Sunday, March 26, 2006

 

Trouble in Lotusland: Who's the Rat down south?

As I was treading the blogosphere this mornin', I came across this little doozy of an article from the Florida South-Sentinel while visiting Mirtle's blog.

Steve Gorten, some reporter/journalist/columnist nobody outside of his apartment has heard of, was discussing the infighting among the Canucks players and how this team is going to hell, etc etc

The biggest issue remains Bertuzzi's apparent disinterested play and its effect on fellow forward Markus Naslund. There is a sense that Bertuzzi, notorious for his vicious hit on the Avalanche's Steve Moore in 2003-04, and Naslund have formed their own confederacy within the team and are choosing to spend less time with teammates. That's significant because Naslund is captain and Bertuzzi an alternate captain. Neither had a point in five games until Friday, when each had an assist.
*yawn* OK, nothing new there.

Crawford told the Vancouver Sun: "There certainly is no division in our group. It is a strong group. Because we haven't performed well, yeah, we're a little bit fragile."

Despite those assertions, one former Canucks player, who started the season in Vancouver, privately told a Canucks reporter the situation is 10 times worse than one might think.
Hmm, so if this Steve Gorten isn't lying out of his ass, then we have a rat on our hands.

Who's started the season in Vancouver and is no longer there?

There are the numerous AHLers who have been promoted and demoted to the AHLs Manitoba Moose. These suspects are very unlikely to talk to a reporter from Florida. Also, they aren't truly 'former' Canucks since they are in the organization.

So, guys like Rob McVicar, Lee Goren (who would be the likely candidate to be bitter, if any of these guys were), Tyler Bouck, and Nathan Smith could be suspects, but it's highly unlikely that it would be them.

Who's been traded or waived from the Canucks this season?

Fedor Fedorov
Tomas Mojzis
Steve McCarthy

Unless I am missing anyone obvious, it's a pretty damn short list.

Fedor? He has no love for the Canucks thanks to his stormy relationship with former GM Brian Burke and the fact that the Canucks actually wanted him to work hard and break a sweat. Could it be likely that he'd be the 'rat'? Somewhat, but he hasn't played in the NHL since October. I doubt this reporter is talking to AHL guys.

Tomas Mojzis? Hmm, the Blues play in the Central, and he's a pretty quiet Czech guy. He has never struck me as the kind of guy that would go around whispering about his club. I doubt he has too many bad things to say about Vancouver, since they gave him a real first shot at the NHL and he was quite happy to be here.

Steve McCarthy? *DING*, We *MAY* have a winner.
Plays near Florida? Check. He's now with Atlanta.
Reason to be bitter? Check. Crawford rarely gave him more than a few minutes of ice time every game and their relationship didn't seem to be a good one. It was Steve's childhood dream to play with the Canucks, and now that is gone.

If this exercise seems a bit silly, well it is. Does it matter who made a rather blase anonymous comment to some writer from a South Floridian newspaper? Not really. Does it feed the fire? Somewhat, but how many Canucks fans care what a reporter in Florida thinks? The talk-radio shows here have far worse gossip from 'closer' sources.

On the other hand, it was seemingly pretty easy to narrow the candidates. Remember when the NHL Players poll asked NHL goalies to comment on who they thought where the best goalies among their peer group? The two Colorado goalies (Aebischer and Budaj) both commented anonymously and both commented with the same answer. If you are going to use anonymous sources, try to hide them a bit better than that. Really, it's like saying an anonymous Prime Minister of a North American country thinks poor people should go to hell and die.

---

Could we get a refund or a return on these trades??
Eric Weinrich: 8GP 0-0-0 -7 6PIM
Keith Carney: 8GP 0-1-1 -3 4 PIM
Mika Noronen: 2GP 0-1-0 3.94GAA 86.1 SV%

Comments:
a) we ain't taking the visor back

b) what makes you think the player is a rat??? heck it might be both true AND off the record. this mystery one time canuck player DIDNT speak to the florida paper,he spoke to a canada one,the canadian one didn't print the story, but in mike keenan's box hetalked itup with some florida no name reporters? and that assumeit is a fact based report.
avery scary assumption since what you gave us had no facts...
 
Although I would quickly assume that it was Steve McCarthy, you're making a slight error in geography. Altanta is in fact *nowhere near* "South Florida" Palm Beach, unless you consider a 10-12 hour drive to be "near".

I'm just sayin'. That's all.
 
Dang. Did you actually expect Noronen to be productive? He's always been just *that* side of lousy, and he always will be. What'd you give up for him anyway? A couple rolls of tape and a twetfth round pick in the fantasy football draft?
 
I agree. Why are you lowering yourself with some bar-gossip talk? Skip that till you've absolutely ran dry during the off-season and know nothing else to post. Otherwise stick with qualiy over quantity.

Other options? Why is there no mention of the great fall of the evil Slovan from Bratislava and the rise of a new Czech empire near the Polish border called: Havirov:)

_j-
 
Gossip is just so much fun!!!

As for $lovan... Slovan Usti nad Labem is gonna promote over Vsetin. woooo baby! :)
 
As for Mika, I know his stats have been slightly-below-average for his NHL Career, but I didn't expect this degree of sucktitude. It seems this city truly is a goalie graveyard.
 
Don't count Noronen out. He will likely shock you someday soon. He was pretty spectacular as a world junior.

Why didn't they keep Cloutier around and let him play his Hextall/flyers style beat the crap out of people thing? If I remember correctly, he beat the piss out of Salo at center ice his rookie year, and had some ... anger issues... as a junior too. At least it would put asses in seats, right?
 
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