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By Bryan Berg  December 1, 2009, at 10:34 pm  It was only a matter of time before the Matt Moulson puff piece was written. This actually came out about a week and a half ago, but it was so horrendous I had to share it. No, there are no Molson Canadian beer puns in this one… but fear not, as some awful wordplay still awaits you! By the way, sorry if the font jumps around in size a bit – you can blame ESPN.com’s cracked web staff for that.
ST. LOUIS -
At the risk of offending Linda Hamilton and the entire Moulson family and that furry guy in the old television series (Ron Perlman)
Anyone have any idea what this means? Me either. But I’m sure it’d make sense if I were like 30 years older.
Beauty-and-beast? Dynamic duo? Asinine alliteration? The books I read my 19-month-old daughter feature more clever wordplay.
But put it this way: Moulson, the hitherto anonymous 26-year-old winger who quickly has become the cheese to Tavares’ macaroni through the first quarter of this surprising season for the Islanders, was drafted in the ninth round of the 2003 draft, 263rd overall.
There are 43 words in this sentence. I’ll sum them up in four – Matt Moulson was unheralded.
They don’t even have a ninth round anymore. GMs figured it was better to pack up early and go golfing or head to a bar than stick around and draft players in the ninth round.
Or, the eighth and ninth rounds of the draft were lopped off after the lockout because GMs had like a week to prepare for the draft once the lockout ended. Or the owners didn’t to be stuck paying two extra draft picks. Either way, I’m sure it had nothing to do with golfing or drinking. By the way, Mark Streit was a 9th round selection of Montreal in 2004, meaning the Islanders probably have more 9th round draft picks on their active roster than any other team in history.
Does Moulson, who has 18 points, including five multipoint efforts, through the Islanders’ first 23 games, get tired of being treated like the hockey guy who fell to Earth?
He laughed.
“It doesn’t really bother me,” he told ESPN.com. “I’m here now in the NHL. I guess I have an interesting story to tell. It’s always interesting for people to find out things like that and maybe a good story for some younger kids.”
See, this is why we don’t go the route of some of our Blog Box colleagues and actually talk to the players. They do a good job with it. We can’t. Why? Because hockey players are BORING. Sorry to say it, but it’s true. What was Moulson supposed to say here? “I’m tired of being treated like the hockey guy who fell to Earth”? Furthermore, what does that even mean? Did Moulson arrive in a UFO? My head hurts now.
Indeed, an apprehensive Moulson was in regular touch with agent Wade Arnott as the July free-agency period approached and his contract with the Los Angeles Kings expired. “I was bugging him every day, ‘Where do you think I’m going to end up?’” Moulson said.
I’m sure Wade Arnott was like, “Who’s this Moulson guy who keeps calling me every day?”.
Tavares was among the first people Moulson called when his deal was completed during that first week of free agency.
“I was right on the phone to Johnny, and it was a pretty good moment,” Moulson said. “I still didn’t know what was going to come of it, but I was excited.”
I distinctly recall reading about the Moulson signing and loudly exclaiming the following words – “Who the hell is Matt Moulson?”. So did every single Islanders fan out there – even the ones who *knew* he’d work out from the moment he signed the contract.
“Matt was a guy that I knew from my days in Providence when he was playing in Manchester. I thought he had the ability to score. But I went back and I watched some of the goals in the NHL, which were goal scorer-type goals, and as it turned out through exhibition, he was our leading goal scorer,” Gordon told ESPN.com.
Yes, because scoring goals in exhibition games guarantees success in the regular season. You know who led the league in points during the pre-season? Former Islander Mike Comrie, he of the eight points in 16 regular season games. But I’m sure he’ll rebound in plenty of time to win the Hart and Art Ross Trophies, even if he’s got mono right now.
“The thing that’s good about Matt is if he’s not scoring from the tops of the circle, he’s scoring from the front of the net. That ability to score from two different places, you’re talking about two different types of players. Some guys don’t like to go into traffic. But the fact he was willing to do that, I thought it would be a good complement for John.”
Truer words have never been spoken. And by “truer words”, I mean “cliches that apply to virtually every forward in the NHL”.
And?
“We didn’t have a lot of options,” Gordon added.
That’s more like it.
“Actually, when people kept cutting down my skating, cutting down my skating, Mike O’Connell, when he was with L.A., he told me to look at a player named Andrew Brunette,” Moulson said, crediting the former Bruins GM who is now with the Kings’ player-development staff.
“I used to tape all his games and watch them and watch what he did,” Moulson said. “[Brunette] may not be the fastest guy out there, but he’s great at protecting the puck and making plays around the net and getting to the net. He was up and down in the AHL as well starting his career, and he’s made a pretty good player of himself and pretty good name for himself in this league. He’s someone I followed closely.”
Okay, this is actually something useful. This is something I didn’t know and is nice to hear. It makes infinitely more sense to emulate a guy like Brunette than a superstar. But nobody does it, because you never see the grinders on SportsCenter. Oh, wait, you never see the superstars of the NHL on SportsCenter, either.
This week Moulson met his guide, who of course had no idea he’d had any impact whatsoever on his career.
“He gave me a stick last night,” Moulson said happily.
You mean Brunette stuck him, as in speared him?
ZOMG! ROFLMAO!
“No, no, he signed a stick and gave it to me last night. I got it this morning,” Moulson said.
Oh. See, hockey players ARE boring.
“I got it this morning, and I had a grin from ear to ear. I told him he was one of my favorite players.”
I’m sure Andrew Brunette has never been referred to as “one of my favorite players” by anybody outside of the Brunette family and Matt Moulson.
“I told him when he made the team out of camp, ‘Treat every day like it’s your last, because you don’t know,’” Gordon said. “‘You battled high odds to make the team, but that doesn’t mean tomorrow won’t be a different day. You have to prove everybody right that we made the right decision every single day.’”
That’s right, Scott Gordon. Matt Moulson’s singular focus over his first 27 games has been to prove to everybody that Garth Snow is a genius. As opposed to, you know, proving that he’s actually a pretty good player. Moulson, that is, not Snow. We all know Snow could never make it in the post-lockout NHL.
“It seems funny from where I started from until now. I get two goals against Boston [Monday night], and I’m upset because I wanted a third one. I’m not disappointed but wanting more after that. Coming from where I came from, I never thought I’d be wanting more after a two-goal game in the NHL.”
If I had a two-goal game in the NHL, I’d be wanting more. But it’d probably involve sexual favors, as opposed to a third goal.
Beautiful.
The first few times I read this, I thought to myself, “That’s an odd way to end this piece.” Eventually, I realized it was a play on the copious beauty-and-the-beast analogies found in the article, many of which I edited out for the benefit of your sanity. I still have no proof of any beast-like tendencies in Matt Moulson, or Andrew Brunette, for that matter. So, you know, hooray for Matt Moulson and all that.
Bad Hockey Writing, espn, Fire Joe Morgan, garth snow, john tavares, Matt Moulson, new york islanders, scott gordon
By Anthony De Franco December 1, 2009, at 8:50 pm What Steve Spagnuolo built in his two years as New York Giants defensive coordinator was more than just a Super Bowl caliber defense. He built a culture that an entire football team fed off of. It was a feeling of being untouchable for the fans.
It was a mantra that was simple. On almost every play, someone that wasn’t a defensive lineman was coming on a blitz. The goal was to get someone, anyone turned loose to hit the quarterback. If it was the blitzer, that was fantastic. However, more often than not, the blitzer was a distraction. His job was to simply present a fifth body for the offensive line to block. That created one-on-one opportunities for the ultra-talented Giants defense line to rattle quarterbacks into submission.
Now, it wasn’t a perfect system. The defense was willing to present to opportunities for the offense they faced to make big plays. Blitzing meant a ton of man-to-man coverage that wasn’t always air tight. Long passes were made, but there was a feeling of invincibility. So, the other team scored. So what? The next time the defense went out there, they would bring the noise once again, and the opposing quarterback would be forced to move heaven and earth to get his team down the field again.
Now, that feeling is gone. In it’s place is a lot of what Giants fans felt during the Tim Lewis era. A feeling that the offense is going to convert every single third down, regardless of length. A feeling of pain every time a defensive linemen drops into coverage. A feeling of helplessness. A team with an offense completely capable of winning is destroyed by the unit that has mean the trademark of the team for nearly fifty years.
Here’s the worst part of it all: New coordinator Bill Sheridan promised the fans that nothing was going to change whatsoever. The blitzing would still be present. Pressure would be the key to the defenses success. That’s why everyone blamed the faulty knees of the three of the four linemen when things started going wrong. They said that they couldn’t win the one-on-one matchups because they were hurt.
In reality, the problem is that there is no one-on-one matchups anymore. That’s because there are no blitzes. At least, not nearly as frequently. What happened almost every play last year happened only roughly 20 percent of the time in both the second half of the Falcons game, and the embarrassing loss to Denver in Thanksgiving.
Sheridan has changed the defense completely. Gone is the risky, but physical man-to-man coverage. In it’s place is soft zones with receivers running through the secondary unimpeded. Gone is the creativity, and with it has gone all the success that the team has enjoyed throughout the Spags era.
While they are 6-5, and certainly still alive in the playoff race, there is a palpable feeling of disappointment in the air in Giant-land. While the whole team has taken a step backwards, there is no doubt that the defense is the source of most frustration. With all the same players, plus high priced additions like Chris Canty and Michael Boley, this defense should be amongst the league’s best.
If you tell yourself that coaching isn’t the problem, than you’re lying to yourself.
By Anthony De Franco December 1, 2009, at 7:48 pm The UFC’s welterweight bad boy will get his chance to avenge the worst loss of his career at UFC 109. MMA Weekly says:
It may not be a title shot, but UFC welterweight Josh Koscheck will get his shot at revenge when he rematches the last fighter to defeat him. He returns to action on Feb. 6 at UFC 109 in Las Vegas to face Brazilian fighter Paulo Thiago.
The bout was first announced by AOL Fanhouse and later independently confirmed to MMAWeekly.com by sources close to the fight.
Always a busy fighter, Koscheck stepped up on short notice to take a fight at UFC 106 against rising star Anthony Johnson and did not disappoint. Despite a few fouls in the fight from both competitors, Koscheck showed good stand-up and a return to his wrestling roots as he out-grappled and eventually submitted Johnson in the second round.
The fight earned Koscheck a big notch in the welterweight division, not to mention bonuses that night that totaled $140,000. Following the win, he called for a title shot and blasted current top contender Dan Hardy for not doing enough to earn a shot at the 170-pound title.
Josh Koscheck is coming off to straight wins where he finished opponents in impressive fashion. After defeating Frank Trigg at UFC 103, he stopped Anthony Johnson at UFC 106 despite being poked in the eye during the fight. By choking Johnson out, Koscheck put himself all that much close to the championship picture.
As for his opponent, Paulo Thiago is 1-1 since defeating Kos. Josh’s American Kickboxing Academy teammate Jon Fitch got some revenge against Thiago at UFC 100, and Paulo got back to his winning ways by defeating Jacob Volkmann at UFC 106.
Here’s the skinny: Koscheck is a top-five welterweight. Thiago isn’t. Look for Koscheck’s revenge to come swiftly as he finishes Thiago and puts himself in the title picture.
By Matt Soldano December 1, 2009, at 3:40 pm I love it when there are some really obvious moves in the world of sports that general managers should make and they flat out ignore it or make up some BS reason as to why they choose to no longer pursue a certain athlete. I might not be like Jason, who thrives at mixing and matching players’ contracts or figuring out team’s salary cap situation, but a move like this makes me believe that maybe becoming a General Manager is not as difficult as people make it out to be.
A day after Philadelphia 76ers Head Coach Eddie Jordan and GM Ed Stefanski met with Free Agent Allen Iverson in Dallas, no deal is in place and both parties seem to be “non-committal” at the moment. Despite the fact that several sources are reporting “there is no doubt” he will be coming back, I remember hearing the same sort of reports when the Knicks were targeting AI. Yet, it never happened and to me the Knicks did a huge disservice to their fans, a fan base that has suffered nearly a decade through uneventful season after uneventful season.
The Sixers need the future Hall of Famer more so than New York and it makes even more sense! Look at the injuries that Philly is battling through:
- Lou Williams: Jaw Injury – Out 8 weeks
- Mareese Speights: Knee Injury – Out 6-8 weeks
- Elton Brand: Hamstring Injury – Came back last night, though admitted not 100%
With Speights and Williams out until after the new year, the Sixers are missing 30 points and are struggling to find a cast of characters to shoulder the load. Andre Iguodala (the other AI) has struggled shooting the ball (42%, compared to his career 47% FG) and Thaddeus Young has not become fully comfortable with Eddie Jodan’s offensive style. Iverson becomes the scorer of the team and most of all a closer, something the Sixers have desperately lacked. The team is 5-13 and falling fast in the Eastern Conference but 7 of those losses have come by six points or less. Iverson knows the big stage and can show up brightest in those spots.
Yes, the roster is young, and the question will always center around would Iverson stunt the growth of the team. A playoff birth is not out of the question with Iverson. He could keep them afloat just enough so when Lou Williams and Speights come back healthy, they could push for that 7th or 8th seed. Milwaukee, Charlotte, and Indiana (the current 6-8 seeds) are anything but locks for a playoff bid and it would not shock anyone if they fell off the map.
So Philadelphia, let’s look at the pro’s here. You generate local/national buzz, you are able to sell tickets and jerseys, and gain some sort of national relevance. The con’s you deal withanother AI fallout at the end of the year since he will be on a one-year deal. This does not even need to be thought about! I could have told you all of this in three words but I thought 509 would make my argument more convincing.
SIGN ALLEN IVERSON! Armsleeve night would be one hell of a promotion.
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