Forty Three's Bold Playoff Predictions. The East

[forty_three]

Pittsburgh Penguins:
The rush into the playoffs has the entire city energized. Unemployed steelworkers everywhere look up from their fried mayonnaise and French fry sandwiches and take notice. And well they should. Ray Shero has assembled a solid team. He traded for a lot of proven players, so the optimism is high. So high in fact that, according to Matt Cooke, everyone is walking around “sportin’ wood”. Everything is rolling along like a freight train into the playoffs when that nagging “I forgot something” feeling hits Shero.

Off the ice, a campaign led by Shero, supported by columnist Bob Rossi and endorsed by every long time Penguin fan, some of which have been fans since as far back as 2004, the Penguins petition the league to clarify the voting instructions for post season awards.

The Hart becomes: Player most like Sidney Crosby, the best player on the best team with the best hair.

The Masterson becomes: Player who overcame as much adversity as Sidney Crosby

The Selke becomes: Player with most success stopping Sidney Crosby

Norris becomes: Defenseman making best pass to Sidney Crosby

And the Vezina becomes: Player with the best puck stop with a face.

The Penguins are crushed when Mark Staal wins all the awards except the one for best hair.

The strangest moment comes when Pierre McGuire visits a team building meeting with the Pens at a camp. First, Matt Cooke sits next to McGuire and rubs his bald head absentmindedly. Then Evgeni Malkin gets up to go to the bathroom and Dupuis and Neal start fighting over who gets to stand next to him. Pascal Dupuis screams in French at James Neal because Neal stole his twinkie. Matt Cooke takes great offense to the term “Twinkie” and starts punching who he though said it, breaking Despres’ nose (not that you can tell). And no one is quite sure why, but Tyler Kennedy stands up, screams “I have been waiting for this ALL YEAR” and kicks Chris Kunitz square in the nuts.

Jarome Iginla sits there, quietly stirring the campfire with his dick.

Oh, and that thing that Shero forgot? The old adage that you don’t go into the playoffs with Marc-Andre Fleury. And if you do have to, have a backup. And that backup should not be Tomas Vokoun. Dan Abysmal says it best “If we could have held them to under 9 goals a game…”

Boston Bruins:

The city of Boston, having recently been freed from the grip of terror by the interagency effort of the sports mascots in town, enter the Playoffs flying high. The city is electric, the atmosphere is second to none, the wishes for debilitating injuries to opponents resumeraining down. It all takes a sharp and sour turn when CNN reports that Jaromir Jagr is a “Czechen” and the Celtic Leprechaun thing tackles and beats him unconscious at the $75 craps table.

On the ice, things are not that much better. Milan Lucic gets suspended for fighting a ref. “He asked for it” said Lucic. Then the City of Boston and the Red Sox get into a bidding war for the services of Zdeno Chara. The Sox want him to swat fly balls down at the Green monster, and the city needs him to lift pipes and construction gear into the big dig site (slated for completion in 2749, barring delays). Then Tuuka Rask is asked to stand in for Buster Poindexter at a series of shows downtown when the singer falls ill (“Don’t worry, you can lip sync” they tell him). Then, to top off all the turmoil, it is discovered that the name “Rich Peverly” sounds a lot like a Harry Potter character, but I’ll be damned if any hockey humorist can come up with anything convincingly funny enough to use it.

Also, on the way to Toronto, Krejci, Lucic and Jagr are detained at the border for five hours for “having your vowels and consonants all out of order.”

The team hits rock bottom when in a rush to prep the arena for a game, the crew puts up the boards, but forgets to take down the wood floor. The Bruins have no idea what to do, while the Leafs simply switch to roller blades. It’s no contest. Lucic can’t even get to the far end of the surface to “accidentally” crash into Reimer.

Worshington Capitals

It was a truly magical run. The team came together and showcased their talent and grit down the stretch. The two you goalies both came into their own. The rookie coach, noted softie Adam Oates, really found a way to connect with the team and proved that he understands the game WAY above the level of “Just pass to Brett Hull or Cam Neely”. It is one of the best stories in the league, a true feel good moment.

Shame no one at all paid attention because Stephen Strasbourg got a hangnail and RGeyeeyeeye may or may not have stood up to quickly and wobbled a little causing near suicidal anguish throughout the DC Metro area.

Montreal Canadians

The team has managed to remain successful despite giving up, on average, 31 goals per game down the stretch. Even Carey Price is surprised at his nomination for Vezina. Calder winner Brendan Gallagher continues on his tear, and the mood improves very fast when the Bruins are the first team eliminated. “Thank god I don’t have to go there” PK Subban is heard to say, a sentiment echoed by Pacioretty. They perform pretty well despite the obvious distraction of a person who looks an awful lot like Danny Briere in a goatee and sunglasses who constantly paws at the locker room door and whimpers “let me in. Please?”

The excitement is succinctly captured by coach Therrien, when responding to a question about the character and makeup of the team and the contributions by rookies and the resilience of his squad he looks right at the reporter, shrugs and says “Hrmph. Yeh”

 

[forty_three]

Toronto Maple Leaves

The joy of a playoff berth is quickly squashed when at the Leaves’ first home game, the arena is completely empty. The media rushes out into the streets to find anyone in Leaves’ gear and ask why they aren’t at the game. The fans of Toronto are bewildered and point to their iPhone calendars. “I don’t have it in here, look. Going back years… nothing except dog walking, Jays games and the Indy race after April.”

What’s worse, four Golf courses in the GTA have to fold due to lost revenue. Said one exasperated course operator; “We came to rely on you, Phil Kessel. Where are you now that we need you?”

When the Leaves’ do take the ice, they are short leading scorer Nazim Kadri who after an exhaustive search is found hiding in a hookah bar on Yonge street, claiming he was desperately afraid the Don Cherry was going to French Kiss him this time.

With the stands empty, Dion Phaneuf takes a second away from telling anyone who will listen that Elisha Cuthbert is his girlfriend, to look up to where she is supposed to be sitting. Concerned, he calls her cell phone.

Four players are injured in the rampage when Sean Avery answers.

New York Islanders

The excitement around New York is HUGE. Reporters are roving the streets asking fans about their excitement level around 2 New York teams making the playoffs. “What you talkin about? The Devs ain’t in no playoffs. Hey, Vinny, get a load a ‘DIS guy!”

But out on the Island, things are different. Islanders merchandise is flying off the shelves. Which is easy because all of it is clearance stuff bearing the fisherman logo, which has been sitting so long, it’s all marked down to fifty cents. The Isles marketing team sees this, and seizes the opportunity for a throwback third jersey that more accurately represents the Island people. So the fisherman is replaced with an Orange teenage daughter of an investment banker. She is in a bikini with poofy hair and smoking a Pall Mall in the front seat of a Lexus SUV.

There’s an embarrassing moment when Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy, and Billy Smith show up for a ceremonial puck drop and are turned away by security with the words “Sure buddy, whatever you say. GET OUTTA HERE, HUH? HEY VINNY, DIS GUY SAYS HE WON A CUP BEFORE! ON LONGILLAN” The Isles scramble to find a puck drop replacement and settle on Tim Thomas, who has taken up residence in the Zamboni parking garage at Nassau. He comes to center ice in a Ted Nugent T-shirt and grabs the mic and starts to shout “BEFORE WE START THIS FASCI-“. That’s as far as he gets before Tavares knocks the puck and mic out of his hand and says “Let’s go, god damnit.”
The games are exciting and the team is very, very good. After Tavares scores the first goal in the first home game, the fans blow the roof off the building. Literally, the noise collapses the southwest corner of the arena. Play is halted and the Islanders move to Houston for the remaining games, where they are tentatively renamed the “South Padre Islanders”.

The Marketing team is relieved that they don’t have to change the new logo.
The most magical moment of the playoffs, when David Volek slips into a game undetected and does it again.

New York Rangers
They spent all that money. They got all those players. But they didn’t seem to get the fact that the players they got all came from a Scott Howson constructed team. I would make some joke about an epic crumble, if it wasn’t too soon to make jokes about epic crumbling and New York. But it’s like they were hit with a Hurricane of misfortune… Nope. Can’t say that either. The movement that had them occupy…
God damn it. Sensitive pricks.
But anyway, what a fiasco. The only bright spot is Rick Nash who scores seemingly at will, although that joy is marred somewhat when he keeps showing up at practice wearing his Colum-BEST t-shirt, and having his pre-game meals flown in specially from Thurman’s Café, The Ohio Deli and Cap City diner. He gets questioned about it but he shrugs it off by saying “hey, playoff tradition.”

Ryan Callahan is the first to ask “What tradition?” This make Nash a little teary eyed and he prepares for each game in solitude, staring at a picture looking up the Scioto at Downtown from CoSi tacked up inside his locker, which used to belong to Beanie Wells. Nash bought it from Ohio Stadium and had it installed in the Rangers locker room.

After the first round sweep (Washington 31 goals – Nash 27), Glen Sather walks into locker room and fires Tortorella, then goes to meet with his management team on how to address the media. Torts rushes into the media room and UNLOADS. It is a tense, angry press conference full of vitriol and hatred. All negative feelings are left out there and Tortorella uses every expletive known to man. He storms out of the room. No one in the media even realizes he was fired until Slats comes in and announces it.

Ottawa Senatators.
Left for dead. Not good enough even when healthy. Too young. All detractions said at the beginning of the season. Then when each player on the team suffered major injury, it was expected that nothing would come of the Sens. Just not their year. Little did anyone realize the power of Paul McLean. The team stayed in the fight, and made the playoffs at the last minute. A team expected to flail aimlesslessy became a force to be reckoned with as injured players came back one by one. Led by the near miraculous recovery of Erik Karlsson. As the playoffs wear on, they keep gaining momentum, cutting down teams in their wake. They march to game 7 in the finals against the Hawks, only to see it all fall apart when it is learned that the team equipment manager forgot to put Karlsson on his charging dock after game 6 and he blue screened halfway through the third period.

 

[apachef4]

Haha, good stuff!

 

[dash]

I must say the Leaves entry was pure comedy gold...

 

[forty_three]

I am afraid I went to far for the Erik Karlsson is a robot joke.

 

[Comeds]

Good stuff 43! There was a bunch of good things in the post (and the west one) yet simple me probably laughed most about the Toronto spelling.