Cujo lives!

Sources, ranging from the Fan 590 in Toronto (I hate them) to ESPN (I hate them) have all-but-confirmed that Curtis Joseph has signed with the Flames.

My thoughts are this: I like it. Kipper's started 22 straight games, and let's be honest, he could use a day off. I loved Cujo's performance in the Spengler cup, it shows he's still got it. Probably not as a workhorse, but as a reliable backup? You betcha.

Plus side is, the kids get to play more in QC, rather than being an expert door operator and bench warmer extraordinaire.

Blowout!

What else would you call a 17-0 win?

Oh. That wasn't an NHL win? They were girls? Oh well. Props to the U-18 goodness that happened in Calgary this week. Never fear. I think those feisty Finns will have a more potent response come next year. (Or the year after that or at some point in the future. You know.)

Also without this tourney, I would have never learned the following:

Atlanta rookie Tobias Enstrom, besides having a sister (the youngest of them all) named Tina, also has brothers named Thomas and Tommy. They're all good hockey players, apparently, but is there a dearth of first names for boys in Sweden, beginning with 'T'?

Also, Phil Kessel's sister is our David Moss' cousin. Which, unless given some sort of sordid bizarre family connection, means that Moss and Phil Kessel are cousins. Cool, huh?

(I know...useless, but still cool)

So tonight brings us to a team I actually care about playing, unlike, oh, the last two or three teams. Edmonton. Good times, yes?

It's kind of a shame that the contests over the last couple of years (blame the schedule, like I do) have been dropping in terms of intensity. It might be due to the disparity in terms of the performance of both teams, who knows? (blame the schedule!)

We've been losing, and they've been winning, but I don't think either streak will last. Mind you, Edmonton has improved their goaltending significantly since they started using Garon regularly, but of course he's no match for the almighty shot of ummmm....y'know... Godard and Yelle and Warrener.

On our side... geez, has anyone mentioned that the defence needs to improve? No? Well...they do. No giveaways, no standing around, nobody doing their best pylon imitations. And most of all, no lazy.

And the outcome? Even though the Home Flames of 2008 are determined to scuttle our plans for sleeping well at night, we're on the road, heh. Kipper gets his first shutout of the year. Unfortunately, it's not a 17-0 outcome like the girls managed - but I think 2-0 is doable.

All stars

I'm not actually going to talk that much about the all star selections - Dave was really miffed that Iginla got as few votes as he did, but hey, whatever.

Congrats to our boys for making it to the hyped up shinny game of little importance.

What I want to know is, can Dion race luggage trolleys with the kids like last year? Can he?

No? Oh well.

I've been digging around and tripped on this dandy of an interview from Andrew Ference. There's Africa again, he talks about his scrap with Crosby, the fantabulous Cup run of '04, and makes this observation, which jibes well with all the Give-Iggy-the-Hart rumblings:

Jarome in my books is a better hockey player than Crosby because he does those things. He will fight, he will lay his body on the line and take the hit and not complain if someone hits him and stuff like that. The superstars of the league should have to do that because they're hockey players, they're not ice-skating princesses.

(Not that here, we don't love Sidney Crosby. Just there won't be a lot of love forthcoming while he isn't on any of our fantasy teams, and if we've said it once, we've said it a dozen times: He ain't no Marcus Nilson.)

Which brings us to tonight. Oooooo. Phoenix. While they're not quite as irritating as they were back when they were the Jets, this year's edition of the Coyotes is nothing to sneeze at. They're a pretty respectable 11th place, not even last in their division, and with scoring threats like the dangerous Derek Morris, and the superb Steve Reinprecht...

What?

Oh. Um. Well. Where was I?

There will be no cakewalk tonight. I still expect our boys to come out ahead. Somewhat. Expect Lombardi to go minus (again), and Phaneuf as well. Warrener will improve from the outing in LA (he'd better!). And the winning goal will come from the Iggy/Huselius/lucky bystander line.

3-2.

Adversity

After a full week of the world juniors, I'm kind of tired of that word.

However, congrats to Team Canada, in all it's man-loving glory. (By the way, if you haven't yet checked out Kyle's coverage of the tournament, get thee there and read away. Good stuff).

Woo!

Not a word that really applies to this week's edition of the Calgary Flames, either. The wins continued to come in San Jose (a game which sadly I missed), and I'm kind of expecting them to keep on showing up. It's definitely a far cry from a month ago, and let's not go back there again?

LA has not been a good team this year. In fact, checking out m'girl kms2's blog (yes, link usually stealthily hidden on our sidebar), you can see that while the Kings have been winning recently, it hasn't been happening nearly often enough.

Easy prey? I don't think so. They've got to want to collect some momentum right now. They have some guns in Kopitar et al., and some real experience, in guys like (he's still alive??) Rob Blake.

This will be a tight one where our guys will have to be pretty aggressive against their scorers, and just play a nice simple road game.

Uhhh... 3-2 for us. Lombardi is long overdue, so him, um, Eriksson gets one for slowly peeking into my good books, and Nilson (because he's been scratched for a while so let's see if he can score one from the press box).

That time of month again

Thought I'd missed the beginning of the month again?

Hardly. Here's how the rotisserie league looks. And no, I don't actually wait till I'm on top again to post. Though it probably does add to my motivation to do so.

1. woolly brained (me: ahead by 4 points!)
2. The Pant Weasels (Dave's brother, whom some of you have met now)
3. The Hopelesses (MG)
4. Completely Hammered (ST)
5. Flaming C (Paul-Marc)
6. Craig Conroys (Duncan)
7. The Pantless Pirates (Dave, now proven to not be invisible)

To be honest, the Pant Weasels have been problematic for me all month - I've been battling them as well as MG's Hopelesses for first the entire way.

But the real story this month is ST's meteoric rise from just ahead of Dave all the way to just behind MG. Well done!

Now tonight, we have the Flames taking on the Sharks in the lovely Bay Area. The Sharks have improved their play of late, though they're still as wildly inconsistent as anybody else in the West (minus Detroit, boo). Their young guns have been fighting off sophomore slumps for the most part, and Marleau has been widely bandied about in trade rumours.

On our side, I've expressed my love for the Nystrom/Lombardi/Boyd line, though it was plain scary to watch last night. The top six guys will continue to be juggled, Eriksson will continue to incomprehensibly get loads of ice time - though lately as his TOI has increased, his play has improved. I don't wince every second of every shift now... just every minute. And Kipper... while I'm not ready to say that he's back in top form yet, he's at least kept us in the last couple of games at those times while the guys in front have been their boneheaded worst.

I don't expect much to go on tonight - it's the second game in two nights, blah, blah, blah.

Let's say that Huselius will get a hat trick, and make it 3-1 for the Flames.

The Andy and Steve Traveling Road Show

I don't know how many of you had the opportunity to spend today malingering on the couch with TSN going all day long, but I did!

Trust me, after these holidays, it's been much deserved.

The morning started off with watching Canada advance yet another round. And despite the Flames' long record of draft busts from Europe, I like Puustinen. He definitely stood out today, moreso than I ever saw at training camp.

Let me fast forward about three or four hours, to a special documentary produced by the league, about the adventures of Andrew Ference and Steve Montador in Africa, from last summer, as they visited tons of places for Right To Play.

I'm so proud of those guys. While it's pure marketing gold for the league, the show did highlight why it's so important that players get involved in things outside of the scope of their own normal lives. Just heart-breaking and happy, all rolled up in one.

Though, there will be hell to pay, if Ference's demonstrated goal demonstrations ever catch on. (He showed the kids what players do after they score: Ride a stick, hopping up and down, while miming a lasso throw).

And kudos also to Steve Montador for making a commitment to go on damn short notice - the story is Georges Laraque was supposed to go, but couldn't due to an offseason injury. Though I'm sure Georges would have been a massive hit.

Damn, I miss Ference.

So tonight! The Rangers. Who have not been here since 2002. And it is now (barely) 2008. Do the math.

I have nothing. They have a lot of snipers firing blanks. And a darn good goalie. We have a lot of guys who can skate fast (hint), forecheck hard (hint) and are trying to play consistently (hint).

Um. 5-2 Flames, with Sean Avery left dangling over the glass after he scampers up there to evade (a puzzlingly enraged) Dion and Iggy.

Jeff Shantz and Rico Fata are still alive?

Apparently so. Who knew?

Kudos to Mark Giordano and Hnat Domenichelli for winning that other Christmastime tourney.

We'll keep it short today. Boo Canucks, go Flames. Let's see the team play a full 60 minutes without falling asleep on their feet, and maybe let's slip Luongo some tainted eggnog. It's getting past the best before date of that stuff, y'know.

49-1 Calgary (originally it was going to be an aping of MG's infamous 4-1 prediction, then my fingers slipped reaching for the hyphen. And why the hell shouldn't I leave it that way? What? Oh. Happy thoughts! And Happy New Year! )

Oh, Kippy

Let's not talk about the first half of last night's game, shall we? The most entertaining part was the girl sitting behind myself and Dave. Over an hour and a half, she turned out such gems as "SLAPSHOT!" (used anytime a Flames player touched the puck), "HIT HIM, LOMBARDI!" (used anytime Matty came near any Duck... doesn't she want him to keep his pretty face?), and "AIM IT AT THE NET!" (used anytime the Flames dumped the puck in the opposing zone).

Her male companion was mystified that no icing was called when the puck was dumped down the ice during penalty kills. I'll...just leave it at that.

At least Dave and I were still laughing, rather than angrily demanding our money back or ripping our eyeballs out of their respective sockets. The Flames were, simply put, terrible through the first half of the night. Slow. Clumsy. Awkward.

The crowning moment seemed to be when Dion doffed the gloves to fight, only to step on his own stick and fall on his ass.

I have to admit, at that part, I was still laughing. Hysteria, you know.

But the game had a phenomenal finish despite all the gaffes and skating through molasses and not doing jack of the first half. Eriksson (of all players!) had a nearly decent night, with one nice play that took away a breakaway even without a stick. Aucoin played a smart game - no mad skillz here, but enough experience to know where to be. And that takeaway by Huselius was just sick.

One can expect the league's two leaders in fighting majors to be all scrappy and such, and the night didn't disappoint. Nolan got in a couple of shots against Bertuzzi which were enjoyed by all.

And the score? Damn fine. Just like the game.

Pre-Game: Anaheim @ Calgary

First off, thanks to everyone who came to the Flames blogger meetup earlier this week. Was great to put a face to the name of everyone there. I took a few pictures that I'll post if they're any good when I get home in Toronto.

Right now, I'm watching Canada collapse spectacularly against Sweden in the world juniors. I'm not especially superstitious, but by the 100th time the commentators marveled at the shutout streak and subsequently the winning streak by Canada I was thinking "you know, you're just asking for a jinx". Lo and behold...whatever.

The Flames! Back on home ice, which isn't encouraging, but against Anaheim, which is somewhat encouraging. I'm leaning towards a Flames win tonight, if only because they owe me a win for a game I actually attend. It's been brutal, especially since the last game I was at was Sunday's vs the Devils (enough said, I'd hope).

I'm going to predict a 3-2 Flames win with goals by Iginla, Lombardi, and Nilson.

Edit: At least Backlund set that play up. ;)

Brother to Brother Battle Royale.... or yeah, whatever

If this were any other coach, we'd probably look at the goaltending battle? Kipper? Yes. Marty? Oh, yes. Bring it on. Bring it ON, I say!

We'd look at their young kids. Zach Parise is quietly having a darned good season (or he better be, given how many fantasy teams I've got him on). And don't forget Travis Zajac. And not stellar, but notable is Johnny Oduya, probably the only black Swede in the league.

We'd look at their solid veteran corps. Elias, Gionta, Lagenbrunner... darned decent.

In short, we'd be looking at a team that should be a pretty good match. They're still prone to playing a stolid, defensive style, so the hometown boys will have to crash and bash and keep skating hard to get through it.

And Coach Sutter? Welcome home. Hope you don't mind if we don't set out too fancy a welcome mat.

4-1 Flames, as the Devils fall victim to altitude sickness, or something.