Let’s get one thing out of the way really quickly: I think Martin Brodeur is an excellent goaltender, arguably one of the greatest of all time. I believe he ‘earned’ the right to start against the United States on Super Sunday: his credentials, along with a strong performance against Switzerland paved the way for Brodeur to start.

This blog post isn’t about Martin Brodeur. What it is about, though, is Damien Cox and his love affair with Martin Brodeur and the subsequent behavior that sprung out of said affair.

I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus as of late. Sorry folks. That said, wow, talk about a tough loss to take on Sunday. Canada getting beaten by the Americans was something that most folks north of the border wouldn’t have predicted, but that’s goaltending for you: Ryan Miller was absolutely stunning, shutting down Team Canada with aplomb while Marty Brodeur was looking more like Marty Turco, with several weird decisions he made that translated into goals for the Yanks. I still think he ‘earned’ the start against America (compare his play against the Swiss to Luongo’s against Norway. Brodeur WAS tested far more than Luongo was and #30 looked a lot better as a result), but there’s no use crying over spilled milk now, is there? Luongo’s starting and Team Canada has their work cut out for them.

Back on the 27th of January, I wrote a piece talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Canucks and their respective approaches to social media. My point was basically that the Canucks have been quick to embrace the digital world, while the Leafs have been slower to adapt.

Imagine my surprise when I was actually contacted by someone at the Leafs. Jonathan Sinden, formerly of Toronto’s 102.1 Edge radio station (”The IIIIIIIIIIINSIIIIIIIIIDE EDGE” guy) and currently the chap who operates the Leafs official Twitter account dropped me a line, arguing that I ‘may not have all the facts’ regarding the Leafs and social media. I mean, I’m ‘just’ some blogger: no formal affiliation with any sites and a really, really small fish in the hockey blogger pond. That someone at the Leafs would want to chat with me about my article was rather interesting, but cool.

So, I’m ridiculously late. Also, I didn’t post Postscripts on the last two Canucks games. With the Olympics going on, I figure a) not many people care and b) I wanted to enjoy the festivities myself, so I took a bit of a break from blogging this weekend. I’m sure my ones and ones of fans are devastated with this communications blackout.

Anyway, a recap of the Canucks last week before the Olympics, yes?

I guess you could say that I called this game. Literally.

You had to know the Canucks were looking to avenge a rather ugly loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Roberto Luongo was overdue for a shutout and the Sedins/Burrows couldn’t be held off the scoresheet forever. Going up against a team that was short a few men (Nathan Horton was out due to injury and Dominic Moore had just been traded to Montreal) and really only had Tomas Vokoun going for them and you sort of figured that the Canucks had to win this game.

So I’ve made mention in a couple of other blog posts that I was going to be doing up a piece talking about the Canucks bottom six. And why not? There’s been a lot of talk lately about certain members of the Canucks third and fourth liners, most of it laced with profanities.

Steve Bernier needs to be shipped out of town, Kyle Wellwood should be benched and so on and so forth. While I’m not in disagreement that the bottom six players are bad, I would argue that there are reasons why our bottom six hasn’t really been performing all that well that extend beyond ’such and such player sucks.’

At least that’s what I’m hoping to get across here.

It comes down to six.

The bottom six, specifically. Tonight’s game was a frustrating one that saw the Canucks put forth a rather solid effort, but found themselves lacking a bit in the ‘puck luck’ department. Unfortunately, were it only that, the Canucks probably would’ve had something to show other than a regulation loss to the Bolts.

Well, the ‘unofficial’ trade deadline is fast approaching: the NHL Olympic roster freeze is set to take affect on the 12th, with the NHL Trade Deadline coming March 3rd. The League has already seen several high profile trades, with Dion Phaneuf becoming a Toronto Maple Leaf and Ilya Kovalchuk wearing a new jersey. Although GM Mike Gillis has said he isn’t a big fan of rentals and he has been frugal when it comes to trades, it doesn’t hurt to have some fun and speculation with what the Canucks could potentially do leading up to the trade deadlines. As such, I thought it’d be fun to get some of the Canucks bloggers to gather round and discuss some trade deadline topics.

Hey, it can’t be any worse than Nick Kypreos and Doug MacLean arguing with each other on SportsNet, right? Thought so!

Joining me on the roundtable are Kent Basky of the We Are All Canuckleheads Podcast and Nucks Misconduct, Brian Wawryshyn of Canucks Corner, Cam Davie, Brigadier General of the Canucks Army and Clayton Corley, the Opiated Sherpa. All excellent bloggers and all have excellent sites, big thanks for them agreeing to do this. With that said, here’s what they had to say to the questions I posed!

Man, what an intense looking bunch there. Wellwood especially. I kid, I kid. Anyway, here’s a brief recap of the Canucks week that was, although it’s a little light on some details.

What a fascinating game, today’s matinee affair was.

Partially because I’ve been high on cold medication all day and it took me a while to gather my thoughts, but also because this was pretty much the reverse instance of what went down with the Montreal game. The Canucks had a rather poor start (which saw the first goal being scored by the opposing team and which saw yet another early penalty leading to said goal) but were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat thanks to an absolutely stellar effort from Roberto Luongo, who responded well after being sat Thursday in Ottawa.