It is being deemed “radical” what the NHL has done in terms of realignment for the 2012 season.  I personally don’t think anything “radical” needed to be done.  The NHL could have just moved Winnipeg to the Western Conference’s Central Division and Columbus to the East, maybe, and I emphasize the maybe, shifting around some of the East’s teams so that Columbus wasn’t in the South East, which would have been a little silly.

But instead they decided to be “radical”.  Starting in 2012, the NHL will play with four yet to be named conferences as follows:

Conference D:
New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Washington and Carolina

Conference C:
Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Florida and Tampa Bay

Conference B:
Detroit, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Minnesota, Dallas and Winnipeg

Conference A:
Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado

Each conference will send its top four teams into the playoffs with the playoffs starting out with games among the top four teams in each conference.  After that the teams will be reseeded leading to the very real potential for an all Western or all Eastern Stanley Cup Final.  It think that is bad but hey, what do I know right?  I thought this could have been solved by moving just two teams.

Anyway, the Penguins are now in what I would call potentially the toughest of all the conferences based on the teams as they currently are.  They will have to contend with Washington, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Carolina for one of the top four places in that conference.  And let us not forget the New York Rangers too.  Year in and year out that is six quality teams vying for four spots and you know the Penguins are going to get shut out at least once in the near future from the playoffs based on that.

Once good thing about this realignment is that the regular season now means a lot more than it has in the past.  You don’t have 15 teams competing for eight spots.  You have seven or eight teams competing for just four.  You don’t have to just be better than the bottom half of the Eastern or Western Conference but better than the bottom half of your, essentially, division.  Yes, I know they are calling them conferences, but they are more like divisions to me.

Really, ok, that is fine.  No more coasting in to eighth place on the last day of the season.  Now play hard all season or be left behind.  Although the loser in this could be the teams that are not perennially good and the New York Islanders look to not be making any playoff appearances any time soon based on their lot in “Conference D”.  I think that hurts the game if you ask me.  I mean, we are not talking about a conference with only one or two perennial powers but, again, a conference with the Penguins, Flyers, Rangers, Captials, Hurricanes and Devils in in.  Seriously?  If I were an Islanders fan, and I am not because I actually know a thing or two about hockey, I would be screaming bloody murder.

It is what it is though.  I liked the current set up and didn’t think, again other than two moves, that it needed changing.  But hockey seems to be a sport with fickle women in charge of it.  They realign more that a car with a bad front end.

Jaromir Jagr has signed … with the Flyers! WTF?

As if Pens fans didn’t have enough reasons to think Jagr was a total dick, some justified while others are made up, he goes and hands them a huge new one?

Well, there goes his chance at having his jersey hung in the rafters here in Hockeyburgh. I hope Brooks lines him up into the boards and gives him a couple good reminders during the course of the season as to why playing this sort of silly game that he has apparently been playing was a bad idea.

Jagr is officially dead to Pittsburgh. Fans were willing to give him a chance to make amends. We’ve heard rumors that he had grown up. Now we see is is as childish as ever.

The freaking Flyers? Are you shitting me?

Matt Cooke threw and elbow to the head of the Rangers Ryan McDonagh. He deserved a suspension for the hit. He deserved it because:
1) It was a dirty hit
2) Cooke is a repeat offender

He also knew it was coming because:
1) He knew Mario pissed off Gary Bettman by calling the NHL on the carpet over head shots
2) The league had just wrapped up its winter meetings where head shots were a hot topic

But the suspension he got was silly. It was, at the time because the Penguins were not a lock for the playoffs, a minimum of 10 games (if they had missed the playoffs) and a maximum of 17 games (if they played a seven game opening round having made the playoffs). Now the suspension, with the Penguins having made the playoffs is a minimum of 14 games.

It was a silly suspension because, I bring this up again, Gillies of the Islanders … sorry I mean the New York Goons … chased down a man across the ice, knocked him down and then continued to beat on him while he was on the ice and got just 9 games. Then Gillies came back from suspension and in his first game back threw a blatant elbow and promptly got a 10 game suspension. At least Cooke waited a few games between coming off his last suspension and his latest infraction for crying out loud!

There was little doubt at the time of the Cooke suspension that the league was sending Mario a message to sit down, shut up, and stop making them look so bad. There is even less doubt now.

Last night, repeat offender, and Red Wings thumper, Todd Bertuzzi proved that. You might remember Mr. Bertuzzi. He is the schlub that punched Steve Moore from behind on March 8th, 2004. Moore suffered a concussion, facial lacerations and several broken vertebrae. That incident got Bertuzzi suspended indefinitely by the league and he wound up missing 20 games (13 regular season and 7 in the playoffs).

Bertuzzi has not seriously cleaned up his act since. He regularly finds any excuse he can to hit players late. In 2003-04 he amassed 122 PIMs in just 69 games. In 2005-06 he massed 120 PIMs in 82 games. In 2006-2007 he netted only 13 PIMs but also only played in 15 games. In 2007-08 Bertuzi had 97 PIMs in just 68 games. In 2008-2009 he got sent to the sin bin for 74 minutes in just 66 games. Last year he had a respectable year of just 80 minutes in 82 games. This year the aging winger has been able to get just 61 penalty minutes. This however is due mostly to the fact that he can no longer chase down players the way he used to. Make no mistake he would love to! But he just cannot.

And he was up to his old tricks again last night as he found an excuse to throw a purposeful elbow into the head of Ryan Johnson. Of course Red Wings fans, who as we here in the ‘Burgh have learned are some of the most ignorant and ill-educated hockey fans, around are defending the hit calling it unintentional. I have read numerous praises for Bertuzzi as being a “gentleman” for immediately seeking out Johnson and apologizing for the hit that got him a 5 minute major as well as ejected from the game. Coming from a Detroit fan ok, I can see why a thug who apologizes would be a “gentleman” in their eyes considering most of the thugs on Detroit’s streets have no such courtesy. I mean, could you imagine? It would be laughable to see a gangsta thug rob a woman at gun point and then tell her how sorry he was!

I have even seen comments from Johnson claiming that he does not think the hit was intentional. Ok, so because Johnson is too stupid to know what Bertuzzi was trying to do to him that makes it ok?

The video says it all and here it is. My commentary follows:

You can clearly see at around 0:39 of this clip (during the replay) that Bertuzzi sees that Johnson’s head is down as he tries to clear the puck. Bertuzzi lifts his elbow, rides it up Johnson’s arm and straight into his head. His right elbow is more than halfway up and Bertuzzi, seeing that he was going to miss Johnson, threw that elbow out there on purpose. There is no doubt about this. That is except to the NHL brass, Red Wings fans and other assorted people who know little to nothing about hockey.

Today the league announced Bertuzzi’s punishment. That punishment? Zero games suspension. Oh yeah, the NHL is really serious about hits to the head and cracking down on repeat offenders. Nope. What the league is really about is making sure Mario knows his place. Bettman cannot stand that Lemieux knows more about what’s up that he does and he certainly cannot stand that Lemieux gets more respect than him. I mean honestly, if you walk into a room and on one end is Mario and the other is Bugsy Bettman, who do you think is going to have the bigger crowd. I mean of legitimate hockey fans, not brown-nosing yes men. Of course it is going to be Mario.

So Bettman acts like a thug to get even. He slaps Cooke hard, lets Gillies off with a relatively comparable love tap and lets Todd Bertuzzi get off scott free.

The joke that is the NHL just keeps running.

There are a lot of idiots out there who think they know things about hockey. A lot of them came out of the woodwork after the Penguins and Islanders last met in what was a disgusting display of thuggery endorsed, clearly, by the Islanders organization. During that game everyone expected the “code” to be upheld and someone had to fight to avenge what Johnson did to DiPietro in the previous matchup (breaking his face in a fight and all). No one expected the debacle that occurred though.

Mario Lemieux, normally withdrawn from league matters, had some harsh words for the league after the league pathetically suspended Islander goon Trevor Gillies for a mere nine games after he deliberately hunted down Eric Tangradi, knocked him silly and then pounded on him while he was on the ice.

Here is a video of all all the “action” that night on the Island in case you forgot. At about 6:10 is where you see Gillies skate all the way across the ice to hunt down Tangradi:

During this scrum, the Islanders’ Haley then skates down the ice to confront Penguin’s goalie Brent Johnson to which Eric Goddard reacts by jumping off the bench to defend his netminder. Out of this entire incident THIS is what Islanders fans emailed me the most about and griped over; about how Goddard is such a “goon” that he came off the bench to defend his goalie against a player that skated all the way down the ice to seek him out.

Of course the fighting was not over. But it was enough for anyone that knows anything about hockey, which I will not accuse your typical Islanders fan of being such a person, that the behavior of the team from New York was pathetic.

Goddard, for jumping off the bench and defending his goalie got an automatic ten games suspension. The league decided that Gillies only warranted a nine game suspension for his actions. Islanders fans justified this whole sham of a game as revenge for what Johnson did to DiPietro, a man who as of right now gets hurt just looking at a hockey rink it seems.

Well then what is the excuse for Gillies last night then? Yes, fresh off his suspension for beating Tangradi in the back of the head, Gillies was back to head hunting against Minnesota’s Cal Clutterbuck? There wasn’t a Penguin to be found anywhere near the rink. Matt Cooke wasn’t even in the same state. But here is Gillies acting like a thug again.

What’s the excuse this time I ask again? Did Clutterbuck lace his skates in a way that drove Gillies into a fit of rage?

Fifty games. That was Gillies deserves. We’re not talking about a “repeat offender” here who plays on the edge and throws a questionable hit every 15 or 20 games. We are talking about a goon who, fresh off a nine game suspension for gooning it up on the ice, rushes back out on to the ice in his first game back to do it all over again. And while we’re at it, maybe the league should fine Garth Snow a cool million too since it is clear he is the mastermind behind this latest pathetic performance on Long Island.

How do you like your new team New York?

On Wednesday night, after putting away the New York Islanders, Rick DiPietro engaged in some funny business around his own net with 16.5 seconds remaining in the game.  That resulted in a dog pile in the corner and Brent Johnson leaving his own crease and darting down the ice to confront his counterpart.

DiPietro both removed their gloves and helmets as they squared off.  The New York netminder looked to be in such shock that there was actually going to be a goalie fight that he was smiling!  He wasn’t smiling at the end of it all however which wasn’t very long.  One left from Johnson and DiPiertro was down with Johnson hovering over him with his fist cocked for another blow in case he wanted more.

DiPietro, who the Islanders singed to a long term contract worth big bucks but who has also been unable to remain healthy, is once again sidelined for four to six weeks following the fight with facial fractures.  Wow.  Talk about bad luck.

It was just before the 06-07 season that DiPietro signed a 15 year $67.5 million contract.  However since the start of the 08-09 season he has played in just 34 games and 21 of those games have been this year.

Bad luck and bad signing all the way around.  Maybe Rick DiPietro needs to become a bubble boy because he is getting hurt almost just looking at the ice it seems.

Thank God for sanity! An arbitrator ruled this week that the NHL was right to void the recently penned obscene contract between the Devils and Kovalchuk which would have been for 17 years and $102 million.
Hey, I am all for players getting what they can but when you sign a contract in bad faith, which is what the Devils and Kovalchuk did make no mistake about that, to try and circumvent a league’s salary cap I am sorry but you need to be smacked down. The deal would have had Kovalchuk playing until he was 44 years old. While not unheard of for players to play into their 40’s it is rare and quite frankly players who play at that age are almost always hardly worth the spot on the bench they occupy.

During the final five years of the contract Kovalchuk would have earned $550,000 each year. The structure of the contract in its entirety however was clearly designed to circumvent the cap and lock up Kovalchuk for a smaller hit each year than he would normally have counted for. This whole situation was made difficult because for years the NHL has sat by and allowed other players to flirt with similar contracts in terms of length and salary without much of a peep if any. Kovalchuk and the Devils were probably right to assume that they would be able to get away with this latest bizarre contract. But they did not.

Now it is back to the drawing board and it will be interesting to see what these two parties have up their sleeves as “Plan B.” There will probably be another long term deal hashed out but not as obscene as 17 years. But it will still, most likely, be a deal that is designed to circumvent the cap as best as both parties think they can get away with. They have other long term deals already accepted by the league to draw on and can always use the excuse that the league accepted those.

I honestly do not care if Kovalchuk ends up with the Devils or not when this all shakes out. In his stint with the team last year he proved a pretty ineffective part of the team and for the Devils to use him effectively they would have to reword their tried and true strategy for winning. I do not think that Kovalchuk makes the perennially dangerous Devils any more dangerous. He might make them dangerous in a different way but nothing more than that.