Downie gets 20, THN proves again they suck.

Downie got 20 games. Deserved in my opinion. People are comparing this to a lot of hits, but the vicious nature of this one coupled with the fact that it involves multiple no-nos sets it apart for me.

God I hope he dresses against Ottawa.

On to THN. My god...STOP RANKING THINGS! You guys SUCK at it. Honestly, you are terrible. In their latest issue THN ranked players by position. The most glaring error is that Heatley is ranked as a RW despite the fact that he has played LW for two years. Say what you want about what his natural position is (which is actually debateable), he is for all intents and purposes a left winger right now.

Now I'm only going to look at a few of the glaring errors in detail, but let me just list a few I disagree with first:

Dipetrio the 8th best goalie in the league, Lundqvist 9th.
Ryan Miller the 4th best goalie in the league (who wrote this?)
Cam Ward the 13th best goalie in the league (please...)
Patrick Elias, Ryan Smyth, Zach Parise all ahead of Kovalchuk and Vanek for left wingers.
Olli Jokinen the 14th best centre (Should be higher)
Sergei Federov the 19th best centre (Should not be in the top 20)
Dion Phaneuf the 3rd best defensemen in the league while Zubov is 9th.

Now onto anything Ottawa related.

Dany Heatley is rated second among RW, behind Iginla. This, to me, is wrong. Aside from the fact he should be considered a LW, Healtey has been much more impressive overall. Since the time Heatley has come into the league, Iginla has amassed 397 points in 390 games for a PPG of 1.02. Heatley in the same time has amassed 389 points in 354 games for a PPG of 1.1. Heatley has also managed to hit 100 points (a milestone that Iginla never has), and he has hit 50 goals and 100 points twice.

In the past two seasons Heatley has been a second and first team all star, while Iginla has been neither. Iginla has been notoriously inconsistent from year to year as well.

What justification is there for Iginla being higher rated? He had good linemates last season but still could not put up numbers in Heatley's range. If it is intangibles, they are being weighed far too heavily in Iginla's favour.

Even more ludicrous is Jason Spezza being ranked the 7th best centre in the league behind ERIC STAAL and CHRIS DRURY! I'm not even going to put forward an argument for this one, I think it speaks for itself.

This Just In: Downie Admits he is a Homo

Well, it seems some players just still need to cross the line. And before I discuss this at all I am getting a few things out of the way:

Downie on Deaner: Charge - Y, Jump - Y, Late - N, Elbow - Y, Boarding - Y
Armstrong on Koivu: Charge - N, Jump - N, Late - N, Elbow 0 N, Boarding - N
Neil on Drury: Charge - N, Jump - N, Late - N, Elbow - N, Boarding - N

And just for the record, the Downie hit was 0.2 seconds later than the Drury hit...and that still isn't late. So go whine somewhere else anyone from Buffalo.

Alright, now onto the hit. Cheap, dirty, Downie. It just goes together. This kind of play is disgusting, but what is even worse is the fans supporting it. Fans saying it's good hockey, hell I have even seen Ottawa fans saying they wish he was on our team.

Sorry, but this is where I draw the line. Intentionally trying to injure with blatantly illegal hits is not the way to win - especially in the preseason.

Every team in the league was sent a video before this hit saying that headshots would be more heavily penalized and telling the dangers of them. Heres hoping that gives the NHL justification to really throw the book at this kid.

You know it's a bad hit when even Leaf players and the Flyers GM are coming out and saying it was dirty.