life is good

how do the Isles stone the high-powered Rangers only to get smoked by the diesel-powered Leafs? and the Leafs had just come off a drubbing themselves at the hands of the Canes. Mats Sundin becomes the Leafs leader in points scored and goals scored in the same game. nice. remember that he had some pretty stellar seasons in Quebec as Joe Sakic's right hand man before coming over to the big smoke so it's not like he's a homegrown Leaf either. he came over in the deal for Wendel Clark who was probably my fave Leaf forever. i was glad to see Wendel return to the Leafs eventually too.
i've noticed Matt Stajan and Alex (don't call me Tomas) Steen a lot recently. they both appear to be stepping up to provide some much needed secondary offense for the Leafs. i attended a preseason game tween the Leafs and Yotes here in Winnipeg and i must've called Alex by his father's name 4 times. i think that's forgiveable in this town though since Tomas Steen is pretty close to an icon in the Peg, behind only Bobby Hull, Teemu Selanne, and of course Dale Hawerchuk in terms of loved-ness-ness.

i noticed that Pete Becker included Jeff Hamilton among his Becker's dozen in his column this week. Hamilton is part of the Canes 5 forward PP, is getting excellent ice time and tabbing up some points for himself. excellent call Pete. i added Hamilton on one of my teams today. it was also interesting to note that he likes Francois Beauchemin and he makes a great point that somebody has to eat up the ice time with Scott Niedermayer resting and Mathieu Schneider on the shelf. Beau is a very good short term add but he won't be D2 for the Ducks (smirk) once Schneid is back. on a related note, this isn't the first time that Niedermayer has done something like this before, remember the Olympics in '04? the Canadian squad needed themselves a puck moving D and Scottie decided to rest his knee in prep for the playoffs. it was disappointing to me that he didn't throw in but that's also a reason that i don't believe Scottie's gonna hang'em up. when the games are important again, he'll come back to lead the charge. i still suspect it'll be after Christmas but who knows it might be April.

did anyone believe me about Tim Connolly and Derek Roy? the kids have skills. if you have room as a C3-4 and either is available you're wasting time reading this further, go get'em.

the ESPN hockey prep picked the Panthers to win the Southeast this season, mostly because of the addition of Tomas Vokoun. now i love Vokoun and he shut out the Devils last night but does ESPNmag really think they'll finish ahead of the Canes or the Lightning? i don't.

watch Martin Hanzal in PHX. he's young and if he keeps getting opportunity he'll show enough to make him viable, maybe not this year but the time will come. Peter Mueller too. Daniel Carcillo got into another fight last night. dude's got a whole open bag of Fritos on his shoulder. i rostered him on 2 teams this year and since LW doesn't seem that deep if he can get me 20 pts on the season and get the 200 PIMs i'm expecting that's a beautiful thing.

so i officiated at 2 football games last night (back to back) and was so stinking tired and sore that i fell asleep on the couch, missed the entire baseball game and didn't even realize there was a late hockey game on tv for me to visit. live and learn. i actually have 2 more games tonight (again, back to back) and i have to take care of the dishes that i neglected yesterday before i can visit the land of Nod again. i just thought that i'd throw in that silly little tidbit.
overall, life is good. even better if my Leafs keep winning.