Sorry about the lack of posting, the Boston aquapocalypse has made my job...interesting. And busy.

Anyways, I'd like to discuss an important issue in the NHL right now. The idea that Henrik Sedin is Hart Trophy worthy.

I'm not going to argue that he didn't have a very good year- because he definitely did by anyone's measure. What I am going to argue is that both Ovechkin and Crosby had better years, despite putting up 3 less points each. If you don't want to get all statistical about it, here's the short version of why either of them deserves it more than him:

Sedin by far had better linemates than Crosby (who played with Bill "At Least Chelios is Older Than Me" Guerin and an alternating tandem of Kunitz and Ponikarovsky) and ten more games than Ovechkin. Also he's a Canuck, and they're not allowed to win anything ever.

There you go. Now if you want the more advanced stats, the rest of this is for you. The items in bold are the winners among the three in those categories. (As usual, all numbers are from Gabe Desjardin's Behind the Net.

Confused? I can understand that. Let me break it down category by category.

PTS/60-ASST2/60 is the amount of points earned for every 60 minutes on the ice minus the points that are secondary assists. Why remove the secondary assists? They're largely meaningless stats. If you're causing a goal to be scored directly, you're either the primary assist or the goal scorer. ASST2 have their place, but not in Hart discussions. Ovechkin takes this one by far, largely because of the sheer number of shots he takes.

QUALCOMP is a metric measuring a player's average quality of competition, or more simply put, how good the specific guys they usually play against are. The harder the lines you play against, the higher the number. The easier, the lower. This in conjunction with Sedin's splits explains a lot. He played equal games home and away, yet scored 20 more points at home because he could matchup against the very weakest players on a team every shift.

QUALTEAM is the quality of a player's linemates. It's a way of statistifying (that's a word- right?) how good the guys you're usually on the ice with are. For instance, Ovechkin plays with Backstrom and Knuble a lot, both good player. Hence the high number. Sedin plays with Other Sedin and Burrows, hence the very high number. Crosby plays with an old man and a former Leaf/Chris Kunitz, giving him a really low number. In this case, a lower number is better, as it shows you don't need good players around you to be good.

QUALDOUCHE measures how douchey a player is in relation to his team. Ovechkin and Crosby both receive 75s as people from one country love them and people from another hate them. Sedin, however, is Swedish. Nobody except Canucks fans like him. And the only Canucks fan I like is the lovely Dani at Benched Whale.

CORSI Rel QUALCOMP is a metric that places a player's relative CORSI in relation to their QUALCOMP. If a player plays against better players, they'll have a higher number, and the opposite holds true as well. -0.200 is pretty bad for an elite player. 0.502 on the other hand, is very impressive

I hate to say it, but Crosby should really win the Hart. I'm not a fan of his, but he truly is a fantastic player and deserves the award this year. 3 points should not decide the Hart winner- the reasons for those 3 points should.

This post is dedicated to that asshole Canucks fan- Benjamin Dobson. Go screw yourself Ben.

We, as Flames fans, have known that the playoffs are fickle ever since Gelinas scored in 2004.  Tonight, the playoffs have proved themselves especially fickle to me.  Why?  I'll go over it series by series.

Welcome to the Sunday Slump, the weekly roundup that's replacing Fun Time Fridays for a variety of reasons, though mostly just because I'm too damn busy on Fridays to be able to guarantee a post every week.

The Slumpy Lead

See that guy there? With the fin and shark teeth poorly drawn on in MS Paint? Yeah, that's Joe Pavelski, and he pretty much put the Sharks into the 2nd round of the playoffs. His teammates Evgeni Nabokov, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, and Dany Heatley may have no desire to move on, but Pavelski has decided it will happen, and goddammit, it's happening.  He's rocking a line of 5-3-8 through six games, and his linemates Clowe and Setoguchi are at 1-7-8 and 3-3-6 respectively.

So how's the big gun line? Well, Dany Heatley has no goals and four assists. Jumbo Joe? Three assists, also zero goals. And big time performer Patty Marleau? One goal, two assists.  Great players, these guys are.

That line has combined for ten points. Pavelski's line? An unreal 22 points in 6 games. Against Craig Anderson. The same guy who had a 51 save shutout.  Jesus, Pavelski, start calling yourself Jesus Pavelski already whydoncha.

The next few weeks, the 4th Line Blog will be doing completely ridiculous and non-sensical player ratings of the Flames for this past season. Tune in almost everyday to feel bad about your favorite team!

Ian White

5'10" 185 lbs.

This is not Ian White the Hockey Player. This is Ian White, founder of the Australian Bush Flower Essences.

The Stats:

83 GP 13-25-38 +8 51 PIM

The Summary:

Mr. White came over in the Great Trade From Toronto of 2010, alongside Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, and Jamal Mayers.  As basically Phaneuf's replacement in the line-up, White was pretty not bad. He actually moved to play the puck, and never came across like a douche in interviews. Or got in yelling matches with Brent Sutter (that we're aware of). Unfortunately, there's a risk he won't be back in the Flaming C next year, as he's an RFA that hasn't been resigned.

The Completely Made Up 100% True Fact:

Ian White has the greatest mustache known to mankind.

The Ridiculous Made-Up Rating Scale:

On a scale of Mars Bars to Butterfingers, Ian White is a fantastic King Sized Kit Kat. Take that to the bank, why doncha.

Today Elliotte Friedman put out his weekly 30 Thoughts, which, truth be told, is usually the highlight of my week.  This week however, has some bad juju for Flames fans.  Maybe.

What Elliotte said was this:

The point I'm trying to make is not that "Oh no Iggy says he wants to go!" I don't profess to know what he does or doesn't want to do, and can only take this at face value. However, if the league thinks he wants to go, this hurts. In so many ways.

1. We can't attract free agents.

If a highly respected player like Jarome Iginla wants out, a guy synonymous with class, then why would anyone want to sign for the current regime?

2. It lowers his selling cost.

If we do in fact decide that we should rebuild and trading Iggy is part of that, the general assumption around the league will be that he wants out. When you're forced to get rid of something, or perceived as forced, then the cost goes down. Maybe a couple teams will get in a bidding war regardless, but still this can't be good for accumulating futures.

The next few weeks, the 4th Line Blog will be doing completely ridiculous and non-sensical player ratings of the Flames for this past season. Tune in almost everyday to feel bad about your favorite team!

Daymond Langkow

5'10" 179 lbs.

The Stats:

72 GP 14-23-37 +2 30 PIM

The Summary:

Oh god, the Langkow debate. Does he drive possesion but somehow always come up short on results? Is a waste of cap space or the last good player on this team? In some respects he was kinda jobbed by the bounces, in others, he just didn't have the finish that he should for his price tag. He got terrible start locations, and managed to get the puck on the other net more than our own, but is that worth $4.5M? Lord only knows.

The Completely Made Up Fact:

Daymond Langkow is "the mother" in How I Met Your Mother. He'll be introduced at the end of season 6.

The Ridiculous Made-Up Rating Scale:

On a scale of foosball to the World Cup, Daymond Langkow is the New England Revolution.  I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not: I don't watch soccer.

Yep, it's that time of the off-season where we arbitrarily rate the Flames players this past year, and good news for us, the results promise to be especially depressing!  So how will these rankings work?

First, I'll do one player a day, 3-4 days a week. They'll be ordered in a completely arbitrary way: first height, and then weight, from smallest to largest in both cases.  I'll give a little summary of their play, stats, and possibly make up something completely false about them as well just for the hell of it. Finally, I'll end each player report with a rating on a scale that makes little to zero sense.  Confused? Yeah, understandable. So tonight you'll be gifted with the very first report!

Nigel Dawes

5'8" 190lbs

Stats:

66GP 14-18-32 +1 18 PIM

Summary:

Nigel Dawes was...not awful? Actually, he was pretty good, considering what we were paying him (next to nothing), what we paid to get him (next to nothing), and what we expected of him (next to nothing). The real mystery is why we just sat him in the press box after all the ridiculous trades we made. Oh right, so Darryl could justify those ridiculous trades.

Completely Made-Up Fact:

Once Nigel Dawes shut down a puppy mill singlehandedly. He is a hero to puppies everywhere!

Meaningless Rating:

On a scale of vegan gluten-free cupcake to ridiculously ornate wedding cake, Dawes gets a solid birthday cake. You know, the ones you buy at the grocery store in the plastic case that they'll write on for you with the really sugary frosting?  Possibly decorated in a Finding Nemo theme.

I'm not necessarily one to advocate trading a Mr. Jarome Iginla, but I would certainly not object to it, given the right circumstances.  Now, I've heard all the arguments for and against, but let's get to the real meat of the matter: bullet points.

Welcome to the Sunday Slump, the weekly roundup that's replacing Fun Time Fridays for a variety of reasons, though mostly just because I'm too damn busy on Fridays to be able to guarantee a post every week.

So why Sunday Slump? Because while the Flames are the Underachievers Anonymous, everyone around the league slumps and underachieves in someway.  So who's excelling at slumping? We'll see.  Also, slump is a funny word when you type it a billion times like I have.  Here we go!  Wait, that's too excited. Here we go, I guess.