Hockey

SMUG-PROJECTIONS: Fantasy Rankings: NHL Defensemen: AWESOME

by Tyler Rowe

You can hope to have about 47% as much fun as this woman in your fantasy drafts.

Back in August I put a detailed draft package together to give to my friends so they could draft my various fantasy hockey teams for me while I was away on vacation from early-September to mid-October. I laboured over ranking 225 skaters and 20 goalies, complete with nuanced instructions on which players to let fall, which to snatch early, which goalies were acceptable choices in which corresponding rounds, and so on. And this was just for the three points-only leagues I participate in annually. For my 2 multi-stat roto leagues, I painstakingly crafted two pre-rankings lists for autodraft on two seperate websites. I think my Yahoo draft list was a work of art, nay a masterpiece more beautiful than a dozen new seasons of Deadwood. Continue reading »

Cam Barker has Arrived!

By Tyler Rowe

This looks like a man who might enjoy west coast living.

This morning the Vancouver Canucks added 2004 3rd overall draft pick Cam Barker. Be still my beating heart, you say? The man who was once thought the preferable choice after Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, is now being counted on to fill in for injuries on the Vancouver blue line this season at the pro-rated cost of $700,000. To say that Barker’s pro hockey career has been a disappointment thus far might be an understatement. Continue reading »

We (really) Interrupt This Radio Silence to Bring You…

by Tyler Rowe

Thanks Juice, we’re glad we’re back too.

Hockey. Specifically NHL hockey, and even more pertinently than that, Canucks hockey. It has been six months and five days since our last post, and that was a drink recipe. It has been nearly seven months since our last post about Canucks hockey. I don’t remember how to write. There is a part of me that feels like the end of the lockout is like when Isildor didn’t destroy the one ring. What will the this dread force known as NHL hockey mean now that it is again let loose into our world? Well, since the lockout I have helped open a restaurant here in Victoria to some success. Brian is getting along very well at law school. I haven’t talked to Aidan in months, but am pretty sure he’s been good. Will this shortened season mean the undoing of these positive things? Let us not mince words: I am certain that the answer is yes. Continue reading »

The Luongo: Happy July 1st

By aidanbc

Welcome back, Smuglies. We now interrupt 6 weeks of radio silence to bring you… a cocktail recipe.

This is a completely different drink

July 1st, known across this land of ours as either Canada Day or Free Agent Frenzy Day, is coming up on Sunday. This year, July 1st is also the speculative deadline day for a Roberto Luongo trade, since it is the date when RFA goalie-of-the-future Cory Schneider hits the offer-sheet market.

A day so fraught with both sports-fan tension and chest-thumping nationalism naturally pairs well with just about any alcoholic beverage. But since this is the day we might be saying farewell to the greatest goaltender in our troubled franchise’s history, it deserves its own special drink. Read after the jump for the recipe to a cocktail bursting with both flavour and symbolism: The Luongo.
Continue reading »

Wondering What Was Wrong With Ryan Kesler?

by Tyler Rowe

The man has a right to pout. (Image from Vancouver Sun)

He was injured, obviiiii. We knew that Kesler had a history of not fessing-up to the media about being hurt until the battle is over, as when last year when we found out that he would need surgery after The Finals That Musn’t Be Named, Part III, and it would seem things were no different this time around. Reports are out that Kesler played the final third of the season with a torn labrum (“a lip-like projection of cartilage on the human scapula surrounding the joint between the humerus and the shoulder blade”. Thanks Wiki); you can call Ryan Kesler a vain, pizza-eating show-stealer, but you can’t call him an excuse-maker. Also like last year, Kesler can look forward to a long summer without being able to fully train, if at all. The doctors have his recovery at six months, which would bring him back around the beginning of December, a full six weeks later than his return in 2011-12. The Canucks looked dismal last autumn in awaiting Kesler’s return and subsequent readjustment to full-time hockey this season, and if he returns on December 8th next season, it will be with at least 25 games in Vancouver’s rear-view on the schedule, good for nearly a third of the next movement.

Of course, after an unceremonious ousting by the good-as-they-should-have-been-from-the-get-go 2011-12 L.A. Kings, plus all the Luongo/Schneider talk, and the uncertain futures of Manny Malhotra, Mason Raymond, Keith Ballard and even coach Alain Vigneault, Vancouver is bound for at least some changes. Calls to blow up the roster of the consecutive President’s Trophy winner are reactionary, childish drivel of course, but I think we can agree that there will be at least some changes. What Vancouver Canucks team that Ryan Kesler comes back to could have a lot to do with their chances to right the ship in the 2012-13 campaign. But what is the correct course of action for #17 himself? Kesler beat his return date from his 2011 hip surgery by weeks, but perhaps never fully healed. His 2010-11 campaign saw him record 41 goals and 32 assists in 82 games, but in 2011-12 Kesler only managed 22 goals and 27 assists over 77 games.

Ryan Kesler has shown he’s the kind of guy who is willing to play the game he loves at all costs. Lets hope the Vancouver Canuck medical staff can help him see the long view. I for one would rather have a fully healthy RK17 for 50 games than an 80% healthy one for 82. For whatever Mike Gillis gets done this summer, let’s have Kesler come back when he’s good and ready, huh?