Well, since the teams I picked to win their series went a combined 0-4 last night, there’s no better time to make some more predictions. I debated, for three minutes, doing this half of the picks Costanza style, but then figured that if I’m going to be wrong, it’s more impressive to own that and be historically, monumentally wrong.

Besides, I’m still a Lions fan. It’s not like this would be the first 0-fer I’ve ever had to contemplate.

Without further ado, here are a whole bunch more things that you should, very clearly, not place any money on:

Eastern Conference

No. 1  Washington vs. No. 8 Montreal

Home to the best pseudo-trash talk of the playoffs so far, this is a series that could be over in four games, or could be a totally stunning seven-game upset. Myself, I’m betting that Halak steals a game or two for the Canadiens, but doesn’t have enough to stymie the Capitals’ attack for four victories.

The Capitals don’t have the defence or the goaltending to win the whole thing — but they also have far too much firepower to bow out this early against a team that backed into the playoffs by losing in overtime to the 29th-place Toronto Maple Leafs.

The call: Capitals in five.

Five Bonus Predictions:

1. At least one clean hit from Alexander Ovechkin will be hotly debated among fans and pundits. They will debate it solely because it was Ovechkin in the jersey that dished it out.
2. Carey Price will come on in relief of Halak and play well in one of the games. This will lead to an outcry to start him among Canadiens fans. If it happens, it will not end well.
3. Nicklas Backstrom will lead the Capitals in scoring.
4. Tomas Fleischmann will notch at least four goals in the series.
5. Scott Gomez will … well … suck. Is this really a prediction. Or did I just want something in these article to still be true in three weeks?

No. 3 Buffalo vs. No. 6 Boston

This could be the most boring series of all time — four straight 2-1 wins by Buffalo, perhaps accentuated with a couple of empty net goals to make it 2-1, 3-1, 2-1, 3-1.

Or, it could be a series of 0-0 nailbiters enteriung second and third overtime periods. A series of exacerbated tension, jaw-dropping saves and some serious grinding by third and fourth lines.

Buffalo has the edge in net. Boston has the edge on defence. But Buffalo has a large advantage at forward, having just received their best sniper, Thomas Vanek, back from injury and healthy enough to score five goals in the team’s last two games.

Boston’s top scorer, sadly, is still sitting home in a dark room, hoping the headaches go away. Well, at least Matt Cooke finally got his.

The call: Buffalo in six.

Five Bonus Predictions:

1. I’m gonna call it, just for the hell of it: At least one game heads into OT without a goal.
2. Zdeno Chara, finally feeling healthy, scores at least twice.
3. Patrice Bergeron wins a game for Boston by himself. (Or at least he has a three-point game.)
4. I fall asleep at least twice watching this series.
5. Ryan Miller has one bad game, and four really, really good ones. (And one that’s passable, too.)

Western Conference

No. 2 Chicago vs. No. 7 Nashville

I would dearly love to predict an upset here. But it simply can’t happen. Forget the fact that the Blackhawks have either Cristobal Huet or an untested rookie in goal. Forget the fact that the Hawks are missing Brian Campbell for at least the first few games of the series. Forget that Joel Quenneville is not the most reliable and calm of coaches. Forget the fact that the Hawks jinxed the hell out of themselves by putting up a mural of Jonathan Toews and the Stanley Cup on the side of a friggin’ building.

Forget that Nashville has better goaltending and, eith Campbell out and Seabrook slumping, an arguably deeper defence — which is what gets the job done come playoff time. Forget that Patrick Kane is talented, but a bit of a douchebag. Forget Nashville’s forwards — it’s easy because very few people can name more than three of them.

Forget all that — because Marian Hossa plays for the Hawks, and so they’re going back to the Stanley Cup final for a date with de— the short end of the stick.

Seriously, I don’t really have anything against Hossa, personally, but if the Wings can’t come out of the West, I would like nothing better than to see his mercenary ass get snake-bitten for a third time.

At the very least, he’s going to the second round. But it won’t be easy.

The call: Hawks in seven.

Five Bonus Predictions:

1. Patrick Kane will take better care of his mouthguard when entering scrums around the net.
2. Shea Weber is the best defenseman playing in this series.
3. Steve Sullivan cooks up some typical little-guy-in-the-playoffs magic.
4. Pekka Rinne utterly confounds the Hawks for at least two games, making 30+ saves in two wins.
5. If my heart was to pick a first-round upset it would be this one. But I can’t, so instead I’ll just predict that the Preds will have the lead in games at some point during this series, either 1-0, 2-1 or 3-2.

No. 3 Vancouver vs. No. 6 Los Angeles

This series is down to Roberto Luongo. And nothing else.

I’m serious. I can’t think of any other factor one tenth as important to the outcome. If Luongo plays as he did in Canada’s gold-medal Olympic win, then the ‘Nucks will take this series handily. If he plays like the Luongo of the past three weeks — and everyone who owned him down the stretch in a hockey pool is nodding their heads right now — the ‘Nucks are fucking done in six.

The Kings are just good enough to outscore the Canucks if Bobby Lou is not up to snuff. If he is, they’re outclassed.

Yeah, it’s important that Jonathan Quick get back into form. And it’s important that Kings like Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar bring it on every shift while Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson put up a solid fight against the Sedins.

All of these things matter. But in another, more accurate way, Roberto Luongo is what really matters.

I’m going out on a limb here: Luongo’s a choker when he doesn’t have a top-flight international team in front of him.

The call: Kings in six.

Five Bonus Predictions:

1. Canucks fans and media members will spend the entire series talking up Henrik Sedin for MVP. Even if the Canucks get swept in the first round with Sedin playing with himself on the bench, they will still consider the season productive if one damn member of the squad receives an individual honour.
2. Canucks fans will continue to remind me of Leafs fans at every turn.
3. Drew Doughty will easily outclass every other defender involved in the series. Much the same way the Sedins will do with all other forwards.
4. Alex Burrows will pull a cheap shot on somebody, a shot cheap enough that the NHL will be discussing itsbrand-new headshots policy.
5. Roberto Luongo will lose the Canucks two games in the third period.

There you have it. I say, once again and with conviction: Do. Not. Bet. On. My. Predictions.

I love to bet and I won’t touch these. That’s how bad a start we got off to last night.

It’s been a while, but before I get home, turn on the television, pour the first shot of whiskey and get lost and rabid homer fandom (though I suppose it’s not technically ‘homer’ fandom if you’re not actually rooting for your hometown team) I wanted to attempt some lucid predictions, so that I may either ignore or trumpet them later depending on how right or wrong I am.

Playoff hockey is a dirty business. An ugly, punch-drunk, sweating, cursing, nervous, nailbiting business. And that’s just me sitting in front of the damn television.

It’s like this every year — though thanks to the Red Wings’ failure to acknowledge the start of the season until after the Olympic break, it started earlier this year — I get all set up at the beginning of the tournament to watch each and every series with the interest and critical eye they deserve. Then I passively tune in whenever I can and save every last drop of energy — as well as every good turn of phrase or new and entertaining curse — for whenever the Wings play.

But not this year.

This is the year I draw a line in the sand between fandom and objective analysis. It’s a big step for a blogger. But seeing as how I’ll soon be leaving the basement apartment, the traditional domain of web pundits, it seems only fitting I at least make an attempt to cross the rubicon towards actual sports journalism.

So, without further ado, Part I of The Gamesheet’s Dispassionate Playoff Predictions, featuring a call for each series that begins Wednesday night, as well as five bonus poredictions of things that will likely happen during the course of the competition.

If I get all these right, I’m a fuckin’ genius. That’s all there is to it.

Eastern Conference

No. 4 Pittsburgh vs. No. 5 Ottawa

Pittsburgh will win this series. Their offence is too good and Ottawa’s goaltending too suspect to hold up for a seven-game series. At some point between Games 1-3, Crosby and Malkin will explode, poor Brian Elliot will be yanked, and the series will go downhill from there for the Sens. Which is a shame, because very few things would please me more than watching Crosby and Malkin fail to even come close to making it back to the final for a rematch with God’s Te– Dammit, I started doing the ‘blogger’ thing again.

The point is, as much as I hate rooting for them, Pittsburgh is still my honest pick to come out of the East. If Eliott can stand on his head and Alfredsson and Spezza can come up with some magic, the Sens may (… may …) last six games. There’s just no way they can win.

The call: Penguins in five.

Five Bonus Predictions:

1. Chris Neil acts like a dick and takes a run at either Crosby or Malkin, causing the Penguins to get angry and Bruins fans everywhere to scream about Matt Cooke and turnabout being some sort of fair play.
2. The Penguins score at least five goals in at least two of their four wins.
3. Jason Spezza shows up for the first two games, and then completely disappears.
4. Jordan Staal scores at least three times in this series.
5. So does Alexei Ponikarovsky.

No. 2 New Jersey vs. No. 7 Philadelphia

I don’t think this series is a gimme for the Devils. Yeah, it’s Martin Brodeur versus Brian Boucher … but Boucher, as any veteran of hockey pools knows, is capable of short but extremely awesome spurts of goaltending. If his shootout win over the Rangers to sneak the Flyers into the playoffs was enough to get his motor running, then Philly could be more than decent in the goalie department for a few games.

And if the Flyers are decent in net … well, their defence is good and their forwards are better. New Jersey has a better top line, but the Flyers corps runs deeper. The Flyers are also meaner and tougher and rougher and have angrier fans and a sasquatch on the blue line.

New Jersey, though, is better. And they should win this series. It won’t be anywhere near the walk some are predicting however.

Unless of course, Boucher never gets hot. Then Parise and Kovalchuk and Brodeur can win the thing in five skating by themselves.

The call: Devils in seven.

Five bonus predictions:

1. At least one shutout for each of Brodeur and Boucher.
2. At least one questionable play involving Chris Pronger.
3. Some sort of insulting chant regarding Martin Brodeur’s weight will be heard in Philadelphia.
4. Kovalchuk scores less than a point-per-game in the series.
5. Zach Parise caries the Devils on his back in the deciding game, notching at least three points.

Western Conference

Dear God, No Hot Goalies, Please. Thanks.

No. 4 Phoenix vs. No. 5 Detroit

Calmly, rationally and dispassionately, I predict the Red Wings will prevail in four … er, five games.

They will do this because they have a better defense corps than Phoenix, a better collection of defencemen than Phoenix, a better coach than Phoenix, more experience than Phoenix, about 30-40 more Stanley Cup rings than Phoenix, a bigger and more knowledgeable fan base than Phoenix, a less-bankrupt team than Phoenix, a better owner than Phoenix, a hotter streak going into the playoffs than Phoenix and far far more sheer hockey skill than the Phoenix Coyotes.

Damn. Make it four games.

The Coyotes have a collection of hardworking grinders, a decent coach with a defensive system and a hot goaltender. That’s it.

Oh Lord … you know what? I don’t think I want to talk about this series anymore. Just hold me until it’s over.

The call: Detroit in six.

Five bonus predictions:

1. Henrik Zetterberg and Nicklas Lidstrom will own the Coyotes top line.
2. Niklas Kronwall will deliver at least one hit that requires a Coyote to leave the bench and go (or be carried) to the dressing room.
3. At least one game will go to OT, and Shane Doan will score an OT winner.
4. At least one game will end with more than 45 saves by Ilya Bryzgalov. The Coyotes will lose that game.
5. The Coyotes’ planned white-out will look … ummm … not so good, because of thousands of red jerseys in the stands. Also, an octopus will land on the ice. (That prediction is like the free bingo spot for me.)

No. 1 San Jose vs. No. 8 Colorado

I think the San Jose Sharks are a bunch of choking dogs come playoff time.

I have spoken and written repeated wisecracks about Joe Thornton’s lack of any kind of heart. I don’t hink Dany Heatley is especially dedicated to playoff excellence either, though given that he spent so much time playing for the Senators, that might be a choke-by-association situation. When the Red Wings spent most of the season hovering around the No. 8 spot, I was fine with that, because San Jose will fold up shop to the first good team they face off against.

The Colorado Avalanche are not a good team. Their goalie is very tired. Their forwards are very young and inexperienced. And San Jose is eager, oh so eager, to prove (however little it can be proven against a first-round opponent, that they are chokers no longer.

They will humiliate the Avalanche. Then they will get overconfident and flame out in the second round and the team will be dismantled.

How’s that for a bonus prediction?

The call: San Jose in four.

Five bonus predictions:

1. This will be the only playoff series San Jose wins this year (yeah, it was good up above, so I stole it).
2. Matt Duchene will score more points than Paul Stastny for the Avs.
3. Dany Heatley will notch a hat trick in one of these games, causing everyone to assume this will be a breakout playoffs for him. Those people will be wrong.
4. One of the Sharks’ wins will feature a come-from-behind performance after Evgeni Nabokov offers a glimpse of what’s to come by allowing at least four goals.
5. Peter Budaj will see at least 40 minutes of ice time in this series.

Nearly every team in the NHL has 10 games left to play. A few have nine, a few have 11 and several have no reason to show up for any of them.

So if you’re stuck in a ball-grabbingly tight fantasy playoff race, you want the guys who will also be nutting up for their games on your roster. I know, I know …. Should have thought of that before you drafted Joe Thornton.

But you can’t drop a superstar, regardless of the Grinch-like state of his heart. You can, however, drop pretty much anyone who isn’t performing, and who’s team has so little to play for that they have no incentive to finish the season strong.

Still hanging on to James Neal or Jamie Benn? Drop ‘em, the Stars are done. Benoit Poulliot, Brent Burns, Marek Zidlicky and the like aren’t going to rip up the NHL over their final ten games while the last playoff spot rides off into the sunset ahead of the Wild. I’m *this* close to dropping Martin Havlat in a pool I am in because the race is so tight that despite the occasional helper, his recent +/- misadventures are putting me in a hole.

With the exceptions of superstars you drafted and have received solid production from for most of the season, I’d be thinking about cutting everyone who plays for the Lightning, Islanders, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Ducks, Stars and Wild.

Staal, Getzlaf, Stamkos and the like are untouchable, but other than that, why would you be waiting on anyone to show up at this point in the season. If they haven’t been playing well over the last two weeks — when the non-playoff fate of their teams was still in doubt, why the hell would they show up now?

Meanwhile, lesser-known players on teams still in the hunt for either playoff spots or position are turning in solid nights. Here’s a starting lineup of six players who can help your team right now — and since there’s no ‘down the line’, maybe you should get on this.

F: Valtteri Filppula, DET: He is currently on a line with Henrik Zetterberg and Todd Bertuzzi. Only the first name in that sentence is important. Zetterberg’s been one of the league’s best players over the past two weeks, and — for the past couple of games, anyway, so has the little blond kid they call ‘Flip’. Seriously — he’s shooting, for once, as well as making those slick little offensive dangles he likes so well, and the line is playing so well right now that there’s little chance of them being split up. And since teams must use their top defensive forwards on the Datsyuk-Franzen-Holmstrom line, there always seems to be some space for Flip, Z and Bert. Anyway, Filppula is available in almost every league, and he has five points in his last two games. You could do a lot worse.

F: Alex Steen, STL. There is little chance that the St. Louis Blues have anything to play for — but because they made a miracle comeback last season, they don’t believe that. The stats say the Blues have a 2.6% chance of making the dance, and so long as that number is above zero, Alex Steen is going to play like a demon. Steen has 14 points in his last 10 games and he’s owned in less than 20% of Yahoo! leagues. If it wasn’t for a few badly-needed goals lately, I’d have axed Vincent Lecavalier for Steen last week. I probably should have done it, too, but it’s hard to pull the trigger on a fourth-round pick, even with only 10 games left in a season of suck.

F: Peter Mueller, COL: If your league is dumb enough to leave him sitting on the wire, then you need to scoop him. Since the trade deadline move, Mueller has been awesome. He notched another two-point night Monday, his goal coming on a heavy-as-yo’-mama snap shot on a 2-on-1 break. Everyone knew he was a player, but the question was his passion and his situation. His situation improved a few weeks ago, and now that the Avs are in a fight for playoff position, the passion is there.

D: Jamie McBain, CAR: The team … has absolutely nothing to play for. McBain … has an NHL career to begin. And it’s a pretty nice way to kick-start it, too: Playing on the top defensive pair and the top power-play unit for a team that’s giving you every chance to succeed. McBain’s played four NHL games now. He has five points. Aside from Staal, Whitney and Pitkanen, he’s the only other ‘Cane you really want to try now that Jussi Jokinen has cooled off. And plus …. McBain!

D: Ron Hainsey, ATL: There’s no WAY you’re somehow in contention this late in the game and still need two defencemen. So go with McBain — ‘He was elected to lead, not to read.’ — except in the unlikely event that someone else read this shit first and beat you to him. In which case, well, take Hainsey. He’s not a terrible option and he’s taken over PP duties since Tobias Enstrom started sucking ass around the time Ilya Kovalchuk left town. Hainsey, however, has seven of his 24 points in his last six games, and the Thrashers are fighting tooth-and-nail for the final playoff spot. But … if possible, take McBain first.

G: Johan Hedberg, ATL: If you’re hunting for anything more than a game or two from a goalie at this point, you’re just playing out the string. Johan Hedberg, however, is not doing that. He’s in the net for the Thrashers, who may only have a  38% chance of making the playoffs, but are chasing a Bruins team who has a 90% chance of finding a way to fuck it up this season. Hedberg is nothing you want to rely on, but in games against bottom-feeders or impotent offensive teams like the Bruins, he can notch you some stats.

It’s back for another year, because nothing goes together so well as Japanese poetry and hockey deals. We will analyze each trade, in a 5-7-5 format, and attempt, in our own flippant and sometimes foolish way, to bring you insight into the spiritual consequences of player movement. That, or we’ll just make fun of poor Evgeny Artyukhin, who somehow rates his own haiku.

(This post will be updated as new deals are announced.)

(UPDATE: This was the most boring trade deadline I’ve ever attempted to describe with lyrical verse, so I’ve added the major deals below, but I suspect we all wish this day had never happened.)

Florida Panthers deal Jordan Leopold to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for a 2nd round draft pick:

From Purgatory

To the heights of Mount Crosby

Don’t look back, Jordan

Edmonton Oilers deal Denis Grebeshkov to the Nashville Predators in exchange for a 2nd round draft pick:

Winter now gives way

Sunhine cuts through gloomy clouds

Head south, young Denis

Anaheim Ducks deal Evgeny Artyukhin to the Atlanta Thrashers in exchange for Nathan Oystrick and a conditional draft pick:

The pick’s condition?

The drafted player must have

Name with letter ‘Y’

New York Islanders deal Andy Sutton to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a 2nd round draft pick:

Sutton moves slowly

Frozen as the ice on which

he tries to defend

Toronto Maple Leafs deal Alex Ponikarovsky to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Luca Caputi and Martin Skoula:

Relief for Poni

Linemates who will get him points

Like the good ol’ days

Boston Bruins deal Derek Morris to the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for a 4th round pick:

Money’s just paper

And numbers in balance books

And root of this trade

Carolina Hurricanes trade Aaron Ward to Anaheim Ducks for Justin Pogge and a draft pick:

Time is a river

Somewhere back there down the banks

Is Pogge’s career

(or)

A long time ago

Paul Maurice coached the Marlies

History repeats

Calgary Flames deal Aaron Johnson and a 3rd round pick to the Edmonton Oilers for Steve Staios:

Steve’s playoff chances

Just quadrupled with this trade

They’re now 10 per cent

Calgary Flames deal Dustin Boyd to the Nashville Predators in exchange for a 4th round pick:

Useful forwards grow

On trees if you ask Sutter

Enjoy that draft pick

Edmonton Oilers trade Lubomir Visnovsky to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Ryan Whitney and a 6th round pick:

If two defensemen

Who don’t play D are traded,

Which team gets better?

Maple Leafs trade Joey MacDonald to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for a 7th round pick; Maple Leafs trade Lee Stempniak to the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for a 4th and 7th round picks; Maple Leafs trade Martin Skoula to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for a 5th round pick:

As snow thaws in Spring

Shit on sidewalk is revealed

Three teams stepped in it

Columbus Blue Jackets deal Freddy Modin to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for a conditional draft pick:

Frolov is leaving

So Kings hunt scoring winger

They should keep looking

Carolina Hurricanes deal Joe Corvo to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Brian Pothier, Oskar Osala and a 2nd round draft pick:

Corvo and Mike Green

Like tanning bed in sunlight

Too much of one thing

(or)

Somewhere, Ovie cries

Soft defence needed backbone

Instead he gets Joe

Columbus Blue Jackets deal Raffi Torres to Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Nathan Paetsch and 2nd round pick:

War motifs cross swords

But in this treaty of crap

Both sides likely lose

The Olympics are over and I’m a little choked up about it. I was wondering about how this happened and, well, it’s a strange journey.

You see, I was in America when Canada’s Olympic Games began, trying to find some semblance of live television coverage among the glut of features and vignettes and puffed-out patriotism that is American Olympics coverage. I just wanted to watch some sports, honestly, on my vacation.

I didn’t get any live sports, but I learned that Bode Miller is good, Lindsey Vonn is even better and that the United States has the best athletes in the world because they were raised by the best parents with the best values. It bordered on Orwellian. I am not kidding. I turned off the television and went dogsledding.

Then, when the games were six days old, I was among the millions of Canadians who wondered where all the medals were, and if they could get away with murdering whomever composed the Olympic theme song (that would be Alan Frew, of Glass Tiger fame) while he slept. But I pretty much shrugged.

I didn’t care too much about the medals at that point, either, because we’d already won at least one gold, we were never really going to ‘Own the Podium’ either and so long as we did well and tried hard and everything, I could be a good little Canadian and clap my hands and support it. (Aside from hockey, of course, I always wanted to win the hockey. That shit is serious.)

Then, the British stuck their noses into it — or maybe it was their teeth, sometimes it is difficult to tell which protrude further from the face (zing!) — deriding our plans to Own The Podium as unbecoming to a nation that was supposed to be quiet and humble, calling the games a disaster because of bad weather and a death on the Luge track.

This was all before the Games were a week old, remember.

Anyway, the British looked down their noses at another country (imagine that!) and some of us, myself included, felt a little angry about it.

Then, other Canadians seemed to get in on the act, wondering nastily in print, on social media and even in casual conversation, why we bothered to spend money on our athletes, why Vancouver was spending money on the facilities and (in one memorable instance) why on Earth we had a right to be proud of these games or our athletes or anything else related tangentially to anything close to nationalism  … because of course Canada has an ugly record on Green issues, a Conservative PM and hasn’t  closed down the Tar Sands at the urging of the environmental lobby.

So … that argument made a lot of sense, coming as it did from a Canadian living in Britain, which has a couple of centuries experience at exploitation of other countries’ natural resources under its belt, won a solid one (1!) medal at these Olympic games and is currently massively over-budget on construction for their own Olympics, in London in 2012.

(I’m not denying here that Canada has all of the problems that were mentioned, just that they have fuck all to do with our athletes, who had enough people dumping on them at the moment for things that were actually within their realm of control.)

Anyway, my point is that I did not come into the Olympic Games brimming with pride and the overwhelming urge to support my country. I really didn’t care too much. But I was backed into it. By the overbearing coverage of American TV. By the idiotic assumptions made about a week too early by the foreign press. And by a fervent desire to never let myself get so cynical (and do not doubt for a second that it is a very potent form of cynicism) that I could spit on a happy spectacle for the sake of an Important Larger Issue that has little to no connection to the event at hand.

So I was in a awkward position, then, having not really followed the games that closely, yet finding myself defending them for no other reason that I’m Canadian, the damn things are in Canada and the ol’ fashioned sports fan part of me believes that you get behind your team when it starts to fall behind.

So I did. And I lucked out. Because that was an incredible payoff.

Moment by moment, these Olympic Games evolved into something more than a cool two-week party that we were hosting or an international sporting competition. It sounds maudlin — and I am many things, but maudlin is not usually on the list — but the story of these Games, from start to finish, was the kind of rags-to-riches narrative that reminds us why we bother to care about these things in the first place.

The rags have already been mentioned. Rain. Death. Loss. Failure to meet expectations. Criticism. Everything a Dickensian writer would pile onto a the shoulders of a poor orphan boy at the beginning of a tale.

But the Riches. Oh the riches were unexpected.

It started when Jon Montgomery won the gold in skeleton and chugged that pitcher of beer then hopped onto the podium looking like the happiest motherfucker you ever did see. That moment, I think, awakened something that’s too often hidden in the depths of our fragile national psyche — sometimes for the appearance of politeness, sometimes for fear of mockery, and sometimes because, well, it just wouldn’t be ‘Canadian’ to let it out.

Anyway, all of a sudden, maybe it didn’t matter that we weren’t going to Own the Podium, or whatever ridiculous catchphrase the COC could concoct. What mattered was that these were our guys and our games and they were going to be … something to see, at the very least.

It kept getting better. By the time Joannie Rochette collapsed into sobs after skating her ass off less than 72 hours after her mother died of a heart attack, it was pretty clear that something special was happening.

Later, Jasey Jay Anderson, a veteran of four Winter Olympics and the perfect example of Canada’s impotence in them (lots of world championship victories, nothing to show for it in the Olympics), went out on a disgusting day, with visibility near zero and nearly 0.75 seconds to make up, and ripped apart the track. He won gold. And celebrated in the rain, barely able to answer questions from reporters.

These were all just stops along the way, amongst many more highlights, but somewhere in here I became invested. Emotionally. Because is began, like most times Canadians appear on the international sporting scene, we stumbled and lagged behind, and were pitied and ridiculed, alternately, by the rest of the world.

Only this time, we didn’t go quietly. It was a strange and marvellous thing. The best stories of these Games were all Canadian — from Montgomery’s joy to Rochette’s profile in profound courage, to the men’s long-track speed-skating team — shut out completely in the first 14 days of the games — putting the hammer down for two Gold medals on the final day of competition. It was a moguls racer who was skiing for himself and for his disabled brother. And Maelle Ricker, a snowboarder who was airlifted off the course in a coma four years ago, only to showed up in Vancouver kicking all the ass she should have kicked then. And, of course, a men’s hockey team that could have easily choked away a chance at history, buried under metric tonnes of pressure, but instead refused to lay down for the Russians, the Americans or anyone else.

I mean, I ended up rooting for Sidney Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry at these Olympics. It’s going to take a long time to get that nasty taste out of my mouth. That really drives homes the whole bringing-us-together cliche for me.

As I write this, Neil Young is singing ‘Long May You Run’ at the closing ceremonies. The unexpected performance is something of a microcosm of these games. Word had leaked that Avril Lavigne and Nickelback were to be the only musical acts at the closing ceremonies, sparking another round of pointed remarks about how even after making these games memorable, we were going to ruin them at the end.

But here we are, he’s playing softly on an acoustic guitar, lighters are in the air, it’s raining and even if it weren’t, half the faces in the audience would still be wet.

I do, however, apologize for the inevitable Nickelback performance. And if Celine shows up, I apologize for that too.

This was, regardless of politics or principle or whatever else we like to sprinkle on top of our sports to make them more interesting, the purest form of sporting emotion — a spectacle that I never really expected to care about just pulled me in and made me believe. And I do believe, I swear, even though I will fucking kill somebody if I hear that theme song one more time.

I never thought I’d be happy to watch Ryan Getzlaf act like a douche.

I mean, pretty much everybody who watches hockey outside of Anaheim would admit that Getzlaf, and Corey Perry can be … well cocks, sometimes.

Here’s Perry, in one of his finer moments, ‘intimidating’ Mikael Samuelsson and Pavel Datsyuk:

I know. Not exactly quality stuff. But then I saw Perry and Getzlaf chirping away at the deflated Russians on Wednesday night, and I broke out in a spontaneous grin.

It’s as odd a thing as I’ve ever encountered as a hockey fan. At one point Wednesday night Chris Pronger was winding up a slapshot and I really, really wanted it to find the net.

So that’s what it means to be Canadian.

I am, as many of you know all too well, a diehard Red Wings fan, though thankfully there hasn’t been much dying to do over the past couple of decades. Still, I am prepared for a non-playoff season, should it happen, and it will not dim my love of the organization.

As a Wings fan, this would be a partial list of my absolute most favourite players: Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall, Johan Franzen, Thomas Holmstrom, Brian Rafalski, Valtteri Filppula, Dan Cleary (he’s Canadian!), Darren Helm (him too!) Chris Osgood (so is he, and they’re all at home on the couch!), Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Ericsson.

All well and good, and I’d certainly have liked to see the players on that list who were there do well at the Olympics. But instead most of them will get a weekend of rest, and I can certainly support that during this Season of Inexplicable Fucking Injuries.

As well, I also feel no qualms rooting for Team Canada in general, despite the lack of a single Wing on the ice. First of all, I’m Canadian, so I’m gonna root for them anyway. And second, it was the Wings’ brain trust who put the team together, so really I’m just rooting for Steve Yzerman, which is something I’ve been doing for so long that I’ll probably be cheering for him to kick ass on Bingo Night several decades hence.

But here’s the weird part, a partial list of players that I — through years of watching them either foil my team’s best-laid plans or act like complete assholes while the Wings vanquish their foes — have grown to abhor and/or always root against when they skate on NHL ice: Chris Pronger, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Sidney Crosby, Brenden Morrow, Martin Brodeur, Scott Niedermayer, Marc-Andre Fleury and Joe Thornton.

So you can see why it might be a little disquieting to find myself leaping out of my seat when Chris Pronger runs somebody into the boards, or feeling sympathy when Thornton vanishes at a critical moment in a big game.

This is the sort of thing the Olympics, and blind partisan patriotism, does to an otherwise rational person, I guess. I wonder if this is how a Republican representative feels when he’s decrying a health-care proposal that he knows would help the uninsured, because he really, really wants his side to ‘win’ … okay, perhaps I’m not that evil, yet.  We’ll test that theory on the much-anticipated day when Stephen Harper reveals a fair and workable proposal. I feel pretty safe about this ever happening right now.

But seriously, this is bad, like that time in some comic book when some villian totally dressed up as a super-hero to frame him — this seems like something one of Spider-man’s enemies would do — and then the whole city turned against him.

Can I really, really root for Ryan Getzlaf, possibly one of the ugliest and most neanderthal-esque men on the planet, to demolish the opposing team? Can I really revel in his sucess?

Somewhere between the first and sixth goals against the Russians Wednesday night, I made the executive decision that Hell Yes, I Can.

So I want Getzlaf and Perry to bully the hell out of the Slovaks tonight. I want Marian Gaborik to hear, from Perry’s own lips, exactly how he’s ‘gonna get it’. If Chris Pronger were to, say, sneak up behind some punk Slovakian defender and his elbow just happened to come up a little ways and perhaps drive that dude’s face into the glass … well, I won’t need much encouragement to look the other way.

I want Brenden Morrow doing that whole super-irritating check-you-steal-puck-face-wash-douchey-trash-talk thing he does so well all night long. I would like Scott Niedermayer, grey-ass granola beard and all, to effortlessly carry the puck up the ice the way I live in fear of him doing whenever he’s facing the Wings.

Should Sidney Crosby score a beautiful goal, make a beautiful pass or punch some dude in the nuts from behind … I’ll be downing a beer and screaming like all the other blind Canucks. I will not grin if Fleury trips over the gate on his way to the ice. I will take it as a bad omen and promptly freak the hell out.

I am not sure if this makes me a hypocrite or just a hockey fan with his heart in the right place. Any other Canadian fans of foreign teams (or vice-versa) feel like weighing in?

Anyway … ummm go Ryan Getzlaf!

From the Leafs perspective:

You just know — based on their history of over-exuberance and the Vito-From-Woodbridge-style hyperbole — that there was someone out there on Yahoo wondering if Frederick Sjostrom was available in his fantasy league.

Hey, it’s Toronto. On Twitter this morning, eight of the ten trending topics in Canada were related to Brian Bruke’s roster moves. In fact, even the name of the reporter who broke the Phaneuf trade (Darren Dreger) was trending. Is it obvious yet that a certain segment of Leafs Nation was desperate for something positive to talk about?

But … was it positive?

For the most part, yes it is. The Phaneuf and Giguere trades make the Leafs even more ofensively challenged than they were before, but who really cares? They couldn’t score when it mattered anyway, and despite what Brian Burke says, this season is a write-off for the team. It doesn’t even matter where they finish, since a top-five pick would help nobody but the Bruins.

Essentially, the last 30 games of the season can be used for the purest of roster-building endeavours: Player evaluation. Christian Hanson, Tyler Bozak and Viktor Stahlberg should all get a look down the stretch and although Giguere isn’t coming here to be a benchwarmer, Burke did make it clear today that the team still intends to play Jonas Gustavsson enough to determine whether or not he deserves a contract extension when he becomes an RFA at the end of this season.

So yeah, should you run out and grab any of these acquisitions? Probably not. Phaneuf isn’t available, and unless you’re desperate for goaltending, Giguere is not going to play enough or win enough to help you out. These trades are about next year and the year after that. Brian Burke cares not for your fantasy team.

From the Flames perspective:

Well, hell, maybe now they’ll have two lines capable of scoring. Maybe Niklas Hagman can ignite Olli Jokinen. Maybe Matt Stajan can find his way onto a line with Dustin Boyd and Jarome Iginla. Maybe Ian White has a lot of fun feeding Jay Bouwmeester on the power play. Maybe Jamal Mayers … ummm … fights even more.

Or maybe not. If things had a tendency to go right for the Sutter-run Flames, they wouldn’t have hit the nine-game skid that made them desperate enough to shake up their roster to this extent. You can hope that lightning will strike everywhere, but in reality, hoping it strikes once is a pretty big leap for this team.

But Niklas Hagman has been a solid, if streaky, scorer wherever he’s played. And apparently Hagman and Jokinen are friends. It’s not out of line to gamble an extra forward position on a Finnish connection flourishing between the two. By the same token, since Ian White was a borderline-serviceable fantasy defenceman on the Maple Leafs, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to maintain similar production — perhaps even with a boost to +/- — now that he’s on a (marginally) better team.

Matt Stajan, however, is a third-liner, despite his first-line minutes in Toronto. Unless he ends up playing with Jarome Iginla, expecting steady production from him is not very realistic.

Should you pick them up? You can roll the dice if you want. But keep in mind that the Flames are a deeper team than the Leafs, where Stajan, White and Hagman were all enjoying top-line minutes. Not all of them will see that time in Calgary.

From the Ducks perspective:

Toskala was part of the deal because his contract is up and he won’t challenge Jonas Hiller for starts.

Jason Blake, however, could be interesting. The Ducks have been searching all year for a way to extend their scoring punch beyond the Getzlaf-Perry-Ryan-plus-(when healthy)-Teemu-Selanne formula. Dan Sexton has helped here and there; Saku Koivu has had a couple of moments, but there is definitely room for a speedy winger to snare some second-unit PP time.

Will it be Jason Blake? Honestly,m it’s Jason Blake. Who the fuck knows? He was a 40-goal scorer, then he was a cancer patient. Then he was a comeback story, then he was a dressing room cancer. Then he was a floater who was stealing money, and now on his way out of town he’s Brian Burke’s ‘hardest worker, in the weight room and on the ice’. Really? Okay, Burkie. You know, once you’ve traded him, you don’t have to keep selling. You know that, right?

Should you pick them up? Hell no to Vesa Toskala. If you’re feeling dangerous, grab Blake.

Bottom Line: For a couple of league-shaking deals, there is remarkably little fantasy impact here. Phaneuf may benefit from having Tomas Kaberle feed him the puck, but it’s not like Bouwmeester was a bad passer in Calgary. Jonas Hiller is now a locked-in No. 1 goalie, so that’s a positive. And maybe, just maybe, some of the Leafs pieces are a perfect fit in Calgary. But we’ll have to wait for the first couple of games to see how they line up.

If I had to bet on one of them, I’d go with Hagman. And he was just scooped up in two of my leagues. Seems like that’s the early favourite.

I never thought I would be saying this, but I wholeheartedly agree with Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke.

No, I’m not saying it’s a good idea to load up on tough guys, deal away your next two first-round picks and choose your own team’s coach to also run your national team so you can’t fire him even if you show up to work one morning and catch him banging your daughter on the desk in your office.

I still think those aspects of the Burke Master Plan fall solidly under the Not Too Bright banner. But as thousands of hockey junkies suffer through the dead months of the season with nothing to do but check the box scores, watch the occasionally compelling matchup and wait for the Olympics to start … I have to say that Burke is absolutely right when he says that there’s precious few reasons to wait until the trading deadline to swing deals.

“Everyone in this business seems to believe that you always get your best deal right before the store closes,” said Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke.

Because there is a “compressed time frame”, Burke said there might be some early dealing.

“But I expect to see the same train wreck we always see at the trade deadline,” Burke joked.

He’s right. The deadline is a train wreck for many GMs and there’s no reason it has to be. In fact, there are plenty of examples of why it’s a bad idea to make a deal later that you could make today.

The best and most recent illustration is the Nov. 23 transaction that sent Guillaume Latendresse to the Minnesota Wild and Benoit Pouliot to the Montreal Canadiens. More than reinvigorating their respective careers — both guys have been at the top of their game since the deal — what looked like a seemingly minor trade has injected life into two stagnant offences.

It’s not fair to the Wild and Habs to credit the newcomers for everything, but it’s fair to assume that neither club would have benefited quite as much from this swap had it happened at the beginning of March. There’s just less of a season left to make a difference.

There are two scenarios in which late deals are preferable, and that’s pretty much about it:

1. The team acquiring a player is a lock for a top seed in the playoffs, they’re going to acquire one more piece for a Cup run and they want to wait until the last minute to see who becomes available. That makes sense because for all we know the New York Rangers could go 0-for-February and perhaps some of their players end up on the market when they otherwise wouldn’t.

2. The team taking on the larger salary is very tight up against the Salary Cap. Salary Cap rules mean that it’s the amount remaining on that player’s contract for the rest of the season that counts against his new club’s cap hit. So if you’re swapping a $3-million player for a $5-million player, and you’re only $1-million under the cap, then you can’t do it on Jan. 26. That’s a rule, bitch, and I can understand that.

The other reasons? ‘We want to examine all our options’; ‘We’re not sure we’re out of the playoff race yet’; ‘We feel we’ll get a better return closer to the deadline’ … they are, by and large, bullshit.

Here are your options: You’re going nowhere and you need to trade your decent players for picks and prospects. Doing so now allows you more time to either plan for the draft or see how those prospects will fit into your oragnization’s depth chart.

Guess what? You’re out of the fucking playoff race. Even if you get in you’re likely first-round fodder. And who’s to say that the one or two players you’re dealing — unless one or more of them are named Kovalchuk — are going to be the difference between playoffs and golfing? The reality is, if you even have to consider using this line, it’s because you know you’re probably golfing, but you’re a coward hoping for a miracle.

A better return? Yeah, because so many teams have the cap room and prospects to deal in the new NHL that a lengthy bidding war will likely ensue and you’ll end up with twice what you would have had before the deadline. No. Just as likely is that stalling for better offers will convince your potential trading partner to grab a similar player from one of the other GMS who also waited until deadline day to deal, thereby driving the price DOWN, dipshit. They’re all out to rip you off because you’re a bottom-feeder. Better to make the deal with only one wolf at the door. At least he’s more likely to listen.

All of this is a useless excuse for me to rant about how boring the NHL is in late January, especially when a cadre of overmatched GMs are holding out for some mythical deadline deal that will be way way better than any deal they could possibly make today.

If Brian Bruke did not have to err on the side of non-profane comments, he would probably join me in labelling these deadline-focused GMs as, well, pussies.

Because they are.

… It’s Black Fuckin’ Monday, at least it should be if you’re a fan of professional athletes (or would-be professionals) demonstrating any kind of class as they go about their athletic endeavours.

Sports are a distraction. They’re fun, and cool, and interesting to gamble on. In very rare moments, they’re incredibly inspiring. If we tune in or buy tickets on the right day, sometimes we see something we’ve never seen before, and won’t see again.

But mostly, they’re a distraction. A good one, sure, but that’s it. That’s why I write about sports on here instead of more pressing issues — I’m spending most of my day sifting through various parts of a newspaper, and when I’m done choosing a picture of a pile of dead bodies in Haiti, I want to do something that doesn’t make me want to cry or curse. That’s where professional sports comes in.

But it’s a job at which professional sports has failed miserably in the past 24 hours. For three reasons.

1. Just before I went to bed last night, a highlight began making the rounds on YouTube and various sports highlight shows of a disturbing hit delivered in the QMJHL by a player named Patrice Cormier. That would be the same Patrice Cormier whom we selected as the Captain of our World Junior Championship team. Here’s the hit, and the aftermath. You will grimace.

Disgusting. And this is a kid who was among the best this country put forward in a tournament that took place last month. Of course, he tried his cheapshots in that tourney, too, but we turned a blind eye to them because we love it when Canadian kids intimidate the rest of the world in those situations.

Now he’s done it to the point where his victim, Michael Tam of the Quebec Remparts, may have brain damage. At the very least Tam has a concussion and a broken jaw. Remparts coach Patrick Roy is talking about legal action — and rightfully so, in my opinion — and we get to have that awful discussion about violence in hockey all over again.

The worst part, of course, is watching that poor kid convulsing on the ice. Then wondering what would have happened had it been during the WJCs, and the kid on the ice was a Swedish or Finnish junior player. You’d like to think the stands wouldn’t be filled with cheering Canadians, and that the announcers would STFU as quickly as possible once they realized the kid was hurt … but I don’t know. We get a little rabid at those tournaments.

I hope the Devils rescind their rights to Cormier as an NHL player. And I hope that Hockey Canada publicly apologizes for giving him the ‘C’. Hey, maybe we could blame him for only winning the silver and turn him into a scapegoat. That’s be sweet!

2. Next on the list, the Dallas Cowboys, who are upset that the Minnesota Vikings threw a late touchdown pass to add a little insult to injury in yesterday’s humiliating playoff loss.

The Dallas Cowboys, in case you have forgotten, are known far and wide as “America’s Team” — presumably for their testicular fortitude and never-say-die attitude. Anyway, Keith Brooking, a Dallas linebacker charged with the job of preventing the Vikings from scoring, is upset that … the Vikings scored late in the game.

After the touchdown, linebacker Keith Brooking walked over to the Vikings sidelines and yelled at some of the Vikings players, especially coach and playcaller Brad Childress.

“I was just trying to say something to whoever wanted to listen on their sidelines,” Brooking said. “Whoever was in charge of calling that play and making that decision. It was B.S.”

Wade Phillips noted how the Vikings ran up the score in his opening statements to the media.

“Defensively we gave up big plays we hadn’t given up,” he said. “And [the Vikings] know how to run it up when they get ahead again. And we were coming after them and they made plays.”

It’s a terrible thing when an offence scores late in a playoff game on a defence who tries to stop them. I mean, the next thing you know, they’ll be talking about playing a full 60 minutes, or giving 110% out there.

This is fucking retarded. This is an example of an over-entitled athlete crying because he couldn’t do his job. In the sport that is supposedly the manliest of all the professional team games. Perhaps a mercy rule would spare Brooking the humiliation. Perhaps the NFL could issue a shadowy directive to all its coaches instructing them to take their foot off the gas when the score is more than 20 points in favour of one of the teams. Perhaps Keith Brooking can shut the fuck up and book a tee time.

Perhaps Vikings DT Pat Williams put it best:

“We don’t care what Keith Brooking says. He was about to get his ass whupped on our sideline over there. It don’t matter. Nobody said anything when they blew out the Eagles. … It’s the playoffs. It ain’t no regular-season game. If you lose, you go home. We take no pity on them. Do they expect us to? I don’t care about no Brooking. He can say whatever he wants to say”

I mean, it’s not like anybody pays money to see athletes compete at the highest level of effort, and it’s not like anybody wagers hard-earned money on the result, is it?

Eat it, Keith Brooking. Your cheesy-as-all-hell pre-game motivational tactics just lost all power over anyone with a set of testicles.

And finally, as if we needed anyone to illustrate the utter disconnect that sportscasters who take themselves very seriously can have from the rest of the real world … I give you Jim Nantz,doing a promo for 60 Minutes and managing to mispronounce the name of a country that has recently been featured prominently in the news thanks to a noteworthy natural disaster, before turning around and using the rest of the promo to talk about the NFL in Samoa.

Nice one, Jim. Way to make it look like all sportscasters are self-involved idiots. If it wasn’t already evident.

There are days when I wonder why I pay attention to these games.

(Your most-definitely-not-daily look aound the NHL)

Ummmm, about last night:

• Sir, I demand satisfaction: Seriously guys, I did not tune into a Leafs/Flyers games in the hopes that I would see a dazzling first NHL goal from Tyler Bozak, a 38-save shutout fom Vesa Toskala, a convincing Maple Leafs win an a meek Flyers team going quietly into that good night. I mean, really. If I wanted to watch a crummy team beat up on a better team that was clearly struggling, I would have watched the Islanders kick the Red Wings ass on Tuesday, and then vomited. All things considered though — I’m a hockey fan, and as a hockey fan, I was led to believe by the Maple Leafs callup of goonster Jay Rosehill, that There Would Be Blood. Do you know what I got? A scuffle at centre ice with about three minutes left in a game the Leafs (supposedly the ones out for revenge after a 6-2 pasting earlier this month) already had well in hand. That’s no fun. What happened to adding injury to insult, guys? For real, I don’t uually watch hockey looking for fights, but when I’m promised potentially damaging brawls between two teams I hate … then I want them to deliver, dammit.
• His name is Jimmy Howard: And his backup is some dude name Chris something. Can;t remember much about him, except that he was pretty good in the playoffs last year. Howard, who was yanked on Tuesday in the vomitlicious game against the Islanders because his defence had deserted him, showed up to play last night, stopping 37 shots as the Wings were outshot 38-35 by the NHL’s worst team and still managed to come out with two point. Valtteri Filppula had his best game since returning from injury — which is not saying a lot, I know, but it’s early — with two helpers, and The Sniper Claimed Off Waivers, aka Drew Miler, had a goal and an assist. Is it wrongthat I wish he actually was a sniper, just so drunk old Mickey Redmond could scream ‘It’s Miller Time!’ whenever he scored? Hell, that’s not the only reason. This team could use some goals. I’m going to start watching the games with my eyes squinted shut and I’ll pretend that Drew Millr is Johan Franzen.
• Another shutout for M. Brodeur: That’s two games in a row a goalie with that name has shutout the New York Rangers. Being blanked by Marty is nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the best who ever done it, after all. Butwhen Mike Brodeur comes to town a day later and achieves the same resul … that’s when you get worried. If you’re desperate for a goalie in your pool, you could do worse as a waiver pickup — not because he’s going to light the world on fire, but because the Sens goaltending situation recently can best be described as ‘three steps beyond desperate’.
• When it goes … it’s gone: Lord only knows what has happened to Marty Turco, but unless he can pull something together soon, the Dallas Stars are probably done. In his last 12 starts, only twice has Turco allowed less than three goals. In fact, in five of those starts, he’s allowed at least four goals. And in eight of those starts … his team lost. Not exactly a surprise. Turco had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 and, well, Georges Laraque scored, so you can glean from that event that Turco’s netminding was less than spectacular. Meanwhile, as the Stars continue to self destruct, Brenden Morrow is missing in action, Brad Richards’ scoring pace has slowed to put it mildly and Mike Modano provided most of the team’s offence in the 5-3 loss, despite being on the Stars’ fourth line.
• St. Louis 1, Minnesota 0: I was blown away to realize that chris Mason now has 19 career shutouts. That’s about 13 more than I expected. I guess he’s been around long enough to get them, I just didn’t think he’d been … good enough to get them. In other news, when Mikko Koivu and Martin Havlat don’t show up, Guillaume Latendresse cannot get te job done by himself.
• Oilers Suck: That’s pretty much all you can say about this one. The Penguins gave the Oilers a two-man advantage. Edmonton scored. The Pens gave up another power play ten minutes later, Edmonton scored again. Then the two teams went to their locker rooms for the second intermission. Then the Penguins came back out, score three times and won the game. I watched a bit of this third period. There was only one team playing. The Penguins did not need Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. These are the Oilers, after all. They got by with Jordan Staal (quietly having a fantastic last month, if you’re in need of help at centre), Tyler Kennedy, Matt Cooke and Pascal Dupuis. So yes … the Oilers Suck.

Quick Picks: As I wrote in the column this week, now is the siesta time for superstars on the NHL schedule. Jordan Staal will see a lot of ice in Pittsburgh as both Sid and Geno rest up for the Olympics … Val Filppula will likely enjoy the same kind of action in Detroit as Babcock protects Datsyuk and Zetterberg for a run at a playoff spot … Mathieu Garon is pretty much the de-facto No. 1 goalie in Columbus until Stave Mason proves he can put together more than one decent game in a row … Josh Bailey and Rob Schremp have shown terrific chemistry in Long Island, but I’d be worried if your league puts weight on +/- numbers … Tyler Bozak skates with Phil Kessel in Toronto, he’s got a little bit of talent, illustrated by his gorgeous goal last night, and coach Ron Wilson thinks that line is just getting warmed up … Jason Chimera is fitting in very nicely with the Washington Capitals, with four points (and a fight!) in his last three games. He won’t be much more than a depth player, but on a team with that offence, he’s going to see a lot of ice against the weakest defenders the opposing team has to offer.