Randy Orton and his mutton chops will be in action this Sunday! - Photo from Wikimedia

With the WWE putting on their monthly extravaganza this Sunday, we will have the first of a regular series here at Blade Jobs of Steel. We will look at the event and examine what (probably) will happen according to current WWE logic and trends and compare it to what, in our humblest of opinions, should happen.

This event seems to have been rushed together, taking place not long after Extreme Rules. This also seems to lack the big match that the last few events had, but still there is some intrigue with a WWE Title Match between the two best in the world (sorry Jericho), a Super Star vs. Authority Figure version 9000, and a Four-Way Title Match featuring four very good wrestlers that is sure to be entertaining.

The card order will be in the order of what SHOULD happen, with some discussions as to what will happen along the way.

YouTube Pre-Show Match
Zack Ryder vs. Kane

What SHOULD Happen: Zack Ryder pulls out an upset victory over the man that injured him a few months back. Kane flips out and attacks Ryder post-match to set up some sort of stipulation match to settle things next month, which Ryder should win.

What WILL Happen: Kane squashes Ryder and nobody mentions their unresolved feud ever again.

Match #1
Kofi Kingston and R-Truth vs. Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger
WWE Tag Team Title  Match 

 What SHOULD Happen: These four men will go out and bust their asses popping the crowd and getting everyone excited for the sure. The Booming Truths or whatever they are called will most certainly get the win after one of the faces hits their finisher out of nowhere. Afterwards, Abraham Washington and his cronies come down and level the champs to set up some sort of stable war going forward.

What WILL Happen: Probably more or less the same thing, maybe no Abraham Washington group coming down after. Also, this match will almost certainly open things off.

Match #2
Layla vs. Beth Phoenix
WWE Divas Title  Match

What SHOULD Happen: The match starts out fairly competitive but Beth begins to take a clear upper hand. As she is about to hit the Glam Slam, in runs Kharma who absolutely destroys these two. She beats up Beth so badly that she needs to be taken off TV for a while. This lets Kharma feud with Layla for June and July, winning the title along the way, before Beth Phoenix makes a huge return in time to set up a money match at Summerslam.

What WILL Happen: Layla will win from some sort of a rollup, Kharma won’t show up since we are all expecting her to.

Impromptu Match/Segment #1

NOTE:  If Extreme Rules is any indication, the company seems to really like the idea of putting unannounced matches and/or extended segments on their big events, we can try to predict a few of those here at the appropriate parts.

What SHOULD Happen: The Miz vs. Brodus Clay – The two have a fun and competitive match with Miz being unable to figure Clay out, while Clay shows resiliency kicking out of some of The Miz’s big moves. The Miz pulls out a cheap win, then tries to hit on one of the dancers only to be turned down and attacked by a recovering Brodus in a post-match brawl.

What WILL Happen: Cody Rhodes vs. Santino Marella – A rematch of the Smackdown Champion vs. Champion match, this time with Cody winning.

Match #3
John Cena vs. John Laurinitus
NO DQ Match
If Laurinitus loses he is fired as GM, if anyone interferes they are fired

What SHOULD Happen: Other than this match not happening you mean? Well Cena wins in a squash, Laurinitus, dejected later leads a group of outsiders to do some sort of “Invasion” (possibly including Brock Lesnar?) while he tries to reclaim his job – maybe even a War Games type match at No Way Out.

What WILL Happen:  Does anyone not see Big Show costing Cena this match and then get restated on RAW? Does anyone not see this match going on last?

Impromptu Match/Segment #2

What SHOULD Happen: Cody Rhodes cuts a promo, stating that he is not defending his title since nobody on the roster deserves a shot. He is then interrupted by a returning Justin Bourne who knocks him down, hits the 450 Splash and poses with the title, setting off a fun feud for the next month or two, with Cody obviously retaining the gold.

What WILL Happen: Brodus Clay squashes the Miz in less than five minutes

Match #4
Sheamus vs. Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho vs. Alberto Del Rio
World Heavyweight Title Match

What SHOULD Happen:  Randy Orton hits RKOs on everything that walks and looks ready to pin one of the heels, but the Sheamus hits a Brogue Kick on Orton out of nowhere knocking him out of the ring and the Irishman steals the pin on the heel. This can start a good simmer for a summer feud between the two top faces at Smackdown. Which simmers until they finally erupt in a one-on-one match at Summerslam.

What WILL Happen: The planned feud was between Sheamus and Del Rio, so that stays in focus here. Sheamus pins Jericho and Del Rio throws a fit because he thinks that he has it won and attacks Sheamus post match.

Match #5
CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan
WWE Title Match

What SHOULD Happen: Can you say 60 minute draw? Last summer they had no problem taking a page from Ring of Honor, so why not do it again this time? Have Punk and Bryan do a full sixty minutes, with the time running out at the end. They can have a steel cage match next month, which results in a draw, the Bryan wins one of the Briefcases and challenges him at Summerslam, where they do an Austin-Bret style double turn, making both men bigger names going forward.

What WILL Happen: Punk will win cleanly in a very good 20 minute match that goes in the middle of the show. Both men move on to new opponents, because why the heck not?

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Evolving Devils: How can you not be impressed with the New Jersey Devils performance in Game 2?

The started the series in the first game looking like a team that had a week off. They had a chance to pounce on an exhausted New York Rangers squad, but squandered that in the opening game of the series getting shut out 3-0.

So Peter DeBoer went out and made some changes reuniting Parise, Zajac, and Kovalchuk as the top line. This could easily backfire against a team that could easily unite Dan Girardi and Marc Staal into a shutdown duo that could easily neutralize them.

Yet, the Devils went out and outplayed the Rangers getting goals from their 1st, 3rd, and 4th line and changed how they played. They were able to get around the Great Shot Blocking Menace that is the New York Rangers by getting low and changing their shot selection. Peter DeBoer deserves a ton of credit for that win, and should get credit for the eight previous victories that team has earned this Spring.

World Hockey Championship No Shows: Every year we hear the same thing — The World Hockey Championships mean the world to Europeans and next to nothing to North Americans. This year helped fulfill this prophecy once more.

Take a look at the rosters for Canada and the United States, and it’s no surprise that both of these teams lost in the quarter finals. For team Canada, only Jonathan Tavares, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Cam Ward, Duncan Keith, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and maybe Jamie Benn and Dion Phaneuf will be on the long list for the 2014 Olympic Team, that’s really unacceptable. When you have the likes of Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, Henrik Zetterberg, and Erik Karlsson joining their teams after being eliminated from the playoffs you’ve got to wonder were our support is exactly.

Sure Duncan Keith, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Kyle Quincey, Alexandre Burrows, Patrick Sharp, and Kris Russell came, but other than the Blackhawks, those men don’t exactly inspire terror. Where was Rick Nash, Eric Staal, Jarome Iginla, or the usual international hockey star Dany Heatley? Why didn’t Jonathan Toews, Sidney Crosby, Claude Giroux, or Shea Weber come for support?

The United States team was even worse on paper. Outside of Jimmy Howard, Bobby Ryan, Jack Johnson, and Cam Fowler this was not a good team.

Something needs to be done next year. It will be the last time to experiment with line combinations and chemistry before the Olympics, and if either of these teams are going to be ready then the players need to get on board and fast.

Orton vs. Sheamus Slow Build: The last few weeks have seen tensions grow between Randy Orton and Sheamus. It started in a tag team match last week, but it has turned into some DQ run ins like this past Monday.

Sure, they are giving away Randy Orton vs. Sheamus for free on Smackdown, but they seem to be slowly building to a big-time match between these two. Hopefully they stick with this plan, and maybe just maybe, we can see Orton turn to his much more stronger role as a heel.

Big Show Cries: This past Monday we saw the Big Show “fired” and then stop to cry about it. It consistently astonishes me that the largest athlete in the world is constantly seen as such a wussy. He should be a monster who kills people dead, and defeating him should be a very large accomplishment, yet here we are. The worlds largest cry baby.

Does anyone out there NOT see Big Show interfering in the Cena-Laurinitus match? He’s clearly not employed so he can’t get fired. We’ll see Show turn heel and join Team Johnny in a very predictable fashion and have him feud with Cena for the summer in the match-up nobody wanted.

Staples Center Staff: For the first time in history the city of Los Angeles is going multi-sport playoff crazy at the same time. We have the Kings, Lakers, and Clippers all playing this late in the year.

While this is great for the second largest city in North America, but it’s creating quite the extra work for the staff at the Staples Center who need to change everything from Lakers to Clippers to Kings and back again time and time again. What is intriguing is that an overtime or two in the Kings-Coyotes games could push back the start time of some of the basketball games in what would amount to be a nightmare for television. It’s funny, joint hockey and basketball arenas are commonplace, but the logistic nightmare this is going to cause may cause some hesitation going forward.

Despite all of that, the staff in LA deserve a ton of credit for the quick transformations they are forced to make here. If you haven’t read Harrison Mooney’s piece about this on Puck Daddy, give it a read, very thorough description of the work these people have to do.

John Tortorella’s Pouting: Seriously this is getting out of hand! At first John Tortorella’s curt responses during press conferences was kind of entertaining, but now he’s just being a jerk.

Seriously, this man needs to be pulled aside by the NHL and told that he has to do at least a little bit of PR. If the Rangers are in the Finals against the Kings, can you imagine just how short and gruff the press conferences are going to be?

Because this isn’t cool…

Things are really heating up between our three competitors for playoff prediction superiority.

We have a tie at the bottom of the standings with six points. The coin is gaining steam, correctly predicting LA and New Jersey series wins, adding to its four points from before, to bring its total to six. This pushes a tie with the owner of this blog, Glen, who had five points after last round, and went 1-3 in the Conference Semifinals, being the only one to predict a Rangers victory.

But Glen wasn’t the only one who went 1-3, Troy was able to predict a win for the LA Kings, which pushes his total up to seven. Making anything possible going forward.

WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS

#3 Phoenix Coyotes vs. #8 Los Angeles Kings

Let’s see we have two Pacific Division teams playing a defense first system that have power forwards for captains, very good defense corps, and goaltenders with less than 2 for a Goals Against Average. These two teams are so incredibly even match that we may have our most likely series to go seven all spring, but with the way things are going this year it may end in four, who really knows anymore.

Troy Says: Didn’t see this coming. That’s for sure. It’s nonetheless still an interesting series. Although it’s LA first time getting this far since ’93 I believe it’s still not a major surprise. The Kings have been on the cusp of greatness for a few years now and it’s about time that they live up to their potential. Phoenix however, is definitely a surprise. They’re a decent team but I don’t think many people expected them to get this far into the playoffs. Unfortunately for all 10 Coyotes fans though, I think this is the end of their road. The Kings are too good. Jonathan Quick should be able to match Mike Smith shot for shot which will give LA’s offence a big advantage. Not to mention the LA is boasting Mike Richards. Richards is a man singularly born for big games. I don’t think this one will last too long.

Most Interesting Story: Is it getting repetitive to say goaltending? These two goalies are clearly the top contenders for the Conn Smythe trophy at this point, and it is not unreasonable to think that whichever goalie advances here will win the playoff MVP, regardless of wether they end up with their name on the Cup or not. Expect these series to have some insane performances by Smith and Quick.

Most Interesting Stat: The LA Kings are looking to be the second team in NHL history to defeat the top three teams in the Conference in one playoff season. The first you ask? Why it was the 2004 Calgary Flames…who was their coach again?

BONUS STAT: This is the first time in history that the Kings, Clippers, and Lakers have all made the playoffs. What on earth is going to happen to the Staples Center if all three teams advance?

Glen’s Prediction: Kings take it in 6 with Dustin Brown getting two game winning goals and two shutouts combined for the goalies.

Troy’s Prediction: Los Angeles in 5.

Coin’s Prediction: Los Angeles in 7 (the coin has the Kings going up 3-0, then Phoenix rallying only to lose)

EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS

#1 New York Rangers vs. #6 New Jersey Devils

Everyone immediately brings to mind memories of the unreal seven game Eastern Finals of 1994 here, but we forget that they have played three times since then with each series lasting either four or five games. Still though, this series has the potential to be very intriguing. Gaborik vs. Kovalchuk, Richards vs. Parise, Lundqvist vs. Brodeur, Tortorella vs. DeBoer and of course The Shore vs. The City. This series should be all kinds of interesting.

Troy Says: Well this is series we haven’t seen in years. Unfortunately I don’t expect it to be the most exciting series ever played. Having said that though you just never know in the playoffs what can happen. I was very surprised to see New Jersey get past the Flyers the way they did so this team cannot be taken lightly. With that in mind though this team relies heavily — as they always have — on the play of Brodeur. Somehow, even though he’s got to be an octogenarian by now, he’s still stopping pucks. The question then becomes does he still have it in him to keep it up in the next round? Well I bet against him last round and I was wrong so my heart tells me not to do it again. If you look at things from the Rangers’ side they’re firing on all cylinders and their goaltending is definitely not a question. Even Marty recently stated that he thinks Lundqvist is the best goalie in the game right now. So bottom line is I do think Brodeur will be strong, but I don’t think he’ll be able to carry his team past the Rangers.

Most Interesting Story: Coaching. Anyone else remember March 19? Because this happened:

And there were the great outbursts from the coaches afterwards. Hopefully the intensity is ratcheted up here, just like it was in the Pennsylvania showdown a few weeks ago.

Most Interesting Statistic: Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards are the only two players in the Top 25 of NHL Salary who are still playing (Stick Tap to Cap Geek on that one)

Glen’s Prediction: Who was the genius that predicted the Devils in the Final Four? Sure, that same genius may have also predicted the Rangers in the Stanley Cup Finals, but let’s not harp on such things.

Troy’s Prediction: Rangers in 6

Coin’s Prediction: Jersey in 6

QUICK HITS FOR THE FINALS

Glen Says: The Kings over the Devils in 5 with Jonathan Quick as the Conn Smythe

Troy Says: LA over Rangers in 7. Quick with the Conn Smythe.

Coin Says: LA over New Jersey in 6.

Man that coin just can’t stay consistent, can it?

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Braden Holtby is Made of Rubber: Why you ask? Well because he always bounces back!

Holtby’s numbers coming off of a loss are simply insane. After his great performance in Game 6 against the Rangers, he is 9-0 after losing a game. This is simply insane, how can you be so good to have not lost two games in a row?

Add to the fact that the last six of those wins have been against the New York Rangers or the Boston Bruins during these playoffs. Right now, George MacPhie looks like a genius for trading Varlamov for a 1st and 2nd round draft pick, and for not panicking when Vokoun and Neuvirth were not getting it done earlier. Obviously we need to wait and see if he’ll turn out more like Ken Dryden or more like Jim Carey, but it’s very fun to watch right now.

Phony Press Conferences with Greg Jamison: Seriously, what is going on in Glendale?

The NHL announces a Press Conference and it seems like we finally have a local owner in Arizona, who can keep the team there…right? Well not so fast. It later gets turned into a “Media Availability Day” to update everyone on the state of the sale, which is that nobody knows what’s going on. No offer has been presented to City Council, nothing was really made of the Goldwater Institute, and here we are in the middle of May with nothing concrete going forward.

This isn’t like in Atlanta where things fell apart very quickly, this has been going on for seriously three years. It’s simply unbelievable that this has dragged on for this long and nothing has been resolved. One can’t help but wonder if they are just throwing up smoke screens until the Coyotes are eliminated from the playoffs and then announce the move, because remember who the tickets sales are helping…

Paul F’n Heyman:  Paul Heyman graced our screens for the first time in a very long time this past week, and how could you not get excited for it?

Despite not appearing for a wrestling promotion in a few years, Heyman never missed a beat. Even in reading a prepared statement Paul Heyman is able to get everyone to hold on to every last word coming out of his mouth. This man is an absolute genius on the microphone, and we can’t help but hope that he plays a part in the Brock Lesnar storyline going forward, the thought of him working as an agent/mouth piece/corner man for Brock Lesnar in his Summerslam match against Triple H is every bit a plus.

9/11 First Responders…really?: In the intro to Game 6 of the Rangers-Capitals series, CBC Host Ron MacLean foolishly compared NHL Players to the firefighters and policemen that rushed into the flaming wreckage of The Pentagon and World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001.

War metaphors in sports really need to stop. Every game is not a “battle”, or a “war”, and these men are not “soldiers” or “warriors”. Brad Richards and Alexander Ovechkin are very talented athletes engaged in a struggle on behalf of their billionaire owners, nothing more. To compare them to soldiers, police officers, or anyone else is down right insulting to the people who are risking their lives.

In case you haven’t seen the video, have a look and wonder…

Fatal-Four Way: Alberto Del Rio challenging Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Title at Over the Limit wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. After a very fun tag match on RAW, things got changed as Chris Jericho and Randy Orton were added to the match.

These four are certain to put on a great show, and hopefully are able to lead to some interesting spin-offs down the line. All six possible one-on-one matches featuring those four are incredibly intriguing and it should make for some interesting feuds going forward. This can add some much needed luster to the Sheamus-Del Rio feud since either of them can win this match without pinning the other to set up easy motivation going forward.

Of course, what puts this in the plus more than anything else is that it means that Orton-Kane is finally done.

David Menzies: How is this for a great hook to start an article?

Question: When do you know that a public figure really needs a P.R. boost?

Answer: When that person wraps himself in the rainbow flag.

If that doesn’t make you want to throw up, then I don’t know what will. The “columnist” David Menzies lead a recent article on the Canadian Version of the Huffington Post with this. What’s worse (and keeps it relevant to this site) is that the public figure he is accusing is Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke.

Burke, whose gay son was killed in a car accident, is also one of the founders of the If You Can Play, You Can Play initiative started a few months ago. Menzies accused Burke, as well as former New York Ranger Sean Avery, of standing up for gay rights as a means of shielding himself from criticism by “Milking the gay angle for all it’s worth”.

First off, to accuse Burke of starting “You Can Play” based on anything other than the memory of his son is disgusting, ever Brian Burke would not stoop to that level. Secondly, if he was out to escape criticism it has clearly failed, as people continue to call for his job. Lastly, Menzies also called for a boycott of the Grey Cup since they are allowed to use the Imperial System but nobody else in Canada is allowed to, alright so that point may not be relevant, but it shows what kind of a guy we’re dealing with.

By the way, he doesn’t work for Fox News, he gets to grace our televisions North of the Border, working for a company that starts with an “S” and ends with an “un Media”. What a wonderful time to be Canadian…

Prediction for the Week: Rangers win 3-1 against the Capitals, then get a split in Manhattan against the Devils.

With yesterdays news that nobody has any idea what’s going on with the Coyotes, and we are quickly running out of time, the conversation of NHL Realignment needs to happen soon. It seems clear that the NHL did not want to move a team like Columbus or Detroit East for a year and then be forced to move them back West once we get the Hamilton or Quebec Coyotes.

In previous posts way back in January, we looked at different ways to tweak the current alignment to accommodate the relocated Coyotes and to get Winnipeg out of the Southeast Division. In this post we’ll look at ways to change things around a little bit while keeping the Coyotes were they are, as surreal as that is.

We’ll start with the Western Conference were things are far less confusing. First thing is first: one of Detroit, Nashville, or Columbus needs to move East in order to get Winnipeg in the West. For reasons outlined in previous posts, Columbus is the most logical choice. They are the Easternmost team, in the right Time Zone, struggling financially, and very close to both Pittsburgh and Buffalo, so let’s get them East. Sorry sleepy Red Wings fans.

Starting with the Pacific Division, we obviously have the Phoenix Coyotes and the three California teams. The three options for the final piece of this puzzle would be the Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, and Vancouver Canucks. Sure Dallas is there already, but it really doesn’t make a ton of sense. The city is a full two Time Zones away from the Pacific Division and doesn’t belong there.

The choice between the Canucks and Avalanche depends on your view of Canadian hockey teams drawing in the United States. In the Northwest Division we will clearly have the Oilers, Flames, Jets, Wild, and one of those two teams. Reports were that none of the American teams wanted to be in a division with four Canadian teams, even though Minnesota is doing just fine for attendance. Nonetheless, this request will be honoured and we can slide Colorado in the Northwest, leaving Vancouver in the Pacific, which really makes more sense as far as Time Zones go.

The Central Division is made up then of Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, and Dallas. This division clearly makes sense geographically and traditionally. Four of the five teams are in the Central Time Zone, with Detroit being only an hour behind.

To recap our Western Conference looks like this:

Pacific Division: Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, Phoenix Coyotes, San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks
Northwest Division: Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers, Minnesota Wild, Winnipeg Jets
Central Division: Chicago Blackhawks, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Nashville Predators, St. Louis Blues
Easy right? Well hold tight, the East is going to get very complicated in a moment.

Distances in the East are significantly less than those in the West. Vancouver and Minneapolis, two teams that are in the same division now are over 2,800km apart, while Montreal and Miami, two teams that were almost lumped together in the failed plan last January are over 2,600km apart, which represents the biggest in-Conference distance in the East. So really, if the Canucks and Wild can play together, then any two teams in the Eastern Conference can, especially since they are all in the same Time Zone.

The problem with the Eastern Conference in its current form is the simple fact that everything is stacked. The most of the teams that get the highest attendance and TV Ratings are all in the Northeast or Atlantic Divisions. It’s no wonder that hockey did not catch on in Atlanta, they were getting the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes 3-4 times a year. One of the reasons that the Nashville Predators have been The Great Southern Success Story, has got to be the fact that they’ve shared a division with established teams like Detroit and Chicago for all of their existence. Sure, so has Columbus, so there are clearly other factors here, but it’s hard to discount the drawing power of teams like that.

According to ESPN, the six teams in our Eastern Conference with the lowest percentage attendance are the New York Islanders, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils, Tampa Bay Lightning and our newly imported Columbus Blue Jackets. These six teams should be evenly placed in three different divisions and be supported by three stronger markets.

Clearly both Florida teams are together, same with both New York Metropolitan teams, leaving Columbus and Carolina together in the third division.

Looking at the other nine teams we can fit Toronto, Ottawa, and Buffalo as one trio. Montreal and Boston must stay together, same with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Leaving the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals to join each of those duos. As great as the Flyers-Rangers rivalry is and has been, it makes more geographic sense to put the Rangers in with the Bruins and Habs, plus this gives us a division that includes Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, and who doesn’t love that idea right now?

The Rangers-Bruins-Canadiens trio would be a logical dance partner for the Devils-Islanders duo. Despite the proximity of Columbus and Pittsburgh, it makes the most sense to have the Penguins-Flyers-Capitals trio join up with the Florida teams for geographical reasons.

This leaves Toronto, Ottawa, and Buffalo join up with Columbus and Carolina, making a “Mostly Great Lakes” Division. While Ottawa and Raleigh are not exactly neighbours, they have approximately the same distance between them that Denver and Minneapolis do.

If you’re having trouble following along, here are the past 980 words wrapped up in a nice, neat, little map.

As you can see, the “Mostly Great Lakes” Division is without a name at the moment. We could change the Central to the Midwest and use the Central Division for this one, otherwise we’re a little at a loss for a geographic name here.

So to recap for those of you that went all the way to the bottom, we get the following set up for our six divisions:

WESTERN CONFERENCE                                                    EASTERN CONFERENCE

Pacific Division                                                                   Atlantic Division
Anaheim Ducks                                                                    Florida Panthers
Los Angeles Kings                                                                Philadelphia Flyers
Phoenix Coyotes                                                                  Pittsburgh Penguins
San Jose Sharks                                                                  Tampa Bay Lightning
Vancouver Canucks                                                              Washington Capitals

Northwest Division                                                             Northeast Division
Calgary Flames                                                                    Boston Bruins
Colorado Avalanche                                                              Montreal Canadiens
Edmonton Oilers                                                                   New Jersey Devils
Minnesota Wild                                                                     New York Islanders
Winnipeg Jets                                                                       New York Rangers

Central Division                                                                 “Mostly Great Lakes” Division
Chicago Blackhawks                                                            Buffalo Sabres
Dallas Stars                                                                        Carolina Hurricanes
Detroit Red Wings                                                                Columbus Blue Jackets
Nashville Predators                                                              Ottawa Senators
St. Louis Blues                                                                    Toronto Maple Leafs

Sure it’s not 100% Ideal, but it’s better than calling Winnipeg Southeast, or Tampa Northeast, isn’t it?

You can feel the rage coming from North of the border, how can places that don’t get any snow appreciate *our* game? Add in to the fact that a team in DC is still playing, a team from Miami was one goal away from the second round, and Tampa Bay and San Jose both made deep playoff runs a year ago, and the game all Canadians love is under attack from some Great Southern Menace.

At the start of the season everything was looking great for Canadian teams. The Canucks were still considered Stanley Cup contenders, the Maple Leafs, Flames, and Canadiens were considered potential playoff teams, and the Oilers and Senators had a wealth of young talent that could break through in a few years time. But best a team was saved from the apathetic clutches of a failed Southern market and brought back to the True North Strong and Free to become, at the very least, the second favourite team of 35 million people in the Northern half of the continent.

Even better, the prospects going forward looked great. The team in Phoenix was still without an owner, with rumblings that teams in Miami, Columbus, and Long Island may need to look elsewhere, while they were building new NHL ready arenas in Quebec City and the Great Toronto Area. Maybe we could end up Making it Nine!

Well since then things have changed, dramatically. The Coyotes and Panthers won their division and improved their attendance, the Blue Jackets signed a new lease with the city of Columbus for roughly the next millenium, and the Islanders are almost certainly going to stay on Long Island, even if  they end up in Brooklyn.

Worst still the Oilers, the Leafs, and the Canadiens all finished in the bottom five in NHL Standings, the Calgary Flames predictably finished 9th, and after a late season collapse the Winnipeg Jets were unable to make the playoffs. Only the Canucks and Senators made the playoffs, with both bowing out in the first round.

Clearly this is not a good time for hockey north of the border. The Sunbelt is the new king of the NHL!

The truth is, this rage is misguided, misinformed, and fits an overly simplistic narrative.

Extreme Rules – The Matches: Wow! What an event the WWE put on this past week. The company put on arguably their best event since last years Money in the Bank, coincidently in the same city.

In many ways, this event was what Wrestlemania could have been. Cena-Brock had a feeling of hatred that Cena-Rock didn’t, while Daniel Bryan and Sheamus showed what happens if they are given more than 18 seconds to do their thing. While Punk and Jericho really showed how to blow off a blood feud.

Add in the fact that we had a very good Orton-Kane match to start things out, and we had ourselves a damn fine PPV that sets the bar very high for the rest of the year.

Extreme Rules – The Decisions: Why on earth would they have Brock Lesnar lose his first match in eight years? Why on earth would they have John Cena cut that very bizarre (and wildly ignored) promo at the end?

Apparently after the match Brock Lesnar went crazy backstage, flipping out over the loss and Cena no-selling the beating he took. Or did he? Later reports were that this was exaggerated to “work the boys”. The reasons for this really aren’t clear. Of course, we all must keep an open mind as for what happens next, but at this moment it feels like things are not going in the direction that they should be.

Kneel Before the King: Sure the LA Kings are not your typical 8th seed. They could have finished as high as 3rd up until the last day of the season, so to label them as a Cinderella team is misleading.

Having said that, who on earth saw this coming? After their 4-2 win in Game 3, they have a record of 7-1 in the playoffs, which is easily the best out of any team. What’s more impressive, is the fact that they have been playing against the top two regular season teams in the league, so victories are very tough to come by.

This team looks damn scary, and after those first three games against St. Louis, should be a favourite to come out of the West. Who the hell saw this coming?!?!?

Phoenix Rising: The Phoenix Coyotes shocked many by defeating the Blackhawks in round one, and shocked many more by jumping out to a 2-0 lead against the Predators.

But the most shocking thing of all is clearly the fact that the games are selling out. Even more shocking, news came out today the Coyotes are once again one step closer to staying in the desert.

The fans at Coyotes games seem knowledgable. They are all decked out in ‘Yotes gear and/or white, they are cheering at the right time and booing at the right time. So the most obvious question comes out: where the hell have they been for the past three years? Sure it makes sense to not go see a bad team, but this is their third year in a row in the playoffs and only now these people are showing up. If, and this remains a huge if, the Coyotes stay in Phoenix next year, it will be incredibly interesting, and probably frustrating, to see how many of them are showing up to Tuesday night games in November…

Punk vs. Bryan, YES! YES! YES!: Daniel Bryan defeated Jerry Lawler at the end of RAW this past week to win the Beat the Clock Challenge and earn a chance to challenge CM Punk for the WWE Title at Over the Limit.

With all due respect to Mr. Jericho, this truly is a match between the two best in the world, and it’s hard not to get excited at the thought of it. When these two were tearing it up in Ring of Honor, could anyone have imagined that they would one day be fighting for the WWE Title on a Pay-Per-View? The thought of this is beyond surreal.

The outcome of the match is really intriguing. Daniel Bryan is very hot right now and Punk’s six-month reign is the longest the company has had in a while, so logic may dictate that veganism defeats straight edge. Yet, things are rarely that simple. Could this just be a chance to get people to boo Bryan? Could this just be a chance to have Jericho interfere in one of Punk’s matches? Or could this be the start of a long feud that would destroy the internet by making all of our dreams come true?

Blame it on the Russians: You gotta hand it to David Poile. The GM of the Predators chose to bench two of their most dynamic forwards for violating team curfews prior to Game 2. Sure Andrei Kostitsyn had been pretty average these playoffs, and Radulov certainly looked hungover that game, but this was a gamble. The Preds were having trouble scoring, and you would think that these dynamic players would be part of the solution, and not the problem. Yet the classiest organization that doesn’t play in Detroit stuck to their guns and went on and won a must win game without two of their Top Six forwards.

But this is in the minus camp for a reason. The narrative in several places on the media has been overly simplistic: these guys are Russians, and therefore care more about drinking in Scottsdale than drinking from Stanley.

Let’s count the reasons that it’s a flawed idea:

- The Kostitsyns are from Belarus not Russia, let’s get that out of the way right now.
- Do you really think that Evgeni Malkin or Pavel Datsyuk would break these rules?
- Why was nobody saying “Typical American hockey player” when Patrick Kane got drunk and punched a cab driver? Or “Typical Canadian” whenever Sean Avery did anything?

It’s 2012 this type of xenophobia is completely unfounded. The vast majority of players in the NHL want to win. Sure some make dumb life decisions, and some of these dumb ones may be from Russia, but there are plenty of Canadian, American, Swedish, Finish, Swiss, Belarusian, Korean, Slovenian, Moroccan, Brazilian, and Martian hockey players that do stupid things off the ice. Keep with the time, ladies and gents, the Cold War is long over.

Prediction for this Week: The Phoenix Coyotes don’t win another playoff game.

After the first round, Glen, Troy and the Coin all had some struggles., with the standings coming out as follows:

In third place we had the coin who correctly predicted series wins for the Washington Capitals, New Jersey Devils, St. Louis Blues, and the Nashville Predators, we have the coin!

In 2nd place, correctly guessing…err prognosticating the Rangers, Devils, Blues, and Predators all winning, with an extra point coming for going with the Rangers 7 game victory bringing his point total to 5 is the proprietor of this blog, Glen!

And in first place with a 5-3 record based on correct predictions for the Rangers, Devils, Blues, Coyotes, and Predators, plus correctly predicting the series length for the St. Louis Blues is Troy! Like the Western Conference we seem to be having a changing of the guard here.

For the next round we’ve got the following Predictions…

WESTERN CONFERENCE

#2 St. Louis Blues vs. #8 Los Angeles Kings

Remember after Michael Leighton made it to the finals and everyone kept saying that you don’t need goaltending to win? Well look at the roughly 712 shutouts that these two teams combined for this year and start to think again. As the Vancouver Canucks can attest to, the Kings are not a typical eighth seed, but the Blues looked damn scary in their last trip to California. After seeing records set in Philly-Pittsburgh last round for offense, expect records to be set for defense here.

Troy Says: In the West goaltending was king in the first round. All four Western Conference teams have amazing goaltending so with that in mind it’s most likely going to come down to good offence, or inversely, poor defence.  St. Louis is a young team with exceptional talent. Everything is coming together for them at the right time. However, keep in mind that the team they beat in the first round was San Jose….the chokingest team…..ever?!  If you look at what the Kings did in the first round it’s quite impressive. Los Angeles knocked out the defending Western Conference Champs and President’s trophy winners in 5 games. And you can’t even blame it on Luongo! This leads me to believe that at the end of the day, LA is the better team. LA has been on this precipice for a number of years now. Everyone was wondering when they were going to get over the hump and start making some noise and with the addition of a guy like Richards I believe this is their time.

Welcome back to our weekly talk about the best and worst of our favourite sport and pseudo-sport! Since we left off last week, we’ve had an Extreme Edition of RAW, and the NHL Playoff Field get cut in half. We’ve got lots to get to, hit the damn banner!

Playoff Overtime: There has been a lot to love, and a lot to loathe with the first round of the playoffs so far. For every crazy-fun Philly-Pittsburgh game or close goaltending duel between Ottawa and New York, there have been some dull trapfests between Florida and New Jersey or Boston and Washington.

But we can most certainly all agree that the insanely high amount of Overtime games is a ton of fun. We get such loveably unlikely heroes as Joel Ward and Michael Boedcker or superstar clutch moments from Niklas Backstrom or Jonathan Toews. The NHL does Sudden Death better than anyone else, and it’s hard not to get incredibly excited by moments like this.

Blaming Luo: Astute readers will look at the banner at the top of this page and presume that we here at Blade Jobs of Steels are not the biggest fans of the soon to be former Canucks goaltender. Having said that, the fact that he has become, in the words of Don Cherry, an escape goat in Vancouver is nothing short of shocking.

Luongo loses two games and is a pariah, Schneider loses two games and is a saint. Sure Luongo has his issues and certainly shares some of the burden here, but this is a team that was only able to score eight goals in five games when it mattered the most. Sure Daniel Sedin was injured, but where was Henrik? Where was Kesler? Where was Booth? Where was Raymond? Where was Burrows? This team has serious problems with clutch goals and finding a new goalie to blame — make no mistake about it Schneider will take the fall someday – won’t solve this.

WWE Monday Night Raw, Staring Brock Lesnar: There is nothing to not love about Brock Lesnar’s contract signing this past week. The stipulation that if he beats John Cena that the name of the show needs to change is nothing short of brilliant.

Lesnar is bound to get some cheers, he’s a huge cross-over name and he’s going after John Cena. But he is coming across like he has utter contempt for the WWE, and there is no way that doesn’t get him some serious heat with even the smarkiest of fans. This run is already starting to remind me of The Rock’s 2003 heel run, which is arguably the greatest that the Great One has ever been. Hopes are insanely high for this right now!

Viva La Roidza! News broke late Thursday night that Rey Mysterio was suspended for his second violation of the WWE Wellness Policy and will miss 60 days after failing a drug test. The next failure on his part leaves him on the unemployed line.

This is horrible news for the company, as Rey Mysterio is consistently one of the top draws in the company and could have made a huge impact on his return. The Smackdown roster has an abundance of heels looking to move up the ladder, and a feud with a returning Mysterio would have helped any of them out immensely. Sadly, they’ll have to wait two months as Rey-Rey clearly hasn’t learned much from his first lesson a few years back.

New Blood Rising: As we talked about once before here, there is a sea change taking place in the Western Conference. None of the four teams still playing in the West have won a Stanley Cup before, so we are guaranteed to have at least one team get a shot at their first sip of the Cup.

Add in the Washington Capitals, and the very strong performances in the first round by the Ottawa Senators and Florida Panthers and we have some optimism that a few teams will have their names engraved on the Cup for the first time. What remains to be seen is if they can use that to build momentum in the market like Tampa Bay and Dallas, or if they will still have attendance problems and struggle in their market like Carolina and to a lesser extent, Anaheim.

Racist Tools: If you have no read Harrison Mooney’s excellent piece on Puck Daddy about the ridiculous reaction to Joel Ward’s overtime goal, give it a read.

There’s not much to add that Mr. Mooney did not cover, and his perspective as a person of colour really helps drive this home.

Seriously, it’s 2012, why is racism still a thing?

Prediction for the Week: Cody Rhodes and Kharma leave Extreme Rules as champions.