The McRib and Mikey Ribs: One Disappears for Long Stretches at a Time, the Other is a Sandwich

"Yeah, I'm a bad-ass. A bad-ass in prison, but still a bad-ass."

Dallas Star Mike Ribeiro has come a long way since his days of being a slimy, immature, and egotistical hockey player that walked around with a sense of entitlement all proud-like, like it was a man-purse back in the 1980s. Sure, it's been just one month - when he got arrested for public intoxication - but people can change!

Proof of that fact came on Thursday night, when Ribeiro shed his early-season skin of being unable to score, potting not only the game-tying goal against the San Jose Sharks last night (the Stars' second goal in 29 seconds), but also the game-winning goal in overtime. He now is on pace for just nine this year (and 76 points overall, with his 14 assists thus far), which would be his lowest goal total since 2002-2003 when he had just five as the immature, physically undevelopped skeletal shell of the player he has become today: a still immature, slightly larger but still skinny-as-hell shell of a player in general.

The Dallas Stars have clearly won the trade that brought him to Texas four years ago. As a Star, he has 289 points in 322 games, including one really awesome year in which he averaged more than a point per game (2007-2008, 83 points in 76 games). In contrast, I'm sure defenseman Janne Niinimaa had at least one really awesome game with the Montreal Canadiens during those 41 games he played for them. I mean those three assists of his could easily have come all in one game, right? Right???

Still, Ribeiro's coming out as a legitimate top-six forward (he had a few decents seasons in Montreal, but none that came close to matching the success he's enjoyed in Dallas) is slightly irrelevant from the Habs' standpoint. If they could have kept the point producer, even taking his inconsistency as part of the package but leaving out all the drama, they would have, but reports were that he was a distraction in the lockerroom and he didn't have the sense of the class needed to deal with the team's more distinguished alumni and ambassadors. As such, he needed to go. 

I'm sure in retrospect, Bob Gainey would have liked to get more for him than a glorified pylon in the defensive zone with a fancy-sounding name, but that's in the past, as is his position as general manager of the Habs. Here's hoping Ribeiro takes a page out of his book, is able to keep the past in the past, and has finally grown up after all this time... since mid-October.

Seen Stamkos, Lately?

Is it fair to call Thursday night's five-point performance by the Tampa Bay Lightning's Steven Stamkos (who got a hat trick, among the five) an explosion, when it seems like his entire start to the season has been an explosion out of the gate? Forget the fact that he now has 19 goals in 19 games this season. Hell, forget the fact that, dating back to late in his rookie season, he has scored 79 goals in 114 games, a 0.69 goal-per-game pace that would give him 57 in an 82-game season... which, coincidentally, is the same pace he set late in that rookie season, when, from March 17, 2009 onward, he netted nine in that year's final 13 games.

"Why would I know anything about hockey? I don't even know anything about hair."

Maybe it's just me, but I'm prepared to go out on a very long limb and say former Lightning head coach Barry Melrose, who limited Stamkos's minutes that year and said after getting fired in November after compiling a 5-7-4 record: "Right now he's just not strong enough physically to play against defensemen who are 6'3" or 6'4" that can skate as good as him" didn't know what he was talking about. Of course, an 82-103-21 coaching record before he took over the reins behind the Lightning bench to start the year might have also served as a good indication of that fact, but what are you going to do, Oren Koules and Len Barrie? Look back to see how successful the candidates to fill your team's head-coaching vacancy have been in the past?

For the record, Stamkos only had four points in those 16 games under Melrose and then went on to score 42 points in 63 games the rest of the way. And, now? Well, 35 points in 19 games. Need I say more? Probably not, but what the hell? Stamkos has arrived, is here to stay, and Melrose, may he never come back.

Things Aren’t Looking so Hot in Calgary

The Calgary Flames seem to be in the headlines these days for all the wrong reasons.

Reason #1: They’re playing an inconsistent brand of hockey (which is just a polite way of saying they suck)

Reason #2: The team’s supposed superstar captain is on pace for his worst season since 1997-1998, when he was still a bright-eyed sophomore, blind to just how fast being the only great player on a team can age you horribly

Reason #3: The general manager’s son gets arrested, prompting a debate as to whether or not it would be nepotic of him to keep him on the team as opposed to sending him down to the AHL, thus prompting an even larger, more interesting debate on whether or not it was nepotic of him to even draft his son in the first place

Reason #4: Said son gets outright traded to the Carolina Hurricanes along with Ian White for Anton Babchuk and Tom Kostopoulos and then gets placed on waivers, meaning maybe he really was never actually good enough to make the Flames

Reason #5: One of the team’s top (loose term) free-agent signings loses his composure when he finds out that he isn’t the one getting traded off the inconsistent (sucky) team (apparently holding out for the chance to eventually become a Flame three times in his career). He then takes it out on Phoenix Coyote Wojtek Wolski’s face on Thursday, prompting a three-game suspension

Obviously, in regard to the last reason, Olli Jokinen was given a five-minute major on the play in question, along with a game misconduct and a look of confusion from all in attendance. That is likely due to how the cross-check to the face took place between plays, with seemingly no provocation on Wolski’s part, and because no one has ever seen the dude “play” with such emotion before. Maybe he should just imagine the puck is Wolski’s face from now on.

Probably a nod to that unnatural ability of his to keep his emotions in check (and absent from his game completely), Jokinen had never been suspended before Thursday when the NHL’s powers that be reigned down on him like only they could on a first-time offender guilty of a by-and-large mild incident... or any player guilty of so much as slashing Boston Bruin Gregory Campbell.

"Aaaahhh! I'm useless without my stick! Well, less useless!"

The three games does seem pretty steep superficially, but when one takes into account the clear pre-meditation on Jokinen’s part, a one-game ban would have been a realistic expectation leading up to the league’s decision. As such, three will hardly nail him to the cross. In any case there is a silver lining that Jokinen can take away from all this, that when he was actually a superstar in this league, he would have been forced to forfeit a whole lot more. Granted he was also making a lot more money then, but you take the good news wherever you can find it, especially with the Flames in such dire straits right now.

Them giving up White is proof of just how bad things have gotten. They had to downgrade their defense one quarter of the year into the season when the playoffs are still a possibility. Sure, Babchuk may have two more points (8 vs. 6), but it’s clear that White is the better defender, arguably with greater offensive upside. So, really, it is a pretty bad trade that reeks of desperation. And that’s not just desperation born out of the need to cut ties with Brett Sutter, but desperation born out of the team’s financial irresponsibility.

"I want to come home."

Jokinen, Matt Stajan, Jay Bouwmeester, Ales Kotalik, Cory Sarich, and even Daymond Langkow, his neck injury aside, all represent inflated contracts Sutter has signed or taken on in the recent past. And with Jarome Iginla not getting any younger, not only is the Flames’ window of success in the league growing smaller with each passing day, but so is Sutter’s grasp of what it takes to build a winner. Sutter’s success in 2003-2004 was legendary, him taking a team that had gone seven seasons without a playoff appearance straight to the Stanley Cup finals. But it is now seven years later and the team has regressed considerably.

Sutter giving his son a chance in the NHL (when he probably didn’t deserve one) was maybe his way of trying to live vicariously through him. Maybe it’s time to consider that his trading him was his way of saying that he wants out too. One can hardly blame him if that’s the case... that is if he wasn’t mostly to blame for how bad things are now. And they’re plenty bad.

Evidence that Steve Downie Has Taken Mattias Ritola under His Wing in Tampa

Either Los Angeles Kings defenseman Jack Johnson hit Tampa Bay Lightning forward Mattias Ritola soooo hard on November 4th that the latter truly thought he was getting him back yesterday night with his best impression of former WWE superstar Rikishi Phatu (the hit, actually on New York Islander Matt Moulson, can be seen here); That, or his sense of timing is naturally that bad, thereby explaining just how he has turned out to be the first Swedish-born Detroit Red Wings draft pick to not pan out with the team, ever. I mean, c'mon, even Jonathan Ericsson, who was taken last in his draft year, LAST, has become an NHL regular. What's that say about you, Ritola? I'd be afraid of you hitting me from behind for telling it like it is, but the fact is I'm thousands of miles away... and you'd probably just end up getting some guy who didn't even look like me back instead.

Moulson ended up being okay, but a suspension should be handed out for the simple reason that the check was illegal on all counts: He left his feet, he hit Moulson from behind, and, if you look close enough, you can also see Ritola's elbow hit Moulson's head as well. That right there is the trifecta of stupidity, surpassed only by that time Steve Downie charged Dean McAmmond, left his feet, and launched himself right into his victim's head a few years ago. The end results were vastly different, probably mainly due to Ritola weighing just 192 pounds, and Downie already having earned a reputation of being a dirty player by the time he got around to concussing McAmmond (clearly knowing what he was doing at the time). At just 23 years of age, there's still time for Ritola to hone his craft. God knows he's got the perfect teammate to help him out.

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Halak Makes Big Boo-Boo en Route to Rout by Red Wings

Saint Louis Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak has lost his mojo. He's lost four-straight games, having allowed 19 goals, and getting the hook in one of them. And he didn't help matters when he made the misplay of the year on Wednesday night, scoring on himself, thereby giving Detroit Red Wing Drew Miller his first goal of the year. That's the bad news (okay, the really bad news). The slightly good news is this: maybe Miller can hook him up with his brother out of gratitude, get him to give Halak some tips, because nothing else seems to be working right now.

His stickwork? Clearly sloppy. His lateral mobility? He looks like he's slipping and sliding in KY jelly. His glove hand? Wonky to the point that he'd have more success grabbing and holding onto Carey Price's jock, which is saying something considering it was just last week that Halak was making the Montreal Canadiens goalie look like the prodigal son up north, only with the slight twist that after trading Halak the Habs had to take in Price for lack of another crazy-enough person to suit 'em up and let people take turns hitting him with vulcanized rubber (because, really, isn't that just what all goalies are, bat-crazy?). And, finally, Halak's once-icy-veined composure? Well, when you're being lit up to the point that he's been, it's just logical to assume the heat, at least from the goal light, will start getting to you. So the goalie who once withstood the pressure of an entire hockey-mad city at the most intense time of year now is just not cutting it.

Get well, Halak, because a world in which Price is outplaying you is one in which we can't make fun of him anymore. I don't think anyone wants that.

P.K. Subban Needs an Attitude Check like Mike Richards Needs a Reality One

"Cocky? Me??? Man, Richards needs to know his place and get ready for Primetime just like everyone else."

Does anyone else get the sense that the Philadelphia Flyers are just an oversized bunch of sore losers, especially after the Montreal Canadiens shut them out on Tuesday night?

Exhibit A: Scott Hartnell accusing Maxim Lapierre of choking him in a scrum, little over a year after he himself was accused of bitting Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang under similar circumstances (see tail-end of vid). We’re not saying it didn’t happen, but choose your battles. Especially since trying to get Lapierre to admit something like that happened would be like pulling teeth, but let’s not give him any ideas for the next scrum, with the teams renewing their hostilities next Monday.

Exhibit B: Chris Pronger falling off the puck-stealing-addiction wagon, only to be caught by Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta. I can only imagine what that would have looked like, two vertically challenged Habs running after a 6’6” giant like Chris Pronger in the Bell Centre hallways asking as politely as possible for the game puck back. Yes, I can only imagine, and yet I can’t stop laughing.

Exhibit C: Captain Mike Richards mouthing off to anyone who will listen, telling reporter Shaun Starr from the local Team 990 radio station in regard to P.K. Subban:

“He’s a guy that’s come in the league and hasn’t earned respect [just like me]. 

“It’s just frustrating [NOT losing 3-0 to a much smaller team, right after which I am making these seemingly out-of-frustration comments, but rather] to see a young guy like that come in here and... think that he’s better than a lot of people. 

“You have to earn respect in this league. It takes a lot [like running goalies and making it look like it was an accident, see above video; or knocking guys out like I did David Booth last season]. 

“You can’t just come in here as a rookie and play like that [you need three, four years under your belt, tops; then you can behave like an ass as much as you want].”

Please note that Richards didn’t actually say those things in parentheses. They were added in to illustrate a point. Indeed, a day after Richards was the subject of much praise on these pages for his penalty-killing efforts against the Ottawa Senators, I’m taking him to task for his hypocritical tirade last night. Richards may be a leader, but last night he was only showing his team and whoever else was watching how to be an idiot by example.

One example of many took place midway through the third period when he took a few extra shots at Andrei Kostitsyn, who promptly gave him one right back only to see Richards change before his eyes into an insane-asylum escapee in need of a good sedative. P.K. Subban stepped in to help out his teammate, and all of a sudden he’s a disrespectful pissant? Sorry, your highness. We didn’t realize that you were king of the universe and that the league charter specifically laid out that everyone is allowed to take garbage from you and not dish it back out.

Subban may be cocky, but you need some measure of arrogance to have a successful career. Just look in the mirror Mike; you’re a 25-year-old, talking like you’re 35, but acting like you’re 15. If that’s not cockiness, I don’t know what is. And, for the record, Subban is four years younger than you and clearly has way more class. He may be brash, but he’s not the one talking smack to the media about you behind your back.

"Yep, looking classy... to make up for my huge lack of class."

No one will ever confuse Subban for let’s say former Hab Saku Koivu, whose actual leadership skills (take note Mike) were equalled only by his sense of modesty. Subban’s got skills, and he isn’t afraid of letting people know it or of people thinking less of him for it, as this tweet today from local reporter Arpon Basu will surely prove:

“Asked Subban today if his spin-o-rama could be construed as cockiness. ‘Well, then Bobby Orr was the cockiest player in NHL history.’”

Somehow Subban is able to both make the greatest comeback ever AND seem like a delusional schizo for comparing himself to Orr! How does he do it? Who knows? Just one of his many skills, it looks like. He’s got charisma, and that’s why we love him.

The bottom line is Richards doesn’t have a leg to stand on if he’s going to complain about how Subban carries himself. He has more pressing things to worry about like how he’s going to go about getting in Carey Price’s kitchen next Monday, hopefully without having to run him.