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What We Learned: Embarrassing LA sports media moments while covering Kings playoff run (Puck Daddy)
Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.
It's possibly the greatest bit of investigative journalism conducted since Woodward and Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.
This exemplary, collective effort of sleuth work is currently ongoing in Los Angeles, Calif., where an entire media market has unearthed the NHL's shocking secret:
The city has a professional hockey team.
Over the past week or so here at Puck Daddy, we've tried to document every startling discovery made by the intrepid Los Angeles media, like how to properly pronounce Anze Kopitar's name (it's hard because he's from Bosnia or something), the real name of this Drew Doughty character ( it's actually Brad !) and that hockey is in fact not played with a ball, but rather a little piece of rubber known as a "puck." That last one makes me pretty uncomfortable because of the word it rhymes with. ("Duck" — sorry, I just don't trust 'em; they have weird beaks).
Just how villainous is this team, operating as a sort of sporting sleeper cell? They got all the way to the Western Conference Finals without one local noticing. That takes real criminal talent. And not only that, but, the NHL had the diabolical idea to hide it right under the Los Angelinos' noses, by having their home games played at the Staples Center. You know, where the Lakers play. Further, they named the team the Kings to intentionally confuse even the savviest media organization into thinking they are the NBA's Sacramento Kings.
Astonishingly devious stuff. More twists and turns than the Da Vinci Code, which I've read three times just to make sure I understood it all.
The best bit of this journalism on this pressing issue comes, of course, from the city's paper of record, the Los Angeles Times, winner of 44 Pulitzer Prizes since 1942, including three in 2012. It was for that towering beacon of journalistic excellence that columnist Chris Erskine successfully scruted several of the team and sport's most inscrutable mysteries .
For instance, that thing I said earlier about the puck (again, yuck… oh and that's another gross word it rhymes with), I learned it from Erskine. Apparently they even freeze the thing. And that's a huge point of concern, because, "The hardest shots can reach 110 mph and tear flesh, crush bone, even kill you if you're not careful." Yikes, you guys!
( Coming Up: Rick Nash to Boston?; Tororella defends Prust; Ryan Suter faces his future; Evegni Malkin is having a pretty good season; why Lundqvist is King; why the Capitals can't win with Ovechkin; the Islanders know how to party; Canucks might keep Luongo; Ryan Miller on the CBA; Flames and Oilers coaching news; and are the Kings in trouble?)
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Boston Bruins at the World Championship Update for May 19: Fan's Take (Yahoo! Contributor Network)
Boston Bruins fans, our captain and first-line center are trying hard to win some precious metals and some bragging rights for us--Zdeno Chara and David Krejci are both still in the hunt for medals at the IIHF World Championship.
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Charlie Coyle uses his puck-handling magic to help steer Sea Dogs to another Memorial Cup (Yahoo! Sports)
Saint John's forward finds inspiration from his family as he provides Sea Dogs fans with thrills and goals – and maybe another CHL title.
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Finns, Russia go through, Slovaks upset Canada (AFP)
Holders Finland advanced to the semi-finals of the world ice hockey championships with a last-gasp winner against the United States on Thursday, but Olympic champions Canada were shocked by Slovakia.
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Slovakia ousts Canada 4-3 at ice hockey worlds (The Associated Press)
HELSINKI (AP) San Jose Sharks' Michal Handzus gave Slovakia the winning goal in a 4-3 victory over Canada in the quarterfinals of the ice hockey world championships in Helsinki on Thursday.
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Sharks will retain head coach McLellan (The SportsXchange)
Todd McLellan will be retained as the San Jose Sharks head coach, according to multiple reports, but there may be changes to his staff.
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Todd McLellan will return as San Jose Sharks head coach with new assistants, say reports (Puck Daddy)
Among Elliotte Friedman's "30 Thoughts" this week on CBC Sports: That Todd McLellan, embattled coach of the San Jose Sharks, has already been told he'll return to coach the team in 2012-13:
Doug Wilson apparently told Todd McLellan three days after the season ended that the Sharks' bench boss was staying. Odd that there's been no announcement, but it sounds like there is a debate about assistant coaches.
McLellan would fight hard for his guys, but the discussion appears to be about adding someone who had a lengthy NHL career.
Last week, we mentioned Bryan Marchment as a possible contender. Mike Ricci might be another as both already work for the organization. Would McLellan, though, want to go "off the board" and recruit a former Red Wing?
Kevin Kurz of Sharks Insider confirms that it's "become a virtual certainty McLellan will return" to San Jose next season, and throws scout Dirk Graham's name into the hopper for a potential assistant coach.
From CSN Bay Area:
The Sharks are expected to philosophically alter the way they approach the penalty kill, and also who handles that unit, which finished 29th in the NHL this season and was just 12-for-18 in the playoffs. Woodcroft oversaw the PK this season, but he could get reassigned to other duties within the organization. Many NHL teams employ three assistant coaches, one of which acts as an "eye in the sky" during game play.
Had the Sharks missed the playoff cut, McLellan would have been toast. That they made it — barely — means he keeps his gig. Swapping out assistant coaches is usually a harbinger of doom for a head coach — ask Ron Wilson — but in this case it could help address the PK, which was a significant point of failure for the Sharks this season.
If nothing else, the McLellan-to-Calgary talk should end.
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Tippett talks Game 2; Torres hearing; Dale Hunter Hockey debate (Puck Headlines) (Puck Daddy)
Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• All of this has happened before, and will happen again. (via reader Jon Ward)
• Dave Tippett on the keys to Game 2: "First and foremost, if you're not willing to jump in and win a few more one-on-one battles, then the tactical stuff you might as well throw out the window." [ AZ Central ]
• Alex Semin on Dale Hunter Hockey: "The whole year it was up-and-down, we win a game, we lose a game. By the time we got to playoffs, the team finally understood how to play the game he wanted, defense first, no mistakes, blocking shots, all five guys together. But during the regular season, intensity is not the same as in the playoffs. In postseason, every goal is worth its weight in gold." [ Russian Machine ]
• What on earth did Alex Ovechkin mean about jealousy in the Capitals' locker room? [ Puck Drunk Love ]
• Larry Robinson will not be heading to Montreal: "Devils assistant coach and 2000 Cup-winning head coach Larry Robinson vehemently ripped a report suggesting he is interested in joining the new Montreal regime, saying that comments attributed to an agent, whom he called a friend, were five years old and that there has been no such contact or interest." [ NY Post ]
• Raffi Torres will watch Gary Bettman deny his appeal on Thursday. [ Sportsnet ]
• Oh, it only the Coyotes had moved to Winnipeg; then it would be the Jets making this run in the Western Conference. [ QMI ]
• Elliotte Friedman, on Dale Hunter Hockey: "This is where I strongly disagree with statistical analysis, which mocked Hunter's system as being terrible for puck possession and, therefore, determined he was coaching a style that allowed opponents to control the game. This is one where numbers don't tell anything close to the real story. They played hard, they played together and I would've liked to see how things evolved over the offseason. If it's decided that the team must go in a different direction, there are going to be some very unhappy players. It's a delicate balance for McPhee." [ CBC ]
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Richards to stay as Columbus coach permanently (The Associated Press)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) When Todd Richards took over the woeful Columbus Blue Jackets in January after the firing of coach Scott Arniel, he was also interviewing for the job.
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What We Learned: What to make of this Washington Capitals season? (Puck Daddy)
Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.
There's been a lot of talk about what this season has meant for the Washington Capitals in the hours leading up to, and then immediately following, their final game of the remarkably eventful 2011-12 season.
Wysh had a pretty good recap of the reasons the Capitals felt this little run to a pair of one-goal Game 7s against the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds in the Eastern Conference — both having been heavy favorites — vindicated the Dale Hunter system of everyone playing defense and collapsing to within three inches of the crease, and it's perfectly reasonable for people to feel that way.
Certainly, no one expected these Capitals to do much damage in the postseason given that they frittered away a division they were picked to dominate. But the thing that everyone seems to forget is that, again, they were picked to dominate the Southeast, be a superpower in the East and the League at large.
If the team tuned out Bruce Boudreau, and it appears they did, then wasn't his replacement, whoever it happened to be, more or less expected to get this far?
Therefore, it becomes a question about what changed, and really, what didn't.
Let's not forget, Boudreau came in originally and let guys like Alex Semin, Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green have their run of the rink. Two-minute shifts? Sure! Goals aplenty? You bet. But in the end, what did it get them? Bounce-outs, and if you believe the talk, disappointing ones at that. So Boudreau changed the style, focusing more on defense, tethering Ovechkin and Co. to an extent, and … getting the same amount of success. Under each of the two clearly definable Boudreau regimes, the team lost in the conference quarter- and semi-finals.
Which is of course notable because the latter is exactly how far Hunter got in his first chance at the tiller, despite doing everything in his power not to: like limiting Ovechkin to fewer than 20 minutes a night in every game in this series save for Saturday's Game 7 and the three-overtime Game 3, in which he played 35:14 — or, if you prefer 17:37 per three periods of play. This therefore vindicates Hunter only as far as it vindicated Boudreau; which, with a roster like this, and given the "choker" label being hung liberally on the former Caps coach this time last year.
The philosophy changed radically under Hunter, and worked only as far as it did for Boudreau. Why?
( Coming Up: Team USA, international ass-kickers; getting stupid about Patrick Kane's drinking; Parise's future; Could Brad Stuart return to the Sharks?; Kevin Lowe says Ryan Murray is the top player in this year's draft class; Suter/Weber questions; Pancakes Penner's revenge; Bruins pumped for Dougie Hamilton; Alfredsson retirement watch; Leafs/Penguins trade?; Lundqvist is King; Alex Burrows runs and hugs a goalie; and Winnipeg Jets fans are burning Coyotes jerseys.)
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Novice po svetu 
