Sporting Madness

It was a big day for the Canucks, with Henrik Sedin taking home the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player. I've got some thoughts on the matter and how the voting broke down over at Canuck Puck ; check them out !

Apologies for things being slow around here lately; I've been pretty swamped with other writing work. I'll try to get a full new post up tonight, but until then, I thought I'd share a few of the other pieces I've been working on. Hope you enjoy them! Feel free to leave comments on them at those sites or here, or send them to me via e-mail (andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com) or Twitter . Thanks as always for reading! - Over at my new blog, Canuck Puck , I have an analysis of how the Sedin twins stack up against other elite NHL players and why resigning them would be a great Moneypuck move. - At The Phoenix Pub , I have a few thoughts on how the recent increase in statistical analysis has changed sports. It's a bit of a follow-up to the piece I wrote here the other day about the (partial) demise of Moneyball . - At The Rookies , I have a piece looking at the most annoying fan traditions in sports.

I'll be live-blogging tonight's Game I clash between the Vancouver Canucks and the Chicago Blackhawks, perhaps with some of the other Out of Left Field staff. The puck will drop at 9:00 p.m. Eastern (6:00 p.m. Pacific). The game will be on CBC in Canada and Versus in the United States. A full preview of the series is after the jump. Vancouver - Chicago live blog How they got here: Vancouver swept St. Louis in four games, but the series was closer than it appeared. Every game was a hard-fought battle and the Blues, the league's hottest team over the last couple of months of the regular season, gave Vancouver a run for their money. Conversely, it took Chicago six games to knock off the Calgary Flames, but Games Five and Six were 5-1 and 4-1 blowouts for the Blackhawks. Chicago's had two full off-days to recuperate, so fatigue shouldn't be too much of an issue for them. Vancouver's been off for nine days, which could make the Canucks a little slow out of the gate...

Well, the Canucks continued their slide right out of the playoffs yesterday, losing their sixth game of the last seven to the Edmonton Oilers. Combined with Nashville's earlier win over the St. Louis Blues, the loss meant that Vancouver is now eliminated from playoff contention. Every suspicious death requires a post-mortem examination, so here's my take on the anatomy of a collapse. Head: Dave Nonis As James Mirtle wrote today , one of the big problems with this team was how they were built and the almost-complete lack of scoring depth. Responsibility for that has to fall on the GM's desk. Granted, he hasn't had all that much room to work so far, and has made some nice moves (Luongo, Willie Mitchell and Aaron Miller come to mind), but he hasn't done much of anything to improve the offense. Matt Pettinger was a decent trade-deadline pickup, and may be able to contribute offensively next season, but he isn't the whole solution. Nonis' draft record is also spo...