Here are some quick hitters for your Monday afternoon:
Scott Burnside's thoughts on Columbus' chances in a tough Western Conference:
With 2½ months to go, we figure the Coyotes are cooked unless they find more consistent scoring. Columbus, likewise, doesn't have enough scoring depth and its power play is the worst in the league. If there's one team currently in the top eight that we can't get a handle on, it's Edmonton. The Oilers got blasted 10-2 by Buffalo, turn around and beat division foe Minnesota, but then fall flat against Nashville 2-1 at home Sunday. If there's hope for the teams outside the bubble, it's the Oilers' multiple personalities. As for Vancouver, see below.
If you were to ask me earlier this season if Columbus stood any kind of chance to get into the playoffs with the 30th ranked PP I would have said no way in H-E-doublehockesticks...
Now I just don't know.. they've managed to be in the fight this long with it.. I do think it needs to heat up down the stretch here and score some timely goals....especially in the big games.
His scoring depth comment I don't agree with at all. Columbus currently has 136 goal for. If you look at the other teams they are battling with... Vancouver (143), Edmonton (138), Minnesota (128), Phoenix (129), Dallas (143), Anaheim (149) -- Columbus looks to be right in the ballpark with those other squads.
In fact if you average it out those 7 teams have an average of 138 goals for. It seems all of these teams need scoring depth but if they had it chances are they wouldn't be fighting for their playoff lives right now.
Of course Burnside doesn't mention the other side of the coin which is defense. The only team out of that group with a better goals against than Columbus is Minnesota (114).
Here is an article that lists the top 5 "menancing" mascots that have yet to see their teams fullfull their championship potential:
5. Stinger, Columbus Blue Jackets
Stinger is a, um, green, uh, thing. He's an insect of some sort. Anyway, his eyes are big and red and his mouth makes him look pretty angry, so he gets a spot on our list as one of the mean mascots in the NHL. However he hasn't done his team any favours. Columbus is on the brink of making the playoffs this year (tied with 53 points with four other teams in the West for the final playoff spot. But, the Jackets have never made the post-season since they were created in 2000-01.
Also Puck-daddy comments on Steve Mason's mono diagnosis:
First reaction to hearing Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Steve Mason is battling through mononucleosis: He was smoochin' Phil Kessel! Second reaction: How did one of his Calder Trophy rivals slip that into his water bottle? Third reaction: Coach Ken Hitchcock better be right when he says he hopes "the worst of it is behind us now," because a three-goals-on-eight-shots performance like Mason had against the Dallas Stars over the weekend can't happen if the BJs expect to remain in the Western Conference playoff race. [Dispatch]
I haven't commented yet on this situation but its yet again another strange episode coming out of the Jackets locker room. We haven't gotten a straight explanation yet on any of the walking wounded this season and I don't expect what we've heard thus far on Mason to be the entire story either.
If what we've heard thus far is true...which again I have my doubts.... in that the CBJ training staff just recently discovered that Mason has mononucleosis despite feeling "under the weather" for 4 weeks then somebody has some serious explaning to do. Just unnacceptable. Unnacceptable for the average joe to go that long without a proper diagnosis and unnacceptable for a professional athlete who gets monitored daily.
-LTL
Monday, February 2, 2009
Burnside thinks Columbus is cooked
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9 comments:
You'd think if a player feel sick for any amount of time, the team would send him to see the docs. Just Sayin'.
Unfortunately its not that easy with Mono. First off it acts like many other illnesses, most often strep throat or the flu. Also if you test to soon then you can miss the diagnosis because it takes awhile for the test to become positive (antibodies and such, not important). So not really that surprising that it might have taken 3-4 weeks to figure it out.
A couple of things here:
First,mono is a diagnosis more common to a college dorm than a professional sports franchise. Must be a comment on the age of the team, eh? Chicken-pox next?
Secondly, professional athletes are not the most candid folks when discussing injuries or illnesses. Tough to diagnose something like mono with a kid who is probably saying he is fine.
--JAL
A Shot From The Point
Tough diag on mono. A friend of mine had it in high school. It acts like a cold, but really just saps your energy. Since Mason was starting so many games, it was easy to conclude that he was just getting too much work.
You guys convinced me to do a little more reseach on this and it looks like I was overly harsh on the Jackets medical staff.
I know the Bruins Phil Kessel was out with something similar...and it looks like it took them more than a few weeks to diagnose him correctly as well:
Kessel apparently knew he was sick well before he was put on the shelf.
“I thought I had it for a while before,” he said. “I went in probably like a month before and they said no, but I knew I had it. I didn’t feel very good for a while. I just wasn’t feeling myself. But it’s finished now.”
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/hockey/bruins/view.bg?articleid=1148564&srvc=sports&position=3
Kessel has missed 6 games.
That makes me feel a little better.
..you have to remember though this is the same staff that mis-diagnosed Modin last season and we've heard rumblings from the Berard camp of something similar.
Here is also a good read about "mono".
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/9339/10351.html
I'll have to bounce this off of Mrs. Lamp.... comes in handy to have a Nurse Practioner at home ;)
-LTL
LTL site didn't work, but I can confirm my info is correct from having mono last December and also being a future health care professional. Its not an easy diagnosis in most, and would imagine it is even harder in an athlete playing as many minutes as Mason was playing. The more scary thing is the fact that without the diagnosis and him playing a contact sport is the fact that he could have easily had serious complication (ruptured spleen). So more important that they diagnosed it and imaged him to rule this possibility out. That is what made me more nervous about the diagnosis than missing it for a month.
Good stuff soultrain.
The link was just a general description of mono symptoms/treatement/etc. Nothing special that a google mono would find.
Here it is again: http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/9339/10351.html
The Kessel article also mentioned that his spleen had returned to normal and that the spleen issue is the most serious for athletes.
-LTL
Does Burnside EVER have a positive thing to say about the CBJ? Geez, be it rankings, playoff possibilities, or other, you'd think we'd have won no more than 12games, this season, to date.
As with most ESPN personnel, Scott is probably some NYC-based homer, who thinks (kinda like Yankee fan or Met fan) that NY-based are all the entire sports universe care about.
Or, maybe he's Colin Campbell or Bettman's special discipline advisor - that would figure...
I hear ya HR... the CBJ are certainly his whipping boy... the Jackets keep playin like they have been the past few months he'll finally catch up with the rest of us and realize we got somethin good brewin here in Cbus.
-LTL
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