By Tyler Atwood on February 8, 2010
For those of you that care about football (remember, I’m a football guy first) . . . hopefully you enjoyed the Super Bowl and the commercials that came along with it. Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for a well-played Super Bowl and a victory that was earned and not handed. What a game! And as a lifelong Denver Broncos fans, all I have to say is . . . I guess the San Diego Chargers never really had a good use for Drew Brees, did they? But enough about football analysis . . . this is a hockey blog.
I had the great honor of being in attendance for Saturday’s tilt between the Blues and the Blackhawks. Despite the result, it was a great time – especially since there were TWO fights in the contest. The first one – pretty much a hug-out between SIR JAXX (Barret Jackman) and Cam Barker (I blame it on Barker . . . he seemed not ready to throw fists, but . . . oh well) – was scored a draw at Fried Chicken’s Hockey Fights, whereas the second fight between Eric Brewer and Andrew Ladd was called in favor of Ladd. The second fight, I thought, was even, but I also am biased (obviously). Jackman is now 1-0-2 on the season and Brewer is now 1-1-0. With the two fights, the Blues did not move up or down in the season standings, holding steady at 5th place with 48 fights on the season and a 21-14-13 season fight record.
The Colorado Avalanche are one of those teams with a mixture of a bit of everything – youth, locker room vets, skill players, tough guys, grinders and big boys. Much like the rest of the Northwest Division, the Avs are not allergic to fighting – they have fought a collective 43 times on the season, good for 7th place in the National Hockey League. However, they do not have a propensity to win fights – they’re 7-14-22 on the season, this despite starting the season 0-8-10. The Blues and Avs did not fight in the previous meeting between the two teams back on December 7th at home.
10 Avs have fought this season, and the leading fighters on the team are wingers Cody McLeod (6′2″, 210lbs, 2-3-8) and David Koci (6′6″, 238lbs, 1-4-5). As you can see, McLeod is big but Koci (who last season was a Blue for, like, five minutes) is much bigger. Center Matt Hendricks (6′0″, 215lbs, 1-3-2) is next on the list, but he is on IR with an ankle issue. Others with multiple fights are winger Chris Stewart (6′2″, 228lbs, 2-0-2), defenseman Ryan Wilson (6′1″, 207lbs, 0-1-2), veteran winger Darcy Tucker (5′10″, 178lbs, 0-1-1) and winger Chris Durno (6′4″, 205lbs, 0-0-2). Among these fighters are 6 of the 7 fight victories the Avs have recorded this season. They LIKE to fight, they just don’t WIN fights.
The dream matchup of the evening involves whichever between Cam Janssen and DJ King plays and either Koci or McLeod. If it’s King, I’d like to see him go at Koci. If it’s Janssen, he and McLeod match up well size-wise. I would also not be against a fight between someone like Jackman and a wily veteran like Tucker, although that’s a bit of a size mismatch.
One road game, then back home. The Blues need to make this one count against a very formidable foe on in Denver.
LET’S GO BLUES!!!!!
Information obtained via the incomparable Fried Chicken’s Hockey Fights
Posted in Articles | Tagged Andrew Ladd, Barret Jackman, Cam Barker, Cam Janssen, Chicago Blackhawks, Chris Durno, Chris Stewart, Cody McLeod, Colorado Avalanche, Darcy Tucker, David Koci, DJ King, Eric Brewer, Matt Hendricks, New Orleans Saints, Ryan Wilson, St. Louis Blues, Super Bowl
By Tyler Atwood on January 27, 2010
Chris Thorburn is all like, "STAY HERE, TANNER!" Image via treehugger.com (of ALL places!)
As expected, the fists flew in Stampede City on Monday night. As anticipated, one of the fights was between Cam Janssen and Brandon Prust. And as we all know he can, Janssen took down Prust, with an impressive finish to boot. Unfortunately, Janssen got involved with Brian McGrattan earlier in a matchup that proved to be a bit much for Cam. So with the 1-1-0 record on the evening, Janssen moves to 8-3-2 on the season. The Blues as a team are now 21-13-11 and hold tight at the 5th spot for number of fights on the season with 45 – only one behind the Tampa Bay Lightning.
So now it’s our “good pals” from Canada’s beautiful Pacific Southwest, the Vancouver Canucks. There have been three games between the two already this season – two at home, one at their place – and all 5 fights that took place were in St. Louis. There were four fights on November 10th – Kevin Bieksa and BJ Crombeen traded victories and Janssen worked a draw with Darcy Hordichuk before defeating Tanner Glass later. In the New Year’s Eve game, Rick Rypien defeated Janssen amid controversy over tape on his hand, which he received a game misconduct for. So Vancouver is 2-2-1 against the Blues this season in fights and they’re 14-9-18 in 41 scraps this season – the 41 fights represents 7th place in the NHL in ‘09-’10.
As most of us know, Vancouver has several players willing to drop the gloves. I count 9 different Canucks with fights – 6 of which have shed the gloves multiple times on the season. The leader of the pack is center Rypien (5′11″, 170lbs, 4-2-5). We are not guaranteed that Rypien will fight in this game, as he just returned on Monday from a bout with food poisoning. We’re also not likely to see defenseman and “old friend”, Bieksa (6′0″, 205lbs, 3-1-1). He is on injured reserve with a leg laceration. Another defenseman who may be out is Willie Mitchell (6′3″, 210lbs, 0-0-2) – he’s day-to-day with a concussion. This leaves us with three other Canucks players involved in multiple fights – wingers Glass (6′0″, 200lbs, 4-2-4) and Hordichuk (6′1″, 215lbs, 3-2-4) and center Ryan Kesler (6′2″, 205lbs, 0-2-0 and fresh off getting destroyed by Andrew Ladd of the Chicago Blackhawks).
There’s still bad blood between these two teams stemming from last year’s playoff series, so you can expect pretty much anything as far as pugilistic activities in this game. But your best bets begin and end with any combination of Janssen, Crombeen or Brad Winchester (who has a lot to prove after his fight on Saturday) against Glass, Hordichuk or Rypien. Maybe we’ll get lucky and David Backes will return to take on a member of someone’s Olympic squad. Since we can eliminate Team Canada goaltender Roberto Luongo, we’ll go to other participating nations: Kesler is a Team USA teammate, Henrik and Daniel Sedin are on Team Sweden, old friend Pavol Demitra is on Team Slovakia and Sami Salo is on Team Finland but is currently day-to-day with a groin issue. The options for Backes are admittedly light here, so if he’s looking for a fight, he may want to sit out one more game. Oh, who am I kidding?! BRING HIM BACK!!!!!
Two in a row in Western Canada? Why, that sure would be swell, wouldn’t it?
LET’S GO BLUES!!!!!
Information obtained via the incomparable Fried Chicken’s Hockey Fights
Posted in Articles | Tagged Andrew Ladd, BJ Crombeen, Brad Winchester, Brandon Prust, Brian McGrattan, Calgary Flames, Cam Janssen, Chicago Blackhawks, Daniel Sedin, Darcy Hordichuk, David Backes, Henrik Sedin, Kevin Bieksa, Pavol Demitra, Rick Rypien, Roberto Luongo, Ryan Kesler, Sami Salo, St. Louis Blues, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tanner Glass, Vancouver Canucks, Willie Mitchell