Today In Sport

For those who came in late, Ilya Kovalchuk was traded during the middle of last season from Atlanta to the New Jersey Devils.  He became a much sought after commodity during the off-season and was actively pursued by many a NHL club, most notably Los Angeles.

But the New Jersey management came up with a brilliant plan.  Offer Ilya the most overblown and convuluted deal in history, $102 million over 17 years.  Now, at 27 years old this would mean his contract would end when he is 44.  Sure there have been the odd player that has been able to go into their 40’s but it is a little ridiculous.

That is until you read the part where his wage is scaled from almost $10million a year down to the base rate in his final 5 years.  This gave the overall contract a lower average yearly salary to help fit into the NHL salary cap.  This is where the NHL stepped in and said we don’t like these shennanigans.

But the NHL Players Association countered with “But why?” and now we are headed to arbitration.  This is usually a quick process but for some reason there was no arbitrator in place at the time (why would there be, it’s only mad trading month).  So, finally tomorrow the decision will be at least discussed.

There are teams hanging on the verdict, again most notably The Kings who are ready to pounce on Ilya should his contract be vetoed and torn up.  It’s not like this is the first lengthy contract though.  I think what the NHL are concerned about is the fact that while The Devils are paying Ilya huge money, they still comfortably fit under the cap.

Then when the final 5 years comes around and he is 39, New Jersey then can cut him and pay out the relatively paltry sum of $2.5m of the rest of his contract and also recover about $7m in their cap space.  You can see both sides.  The club wants to work their contracts as they see fit to help their club and the NHL wants to stop rorting of the system.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

As the Chicago Blackhawks were parading their newly won Stanley Cup around the ice after Game 6 in the NHL playoffs, former Hawk Jeremy Roenick was savouring the moment as he expressed his pride at their acheivement to the TV audience.  And that moment was ruined by Mike “The Mouth” Milbury.

As JR choked back tears when he answered the question about why he was so emotional at this win with “It’s the Chicago Blackhawks, man.”, Mike Milbury swooped in with a lame joke and a rambling anecdote that went nowhere.  You can see in Roenick’s eyes that he was angry at Milbury and if it had been about 15 years ago and at center ice, he would have punched the living stuffing out of him.

JR deserved that moment and it was ruined for him.  Way to go Mike Milbury.  Jackass.

The Chicago Blackhawks, the 2nd seed in the Western Conference will this weekend start their quest for the first NHL Stanley Cup title for their franchise since 1961 when they take on the red hot 7th seed in the East, the Philadelphia Flyers in game one of the Stanley Cup Finals series. (continue reading…)

The Pittsburgh Penguins advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs in their quest to defend their title by defeating Ottawa 4-3 in OT after being down 3-0 early on.  After a brilliant comeback by Pittsburgh to take the game into OT, a superstar emerged to take the series.

Sid the Kid?  No.  Geno Malkin?  No.  Pascal Dupuis!  Hey, if you score the winner in OT to seal a playoff series victory for the Pens you are a superstar in my book.  Cheers Dupes, you legend!

Dejan Stankovic of Inter Milan this week made Genoa goalkeeper Marco Amelia look a little foolish after his ill advised clearance fell straight to the Inter player who volleyed it back from the halfway into the empty net vacated by the unfortunate shot stopper.

Also here are the Top Ten goals from the NHL for the past week.

Earlier this week, NHL legend Joe Sakic announced his retirement.  He played his entire 20 season career with the one franchise.  Recruited in 1987 by the Quebec Nordiques he quickly established himself as one of the best in the league.  He became captain in 1992 and his leadership was second to none.

Sakic played in 1,378 games, tallied 625 goals and 1,016 assists for 1,641 points, leaving him eighth on the NHL’s all-time point list.  He also was voted into 13 NHL All-Star games as well as starring for Canada in the 2002 Winter Olympics where he was named the Tournament MVP.

The Nordiques moved from Quebec to Colorado and became the Avalanche in 1995.  That season they captured the first of two Stanley Cups with Sakic a major contributor scoring 51 goals and had 69 assists for 120 points.  He also was a star in their second cup win in 2001 when he scored 118 points. (continue reading…)

This is a short music video made by some guy called OhNoEddy that uses the beat from The Lonely Island’s I’m on a Boat and remixes it into I won the Cup. This is the censored version but you can get the uncensored version as well. Enjoy.

In just a few hours the Detroit Red Wings will face another hostile crowd at the sold out Mellon Arena and try to hold off the suddenly rejuvenated Penguins from tying the series at 2-2.

The first two games were full of weird bounces and shocking goals and the Wings taking advantage of them to win both games 3-1.  Evgeni Malkin tried to send a message at the end of game two by going the biff with Hank Zetterberg.  It must have worked.

Pittsburgh came out with a renewed hunger and fixed their scoring problems, even scoring twice in the first period.  It is crazy to think that this was the hottest scoring team in the first three rounds of the playoffs and then all of a sudden they have to fix their offensive production two games into the series with Detroit.

After it was 2-2 after one period, The Pens waited until halfway through the last period to get the go ahead goal.  Detroit fought hard until the last minute when after a few aborted attempts, goalie Chris Osgood finally made it to the bench for the extra skater only to see Maxime Talbot score from the red line into his empty net to seal the win.

So can The Penguins get another win at home and get the series back on an even keel?  I think they can.  Malkin broke out of his mini funk and gathered 3 assists in game 3.  They only need Sidney Crosby to break free from the stranglehold that Detroit have put on him.  If he can do that, then they will win easily.

Go you Pens!

Get out the brooms!  The Pittsburgh Penguins completed a 4-0 sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes today winning game 4 of their 7 game NHL Eastern Conference series by a score of 4-1.

All they have to do now is rest up and wait for Chicago and Detroit to finish beating each other up.  Hopefully it takes a while and is a draining series although with Detroit up 3 games to 1 it might be over sooner rather than later.

But the Pens are playing awesome hockey at the moment.  Captain Sidney Crosby and his First Officer Evgeni Malkin have been tearing this years playoffs apart.  They have been taking over games in such a way that it reminds you of Lemieux and Jagr in 1992.

Goaltender Marc Andre Fleury is playing very solidly with a lot of help from his defencemen.  He still has issues when he goes behind the net to retrieve pucks but for the most part he has been really good.

Is this the year the Pittsburgh Penguins win the cup again?  I sure hope so.

Here are some other recaps of the game and the series.

ESPN - Penguins v Hurricanes

NHL.Com - How Sweep It Is

The 2009 Playoff season in both the NBA and NHL have been full of exciting games and series.  The last few years have been so full of one sided sweeps that someone must have a large collection of brooms somewhere.  But it seems like this year is different and teams are actually fighting for their playoff lives.

Take the NHL Conference semi-finals for instance, three of the four series have gone to game 7.  Even Chicago took 6 games to defeat Vancouver.  The Pittsburgh - Washington series up until game 7 had been a battle of titanic proportions…and then Washington hit the iceberg the Penguins were on and sunk.  The Penguins now march on to the Conference finals after a 6-2 shellacking of the hapless Capitals. (continue reading…)