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By ADAM, on February 7th, 2012 For most of Ron Wilson’s tenure behind the Maple Leafs bench, he’s been absolutely roasted by the media for helping his team to the leagues worst penalty killing. The theory is that offensive output, wins, power-play success, and other metrics are reflections of the talent level, something typically thought to be outside the coach’s control. But penalty killing is simply directing your troops in the appropriate direction.
Wilson had had success before, but failed to translate that into success with the Leafs. Whether it was a lack of skill, a lack of effort, or simply bad luck, the Leafs penalty killing was atrocious.
Until January of 2012.
2 things happened.
- The Leafs stopped taking penalties. I went through some Yahoo box scores, and it seems that the Leafs have only taken only 21 penalties since the new year began. That’s an average of just 1.4 penalties per game, a pace that equates to just 115 short-handed opportunities on the season. As a point of reference, the league’s least penalized team, the San Jose Sharks, have given up 140 power-play opportunities already, an average of 2.8/game. So the Leafs haven’t just shaken their penalty taken ways, they’ve completely changed the way their playing. Included in that span are 4 games where the Leafs went unpenalized. Through the first 38 games of the season, when this streak began, they’d accomplished that feat 0 times.
- They started killing off the penalties they did take. Over the same span, the Leafs have not allowed a power-play goal. It seems that the Leafs can kill penalties, just not in bulk.
It seems like the Leafs have finally accepted their identity as a fast, speedy team that is better off playing a high-tempo game that doesn’t involve trips to the penalty box. It’s far from the truculence and belligerence that Brian Burke wanted in his team, but if they keep winning, I think he’ll be happy enough.
By ADAM, on February 6th, 2012 Leading up to tonight’s game in Toronto, there was a lot of chatter about which team was taking the right rebuilding path. Is it the Oilers, with their frequent trips to the lottery board, or the Leafs, trading veterans for prospects and tossing draft picks to the wind to pick up a proven star?
James Mirtle insinuated on Twitter that, despite fans wishes to the contrary, the Oilers plan was far from foolproof.
I’m amazed how many people think Edmonton’s strategy of being awful for years is foolproof.
I’m going to go one step further, and suggest that if the Oilers fail to be serious contenders, at a minimum, for the Stanley Cup next year, their rebuild has failed.
People like to contrast what the Oilers are doing to what the Penguins and Blackhawks went through in the last 10 years.
It’s unfair to pit the Oilers against the Penguins, given that the Penguins managed to pull the right lottery balls at the right time. They were lucky enough to draft Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, and put both of them into their lineup, on entry level contracts, within a year of each other. While on their entry-level contracts, they were routinely recognized as 2 of the top 5 players in the NHL, and were thus able to carry their team to the Stanley Cup Final in consecutive years, capturing the trophy on their 2nd trip.
The BlackHawks are a closer comparable.
Going into the 2009-10 season, both Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews were in the final year of their entry-level contract. Their combined salary was $1.725M (before bonus clauses). Duncan Keith had come into his own as a top notch NHL defender, but was still being paid like a scrub (relatively speaking), racking up a $1.9M cap hit in their championship season. Having their best 3 players earning a combined $3.625M against the cap (again, pre-bonus) is how the Hawks were able to win. It allowed them to sign Brian Campbell to his ridiculous contract ($7.14M), bring in Marian Hossa ($5.275M), and round out the roster with useful parts.
Going back to the Oilers, Ryan Smyth and Ales Hemsky are useful parts whose contracts expire after this season. Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle have 1 more season before restricted free agency, and you’d have to think that the Oilers are going to want to lock both of them up long term. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has 2 more seasons, then he’ll be locked in forever. Their defense pales when compared to the Hawks of 2009-10, and the Oilers don’t seem to be overflowing with defensive prospects. In goal, Devan Dubnyk does not look like an NHL starting goalie, so if the Oilers are to win next year, it will have to be with Nikolai Khabibulin.
The biggest thing going against the Oilers is the fact that they play in Edmonton. Ryan Smyth aside, it will be extremely difficult for the Oilers to lure top notch NHL free agents to their lineup. They’ve been fighting this for years, and it’s foolish to expect it to change. Which means they need to raise their talent in-house. For this reason, I believe that passing on Adam Larsson in the 2011 NHL draft was an oversight for the Oilers. Already replete with young, skilled forwards, the Oilers needed to bring in their Duncan Keith. Instead, they brought in another young, skilled forward.
After next season, 1 of 2 things is going to happen. Either the Oilers are going to have to trade one of Taylor Hall or Jordan Eberle, or they’re going to blow the vault on locking them up long-term and have to gut the rest of their roster. This is exactly what happened in Chicago when their 3 pillars came off their first contracts, and, while the Hawks are still a top-notch team, they have definitely suffered for it.
The key to winning in the salary cap era is to receive top-10 contributions from players on bottom-5 contracts. Once you have that, you round out the roster through free agency to plug whatever holes you have, and you make your run at the Cup. We’ve seen that in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and even Boston, though in a different way. You cannot go the Ottawa Senators or Quebec Nordiques route and draft in the top 5 for 5 consecutive years, and then retain those players (or equivalent assets) until their retirement.
The alternative is the Detroit route, which involves crafting a style of play into the very fabric of the organization, and allowing that style to percolate for 15 years until you reach a point where the bodies are mostly interchangeable around an evolving core of players. To date, Detroit is the only team to have accomplished this successfully, though Vancouver and Boston are on the brink.
From where I’m sitting, if the Oilers don’t take a huge step forward next season, then it’s time to re-evaluate their rebuild strategy.
By ADAM, on February 4th, 2012 I had no idea that I had so many hockey books hiding away on my bookshelf. Having recently finished the Eric Lindros autobiography “Fire On Ice”, I picked up “MARIO” by Lawrence Martin. It was an easy read, and I wrapped up it a few weeks back.
This book wasn’t as deep as the Lindros book, possibly because it seems as though Lemieux didn’t have as much (if anything) to do with this book. In fact, the biggest thing I took from reading this book is that the author feels Lemieux was cheated out of the career he deserved.
I think I’d argue that point. Lemieux was told early on that he had to start conditioning programs, stop smoking, and just in general take his health more seriously. He steadfastly refused to do anything of the sort until it was too late. He was weak and unprepared, and he ultimately paid the price for it.
Here’s some choice quotes.
Continuing his performance as the perfect host, Gretzky introduced one of the girls to Mario. The four of them then adjourned to the Westbury Hotel, where they spent the night and, if what Mario later told a friend was true, a big moment in his young life took place.
In other words, Wayne Gretzky took an underage Mario out bar-hopping, hooked him up with some puck bunny and the Magnificent One has the Great One to thank for losing his virginity.
The players in the NHL had gotten bigger, stronger, and faster, but the league had failed to take the trend into account. Rather than take out a couple of rows of seats to enlarge the ice surfaces and give the players ore room, as they had on European ice, the NHL father remained tied to the status quo. Hockey played in crushed quarters meant more injuries, more fights, less room for skilled players, less art.
As an avid fan, it’s extremely frustrating to know that the size of the ice was recognized as problematic 20 years ago. Since then, the players have only gotten bigger, stronger, and faster, and the league has still not adjusted. We now have wave after wave of superstar going down with injuries, and the game is suffering. One has to wonder if an ice surface that grew in size at a rate similar to the average player would alleviate some of today’s biggest concerns.
All in all, not a horrible book, but not one I think I’d read again. I think it would be interesting to hear Mario’s words though. I’m curious to see how he feels about his career now that it’s over, and whether or not he’d do things differently.
I picked up the next hockey book, Leafs Abomination, after finishing the Lemieux book, and already knocked it off. Stephen Brunt’s book, Gretzky’s Tears, is sitting on my shelf, whispering my name from time to time. I’ll get to it soon.
By ADAM, on January 31st, 2012 I didn’t watch much of the NHL all-star game. My girlfriend wanted to watch, but only because Javier Colon sang the anthem…so we tuned out shortly after that. We tuned back in towards the 15:00 minute mark of the 2nd period, lest we miss the Drake performance.
There are 2 things that struck me.
Does the NHL really believe that Drake is the best performer for their target market? When I think of the hockey fans I know, there’s very little overlap between them and the Drake fans that I know. Here’s proof, Venn style.
The NHL isn’t alone in this regard, evidenced by the NFL having Madonna perform at the Super Bowl. Surely there must be some marketing executive at the NHL’s offices who understands that young and hip does not necessarily serve to promote the game. My girlfriend tuned in to watch Drake, and then tuned out. She was not converted to a life long fan simply because Drake wore an all-star jersey and said “NHL” about 25 times in 5 minutes.
The other thing I noticed in my 10 minutes of watching is that Scott Hartnell is probably responsible for Dion Phaneuf being named Hockey’s Most Overrated Player. Hartnell was mic’d for the game, another gimmick that really doesn’t appeal to me at all, and couldn’t help but take shots at Dion at every opportunity.
Anyhow, let’s be thankful that hockey is back and the race to the playoffs is on.
By ADAM, on January 29th, 2012 There’s not a lot of intrigue left for me in the all-star game, but there are a few things that have the potential to be interesting.
- Will Henrik and Daniel be kept apart? Everyone knows they’re amazing together, I’d like to see how they look if split apart.
- Apparently Phil Kessel and Tyler Seguin will be linemates…will Seguin feed Kessel the puck repeatedly as payment for his Stanley Cup ring?
- Will John Tavares realize how much fun hockey is when your teammates know what they’re doing?
- Will Kimmo Timonen get 2 or more holding penalties?
- Will Brian Elliott’s bubble burst? I think there’s a distinct possibility that he returns to the Blues after being lit-up in the all-star game and leads their season down the drain.
- Who will Pavel Datsyuk embarass?
- Has there ever been a less “all-star” all-star defense pairing than Kimmo Timonen and Ryan Suter?
The all-star game is tailor-made for guys like Phil Kessel. My pre-game MVP pick goes to him, almost entirely due to my inherent Leafs bias.
By ADAM, on January 26th, 2012 Earlier this week, the Maple Leafs announced that John-Michael Liles had been signed to a 4-year contract extension. You could argue that Liles left some money on the table by foregoing unrestricted free agency, but that’s not really the point I’d like to cover.
What interests me about this move, as a Leafs fan, is that we now have 8 NHL calibre defensemen on the roster, 6 of whom are already under contract for next season.
- Dion Phaneuf
- Mike Komisarek
- Luke Schenn
- Carl Gunnarsson
- Jake Gardiner
- John-Michael Liles
Toss in Cody Franson and Keith Aulie, both of whom are entering restricted free agency, and there’s a real logjam on the blue-line.
Odds are that one of them is going to be moved before the start of next season, if not before the trade deadline.
- Phaneuf has a big ticket contract and is the team captain. There’s very little chance that the Leafs would look to move him.
- Komisarek comes with a $4.5M cap hit and his play really hasn’t lived up to that level. From a purely financial aspect, he’d be the most likely candidate to move. The Leafs would have to take on another underachieving player in order to unload his cap hit. As one of Burke’s original golden boys, I don’t think we’ll see Komisarek move until his contract is up.
- As I alluded to a few weeks back, the shine has worn off of Schenn. At this point, I’m sure that the Leafs would move Schenn if they thought he could help get them a big, powerful forward. He’s young, has a reasonable contract for the next few years, and still shows enough flashes of brilliance that someone will think they can get the best out of him. The downside here is that he lacks any playoff experience, so he may not be a hot commodity going into the deadline.
- Gunnarsson has a very manageable cap hit of $1.325M and has turned into a valuable member of the Leafs. I’d hate to see him go, but he might be a useful part of a package for the forward that Burke covets.
- Gardiner is in year 1 of his ELC and he’s going nowhere. I still can’t believe the Ducks gave him up.
- Liles would have been a candidate to move before the extension, but that seems less likely now.
- Cody Franson is my pick as the odd-man out. He’s got a cap hit under $1M and is due for a significant increase in pay for next season. He brings a solid all-around game to the table and has some playoff experience. There’s a great chance that Franson is moved at the deadline.
- Aulie is also going to be an RFA, and that situation figures to play out well for the Leafs. He’s proven that he can compete at the NHL level, he brings a skill-set that the Leafs sorely lack (big, tough, stay-at-home) and the back-and-forth with the Marlies as kept his games played count down, which will help the Leafs in contract negotiations.
At the end of the day, there are too many cooks in the kitchen, and my money is on Franson to be sent packing.
By ADAM, on January 26th, 2012 I can’t stand to watch, but I am keeping an eye on Twitter.
It’s a real toss-up over what part of this event is the worst.
- The fact that the NHL seems to think that there’s some relevance or interest in this draft.
- The fact that major media outlets treat the draft like there’s some relevance or interest. For example, TSN is pointing out on their front page that Pavel Datsyuk and Erik Karlsson were the first 2 picks. Is there some significance to that?
- The fact that some American media guys are taking it seriously…I’ve seen serious stories out of Pittsburgh, New York, and Philadelphia discussing where their hometown players were drafted and whether their play may have merited a higher selection.
Like the all-star game in other sports, the NHL’s version has become completely ridiculous.
When I was a kid, I really enjoyed the NHL all-star game. I can vaguely remember collecting hockey cards that depicted the Gretzky/Yzerman vs. Lemieux/Sakic battles. There was some real interest in the East/West contest. That was before the Internet, and before everyone had access to every game they wanted to watch. It was an opportunity to see the best players from markets that we virtually never get to see.
Now, we see every team as often as we’d like. If I want to watch the Kings play the Sharks on a Thursday night, I can. That means that there’s no element of surprise in the all-star game; I’ve seen all the players, and can see them whenever I’d like.
The league has toyed around with gimmicks over the last few years, but none of them have managed to capture my attention. I’d like to see them return to the East/West battles, or even the North America vs. the World, but something definitely has to change if I’m ever going to watch this game and the assorted activities again.
By ADAM, on January 23rd, 2012 In one of the more overblown stories of the year, the Twittersphere has been abuzz tonight discussing the merits of Tim Thomas’s decision to skip the Boston Bruins trip to the white house. Here’s what Thomas had to say.
“I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People,” Thomas’ statement read. “This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.”
“Because I believe this,” the statement continued, “today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.”
That sounds reasonable, which immediately rules him out of the Tea Party.
The whole “controversy” around this is asinine.
First, the tradition of the championship team being treated at the White House belongs in the same category as anthems before the game and criminal investigations into league issues. Sports and politics should not mingle in the best of times. With the entire world slowly circling the drain to economic catastrophe, they should stay far apart.
More importantly, Thomas is an American citizen. As such, it’s his right to exercise whatever freedoms he chooses. If he chooses not to lend whatever small vote of confidence his presence would lend, that’s his prerogative.
Seriously people. If you want to visit the White House, take the tour like anyone else.
By ADAM, on January 20th, 2012 I’ll admit to not watching the whole Leafs/Wild game last night, but the combination of what I did see, what the scoresheet says, and the final score, all point to a successful divorcing of Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul. Thursday night marked the first time all season that the Leafs’ 2 top scorers were separated, Kessel responded with a goal while Lupul picked up 3 assists.
The Leafs looked fast, as they have for most of the season, and organized, which is a nice twist. The Monster was solid in net, again, and James Reimer was solidly implanted in his rightful spot at the end of the bench.
One thing’s for sure, the Leafs are going to be in the playoff race right down to the end.
By ADAM, on January 18th, 2012 When the NHLPA rejected the NHL’s proposed realignment and scheduling changes a few weeks back, they released some PR BS (we’ll see lots of that in the coming months) about how the players were concerned about the potential travel burdens and playoff fairness.
While those may be legitimate gripes, make no mistake about it, this was the first shot in the 2012 labour battle.
The NHL wants something. To make it look like they’re working harmoniously with the players, they offered the NHLPA the opportunity to review the proposal. I suspect the NHL presumed it would be a formality. But there are no formalities in the coming war.
The NHL will not get anything for free. The players are correctly viewing this as a potential bargaining chip, and they were right to not concede the point this early.
There are many other topics that are going to come up over the next few months. None of them will be settled until a new CBA is in place.
- Olympic Involvement
- Safety Protocols
- Realignment
- Expansion/Contraction
- Salary Cap/Floor
- Shooutout/Overtime Rules
Most of us sitting at home today have a reasonable approximation of what the final solution will look like, so let’s hope that the NHL/NHLPA are smart enough to not throw another season down the drains.
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