Tag Archives: steven stamkos

An Invitation to Jets Fans

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

My 28-year-old daughter, Betsy, who lives in Orlando, posted this on her Facebook page early Friday evening:

“So Winnipeggers, tickets to the Jets vs. Lightning game in Tampa start at $4.95. Who’s coming with me, Oct, 29th???!!!”

Actually, since Betsy posted her invitation, cheaper seats have appeared on Stub Hub. As of Saturday morning, there was a pair available to the Jets-Lightning game for $4 each. Another pair for $4.50 each. There was even an instant download for a group of eight for $7 each. In other words, you’d have eight tickets downloaded in your hands for $56. That’s nuts.

Here are some of the ladies who have committed:

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Magic fans off to see the Jets.

Just as an aside, I’d go anywhere with them and in this case, I’ve even been given permission.

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Betsy and Becky getting ready to watch the Jets -- for, like, free.

Later in the evening, Betsy added this to her post: “I’ll be buying tickets on Sunday. So I’ll buy as many as we need, I’ll probably go a little more expensive and closer to the action….. Might be $9 lol.”

LOL is right. If you bought a scalper’s ticket to the Jets opener in Winnipeg last Sunday, you probably paid considerably more than it would cost to buy a plane ticket to Orlando, spend a few days at Disney World, rent a car, drive the hour to the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, watch the Jets there for $4 and then fly home.

In fact, on Thursday, Oct. 20, the Lightning play the New York Islanders in Tampa. Tickets on Stub Hub start at $3 lol. Think about that. You can watch two of the greatest young players in the game — John Tavares and Steven Stamkos — play against each other for $3. What? Is it 1970?

The NHL can say what it likes about the Sun Belt experiment, but Stub Hub doesn’t lie. People in the southern markets don’t care about hockey and when you can get a regular season ticket on the secondary market for $4.95 (and it doesn’t matter who the opponent is), it’s time to start moving these teams to Halifax, Quebec City, Kitchener, Regina and even the Kootenays. Or hell, even Kansas City where they have a great new rink, or Omaha where they have a solid college team a good junior club.

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Betsy and her RCS Jets hoodie.

If you’re in a position to watch a great team like the Tampa Bay Lightning — Stamkos, Vincent Lecavalier, Marty St. Louis, Victor Hedman — for $4.95, then you live in a city that hates hockey, will never like hockey and won’t miss it when it’s gone. Because if you don’t like this Tampa Bay Lightning team right now, you obviously hate the game.

Meanwhile, Betsy will look great at the game in her Winnipeg Jets hoodie, purchased right here in Winnipeg from our friends at River City Sports.

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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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The Playoffs Are Coming. It’s Manitoba’s Best Year Ever.

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

This was a big week around the National Hockey League.

Jonathan Toews and the Chicago Blackhawks clinched a playoff berth, Travis Zajac continued to have the best year of his career as he leads the New Jersey Devils into the post-season and Barry Trotz, the head coach of the Nashville Predators, keeps the Preds winning even though they don’t have enough personnel or enough star personnel to be as good as they are.

Some notes from a week in the hockey trenches observing the brilliance of the Manitoba kids in the NHL…

1) This is as good a time as any to praise the Finnish Flash, Teemu Selanne. Last Sunday night, Selanne scored his 600th career goal to become only the 18th player in history to reach the 600-goal plateau.

Congratulations to a great guy, a guy who scored his first 147 with the Winnipeg Jets.

2) When he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg-born Alexander Steen appeared to be spinning his wheels, going nowhere fast. Now, as a member of the St. Louis, Steen is having a career year.

Through 60 games, Steen has 21 goals and 21 assists and is a plus-five on a minus team. He’s the Blues third leading scorer and is tied for the team lead in goals even though he’s played 10 and 11 fewer games than the two players ahead of him.

After struggling in Toronto and often being a healthy scratch, he has become a big time offensive player in St. Louis. At 26, he is developing into one of the two or three best players on the Blues.

3) If there was one player who could have played on Canada’s Olympic team and didn’t, it was Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos. Now, as the season winds down and Tampa misses the playoffs, Stamkos, who was a great friend of 92-CITI-FM and the old Cosmo Show, has a chance to show how good he really is.

Heading into the weekend, Stamkos was tied with Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin for the NHL goal-scoring lead with 45. Could Steven Stamkos win the Rocket Richard Trophy? You bet he could.

4) The Calgary Flames, and the red-hot Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg, have an uphill battle to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, but we will know by this coming Sunday whether the Flames have what it takes to reach the post-season.

The Flames started a five-games-in-seven-days stretch with a 4-3 loss at Minnesota on Sunday. They beat the Anaheim Ducks in Calgary on Tuesday night, but lost a big game to the Islanders, 3-2, on Thursday night. They play at Boston on Saturday and at Washington on Sunday and if they don’t win both of them, they’ll be pretty much done.

5) Manitoba’s top young players have had rock solid seasons in 2009-2010.

Winnipeg-born Duncan Keith, a Chicago Blackhawks defenseman, has 13 goals and 52 assists for 65 points, 31st overall in the NHL and second among defensemen. He’s also a plus-18.

New Jersey rightwinger/centre Travis Zajac has 23 goals and 38 assists for 61 points, 34th in scoring in the NHL. He’s also a plus-16.

Winnipeg-born Patrick Sharp (plus-22) of the Blackhawks has 22 goals and 39 assists and is also 34th in NHL scoring.

Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews, the captain of the Blackhawks, has 22 goals and 37 assists for 59 points and is a plus-20. He’s 43rd in scoring.

Winkler’s Dustin Penner has 27 goals and 28 assists and is a plus-5 on a very minus Edmonton Oilers team.

Meanwhile, Alexander Steen of Winnipeg and Eric Fehr of Winkler each have 21 goals while Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg has 13.

This might be Manitoba’s best year ever in the NHL.

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It’s Run-To-The-Playoffs Time in the NHL.

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

ST. PAUL, Minn. – As the Calgary Flames whipped the Minnesota Wild 5-2 on Sunday afternoon, the NHL started its run to the playoffs.

Most NHL teams now have 16-18 games left this season. We’re solidly past the three-quarter-pole and there are just five weeks left in this rather odd season.

After a 14-day break for the Olympics, the NHL is loading up on games and there will be some tired superstars once the playoffs roll around. Until then, let’s take a quick look around The League.

1) Monday night (actually Tuesday morning at 12:10 a.m.), I’m Eric Nelson’s guest on the Eric Nelson Show on 8-3-0 WCCO radio in Minneapolis and we taped the segment on Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center.

Eric asked me to set the NHL’s final four. I told him, Chicago and San Jose in the West and Pittsburgh and Washington in the East. He then asked, “Which teams are the darkhorses?” I told him that question was more fun.

In the West, Detroit is finally healthy and they could be scary when it counts if Jimmy Howard can get the job done in goal. I like Vancouver, too, if Roberto Luongo doesn’t choke like a dog as he did last year.

In the East, I like Buffalo and New Jersey because they both have great goaltenders (Ryan Miller and Martin Brodeur). As Brian Burke always said, “We call it the Stanley Cup playoffs because we can’t call it goalie.” He may not have been right about Ian White, Alexei Ponikarovsky or Matt Stajan, but he’s right about that.

2) There was a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s when a Canadian player in the NHL’s Top 10 in scoring was a rarity. A decade ago, the stats were dominated by Europeans.

However, while Euros such as Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin are at the top of the NHL’s scoring stats today, there are now five Canadians and one American in the Top 10. What is even more interesting is that Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby took over the goal-scoring lead on Saturday with his 43rd and 44th and young Steven Stamkos scored his 40th of the year on Saturday. Youth is also being served.

Maybe that Canada-U.S. Olympic final will be a trend, not a fluke.

3) Metis star Rene Bourque hadn’t scored a goal in 15 games until Calgary Flames head coach Brent Sutter put him on a line with Jarome Iginla and Matt Stajan. You’d think it was the return of the Hot Line.

Sunday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., the Bourque-Stajan-Iginla line combined for 10 points as the Flames drilled the Wild 5-2. Iginla had three goals and an assist, Stajan had two assists and Bourque, suddenly playing the best hockey in more than a month, had a goal and three assists.

The Flames have been struggling, but since Sutter created this line, Calgary has won two straight solidified their hold on ninth and are now only one point out of eighth and two points out of seventh.

At this stage of the season, a simple move like a line change can positively alter a team’s fortune. Sutter’s decision to create the Bourque-Stajan-Iginla line might have been the move that gets Calgary into the playoffs.

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Nobody in Tampa, Nobody in Jacksonville and Jason Whitlock Gets it Right Again

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

TAMPA, Fla. — Sitting in the press box at the St. Pete Times Forum wondering where the hockey fans went…

I remember coming to Lightning games and seeing at least 15,000 people inside this beautiful building in downtown Tampa, cheering and screaming and urging on their hockey heroes.

But not anymore.

Tonight, the Lightning will probably announce a crowd of 13,000 or 14,000, but the reality is, this building is not half full. And the truly sad part is that Alexander Ovechkin and a very good Washington Capitals team is playing a Lightning club that struggles on defence but has every weapon on offence — Marty St. Louis, Vinny Lecavalier, Steven Stamkos and Ryan Malone. If you live in Tampa and you don’t like this Lightning team, you just don’t like hockey.

Of course, it could all just be part of a recession that few people want to admit is seriously affecting professional sports. I was in Jacksonville yesterday as the Jaguars took another step toward an AFC wild card berth with a 23-18 win over Houston, but fewer than 43,000 people were in the  stands. It was the smallest crowd in Jaguars history.

Fact is, if you want to buy tickets to any sporting event in America these days, there are “plenty of good seats available.” My wife just bought a $50 ticket to the Pro Bowl from Ticketmaster. Nobody thought there would be Pro Bowl tickets available if the NFL moved the game from Honolulu to South Florida, but nobody thought the recession would kick the crap out of ticket sales the way it has.

Tonight, here in Tampa, Ovechkin is wheeling all over the rink while Lecavalier had had three great scoring chances in the first period. It’s a good hockey game. But if there are 6,000 people in this building, I’ll eat the seats.

(NOTE: Just watched Ovechkin score his 19th goal of the season on a one-timer after taking a great pass from Alexander Semin. Ovie is worth the price of admission and I can assure you that here in Tampa, the price of admission ain’t much.)

NOTE: There is only one mainstream media reporter who truly understands the Tiger Woods scandal. Read Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star at: http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/1613268.html?storylink=omni_popular.

After reading his column, the rest of the issue is moot.

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Was the hype unfair for Stamkos?

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Saturday night in Tampa, I had the opportunity to get my first glimpse of No. 1 draft pick Steven Stamkos live in the flesh in an NHL uniform.

 

Must admit, I didn’t see much. Stamkos was virtually invisible in Tampa’s 4-3 overtime loss to Carolina – a game in which the Lightning blew a 3-0 lead — a game they dominated for the first two periods (Barry Melrose has a lot of work to do there).

 

I must admit, I saw Stamkos a couple of times in junior last winter when I worked as the host for Shaw’s coverage of Soo Greyhounds hockey, and the kid was good, but never great. He had a lot of trouble with that big tough Greyhounds’ defence last year and I wondered if he’d be able to take the pounding a forward gets every single night in the NHL. Especially against teams like Carolina, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

 

As an NHLer, Stamkos doesn’t have a point yet and he’s a minus-one. I worry about whether this guy really has what it takes to live up to the hype.

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Stamkos goes No. 1. Will he be the answer in Tampa?

Posted on June 21, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

I like Steven Stamkos. He’s an extremely fine young man. I met him last winter when I did the Scott Oake/Elliotte Friedman between-periods thing for Shaw TV’s Soo Greyhounds Hockey telecasts  in Sault Ste., Marie Ontario.

 

Stamkos and the Sarnia Sting were playing the Greyhounds back on February 16 and while Stamkos did pick up an assist in a 6-3 loss to the Soo, he was minus-2 and for 55 minutes that big Soo defence turned him into the Invisible Man. Honestly, you could not find him on the ice with a GPS.

 

Two weeks earlier, we did a Soo-Guelph Storm game from the Steelback Centre and the most impressive hockey player I saw all winter (wearing a uniform other than Sault Ste. Marie’s) was Storm defenceman  Drew Doughty. Doughty was big, at 6-foot-1, 215-pounds, strong on his skates and he moved the puck quickly. He was smart and demonstrated leadership abilities that belied his age. Friday night, he led the Storm to a 4-3 win.

 

During the winter, I had the pleasure of interviewing both young men and they were both impressive. Smart, confident, they carried themselves like professional adults, not like cocky kids. All of the people working the broadcast on those nights thought they’d be great young pros.

 

I bring this up because this past Friday night, Stamkos was chosen No. 1 overall by Tampa in the NHL draft while Doughty went No. 2. to Los Angeles.

 

Stamkos, a guy I watched disappear in front of a hard-ass crowd, in a very tough building after a long bus trip against a big, intimidating defence, has been sold as the saviour of the last-place Tampa Bay Lightning, even though he’s going to be a second line centre behind the great Vincent Lecavalier.  

 

Doughty, on the other hand, is considered a tremendous prospect by the Los Angeles Kings, a bad team that is trying to rebuild from the ground up. He’s not considered a saviour, but a kid who can help the process in a market that has not been successful for many years. In fact, when the Kings traded to get the 13th pick and selected Colton Teubert, another defenceman, from the Regina Pats, TSN’s Pierre McGuire gushed: “This is such a good pick. Put that pick with Drew Doughty on defence and you’ve really got something in Los Angeles. He’s physical and he loves to get after people. The Kings are building the smart way — strength on the back end, just like Detroit.”

 

Pierre McGuire is dead right. A lot of people might not like McGuire’s style on television, but he knows the game and the things he says are almost always correct and insightful. 

 

In the first round of the draft, L.A. was a real winner. Both Doughty and Teubert will help make the Kings a better team. They won’t save the franchise but they’ll make the Kings a better team and that’s what the draft was meant to accomplish Frankly, the same goes for Stamkos.

 

Steven Stamkos is a terrific young man who will help the Tampa Bay Lightning improve, but unless Mike Smith turns out to be the goaltender they need — the goaltender that warranted sending Brad Richards to Dallas (and believe me Steven Stamkos is NOT as good as Brad Richards, at least not yet) — the Tampa Bay Lightning will be back at next year’s draft picking first again.

 

NOTE: We’ll analyze the entire 2008 draft tomorrow. 

 

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