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Let the Roaming of a Fierce Gang (Green) on Washington’s Streets Commence

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Just how important was Mike Green’s signing this week? Nearly as important as Alexander Ovechkin’s back in January.

Green isn’t just the Capitals’ no. 1 gun from the point — the slick-passing, even slicker skating, indispensable-in-the-new NHL engine from the back end. He’s their Mohawked Mojo, their Titan of ‘Tude, the galvazer of Gang Green. He is supremely skilled swagger on skates. He represents something this organization has never had: rock star star hockey player.

And that’s a very good thing.

You in the Grandpas of Capsdom might suggest that the Wild Thing, Al Iafrate, was such a figure 15 years ago. Iafrate’s game was special, but it was highly specialized in its impact — a really big (triple digit) slapshot, and some really big hits on the back end. And like Green he could skate like the wind. But he wasn’t quite the passer that Green is. He could deliver big hits for sure, and gracious he was fun to watch, but he was more enigma than star. Big Al never really offered the promise of being a 30-minuter-a-gamer who could, as Green showed in the Capitals’ first post-lockout playoff game this past April, outshine even the greatest hockey player in the world.

To those for whom Mike Green’s $5-million-plus pricetag seems too hefty, I ask this: you either agree or disagree that Mike Green, today, is a peer-in-ability-and-impact with Sergei Gonchar, the Penguins’ $5 million dollar man. Which is it? I happen to think he is, and that his upside, at both ends, is appreciably higher than Gonchar’s. And hypothetically, were Gonchar a free agent this summer, he’d command, on either the open or closed market, a salary likely higher than what Green got.

Also, what are the odds that in three or four years’ time this deal looks inflated and wasteful? Not real strong, methinks. In fact, seeing as how Green will be on the prognosticating minds of many hockey followers for Norris Trophy candidacy beginning in about three months’ time, the odds are better that as with his teammate Ovechkin, the deal looks fair and a good value before the ink is dry on it. Lastly, if you agree with George McPhee that the post-lockout NHL places a premium on reliable and creative puck-moving blueliners, how do you evaluate Green’s skillset in that regard?

Or put another way: can you imagine anyone else in the Capitals’ organization playing the role of fair substitute for Green’s game?

But there is also this consideration, which while somewhat intangible I think nonetheless played a direct and powerful impact on the Caps’ negotiations with Green: aside from his numbers, aside from his potential, aside from his present value in today’s NHL, Mike Green is a marvel of an entertaining hockey player to watch perform. He is dynamic with his instincts, his footwork, his howitzer of a point shot; he is a breed of blueliner we haven’t seen in these parts . . . perhaps ever.

He is two parts Steve Austin (but a whole lot less nerdy), one part Steve McQueen.

Recall his third-period magic in that game 1 against the Flyers this spring, when the Flyers held what shoud have been a lock-down, third period lead. Green took over that third period. And it was no fluke — we’d seen glimpses of that kind of command performance in the regular season as well, particularly after Bruce Boudreau came in. They just never had the stage that that postseason night did. It was a performance that led Flyers’ Coach John Stevens to single out Green for special coverage attention thereafter.

Now consider this: he’s certain to get better. It isn’t hyperbole, given the gusto of his game, to imagine a post-Nicklas Lidstrom NHL being Green’s to preside over when it comes to heavy hardware for the league’s reargaurds. He’ll have superb company (Phaneuf, Campbell, two or three names from the ‘08 draft as well, perhaps), but he’ll enter 2008-09 as a First-Team All Star candidate. The Sporting News this year named Green to its All Star team, where he joined Ovechkin.

Mike Green occasioned Gang Green in Verizon Center this past season. His puck rushes over the next four seasons in Washington will at times generate a mass rising in the home seats. That kind of response from and relationship with fans is a rarity in hockey — in sports in general. From management’s perspective, that’s no small part of his value.

If Washington is going to rise to some stature of a hockey town in a way it never did in the Capitals’ first 30 years of existence, Mike Green will play an outsized role as architect.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Media, Mike Green, Morning cup-a-joe, Players, Print, The Sporting News, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (21)

Goalie Shopping 2008: Skydiving with a Suspect Parachute

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Well, I suppose it’s worse to be in Cleveland, where their star hoopster apparently is making love-eyes at the Big Apple. We know for sure where Alex Ovechkin will be in 2012. And 2018. Then again, one more goalie to play in front of like Jose Theodore, and the Gr8 may rethink the merits of that new pro hockey league in Russia. Could you blame him? When you’re a hockey town in training and you’re looking down on Cleveland, things ain’t so swell.

It’s almost criminally cruel to have seen vanquished what we did yesterday in mere hours’ time. Namely: the Capitals’ Stanley Cup aspirations for the next two years. Or perhaps — and here I’ll channel my inner Puck Daddy — you think a journeyman netminder is somehow guiding the Caps to glory between now and 2010? Please, pass me a little of the crystal meth you’re consuming. Or perhaps you believe Capitals’ GM George McPhee, who’d have you believe there’s precious little difference between Cristobal Huet and Jose Theodore, despite the fact that the Caps offered their new no. 1 netminder — in the 31-year-old prime of his career — the lavish term of two years. And if not sub.-no.1 money, mediocre no. 1 dough. That term is code for: Simeon, get your game on, fast, in Hershey.

The point isn’t that Theodore and Huet are about the same age and have won the same number of Stanley Cups (zero). Or that their respective numbers aren’t all that different. It’s that Theodore has been in the league a lot longer, has been booted out of cities for his play, has broken a lot of hearts, and requires an oppressive trap to try and hide his inconsistency. Which the Caps won’t be playing.

It’s that one has been an All Star lately. It’s that one would have made a real run at the Vezina had he arrived in D.C. earlier this past season. Huet got UFA-to-be dealt out of town by the Eastern conference’s no.1 team, donned a strange sweater and played behind stranger defenders in a crisis-every-night environment, for a rookie coach recently promoted from the ‘A,’ and . . . dominated the league.

Forgive me for wanting to sign up for a few more years of that. And while the Caps made a spirited attempt to do it, the cold hard reality is that there was no safety net for failure. More on that in a moment.

In Gabby’s get-up-and-go system, netminders get tested all right. It’s wise to have a talented and consistent netminder facing the necessary barrage when it arrives. Of Theodore, it can be said that he possesses talent.

Theodore’s claim to fame was winning the Vezina and the Hart in the same season, a while ago, in 2001-02. The next season his goals-against average ballooned up by almost a goal a game. Almost a goal a game. He was allowed to wear pads that season. Then in 2003-04 his goals-against plunged back down into elite status. Then, post lockout, it skyrocketed back up — well over a goal-a-game up, this time — to the point where a second Montreal Riot was fomenting before he was shipped out. The sigh-inducing numbers litany can be found here.

Let’s put it this way: news of the signing was about 45 minutes old yesterday when an MSM reporter who shall not be named emailed me and said, “We’ll take in an Ovechkin 5-goal game next season — in a 6-5 loss.”

I have a rule for playing the Because-he’s-now-wearing-our-sweater-unprecedented-consistency-and-elite-performance-will-miraculously-emerge game: with your wager go instead with the 10 years’ performance pattern you know, hedging on its hard lessons.

It is positively true that Cristobal Huet treated the Capitals’ organization shabbily during the prelude to and opening of summer free agency. It is also likely that the Capitals were in no position to match or beat the term and largesse Huet agreed to in Chicago. Be all that as it may, it’s nonetheless hard to deny the profound sense of something great and magical irrevocably being lost in yesterday’s stunning reversal of city-enveloping puck fortune — really the first such in the Bruce Boudreau Era.

It’s also hard to avoid recognizing this increasingly disturbing trendline: the planet’s greatest hockey talent really has yet to be accorded a netminding talent, in durable fashion, commensurate with his status. Gretzky had Fuhr. The Flower had Dryden. Lemieux had Barrasso. Bourque at the end had Roy. Ovie gets a geezing Olie, a smattering of backup BJ, a cup of coffee with Huet, and now JT the Propecia spokesman in pads. The hope inside the organization is that perhaps in two years’ time — after Ovie’s labored some five NHL seasons — one of Michael Neuvirth or Simeon Varlamov is ready.

Yesterday was the culmination of years of failure by the Capitals’ organization to adequately address an heir for an aging Kolzig. You cannot blame management for not trying — they obtained, for aging Adam Oates, what they reasonably thought would be a worthy successor (first-round prospect Maxime Ouellet). By 2006 and Ouellet’s clear failure, they went into desperation mode, selecting two goalies among the first 34 players drafted in 2006. It appears as if those were strong selections. It also appears as if they occurred about four or five years too late. The rebuild, in front of the net, is over.

Late yesterday afternoon George McPhee attempted to equate the replacement of Huet with Theodore akin to that of Dainius Zubrus with Viktor Kozlov. But second- and third-line wingers are absolutely replaceable, every summer, every week of the calendar year. No. 1 netminders, not so much. Get it wrong in goal and every other move you make is academic.

Something truly magical happened to the Capitals late this past February when Cristobal Huet arrived here. In their negotiations with him, the Capitals clearly believed that. But in those they weren’t ready for business failure.

At least, not Rock the Red ready.

Get ready for firewagon — and abbreviated postseason — hockey.

Filed in Cristobal Huet, Front Office, George McPhee, Michal Neuvirth, Morning cup-a-joe, Prospects, Simeon Varlamov, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (48)

Prospects, Like Fine Red Wine, Take Time

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, June 26, 2008

We’re in this interim between the draft and the Capitals’ July Development Camp (mercifully, a period lasting little more than two weeks), and with the arrival in town soon of so many recently drafted prospects, it seems an appropriate time to map out what I regard as a fair and accurate timetable for hockey fans to await the arrival of promising youth to the parent club.

I do this because, as is the case with every draft season, a fair swath of fans get a case of the vapors when they take stock of a draft asset three or four years removed from his selection, and still in development; and swept up in message board madness, are therefore inclined to judge him “a bust.”

Let’s start out by stating the obvious: it ain’t easy projecting the NHL bona fides of 18-year-olds. More on that, as it relates to one Vincent Lecavalier, in a minute.

But let’s first address what I call the One-Tenth of One Percent Club. Your Ovechkins. Your Lemieuxs. Your Stamkoses. They don’t arrive every year, but when they do they seriously outclass their draft class. As 18-year-olds, they’re going straight to the NHL, to shine on a first line. They are very rare — the drafting exception. Here’s how rare a specimen Ovie was: a majority of NHL scouts, taking stock of his 18-point performance at the World Under-20s in 2001, thought him easily capable of taking regular — and impact — shifts in the NHL as a 16-year-old then. Again, though, this is the uber-exception, the cream of the elite crop. Most often at the very top of NHL drafts are really nice hockey players who need more CHL or European pro league seasoning.

So what happens with your more typical top-of-the-class blue-chippers, rest-of-the-first-round fellas, year in and year out? A few will require only a single additional year or two of competition in the Canadian Major Juniors. Think Karl Alzner (who likely would have earned a Caps’ sweater for a round two of the NHL playoffs this spring had the Caps prevailed in game 7 against Philly). If he’s a Euro lottery gem like Nicklas Backstrom, an additional year in his country’s top professional league before coming over. But again, we’re still discussing the cream of every draft crop and the odd exception to the general rule: even really terrific hockey prospects take time to develop. Ninety-plus percent of NHL first-rounders will require marinating in juniors and minor pro leagues, or on campus and then the minors, for years.

I mentioned Vinny Lecavalier earlier. He was drafted first overall in 1998. Tampa, then a league doormat, needed some star-buzz-Mojo in its lineup, and fairly forced the young Québécois into the NHL at 18. He scored a grand total of 13 goals during 1998-99. It’s almost beyond dispute that Vinny would have been better served with an additional year (or two) of development before hitting the bigs.

The next three seasons, Lecavalier notched between 23-25 goals; talk of “draft bust” necessarily followed, widely and loudly.

Then in 2002-03 Vinny hit 33 goals. He followed that with 32 in the ‘03-’04 campaign, which culminated with Tampa winning the Cup. Vinny played an important role in the Cup win, but he certainly wasn’t regarded as a stud. Some no. 1 overall, huh?

But a funny thing happened when Lecavalier returned from the lockout, some seven years after his drafting: he was still developing as a big-leaguer! In 2006-07 Lecavalier recorded his break-through, superstar season: 52 goals — nearly 10 years after he was drafted. These days, Lightning ownership is discussing inking Vinny to a lifetime contract.

How’s that for patience? Anybody talking about Vinny being a bust of a no. 1 now?

So with non-lottery picks, almost always, years and years of development are commonly required. Let’s cite Eric Fehr, since he’s a bit of a flashpoint for the with-vapors crowd. When Fehr was drafted in 2003, both Director of Amateur Scouting Ross Mahoney and GM George McPhee swiftly, publicly, established his requiring years more development just in Canadian Major Juniors. And Fehr rewarded the Caps’ plan of patience. He notched consecutive 50-plus-goal campaigns with Brandon of the WHL.

It’s instructive at this point to note that even a veteran bluechipper of a WHLer doesn’t waltz into the American Hockey League and command a first-line perch. The ‘A’ is a pro league of men, and at 20 or 21, CHL graduates — even distinguished ones — are raw meat for the grizzled grist of the last-chance-or-bust bus league. I know this doesn’t conform with message boards’ demand of immediate gratification, but it’s a reality of real-world hockey life.

So Fehr acquitted himself modestly well in 2005-06, his rookie season in pro hockey, potting 25 goals. In ‘06-’07 Fehr was hampered by injuries, but still he managed 22 goals in just 40 games with the Bears. He was, in just his second year of pro hockey, a point-per-game player. At the age of 22.

How about Brooks Laich, an ‘01 draftee? After he was drafted by Ottawa in ‘01 he spent an additional two full years in the CHL. Then he apprenticed in the ‘A’ for more than 120 games. He put up a grand total of 15 goals in more than 140 games with the Capitals between 2005-07. Some return for Peter Bondra, right? Well let’s see if the Caps regard him as a bust, seven summers removed from his draft year, during new contract negotiations this summer.

Brooks Laich is the norm in NHL development. Mike Green is not.

In 2004 the Caps drafted Minnesota prospect Travis Morin in the ninth round. He enjoyed an All American-caliber career at Minnesota State before signing with the Caps. His name was even discussed in association with the Hobey Baker award his final two seasons with the Mavericks. It’s irrelevant to me if Morin sees a single day of NHL duty in his pro hockey career. Finding that quality that late in any draft is a sure sign of scouting deftness. If the Caps’ scouts are going to uncover Hobey Baker candidate prospects once in a blue moon in a seventh or ninth round of the draft, I say (1) keep the scouts and (2) give them raises. It isn’t the job of your NHL scouts to develop Matt Pettinger into a consistent 20-goal scorer; that’s Matt Pettinger’s job.

So what is a general development formula for draft picks? I’d offer two years of additional CHL development after draft selection, a stint of at least two years, on average, in the ‘A,’ and then, potentially, graduation to 4th line minutes with the big club — and that’s if you’re a bluechipper. Not a stud, but a bluechipper. And no development-impairing injuries like we saw with Fehr or Nolan Yonkman, or else the timetable gets adjusted outward.

If you’re a U.S. collegian, 3-4 years on campus and at least 1-3 years in minor pros. That’s the norm. Joe Finley’s getting at least a full season in Hershey after having spent four years at one of the premier college hockey programs in America, and likely one season plus with the Bears. And he was a first-rounder. Guys like Phil Kessel (a serious bluechipper) who shortcut it just don’t seem to have made wise choices.

For Euros, well, there’s wide variance in the caliber of competition from league to league, but with a good prospect like Anton Gustafsson we ought to expect another year sub-Swedish Elite League season and at least one year in the Elite before we see him. He’d also have to stay healthy for those two years. A year in Hershey afterward probably wouldn’t hurt, either.

Filed in Brooks Laich, DraftGeek, Entry Draft, Eric Fehr, Joe Finley, Karl Alzner, Morning cup-a-joe, Prospects, Travis Morin, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (10)

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.

Filed in DraftGeek, Entry Draft, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins, Prospects, Schadenfreude, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (11)

Morning After Draft Reflections

By pucksandbooks

Saturday, June 21, 2008

In a draft heavy on talented rearguards, four of the first five selections were on the blueline, and 12 went among the top 30 overall. I’m at pains to identify a real reach anywhere in round one. Certainly there were no Blake Wheeler brain-dead picks. A lot of teams helped their systems last night.

Although . . . not so much in Pittsburgh.

There were more than a dozen trades during round one last night, which added serious spice to the evening drama. Olli Jokinen moved out of the Southeast (for a song). The Flames moved Alex Tanguay and his 18 goals and $5 million contract to Montreal for the Habs’ first rounder. The Kings shipped Mike Cammallerie to Calgary for a first. And of course the Caps parted ways with Steve Eminger.

It’s a metaphysical certitude that a fair and sober and accurate evaluation of any draft requires 3-5 years’ time as picks mature from teenage prospects into young men mentored by NHL organizations, and so necessarily it’s important to weigh in — with vigorous and unyielding certainty – on who won and who lost last night, less than 12 hours after the 30th pick was made.

My winners: Chicago, Phoenix (highway robbery of Florida), Nashville, the Rangers, LA, Tampa, and the Caps.

Losers: the New York Islanders (there’s a stunner).

The Isles’ behavior last night can only be described as bizarre. They have a roster craving impact players, and perched at no. 5, they were poised to land one. Filatov, for instance, was on the board. So was Schenn. So what does the Snow-Wang braintrust do? They trade down. Not once, but twice! Where at no. 9 they land non-impact prospect Josh Bailey.

“The consensus is that [Bailey] won’t be a big offensive producer in the NHL,” THN wrote in its Entry Draft preview issue. Just what the Isles needed. I think the Blue Jackets stunned Snow with their selection of Filatov at no. 6, meaning, necessarily, that the Isles weren’t well prepared for the moment. There’s something new.

Keep an eye on Nashville’s selection at 18, goaltender Chet Pickard. Mike Vogel chatted up a scouting source in Ottawa who suggested that Pickard is more impressive now than was Carey Price in his draft year. Wow.

Consensus seems to be that the Rangers got great value in selecting Michael Del Zotto at 20.

If there was one moderate reach in round one it might have been the Bs choosing Joe Colborne at no. 16. Colborne played Jr. A the past two seasons. He’s a tantalizing package of a big frame, strong skating, and soft hands, but NHL scouts commonly show restraint with prospects who aren’t competing at the highest level among their peers. Colborne will skate next season with Denver of the WCHA, so he’ll get as good a test of his abilities there as he could anywhere.

Earlier this week, via the CapsReport, I put to draft guru Kyle Woodlief a question about an American prospect surge late this spring, noting that whereas throughout much of the hockey season most scouting services had just two or three Americans going in round one, finals lists commonly had 4-6 Yanks there. He poo-poo-ed the notion, suggesting that about three Americans remained likelys for the first. Well, six Americans went among the first 30 players drafted, further bolstering the claims of a renaissance in U.S. hockey development.

I just have this hunch that Hawks’ fans will come to love Dale Tallon’s pick of Kyle Beach at no. 11. He’s a big-bodied, piss-n-vinegar prospect.

For Caps’ fans, leaving a strong draft with two first-round picks has to be considered both a pleasant surprise and a real boon to an already strong stable of youth. If I’m a hockey fan in Hershey this morning I’m calling the ticket office and inquiring about season tickets for the next couple of seasons. In the Washington hockey bloggers’ real-time chat I joined last night I observed to the room how cool it will be to see the name Gustafsson on the back of red, white, and blue Caps’ sweaters, and not out of nostalgia.

I want to commend the Friday night puck party sensibilities of the well over 500 puckheads who joined JP, Eric, Peerless, and OFB in our consolidated live blog forum for more than four hours last night. Apparently, in late June, Washington isn’t much of a hockey town.

It was, from my vantage, everything that new media can offer as a rewarding experience in being connected with like-minded lovers of hockey on a big night. It didn’t hurt that we were gathered on a Friday night. Kudos to JP for bringing forward the idea late in the day yesterday, and to Eric for carrying off the last-minute technology so smoothly. By evening’s end a whole lot of us were united in the belief that we have to do it again. We were also united in the belief that JP needs help with his refrigerator’s selection of puck sodas.

Filed in Bengt Gustafsson, Blogs, DraftGeek, Entry Draft, Internet, Media, Mike Vogel, Morning cup-a-joe, Prospects, Steve Eminger, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (7)

Origins of a DraftGeek

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

For those who live with hockey residing in the soul, every day carries some manner of frozen celebration, even in the dead of summer, but some days are better refrigerated than others. For me there are three or four genuinely dry-ice moments in the hockey calendar that are a given every year: the morning of day one of training camp in September; the morning of the season opener about a month later; and the moment that the NHL commissioner places the team drafting first at June’s Entry Draft on the clock. With those first two events, no doubt I’m joined in celebration by thousands of puckheads across the continent. But the latter?

Welcome to my world, that of the DraftGeek.

I can trace my addiction back to, of all things, a George Michael sportscast on WRC-TV in 1981. That was the Bobby Carpenter draft. Michael that evening led his sportscast with word of the Caps drafting Carpenter third overall that summer. Obviously pre-Internet, pre-anything hockey coverage then in the offseason, the broadcast news gatekeepers had to apprise us of anything significant transpiring for the pro hockey team here. Carpenter had appeared on Sports Illustrated’s cover in March of ‘81, making his selection by the Caps in that draft a lead story affair for local media. And of course, the ‘81 draft was just a year removed from the Miracle on Ice, and so the Caps selecting what was then regarded as the finest American hockey prospect perhaps since Hobey Baker made a formative impression on your blogger.

In the spring of ‘81 there was a rather public game of cat and mouse between the Caps and General Manager Emile Francis’ Hartford Whalers. Hartford drafted immediately after the Caps at no. 4, and the Whale was trying to decide between Carpenter and another center prospect, Ron Francis. The Caps went with the Can’t Miss Kid from Massachusetts. The Whale made out all right, though.

Fast forward to 1994. Peter Bondra, a relative unknown in the larger hockey world, barnstorms to the top of the NHL goal scoring title in the labor strife abbreviated ‘94-95 season. The very next season he’d score 52 goals. Bondra was drafted 156th by the Capitals, in the eighth round, of the remarkable 1990 draft. I remember watching Bondra in ‘94 and thinking, how the hell did we land this guy, so late? Bondra’s discovery by then Caps’ scout Jack Button is the stuff of Entry Draft lore. Bonzai was the proverbial backwoods prospect, completely off of everybody’s radar, until Button got a tip and somehow found the slick-skating Slovak without a GPS. It was, hands down, Button’s greatest and most important scouting work for the Caps.

There’s no such thing as a Peter Bondra in a round eight of the NFL or NBA drafts (heck, the NBA doesn’t even have a round four anymore). I love that about hockey’s.

In our lifetime we may never see the likes of the ‘90 class again. Owen Nolan, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur, Petr Nedved, Doug Weight — gracious, Sergei Zubov went in round 5 that summer! After the Caps selected Bondra in round 8 they did ok in round 9, too: Ken Klee.

Fast forward to 1996. The leadup buzz with that draft surrounded a big-bodied, ungodly talented Russian power forward named Alexander Volchkov. (Our good friend JP exercises his inner DraftGeek with this update of Volchkov, one of the all-time Entry Draft marvels.) Without question there were scores of questions surrounding Volchkov’s commitment and heart — in hindsight, magnificently inpsired and well-placed ones — but there was no denying that in ‘96, Volchkov’s talent stood head and shoulders above his draft classmates. He was that tantalizing, once-in-decade-or-two talent that makes scouts and GMs drool. That he landed in Washington seemed a stunner of massive fortune to a franchise that by then had endured an unhealthy share of postseason misfortune. Volchkov and his dazzling skill set were worth taking a flyer on.

Some flyer. More like an airplane with icy wings and an engine that wouldn’t. But it’s hit-or-miss intrigue like Volchkov that adds additional flavor to the draft.

That ‘96 draft further tormented the Capitals and their fans with one Jaroslav Svejkovsky — he the scorer of four goals in 1997’s final regular season game in Buffalo. Who who watched that vintage performance would have thought that the apex of Yogi’s career? Alas, it was, but early that offseason more than a few DraftGeeks experienced irrational exuberance imagining the Caps the draft winners of ‘96 coming away with both Volchkov and Svejkovsky.

If 1990 was the NHL’s vintage year for prospects, 1996 was its white zinfandel — from a box.

2002’s draft was also supposed to be a lemon. That draft, conducted in Toronto, was the first I attended. Actually being in the building for a draft affords you a powerful and lasting sense of how much of a family celebration the draft is, parents and siblings by the thousands dressed in their Sunday finest, with camera flashes illuminating Air Canada Centre like cigarette lighters at a rock concert. On TV the draft is all about the players and the draft floor mass of scouts and managers on telephones and talking heads second guessing. In the stands it’s all about the biggest day in the lives of five thousand families.

‘02 was really panned for its lack of depth. And yet the Caps came away with Steve Eminger, Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, even Tomas Fleischmann eventually. The worst drafts still manage to produce players; ‘96 for instance delivered Dainius Zubrus.

By Draft 2003 — billed by insiders as a fair rival in talent to ‘90 — we’d evolved with technology to the point where DraftGeeks were well linked from Canada, Europe, and America with message board madness related to the draft. Hockeysfuture was exploding into the consciousness of future-minded puckheads. In the early spring of ‘03, Friday and Saturday nights for your blogger were laden with bottled beer and HF boards immersion. I was never happier.

Hockeysfuture has been a godsend for DraftGeeks, but there are enough of us that its server regularly crashes around 10:00 a.m. on draft mornings. I remember that agony, too. A religious rite at Hockeysfuture is the posting of serious-minded mock drafts. There is a stable of Tier I DraftGeek there who annually offer near pro scout quality stuff with their mocks. And there are genuine scouts who both read and post there, regularly.

It was only recently that we in the States began seeing the draft on TV. And now the draft has become enough of an event for the league that it receives prime time TV coverage, on Friday nights, with the NHL Network even picking up Saturday morning’s post-first round action. Heaven.

My favorite draft moment? A funny thing happened one super sunny April day in the District in 2004, not long after the Caps had basically bottomed out in the league standings: a ping pong ball bounced their way in the league’s New York office, awarding them a coveted Russian prospect who’d already made a name for himself as an organization-altering talent. I’ll remember the fortune of that day ’til they toss dirt over my casket. (And likely I’ll be buried clutching a mock draft for that year.)

The NHL Draft is about families who’ve dedicated so much of their lives to the cultivation of elite hockey talent, driving the family car through amazingly harsh northern winters — pre-dawn black ice and frozen door locks and ice-crusted windows for pre-school skates and homework over hot chocolate and other ice rink nutrition. It’s about an end-of-every-round dynamo Detroit confounding 29 other clubs with diamond-in-the-rough picks guiding them to annual contention and, every few years, Lord Stanley. It’s about a “weak” draft delivering, in round six, a pint-sized MVP from the Quebec League. It’s about the CHL versus U.S. college hockey. It’s about wheeling and dealing.

No wonder I’m addicted.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, DraftGeek, Entry Draft, George Michael, Hardcore Hockey Fans, Internet, Mathieu Perreault, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Peter Bondra, Prospects, TV, Training Camp, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)

More Changing of the Star Guard in Washington

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

One evening last week I departed a suburban Maryland grocery store trailing a father and what appeared be his son, aged about seven. The youth was wearing a Gilbert Arenas Wizards’ jersey.

Two news items from last week made me reflect on this situation: (1) that Arenas had opted out of the final year of his contract with the Wizards, snubbing the tidy sum of $12.8 million next season in exchange for a search this summer for greener pastures (perhaps like Latrell Sprewell before him, Arenas just has a family to feed); and (2) that on Friday the Capitals’ Alexander Ovechkin would be accepting the key to the city from the mayor.

It’s absolutely true that Arenas could return to Chinatown this autumn and resume his career as a Wizard, but his announced action last week was something less than, say, the full-on pledge of fidelity made by the other Verizon Center star tenant earlier this year.

In the immediacy of my grocery store moment I wondered if and how the father ahead of me might undertake the explaining of Arenas’ circumstances to his son. No doubt dad would wait until the news was certain, but then what? Assuming Gilbert goes, the youth wearing his jersey this summer confronts perhaps his life’s first full-on agony: his life’s hero departed, without understanding of how or why, to wear the jersey of another team. Next I thought about the legion of Ovechkin shirt-wearing youths in the region, and how they’ll never know such a day.

I’m a huge hockey fan, altogether indifferent when it comes to hoops in all of its iterations, but this wildly divergent imbalance in loyalty by the respective athletes — even in decade four that we are now in of massive player movement each and every season — I don’t like at all. In this regard (and many others), I am a Caveman.

Arenas last week merely did what was common in his sport. If what Ovechkin did in January can’t be described quite as common in his, still, it didn’t quite surprise those of us who follow hockey all that much. Or put another way: when has Ovechkin ever been about himself at the expense of his team?

Ultimately, it doesn’t much matter what Arenas decides to do in what I believe is yet another Summer of Change for sporting D.C. Last week I think signaled more of a dramatic progression in the unprecedented ascension by a sports star here in a sport that’s never truly taken root in this city (but sure looks like it is now). Ovechkin the transformative athlete was last week transforming his town more. You saw last Friday how he summertime transformed A1 of the Washington Post.

In his defense, Arenas is an extremely likeable NBA star. When healthy, he plays his sport magnificently and manages to stay out of trouble off the court, entirely, which unfortunately is somewhat news of note for a leader in that league. Like Ovechkin, Arenas is full of wide-smiling charisma, and like Ovechkin, people are drawn to him. Still, last week, he told us rather explicitly just how near and dear to his heart we Washingtonians were, this way: it’s just business, baby.

It was business, too, for AO last January, real serious business; but he took a markedly different view of his supporters and their town. He articulated then this sentiment: I want to win a Stanley Cup in Washington. He reiterated this in Toronto last Thursday night, when he filled a 747 with honors hardware.

It wasn’t lost on me, either, that Arenas snubbed a sum nearly $3 million more than Ovechkin will ever earn in salary as the planet’s greatest hockey player. And yet, in this moment in time, whereas perhaps 20 years ago the departure of a basketball stud in his 26-year-old prime likely would have occasioned every-office corner angst, are the city’s flags flying at half mast? Is anybody but me this morning much talking about Gilbert?

Our mayor doesn’t seem to be.

But this file isn’t about the humility of hockey players versus the bling and entourages of the athletes in other sports. It’s about the ongoing procession of a pied piper of puck, who just seems with his ongoing presence to take Washington’s sports fans — and the city’s media editors — in ever increasing numbers into his realm.

It is also about his ascension into a new, parallel universe of sports star. One that’s not necessarily in competition with Redskins or Wizards but rather is its own deeply edifying existence: Washington the no longer one-sport city. Even if Jason Campbell manages no better than a .500 career as a Redskin starter he will certainly enjoy greater celebrity and name recognition here than the hockey star. That, along with dispiriting humidity, is Washington’s perpetual affliction. But Ovechkin, without really trying, just by being great and just by being himself, is enlargening our game here. Mario did it in football-looney Pittsburgh, made it fashionable to travel to other cities in a Penguins’ sweater (speaking of afflictions).

Over at the Wilson building last Friday afternoon, Ovechkin again showed how he’s breaking the mold of what we in D.C. have come to know as our enduring sports icons. He’s in possession of a charisma, an aura, that will not be throttled or dimmed by any awkwardness with his still-in-progress command of English. In moments when the most special of stars are supposed to shine, he’s almost always radiant. And so in accepting his ceremonial key to the city he announced, “I’m the president this day in the city, so everybody have fun — no speed limit.”

Apt words, those, because even in 90-degree summer heat Ovie has us having a lot of fun loving him and his winter game.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Basketball, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Washington Capitals, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (8)

Remembering a Broadcast Giant in a Moment of National Glory

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

If Al Michaels was the voice of the Miracle on Ice, Jim McKay — ABC’s only studio presence on the evening of Friday, February 22, 1980 — was surely its face. I was too young to remember the McKay of Munich; in my adolescence of ‘80 I hung on his every word.

We lost McKay last weekend, and so we lost a towering figure of broadcast excellence, a broadcast personality perhaps more associated with the Olympics than any athlete. But most painfully for fans of American hockey, we lost a vital touchstone to one of the greatest moments of our lives, and certainly sports’ greatest moment.

Those in my age cohort will remember well the extraordinary role McKay had to play that remarkable February Friday. ABC made the decision to tape-delay the U.S.-Russia medal round semifinal, which faced off at 5:00 p.m. , and so by broadcast time that night McKay was in on one of the best-kept secrets in the history of television news; virtually the rest of his nation of 230 million was clueless. Perhaps like the rest of his countrymen two hours later — ABC didn’t broadcast the game in its entirety — in the upset’s immediate aftermath McKay simply didn’t know how to process the significance of the world-altering American triumph, and so he could manage those opening couple of setup minutes with his well-practiced professionalism.

Still, looking back, McKay’s prime-time composure seems nearly as miraculous as the feat of Herbie’s charges that day.

Because he was a pro’s pro who undoubtedly sensed the culminating effect of the American team’s feats to that moment, McKay played it straight as he came on the air at 8:00. He graced a studio set that to today’s around-the-clock-and-channels, sports-devouring eyes would seem spartan. Actually, it wasn’t so much a set as a grand stage for one: just McKay, the dean of American broadcast sports journalism, in his ABC Sports blazer. It was a very newsy shot for a very newsy occasion.

Looking back on that extraordinary moment — I have a VHS copy of it, and badly am in need of a digital one — one can see and hear the standard McKay setup for a significant moment: an eloquent and efficient chronicling of the Americans’ unbelievable underdog ascent into Lake Placid’s hockey medals qualification round. But with the benefit of hindsight, you can also detect a glimmer in his eye. That glimmer was joined by the slightest upturn in the crease of his mouth as he concluded his intro with, “You definitely want to stick around for this one.”

Were truer words ever uttered on television?

What a wonderful moment in time to be free of the Internet, I think now.

I remember McKay principally for that evening but also for his less dramatic duties hosting ABC’s ‘Wide World of Sports’ on Saturday afternoons. McKay seemed to celebrate the totality of athletic excellence in his broadcast career, which is perhaps why he cherished working the Olympics — in their less vulgar incarnation, obviously. He played it straight then, too, although I seem to remember that when it came to American excellence in sport his narrations bore a subtle but unmistakable pride. We could use more of that today, I think.

In reading memorials of his career this week I was struck by the breadth of events he covered. He was ABC’s go-to guy for special events, for decades. He was a seminal media figure at horse racing’s Triple Crown races, and with ‘Wide World of Sports’ he’d anchor one of the most successful sports programs in television history.

Televised sports in America in the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s was far different from what we know today. It was almost singularly male in the composition of its competitors, and it was also at times kitsch-ish in its made-for-TV moments: If it was sporting Americana taking place — the Indy 500 or Evel Knievel attempting to rocket-jump the Grand Canyon — McKay was there to cover it. In reflecting on this it strikes me as Hollywood-script-perfect for McKay to have been there as he was that fabulous Friday night, isolated in that studio shot.

“Here were these college kids beating the Soviets and going on to the Olympic Gold Medal,” McKay said in an interview in 2003. “To me, that’s the greatest upset of all time in any sport that I can think of.”

Maybe it’s the effects of nostalgia’s dominating spirit, but what I remember about February 23 and 24, 1980, was McKay’s voice interrupting what by then had become marginalized competing Olympic sports, for his narrating over scene after scene of thousands of delirious Americans draped in Old Glory, painting a small New York town in our nation’s colors.

On February 22, 1980, and for the remainder of that unforgettable weekend, we Americans, beleaguered in so many respects as we then were, needed a shepherd of first composure and then appropriate and eloquent ecstasy for an event that forever changed our lives. Jim McKay was that and much more.

It was, truly, a winter Friday night of miraculous innocence. Gone, now, like the broadcast hero who ushered it into our lives, forever.

Filed in American Hockey, Hockey Heroes, Media, Miracle on Ice, Morning cup-a-joe, TV, USA Hockey, WJLA| Permalink| Comments (13)

It’s Time To Realign and Bring Back the Heat Among Hated Rivals

By pucksandbooks

Monday, June 9, 2008

I have six principles guiding a much-needed, rigorous realignment of NHL teams for the 2009-10 season. They are:

(1) There is widespread support among general managers, owners, players, media, the presidential candidates, and hockey fans to have the Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby rivalry, such as it is, coronated formally in a largely reconstituted Patrick division. In so doing, one of the league’s fiercest set of division rivals would be getting back to hating one another nightly as they should. April’s Washington-Philadelphia seven-gamer offered a powerful reminder of the Patrick’s lasting legacy. This would also right the grievous wrong the league perpetrated on the Capitals a decade ago in removing them from one of sports’ best divisions.

(2) Expansion — to 32 teams — is inevitable. The revenues the league has enjoyed in three successive post-lockout seasons indicate it. My new-look league, initially unbalanced by 16 teams in one conference and 14 in the other, is perfectly structured to accommodate the new arrivals. This inevitable expansion is virtually certain to be located out West, be it in Houston, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Seattle, Portland, or Winnipeg.

(3) Geographic region names for divisions and conferences are for sucks. They are characterless. The NHL had it right pre-Bettman, honoring the game’s builders by affiliating their names with individual divisions, and just as importantly, the league’s gained nothing by vanilla-ing their identity away from it. So Norris, Patrick and Smythe are returned. But in a tip of the hat to the new, the two conferences aren’t rigidly structured by East and West and instead are designated under perhaps the two greatest player names in hockey history: Howe and Orr.

(4) There is something unrivaled in all of professional sports with the cache of the NHL’s Original Six teams, and so those six clubs, housed together for the first time since pre-’67, become the centerpiece of my alignment overhaul.

(5) Forever has Detroit wanted to move to an Eastern time zone conference affiliation, and with this overhaul the Wings will.

(6) A largely balanced schedule is in the best interest of the sport. There would be home and aways with every team in the league, every season. That would mean about 50 games out of your division and about 30 within. The majority of games within conference. This seems about right. Everybody sees Sidney, everybody sees Alex, everybody gets to see every star every season. Out of principle. What has been in place under Bettman has bred numbing repetition and indifference, and indefensible geographic isolation.

Other Benefits. Mercifully, the NASCAR division — since it can’t be uniformly euthanized — is coherently structured with Washington’s removal and Nashville’s addition. A half dozen genuinely hate-based rivalries of today, in a 30-team league, would be doubled or even tripled in this new configuration. The Patrick and Original Six divisions would likely play their division foes to near 100 percent attendance capacity each night, every season. The addition of a team in Las Vegas — a Sin City locale for a league full of sin on every shift — would create instant buzz generally and especially pizzaz within a West-configurated division named after Foster Hewitt.

This realignment would be executed in time for the 2009-10 season, with the Orr and Howe conferences unbalanced in number of teams for a year or two to allow time to expand in two more markets, both of which would join the Howe conference.

We can quibble on the reorienting of one or three specific franchises, but the heart of this matter is getting Sid and Alex and the Atlantic region reconfigured together, Detroit appropriately accommodated to a largely Eastern schedule, inevitable expansion seamlessly slotted in, and the Original Six ascending to a perch known by no other division in the entirety of the professional sports landscape.

Orr Conference
Patrick Division	Original Six	Norris Division
Washington	Boston	Atlanta
New Jersey	Chicago	Carolina
NY Islanders	Detroit	Florida
Philadelphia	Montreal	Nashville
Pittsburgh	NY Rangers	Tampa
	Toronto
Howe Conference
Adams Division	Smythe Division	Hewitt Division
Buffalo	Calgary	Anaheim
Columbus	Colorado	(Las Vegas)
Minnesota	Dallas	Los Angeles
Ottawa	Edmonton	Phoenix
St. Louis	(Houston)	San Jose
	Vancouver

Filed in Conferences, Eastern Conference, Gary Bettman, Hockey Legends, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, The Great Old Patrick Division, Washington Capitals, Western Conference| Permalink| Comments (31)

Ryan Malone, a Battered Face of Courage

By pucksandbooks

Friday, June 6, 2008

I write today in praise of a Penguin. It’s true. Penguins’ right wing Ryan Malone redefined courage in these just completed Stanley Cup Finals - even by hockey’s heightened standards of beaten up bravado. He had his nose already broken and swollen before he absorbed a further face-disfiguring trauma to it via a slapshot from the point while standing in the crease in front of Chris Osgood in game 5. You may have heard NBC’s Mike Emerick acknowledge that Malone “had his face rebuilt yesterday.”

Malone actually returned to Monday night’s game 5 after receiving medical treatment. God knows how.

Doc wasn’t speaking colloquially to his television audience, either. Years back in the NHL playoffs the Stars’ Mike Modano had his nose obliterated much like Malone, and like Malone, had to have it rebuilt. Dallas’ medical and training staff used cork to try and stabilize all the shattered bone in Modano’s face. Like Malone, Modano returned to action, missing only a few shifts. Malone may or may not have had a similar remedy this week, but NBC cameras were rather generous in illustrating his plight between shifts. It appeared as if he had blood-absorbing sponge-gauze and or some stabilizing foam pad tucked within his nostrils. The principal challenge for hockey players in such circumstances is getting air through their nostrils during and immediately after their shifts - executing fundamental respiration.

Those of us suffering from seasonal allergies know how tough nostril breathing can be on days of high pollen counts. Imagine if you were trying to chase Henrik Zetterberg down with a collapsed nasal cavity and clumps of dried blood clotting what little air passages remained!

And it isn’t just during elite athletic competition that dire discomfort sets it. A nose fractured far less seriously than was Malone’s is a serious impediment to nighttime rest. It isn’t just blocked air passages that thwart deep sleep - traditional tossing and turning that bring the damaged area into contact with even the softest pillows occasion nightmare-like screams. Ryan Malone’s suffering the last week off the ice likely was almost equal to that of his shifts on it.

Photo as seen on The Pens Blog

Most remarkable about Malone’s perseverance through pain was his shieldless-ness in Game 6. He skated the entire game with his badly damaged face fully exposed. If you think that the Red Wings accorded Malone some softened deference in their checking of him out of consideration of his condition, you don’t know hockey very well.

You have to imagine that the Penguins’ medical staff urged Malone to don a protective visor. But in the case of a half shield, those easily and commonly get pushed back into players’ faces during corner and crease scrums, which wouldn’t have been a real pleasant experience for Malone. The full shields fog up in winter rinks, and given the conditions in the Igloo Wednesday night, Malone may have judged that more an impediment than aid. Whatever his thinking, he sure skated with remarkable bravery and guts.

It’s also true that on some level he could even have been risking his life. A nose can get bashed in so badly that it causes death. You don’t want bone fragments piercing the brain, for instance. I’m no karate expert, but I believe there is a black belt move made with a partially closed fist â€” the purpose of which is to deliver a blow to a specific area of the nose that sends bone fragments into the brain, immediately killing the opponent.

Malone’s bravery and determination during the Stanley Cup Finals showcased anew hockey’s unrivaled ethos of courage and guts. Other pro sports of course have their instances of unbelievable acts of playing through pain. The Los Angeles Rams’ linebacker Jack Youngblood played a postseason on a broken leg. One of my favorite stories of an athlete persevering through pain is San Francisco 49ers’ safety Ronnie Lott choosing to have the tip of a badly mangled finger amputated at halftime rather than miss the rest of the game. Imagine!

Still, I don’t know of another sport whose athletes so commonly and selflessly ignore injury trauma with the legacy of hockey. Ryan Malone is the latest in that legacy.

Filed in Morning cup-a-joe, Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup Playoffs| Permalink| Comments (4)

Rushing to the Aid of a Foe’s Fanbase in Their Hour of Need

By pucksandbooks

Monday, June 2, 2008

Being the high-road breed of hockey fans we are, we are called in this hour of anguish for our rivals to the North and West to traffic in empathy, commiseration, and sportsmanship. The black and gold partisans may not return the courtesy when they’re playing the role of spectator to our Cup challenges years hence, but no matter. We will elevate ourselves above the urge to gloat and belittle whilst our foe’s fiendishly follicled followers sip stale-tasting Iron City and sulk on runner-up status.

We must resist any and all temptation to raise discussions of the Annointed One’s perhaps taking up residence in that ignominious realm of career-long Stanley-less Stud. He’s young of course, and the likelihood is strong I think that he’ll vie again deep in spring for his name’s engraving. Only a rat, then, would recite a roll call of legendary names knowing no raised arms, ever, at season’s end — names like Jean Ratelle, Marcel Dionne, Adam Oates, Darryl Sittler, Gilbert Perreault, Brad Park, Bernie Nichols, Dino Ciccarelli, Michel Goulet, Mike Gartner, Dale Hawerchuck, Jeremy Roenick, Dale Hunter, Peter Stastny, Pierre Turgeon, Trevor Linden, Peter Bondra, Rick Middleton, Cam Neely, Pat LaFontaine.

Not to be a Negative Nick, but it is certainly true that return Finals engagements are not guaranteed. Unforeseeable forces like ill-timed injuries and white-hot playoff goaltenders — who can forget the rookie Dryden shocking the dynasty-forming Bs in ‘71? — can wreak havoc with the best-laid roster assembly. But now is not the hour to reference this, while our counterparts stare blankly before domination’s path.

We ought to remind them of the lessons surely to be gained from so valiant a run through the spring season, and that with nearly 10 players inked for next season how Penguins’ management has merely a Herculean — and not necessarily impossible — task in reassembling a top-tier team to compete in the mighty Atlantic division.

What is to be gained at this hour from articulating, in shallow self-interest, mean-spirited metaphors — you know the type, commonly composed on message boards of bile, the sort that would liken the Penguins’ competitiveness in these Finals’ games to that of an arthritic, three-legged poodle at the Vicks’ Saturday night dog brawl. A seriously sick schadenfreuder — and these cretins do exist — might hasten to add, toy poodle, too.

Additionally, do Pens’ fans need to be reminded now of Evgeni Malkin’s missing-in-action meagerness in these Finals’ games, of how Harry Houdini himself never carried off so mystifying a disappearing act? I think not.

Marc-Andre Fleury can hold his head up high for injecting a fleeting sliver of hope late last week among the fanbase. That ultimately he failed as a young netminder in the Finals whereas Carolina’s Cam Ward shined as a rookie between the pipes on hockey’s biggest stage — and without a glut of superstars in front of him, it bears mentioning — is of little bearing.

There ought not now be any mention of how a team that spent nearly a decade drafting at or near the very top of successive drafts must seize glory’s opportunities in its early dawnings, as star contracts commonly become fiscal burdens and impossible renewals as free agency eligibility arrives earlier each year. Certainly it would aid the cause of this club were it on the receiving end of lavish luxury box revenues, and not instead a tenant in a rink that should be torn down. Fortunately on this front, the remedy rink is but a couple of years away. There is in Pittsburgh today a core that must suffer the shearing off only of two or three expensive, supremely talented parts very early this offseason.

Obviously, it does no good either to reference the mortgaging a hefty portion of the present and the future as required by acquiring the rental player Marian Hossa. Time — perhaps a decade’s worth — will soften the sting of young Shero’s shipping off two young and productive roster players and two no. 1 draft picks, in exchange for Hossa’s dozen goals. Many of them, however, were pretty.

Let it be said that with respect to Michel Therrien’s tactical adjustments — the in-game ones most particularly — that the Penguins’ bench boss has the look of good health about him, and that there are, indisputably, coaches in the league who dress worse than he does, and that there is every reason to believe he’d be a cheerful companion at a summer barbeque. How often have you read such commendation emanating from this keyboard, directed at this organization, during the young lifetime it has tormented?

I write wanting none of your in-box clogging admiration for my magnanimity in this moment. Place this file in the annals of sudden, heroic Glasnost if you must. But know that there are limits to such aid and comfort of the enemy. For instance, I still have one more Versus-NBC broadcast of a Pens’ game to endure.

Filed in Atlantic Division, Evgeni Malkin, Free Agents, Morning cup-a-joe, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby, Stanley Cup Playoffs| Permalink| Comments (17)

A Second Act in D.C. for Sergei Fedorov? Let’s Hope So

By pucksandbooks

Friday, May 30, 2008

Likely Sergei Fedorov, in the initial hours and days after arriving in Washington late this past February, thinking ahead then to what was almost certainly his final game as a Capital on April 5, gave some thought to returning home to his native Russia and signing one last lucrative pro contract before hanging them up — or finishing the 2007-08 NHL as a rental Cap and retiring altogether. And who could have blamed him? He’s as decorated a star player as we’ve seen in the last quarter century: a six-time All-Star; a Hart Trophy winner; a Selke Trophy winner; thrice a Stanley Cup champion. What’s left to accomplish here?

Additionally, Sergei’s brother Fedor, a 2001 draft pick of Vancouver, plays in the Russian Super League with Moscow Dynamo, and older brother has spoken publicly of his wish to play with younger brother before retiring. Again, who could blame him?

And yet from his national team and NHL teammate Alexander Ovechkin we learned this week that Fedorov is keenly interested in playing more hockey as a Washington Capital. That’s right, one of the most decorated superstars in hockey of the past quarter century, having accomplished really everything an NHL player could in a career, wants one more run at glory, in the District of Columbia.

The upshot of which is this: Sergei Fedorov believes he has something still to accomplish as an NHLer, as a Cap.

My how hockey times have changed.

Traditionally, the circumstances surrounding a player like Fedorov and the Capitals this summer would have made resigning thoughts ludicrous and impractical. The Capitals, after all, already have a healed up Michael Nylander under contract and star-in-the-making Nicklas Backstrom to center their top two lines. They have, including bonuses, about $8 million in centers for their top two lines next season. Behind them they have exceptionally capable and emerging talent in Brooks Laich; one of the better young defensive forwards in the entire NHL in Boyd Gordon; and in Dave Steckel a top-notch guy on draws and, like Gordon, an exceptional penalty killer. Fedorov is 38, and in terms of raw production about half of what he was with Detroit in 2002-03.

Fedorov’s versatile and all — capable even of playing top-4-pairing defense in this league still — but you don’t resign a near-40 forward in the flickering embers of his career to multi-millions to play a bit part, right?

Right. You resign him partly because 2007-08 taught you the value of having quality depth up front. You resign him because you envision him as more than a veteran catalyst toward a Cup run.

And, you don’t place all your chips on ‘08-09, either. More on that in a moment. But resigning Fedorov, in light of the outstanding contracts already piled high before General Manager George McPhee, means more pressure against the cap and likely the inability to resign one or two contributors from last season.

Fine by me.

The sentiment among virtually the entirety of HockeyWashington early this offseason is thus: get Feds resigned.

Perhaps this consensus is predicated on this perception: the fit between player and team at this moment in time is as perfect as perfect can be in the sport. It’s more than just the veteran hero-Russian mentoring the young Russian studs Ovechkin and Semin. Actually, ethnicity has nothing to do with it. In point of fact, Fedorov’s arrival in the Caps’ room this spring seized the attention of every member in it. They told us as much game after game in March and April. This was a three-time Cup winner standing up and holding court during tough times, night after night, and he had credibility with every Capital teammate. And he made a difference.

Then, as if to put an exclamation point on his stature, he went off to Halifax and Quebec City this month with the Russian national team, centered the top line between his two young Capitals’ countrymen, and helped forge the World Championship’s most potent line. Other NHL GMs certainly took notice of Fedorov’s performance in the NHL postseason and at the Worlds, but there’s one and only one GM who should have had his socks knocked off.

Who thinks that Fedorov’s work in Washington is done after 10 weeks’ time? Who thinks that another year or two of Feds would be anything but beneficial for Alexander Semin especially and the Caps more generally?

Did I suggest a new deal reaching out toward two years as a Cap? Multi-millions potentially at 40? Yep. The retaining of this extraordinary talent ought to be pursued with the notion of his playing a lead role on a Caps’ Cup-contending team, and in all likelihood we’re talking 2009-10 rather than next season for that.

Which makes the courtship of Feds this summer the most intriguing offseason personnel challenge for the Capitals since the summer of 1990, when they lost once-in-a-generation talent Scott Stevens. Sergei Fedorov at this stage of his career still carries a bit of magic in his game, but he also brings a bit of moxie to a room full of kids. More importantly, he sure appears to have melded with them. And at this stage of his career he’s paid Capitals’ management the greatest possible compliment: he wants to stick around what management has assembled.

Lose out on Feds and the Caps have the look of a 3-to-7 seed in the East next season. Bring him into the fold and send a message to the rest of the league: you want nothing to do with our power play, we have depth you crave, and the glory future is now.

Fedorov returned to the Caps could play a role we’ve never quite seen of a player in the twilight of his career: that of utility playmaker, on the first, second, or third lines; first- and or second-unit power play QB; first-unit penalty killer; taker of key draws in the Caps’ end at the end of tight games; and mentor. He likely also would play a role that isn’t defined by placement on ice or slotting in payroll. I don’t even know if there’s a name for it in hockey.

It just sure seems to need to happen.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Boyd Gordon, Brooks Laich, Dave Steckel, Free Agents, Front Office, George McPhee, Hockey Legends, Morning cup-a-joe, Players, Sergei Fedorov, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (27)

Missing a Mismatch in May

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Bettman made us wait a week for this mismatch? How is it that so broad a spectrum of press had so difficult a time recognizing the glaring discrepancies between these two teams? “Fooled by youth” is one explanation. In the pressure cooker of a Cup Finals, the Penguins look their age. Meaning, it’s one thing to take down the Rags and Flyers in high-stakes series, but quite another when the brightest lights are shining on the biggest stage.

Too little press attention was directed at the benches. Mike Babcock has the look of becoming a great coach, if he already isn’t one. And how astoundingly fortunate is it for the Wings to have a great coach follow fast on the heels of a departed legend? Meanwhile, Michel Terrien has the look of a decent coach managing young world-class talent. He has no answers for what Babcock has concocted.

Meet Mr. Invisible, Evgeni Malkin. Zero shots on goal in game 2. Zero.

How does that Marian Hossa deal look now in Pittsburgh? Gone is Eric Christensen, Colby Armstrong, and no. 1 pick Angelo Esposito. Hossa almost certainly isn’t returning to the Pens — and neither are some other free agents, including, perhaps, Ryan Malone. Pens’ beat reporter Dave Molinari was a guest of Mike Vogel’s on last week’s CapsReport, and when he was asked how difficult it would be for Pens’ management to keep this current roster of high achievers together, he replied, “It won’t be difficult at all. It will be impossible.”

The Penguins have 13 unrestricted free agents for next season. Among them Gary Roberts, Malone, Hossa, Georges Laraque, Jarkko Ruutu, Pascal Dupuis, and Ty Conklin. It’s obvious they have a contending core in Crosby, Malkin, Fleury, Staal, Gonchar, and Orpik — they’re virtual playoff fixtures for the next half decade. But for Shero there may well be a significant rebuild required of a surrounding, supporting cast. Landing and signing stars for the long haul isn’t easy, but neither is assembling a cohesive cast without which no team can win a Cup.

How often do really big-name, big-salaried hockey stars in their expensive prime get dealt at the dealine and go on to lead their new teams to Lord Stanley’s glory? Far more often, isn’t it the case that contenders address vulnerable voids with battle-tested grit guys, have them join an already strong room, and then remake already strong clubs into something special?

It is staggering to consider how perennially strong the Wings are given where they’ve drafted in each round for the better part of the past two decades. Their scouts just get it done.

Another mismatch missed by the press, again related more to experience than talent: Chris Osgood vs. Marc-Andre Fleury.

The Wings are a great transition team, but not by luck or whim. Notice the prevalence of short passes they use in breakouts. Shorter passes, rather obviously, carry a higher rate of accuracy. In Babcock’s system players are consistently placed in positions to execute them. They reduce the incidence of turnovers, and they perpetuate poise, possession, and flow. What a great system most especially in high-pressure hockey situations. No team in the league makes anywhere near as widespread and effective a use of the short breakout pass.

The NHL could have ended its season — to considerable admiration — in May. (It still might, Saturday night). It chose not to. There’s virtue in scheduling integrity. Winning hockey teams don’t benefit from sitting around idle, and neither do their fans. I loved the reporter’s rejoinder to the commish last week: “You need a hobby.”

Filed in Detroit Red Wings, Gary Bettman, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup, Stanley Cup Playoffs| Permalink| Comments (9)

Russia Came, Russia Conquered, and Russia Was Very Well Covered

By The OFB Team

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Congratulations not only to Team Russia for its performance at the Worlds but for the excellent coverage of the tournament by Sovetsky Sport, Russiaâ€™s largest newspaper.

The Russian Hockey Federation was thrilled with SovetskySportâ€™s coverage of the team at Worlds, so much so that they were the only print media allowed in the dressing room after Sunday’s gold medal win. They were also the only print media invited to fly back with the team on their charter back to Moscow. According to our good friend Dmitry Chesnokov, a lot of stories from that champions’ flight will forever remain unpublished.

Incidentally, these Russian hockey players — they’re a rather photogenic bunch, aren’t they?

The Alexes Biting Gold - photo by Pavel Lysenkov

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Dmitry Chesnokov, IIHF, Morning cup-a-joe, Russia, Sovetsky Sport, Washington Capitals, World Championships| Permalink| Comments (18)

Does Hockey Really Need TV?

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, May 20, 2008