Oh Canada !! It’s ours, . . . , game, set,
match. BRAVO BOYS !!!!

Great to see that R Getzlaf is now officially
“on” the Team Canada Olympic hockey roster.
His superb and gutsy effort in the Ducks 7-3
win in Edmonton last night, no doubt nailed down the roster spot. Two goals plus 2 assists in addition to 19 plus minutes of
playing time won him 1’st “STAR” of the game,
as well. He’ll be needed in the days ahead.

The early press reports on Martin Brodeur keep raching back into his star studded past
reminding us all that he’s been one of the best goaltenders of all time. Of course, all of that is true. What those reports have
faled to point out is that in his last 10 or
so games, Brodeur has been really quite 2′nd
rate. In recent contests going ‘head to head’ against R Miller, (TEAM USA) and H Lundqvist, (TEAM SWEDEN), Brodeur has come out badly in both. Seven of his last 10 games have been real stinkers,…, the only 3 wins coming against the hapless Leafs, (2
wins) and one at home against Nashville when the Devils’ stars Kovalchuk, Elias and Parise each scored in the 3′rd period to break a tie. IMO, the press is a lttle bit
too enchanted with Brodeur’s past heroics and not evaluating his more recent efforts.

Superb game by Ryan Getzlaf in Edmonton tonight. Ducks win 7-3 and RG plays 19:28 minutes with 2 goals,[the 2'nd one a work of art], plus 2 assists and he’s named the # 1
Star. As long as his post game medical check up in Vancouver comes off OK he should
be good to go for Team Canada. A huge sigh
of relief to get this big thoroughbred back in our lineup.

Hey !! Maybe Martin Brodeur has been playing possum all along and perhaps he just does not want to give any shooters’ edge to the opposition, so by design, he’s been playing poorly. All part of his ‘clever’ master plan. I’d like to think this has been going on deliberately, but I kind of doubt it.

That reads FEB 21 VERSUS the USA !!

. . . . , just finishing the above comments.

In spite of Brodeur’s past greatness, I truly
hope Babcock and the Canadian coaching staff
go with their hottest hand, whomever that
might be. The concern here is that they say,
well he’s done good things for a long, long
time, lets just hand him the keys to this bus. The tournament is far too brief to screw around and I don’t think we will get an accurate read of things after he first 2
games, with all due respect to Norway and
Switzerland. The real show begins, Feb 2 against the USA.

A quick look at Marty Brodeur’s last 10 games
as he heads into the Olympics certainly does
not inspire any confidence whatsoever. In fact, it makes a Team Canada fan really gag.
Tonight Brodeur and NJ lost to powerful
Carolina 5-2. Marty stops 18 of 22 and is
removed. Yanis finishes for NJ stopping 6 of 6. Brodeur is out. The 3 wins for MB were in NJ last night 5-2 vs Nashville, when the best
Jersey forwards were the 3 stars of the game.
The other 2 Brodeur wins were against the
mighty Leafs, 4-3 at home on Feb 5 and on Jan 29, where he gave up a 3-1 lead and NJ
won it 4-4 in OT with a Zajac goal.The other 7 games were all loses, many of them quite ugly. Feb 10 lost in NJ in OT to Philly, on
Feb 8, also lost to Philly, 3-2 again, blew
a 2-0 lead, lost in 3′rd period. On Feb 6, he
lost 3-1 to H. Lundqvist of NYR and Swedish team goalie. On Feb 2, Devils lost 3-0 in TO but Yanis was in goal. Jan 31, MB lost to
LA in NJ, 3-2 after he was ahead, 2-0. Doughty got the winner in the 3′rd for the Kings. Jan 27 in Buffalo, a shootout loss to
Ryan Miller of Sabres. Miller stopped 39 of 40 shots, Brodeur 30 of 31.On Jan 26, NJ fell
to Ottawa, 3-0. Brodeur stopped 9 out of 12
shots, was pulled and Yanis came in and finished up stopping 6 out of 6 shots.

I’ve just been working backwards over through
the Devils past 10 contests and the results are there for all to see. At the same tme I’ve always
been a Brodeur admirer for all of the games,
the records, the longevity

I too, am hopeful that Getzlaf can make the trip. He’s one of Canada’s top centres, no question. Canada’s announced that Jeff Carter will take Getzlaf’s place and I only think that it’s because they’re similar players. My pick is still St. Louis because he’s a great spark plug-type player that is really smart at both ends of the ice. Too few people really appreciate how good he is. Canada’s going younger this year and Stamkos will always be part of the equation. He might hit 40 goals this year and it’s a testament to how much he’s improved since his rookie season.

In regards to Russia, sure, there are tons of KHL players with NHL experience but the ones who returned are very often ones that don’t believe that they’re getting the money they deserve. Aleksey Morozov, despite being one of the most talented players, only hit 20 goals once in his NHL career before he gave up. Could you imagine if he was Malkin’s winger right now? Anyway, the problem with Russia is defense, because their forwards, other than Datsyuk and Kovalchuk, aren’t exactly Selke material in their own end and their defensemen, other than Volchenkov, aren’t real shut-down types. It creates problems if the Russians can’t score - granted, that’s highly unlikely but it’s a question mark.

I don’t think Russia’s is a systems team like you say, because I think Russia will thrive on individual talent. Their strategy is to attack and attack - whether Ovechkin or any of their snipers chooses to involve his teammates or not is quite irrelevant because they’re all capable of doing everything themselves. I felt that there were better options out there for Russia but because they had promised a significant portion of KHL players they had to cut some NHL players, even if they are better. If you’re looking for systems teams, it has to be Sweden.