THE TOE HOLD

If you attend Duck home games then you know the sound of a pre-recorded voice right after the anthem that booms out “CAN YOU FEEL IT” with some music behind it designed to get you all going.

Well the answer is YES. I can feel it. I can feel that Bob Murray just fucked up.

With the Ducks falling to Colorado in one of their few remaining games left vs teams immediately ahead, I can feel it. Bob Murray did nothing at the trade deadline except give up a full year of Devante Smith-Pelly’s Free Agent and contract rights when he announced DSP will stay with the team all year.

Murray, as you will remember, is the guy who added two players this offseason to a 99 point team. Both “additions” were Edmonton cast-offs. Kurtis Foster who is an abomination was had for literally nothing and Andrew Cogliano with his 30 points a year and 41% face off percentage … well Edmonton could not wait to get rid of both of them. Lets put it this way, the Oilers took back Andy Sutton in order to get rid of them. How desperate were they?

So his team flounders and is very nearly last in the league. Then they turn it around and play great, moving all the way up from 13th place to, um, 13th place. In the meantime he has 7 players … all starters .. who become UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENTS in 6 weeks.

Selanne
Koivu
Blake
Hagman
Pelly
Brookbank
Parros

So, what does a 13th place team with 1/3 of the roster UNRESTRICTED do?

SELL! SELL, SELL, SELL!

But not Bob, oh no, these players “deserve more”. Well you know what they got for all their efforts? NOTHING. HE DID NOTHING.

If he sells, he’s in the market for guys like Vermette, Carter etc. If he doesn’t want the high or long contracts, FINE, then sell and take back prospects and picks. Better yet, trade one of our up and coming picks along with a guy like Blake or Hagman for a solid player? Whatever. The fact is the Duck now looks at all 6 of these players retiring or re-signing elsewhere and WHATEVER we could have got is gone.

Don’t want to sell? FINE, BUY! Trade one of our prospects and a pick and get a second pairing center (Vermette?) for Ryan in anticipation of Koivu’s retirement). Get a 3rd line sparkplug to come in and give you that Steve Thomas effect. DO SOMETHING.

So, Bob does nothing. Wait! He rewards Smith-Pelly with the promise to play him all year, thereby surpassing his 40 game rookie mark and having this year now count as year 1 toward contract status and UFA/RFA status. Seems a nice thing to do for the kid who worked so hard right? Well, if this guy turns into the Dustin Brown type player we predict, what then? That move just cost us 4 or 5 million bucks when he gets to RFA status!

There was no reason to do it. The Duck already let the kid go play in the WJC in the middle of the season and lost 2 months cause he broke his foot! Now we are just giving him a year upgrade on his RFA status in a season where he’s gonna play an extra 9 games over the 40 mark? And the Duck have been in 13th place since November? WTF?!?!?

Here’s the problem. That loss means to get to even 93 points and at that a slim chance of the playoffs, the Duck now has to go 14-4-1. And then do a lot of praying.

I can feel it alright.

Bob Murray has GOT TO GO!!!

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Rick DiPietro joins Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, all three penciled in for the 2021 season. Kings exploring 27 year extension for Quick. Stay tuned.

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So the Kings look to add offense by “stealing” Philly’s captain, Mike Richards. They get him for the bargain basement price of Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn.

Coming up on this years trade deadline lets see how that worked out for Dean. Was it a smart move here in year 6 of building his culture of winning, or like Ron Burgundy was milk a bad choice?

MIKE RICHARDS

Richards is on the Kings books for 8 and a half more seasons. That’s right, the last year they have his cap hit of 5.7 million dollars is 2020. TWO THOUSAND TWENTY!!! He’ll be like 47 that year if my math is right.

Richards has 14 goals and 17 assists. He has scored ONE GOAL since Chrstmas! He’s been healthy too – that’s 26 games ONE goal! OK OK, maybe he’s been lighting it up with the assists? Maybe. Maybe not. He’s got 7.

1 goal, 7 assists, 8 points in his last 26 games.

BRAYDEN SCHENN

He’s a “can’t miss” type of guy – one of those nearly 2 point a game Junior heros who, not so incidentally, was World Junior MVP last year. This year in Philly he’s getting his chance to make it in the league and though he’s hardly tearing it up, he’s playing every night and his 8 goals in 31 games (very little to no PP time) still projects to 21 goals in a full season at age 20. He’s still a top level prospect by anyone’s measuring stick.

Brayden Schenn is the #5 overall pick from the 09 draft. This is a guy the Kings got to pick very high because they bounced between 25th and 30th place all of 2008/2009. I mean really, that’s your reward for sucking all year, a high pick.

WAYNE SIMMONDS

Simmonds has turned into a very good player. Always physically above average, he’s now offensively above average. In 59 games for the Flyers he’s got 22 goals and 39 points to go with his 75 penalty minutes. He’s a force.

If he were on the Kings his 22 goals would lead ALL PLAYERS IN GOAL SCORING by five!

CONCLUSION

This is shaping up to be maybe the worst trade of all time. Dean Lombardi, please don’t get fired. Duck fans need you in LA!

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Listen, Bob, it’s over. You cheaped out in the off-season and added nothing but Edmonton rejects. Everyone slumped at the same time and this season was over in December.

Oh, I’m sure you are sitting at Oggi’s eating the hell out of the bottomless bucket of wings for 11.99, but you need to wake up. The fact is the core of this team is a solid as ever. The Duck went on some incredible run last year to save a lost season, got to 99 points and then choked out of the first round. This year they have been phenomenal for 6 weeks. But they were so far behind that after 6 weeks they are still in 13th place!! You know that you’ve dug a pretty deep hole when you collect more points than any other team in the league from January 1 to February 20, look up and find yourself in 13th place.

ITS OVER!

Even if the Duck continued this unbelievable pace, they’d finish right around 92 points. Probably tied for 9th.

(For the record, current pace projections are right around 92. Due to the fact that many of the games between the 6-13th seeds are being played in the next 6 weeks, and most of them should be tight-checking playoff style games, you’d expect that number to increase due to all the 3 point games)

The Duck really needs 33 or 34 points in their remaining 22 games. A 16-4-2 record or something similar.

ITS OVER.

So here’s the problem. You want these guys to have fun and you want to sell tickets and you want to prove it was a 90 point team after all not a 60 point team like everyone said 2 months ago. Great, but it gets NOTHING.

Next year UFAs

Selanne
Koivu
Blake

That’s the entire second line. OK, Blake has bounced around on lines, but he’s been actually a big part of this streak. Those three are due to retire or hit the market. They are 38, 39 and 41. ITS OVER FOR THEM.

Throw in Nik Hagman, another big contributor to this run. When’s his contract up? Right. This year.

Where does it leave this team? A really thin team at the forward spot? It leaves them 4 forwards short! It leaves Nick Bomino and Peter Holland battling it out for 2nd line center.

Kyle Quincey just got traded for Steve Downie, then got traded for a first round pick. Steve Downie was worth a 1st round pick .. what would Teemu Selanne be worth?

While you are at it, Visnovsky and Lydman would be PRIME catches for a team looking for a playoff run and they each have a year left on their contracts. SHIP EM OUT. There is huge value there, and Brookbank has become the go to “stopper” with Beauchemin anyway .Visnovsky has returned to earth to be a middling, soft, slick looking LOSER. With Schultz and Vatonen on the way in, Brookbank holding steady and Guenin a competent 3rd pairing guy, you can take the hit. Particularly if it nets you a first round pick or an Antoine Vermette whose 56% face off percentage and decent scoring touch would be just the kind of player this team needs to pair with Bobby Ryan after Koivu is gone. Vermette went for a 2nd a 4th and Curtis Mcelruinourseason. You remember him, right?

GET ON WITH IT.

It’s a lot of value to give up, hoping that the team goes 23-0 to finish the season .. then thoroughly spent lose in the first round.

SELL, SELL, SELL.

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He sure seems to try and tell it like it is. And no matter how bad I’ve wanted the Kings to fail going all the way back to the circus act of the Gretzky years, I actually think Sutter gets it.

Here’s what he had to say about Brown and Kopitar, a couple days after calling Dustin Penner “Horsehshit”:

Yeah, Kopitar and Brown (need) to get going. Neither one has done much for six weeks. These guys talk too much about the team. They should talk more about more about themselves, what they bring to the table. … Kopi and Brownie have been stale, from my standpoint, for a little while together. In terms of producing opportunities, if it’s working backwards, in terms of who you perceive as your fourth line, to your first, then it’s not really a team thing.’’

Maybe I’m misreading that but I think he’s saying that they are playing like fourth liners and making excuses and diffusing their own failed play. For all the talk of creating a “culture of winning” the Kings still put center stage a kinda dopey looking #1 center with a knack for the heavily accented cliche …  and a Captain who looks, well, look Down’s Syndrome is not a funny thing and I’m not going to go there, I’m just gonna say that Dustin Brown looks like a dumb guy. And he pays lip service in every interview to “the team this” and “the team that” and boy am I glad to NOT be a fan and watch these guys muddle through one of the worst offensive seasons in Kings history acting like everything is OK we just gotta keep hustling.

Either way, I think Sutter has figured these pussies out.

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You see this here:

49.2 Goals – Kicking the puck shall be permitted in all zones. A goal cannot be scored by an attacking player who uses a distinct kicking motion to propel the puck into the net. A goal cannot be scored by an attacking player who kicks a puck that deflects into the net off any player, goalkeeper or official.
A puck that deflects into the net off an attacking player’s skate who does not use a distinct kicking motion is a legitimate goal. A puck that is directed into the net by an attacking player’s skate shall be a legitimate goal as long as no distinct kicking motion is evident. The following should clarify deflections following a kicked puck that enters the goal:
(i) A kicked puck that deflects off the body of any player of either team (including the goalkeeper) shall be ruled no goal.
(ii) A kicked puck that deflects off the stick of any player (excluding the goalkeeper’s stick) shall be ruled a good goal.
(iii) A goal will be allowed when an attacking player kicks the puck and the puck deflects off his own stick and then into the net.

Gobbledey gook, right? I mean you gotta go to rule 49.2 a (iii) to figure this out?

The rule is stupid. A puck can either go in off a skate, or not. Just decide. There is no reason to have a 5 paragraph rule, and no reason to have video replay to determine if the skate is “angled” vs “kicking” vs “braking” or whatever else. It’s trivial bullshit, and games are decided based on some moron getting all picayune about the nuances of kicking.

If you make it legal to kick it in, who cares? Go ahead kick it in. It’s not gonna be a “play” that guys work on. Sure, maybe some guys are gonna deke with the stick, pass it over to their own foot and try to catch the goalie going the wrong way, but who cares? Go ahead!

Or, make it so you can’t do it. If someone takes a point shot and it deflects off the offensive players skate, no goal. So what?

What it does is eliminate a dumb rule and a dumb analysis that isn’t necessary in what is a simple game.

The puck can or can not go in off your skate, DECIDE!

I bring it up only because it’s stupid and it cost the Duck an OT win last week when Ryan Getzlaf sorta side-stopped a kick at a puck. I say “side-stopped a kick” purposely because CLEARLY he was trying to bat it in with his skate, clearly he was in a slide-stop with the foot and clearly he moved his right skate rightward (?) to angle the puck in. No goal. Now was that a kick? Sorta. Sorta not. Who the fuck cares though! It went in off his foot, that should be the answer. It’s a goal or not. Change the rule idiots. Streamline the game, don’t complicate it. Will their be unjust results? YES. Are their unjust results now? YES. Just take the stupid ambiguity out of the game.

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It’s the sound of footsteps you creeps. It’s Corey Perry with 14 goals in his last 4 games and the Anaheim Ducks with 15 wins and 37 points in their last 12 games.

It’s an impossible year, and it is an impossible deficit. The Duck was done 6 weeks ago. 18 points out of the playoffs and firmly entrenched in the lottery. Since then they have the most points and best record in the league. 14-3-3. That’s not new math, it’s a fact, jack. Fuck you Kingstoner.

The “streak” has, once again, been put on the back of Corey Perry. This guy is probably the most beloved guy in all the league, particularly among jean-shorted, testosterone-deficient, estrogen-bloated Kingfans. Find me a fat bald guy in jean shorts and a goatee and I’ll show you a guy that snuck down from the 300 section at Staples center and is scanning the cupholders for half full cups of 14 dollar beer. And he’ll be shouting ‘Corey Ferry’ as Perry rolls over Jon Quick and scores another Duck goal.

This Duck team is starting to remind everyone of the ’07 cup winners. Here’s Brian Burke: “I’ve seen a lot of hockey in my day, but this current Anaheim team most closely resembles the 1947 Marlies. I call Bob Murray daily trying to crowbar Tony Lydman out of Anaheim, but Murph knows a great skater when he sees one. BTW, fuck that Kingstoner guy, what a queer”.

More from Gary Bettman “… when contraction talks start up, we will have to look at the two teams in Southern California. One of them has a Cup and the best record in hockey since Jan 1, the other has never won anything. You do the math, but let me say this: If I owned a bar in Kansas City I’d be installing a bunch of those crush proof seats that can hold 300 pound dumb 35 year olds and putting up pictures of Wayne Gretzky on the wall.”

The Duck rise has coincided with another lackluster season from their crosstown rivals, the Kansas City, errr, Los Angeles Kings. Dean Lombardi took over the reigns in LA 6 years ago and has managed two playoff losing series since then, mostly on the back of players that were already in LA before he arrived. The trail of tears, as it is called around the league, started with Alyn Macauley (yeah, his parents spelled “allen” that way) and most recently included the crying Ryan Smyth and the 4 goal scoring Dustin Pancakes Penner. Lombardi was asked by intrepid investigative publicist Rich Hammond  the hard-hitting question: “Mr Lombardi, sir, the team is great, the players all get along and I love going on the road with you guys. My per diem is satisfactory and Mr Robitaille’s foreclosed home isn’t even on my radar. Talk about the great success here in LA”. To which Dean said “I think that our bridge gap and filler players have now esteemed to the position expected organizationally from the perspective of tolerated allowability and filled out the chart making success a gross understatement. You have to go back and analzye the erudition with which I operate and the utter catastrophe with which I was presented. That fucking Kingstoner emails me every god damn day. Therefore what I think is that we are right where we should be and the gross 11% ticket increase is very little in reality when compared with the permutations  of the culture of winning I have developed. Mathematically I have made all your wishes come true.”

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Holy crap have they got some nerve! The Los Angeles Kings … that’s right the LOSERS SINCE 1967 … are raising ticket prices and not just by a little. “In this economy” they are raising ticket prices all over the arena by an average of 11%! They just gave themselves an 11% raise! Job well done, fellas! Mission accomplished!

This team is still on the cusp of making the playoffs. They are LAST IN THE LEAGUE IN GOALS SCORED. Their fans are pretty much utterly disgusted with the team as they all put down a big 20 dollar bill on the Kings to win the Cup back in October and got 17-1 odds. Most of these guys figured “hmmm 20 times 17 is like 4 thousand 6 hundred” so they are bummed. Now you raise their prices 11%?

It reminds me of the year when Bruce Mcnall didn’t refund playoff ticket deposit money (of course, it was one of the majority of seasons when the Kings missed the playoffs but took deposits in February anyway) until AFTER all the season ticket money was due. Yep, he refunded the playoff ticket money (which he had clearly already spent) with the season ticket sales for the NEXT season.

This franchise needs to be contracted.

And yes, the picture above is a picture of Kevin Smith (a King fan favorite – he’s fat, does drugs, wears jean shorts, is bald and has a goatee/beard and I’m guessing he’s got stupid tattoos too) performing a civil union ceremony for two same sex King fans. AKA homos.

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And the problem is this. God kills Whitney Houston but he lets people like Kingstoner and Rinkrat live? I was sooooo hoping that RR’s high blood pressure and kidney stones would kill the old man, but he lives and Whitney dies?

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