Perennial underdog Boston College gets a trip to the Frozen Four and other surprises inside!

 

10. Sean Avery Gets Kicked Off Dancing With The Stars, Is Classic Sean Avery About it

I have to confess that I have a strange fondness for Sean Avery. I don’t like him as a person or anything, but it’s hard to deny that he’s really entertaining. I mean, he’s the guy who did this to Marty Brodeur and got a rule named after himself. Then he went on Dancing With The Stars and the problem with this is that I’m relatively sure all hockey players (save maybe the Subbans who are absurdly charming) are conditioned from an early age to lose all semblance of personality the moment a camera is pointed at their face. Unsurprisingly, he was voted off (though I’ll admit I was surprised he was the first to go) and immediately blamed the producers, got Marty Brodeur to call him embarrassing, and then ripped on Brodeur’s weight and divorce on twitter. Classic.

9. Canada’s Women Continues To Be US’s Final Hurdle

They could make a movie about it, assuming the US women ever manage to topple Canada significantly (I know we’ve beaten them in Worlds, but I’m talking Olympics). We just can’t seem to get through Canada. Once again, the US blasts through everyone, this time at the women’s U18 tournament, before stopping at Canada and claiming the silver, which might as well be called the “haha, Canada’s better than you” medal.

8. Canada’s Teams Just Suck This Year

Except for Montreal, who I’m praying get to meet up with Boston in the playoffs because that rivalry is still fun. Looking at the league standings today, six of the seven Canada teams are in the bottom half, with four of them in the bottom ten. The other two are just immediately above the bottom ten. What went wrong? Well, I’m not the best at this, so I’ll let Down Goes Brown’s article cover it.

♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪

One thing is for sure: I’m sick of Edmonton being bad. Vancouver is taking a trip to the basement, which I predicted earlier this year in a heated argument with a Canucks fan who said the Canucks could totally make it to the final, they totally had a better chance than St. Louis, okay, and you know what I feel very smug right now. The Canucks are probably going to go through a painful rebuilding process in the coming years — painful because they have very few young players to build around, so it may take trades and lots of time — but Edmonton has been doing that basically since they fell to Carolina in the 2006 Final. They had three first overall picks in a row and they’re still this awful. So it isn’t that Edmonton isn’t talented. They just don’t have any idea what to do with their talent, it seems, and also their defense is awful. They got shutout again last night by Cam Talbot and the Rangers, for a season’s total of 9 times. Only Buffalo has been shutout more.

7. The Men’s Frozen Four Has Been Decided

In a shocking twist, the Frozen Four consists of Minnesota, University of North Dakota, Boston College, and Union College from New York. I don’t have a lot to say here other than this is apparently BC’s 24th trip to the Frozen Four (they’re tied for most appearances with Michigan) and Union College’s 2nd, so maybe they are a bit of a surprise. Best of luck, boys!

6. Henrik Lundqvist Gets Honored And Not For His Sick Flow

Though he does have majestic hair. And mad style. But no, the King of New York broke two records last weekend, for wins and shutouts by a New York Ranger goalie. He was honored in a ceremony at MSG that included him being gifted a Gibson guitar because of course he plays guitar too.

He’s one quirky but endearing flaw away from being a Manic Pixie Dream Boy.

Also this is good news for his teammates, who are the true beneficiaries of his shutouts: every time he gets one, he raffles off three bottles of wine on their next plane ride. Drink up, boys. It tastes like victory.

5. Gross Injuries Galore

It’s been a week of bizarre and horrible to see injuries, from Adam Burish’s finger to Jason Fuchs’s finger actually coming off. Luckly the latter was able to have it stitched on easily enough but holy crap. Mothers, don’t let your sons (or daughters) grow up to be hockey players. On a similar injury note…

4. So What Dark Witch Did The Penguins Piss Off?

Aside from Tuukka Rask, who is the darkest witch of them all, that is. Because the Penguins lead the league in man games lost, and have had an absurd number of injuries. Of course, because for the majority of the season the injuries weren’t to people named Crosby or Malkin, people have apparently forgotten about this.

A recap of who is currently out: Chris Conner, who had been playing with Crobsy on occasion; Pascal Dupuis, a top line player; Kris Letang, one of their top defensemen (and had a stroke); Paul Martin, their other top defenseman; Joe Vitale who is called Joey Victory by the team for his energy; EVGENI FREAKING MALKIN, one of the best players in the world and their number 2 center; Tomas Vokoun, their backup goalie who shepherded them through last year’s playoffs; and Marcel Goc, a recent acquisition who suffered this horrific-looking injury. (On a side note, it’s a total joke that the Penguins will only say “lower body injury” for Goc when it’s not like we don’t know what’s wrong with him. I’m relatively sure it’s his ankle. Just a guess.)

On a happier note, Crosby finally scored against the Blackhawks on Sunday night and also got his first empty-netter since 2010. What a slacker, eh?

The Goc injury came during the comeback game of current top-six forward Beau Bennett who broke his wrist in late November. He missed four months. It seems every time you turn around, another Penguin is heading down the tunnel towards the dressing room. Of course, the Penguins have managed to keep running anyway and have decisively won their last two games, which is nice to see especially with Malkin out of the lineup. Since they have playoffs clinched, maybe we’ll see them start to rest players so they don’t find a way to get more injured.

3. Gustav Nyquist Is Pretty Dang Good

Nyquist was called up to the Red Wings in November because they too are basically the Walking Dead of injuries. He ended up being not bad. And by not bad I mean look at this goal. Holy wow. I have no idea how that went in. Sheer force of will? Anyway, he’s pretty good.

2. Bruins Keep On Rolling

With a couple of wins this weekend (and a five game goal streak from Patrice Bergeron, who couldn’t have done this earlier when I could have used in my fantasy league??) the Bruins have surged to the top of the League standings and will be duking it out with the Blues for the President’s Trophy. It’s great to see the Bruins at the top of their game, even as someone who is still bitter about last year’s playoffs. They’re basically the East’s only hope at taking the Cup this year since, let’s face it, the west has a monopoly on the really good teams this year. If there’s any justice, though, it’ll be a Blues-Bruins final and we’ll have a version of this photo only with TJ Oshie instead of Bobby Orr:

TJ Overtime Oshie, they’ll call him. 

1. Custom Versions of 2048 And I’m Sorry

The craze that’s sweeping at least my Facebook feed is the horribly addicting game 2048, which I managed to beat last week and haven’t touched since. Unfortunately, there are now custom versions of 2048 involving gifs of the Chicago Blackhawks or Maple Leaf excuses. Enjoy.

 

Quick Things

• I get the impression Eddie Lack misses Roberto Luongo,

• The Penguins periodically do a thing where they have a hashtag to ask a player questions. This week, they had #AskNeal, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Hilarious, yes, but terrible.

https://twitter.com/emileelevanas/status/450499984895393793

• I’ve watched this Orpik hit on Toews a dozen times and while my instinct is to say no supplemental discipline, dang it looks bad from this angle. I have mad respect for the Department of Player Safety.
• Jonathan Quick is probably not human, I don’t think.
• The Columbus Cottonmouths embrace the mad dance skills of their goalie with new merchandise.

• The best hockey fight ever.
• Brian Burke is trolling his children with his hair and it’s beautiful.

• Line changes: what are they?
• Best wedding pictures ever?