Lineups: Picking Out Crooks is Easy

Do you recognize either of the other two men to the left and right? I would venture to say that 9 out of 10 Americans could not name either, and most hockey fans who are not die-hards could not name both. But I will get back to these two gentlemen in a second after a quick rundown of the Caps-Canadiens series. Starting with goaltending, neither team has really seen the other's starters barring an injury relief by Theodore in Montreal where he allowed 4 goals on 25 shots. Goaltending is the Caps biggest weakness and the Habs greatest strength and I would give both Theodore and Halak a B each. The power play is the biggest key to the series, as the Habs have the second best in the league to the Caps, but are dead last in scoring 5 on 5. The Caps are great five on five as evidenced by their relatively (as compared to the rest of their record in 5 on 5 play) poor showing in overtimes during the regular season. Seeing as the Habs outpenalized the Caps in the regular season 20-17, if the refs are instructed by their bosses to remain fair (which is a big if,) the Caps should be ok. As a side note, Fehr is our top goal scorer against the Canadians, and the length of the series hinges on which Alexander Semin decides to show up.

With a healthy Caps team, other than Backstrom's undisclosed injury that was announced today, the Caps should wrap this up in 5 or 6. (Once again I can not stress enough how badly it needs to be in five to make a long successful run this year.) As for the rest of the league, assuming once again there will be fair play, I will give you my predictions. (And by fair I mean not allowing someone who drew an instigator penalty in the last 5 minutes of a game to have their automatic suspension rescinded just because they are a Penguin.) Hopefully this will not be a concern for too long, as I have the Pens going out in the first round to Ottowa who is just a better and hotter team. My other upset in the East is the Flyers over the Devils. It sounds crazy, but they beat them five out of six this year which is crazier. And the Sabres will squeak by the Bruins. Miller can't carry that team forever, and Ottowa will beat the Sabres to play the Caps in the Conference Finals after they throttle the Flyers. The first round of the West is almost chalk, with the one exception being the Wings over the Coyotes. Second round the Canucks beat the Blackhawks and the Red Wings beat the the Sharks. The Cup Finals will pit Vancouver against DC, and unfortunately I have the hometown heroes losing. But I'm not Karnak.

Back to the gentlemen up top who you don't recognize. To left you have Henrik Sedin, who lead the league in points, was drafted 3rd overall behind his twin brother Daniel who plays for the very same team that I have winning the Cup. Sounds like a good story, one would think you would hear more about it, but unfortunately for them they are Swedish so the NHL deems them irrelevant. To the right you have Steven Stamkos who shares the Maurice "Rocket" Richard trophy for most goals this year with Crosby, is not old enough to buy a beer in the US yet, and was drafted first overall. Congratulations to all of these players for beating out Ovechkin for these distinctions. (I am sure that they all could beat him in a fist-fight if OV had one hand tied behind his back as well. Lets keep in mind that the Commissioner and his cronies have kept OV out of ten games this year because of suspensions and injuries taken after allowing other players to take runs at him, and he was still only beaten by a hair. The MVP still clearly resides in DC.) But Stamkos is clearly a young phenom drafted high along with the Sedin brothers, much like the touted Crosby, but Crosby seems to steal the limelight. How could that be?

There is a clear parallel between this and the Masters this weekend. While I do not purport to know anything about golf, I prefer sports instead, it seems to me that Mickelson's win was a great story, but all we have heard about for the last five months is Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! He finished tied for fourth in this "masterful" tournament, and I bet most people would have as difficult of a time picking out the guys who beat or tied Tiger as they would picking out Sedin and Stamkos. All we see are ads of Tiger and Crosby during their respective matches, because golf and hockey have all of their eggs in one basket, and are missing out on the real stories that occur. At least Tiger has earned his reputation, he really is the best golfer in the world. Crosby is not even the best player on his team. Without Malkin, the Pens went 5-9-1 this year, with only 3 of those wins in regulation. Crosby only had three goals and two assists over that 15 game span. Its a good thing the NHL did rescind that suspension against Malkin in the Cup Finals, otherwise they would not have been able to show Crosby hoisting the Cup over and over again. Can you remember who the playoff MVP was? He didn't wear number 87.

These stories are not followed because they don't fit into the NHL's PR machine plan since the day the Princess was drafted. OV was a young phenom, but did not really get league-wide attention until the league made him the ying to Crosby's yang. Stamkos could be a better young phenom than either of them, Patrick Kane is an outstanding young American player on an outstanding team, and the Swedish Sedins were young phenoms before all of them, but they are all ignored because the NHL made their decision of who to hype. Bettman tipped his hand of clear bias two years after he assumed power and installed the "Canadian Assistance Plan," where US teams had to subsidize small Canadian teams and Canadian teams only. This legacy of Canadian bias still lives on today under his rule in the PR department and spills out into the ice.

If you were planning on seeing all of the Caps games nationally broadcast because they are the best team in the league forget it, the four and five seeds in the East have that billing as shown plastered all over NHL.com. The Commissioner didn't even acknowledge the Cap's victory of the President's Cup, instead sending his Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly try to hand it to Ovechkin last week. Maybe Bettman can bend the rules to make it easier to hand over to his favorite star next year instead of moping again like this year. Crosby loves ogling those trophies and disrespecting the game, that crabby integrity guy Ovechkin didn't touch anything prematurely. Its almost like Crosby grabbed the Prince of Wales Trophy knowing the Stanley Cup was already guaranteed to him. Maybe the NHL's commercials had already been filmed.

Don't ruin the playoffs and justified accolades two years in the row to keep "Canada's sport" Canadian, let the script write itself. Bettman as a figurative George Lucas has already painted Ovechkin as a Darth Vader-like character. As much as Bettman wants Crosby to be Luke Skywalker he is more Jar-Jar Binks-ish. Goofy and weird with way to much face time, something created with good intentions but falls way short and detracts from the greatness that came before it. He tied for the Rocket, but he is no MVP. That guy still lives in DC. Maybe OV will hand this trophy over to Semin this year, who with him became the first two Russian teammates to score over 40 goals together. Oh, you didn't hear that story either?.....