- 07:14 AM
- 11/22/09
I meant "last-place team" only as a figure of speech, knowing that they're not literally last-place. But third-last in the West and twenty points out of a playoff spot is closer to "last place" than not. I'd love to see the Jackets make the playoffs. Their fans deserve it, for sure. Doug MacLean clearly doesn't share this thought, though. Pretty much every move he's ever made has been brutal. The Carter signing might end up being a good move, and I can't wait to see Brule, but it'll be hard to leapfrog over the congestion in the middle of the Western Conference standings. If they bring Zherdev back (or get something of value for him) or find a way to unload Fedorov or Foote I could see the team's fortunes changing.
posted by Succa at 02:53 PM on September 15
Most of the reports say that Zherdev wants more years than Columbus is willing to offer. Sort of amazing that he would give up a season for that. It's almost like he's undervaluing his own services. I mean, what if Zherdev exceeds expectations with the Jackets, and he's locked himself for five years in at too low a rate relative to his performance? He's clearly not worried about this possibility. Carter on the other hand has always been about the money. Can he honestly claim to be thrilled about playing for a last-place club? This is his seventh NHL team, and he's only 32 years old. He's officially a rental player. It's awfully frustrating to watch a guy with his talent floating from team to team every off-season in search of the best deal, and signing one-year contracts with last-place teams to boost his stats for next year's negotiations.
posted by Succa at 12:58 PM on September 15
The Macho Man (real name Randy Poffo) was a catcher for the Cincinnati Reds, I believe.
posted by Succa at 12:18 PM on May 25
One win ain't nothin'. If the Sens can dominate Game 5 and win big, we have a series on our hands. But the 2-1 nailbiters won't cut it for Ottawa at this point. If every game is as close as last night's, they're bound to lose one more. Fortunately, the real Senators -- the team that scored 312 goals this season -- have yet to show up in this series. Here's hoping they arrive Saturday night, in time for the game.
posted by Succa at 08:00 AM on May 12
Jagrjagrjagrjagrjagrajagrjagrjagrjagrjagr!
posted by Succa at 06:43 AM on May 05
So... has anyone else given more than twenty minutes of thought towards trying to create the program described in Ms. Summers' thesis? Anyone? Please?
posted by Succa at 05:18 PM on April 19
My point was merely that goals are a better indicator than assists because assists are more susceptible to being gratuitously tacked-on. You can have an unassisted goal but you can't have an un-goaled assist. And so on. That's why I give the nod to goals in the rookie race. It's not that assists aren't important. They are merely less important on the whole.
posted by Succa at 10:56 AM on April 18
I give it to Ovechkin, because goals are more important than assists. Assists are too freely given out, I think. It's easy to imagine lots of scenarios where a player who doesn't contribute anything to a particular goal ends up with an assist next to his name. Harder to imagine the goalscorer having little to do with the play. In AO's case, he frequently does all the goalscoring work himself. Being an Eastern Bastard, I haven't seen nearly enough of Phaneuf to make much of an evaluation. The little I have seen was damned impressive. Same goes for Svatos.
posted by Succa at 07:29 AM on April 18
I may require surgery to correct the damage inflicted by the Bill Walton one.
posted by Succa at 04:10 PM on April 05
Is Chara's hand broken? I thought it was just "swollen". I'm not sure, but Ottawa has never been particularly, shall we say... honest, vis-a-vis player injuries. McGrattan definitely wins in the style category, for the way he casually chucks his gloves and stick halfway across the rink before every fight. Sticking the tongue out like MJ doesn't hurt either.
posted by Succa at 10:41 AM on April 05
The McGrattan vs Fedoruk scrap sure was a beauty. Boogaard is a monster. Jeez. I hadn't seen much of him this year, but this clip says it all... ouch. No mention of Chara? Surely a guy who breaks his own hand on another guy's melon more than once in his career deserves some kind of kudos...
posted by Succa at 10:27 AM on April 05
We'd need to get together for sure. Could very well happen. Where do you go to catch the games in this town? I took a friend to the Peel Pub for the Habs/Leafs game last weekend... and I confess that it was awesome. Great crowd, total debauchery, bad food, ugly women, and drunkenness. But I'm never going again. Unless the Habs play the Sens in the playoffs.
posted by Succa at 09:06 PM on April 04
I can't believe I'm the first to say LEAFFILTER! Oh, and nice column Weedy. I must say that I regret leaving Southern Ontario at the least opportune time, from a mockery perspective... when the Sens are on top and the Leafs are on the outside looking in. Calling all those 416, 905, and 519 area codes after the Sens take the Cup just isn't gonna be the same. So, Leaf fans... if you could rid yourself of one employee of MLSE, who would it be? I would choose Ferguson, myself. Ol' JFJ has been less than impressive in his tenure, I say. I mean, does Pat Quinn really need someone else to sign aging ex-stars for him? Where's the youth? Where's the hope for the future? Why doesn't JFJ say "I'm blowing this sucker up and rebuilding" and be done with it?
posted by Succa at 09:00 PM on April 04
Where is Succa, anyway? Haven't seen him around for a while. I'm here! Sporadically, but here! Grum sucks! My Sens are looking good. The injuries are a concern, yes, but they're all expected to be back for the playoffs, plus a bonus Havlat. There doesn't seem to be any one first-round matchup I'd favour over the others. NJ just isn't the same NJ. Tampa looks about as intimidating as a sack of orange peel. But now that I live in Montreal, a Sens-Habs battle might be fun... Looking at the standings right now, I can't see much changing, but since there's bound to be one surprise finisher I'm gonna say San Jose will make it at the expense of the Oil. Two games in hand, and their schedule isn't too bad. In any case, the Western matchups are a lot more intriguing. I'll give the Stars some props. Shootout wins aren't real wins though, everybody knows that. ;-)
posted by Succa at 03:00 PM on March 31
For clarity, let's say this is what happened on the Nash non-goal -- Gerber gloves the puck outside the plane of the goal, but then his catcher swings back inside it. What's the ruling on that? If they can prove the glove (and thus the puck) crossed the line all the way, it's a goal. For example, Lemieux had a goal on Hasek in the last Olympics where Hasek fell back into the net after making the save with his chest.
posted by Succa at 02:00 PM on February 18
For a goal to be a goal, you have to be able to prove it's over the line. It's not enough to say "it's not not over the line, so it's a goal." I thought both calls were the right ones. There's not much to say about this. Canada bit it hard, and all we can hope is that it pisses them off enough to start playing like they can. Though, it's hard to ignore that they outshot the Swiss 24-1 in the third period. Not panicking yet, though Finland is looking pretty good so far....
posted by Succa at 01:45 PM on February 18
I'm surprised Dryden isn't higher, though I guess the postseason doesn't matter in the Calder race. He won the Cup despite playing a grand total of six NHL games prior to that postseason! Yeah, he was on a great team, but that is remarkable. His whole career had probably the highest achievement-to-years-played ratio of any athlete you can name. Six Cups in eight seasons, then he quit. Careers don't get much better than that.
posted by Succa at 03:30 PM on February 06
Dirty player. Will always say that. Can't convince me otherwise. Dirty, dirty, dirty. But, a good player too. I don't think of him as HOF-worthy but certainly a big contributor to NJs Cups. Is it just me or does it seem like number-retirings have gone up tenfold in the last few years? I have no data to back this up... just a feeling.
posted by Succa at 03:18 PM on February 03
They gave up three picks (incl. a first-rounder) and three players to get him. I'd say that's a lot for a rental player, even if none of the individual pieces amount to much. The Canes are looking good. The East will be a war this year.
posted by Succa at 02:16 PM on January 30
Happy to hear Milbury's out. Worst GM EVER. You could fill out an entire All-Star team roster with the players he's cast aside. Now if only Yashin would agree to a contract, er, "restructuring", this team might have a chance in the next twenty years.
posted by Succa at 12:52 PM on January 12
"I didn't really know what was going on until the guy came on," a grinning Theodore said later. "He came at me with his head down so I just wanted to say `Welcome to the big boys.' "I poke-checked him to say `You have to keep your head up.' When he came back, I though about going out of the net and not playing into his game, but then I thought he had the (courage) to go on the ice, so I let him have a free shot at me. "He couldn't beat me. That's the main thing." While waiting for the police to arrive, Raphael told reporters that while Theodore is a "great goalie," he didn't score because "I didn't have time." Gotta love it.
posted by Succa at 09:28 AM on January 10
I'm a little surprised they didn't choose McCabe, but they're not exactly hurting for scoring power either. Also surprised Regehr and Foote were considered guaranteed choices while McCabe wasn't. All this talk of Crosby on the team is ridiculous. The only reason he'd be on this team is for marketing purposes. They have enough established playmakers and he doesn't really bring anything that isn't already available in spades. Great player, but he's not there yet. Spezza, too, though it's a little harder to overlook one of the league's leading scorers than it is an 18-year-old rookie. Staal, I'm not sure about. Either way, there are bound to be injuries, so we'll see McCabe, Spezza, or Staal play at some point. Where's the love for CuJo? Maybe Wayne didn't want to be accused of Coyote nepotism. And Toronto bashing is never passé, Weedy!
posted by Succa at 09:12 AM on December 23
Drop the puck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like Ottawa (obvs.), Boston, and Atlanta in the East...SJ, Nashville, Calgary in the West. This year predictions mean nothing. Nobody has any idea what's going to happen, and I like it that way. Hopefully the obstruction crackdown sticks in some form. I liked what I saw in the preseason (minus all the penalties). When I hear that Hockey Night In Canada music, my blood's gonna start pumping....until I realize, as always, that they're showing a Leafs game. Then, drinking. Yay hockey!
posted by Succa at 10:18 AM on October 05
We're bound to see some players out of a job, that's for sure. Count on this being Chelios' last season. Still, I think a lot of obstruction is just positioning. It's great to see them cracking down on hooking and other stick infractions, but I'm not convinced this will lead to significantly better hockey. Teams will still trap, and speedsters will still have to earn their open ice. There's only so much the league can do in this regard. Defensive hockey will only disappear when playing defensively is no longer the best way to win, and I'm not so sure the new rules are going to change that. But as everyone says...we'll see. And, hurry up and drop the puck! October 5th can't get here soon enough.
posted by Succa at 05:14 PM on September 09
I do not think Heatley is better than Hossa. And you can't tell me Hossa was a playoff disappearer this past season -- he was one of the few guys who wasn't. That said, I like this trade, because it will allow Ottawa to keep Chara and Redden next year. That's the only reason I like it. Heatley is an exciting player to have but in my opinion he is not as talented as Hossa, nor will he be as productive. He may be more marketable. We will have to see. But this was a salary cap deal without question.
posted by Succa at 09:05 AM on August 30
With the spending that's going on, it should be obvious to everyone that the owner's crying poor over the CBA was nothing more than propaganda. Brian Rafalski signs for 4.2 mill a year? There's a reason your team can't make any money, Lou, and it ain't the CBA... I think there's nothing wrong with sitting tight while the free-agent frenzy explodes all around you. There will be plenty available at the trade deadline I bet, and the teams with lots of cap space will be able to load up just as easily. Nobody knows what the new rules will bring, and nobody knows how valuable a 30-year-old is anymore. Watching Forsberg go to Philly is painful to watch, but they've also lost Recchi, Leclair, Amonte, and Roenick.....
posted by Succa at 03:51 PM on August 04
Berard is a Blue Jacket. Our friend Eklund is reporting some further madness. If you care to visit his site, I'll let you see for yourselves... Well, can't say they're not at least trying to make it interesting. I believe the term "free agent frenzy" was right on the money, no pun intended.
posted by Succa at 03:35 PM on August 03
I don't think Ottawa needs much. A decent two-way C or LW and I think they're good, though I wouldn't mind that Proverbial Power Forward they've needed for years. Though for whatever reason they chose not to qualify Prusek which I think is a mistake. If Hasek's groin injury flares up, do you really want Crazy Ray Emery as your starting tender?
posted by Succa at 12:10 PM on August 03
LeafFilter AGAIN? :-) All the Eastern Canadian teams have been quiet lately....I see the Habs just re-signed Kovalev, and there are strong rumours (not just from Eklund) that Ottawa is signing Martin Lapointe (hopefully for a drastic pay reduction). Alberta is definitely the place to be right now. And furthermore...where are the Wings, Sharks, Devils, and Avs? And how come no goaltenders are moving?
posted by Succa at 11:12 AM on August 03
That's cold, Grum...so, so cold. Anyway, how huge is Pronger to the Oil! Pretty good pickup if you ask me. Brewer has long been overrated in my book. I think Calgary had the best day yesterday, though. Amonte and McCarty for practically nothing. And it looks like they've just re-signed Iggy. Things are looking up in Alberta these days. Still waiting for the other Canadian teams to make a splash...
posted by Succa at 10:32 AM on August 03
Speaking of fantasy sports...when does the Yahoo! league open? I've been saving a Grum-whoopin' for two years here!
posted by Succa at 12:41 PM on August 02
A front-page post about Alexei Ponikarovsky? Geez. LeafFilter! Looks like Columbus just sign ol' Adam Foote for a simply ridiculous amount of money (4.5 mil/year). It's getting interesting! I'm amazed he signed for that much, really. I was expecting this to be the year of the $3M contract for big free agents. Maybe the PA didn't lose after all. Okay, yeah they did.
posted by Succa at 07:07 AM on August 02
When it got down to the final 3, I got worried. Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Carolina? Hardly what we expected from such a lightly weighted draft. At least we know it wasn't rigged. Crosby in Pittsburgh is probably the best of those three. Restoring that franchise to credibility would help the league immensely, I think. I just hope they don't move first.
posted by Succa at 03:58 PM on July 22
All this will change is the score. Goals don't make the game exciting. Scoring chances do. They should focus on real changes rather than cosmetic ones.
posted by Succa at 10:39 PM on April 03
This is really fucking bad. We're all watching our favourite league die in front of our eyes.
posted by Succa at 03:56 PM on March 24
I can vouch for the smalltime-ness of the NHLFA. I talked to one of them on the phone once. Just a couple of high-tech workers who like hockey (esp. Ottawa), but don't have much sway. This offer won't happen, no matter what, by the way. Even if they double their offer. You would have to offer serious incentives beyond $115M per team in order to get Cablevision, MSLE, etc., to sell. Double the offer and then try it.
posted by Succa at 09:11 PM on March 05
It's Gretzky's fault he got traded? I think your vitriol is better aimed at one Bruce McNall, docgonzo.
posted by Succa at 01:08 PM on February 20
TSN, the Score, The Hockey News, and Eklund are all saying it's a done deal in principle. Nothing confirmed. Holding my breath, now.
posted by Succa at 08:44 PM on February 18
G'on...take a look at Eklund's blog. Dare ya. 25-28 games is probably not so good, unless they cut out some of the playoffs, and I'm willing to bet owners wouldn't want to sacrifice playoff revenue. Incidentally, if they do, that'd be the first concession they've made to date! Don't care anymore. Gimme hockey and I'll take it, if not, eff off Bettman.
posted by Succa at 06:02 PM on February 18
Gary Bettman is cordially invited to wear my ass as a Hallowe'en mask. I hope he dies alone.
posted by Succa at 12:53 PM on February 16
And he's a Leaf fan turned Sens fan. Bless your soul, Archie. So everyone's saying "season over" and the rumours site Samsonov linked yesterday is saying the opposite...the players are about to cave. Don't do it, Trevor! Fuck Bettman and his band of charlatans. I still believe strongly that a salary cap is a terrible idea, and an unnecessary one, too. ARGH. Anyway...11th hour is upon us.
posted by Succa at 03:07 PM on January 21
Interesting thing...why is tomorrow's meeting in Toronto? Couldn't they have stayed in Chicago? Could it be they want to be close to the PA headquarters in case they want to...announce something? Should be an interesting next week or so.
posted by Succa at 07:15 PM on January 19
That site's a great find, Samsonov. So, looks like there'll be another meeting tomorrow in Toronto. Anyone care to speculate? I wonder if they've decided to do what Brian Burke suggested, which is to take the luxury tax for a few years on a trial basis, and if it leads to similar salary escalation, switch to the salary cap. That solution sounds awfully vague and fraught with peril, though. I could see either side caving at this point. Losing the season would be just terrible, and they all know it.
posted by Succa at 06:17 PM on January 19
Whoa whoa whoa....self-linking on the front page? *averts eyes*
posted by Succa at 09:42 AM on January 18
Major upside to the lockout: by the end of it, Dominik Hasek will be dead and Jeff Glass will be the Sens' starter. Am I the only one not much impressed by Glass? He let in some real softies throughout the round robin. Don't tell me you're a Hasek-hater, Dr John....his last game in the NHL was a Cup winner, don't forget. Anyway, this wasn't even a tournament. I couldn't watch these last few games, but the earlier tournament rounds told me everything I needed to know: nobody can touch Canada, and it'll probably be that way for the next few years. I was hoping for a better showing by Sweden and Finland. What's happened to their hockey programs? There have been almost no big prospects out of either country for quite a while, and their Junior teams looked lost out there.
posted by Succa at 09:38 AM on January 05
Anyone who turns a $2B business into a $1B business over ten years deserves the axe, preferably in the back of the head. Bettman has done almost nothing right in his ten years, aside from a couple of good expansions (and a pile of bad ones), and getting NHLers into the Olympics. If he were in charge of any other business, he'd have been fired a long time ago. Hopefully we'll only have to wait a while longer.
posted by Succa at 09:32 AM on January 05
It's a done deal. Holy crap. Who the hell wants Alonzo Mourning? Those draft picks better turn out to be something good. I think this is a so-so trade for the Raptors, but better than the deals they were entertaining in the off-season.
posted by Succa at 03:01 PM on December 17
(somehow tying the cap amount to league revenues would be a good start, but then both sides would have to agree on what those revenues are, and that's currently not even close to happening.)
posted by Succa at 03:26 PM on December 15
garfield, if the NHL doesn't want the books opened, then why did they offer to get a 3rd party to audit the teams in the latest offer? Huh? I didn't hear that. Are you sure? That's quite a concession. (ex. cap level is set for 4 years, then re-set based on the average over the last 4 years) The average what? Salary? Wouldn't things just sort of stay the same under this model? I still see no way of the players earning their fair share of hypothetically increasing revenues. Maybe I'm not understanding you.
posted by Succa at 03:22 PM on December 15
If the lockout persists until September, the dispute will move to the courts, as the league will try to seek an impasse and a unilateral implementation of its salary cap. Then, the players will strike or decertify, and it's scab time. But as I said before, I think the league will lose their impasse, because even the most ardent owner-supporter would have trouble calling these negotiations "good-faith" on the League side. They've not made a meaningful concession yet, and haven't given a single non-gratuitous fact in support of their arguments. When the league sends out a huge binder-sized proposal, and the league responds with a one-page retort (as happened a few months ago), calling it good faith is a joke.
posted by Succa at 01:40 PM on December 15
Re: the Leafs and Sens, I hate you all. I can't say I'm not feeling the sting. I miss hockey. I just moved to Montreal, a town where tickets can be purchased without mortgaging one's home, and where the home team is one I would voluntarily watch, in a town whose fans I would voluntarily associate myself with, and I'm left waiting for baseball season to start. Oh, wait... I am loving Larry Brooks' vitriol towards Bettman. He deserves every line of it. Worst commisioner ever. Anyway, here's the argument against a cap as I see it, and as I've probably stated before. Let's say there's a cap at $45 million, and the total cap amount league-wide is spoken for by 50% of the league's revenues (or whatever the NHL wanted). Now let's say in a particularly good year for the NHL, the league's revenues double. What happens to the cap? It stays at $45 million, most likely, and the owners pocket the difference, and the players don't get a dime. Now, imagine the same scenario, only instead of the revenues doubling, they are halved. What happens to the cap? Good money says that cap gets halved as well, or at least reduced. So here we have a double standard: the players bear the brunt when times are bad, but don't get a proportional share of the spoils when times are good. That's a pretty valid argument to me considering how important players are to selling the game. As rcade mentioned in an earlier thread, I've never paid to go watch owners. The cap isn't so much a tool for budgeting (a luxury tax would work just as well, IMO) so much as a tool for letting owners control the terms of revenue allocation to their liking. It's not fair, and that's why I'm against it in its current form.
posted by Succa at 12:32 PM on December 15
I see something on the front page, tieguy. But it's halfway down the page, in a little box. I was tempted to buy a PA shirt too. Maybe tomorrow.
posted by Succa at 05:17 PM on December 14
They've been in that meeting room in the ACC for about 3 hours now....could they actually be negotiating something? Nah. I'm not that optimistic.
posted by Succa at 03:20 PM on December 14
I am as one with billysaysthis. Bettman has never once made an even superficially compelling argument for cost certainty. Think about it...has he ever used facts, indisputable and non-gratuitous facts, to further the owners' position? The Levitt report was a crock, a disingenuous bit of PR done behind closed doors. Every rebuke to the Union's arguments is the same, a stock set of platitudes about "the issues that affect our game". Sure, he throws around numbers sometimes....league revenue has gone up since 94 (so has the number of teams), we've lost $300 million (According to whom? This number provides no basis for negotiation because they won't open the books to the Union)...we've all heard so many Bettmanisms that you could compose a pretty fun drinking game from them. The saddest part, for me, is that I believe the owners won't win their impasse. This offer from the PA is the best they'll do, and we could be watching hockey by January if the owners would do the smart thing and sign it. But the league will try the legal route, and they'll bog down the courts with the kind of slippery-tongued litigation that will make our teeth hurt, but there is no universe in which these negotiations can be called "good faith" on the owners' side. They have not taken a single step away from the hard line. The season will be wasted in vain.
posted by Succa at 06:28 PM on December 13
Looks like the season is kaput. Fuck the owners. This is all -- ALL -- their fault. I agree with wfrazerjr completely. They haven't given a substantial reason yet why they shouldn't be held accountable, and I hope the judge that presides over the attempts at impasse throws Bettman out on the street like the bum he is. ARGH.
posted by Succa at 04:35 PM on December 13
Zherdev: Replaceable?
Zetterberg over Lidstrom for the C? Really? I'm not seeing it....