Monday 20 March 2017

Idiotic Hockey Fans Try To Justify Blown Offside Call

Twitter is a wonderful place. Anyone can just….say things. Anything. This phenomenon is particularly entertaining during sports games. On Sunday evening, in case you’re an Avs fan who hasn’t heard yet, they got a little stiffed on an obvious offside call during their game with the Chicago Blackhawks.

This let to outrage amongst Avs fans, Hawks haters, and most hockey fans with a brain. But remember what we said about Twitter and people saying things? This phenomenon, especially when tied to sports, tends to bring out the biased, and frankly idiotic, traits of sports fans. Here are some prime examples of stupid sports fans, biased sports fans, and argumentative sports fans:

One "genius" thinks he wrote the NHL rule book:



Another hockey fan must not have Flash media player installed on his device, as he obviously hadn't seen the footage. Hopefully not anyways, based on his response to the incident:


This fan, who is even using player names in his argument, and thinks repeating things makes the ruling correct. And, in a shocking twist, used the blatantly terrible ruling by all parties involved, that he conveniently lists, to "prove" he is right:


This tweep tried to tell Mark Rycroft he is wrong. Rycroft decided to show the fan why he works for an NHL broadcast and the fan is tweeting from his couch. Bonus: the fan is a twitter egg. 


Last, and certainly not least, this fan thinks because it was against the laughing stock of the NHL in an inevitable collapse, it doesn't really matter:




Never change hockey fans. Never change Twitter.

Wednesday 1 March 2017

Don't Hate Too Much on Sakic Over The Deadline

Well, another year, and another trade deadline has come and gone. Some teams improved, some got worse, some stayed the same, but we don’t care about those teams. We care about the Avalanche. How did they do?

The trade deadline outcome for the Avalanche can only be summed up with one word: Mediocre. It was not widely successful, mildly successful, or even terrible. And here’s why:

The Pending UFA’s: John Mitchell, Rene Bourque, Fedor Tyutin, Jarome Iginla, Cody Golebeuf, Andreas Martinsen.

Here is the problem, and the whole reason, primarily, that the trade deadline was not a complete failure for Joe Sakic. If a team is in the playoff hunt, meaning they are a decent hockey team, or if they are contenders, which means they are a great hockey team, why would they want any of these players? Mitchell has had a terrible offensive year, and he has slowed down speed wise. He can kill some penalties and gets into the dirty areas decent enough, but these types of players are quite common these days, and there are many with offensive upside. Mitchell also carries a $1.8M cap hit, which is hard for a team to justify if they aren’t getting a whole package 3rd/4th liner.

Bourque has been hurt, and before he got injured his production and play slowed right down. Weird for a 35 year old to slow down in this league right? Tyutin would be decent on the 3rd line, but once again, contendin and decent teams already have a few Tyutins either on the 3rd pair or in the pressbox.

Moving Martinsen was great, Andrighetto still has some upside, and will at least be a good farm team addition. It would have been shocking for a team give more players or draft picks for a 4th line UFA player. Good job by Sakic on that one.

Here is where it gets iffy. The return for Iginla, who could flourish in Sutter’s system/playing with Kopitar, is a 4th round pick that could totally disappear if the Kings don’t make the playoffs and other conditions are not met. This would be acceptable IF the Avs did not retain half of his salary. If the Kings miss the playoffs, the Avs are paying Iginla to play for another Western Conference team. But let’s remember the Avs may not have had a lot of options. Iginla carries a $5.3M hit, a number that playoff teams usually can’t afford, or they would have spent the money elsewhere. Sure, Carolina could have easily afforded him, but why would they want a rental player for their non-playoff team?

Landeskog and Duchene? Why rush to get a deal done and maybe not get everything you could possibly get? It isn’t the worst thing in the world if the Avs wait for the draft, OR, maybe not trade them at all, then trade them for a poor return because there is a deadline. Think: they could have traded other players and it could have been a lot worth. Beauchemin? Any team who sent a scout to these games would not want to take a chance on him.

So try not to hate on Sakic too much for the lack of interesting moves. His hands were pretty much tied for the most part. With the options he had, it wasn’t the worst day. It wasn’t the best day, but not the worst, and with the season we have all endured, how can we ask for anything more? We aren’t going to talk about the other minor league deals but we will leave you with this: Did the Avs acquire Cannata because they are thinking of trading a goalie and they want a minor leaguer to fill the void left when Spencer Martin is called up?


Maybe.