to stand up for their fallen comrade.

As scary of a thought as the first point is, the second is far more significant. Think back to the night Mike Mottau shredded Frans Nielsen's knee. After Trent Hunter fought Mottau, nobody went after Mottau that night, nor did they do so in any of the other four times the Islanders and Devils played. Howie Rose must have mentioned it a million times down the stretch. Nobody cared. Compare that to what you saw last night. The Islanders tried to engage Phaneuf multiple times. Even though Phaneuf wouldn't take the bait - he sent in his underlings to fight those battles - it says a lot that the Islanders, even those with no chance of making the team, would try to take care of business. It shows how important Kyle Okposo is to the team and it shows how much these players truly care for one another. Most of all, it shows the progress made since last November.

All in all, it's a horrible situation, but at least Okposo is relatively okay. There's no need to dwell on it or demand revenge on March 25, 2010, which is when the Flames head to the Nassau Coliseum. And hey, we got visual proof that we have a true team this year. That's a good sign.

One last point about the hit. A few people have compared this hit to the one Doug Weight laid on Brandon Sutter last year - you know, the one that had Brent Sutter apoplectic and demanding Weight's banishment from the NHL. OK, he didn't really go that far, but he wasn't happy. Last night, when it was Okposo getting laid out, the elder Sutter was again involved, this time as the Flames' coach. Sutter's take?

"That's part of Dion's game. When he sees that open ice, Dion has to use it. It's one part of his game that makes him a unique player," said Sutter. "You never like to see anybody get hurt obviously, and it's too bad that happened, and hopefully we've been told, he's going to be okay. But Dion still can't pass up that hit".

Phoenix; Penguins; Sutter...

Three things on the docket today, a day when I'm off from work and it appears my softball game will be rained out. What is that old expression? June showers bring July flowers?

1) NHLPA head Paul Kelly agrees with me that Phoenix should no longer have an NHL team. He questions how much money a team should have to lose before people question that maybe they shouldn't have a team.

My point was that it should be marked as a failed experiment, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman should admit it, and the league should move on. Kelly's point is that he doesn't care who gets the team - Hamilton, Toronto, anyone - but that Phoenix should not have it.

I personally think Jim Balsillie should be allowed to have the team. He has a passion for the game, the desire to own a team, and certainly the deep pockets necessary to launch and nurture an expansion team.

Links: My post on it. TSN's article on Kelly's comments.

2) Is it wrong that I'm rooting for Pittsburgh tonight? And not just so we see a Game 7 (although they are always great, especially in the Finals), but to win the Stanley Cup.

I always like to see new teams win. I loved Anaheim and Ottawa in the Finals in '07, and I liked Carolina/Edmonton in '06. This year, not only is it a rematch of the last two teams in the Finals, but the same team is poised to win in the same exact amount of games. The only difference is that last year's Game 5 had Detroit up 3-1 and one probably the greatest non-Rangers game I have ever watched. Maxime Talbot scoring with 35 seconds left to send the game to overtime, then a triple OT, and Petr Sykora scoring to keep the series alive.

While I can't stand the Penguins, I'm rooting for them solely to see a new team win the Cup, and once again, maybe if they do win, the NHL can go back to refereeing their games fairly.

3) It's going to come out today that Brent Sutter has left the Devils. This was a move everyone saw coming last month when Darryl Sutter hinted it was going to happen. Darryl fired Mike Keenan in Calgary, then at his 20-minute long press conference, said the 3 best men for the job were currently under contract. Someone said, "Brent?" and he said he was under contract and couldn't talk about it.

Ah, Brent Sutter, once a scumbag, always a scumbag. The man who gave his word that he would never leave the Red Deer Rebels (which he owns and managed) and then up-and-left for New Jersey. Now, an opportunity to work with his brother comes knockin', and he is on the next plane back to Alberta.

Brent Sutter, we won't miss you. Maybe you can take your intent-to-injure son back with you also.

Fedor Tyutin...

The Columbus Blue Jackets clinched a playoff berth today when their game against Chicago went to overtime. They sealed the deal with a shootout win. Rick Nash, Jonathan Toews and Pat Kane missed, but Fedor Tyutin, the second Columbus shooter, scored.

Also, today, I was listening to NHL Home Ice 204 on XM and they were listing the nominations for the Espo Awards, their yearly award ceremony. I highly disagreed with their list for Michel Bergeron Trophy (for Coach of the Year).

They had: Andy Murray (Blues); Barry Trotz (Predators); Claude Julien (Bruins); Brent Sutter (Devils); and Paul Maurice (Hurricanes). Phil Esposito added Ken Hitchcock (Blue Jackets) to the list.

Uh, where is John Tortorella in this list?!

No, kidding, but seriously, where is rookie coach Todd McLellan? The Sharks are far and away the best team in the league this season. While having Joe Thornton, Rob Blake, Danny Boyle, and Evgeni Nabokov helps, are you telling me he doesn't belong in the top six of all coaches this season?

If I had to pick a top 3 to nominate, I would say McLellan, Julien, and probably Hitchcock. All are good choices, and I think Julien would/should win the real award, the Jack Adams Award. He has taken a ragtag group of players and turned them into dominant forces.

Ahh, remember the good ol' days in the year after the lockout, when Lindy Ruff (Sabres), Pete Laviolette ('Canes), and Tom Renney (Rangers) were nominated? After this season, all 3 might not be on those teams anymore, especially if the Sabres miss the playoffs again.

Kudos to Doug Weight...

I forgot to mention this on my earlier post, and as a Ranger fan, it's tough for me to praise the Islanders. However, if life were a MySpace blog post, I would give "2 kudos" to Doug Weight for his hit on Brandon Sutter Saturday night.

Brandon, son of Devil's coach and all-around nice guy Brent (does sarcasm come out well online?), is a cheap-shot artist himself who has never seen a dirty hit he didn't like.

Am I saying that Weight's hit was dirty? Absolutely, positively not. He never left his feet. He didn't hit with an elbow. It was just a rock-hard, solid hit. It was the kind people praised Scott Stevens for when he delivered them.

I'm also saying Sutter deserved it. Now, I'm not one to root for the injury of others, and indeed, Sutter didn't have any injuries suffered. But he is a Ryan Hollweg-type player, going for the hit regardless of the situation, regardless of the safety of the other player involved. Witness him doing a Raiden-esque Torpedo (you know, from Mortal Kombat) on Alexei Cherepanov for no reason other than to injure. Maybe his revered hockey family never taught him that leaving your feet to hit someone is illegal. (Oh, wasn't dad coaching?) And injure he did, as Cherepanov didn't play in another game in the 8 game series (the hit was in Game 2).

Once again, I'm not rooting for the injury of Sutter. But I am saying that this completely legal hit was a fantastic moment on Super Saturday in the NHL. People are calling for Weight to be suspended, for the league to look into this matter because it was a head hit. Hey, if Weight was shorter, it would have been a check to his shoulders. You can't fault a man for being tall.

And Out Come The Wolves

Let the debates begin.

And please, I'm begging you... keep me out of them.

From what I saw, this is what happened tonight. The refs called the penalty on Jamie Langenbrunner with a minute left, then realized they were being too strict and swallowed their whistles the rest of the game. It wouldn't have mattered if someone pulled a Chris Simon as the game ended; they weren't going to be penalized for anything. So you saw Blair Betts commit a similar foul to the one Langenbrunner did, not to mention a few vicious hits near the boards by both teams, and yet nothing was called.

I'm not saying it's right. But isn't that part of what playoff hockey is all about? We always say things like, "The players should decide the game." Well, the players do decide every game. Up until the last minute, the game was officiated very well. The players got the chance to blow off steam after the whistle blew, but nothing got excessively out of control. We saw a couple of penalty calls that weren't penalties before the lockout, but were called tonight just as they should have been. We got exactly what we thought we'd see - a tight, physical contest that came down to the final seconds.

We also saw Brent Sutter throw a stick on the ice, looking less like a hockey coach and more like a spoiled kid who couldn't believe he wasn't getting his way. It was just the cap on an embarrassing evening for the Devils. Yet again, the arena was packed with Ranger fans. And, yet again, the Prudential Center game ops staff played music after the Rangers scored, giving the distinct impression that the Rangers were the real home team. For the second game in a row, the Devils tried a little too hard to intimidate the Rangers physically, and for the second consecutive game, it didn't work. The Devils find themselves down two games, with both games being decided by soft goals Martin Brodeur easily should have had.

And after all of that, the Devils still choose to blame the referees.

It's not a tried-and-true hockey cliche, but it's one of the more obvious sentiments you'll ever hear. If you ever find yourself in the position of blaming the officiating for a loss, you obviously didn't do enough to win the game in the first place. Instead of blasting the refs after the game, why didn't John Madden tear into his team for not taking a shot on a four-minute power play? I'm pretty sure the referees had nothing to do with that. Just the same, I doubt it was the refs that limited the Devils to four shots on ten power play minutes tonight. Of course, if you ask Brent Sutter, the referees screwed the Devils on purpose.

Now, I know how much it sucks to have the referees get in the way of a game's conclusion. But let's face facts. This was a two-minute minor penalty that occurred with a minute left. The Devils' shorthanded predicament was easily fixed by pulling Brodeur. It's not like they scored the tying goal, only to have the refs wave it off (us Islander fans know a lot about that). There was very little evidence suggesting the Devils were getting to Lundqvist no matter what. Like I said after Game 1, the great teams make their own luck, and the Rangers earned the win tonight.

By no means does this end the series. But now, the Devils have to go into Madison Square Garden, in front of a crowd that will be fully in support of the home team, and face a team they haven't beaten outside of a shootout since February 20, 2007. And if they don't win at least one game, they're out of the playoffs. Of course, this whole thing could have been avoided if not for a penalty call on Jamie Langenbrunner, who not only would have scored the tying goal, but the game-winner in overtime as well.

Why look in the mirror and try to figure out what happened when you can just blame the refs instead?

Somewhere, Brent Sutter is nodding. And the rest of us are wondering how someone who played in 144 playoff games and played in four Stanley Cup Finals doesn't know to win the game in spite of any gripes with the officiating.

So, with that in mind, count me out of the impending brouhaha about the inconsistent officiating in the playoffs. Score your goals early, play solid defense, don't let in any soft goals, and it's remarkable insignificant officiating becomes.