Ray Emery is Not the Missing Link(s)

This morning, I've been in a heated debate with Adam EatShit about the Flyers being interested in Ray Emery, and frankly, it makes me want to punch him right in his stupid face.



As I explained yesterday, I absolutely, positively do not want Ray Emery ever to wear a Flyers uniform. Yet, here we are today with Paul Holmgren confirming that the Flyers are interested. Why? I have no idea.

Just check out Emery's résumé:

Emery then got into a fight with Senators teammate Brian McGrattan during a practice in Jan. 2008. He also got into it a bit with teammates Jason Spezza and Chris Neil.

Making matters worse, Emery got into a car accident, then a road rage incident where he allegedly threatened to kill an elderly driver who cut him off.

He once bragged in an interview that he’d been pulled over by police 30 times while in Ottawa.

…

The Sens finally decided to release him last summer. So he signed a contract with Atlant Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia, and promptly got into a fight with the club’s doctor.

He then quit the team at midseason.

So Ray returned to Canada, and was charged in March with speeding. They impounded his Hummer.

…

In march 09 charged with speeding. on 416. Hummer impounded and his license suspended. said in a television interview stopped by police 30 times in two years.

in russia, pulled one day, got into an argument and emery jumpd the team doctor.

Yeah, sounds like a standup guy who really has his team's best interests in mind. Oh, not to mention, his career numbers: 2.71 goal against average and .907 save percentage, are worse than Marty Biron (2.59, .911), and Marty is, you know, sane and likable.

Emery can fight though. In fact, he pummeled Biron a few years ago:



But, you know, fighting isn't really an important component for a goaltender. Stopping the puck and instilling confidence in your teammates is. Those are things Ray Emery is not good at at all. If Holmgren signs him, I will hate Paul Holmgren.

Now let's link …

-Scary moment in the Phils game last night:



Let's hope Rick Ankiel is OK. That had to hurt.

-What in world was Donyell Marshall doing in a nail shop?

-Listen, I went to Penn State. I know the weather isn't always nice and you may be inclined to stay inside and toke up every now and then. But shit, can't the football players lay off the sticky icky icky a little bit? Damn, these guys are stupid:

Penn State police searched an on-campus apartment of four football players for marijuana the night of last month's Blue-White Game, according to court records.

An application for search warrant, signed early April 26, identifies the apartment residents as Stephfon Green, Devon Still, Eric Latimore and Johnnie Troutman. None of the players has been charged, and the results of the seizure are scheduled to be released today.

Great, our backup tailback, two backup d-linemen that are supposed to be key contributors and our potential starting left guard had marijuana in their apartment. Fucking morons. Didn't the fact that Maurice Evans, who was an absolute beast in 2007, sucked horribly after getting suspended for marijuana and then making a horrible life decision by entering the draft and then going undrafted mean anything to you? Why are football players so incredibly dumb? Cut Paterno some slack here guys. Geez.

-Zack Greinke is unhittable.



If you haven't already read it, make sure you read Joe Posnanski's article on the kid. It's pretty amazing.

-Jason Whitlock bitchslaps Selena Roberts, courtesy of MLJ.

-Whilock isn't the only one going after Roberts.

-This guy takes beer pong way too seriously. Only in Philadelphia.

-Ladies and gentlemen, this is why Dwight Howard was the defensive player of the year:



-Oh, and some guy named LeBron is the MVP.

-Ed Barkowitz has an excellent story story about Quintin Mikell proving all the doubters wrong.



Great find by Andy, I gotta admit. Big Quintin Mikell fan.

-The Wachovia Center wasn't supposed to be this empty right now:

IT WASN'T supposed to be this way.

The Wachovia Center was not supposed to be a sports mausoleum the first week of May - devoid of games, fans and life.

Thanks to underachieving seasons by the Flyers and Sixers, Philadelphia's premiere venue for indoor sporting entertainment sits dark.

…

The Sixers' problems started before training camp, when then-coach Maurice Cheeks said the Sixers would not run plays for Young, because there wouldn't be any left after Brand and Iguodala.

Considering the promise Young showed as a rookie, this displayed a tremendous lack of insight toward his development.

This team was a mess from the beginning.

Brand was not back in basketball shape after recovering from a ruptured Achilles' tendon; Iguodala clearly had not worked on skills that would facilitate his transition to shooting guard; Samuel Dalembert was still in leftfield.

Agreed, Smalls. Agreed.

-Awesome interview, as Lang Whitaker talks with Stephon Marbury.

-LeBron's top 10 plays of his MVP season:



Philies and playoffs tonight. Watch them.

A Walk-Off, a Phenom and an Upset

Let's face it, the weekend was going pretty much as poorly as it could have been heading into yesterday. The Flyers gave away game 2 on Friday, blowing a 2-1 lead to lose in overtime, thanks in large part to Jeff Carter, who choked away the game by failing to bury a chance on a wide open net late in the third, which would have put the Flyers up 3-1, and then taking a penalty with about 4 minutes left on Jordan Staal—with the Penguins tying the game and forcing overtime on the ensuing power play.



It was not Carter's finest moment for sure, and I was infuriated with him. To make matters worse, the Phillies blew a 7-1 lead, losing 8-7, thanks to Cole Hamels surrendering the deep ball and Ryan Madson reverting back to the real Ryan Madson. Then the Phils followed it up with another Mets-like performance, with the bullpen failing to hang on and Brad Lidge suffering his first blown save in a Phillies uniform.



That sucked. Needless to say, hopes weren't all that high for yesterday's incredible Philadelphia triple-header. And things didn't look to be going any better when the Phillies fell behind 4-0, again, to the Padres. Thankfully, Chase Utley gave us a reason to cheer with his 2-run bomb to make 4-2, but I missed it and most of the Phils game to focus on the Flyers.

You all saw that game, so I don't want to rehash the whole thing, but man, where was that Flyers team the first two games? Yesterday, they played as good as you could have hoped and showed tremendous poise, coming right back after blowing an early 2-0 lead to recapture it and the game. Everyone on the ice wearing orange played with passion, and the entire team threw bone-crushing checks—even Jeff Carter hit a couple guys.

And Claude Giroux, Claude fucking Giroux. By now, it's no secret, Claude Giroux is my favorite Philadelphia Flyer. I love the guy. I really do. Can you remember the last time a Philadelphia rookie made you say, "Wow!" more than Giroux? He's just insane.



Minutes after the Penguins tied the game at 2, Danny Briere made a brilliant pass to Giroux, who scored his first NHL playoff goal to break the tie. A few minutes later, he made one of the most remarkable plays I've ever seen, busting his ass shorthanded down the ice to force Sergei Gonchar. Where most players would just tap on a player of Gonchar's skill and skate back, Giroux—a rookie, mind you—did much, much more than that, lifting the stick of Gonchar, stealing the puck, wheeling around the net, reversing, wheeling back around the other side and then laying a perfect pass to Simon Gagne, who buried the shorthanded goal to put the Flyers up 4-2. It was ridiculous.



I'm in complete awe of Claude Giroux. Call it a man crush. Call it what you like. Claude Giroux is by far my favorite player in hockey. His amazing play got the Flyers back on track, and a goal by fellow rookie Jared Ross and an empty-netter by Gagne has this thing back to 2-1. If the Flyers can bring that type of intensity to game 4, we may just have ourselves a series.

In the meantime, the Phils had mounted another comeback with a pinch-hit home run by Jimmy Rollins to make it 4-3, and during intermission of the Flyers game, the Phils were up in the bottom of the 9th. Ryan Howard fought off a tough pitch to loop a single, and up came Raul Ibanez. Ibanez, my steal of my fantasy baseball draft so far this season, has been tearing things up, and I told my dad, "He wants to hit a walk-off here." Sure enough, after working a 2-0 count, Raul sat on his pitch, got it, and BAM, walk-off city.



Very nice. After a great start to the day—a Phillies win and a Flyers win—I was all set to watch the Sixers get trounced by Orlando. Dwight Howard was a beast in the first half, but the Magic couldn't hit from beyond the arc and the Sixers were only down four.

Now, I'm not sure if any of you caught the halftime show, but it was the most ridiculous thing ever. Honestly, it was just Chris Webber and Kenny Smith yelling at each other, talking gibberish and not making a damn bit of sense. Usually I think TNT is awesome at NBA coverage and Kenny, EJ, Charles and Webber do a good job, but that was insanely stupid, childish and horrible. Completely unprofessional job by Webber, although he did seem to be defending the Sixers much more than anyone else.

Update: The Webber-Kenny video:



Then the Sixers came out and got routed in the 3rd quarter, falling behind by 18, and I almost left my cousin's house to drive home. But for some reason I stayed, and slowly, the Sixers began to come back. Andre Miller was superb, controlling the game, rebounding, dishing and doing some scoring. Louis Williams gave the Sixers a nice spark, and Andre Iguodala was the exactly what he's supposed to be—the Sixers' best player.

With a helping hand from Donyell Marshall, who hit some big shots and grabbed some boards, along with Theo Ratliff, who gave the Sixers great defense and nabbed a huge offensive rebound down the stretch, the Sixers came all the way back, and Andre Iguodala hit an impossible shot to steal game 1, 100-98.



It was a pretty amazing Sunday:

Carter, Richards, Donyell … and Duke Lost!

It's official, no duo in the NHL, not even those two Pittsburghers, have been more dangerous than Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. Right now, the Flyers are certifiably hot. They've scored points in 12 of their last 13 games, going 9-1-3 over that span, and the two best players have been the captain and Carter.



On Saturday night, as I was in and out of consciousness all day, I watched as Richards and Carter struck again. For much of the game, the Flyers were getting outplayed by the Hurricanes. Carolina looked fresher, seemed to work a little harder and had plenty of chances, but it was the Flyers who struck first when Mike Richards scored his fourth shorthanded goal of the season. Count em, 4. That puts him atop the NHL in shorthanded goals, tied with teammate Simon Gagne, and Carter is right behind them with 2. It was the Flyers' 11 shorty of the season, by far the most in the league. It's almost as if they are more dangerous than the team with the extra man. It's frightening.

Almost as frightening as Jeff Carter right now. Presently, there is not a player in the NHL who has a more potent shot than Carter. He'll fire from anywhere, any time with uncanny accuracy. After the Hurricanes imposed their will to tie the game, Carter had enough, and scored his league-leading 19th goal to give the Flyers the win. It was essentially Carter, Richards and Antero Niittymaki stealing a victory. Right now, Carter and Richards are just too good, and if you add the play of Simon Gagne with the incredible defense of Kimmo Timonen, the Flyers should have at least a quartet in the All-Star game, assuming they don't fall off the face of the planet.

In other news, I don't understand the Sixers at all. They beat the Pistons in Detroit on Friday, thanks in large part to a huge game by Donyell Marshall, who not only hit some shots and had a dunk, but also had an awesome block in the 4th quarter. Oh, and Theo had a tremendous block in the game as well, sending back a floater attempt by his former teammate Allen Iverson. Moral of the story: Get Theo and Donyell some more run.





Then the Sixers lose to the Nets at home. What gives? The most obvious answer is that this team is still trying to figure out how to play with one another. But man, it's taking an awful long time, and that comes down to one man and one man only: Maurice Cheeks.

I'm a big Mo Cheeks fan. For years, I've been saying the biggest travesty in sports is that Cheeks is not in the Hall of Fame. But man, he's been hard to figure out this year. His infatuation with Willie Green is mind-boggling, and he's yo-yo-ing minutes for several players. The team looks hesitant to run and the defense has been atrocious. Basically, the team that played the final half of last season is nowhere to be found. Some nights, the Sixers look tough. Others, they look miles away from even a playoff squad.



That's on Mo. And if this team can't turn it around, if he can't find minutes for Reggie Evans, Kareem Rush and the rest, Mo may need to look to in mirror and ask himself if he's really up for this challenge. I hope he is. I always thought he was underappreciated for what he did in Portland, much like he was underappreciated as a player, but right now, this team looks confused from night to night. That's on Cheeks.

Oh, and for all of you people with hard-ons for Duke, the people who insist somehow that the Blue Devils, who have done nothing but underachieve for the past decade, will challenge the Tar Heels this year, Duke lost to Michigan on Saturday, 81-73. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Sixers Sign Donyell Marshall, I'm Not Sure Why

I was a little surprised to read this, but I guess it's not a big deal. Donyell, which is nothing more than a weird spelling to a girl's name, was signed to the veteran minimum and is from Reading.



I just hope he doesn't take the few precious minutes I was expecting from Theo.