Canucklehead

Seems like our pal Jimbo on the west coast has suddenly become a hockey fan again. I'm not sure if there are quite as many broken ankles in Vancouver (from jumping off the Canucks bandwagon) as there are in Ottawa -- OK, there are definitely more broken ankles in Ottawa. But still... Vancouver's chances are totally tied to one player, Roberto Luongo. Now, kudos to Dave Nonis for making the most one-sided trade in recent memory. Florida doesn't even have Todd Bertuzzi around anymore to remind them how bad the trade was.

But where was Jacques Martin's benevolence when it was time to ship off Gary Roberts at the trade deadline? He'll give away Luongo, but won't permit Roberts to be traded to Ottawa? Then gives Roberts to Pittsburgh for Noah Welch? Noah Welch!?

And speaking of Todd Bertuzzi... His new team, the Red Wings, have something in common with both the Vancouver Canucks and the Ottawa Senators (and even the Toronto Maple Leafs). They all have Swedish captains. The good news for Markus Naslund is that Mats Sundin probably has a big screen TV, so they can both watch the second round of the playoffs together and see how far Lidstrom and Alfredsson can take their teams.

Which segues into Daniel Alfredsson... Is he a good hockey player or what? In today's game, he scored 2 goals, including the winner, plus he knocked Roberts on his keester when it was Roberts coming after Alfredsson. Definitely the MVP of the series for Ottawa so far, although Joe Corvo still has been very impressive. Alfredsson's been good all year, but Corvo has really stepped it up in the playoffs.

Now if only they could find a way to stop Sidney Crosby... (By the way... we started a fun game in our house last week. Starting last Wednesday, we thought we'd count the number of times we heard the words "Sidney Crosby" in the media. It turns out that even with all of today's supercomputers, they still haven't invented that number yet.)