Deriding the Panthers: fun that never ends

By team member Triz, once again the Forrest Gump of blogging. Or perhaps me just plagarizing her emails, who's to say? But that's okay. I still think she's a hot piece of ass. I mean, astute hockey analyst. Right. Moving on.

Last night when I got a text message that Jacques Martin had pulled Tomas Vokoun at the hilarious time of 7:10 into the game, I damn near wanted to get into my car RIGHT THAT SECOND AND DRIVE DOWN TO MIAMI TO WITNESS THIS CLUSTERFUCK ON ICE FOR MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why? I don't know - attending a Florida Panthers game is kind of like when you feel compelled to slow down and gape at the pileup on the side of the roadway, or how you can't flip the channel when they are performing surgery on the Discovery Channel. You WANT turn away, you know you NEED to turn away, you end up mostly queasy and hating yourself for watching, but some twisted, freaky part of you can't look away.

The most hilarious thing, though, is that the benching was not the freakiest part of last night's game, THIS was:

Later, defenseman Steve Montador got his second goal in a week by firing a long shot from beyond the right circle to tie the score.

Let me just repeat that, STEVE MONTADOR, the National Hockey League's Most Prolific Benchwarmer, He who has led the league in healthy scratches two years running, he who has spent more games in his career as a Panther in a suit as opposed to a uniform, scored his SECOND GOAL IN A WEEK.

And honestly, given the absolute lunacy of the above statement, I think any further mocking would be a little redundant.

So we'll move on. Hey, why don't we get our good friends from the Miami Herald to get some quotes from some Panthers themselves regarding their recent play:

"It's embarrassing, captain Olli Jokinen said.
Goaltender Tomas Vokoun said: "It is quite actually embarrassing."
Defenseman Bryan Allen said: "It's unacceptable."

OK, OK, I was going to go with "humiliating;" "nauseating;" "gave me the runs;" and/or "likely to spurn you into a homicidal rage," but I suppose "embarrassing" and "unacceptable" are reasonable substitutes.

Trying to motivate his team, Jacques Martin has taken the Panthers to boot camp and had them meet with a sports psychologist. On Wednesday, he benched the team's highest-paid player early in its game against Ottawa. What he does next is anyone's guess.

Um, I'm no psychologist myself, but, after last night, the loss Saturday, and the Panther's recent play of late in general, my guess would be what Jacques does next is lock the garage door, seal the windows, and begin fellating the ol' exhaust pipe, but that's just me hazarding a guess. Here's a little tip to anyone in the Panthers organization who got Jacques in this year's Secret Santa raffle: shoelaces= bbbaaaadddd idea.

We just can't let well enough alone

From my darling non-sexual soulmate formerly known as "How you do," team blogger on Firewagon who can't ever log into anything, but just emails me things, who can't stick to one damned name (but you may recall her Sabres blog over yonder). I shall henceforth refer to her as Triz. Probably because, you know, that's her name. Anyhow, I had to share this with y'all because isn't making fun of Greg "Nepotism RULES" Campbell and the Panthers like a national pastime nowadays?

Tonight I will be working, INSTEAD OF GOING DOWN TO MIAMI, as I had almost very nearly like camethisclose to doing, to see a marquee matchup of titantic magnitude. Dany Heatley, famous for scoring spectacular highlight reel worthy goals and making text book perfect passes, vs. Gregory Campbell, famous for being forced to figuratively fellate Marian Hossa and Ilya Kovalchuk during the last Atlanta-Florida matchup, being the player being scored ON in highlight reel goals, and making text-book perfect blunders with every shift.

See? Relevance. She mentioned Kovy! Coming up later, an actual game day preview with stats and all that other good shit that makes them game day previews rather than predictions and lines. But until then: Thrashers by 2.

Also, Kari should be debuting his Optimus Prime mask tonight at Blueland. I know y'all're just as excited as I am about this. And when I say excited, I mean it better not be the damned highlight of the game.

Random funny shit talking

Kovy scored his 22nd to lead the league. That's all you need to know about the game last night. Moving on.

We seriously urge you to go to Way Offside and add this blog to your blog roll. Add it to your bookmarks. Possibly just make it your damned homepage because I don't think you want to miss a thing they say. Yeah, we're funny over here, me and How You Do, but we're not consistently funny. Way Offside? CONSISTENTLY FUNNY! Plus! They talk shit about the Caps and Kittens too! I MIGHT BE IN LOVE WITH THE BLOGGER BEHIND THIS BLOG! But I'm not sure. I'll let you know.

NHL Changes Schedule
Under the old schedule, each team would play every team in their division eight times a season, play every team in their conference, and play a fewer number in the opposing conference–but not every team. It was a strategy to build division rivalries and, in many cases, it worked. But in the Southeast division, this meant that fans had to endure eight annual games between the Florida Panthers and the Washington Capitals, which is the real reason Terry Schiavo wanted to kill herself.

(Mostly) not gay
Injury and surgery couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Yes, Sean Avery is hurt. Maybe it'll stop his parading about the media. Seems he's been everywhere lately, even a recent Q&A with the New York Times magazine. In it, Avery cites various "important" things he has around his house and things he covets, including the Dior men's fashion line. But just to make sure we know his wrist wasn’t injured in a tragic "jazz hands" accident, and that he's totally not gay–in case you were wondering, just because he wants to be an editor at a fashion magazine–he spelled it out for us with his final response in the Q&A. Avery said that always near his bed was "a beautiful woman." If he means that disgusting Olsen twin he was banging, we figure "beautiful woman" must be code for "clock radio."

Love. It's love. I'm in love. I have to stop posting now so I can start stalking this blogger. Tune in tomorrow for game day preview (I know, right? Who knew I remembered how?!), and um. Something else interesting. Probably me blowing sunshine up Kari's ass since it's what I do best.

Talking shit, Thrash talk later today

Triz is once again gracing us with a little commentary on the Florida Panthers - because there's nothing we love more than making fun of the Florida Kitty Cats. Except shopping, chocolate, and sex. But we're digressing.

From the Miami Herald:

It does not appear that the struggling Florida Panthers are going to turn things around by making deals. Coach and general manager Jacques Martin said he believes in his team, but they need to start playing as a unit before they dig themselves in too deep.

No of course they aren't. Why would it even be inferred that the Panthers would do something intelligent like trade away dead weight *coughgregorycampbellcoughcough* and get a few more players that actually, you know, know how to play professional hockey. As opposed to what the Panthers are currently playing, which is a game I believe is called "Everyone Stand Around Looking Panic Stricken Like It's Our First Time On A Sheet of Ice Until Jokinen Bails Us Out." Occasionally, they will get a little wild and play a couple periods of "Holy Shit Why I Do I Have This Stick In My Hand? Let Me Recklessly Flail It About In Hopes I Do Something Good," and on occasions rarer still, they play a few rounds of "Let's See Who Can Take The Stupider More Ill-Timed Penalty This Period?" which is a game admittedly dominated by, sadly, my beloved Bryan Allen and, of course, Greg Campbell. However, my favorite game by far is a little something they've been playing A LOT of recently, which we like to call, "How Many Creative Ways Can We Come Up With To Completely Implode And Blow This Lead With Mere Minutes Left?" I think when it comes to completely Forrest Gumping your way through a tight thrid period, no one does it in such a spectacularly inept fashion as the Florida Panthers. They are the Old Masters of Failure. In fact, if Failure was an art form, Jacques Martin might very well be its Renoir. It's with an almost balletic grace that his players manage to step on skates and shoot pucks directly into their own net. It's a Opera of Faux Pas, a symphony of inadequacy and he is its maestro. Why they would they want to bring a player in who might actually NOT be a liability every time he jumps over the boards? It would only mess things up.

To all this, honestly, we say bollocks! Mostly because we love saying it. Go on. Say it. We'll wait.

See? Fun, ain't it? Anyhoo. We say bollocks. Or "that's a steamin' crock a'shit," if y'uns is from the south, like we'ns is. Because seriously, I think we all know that if there is any team in this league that is master at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it is SE division bedfellow, the Washington Capitals. We have an odd love-hate relationship with the Caps. We love them as individual people, we hate them as a team. We love them on paper, hate them on the ice. However, we will concede to How You Do that no one takes a lazy penalty, or displays magnificent ineptitude, like one Gregory "Yay neoptism!" Campbell.

Further proving our point is the Caps' loss to the Kittens last night. Because, really? Seriously? Ouch. If I was a Caps fan, I'd be sounding the death knell right now. Brian Sutherby was the first casualty of this trainwreck of a season. Many Caps fans are saying, so long and good riddance. We'll admit we haven't really followed the Caps lately, but slamming the door on the ass of the only MVP of the Young Stars game you've ever had, maybe not the wisest plan, particularly when you need a good, strong centre for the two Sashas. But hey, this is why we're not the GM and are just bloggers, right? Those who can do, those who can't play for the Panthers GM the Capitals write.

But on the plus side, we won 3,000 bones last night thanks to Todd White's OT GWG. We may not know much, but we can pick winners. And probably guys to centre hall-of-fame wingers. Just sayin' though.