Tag Archives: Atlanta Thrashers

It’s Official: For the NHL, the Jets are a Rousing Success!!!

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment
8420529e3ab735ca810247d1155004ef getty 135150807 300x205 Its Official: For the NHL, the Jets are a Rousing Success!!!

The fans deserve a salute.

TAMPA — While sitting in the press box between a group of NHL executives on Thursday night, an official-looking list from the National Hockey League was passed around.

It was a list of the NHL’s gate receipts, ticket sales and ticket prices through Jan. 31, 2012. It confirmed everything Jets fans have known since the season opener against Montreal back on Oct. 9.

The Jets are 13th overall in NHL receipts per game even though Winnipeg’s rink is the smallest in the NHL at 15,004. Winnipeg makes $1.24 million per game. According to the NHL, last year in Atlanta, the Thrashers made $331,000 per game.

The Jets also had the seventh most expensive ticket in the NHL in average price at $76.41 per seat.

Montreal is No. in gate receipts at $2.058 million per game ($1.965 per game last year). Toronto is No. 2 at $2.004 million per game ($1.981 million per game last year). Montreal’s average ticket price is $96.44 per seat while Toronto’s is $105.94 per ticket.

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Mark loved the move from Atlanta. Gary? Not so much. Until now, one guesses.

At the bottom of the list — at No. 30 — in game per game gate receipts is Phoenix (no surprise) at $387,364 per game. Last year, the Coyotes averaged a meagre $378,925 per game.

Those Coyotes numbers make it all the more unbelievable that Commissioner Gary Bettman has three buyers in Phoenix who are prepared to keep the team in the Arizona desert.

How come Gary Bettman has the ability to find stupid people with lots of money who are eager to piss it down a toilet? I keep looking for those guys and just can’t find them anywhere.

(Note: To the commenter below — from the Globe and Mail: “True North considered a number of different pricing plans before deciding on the one it unveiled. Tickets will range between $39 and $129.” On the secondary market, ticket prices are obviously high. The original market was $39-$129.”)

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Buying A Ticket on the Kane Train

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
Evander Kane scores one of his eight goals 272x300 Buying A Ticket on the Kane Train

Evander Kane Scores Again

Even Winnipeg Jets head coach Claude Noel admitted that Evander Kane’s 2011-12 National Hockey League season didn’t start very well.

“Look at the way he’s playing now as opposed to the way he played at the beginning for the year,” said Noel shortly after Kane scored a pair of goals in Saturday night’s 4-2 Jets’ win over New Jersey. “He’s really playing well and he’s playing well with his linemates (Little and Wellwood). This is a guy who is improving all the time and it’s nice to see. He’s doing a lot of things well right now.”

Evander Kane – and yes, he was named after former World Heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield – is turning into one of the most feared scorers in the NHL.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound, 20-year-old is in the midst of a five-game points streak (seven points in those five games) and has 12 points in his last nine games.

With two goals on Saturday night, Kane scored his 13th and 14th of the year. He’s now sixth in goal scoring in the NHL, tied with Pittsburgh’s James Neal, one behind Jonathan Toews and Claude Giroux and just two back of league-leaders Phil Kessel, Steven Stamkos and Milan Michalek. Suddenly, a prospect just out of his teens is now among the game’s greatest scorers.

But it’s not like it wasn’t expected. When the new owners of the Atlanta Thrashers sat down to decide who they would keep and who they would let go, Kane was at the top of the keep list. He was going into the final year of his rookie contract and would make $900,000 this season. But next year, he’d be looking for a big number and the Jets brass has already swallowed and decided to do whatever they can to keep him. Good thing, too. He’s not only playing tremendous hockey, he’s become a huge fan-favorite.

Evander+Kane+Winnipeg+Jets+v+Philadelphia+GKt2yOt1 n l 300x248 Buying A Ticket on the Kane Train

Kane Scores Against the Flyers

However, two months ago, Kane wasn’t so certain he wanted to be in Winnipeg. There were conversations with his close friends that he was going to ask for a trade. He was unhappy with his ice time – he averaged only 11 minutes a game through the first six of the season and he was scoreless. He didn’t like Noel and wasn’t afraid to tell people about it. He didn’t score a goal until the seventh game of the season (that means he actually has 14 goals in the last 18 games) and really didn’t start to play much until the ninth game of the year.

But his dad, an old amateur boxer and hockey player at St. Francis Xavier University and his mom, a former basketball and volleyball player, had always told to him to hang in there, work hard and good things will come.

And it doesn’t hurt that he comes from a family of pro athletes, a list that includes his cousin Dwayne Provo, who played in both the CFL and NFL, and another cousin, Kirk Johnson, who competed for Canada in boxing at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona. If Evander doesn’t understand something, he has plenty of people around him who can fill him in.

Still, even though he was an outstanding junior who had 48 goals and 96 points in 61 games with his hometown Vancouver Giants in 2008-09 and was also a member of Canada’s national world junior championship team in 2009, the can’t-miss Kane missed early in his NHL career.

In his rookie year in Atlanta in 2009-10, Kane had 14 goals in 66 games. In his sophomore year last season with the Thrashers, Kane had 19 goals in 73 games. This year, he has 14 goals in 25 games and is on pace to score 44 this season. If he can possibly keep up this pace, he could emerge as one of the greatest scorers in the game today.

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Kane Scores Against Florida

“He’s playing really well especially when he comes down the wing and drives to the net,” Noel said of Kane “He’s using his speed and size and he’s shooting the puck. He’s not doing anything a lot different. He’s just getting a lot of opportunities. He’s gotta shoot the puck. And with his shot, why wouldn’t he?”

In training camp, Kane knew what this season meant. Not just because he was playing in a new hockey-mad city, but because if he could finally have that big year, the year the scouts believed he could produce, he could turn it into a large, long-term paycheque.

“This is my third year in the league and, obviously, it’s a big year for me,” Kane said during camp. “I know I have to have to play well. I have to come in here and make a statement.”

The first statement he made was calling and asking Winnipeg Jets great, Bobby Hull, if he could wear Hull’s No. 9. The fans loved him for that.

“It’s almost like asking a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage,” Kane told the Vancouver Province. “I’ve read somewhere on Twitter that he had done an interview and said that he wanted me to wear it proudly. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to speak to him soon. If he doesn’t have an issue with me wearing it, I’ll do my best on and off (the ice) to live up to wearing that number. If I have to change, I’ll change.”

Interestingly, he would never have had to change anyway because Jets 2.0 does not own the history of Jets 1.0. This incarnation of the Jets owns Atlanta’s history. Phoenix owns the history of the last incarnation of the Jets. Confusing perhaps, but true.

As well, Kane isn’t wearing No. 9 because of Hull. He’s wearing it because of the man who owns part of his junior team, Gordie Howe. Confusing perhaps, but true.

Regardless, he’s becoming the great offensive player every one knew he could be and both Hull and Howe would be proud.

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The NHL at the Quarter Pole

Posted on November 26, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
sidney crosby 238x300 The NHL at the Quarter Pole

The Kid is Back

Sidney Crosby is back, Alexander Ovechkin is struggling, the Calgary Flames are fighting amongst themselves, Ken Hitchcock is now coaching in St. Louis while everyone is wondering how long Scott Arniel will last in Columbus and Phil Kessel is the leading scorer in the National Hockey League.

We’re one quarter of the way through the 2011-12 NHL season and these are among the key stories as the league speeds head-on into the holiday season.

Things are crazy this season. The Winnipeg Jets are back but they’re still playing like the old Atlanta Thrashers. The Minnesota Wild, with 29 points, is the No. 1 team in the league. And after 20-plus games for most teams, there are two teams in the Top 8 in the East that didn’t make the playoffs last year and three in the West.

It’s the NHL at the quarter-pole. Let’s look at the 10 biggest stories:

1. Sidney Crosby is Back: The Kid returned on Monday, Nov. 20 and wowed national audiences on both sides of the border with two goals and two assists in his return. After missing almost a year with post-concussion syndrome, his return to the game was just as important to the NHL as it was Sidney himself. The fact that he went scoreless in his second game against St. Louis went without notice. Crosby is back and that’s good for hockey.

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Phil Kessel

2. Phil Kessel is the NHL’s Leading Scorer: He was drafted fifth overall in 2005 and since that day, the NHL has been waiting for Kessel to reach a level of play that no one with a walnut for a brain ever truly believed he could reach. Drafted by Boston, he scored 36 goals in 2008-09 but the Bruins expected more. Dealt to Toronto, he’s had a 30-goal season in 2009-10 and a 32-goal season last year and he’s a damned good player. Trouble is, Toronto fans – like Boston fans – have expected more. This year, he has 16 goals and 14 assists in the first 22 games and leads the NHL in goals and points. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the year Kessel gets the respect he deserves.

3. Ken Hitchcock Hired to Coach the Blues, Not Jackets: Everyone – and that means absolutely everyone – thought Hitchcock would return to the NHL this year as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. After all, the Blue Jackets were still paying him, Scott Arniel was said to be on the verge of a sacking and the Blue Jackets had allegedly spoken to Hitchcock. Then, out of the blue (pun intended), Payne Davis was fired in St. Louis and Hitchcock was behind the bench of the Blues. He started out 4-0-1, the best start of any coach in Blues franchise history and suddenly the Blues found themselves fifth overall in the West. Quite a move.

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Alex Ovechkin

4. Alex Ovechkin is Not the Same: Sure, it’s early yet, but something seems to be terribly wrong with Alex the Great. He has seven goals and nine assists in the Capitals first 20 games and is 58th in scoring. He is on pace for a 65-point season. In 2007-08, he had 65 goals. After he had 50 goals and 59 assists in just 72 games in 2009-10, he hasn’t been the same. He had only 32 goals and 53 points last year and this year, while he plays exciting hockey in spurts, he is not consistently great – or exciting. Insiders say Caps coach Bruce Boudreau has sucked the life out of Ovechkin with his defense-first philosophy and perhaps that’s true. If it is, it’s time for a change. Man, Ovie would look really good in L.A., but then again, the Kings probably couldn’t handle the cap hit.

5. The Leafs Look Like a Playoff Team: Even with goalie-of-the-present-and-future James Reimer out with a concussion, the Leafs have played steady hockey and through 22 games, they are 12-8-2, fifth in the East. They have the leading scorer in the NHL in Phil Kessel and they often appear to be a team that could stay in the hunt all season long. In fairness, the next 20 games will probably show us whether or not the Leafs are for real.

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Andrew Ladd

6. Winnipeg’s Return to the NHL: Wow! The building is sold out, the team is 8-9-4 through their first 21 games and fans are madly in love with this group of orphans who were once known as the Atlanta Thrashers. It’s the fans, however, that have sent a message to the NHL. That message is clear, too. Get teams out of Florida, Phoenix, Nashville, Dallas, Columbus and all those minor-league southern markets and send the game back to Canada and the northern United States. This is where players are revered and the game is loved. The NHL would be better off with three teams in Toronto, two in Vancouver and one each in Halifax, Quebec City and Saskatchewan than it is with teams in the U.S. Sun Belt.

7. The Minnesota Wild Is No. 1: Last year, the Wild went 39-35-8 and finished 12th in the West. Today, the Wild are 13-5-3 during the first 21 games and No. 1 overall in the NHL. Yes, that’s the whole NHL. Yeah, really. The Wild acquired Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi from San Jose in the off-season and have made themselves one of the better clubs in the NHL. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have Nicklas Backstrom and Josh Harding as your goaltenders and the heart and soul of Cal Clutterbuck, Guillaume Latendresse, Matt Cullen, Mikko Koivu and Kyle Brodziak, but the acquisition of Heatley and Setoguchi have made the Wild a legitimate playoff contender. The key now, is to avoid last season’s late collapse.

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Marty St. Louis

8. Tampa/Washington Fighting with Coaches: There is a real sense out there that the Washington Capitals are having trouble relating to the defense-first philosophy of head coach Bruce Boudreau and that the Tampa Bay Lightning have simply stopped listening at all to Guy Boucher. The Caps won the East last year and are now sixth. The Lightning was fifth in the East last year and is now 12th. Whatever the reason, something is definitely wrong with both teams.

9. Phoenix is Still an Ownership Wasteland: See: “Winnipeg’s Return to the NHL.”

10: Brendan Shanahan Hands Out Discipline (Or Not): If you can figure out the reasons for why players receive or don’t receive secondary discipline from Shanahan’s office, you’re smarter than, well, just about everybody. Why some players get three-game suspensions and others avoid any secondary discipline at all seems like a pure guessing game. At least, from afar. It’s amazing that while few people understood Colin Campbell’s disciplinary policy, even fewer seem to understand Shanahan’s. Maybe the players get it.

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Oct. 9, 2011: Happy Days Are Here Again

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
1 300x221 Oct. 9, 2011: Happy Days Are Here Again

MTS Centre

WINNIPEG — Outside MTS Centre, people were carrying signs and chanting loudly. Some were angry, most were thrilled and others were just soaking up the atmosphere.

This, of course, was no protest march. Most of the signs, carried by the angry and disappointed, read, ”I need tickets.” Most of the other folks gathered along Portage Ave. were either getting set to head inside the building or finished the eight-block trek to the Forks to celebrate.

After an absence of 15 years, the Winnipeg Jets were back and the City of Winnipeg was at a fever pitch. On Oct. 9, 2011, the Jets faced the Montreal Canadiens and, on the edge of the Canadian prairie, all was right with the world.

“Scott, you were there. When we lost the Jets, it was like someone smashed their fist right through your rib cage, and while you were still conscious, pulled out your heart,” said Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz, the morning of the first game. “Now you can’t find words that can actually describe the feelings of Winnipeggers.”

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Opening Night

When the new Winnipeg Jets stepped on the ice to warm-up, about half of the 15,004 who would eventually be in attendance, rose to scream their delight. A sign read, “Our Jets Will Fly Again Tonight,” and no one worried that it might block someone’s view.

It was time to stand up anyway.

“I had to come to Winnipeg and be a part of this,” said former Jets captain Keith Tkachuk. “The place is crazy. It’s wonderful isn’t it? It’s just so exciting to be a part of it.”

In a rink where “original” Jets jerseys outnumbered the new jerseys 2-1, it was indeed “wonderful.” For 15 years, this hockey-mad town had endured, ignored and eventually embraced the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose. Now they had their beloved Jets back and nothing could spoil it. If you didn’t have a ticket to the game, you still had a Social with Blue Rodeo at the Convention Centre or a free party at The Forks.

As one wag said: “In Winnipeg, you can get 70,000 people at the Forks and even if the Jets lose, everyone will just say, ‘That was great!’ In Vancouver, you get 70,000 people downtown for a hockey game and they’ll burn the city down. That’s Winnipeg. That’s the Jets.”

“So improbable is their return that I’m still convinced it hasn’t happened,” Winnipeg film maker Guy Maddin told the New York Times, He also told the Times that he “likened the Jets’ story to ‘ghostly returns in ancient texts’ like Ulysses’ journey in the Odyssey and the shade of Hamlet’s father strolling the parapet.”

Well, it wasn’t quite that historic, but it was still a pretty big deal. It seemed that throughout the afternoon and early evening, the crowd – a very young crowd, by the way — did not need a reason to scream “Go! Jets! Go!”

The introduction of the players was a Love-In. Even the introduction of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, the man everyone loves to hate, was greeted with only a smattering of boos. In fact, most people cheered Bettman’s arrival.

Jim Cuddy from Blue Rodeo along with Winnipeg’s own Chantal Kreviazuk, accompanied by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s brass and percussion sections, sang the national anthem, although they were, more often than not, drowned out by the crowd.

Winnipeggers wanted to celebrate and, on this day, the two Canadian musical stars were more like choir leaders than lead singers. As one sign read, “The Boys are Back in Town,” and it seemed everyone wanted to sing as loudly and as patriotically as possible.

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Rookie Sensation Mark Scheifele

Of course, it would be fair to say the return of the Jets meant as much to Canada as it did to the City of Winnipeg. It was, in many ways, a sign that the nation’s economy is now so strong that the NHL’s still-failing experiment to force hockey onto the people of the U.S. Sun Belt, was dying – and dying a lot faster than anyone could have imagined 15 years earlier. In Canada, we care about the game. South of the Mason-Dixon line? Well, not so much.

Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper was so excited about the Jets return that he requested 14 tickets. Jets Chairman and Governor Mark Chipman had only two spare seats.

“On behalf of the government of Canada, I extend my best wishes to the Winnipeg Jets for a triumphant return to the NHL,” Harper said in a written statement three days before the game.

Triumphant? No question about that.

Besides the Prime Minister, Tkachuk and Hawerchuk, Kreviazuk and Cuddy and even Canadian baseball stars Corey Koskie and Justin Morneau, Dancing Gabe was in the house. If Dancing Gabe has a place to strut his stuff then all is right with the world.

Meanwhile, the game itself seemed somewhat secondary to the simple act of just being in the MTS Centre to watch the Winnipeg Jets play in the NHL.

The Jets started strongly enough, but then Johnny Oduya handed the puck to the Canadiens Michael Cammalleri who walked in and drifted a bullet past Jets goalie Onrdrej Pavelec and it all went downhill from there. The Jets made a game of it early in the third period, but Montreal posted a lopsided 5-1 victory.

Regardless, Jets fans didn’t appear to care one bit. Most fans hung around until the bitter end and for the final minute stood and cheered their new heroes. It would be fair to say nobody even noticed the scoreboard.

The NHL was back. That’s what Winnipeg cared about. The world of major North American professional sports, after a 15-year absence, had once again welcomed a city of 700,000 on the edge of the Canadian prairie to participate in their games and for the time-being, at least, that’s all that mattered.

For the record: 1) Jim Slater took the first penalty for the new Jets at 8:35 of the first period. It was two minutes for holding. 2) The first Jets goal was scored at 2:27 of the third period by Nik Antropov, from Mark Stuart and Alexander Burmistrov. And yes, the building erupted.

Still, those were just numbers and on this evening, the evening of Oct. 9, 2011, the numbers didn’t have as much relevance as “The Feeling.” It felt good to be part of the NHL again. It felt good to have the hockey world notice us again. It just felt good.

The Jets were back. Winnipeg was back. And yes, happy days are here again.

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What a Nice Day

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It is the opening night of the 2011-12 National Hockey League season.

We aren’t certain that anyone noticed, but it reached 29 degrees C. here in Winnipeg today.

It reached 27 degrees C. in Atlanta.

Don’t know if that means a whole lot because we all know it will be colder than a hooker’s heart in January.

But for today, we Winnipeggers can rest secure in the knowledge that (1) on the opening day of the new NHL season, it was warmer in Winnipeg than it was in Atlanta, (2) that the former Atlanta players like our city’s fans and our golf courses and  (3) we all hope Ilya Bryzgalov has a nice, warm season in Philadelphia.

Enjoy tonight’s party at the Forks, kids.

 

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The NHL’s New Breed

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It’s September and amazingly, that means a brand new NHL  season is right around the corner. In fact, the Winnipeg Jets will officially open their first “new” training camp in the ‘Peg on Sept. 17.

The new-look Jets will be a very young team, at least at its core. On the current Jets’ NHL/AHL roster, the Jets have 23 players born after Jan. 1, 1986. That means the Jets will be young at both the NHL and AHL levels.

The team’s young star is probably Evander Kane, a 20-year-old who had a nice year in 2010-11 and is expected to have a huge year in 2011-12. In fact, the NHL is loaded with young stars who are simply going to get better.

As examples, Matt Duchene was outstanding in 2010-11; Brandon Dubinsky was hard-nosed and solid around the net throughout the season; and Claude Giroux was about as steady as a player could be.

The reason I mention Duchene, E. Kane, Dubinsky and Giroux (I could also mention Nicklas Backstrom, James Neal and Logan Couture), is because no one spent the past NHL season mentioning them much at all.

Let’s be brutally honest, hockey pundits (at least, the ones who aren’t going on relentlessly about the Toronto Maple Leafs), fans and fantasy players, spend most of their time focused on the game’s big names: Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos, Patrick Kane, Brad Richards, Jonathan Toews, Alex Ovechkin, Marty St. Louis, the Sedin Twins, Jarome Iginla, Dany Heatley etc., etc.

And while Crosby, 23, Stamkos, 20, Patrick Kane, 22, and Toews, 22, are among hockey’s great young players, they are simply the leaders of a new group poised to take over the game.

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Rookie of the Year Jeff Skinner

These are the young guns, the players, born in 1986 or later, who play tough, gritty hockey every night, score some goals, make plays and generally show up on the scoresheet without getting a whole lot of recognition outside of their own markets. In fact, until he won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year this past spring, even Carolina’s Jeff Skinner was not a household name in most of his relatives’ households. Now, he’s as big a star as there is in the game and a player expected to do great things for many years to come.

With the start of training camp a little more than two weeks away, let’s take a minute to honor those players, the members of hockey’s new breed and the guys that fantasy players don’t spend a lot of time talking about, but couldn’t win a pool without.

And here’s a guarantee: By the start of the 2012-13 season, these will be the players that fantasy winners will all be selecting, every season, with their top draft picks.

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll leave Crosby, Stamkos, Patrick Kane, Toews and Skinner to the masses. They already know about those guys anyway. However, for those hockey mavens who are playing in keeper pools this season, here’s a look at the next batch of big stars about to take their rightful places on the NHL marquee.

The NHL’s 10 “Next Great Stars.”

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Anaheim's Bobby Ryan

Bobby Ryan, Anaheim Ducks: He may have a spot on the marquee already. A 2010 U.S. Olympian, the 24-year-old Ryan was Anaheim’s first pick, second overall, in the 2005 NHL entry draft. This past year he had 34 goals and 37 assists (21st in points in the NHL) playing on a line with two great Canadian Olympians, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, and he’s emerged as one of the best players in the game. Last year, he had 35 goals and 29 assists and in 2008-09, he had 31 goals in only 64 games. At 6-foot-2, 210-pounds, he’s strong, skilled and not afraid to scrap. He’s another big time power forward who will be a major goal-scorer for another decade. And if he stays healthy, he will soon be considered one of hockey’s great players.

Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Capitals: At 23, he’s one of those guys who has already arrived, but because he plays in the rather substantial shadow of Alex Ovechkin, he’s not as well known as he should be. From Gavle, Sweden, he was the fourth overall pick in 2006 and is clearly one of the game’s great players. This season, he had 18 goals and 47 assists and is 35th in scoring right behind Rick Nash, Mike Richards and Sidnet Crosby (albeit in 41 games). He plays on Ovie’s line most nights and occasionally he plays better than his more well-known colleague. Fast and with great hands, Backstrom had 101 points in 2009-10 and should finish with 80-90 this coming season.

Matt Duchene, Colorado Rockies: Duchene is only “obscure” because he plays in Denver and doesn’t get a lot of TV exposure in Canada. After all: Who was the No. 29 scorer in the National Hockey League last year? Yep, Matt Duchene. The third overall pick in the 2009 NHL entry draft has arrived on the scene and announced his presence with authority. As a rookie in 2009-10, Duchene had 24 goals and 31 assists. This past year, the 5-foot-11, 200-pounder from Haliburton, Ont., had 27 goals and 40 assists. Assuming that the NHL participates, when the 2014 Winter Olympics roll around, you have to figure 20-year-old Matt Duchene – who has played on Canada’s under-18 and World Junior Championship teams – will be a major player for Team Canada.

Claude Giroux, Philadelphia Flyers: What a nice 23-year-old player. He finished the 2010-11 season as the No. 13 scorer in the NHL and helped make Jeff carter and Mike Richards expendable in Philly. Just like Duchene, he’s a former World Junior Championship player for Canada (2007-08) and a former first round draft pick (22nd overall in 2006). In 2009-10, he had 16 goals and 31 assists in all 82 games. This past year, the durable Giroux scored 25 goals and had 51 assists and played in all 82 games.

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L.A.'s Anze Kopitar

Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings: He’s only 24, but he’s been in the NHL since 2006-07. The greatest player in the history of Slovenian hockey, Kopitar was the Kings’ first draft pick (11th overall) in 2005. This past year, he had 25 goals and 48 assists after finishing the 2009-10 season with 34 goals and 47 assists. He’s already had a solid career, but this 6-foot-3, 230-pound power-forward-with-skill is slowly, but surely becoming one of the game’s great players. He was 20th in scoring this past season (in only 75 games) when he tore up his ankle and had surgery. However, with plenty of time to heal and with the off-season improvement of the Kings, he should put up even bigger numbers next year.

Logan Couture, San Jose Sharks: Another former first-round pick (ninth overall in 2007), Couture is 22 and is also another former under-18 Team Canada member. This past season he scored 32 goals (14th overall) and dished out 24 assists The 6-foot-1, 195 pounder from Guelph is going to be one of the game’s next great players. He was a finalist for the 2011 Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year and he just signed a $5.75 million deal that will keep him out of the restricted free agent market next July.

Brandon Dubinsky, New York Rangers: Dubinsky, who has played in two World Championships for the United States, is a 25-year-old from Alaska who was a second-round pick in 2004. He is a fearless player who has never been a big scorer, but this past year he started to pit up some impressive numbers. He finished 73rd in scoring with 24 goals and 30 assists in 77 games. In 2008-09, he had 13 goals, 41 points and 112 penalty minutes and proved he is not afraid to scrap. As an example, last December against the Caps, Dubinsky had a goal and an assist and dropped Alex Ovechkin in a fight early in the game to complete his Gordie Howe hat trick. For a guy who had never scored more than 20 goals in a season (2009-10), he had a tremendous 2010-11 and was rewarded with a big new contract.

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Winnipeg's Evander Kane

Evander Kane, Winnipeg Jets: The “other” Kane. Another former first round pick, Kane matched his 2009-10 offensive numbers in just 37 games this past season. This is a kid who has already played in the World Junior and the World Senior Championships for Team Canada and at 20, he’s starting to put up some impressive numbers. He had 19 goals and 24 assists last year in Atlanta and at 6-foot-2, 200-pounds, this youngster from Vancouver will soon be a high pick in every fantasy league. In fact, there are some pundits who think Kane is capable of reaching 30 goals and 60 points this season.

James Neal, Pittsburgh Penguins: A guy who played five games for the Manitoba Moose in 2008-09, Neal has exploded into one of the top power forwards in the game. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound leftwinger from Whitby, Ont., had 22 goals and 23 assists in 2010-11. A 24-year-old who was Dallas’s second pick (33rd overall) in 2005 – Matt Niskanen was the Stars’ first pick – Neal had 27 goals and 28 assists in 2010-11 and it obviously wasn’t a fluke.

Milan Lucic, Boston Bruins: The classic power-forward at 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, the big 23-year-old from Vancouver first earned a full-time job with the Bruins in 2006-07, but had never played what could be called a full season in the NHL until 2010-11. This past year he had 30 goals and 32 assists and led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup. He’s also a guy who will put up 80-100 minutes in penalties. He’s going to be a big-time player for a long time to come and if the Bruins expect to challenge for back-to-back Cups, it will be Milan Lucic leading the way.

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In a Crazy Summer, 10 Things That are Pretty Goofy.

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Ever wonder why the United States Justice Department is even bothering to bring Roger Clemens to trial. Who really cares?

The guy is out of baseball; based on statistics alone, it’s obvious that steroids are out of baseball (can anybody hit anymore?); it’s an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money (just like the Barry Bonds trial was an incredible waste of time, money and effort); and when lying to Congress is all you have on a guy, then the Justice System is suspect. Congressmen lie to Congress every single day.

Here was AP’s lead on the jury selection process for the trial: “Prospective jurors screened Thursday for the Roger Clemens perjury trial were more critical of Congress for spending time investigating drugs in baseball than they were of the star pitcher on trial for lying to lawmakers about ever using them.

“The sports legend watched intently but didn’t speak as members of the jury pool faced intense questioning from the judge and lawyers from both sides for a second day. Nearly as many have been turned away as qualified to be considered for the panel that will eventually be seated, including two who were excused after they said they weren’t sure they could be fair because of their feelings about Congress.”

“‘Even members of Congress have lied to Congress and they have not been prosecuted,’ said one of the panelists who was excused.”

It’s a crazy summer. Here are 10 more things that are absolutely nuts…

10. Detroit Tigers manager  Jim Leyland sid this week that players, managers and umpires needed a big league summit meeting because the tension between the participants in Major League Baseball and the people who call the games are “at an all-time high.”

Leyland had just been tossed out twice in two straight games at Angels Stadium which prompted a Minnesota Twins broadcaster to suggest that the problem isn’t tension between umpires and players/managers throughout baseball, it’s a problem with the California umpiring crews.

“There aren’t tensions in games when Detroit plays Cleveland or Minnesota or even the Yankees,” he said. “There are problems with everybody when they have to go west. Those west coast crews, well, they just don’t seem right to me.”

When people here in Winnipeg rip the umpiring in the independent American Association games as being “minor league,” they obviously don’t watch major league baseball. MLB umpires are horrendous (see Armando Galarraga’s umpire-destroyed perfect game) and as one observer has pointed out, the ones in California are even worse.

Baseball desperately needs instant replay.

9. The New Jersey Nets Deron Williams has decided that the NBA lockout just might go on forever, so he’s negotiating a contract with Besiktas in the Turkish League.

Don’t be surprised if Williams is just the first of many NBA players to consider moving to Europe while the billionaire owners fight with the millionaire players.

8. Dallas Cowboys wideout Roy Williams Jr. lived with former Miss Texas, Brooke Daniels (a legitimate hottie) for about a year. In February, he bought her a $76,000 ring. Then he proposed to her by recording his proposal and sending it to her via e-mail. With that he called himself “an old fashioned romantic.”

The two are no longer together (surprise, surprise) Daniels did not return the ring and Williams is suing her. Yep, that’s pretty romantic.

7. We see that Paige Duke, one of NASCAR’s three Miss Sprint Cups, has lost her sash. Nude photos of her showed up on the Internet. Ah, yes, the dreaded morality clause. She’s apparently upset about it — losing her job, I mean, not the fact the photos of her stark nekkid are showing up the e-mail in-boxes of high school boys.

6. Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Commodore is considering wearing No. 64 this year. Really, Seriously.

That would make him Commodore 64. Jersey sales would be through the roof.

5. Here’s an excerpt from Curt Schilling’s interview on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Schilling, always outspoken, was asked if he thought teammates on his 1993 Phillies club (the team that lost the World Series to Toronto) were using steroids.

“Oh, absolutely. Sure, sure. We all thought to some degree, some people did and didn’t here and there. But again, it wasn’t something you’d walk up to someone and talk about or ask them. So you had your ideas. I mean, when guys showed up with 25 extra pounds on them after three months and you’d seen them kind of during the winter time, you had an idea. And there were a lot of guys on a lot of teams. I would tell you, any fan of any team that goes ‘ohh, no..’ Because I hear a lot from the 2004 team with Ortiz and Manny and blah blah blah, and it’s usually from Yankees fans who had a roster full of them. There isn’t a team in the last 20 years that’s won clean.”

Thank you, Curt.

4. The Women’s World Cup Soccer Championship recorded a 0.01 television rating on two separate occasions last week. Nobody watched it. Apparently, not even the referees.

On a scoring chance by Australia in a round-robin match, the ball hit the post and was caught by an Equatorial Guinea defender, who took two or three steps with the ball in her hands and then casually dropped it on the pitch. While the Australians screamed at Hungarian referee Gyeongyi Gaal to call a penalty kick, she did nothing. Later Ms. Gaal apologized for missing the play. If a tree falls in the forest…

3. Former Montreal Alouettes president Larry Smith, now a Canadian Senator, has denied that the CFL team falsely announced sold-out games in order to guarantee the government funding that was used to expand Montreal’s Molson Stadium to 25,000 seats for the beginning of the 2010 season.

LaPresse reported that the sellouts were bogus and that the team wasn’t close to its claim of 105 consecutive sold out games. That streak ended this past week, in Week 1 of the 2011 season, when 2,700 seats went unsold.

That story is a classic case of turning mile hills into mountains. LaPresse couldn’t prove that games weren’t sold out if it wanted to. Another classic example of the media just making it up.

2. Gil Brandt reports at nfl.com that Brett Favre is getting the itch to return to the NFL if the lockout is somehow, someday negotiated away.

Why not? He’s better than anybody else the Vikings have right now.

1. The Nashville Predators are now offering a five-game mini-pack exclusively to Atlanta hockey fans. But it’s an even juicier deal than it sounds: An Atlanta fan picks five of eight offered games on the schedule — including a preseason game against the Winnipeg Jets — and they receive a March 24, Predators game against the Jets “free,” with tickets in the lower bowl, no less. What a terrific opprtunity to cheer on Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien one more time.

Atlanta is about four hours from Nashville.

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No Splash. No Worries.

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

andrew ladd1 No Splash. No Worries.The new Winnipeg Jets did not make much of a splash on draft day.

This weekend, during the NHL’s annual free-agent signing frenzy, the new Jets signed a handful of American Hockey Leaguers and Tampa’s sixth defenseman (seventh in the playoffs). Many observers wondered where the Jets went this past weekend, but one suspects (or hopes) that there was method in the cautious approach.

It is painfully obvious that the new Jets will be the most circumspect team in the National Hockey League and when you’re sold out for at least three years, you definitely have time to be prudent on the way to building a winner.

Now, in case you missed it, the NHL’s free-agent deadline was Friday and the Jets signed hometown defenseman Derek Meech away from Detroit. Meech spent all of last season in the AHL with Grand Rapids.

They signed Tanner Glass, a former Moose forward, to a one-year $750,000 deal. They signed Randy Jones, the No. 6 defenseman in Tampa, to a one-year $1.5 million deal. And they also signed a Texas Stars player, centre Andre Gagnon, and two former Moose, Rick Rypien and Mark Flood.

The Jets also lost a couple of players: veteran defenseman Radek Dvorak went to Dallas for one-year and $1.5 million while young forward Anthony Stewart signed a two-year $1.8 million deal with Carolina.

While the new AHL franchise in St. John’s made a big impact by essentially adding five solid players – Meech, Glass, Gagnon, Rypien and Flood – the Jets got a Tampa cast-off and five guys to use occasionally. One gets the sense that True North Sports and Entertainment is finally playing with real bullets, but they can’t quite figure out how to fire the gun.

Now, that could be unfair in the sense that even though this team is sold out for three years and will likely be sold out for five, it still isn’t going to get anywhere near the salary cap. In fact, it will probably have to sign its own restricted free agents – Andrew Ladd (pictured), Zach Bogosian and Blake Wheeler – in order to get to the $48 million floor.

Ladd, Bogosian and Wheeler are proven commodities and it’s imperative that Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff get them under contract. Trouble is, their agents also know how important they are to the future of the club so none of them will come cheap. Don’t be surprised if all three are slightly (or even significantly) overpriced by the end of this off-season exercise.

The team now playing in Winnipeg was not very good last year. The Atlanta Thrashers finished 34-36-12 in 2010-11 and after the first weekend of free-agency, they have not taken a step to get better.

Meanwhile, with division rivals Florida, Washington and Carolina getting significantly better (Tampa was already very good), it could be a long campaign in 2011-12. Right now, there is no reason to believe that the new Jets will be good enough to catch any of the eight teams that made the playoffs last season and unless somebody just collapses, the Winnipegs aren’t as good as Carolina, Toronto, New Jersey, Ottawa or Florida. If the Islanders improve, 2011-12 could be frighteningly long for the new Jets/old Thrashers.

The Jets just came off a mediocre draft in which six of their seven choices came after the 67th pick and their No. 1 selection was a good player on a very bad team. Mark Scheifele was the star of the Barrie Colts, a team that went 15-49-2-2 and was dead last in the OHL. He had 22 goals in 66 games and was said to be of second- or third-line caliber on a team such as Owen Sound or Mississauga. Scouts say he has plenty of upside, so in two or three years, he could be a star, but for this coming season, Jets fans will need plenty of patience.

In  the meantime, Craig Heisinger has done a terrific job making the new team in St. John’s one of the best in the AHL.

There will, no doubt, be a long honeymoon for the new Winnipeg Jets. There will certainly be a period of time when Jets fans will be happy to see Montreal, the Leafs, Boston and stars such as Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos. The Jets presence won’t be all that important in the early going.

However, at some point the Jets will have to draw fans on their own. Right now, this team is still a long way from that point and that’s why the brain trust has plenty of time to re-build a very weak franchise through the draft.

THE NHL FREE AGENT SIGNING HIGHLIGHTS

There was a frenzy of major action by other NHL teams. Here is a quick look at the top signings:

1. The Philadelphia Flyers signed Jaromir Jagr to a one-year $3.3 million deal and then got Pittsburgh’s Maxim Talbot signed to a five-year deal worth $9 million.

2. The New York Rangers got the coveted Brad Richards, nine years $60 million.

3. A couple of top Metis players signed with the Dallas Stars. The Stars got defenseman Sheldon Souray from Edmonton for one year and $1.65 million while the Stars signed forward Vernon Fiddler away from three-year $5.4 million contract.

4. Montreal signed Carolina Hurricanes star Erik Cole to a four-year $18 million deal with a no-trade clause. They also got goalie Peter Budaj.

5. Buffalo signed one of the top players available, Flyers’ sniper Ville Leino to a six-year $27 million deal.

6. The Edmonton Oilers were busy. They signed Big Ben Eager away from San Jose for $3.3 million over three years. Then they signed centre Eric Belanger to a three-year, $4 million deal and then they signed Winnipeg’s Cam Barker, a pretty good defenseman to a one-year $2.25 million deal. They got tough-guy Darcy Hordichuk under contract for one year. They also traded defenseman Kurtis Foster to Anaheim for veteran defenseman Andy Sutton.

7. Florida had a big weekend. The Panthers signed gifted forward Tomas Fleischmann to a four-year $18 million deal, defenseman Ed Jovanoski signed a four-year $16.5 million contract, gritty forward Scottie Upshall to a four-year $14 million contract. Veteran goalie Jose Theodore to a two-year $3 million deal. And Tampa Bay forward Sean Bergenheim, four-years for $11 million.

8. The Columbus Blue Jackets signed Montreal Canadiens defenseman James Wisniewski to a six-year $33 million deal. If James Wisniewski is worth $33 million, what would Bobby Orr be worth today?

9. The Washington Capitals have added forward Joel Ward on a four-year contract worth $12 million and defenseman Romnan Hamrlik to a two-year, $7 million pact. Washington had previously traded 23-year-old goaltender Semyon Varlamov to Colorado for a first-round pick in 2012 and a second-round choice in 2012 or 2013.

10. The Stars might have lost superstar Brad Richards but they still signed a number of other top players. Dallas signed Michael Ryder away from Boston for two years and $7 million. And they got Adam Pardy away from Calgary, for two years and $4 million.

11. Buffalo Sabres free-agent centre Tim Connolly signed a two-year $9.5 million deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs and then yesterday, the Leafs acquired defenceman Cody Franson and centre Matthew Lombardi from the Nashville Predators in exchange for defenceman Brett Lebda and forward Robert Slaney.

12. The Los Angles Kings signed veteran centre Simon Gagne to a two-year $7 million deal.

13. And Steinbach’s Ian White, signed a two-year $5.75 million deal with the Detroit Red Wings.

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Things That Make You Go “Hmmmmm…”

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
More things that make you wonder what people are thinking.

1) The Winnipeg Jets have done what they needed to do. General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff tendered offer sheets to restricted free agents Andrew Ladd, Eric Bogosian and Blake Wheeler.
And one guesses he absolutely had to do it because he really doesn’t have much else on his roster. The draft was weak and Cheveldayoff got a player, Mark Schiefele with the No. 7 overall pick, who might be a decent player in a couple of years. But not now.

In the meantime, the new Jets have very few scorers.
While the 2010-11 Atlanta Thrashers scored more goals than the Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators, they were still stuck at 20th overall in goal scoring with just 218 on the season. They were also remarkably weak defensively, allowing the second most goals in the NHL at 262 (only Colorado at 287 was worse).
Of course, this was a Thrashers’ team that was 12th in the East and 25th overall in the NHL. At 34-36-12, they were one of only seven teams that failed to reach the .500 mark. 

Still, in fairness, the Thrashers were a YOUNG team that didn’t score much and so at least there is some upside. And what the heck, an inability to score is pretty indicative of where the NHL is in 2010. Fact is, most teams don’t score much.

As an example, there were only 29 30-goal scorers in 2010-11 and only 24 in 2009-10. Compare that to the year before the lockout (2003-04) when fans complained that there was a dearth of scoring in the NHL – there were 30 30-goal scores in 2003-04 and most hockey observers thought that was weak.

Despite the NHL’s big talk, scoring is at an all-time low. Remember when the league said that after the 2004-05 lockout it was going to open up the game for goal scorers? Well, there’s a big fail.

There really aren’t all that many goal scorers anymore, period. While Atlanta’s Andrew Ladd, with 29 goals, led the Thrashers last year and while it might look strange that the Thrashers didn’t have a 30-goal scorer all of last season, the fact is, there were only 29 30-goal scorers in the entire league last year.

The new Winnipeg Jets aren’t a very good team, but they are indeed young and Claude Noel proved last year, at the helm of the Moose,  that he can make a lot out of very little.

While no one should expect the Thrasher-Jets to win the Stanley Cup, there is certainly a decent chance they could make the playoffs.

And in Winnipeg, that would be a very big deal, indeed.

2) It seems a lot of people want to beat up on Adam Dunn this season and I can certainly see why. The one-time formidable ball striker with the Cincinnati Reds has become a complete bust with the Chicago White Sox. Dunn is currently hitting .173 and has struck out 100 times in 221 at bats. That’s frightening.

He reminds me of Dave Kingman, the big bomber, near the end of his career. In fact, in 1984, Sports Illustrated wrote this scouting report of Kingman: “Hits the ball high, wide and seldom. Catches it occasionally. Has developed an iron glove to go with his lead bat.”

Dunn never had much of a glove, but in the American League, he got to be a designated hitter. Or, in this case, a designated misser.

3) Vegas oddsmakers have made the Calgary Stampeders, at 11-4, the favorites to win the Grey Cup. No doubt Calgary has a good team, but are they better than Montreal? Are they even better than Hamilton?

Montreal is next on the Futures line at Vegas at 3-1. Saskatchewan is third at 11-2 followed by B.C. at 6-1, Edmonton and Hamilton at 7-1, Toronto at 8-1 and Winnipeg at 10-1.

All that stuff is fun, but it really doesn’t mean much.

The only thing that really matters is how well these eight teams play on the field and if there is one thing about football that guarantees the old adage, “…on any given Sunday,” it’s the fact the game is as much about emotion and brute strength as it is about speed and skill.

Having said that, here in Winnipeg, if quarterback Buck Pierce doesn’t stay vertical, this Blue Bomber team could have serious stress. In other words, for Bomber fans, brute strength is most important inasmuch as it will allow the speed and skill to be able to do what they do.

In fact, if there is one team in the Canadian Football League that needs a great year from its offensive line, it’s the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Thursday, we’ll have our 2011 CFL Preview.

 

 

 

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Winnipeg Hockey Fans Were Right. They Almost Had The Coyotes Last Year.

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Last February, when Joe Aiello and I started talking about all the hockey rumors on 92-CITI-FM, it was intriguing to watch the response. The local mainstream media instantly crapped all over us.

Joe and I were expressing our interest in all the chatter that had been emanating from MTS Centre where more than one employee talked openly about the changes that were planned for the building, the employees and the future of hockey in Winnipeg.

At first, it was thought that there was an opportunity for True North Sports and Entertainment to acquire the Atlanta Thrashers, but as we looked and listened more closely, it was apparent there was an even greater chance, at the time, that the Phoenix Coyotes might move north. The rumors did not stop circulating until mid-May and by then, it was clear that while most MTS Centre employees were convinced something was happening, by the middle of May, all the talk had died.

We thought we were right. We thought Winnipeg hockey fans and MTS employees were right, but unless True North ever admitted it piblicly, no one would know for sure.

Then, this past week, Mark Chipman, president of True North, admitted during a speech to the Chamber of Commerce that he and his partner, David Thomson were only minutes away from acquiring the Coyotes last May.

In fact, according to Chipman, if the City of Glendale had not committed to a guarantee of $25 million toward any monies lost by the Coyotes operation during the 2010-11 season, the Phoenix hockey franchise would have been heading back to Winnipeg on May 10, 2010.

“We literally came within 10 minutes of acquiring (the Coyotes) in May 2010 when the City of Glendale met a 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time deadline to wire the funds necessary to pay for the league’s losses for the (2010-11) season,” he told the Commerce gathering at the Fairmont.

“We left somewhat disappointed, but uplifted by the fact that the league had taken us so seriously and, as a consequence, had indicated it would just be a matter of time before we would actually acquire a team.”

That turned out to be true, too.

Although it really doesn’t matter now whether or not True North was close to acquiring a team 13 months ago, it’s nice to know that the time Joe and I spent chasing all the talk, wasn’t in vain. The fact is, True North was close to bringing the NHL back to Winnipeg, despite the protests of the major media. And, in the end, our first instinct, the Atlanta Thrashers, turned out to be correct. At least, it became correct on May 31, 2011.

I now feel I can look back on what I wrote at www.citifm.ca and rest secure in the knowledge that we were right — and so too, were the hockey fans of Winnipeg.

 

 

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