After a long absence (bloggers get caught up in the Olympic hoopla too you know), Canuckz.com is back with a look at the Olympic hockey tournament. Most notably, what’s wrong with Team Canada, and what is head coach Mike Babock going to do about to fix things?

Brodeur vs Luongo

The pundits have spoken, and they are in almost total agreement: Luongo should start the next game. And I have to say, I agree with them. Brodeur looked shaky against the US and couldn’t stone wall the Swiss. He hasn’t been terrible, but he’s been the 2nd best goalie on the ice in the last two games and that’s not good enough. Put Luongo in net against the Germans and ride him the rest of the way.

The Forward Lines

In my mind, there are too many players playing too many minutes right now. They’ve spread the ice time so evenly amongst the forwards that nobody is finding a groove. Sidney Crosby is their star and he should be playing 20+ minutes. They’ve also got to find him a winger (please not Bergeron, thanks).  The San Jose Shark line in my mind is also getting too much respect at the moment. Heatley is scoring, but what has Joe Thornton done? To answer my own question, Thornton has produced one assist. That’s it.

Babcock has to find a way to get Jarome Iginla and Jonathan Toews more involved. They’ve played great and have received minimal ice time.

Here’s what Mike Babcock is expected to go with against Germany:

Staal-Crosby-Iginla

Perry-Getzlaf-Nash

Marleau-Thornton-Heatley

Richards-Toews-Morrow

Bergeron

Defense

By “defense” I mean both team defense and their defensemen. Babcock needs to play his top guys as much as possible and go with 6 defensemen. You can’t play with 7 d-men without throwing everyone’s rhythm off. In the realm of team defense, they need to be blocking a lot more shots. Shot blocking, along with goaltending, was the difference in the game against the US. The US got their shots through at will, while Canada’s point men had a terrible time trying to put pucks on net.

Canada should beat Germany, and if they do, Russia will be waiting for them. It’s the worst case scenario for this team, but it is not an obstacle they are not capable of overcoming.

So with news of Tiger taking a hiatus from golf because everyone and their daughter has “transgressed” with him, I had a random thought.. If anything remotely like this happened to an NHL star, would anyone (outside of hardcore hockey fans) give a flying crap? What would it take for the mainstream media, and more importantly the National Enquirers and TMZes of the world, to take notice and publish an article or two?

Well, here’s a quick short list of NHL stars and what/who I think they’d have to do to get noticed:

• 1) Alexander Ovechkin – making Kournikova (where the heck is she?) and Sharapova his bitches.. and prancing them around with him
• 2) Sidney Crosby – caught lip-locking with Daniel Radcliffe. Harry Potter sucks and so does Crosby.
• 3) Evgeni Malkin – caught lip-locking with Emma Watson. At least she’s now legal.
• 4) Sedin Twins – dating each other.
• 5) Joe Thornton – having an affair with Kristy Yamaguchi.

Got a good one? Leave a comment and add to the list! The NHL needs more scandal and pub!!

Have you seen the big Pepsi marketing campaign asking for Canadians to submit a new cheer for cheering on Team Canada in 2010? Essentially they wanted Canadians (or customers) to come up with a Canadian equivalent to “U-S-A U-S-A!” or “Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!!!”. Well, it seems as though they’ve come up with a cheer. Canada, get ready for… “Eh-Oh-Canada-Go“.

Hopefully you haven’t leaped up from your computer with excitement and are continuing to read this blog. Seriously though, is that the best they could come up with? No chance in hell that this gets off the ground. It has about the same chance as this cheer sticking:

The cheer they came up with sounds lame, is too long, it doesn’t mean anything, in a nutshell: it’s just brutal.

Not that it ever had a chance. I’d be embarrassed if we used any cheer that originated from a Pepsi marketing campaign. This is one of those ideas that sounds good in a boardroom meeting with the Pepsi marketing staff, but in reality it would never work. So can we just stick with “Go Canada Go” please? It won’t sell as much Pepsi, but it’ll work a hell of a lot better.

Speaking of Team Canada, it’s interesting in seeing how hockey experts are picking much different looking rosters for 2010. Eric Staal and Vincent Lecavalier looked to be locks for the team in the summer. Right now, they look like long shots. How many people were picking Steve Stamkos and Ryan Smyth in the summer? Not many, but they’re being picked by many now. The pick that really seems to be en vogue at the moment is Jonathan Toews, and I just don’t get it. He’ll be a star in the future, but right now how does he supplant guys like Crosby, Getzlaf, Thornton, etc. on a scoring line or a guy like Mike Richards on a checking line? The best reason to have him on the team in my opinion would be because of his shootout prowess.

We won’t have to wait too much longer for the announcement of Team Canada, the decision will come on New Year’s Eve. In the meantime, enjoy the predictions.

The Western Conference just got a lot tougher for Luongo & Co. Dany Heatley has finally been traded, as rumoured, to the San Jose Sharks. San Jose gave up Milan Michalek, Jonathan Cheechoo and a 2nd round pick in the deal. They didn’t just acquire Heatley, they stole him. A perennial  50 goal scorer in return for two players who have highly inflated numbers playing with Joe Thornton. Even considering that, their numbers weren’t very good last year: 57 points for Michalek and 29 points for Cheechoo. Cheechoo has to be one of the most overrated players in the NHL, due to his fluke 50 goal campaign playing alongside Thornton. He’s been on the decline ever since and isn’t so young anymore (he’s 29). Despite questionable character, it’s hard to imagine that Ottawa couldn’t have gotten more in return.

So it looks like holding out for a better team worked for Heatley. The question for Sens fans is, what was the better deal: the one with the Oilers or the one with the Sharks? It’s certainly debatable. The deal with Edmonton would have landed Andrew Cogliano, Ladislav Smid and Dustin Penner. I think I might have preferred the Edmonton deal, mainly for the upside of Cogliano. What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.

In the latest development in what can now be considered an unusual career, the pride of Salmon Arm, Dave Scatchard will be trying out with the Canucks in training camp. Scatchard began his career with Vancouver as a 21 year old in 1997. He was a 2nd round pick of Pat Quinn (makes sense, Pat Quinn LOVED picking big centres, regardless of skill sometimes), but only proved to be a serviceable checking centre with some bad Canucks teams of the late 90s.

Scatchard was part of the trade that was supposed to fix the Canucks goaltending woes (of course it didn’t) when he was shipped off with Bill Muckalt and Kevin Weekes for Felix Potvin. With the Islanders, Scatchard had 4+ productive seasons, notching 27 goals in 2002-03. Inexplicably, his career took a nose dive after the lockout. He signed a big four year contract with Boston, was traded to Phoenix after only 16 games, and then had two sub-par seasons with the Coyotes before getting his contract bought out. Injuries contributed to this, but he still had an amazingly quick exit from the league, playing his last NHL game at only age 31.

Scatchard is only 33 years old at the moment, which should suggest that he may have something to give. That being said, I would be downright shocked if he made the team with players like Ryan Johnson and Rick Rypien already signed to contracts. Best case scenario for Scatchard: he signs a league minimum salary two-way deal and then gets called-up to play on the 4th line when Rick Rypien inevitably gets injured. If he gets that and shows what he can do, maybe he can get his NHL career back on track. It’d be great to see him make it back in the league, but I just don’t see it happening.

My best memory of Scatchard will ALWAYS be when he fought Joe Thornton…