Immortalizing some significant hockey moments using postage stamps has become pretty fashionable for the last two or three decades. In 1995, Peter Forsberg was honored for his 1994 Olympic gold medal clinching shootout goal on Canada’s Corey Hirsch. According to Wikipedia, Forsberg was the first hockey player to ever be placed on a Swedish stamp and Mats Sundin was the second in 2002. The Minnesota Wild’s Finnish prospect, Mikael Granlund, had his lacrosse-style goal commemorated on a stamp after the Finnish national team won the 2011 IIHF World Championships for the second time in its country’s history.
Per the Globe and Mail, Swedish forward Rickard Rackell wants to see the moment on a stamp.“I hope they make a stamp of this."
Me too. I suppose that after clinching your country's first gold medal in 31 years with a game-winning overtime goal, it'd only be fitting that Mika Zibanejad is rewarded with his own stamp. (Hat tip to Twitter follower @mothballsuitor for alerting us to the stamp itself.) According to the Swedish website aftonbladet.se, Zibanejad's goal -- as photographed by Jimmy Wixstrom -- should receive the same honour.
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Let's check the day's events:
- Four Senators named to the 2012 All-Star Game and the Toronto sports media collectively loses their shit because it's not a meritocratic process. Fools!
- Canada wins the bronze medal.
- Senators badly outshot but beat the Lightning 4-1. Craig Anderson was exceptional.
- Kyle Turris gets first goal in Senators uniform.
- Prized prospect Mika Zibanejad scores the OT winner for Sweden in the gold medal game.
I didn't believe that the day could get better, but then I actually heard the Swedish play-by-play of Zibanejad's winner. Unreal.
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This morning the NHL announced the balloting results for the 2012 All-Star Game in Ottawa and it's a Northeast Division rout. As voted in by the fans, the Boston's Tim Thomas (626,540 votes) and Toronto's Dion Phaneuf (614,933) made the cut as well. Thanks to an overwhelming turnout out the polls by Senators fans, Jason Spezza (817,483), Milan Michalek (743,977) and Daniel Alfredsson (897,055) swept the forward position. A last day surge by fans at the polls propelled all three players ahead of Toronto's Phil Kessel - who finished fourth with 701,833 votes.
The NHL's point leader amongst defenceman, Erik Karlsson received the most votes of anyone on the ballot. His 939,591 votes bested the second-place Phaneuf's by more than 300,000.
Now that the voting process is over and the results have been fully realized, it's a bit of a bittersweet moment for Sens fans. Not only does it continue the newish tradition of seeing Kessel get slighted, it's fantastic to see the Senators fanbase mobilize and accomplish its intended goals: to reward some deserving players like Karlsson and Spezza and commemorate Alfie's legacy in Ottawa.
And therein lies the bittersweet moment. As fantastic of an opportunity as this to honor some players, the 2012 All-Star Game is essentially a grandiose platform to eulogize the captain's career in Ottawa. Even if Alfie goes on to play for one, two or four more years, there's not a Sens fan out there who doesn't recognize that the end of his career is drawing to a close.
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't use this opportunity to drop trou and shit on the efforts of the Project Mayhem crowd. The brainchild of the fine folks over at Pension Plan Puppets, Project Mayhem was designed with the intent to irk Senators fans. With a coordinated effort to vote former Senators players like Chara, Heatley, Hossa, Havlat, Emery and Campoli into the game, it was supposed to serve as a reminder of how some poor managerial decisions have haunted the Senators organization.
Suffice it to say, while Project Mayhem started out of gate strong, it has faded faster than the Leafs in the standings.
So cue the booing. Inevitably, there are going to be complaints about the ballot box stuffing practices of Sens fans to get their players into the game. Nevertheless, maybe if some out of town fans weren't so set on voting in former Senators players, they could have boosted the vote totals of their own players.
Boo-hoo.
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The c-word is a dirty word.
Keeping that in mind, Chris Phillips has a concussion.
To this point, there's been no clarification as to whether the reason as to why he left Monday night's game against New Jersey at the 7:47 mark of the second period was related to the decision to scratched from the December 27th game against Montreal. Admittedly however, when it was reported that Phillips left the game with an undisclosed 'upper body injury', I feared that it was a euphemism for concussion.
Who could blame me for that?
It's a by-product of this hockey era: concussions are prevalent and it's the topic du jour in the sports media realm.
From James Gordon at SenatorsExtra.com:
“We’re going to be hopeful that it’s short term and it’s being evaluated and it appears to be a mild one, but it depends on him,” said MacLean.
The coach says there’s no question the Senators will miss the steadying influence of the 33-year-old Phillips, who has played 984 career regular season games, all with the Senators.
“Chris has been a real steadying influence on our team and a major part of any success we’ve had in our end end defensively,” he said. “If he’s not playing, we’re going to miss him, much like we did when (Filip) Kuba and (Sergei) Gonchar were out. I thought he was stellar in his play when they were out and any time we’re missing a veteran player, it gives us a concern.
“He has been here a long time, part of our leadership group and he has a lot of pull in the locker room and he’s well respected. So when he’s not in there, it’s going to make a difference.”
According to Hockey Prospectus, Ottawa has the worst defensive GVT in the NHL and the second-worst goaltending GVT. Whatever success Ottawa has had in the defensive zone has been limited. I don't even want to think of how much worse it could get if Phillips (who has the second highest defensive GVT rating amongst Ottawa's defencemen) is out for a prolonged period of time.no comments
I’ve been staring at a blank page for the past few days not knowing what to write.
I suppose the best place to start would be to say that what we’re experiencing right now is absolutely fucking awesome. (Oh, and Happy New Year and stuff.)
I mean, sure, at some point Ottawa’s .263 winning percentage when trailing after two will regress towards the mean like Nick Foligno’s shooting percentage but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy what’s happening with the Ottawa Senators right now.
Having just won their league leading fifth come from behind victory when trailing after two periods, what can you honestly about a team that halfway through their season and is exceeding every expectation that has been placed upon it by prognosticators and pundits alike?
Coming into the season with a roster that had a number of key veteran players who were either on the wrong side of their career or were coming off of an injury-plagued 2010-11 campaign, it was fair to assume the worst. Although Jason Spezza was the one reliable offensive player who could be counted upon, with the exception of Erik Karlsson and the much ballyhooed David Rundblad, even the most ardent Sens fans would have conceded that this year’s team just didn’t have enough young skill to compete and hang with the league’s best teams on a consistent basis.
Having already endured the evolution of the organization from its expansion existence through its perennial contending years, this feels different. Unlike in years past when the organization had drafted the highly skilled forwards but had difficulty insulating them with a variety of hardworking but talented players (my sincerest apologies to the Bruce Gardiner family), the current incarnation of the roster is almost the complete opposite.
There’s no question that the acquisition of Kyle Turris certainly adds that dynamic to the current mix, many of the team’s best offensive forward prospects – Silfverberg, Puempel, Zibanejad, Noesen and Stone -- are playing abroad or are still in junior. What you’re essentially left with are a few constants like Spezza, Alfredsson and Neil and a variety of complementary players like Foligno, Greening, Smith, and Condra whose work ethic and penchant for late game heroics is just infectious. It’s the kind of mental toughness that was fostered during many of these players’ Calder Cup run last season. Reading the comments of Edmonton Oiler’s GM Steve Tambellini, it’s certainly an ingredient that he feels his club is lacking right now. Hell, who could forget the years of watching the Senators move future assets at the trade deadline for veterans like Bryan Smolinski or the Cro-Magnon cave dwelling Vaclav Varada?
Granted, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it's still early and that there are a number of games to be played before the NHL trade deadline and the start of the postseason. There is a lot of hockey left to be played and enough time for Jeremy Milks to warm up to the idea of trading veteran blueliners at the trade deadline. For what it's worth, Hockey-Reference.com lists Ottawa's playoff probability at 49.5% and Hockey Prospectus is relying heavily upon the GVT metrics to discredit Ottawa in their team playoff potential rankings. no comments
Alex Auld Gets the Call
For the first time this season, Craig Anderson will not get the nod in a game that follows one in which a Senators netminder had been pulled. In four instances that Anderson has been given the nod under these circumstances, he has posted a 4-0-0 record with a GAA of 2.20 and a SV% of .932.
In other words, is a season that’s been marred by inconsistent play, Anderson isn’t being used in a situation in which he actually has been consistent. Of course, the other side to the story is that the Senators do play three games in the next four days and with tomorrow’s night game being nationally televised, the decision to go with Auld tonight has merit. In fact, according to Paul MacLean's media availability today, the schedule and goaltender's workload of late weighed heavily on the decision.
Nevertheless, the fans and the media in this city love a goaltending controversy. To the media’s credit, relative to other goalies that have played, they have been pretty patient with Anderson’s game thus far. Naturally, with it being generally accepted that the organization is in a rebuild and with prized prospect Robin Lehner expected to get one full season of seasoning down in the AHL, there’s not a lot of inherent external pressure put on Anderson right now from the fans and media in this city. Moving forward, assuming that the Senators can continue to flirt with a possible playoff seed, it will be interesting to see whether this dynamic changes. (Note: I fully expect a groundswell of support for a Robin Lehner promotion from Bingo in the second half. Looking at Lehner’s numbers in Binghamton, it’s worth noting that they aren’t particularly flattering. Albeit, my concerns aren't with Lehner's peripherals so much as they are with the fact that he just hasn't played that much this season.)
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