Rumour has it that there was some sort of Sens game last night, but as a pre-arranged Date Night with Beloved precluded me from seeing anything other than the third period, I'll leave it to the better informed (Ed.: And this would be different...how?).

Instead, I'd like to add my two cents and mangled metaphors to the parsing, teeth gnashing, navel gazing and second guessing surrounding Stevie Y's little presser yesterday.  You may have missed it.  There were only 13 television networks covering it.

Ladies and gentlemen!  Start your ulcers!

Goalies:

Brodeur, Luongo, Fleury.

No offence Stevie, but a retarded monkey could have made those picks (Ed.: Why drag Mike Milbury into this?) after Cam Ward's discovery that he plays for Carolina and Steve Mason's little experiment in self immolation.  All that remains is to pick the starter.  Not to point out the obvious, but seven 40 win seasons, four Vezinas, three Stanley Cups, one Olympic Gold and a hockey bag full of records should give you an idea of who I think should be The Man.

Forwards (helpful line combos entirely mine.  You're welcome Mike):

Marleau-Thornton-Heatley
Nash-Crosby (A)-Iginla (A)
Perry-Getzlaf-Bergeron
Morrow-Toews-Staal/Richards

A few things jump out at me right away.  Firstly, watching Doucheldorf wearing the Maple Leaf, let alone having to root for him (!!) is going to leave me a conflicted, self-loathing, nauseous mess.  Fun!  Second: Brenden Morrow?!?!  Really??  Third: Holy crap, no Shane Doan!  Brenden Morrow?  Really?

It's unfortunate that My Man Mike didn't make it.  If you ask me (and oddly enough, nobody has), Fish is a faster, grittier version of Richards who may be sorely missed on the small ice (just throwin' that out there now so I can do the "I told ya so!" dance the first time Richards or Staal bails on a forecheck).  Barring a series catastrophic injuries (keep your chin up Mikey!  Could happen!) I guess he'll just have to content himself with wiling away a two week break in his million dollar estate with his uber-hot fiancée.  Poor bastard.

Defence:

Niedermayer (C)-Pronger (A)
Keith-Seabrook
Boyle-Webber
Doughty

An impressive group to be sure, but...um...yeah.

I don't count myself among the many who are howling over the injustice of leaving Mike Green off the team.  Not after watching most of the Caps playoff run last season and seeing him wilt into a turnover producing puddle of goo as the games got bigger.

But take out Niedermayer and the Angel of Flying Elbow Death and the average age of this group falls to about twelve.  Will all that incredible skill, the laser beams from the point and all around wonderous wonderousness hold up in a Gold Medal game against Ovechkin, Malkin, Kravchuck, Semin et.al. in front of 30 million torch and pitchfork wielding Canucks?  The enquiring minds of Jay Bouwmeester, Dion Phaneuf and Robin Regher want to know.

Creamy Middle:

Fifteen players who shit the bed in Turin have been replaced by what essentially is a reunion of the 2005 Canadian Junior team that made the world their personal bitch in Grand Forks, North Dakota (Seabrook, Webber, Crosby, Getzlaf, Richards, Perry, Bergeron).  There are also, by my count, nine Cups on this team, with the most important member accounting for 30% of that number.

So while we gird ourselves for six weeks of endless dissection of every shift every one of these guys will play between now and puck drop against Norway on February 16th, not to mention consternation over every sniffle, sneeze, groin tweak or indescriminate clubbing by pussyfied future opponents (YA HEARD ME, SUTER! ASSHOLE!), I submit to you...the kids are alright.

Now tell me why I'm wrong.

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