Hockey!

Hockey is back this week. You know the season is close when you're having to dash home from the pub watching the football to participate in an online hockey draft. For this year, however, there'll be no taking my colleagues' money. Hopefully that returns next year.

The Calgary Flames finally accepted in the Spring that they were not going to have a bright and successful future by continuing to attempt scrambling into the last playoff spot. All the big-ticket players have now been shipped out. No more Kiprusoff (retired), Iginla (traded to Pittsburgh in March), Bouwmeester (traded to St. Louis). The loss of all three causes the Flames trouble in various different forms for the current season; respectively keeping the puck out of the net, scoring goals and eating large minutes defensively. They are going to lose more games than they win (I know technically they've done this the last couple of years, but bear with me), and it could be a very long winter and spring if any more of the remaining veteran players are lost to injury. A losing team is not the right proving ground for young players. Ask Edmonton, who are still rubbish, even after three successive first overall picks in the draft between 2010 and 2012.

So who are the team this year?

Goalies:

#31, Karri Ramo (aged 27)

His rights were acquired in the 2012 trade that brought Mike Cammalleri back to Calgary from Montreal in exchange for Rene Bourque. Drafted by Flames GM Jay Feaster during his time in Tampa, Ramo was not a success in Florida, an inexperienced youngster playing behind a very poor team. He fled to the KHL where he was the starter the last four seasons for Siberian side Avangard Omsk to great success, including taking them to within 1 game of the title in 2012. He will face a heavy barrage of shots most nights; just where the Flames draft next year will depend largely upon his performances. But the last time the Flames landed a largely-unknown 27 year old Finnish goalie, it didn't work out so bad...

#35, Joey MacDonald (aged 33)

Claimed on waivers from the Detroit Red Wings last winter, MacDonald is a journeyman, career backup, who held the fort as well as could be expected in the spring when Kiprusoff was beset by a nagging groin injury. Of all the Flames goalies last year, his 8-9-1 record, .902 save percentage and 2.87 goals-against-average was the best, which tells you how poor they were collectively as a group. Expect him to start 20-30 of the 82 games, with Ramo taking the rest.

Defence:

#4, Kris Russell (age 26)

A puck-moving defenceman, with a prolific point totals at the junior level, Russell was acquired from St. Louis in the offseason. He will contribute to the Flames power-play and take second-pairing minutes. Has been paired with Dennis Wideman in the exhibition games. Not overly big, or physical, a recurring theme with the Flames defence.

#5, Mark Giordano (age 30, captain)

The players and management's unanimous choice for captain to replace the departed Iginla. The classic story of not giving up after not being drafted, he turned up for Calgary for a trial, made the team on a minor league contract, and via a spell in Russia with Dynamo Moscow returned a much more complete player in 2008. Will play on the first defensive pairing, and get power play time

#6, Dennis Wideman (age 30)

Arrived in Calgary last summer as an expensive free-agent signing, before the Flames finally admitted some months later that the playoffs will be out of reach. Will be expected to run the Flames power play, whilst playing on the second defensive pairing.

#7, TJ Brodie (age 23) 

Made the team out of training camp in 2010, though he struggled and was moved back into the AHL for more development, his upward progression in terms of his play was exponential last season. As players fell injured/were traded/were off form, his ice time increased to the point of him playing first pairing minutes once Bouwmeester was shipped out. His continued development will be one of the bright spots this season. 

#44, Chris Butler (age 26)

Acquired from Buffalo in the trade that sent Robyn Regehr to the Sabres, he spent 2011-12 paired with Bouwmeester, looking only OK. Last season, he was eventually demoted to the third pairing through repeated brain-cramps, errors and general poor play. Bouwmeester evidently made him look better than he was. Whipping boy of the online fanbase for not being Regehr, he must improve substantially or face the heave-ho next summer.

#55, Shane O'Brien (age 30)

Arrived in the summer, in the trade that sent Cory Sarich and Alex Tanguay to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for himself and David Jones. Signed primarily for his enthusiasm for physical play in front of his own net, he also has prime whipping boy credentials due to his ability to take stupid penalties and having a past of playing in Vancouver. Will be a third pairing player with Butler

Forwards:

#8, Joe Colborne (age 23)

Acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night through trade, Colborne is a 6'5" centre whose career has somewhat stalled. Centre is a position the team needed to strengthen considerably. He was known to assistant GM Weisbrod who scouted and drafted him in Boston, and new Flames hockey operation President Burke took him to Toronto via trade.

#11, Mikael Backlund (age 24)

One of the few Flames that played through the lockout last autumn/winter in his native Sweden. And it did him good as his productivity in points finally took a leap forward, in addition to his solid play that makes him beloved of the 'advanced stats' crowd. Has a habit of incurring freakish injuries. If he can stay fit, he should develop further into a solid, defensively responsible centre.

#13, Mike Cammalleri (age 31, assistant captain)

A prime candidate to be shipped out at the trade deadline due to his expiring contract. The level of return will be dictated by his point return, which should be healthy due to the Flames owning very few other offensively gifted players. Expect him to log lots of powerplay time.

#15, Tim Jackman (age 33)

Fourth line grinder, never gives less than 100% but might feel his role under threat from numerous younger players given his age.

#16, Brian McGrattan (age 32)

Another fourth liner, McGrattan will act this year as the Flames "enforcer", there to make sure than the opposing team don't take liberties with the Flames talented players or youngsters.

#17, Lance Bouma (age 23)

Missed the whole of last season with a knee injury incurred in his third AHL game. Will be expected to slot in on the fourth line. Is most frequently compared to former Flame Brandon Prust. If he manages to develop into a similar sort of player, the organisation will be delighted.

#18, Matt Stajan (age 29)

The only remaining piece of the trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs that sent Dion Phaneuf to Toronto, he managed to climb out of the "whipping boy" seat last year through actually being used in a role to which his talents were suited. Is now the de-facto first line centre, which tells you what a weak position it is. Also out of contract in the summer, expect him to also be shipped out at the trade deadline.

#20, Curtis Glencross (age 30, assistant captain)

Like Giordano, another undrafted player made good, made even better by the fact that Edmonton let him go and he came here and he scores against them frequently. Fast skater, hard shot, rides in the chuckwagon races at the Stampede. Will spend a lot of this season on the first line (on a good team he'd be a second/third liner) shutting down the opposition top line. Expect him to be one of the veterans kept around through the rebuild.

#21, Roman Horak (age 22)

Arrived from the New York Rangers two summers ago when Tim Erixon refused to sign. Figures to play on the third or fourth line somewhere, but in what role, nobody is quite sure at present. Needs to start scoring points or be overtaken by other prospects

#22, Lee Stempniak (age 30)

More trade deadline trade bait. Stempniak has developed into a consistent, solid performer in his three years in Calgary since being traded from Phoenix. Can be relied upon for 20 goals in a season and will be a very useful depth signing for a playoff contender.

#23, Sean Monahan (age 18)

Drafted sixth overall this past summer, Monahan will at the least get his nine game audition (any further and the first year of his contract is triggered) to sell some hope for the future to the fans. Projected to be the first line centre at some point in the future, his experience of captaining a really terrible junior team will be useful in the years to come.

#24, Jiri Hudler (age 29)

In the same boat as Wideman; signed last summer as the Flames continued to try and make the playoffs, he may not be quite so keen to hang around for a long rebuild. He has great hands but is diminutive in stature. Lots of powerplay time to come. Would also make an interesting trade target for a side looking to bolster their lineup at deadline time

#39, TJ Galiardi (age 25)

Arrived from San Jose in a trade in the summer, Galiardi (like Colborne) is a native Calgarian and long-time Flames fan. He can play in all three forward positions so expect to see him shuffled around the lineup. This is his dream move, and expect him to fit on the third or fourth line somewhere to provide some more size

#47, Sven Baertschi (age 20)

Drafted 13th overall in 2011, he dominated at the junior level, before a three-goals-in-five-games cameo NHL appearance in the spring of 2012 set expectations rocketing. Didn't live up to those expectations at the start of last year, chiefly through being used on the fourth line, before getting injured, but looked much better in a top six role at the end of the season after the team was blown up. 

#54, David Jones (age 29)

Arrived from the Avalanche in the aforementioned trade with O'Brien. Expect him to slot in on the second or third line right wing, a position the Flames are desperately weak at. 

Playoffs

Just settling in for the next couple of months....

Rejuvenation

Looks strange not wearing red, doesn't he? The first admission that the Flames' season and general direction is not upward-bound has resulted in the face of the organisation being traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a couple of minor prospects and Pittsburgh's first round draft pick this summer. Others are undoubtedly going to follow in the days ahead of Wednesday's trade deadline, as those in the playoff places acquire further players to solidfy their position and improve their lineup in a bid to win the Stanley Cup. He turns 36 on Canada Day, and isn't the player he was; he's probably needed a change of scenery for a couple of years now. Pittsburgh probably just gained hundreds of thousands of new supporters in these parts, hoping that number 12 can finally win a cup in the twilight of his career after coming so very close in 2004.

That he chose Pittsburgh over Boston is only natural. Who wouldn't want Crosby or Malkin as their centre after sixteen seasons of having to do it pretty much all himself?

Locked Out

Tonight should have been the Calgary Flames first preseason games before the hockey season began on October 11th. As it stands, the season won't start on time due to the current lack of collective bargaining agreement required between the players union and the league/team owners. Deadspin has a useful article on the reasons for the dispute for those not familiar with the situation.

Hopefully, they get things sorted out such that the season starts at American thanksgiving, or Christmas or something, since otherwise it'll rob me of the chance of me taking all my colleagues' money in the work hockey pool....

The Best Laid Plans

Today saw disgruntled, stagnating forward Rick Nash traded from the Columbus Blue Jackets (yes, that's really their name) to the New York Rangers. Arguably the best performer on the Canadian team in the gold medal game at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the perennial 30+ goalscorer finally grew fed up of an organisation seemingly incapable of building a team around him.

The trade wasn't really a surprise, it had been coming, but the amusement in Calgary today stems from one of the players sent to Columbus in exchange. Swedish defender Tim Erixon was the Flames' first round pick in the 2009 draft. He spent two whole years not signing a contract whilst starring in the Swedish league against men as a teenager. When the deadline for contract signing came, he proffered a list of really very flimsy excuses why he didn't want to sign. One of which was that he'd not get in the team in Calgary. He was actually born in upstate New York since his dad Jan played for the Rangers in the 1990s. How convenient it was when the Ranger$ came calling the day before the deadline, "we hear he hasn't signed yet. Do you want to trade his rights?". Very convenient. 

The Flames obtained young Czech forward Roman Horak and two second round draft picks in return. About the best that could be done in the circumstances. Fast forward a year. Erixon spent most of the season in the Rangers' minor league side (I thought he didn't want to play in the minor leagues?) and is now no-longer wanted by the team he seemingly connived to join, and parcelled off to arguably the worst team in the NHL, far from the bright lights of Manhattan and his dubiously-engineered dream. As someone remarked on twitter, "Tim Erixon learnt a hard lesson about the business today"

Canada Day: The Day Before

Today being June 30th, it's the final day of NHL players expiring contracts. The Flames had a lot of players out of contract this year and it was widely assumed that on the back of a third year in a row out of the playoffs, most of them would be on their way. Yesterday, though, they re-signed Cory Sarich, Lee Stempniak and Blake Comeau. I think this caught a few people a little off guard, especially in light of the acquisition via trade of Washington's Dennis Wideman on Thursday afternoon. Pictured on the right, with a little help from Capgeek is the 2012-13 Flames as they stand in my eyes. I've made Matt Stajan and Anton Babchuk, and their combined $6m salary disappear. If they could actually do that, they've roughly $11m to spend tomorrow on one player. That's a fairly hefty amount to go whale hunting for the big ticket forwards that are out of contract. They'd have to heftily overpay to get their man (see Wideman's new $5.2m per year salary) since Calgary is not at the top of free agents lists of places to come and play, which is stupid since it's a lovely (if a bit pricy) place to live. So far, the major casualty of the offseason appears to be Olli Jokinen. The first time they traded for him, it pretty much set the wheels in motion for the team of 2008-9 to completely run aground, and end up in the lack of postseason action we've noticed in the last three years. The trade to get rid of him landed them with the useless Ales Kotalik (banished to Buffalo), and then two years ago they shocked the world by signing Olli back again. His second stint was much more productive; his lower salary lowered expectations, but there was no middle ground among the support when he arose in conversation. Whereever he ends up, he is a boon for GIF makers.

A Week of Winning

To cap a nice week, the Flames won their first home game against Vancouver since October 2009, a run of eight games without a win, and usually severe beatings. They did so by hanging on grimly for the full sixty plus minutes, since they could bring almost zero offensive pressure as they're missing so many injured players at present. They managed to lose another important player during the game. Three cheers for the goalie, and the frame of the goal which must have stopped at least four shots.

After the 9-0 loss in Boston in early January, they are 8-3-3 since, almost all of which is due to Kiprusoff who is in "is he human?" sort of form. The win last night, like the one on Wednesday in San Jose, was a bonus one; a game against a team that should beat them if they were at full strength, let alone the patched up version taking to the ice at present. The Flames fate this season of making the playoffs for the first time since 2008-9 will be determined in the games against Dallas, Phoenix, Minnesota and Colorado, who are all within a couple of points of each other.

Early Presents

Last night saw episode three of the Calgary Flames-Vancouver Canucks season series. In the last couple of years, the fixture hasn't been much of a contest, to the point that each meeting is met with a sense of dread from a Calgary point of view about how many goals they're going to concede. Last night's game was the second night of a back to back, having played Detroit the night before, a situation the Flames don't do well in historically. Oh, and they had a 23 year old goalie playing only his second game in the NHL. The two previous meetings this season ended 5-1 to Vancouver. All the omens pointed to another beating.

So imagine the collective surprise when this happened:

So after facing the Flames' first two goalies in their first two games, Vancouver fell to the third choice. It was Irving's first NHL win, after several years of service in the AHL, much of it in nearby Abbbotsford, learning his trade following his selection in the first round of the 2006 draft. Particularly nice when he had a successful battle with a rare form of cancer aged seven. But last night was a team performance. Every last one of them played very well, denied Vancouver space, and created chances; it was the first time the game was a contest for a couple of years maybe. The Flames' slow transition under the new general manager to a team with more speed, skill and puck-moving defencemen looks like it's beginning to bear fruit in the last two or three weeks. Having defencemen who can skate into the offensive zone to set up attacks instead of dumping-and-chasing makes the world of difference. You can't score when you don't have the puck after all. The Flames moved into tenth place in the western conference; still outside the playoffs, but six points ahead of where they were at the same point last season.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year....

The NHL season starts today (it now being Thursday morning). Two hockey pools this year; the one I ran as comissioner of the When Saturday Comes Forum which I ran on Sunday lunchtime, and the one I entered at my now former place of work this evening. Tonight was the first one I have ever done in auction style; I had an imaginary $200 to spend and allocate as I saw fit. Here's what I saw fit to spend (see below left). I had a plan to fairly evenly allocate my $200 among my 18 players but it became fairly clear fairy early that I would have to abandon that, given the amount of money that went on the first six or seven picks. $60 for Corey Perry? Seriously? After watching some people blow half their budget on their first two players (the Bangkok Chuzillas went for the Sedin Twins at ruinous cost),  I played my way in and I can honestly say that of the 18 picks above left there is only one I'm unsure about. For the record, here's the money spent on each: Iginla $40, Rinne $15, Zetterberg $26, Getzlaf $32, Kovalchuk $11, Lecavalier $5, Backes $6, Thornton $12, Visnovsky $8, Pavelski $5, Kessel $5, Lidstrom $9, Burns $6, Crawford $3, Subban $2, Hossa $5, Grabovski $5, Selanne $5. PK SUBBAN FOR TWO DOLLARS? SELANNE FOR FIVE? I'LL HAVE TWO!

Sunday saw my debut as commissioner. I think the When Saturday Comes forum is brilliant; a rare island of thought and knowledge in a vast ocean of complete nonsense. Given the number of fantasy sports there are on that forum, I though a fantasy hockey pool was in order and so I volunteered to take the reins. Nine entrants were interested and Sunday saw a traditional 'snake' draft, in which the order of picking is constantly reversed (i.e. 1st through 9th then 9th through 1st and so on). Here's how I did:

Pretty darned good, I think, on both counts. My plan was 'forwards forwards forwards' and so ignored some of the shiny defencemen on offer. Certainly more in the latter pool than the former, though. That's where I fell down last year, so hopefully I've learned my lesson. In the auction, I'll have to hope that going for depth was worth foregoing most of the star forwards, who were well out of reach very early.

Tomorrow: also on a hockey bent,  the return of the Winnipeg Jets.

No Doubting Thomas

Last night saw the final game of the 2011 Stanley Cup final. After nine long months we finally found out who would win the best looking trophy in sport; for so much of the season it looked like it would be Vancouver that would win, given their dominant performance in the regular season. But the playoffs themselves are another two months long, and it's an arduous course to get to the sixteen wins required to hoist the trophy. Vancouver narrowly won the first two games, thanks largely to the resistance of Boston goalie Tim Thomas. Boston had to therefore win four of the five remaining games. The series pretty much turned on one incident: the head injury to Boston forward Nathan Horton in the early stages of game three, leaving him with a concussion and Vancouver defenceman Aaron Rome with a four game ban, the longest in finals history. Vancouver had no answer to Boston's aggression and hitting, losing 8-1 and 4-0 in successive games in Boston, thus planting the seeds of doubt in the mind of notoriously flaky-when-the-chips-are-down Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo.

Vancouver won game five 1-0 very late on through a goal from the generally objectionable Maxim Lapierre, before Boston once again routed the Canucks in game six by a 5-2 scoreline. Look at the scorelines: in Vancouver, the Canucks played 3 won 3, 5 goals for, 2 against. In Boston, the Bruins played 3, won 3, scored 17, conceded 3. All six games won by the home side. Would that pattern continue in game seven? In a word, no. A frantic opening period saw clear-cut scoring chances at a premium, but Boston scored late in the period and thereafter looked in little danger of losing; the truly back-breaking moment would come via a freak ricochet off the glass, an almost exact replica of the decisive moment in the Canucks favour in the conference final against San Jose. Instead of a defensive clearance along the boards, the puck cannoned out sideways to Patrice Bergeron who broke away short-handed to grab his second and make it 3-0 on the Canuck powerplay, crashing into the net with goalie, checker, and puck. Just over a year ago, he'd been relegated to pretty much the bit-part role of face-off specialist in the same building in the Olympic gold medal game, but was critically involved this time. Vancouver tried to rally in the third, but a team missing players - some more important than others - through injury, and other key players playing injured had no answer. The Sedin twins, so dominant for most of the regular season, and who were expected to carry the team, were brutally shut down by the Bruins second line of Marchand, Bergeron and Recchi and both ended -4 on the evening. Recchi had announced before the series that he would retire, aged 43, after 1,652 regular season games, another 189 in the playoffs, and three Stanley Cups. He made his debut for the Pittsburgh Penguins when I was still in primary school. What a way to retire.

This series was all about the Boston goalie Thomas. In seven games, he conceded just eight goals. That's a level of performance Superman might feel envious of. Hard to believe it took him till his thirties to get a regular game in the NHL. Look at his career history on the right, taking in the ECHL in Alabama, the IHL, three spells in Finland, one in Sweden, and then, finally the AHL affiliate of the Bruins. That's a very, very long road to the top. From Flint, Michigan, a small town fallen on hard times, having to claw his way up by his fingernails. Thirty-seven years old and he hasn't played 350 NHL games, and lost his place in the team to Tuukka Rask last season.  He's unorthodox, to be sure, and it sometimes costs him goals (such as the game winning goals in games two and five), but he's generally hugely effective. He will be a certainty to win his second Vezina Trophy in three seasons, on the back of a modern-day record save percentage. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP which was pretty much a given, probably even if the Bruins had lost the game. In hindsight, Team Canada should be very glad that he didn't line up for the Americans in the Olympic gold medal game in the same building in 2010.

As for the Canucks, the team as a whole just ran out of steam and fit players at just the wrong moment. I can't help but think sometimes that in the last year or two the team's numbers are artificially inflated somewhat. They play in a division in which the other teams finished 10th, 12th, 14th and 15th of 15, which was the knock on the Washington Capitals for the last couple of years. Shut down the Sedins and a lot of the offence disappears. Kesler did a fine job in the first couple of rounds of carrying the team almost on his own, but eventually he wore down under the strain. It comes to something when a third line of Hansen-Lapierre-Torres is your most effective line in seven games of a Stanley Cup final.

So that's all done with until mid September when the exhibition games start again. Just time for CBC to sign the season off in the usual way. It contorts my mind that they can be so good at things like this when they continue to employ a certain completely tone-deaf oaf in loud suits.

Heritage

You wait months for a hockey-related post, then two come along at once. Yesterday was the Heritage Classic game here in Calgary, held just down the road at McMahon Stadium. A temperature of -10 C at the beginning meant that the ice quality was not far short of terrible (apparently, it becomes too brittle and cracks), and it would doubtless have been uncomfortable viewing for the 41,022 there as it got colder as the sun went down.

From a Flames point of view, a win would have taken them into sixth place in the Western Conference, remarkable to think about given their dead last position last November. The fear was the players minds would be distracted by all the media hoopla that had been going on and the disruption to their gameday routine, as well as the longer break before this game. Given other teams around them had multiple games in hand following the Flames last game on Wednesday, we'd all been watching the out of town scores very carefully. Thursday and Friday were not so good, Saturday and Sunday were pretty good on that score. Would they put it all to one side and win?

One very ill omen: their special, one-off uniforms. Teams that play in claret and amber, not choking on the big day? We've seen it all before, I'm afraid.....

Some of the sights and sounds of the day shown below. CBC does its usual thing:

The entrance of the teams. A bit overdone for game 61/82 if you ask me.



An apparently famous country singer does the national anthems.

The flypast went straight over Beige Towers. Very loud, they were. And so to the game highlights. No choking after all. The team is now 17-4-5 in its last 26, and have scored 57 goals in the last 14. Fifty-seven goals!! This is the low-scoring-dull-but-grind-it-out-defensively-Calgary-Flames, right?

Avalanche

There's been very little mention of hockey on here this season. For the first two-and-half-months, the Flames were terrible, forcing a change in the General Manager's chair between Christmas and New Year. And have gone on an almighty run since; they were 14-18-3 (W/L/OT) in the early going, before a run of 15-4-5 since, hauling themselves off the bottom of the western conference into 8th place. Last night, the Flames travelled to Denver to take on the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs edged the Flames out of the playoffs last year, on the back of worldy goaltending, lots of blocked shots, lucky bounces and not much else. Four times they beat the Flames 3-2, in games they should have lost handsomely, but for Craig Anderson; those eight points were essentially the difference between the sides. 

Fast forward to this season. Flames lost the first game 6-5 in a ridiculous game, before winning the next two. Last night saw the Avs on the back of an eight game losing run. And here's what happened in game four:

That the NHL should choose the Altitude video is even more amusing than the scoreline; the Altitude feed is one of the very worst (and believe me, they have some competition) TV teams out there.

Defending the Crown

The lab hockey pool crown, that is. Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up for the Flaming Jokers. I was a bit bothered I hadn't done so well in the draft, but comparing my side with a couple of others, I feel a bit better now. That said, three of the first six picks were defencemen and I'm not sure that's such a wise strategy. We shall see how things turn out.

First Impressions

I blogged here some time ago about an outdoor NHL game in Calgary. It turns out I jumped the gun a bit, but so did the local media. In the end, there will be a Heritage Classic game played outdoors at McMahon Stadium - a short-ish walk from where I live - next February against the Montreal Canadiens. Today saw the official announcement, press conference, and unveiling of the team's retro, one-off jersey. To say that it caused a bit of a squall on the internet was something of an understatement. I certainly didn't like it, but the first image released suggested it was straight red and yellow and looked like something Ronald McDonald might wear.

Only when video/photos of it being worn by players did it actually look sort of OK and people start to come around to it. Certainly, the first image of it that was distributed was a bit of an own goal (not that such things exist in hockey, but still). Now I'll leave the reader to draw their own conclusions on whether they like it or not, but it left me reflecting on the second such 'ugh, I don't like that at all' moment in a matter of months after the unveiling of the new Bradford home strip three months ago. Just as now, I instantly didn't like it and then came round an hour or two later. I think I am becoming more reactionary as I get older and perhaps it's a lesson in not blurting out on facebook how much it's rubbish and taking an hour or two to think about things a bit.

The fact that I like it because it appears to be more claret and amber than red and yellow is entirely coincidental. Honest

If The Cap Fits

I wrote a few weeks ago about the culmination of the NHL playoffs and how it was likely the champion Chicago Blackhawks were likely to be broken up this coming summer. Today saw probably the last moves to fit themselves under next year's salary cap; the changes have been far more widespread than any Chicago fan would have thought about two months ago.

Here's last season's playoff lineup:

Forwards:
Kane-Toews-Byfuglien
Kopecky-Sharp-Hossa
Ladd-Bolland-Versteeg
Eager-Madden-Brouwer

Defence:
Keith-Seabrook
Hjalmarsson-Campbell
Hendry-Sopel

Goal:
Niemi
Huet

Lots of goalscoring depth, role players, grit, old heads. You name it, this team had it. Except a reliable goalie, perhaps. It became obvious not long into last season they'd be the team to beat. But winning has created a number of problems. First of all, a bit of history. Chicago last made the Stanley Cup final in 1992. There then followed a long spell of finishing among the also rans in the league as owner Bill Wirtz refused to play top dollar for players. The crowds stayed away and so he had to keep the salary at a minimum to minimise the debt, and so the vicious circle went around again. Eventually, such a prolonged period of failure reaped rewards in the draft. Teams pick in reverse order according to their final position in the regular season. Along came, among others, Patrick Kane (1st overall, 2007), Jonathan Toews (3rd overall 2006), Duncan Keith (54th overall, 2002), Brent Seabrook (12th overall, 2003) and others. Entry level contracts can only be signed up to a league maximum. Bonuses for performance can be added, but count against the salary cap if they have to be paid out. So it comes to pass that Chicago must pay $4.1m out in bonuses against a salary cap of $59.4m this season. That's comparable to a couple of third line forwards, a top 6 forward or, a top 4 defenceman. There's problem number 1.

Problem number two came as the entry level contracts of Kane, Toews, and Keith expired this season. Entry level contracts can only be three years long; after such time the player and team must re-negotiate with the protection of draft picks if they move to another team if agreement can't be reached. Kane's average cap salary went from $3.7 to $6.3m, Toews from $2.8m to $6.3m, and Keith's from $1.48m to $5.5m almost $10m more. Room would have to be made against the salary cap. In Chicago's case, they had a number of the supporting cast that would be attractive to other sides. They also had a pair of contractual albatrosses; French goalie Cristobal Huet ($5.6m a year), and defenceman Brian Campbell ($7.1m a year, roughly $2m more than he's worth). Both were 'shopped' among the other 29 sides. No takers. Chicago will bury Huet in the minor league AHL team, on full salary but not counting against the salary cap of the senior team. That's $5m of the $10m back. Campbell also has a no move clause in his contract, so they're stuck with him. It can't be reiterated enough just how much trouble those contracts are causing.

Instead, they had to move the supporting cast. Kris Versteeg and a prospect were traded to Toronto for Viktor Stalberg and two prospects; this was a net salary dump of $2.2m. Versteeg's contract is somewhat inflated seeing as there was an administrative bungle by the Blackhawks with his (and other) qualifying offers last season which essentially meant he was an unrestricted, rather than restricted free agent and so he had to be tendered a second, higher offer lest he sign for another team. As we'll see, every $250,000 here and there would become so very important. In the same week, playoff warhorse Dustin Byfuglien (11 goals in the playoffs), Ben Eager and Brent Sopel were traded to the useless Atlanta Thrashers (I mean, what sort of a reward is that?!) for fourth line forward Marty Reasoner and a prospect. That was a net salary dump of about $4.2m. Andrew Ladd was then traded to Atlanta for prospect defenceman Ivan Vishnevskiy and a draft pick that worked out as a further $1.5m salary dump after Ladd agreed a contract with Atlanta. Fourth line centre John Madden's $2.75m a year contract was not renewed. So far, so bad for the third and fourth lines.

We've just touched on the RFA Ladd being moved because a new contract would be too high. So we came to RFAs Niklas Hjalmarsson and Antti Niemi. Hjalmarsson earned $0.8m last season as a player who could play long minutes and keep the door shut as Campbell wandered up the ice in attack. He was due a hefty raise. At this point, enter stage left, the General Manager of the San Jose Sharks, Doug Wilson. Wilson submitted an offer sheet to Hjalmarsson of $3.5m a year. Chicago had a week to either match the offer, or accept the draft picks (a 1st and a 3rd, determined by the contract value) as compensation. Chicago matched the offer, thus swallowing up some of their hard won cap space into the bargain. A very very sneaky thing for Wilson to do to hobble one of their main rivals, but he is paid to make SJ the best team in the conference and get them to their first cup final. As a result, the only just acquired Reasoner (he was there about two weeks!) was then traded to Florida for AHL/NHL inbetweener Jeff Taffe in another net salary dump of $0.7m.

Negotiations then turned to Niemi. He also earned $0.8m last season. The two sides couldn't agree a contract, and the arbitrator set a value of $2.75m a year for one year. Chicago balked at this and said 'on your way, then' and signed the erratic former Dallas goalie Marty Turco on a one year deal at $1.3m. They now have just short of $3m to fill four or five roster spots with youngsters in the system to have a squad of 23 on opening night. In the meantime, it would surprise no-one at all if Niemi surfaced in San Jose to former a goalie tandem there with fellow Finn Antero Niittymaki .They had let Evgeni Nabokov go following the shellacking he got against Canada in the Olympics, after which he was not the same. Very very clever on Wilson's part if that was the reason he made the offer sheet to Hjalmarsson.

So the Chicago Blackhawks of 2010-11 then, with slightly speculative line combinations:

Forward:
Kane-Toews-Brouwer
Sharp-Kopecky-Hossa
Stalberg-Bolland-Beach
Skille-Dowell-Bickell

Defence:
Keith-Seabrook
Hjalmarsson-Campbell
Hendry-Vishnevskiy

Goal:
Turco
Crawford

They have two good forward lines, two good defensive pairs and yet at the same time huge question marks in goal. A first championship in 49 years followed by complete destruction of their forward corps. They are still a useful looking team on paper, but are much much weakened as compared to this time last year, thus ensuring the Western Conference is a bit more spread out this year. Lesson to other teams: Calgary GM Darryl Sutter may be a bit of laughing stock at present for some, er, interesting moves in the last year, but he almost never gets involved in free agent frenzy on July 1st for fear of ending up with a Huet or a Campbell on the books for several years. Others should take note!

Orange Crushed

Yes, it's a lame pun, and I'm thinking from a deflated point of view rather than a heavy defeat. The Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup with a 4-3 overtime win in Philadelphia to win the best-of-seven series 4-2. For a third year in a row the final was won in the opposition's barn, which was surprising given how weakly Chicago had played in the two previous games in Philadelphia.

Patrick Kane's winner was greeted with silence in the arena, primarily because he was the only person in the building to see the puck had gone in. Only when he was wheeling away like David Pleat on skates and running down the ice to meet his goalie was it obvious what had happened. Game highlights can be seen below.


If truth be told, goalie Michael Leighton saves that shot 95 times out of 100. But such are the margins of winning what is an awesome looking trophy; lets not forget Philadelphia finished 18th out of 30 on a points basis and only qualified for the playoffs in a game 82 shootout where the Rangers inexplicably chose Olli Jokinen as one of the shooters.

Chicago have been the best all-round team in the league this year - yes, Washington scored a shed load of goals but have no defence or goalie to speak of - and for the Flyers to win would have been a travesty of sporting justice. Such things happen, but it's better when they don't. Chicago went on a run during the season of nine consecutive wins where they scored four or more goals, demonstrating their credentials as the number one. Captain JonathanT oews led by example, and though he had a quiet final series, the three rounds before that he demonstrated he was worthy of winning the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP. World Junior gold, World senior gold, Olympic gold (and a goal in the final), Conn Smythe winner and Stanley Cup champion. At the age of 22. Whither now for him?

Yes, they have spotty goaltending, but in Keith, Seabrook, Toews, Hossa, Sharp and Kane they have a lot of talent, with numerous backup players like Ladd, Byfuglien, Bolland, Brouwer, Versteeg, Madden, Campbell and Hjalmarsson. The team won't be the same next year as Kane, Keith and Toews are due large pay rises with new contracts and the current roster will bust the salary cap by conservatively several million dollars, so some players will have to move on (from a Flames point of view, Versteeg or Sharp turning up at the Saddledome would be nice). But until then, they should enjoy the moment.

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

Or sometimes, 1593. The lab hockey pool finished yesterday and I am now $100 richer. I am feeling rather pleased with myself. After building a lead through the autumn, this was slowly eroded in the Spring due to the second placed boss-man's large number of Vancouver and Washington players. Fortunately, the Olympic break killed all his momentum, and I was able to slowly reel him in in the final couple of weeks. After a very nervous Saturday night as Vancouver laid waste to the Flames, Sunday became one very long victory lap. Click to enlarge the photo, to see my wizard drafting skills!

We had the draft for the playoff pool after work today; I got really unlucky in having to pick 8th (and so 9th, 24th and 25th and so on). I'm not sure how well I did within my plan, and some of the picks are a bit iffy. We'll find out in due course. In the meantime, bow before me, Canadia!

They're heeeeeere....

The regular season of the NHL is done. Turn it up to 11 for the playoffs!

Gold

I suspect, if you'd asked which gold medal above all others the Canadians would want to win, that the men's hockey final would be the one. So it was that the Canadians and Americans played out a gripping 2-2 draw, after the USA equalised in the dying seconds with an empty net, in one last do-or-die push. To be fair to the Americans, their push back after the second Canadian goal demonstrated what their roster was all about; lots of grit and determination, allied to a little skill.

It was fitting that Sidney Crosby, rising star of the Canadian game (if not a de facto star already), should score the winner. When I first got here, he seemed a very diving, whining sort of a player, though obviously talented. He was only 20 years old. In the two years that I've been in the country, he has gradually cut this out and matured into the player he was heralded as a teenager. An Olympic gold medal and Stanley Cup by the age of 22. Whither next for him, I guess

So for the record (with their position for the national team, rather than their club), take a bow:

#1. Roberto Luongo (G, Vancouver Canucks, of Montreal, QC)
#2. Duncan Keith (D, Chicago Blackhawks, of Winnipeg, MB)
#6. Shea Weber (D, Nashville Predators, of Sicamous, BC)
#7. Brent Seabrook (D, Chicago Blackhawks, of Richmond, BC)
#8. Drew Doughty (D, Los Angeles Kings, of London, ON)
#10. Brendan Morrow (LW, Dallas Stars, of Carlyle, SK)
#11. Patrick Marleau (RW, San Jose Sharks, of Aneroid, SK)
#12. Jarome Iginla 'A' (RW, Calgary Flames, of Edmonton, AB)
#15. Dany Heatley (LW, San Jose Sharks, of Calgary, AB)
#16. Jonathan Toews (C, Chicago Blackhawks, of Winnipeg, MB)
#18. Mike Richards (RW, Philadelphia Flyers, of Kenora, ON)
#19. Joe Thornton (C, San Jose Sharks, of London, ON)
#20. Chris Pronger 'A' (D, Philadelphia Flyers, of Dryden, ON)
#21. Eric Staal (LW, Carolina Hurricanes, of Thunder Bay, ON)
#22. Dan Boyle (D, San Jose Sharks, of Ottawa, ON)
#24. Corey Perry (RW, Anaheim Ducks, of Peterborough, ON)
#27. Scott Niedermayer 'C' (D, Anaheim Ducks, of Cranbrook, BC)
#29. Marc-Andre Fleury (G, Pittsburgh Penguins, of Sorel, QC)
#30. Martin Brodeur (G, New Jersey Devils, of Montreal, QC)
#37. Patrice Bergeron (RW, Boston Bruins, of L'Ancienne Lorette, QC)
#51. Ryan Getzlaf (C, Anaheim Ducks, of Regina, SK)
#61. Rick Nash (LW, Columbus Blue Jackets, of Brampton, ON)
#87. Sidney Crosby 'A' (C, Pittsburgh Penguins, of Cole Harbour, NS)

D'oh Canada

Things you never thought you'd hear me say. Number 1.

Roberto Luongo has to play in goal for the next game for Canada.

That is all