Built Ford Tough

As much as I wanted to see him, Joseph and Kabongo play together at Texas next season, he would be a fool to not declare once Sullinger, Barnes and P. Jones all decided to go back to school. He went from probably the 6th best forward prospect to arguably the 2nd best forward prospect behind Derrick Williams (depending on what you think about Terrence Jones). His stock skyrocketed simply because of players deciding against entering the draft and he went from being a projected 20-25th overall pick to quite possibly a top 10 pick depending on how workouts go. Smart move on his part. Cory Joesph declaring for the draft? Not such a good decision. He isn't hiring an agent and I fully expect him to go back to Texas for his second season as he still needs a lot of work on his game. I'd be shocked if he doesn't withdraw by May 8th.

http://twitter.com/#!/FriedgeHNIC/status/61252047332327425 That might be the dumbest excuse I've ever heard. You accidently fingered the Montreal crowd? Really? I got a chuckle out of it when he did it, but seriously, at least come up with a better cover story than that. Or just own up to it because you clearly meant to do it.

Last game played in Phoenix? I sure as hell hope so. It is a joke seeing the Wings fans outnumbering the Yotes fans 2-1 in a playoff game in Phoenix's own damn building.

With how terrible this draft is going to be, I'm sure some team will take a chance on him in the 20-25 range simply because of how highly regarded he was coming out of high school and because he still has that potential tag on him. Going back to school and having another bad year under Self (something had to have gone on between the two) would do worse for his stock than entering the draft now, especially considering next years draft looks to be a lot deeper.

And the Flyers are saints? Can't really call another team dirty when you have your fair share of questionable players on your roster. I didn't see the game so I can't comment on specifics, but I did see highlights of Richards throwing an elbow at Kaleta's head (to be fair Kaleta shouldn't have taken a run at him in that situation, but it was still a dirty attempt by Richards) and Timonen sticking Ennis (Gerbe? One of the smaller guys on the Sabres) in the balls weren't exactly clean plays. Pronger isn't exactly the best role model for clean play, either. I don't doubt that the Sabres did some questionable things in this game because it is playoff hockey and liberties are taken, but a Flyers fan doesn't have much room to talk about dirty plays unless he calls out his own team for some of the shady shit that they do (not saying you do or don't as I haven't paid enough attention to your posts about specific incidents when it comes to the Flyers).

Halpern looks like he will take Pouliot's place in the lineup for the game tomorrow. He was skating in his place during the Habs' practice this morning and I don't even remember seeing Pouliot in the 2nd and 3rd periods of the game on Monday.

Is there a single thing positive that Jennings does better than Curry? Because I'm honestly drawing a blank here. Seriously, if Jennings never gets off to that hot start last and score 55 points in his first month in the NBA, nobody would even talk about the guy. Has he even shot above 40% from the field for an entire month since then? I don't care enough to look, but it really wouldn't surprise me if the answer to that question was no.

A healthy Greg Oden can. Is there even such a thing as a healthy Greg Oden, though? I still think that a healthy Oden is just as good if not better defensively than Howard is. At the very least, he was on his way to becoming that but who knows how this latest injury will effect him. It is kind of remarkable how effective he is when he actually plays considering the ridiculous amount of injuries he has had since high school.

I don't know about that. I think the Bucks could finish in a similar position to where they finished this season and still land Barnes, depending on how much is game develops next season and how far he manages to lead UNC. Next years draft is much, much deeper and scouts are already raving about guys like Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, James Mcadoo, Michael Gilchrist and Quincy Miller (depending on how he bounces back from his knee injury). Assuming all of these freshman have the seasons that they are expected to and Barnes doesn't blow up in his 2nd year, I can see him falling to the mid-late lottery. It is unlikely, I'll admit that, but I wouldn't say that you have to be a whole lot worse to get him next year. I think you could potentially grab him with the 8th overall pick or something close to that range. Screw Teague and Knight. I'd be a hell of a lot more excited about a frontcourt that consists of Anthony Davis and Michael Gilchrist. That is a scary long and athletic front court that has all kinds of potential on both sides of the ball. Especially if Gilchrist continues to develop his jumper at the same rate (from what I've heard and read, the improvements he has made this year are monumental) and forces defenses to defend him on the perimeter. With his athleticism and defensive ability, combined with Davis' ridiculously high skill level, the two of them are going to be scary next season if they both play as exected.

Wasn't the NHL on ESPN before Versus and it was a complete bust? I don't know for sure considering I don't get ESPN, but for some reason that is what I remember. I can't recall how long ago that was, but it can't have been too long, so would it really even make a difference getting on ESPN considering how little interest it had before? Or has hockey grown enough in the States to actually generate some buzz? Oh yeah, Kunitz got one game for his elbow to Gagne's head and Downie got a game for his charge on Lovejoy.

Price didn't really have much of a chance on it (although it looked like he came pretty close to making a desperation save). One of the Habs wingers (don't remember who) decided to go off on a change at a pretty dumb time as the puck was in the Habs zone late in a Montreal PP (or just as it was ending) and I think the Bruins might have had possession. Anyways, the winger going off on the change made it so that the Bruins ended up with a mini 2-1with Bergeron and Krejci (who was supposed to be picked up by the winger that changed). The Montreal defender, I think it was Spacek (maybe Hamerlik) played it really poorly as well as Bergeron was at a tough angle so he really should've just took away the pass and forced Bergeron to shoot, but instead he kind of hesitated and got himself caught in between defending the pass and the shot. Bergeron made a great read and fed a cross ice pass to Krejci who put it past a sprawling Price. This game was basically a complete 180 from the first two (only saw the first period of game 2, but still) as the Bruins looked exactly like the Habs did and vice versa. Montreal was running around completely out of whack and Boston did a great job of taking advantages of the defensive lapses and turnovers, which is exactly how the Habs played in the two previous games. It did open up a bit towards the 2nd period and the first half of the 3rd, but the Bruins got their lead and managed to hold on with sound defensive play and good goaltending when they did have lapses, which is exactly how Montreal won the first two games of the series. Kind of scary how similar this game was to those two. Thomas looked shaky as hell for the first 50 minutes of the game tonight, but you have to give him credit for bouncing back and coming up with some huge saves in the final 10 minutes to hold onto the win. I can't say that I like his style and he would scare the hell out of me if he were my starting goalie, but he gets the job done and at the end of the day, that is all you can really ask for.

Ahh, didn't know that. I was wondering why there was so much outrage over that when it looked to me that it was pretty damn clear that the period was over. Regardless of whether or not the clock is right or off by a tiny amount, you should always go by the green light in that situation anyways. That light is wired into the system and is always correct, unless somebody is tampering with the system. The minute that light goes on, the period is over (and the goal judges are unable to turn on the red goal light). It makes sense to me now why there was so much outrage, though. I imagine people were basing it off of the time left on the clock instead of looking at the green light to single the end of the period. Trying being a Leafs fan and being called the Maple Laughs by pretty much every other fanbase in the NHL. The best part about Dubinsky's 'stache is that it is clearly dyed or something. Take a look at picture of him from game 2 and compare it to game 3 and you can tell that is not natural.

May sound arrogant? No, it makes you sound like a conceited prick, actually.

I'd be more worried about him shooting above 40% for a season than his leadership skills at this point.

Sarcasm, right? Because the green light to single the end of the period was clearly on before the puck crossed the line. The Rags first goal (Christensen's PP goal) was a ridiculous shot. The way he picked the corner from that sharp angle and how the puck was in the net for about half a second was nuts. Neuvrith went down way too early and that has been a problem of his all season, but still, that was a nasty shot. Oh yeah, I love Dubinsky's 'stache. PS: No suspension for Torres on his hit on Seabrook. Good call if you ask me. It was interference as Seabrook never touched the puck, but you can't put all the responsibility on the hitter when opposing players are skating with their head down knowing full well that they are in a position on the ice where hits frequently occur, like Seabrook was.

I hope he pulls a Willie Warren and gets drafted in the 2nd round next season. Of course, I hope the Raptors are the team that drafts him in the 2nd round.

Montreal played exactly how Jacques Martin has had every single one of his teams play. Keep everything to the outside/perimeter, clear the front of the nut so your goalie can see everything and force all shots from poor scoring areas. Montreal played a superb defensive game and the few defensive lapses that they did have, Price bailed them out like a star goalie does. I wasn't really all that impressed with the Bruins. I know they controlled the puck a lot more often than the Habs did and got a lot more shots than they did, but everything they did on offense was on the outside and very few of their shots were actually bonafide scoring opportunities. Just because you get a bunch of shots from the outside and pass the puck along the perimeter for 2 minutes straight doesn't mean you dominated the game. The Habs defense played a great game yesterday and that was the key to the game. Looking at the stat sheet I'm sure you can make the argument that the Habs were severely outplayed, but from actually watching the game there wasn't really too many times when I thought to myself that the Habs were in some serious trouble. As far as Krejci, the guy should just shut up and play hockey. Subban dove, big whoop. He isn't the first player that has done it and certainly won't be the last player to do it. Krejci should be more worried about how completely irrelevent his entire line was last night than one play where Subban dove. All three of them looked like complete crap last night, especially Lucic.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2011/news/story?id=6355780 http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2011/news/story?id=6356697 http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2011/news/story?id=6347500 In other news, the NBA held their coin flip tiebreakers and the results were:

From Ford's latest entry detailing who he thinks each team will pick should they win the lottery as well as who he thinks they will pick should they stand pat at their respective draft positions. In somewhat related news, the pick that the Raptors traded to Chicago for James Johnson is officially 28th overall. Looking back on that trade now after seeing Johnson play for 20 or so games, that was definitely a great move by Colangelo considering how weak this draft is. I liked the trade when it happened and love it now.

I think the only two people in the entire world who though Andrea Bargnani was supposed to be a franchise player were Bryan Colangelo and Maurizio Gherardini. Very few people even expected him to even be an All-Star, let alone a franchise player.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/jeff-blair/bigger-and-better-things-ahead-for-raptors-ed-davis/article1984687/ Davis was a very pleseant surprise this season as I didn't think that he would contribute as much as he did this year, but the one thing that he needs work on more than anything else would definitely be adding weight to his frame as he got pushed around down low on defense and when battling for rebounds a little too often. I have no concerns about him adding the necessary muscle, though, considering who is dad is and the fact that Ben Wallace is supposed to be really close with Ed and his family as well. Those two guys will definitely whip him into shape. I definitely liked the pick when it first happened as I did not expect him to fall to 13 on draft night, but after seeing him play his rookie season, I'm probably even happier with the pick than I was on draft night as he is a lot better than I expected him to be during his rookie season.

Pretty much. I don't think I moved from my couch yesterday from about 4PM to 10PM (or whenever the Canucks game finished, closer to 9:45 I think). It was pretty much perfrect as I watched the Pens/Bolts game, whenever that was on intermission I would go to the Caps/Rags game and then watched the Nucks/Hawks game after that. I also had the Raptors game playing on my laptop the entire time it was on. Just a great day, but I have a final today that I was supposed to be studying for yesterday and that did not happen at all, so I've had to cram about 6 hours worth of studying into 2, haha.

I'm starting to seriously think that Bargnani won't be back next season, whenever that may be. Raptors had their end of the year press conferences today and Bargnani was getting shots taken at him left and right by some of his teammates (subtly, of course) and even Triano made some comments about him. Just some of the more memorable comments about Bargnani: Jay Triano Amir Johnson His response to a question about him, Bargs and Davis playing together: DeMar DeRozan Barbosa also made a comment about how Bargnani scores a lot but doesn't do much else (paraphrasing here). It even sounds like the players and coaching staff are getting fed up with him, so I definitely am a lot more open to the idea that he may be moved prior to the start of the next season than ever before. There hasn't been a single offseason where I had even the slightest inclination that he may be moved, but that isn't the case this year. PS: For what it is worth, Bargnani had the best quote of the all of the press conferences when he said: Basically telling everybody to [expletive] off with the questions about defense and rebounding as clearly I don't give a shit about it. That is kind of awesome, lol.

I do think he will go back, but enrolling in summer classes doesn't mean he has to go back. Bayless has been/was taking summer classes at Arizona ever since he was drafted as he promised his parents (both are lawyers or something highly educated like that) that he would get his degree even though he left for the NBA after his freshman season. I do think that Barnes is definitely staying, though. A poor decision on his part if you ask me, but it sounds like that is what he will be doing. It is, but the lottery is May 17th. The lottery this year is probably more important than the draft itself as the Raptors board is probably already pretty much set based on where they are picking. 1st = Irving 2nd = Williams/Barnes (Irving if a team like Washington wins) 3rd = Barnes/Williams 4th = Kanter 5th = Valanciunas Assuming Barnes doesn't declare, just slide Kanter and Valanciunas up a spot each. Obviously they might fall in love with somebody during workouts or something like that, but I think this year their pick is pretty much made for them based on where they are sitting after the lottery considering the complete lack of depth drastically limits their options.

Well, it hurts when your number 1 goalie is always in and out of the lineup. Hiller is pretty good (or at least was, not sure how he played this year) but the seems to miss every second week with some new injury. Ducks are going to have no chance in this series if they are forced to rely on Ray Emery and Dan Ellis between the pipes. The Preds aren't the most gifted of offensive teams, but even they will be able to score enough against that calibre of goaltending to make this a quick series with their amazing defense and Pekka Rinne being an absolute beast between the pipes.