Swans Record Strong Win in Brisbane

It wasn’t always pretty, and the final margin of victory should have been far bigger than it was, but the important thing is that the Swans scored a percentage-boosting 79-point win seventh straight win over Brisbane, got through without any really major injuries – aside from the loss of ruckman, Mike Pyke in the second quarter – and have run a few of their biggest players into form. Just as well, too, ahead of a tough month of games: Hawthorn next Friday, then Essendon, a bye and Geelong.

Brisbane toiled hard, but there came a time late in the second period when the Lions appeared to have given all they had to the contest and the more experienced bodies of the Swans took over.

So did the Sydney midfield class. Jarrad McVeigh and Josh Kennedy were the two best players on the field, battling one another for the title of highest possession-winner for the Swans, whilst getting onto the scoreboard as well.

In the end, it was McVeigh with thirty-five and Kennedy with thirty-four touches. Dan Hannebery had his second strong game in a row after an uneven start to the season, picking up thirty-one touches. Brisbane’s Tom Rockliff touched the Sherrin thirty times himself, but the next best Lion was Andrew Raines with twenty-two. Such was the Swans’ midfield domination, they had seven players picking up more than twenty-five possessions.

Pyke’s unfortunate injury forced a change in strategy, with Sydney coach John Longmire sending his midfielders forward, and might have unlocked something with that forced move. McGlynn, Kennedy, Kieran Jack, Brandon Jack, Luke Parker and McVeigh all got amongst the goals, outshining most of their team-mates who are specialist forwards.

The exception to that rule was Adam Goodes. The Australian of the Year passed his first test with flying colours, completing a full game, and very much looking like the Adam Goodes of old. The Lions seemed content to give him a lot of room to work in the forward arc, which is never a good idea. At times, the dual Brownlow medallist looked like a circling predator. If it hadn’t been for some poor execution at times, Goodes might’ve bettered a three-goal haul.

Watching the Swans midfield go to work was a thing of beauty. This is a unit hitting it’s stride at a very opportune time, unless you’re a Brisbane fan. Indeed, there were long stretches of game time when the Lions appeared powerless to do much of anything about it. Invariably, an attacking raid would start with Richards, Grundy, the ultra-impressive Rampe from the back.

McVeigh had more than his fair share of touches, not shadowed at all, and Kennedy was the same. If it wasn’t those two, it was Parker or Jack, or the other Jack, or McGlynn or Lewis Jetta, who came alive in the last quarter. They ran rings around the Lions, and had it not been for a very ugly start to the game in terms of kicking for goal, it might have been a much worse night for the Lions. 3 goals and 6 behinds in the first term made the scoreboard seem so much closer than it really was. The Lions were slaughtered in that opening…everywhere but where it counts: on the big board.

Brisbane’s power forward Jonathan Brown, a strong target up forward all season, was a late withdrawal, resulting in an easier day for the Swans defenders, including 200 gamer Rhyce Shaw, who contributed a goal and twenty-seven possessions. So often in football, these milestone games don’t end as we would like, but Shaw’s night in Brisbane was a positive one, and much of his game reminded Swans fans of why the former Collingwood player has become such a great player and, more importantly, a great person.

Just like that, the Swans look back in town, sitting fifth on the ladder on Saturday night, albeit with a tough month to come – almost certainly a month of gut-check footy that will give themselves and the rest of the AFL a better indication of where they are against the competition’s undoubted yardsticks.

There is plenty to look forward to on Friday night, with a rampant Hawthorn coming in, the Buddy Franklin Circus sure to fire up again, and the very real likelihood that Kurt Tippett, the other high-profile recruit – he’s so 2013 now, the former Crows spearhead – will return to the line-up, thus completing a rather scary forward line, joining Franklin, Reid and Goodes.

A big week coming up in the Harbour City, and I am already very interested, albeit with low expectations, to see how the Swans come out against the Hawks. It could very well be the building block for the rest of the year.

Now Playing: Lee Brice - "I Drive Your Truck"

Good music is good music, a story, a journey, an experience. 

You don't have to like country music to appreciate the lyrics and the story behind this song, which was the 2014 Academy of Country Music Award winner for Song of the Year.

Written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington and Jimmy Yeary, I Drive Your Truck tells the story of a man who has lost his brother, killed in action in the Middle East. The man drives his deceased sibling's truck, because it's in the cab of the truck, not at the gravestone, where he feels a close connection to his late brother. It's an aching story of loss, family and togetherness that should tug at your heart strings.

The song is based on an interview with Paul Monti, whose son, Jared, was a Medal of Honour winner, and died in Afghanistan whilst trying to save a fellow soldier. In the interview, which inspired Harrington, Monti states that he drives his son's old truck as a way to feel close to him.

I Drive Your Truck reached #1 on the US Country (Billboard) Airplay charts and cracked the Top 50 on the US Billboard 100. It's the lead single from Brice's album Hard 2 Love.

Honestly, music doesn't get much better than this...

Opinion: No More Playoff Excuses for San Jose

We’ve all seen this movie before. You know, the one where the San Jose Sharks have a brilliant regular season, finishing at or near the top of the National Hockey League’s Western Conference, are expected to challenge strongly for the Stanley Cup, and, days before the playoffs begin, everything looks rosy.

Then, reality strikes. The Sharks are bundled out in some dramatic or ridiculous fashion, and you look at the team and wonder why. I mean, a unit stacked with guys like Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, Patrick Marleau and Dan Boyle is better than a first round exit. Yet, it happens again and again. The Sharks are chronic playoff chokers. It must be so frustrating to be a fan, teased throughout the regular season, set up for something big, something memorable, and then, bang, it all falls apart.

Forever more, the 2013-15 San Jose (second best in the Western Conference after the regular season) team will be cemented amongst the NHL’s most famous – read, infamous – playoff disappointments, following the collapse to end all collapses, one that ended on Wednesday night in front of a home crowd who could barely understand what was playing out before their eyes. The same crowd who turned up for Game Five, expecting that the Sharks would out the Los Angeles Kings, and cruise into the semi-final round, their pursuit of a Stanley Cup well and truly on track.

Fair enough, too, because San Jose had decimated and dominated a lacklustre Kings outfit in three straight games, putting more pucks past LA’s goalie, Jonathan Quick, than seemed humanly possible. Yeah, the Kings won Game Four on home ice, but that win appeared to be more of a staving off of the inevitable, a stay of execution, than the beginning of a dramatic turnaround.

Then came Game Five and Game Six, and, hang on a second, the Kings won them both decisively, looking like San Jose had in the first three games. Suddenly, it was tied series, with a winner-takes-all Game 7, and even though things had deteriorated of late, the Sharks, who dropped starting goalie Antti Niemi in favour of playoff rookie Alex Stalock, before bringing Niemi, a Stanley Cup winner with Chicago in 2010, back for Game 7, still had a chance to advance.

A win in the deciding game of the series would have healed so many wounds.  A Game 7 win would have seen all the negative press heaped on them in the aftermath of the previous three games would go up in smoke. The playoff chokers, in the midst, perhaps, of choking once more, had a chance to prove the doubters – of whim there were many – wrong.

Except someone forgot to tell the Sharks that. A narrow 2-1 Los Angeles lead heading into the third period, became a 5-1 Kings victory, with Tyler Toffoli, Dustin Brown and Tanner Pearson adding tallies, and suddenly the road team joined the 1942 Maple Leafs, 1975 Islanders and 2010 Flyers in history, as the only clubs able to come back from a 0-3 series deficit.

Enough is enough in San Jose. You figure that something needs to change because the status quo isn’t working. The Sharks are a team more than capable of winning a Stanley Cup. You can argue that they should’ve won maybe two of them in the past few years, but there’s always been a choke somewhere along the line to derail their hopes.

If this was an aberration, like Boston’s capitulation to Philly four years ago, you could argue against making any changes to the coaching staff and hockey operations group and put it down to a large helping of plain bad luck, but playoff disappointment is less the exception than the rule in San Jose.

Head Coach Todd McClellan might find his head on the chopping block because his roster was built to win Cups, and he hasn’t been able to achieve it. How much of a loss like this is the coach’s fault is, admittedly, debateable, but McClellan is the figurehead, and if the fan base is clamouring for some sort of change after this latest playoff failure, obviously it’s easier to remove the coach (and possibly the General Manager) than players on long-term contractors. Certainly, it’s the favoured move in the NHL.

Ultimately, I think something needs to happen. The Sharks need to regain the trust of their fans, after promising so much but delivering so little when it counts. There is a recognised finite window of opportunity for rosters – the narrow space between when a young team matures enough and when they become too mature – to win a Stanley Cup in this salary cap-driven parity era of professional hockey. San Jose’s problem is that their window is closing.

There exists the possibility that the Sharks will miss out, similar to how Vancouver had their chances, particularly in 2011, and missed it. The Canucks haven’t really recovered and are behind the eight ball in the strong Western Conference, which doesn’t look like getting any less competitive anytime soon. Remember, guys like Pavelski, Thornton and Marleau aren’t getting any younger.

Owners and hockey management in San Jose have some tough decisions to make. I would imagine they’ll wait for some of the hysteria to die down, and look at the situation more objectively, but if nothing changes during this offseason and the Sharks suffer more disappointment early in the playoffs next year – or, worse, don’t even make it to the post-season – they risk alienating a large portion of their fan base, which, in a non-traditional hockey market like California, is a risk that might have long-lasting ramifications for the franchise.

2014 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs – Kitch's Western Conference Semi-finals Preview

What drama and excitement there was in the Western conference quarterfinal round. If the semi-finals are half as good, we’re in for some more scintillating hockey. Here’s my preview:

Chicago vs. Minnesota

The winners of two different sorts of series meet for a place in the Western Conference Final. After dropping their opening two games to St Louis (on home ice, no less) Chicago rebounded strongly, winning four straight to oust the Blues, with a little time to spare.

On quarterfinal round form, It appears that western the road to the Stanley Cup Final will go through Chicago, and most ominously for those teams who’ll be matching up against this very good ‘Hawks team is the return from injury of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Slow starters, yes, but that was to be expected, and later in the series, when Chicago needed a timely goal – or a slew of them – it was usually delivered by one of those two, or at least #19 or #88 had a hand in the scoring play somehow.

Chicago is scary good. I’m not just saying that because it’s the trendy thing to say in hockey right now, I’m saying it because they’re that damned good. They can kill you no matter what line’s on the ice. This isn’t a team built on Toews and Kane.

Yes, the ‘Hawks certainly benefit from having those two on their team, but there are other guys who bob up and score timely goals. Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Andrew Shaw should never be discounted, and their scoring defencemen – Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, especially – is amongst the best in the league. The ‘Hawks d-men are good going both ways. They stifled St Louis’ offensive dynamos for four straight games.

Minnesota, on the other hand, required a dramatic Game Seven victory on the road against Colorado, and will head straight from the Mile High City to the Windy City to begin their next series. Don’t underestimate what sort of draining affect that will have on a team who needed a late tying goal in regulation, survived an Ilya Bryzgalov stint in goal load, and required a memorable overtime winner to get past the plucky Avalanche.

I picked Colorado in that series, so what do I know? Just this: that Chicago far out-match Minnesota, line-for-line all the way down the roster. In goal, the Blackhawks’s Corey Crawford, is better than whoever will play between the pipes for the Wild – incumbent Darcy Keumper was injured late in Game 7 against the Avalanche, hence Bryzgalov’s dramatic entry – and that counts for a hell of a lot. I tell you, having to start Bryzgalov is inviting disaster. Yeah, he was good late against the Avalanche, but he guy has a history of imploding, too.

Prediction: For mine, this is the easiest of the four semi-final games, east and west, to pick, and I say the Blackhawks will have a quick run to the Western Conference Finals. ‘Hawks in five.

Anaheim vs. Los Angeles

What an advertisement for hockey in Southern California this game will be. The regular season series between these two teams is called (for promotional purposes at least) the Freeway Face Off, because the Ducks and Kings are separated by only about an hour’s worth of congested roadway, and so are very familiar foes.

Bruce Boudreau’s Ducks survived a few scares from Dallas, and cruised to an easy enough series victory, getting big production from their big guns, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and nice contributions from those around them, particularly Nick Bonino (who scored the series winner for Anaheim) and the evergreen Teemu Selanne. That’s basically the formula – adding in strong goaltending – that’s seen the Ducks remain at or near the top of the Western Conference standings all season. Unlike the teams Boudreau coached in Washington, Anaheim are also benefiting from defensive stability.

This is the best Ducks team since the team that won the Stanley Cup in 2006-07, and, the more I’ve seen of them, the more I’m convinced that they can win it all again this year. The only roadblock might be this Los Angeles team, who comes into this series against an opponent they know very well, riding the mother of all waves of momentum.

Why? Because they became only the fourth team in NHL history to trail a playoff series by 0-3 and then win. Game 7 in San Jose on Wednesday night capped off an incredible comeback by Daryl Sutter’s men. They looked all at sea in the first two games, none more so than star goalie Jonathan Quick, and suddenly found their mojo, to even the series then win it, shocking San Jose in the process.

Late in that series, Quick looked more like the goalie we’re used to, the goalie that he was when the Kings captured Lord Stanley in 2012, and their big guns scored big goals. The more I see of Drew Doughty (who notched an enormous goal in Game 7 against the Sharks) and that Kings defense, the more I like. They’re tough to score on, and they can jump into the offensive rush, too. When the team clicks as one, it’s an impressive sight. Daryl Sutter’s defensive mindset is built for playoff success, as the 2012 team well knows.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but it also allows a team to go into the game against an old rival, knowing some of the tricks in the other guy’s book. Los Angeles and Anaheim will both be confident they’ve got a pretty solid read on what the other team does. The Ducks had the edge in the regular season – including the outdoor game at Dodger Stadium, earlier in the year – but that means little in the playoffs, particularly given the sort of series the Kings are coming off of.

Prediction: This is a genuine toss-up, and it really depends on which of the two Kings teams take the ice. If it’s that committed, hard-working unit with a solid Quick in net that won the last four games against San Jose, it’s a very tough series to call, because that’s a team that can skate with anyone.

I feel the key here is the Kings. The Ducks have been consistent. You know what you’ll get with them, but Los Angeles really has an X-factor about them, that we don’t always see, but when they’re up and about, watch out.

Not sure whether the Kings’ lack of rest will be a factor late, but if they turn up to play every night, then this series is going seven games, and could potentially shift on the bounce of a puck, errant or otherwise. Even so, I have the Ducks just squeaking past and into a salivating match-up with the Blackhawks.

2014 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs – Kitch's Eastern Conference Semi-finals Preview

Four teams have bowed out, with four left standing in the east to battle out the semi-final round. Who wins through to the Eastern Conference Finals? Here’s my Stanley Cup Playoffs Eastern Semi Finals preview:

Boston vs. Montreal

How fortunate we are as hockey fans to have one of hockey’s great, most enduring and certainly most hate-filled rivalry as the centrepiece of the East’s second round. Boston and Montreal have been playing epic matches for decades, and both teams are well rested, coming off easy quarterfinal round victories. The stage is set, then, for a memorable series.

Boston dropped the first game of their opening series against Detroit, but didn’t look back from there, stoning the Red Wings in four straight to have a comfortable victory. The scary thing is that, apart from the first game, the Bruins looked incredibly lethal. I’ll go ahead and say it now, on current form, Boston are the best team in the East. Heck, they might even be the best team in the entire National Hockey League, but there’s a way to go to determine that.

For the Canadiens, it was a case of straight sets, recording a goodbye and goodnight 4-0 romp over Tampa Bay. The Lightning were never really in the series, and the quick victory for the Canadiens allowed them plenty of time to rest and recuperate. So much time, in fact, that they played an intra-club game recently to knock off the rust. They’ll need to be completely rust-free against their arch enemies.

The series is going to be a physical contest. Guys on both teams relish the contest. You’ve got antagonists like pesky Milan Lucic and arguably Montreal’s most polarising player, P.K. Subban, tall timber like Boston’s inspiration captain Zdeno Chara and the rising Canadiens star Max Pacioretty on the blue line, and more offensive talent up front on both teams than you can poke a stick at: Marchand, Briere, Vanek and Hamilton. There’s speed to burn on both sides, and it’s a mouth-watering contest.

Where I think the series will be won is in goal. Boston’s net-minder, Tuukka Rask, is arguably the best guy between the pipes at the moment. He was almost flawless against Boston, just like he’s been almost flawless since the first game of the regular season last October.  It helps that Rask as a very good defensive corps in front of him, but that also detracts from how damn good he actually is. It’s been a highlight reel all year long, and he’s as impenetrable as a brick wall at times.

Opposing him will be Carey Price, a goalie who’s been oft-maligned in Montreal – the sometimes unreasonable expectations heaped on certain players in that city can border on insanity – and Price has, at times, struggled under the spotlight’s glare. Less and less frequently these days, though he wasn’t so good against Tampa, letting in ten goals in four games. But remember,  this is the guy who backstopped Canada to Olympic gold in Sochi back in February. What’s more, he looked very good in the process.

The Canadiens are going to have to take their chances when they get them if they want a shot at causing what would be quite the upset. Power plays, odd-man rushes, good looks at even strength, they’re going to need to cash in at every opportunity, because Boston doesn’t give up goals easily.

Prediction: I don’t know that this one goes the seven games that we all want it to, at least not without some monumental games from the Canadiens, but the early part of the series will be close. Behind Rask, and with their offensive weapons firing, I see Boston pulling away to win it in six physically exhausting, fun-to-watch games.

Pittsburgh vs. New York Rangers

Fun fact: Rangers fourth-line grinder Dan Carcillo has more goals in the playoffs than Pittsburgh’s superstar Sidney Crosby. You know, the Canadian captain, the guy who is widely regarded as both the best player in the world, and the best player to play since Wayne Gretzky skated off into retirement.

As much as the narrative coming out of Pittsburgh is that they’re not concerned about Crosby’s failure to put the puck into the net in their last-round six-game win over Columbus, you’d have to be at least a little worried, given that Crosby is the lightning rod for so much of what the Penguins do offensively.

In looking a little scratchy, though, Crosby should not feel alone. The Penguins were somewhat lucky to advance against a plucky Columbus team that’s definitely on the rise. There wasn’t a time in the series where Pittsburgh really dominated. They simply did enough to get through to the second round, and although that’s all you need to do, I didn’t see much over the length of the series to think that Crosby and co could compete with, say, Boston.

Thankfully for the Penguins, their opponents, the New York Rangers, weren’t exactly setting the world on fire, either. It took them seven uneven games to get past the Philadelphia Flyers, in a maddening series for Blueshirt fans – like me – where the Rangers seemed to willingly cough up good leads and, other times, dominated long stretches of the contest without a goal, before giving one up.

New York’s best player is in net: Henrik Lundqvist. The King, as he’s affectionately known in Manhattan, is the guy who, more than any other, will likely determine the fate of the series. If he has a blinder, the Rangers are going to steal a game here or there, and if they get bounces in other games…well, you never know. Playoff hockey is a strange beast.

One thing is for certain: New York needs Rick Nash to get back into his late-season form. The two-time Olympic gold medallist didn’t register a goal in the Philadelphia series. He had five shots in Game 7, and rang it off the pipe once. ‘Snake-bitten’ is probably the best word to describe Nash right now. The Rangers need his productivity badly. In fact, they need goals and offensive hockey from all their big stars – particularly Nash, Brad Richards, Martin St Louis and Derek Stepan – up front if they’re going to have any shot at toppling the Penguins.

Pittsburgh are stacked offensively, and the worrying thing about Sidney Crosby having something of a below-par serious is that he’s going to explode, sooner rather than later, because that’s the sort of player he is. The Rangers will doubtless be hoping it doesn’t happen this series. Expect Dan Girardi and Marc Staal to blanket #87 whenever he’s on the ice. The problem is that there are other guys, like Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz and James Neal who can do damage, even when Crosby doesn’t.

As Lundqvist is key for the Rangers, a lot of Pittsburgh’s fortunes ride with their own goalie, Marc Andre Fleury. When Fleury is good, he’s great. When he’s bad, Penguins coaches tend to hope that their defense is playing particularly inspired hockey. In his last start, Game Six against Columbus, Fleury was good, which is a good sign for the Penguins, who will doubtless hope that continues.

Prediction: I don’t like to admit this, but the Penguins have too much talent on the ice, and I think it’ll be too much for the Rangers to deal with. Crosby and co. should win it in six games, and set up an Eastern Conference Final between the two best teams in the East all season.