Thank God It's Over?

Well the NHL regular season ended on a moderately pleasant note. The Islanders managed to sneak into the playoffs (sans their 67.5 million concussioned goalie) and in the process also managed to knock out the Leafs. I should mention that both the Isles' goals were scored by Richard Park who is pretty much one half of my All-Asian NHL team (the Japanese halves of Paul "Mighty Mouse" Kariya and David Tanabe combine to make the other guy, did I miss anyone?). Rad! Dreamy Emo Norse God THOR-esen (pictured) also managed to score the gamewinner in Edmonton's last game against hated nemesis Calgary, thus snapping our losing streak of a gajillion games and bringing our record to two wins and one point picked up from overtime loss in the... twenty? games since Smytty (bless him) was traded. Screw you K-Lowe! Many Edmonton fans will be raging that we didn't manage to also drag the Flames out of the playoff race with our concentrated suckage, being that we did manage to beat them but our only other win was enough to cost Colorado's chance to leap them, but i'm cool with that; i'd much rather see Edmonton natives Iginla, Langkow and Phaneuf on the ice than yet another Avalanche playoff run.

So onto the playoffs: It's rad that I have a Ryan Smyth team to cheer on for... well the one round they'll play before they are obliterated by the Sabres. I wasn't really expecting the Isles' to make it even this far so my backup plan for the east was to cheer for whoever wins the Ottawa/Pittsburgh series which is going to be totally crazy. Here's hoping the Sens don't completely collapse in the postseason again. In the west it's a bit more muddled, I liked the little-train-that-could Predators up until they added Forsberg at the expense of Upshall and became a ridiculous juggernaut so barring them I really don't like any of the teams arrayed for the Campbell Cup. What I do know is that Vancouver is going to be pretty much unbearable for the week before they get blasted out of the playoffs. The Canucks are actually a pretty likeable built from the net out team this year, but they're still the 'Nucks and I still have to put with their bullshit fans as I walk to and from work everyday.

Anyways, what i'm most interested in at this point is what the Oiler's are going to do with their fantastic draft pick. We seemed to have really worked for it, finishing a stellar fifth worst in the league and before the final game we had actually sunk to fourth. I couldn't get behind the idea of sucking for the sake of the draft because I have too much love and pride for the Oil, but now that it's done i've been chatting with Lawrence about high-end prospects like Cherapanov, Van Riemsdyck and Patrick Kane. Under the newly implemented draft lottery system, we apparently have a shot at the first overall pick and Lawrence definitely wants the team to pick up Cherapanov, but i'm thinking that with all the prospects in the system I wouldn't mind flipping the pick for someone who could actually help what is probably the currently worse team in the NHL: a star player for the next year. What do you think?

Oh Edmonton, I will always cheer for you; but boy, are we ever in a hole. Time to look across the ocean and watch the UEFA Champions League heat up. Go Liverpool!