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Our NHL All-Star Break Award Winners

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Alex Ovechkin

It could be argued that Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are the two most talented players in all of hockey.

But of course, Crosby has been out for almost an entire year with a concussion and Ovechkin, although he’s trying to change his game, hasn’t quite come to grips with his coaches’ demand for a more defensive approach to the sport.

As a result, for different reasons, hockey’s two greatest talents have been missing.

For fans and fantasy players, that’s not great news. For other players, however, it’s an opportunity to step up, score some goals, become leaders and make a name. One man’s disappointment is always another man’s opportunity.

As a result, a whole collection of new, young stars has risen to the top in the National Hockey League this season. Names that might not have been well known a year or two ago are now getting the respect that their coaches, teammates and a whole lot of scouts believed they always deserved or, at least, would earn.

nhlasg2012logo Our NHL All Star Break Award WinnersWe’re now just a week away from the NHL’s Mid-Winter Classic, the All-Star Game in Ottawa. At that game, you will no doubt be introduced to a number of young players who could, one day, take up the mantle that has been left virtually untouched since Crosby’s injury.

You will no doubt also recall some old names that have been stars in this league and are clearly stars once again. The one thing that this year’s all-star game will bring clearly to mind is the names of the players who should be honored at the end of the 2011-12 season.

In order to set you up for the big game in Ottawa, here’s a look at the players who should be honored at the mythical midway point of the campaign. These are our seven major award winners for the opening half.

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Evgeni Malkin

The Hart Trophy, Most Valuable Player: Our winner is Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins and our runners up are Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers and Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers. nhl.com gave us a pretty clear outline of what Malkin has done in order to almost single-handedly keep the banged-up Penguins in the heart of the Stanley Cup playoff race:

“Since Crosby exited the lineup on Dec. 5, the Penguins have limped to a 9-9-0 record in his absence. If not for the heroics of Malkin things could be a whole lot worse. In those 18 games without Crosby — and not to mention Kris Letang one of the NHL’s best offensive defenseman who returned to the lineup after a two-month absence on Thursday — Malkin has 15 goals and 15 assists. He has factored in 30 of the Penguins’ 53 goals during that time (56.6 percent) and has been on the ice for a whopping 34 (69.8 percent) goals during that stretch.”

Malkin has also taken over as the NHL’s scoring leader (54 points) and he’s kept the Penguins within the Top 6 in the Eastern Conference.

Our runners-up are Giroux who is more responsible than anyone in that Flyers lineup for keeping Philly in the Top 5 in the East and Lundqvist, because the Rangers have 62 points and are first in the East for only one reason: goaltending. 

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Henrik Lundqvist

The Vezina Trophy, the Best Goaltender: Well, if he’s almost the MVP, Henrik Lundqvist is certainly the best goalie. The runners-up are Jonathan Quick and Jimmy Howard.

Lundqvist has played 34 games and has a 1.93 goals against average to go with his .936 save percentage. He’s 20-10-4 and has saved the first-place Rangers on more than one occasion.

Howard has played 39 games and is 28-10-1 with a 1.98 goals against average and .926 save percentage while Quick is 20-11-9 with a 1.92 GAA and a save percentage of .934. Frankly, if the Rangers aren’t first in the East and Lundqvist doesn’t make so many game-saving stops, I’d look at Quick as the best goalie in the game this year.

Of course, there is also that two-headed monster in Boston. Tuukka Rask is 11-4-1 in 16 games with a 1.61 GAA and a .946 save percentage while Tim Thomas is 19-9-0 in 30 games with a 2.02 GAA and a .936 save percentage. Turn those two guys into one and you have the best goalie in the world.

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Adam Larsson

The Calder Trophy, Rookie of the Year: There are three players I love for this award at the midway point of the year. Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins leads all rookie scorers with 13 goals and 22 assists. Adam Henrique in New Jersey is next with 13 goals and 21 assists. And then there is New Jersey’s Adam Larsson, a big, powerful defenseman who is logging 22-25 minutes a game.

If I had to vote today, Larsson would get my vote. It’s tough enough to learn to become a regular defenseman in the NHL. Larsson, the No. 4 pick overall last spring, has not only learned, he’s instantly become one of the best rearguards on a defensive minded team. In fact, he’s the No. 1 defenseman in the Devils lineup right now.

At 6-foot-3, 210-pounds he has all the tools to play the position but the fact he can skate, hit and clear the front of his own net, makes him, potentially, one of the great players of the future in the NHL today.

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Zdeno Chara

The Norris Trophy, Best Defenseman: We still love Nick Lidstrom and always will, but this year, Zdeno Chara, all-star captain and leader of the Boston Bruins, has been remarkable. He won his first Norris Trophy in 2008-09, and has been the Bruins rock ever since. He is currently on a pace to set career highs in assists, total points, and plus/minus, all while being the most imposing force on defense in the game – anywhere on the planet.

Our runners up are Nick Lidstrom (of course) of the Detroit Red Wings, and Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators for reasons that are obvious.

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David Backes

The Selke Trophy, Best Defensive Player: There is only one choice for the Selke this year and while Ryan Kesler, Pavel Datsyuk, Jonathan Toews and Patrice Bergeron will get a load of support from the media voters, there is only one guy who passes the best defensive forward test at every level.

Centre David Backes of the St. Louis Blues covers the opposition’s best line on every shift. He starts most shifts as the centre in his own end and wins most of his faceoffs – and almost all the important ones. In fact, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock sends Backes out on to the ice 63 per cent of the time when his team has to start with a faceoff in its own end.

Backes also leads his team in scoring with 14 goals and 19 assists, is a plus-13 and is the leader on the power-play AND the penalty-kill. He’s also a leader on a team that is a remarkable 28-12-6 this season. He was snubbed by those selecting the players to attend this year’s all-star game and he’s been snubbed by the media mob that wants to give Toews an award, but won’t give him the Hart Trophy. Still, quite clearly David Backes is the best defensive forward in the game.

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Teemu

The Lady Byng Trophy, Most Gentlemanly Player: I don’t even have a runner-up for the Lady Byng. There is only one player who is even in the mix: Teemu Selanne.

The fact that he plays the game with passion, is the 15th leading scorer at age 41, seldom gets a dirty penalty, is beloved throughout the league and is such a class act at every possible level that there is no greater gentleman in all of hockey, makes this award a no-brainer. In fact, he should get it as a lifetime achievement award for being both a great player and a great human being.

I frankly, don’t care about anyone else. As one of my colleagues, Jonathan Willis, recently wrote: “This award really should go to a guy like Selanne, who has shown over a long career that he’s a superb player and someone who has exhibited exceptional sportsmanship throughout his career.”

Can I get an Amen?

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Paul MacLean

The Jack Adams Trophy, Coach of the Year: Absolutely no doubt about it, Paul MacLean of the Ottawa Senators is the coach of the year. Our runners-up would include Ken Hitchcock of the St. Louis Blues and Mike Babcock of the Detroit Red Wings.

MacLean, the former Winnipeg Jets rightwinger has the Senators in fourth place in the East with a record of 27-16-6. A man who learned his coaching philosophy as a player and as an assistant to the very accomplished Babcock in Detroit, MacLean has taken an Ottawa team that was 32-40-10 (13th in the East) last season and nearly equaled that win mark by the all-star break.

There is no doubt that MacLean’s efforts have taken a team that was expected to miss the playoff this year and turned it into a team that is now three points out of first place in the entire NHL.

Babcock has Detroit in first overall with 63 points and what makes him great is his ability to handle some huge egos and make the gifted Red Wings play as a team. Meanwhile, Hitchcock replaced Davis Payne early in the season and in a very short time coaxed the Blues into fourth in the West.

By the way, I have no problem with those people who promote the efforts of Alain Vigneault in Vancouver, Barry Trotz in Nashville and John Tortorella with the Rangers. They’ve all done great work.

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Lemieux’s Anger Directed Right Back at His Glass House

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

So Pittsburgh Penguins owner and president, Mario Lemieux, didn’t like the discipline handed out by the NHL to the New York Islanders this past weekend?

Not surprising. Mario has a lot on his plate right now. He has a concussed Sidney Crosby who is likely out of the lineup until mid-March at best and he has Evgeni Malkin out for the rest of the season with a knee injury. With his two best players on the sidelines, Mario has noticed his Pens aren’t very good.  Between the injuries and the circus on Long Island last week, ol’ Mario is angry.

Trouble is, he lives in a glass house.

Now let’s not point the finger solely at Lemieux for his little outburst this week. National Hockey League organizations have been releasing written statements that disagree with a suspension handed out by the NHL’s vice-president of discipline, Colin Campbell, for a lot of years now. However, the statement released Sunday afternoon by Super Mario was nothing, if not blunt.

Responding to the $100,000 fine to the Islanders, the four-game ban to Matt Martin for drilling the Pens Maxime Talbot with a sucker punch that would have made Todd Bertuzzi and Marc Crawford proud, and the nine-game suspension dished out to Trevor Gillies after his hit to the head of Eric Tangradi, Lemieux expressed his “disappointment” with the NHL’s decision.

WE QUOTE: “Hockey is a tough, physical game, and it always should be. But what happened Friday night on Long Island wasn’t hockey. It was a travesty. It was painful to watch the game I love turn into a sideshow like that.
The NHL had a chance to send a clear and strong message that those kinds of actions are unacceptable and embarrassing to the sport. It failed.”

Hmmm. Mario should probably be fined, but he won’t be and give him a little credit, he got his anger off his chest.

Mario’s problem is that the NHL has no desire to clean up the “sideshow.” After the lockout ended in 2005, the league said there would be a “new NHL,” one where the star players could be star players, where they could score goals and where the referees would call hooking, holding and interference exactly as those rules were outlined in the NHL rulebook.

Unfortunately, the stricter officiating lasted about 3/4 of a season and while the NHL maintained that the players had become accustomed to the “new” of interpretations of the rules, the fact was, the officials just went back to the way it was before the lockout. With that, NHL general managers started loading up on goons and now every team has at least one player in its organization who can step in, beat the crap out of its opponents and not worry aboiut missing any ice time because he couldn’t really skate anyway. Today, “the new NHL” is loaded up with the likes of Zenon Konopka, Colton Orr, Derek Boogaard, George Parros, Jared Boll, and on and on and on, guys who can kick the living shit out of another person without so much as a hint of conscience.

Because the NHL wouldn’t call the infractions on the ice, teams had to take the law back into their own hands. And they did so. Now, everybody has a goon and when everybody has a goon, the occasional circus will come to town. As long as the officials refuse to call the rules as they are described in the rulebook, coaches and GMs will make sure they can control the ice themselves.

Which brings us back to Mario. Mario’s problem is that he’s part of the whole mess. His Penguins have a headhunter named Matt Cooke. This is the guy who has, evidently, ended Marc Savard’s career. He’s a 32-year-old enforcer with a reasonable amount of skill who can pass for a legitimate player. However, if the Penguins need someone to end an opponent’s career, Matt Cooke is ready and willing to do whatever it takes. Most recently, Cooke was handed a four-game suspension (on Feb. 9), for hitting Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Fedor Tyutin from behind. It was a vicious, stupid hit delivered by a vicious, stupid man.

However, it’s Mario’s man and as a result, when Lemieux talks about “sideshows,” he forgets that Cooke is one of the biggest clowns of the bunch.

What Matt Martin did to Max Talbot last Friday is exactly what got Todd Bertuzzi a year-long suspension. Martin should have had the book thrown at him. No doubt about it. Trouble is, what Matt Cooke did to Fedor Tyutin could have left Tyutin attached to tubes for the rest of his life. Too bad Mario forgot about that one in his little rant.

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Our Picks for the Opening Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

You have to love the way the 2010 National Hockey League season turned out. The New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers went to the shootout on the final day to determine the last playoff spot in the East, the Phoenix Coyotes proved that Wayne Gretzky couldn’t coach a dog in from a snowstorm with a pork chop and Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos and Alexander Ovechkin went down to the wire to determine a Rocket Richard Trophy winner (or two).

If the playoffs are half as good as the season that just ended (and you know they will be), they’ll be as good as hockey gets.

Let’s take a look at the first round:

Western Conference

San Jose Sharks (1) vs. Colorado Avalanche (8)

The Sharks never play well in the post-season, but this is a different Sharks team. Colorado was lucky to make the playoffs.

San Jose Sharks in four

Chicago Blackhawks (2) vs. Nashville  Predators (7)

The Hawks are the better team but Barry Trotz is the best coach in hockey. This will be closer than people think because the Hawks goaltending is horrible.

Chicago Blackhawks in seven

Vancouver Canucks (3) vs. Los Angeles Kings (6)

If Roberto Luongo is better than he was last year (remember when he got bombed in Chicago in Game 6?), Vancouver will romp.

The Kings had a great year, but Vancouver is a Cp contender.

Vancouver Canucks in six

Phoenix Coyotes (4) vs. Detroit Red Wings (5)

The Wings are healthy again. Enough said.

Detroit Red Wings in five

Eastern Conference

Washington Capitals (1) versus Montreal Canadiens (8)

The Capitals are simply better. Jaroslav Halak could steal one or two in Montreal.

Washington Capitals in six

New Jersey Devils (2) verus Philadelphia Flyers (7)

Philadelphia owns the Devils. The Flyers were 5-1 in six games against New Jersey. The Devils are a better team with better goaltending, but Philly matches up well against these guys.

New Jersey Devils in seven

Buffalo Sabres (3) versus Boston Bruins (6)

Our first round upset. Neither team has enough scoring, but Ryan Miller won’t be as good in April as he was in February.

Boston Bruins in seven

Pittsburgh Penguins (4) versus Ottawa Senators (5)

Should be a good series, but the Penguins are Stanley Cup champions until the day they aren’t. Pittsburgh has too much offence and a good goaltender.

Pittsburgh Penguins in five

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Some more things bouncing around inside my skull…

Posted on August 3, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was quite a week. We watched the Winnipeg Blue Bombers bring in a new quarterback, we headed off to Mankato, Minn., to watch opening day of Minnesota Vikings camp and then headed back to Minneapolis for the Twins-Angels series.

As a result, here are a few more things that went banging around in my brain this past week…

1) Last week, Blue Bombers head coach Mike Kelly was fined $1,000 for verbally abusing the officials in Week 4’s 19-5 loss to Toronto.

The Bombers were so dreadfully awful in that game that I didn’t really notice the officials much, but I will say this: CFL officials are so bad, so rotten, that somebody has to verbally abuse them. Just to keep them awake.

2) It sure didn’t take long for the Bombers to sour on defensive tackle Tyrone Williams and quarterback Richie Wlliams. Even before the team went to Toronto for this past Saturday’s game with the Argos, the two were gone. Released outright.

Wow! There was an awful lot of newspaper space wasted on those two four-week clunkers.

3) Here’s how you beat the Minnesota Twins: Walk Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau every time they come to the plate. Hell, I’ll take my chances with Michael Cuddyer or Jason Kubel.

If you let the “New M&M Boys” hit, they will. They’ll beat you. But if you never face them, they’ll score a couple of runs, but not enough to hurt you. After all, that Twins pitching staff is awful. It’s going to give up 8-12 a game (especially if you’re the Los Angeles Angels) and a couple of Twins runs won’t even dent that.

4) My old friend George Sherrill was traded from the Baltimore Orioles to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday. He didn’t want to go, but he’ll now have a legitimate shot at winning a World Series. Not bad for a guy who spent 2002 and 2003 with the independent Winnipeg Goldeyes.

Asked by the Los Angeles Times after Friday’s game (where he struck out three of the four batters he faced) if he ever saw himself “reaching this point while he was toiling in the independent leagues,” Sherrill said: “I didn’t know what this point was. I just wanted to keep playing. I guess that’s why some girlfriends took off.”

5) There is a great deal of gnashing of teeth these days over “The List.” That’s baseball’s notorious list of people who were voluntarily and anonymously drug tested in 2003. It’s a list with 104 names on it, but only seven names have been leaked.

It’s a list that allows the mob-like mainstream media to continue to attack the game even though the mob-like mainstream media was a big part of the cover-up of steroid us in baseball when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were saving the game in 1998.

Because most members of the mainstream media have no idea what steroids are or what they do, they use the leaks from the list to vilify athletes and attack baseball’s credibility.

It’s unfortunate that commissioner Bud Selig is just a liar. He, of course, claimed that the people who agreed to be tested in 2003 would never see the results of those tests and that tests would never be made public. Now, the results are being leaked out bit by bit, most often to the New York Times, by someone who obviously has an agenda.

For the mainstream media, steroid use by athletes is always big news. For baseball fans, however, it’s meaningless. They really don’t care.

In fact, if I’m paying $100 for a ticket (remember, the mainstream media doesn’t pay for tickets and therefore doesn’t know what we’re paying to watch baseball these days), I want my jocks to be 6-foot-8, 300-pounds and have the ability to hit a baseball to the moon. I don’t care if fat, old Babe Ruth, a man who never hit against an African-American pitcher, has all his records broken, I want to be entertained when I pay exorbitant prices to watch a stinkin’ ball game in August.

6) The Ottawa Sun, home of the hopeful and silly Bruce Garrioch, a really nice guy who seems to go out of his way to create trade rumours that don’t exist — and never have — came up with a doozy this weekend. Even TSN and Rogers Sportsnet picked up on the story without checking out anything.

The latest rumour goes like this (and remember, this is the same Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun who had Vincent Lecavalier going to the Edmonton Oilers, Chris Pronger off to St. Louis, then Chris Pronger off to New Jersey, then Chris Pronger off to Boston, then Chris Pronger off to Toronto, Jay Bouwmeester to Edmonton — sheesh, he loves Edmonton — Scott Niedermayer off to Boston, Evgeni Malkin to the L.A. Kings, Ilya Kovalchuk to Montreal and on and on and on): The San Jose Sharks have offered F Jonathan Cheechoo and D Christian Erhoff to Ottawa in exchange for F Dany Heatley, but the deal won’t take place unless Montreal steps in and sends Mike Cammalleri (the free agent that Bob Gainey just signed) to San Jose to get Patrick Marleau (where did he come from?) and his $6.3 million contract.

The San Jose Mercury News called Sharks GM Doug Wilson. He denied he was interested in making a deal with the Senators. Meanwhile, if Garrioch had checked out the Habs payroll situation, it would become evident to him that the Canadiens couldn’t handle the salary cap hit.

At some point does the mainstream media look at Garrioch and say, “The Sky is Not Falling Today?” Or not? Do they just keep eating this stuff up.

If he was right once…

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Red Wings Lose, Balsillie and Real Hockey Fans Lose More

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

DETROIT — The Pittsburgh Penguins might have shocked the Detroit Red Wings, but they didn’t shock themselves.

Last Friday night at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena, the Penguins got a pair of goals from Maxime Talbot and a great goaltending performance from Marc-Andre Fleury en route to a 2-1 victory over the Red Wings in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup final.

With the win, Sidney Crosby got his first Stanley Cup and the Penguins avenged last year’s six-game loss to the Wings in the final. It’s unlikely anyone in hockey — except for the true Penguins believers and all those folks who hate the Red Wings for being winners — expected Pittsburgh to win four of the last five games of the series to claim the Cup.

“Dream come true. It’s everything you work for,” said Crosby, the youngest captain ever to win a Cup and a young man who was also criticized by the Red Wings for not shaking hands with Wings captain Nick Lidstrom after the game. “It just feels so good. This is exactly how you picture it, what you play for.”

It was only the 14th Game 7 in Stanley Cup finals history, although it was the fifth Game 7 of this decade. It was also the first time a road team had won a Game 7 since the Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Blackhawks in 1971.

This year’s final was sensational, perhaps one of the best Cup finals in more than two decades. It was an amazing comeback by the Penguins, who trailed 2-0 in the series and came back to win four of the last five games.

Evgeni Malkin, who was the NHL’s leading scorer in the regular season and in the playoffs was named playoff MVP, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy.

“For us, it was a different guy every night,” Crosby said. “That save that Marc (-Andre Fleury) made with one second left, he’s done that a number of times in the series.”

Crosby was referring to Fleury’s desperation save on Lidstrom in the dying seconds that preserved the Penguins victory.

Meanwhile, for winning coach Dan Bylsma, a former draft pick of the  Winnipeg Jets, the victorty was almost hard to believe.

“Life’s a bugger,” Bylsma said during his post-game press conference. “I had dreams about this day. I hoped this would happen someday, but good coaches have coached a long time and never gotten an opportunity like this. A lot of times, your first opportunity doesn’t come with a team that’s this talented or this group of players. I’m very fortunate in that regard.”

While most hockey fans were pleased with the outcome of the Stanley Cup final, not many were happy with Judge Redfield T. Baum’s decision to block Jim Balsillie’s attempt to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move them to Hamilton.

In a 21-page document Baum wrote that the court didn’t feel there was enough time to resolve all the issues before the offer for purchase of the insolvent team to Balsillie (for a hefty $212.5 million) closed on June 29.

The question now is: Who IS going to pay for the disaster that is the Phoenix Coyotes. The league says it will find an owner. It also claims the reason for the financial demise of the Coyotes was rotten ownership and bad management, meaning NHL commissioner Gary Bettman believes owner Jerry Moyes is nothing more than a bank, Wayne Gretzky is a buffoon and Doug Moss is an idiot.

I wonder if Bettman has the stones to say that to their faces?

Regardless, Bettman loves to say he saved the Pittsburgh Penguins and can do the same with the Coyotes. Great! So is he going to demand that the Penguins give Sidney Crosby, Jordan Staal, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury to the Coyotes? Because if you understand anything about hockey — or North American sport, for that matter — the only way you can turn shit into Shinola is if you give a city a winner.

Pittsburgh, when it was in trouble, was able to draft some of the best players ever to play the game. Unless Phoenix can use that sixth pick this year to come up with the next Gretzky (player Gretzky, not coach Gretkzy), Bettman won’t be able to save anything. After all, the Coyotes already have a new arena.

Hockey is dead in Phoenix and Gary Bettman along with his hand-picked new owner won’t bring it back to life.

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If Red Wings Take the Series, Helm Could Be Conn Smythe Winner

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Thursday night in Pittsburgh, the Penguins sent a message to the Detroit Red Wings: “If you think you can lollygag around with a man advantage just because you’re the defending Stanley Cup champions, think again.”

The Red Wings had a 2-1 lead in Game 4 and the Pens had a man in the box, but a shorthanded goal by Pittsburgh tied the game and in a blink of an eye, the Pens had scored two more to win 4-2 and send the Stanley Cup final back to Detroit with the series tied 2-2.

Without a healthy Pavel Datsyuk, the Red Wings looked old and undermanned against the Pens on Thursday. The Wings really looked a man short. In fact, by the midway point of the second period, the Wings looked downright exhausted. Pittsburgh’s enthusiasm at home made a huge difference and the Pens made sure that the final remained a home-team series. 

So now we go back to Detroit and the Wings need some rest. In fact, these guys need 48 hours off before facing a rejuvenated Pens outfit again. Won’t quite get that, but they will need to sleep through the next optional workout.

Still, and to be absolutely fair, home teams have won every game in this series and there is no reason to believe that won’t continue to happen. As the adage goes: The team with home ice advantage is not in any trouble until it loses a game on home ice.

So for argument’s sake, let us assume, the Wings continue to win at home and eventually win the series 4-3. This team has had some tremendous players during the playoffs: goalie Chris Osgood is right at the top as is hard checking Henrik Zetterberg and steady (35-minutes-a-game) defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom.

But frankly, if one player continues to play as well as he has in the final, and continues to lead the Wings both as a checker and scorer, then Darren Helm of St. Andrews, Man., has a legitimate right to consider himself Conn Smythe worthy.

Thursday, he was consistently the best player the Red Wings had. He’s demonstrated that on more than one occasion this spring. He’s scored some big goals and he’s also done a wonderful job in the corners. He hits, he wins faceoffs and he backchecks as well as any player in the post-season.

I love the fact that when he gets hit, which he often does because of his aggressive style, he just gets up and plays. No slashing, no face-washes, no belligerent  words or gestures. No whining. He just plays.

Frankly, even if he’s not the Conn Smythe winner, he’s been the most refreshing young player in the entire post-season. And his style is the best thing thats happened to the game in decades.

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The Hockey World Gets Crazier Every Day

Posted on June 1, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

When it comes to the NHL, it’s hard to imagine that things could be crazier. From making up rules as they go along to their futile attempts to hide the coming financial disaster from the public, every NHL day is a wild and crazy day.

So without further adieu, let’s dig deeper into the mess that IS Gary Bettman’s National Hockey League:

1) It has been said by lawyers who are more attuned to the issue than me, that if Bettman loses his case against the re-location of the Phoenix Coyotes, then the dominoes will begin to fall.

In fact, Bettman speaks the truth when he says he really has nothing personal against Jim Balsillie, the man trying to move the Coyotes to Hamilton. Bettman’s real beef is with anybody who would force the league to move one of its shaky franchises (and believe me, there are many), thus allowing other franchises to do the same.

Case in point: The Columbus Blue Jackets.

We often use Nashville, Atlanta, Florida, Tampa and the Islanders as examples of teams that would love to re-locate if only the league would allow them to move. 

Friday, however, a major story on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch made it very clear that the Blue Jackets have serious financial problems.

Who knew? In fact, because the Jackets regularly announce crowds between 14,000 and 17,000 per night at Nationwide Arena, no one assumed that the team was drowning in red ink. In 2008-09, the Blue Jackets averaged 15,543 fans per game (think about this: it would be at least 500 more tickets sold per game than can actually be purchased to attend hockey games at Winnipeg’s MTS Centre). With tickets priced between $18 and $150 per game, not including suites or loge box seating, the team will lose more than $10 million on operations this year.

Blue Jackets president Mike Priest issued this written statement on the team’s website late last week: 

“The Columbus Blue Jackets are in the process of seeking a solution for a structural problem in the economic model that was created over a decade ago to ensure the construction of Nationwide Arena and the procurement of a NHL team for Columbus. This is an issue for us because we manage and operate the team as well as the building. Because the building was financed and constructed privately, there are certain revenue streams typically available to teams that are not available to the Blue Jackets.

“As an organization, we have incurred substantial losses over the past several years, of which a significant portion is related to arena operations under the current structure. It is a building financial problem that has become a team financial problem. If we fix the building problem, we fix the team problem.”

Sound familiar? That could have been Barry Shenkarow talking about the Winnipeg Jets relationship with Winnipeg Enterprises Corporation in 1982.

Over the last seven seasons, the Blue Jackets have lost upwards of $80 million. This year, despite reaching the playoffs, the Jackets lost more than $10 million.

If a team like the Blue Jackets is losing money, a team that makes the playoffs, draws well and is closer to the salary cap floor than the ceiling, I can’t imagine what the numbers are like in Atlanta, Nashville, Florida and Tampa. However, I do the Islanders have lost $283 million of Charles Wang’s money since 2001, so those losses would be significant.

No wonder teams are looking seriously at that court case in Phoenix.

2) It’s great to be a star in the NHL. Had Dan Cleary or Maxime Talbot received an instigator penalty with 19 seconds to play in a Stanley Cup final game, you can bet they’d be suspended for the next game.

But not Evgeni Malkin. The league found a slick rationalization for keeping Malkin in the lineup Tuesday night.

From the NHL’s own website: 

National Hockey League Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell issued the following statement regarding the instigator penalty assessed to Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin at 19:41 of the third period of tonight’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final:

Rule 47.22 states: “A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five minutes or at any time in overtime shall be suspended for one game, pending a review of the incident.  The director of hockey operations will review every such incident and may rescind the suspension based on a number of criteria. The criteria for the review shall include, but not be limited to, the score, previous incidents, etc…”  

Following that review, Campbell said: “None of the criteria in this rule applied in this situation. Suspensions are applied under this rule when a team attempts to send a message in the last five minutes by having a player instigate a fight.  A suspension could also be applied when a player seeks retribution for a prior incident.  Neither was the case here and therefore the one game suspension is rescinded.”

NHL Hockey Operations also determined that Malkin should have been assessed a game misconduct for not having his jersey tied down.

Whatever. It just pays to be a big name.

3) Sobering news for the Pittsburgh Penguins:

History tells us that the winner of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final, wins the Cup 78.6 per cent of the time. When it’s the home team that wins Game 1, as Detroit did on Saturday night, the winning percentage increases to 87.9 per cent. When the home team wins Games 1 and 2, it wins the Cup 94.9 per cent of the time.

We’re merely heading into Game 3 in Pittsburgh and even though the Penguins have yet to lose at home, they still need a miracle.

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Helm gets Red Wings to within Four Games of Back-to-Back Stanley Cup Crowns.

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Thanks to a kid from tiny St. Andrews, Man., the Detroit Red Wings have advanced to the Stanley Cup final to face the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second straight year.

Wednesday night in Detroit, the Wings ended the Cinderella playoff run of the young Chicago Blackhawks with a 2-1 overtime victory as Darren Helm was the hero. Helm scored the game winner at 3:58 of overtime as the Western Conference champs are now just four wins away from their second straight Stanley Cup. The final starts Saturday night in Detroit.

Amazingly, Helm became the first player in history to score his first five NHL goals in the playoffs. He still hasn’t scored a regular-season goal. He breaks the record of another Manitoban, Winnipegger Eddie (Spider) Mazur who scored his first four NHL goals in the playoffs with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s.

Here’s our look at the upcoming Stanley Cup final:

Western Conference champion Detroit Red Wings (No. 2 seed in the West) vs. Eastern Conference champion Pittsburgh Penguins (No. 4 seed in the East):

The Red Wings are clearly the favourites, and for good reason. They just won the Western Conference title without Hart Trophy (MVP) finalist Pavel Datsyuk and Norris Trophy finalist (Top Defenceman) Nicklas Lidstrom is the lineup for the final two games of the Western Conference final.

However, when the Wings beat the Penguins in five games in last year’s final, the Pens’ top scorer Evgeni Malkin was injured and now, with a healthy Malkin, the Pens disposed of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern final in four straight games. Meanwhile, Malkin was not only the leading scorer in the regular season this year, but is currently tied with teammate Sidney Crosby for the scoring lead in the playoffs.

But here is why I like the Wings to repeat: Youth, experience and speed. Granted, with the addition of Bill Guerin, the Penguins have those elements, but Detroit just might have one of the great teams in NHL history. Almost every member of the Wings already has a Stanley Cup ring with two exceptions: off-season acquisitions Marian Hossa and Ty Conklin, who both played in Pittsburgh last year. I also like Detroit’s goaltending. Chris Osgood will outplay Marc-Andre Fleury when it counts.

The Wings and Pens split the season series 1-1. Detroit won 3-0 in Pittsburgh on NBC, on Feb. 8 while Pittsburgh won 7-6 in overtime way back on Nov. 11 in Detroit as Jordan Staal had a hat-trick. No team has repeated as Stanley Cup champions since, you guessed it, the Red Wings in 1997 and 1998. And that’s why I like the Red Wings in six games.

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Old coaches, young superstars and the best goalie in the playoffs.

Posted on May 26, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

As we get set to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins eliminate the Carolina Hurricanes in four straight games (barring a miracle), in tonight’s Eastern Conference final there was a boatload of hockey news today.

There was also just some stuff.

Onward:

1) Pat Quinn was hired as head coach by the Edmonton Oilers today. He’s 66. Personally, I like Pat Quinn, a lot. He’s a fine man, who did a wonderful job with Team Canada in Salt Lake City in 2002 and with our national junior team. I had a lot of respect for him when he was head coach of the Leafs and I must admit, he’s always been very respectful to me.

The question has to be in this case: Can a 66-year-old coach find happiness with a young team in Edmonton? Especially after the Calgary Flames just dumped 59-year-old Mike Keenan, another old coach, who gets recycled more than old truck tires. 

There is a difference, however. Keenan is a guy who likes “his guys.” He likes veteran players he knows and can trust. And that’s fine. Trouble is, “his guys” don’t win anymore. Quinn, however, during his time with the national junior team, proved to everyone he can teach young players how to play the game.

And that’s exactly what the Oilers need.

Age has nothing to do with anything. It’s attitude and approach that matters. Quinn might be 66, but he has already demonstrated that he respects young, enthusiastic hockey players and can take those types of players and show them how to win.

Full disclosure: I like Pat Quinn as a person. And I also believe he will be a great head coach in Edmonton.

2) Tonight, we get to watch the likes of Sidney Crosby, Eric Staal, Evgeni Malkin and Cam Ward play an extremely important NHL playoff game.

If the Penguins win, the young stars from Pittsburgh will zoom into the Stanley Cup final for a second straight year (frankly, no matter what the Hurricanes do, Pittsburgh’s offence should put a quick nail in Carolina’s coffin).

What is most interesting, however, is that whenever the media looks for a storyline involving the Pens, it’s always Sidney Crosby vs. (insert name here). Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin. Sidney Crosby vs. Jarome Iginla. Sidney Crosby vs. oh, I don’t know, Johan Franzen?

Unfortunately, the mainstream hockey media loves a story no matter how silly it is. If anyone is looking for a consistent storyline, it should be this one: Evgeni Malkin vs. the hockey world.

This spring, Ovechkin will likely be awarded the Hart Trophy as the regular season MVP and so far in the playoffs, Crosby has the inside track to the Conn Smythe Trophy. 

Meanwhile, all Malkin has done is win the league scoring championship and lead all scorers in the playoffs (12 goals and 16 assists). 

There was a day before all these mouth-breathing TV bingo callers became uber-experts, a day when scoring goals and dishing out assists was an important part of the game. And today, nobody does that better than Evgeni Malkin.

I guess he’s no Sidney Crosby (he certainly doesn’t have the same group of publicists), but he could be the Rodney Dangerfield of the NHL.

3) Of course, if Malkin isn’t hockey’s answer to Rodney D., it’s Detroit Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood.

Ozzie is close to winning his third Stanley Cup as a starter (he was also on a winner as the No. 2 to Mike Vernon). He’s also been to the finals one other time, been a Vezina Trophy runner-up and won the Jennings Trophy twice. He was the second goalie ever to score a goal (following Ron Hextall), was the No. 1 goalie (statistically) in the NHL in the 1995-96 season, is 10th in the NHL in career wins and the winningest goaltender in Red Wings history. He’s been an all-star, won Stanley Cups in two decades and is on the verge of going back-to-back.

And yet, you ask anybody in the mainstream media and he/she will tell you: “Detroit’s only problem is goaltending.”

Hogwash.

I can’t tell you how sick I am of hearing our TV experts talk of Tim Thomas this or Roberto Luongo that or Cam Ward… whatever. The best goalie in the playoffs last year was Chris Osgood and clearly the best goalie this year is Chris Osgood.

At 37, he’s never been better. Right now he leads the playoffs in wins with 11, is second in goals against average at 2.14 and fourth in save percentage at .921. He’s 11-4 in the post-season, has an assist and a shutout.

He’s often hung out to dry by his always-attacking teammates and yet he’s made some magnificent saves in this year’s post-season. He’s been tremendous.

At this stage, I don’t want to argue with the experts who believe Crosby is a shoo-in to take the Conn Smythe. But there is still a lot of hockey left.

And right now, the best goalie in the playoffs has not been Jonas Hiller, Cam Ward or Tim Thomas. It’s been Chris Osgood.

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On to the Conference finals: We like Wings and Pens — Again — in the Stanley Cup final

Posted on May 16, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

For those of us trying to make money in the wonderful world of Sport Select, the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs have been a pretty decent source of revenue. 

Granted, after two rounds, the two top seeds — the Boston Bruins in the East and the San Jose harks in the West — are gone, but for the most part, the teams we have selected to reach the Conference Finals, have indeed reached the Conference finals.

Pittsburgh, with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin will face Carolina with Eric Staal (our darkhorse pick as a Stanley Cup finalist) in the Eastern final, while the “Winnipeg” teams, Chicago with captain Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Cam Barker against Detroit, with Darren Helm and Derek Meech, are in the Western final.

That’s obviously the way it should be.

For the record, here at rcsportsblog.com (you can follow us on twitter), we went 7-1 in the first round and 3-1 in Round 2. The only outcome we did not select correctly in Round 1 was, of course, Anaheim’s upset of Jonathan Cheechoo’s San Jose Sharks and our only incorrect choice in Round 2 was Carolina’s Game 7 upset of the No. 1-ranked Boston Bruins.

Interestingly, we also said that the two most interesting — and exciting — series would be Chicago-Vancouver and Pittsburgh-Washington. They were.

So on with the Show. Here’s our look at the third round, the conference finals, of the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs.

ROUND THREE

EASTERN CONFERENCE

No. 4 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. No. 6 Carolina Hurricanes

The Pens won the season series 2-1-1 and were not only in last year’s Stanley Cup final, but have five players with Stanley Cup rings. They obviously have enough experience to handle this series against a team that won the Cup in 2006 and still have 10 players from that team. The Pens have the stars in Crosby, Malkin, Gonchar and Jordan Staal, but Carolina has so much grit and character, that it’s impossible to count them out. It also doesn’t hurt that when it looked like this team was out of it back in February, goalie Cam Ward went 14-4-2 over the final 20 games. Ward won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2006 and will have to be that good again against all the Pittsburgh firepower. We like the Penguins in five.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

No. 2 Detroit Red Wings vs. No. 4 Chicago Blackhawks

The Red Wings are the defending Stanley Cup champions and they’re certainly good enough to win it again. In fact, the Red Wings have the best team in the National Hockey League. They roll four strong lines, have a Norris Trophy defenceman in Nick Lidstrom and an MVP-calibre forward in Pavel Datsyuk, they are well-coached and have better goaltending (Chris Osgood) than the Eastern media will ever give credit. The Wings won the season series against the upstart Hawks, but when asked about this matchup, I always see that January 1, outdoor game at Wrigley Field, the one in which the Hawks rode the home crowd to an early lead and then collapsed under the weight of the Wings speed and talent. The most important thing the Hawks have going for them is youth and enthusiasm and, hey, that might carry them, but we like Detroit in six.

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