Paul Lukas of Uni Watch fame has published his NHL preview, chock full of hockey uniform photos from new sweaters, to memorial patches, to the sneaky “C” that Roberto Luongo added to his mask since by NHL rules no goaltender may wear the captaincy “C” on his jersey. So if you’re into the details of hockey uniforms, check out his article here and geek out to the hockey-gear minutia.
Category Archives: Pittsburgh Penguins
Hockey Sweater Obsessives, Your Ship Has Arrived
By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)
Friday, October 10, 2008
This Club’s Only For the Well-Heeled
By DC Sports Chick
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
We live in uncertain times, what with a collapsing economy and threat of a recession or worse. However, such financial doom and gloom clearly does not exist in Pittsburgh. The Penguins have created “The Penguins Hockey ‘n Heels Ladies Club” for their female fans. You’ll recall that they were one of several teams last season who offered a Hockey ‘n Heels event. They’ve taken it to the next level and created a club for women with the following perks:
- One (1) game ticket in the Club Level Seating for three (3) games which includes event ticket, event premium item and buffet dinner
- Locker Room Tour
- On-Ice Demonstrations with the opportunity to sit in the Penalty Box/Player Bench
- Attend a morning skate
- Meet and greet with players after the morning skate
- Limited Edition Framed Art Piece
And what is the price for such unmitigated hockey pleasure? A mere $1,225! Never fear if you can’t spare $1K+ right now; for $180, you can eat dinner and attend one game in the club level and receive that “event premium item.” (That’s $50 more than last year.)
Doing the math, even buying tickets at $180 for each of the three games still only sets one back $540. That must be one hell of an art piece, because I don’t see how a smelly locker room tour or watching morning skate is worth close to $700. Hopefully it’s nothing like the suggestively phallic HnH logo to the right.
I salute the Penguins for attempting to cater to the female fan, something more teams should do. And I have no doubt that they’ll get at least a few takers. However, the timing couldn’t be worse for this type of venture, not to mention that it’s ridiculously overpriced.
The only way I could possibly rationalize spending that much money on a ticket, some food, and on-ice demonstrations is if the opportunity to sit in the penalty box and on the bench was during a game. Or if the event premium item was Crosby’s playoff beard stubble.
Thank you, pepper, for sharing this link, I think.
Ten Top Storylines for the Start of Training Camp 2008
By pucksandbooks
Saturday, September 20, 2008
AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn
(10) Gabby from the Get-go. Capitals players had plenty of time to come to grips with Bruce Boudreau’s system, what with his arriving from Hershey at Thanksgiving. In his 61 games in 2007-08, Boudreau went 20 games over .500 (37-17-7). Had that projected over the full season, the Caps not only would have won the Southeast handily but absolutely contended for first overall in the East (with 104 points, Montreal finished 10 better than Washington). It bears mentioning that Boudreau had to learn most of his new hockey club in mid-season just as they had to learn his system. This fall, Boudreau knows his roster quite well, they know him now by the title of Jack Adams holder, and he starts the season with a club as healthy and hungry as any the Caps have seen this decade. Let the good times roll.
(9) Renewed Might on the Right. What might have the Capitals’ fortunes been in the 2008 playoffs had they had the services of captain Chris Clark and his 30-goal skills and leadership? And what might a fully healthy Eric Fehr finally look like? We should find out in 2008-09. Both have told media late this summer that they’re “100 percent” and ready to go. We know what Viktor Kozlov, Matt Bradley, and Clark can do. Fehr is the wild card. But reasonably healthy, that quartet ought to offer some much-needed scoring balance on the right side of the Caps’ forward ranks.
(8) Is Karl Alzner NHL ready? In what appears to have been the final foray for the Caps in the NHL Entry Draft lottery, for some while anyway, the Caps selected Calgary Hitmen shutdown rearguard Karl Alzner with the 5th pick in the 2007 draft. In his draft class Alzner was lauded as being the “most NHL ready” of defense prospects. Nothing about Alzner’s ‘07-08 season suggested otherwise. He captained Canada’s Junior team to yet another gold medal, and he was named WHL Defenseman of the Year and WHL Player of the Year. The Caps may find themselves with an intriguing and difficult call to make on Alzner this training camp: today he may well be one the team’s top 6 talents on the blueline, but would his long-term development be better aided with top minutes in Hershey this season?
(7) Center by Committee. The Capitals have a clear no. 1 center (Nicklas Backstrom) and, in ability, potentially three no. 2s (Nylander, Fedorov, Laich). Brooks Laich will get a long look on a wing. Additionally, there is fantastic defensive play and faceoff ability between Dave Steckel and Boyd Gordon. Bruce Boudreau is virtually certain to carry 13 forwards out of camp, and you have to believe five of them will be centers. But who sits? And who earns no. 2 minutes? Will there be a trade?
(6) Who’s no. 1 in Net — in Hershey? Rarely at the start of a new season is there intrigue about the goalie rotation down on the farm, but the goalie story in the Caps’ organization is a lead one in 2008-09. George McPhee has indicated that in Michael Neuvirth and Simeon Varlamov he has two AHL-worthy 20-year-olds; neither belongs in the E. Additionally, Daren Machesney has developed solidly in Hershey. One option could be to loan out one of the kids to another American League club. But both 2006 draft picks possess talent such that there respective stays in minor pros could be brief ones. Meanwhile . . .
(5) It’s Certain That There’s Some Uncertainty in the Washington Net. Jose Theodore was signed by Washington the moment that contracts talks with Cristobal Huet fell apart. Theodore possesses nearly 450 games of NHL experience spread out over more than 10 years. His career has been marked by moments of exemplary play commonly followed by conspicuously mediocre results. He has Vezina and Hart trophies on his mantle and pitchfork and torch scars on his gear bag. Playing behind a strong team of forwards and defenders, expect him to look like a world-beater during many regular season nights in 2008-09; the postseason will be more the barometer of his signing. Somewhat overlooked in the Kolzig-to-Huet-to-Theodore transition — all of it carried off in less than 9 months’ time — is that the Capitals’ blueline corps will have to adjust to yet another new netminder’s angles and rebounds tendencies. And it’s a short preseason.
(4) Is Semin a Star? There’s absolutely no doubt that left wing Alexander Semin is an elite, world-class talent. His wrist shot is simply one of the finest on the planet. But to date he has not put together a complete season of health and high production. With the Caps’ top-six-plus skill, 2008-09 should Semin’s season to shine.
(3) Potential Pitfalls of Press Clippings. It was just late last November that the Washington Capitals resided in dead last territory in the NHL, their rebuild strivings generating little returns. One coaching and netminder change ushered in a division title, a sold out home rink, and a wild-about-hockey Washington, and one of the great from hell to heaven rises in Washington pro sports history. The summer delivered an abundance of awards recognitions for the feat. And the Caps’ feel-good story of last season has fostered a pervasive ‘they’re-the-team-to-watch-out-for‘ forecast for this season. But the team is hardly dynastic, and they’ll compete with plenty of quality at the top of the East (Philly, Montreal, and Pittsburgh) and throughout the league overall. They’ll also have fewer games against their Southeast rivals this season — hockey’s weakest division.
(2) Golden Era of Ovechkin. If you believe Wayne Gretzky, we haven’t seen anywhere near the best yet from Alexander Ovechkin. The Great One believes that Ovi can score 90. Today the hockey world is Alexander Ovechkin’s oyster. He enjoys a best-in-his-sport status, he loves the challenge of making Washington a hockey town, and in 2008-09 he will skate in possession of the richest contract in Washington pro sports history. Now 225 pounds and a training dynamo, he is arrived at something close to his physical prime. There is among his fast-accumulating hardware one lone conspicuous omission. His aim in ‘08-09 is to secure that one, too.
(1) As Good as It Gets? There were three striking qualities about Verizon Center in the final weeks of the 2008 season: it was consistently sold out; it was overwhelmingly red and partisan (except to Pierre McGuire’s eyes); and it was gloriously raucous and loud. It was an environment that I think caught even the Caps off guard; it seemed about two years ahead of forecast — if management could even imagine such environs here at all. Was it a fluke in response to a torrid and historic run, or is that the reception that hockey is hereafter to receive, the home team now competing, likely for a sizable number of years going forward, with coveted skill, depth, and youth? Washington’s hockey fans have been the butt of disrespect and ridicule for decades. A full season of Red Rockin’ during a lot of winning may squelch that slander permanently.
For Shooting a Movie About the End of the World, There’s Only One Location
By pucksandbooks
Friday, August 8, 2008
imagine a land populated by post-apocalyptic, mulleted zombies
A new movie themed on the end of the world arrives in theaters this fall, titled ‘The Road,’ based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same title, and in seeking the perfect locale for principal photography, director John Hillcoat found it in western Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh, to be specific.
“In winter [there],” Hillcoat told USA Today this week, it can be very bleak.” Bleak especially this winter, what with seemingly every Penguin free agent having bolted out of Dodge for more pleasant pastures.
In Pittsburgh Hillcoat found a setting so unsettling that he didn’t need to use CGI to foster his film’s atmospherics. Most of the film was shot in and around Pittsburgh, USA Today noted.
“Hillcoat found abandoned coal fields, a deserted amusement park and an 8-mile stretch of closed freeway as locations.”
‘The Road’s’ plot summary from IMDB goes like this:
“A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food–and each other.”
Bleak, no? And therefore perfectly situated.
There is thick precedent for selecting Pittsburgh as the locale for a notable disaster flick. Monroeville Mall was the gorefest gathering for 1978’s ‘Dawn of the Dead.’ That year also delivered the uplifting Vietnam treatment ‘The Deer Hunter,’ also shot in Sidney’s city.
The 1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme epic ‘Sudden Death’ centered around a Canadian-born firefighter, Darren McCord, who’s in charge of fire security at Mullet Mellon Arena. While attending Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals with his children, the Van Damme character uncovers a plot to blow up the arena.
Ten years later the city of Kansas City came close to pulling that off.
Wearing the Nation’s Colors Next February 22
By pucksandbooks
Thursday, July 31, 2008
On Sunday, February 22, 2009, the Capitals matinee-host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Verizon Center. That day will commemorate the 29th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, the greatest day in the history of hockey and the greatest day in the history of sports. Summertime question for you: what do you think of the idea of the Caps doing something radically different with their sweaters that day — like, say, wearing re-issues of the Lake Placid heroes’ sweaters? Before you dismiss the idea out of hand, let’s first have a little chat among patriots about the matter.
First, let’s acknowledge the Caps’ unique qualifications for potentially pursuing such a scheme. In representing the nation’s capital, Washington’s hockey team is different from 29 others in the NHL. They aren’t a generic animal of prey (Panther, Bruin) or an abstract circumstance of nature (Lightning, Hurricane, Avalanche, Star); they are named as a signifier, of something nationally unifying and laudatory. Millions of Americans each year flock to Washington to experience what our city represents. In return I say a sports team named for the entirety of that experience can well represent one of this nation’s finest moments. If ever there were a pro hockey team compelled to don the ‘80 Miracle look for a commemorative occasion, it ought to be Washington’s Red, White and Blue Capitals.
Over the past three decades, the NHL has been curiously uninvolved in acknowledging Lake Placid’s Miracle. Why? Thirteen of the 20 rostered miraculous Americans went on to NHL careers — and five of them earned more than 500 games in the league. On the Miracle’s anniversary, is there any possible downside to the league associating itself with the feat? Understand that I’m not calling for some extended exploitation of the team and event, just a single day’s acknowledgment, which arrives at the heart of each hockey season.
Perhaps, it could be argued, each NHL team should wear a commemorative patch for that week’s play. I’m fine with that. But the game of hockey changed forever that night in upstate New York. Boys dreamed. Men wept. Traveling strangers pulled over their cars on interstate highways and hugged. A downtrodden culture rejuvenated itself. To this day some very learned minds suggest that geopolitical affairs were irrevocably altered by those 60 minutes of hockey. (Imagine.) And so from the NHL I’m looking for something larger as display and remembrance. Why not have a team wear the actual sweater, for one day? And who better to do that than our boys?
OFB readers this week will have noticed our humble efforts at offering up a third jersey design for the Capitals to consider down the road. Its color scheme — wholly unintended — bears a striking similarity to the sweater worn on February 24, 1980, when the Americans earned gold at Lake Placid against Finland. I find that interesting.
The next obstacle to address would be a purported “forced nationalism” on a contemporary NHL club necessarily comprised of nationals from a half dozen or more foreign nations. Specifically, wouldn’t there be awkward irony in an Alexander Ovechkin and his Russian teammates wearing “USA” across their chests the third Sunday of next February?
It’s irrefutable that the achievement of 2/22/80 was distinctly sovereign, distinctly — I would argue — American. But as it’s aged, hasn’t it acquired an EveryNation sheen of admirable heroism, a universally acknowledged sense of David slaying Goliath, and thereby broadened the general appeal of our now very global game? Isn’t there something in the Miracle for every hockey player from every nation to delight in, and celebrate? Isn’t it part of the Miracle’s lore that even the shocked and stunned Russians, standing forlorn on their own blueline, looked down the Lake Placid ice at their collegian vanquishers and admired? And if not, if that’s overstatement, couldn’t we next rationalize the commemoration merely on these grounds: at the highest level of hockey, for just one day, let’s simply and distinctly acknowledge the greatest hockey game ever played.
It would be close to a franchise-best moment to have the Capitals debut a new, very patriotic-looking third sweater next February 22, but the NHL requires that teams identify in advance all sweaters to be worn during the season. The Capitals aren’t adopting a third sweater this season. What I’m advocating is a league-issued waiver from the uniform regulations for a very special Sunday that just happens to showcase the two greatest hockey players on the planet.
This is a very, very, secondary consideration, but talk about a marketable television event! The game between Ovechkin’s Capitals and Crosby’s Penguins is already slated for national television (I say this not because I’ve confirmed it with NBC but from a sense of how could it not be?). What aura in the Phone Booth then if this unprecedented uniforming were to take place. What might tickets sell for out on the District’s streets that morning? What if one or four members of the Miracle team were in the house?
I have another compelling and deeply personal reason for pursuing this idea. During their home games the Capitals like to seat me next to SovetskySport’s Dmitry Chesnokov. Dmitry, newly sworn in as an American citizen, is younger than I am and by virtue of his age forgiveably unaware of the immediate impact of the Miracle. After next February 22nd’s game I’d like my friend to accompany me down to the Capitals’ locker room and interview his countryman Ovechkin, who’d be wearing a sweater whose style will never go out of fashion, and one which changed the world.
OFB Poll: Most Appealing Game
By The OFB Team
Friday, July 18, 2008
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Which home game in the 2008-2009 season is the most appealing?
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Your Presence Is Requested - 2008-09 Washington Capitals Schedule
By The OFB Team
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The NHL released the regular season schedule for all 30 teams today. The NHL will open its 91st season in Stockholm, Sweden and Prague, Czech Republic with a pair of games between the Rangers and Lightning in Prague and the Senators and Penguins in Stockholm on October 4th and 5th.
The Capitals begin the season on the road in Atlanta on Friday, October 10th with the first home game the next day against Cristobal Huet and the Chicago Blackhawks. Olaf Kolig visits the Phone Booth for the first time on November 10th.
This season’s schedule is under a new matrix that has each team to playing six games against each team in its division (24 games), four games against the non-division teams within its conference (40 games), and 18 non-Conference games — at least one game against each club in the other conference (15 games) and three home-and-home series against non-Conference teams.
Some schedule notes:
All thirty teams will be in action on the same day on Saturday, October 25th.
The 2009 Winter Classic will take place on January 1st at Chicago’s Wrigley Field with the Blackhawks facing the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Redwings.
The NHL All-Star Game will be held in Montreal’s Bell Centre on January 2tth. Montreal will also host the 2009 Entry Draft on June 26th and 27th.
Hockey Day In Canada returns to its all-Canadian lineup on Februay 21st with Ottawa at Montreal, Vancouver at Toronto, and Calgary at Edmonton.
[Full Capitals Schedule after the break.]
ESPY - Best NHL Player
By The OFB Team
Monday, July 7, 2008
Alex Ovechkin has been nominated for yet another award. Alex is looking to add the ESPY for Best NHL Player to his mantle already sporting trophies with the names Ross, Richard, Hard, and Pearson. What makes the ESPY a bit different is that award winners are selected exclusively through an online fan balloting conducted from amongst candidates selected by the ESPY Select Nominating Committee
Voting is set to end this week, so be sure to visit espys.tv and make sure the award does not go to one of the other nominees — Sidney Crosby, Pavel Datsyuk, Jarome Igilna and Evgeni Malkin.
The 2008 ESPY Awards will be held on Sunday, July 20, at the Nokia Theater L.A. Live in Los Angeles and will be hosted by Justin Timberlake.
Jaromir, We Hardly Knew Ya, and I’m Not Sure We’ll Miss You
By pucksandbooks
Sunday, July 6, 2008
There was, seemingly, a continent-wide silence over the weekend associated with Jaromir Jagr’s departure from the NHL. Indeed, the latest flareup between Oilers GM Kevin Lowe and Ducks’ GM Brian Burke seems to have made a larger impression on the hockey world this weekend than has Jagr’s departure.
It seems oddly fitting that on Independence weekend the Capitals and the NHL would finally be liberated from the seemingly interminable and onerous payoffs to Jaromir Jagr, one of the sport’s ultimate mercenaries.
Back in January 2004, the Caps dealt the underachieving, isolated, and insufferable Jagr to the New York Rangers for Anson Carter and a promise to pay off $20 million of the $44 million remaining on his godawful contract. The deal of course occurred pre-lockout, and at the time Jagr was earning $11 million annually; meaning, that Ted Leonsis was on the hook for a tidy $5 million each season in payments to the Rangers for the duration of the deal. The new CBA that ended the lockout in 2005 included a 24-percent rollback in player salaries, so that payoff sum got sheared off a bit, but both practically speaking and especially symbolically, the Capitals were still tethered to the misanthropic mercenary, through the 2007-08 season, and that association stung.
Word arrived this weekend that Jagr had in essence ended his NHL career, in signing with Avangard Omsk of the new Russian elite pro hockey league. The terms — apparently two years and $7 million per season, tax free — mean that Jagr is back up to the equivalent of $11 million in annual salary. He spent this decade as a temperamental gun for hire, so this new agreement is fitting. Puck daddy’s overview on Jagr’s career, in which daddy terms #68’s tenure in D.C. “the near career suicide,” includes a generous helping of reader comments that seem to capture all of the at-arm’s-length regard Jagr engendered in his NHL career. Including, especially, this sentiment: “Good riddance.”
It’s remarkable that the NHL’s ninth all-time scorer could amass as massive a movement of malignant sentiments as he did, but he did.
Jagr’s was an NHL career of two careers: his years in Pittsburgh, where he brilliantly partnered with Mario Lemieux, catapulting the Penguins to two Stanley Cups, and where he won four consecutive Art Ross trophies; and those that followed, in Washington and New York, where he showed flashes of his dominant past but most often earned reviews that he was slowing down and grossly overpaid. This was especially true of his aborted stay in D.C.
Even in Pittsburgh Jagr has no shortage of detractors. Near the end of his run there he made no secret of his wish to play in the NHL’s largest market. Pittsburghers become particularly parochial over such sentiments. Jagr never seemed vested in the Penguins, emotionally or otherwise — certainly not like Mario Lemieux always has been. It’s distinctly possible that in about 7 or 8 years’ time Jagr will be regarded there as merely the fourth best forward to play in Pittsburgh — a stunning possibility, when you consider his scoring standing in the league’s history. Jagr is one of only 16 players to score 600 goals; only the 12th player to surpass 1,500 points; and only Mike Gartner is a rival to Jagr’s tally of 15 consecutive seasons with 30 or more goals. He is the only player to score goals in 53 different NHL arenas.
But for all of his red lamp lighting, he possessed an uncanny ability to leave you cold. Hockey is in many respects the ultimate team sport, in which a goal scorer typically celebrates lavishly in the arms of his teammates. Jagr seemed to celebrate many of the goals he scored with the detachment of a hitman.
It is true that the Washington Capitals today would not have Alexander Ovechkin were it not for the ruinous run of Jagr in D.C. It is therefore fitting that hockey fans here have in Ovechkin the outsized personality, a total team-first dynamo, one who is also disarmingly modest and an irrationally exuberant scoring celebrator. He is the antidote to Jaromir Jagr, our tonic from those two-and-a-half seasons of tumult.
In so many ways Jagr was an extraordinary paradox. He accumulated 1,599 points in his NHL career; that he is a mortal lock for the Hall of Fame is beyond dispute. And yet, he departs the NHL and it’s news on hockey pages for all of 12 hours, before the next free agent signing bumps it. He had fans by the thousands who wore sweaters bearing his name, but he seldom had spirited defenders. Serious hockey fans never ragged on his skill set, but even at the height of his brilliance he seemed to engender a detachment from fans. Most often you got the sense that if there was such a thing as hockey player really in it mostly for the money, Jaromir Jagr was that hockey player.
Now near 37, he’s crossing an ocean, and turning his back on the planet’s best league, for more of it.
Mullets Are Not Us: The Free Agent Race Out of Pittsburgh
By The OFB Team
Monday, June 30, 2008
What do you conclude from the decisions made by all four of Pittsburgh's name free agents -- Marian Hossa, Brooks Orpik, Ryan Malone, and Gary Roberts -- to take their playing services elsewhere for 2008-09? Contrast that with the reactions to playing in D.C. articulated this spring by new, free agent arrivals Sergei Fedorov and Cristobal Huet.
We Could Use a Few Signings, Couldn’t We?
By pucksandbooks
Friday, June 27, 2008
These are salad days for salaries in the NHL. Yesterday came word that the salary cap for 2008-09 would rise to $56.7 million, with a salary floor ($40.7 million) higher than the league’s cap just back three seasons ago, in the first post-lockout regular season. Stunning. As the salary cap is directly linked to the league’s revenues, which are directly linked to its gate receipts, it’s seems clear that a few folks other than Tiger Woods and Tony Kornheiser are interested in hockey.
Meanwhile, there remain outstanding — unsigned — some necessarily expensive parts to 2008-09 for the Washington Capitals. The tally: Christobal Huet, Brooks Laich, Shaone Morrisonn, and Mike Green. Boyd Gordon and Eric Fehr need new deals, too, but I don’t imagine those will be that expensive. Right now both Matt Cooke and Sergei Fedorov look like salary cap casualties, luxuries likely unaffordable in ‘08. Since I last wrote about matters financial Capitals’ GM George McPhee has managed to sheer off about $2 million in payroll for next season by dealing Steve Eminger to Philadelphia and buying out Ben Clymer. (Ray Shero’s fruitless negotiations with Marian Hossa this month apparently have sheared off $7-8 million from the Penguins’ payroll for next season.)
However, it’s beginning to look like McPhee will need that $2 million to pay Mike Green just in the autumn portion of the calandar next season.
Ah yes, Mike Green. For the congenitally white-knuckled of Caps’ fans, his breakout season in 2007-08, combined with apparently every name New York Ranger leaving Broadway, portends his departure and the swift end of hockey’s renaissance in Washington. But count me among those who think it far from a certainty that Green’s gonna attract a bevy of offer sheets next Tuesday.
For one thing, as great as his game looks, Green’s had only one big-number season, and the price in first-round draft picks for signing him would be exorbitant (as many as five). Additionally, both the owner and the general manager are on record stating that the club will match whatever offer comes Green’s way. For another, offer sheets for restricted free agents (see Tomas Vanek) are in a very real sense one GM’s performing labor for a colleague. Lastly, Green, though a young and inexperienced great talent just as Dustin Penner was last summer, is a primary building block for a contending Caps’ club. Penner wasn’t last summer, nor is he today, one of the 50 best forwards in the NHL. Penner’s was a stupid contract conceived by a stupid GM. Brian Burke allowed stupidity to reign supreme for a moment, but his Ducks won’t soon be looking up at the Oil in the standings.
In Green the Caps know what they’ve got – an already impressive no. 1 rearguard whom they were awfully lucky to nab with a 29th pick in the ‘04 draft, one who has a great deal of progression and maturity ahead of him. Likely, too, Mike Green also knows what he’s got in D.C., and specifically in Bruce Boudreau’s system: the green light to pile up points for a really big deal around the time he’s in his prime.
Mike Green will get signed alright. But it won’t come cheap. In fact, Team Green may be pointing to Alexander Semin’s 2009-10 salary ($5 million) and understandably if myopically bargaining that Green’s of greater value to the team than Semin. In an ideal world, Team Green would acknowledge the client’s youth and inexperience and appreciable development still ahead and ask to be made the team’s highest paid defenseman . . . but not like say Anaheim’s best defenseman.
Few however imagine ideal worlds with attorneys and player agents in them.
Speaking of interesting contracts, remember that “home team discount” deal Sidney Crosby signed? It will pay him $7.5 million in 2013. The thinking here is that Sidney will be a pretty good hockey player in 2013, when he’s still not yet 30 years old. Do you know how many NHLers will be earning more than $7.5 million then? (Mike Green might well be one.) One of them will be Vinny Lecavalier, according to ESPN. Indeed, as early as 2009-10, Crosby may not even be the highest paid Penguin. The intrigue with the Penguins never ends.
Given the number and prominence of Capitals’ restricted free agents, this wasn’t supposed to be an easy summer of negotiating for GMGM. It was made tougher by the breakout seasons by Laich and Green, as well as Morrisonn’s emergence as a top-pairing performer. And while last weekend was filled with the promise of securing hockey’s future, this one is about placating the present. It’s messy but necessary business.
It’s a time to be anxious but not a time to be pessimistic.
Another Solid Draft Hauling in Adherence with the Blueprint
By pucksandbooks
Monday, June 23, 2008
So how did the Caps do at the draft this weekend? One answer is, a lot better than the Islanders and especially Pittsburgh. Here’s a Hockeysfuture reflection from an Isles’ fan attending a Friday night draft party, grading out his team’s labor in Ottawa:
“NYI-On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being the worst they are in negative numbers.
“I was at the draft party. The place was furious when they traded the 5th pick, but when they got nothing of value back from the Leaf’s the place really started to flip out.
“Then when the Isles traded the 7th pick to the Preds—again for nothing much in return—of the 1,000 or so fans in attendence—at least 500 got up and walked out in disgust and silence. They did not even boo.
“When they selected Bailey—you could hear a rat piss on cotton in Argentina. Then—everyone left in disgust.”
At least the Isles, eventually, belatedly, made some selections. Pittsburgh goes on the clock for the first time late this Tuesday morning. In this draft, you just wanted to be in the mix (and not, like Garth Snow, trying to trade out of it), with some picks among the top 75 or so prospects. The Caps were, they had a specific strategy — players targeted for the team’s draft positions — and they landed their targets.
In their last five drafts, the Caps have accumulated 10 first-round picks. And if you listened to General Manager George McPhee’s post-draft reflections on Saturday, he’d have you believe there’s an 11th in the tally — Dmitry Kugryskev, a CSKA-2 teammate of sixth-overall selection Nikita Filatov.
“We thought he may have gone somewhere in the first round,” McPhee said after Saturday’s drafting has been completed. Alluding to the absence of a transfer agreement with Russia, McPhee added that Kugryskev certainly would have gone higher “in the old NHL.”
Over the weekend McPhee also noted that the Caps enjoy a distinct drafting advantage by virtue of having Alexander Ovechkin. While most other organizations in rounds 1 and 2 will understandably be wary of selecting Russians then in the absence of a transfer agreement, and now the formation of the Continental Hockey League as a bigger, better-paying version of the RSL, the Caps as they interview Russian prospects can gauge interest in the youngsters’ willinginess to come over and skate with their nation’s hero. Kugryskev is one such prospect.
“I dream about the NHL every day of my life. It’s my dream,” Kugryskev said recently.
With respect to his new Russian winger, McPhee probably wasn’t just whistling that 30-team, post-draft sunshine tune that’s a staple of every draft’s conclusion, either. Last season the right winger scored 58 points in 35 games with CSKA-2. His lottery pick teammate Filatov had 66 points in 34 games. He’s renowed for his worth ethic.
The Capitals were going to trade out of round 1 Friday if neither of Anton Gustafsson nor John Carlson had been available. They landed both. They also had multiple trade offers when their turn came up late in round 2. McPhee actually called a timeout to ponder them but ultimately judged what was available (Kugryskev and Eric Mestery) as more valuable. So the Caps landed their primary targets and then, while with offers in hand to move away from the draft’s still rich realm, they judged their draft list delivering them better value and they selected, solidly.
The Carlson selection in particular may prove to be a sage one. Already blessed with a pro physique, the mobile, two-way reargruard was an intrigue prospect for this draft. His size and all-around game drew universal commendation from NHL organizations, but competing in the United States Hockey League, and competing in a draft chock full of bluechip defenders, Carlson was a candidate to be there late in round one.
Charlie Skjodt, his coach with the Indiana Ice of the USHL, told the Newark Star-Ledger before the draft, “I’d be shocked if he isn’t selected in the first round . . . without a doubt, he’s going to be a star in the NHL.” Carlson’s already served as an assistant captain on a U.S. select team and is likely a strong candidate to represent the U.S. in future World Under-20 tourneys.
The Capitals are currently ranked sixth by Hockeysfuture for the strength of their prospect holdings. If you’re at the very top of that list it likely means you’re drafting too high, too often too consecutively each June. With their work this past weekend the Capitals are a safe bet to remain in the top 10 of the HF ranking. That seems about where they’d want to be: not a lottery regular but with a farm chock full of promise and able fill-ins for injured players on the parent roster. And it’s this quality and depth that is central to the Caps’ tenet of building and replenishing largely from within.
It’s worth noting, too, the success the Caps are now having in drafts’ later rounds. Among recent signees are Mathieu Perreault (6th round, ‘06), Oskar Osala (4th round, ‘06), Andrew Joudrey (8th round, ‘03), Daren Maschesney (5th round, ‘05), Patrick McNeill (4th round, ‘05), Travis Morin (9th round, ‘04), and Andrew Gordon (7th round, ‘04).
The Capitals today are an experienced drafting organization; McPhee and Ross Mahoney have been together 10 years now. They’ve made their share of mistakes in June in years past, which the GM has aknowledged, but they’re enjoying more success these days. That continued this past weekend in Ottawa.
First-Round Flops Over the Years
By pucksandbooks
Friday, June 20, 2008
No team can get it right in round one every year, even drafting very high. And at times all teams get it really wrong then. A survey such as this is a powerful reminder of the crapshoot that is selecting 18-year-old hockey players. However, it is also an invitation for fans to react with, “What the *@^* were you thinking?”
I’ve included picks made by the Whale with those of the Hurricanes, and of those made by the Nordiques in association with Colorado, to even out the survey period. No need however to add Winnipeg to Phoenix’s draft woes — the Desert Dogs know how to screw the draft pooch up high all on their own. Take a look:
| Team | Player Picked | Comment | Studs Selected After |
| Anaheim | Stanislav Chistov (5th, 2001) | The ‘07 Cup win offers serious salve for the Stanislav screwup | Mike Komisarek, Pascal Leclaire, R.J. Umberger, Ales Hemsky, Mike Cammalleri |
| Atlanta | Patrick Stefan (no.1, 1999) | The ‘99 harvest wasn’t swell to be sure, but this still is a serious stinker | The Sedin twins, Martin Havlat |
| Boston | Lars Jonsson (7th, 2000) | A good recipe for Swedish meatballs would have delivered more | Brooks Orpik, Alexander Frolov, Anton Volchenkov, Niklas Kronvall |
| Buffalo | Shawn Anderson, (5th, 1986) | This was a Shawn of the Dead selection | Vincent Damphousse, Brian Leetch, Craig Janney, Teppo Numminen |
| Calgary | Bryan Deasley (19th, 1987) | The Flames’ no. 1 from ‘86, George Pelawa, died in a motorcycle crash that summer, making this a two-year strikeout stretch | John LaClair, Eric Desjardins, Mathieu Schneider, Stephane Matteau |
| Carolina/Hartford | Fred Arthur (8th, 1980) | No relation to Bea Arthur, except in NHL impact | Paul Coffey, Brent Sutter, Craig Ludwig, Steve Larmer, Andy Moog, Jari Kurri |
| Chicago | Tony Tanti (12th, 1981) | Wirtz maybe thought he’d sign cheap? | Al MacInnis, Chris Chelios, Mike Vernon, John Vanbiesbrouck |
| Colorado/Quebec | Aniel Dore (5th, 1988) | Who doesn’t own an Aniel Dore Nordiques’ sweater? | Jeremy Roenick, Teemu Selanne, Rob Blake, Rod Brind’Amour, Martin Gelinas |
| Columbus | Alexander Picard (8th, 2004) | Inspector Clousseau isn’t going to look into this pick — he made it | Alexander Radulov, Drew Stafford, Andrej Meszaros, Wojtek Wolski |
| Dallas | Jason Bacashihua (26th, 2001) | Played with the ECHL’s Johnston Chiefs in ‘07-08, which for a first-rounder seven years after being drafted is a fairly moderate pace of development | Derek Roy, Fedor Tyutin, Mike Cammalleri, Jason Pominville, Dave Steckel |
| Detroit | Shawn Burr (7th, 1984) | I thought briefly of exluding the Wings from this exercise, they draft so well, and you have to go back a bit to find a serious screwup | Shane Corson, Sylvain Cote, Gary Roberts, Kevin Hatcher, Scott Mellanby |
| Edmonton | Marc-Antoine Pouliot (22nd, 2003) | Overlooked this scouting report by the rest of the league: “Thin, weak, won’t hit or backcheck or play in traffic. Other than that, he’s dandy.” | Mike Richards, Corey Perry, Patrice Bergeron, Matt Carle |
| Florida | Petr Taticek (9th, 2002) | Why no postseasons in Sunrise, Cats’ fans ask? Look at this pick | Alexander Semin, Chris Higgins, Alexander Steen, Cam Ward |
| Los Angeles | Wally McBean (4th, 1987) | Not a new lunch item at MickeyD’s | Joe Sakic, Andrew Cassels, Mathieu Schneider, Luke Richardson |
| Minnesota (Wild/Stars) | Brian Lawton (no. 1, 1983) | The bridesmaid to Daigle | Pat LaFontaine, Steve Yzerman, Tom Barrasso, Cam Neely |
| Montreal | Terry Ryan (8th, 1995) | Terry Hatcher would have looked better here | Jarome Iginla, J.S. Giguere, Petr Sykora, Martin Biron |
| Nashville | Brian Finley (6th, 1999) | The day the music stopped in Honkeytonkville | Barret Jackman, Martin Havlat, Mike Commodore, David Tanabe |
| New Jersey | Adrian Foster (28th, 2001) | Yo, Adrian! Legend has it that Foster wasn’t even on other teams’ lists — anywhere! | Fedor Tyutin, Mike Cammalleri, Peter Budaj, Ray Emery, Patrick Sharp |
| NY Islanders | Dave Chyzowski (2nd, 1989) | Can’t blame Mad Mike for this one — he didn’t arrive until ‘95 | Bill Guerin, Pavel Bure, Olaf Kolzig, Stu Barnes |
| NY Rangers | Hugh Jessiman (12th, 2003) | Hughe mistake! | Brent Seabrook, Steve Bernier, Zach Parise, Ryan Getzlaf |
| Ottawa | Alexander Daigle (no. 1, 1993) | The Mother of all Misses; to “Daigle” in round one is every GM’s nightmare | Chris Pronger, Paul Kariya, Todd Bertuzzi, Brendan Witt, Adam Deadmarsh |
| Philadelphia | Claude Boivin (14th, 1988) | Philly does real well in the first round; this year, not so much | Rob Blake, Alexander Mogilny, Tony Amonte, Bret Hedican, Tie Domi |
| Phoenix | Blake Wheeler ( 5th, 2004) | Wheeler of misfortune; think Gretz & co. reached here? | Rostislav Olesz, Alexander Radulov, Drew Stafford, Wojtek Wolski |
| Pittsburgh | Zarley Zalapski (4th, 1980) | ZZ FlopTop and agonizing alliteration | Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri, Steve Larmer, Craig Ludwig, Brent Sutter |
| San Jose | Pat Falloon (2nd, 1991) | Plus, Pat had to don that original San Jose teal sweater on the ‘91 draft stage | Scott Niedermayer, Peter Forsberg, Martin Lapointe, Brian Rolston, Alexei Kovalev |
| St. Louis | Perry Turnbull (2nd, 1979) | 188 goals in an NHL career is nothing to snicker at, but methinks Ray Bourque would have helped out more | Ray Bourque, Mike Gartner, Brian Propp, Kevin Lowe |
| Tampa | Alexander Svitov (3rd, 2001) | Tampa (Nikita Alexeev) hasn’t exactly struck Lightning with first-round Russians | Pascal Leclaire, Alex Hemsky, R.J. Umberger, Shaone Morrisonn |
| Toronto | Gary Nylund (3rd, 1982) | This is the stuff of Cup droughts | Scott Stevens, Phil Housley, Dave Andreychuk, Doug Gilmour |
| Vancouver | Jere Gillis (4th, 1978) | The Canucks have no home-grown Hall of Famers, including Gillis | Mark Napier, Don Maloney, Doug Wilson, Bengt Gustafsson |
| Washington | Greg Joly ( no.1, 1974) | Good Golly what a stinker! “The next Bobby Orr” it was said of Joly in ‘74. Umm, not so much. | Clark Gillies, Pierre Larouche, Bryan Trottier, Doug Riesbrough |