By Dave Cunning 

Cunning Comments: Anaheim Sucks, OG-OV, Rich DiPietro, Vintage Gear & French Canadians

 

Is it bizarre to anyone else that the Anaheim Ducks are so bad this year? I mean, think about it for a second -- From their 2006-07 Stanley Cup winning year, they still have their star players like Teemu Selanne (maintaining ability/getting better with age), Corey Perry (won the freaking Hart Trophy for regular season MVP AND the Rocket Richard Trophy for most goals last year), and Ryan Getzlaf (Olympic gold medalist); and dumped guys like JS Giguere (hasn’t been the same since they made goalies wear small pads) and Dustin Penner (fat guy who’s gotten worse, and recently injured himself while eating a stack of pancakes http://es.pn/zbBsdk)? The only thing that really makes sense is their starting goalie Jonas Hiller hasn’t been the same since his bout with vertigo. But when you look at it, it’s like Anaheim’s contracted a case of New York Rangers syndrome -- where a great team on paper just can’t get it done (NYR had Gretzky, Messier, Jagr, Lindros, Kovalev, Bure, Naslund, and Shanahan at one time – all elite players that managed to get worse while there, somehow). Interestingly, the Rangers are really good this year. You go ahead and try to explain to me why the Ducks are 29th in NHL standings right now, and the Rangers are 1st.    

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Those concerned with Alex Ovechkin’s offensive decline this year may find answers to the conundrum from what he's been spending his time lately – it seems Ovie has decided to put his efforts towards rapping, rather than scoring goals, for the time being: http://youtu.be/Pgp0Xep6zKs  Apparently being 44th in league scoring, and having his team in 15th place are topics that require less of his attention at the moment. 

Did Ovie seriously make the All-Star game roster this year? Whether it’s the fans voting him in or the league, there’s no way this guy’s an all-star right now, and he’s clearly getting in on name and reputation alone. Guys like Jordan Eberle and Anze Kopitar are miles ahead of him in production, and guys like Martin St. Louis and Scott Hartnell are doing better too. Curtis Glencross is having a career year in Calgary. Not bringing the current best players to this game makes this annual event more of a farce that it unfortunately already is.  

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After Rick DiPietro’s latest season-ending injury (sports hernia), how can the New York Islanders not just cut their losses and eat his insane contract? The guy has played 47 games in the last four seasons. At $4.5 million a year, that works out to $382,978 a game for Rick.  Come on, if NYI can somehow afford to pay Alexi Yashin between 4-8 million a year to not even play, they can afford to take this one on the chin too. Especially with the amount of goaltenders they have on their roster. 

 

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I love that Sergei Bobrovsky and Ilya Bryzgalov are still wearing their brown Winter Classic pads. No sense wasting those beauties. Carey Price should bring the mask he wore in the Heritage Classic back out (you remember this one: http://yhoo.it/hBDMad right?) too.  Also, I love Martin Brodeur’s old-school blocker he’s wearing this year with all the holes in it. That is all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And lastly, this whole thing with the Montreal Canadiens and the people of that city demanding French speaking coaches --- look, I get that they want to uphold their culture and they’re proud of their heritage and all that stuff; but at some point, don’t the people have to realize their team needs to win hockey games rather than be able to talk to all the fans and media? They’ve been sitting on those 24 Stanley Cups for a long time (and rightfully so), and their most recent accolade was almost making the Stanley Cup Finals in 2010. I like seeing a non-French speaking coach in Montreal (aka Randy Cunneyworth) only because it says the team isn’t going to limit themselves based on a trivial notion. It’s crazy to think that if an elite/non-French speaking coach like Mike Babcock or Dan Bylsma somehow became available (not unlike Bruce Boudreau this year), Montreal would not hire them based on their language level. I don’t think Cunneyworth is on the level of the afore mentioned coaches, but it shows that the team is willing to move past that roadblock. Their fans should be able to do the same. Now the Habs just need to find a way to keep PK Subban from fighting his teammates and (allegedly) spitting on opponents, and receiving racial slurs from other players in the league.

Read Dave’s blog http://davecunning.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter: @davecunning

 

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