Out of Town Notebook: Dealing with an Upper Body Injury

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Nov 182011
 

Sometimes in life you gotta play hurt. While fighting the flu bug, here now are this week’s thoughts on the fly:

  • Just in case Canucks fans have been living under a rock, here’s what Mark Recchi said about the most arrogant team he’s ever played against.
  • The great Terry Jones articulates what the current Edmonton Oilers freefall feels like.
  • If a goalie is going to roam outside the crease, they make themselves vulnerable to contact. Ryan Miller wasn’t trying to make a save in traffic at the edges of his crease – he was skating 10-15 feet away from the net. The only thing wrong with what Boston’s Milan Lucic did by bodychecking Miller was giving the contact a “little extra” with his arms/shoulders. Let’s protect goalies from the contact they can’t avoid, and remind them they’re fair game otherwise.
  • Grantland’s Katie Baker with her weekly round-up – some great links this week.
  • With the Washington Capitals visiting Winnipeg and Toronto, coverage of Alex Ovechkin’s pedestrian season has ramped up. With Sidney Crosby still out and Ovechkin less-than-dominant, the best player in the league right now just might be Jonathan Toews.
  • Meanwhile, Jaromir Jagr thinks Claude Giroux is knocking-on-the-door of the league’s best.
  • One reason why the Pittsburgh Penguins are amongst the best teams in the league? They control the neutral zone with speed, pressuring puck carriers so well defensively that opponents are forced to dump the puck in before they would like to. The Penguins then have an easy time recovering the puck and breaking out of their own zone.
  • If there’s one thing Mike Milbury knows, it’s how to kill a franchise. Not surprising then he thinks the Columbus Blue Jackets should trade Rick Nash.
  • All good teams have winning streaks. Championship teams find ways to win despite their poorest efforts. So goes the Boston Bruins, who have now won 7 straight games, and played what was arguably their worst game of the year against Columbus on Thursday.
  • Credit where credit is due – Matt Cooke’s transformation as a player is pretty impressive.
  • The demise of Ilya Bryzgalov has been greatly exaggerated. Since getting shelled and having a bit of a media meltdown against the Winnipeg Jets back on October 27th, Bryzgalov is 5-0-1, with a 1.65 goals against average and a .944 save percentage.
  • Meanwhile, Brygalov’s former teammates are ripping him for being a negative presence in the Coyotes locker room. You know what’s also a negative factor on team chemistry? Losing. And that’s something the Coyotes didn’t do very much when Ilya Bryzgalov was their goaltender. Things could have been much, much worse for Phoenix players than simply dealing with an difficult personality.
  • Final note on Bryzgalov’s current team, the Philadelphia Flyers – not sure their team speed is good enough, which makes them more vulnerable to trapping teams or teams with great speed and counter-attack.
  • Forwards still looking for their first goal of the season: Ales Hemsky (7 games); Jeff Carter (8 games); Scott Gomez (10 games); Sam Gagner (11 games); Kyle Okposo (14 games); Dustin Penner (14 games); Blake Comeau (0 points in 14 games); Marty Reasoner (16 games); Mattias Tedenby (16 games).
  • Loved this from the Leafs-Predators game.
  • Nikita Filatov, or “Filly,” probably doesn’t play in the NHL again either.
  • Paul Maurice is a nice guy but a bad coach. As the Hurricanes struggle, here’s a nice recap of potential coaching replacements if Carolina decides to fire their coach. Given how GM Jim Rutherford likes to keep things in-house, it wouldn’t surprise to see Jeff Daniels eventually take over the reigns.
  • The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for goaltending. What if they had the solution but chose not to re-sign him? Cast-off J-S. Giguere is playing well for the struggling Colorado Avalanche, with a 1.98 goals against average to-date.
  • Speaking of the Maple Leafs, lots of talk about Wayne Gretzky fronting a U.S. bid for the franchise. While it’s a romantic notion, let’s remember that Gretzky is still owed $8 million by the NHL. Hard to imagine him returning to the league in any capacity until someone writes him a cheque.
  • From the department of weird stats – right now the Capitals have a better winning percentage when they give up the first goal of the game (.778%) than when they score the first goal (.375%).

Out of Town Notebook: A Bad Week for the NHL

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Mar 132011
 

[Every weekend, Canucks Hockey Blog goes out of town as Tom Wakefield (@tomwakefield88) posts his thoughts on what's happening around the NHL.]

Gary Bettman, NHL

Photo credit: Barry Melrose Rocks

Between the Zdeno Chara hit, the Phoenix Coyotes drama and the ongoing hits-to-the-head debate, it’s been a bad week for the NHL.

Might as well pile on:

  • Scoring is down from last year, to 5.6 goals per game. The first season after the lockout, the average goals per game was 6.17.
  • This season will likely feature the fewest number of 100-point scorers, and fewest number of 50-goal scorers, since the lockout.
  • Analyzing numbers available on ESPN, it looks like attendance is down slightly. Let’s assume the NHL and teams fudge attendance figures. The fact that the figures show a loss probably means attendance is down far more than anyone’s willing to admit.
  • Like jilted lovers, the game’s greatest ambassador, Wayne Gretzky, and the NHL are currently not speaking to each other.
  • The game’s current ambassador, Sidney Crosby, seems to be in hiding, thanks to a severe concussion received during the NHL’s marquee regular season game (the Winter Classic).

Oh, and Gary Bettman has quietly signed a 5-year contract extension.

So where do we go from here?

Bob McKenzie has done some yeoman’s work asking the league’s GMs what was on their minds heading into their meetings next week in Florida.

The thing is, as a conservative enterprise, change will not come quickly to the NHL. Especially when the kinds of change necessary, and most effective, are unclear.

A smart place to start would be examining the boards and other structures that surround the playing surface.

Smartly (albeit too quietly), the NHLPA has indicated this is their focus.

We’ve clearly reached a point where the NHL product needs to evolve.

This could be a watershed moment for the NHL – a moment that clearly defines how a generation plays this game at its highest level.

If only there was a history of innovation and dynamic, progressive thinking to give one confidence the game is in good hands.

THOUGHTS ON THE FLY

It’s not like there aren’t positive developments in the NHL.

  • The Sedin Twins are giving the NHL the rarest of storylines: a brother act competing not only for the league’s scoring title, but a place amongst the game’s best players.
  • Alex Ovechkin’s play has really improved, to the point that he was either: a) hurt earlier in the year, or b) saving himself for the stretch run. Or, with Jason Arnott and Marco Sturm back, the Capitals have a legitimate second line to take the heat of OV and company.
  • If the playoffs started today the NHL would be pretty happy with the footprint. Toronto would be the only Original Six team not in the playoffs. Minnesota the only major US hockey-watching market not represented.
  • Oh, by the way, intriguing first-round matchups as of this (Saturday) morning: Philly-New York Rangers (Flyers knocked New York from playoffs on final day of the regular season last year), Montreal-Boston (they may need police on each blueline for every game, the way this rivalry’s peaked this year), Vancouver-Los Angeles (repeat of last year’s first-round matchup), San Jose-Calgary (fourth time they’ve played against each other in the playoffs).
  • That being said, it’s looking more and more like the final day of the regular season will decide who does, and does not, make the playoffs.
  • Ilya Kovalchuk is showing he might be the best player (outside of Martin Brodeur) to play in the New York area since the hay days of Mark Messier and Brian Leetch.
  • If he keeps scoring at his current pace (12 points in his past 14 games) and keeps making plays like this, it won’t be long before David Desharnais is a fan favourite in Montreal. Wonder if he has to stand to see over the boards?
  • Kudos to Willie Mitchell for donating his brain to science.
  • Hey look, a Scotty Bowman sighting behind Barack Obama!
  • An interesting Abbotsford Times piece on the Canucks AHL affiliate potentially coming home to the Lower Mainland.
  • Record-watch – Tim Thomas’s save-percentage: .938. The record: Dominik Hasek’s .937 in 1998-99.

Out of Town Notebook: Flames’ Rebuild, Leafs’ Mixed Messages, Ovechkin’s Slump and Unfortunate Injuries

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Dec 312010
 

[Every weekend, Canucks Hockey Blog goes out of town as Tom Wakefield (@tomwakefield88) posts his thoughts on what's happening around the NHL.]

Jay Feaster, Calgary Flames

Photo credit: Calgary Herald

So just how big a project is rebuilding the Calgary Flames?

Countless articles and endless minutes of media coverage in Canada over the holidays talked about how Darryl Sutter left this team without the young or tradeable assets necessary to build hope for a better future.

The bar is being set incredibly low for Jay Feaster. Basically, if he makes a couple of trades for draft picks at the deadline, columnists will award him a Bronze Star for valour.

The thing is, the Flames situation is desperate only if you believe they should be competitive right now. In short, if you drank from the Sutter kool-aid, you’re a very unhappy person right now.

Yet most Flames fans stopped drinking this Kool-Aid long ago. Similar to up the road in Edmonton, Flames fans are just hungry for a period of sustained success. They are tired of mediocrity. And mediocrity is all that Darryl Sutter has been able to muster since the lockout.

Which is why it was most alarming to hear Jay Feaster say in his first press conference how the playoffs were a goal for the team.

Perhaps it was an empty promise. However, the post-lockout NHL has proven itself to be an incredibly difficult place to remain competitive and rebuild at the same time.

These days, the best talent is locked in contract-wise, which means there aren’t the same rebuilding options as there used to be on the UFA market each summer. Similarily, good young talent is also the cheapest, and therefore greatest, asset a team can have in the NHL. So you see less of it on the trade market. Finally, with the league’s salary cap structure, and most teams either maxed out or at their own internal budget, you just don’t see big contracts moved very often.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one team that have tried to have it both ways – rebuild and remain competitive. And while they’ve been successful acquiring a few strong young pieces (Phaneuf, Kessel in particular), their efforts have neither been good enough to turn the franchise into a playoff team, nor bad enough to give the team a collection of top-end draft picks. It’s a tweener franchise, and looks like it could be that way for years to come.

No, if you have a strong front office (and let’s not forget Jay Feaster’s won a Cup already), the best way to build a Cup contender in the post-lockout NHL is to, basically, tank it for a couple of years. It let’s you accumulate assets, cap space and build hope amongst the fan base.

The best thing Jay Feaster and the Calgary Flames can do is copy a move from Toronto Blue Jays’ GM Alex Anthopoulos – communicate that 2013-14 is the year you plan to be ready for a Cup run, and build everything the organization does towards that goal.

Anything else is short-sighted.

THOUGHTS ON THE FLY

  • For whatever reason, whether it’s Gord Miller going crazy over goals against Norway, or Pierre Maguire’s usual blind homerism, or the fact that Canada has dominated the tournament for so long, the TSN broadcast of the World Juniors this year seems rather smug and self-congratulatory. Then again, there are a lot of folks who’d say that’s TSN’s approach in a nutshell.
  • One wish for the Flames rebuild: bring back the puck pursuit, offensive hockey the team was known for in its glory years.
  • One team that’s always pointed to as a team that’s “rebuilt” and stayed competitive is the Detroit Red Wings. Well, no team has scouted Europe better, particularly from 1989-2000. Remember, even in the early 1990s there were NHL teams that weren’t interested in drafting Europeans. However, since the hey-day of drafting players like Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Franzen, it’s been a long time since the Red Wings hit the bulls-eye at the draft. Jonathan Ericsson was supposed to be that player, and he just hasn’t performed up to expectations. The Red Wings are the oldest team in the NHL this season, and have been one of the older teams for years now. It’s hard to believe sure, but the sun has started to set on this dynasty.
  • Remember Jason Smith, the former Oilers captain? If you look closely enough, there’s a lot of Jason Smith in Theo Peckham’s evolving game.
  • Daniel Winnick and Ian Laperriere look like twins.
  • One more Calgary note, it would make sense for Pierre Gauthier to at least kick the tires on bringing Jarome Iginla to Montreal. He’s exactly what that team is missing in a lot of ways, and has played enough defensive-first hockey to fit well into Jacques Martin’s system.
  • Puzzling way to treat Nazem Kadri by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ron Wilson. Bench him for three games. Tell him he added too much muscle in the off-season and has lost a step. Then, send him down to the AHL and, while the door hits him on the way out, hold a media scrum where you mention he needs to get stronger. The best place for Kadri is definitely in the AHL – at least it gets him away from the mixed-messages of Ron Wilson.
  • So Bryan Murray this week complains that there are two-tiers of justice in the NHL. How is this news to an NHL GM?
  • Since Derek Roy’s injury effectively kills the Sabres chances this year of making the playoffs, does this mean we’re watching Lindy Ruff coach out the string? Or does the injury buy him another season?
  • Speaking of injuries, the Oilers’ loss of Ryan Whitney assures that team of a top-5 draft pick at the very least. He was enjoying a breakout, All-Star calibre season before his ankle injury.
  • The development of Logan Couture probably means another disappointing playoff performance could make one of Patrick Marleau, Joe Thornton or Joe Pavelski available.
  • Michael Farber has five theories on what’s wrong with Alex Ovechkin. Here’s another – that OV has always played on instinct – from the heart, not the head. When other teams figured out how to defend against him, it’s forced him to think and analyze – to go against his instincts – which has slowed his explosiveness right down.
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