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Tale Of Two Pierres
by IwoCPO on 03/31/08 at 05:02 PM ET
Comments (21)
I’m sure there are some Canadia(e)ns who would dispute this, but it’s pretty clear to me that Pierre McGuire is a tool.
And Pierre LeBrun is a genius without peer.
Evidence? Thank you for asking. I do, in fact, have some.
Baroque pointed out this morning that McGuire unleashed his typical Detroit bash session Sunday, making hurtful claims that the Wings have no chance this postseason. His ammunition, not surprisingly, was grit, goaltending and secondary scoring...oh, and that they piled up points on the weak sisters from Gary’s Central.
Dammit. Pierre. You nailed it again. You belong between those benches, son. No one could possibly lend any more credence to the NBC 30 Crock telecast than you. Let’s start with goaltending. Clearly a weak spot.
Or is it?
LeBrun/Sportsnet
But the Wings, and the credit goes to Babcock here, can shut a team down like almost no one. They don’t get much credit for that, people point at their offensive skill mostly, but Babcock’s team has allowed the fewest goals against in the NHL this season and, barring a major letdown in the final week, will take home the Jennings Trophy for it.
Now it’s true Chris Osgood has had a fantastic season as Hasek’s backup but the reality is that the Jennings is going to Hockeytown because the Wings limit the opposition’s scoring chances like few other teams in the NHL. And that will come in handy come playoff time.
McGuire: Detroit’s goaltending is weak. They will lose. LeBrun: It’s not all about the goalie dumbass. Look at the defense.
Surely the Wings have compiled 110 points for four straight years because the Central sucks hard. Yes, I’m sure I heard that somewhere. The last three? Yes, Pierre. This year? Do some research idiot.
The other Pierre did.
Another criticism of the Wings is that they beefed up their points in the standings by beating up on Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis and Columbus in the “weak” Central Division.
“That’s a joke,” said Babcock.
Now I’m not going to sit here and claim that the Central is as good as the Northwest or the Pacific, but it’s much better than in past years. And check out Detroit’s record against all three divisions. Heading into the final week, the Wings were only 15-11-3 in their own division but a remarkable 15-2-3 against the Northwest and 15-5-0 against the mighty Pacific.
Woops. Two down McGuire. Let’s try for three. The Wings aren’t tough enough. They lack grit and nut. They are small and weak. Old and slow.
Well, that’s according to NBC’s Pierre. Sportnet’s? Not so fast.
The third and final knock on the Wings is that they can’t grind it out come playoff time like Anaheim or San Jose or even Dallas or Calgary. Lots of skill, not enough grit is the what some people say.
“We’ll see,” said Babcock. “I don’t buy that for one second.”
The grit factor was played up last spring when the Ducks beat the Wings but I feel the only significant difference in that series was goaltending, as stated above. If Hasek stops a few more pucks, the Wings are in the final. In the first round last April, the Wings completely outplayed the “grittier” Flames. So like Babcock, I’m not sure I buy the grit argument.
Dammit Jim. Dammit. That’s three down.
Wait there’s more. We’ve got four. Stick it Seuss. McGuire also claims another Wing weakness is a lack of secondary scoring. LeBrun didn’t touch on that, so I’ll let Baroque clean up.
I guess he hasn’t noticed that Franzen can be moved from one line to another, Cleary is back from injury, and Filppula has 19 goals.
Throw in the fact that Kopecky’s playing as well as he has all year, and that Hudler is due (hopefully) to break out of that little nuisance of a 33 game streak with one goal in there somewhere. Holmstrom’s back Wednesday. McCarty can be counted on to at least present a threat. No secondary scoring? I’d say the Wings have as much as anyone. Who has more?
Eat it McGuirre.
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Comments
Like I said earlier on another blog topic today, PIERRE MCGUIRE IS A TOOL!! I actually read sportsnet.ca’s hockey page on a daily basis, as well as tsn.ca’s hockey page. I find that these Canadia(e)n hockey sites have much better info and are obviously more in tune to the overall state of affairs in the NHL. They may not always write stories that favor our Wings, but damn, at least they do their fact checking, which, like Chief said, seems to be lacking in baldy-headed f**k’s reporting. The boys are getting healthy exactly when we need them to be getting healthy. Homer is back by this weekend and Stuie is back for Game 1. We’ll be at full strength (knock on wood) and we’re going to take it to whichever team is “lucky” enough to be the 8th seed. Oh yeah, PIERRE MCGUIRE IS A TOOL!!
Posted by Chris from Columbia, Tennessee on 03/31/08 at 04:36 PM ET
Pierre shows up during game broadcasts on tsn. between him and glen “career 3rd string goalie”
healy, the broadcast is next to unbearable.
Posted by chad from edmonton on 03/31/08 at 04:50 PM ET
Pierre McNugget is a turd fondler....he’ just anothe MSM mouthpiece who likes to spew garbage and ride the carousel of stupidity and un-originality.
Posted by yreland from Paul MacLean's Moustache on 03/31/08 at 04:57 PM ET
I wonder if Mr. Pierre McGuire would like to put his money where his mouth is? We can do stats and games and all that crap!
Posted by cementslinger from Midland MI on 03/31/08 at 05:09 PM ET
i agree completely. McGuire is unbearable. I’d rather be condemned to read adrienne’s dive-alicious blog on a daily basis than have to suffer through 5 seconds of McGuire in any media format.
Posted by ColdWar on 03/31/08 at 05:10 PM ET
You want to know what’s funny? McGuire said yesterday that he was picking the Rangers to come out of the Eastern Conference this year. As of right now, the Rangers, Flyers and Bruins are 6th, 7th and 8th respectively in the East, but all have 91 points. Chances are the Rangers could miss the playoffs, yet McGuire is so certain that the Rangers will be the Eastern Conference’s representative in the finals, due in large part to Lundqvist. That was pretty much his only reason. WHAT AN IDIOT!!!
Posted by Chris from Columbia, Tennessee on 03/31/08 at 05:15 PM ET
i normally don’t mind McGuire but he’s been acting more of a tool this year…
WHAMMO!!!…
Posted by Pharazon from England on 03/31/08 at 05:20 PM ET
I don’t think that first point gets enough pub. My biggest concern every year, regardless of our regular season tally, is if we’re going to be able to shut teams down in the playoffs and win 2-1 games. I’m a pessimist and a worrier, it’s what I do.
When I’m looking (frantically) through all our stats though, the GA column is the one that stands out to me. The GF column is a pretty one, but we all know that goes out the window come playoff time.
I don’t care if we have a orange cone in the cage, all that matters is if we can keep other teams off the board. At some point you need to stop examining age and injury history...and STOP TRYING TO QUANTIFY GRIT...and appreciate a simple (and sublimely low) statistic.
Posted by disch from austin on 03/31/08 at 05:50 PM ET
Pierre McGuire is a douche-canoe. And let it not be said that I’m jumping on the bandwagon. I’ve kicked him long before he came up in this post, and I’ll continue to kick him until he disappears from my TV.
I do have to thank him for one thing though. He’s brought my family together to form a unified front of bile and hatred. Not one of us can stand the sight or sound of him.
Posted by wingsfanindenver on 03/31/08 at 06:32 PM ET
I saw that McGuire piece live and for a split second I wondered if he and Milbury were taking their positions on assignment (a good cop/bad cop kind of thing) so that they weren’t both in agreement and therefore unable to say much more than, “Yeah, I agree.”
Then McGuire said that line about the Central and that benefit of the doubt vanished.
In my journalism class tonight, a GR Press reporter just railed against blogs as incapable of accuracy and depth, bemoaning the death of mainstream media. With a guy like McGuire standing up as a paragon of journalistic virtue, my sympathy for the mourners of traditional journalism falls more than a few pegs.
Posted by Matt Saler from Grand Rapids, MI on 03/31/08 at 06:45 PM ET
Wow. It’s an anti-Pierre firestorm! 
The thing is, there is an argument to be made in favor of an Eastern conference team winning. Their path is more likely to be less strenuous than a Western conference team because of the lesser opponents and the lower amount of travel - and several recent Cup champs not only came from the East, but from the Southeast.
He could have made a legitimate argument instead of a knee-jerk non-fact-based stupid one, and still been taking an opposing position. There are real arguments to be made against Anaheim, Detroit, and San Jose without resorting to warmed-over leftover preconceptions from a year or two ago.
All it takes is a tiny smidgeon of effort and a little bit of thought.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 03/31/08 at 07:05 PM ET
pierre mcguire’s dying wish...to be the meat in a crosby - phaneuf sandwich.
Posted by chad on 03/31/08 at 07:14 PM ET
I didn’t want to mention his Crosby man-crush because even thinking about it gives me an industrial-size case of the willies. Creeeeeepy.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 03/31/08 at 08:09 PM ET
He could have made a legitimate argument instead of a knee-jerk non-fact-based stupid one…
Please allow me, if you will, one slight modification to your sentence: One could have made a legitimate argument instead of a knee-jerk non-fact-based stupid one… But he couldn’t—because he’s Pierre McGuire, Tool Extraordinaire.
Posted by BobTheZee on 03/31/08 at 10:10 PM ET
He’s re-hashing the same old tired lines on national TV.
As it is, he’s the same old tired Pierre Maguire.
Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 03/31/08 at 11:41 PM ET
pierre mcguire’s dying wish...to be the meat in a crosby - phaneuf sandwich.
Perfectly stated. Being a Flames fan I guess I’d rather have him on our side...but it’s still really weird. He’s almost as bad a John O’Hurley on Family Feud...seriously, watch the way he interacts with women
Posted by dickshilling on 04/01/08 at 01:00 AM ET
http://www.petitiononline.com/mcguire/petition.html
We the people of Canada demand higher standards for the colour commentary of our national sport. Pierre McGuire has raised the ire of Canadians across the country. We recognize that Pierre McGuire continuously speaks about the game of hockey as though he were the chap who first came upon a frozen mottle of cow business and decided to whack it around with some wood.
more at the link…
Posted by PaulinMiamiBeach on 04/01/08 at 08:27 AM ET
Just reading the transcript of Babcock’s NHL teleconference in the KK main section:
Q: That leads into my next question. How offensive is it to you when people say the Red Wings are only successful because they play in a so-called weak division?
MIKE BABCOCK: What I know when they say that is they’re not very smart.
Posted by BobTheZee on 04/01/08 at 04:57 PM ET
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Posted by jeffreyonfire from Edmonton, AB on 03/31/08 at 04:33 PM ET