#66

Biscuits and Breezers

  Welcome back to another blog of Biscuits and Breezers! I am sorry there has been so much time in between these last two blogs I have been trying to pack up a lot of my stuff to ship it and just haven't had time to write very much so I apologize for that! There is plenty of news to talk about since the 17th so this might be a longer blog than usual! Today, we will talk about the WSHL, Marc-Andre Fleury having his baby, and the playoffs. Starting off with the Playoffs! It is that time of year again and I am proud to say that the Playoff games have started with quite a bang! The western teams involved are Chicago, Minnesota, Anaheim, Detroit, Vancouver, San Jose, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. The eastern conference teams are Pittsburgh, Islanders, Montreal, Ottawa, Washington D.C., New York, Boston, and Toronto. So far in the western division, St. Louis leads L.A., Chicago leads Minnesota, Anaheim is tied with Detroit, Pittsburgh are tied with the Islanders, Boston leads Toronto, Ottawa is tied with Montreal, Washington leads New York, and San Jose leads Vancouver. I am really excited for this year's playoffs because of the lockout and how intense they were last year. Odds are that the Penguins are supposed to win the Cup this year and I can see why people and officials would think that. They are a dynamite team and are power packed even with their injuries. Speaking of injuries, Crosby returned tonight and scored 2 out of the 3 goals against the New York Islanders in his comeback game! I am just saying now, Pittsburgh doesn't always have the best of luck against the Islanders but hopefully that changes! If I was going to have to pick a match up for the Stanley Cup finals I would pick a Anaheim Ducks vs. Pittsburgh Penguins series. That is just my choice and I hope some will agree with it! If you could choose a match up who would you choose? I am very intently watching these games and I hope to see some intense action very soon!

    I just want to congratulate Marc-Andre Fleury and his wife Veronique on the welcoming of their new baby girl Estelle Fleury on April 26th, 2013! She was close to 10 lbs! Flower is now a first time father, an Olympic gold medalist, and a Stanley Cup champion! Congratulations Fleury family. Best Wishes!

    Now, I want to talk about the WSHL for a minute. As you all know I generally work with the Missoula Maulers in the AWHL quite a bit during the season and I get a lot of updates and such from them. The organization is a base where I not only can see them play, but my other partner teams as well such as the Helena Bighorns, Billings Bulls, Gillette Wild, Yellowstone Quake etc. Well now with a new deal that has arisen, I might not get those much needed team interactions. That's right. The Maulers have decided to pack their things, leave the AWHL and head off to a new home in the WSHL. The WSHL is a fast paced junior A hockey league that already has many teams involved with it and you have to be a very skilled team and ready for the intensity of this league if you are going to stand a chance at all. I am not saying that the Maulers aren't ready or they aren't skilled but I am not exactly sure that this is the best move they can make at this time. Yes they have had a difficult last couple of seasons but that doesn't mean you just leave everything you founded your entire existence on. I mean look at the Toronto Maple Leafs. No one would have thought that they would ever make the Playoffs for quite some time and look at them now. Since they have made this decision there won't be a Helena vs. Missoula rivalry anymore. That very rivalry is the one that fuels the heart of the AWHL. If they take that away, who knows what will happen next. They are a fairly young team and I am afraid that if they do indeed go through with this plan, it will split them apart. This must be very nerve wracking for the managers and owners and I give my sympathy. Hopefully they will figure out someway to work everything in the AWHL and they can return back to the way things were. No interruptions with the flow of the teams. We will have to see which road they take.

   Now we have come to the "Players of Today" segment of the blog! For the Goalie pick we have Tri-City Jr. Americans U18 goaltender Casey Kaiser. For the prospect pick we have Traktor Chelyabinsk left wing Valeri Nichushkin. For the European pick we have Tappara SM-liiga center Aleksander Barkov.

   Aleksander is 6 ft 2 in, 205 lbs, and is from Tampere, Finland. In the 2011-2012 season, Aleksander had 7 goals in 32 games plated, 9 assists, 16 TPs, 4 PIMs, and a +/- of 5. Aleksander is coming up for the 2013 NHL Entry Draft and is predicted to go to the Nashville Predators as the 4th pick. I think that would be a very good pick for Nashville just for the case that most of their players are, for the most part, moving on to other NHL teams. Even though he is one of the younger players going up in the hockey world, he proves that he knows what he is doing. He tries to play right up there with the older guys as best as he can. He is a very good asset to Team Finland's WJC roster. I believe that he will go very far in the show. He controls the puck very well and likes to be a dominant player when it comes to things like this. Aleksander is a player of action rather than force. He doesn't necessarily like to check that often but when he does, he does it only with precision and accuracy. I like to watch his games because I know that there will be accuracy and high skill involved. He has extensive knowledge about the game and seems to prove that every time he gets on the ice.  I am very excited to see where he goes in the draft, Finnish hockey, and in the NHL. Good luck Aleksander in the NHL draft, Finnish hockey, and your future hockey career!

   Valeri is 6 ft 3 in, 201 lbs, and is from Chelyabinsk, Russia. In the 2011-2012 season, Valeri had 4 goals in 38 games played, 6 assists, 10 TPs, 6 PIMs, and a +/- of -10. Nichushkin is expected to go to the Carolina Hurricanes as the 5th pick in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft. He is one of the players that isn't afraid to go into the dirty places on the ice and make several scoring possibilities. He is very stable on his skates and that makes it easy for him to locate his team mates on the other end of the ice, shoot the puck with quite a lot of accuracy, and sets things up for his team. He is a very strong bodied player that likes to work the boards. You could definitely say that if he does get drafted by Carolina, because we all know things change in an instance at the draft, he will work right in perfectly with the energy players and the grinders. He is very comparable, in my opinion, to Jordan Staal. If these two player ever got the chance to play together or even train together I think that they could be a very good pair on the ice. Valeri is definitely someone to watch out for when his time comes and I think that he could be a very prominent opponent. Good luck Valeri with Chelyabinsk, the NHL Draft, and your future hockey career!

   Casey is 6 ft 0 in, 185 lbs, and is from Richland, Washington. In the 2011-2012 season, Casey had 13 games played, 11 goals scored, 710:59 minutes played, 5 wins, 5 loses, 1 overtime loss, 55 goals against, 4.64 goals against, 458 saves, and a .893 save percentage. Casey is a very good goalie with great butterflies, glove catches, and his protectiveness of his crease is undeniably one to beat. All though he is not coming up in the draft like the other picks we have had previously, he is doing tremendously well with the Tri City Outlaws.  I am very impressed with his style of play and for how young he is, he has quite the future ahead of him. I think that if you watch him long enough you will see him improve and grow greatly as a player.  I can't wait to watch more of this kid because I think that you could learn a lot from him. I hope that he will move up sometime in the near future because he needs it very much. To grow at the rate he is progressing, Casey needs to move up higher and very fast. Kaiser has the necessary fundamentals to be a high ranking goaltender. Let's see him go through with that! Good luck Casey with the Outlaws and your future hockey career!

   Thank you for reading another blog of Biscuits and Breezers! Every blog will be filled with updated hockey news, player reviews, and much more! Until next time remember, don't get your breezers in a bunch because hockey is always around the corner. Remember, it's always a great day for hockey and it's a lifestyle not just a sport!