Things Other People in the NHL want for Christmas

Yesterday we showed you what the Flyers want for Christmas, well, we also found out what the rest of the NHL wants for Christmas, here's what we found out.


Taylor Hall: To hopefully get a chance to play on an NHL team.

The New Jersey Devils: That the CBA is followed and Kovalchuk's contract is voided.

Brian Burke: Tyler Seguin and a 2011 Lottery pick

Mike Green: Someone who can teach me how to play defense...oh crap, I got Scott Hannan instead

Henrik and Daniel Sedin: A triplet who's identical to us as well

Toronto Maple Leafs Fans: Free therapy from a psychologist...and not Down Goes Spezza

Sheldon Souray: Nothing, I finally got the fuck out of Edmonton

Sidney Crosby: A real wing

Colin Campbell: The ability to use a BlackBerry

Gary Bettman: Expansion to Havana, Mexico City, San Juan, Cairo, and Death Valley...if necessary teams will be removed from Toronto, Detroit, Montreal and Chicago

Don't Trade Vinny: A date with Marty St Louis

iPods of the NHL

Sometimes we here at DGS just run into things by accident. And these accidents cause us to send out the DGS SuperSpies on special investigations to find out the truth. In todays case, a DGS writer was chatting with a friend about music and we got curious, what do different NHL players listen to while on the road and all. Well guess what, we sent the DGS superspies all around the NHL and they grabbed a few iPods of NHL players and got a look at some of their "Top Played" songs. Needless to say, the results were shocking.

• Weird Al was a hit among quite a few current and former NHL players. Martin Brodeur, Tim Thomas and Kyle Wellwood all had "I'm Fat" as their top played tune.
• A Mr. Sutter, GM of the Flames, had Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" as his most listened to song. I wonder if this explains his recent moves.
• Rick DiPietro's top played tune was "Broken" by Seether w. Amy Lee (A close second was Dry Cell's "Body Crumbles"
• Foreigner's "Double Vision" was the top played song on Simon Gagne's iPod, it beat out U2's "Vertigo" by one play.
• Speaking of Lightning players, we found Paul Ranger's iPod, the top 5 songs on it where:
  1. The Moody Blues's I Know You're Out There Somewhere"
  2. U2 "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
  3. Evanescence's "Missing"
  4. Our Lady Peace's "Somewhere Out There"
  5. Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"
• Jeff Carter's iPod only had one song on it. "Scotty Doesn't Know" By Lustra
• Sami Salo's top played song came from Italian metal band Lacuna Coil "Fragile" he also had the entire soundtrack to the Nutcracker ballet as well.
• Brian Burke has a list of songs that are required listening for every new Maple Leafs player
  1. Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode
  2. Empty Spaces by Pink Floyd
  3. This Is Not The End by The Bravery
• Mike van Ryn's favorite song is apparently "Through Glass"
• Patrick Kane's top tune is by the Killers and it's called "Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf"
• Alex Burrows is a bit "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath
• And last but not least, "Money" by Pink Floyd is Dan Ellis's top played song.
  

If this gets really popular, expect a part 2 where I do this again with different players.

The Last 4 Unbeaten Teams and Their Dirty Little Secrets

So we have 4 unbeaten teams in the NHL, all of them are rather surprising, and this got me thinking, why is that these teams have stayed unbeaten for so long. Needless to say, I sent the DGS-SuperSpies to find out, and what they learned was rather enlightening.

• Team: -Dallas Stars-
  Reasons for Winning: Players no longer feel any pressure to perform because Mike Modano is no longer around to tell the stars stories of picking up a giant trophy in June after winning a 16 team tournament. Because of this lack of pressure, the Stars have concentrated on having fun on the ice and have accidentally won a few games.
  Reasons to Lose: Because Andrew Raycroft will be forced to play a game at some point this season.
  
• Team: -Nashville Predators-
  Reasons for Winning: Opposing forwards tend to be scared of the giant goaltenders in net for the Predators. On the other end of the ice, no one tries to block shots off the stick of Shea Weber out of fear that they will become the next Sami Salo.
  Reasons to Lose: They are the Nashville Predators.
  
• Team: -Toronto Maple Leafs-
  Reasons for Winning: Because the Leafs no longer employ Vesa Toskala. Also, the Leafs finally caught onto the idea that maybe pissing off Brian Burke is a bad idea.
  Reasons to Lose: If Colton Orr can lose a fight, then the Leafs can lose a game.
  
• Team: -Tampa Bay Lightning-
  Reasons for Winning: Employ a team of winners known as the 2008 Philadelphia Flyers.
  Reasons to Lose: In a second lapse of judgement, Steve Yzerman will trade Dan Ellis's problems to the Montreal Canadiens for Carey Price's cigarettes. This will cause Ellis to take up smoking before games leading to him to run out of money as well as talent. (PS: Dan Ellis's Problems will cause Habs fans to riot.)

Welcoming the Flyers new AHL team: Tampa Bay Lightning

No seriously, look at the Bolts these days, all their Flyers related history. It's almost odd how the Flyers turned the Bolts into an extra AHL team, and how the Bolts kinda play like an AHL team these days too. I mean look at the Lawton/Tocchet era. Even the coaching staff currently has come Flyers connections. The head coach is some guy named Boucher, and as a long time Flyers fan, the name Boucher means a lot to me, mainly because he didn't totally suck this year when we needed him most, games 1 and 5 of the Finals not withstanding (don't worry Brian, I'll judge you based on the result of this series). Boucher's assistant, Dan Lacroix from the 1997 Dan Line of Dan Lacroix, Scott Daniels, and Dan Kordic.

The current Bolts line up features two Flyers rejects.

Let's see, when looking at future talent, the Bolts top agitator is Steve Downie, a guy who's so undisciplined and off the wall that even the Flyers wouldn't even keep him.

The blue line has former Flyer Randy Jones anchoring it's third pair, a guy so bad he lost his job to Ryan Parent/Oskars Bartulis.

Then I realized something, this Bolts/Flyers connection has gone back to the mid 90s.

The historical examples

• When the Legion of Doom failed, Mikael Renberg was sent down to the Bolts in favor of Chris Gratton
• When Gratton didn't help, he was sent down to give Renberg a 2nd chance
• Sean Burke made his way to the Flyers a couple times in his career, he too spent time with the Bolts when he lost his A-game
• Vinny Prospal got shipped between the Flyers/Bolts quite a few times.
• After Antero Niitymaki sucked for the Flyers, he was sent down to the Bolts.
• When Steve Eminger couldn't hack it in Philly, he was traded with Downie for Matt Carle
• Simon Gagne and Randy Jones now join those ranks.

As for the future, I've obtained some exclusive pictures of the future of these franchises.

Being sent down to the Bolts:









Being Called up to the Orange and Black







Ok, I shall wake up now and stop dreaming. (DTV, you can stop crying now this was work of fiction, please don't sue me)

Stolen Posts: How the world beat DGS to ideas recently

Just a couple days ago, the blogging idol of DGS, Mr. Down Goes Brown, posted a comparison between NHL and NBA Free Agency and DGS was sad, because we had the same idea for a post in mind. DGB suggested that we pre-date the post and then accuse him of plagiarism but we decided against it. Instead, we decided to share our thoughts on the idea of tampering in NHL.

Thanks to @NonAmericanHero on Twitter for telling us that the CBA has no rules of tampering, so because of that DGS sent the DGS SuperSpies into the world to find out, what is tampering in the NHL. The results, they were odd, but enlightening to say the least.

Some NHL Examples of Tampering.

• Brian Burke of the Toronto Maple Leafs takes a trip to Sweden for a "vacation" only to end up accidentally recruiting the Sedins.
• Marian Hossa tampers with the Red Wings chances of repeating as Stanley Cup champions by signing with them after the 2008 season
• Flyers GMs since 1997 have tampered with the teams chances of winning a Stanley Cup by never signing a competent goaltender, (Remind me again why were paying Big Mesz $4 million and Nabby walked to the KHL?)
• Alexei Yashin tampered with the Islanders books by penciling his name on them until 2020
• Someone tampered with Rick DiPietro's health sending him for MRI's every year, (this just in...Rick has a minimum 5 MRIs per week clause in his contract)
• Chicago Blackhawks ownership tampered with the whole NHL by secretly moving the team to Atlanta after winning the 2010 Stanley Cup
• Kyle Wellwood tampered with the last scale he was on, making it say 181lbs as his weight.
• An unknown person or persons tampered with Ilya Kovalchuk's calendar causing him to not realize that in fact, he legally can sign an NHL contract.
• Rick Tocchet tampered with the Lightning's chances to win by hating on a guy named Vinny. (Thanks DTV)
• Someone tampers with Joe Thornton's mind every time the playoffs role around
• Keith Ballard likes to tamper with the skull of his team's goaltender
• Pierre McGuire will tamper with your belt and pants every time he interviews you.
• Every NHL player attempts to tamper with the Edmonton Oilers by demanding a trade out of Edmonton.
• Rangers GM Glen Sather tampered with Habs by convincing them to take on the Scott Gomez contract.
• Chris Pronger uses his elbows to tamper with opponent's skulls.
  

[Note: Eklund claims these ideas are all 100% DGS Originals (e4)]