Sports Guy North

Denver -3.5 Pittsburgh

This is an interesting game, featuring 2 young guns in Jonny Damon 2 and the Burger. Roth is the more reliable, and the more seasoned of the two, but Plummer has shaken his reputation thus far as being the man of the costly turnover. The question is, can he keep it up as the games become higher and higher profile? The close of the season, and the playoffs thus far would suggest the new Plummer is here to stay.

9-0 at home, versus the leagues best road warriors. Bill Cower is 10-9 in the playoffs. There will be no repeat of the immaculate reception, and the Broncos hang onto this one. Add to that Roth's sore thumb, and everything seems to be pointing towards a Super Bowl birth for the Broncos, but not over the spread. 23-20 Denver.

Seattle -4.5 Carolina

Featuring a league MVP looking to get a little more than 9 yards this week, the Hawks are going to be hard to beat. No one wants an MVP season to be remembered that way. Take a huge performance to the bank and book it. Seattle does not come up empty-handed here. I'm a little surprised that the spread is so close on this one. Seattle was my much-maligned pick to win the Super Bowl before the playoffs started, and they should certainly be a huge favourite versus Carolina. It has been a nice, yet inexplicable, Cinderella run up until this point. But it is going to a screeching end in Seattle. Don't expect this one to be close. All Seattle has to do is double team Steve Smith 100% of the time and the game is done. Seattle bandwagoners - get ready for a huge party. The Lombardi trophy's coming home to the EMP this year, and there is going to be a huge celebration. I really wish that I was still there to see it. 23-17 for Seattle.

What's in a name?

The Bills signed Tai Tupai today. I guess if you can't win football games, you might as well win the best names contest. Which reminds me, it was pointed out to me in a reply to my last article that Zarley Zalapski's career is still lingering. Apparently he is playing for Rapperswill-Jona in the Swiss league. I don't know his statistics this year, but if anyone can get those to me that would be great. I'd love to know how he's faring. I've never been able to figure out what happened to this guy after he left Hartford. He had a span of 2 seasons there in which he tallied over 120 points. Then the self-destruct button hit in Calgary and Montreal, and I was wondering if he was ever able to find himself again. So if you know his Jona stats, please fill me in.

First "The Goal", now "The Save"

This has become the season of highlite reels. Ovechkin scored what was possibly the best goal of all time, which is still the one to see, and may be for some time now. But did anyone see what Aebischer did to the Red Wings tonight? It might be the save of all time. If you haven't seen it, then you have to find a way to see this save, or these three saves in one, I should say. The only video I can find so far is at http://www.nhl.com/highlights/index.html , if you look at the Avs Wing's highlites. If anyone else finds a better clip of this one, let me know. It is worth a few more looks at least.

Elias Watch: 8 games, 13 points, 8 wins. The Elias watch is approaching nearly biblical proportions at this point. On top of that, did anyone see his shootout goal tonight? That's another one for the highlight real that you might as well look up while you're finding The Save. If you could win the MVP award by only playing 45 games, this would be your guy.

Bryanless Leafs Watch: Yikes. The leafs extended their record since their MVP went down to 0 and 5, and they did it with an exclamation point. The Sens beat up on the Leafs by a score of 7 to 0. I'm not sure how much of a difference, however, the MVP could have made in this one. As the JF said "tonight was at least a big moral victory, holding them under eight." There is some truth to that, as in the last 3 contests now the Sens have outscored the Leafs 23-2, so it was the first time in 3 attempts that the goals against were held to under 8. After a big loss like that, the Leafs will be hungry at home on monday. Look for only a 2 point loss as they extend their Bryanless record to 0-6. I keep hearing comments on the Canadian sports channel The Score, where they say the Leafs can't figure out what went wrong as the fall has been so sudden. It's obvious to me what happened, and it should be obvious to everyone. Smarten up "The Score", you're supposed to be the best option of the big three in Canada. It was, however, Patricia Boal who I last heard say it, and anyone who looks like her can be forgiven for anything.