The Sultan of Swank

Now that's just cock. My second season Canadiens have a great season, we finish 4th in the East with a 50-27-5 record for 105 points(4th best record in the league). We were cruising along until February when Cristobal Huet goes down with a UCL tear for 4 months. Seeing as I didn't bother finding another back-up when I traded away Abeschier in the season before I was forced to call up Carey Price who still has stats like a back-up goalie. Price goes 12-6-3 with a 3.23 GAA. We make it into the playoffs and face off against the Thrashers in the first round. We dispose of them in 6. We then move on to the semi's where we're facing the Buffalo Sabres. We lost to them in the previous season, in the semi-finals as they went on to win the cup. The series goes game for game for 6 games, all end in OT by the score of 3-2. In game 7, it's a shooting gallery as it's 5-5 going into the third. They go up 7-5 with about 4 minutes to play, Samsanov(who finished the season with 74 goals) scores 2 to make it 7-7 with about 1:30 to play. With 1 second left in regulation they score to send us home again. I'm looking at the boxscore right now, 59:59! that's terrible! So now I've got some off-season goals. I need to find a #1 goalie as Huet refuses to accept a new contract offer from me. I'm going to try to re-sign him in free-agency unless something better is available at a good price. Huet won 35 games for me before getting injured. He was pretty solid-ish. He played slightly better than .500. I also need to find a Centerman. I fixed my defence holes last season, and I've got some great defensive prospects comming up along with James Van Riemsdyk who I picked up in last season's draft after he was suprisingly still available at 18th pick. Right now I have Koivu, Armstrong, Begin and Franzen playing center. I definately need a #2 center, and maybe a depth center if I can afford it. So far I have all but 6 players on my roster signed for next season, the only hold-outs are 4 going nowhere AHL players, Mike Johnson who I don't want to re-sign at the 1.9 he's demanding and Huet who doesn't want to hear from me. So That only has me committing 38.9 Million so far. If I resign Hue for 3 million that puts me at 41.9 so I'll have about 2 million to work with for a center. The next big challenge after that is that all but 3 of my players(Dandenault, Tallinder, Boyle) have their contracts up at the upcomming season's end.

Perfect? Shit competant would be nice. Montreal beats Philly 4-2. Ryder scored a beautiful goal. I don't think anybody saw him shoot the puck. Kovalev nets one aswell. Higgins and Johnson look like they've been playing together for a few seasons from the chemistry they showed tonight.

The racing guy? And I would prefer OT to a stupid shootout, but I suppose the possibility of playing an extra 75 minutes before someone scores is a little much.

Well Pele did manage to bring a large amount popularity to the American game when he played. I was watching a documentary that on him showing the impact he had on American soccer, to the point where they were putting 50,000 + in the seats at Dodger's stadium in New York. Now I understand comparing Beckham to Pele is like Sundin to Gretzky, sure Sudin is a great player and a fan favourite where he plays, but he sure as hell ain't no Gretzky by a county mile at least I reckon. But, the interest is there if the right people are I suppose.

I loved the whole DW series. I used to play the games all the time. Lu Bu was beast.

Philadelphia tonight. Hopefully we dispose of them easily and keep on the winning track. And SDM, I've found the perfect season bragging rights decider. Montreal plays Vancouver soon. Winner gets to brag and boo the others until their lungs are sore... or Playoffs.

I decided to try a game as the Canadiens, whenever I play as anyone else, they suck copious amounts of cock. So far I'm 19 games in and it's been an up and down season. We started out 1-4-1 but then went on a 4 game winning streak putting us at 5-4-1, we've only won 5 of 10 now which isn't terrible, but it's not acceptable. So we're 10-9-1 and in and in 9th place, tied in points with the Bruins for 8th, but they have a loss less and a game at hand. I'm trying to figure out how to really start up the team so here's some of what's gone on. The Habs have the third best Powerplay in the league at around 25%, unfortunately we're in the bottom 10 in Penalty Kill. Koivu, Samsanov and Kovalev are all in the top 30 for scoring, Koivu is in 12th with 30 points(12G 18A), Samsanov in with 28 points(10G 18A) and Kovalev is in 24th with 27 points(14G 13A) In an effort to help out my line up I decided to go out and acquire Martin Erat from the Preds for Pleckanec and picks. I did this as in every other game I've played, Erat turns into a dominant player very quickly. This isn't happening so far. Erat has played 16 games for the Habs, has 2 assists, is a -4 and is has a game average rating of 6.65, He's also costing me 1.6 Million to do this. I called up Grabovski and Kotsystin who are playing on a line with Michael Ryder and doing some great things for rookies. The holes I need to fill are on defence. I desperately need a legitamate top 2 defenceman to play with Markov, and probably a depth defenceman just in case. I have good defenceman, but they're not great outside of Markov. I have some prospects who could be ready by next season, most notably Alexsei Emelin. But for now I've called up Andre Benoit for my next game to see if he's more capable than Dandenault. So, who do you think I should go after as a defenceman? I'm not willing to part with Huet, Koivu, Samsanov, Kovalev or Higgins. I'd also not like to lose any defencemen, and I'm trying to find Bonk's way off of my team, but for who? Edit: Ok, Grabovsky, is officially awesome. He's currently 4th in rookie scoring. 28 games into the season he's on pace for 71 points with 25 points in 29 games. He's got 18 goals(1st in Rookies, 13th in all skaters) and 7 assists. I have him on a line with Kovalev and Higgins. He's been a scoring explosion in the last 10 games with 13 goals, 4 comming in 1 game. Well I finished my first season. We finished 7th in the East. We were in 10th for basically the first 55 games. I decided to make some moves. One of which was going to be a huge risk. I decided to trade away David Abeschier to the Sabres for Henrik Tallender. Right after that we went on a 13-2 run, including a 9 in a row win streak. Abeschier would only play 3 more games in the season as Miller led the Sabres to 60 wins(and a Stanley Cup). I also got rid of Streit to the Kings for Derek Armstrong who did very well for us. We finished 7th with 93 points. Koivu was 6th in League scoring with 112 points. In the Playoffs we swept the second seed Flyers as Grabovski became our Playoff horse scoring 6 goals in the 4 games. In the semi-finals we went down to Buffalo in 7. We lost Erat, Tallender and Koivu in games 5 and 6. We won 5(barely) Lost 6 and in 7 we were depleted and went down 2-1 in overtime. Buffalo went on to beat the Sens and then the Flames for the Cup. In the off-season Bonk and Ryder left the team(they had combined for 42 points and a -59 rating) Which opened up almost 5 million in cap space. We signed Dan Boyle to help fill up some holes on Defence. I also traded Niinimaa to Detroit for Andreas Lilja and Johan Franzen, who are both in the line-up and playing well through the first 3 games this season. At the start of the season we we're ranked #3 behind Buffalo and Ottawa, both unfortunately are division rivals. The only upside is that Toronto and Boston are expected to finish 28th and 24th. But Toronto picked up Angelo Esposito in the draft as they got the #1 pick.

Final Countdown is class. At work an employee who had worked at the arena for 5 years or so. So we had a little party for him after hours at the arena the last night he worked. When he came in we retired his number(he chose a favourite number, we stuck it on a Habs Jersey) to the arena rafters as we all sang along to the Final Countdown.

Why won't the game allow me to offer players incentive bonuses?

True, but Snyder's family not wanting Heatley to go to jail probably helped him out.

If Heatley wasn't a hockey player, do you think he still would have gotten probation? I thought driving drunk and killing someone in doing so would land someone in jail. Obviously Heatley made a terrible judgement which resulted in someone's death, but I thought someone would get jailtime for that.

Neidermayer and Lidstrom if I'm not mistaken. Ottawa is really playing like the Sens on the last decade now. It's great for them, but they're biting at the Habs heels. Montreal has 2 at hand, but Ottawa is the type of team who can win 6 or 7 in a row. Can someone explain to me what happened in the aftermath of when Heatly killed Snyder? What were the circumstances and what happened afterwards.

The Habs were like that for a good 3 years... except it was between 96 and 99 when we didn't have a team really. It's unfortunate for Toronto that they're being hit by injuries, it's gotta be that much more frustrating when you've got players who can produce or make things happen and they go down. Probably frustrating like an entire city hit with a goddamned flu and the hockey team gets it worst! Montreal wins it tonight against Atlanta. The win couldn't have come soon enough as the teams behind us were starting to creep up on us, but we've still got the precious games at hand. Ryder notches 2 and assists on another en route to a 4-2 win. I've been saying it amongst my friends for months now, Grabovski is going to be big for Montreal if they don't dish him away. So far he hasn't done anything in points, but he's had ridiculous chances and a goal disallowed. He still needs to develop but look at his speed, it's drool worthy. Tonight against Atlanta, twice he went end to end, blowing by at least 4 Atlanta players with some nice moves before dishing the puck looking for the big chance. He's fast and has good hands. If he's still with us next season, or even late into the season I can see him being the Center Kovalev and Samsanov so desperately need. Koivu got his 500th point tonight and the crowd responed with a good 5 minute ovation, spilling over into subsequent playing action where the crowd didn't seem to care what was going on, on the ice and simply kept cheering and chanting his name. Beating a team better than us tonight, will hopefully spark us offensively. Komisarek really did a good job shutting down Kovalchuk tonight.

Wasn't Koivu at the last Olympics? And I don't see what you're getting so upset about. Montreal is a great team this year that's run into a bit of a rut, all teams do. If we're a bunch of losers but we're ahead of the Canucks, what does that make them? I don't know what you're on about but as long as we're attacking Montreal, we're 1 win behind the Canucks with 5 less regulation losses and a game at hand so, I dunno where you get 9 wins behind the Canucks. Facts are facts right now, if we're going on about histories of teams, the Canucks have only had what 1 cup final appreance and it only came 2 years after the Habs last went to the finals, that was in 94 if I'm not mistaken, which also puts it outside of 10 years for your team. I'm not denying that the Canucks are a good team. Hell it could be easily argued and proven that they play in a far harder division than Montreal. What I'm confused about is that you pop in and go Montreal sucks, pull Huet! and that's that. Hell at least when Be and I get into almost non-sensical Montreal/Toronto bashing we try to throw some logic in behind it. So in saying that I figured I might as well point out some statistics that contradict your statement. No need for bashing SDM.

Shit 3 in a row now. I'm upset that it was a loss, but for the shape the team is in right now(whole Defensive unit struck with gastro-intestinal flu, most forwards also hit, Bonk injured) they played to a respectable loss against a far better Jersey team. The only plus I can see comming out of this, as our next game we're winning or Carbo will start shooting one player every night that we don't win. But one of the only pluses I'm seeing from this, is Montreal is having to shake up the lines a bit, and it appears that a line of Grabovsky(who is fast as lightning, great hands and super shot) Kovalev and Samsanov could work incredibly well.

7 active players on the team have the flu, Koivu, Downy and Latendresse are out with it and Bonk is injured and all we can muster is a 4-3 loss to the fucking Rangers. For shame! If this keeps up I might have to cheer for another team(not Toronto.)

Well, the fact that he didn't play for them helped set up the framework for a Stanley Cup for that franchise.

I've got some questions for you guys. In my first Season with the Sharks, we're predicted to finish 10th. We start out pretty mediocre, holding down 4th place in the West. About 55 games in we go through a spell of 2 wins in 11 games and I sack my head coach in favour of John Torchetti and immediately see a turn around. We finished 1st in the West and went to the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to Buffalo in 4 straight. During the season I dealt away Malakhov, but picked up Madden, Belak and Muir in September, then got Matvichuk in January. After the season ended, players had raises in their contracts and our cap space shrunk greatly. It also didn't help that I went out and aquired Brind'Amour for 4 mil a year after he posted a 105 point campaign. To help offset the cost I dealt away Matvichuk who at 1.35 Million a year was costing me an awful lot for a -6 player on the third defensive pairing. I also decided to get rid of Vesa Toskala. He was costing me close to 2 million a season and he only played 15 games in the last season. I dealt Toskala to the Habs for Komisarek, and the rights to Justin Bernhardt. When the start of the pre-season came about, the Sharks are expected to finish #1. But in my pre-season, despite several games with a regular season roster, we lose every game. So What I'm wondering is why would I be losing so much? How can I get guys to sign for small, or no raise(or hell, less than they were making), And besides the changes stated, I still need to kill off about $2 million from my roster, any suggestions? And for anyone wondering about Michalek, 29 Goals, 39 Assists for 68 points in 81 games bouncing between the second and third line.

Oh ok. I understand now. But no, while you can twist my words, for now(and I stress the for now part with 41 games to go), you cannot twist the stats and standings out of my favour.

Be I'm not going to lie. I honestly don't know what you were trying to say in that post. I was thinking of making a comment like I don't know what you're trying to say from all the way down there in the Northeast, but I'm serious. I really haven't a fucking clue what the hell you just said.

Haha, yeah, they suck 6 points better than the Canucks. And if Huet's 0.01 higher GAA and League Leading 927 save percentage are reason to Pull Him, I guess Luongo is getting the axe before the deadline.

Can someone explain the practice of a transfer in soccer?

Gotta keem them pinko's in check.

Or best trade ever! The Bertuzzi trades strike me now as really, really awful. First, Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe, and a first round draft pick were traded to the Canucks for Trevor Linden. Linden goes on to have injury problems with every team he plays for before eventually coming back to Vancouver. McCabe and the pick are both used to help secure the draft picks that net the Sedin twins. Meanwhile, Bertuzzi goes on to become a hundred point scorer, and the Sedins go on to kick all kinds of ass. When Bertuzzi starts to break down, he gets traded, along with Bryan Allen and Alex Auld, for Lukas Krajicek and Roberto Luongo. Luongo immediately becomes the best goalie the Canucks have ever had and is probably enough to get them to the playoffs again. Krajicek for Allen is wash, both are 3/4 defensemen right now, and both are young. Alex Auld was last seen brawling with Ed Belfour, who is outplaying him at the age of 65. And Todd Bertuzzi? Will retire after next season due to lingering back problems. Canucks are the winners. Canucks are always the winners. Incidentally, I ran into a Canadian Canuck fan yesterday, who admitted he wants both them and the Leafs to finish eighth so we both get playoff spots. Why can't you be more like that?