There will be no playoffs in Vancouver and they can blame their lack of scoring for that. Luongo was outstanding again (no surprise there) but the Sedin's forgot how to score down the stretch and there is very little secondary scoring beyond those two. Markus Naslund becomes an unrestricted free agent and it might be a good time to waive good bye to the long time Canuck captain. They can use the 6 million of Naslund's contract that comes off the books to make a push for Marian Hossa. He should be that scoring winger the Canucks have been missing the past 3 seasons. This might be a completely different team next season upfront when it comes to leadership. Naslund is not the only UFA, but so is Brendan Morrison and Trevor Linden. All three gentleman have been leaders on this team for quite some time, but it's time to move in new direction and start to retool. This team will continue to miss the playoffs if they don't address their needs offensively. Ryan Kesler, Taylor Pyatt and Alex Burrows are excellent third line players, but not forwards to be counted on heavily in the scoring department.
Quite a fitting end to the Maple Leafs home season last night. Another blowout at home, the fifth ugly blowout on ACC ice. But the Leafs didn't go out quietly as they put any chance Ottawa had of making a long playoff run in jeopardy. A vicious elbow from Mark Bell on Daniel Alfredsson may have ended Alfie's season or at least put him out for "weeks" as Bryan Murray stated after the game.Another win for Washington (that's six in a row and 10 of their last 11) and they sit in the 8th spot, but Philly has one game in hand, trailing by a point. Ovechkin scored two more last night and as far as I'm concerned, whether or not the Caps make the playoffs, is the easy selection for MVP. He has brought his team so far and has been far and away the best player in the league and most important player to his team for the entire season that it should be no contest. Generally, I do believe the MVP should come from a playoff team but Ovechkin has brought this team from so far out of the playoff picture, even if they miss the postseason by 1 point he has done everything to elevate his team to the next level. It should be interesting to see what voters think.
Finally, the Nashville Predators and their staff deserve tons of credit for their play this season. After losing their number one goalie (Tomas Vokoun), their captain and best defenseman (Kimmo Timonen), two of their top forwards (Paul Kariya and Scott Hartnell) for cost cutting reasons because of their ownership situation (not to mention losing Steve Sullivan to injury all season), they were a hard working, consistent team that grabbed the final playoff spot. No one picked them to make the playoffs before the season started and realistically they shouldn't have. Dan Ellis stepped in and was very good in net, their young blueline was solid and the quartet of Jason Arnott, JP Dumont, Alex Radulov and Martin Erat each scored 20+ goals. For anyone who claims the Sabres could not compete because of their losses and injuries needs to take a look at Nashville. They lost players of equal or greater value (their number one goalie for crying out loud!) and suffered several keys injuries (including Sullivan, Shea Weber for long stretches, as well as David Legwand) all the while competing in the much tougher Western Conference. Bruce Boudreau deserves a lot of consideration for coach of the year, as do Guy Carbonneau and Brent Sutter, but one coach many will forget about is Barry Trotz. No one in Tennessee will notice, but I imagine tons of folks in Hamilton would love this team.
It's a shame I couldn't find any pictures of golfing Sabres, but I did grab this sweet Sundin golfing photo. He doesn't even carry his bag, he pulls it on wheels! Maybe all those radio show callers are right, he can't even carry a golf bag let alone carry a Stanley Cup around the ACC! He's got no heart that Mats, no heart at all.
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