Reddaye

Why didn't I take Milan Lucic in my pool? 12 points from him alone last night when you include PIMs, and now I'm twenty points behind the first place team . Should have clued in about how physical the series with Montreal would be, and then could have cashed in on the PIMs that resulted. Pronger, my 'enforcer PIM whore' didn't take a single penalty last night despite the Ducks being a penalty machine. I really hope this isn't the type of team Burke is looking to build in Toronto...they spend more time in the box than is really needed.

Also, it's looking less and less likely Toronto is going to net Matt Gilroy. Seems that he's looking for a pretty fat wad of cash (I've been seeing reports of $3 million, but that seems to be a bit much). Hopefully Burke sticks to his guns and doesn't overpay for a guy who is still just one big question mark. He dominated NCAA hockey...but he's also twenty five years old. You sort of expect someone his age to play above and beyond 18-22 year olds.

EDIT: A fan at the Bruins game tries to steal Kovalev's stick.

Can't we all just get along? :'(

Good game in Boston. Montreal are going to have a tough time bouncing back from that loss, even if they did hang in there pretty well. Boston played pretty poorly in the third period until Chara lowered the boon and blasted that shot in on the power play.

Columbus got dissected. Maybe they should stop batting the puck into their own net, and give Mason a bit more support. Osgood looked to be in form, although he wasn't challenged a whole lot. Wings looked to shut Nash down, and effectively eliminated about 60% of the Jackets' offense as a result.

Great game in Boston right now. That first Bruins goal was a bit testy, IMO. Looked like Price had it covered, and it got poked out of his mitt to me. Laraque is being effective without being a liability. Some really great hockey being played in this game.

Jackets vs. Wings is putting me to sleep...like all Red Wings games do. Osgood is looking as sharp as a tack, but so is Mason. I'm expecting a low scoring affair here.

They don't have a good team or else they'd have made the playoffs sometime in the last 4 years.

I don't disagree in the least, and have never disputed it. It's just funny to hear fans of a team with more talent than ours that finished lower in the overall standings than us claiming Tomas Kaberle isn't worth a first round pick, etc. Surely Basha even you must admit that Kaberle isn't the useless pile of dung so many people make him out to be. Not sure why I brought up the Stajan comment, although I think 'suck' is too harsh a word for him. He's a solid guy.

Then again this is the same group of fans that say their first round pick this year is worth a "80 or 90 point player + a first round pick," so they're obviously delusional. You rarely find anything resembling coherent hockey discussion on the HF Boards anyways.

I also agree that Sundin is quite overrated, but he's still miles better than anyone who's laced up skates for LA since Gretzky left, outside of maybe Kopitar a few years down the road.

Also: Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer need to get a boat load of points (and PIMs in Pronger's case) before the Sharks eliminate the Ducks in the first round. MY HOCKEY POOL DEMANDS IT!

Well since Burke came out and publicly announced the obvious (ie: his intention to try and get Tavares), the interwebs have blown up into a frenzy. Same old story of course, here are some highlights I've seen:

- Kaberle is a poor defenseman, who isn't worth a first round pick.

- Mats Sundin is an overrated player.

- Matt Stajan sucks.

- Schenn isn't going to amount to anything.

- All of Toronto's players aren't worth Tavares.

- Burke is a "big loser."

Man, we really suck, don't we? I mean, we finished higher in the standings than the LA Kings (who most of these comments were from fans of), without players like Anze Kopitar, or Drew Doughty.

Just thought I'd post this for shits and giggles.

I heard Darren Pang saying that Theo wouldn't be a problem because the Rangers aren't an offensive team. Never occurred to him that maybe they'd show some offense if they were facing a horrible goalie.

The Rangers could have been throwing beach balls last night and would have stilled scored. He needs to not just make big saves...but make some kind of fucking saves period.

Also, King Henry is one hell of a goalie.

Jose Theodore is going to be the Capitals' downfall this post season. He's looked terrible tonight...just hideous.

If the Caps go out early my playoff pool isn't looking too sweet.

I know Burke is going to be extremely aggressive, trying to move up and/or load up on early picks... but how bad does he really want it? I know he's said that he'll move roster players, and that no one is safe, but if I'm Garth Snow, the price for the number one pick is: a goalie, a top pairing defenseman, a young sniper, and Toronto taking Rick DiPietro.

I highly doubt the Islanders are going to be trading away their pick. Tavares can be more than just a good player for them, he can be a face for the franchise and help turn fans to them. I just can't see Garth Snow giving up the talent and marketability of a player like Tavares for anything. Maybe I'm wrong though.

If it were me, I'd pick Hedman anyways. Not that Tavares isn't incredibly talented, but it's not often you get a defenseman with Hedman's talent and projected ceiling.

Also, everyone who mentioned it was right about the top five in the draft. It just feels like Tampa Bay are in there every year, even after just winning the Cup not too long ago. LA have more pound for pound talent than the Leafs do, and their goaltending was better than our's, yet they managed to finish with less points. Although part of that likely has to do with the Conference they play in.

Colorado, and the Islanders I can understand. Even Atlanta...but how the fuck can Atlanta continue to suck this many years after coming into the league? Surely to God they'd EVENTUALLY start to get a little better, and stay that way?

So the draft lottery played out pretty well how everyone expected. Islanders, Lightning, Avalanche, Thrashers, and Kings in that order. The typical offenders are all here...you'd think some of these teams would eventually get good enough to stop being in the top five every year. Or maybe I'm just jealous

Toronto locks down Viktor Stalberg finally. Everyone was expecting him to stick around while his brother came to University, but he decided to sign on with us. Big guy who can skate...good prospect from what I can tell.

Also, Canada beat Sweden 4-2 in the IIHF U18 WC game today. Really great game, tight right down to the end. John McFarland is going to be a player to watch in the draft next year. The guy has some real skill from what I saw during the game.

I can't wait for Thursday... If the Habs find a way to steal game 1 I think they'll have a good shot at taking down the Bruins. I really believe that someone should run Thomas early in game 1, he's as emotional as Be and when he gets that way he plays as poorly as Be argues.

As long as the Bruins shoot for Price's glove hand, they'll be alright.

EDIT: Interesting article...

THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO -- The Maple Leafs are going to aggressively pursue a top NHL entry draft spot, perhaps even the No. 1 position, says GM Brian Burke.

Going into the draft lottery Tuesday night, Toronto was seventh in the selection order and could move up a maximum of four spots if it wins the weighted draw.

Burke intends to be wheeling and dealing before the top teen talent is dispersed in Montreal with an eye on landing highly touted forward John Tavares.

"We'll immediately attempt to move up," Burke said during a news conference Tuesday morning. "We're going to talk to everyone between us and the first pick and see what the landscape is.

"We're going to see what it costs and we're going to try and move up."

Anybody on his roster, with the exception of standout rookie defenceman Luke Schenn, might go in a package that would be required to get a higher position.

"No player is untradeable," said Burke. "Wayne Gretzky got traded."

Burke has a history of draft coups, most notably the ones that landed him Chris Pronger when he managed the Hartford Whalers and maneuverings that procured the services of the Sedin twins for the Vancouver Canucks. So, teams will be ready for his spiel this time.

"I don't think we're going to sneak up on anyone," he said. "They've seen that movie."

He wouldn't necessarily need the No. 1 spot to draft Tavares, he said.

"I'm not confident every team has John Tavares as No. 1," said Burke.

John Slaney's also from Newfoundland, any relation there?

I don't think so. You'd figure someone would have mentioned it in an article by now if they were.

Leafs sign another undrafted free agent. This time a local Atlantic Canadian, Robert Slaney from Newfoundland. Played for the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles:

SYDNEY — The pride of Upper Island Cove, N.L. has signed a three-year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Cape Breton Screaming Eagles graduating forward Robert Slaney confirmed to the Cape Breton Post via cellphone Sunday night that he’d inked the deal with the Leafs earlier Easter day.

“It’s been in discussion for the past two weeks and we got her done,” said Slaney, who led the Screaming Eagles in the 2008-09 regular season both in goals, with 36, and points, with 81. “I’m really excited. It’s something I’ve wanted my whole life. So it’s certainly a pleasure that it’s all paid off.”

Slaney, who’s been out of the lineup for the Screaming Eagles’ last three games in their quarter-final series with the Quebec Remparts with an undisclosed upper-body injury, said signing the contract will give him a boost as the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoffs continue.

“I’ll definitely be pushing a lot harder,” said Slaney, who was stellar in his six playoff games prior to his injury, posting four assists and five goals, including the winner in Game 1 with Quebec in the fourth overtime period, the second-longest game in the history of the league. “I usually try to give my heart and soul but this will be an extra push to get me going.”

The 20-year-old son of Val and Edith said his family and friends in Newfoundland and Cape Breton were over the moon to hear the news of his NHL contract.

“They’re pretty excited,” said Slaney. “It’s been my dream for a while and they’ve always been behind me. So they’re really happy that it paid off.”

Now that the contract is signed, his progression with the Leafs is straightforward.

“I’ll attend the main camp in September sometime and if things don’t work out there then I’ll head to the AHL team (Toronto Marlies) and hopefully try to earn a spot there,” said Slaney. “They’re looking for some hard-working Canadians so it’s going to be a good fit.”

Slaney has always left his options open, as a successful Cape Breton University business student he was named the 2007-08 Canadian Hockey League academic player of the year. To encourage young Cape Bretoners in their schoolwork, he bought two season tickets at the beginning of the 2008-09 season to be used by a deserving student and an accompanying adult at each Screaming Eagles home game.

And Slaney was honoured twice at the Screaming Eagles’ recent awards banquet, as the team’s regular season scoring champ and with the fans’ choice award.

Off the top of my head...

Tool (5): Opiate, Undertow, AEnima, Lateralus, 10,000 Days

Nirvana (6): Bleach, Nevermind, Incesticde, In Utero, Unplugged, From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah

Pearl Jam (5): Ten, Versus, Vitalogy, Yield, Riot Act

Alice In Chains (8): Dirt, Facelift, Sap, Jar of Flies, Alice In Chains, Greatest Hits, Unplugged, Music Bank Box Set

Pantera (5): Cowboys From Hell, The Great Southern Trendkill, Far Beyond Driven, Vulgar Display of Power, Reinventing the Steel

Down (3): Nola, A Bustle In Your Hedgerow, Over The Under

The Mars Volta (3): Deloused in the Comatorium, Frances The Mute, The Bedlam in Goliath

System of a Down (4): System of a Down, Toxicity, Steal This Album, Mezmerize

Black Flag (3): My War, In My Head, Slip It In

Finger Eleven (3): Tip, The Greyest of of Blue Skies, Finger Eleven

The Melvins (3): 28 Songs, Houdini, Stoner Witch

Sepultura (3): Roots, Chaos AD, Schizophrenia

Mine too.

It's the 'stache. Who can resist?

Don't forget Ian White, he's been a very pleasant surprise. Here are Burke's comments about the five players this year that he took particular notice to:

- Luke Schenn: "He's going to be around here for a long time."

- Mikhail Grabovski: "At the start of the season, he was a 60-foot player. He only knew how to play in the offensive end. Now, thanks to the coaches, he's a 200-foot player. He can play in any zone."

- Nikolai Kulemin: "Has a lot of raw skill. You could see the development."

- John Mitchell: "His work ethic is encouraging."

- Ian White: "His veteran leadership was impressive."

Drifter: If Toronto either stopped doing their too little too late March runs every year, or if they were able to play like that for most if not all of the season you'd either have a top 5 pick, or a playoff team. But it always seems that Toronto plays as a Jeckyl and Hyde team for the past few years regardless of skill.

Well in previous years I'd agree it was irritating. Years before we've actually had a degree of talent on the team and they'd only seem to pick their asses up in March. I didn't mind the team this year winning games because they're young and it shows character/builds confidence. If we'd have had steady goaltending all season we'd have likely finished higher than 12th in the East.

As long as Burke doesn't piss away money on the Sedins this off season I'll be happy. Toe is right I'm sure...if he wants Schenn bad enough he'll bump us up in the draft. It's not like LA desperately need another top five pick, so they could be shaken for the right deal. With such a thick prospect pool we may even be able to bump ourselves up, and get a prospect for a pick or two + Kaberle.

You never know. Draft day should be very interesting.

So the Leafs draft seventh overall, probably too late to pick up Schenn. What will Burkie do at the draft now? It's a good pick, although not good enough (probably) for the player most Leafs fans were looking at us realistically going after.

It kind of annoys me that teams like Tampa, and Los Angeles, who seem to continually draft in the top five year after year just seem to always get into that coveted top five spot.

Oh well...life goes on.

Okay really.. what do I need to know about effective Pokemon training? I had Diamond at one point, but sold it with my DS and now that I have Platinum I need to know what's going on with all this stuff... this is the first I've heard of EVs and I emulated all the GBA Pokemon games... I just fast forwarded leveling really... now I need to know what's really going on.

Where I am right now... I just got my second badge and I'm in the city that has Team Galactic stealing everyone's Pokemons. My team right now is;

Prinplup Lvl. 16

Machop Lvl. 19

Ponyta Lvl. 22

Bibarel Lvl. 16

Geodude Lvl. 11

So, any tips on effective training?

EV training is only really useful for competitive battling against real people. In the game against the AI it's not really something you need to concern yourself with. The same thing really applies to natures, they're not something you need to really worry yourself about too much. They'll add a bit of a bonus to certain stats.

My advice regarding your team for in-game play is to switch out a few of your Pokemon for ones that focus more on Special Attacks. Aside from Prinpulp, all of your Pokemon are regular attackers, so you'll have trouble against teams with high defense.

You'll want to keep your types rounded out so you can tackle any situation, so having two water types like Prinplup and Bibarel is one water type too many. So you may want to drop one (Bibarel, if I had to choose). Replace it with a Special Attacker (Abra, Ralts, etc) to help you out when you start running into high defense teams.

It's also usually a good idea to pick Pokemon that can learn a wide variety of moves. Check their move lists, TM lists, move tutor lists, etc and see what moves they can learn. Prinplup can learn a lot of different moves including Ice Beam (Ice), Grass Knot (Grass), Toxic (Poison), and Signal Beam (Bug)...just to give you an example of it's variety. Teach it one water move (I suggest Surf), and then try to teach it moves that help cover it's weaknesses, and make it more useful in a variety of different situations.

Water is weak against grass, but grass is weak to Poison (Toxic), Bug (Signal Beam), etc. So teaching it either of those moves will help you counter if the AI throws a grass type out at you.

Yeah, weren't Calgary only playing with fifteen skaters last night? I'd say that might have a little something to do with them getting curb stomped.

Also, I know this is a few days late...but kudos to Mathieu Schneider for actually coming back and playing. Was the shoulder thing not actually that bad?

EDIT: Also, Johan Franzen signs a new 9-10 year deal with the Red Wings. No idea what the money is though.

So the current rumor swirling is about Swedish goaltender Jonas Gustavsson coming to the NHL next season following Farjestad BK's SEL-gold victory. The best part of that rumor is that the Toronto Maple Leafs are the club he's heavily rumored to be interested in; Dallas being the only other. Sixteen total want him, but those are supposedly the only two he's interested in joining.

He's 24 years old, six feet tall, and one hundred seventy eight pounds. Considered to be an elite goaltending prospect, with some phenomenal playoff stats from this season. The numbers break down like this:

12 Wins

1 Loss

5 Shut Outs

.961 Save %

1.08 GAA

His awards this year include: Best GAA, Best Save Percentage, and of course SEL Champion. He's broken practically every record in the league that Henrik Lundqvist set (which is practically all of them).

If Brian Burke can land this guy, we'd have a VERY interesting goalie prospect between the pipes. Swedish Elite League hockey isn't exactly a cake walk, so he obviously has quite a degree of skill.

@metalman -

Yes, it's an open world style game like GTA. Not quite as good as GTA, but still enjoyable IMO.

@Darloboy -

Pretty much just like the first one. This time you have total control over your gang, recruiting, protecting your businesses, attacking rival businesses, etc.

Well I can tell you not to believe everything reviewers tell you...

I somehow ended having more than enough credit from trading in five games to buy both Godfather 2, and Riddick. I managed to avoid making that hard choice.

This game takes the first game's most unique feature: extortion, and building onto it very well. It lacks the polish of GTA 4, but if you didn't mind how rough around the edges the original was that won't be a problem. Nothing is more fun than sending one of your arsonists to burn up a rival family's gambling racket in retaliation for attacking one of your brothels.

Very fun game IMO.

- Tomas Kaberle

- 1st Round Pick

- 2nd Round Pick

- 3rd Round Pick

To the Islanders, for their first round pick this year?

Please tell me whoever said that was joking? That's a bad move, and something that should never be considered.

No sir, this person was quite serious. In fact I was practically called an idiot for not agreeing it was a fantastic deal, and that we'd be stupid not to take it. John Tavares will fix all our problems, don't you know?

Two things to say about the game last night:

1. Who is this fucking alien that replaced Martin Gerber? And where did they hide the real one's body? He had a pretty fantastic game last night, making some incredible stops that were almost superhuman (well, almost superhuman ). He robbed Shanahan on the PK, fucking ROBBED him.

2. This was Chris Hanson's best game yet, even if you don't take into account his very nice goal. The two games prior he was obviously adjusting, and often times almost seemed to stand still. Last night he was moving around the ice, showing some good skating, and getting into positions to support his team mates, and get/set up scoring chances.

Also, John Mitchell has some real potential. He stick handled into the zone once last night and looked very impressive.

Nope. I think we can do more with our own top pick and the other picks plus Kaberle, whether that means moving Kaberle for more picks or not. That would be too much to move for just one prospect when we need to fill a ton of holes on our roster.

THANK YOU!

I was starting to think I was crazy when I said it would be a bad move. This guy seems to think that drafting Tavares will make everything better. We got into the mess we're in now because we kept throwing away draft picks for that quick fix.