Rangers To Sign Olympic "It" Boy Mats Zuccarello-Aasen

Zuccarello-Aasen got as much coverage for his name as he did for his fiesty play for Norway during the Olympics and now it looks like the Rangers have beat out several teams for the diminutive winger.

Listed at 5'7", Zuccarello-Aasen starred for Norway at the Vancouver Olympic Games and led the Swedish Elite League in scoring this season with 64 points in 55 games (23 goals, 41 assists) while playing for MODO.

The 23-year old was reportedly heavily pursued by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks. The Maple Leafs offered Zuccarello-Aasen a two-year entry level contract.

I loved the skating, scoring touch and attitude he displayed in the Olympics and the Sweedish Elite Legaue scoring is something but still, the guy is ...5'7". Not sure how that translates to the NHL. Well, actually I am, iit translates into the current group of forwards for the Montreal Candaiens.

Personally I'd like to see the Rangers get bigger and faster, not smaller and faster but for a team that desperately needs more scoring, it's something.

Night 3

What a great playoff season this has been already. 7 games, all decided by 1 goal, including 2 in overtime. The eight seeds in both conferences are up 1-0 .


Tonight, the Chicago-Nashville series finally gets underway, be sure to check out tmi3rds' preview.

You never want to really think of Game 2 in a 7 game series as a must win but it's pretty close. Being tiedd 1-1 is a very different situation than gowing down 0-2. Expect to see some desperate hockey tonight from teams looking to bounce back from their opening defeats.

Pittsburgh and New Jersey are the two teams that simply did not play with enough intensity in their first games.

NJ wasn't physical enough, as evidenced by the Chris Pronger PPG where he was able to camp out in front of the net. That has to change. They also need to create more problems for Boucher in the Flyers' net. He was able to see the puck all night long and was only beat on a crazy deflection in the game's final minutes (with their goalie pulled). They need more of that early on.

The other big game is San Jose. Given their recent playoff meltdowns, the last thing they wanted was to fall behind to the kids from Colorado. The Sharks needed a strong effort to put the Avs away and not let that talented but young team have any reason to believe they could win the series. Now the Avs absolutely believe they can the Sharks have to have it in the back of their mind that this could get ugly and spiral out of control.

Phoenix and Detroit round out tonight's slate of games. I really thought the Wings were on too much of a roll but the Coyotes just kept coming at them and coming at them. Given everything they've been through this year (Who owns the Coyotes? Owns...) they certainly deserve it. Besides, how funny would it be to see NHL Commissioner Gary Betman present the Cup to....himself.

Enjoy the games!

Western Conference, the sequel...

Well, I didn't check the schedule closely enough, so there's only one game on the docket this evening, and it's going to overtime as I write this.

#3 Vancouver vs #6 Los Angeles

Vancouver is easily the least impressive of the home seeds in the playoffs. Roberto Luongo is the key in this series... the Olympics showed in no uncertain terms that he'll make that first save, but somehow, the puck keeps getting away from him. Without some very aggressive backchecking, as well as some real defensive hyper-awareness, Vancouver is going to have trouble. They've seemed to be rather weak down the stretch, but you can't overlook the scoring capability of the Canucks. The Sedins have been very impressive, and Vancouver has very solid depth up and down the lineup. If they play defensively responsible hockey, they'll take care of business.

That said, Los Angeles will have plenty to say about the outcome of this series... and Mikael Samuelsson just scored for Vancouver to finish the game. Jonathan Quick is very good in net, Jack Johnson and Drew Doughty are excellent on the backline, and the Kings have a solid group of forwards (Michal Handzus, Ryan Smyth, Jarret Stoll, et cetera).

Coming off of tonight's game, where Vancouver outshot LA 44-27, you pretty much saw what you can expect... a lot of shots out of Vancouver and a decent night out of Los Angeles, taking the game to overtime.

Bottom line? Jonathan Quick can steal some games for LA... it took Vancouver many more shots to get the winner past Quick. The Modin goal on Luongo (goal #4 in the game) was a stoppable shot... low on the glove side, far post. Luongo may get them past LA, but against any teams with better scoring punch, you have to wonder. I'll go Vancouver in six, but not with much confidence.

#2 Chicago vs #7 Nashville

Oh, this kills me. Of all the teams in the playoffs, this is the group my Predators match up with most poorly, as the 4-2 head-to-head record demonstrates.

Chicago has dazzling firepower. Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa... Duncan Keith, Dustin Bfyuglien, Brent Seabrook on the blue line... and yet- how solid are they in net? Antti Niemi will get the nod over Cristobal Huet, but the question marks are there. There was a movement in hockey this year that seemed to not worry about net presence (Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, and so forth), and the magic question becomes whether or not Chicago's torrid scoring pace can overcome their defensive deficiencies over a seven-game series.

Nashville is the polar opposite. Pekka Rinne will get the start in net, and there were more than a few raised eyebrows when he didn't get a nod for the Finnish Olympic team. In his last playoff appearance, he struggled a bit, and Dan Ellis came in to put the fear of God into the Red Wings.

Nashville's great strength is its defensemen... Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, Dan Hamhuis- they round out what challenges for the best defensive six in the league. Suter just missed out on a 20-goal season, and their size is actually a very good matchup against the small but fast Chicago forwards.

Nashville has a 30-goal scorer in Patric Hornqvist, and has some interesting options in JP Dumont, Jason Arnott, Steve Sullivan, and Martin Erat. They don't have the size necessary to beat up on the Chicago backliners (the days of Vernon Fiddler et al are by the wayside), but if they get good production from their defensemen, there is enough size up front to pick up the garbage.

My pick? Reluctantly, Chicago in six, but this one's a close one. I figure an overtime game will largely determine the momentum of this series.

The Rest Of The East And Last Night's Games

The remaining two Eastern Conference series get underway tonight:

Washington Capitals v. Les Canadiens de Montréal

How to put this politely? The Canadiens don't have a chance to win. I'm not talking about the series, I'm talking about a game. They will score some goals but that's mostly because the Capitals don't care since they will score more. A lot more.

Washington is too big, too physical, too fast and too skilled. There's no shame in this since that's pretty much the scouting report for them against any team. The Caps D isn't great defensively but they aren't really asked to be. Green, Poti and Corvo are puck moving defensemen who are an important part of the offense.

Their weakness is in goal but against the Canadiens that's not going to matter.

The Canadiens on the other hand have a solid goalie in Jaroslav Halak but he's going to be under early and constant pressure from the Caps. It's going to take heroic measures to steal a game, let alone the series.

Up front Plekanec, Gomez, Gianta and Cammalleri are okay but they are undersized for the most part compared to the Caps. They can't out physical the Caps and they can't outskate them, so I'm not sure what exactly there plan is.

The Canadiens have some size on the blue line with solid players like Hal Gill but here's what Ovechkin did to him in the middle of the season.





Gill is 6' 7" 240lbs.

There's still talk around the NHL that Russians don't care all that much about winning the Cup. Maybe so in some cases but does anyone doubt Ovechkin desperately wants to win it? That may or may not be enough to win it all but it if their talent fails them (and I doubt it will) it's enough to get them by the Canadiens.

One bit of fun, Tomas Plekanec did do a bit of ill-advised trash talking.

"It's not as though we are facing (Martin) Brodeur or (Ryan) Miller," Plekanec told La Presse. "They don't have a dominant goaltender. When you look at the goaltending matchup in this series it favours our team. I just believe that our goaltending is more solid than theirs."


"I'm not saying their goalies are bad. I'm just saying our goalies are better."

I'm taking the Caps in the sweep.



Buffalo v. Boston

My sure fire predication about this series: No one outside of these two cities cares about this series.

The main draw in this series is Ryan Miller. We all know what he did in the Olympics but the odds are Buffalo would have struggled for a playoff spot without him. With him they are the 3 seed. He plays well, they win. Fortunately for Buffalo he plays well most nights.

Boston was up and down but mostly down this season. They lost one of their best forwards, Marc Savard, to injury a few weeks back and haven't seemed quite right since then and they struggled to a 6 place finish.

My prediction for this old school Adams Division matchup? Buffalo in 6.



A couple of quick thoughts about last night's games:


• So much for home ice advantage. Only the Coyotes could make it stand up.

• All the games were decided by one goal. You have to love playoff hockey.

• Phoenix is a scrappy little team. They just keep coming at you on the forecheck. I think Detroit will figure it out in the end but that's going to be a fun series.

• Pittsburgh wasn't ready to play last night. There were some bad bounces against them but they need to get in gear. Quick.

• The Devils need to crank up the intensity. They just let Pronger stand in the crease on the 1st goal. Ilya Kolvachuck really wants to do well but tried to do way too much last night, it hurt his game. Marty wasn't bad but he wasn't great on the Richards goal and Boucher was good when he had to be early on. The Devils didn't sustain much offense until the final minute of the game

• The Sharks are no doubt talking about how they came back to tie it in the 3rd and lost on a fluke goal but you know deep down (maybe not that deep) they are thinking "oh God, not again". They of all teams needed to get off to a fast start and not give the kids on the Avalanche any sniff of winning the series. Well, it didn't work out that way. I thought they'd wait until the 2nd round to choke but I wouldn't be so sure now.

With home ice already gone in 3 of these series, game 2 in each of them is going to be huge. Can't wait.

...and from the Western Conference...

Hi, folks... sorry this is running a little late. As many of you know, Mrs. tmi3rd (yes, some of us morons actually suckered someone into marrying us) just delivered tmi4th, but let's get you going on tonight's Western Conference games...

#4 Phoenix vs #5 Detroit

Of all the teams nobody wants to play, it has to be Detroit. Remember that going into the Olympics, it didn't even look like they'd make the playoffs. They are arguably the hottest team in hockey right now.

Jimmy Howard has played himself into Calder Trophy consideration with a torrid finish, Nik Lidstrom seems to have thrown off the Rip Van Winkle disease, and the typical brilliance of the Detroit forward lines seems to be working again. Throw into that a Brian Rafalski (who carried Team USA offensively during the Olympics), Pavel Datsyuk, Tomas Holmstrom, Johan Franzen... what a nightmare for opposing teams.

Phoenix, on the other hand, has been nice and consistent all year... Dave Tippett is a lock for the Jack Adams trophy, Ilya Bryzgalov arguably should have been the goalie of choice for Team Russia, and there are no real names on the team! They're wards of the state for the NHL (and seem to have resolved their lease issues in Glendale), and were supposed to be average at best this year. Instead, a defensively responsible team with surprising scoring punch challenged for the Pacific Division.

This should be a very good series, but it's hard to pick against the Red Wings under the circumstances. This series could go seven, but I'm going to take the Red Wings in six.

#1 San Jose vs #8 Colorado

Colorado did the outrageous thing of giving their youngsters a lot of ice time and asking them to produce. And, produce they did! Craig Anderson played out of his mind this year, Matt Duchene is a Calder candidate, and guys like Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk were reliable. Colorado seems a bit tired going into this series, but remains a dangerous team and kind of saw San Jose coming from a mile away.

San Jose seems like an obvious Stanley Cup contender... but they're San Jose. Plenty of depth... if Joe Thornton decides to show up, and if Dany Heatley can get going. Good in net- assuming Evgeni Nabokov doesn't have his classic meltdown somewhere in there. You have to love their blueline with Niclas Wallin, Dan Boyle, Rob Blake... and yet, they seemed to limp into the playoffs.

It may just be because I haven't had a good night's sleep since the baby came, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this could be a colossal upset. Let's go with Colorado in six.

Chicago-Nashville and Vancouver-Los Angeles tomorrow... and hopefully better rested.

GAME ON! Playoff Edition

Okay, so the post Olympics debut of Moron Hockey was a little premature. Consider it a soft open.

As I'm supposed to be doing the Eastern Conference preview, consider this, a well, soft preview...

Pittsburgh over Ottawa in 5
New Jersey over Philadelphia in 6

A fuller look at these series and the rest of the east (as well as a wrap up of the disaster that was the NY Rangers' season) soon.

Enjoy the games.

Added: Okay, both games are underway but I wanted to get my predictions on record before that. As for why I made the picks...

Pittsburgh over Ottawa:


4-5 matchups tend to be toss ups but not this year. The Eastern Confernece is really 4 teams deep with a bunch of meh teams mucking around after that.

Offense, defense, special teams and goaltending, Pittsburgh simply outclasses the Senators in every facet of the game.


New Jersey over Philadelphia:

I think this will be a better series, though not by much. Philly dominated the regular season series (5-1) but that a few bucks will buy you a coffee.

I watched the Flyers last two games against the woeful Rangers and they simply don't score much at all. They have talent up front with Mike Richards and Jeff Carter (coming off a foot injury, was invisible during the last two games, they need him to get better. Now) leading the way for players like Daniel Briere and Simone Gagne and rookie James van Riemsdyk. They also have the aging but still good Chris Pronger on defense.

As much as I hate to admit it, for all of his reputation as a fighter, Jeff Carcillo is a decent player. If he can pick a target and get them off their game or goad them into a bad penalty, he could make a difference in a game or two. The problem is players like Carcillo and Sean Avrey is that while they are great when they are on but they can easily cross the line and cost their team in terms of penalties. That's ok in February but in April, May and June, one failed penalty kill at the wrong time can be death.

An even bigger problem for the Flyers is the fact that management decided they didn't need a goaltender. They went into the season thinking Ray Emery would be their number one. Personally, that would have freaked me out but the Flyers seemed to think it was a workable plan. When Emery was injured and knocked out for the season, they kept moving down the depth chart until they got to...Brian Boucher. Apparently Zombie Pelle Lindbergh wasn't availible and Ron Hextal didn't return their calls. You're not winning a Cup or even a playoff series with Brian Boucher in goal, especially if you aren't scoring.

As for the Devils, well, they are the Devils. A lot of good players who buy into a system and execute it well. Martin Brodeur hasn't been the all time great goalie we've come to expect but he's still Brodeur and he's still light years better than Brian Boucher.

Guys like Colin White, Bryce Salvador and Andy Greene are solid on defense as you'd expect from any Devils team. Paul Martin had a short season due to injury but was scheduled to play for Team USA in the Olympics.

Up front the Devils are led by Zach Parise who had his coming out party at the Olympics. He along with Travis Zajak, Jamie Langenbruner and Patrick Elias will provide scoring while minding their defensive assignments...always a key during the playoffs.

The big question will be the play of mid-season rental Ilya Kovalchuk. He's a world class offensive talent but has limited playoff experience (4 games with ATL when they were swept by the Rangers in '07). If he plays well, including on the point on the power play, the Devils will have an even easier time than I already think they will.

This will likely be an old school, physical Patrick Division series. The difference will be the Devils have the more consistent scoring and the edge in net.

Tomorrow: Washington v. Montreal and Buffalo v. Boston

The end of an era...

We've seen one announced retirement this week; that of Blues winger Keith Tkachuk, and one would have to expect, after the Saturday season finale in Minnesota, that of Stars center Mike Modano.

Particularly after Thursday night's heroics at the American Airlines Center in Dallas (the game tying goal, a gorgeous assist on the first goal, and the shootout-winning goal), it is worth a quick retrospective on Modano and his impact on hockey not only in Texas, but in the American South in general.

Drafted first overall by the Minnesota North Stars in 1988, he led the Stars to the Stanley Cup Finals against Pittsburgh in 1991. The North Stars would remain in the MSP area for another season before departing for Dallas.

Hockey had begun to gain a footing in warmer climates, as the Los Angeles Kings had established a solid fan base... but hockey had already failed in Atlanta and Kansas City, and a move to the Sun Belt was regarded as a very risky move. The San Jose Sharks had been established in 1991, but no further south than going to Denver.

In 1992-93, the league also welcomed the Ottawa Senators (a good move) and the Florida Panthers (regarded as a questionable move) to the league, but watched a franchise in a somewhat cornerstone city move to a decidedly huge market, but in a part of the country where hockey had a spotty minor-league footing at best, and certainly no tradition.

Modano wasted very little time in becoming an iconic player, overshadowing 1980 Team USA hero Neal Broten, Oiler/Bruin stalwart Andy Moog, Mark Tinordi, and so forth... his GQ good looks and his torrid scoring pace quickly vaulted him into the hype machine that is the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

So what did this set up? Dallas' quick success at the gate and on ice (winning the 1999 Stanley Cup), combined with a strong marketing campaign (establishing a series of ice rinks in the DFW area called Dr. Pepper StarCenters) made the NHL believe that Sun Belt hockey could work. Within the next few years, there were teams established in Tampa and Nashville, the Hartford Whalers moved to the Raleigh/Durham area, the Nordiques left Quebec for Denver, and the Winnipeg Jets departed Manitoba for Phoenix. Not long after that, Columbus, Minnesota, and Atlanta entered the league.

In addition, hockey (helped by the visibility of the NHL on ESPN) utterly detonated across the Deep South. At its peak, the minor leagues of hockey boasted 7 teams in Louisiana, 3 teams in Mississippi, 3 teams in Alabama, 10-plus teams in Texas, something like 8 teams in Florida, another handful in Georgia, three more in Tennessee, one in Arkansas, and so forth.

Obviously, the fire went out with the combination of the NHL lockout in 1994 and ESPN giving up their contract, and teams began to fold through the end of the 1990s. Many of the Sun Belt teams have struggled at the gate, and there are perpetually rumors of teams folding or being moved to Canada (much of that being wishful thinking by Canadian press, mind you).

Nonetheless, let us return to Modano for the discussion. There are many good teams out there who win a lot of games, score a lot of goals, and enjoy a certain amount of success, but never quite become a household name in their cities. ESPN's John Buccigross chalks that up to a lack of a key iconic player- in whatever role. Mike Modano was and is that guy in the South, and here's the acid test on that. Name me a guaranteed Hall of Famer, an iconic player, for any of the following franchises: Phoenix, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Florida... did I miss anyone?

Vincent Lecavalier? Sure- but how much national press does he get? Martin St. Louis? Same story. Pavel Bure was that guy in Florida, but made the vast majority of his impact with Vancouver. Paul Kariya could have been that guy in Nashville, but ultimately, same story. Why? Probably the small-market factor- no national coverage, no visibility. You've had some iconic players in Carolina- Rod Brind'Amour, Cam Ward, Eric Staal, Erik Cole- but transcendent?

Jumping to larger markets (Phoenix is #12 in the Nielsen DMA index, Dallas-Fort Worth is #5, and Atlanta is #8), few players have made a Hall of Fame impact in these cities. Dallas has boasted Derian Hatcher, Modano, and Brett Hull... Keith Tkachuk made some impact in Phoenix, but didn't make a name for himself above the Coyotes there. And in Atlanta- with no offense intended to Atlanta sports fans- Atlanta is a distinctly underwhelming sports town.

Modano transcended the sport in football-mad Texas. With his regional appeal in the South, he helped export the sport to a new group of people, and more of the nation got at least some exposure to the sport.

It's not worth popping up numbers of goals and assists for him, as he has one game left, but it's definitely time to pay homage to one of the greatest U.S.-born players in the game, and to thank him for his service to the game and to his fans.

Thanks, Mike. Good luck in the future.