As the Canucks rack up a few wins in a row, maybe their slow start wasn’t such a slow start after all. In this episode of CHB TV, Ed, Clay, Chris and Chris Palliser from The Beat 94.5 talk about the team’s best start since 2006, goal cellys celebrations, Chris Tanev’s first career goal (an OT game-winner no less), and more.
Photo credit: canucks.nhl.com
Have you ever wanted to skate alongside one of your hockey heroes? Well, now you have a chance to do just that.
On BC Family Day, Monday, February 11, 2013, Sun Life Financial is sponsoring “Skate with the Canucks“, a chance for fans to take the ice at Rogers Arena with some current Canucks players and Canucks alumni. Thanks to our friends from the Vancouver Canucks, one CHB reader and a guest can join them.
You can enter in two, very easy ways:
I entered and RT to win a spot to Skate with the #Canucks via @canuckshockey @VanCanucks @lyteforce. http://nucks.co/4x #CHB
The deadline to enter is Friday, February 8, 2013 at 6:00 PM. Shortly afterwards, we will randomly select one winner from the entries.
Some notes: The skate session starts at 6:00 PM on Monday, February 11. Skate and helmet rentals are not available so you will have to bring your own. You will also be required to sign a waiver before you step on the ice. At least one member of the 2012/2013 Vancouver Canucks will be on the ice during the event.
Photo credit: Vancouver Sun
As I’m writing this, I’ll admit I’m drinking a bit of Mike Gillis’ kool aid.
In an interview on TSN last night, Gillis preached some patience on the Canucks’ 2-2-2 start this season.
I’m inclined to agree.
All things considered, the Canucks’ start was probably as well as could be expected. They’re still missing Ryan Kesler and David Booth, 2/3rd of their second scoring line, and with a shortened training camp and no exhibition games, it’s obvious most of the rest of the lineup are still in preseason mode.
But before we start a “Fallin’ for Drouin” campaign (or is it “Fallin’ for Mackinnon”?), there are some positives to take here.
While most of the vets have struggled, the Canucks have received more than expected contributions from the likes of Mason Raymond, Zack Kassian, Jordan Schroeder and the Dutch Gretzky. Jannik Hansen has also been noticeable and Chris Tanev has probably been their most consistent defenseman. Coincidentally, these are pretty much all the players, give or take Andrew Ebbett, who were playing some hockey either in the AHL or in Europe during the lockout. Maybe something for players to think about in 2020.
May Ray, in particular, looks more like the May Ray from 2009/2010 rather than the May Ray whose career was almost ended by a cheap Johnny Boychuk hit in 2011.
At least through a few games, Kassian looks to be a good fit with the Sedins. Right-handed shot, power forward with good hands, good instincts and a good nose for the net. He’s also shown that he’s not afraid to play bodyguard for the twins – ask Ben Eager.
Schroeder has some obvious speed and skill, and as Gillis points out, he hasn’t really hurt the team on the defensive end. I mean, in his NHL debut against Calgary, he had a particularly memorable sequence in which the Flames bounced him around like a pinball, but if anything, he showed he’s got a hard compete level.
Of course, this isn’t to say there aren’t cause for concerns.
The Sedins look out of synch. For all of their offensive zone starts, they don’t seem to be generating as much offensive pressure as they normally do.
The defense looks out of synch. It probably speaks volumes when the pairing of Tanev and Keith Ballard (!) is the one defensive pairing left untouched. Dan Hamhuis, Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler and Jason Garrison have been shuffled around already.
The special teams aren’t so special. The powerplay can’t score and the penalty-kill can’t kill penalties.
And already in 4 of their first 6 games, the Canucks couldn’t hang on to leads like Dustin Diamond couldn’t hang on to his dignity.
So should we worry?
As magnified as things seem in a shortened season with little room for error, I think 6 games is still a small sample size to adequately judge this team. Like Gillis says, let’s wait a few more games before we step off the ledge or jump off the bandwagon. In the meantime, hopefully the kids can keep it up and the vets can pick it up. And hopefully, it’s not too late by then.
One week into the new NHL season and some things don’t seem to have changed.
The Canucks are off to another slow start and Roberto Luongo trade talks are still dominating the airwaves.
Clay, Chris, Ed and special guest, Alan from the Hogshack in Steveston, chat about these and more in this latest episode of CHB TV.
Hello hockey fans. I’m still having a little trouble believing it, but we’re back baby. It’s been a long 8 months, but the contracts are signed, the ice is prepped, and we’re ready to go.
Tequila game prep. This will be great, or horrible. It’s all up to the boys in blue. #Canucks#TGATT
— Chad Forrest (@C_Forrest) January 20, 2013
* cue ominous tone *
Photo credit: Toronto Star
Finally.
After winning a second consecutive Presidents Trophy and then falling to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, Los Angeles Kings, in the first round of the 2012 playoffs, and after almost nine months of wallowing in the what might have been, the Vancouver Canucks will finally hit the ice again this Saturday to start the 2012/2013 NHL season.
The team released their 48-game regular season schedule this weekend. They’ll be playing 4 or 5 games against each Northwest Division opponent, and 3 games against each of the other teams in the Western Conference. They’ll play 0 games against teams in the Eastern Conference.
Because of the shortened season, Canucks fans, unfortunately, again won’t see the likes of Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos in Vancouver. Regardless, there are still some marquee match-ups on tap; here are 5 of them:
Saturday, January 19th vs Anaheim Ducks
The Canucks want to make it up to fans for putting them through the 113-day lockout, and they’re starting on opening night. The Canucks have promised a full night of festivities, including selecting a lucky fan to drop the ceremonial puck before the game, giving the jersey of the players’ backs, and offering 50% discounts on team merchandise and $1 hotdogs, popcorn and drinks.
Friday, February 1st vs Chicago Blackhawks
This will be the two teams’ first meeting since Duncan Keith’s cheap shot to Daniel Sedin’s head. For his transgression, Keith earned a 5-game rest before the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Canucks sorely missed their leading scorer, fizzled out in the first round of the playoffs, and fans have been demanding for their pound of flesh ever since.
Monday, January 28th at Los Angeles Kings
The last time the Canucks tried to avenge a playoff loss, they beat the Bruins in Boston in a spectacularly entertaining and dirty game. It was a Saturday matinee game in January, but also, the peak of their season. Likewise, the Canucks will want to win this rematch against the Kings, but they have to also understand that this game is only game 6 of 48.
Saturday, March 30th at Edmonton Oilers
The Canucks play the Oilers and their phenom five of Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Nail Yakupov and Justin Schultz five times this season – twice at Rogers Arena and three times in Edmontom – but this is the only one televised nationally on CBC Hockey Night in Canada.
Saturday, March 16th vs Detroit Red Wings
Even without Nicklas Lidstrom manning their blueline, the Red Wings are still a big draw in Vancouver. They still have some firepower and skill in the lineup with Pavel Datsyuk and new captain, Henrik Zetterberg. After leaving for a few years to play for the Canucks and the Florida Panthers, the ever-quotable Mikael Samuelsson re-signed back with Detroit this past summer.
Photo credit: Vancouver Sun
Contrary to popular belief, there apparently is a market for a top-flight, 55-60-plus games per season, Olympic gold medal-winning, one win short of winning the Stanley Cup kind of goaltender.
On the same day the Toronto Maple Leafs fired GM Brian Burke for, among other reasons I’m sure, not pursuing Luongo as aggressively as some in the organization wanted, and replaced him with Dave Nonis, who, incidentally, was rumored to have been fired from the Canucks for not pursuing Brad Richards as aggressively as some in the organization wanted, the rumor mill started churning.
The Philadelphia Flyers, who probably don’t mind Ilya Bryzgalov’s worldly views but moreso his 0.887 save percentage and 3.46 GAA in last year’s playoffs, are now rumored to be interested in Bobby Luo.
Add them to the list with the Leafs, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Florida Panthers, and perhaps, even the Edmonton Oilers.
The belief out there is that Luongo’s contract is too big a risk to take on, especially with the new CBA penalties for teams with backdiving contracts – my good friend Tom here calls it a millstone – and it could hamper any trade leverage the Canucks have. But the new CBA may actually be helping the Canucks in this situation. More specifically, now that teams are allowed up to 2 compliance buyouts over the next two off-seasons, and these buyout amounts won’t count towards the salary cap, it may very well be creating some additional suitors for Luongo’s services.
Take the Flyers, for instance. In any normal season, Bryzgalov’s 9-year contract would, in all likelihood, remove them from the running for any Luongo deal. But what now if they can buy him out and not have the buyout amount charged against the cap? A Bryzgalov buyout could cost the team upwards of $17 million. But how much do the Flyers really want the somewhat flaky goaltender in front of an otherwise young and very good group of players for another 8 seasons? Like a lot of teams, they want to win now and I’d dare say wouldn’t care much about a $2 million cap hit penalty 7 years – several years – from now when the cap will most likely be in the $80-$90 million range anyway.
Is this enough to improve what the Canucks receive in return for the winningest goaltender in its franchise history? Can the additional market turn a return of Cody Franson to Jake Gardiner, or Matt Read to Sean Couturier, or Stephen Weiss to Jonathan Huberdeau? Maybe not quite. But it certainly won’t hurt.
Just prior to locking out its players, the NHL, including Gary Bettman, assured team executives and sponsors that the upcoming labor negotiations would be nothing more than “a tweak and a fix“.
And looking at the details of the resulting tentative collective bargaining agreement with the NHLPA yesterday, that certainly seems to be the case.
The new CBA includes tweaks to the league’s economic system; owners and players both now have a 50/50 split of hockey-related revenue. It attempts to fix the problem of backdiving contracts by capping contract lengths to 7 (another team’s player) or 8 (its own player) years and capping yearly salary variance to 35%. It left other contracting issues, like entry-level contracts, free agency age and arbitration rights untouched. It also left untouched the league’s underlying issues that some of its weaker markets will still have problems getting to the cap floor now, never mind 3, 8, 10 years from now.
If you look at a lot of these terms, they look like what most in the hockey world expected very early in the process, like, in the days shortly before and after the lockout. For some reason, it took the league 113 days to get to the same place. Because to get their tweaks and fixes, they first tried to perform major surgery with an insulting first offer that set things back for the players by about 10 years, and thus set the tone of the negotiations in a negative fashion. And instead of building on a record revenue season, they did much to tear the brand down with gamesmanship, rhetoric, insults and mudslinging.
The NHL could proclaim victory, having reduced the players’ share of HRR by more than 12% and getting a cap on contract terms. The NHLPA could proclaim victory, getting $300 million in make-whole or transition payments and having maintained their free agency rights.
But in the process, they also alienated a dedicated fanbase. In the last 113 days, some diehard fans have turned to casual fans and some casual fans have simply tuned out and moved on. Corporate sponsors moved on. Yes, most will probably come back to support the league, but certainly, some won’t.
So did anyone really win?
Especially when you consider how much damage was done to the NHL, it sure doesn’t look like it.
What was the point?
The Scotiabank Pro-Am for Alzheimer’s, a hockey tournament which raises money in support of the Gordie and Colleen Howe Fund for Alzheimer’s, came to Vancouver for the first time. Held at Canlan Ice Sports in North Vancouver, the tournament offered hockey teams with an opportunity of a lifetime to line up and play hockey with some NHL alumni. Every team that participated raised a minimum of $25,000 – and a Vancouver total of over $750,000 – all towards research and care in Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
Among the notable NHL alumni present in North Vancouver included none other than Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe, and also, among others, Cliff Ronning, Dave Babych, Brad May, Theo Fleury, Garth Butcher, Tiger Williams, Greg Adams and Bob Bourne. Former Canucks GM and coach, Pat Quinn, and CBC personality, George Strombolopolous, who hosted the Friday night draft party, were also present.
Check out some of our pictures from the tournament:
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With no further talks planned and the NHL prepares itself for its third lockout in three CBA negotiations – a natural hat trick of sort for Gary Bettman and his league – I don’t think I could have said things much better than Scott Burnside did:
The National Hockey League and its players had a golden opportunity to cement its place as the cool kids on the sporting block, to prove that the game is indeed separate and unique, that the game was worthy of such sentiment.
They were a long way down that track when presented with this opportunity.
An award-winning HBO reality series, the Winter Classic, Stanley Cups in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles. Stars galore. Record revenues.
And then, even better, a chance this summer to prove that hockey was indeed unique by actually getting their act together on the labor front.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
For the second time in eight years, the sport that loves to claim its fans are the best in the world closes its doors to those fans, with guesses ranging from weeks to months to an entire season when it might next return.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
It takes a certain kind of arrogance for the NHL to piss away all the goodwill and growth from the last time it shut its doors, just a mere seven years ago.
Much like it takes a certain kind of arrogance for its Commissioner to assume its fans would simply forgive, forget and buck up again. And over and over again.
And they wonder why it has never truly reached the heights enjoyed by the NFL, MLB and NBA – leagues it wants to compare itself to in these negotiations.
Seven years ago, the NHL became the first North American professional sports league to cancel an entire season because of a labor dispute. It was a necessary evil, they said, to fix a broken economic system and achieve cost certainty.
It must’ve worked because since then, all we’ve heard from Bettman and the league are reports of an improved on-ice product (give or take the last year), expanded broadcast contracts, record merchandise sales and record revenue growth. We heard all this as recently as three months ago in June.
But now, suddenly, this same system isn’t good enough.
As if the league forgot all their press conferences and rewrote all their press releases, the system suddenly wasn’t working. They couldn’t operate another season under this CBA, said Bettman, even as teams were signing players to big deals with big dollars and big terms today and in the days leading to today.
The fact is, the NHL, greedy as it is, simply wants more for itself. Apparently, they’re sharing way too much of their revenue with the players, they’re paying too much in salaries, and for the second time in eight years, they want to rollback contracts they willingly signed.
And they’re willing to waste all the progress they made in the last seven years to get it.
