I am prepared to sacrifice Stajan and Wellwood, but Mark Bell gets to stay because he delivered this hit on Daniel Alfredsson and shut out the lights on the guy, something Alfie’s had coming from somebody in Blue & White for about six years since he hit Tucker from behind and broke his shoulder with a very dirty hit. The kicker is the amount of whining and crying coming from Ottawa about the hit, which is clean any way you watch it. Might I suggest Jason Blake as a replacement?

@Geez:
I couldn’t believe it either. Carolina sucks, I hate them for losing to Florida – when Florida’s got their backup in net, too. If the Leafs could’ve beaten the Senators on Thursday, the choke would’ve been complete. I say nobody is untouchable on this team except Toskala (and Bell, who gets the free pass when he gets home from jail this summer, for reasons described above). The number of times this team has come out and crapped the bed in big games over the last three years is inexcusable. Paul Maurice is a nice guy, but he’s got to go, although I suspect they’ll keep him as a body for the new GM to throw overboard when things don’t go well at the start of next year.

I am adopting the Capitals too for the purpose of the playoffs. I love watching Ovechkin. The guy scores more than anyone else, hits about as many as anyone else, and does it cleanly – he only has 38 PIM this year. The guy has personally accounted for about 43% of the Capitals’ offense this year if you look at his points and the Caps’ total goals. Huet seems to be playing well too down the stretch, so anything is possible. I say Go Ovie Go!

Perhaps they look for a complete line, instead of just a winger? Bell-Stajan-Wellwood, if that’s still a valid line (going by Yahoo! stats) might be a choice.