DGA's Devils Team Awards

"Hey, Boulton, we shoot at THAT net this period..."

This afternoon, the Devils held their annual team awards, which as always, was rigged.  Zach Parise won team MVP (umm...), Adam Henrique and Bryce Salvador tied for unsung hero and Johan Hedberg won the Player's Player award for the 179th straight year.  So I'm here to fix all this rigging nonsense.  Here's the uncensored version of the Devils' 2011-12 team awards.


Team MVP Candidates:


Peter Harrold - Without him, the Devils would have to let Adam Larsson play, and according to Pete DeBoer, that's a bad thing.  Plus, Peter (Harrold) has so much experience winning in Los Angeles.

Mattias Tedenby - While he only lasted 43 games this season, he managed to pick up a -15...plus/minus rating (not golf score).  The Devils' shortest player's lack of offensive production made sure that the Devils didn't have a third line that could score until the All-Star break.

Kurtis Foster - Although he was terrible in his own end, the Devils' power play's best stretch of the season came with Foster at the point, which according to someone, somewhere, makes him better than Marek Zidlicky.

Winner: Harrold.  Why?  Well, for starters, he's the only one of the three left on the Devils' NHL roster...

Remembering the 2011-12 regular season

The next GM of the Montreal Canadiens...very hard at work.

For 14 of the NHL's 30 teams, this is the final week of their season.  After this week, they'll all go
their separate ways for the summer.  In other words, they'll all go to various golf courses until September, apparently.  So let's take a look at the teams that will not be taking part in the playoffs, and remember each of their seasons.


Montreal Canadiens - This season has been "échec" in Montreal, or as Randy Cunneyworth likes to say: failure.  But hey, at least they got their money's worth out of Scott Gomez this season!


New York Islanders - The Long Island rebuild continues.  Or maybe it hasn't started yet, since Nassau Coliseum is unfortunately still standing.  With their young talent, they should be good in the near future.  Maybe...


Columbus Blue Jackets - This season was the beginning and end of Jeff Carter's career in Columbus.  What's quite unfortunate is that if Rick Nash gets traded, the Jackets might have to force Steve Mason into the All-Star Game in their own building next season.


Tampa Bay Lightning - Guy Boucher gave up on the 1-3-1 midway through the season, but those five minutes of stalemate in the Flyers game easily cost Steven Stamkos two or three goals.

Signs that hockey season is approaching

I didn't lie.  The title of this post is "Signs that hockey is back."  Here's a sign.

Whether you're celebrating your team acquiring a big free agent, mourned in the sorrow of tragedy that struck so many times this year or just wondered what the hell your team was thinking, we're all hockey fans and hockey is back.  Well, it's almost back.  It's close enough to being back that I felt like writing this post.  Here are some signs (figuratively) that hockey is back.

• Your team's official website has real news on a daily basis.  Instead of summer-quality news, such as "this game will be moved from 3 PM to 7 PM," there's real news, such as "check out this player's new skates."
• ESPN starts talking about pre-season basketball.
• All of your friends are participating in fantasy football drafts while you wait for your fantasy hockey league's draft.
• Hockey fans stop tweeting about how their lawn looks too overgrown and more about possible line combinations.
• You feel an earthquake, but soon realize it's just Dustin Byfuglien arriving in Winnipeg.
• The Islanders' first round draft pick arrives at Nassau Coliseum for the very first time...and vomits when he sees it.
• John MacLean is sighted in a local Newark parking lot with a bag full of jelly jars with him.
• The Stanley Cup completes its summer with the championship players and returns to Toronto...to the Hall of Fame, of course.
• Marian Gaborik starts to feel a pain in his.......somewhere.
• Don Cherry buys a large bucket of tie dye paint and some plain suits.
• TSN's journalists discuss the annual "Is this the year a Canadian team wins a Cup" article, considers the teams that play in Canada and burns the article.
• The Florida Panthers start releasing marketing campaigns that sound like they were thought of by Gary Bettman on a bad day.
• Fires start breaking out in Vancouver again.
• People in Florida think hurricane season is over, but people in North Carolina know that Hurricane season is about to start.
• Ridiculous hockey bloggers start to get back to their strict routine of posting whenever they feel like posting.