Deadspin
The NHL Closer is written by Greg Wyshynski, of FanHouse and The Fourth Period. He is also the author of Glow Pucks And 10-Cent Beer.
There are different types of pathetic, consistent losers. We root for some to reverse their fortunes, like when the Mets went from monstrosity to miraculous in the 1960s. We gleefully dance on the graves of others, like seeing bow-tied doofus Tucker Carlson get cancelled for the 700th time this week on cable. Then there are those I believe can be called "The Joey Harringtons": Train-wrecks of squandered potential whose sudden resurgence provides a perverse and ironic kick that ends as quickly as it begins. Dan Cloutier is a Joey Harrington; the kind of player who requires his own disaster preparedness kit, but one that nearly shocked the world last night.
Cloutier's journey from starting goalie in Vancouver to oft-injured, big-money bust in Los Angeles would be tragic if it weren't so damn funny. Many players have been chased out of town by surly fans that are so certain of that player's inferiority that they begin Photoshopping beach balls behind his picture. Rarely does that player then validate that assessment by crapping the bed in his next tour stop. And Cloutier hasn't just crapped the bed in L.A.: We're talking a Spud shitting himself in "Trainspotting" level of fecal expulsion. Wot a mess!
Cloutius Maximus faced the Canucks last night for the first time since they traded him two years ago. He made 13 saves in the first and then 13 more in the second. The Kings gave him a 1-0 lead on Patrick O'Sullivan's goal at 8:27 of the third ... and then Ryan Kesler scored with 2:41 left to tie the game, winning it in OT for Vancouver with this second goal. Cloutier made 38 saves, even if he had more rebounds than Marcus Camby last night. But for one fleeting moment, Cloutier stopped being a joke and nearly got back to doing what he's always done best: Crippling Vancouver's Stanley Cup chances.
Iggy! Iggy! Iggy! The Rangers' 3-2 win over Buffalo last night was a perfect storm of depressing news: A game-winning goal for Scott Gomez, in a skills competition, in a game where Buffalo somehow managed to lose even more defensemen to injury. Sheesh...where's Rory Fitzpatrick when you need him? So let's look at the bright side of life: Jarome Iginla is now the all-time leading goal-scorer in Calgary Flames history, scoring his 365th goal on a power play, in his 847th game and on his 2,742nd shot. To put this in the proper perspective, this is 365 more goals than Wade Belak scored during his three-year tenure with the Flames. Iginla passes Theo Fleury in goals; Fleury still holds the team record in keg stands.
The 7-3 win over St. Louis — which also featured Miika Kiprusoff earning an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for throwing a puck and hitting Martin Rucinsky in the nose — put Calgary back on top of its division. Iginla, meanwhile, is third in the NHL in both goals and points. If the Capitals miss the postseason, I think that kills Ovechkin's bid for the Hart Trophy. Can Iginla earn enough support to overcome players like Malkin, Lidstrom and now Joe Thornton for MVP? And if he does, what generally retarded headline will the Calgary Sun choose to ruin that momentous occasion? Because the bar is now pretty high:
Karma Is a Bitch. Empty Netters has the Classic YouTubage of the day in the following video, which chronicles a bizarre turn of events between Stevie Sullivan - Blackhawks then, Predators now - and a heckler in Denver. For the uninitiated: Sullivan takes a stick to the face that cuts his nose, and a fan heckles him through the glass as he skates to the bench. Later in the game, Patrick Roy clears the puck over the glass, hits the same fan in the forehead, splitting him open. Sully fills in the details, complete with highlights:
Puck Headlines
* Never ones to let the Yankees grab the spotlight for more than a minute, the Red Sox are lobbying the NHL for a home-and-home outdoor series between the Rangers and Bruins at The House That Torre Rebuilt on Jan.1, 2009 and at Fenway the following year. Which really isn't sitting well with the Islanders. [Newsday]
* The new Versus slogan for the postseason: "I Am the Stanley Cup Playoffs." Sure beats "Something We Throw on Between Buck Hunting and Our 2,000th Showing of 'Road House' This Week." [The FanHouse]
* Is it time to send Capitals' goat Nicklas Backstrom to Bryan McCabe's "School For Kids Who Can't Handle The Puck In Front Of Their Net Good?" [Hockey Blog in Canada]
* In case you haven't come across it yet, this article about the NHL's loud-mouth pest elite is a must-read. Not only for Sean Avery-esque smack jabs like "Are those your teeth or is your tongue in jail?", but to read cranky old man Doug Weight tell this next generation of trash-talkers to stay off his lawn by refusing to participate in the informal poll: "I'm not going to reward anybody on that junk ... verbal crap is part of the game, whether you like it or not. What the hell are you going to do?" Go grab your walker and watch a "Matlock" rerun, gramps. [The Province]
* Finally, Andre Roy's future with the Tampa Bay Lightning is in doubt, as the team asked him to take a leave of absence after he went fucking bat-shit in that two-fight game against Philadelphia last week. According to the St. Pete Times: "Roy jawed with the Flyers bench in the third period and made several throat-slashing gestures before being grabbed and pushed into his seat by coach John Tortorella." How redonkulous does a situation have to be when John Tortorella is a source of tranquility? Frankly, I'm shocked; Andre Roy doesn't look that intense, does he?
Comments
You will read about hockey and you will like it.
No more after the jump?
Iggy Pots career has gone steadily downhill since he fronted The Stooges.
Hockey post sans jump. The Versus network doesn't give the NHL this much play.
Fuck, did they increase the font size in the Deadspin re-design? Because upon further review, and with the graphics, this thing seems to run longer than a Tolstoy rewrite of the Old Testament.
After the jump, the collected works of Proust.
I am so jealous. I have always wanted to throw a puck and hit Martin Rucinsky in the nose.
@Weed Against Speed:
No more Lust for Puck.
Tucker Carlson is like a cockroach...you can cancel him, but he will come back with a show the next day.
So they wrote 4,382,972 words and got to the 'Ning, but no Brett Favre? Shame.
/consistently, like, four news cycles behind
/who is this Eliot Spitzer fellow?
It's not a good thing when the hyperlinks are longer than the actual addresses.
Wot, no jump?
Hockey is a metaphor for life. Specifically, the part of life where you skate around on ice trying to get the puck past a goalie.
I ordered the tangy medallion at Ponderosa last week and it wasn't tangy at all. Or meat.
Does Andre Roy not own any cufflinks or did he deposit them in Martin Biron's colon?
To be fair to Andre Roy, smelling salts do make people a little cranky.
Phaneuf is the only guy on that "current players" list with any discernible hockey skill.
At least when the Devs have pests, they can play. See: Claude the Fraud
Now if we could just get that to happen to the other 19,999 Avalanche fans at those games, we would be set.
The Rangers and Bruins havent been rivals since Phil Epsosito and Brad Park. Isles-Rangers would fill up that dump in the Bronx, and there would be some real edge to the game. For the 50,000 lunatics who prefer to freeze their ass off watching a hockey game outdoors in January. No sir!
When I was little, there was a rumor that if you shattered the glass in NHL '94 when that annoying punkass kid put his face up to it every now and then, they gave him an injury report with "Kid - Out For Season (face)". I tried for hours on end to pull that off, but alas, I don't think that's legit.
@Wyshynski: Don't blame the kerning, James Joyce.
@crazyjoedavola: Yeah, if it isn't the Isles, Devils, or Flyers against the Rangers - it's just another NHL game.
Or they could just bring in Pittsburgh and fellate Crosby some more.
The Closer disappeared for me for about 20 minutes. I was really worried Leitch was a closet Dan Cloutier fan there for a second.
+1 for the Spud reference. Midway through the 3rd, I was convinced that Cloutier would come away with the shutout. If that had happened, the Canucks should just have disbanded out of shame.
@crazyjoedavola: If a tree falls in the woods and doesn't somehow involve, no matter how nebulous, the Yankees and Red Sox, does it really happen?
/ESPN memo
@Al Czerviks Ride on the WMU Bronco Bandwagon:
Ha, only holds 18,007...but I would be willing to be hit if I got to keep the puck.
@Wyshynski: Leitch enjoys Dan Cloutier as much as he enjoys hockey in general.
@Summer-of-George: And with the Wings in town, 8,000 are Wings fans, but point made...
@Rob Iracane: I see myself as more of a John Kennedy Toole, only less talented and more breathing.
@Wyshynski: Cloutier is to goaltending, what the Arizona Cardinals are to football.
@Al Czerviks Ride on the WMU Bronco Bandwagon:
True, but it's split more like 6,000 Avs fans, 6,000 Detriot fans, 6,000 who don't know anything about hockey but it's Avs-Detriot so what the hell....and 7 monkeys.
@Wyshynski: The blog you linked to is The Empty Netter. Empty Netters is here. Just sayin'.
@Lanny's Mustache Rides: 'as' not 'what'. Behold, I'm writing at a Sean Avery level here people.
Makes up for lack of originality with loud repetition.
Story of my life.
So let's look at the bright side of life:
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I'm going to leave if you make me whistle.
@War Penguin: Oops, sorry about that. I read'em both, actually. Seth does a great job on Empty Netters.
I am teh suck. But I suppose a snafu like this is expected The Day The NHL Closer Conquered the Deadspin Front Page.
@Wyshynski: I'd like to add that getting the name of a blog wrong hurts me, because it reminds me of all those times my self-Googling failed because someone praised the writing of Gregg Wyshansky.
@Robert Barone's Dog:
">Not sure what happened. It should've been a youtube link.
@Robert Barone's Dog: Huh! I guess I officially suck today.
@Wyshynski: Greggg Westerbrookskee?
@Wyshynski: I was a lonely teenage bouncin' puck
With an old Jets jersey of Keith Tkachuk,
But I knew Dan Cloutier could still suck
The Day The NHL Closer Conquered the Deadspin Front Page.
@Wyshynski: It seems it has also conquered my ability to post youtube links.
@GreatOdensRaven: and we were singing:
Bye, bye Mr. "Royal We" Guy
Met with Sean Salisbury and he didn't say why
Them Closer boys are drinkin' Molson and Rye
Saying "This'll be the day the shootout dies."
"This'll be the day the shootout dies."
@The Curse of Harold Ballard's Bunker: The worst was actually a review of my book that referred to me as "Bob Wyshinski," thus spelling my last name wrong and calling me by my father's first name.
This is why, when I was a kid, I wanted to change my name to the single-moniker "Xavier." Well, that and so people would call me "X."
EA NHL '98 scoring summary:
"It started with a pass ..."
(various players mentioned in this space)
"and ends in the back of the net "
@Wyshynski: I figured. And hey, you can't make an omelet without making a few eggs. But I decided I might as well take the opportunity pimp EN. (No, I'm not associated with it in any way; I just read it.)
@The Curse of Harold Ballard's Bunker: Ouch. Now that's just twisting the knife.
Cloutier had to go back to El Segundo to get his wallet.
If he'd had it, he wouldn't have been stuck flying economy to Colorado and staying in the Super 8. (Ouch.)
That picture is an obvious photoshop. I think we all that isn't a beachball behind Dan Cloutier... it's supposed to be a beachball behind Patrick Lalime.
/Fuck Joe Nieuwendyk
@the sieve: Yeesh, lay off the "submit comment" button until you're finished, buddy.
Also: Iain MacIntyre is awesome.
@Wyshynski: Reminds me of the old joke about the guy who appears in front of a judge, petitioning the court for a name change. The judge asks "So what's your name?" The man replies "Zigmundzolipapanko, your honour." "Whew," says the judge. "I can see why you want to change it. What would you like to change it to then?" "Ziggyzolipapanko," says the man.
@Dany Heatley Speedwagon: *I think we all know
/fuck douchnozzle
@Al Czerviks Ride on the WMU Bronco Bandwagon: Pain don't hurt.