Little People Can do Big Things Playoff Preview: The Defence Thing

BIRTH PLACE
74	JOHN CARLSON	6' 3"	208	JAN 10, 1990	20	NATICK, MA, USA
77	JOE CORVO	6' 0"	204	JUN 20, 1977	32	OAK PARK, IL, USA
4	JOHN ERSKINE	6' 4"	220	JUN 26, 1980	29	KINGSTON, ON, CAN
52	MIKE GREEN	6' 1"	204	OCT 12, 1985	24	CALGARY, AB, CAN
26	SHAONE MORRISONN	6' 4"	217	DEC 23, 1982	27	VANCOUVER, BC, CAN
3	TOM POTI "A"	6' 3"	197	MAR 22, 1977	33	WORCESTER, MA, USA
55	JEFF SCHULTZ	6' 6"	230	FEB 25, 1986	24	CALGARY, AB, CAN
89	TYLER SLOAN	6' 4"	204	MAR 15, 1981	29	CALGARY, AB, CAN

Ok we're fucked. Caps in 4.

Relax, tell us what your really feeling: We're fucked, Caps in 4

Size. There are more 6's in the guys' dimensions than in a house of evil. Whatever that means.

They can move the puck forward. But do not be fooled, Overall, this is not necessarily an offense minded defence corps. It begins with Mike Green but as far as the Canadian Olympic team goes, the puck doesn't stop with him. Is it really necessary to single out Green's soft play on the back end when he knows that the most potent offense in the league has more than enough to bail out any lacklustre manifestations of shitty D. You won't find me crapping on Green and his 76 points. His 76 points are awesome, all 76 of them so spare me the he doesn't skate back lingo. He can skate wherever he wants with those 76 points.

That makes the Caps lethal on the PP.

But D is where they are vulnerable.

But how vulnerable?:, It's hard to say. Your Caps of today are the Oilers of yesterday. So insanely talented and deep up front that they don't need anything more than Grant Fuhr or Marty Mcsorley. The 6 D are big and intimidating. But they are flawed. In a playoff series, in a tight checking environment, they're going to have to find better chemistry than the one hatched out of the Boudreau lab which saw the team concede 233 goals in the regular season. That's 10 more than your Habs.

Yes i know the Caps scored about 300 more goals than the Habs this season:But the Caps struggle on the PK, 25th overall, so all in all we're about to find out if the Caps' misery lies behind their blue line or their goal line.

Now what about our little dwarves in their mini red white an blue jerseys:Marc-André Bergeron. I don't know where he gets the chutzpah to unleash the canon he possesses with the tiny frame he carries around. But the Urologist makes me miss Sheldon Souray's defensive qualities.

The Habs finally learned something they hadn't managed to do yet. Learn how to play and survive without Andrei Markov. It made Josh Gorges a man. My unsung hero of the year. The boy takes a violent and head shattering rocket to the ear and punches in the next day. Very reliable. Totally authentic with the media, the best sound bite on this team. An emerging leader and my choice for captain had Brian Gionta not emerged as the second coming of good orgasms.

Markov, a total package - the real key to the power play, and maybe to the entire team's fortunes as the Habs seem to live and die with the PP.

Things slow down from there and this is where the Caps should hurt the Habs tremendously. Will we have nightmares of Ovie rushing in on Spacek and Hamrlik? Can Hal Gill regain the playoff poise that saw him protect the lead in the dying seconds of last year's game 7 of the Stanley Cup final?

Boss! They playin, they playin!: Who's got the edge at the back end? Corvo, Poti, both household names with their former teams, but both unproven in a Caps jersey. Montreal's squad is more stable but it still has to face the best player in the game, another 100-point getter, 6 more 20-goal scorers, the league's top scoring defenceman and a pounding from a fast, grinding relentless system that produced one of the best point tallies in NHL history.

Beating the Caps because of their weaker D? It's not impossible. It's unthinkable.

Little People Can Do Big Things Playoff Preview: The Forwards

Little People Can Do Big Things Playoff Preview: The Forwards

Playoffs!!! Ovie!!! Backstrom!!!! Our very own Lollipop Guild!!!! Brooks Fuckin Laich!!!! Travis Moen!!!! The possible return of Metro's powerplay goals!!!!

That's a lot of stuff to get through in the forwards preview, so we better get to it.

Look, we dropped a house on that bitch with the shoes, we sure as hell can score on Jose Theodore: The Habs are going as far as the Lollipop Guild and the rest of the runts take them, right? I mean, Jaro can be Jaro, the defence is expecting to get swamped, but they need to get to Theo/Varlamov and score goals to win this thing. Gainey's big makeover resulted in roughly two million "Hobbits/Munchkins/Ewoks/Roloff family" jokes from opposing fans this year but to paraphrase Norman Dale, "these are your forwards". Oh, and these are your Big Red Machine opponents forwards too:

Lollipop Guild vs Ivan Drago and friends: Gomez and Gionta, Cammy and Pleks, random assorted wingers (usually Chicken and Big Tits respectively, but sometimes Little Tits gets on the Pleks line, sometimes Travis Moen wanders up from the depth chart, even Metro when healthy is found mucking along a wing. I think Dominic Moore too.) These are the little, speedy wagons the Canadiens hitched their playoff lives to. Pleks started the year on fire and finished as leading scorer, almost pricing himself out of town, but since the Olympics has slowed considerably and might be tired. Cammy was full-value for his contract until he got hurt and had 26 goals despite missing 17 games, but has struggled since his return (2 assists in 11 games.) Big Tits is the new enigma: talented enough to be drafted ahead of (roll call) Zach Parise, Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, Dustin Brown and Brent Seabrook, but daft enough to zone out for weeks. An engaged Big Tits and on-target Cammalleri would go a long way to re-energizing Pleks. Gomez and Gionta found a perfect fit with Benoit Pouliot and the Giant Mexican Chicken produced some excellent hockey. Gionta is rapidly becoming every non-110% fans favourite for his guts, goals and leadership. 29 says slap the C on him now. 29 is right. Gionta missed 20 games with a broken foot and scored 28 goals ... tell me a full year of him and Cammalleri doesn't add a few more wins to the ledger. If the Habs top two lines can find the chemistry they both had at various points this season, and can add Metro back to fire away on the power play, they can score on the Caps. Which is a good thing because they are facing:

Ovie (50 goals, 109 points). And Backstrom (33 goals, 68 assists). And Semin (40 goals, 84 points). And Brooks Fucking Laich scored 25, Mike Knuble opened up more space for Ovie and Backstrom and potted 29, and Thomas Fleischman added 23. This is not your father's Dennis Maruk lead Capitals. The top two lines are fast and skilled and strong. On the plus side, Ovie was relatively quiet in the regular season versus Montreal. On the minus side, well, look at the freaking numbers up there.

Advantage: Unless the Habs all find their scoring touch at the same time, the top two lines are in tough trying to match Ovie and the rest. The Laich line is definitely not a pushover for whomever lines up against it.

The Rest: The bottom two lines of the Caps shouldn't really scare anyone ... unless the Habs bottom two lines play the rudderless mess they sometimes can. Maybe familiarity breeds confidence, but I don't see how the likes of a washed-up Brendan Morrison, Eric Belanger, Eric Fehr (his 21 goals notwithstanding), Jason Chimera, Matt Bradley and David Steckel are that much better than Dominic Moore, Metro, Travis Moen, workaholic Mathieu Darche, Mad Max (the good Mad Max, mind you) and the wild card, Little Tits. Sergei might be the key; there isn't anyone in either team's bottom six with anywhere near the talent he has, and if he can make plays, set Metro up in the slot, and offer some menace in the offensive zone, the bottom six of the Canadiens could cause some trouble to the Caps shaky d. I think.

Advantage: Having seen very little of the Caps this year, I'll say Montreal. But it won't matter if Ovie and Backstrom are playing Cheka to the Habs "enemies of the people" upstairs.

Other stuff: The Caps powerplay is lethal; the Habs powerplay (despite a protracted slump) finished second in the league to Washington. But Moore, Metropolit, Pleks, Gomez and Moen are far better at killing penalties than the Caps. Dominic Moore's speed in particular might go a long way to neutralizing some of the Caps big guns a man down. Something to think about.

Mike Green: Yeah, TECHNICALLY he's a defenseman. But I'm technically a Catholic and look where that gets you. Green sometimes looks like a fourth Caps forward since he skates like the wind, scores a lot, and sometimes neglects his own zone, so I'm talking about him. If the Caps are playing with Green as a de facto forward, the advantage goes way up.

The Tits are Broken - Caps preview and open thread

Remember that one game when the Habs had just about a full lineup? Good times. Don't ever expect to see that again at this rate. Both Tits brothers did not make the trip to Washington for this game. They are both described as having lower body injuries and day to day. "Lower body" and "day to day" translates to "we don't have a fucking clue what's going on with these injuries." Sergei was just starting to work hard, and Andrei had really brought his A game to the first line. Now they're out, and we can't score (see the Buffalo game). No worries, I'm sure we won't need to scrore any goals against the Caps.

Waiting in line for a support bra details - 8:00 PM start in Saskatoon. 7 PM start in the other Phone Booth. Habs are o for 1 in 2010. Caps riding a three-game losing streak. The teams have each won one on the other team's ice this season.

I heard the tits in DC are the tits - The Caps Nut predicts that the Habs will win tonight 4-2. Wow, such honesty! In thanks for that, I predict the Habs will lose tonight, 5-0.

Hot like that perfect pair of of 34C's - Jordan Eberle leads Canada with 11 points in the tourney while presumptive #1 pick Taylor Hall has 9. Derek Stepan has 12 for the Americans. Wait, what? Gomez has 9 points in 6. TFS has been excellent in his last 2 games, a .969 save %. For the Caps, Ovie (quelle suprise) has 12 points in his last 6 and Olympic snub Mike Green 6 points in 5.

My, your nipples are erect! Must be chilly - While SuperPleks has points recently, he seems to be a bit off in the last couple of games. Not sure what it is. Anyone seen the Urologist since he moved to forward? For the Caps, Semin pointless in 3, and they have serious goalie issues lately. Won't help us.

In need of some reconstructive surgery - Leading Canadian D Travis Hamonic is out after getting blindsided against the Swiss. STOP THAT. Besides the aforementioned Titses, Rhino has gone to B.C. for family reasons. The lineup should be the same as Sunday, including TFS as the starter.

Post game entertainment - just change the fucking channel to TSN already.

Keep one hand on the clicker and one hand typing comments

Ten Things I Hate About ... the Boston Bruins

My God this thing is ugly.

[Ed.'s note: this post was written by HF10, who is too busy getting drunk in prep for tonight to post himself. I also just noticed there are two #8's - I guess HF10 wanted 11 things. He really hates the Bruins.]

While every week is technically Bruins Hate Week at FHF Headquarters, the almost annual playoff showdown rachets up the hate quotient to another level. So in the fine tradition of apparently hating the rest of the Eastern seaboard...

10. 1979. Too many men on the ice. You had a collective tightening of the sphincter when leading the champs late in game 7, took the most inexcusable penalty in the book because of someone's brain cramp, and lost in overtime. It's over. Quit fucking whining about it, for fuck's sake (Harry Sinden, we are looking in your direction!) You probably would have lost to the fucking Rangers in the final anyway.

9. Swindled the Canucks by handing them injured, overrated, one-career-year Barry Pederson for noted Habs Killer Cam Fucking Neely AND the 3rd overall pick in the draft (Glen Wesley). Jesus. Manhattan for a string of beads and some firewater was less of a robbery. (Incidentally, this trade is going to rank number 2 on the "Ten Things I Hate About the Canucks" right below "Choose a fucking colour scheme and logo and fucking stick to it!")

8. Hey, speaking of Cam Neely ... nobody, and I mean nobody terrified me more as a Habs fan than Cam Neely. But if I hear one more goddamn Boston fan tell me how he was the greatest power forward ever it will be time for a killing spree across New England. Neely had a five year run that featured three very good seasons and two outstanding seasons receiving passes from uber-set up man Craig Janney, then had 50 goals in 44 games after returning from a terrible thigh injury. What Boston fans neglect to mention was Neely took every second game off that year to protect his injured thigh and had assist machine Adam Oates feeding him pucks. Devastating player? Sure. Habs killer? No doubt. Greatest ever? Fuck that. A Mr. Gordon Howe on line one, morons.

8. The Bruins retired Terry O'Reilly's jersey. Terry O'Reilly? It's like the Habs deciding to retire Mario Tremblay's jersey. (Well, not exactly. Tremblay won five Cups. O'Reilly? Zero.)

7. Gillies Gilbert. Gerry Cheevers. Reggie Lemelin. Pete Peeters. Andy Moog. How many damn times has a middling goalie with a spoked B on his jersey given the Habs fits? Here's hoping Tim Thomas never joins the party. (I know, Cheevers is in the Hall of Fame. I still never liked the fat little bastard.)

6. Ray Bourque leaves the Bruins after 20 years in search of a Cup. He wins it in Colorado. The city of Boston organizes and pays for a celebration where Bourque parades the Cup in front of wildly cheering Bruins fans. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???!!!?!?! If the Habs ever go 25 years without a Cup, trade their captain away so he can win one, and he brings it back to the city wearing his new jersey on the mayor's dime, I hope to hell he dies in a hail of gunfire on stage and city hall gets burned to the ground. Bruins fans should be ashamed.

5. Zdeno Chara is a big, dumb, jackass. That is all.

4. Actually, the Bruins have cornered the market on jackasses for years. O'Reilly. Mad Mike Milbury. Stan Jonathan. John Wensink. Derek Sanderson. Wayne Cashman. Don Cherry. 21st century jackasses like Chara, Shawn Thornton and rookie shit disturber Milan Lucic. What the hell is in the water in Boston?

3. Most evil man in the history of hockey? It might be Bruins legend Eddie Shore. A 4-time Hart trophy winner as a defencman, Shore might be better known as a tyrannical AHL coach and owner or as a frequently suspended cheap shot artist. His most notorious transgression ended the career of Leafs star and former scoring champ Ace Bailey. After being decked with a clean hit from Toronto's Red Horner, Shore charged up ice and levelled the first Leaf he saw (Bailey) from behind. Bailey fractured his skull, went into a coma, and never played again. Shore played seven more years and is revered as part of the Bruins defensive Holy Trinity with Orr and Bourque. Classy.

2. 24-7. That's the Habs current all-time playoff series record against the Bruins. 5 of 7 Boston wins have occurred in the last twenty years. That fucking pisses me off.

1. The Bruins are the anti-Habs; Dirty, lunch-bucket toting, grinding, defensive and thuggish in equal measures for most of their existence. Their fans are loud, boorish, and proud of their heritage of hostility and rats the size of dogs roaming the halls of the dump that was the Boston Garden. The Bruins clutch, and grab, and start scrums after whistles, and are the black-hearted, black and gold wearing brutes of the NHL.

The Canadiens are Les Glorieux; the Flying Frenchmen. The bleu-blanc-et-rouge standard bearers of speed, talent and passion for 100 years. For 80 years these two polar opposites have waged war; are you to tell me that there is an enemy we can hate more? There is not.

Play Your Tits Off - The FHF Round One Preview: Our Fast Forwards

Here now, a look at the men who comprise the lines that will make it happen for both teams. Hopefully, just one team.

The big ones : This is a Kovalev vs. Savard matchup, with the best forward on each team determined to will their squad into the second round. If the last game in Boston was any indication it was Kovy who took a page out of the Savardian Spinarama Book. Savard is the most underrated player in the league. He can do it alone. But can he carry the load on his injured back? The Habs have 4 balanced lines that can all provide scoring and toughness. Glen Murray was once a Habs killer, and will again try to take on that role. Has age slowed him down to a point of irrelevance? Never tempt fate. Leading goal scorer Marco Sturm may want to replace Murray as the Harpooner of Habs. In the end, after a wonderful season, the stage is set for a Kovalev show of brilliance.

Oh, look at the little ones: Little Tits should enjoy the room to skate in this series. The Bruins do like to apply a tight defensive chokehold on their opponent but this has not figured prominently in any of the teams’ matchups this year. The Bruins are not the Devils, so let’s ease up a bit on this billing. Will Grabovski play a game? While he take the flight to Boston if he doesn’t? “No coach, I don’t fly coach”. Pleks is a few hours away from elevating his status to legitimate star in this league if he can produce in the playoffs in his first experience as the team’s number 1 center.

The seasoned veterans: Smolinski, Bégin. Think Mike Keane. Think a player who turns on the jets in the playoffs and provides all the leadership required to motivate and inspire. All eyes are on these two to lead the way, and pummel through intense battles across the ice.

Virgin pleasures: Kessel is fairly new to this and can explode into stardom with an inspired performance against Boston's arch rivals. Milan Lucic can pound his way into the hearts of Bostonians if he starts to use his size adequately. Latendresse, Lapierre, Grabs, The Big Tits, The Smaller Ones, Rhino, all huge contributors to this team, with a combined 0 minutes of NHL playoff experience. Like Pleks, Big Tits can now draw incredible attention to himself by demonstrating to the rest of the league what we in Montreal already know: we've got a special one here. Back off Kevin Lowe. Forget logic folks, think 86, please for the love of God, think 86. Is Mike Lalor around?

Aching all over: Saks and the broken foot deserve the Beckham treatment Becks received before the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea, where the Queen had blessed his metatarsal. Can someone please ask Stephen Harper to hit a church or something? If the Habs take a 2-0 lead in the series, forget about Captain K for this round. That would be great news. If the team delivers brain cramps galore, he’ll play, broken foot, blind spot in his eye and all. And he’ll probably play amazingly well. That’s Saku and that’s why we love him, with all the heterosexual man love we can muster. Savard is not playing at 100%, then again neither is anyone after 6 months of pounding professional hockey. If Patrice Bergeron returns then it’s on team management’s head because Boston would be taking a Huge risk. How good will he be in the intensity of the playoffs after a full year off? What about the risk of re-injury amidst these furious playoff battles? Stay home Patrice…both of you.

Play Your Tits Off - The FHF Round One Preview: Goaltenders

Boston's Tiny Tim is going to need to carry his team on his back.

Undoubtedly the most important position in all of sports (not that I'm biased), FHF turns it's in-depth "analysis" to the teams' respective goaltenders, Carey Price - aka The Franchise Saviour (tm), and Tim Thomas - aka Tiny Tim.

Age: TFS is 20, TiTi will be 34 in a week.
EDGE: TFS is green, TiTi is a geezer (sorry HF29). Let's call this a draw.

Playoff experience: both TFS and TiTi go into this series with zero NHL playoff games. In TT's entire professional career, however, he's played 31 career playoff games - and only 2 of those were on this side of the pond. Meanwhile, everyone is Montreal knows by now that TFS led the Hamilton Bulldogs to the Calder Cup last year in the AHL, playing in 22 games. Plus, TFS is cool as a Chicoutimi cucumber and it seems unlikely that he will be rattled too badly or too long by his first playoff NHL experience. Plus it's not like there is no precedent for a 20 year old carrying a team to a Cup. But a soon-to-be 34-year old journeyman?

EDGE: TFS.

Size/Durability: TFS is 6'3", 225 pounds. TiTi is 5'11" and 180 pounds. Who's going to stand up to being run 30 times a night when goalie interference calls require use of a firearm?

EDGE: TFS - his frame guarantees that a couple of pucks a game will simply hit him even if he doesn't react to a shot, which is critical when there are 2 guys with their ass in

Style: TFS is a prototype hybrid goalie, while TiTi style can best be described as "Hasekian" - i.e. calculated guesses and allot of scrambling. The difference is, TiTi doesn't guess right nearly as often as the Dominator at his peak.
EDGE: it's easy (and tempting) to give this one to TFS too, but I'm calling it a draw because when TiTi is guessing right, he can look like Hasek, and he's more prone to streaky play - and I'm not going to tempt fate (and piss off HF10) given the list of marginal Bruins' keepers who stole playoff series against the CH.

Team support: much has been made of the Bruins' commitment to team defence as they cut their goals against by something like 350 goals under Julien. But this category is more about the goalie's place in the team . Remember in TFS's first start against Pittsburgh, when guys were throwing themselves in front of shots to ensure he picked up the win? Meanwhile, the Bruins GM had so much confidence in TiTi before the year that he traded for an assaholic goalie with spaghetti for knee ligaments to be his starter.

EDGE: TFS. You can just see how Montreal has adapted their game to his play. This is TFS's team, not doubt about it (HueT who?). It seems like TiTi is slotted into the backup role every pre-season (next year it could be behind Tuuka Rask).

Intangibles: TiTi has something to prove as he's been doubted all season, where I don't think TFS really does. TFS is getting all the hype, and if I where TiTi I'd be pissed off and looking to prove something. Let's hope TiTi isn't like me (well, maybe if you've ever seen me play...).

EDGE: TiTi.

Backups: burgeoning FHF cult hero Jaro vs. Alex Auld. I'm betting that it is more likely to see Mr. Auld than Jaro. Good for us, because when Jaro's riding the bench he has more time to do interviews with HF4.

EDGE: Auld has more experience, even if he hasn't played an NHL playoff game either.

PREDICTION: TiTi is pulled at least once in the series, and by the end of April TFS can pretty much walk into the back room of any strip club in Montreal any time he wants, sans wallet (and pants).

Play Your Tits Off Preview - A Video Break with The Mullet

While we await our goalie and forward previews, we thought we'd check out what others have to say about the series. In my search of the internet, I have yet to find one person picking the Bruins. Even the Boston Globe has the Habs in 6. To me, this is a bad sign. Of course, everything to me is a bad sign. Enjoy Barry Melrose.

Play Your Tits Off - The FHF Round One Preview: Defence

Francis Bouillon poses with Zdeno Chara.

Habs - with DOOM in the lineup, you would have to say this corps has it all. A scoring touch in All-Star Andrei Markov (we never did came up with a good nickname), DOOM as the physical presence, Hamr as the veteran presence, Franky B as the energy presence, Rhino as the rookie presence, and the rest. Without DOOM in the lineup, we've got the Breezer presence. Pray for DOOM to be in the lineup.

The stripper they be - an up and coming 22-year old brunette who's getting her shit together and may show signs of brilliance on any given night. You're happy to lay out a few tens, but still feel her best is yet to come.

B's - as a unit pretty stingy, ranking ahead of the Habs in goals against (barely), though that might be due to Julien's defence-first system. Individually it's all about the big man, who while he may be somewhat maligned, still logged 27 minutes a game and was the B's third-leading scorer with 51 points. I don't know any other Bruins D.

The stripper they be - a solid if unspectacular performer you can rely on, but you're not pretending she likes you or anything.

Edge - with DOOM 100%, Habs for sure. Without DOOM, much closer.

Play Your Tits Off - The FHF Round One Preview: Intro

Did you know if you type "tits + Habs" in Google Image Search 14 out of 18 pics on the first page are from FHF? Big surprise.

Welcome to Play Your Tits Off, the FHF preview of the Broons-Habs Eastern Conference Quarterfinal Extravaganza (ECQE) starting tomorrow night. We've got big plans for you, dear FHF reader. We'll take a look at the forwards, the defence, and the goalies for both teams, and then wrap it all up with the FHF fave, "10 Things I Hate About the Bruins." It'll undoubtedly be stripperriffic. To start you off, let's hit the HF29 preferred mode of discourse, the bullet point, to set the table:

• Habs are 8-0 against the B's this year, as if you didn't know that already;
• Habs are 24-7 in playoff series against the Bruins all-time;
• The coaches - Carbo won 3 Cups as a player, that's something I guess. I always thought Julien got the shaft around here. He actually led the Habs to a miracle 3-1 down series comeback against these very same B's in a 2004. Whoa, dude;
• The wounded - DOOM has not been cleared to play yet, Saku might show up soon, but Ryder should be ok to go. I would have preferred one of the other two. For Boston, we may yet see Bergeron and Savard both making early appearances.

Hey! Scroll down, Panger wrote something in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is 'cause there is no title, but it has a bevy of hot babes in bikinis.