The fight is over and a childhood hero is enshrined for eternity. Bias accepted here, there’s never been a doubt as to Oates’ career being Hall-worthy.
I am as happy as a hockey fan can be. The complaining, the indignant stat-prattling, the case-making, the whining about it all… It’s over. I don’t have to crow about an open-and-shut case anymore.
There’s no need to talk about the injustice of it all and continue alternating between banging my head against the wall and shouting from the mountain tops. Adam Oates: Hall of Famer.
Back in late September during the preseason, I wanted to interview Oates about being snubbed by the Hall. With him being the Devils assistant coach and it also being the team’s first preseason game of the year, the Hall was the last thing on his mind. All business, all the time. That’s part of what got the Washington Capitals to hire Oates as their head coach today on top of it all.
It feels a bit silly to feel as happy for what someone else accomplished, but that’s part of being a fan, right? Embracing those that helped bring the love of the game to you. Oates is the key figure on my personal “Mount Rushmore” of hockey. Oates, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, and Teemu Selanne. There are plenty other players I have a great appreciation for, but those four? They turned hockey from something I watched and enjoyed into something I obsess over and love dearly, maybe a bit too much if you ask some of my friends.
But Oates? He was the guy who sparked it all for me. Seeing a guy like that play live in person when you’re a kid leaves an impression on you. Seeing him win your favorite local team a championship hammers it home even more. Watching him excel as a professional for nearly 20 years is icing on the cake.
Adam Oates is a Hockey Hall of Famer. What a great day.
Big thanks to Matt and Jeff on The Weekend Warmup at 96.3 the Big Jab in Portland, Maine for having me on the show with them this morning talking about hockey. Being a one-time radio producer, it was fun to be on the other end of the phone this time.
We talked Bruins failure, Bruins future and whether or not Joe Thornton is finally being Chokie Chokerson or not in the playoffs.
I know I’m woefully lacking in updates but forgive me, things are a little busy personally.
Instead of begging forgiveness, I’ll just show you how spanking pretty Phil Kessel looks in a Toronto Maple Leafs uniform in video game splendor.
Not a bad look for the kid.
Will it work out though? We’ll see how well he handles the hockey insane fans of Toronto. Then again, maybe Ron Wilson won’t bench the guy for just wanting to play offense while giving the finger to back-checking.
As an added bonus to trying to buy your love, here’s a video of virtual Phil batting home a rebound goal.
A big week lays ahead as five teams will get euthanized by yours truly as the season looms closer. Stay tuned.
After all, the name of the game is getting the league more well known with a high-profile event regardless of whether or not it waters down the novelty of the whole thing.
Forget about the potential Canadian game here for a second since the American game at the least had a host team selected already in the Boston Bruins but there was much speculation going on about just who they would face. The prevailing rumor was that the Washington Capitals and Alexander Ovechkin were going to be the foe allowing the NHL a major media event in which to promote one of the biggest stars in the game, the back-to-back NHL MVP.
Capitals Insider Tarik El-Bashir was able to track down Caps general manager George McPhee to find out if the prevailing rumors had any truth to them. McPhee’s answer was surprisingly snarky:
“I have not,” McPhee said when asked if he had heard anything from the NHL regarding Washington’s candidacy for the event. “You think we would know by this point.”
McPhee added: “It doesn’t sound like we will be part of it. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. When you go, you have to play in front of 40,000 or 50,000 of the other team’s fans. …I would just assume if we were in it that we would know by now.”
Sounds like there’s some sour grapes there, and I don’t mean Don Cherry. Perhaps something unseemly was going on and McPhee was all too aware of it and not at liberty to speak about it.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
A funny thing happened on the way through the rumor mill though as stories started to circulate that the Philadelphia Flyers were getting some buzz to be the Bruins opponent on New Years Day, a choice that seems a bit odd as, well, let’s face it the Flyers aren’t exactly a cuddly and marketable team. They’re abrasive, 29 other teams in the NHL generally hate their guts and so do the fans of those teams but they’re high profile thanks to that disdain and Flyers fans are generally some of the most psychotic staunchly loyal fans in the league.
The Flyers aren’t a team without talent as there’s Jeff Carter, Simon Gagne and Pierre McGuire object of affection Mike Richards as well but let’s face it, when NBC picks their same six teams out of a hat for their schedule each year the Flyers are getting more than their fair share of NBC attention and it’s pretty obnoxious.
Hang on to your asses because this is going to blow it right the hell up:
The NHL was pushing the Washington Capitals. They wanted to market Alex Ovechkin.
NBC, the network broadcasting the game, said no dice.
They were concerned with the poor ratings the Caps’ produced in the playoffs in an opening round series against the New York Rangers – the No. 1 U.S. market for the NHL.
So, they told the NHL to skip Washington and give them the Flyers… a more certain brand to market.
The NHL was stubborn for a while… mostly because the Flyers were more interested in a Jan. 1 date with Pittsburgh than Boston.
However, the NHL assured the Flyers that a future Flyers-Penguins outdoor game could still happen in a couple years.
The Flyers were satisfied and agreed to play.
Pardon me for one moment…
deep breaths
deep breaths
Don’t lose your cool, Joe. It’s not even fucking worth it anymore. Just let it go…
Now, I’m not going to completely blow a gasket here because, hey, who’s to say that Anthony Difilippo has his story accurate here. That’s not a knock against him, he’s dealing with sources that may or may not have everything squared away on their side.
But I believe every friggin’ word of it. Why? This is easy. Look how nicely they handled things with the Pittsburgh Penguins and their outdoor screen. The guys at The Pensblog thought very highly of how they handled things:
NBC, the channel that has used the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby in just about every commercial since the network started airing hockey games, is refusing to let the team show game three of the Penguins/Flyers series on the giant screen outside the arena.
Ironically, MSNBC published this article on Wednesday in which they wrote “during the Penguins’ run to the Stanley Cup finals last season, the outdoor TV routinely drew a couple thousand fans.”
And during the Stanley Cup Finals? More of the same as NBC refused to allow fans in Pittsburgh or Detroit to watch their teams road games on big screens at their arenas out of fear it would harm ratings.
And just where’s Herr Bettman through all this?
Zdeno Chara looks away while Mike Richards nauseates over Bettman’s posturing with NBC. Pierre McGuire salivates wildly.
Yeah, bending over for NBC again and again out of fear upsetting their drunken abusive father of a national broadcast “partner.” How many times now has Bettman “fallen down the stairs” for NBC so they can call the shots as to how the NHL operates its own league?
Disgusting.
This lack of a spine shown by the NHL sickens me as they had the right idea for what to do with this game but instantly rolled over for NBC because they didn’t like the matchup.
Unfuckingbelievable.
Out of all this the Flyers still get what they want by getting an outdoor game with cross-state rivals the Penguins in a few years when, who knows if the game will even be worth doing if they run this trick pony into the ground.
And what’s more is… Who the hell do you market to the fans in a game between the Bruins and Flyers? Chara? I guess. Richards? Well, we’ll hear enough about him from McGuire. Do they spend the whole game talking about hockey’s supposed resurgence in Boston? What if the Bruins get off to a bad start next year and the crowd is swarmed over with people there to boo them or, worse yet, are only there for the spectacle and could give a shit else about the game?
That’ll play great on television – silence with mixed jeers from drunken boors.
My stand, and I’m sure the stand the NHL had until NBC President Dick Ebersol took his belt off, was that with the Capitals in the game you are guaranteed a major superstar worth marketing for the league in the game.
The last two versions of this game was teeming over with stars. In Buffalo you had Crosby, Malkin and Staal for the Penguins while Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek played for the Sabres. In Chicago you had Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews to push for the Blackhawks while the Red Wings came out with their crew of all-stars.
With the NHL allowing themselves to be in a position to be abused by NBC like this the fans lose out because you don’t get to see the best of the best out there. Instead you get what might turn into a street fight. Hell, don’t even bother with Fenway, just play it behind the Green Monster on Lansdowne Street and turn it into a brawl since these two teams can always be counted on for that. I’m sure the NHL will love having these two teams beating each other’s face in in a game that’s meant to show off the best the league can offer in one of its most magical settings, the outdoor pond where everyone’s careers began long ago.
What a joke this “leadership” is. The NHL, instead of getting what it wanted, ended up making concessions not only with NBC but with one if its own teams.
The last two New Years Days the NHL has taken the holiday to seize the day and make sure to do something that allows them to get airtime on a day when they know everyone is going to be home nursing a hangover or at the very least laying about on the couch.
The NHL to their credit came up with the idea to play an outdoor regular season game on that day during the afternoon. After all, it’s January 1st and most of the northern US and southern Canada is in a deep freeze or at least winter-like conditions that lend themselves perfect to playing a game outside in a huge venue.
Two years ago, the Penguins and Sabres played at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, NY and last year the Red Wings and Blackhawks played at Wrigley Field in Chicago. January 1, 2010 will see a game featuring the Boston Bruins played at Fenway Park and the opponent to be announced later on this summer (rumors abound that either the New York Rangers or Washington Capitals will be involved).
Again, this is a great thing and a perfect setting for a game given the rejuvinated hockey fan base in Boston and getting a game with either the Rangers or Capitals is ideal because you’re either getting your biggest media market involved or the team with one of the biggest stars in the world. You can’t lose here…
Coming soon to the back of trucks all across Canada.
From the National Post in Canada:
Sources say the NHL is looking at building on the success of the Winter Classic by hosting two outdoor games on New Year’s Day. The first is rumoured for Fenway Park with the Boston Bruins hosting the Washington Capitals. The second is pencilled in for Calgary between the Flames and another Canadian team – likely the Toronto Maple Leafs.
CBC TV is a major push behind the Calgary proposal.
“I can’t see anything that jumps out to me that would be a roadblock logistically,” Haverstock said.
Now, I understand that he’s talking about logistics of doing a game in Calgary. Obviously its going to be cold as hell there and having conditions able to sustain the ice outdoors won’t be an issue.
The sort of logistics I’m thinking of here are those involved in wearing out the NHL fans and the wonderful novelty of the whole thing. Obviously Canada is bothered that they’ve, again, been left out of the NHL’s reindeer games in regard to doing an outdoor game. After all, it’s Canada that got the ball rolling with this thing back in November 2003 with the Oilers and Canadiens playing an outdoor game at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.
Now with NBC and the NHL teaming up to make sure all the US marquee teams get taken care of with mid-season showcase event, Canada wants back in and for that I can’t blame them. Problem here is that a second game will get no attention in America.
The Heritage Classic in Edmonton nearly six years ago was an event that ESPN and ABC should’ve gone bonkers over to cover considering how much went into it with the legends game featuring the all-time greats for both franchises playing an exhibition game and then the real game itself. Instead, the event was largely ignored in the United States and video and highlights of then Canadiens goaltender Jose Theodore playing with a toque over his helmet in the frigid Edmonton air were about all we were left with to soak in.
When Buffalo and Pittsburgh played on January 1, 2008 the event was heralded as incredible and amazing a magical and all that with very little credit in the way given to what had happened five years previous but now this event was going to take over as a yearly staple – and hey, why not? It generates attention, looks great on the air and manages to steal airtime away from putrid college football bowl games.
Should the NHL decide to double its pleasure in 2010 to throw viewers a bone in both countries, because God knows Americans won’t watch Canadian teams on TV and Canadians are ruthlessly nationalistic and wanting some attention from Herr Bettman for all the financial propping up they do – sure, why not – let’s just slaughter the novelty of the whole thing and cave into everyones television demands.
Bettman has already shown that he’s got very little backbone to stand up for any sort of principles for the NHL and is now on the brink of selling out to both countries national broadcast partners at NBC and the CBC. This does come with a catch, however:
”This is all news to me. We are breaking news, this is an insider moment that Calgary is potentially going to get an outdoor game and this is the first I’ve heard of it,” Glenn Healy, the NHLPA’s director of player affairs told TSN.
The NHL confirms the outdoor twin-bill will be discussed on June 25th at the competition committee meeting, however based on Healy’s reaction; there is reason to believe the event may be in jeopardy.
”We have never been approached by the league about a second outdoor game ever in Calgary and if they want to approach us, then our numbers are in the book.”
Then again, why would the NHL ever communicate something with the group of people they dislike more than NHL fans when its so much simpler to have someone at CBC let something slip out and get the buzz started instantly.
I can’t really top that because this is all it boils down to.
A man sits in his lonely board room cooking up ideas with his media pals… You know, the ones that he’s trying to win over so that they’ll give him some kind of money to turn a profit after he’s already given them carte blanche to boss him around and make a joke of the league by bumping off playoff games from their air in favor of horse races.
He cuts his deals, he makes his promises, and gives no regard for how things will work in the future when he’s trying to figure out a way to do an outdoor game in Tampa, Florida. You know he’ll have to do that because he’ll running out of ideas on where to do the next game or two on New Years Day all the while the fans have gotten over the novelty of it all and the idea just gets stale. True Bettman style: Get a hold of a truly great thing and abuse people with it simply because it “works” and then be forced to ride the negative tide that sweeps in when things get out of control.
Take a guess what tide rolled in today with this rumor of a New Years Day doubleheader.
Don’t get lost in what I’m ranting about here.
The Winter Classic as a singular game and big-time event yearly on January 1st is a great thing. Turning it into an annual circus having to look for new locations at all times to the benefit all the teams looking to cash in on a sideshow-like spectacle is a BAD idea.
The novelty is killed, the interest is nullified and pretty soon people stop noticing and giving a crap altogether. Doubling up sets a terrible precedent for this event in the future because you’re not only continuing a bizarro hockey xenophobia that exists with American and Canadian audiences, the simple greatness of a great spectacle event is worn out twice as fast as it would otherwise.
Leave it to Herr Bettman to continue his version of Sherman’s march to the sea to make sure anything good that happens with the NHL is soon burned to the ground.
Bend over everyone, it’s time to take the temperature of the playoffs.
The Playoff Doctor will see you now.
I see the Canadiens, Blues and Sharks are already in position. How nice of you to be so helpful to myself and your opponents.
I know that Bruins fans want to think that they’re exorcising playoff demons here, but considering how schizophrenic the Habs were all season long, how awful they played leading up to the playoffs and how beat up they were… Is this really a surprise at all?
Yeah, yeah I know – rivalries, history, magic, aura… All that crap gets brought up and its stupid. None of that has anything to do with how horribly overmatched the Canadiens were going into this series and now that they’re on the brink of being shown the broom there’s nothing incredible nor overwhelming about it.
The Bruins weren’t the underdogs in this battle and they’re certainly not a rag-tag bunch of kids going up against Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden Canadiens either.
If the Bruins struggled at all in this series I would’ve been at a loss for words and then if you twisted my arm I might buy into that nonsense about never getting by the Canadiens ever.
Things change and this year things got a lot better for the Bruins and a lot worse for the Canadiens and its more than evident in this series.
The Bruins will get their first actual test in the next round…unless they face Carolina (trailing New Jersey 2 games to 1) or Philadelphia (trailing Pittsburgh 2-1), then forget it it’s a walk to the Eastern Conference Finals in that case.
If they get either the Rangers or the Penguins in the second round, things get shaky for the B’s since the Rangers (leading Washington 2-1) would have a goalie that can carry them far and steal games and the Penguins have offense to burn and give Tim Thomas fits.
In the Western Conference, I want to say that there’s rhyme or reason for why the Sharks are failing so hard, but I can’t even begin to imagine what the hell their problem is.
Presidents Trophy jinx? Get lost and stop reading my website.
Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau aren’t clutch enough in the playoffs? If you believe that kind of nonsense I’m going to find you and fire you into the sun.
Demotivated team whose boredom carried over into the opening round? Ehh…
That would make sense if they weren’t playing a team they hate in the first round, and let’s face it, San Jose hates Anaheim and there’s no way around that.
You want the truth of the matter? Here it comes:
San Jose went sputtering into the playoffs and then got the worst possible opponent they could draw in Anaheim – a team that was on fire since the trade deadline, a team that didn’t have a favorable schedule to close out the year when it came to making the playoffs.
Yet, here they are and they’re on fire and they’ve got that savvy veteran leadership that the playoffs was meant for.
Oh yeah, and they’ve got a team that plays sick defense. Remember the 2007 team that won the Cup much to everyone’s chagrin? Yeah, they’re just like that team was only this time they’ve got a lot of younger guys up front, a lot of whom came up in the Ducks system and they know it backwards and forwards.
The Niedermayer brothers are still there. Teemu Selanne is still there. Physics egalitarian Chris Pronger is still there. Hell, even Jean-Sebastian Giguere is still there and he looks dashing in a baseball cap while Swiss freak Jonas Hiller backstops the Water Fowl.
They’re not your normal eighth seed – these guys are good and they’re happy staying under the radar. They’re also still douchebags – so they got that going for them.
Should the Ducks move on, and with the way San Jose is playing it seems foolish to think that it won’t, a potential match-up with Detroit (who is busy schooling Columbus on the finer points of how to play hockey) in the second round will go down as the best series in the entire playoffs.
Bank on it.
Then you’ve got the St. Louis Blues…
Let’s face it, I got Andy Murray’s team all sorts of wrong here back in October when I said that they didn’t need to even show up this year because they weren’t going to make the playoffs.
What I didn’t get wrong though was about Andy Murray himself. Let me cite noted hockey blogger Hockey Joe, author of Gross Misconduct about what he had to say about Andy Murray:
The best part of this team, however, is the head coach Andy Murray. Murray is a smart enough guy and is always able to get the best out of his teams. He did very solid work with the L.A. Kings until things turned horribly southward there and it’s that experience Murray will have to draw on for handling this Blues team.
Such grace in those words – someone should give that guy a pat on the back. Of course, the next phrase after that was:
The Blues will have a spurt or two in them where they’re able to man-up and pull a few surprises out and goaltender Manny Legace, or presumptive backup from Nashville Chris Mason, are more than capable of stealing a couple games throughout the season, but don’t buy what they’re selling. This team is bad.
Damn it all.
I should’ve been wiser to Manny Legace having a meltdown at some point this season and I should’ve stuck to my guns about Murray as a coach. I also should have been smarter about the youth on the Blues roster and respecting what they could bring to the table right away in a situation that would demand they do it sooner than later.
Some how, some way the Blues managed to end up sixth in the Western Conference and their reward for that was Roberto Luongo and the Freaky Swedes with their Bore You Into Submission brand of hockey.
Any other time in my hockey life I’d be openly rooting against Vancouver because they’re like ether on ice.
Not this time.
I’m spiteful.
I’m angry.
I’m vengeful with my words and my middle fingers.
The Blues screwed me out of going five for five on my pre-season prediction and now they’re paying for it.
Hey St. Louis! I got two words for ya!
Suck it.
As for Vancouver, a tune up agains the Blues in what basically boils down to a rough scrimmage is just what they needed. Hell, the Canucks are even getting over on trashing the Blues verbally too:
Embarrassing – glad to have the Canucks on my side in this one.
The Canucks are getting hot and they’re destined for a second round match-up with either Chicago or Calgary (Chicago leads the series 2-1) and that works out just fine since those two teams are going to beat each others brains in for a while, or at least be cheap-shotting pricks:
I know that I promised to not get sucked into talking about Sean Avery and his media circus anymore, but I heard a loud cry go up from Boston this afternoon and you-know-who was the source of the uprorar. Take a look with Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley’s commentary:
Now, don’t get me wrong here, if you look at this for what it looks like on the surface, this looks like the same old Sean Avery antics where he’s a reckless, out of control hooligan making a mockery of the game of hockey and taking a piss on Toe Blake’s grave.
I don’t condone what Avery does, but what Brickley takes issue with here is that it is apparently Avery reverting to his old, reckless ways of playing hockey.
Sure, that’s one way to look at it and for what it’s worth, Brickley could be correct… But I don’t buy it for a second.
Believe it or not, Avery’s a smart guy and he knows exactly what he’s doing at all times. He is always looking to give himself and his team an edge. Sure, he goes over the top and creates more problems than not at times, but what went down today wasn’t one of those moments.
For the game itself today, Avery didn’t create a disadvantage for the Rangers, he got himself and another Bruin player taken off the ice on matching minors for nonsense. More room to skate for a couple of minutes helps out against a team like the Bruins that are very defense-minded.
I’m sure everyone noticed how calm and reasonable Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas reacted to this situation as well as he was the player that got booked for the retaliatory minor for roughing. Thomas went out of his mind bonkers going after Avery and ended up blasting Ranger Fredrik Sjostrom in the face with his blocker as Sjostrom skated in to intervene.
This is where Avery’s evil genius comes into play.
He’s the kind of genius that Lanny Poffo would be proud of.
Avery and just about everyone else around the NHL by now knows that Tim Thomas has a bit of a short fuse. He’s shown it off on a couple of other occasions this season and Avery had the opportunity to light a fire today and certainly did that. The worst that happens? He gets sent off on a two-minute penalty and looks like a complete jerk for short-changing his team while they’re down 1-0.
The best that happens? Thomas gets thrown off of his game, gives up a goal or two and allows the Rangers to get back in the game. Avery then proudly wears the bulls-eye the rest of the game and allows Bruins players to retaliate at him at will. At worst, Avery gets a matching minor for being involved in these shenanigans but at best, his team gains a power play giving the Rangers a final window of opportunity to get back into a game they have to earn points in.
There is a bigger picture to be seen here, however. Avery wasn’t working just to make this game closer, he was sending a message that won’t be forgotten.
Remember the uproar over Avery’s antics in front of Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur last season? Sure you do…
The Devils certainly didn’t forget and that annoyance carried over into this season as well, so when the Devils and Rangers met up last week, the Devils players went out of their way to send a message to Avery that his antics wouldn’t be tolerated. The Devils lost that game 3-0, much in part to their obsession with taking shots at Avery who did everything in his ability to both resist retaliation and bring it out of the Devils even more.
Genius.
Sean Avery is the Petulant Cerebral Assassin of the NHL and it’s a role he plays perfect. Yes, he’s got skill. Yes, he plays a physical game. Yes, he’s a trash-talker with the best and worst of them.
Yes, he plays on the edge – but that’s his world and he’s set up the Boston Bruins in his way. I’m not saying that it’s how the Rangers will find a way to beat Boston in the future, but if you think that today’s incident will be forgotten… Well, you’re crazy.
What makes this even better still?
These two teams might just meet up in the first round of the playoffs. Avery’s tactics have managed to make him Public Enemy #1 in New Jersey and the Devils can’t help but run around and try to kill him whenever they meet up and that’s all because he made their legendary keeper look like a jerk by embarrassing him in the playoffs.
Will there be another round with the Bruins and Rangers? We don’t know yet, even with just the handful of games remaining in the season. You better believe Sean Avery’s shadow has been cast for any meetings in the future, however and it’s up to the Bruins to stop themselves from trying to even up the score with him because in doing so, they might find themselves getting behind the 8-ball with the rest of the Rangers.
You can go through the history of the NHL and find any number of terrible mind-bending trades that made you wonder what the hell was wrong with half of the general managers involved in making the transaction.
Since I’m here to mouth off and that’s my job, one of the worst deals made during my time here on Earth would be the deal that sent Joe Thornton to the San Jose Sharks for a package of players consisting of forwards Wayne Primeau and Marco Sturm and defenseman Brad Stuart.
For the Bruins, they felt it was important to rid themselves of Thornton who, somehow, was villified after the Bruins collapse against the Canadiens in the 2004 Playoffs when the B’s squandered a 3-1 series lead and succombing to their hated rivals.
Thornton, then the captain of the Bruins, played in each game despite being injured. Go figure, a captain trying to shrug off an injury to lead his team to victory – tell me, where have I heard of this before?
The Boston fans and media were relentless on Thornton in the off-season. Thornton was held to no points in the series against Montreal and shouldered the blame for the team not getting that fourth win needed to wrap up the series.
When the NHL returned from the Season Herr Bettman Deemed Not Needed, Thornton was still playing with the black cloud of playoff failure hanging over his head and then Bruins general manager Mike O’Connell pulled the trigger on one of the most lopsided and awful trades the NHL has ever seen.
This man routinely falls for the “Give me two tens for a five” gag.
Quoting from Kevin Paul Dupont’s story on boston.com :
Some three-plus years later, O’Connell figures the trade was justified, and it is one that he would make again, given the same circumstances. As for what he got in return, said O’Connell, there will always be those who say he should have received more.
“That’s always the case, even if it’s your best trade,” said the former Bruins general manager, these days overseeing pro development for the Los Angeles Kings. “But it was like any trade: You take in, rely on what everyone in the organization says – scouts, everyone – and let’s not forget there was a money issue here, too, moving Joe with his high [$6.6 million] salary. This wasn’t the pre-salary-cap NHL. Like all these deals, the money had to work, too.”
I smell backpedaling… Well, backpedaling that smells like a befouled barnyard – is that what we have here?
“What frustrated me was, again, there just seemed to be so much more there,” said O’Connell. “How he fit in with our team, the city, the overall picture . . . and in the end, like I say, we thought there were leadership issues. So here he is, the captain, making that money . . . all of that went into our decision to move him.”
When asked if he felt he was being labeled the scapegoat for the organization, Thornton said, ”You could say that.
”Who knows? Hindsight is 20-20. I don’t know what to say about that. I came here to win and we haven’t been winning. Whose fault is that? I’m not sure. Obviously, I’m out of here so it must be mine.”
Sure, time heals all wounds and all that crap, but O’Connell spreading the blame for making the deal is as cowardly as it gets. Thornton won the MVP in 2005-2006, the same season he was traded by the Bruins. Motivation? Absolutely. Shoving it in O’Connell’s, Sinden’s and Jacob’s collective faces? Hell yes he did.
Just for retrospect sake, let’s take a look at how the main components of that deal have done since then (stats accurate as of 12:30 p.m. 2/9/09).
Keep in mind that Marco Sturm is the only one of the three still playing for Boston but is out for the rest of the season with an injury. Primeau and Stuart have both since moved on, Stuart winning the Stanley Cup last season with Detroit after coming over from Los Angeles in a deadline deal with the Kings.
Joe Thornton: 272 GP | 83 G | 276 A | 359 PTS | 198 PIM
Brad Stuart: 247 GP | 24 G | 60 A | 84 PTS | 169 PIM
Wayne Primeau: 195 GP | 19 G | 31 A | 50 PTS | 191 PIM
Marco Sturm: 226 GP | 84 G | 72 A | 156 PTS | 126 PIM
Now here’s my favorite part of this exercise:
All Three Players: 668 GP | 127 G | 163 A | 290 PTS
Thornton managed to out-point three players by 69 points since the trade. Apparently O’Connell feels that getting 30 cents on the dollar for a trade is what works best since both teams are now doing great now.
Never mind that new general manager Peter Chiarelli has had to do his best to help cater to the needs of new coach Claude Julien as well as trying to live under the rule of the Stickler’s Regime that is life with Jeremy Jacobs – it’s a minor miracle the Bruins are doing as well as they are – whether it lasts is another question, of course.
I also ask that you not buy into the spitballing comparison that Dupont makes in his story that dumping Thornton was done in favor of getting Marc Savard and Zdeno Chara. This wasn’t O’Connell’s grand design and neither Savard nor Chara will be winning an MVP award, they’ve both also had as much post-season success as Thornton has had in their career.
What folks in Boston (sycophantic media and fans alike) are doing, or at least are attempting to do to stay in favor with the front office (if you’re a reporter that is), is to shine up the turd that was the Joe Thornton trade.
It’s an easy formula: You take some shots at Thornton, spruce things up by saying getting rid of him helped build the team the way it is today and call it a day. Dupont going to talk with Mike O’Connell to get his take is a welcome twist on a, now, very tired story and it’s just as rewarding to see O’Connell continuing to try and save face for making one of the worst trades in NHL history.
Tomorrow is Labor Day (or Labour Day to those of you with Canadian/European tendencies).
It’s not generally that big of a deal unless you manage a retail outfit and plan to SELL! SELL! SELL!
It’s a big deal over here in hockey fandom, however.
Training camp awaits and with it, just merely another month behind it, a new season.
Being that this is the start of Season 2 under the watchful eye of Gross Misconduct (nèe Violating the Trapezoid) and being that I keep an extensive watchful eye on teams that are out to ruin hockey, it’s about high time that I crank out a list of my Five Most Wanted for Offenses Against Offense.
I’m not going to rank them in order of sleep inducing to least likely to be boring, that’s just foolish. If you’re not actively trying to score at will in the game of hockey, you’re spitting in my face while trying to hit on my mother all at once. It’s straight up wrong and I want to punch you in the face for trying.
That said, let’s warm up the boredom train and pull into the station to wait it out, these teams are going to suck the fun out of a theme park.
1.New Jersey Devils
Surprised? No, you shouldn’t be and I just want to get them out of the way right now because Lord knows that they were going to pop up here now. Truth be told, every team not named “Pittsburgh” out of this division could go on this list but the Devils were the founders of hockey hell and they continue to hold the fort down. The way I see it, they’re dragging the rest of the division down with them. But I digress.
Games between the Devils and just about any team end up being ones with a small handful of scoring opportunities, dump and chasing akin to what you’d see from a person with a nasty case of Montezuma’s Revenge and lots of analysts talking about how they’d love to be Martin Brodeur’s next mistress, Chico Resch excluded since that’s a nightly event for him to wish that upon his star.
The Devils haven’t changed their philosophy at all since Jacques Lemaire was manning the bench and now it’s become clear that the mastermind behind hockey boredom was Lou Lamoriello. There are nice offensive pieces on this team (Elias, Gionta, Rolston, Parise) but everyone else is a defensive forward stiff out there to make sure no one takes any shots at all.
Some call this brilliant, I call it awful – and it’s been awful for nearly 15 years now. Devils fans are tired of hearing about it and the ones that do exist on the Internet are more than happy to chime in and say, “AWFUL TO THE TOON OF 3 CUPZ!11! LOL!11!” Just because you were the best at playing the worst brand of hockey ever imagined doesn’t give you something to hang your hat on.
Then again, folks in New Jersey have been proud of being mired in filth for a long time now. Par for the course I guess.
2. Vancouver Canucks You’re going to notice similarities between the Devils and Canucks here. Both teams have all-universe goaltenders. Roberto Luongo can’t do a whole lot more to help Vancouver than he has. Both have some nice offensive parts. The Sedin twins have become a pretty solid scoring duo the last couple of years. Both teams don’t offer much of anything else once you get past those big scorers.
What aides in making Vancouver dreadfully boring is that they play in the Western Conference – the place where you’ll find most of the harbingers of boredom in the NHL and Vancouver, if I were to actually slot out where they belong, would be a Top 5 offender.
This team plays everything close to the vest and their style of play has not deviated since the NHL came back after the lockout. Their series with the Dallas Stars in the playoffs two years ago was made of the stuff that cures Insomnia and the Canucks are happy playing it that way for a million reasons. Luongo can stand on his head to face 25 shots a night just fine. In fact their goal differential last year wasn’t bad at all considering they finished last in their division (-2, 213 GF 215 GA). It’s the point that they scored a mere 213 goals that’s the problem.
Things will not get better in Vancouver unless they allow Mason Raymond to go hog wild and skate around everyone.
3. Dallas Stars This team was a dreadful bore already. They play in a building that doubles as a hothouse for two-thirds of the year so the ice stinks year round even when its not 90 degrees outside. Come playoff time, forget it – you’re better off throwing a boat out on the rink and dragging guys around behind it on waterskis.
I mention this because it has everything to do with their style of play. They like to slow it down, they don’t exactly have the high-skill type of skaters and they’re really big on hitting guys in the mouth and thensome. This season, add in the Sean Avery factor they’ll at least have a little bit more “excitement” to them, but this is a team that is an affront to how hockey ought to be played. Steve Ott, Sean Avery, Krys Barch… these are not actually talented hockey players. Avery I enjoy for his antics and in being everything that NHL players generally are not. He’s not humble, he doesn’t give the same post-game interview and he frankly has no respect for anyone else – I’m OK with that in small doses in the NHL.
Goofs like Ott and Barch, however, are not enjoyable unless they’re on your team. Considering that Dallas will now have one of these clowns polluting three out of four lines, potentially, makes me fear the road the Western Conference is headed down. It was bad enough to have a team like Anaheim and their Circus of Unabashed Goonery polluting the hockey landscape but now it appears that Dallas wants to join them.
Stars captain Brendan Morrow was a guy whose play I enjoyed for a while, but now he’s gone the Jarome Iginla route of being a crying little girl come playoff time all while digging in with a cheap shot now and again – something we saw a few times just last season.
Consider me not a fan of that.
They’ve got a highly talented scorer in Brad Richards now and guys who at one time were talented scorers are aging and oft-injured (Modano and Lehtinen please stand up with the help of an assistant) while other guys have the lovely background of being a diving Nancy (please, get up Mike Ribeiro).
This is a loathsome team and they’re going to make sure to bother everyone and unfortunately, their style of play fits in ideally with what most of the rest of the Western Conference wants to do. They’ll fly under the radar until they end up at or near the top of the Conference and then once the playoff coverage begins, people will say, “Jeez, these guys are real assholes!”
4. Boston Bruins It’s all Claude Julien’s fault here folks. The Boston Bruins in their eminent wisdom after years of either not making the playoffs or getting bounced out too early for their liking while trying to cut corners financially finally caught up to the mid-1990s and got on the Dump-And-Bore train started by Jacques Lemaire and Lou Lamoriello. These financial skinflints headed up by Jeremy Jacobs finally got the master plan to skimp out on spending stupidly and hire a coach who would slow things down to the point of frustration for everyone on and off the ice all while improving the standing of the team and try to capitalize on how every other Boston-area franchise was trying to win it all.
After all, winning it all means you can sell more merchandise, gain more fans and find new ways to steal money from a fanbase more than eager to throw away their money on everything with the word “BOSTON” written on it.
Of course, what helps to do this is a team with superstars who wins in an entertaining way. Jacobs will settle for games that continually end up 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 will somehow find a way to be exciting just by the game itself being close in score. Enter Claude Julien and his “Defense first, second and third priority” style of coaching. This is especially heartbreaking because there are really talented scorers on this team who have been already brutally mismanaged by Julien and his boring style.
Phil Kessel and Patrice Bergeron should be the one-two scoring punch answer in the Eastern Conference to guys like Crosby and Malkin – instead, Kessel gets continually chided by Julien for not doing things his way and Bergeron is finally going to be recovered from a massive concussion he suffered last season.
Kessel is an electric player who under Julien’s watch won’t be given free reign to do just that. Bergeron will be fascinating to watch to see what, if any, ill-effects he has from getting blasted in the head from behind against the Flyers.
Julien’s answer, no doubt, will be to have him play better positional defense rather than try to track down a puck in the offensive zone – God forbid anyone bust their ass trying to retain possession and score goals.
At the very least, we’re assured that the games between Boston and Philadelphia will have a little fire to them, but outside of that and games with Montreal… who would I look forward to seeing Boston play? No one. Julien’s style doesn’t allow for teams to take advantage of them nor does it allow for his team to have the freedom to attack at will. It’s a counter-attack kind of team that relies on turnovers and power plays to do all the scoring. Five-on-five hockey is the time spent between opportunities to get a power play or to fight off on the kill. Julien’s favorite game is one that ends 0-0.
The worst part of this is that Julien’s style works. Somehow, horribly so, it works. Boston was the lowest scoring team in their division last year. They scored 19 fewer goals (212) than last place Toronto but allowed the same number of goals as first place Montreal (222). It’s a goal differential of -10 yet up until the final few months of the season, they were one of the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. Gross.
Their 212 goals were the third fewest in the playoffs behind New Jersey and Anaheim and they were one goal worse than the New York Rangers who scored 213. Thoroughly abysmal offense and stifling, boring defense-only style of hockey makes me want to stab my eyes out with icepicks and right now, the Bruins are the team I look forward to watching the least. For as exciting as their playoff series was with the Canadiens last year, I found myself wishing for Montreal to score eight goals on Boston just to see what Boston would do when they were forced to open up their game even a little bit. I pray that an emerging Kessel and Bergeron returning to form will get Julien to open things up a little, but I don’t see that happening as long as he’s coach.
5. Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks are another long-time offender to hockey, and their fate was sealed in 2003 when they teamed up with the Devils to play The Worst Stanley Cup Final I’ve Ever Seen. Their 2003 team, like a lot of the teams who at some point adopted the Dump-And-Bore style was low on talent, had one line that could really actually score and three others that were great at grabbing attackers.
In 2007, the NHL saw fit to look the other way as the Ducks gooned and thugged their way to the Finals and won the Stanley Cup. After all, plenty of Cup winners have had teams that saw a guy get suspended multiple times during the same playoffs for cheap hits.
What hides the fact that they play a ridiculously boring style of hockey is their goonery. The fights, the cheap hits, the mouthy douchebag players all hide the fact that this team relies heavily on the power play to score at all. Jean-Sebastian Giguere has been their be-all, do-all goaltender since that 2003 Cup Finals season and the Ducks, out of all the teams on this list, have taken the lessons taught by the Devils of the mid-90s and extrapolated on them in a big way.
Giguere has proven he’s more than capable of stopping the same crappy 25 shots per game while his team chips and pokes and gums up the ice in front of him. If the opponent gets a little too excited and zips in behind the defense? Grab them. Cross-check them. Punch them in the face. Whatever it takes, just do it. More often than not, it’ll work and you’ll get them to retaliate which then turns the game into exactly what the Ducks want: A parade to the penalty box that allows them to put out the Brad May’s and George Parros’ of the world more to actually mix things up. Throw in an actually talented scorer who does nothing but run his mouth like Corey Perry and you’ve got the West Coast version of the Philadelphia Flyers… except that the Ducks actually win big games now and again.
All this yammering on from me and I haven’t even really gone into why Chris Pronger is, perhaps, the most loathsome puke in the NHL. The record speaks for itself in regards to him and enough people have wasted bandwidth on him and I’m not about to pile on. In short, screw Chris Pronger.
Some folks might argue that this teams penchant for fighting doesn’t make them boring. Fights and cheap shots, however, are false excitement that has nothing to do with teams putting the puck in the net. Fights are another category unto themselves, which, if I was to rank out teams I most enjoy watching when I have an urge to punch someone in the face, Anaheim might be at the top of the list because I know they’ll fulfill that urge.
Whether that’s thanks to them playing an abhorrent style of hockey that makes me wish for death or because they’re busy skating around the ice like the Hanson Brothers is irrelevant at that point.
Fact is, the Ducks scored the least number of goals of the playoff teams last year (205) and allowed the second fewest (191; Detroit was first with 184). They’re a dreadfully boring team to watch five-on-five as long as they’re not being goons. I’m glad this team plays on the West Coast so I’m not subjected to more of their garbage brand of hockey, unfortunately, as my hit list shows you and the Versus TV schedule backs up, we’ll all get more than our fair share of teams looking to ruin your NHL fandom.
They play a system that can be frustrating for you. They have the fiveback and they give you the outside and it looks like you have a good opportunity and they take it away.
That’s right, Original Sixers the Boston Bruins have been fully enveloped by the Dark Side of Hockey thanks to Claude Julien.
And you all thought this would go away with the rule re-inforcements?
For the few years I was scribbling nonsense on the Internet before I landed over at NBCSports.com’s ProHockeyTalk, every June would turn into a soap box for me to sound off on why Adam Oates belonged in the Hockey Hall of Fame. His case was always easy to make. No, really, it was super easy to make.
