Monday, February 28, 2011

deadline day

The NHL's trading deadline passed today, and with all the hype TSN puts up it turned out to be pretty boring and uneventful.  For anyone who was brave enough to watch it, they saw Bob Mckenzie playing brickbreaker on his Blackberry more than he was talking to his sources.

The biggest deal of the day was Dustin Penner going to the Kings, who gave up quite a bit in Teubert a first and a third.  Edmonton keeps getting younger, but the playoffs may be a few more years away.

The Florida Panthers held their annual yard sale making four separate trades.  It seems every year this team is trading away all their players without getting any better in return.  Maybe this is why Florida is such a shitty team: the players know if they start to play well their stock will rise and they will be dealt out of sunny Miami to a place like Calgary where it is currently -30.  Trust me it sucks.

The Canucks added some depth up front without losing any current roster players, and if Chris Higgins can figure it out maybe he'll pressure Mason Raymond for his spot on the second line.  Lapierre adds a bit of grit and playoff experience as well.

All in all, the trade deadline is not as big of a deal as its made up to be.  Teams often ask way too much for rental players, and sometimes its just best to add depth rather than overhaul your roster.  A big trade can mess with a team's chemistry.  I think we are seeing the decline of deadline day, and now more moves will be made at the draft and on free agency day July 1.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

MVP

Over the past 30 years, the NHL MVP award has followed somewhat of a similar pattern.  The Wayne Gretzky era started in 1980 and he pretty much owned the award until the 1990's.  From there you have a mixture of Lemieux, Messier, Hull, Lindros, Jagr, etc.  From 2000 and on we have guys like Forsberg, St Louis, Thornton, Crosby, Ovechkin x2, and Henrik Sedin.  The trend here is that all of these guys had huge offensive seasons, either winning the scoring race or coming very close to doing so.  But every now and then the NHL goes off the map such as Jose Theodore in 2002, Chris Pronger in 2000, or Dominik Hasek back to back in '97 and '98.  I feel like this is going to be one of those years.  Crosby would have run away with this trophy had he not been injured.  Stamkos has had a big year and should definitely be considered.  Daniel Sedin leads in points right now with his brother right behind him, but dont expect the league to split the trophy in half and hand it to the twins.  Tim Thomas could draw some votes, but my nomination is Ryan Kesler.  Before you Flames fans start calling me biased and a homer, just hear me out.  At the moment he sits 12th in the league in points with 57, and 2nd in goals with 33.  His +23 rating is currently 5th in the league.  The Canucks power play is ranked first in the league, and much of this can be credited to having Kesler on the first unit.  There is no one better in the league at screening the goaltender, and this is something that doesn't show up on the stat sheet.  He worked on his wrist shot in the offseason, and it has paid off big time.  I have never seen someone cover as much ice as Kesler, as he is aggressive on the attack but is still always the first guy back on the backcheck.  But don't let Kesler's offensive numbers fool you; he made a name for himself in this league as a checker and the defensive aspect of his game is perhaps the best part.  He is without question Vancouver's best penalty killer, and is very dangerous shorthanded.  He was nominated for the Selke award for the past 2 seasons, and is certainly playing at the same level defensively this year.  Although he is not the captain, he is the emotional leader of the Canucks who are currently at the top of the Western Conference.  He really does it all, and is truly a complete player.  Right now I cannot think of anyone who is more valuable to his team than Ryan Kesler, which is what the MVP award is supposed to be all about.

blockbusters

Two massive deals in the NHL over the weekend.  Firstly, the Colorado Avalanche sent Chris Stewart, Kevin Shattenkirk and a second rounder to the St Louis Blues for Erik Johnson, Jay Mclement and a first rounder.  This was a huge trade for both teams, as each traded away what seemed to be key pieces to their future.  Erik Johnson is no doubt a solid defenseman, but if the Blues could go back in time to the 2006 draft they most certainly would select Jonathan Toews.  That being said, he is quite young and is still developing while playing at a high level.  In Chris Stewart the Blues are getting a 23 year old power forward who racks up points and PIMs, and is coming off a breakout season in which he scored 28 goals.  Shattenkirk is a promising young defenceman and I am very surprised Colorado gave him up this easily.  Im my mind, the Blues win this trade in a landslide.  Peter Stastny, hall of fame father of Colorado's Paul Stastny, also thought so and ripped the team saying the trade impeded their progress by 3-4 years.  In another blockbuster deal, the Dallas Stars shipped James Neal and Matt Niskanen to Pittsburgh for Alex Goligoski.  It has been no secret for the past 2 years Sidney Crosby has been urging the Pittsburgh front office to go out and get him a scoring winger, and now he finally has his wish.  You can bet his headache felt a bit better after hearing about this deal, as in Neal Pittsbugh gets a 23 year old winger with a heavy shot, and a lot of potential.  Playing on a line with Sid this guy could easily score 40 goals next year.  You can bet each of these players were scouted heavily by the organizations they now play for, and with the amount of youth involved it will take 3-4 years for us to figure out which of these teams benefit the most from the trades.

Friday, February 18, 2011

trading day

Big day for trades in the NHL today, and with 10 days until the trade deadline we have already seen a ton of action.  After hearing speculation about a Tomas Kaberle trade to Boston almost daily for the past year, the deal is finally done and Kaberle is finally a Bruin.  Kaberle will provide some depth for Boston's blue line, but deals like this can be risky.  If Boston makes a deep playoff run and resigns Kaberle in the offseason, it is a big success for the Bruins.  But if Boston coasts into the playoffs, get upset in the first round and watch Kaberle bolt off to another team the prospect and a first rounder they gave up for him is pretty expensive for 2 months of work.  In another deal Boston sent Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart to Atlanta, which I thought was a pretty steep price to pay.  Tampa Bay traded for Eric Brewer today, which gave them some much needed depth on the blueline.  If they can get consistent goaltending, they look like a team that can make a deep playoff run.  Kris Versteeg never really worked out in Toronto, and now Philly hopes he can repeat his playoff performance from a year ago.  There have been a bunch of minor deals that I won't get into, but this year it seems like the action is starting a lot earlier than usual.  But the NHL trading season really does have a domino effect, as with each trade teams start to get more desperate and GM's are much quicker to pull the trigger on a deal.

Monday, February 14, 2011

grabner

Islanders forward Michael Grabner has been absolutely on fire of late, and thrown his name into the mix for rookie of the year.  With his OT winner last night he capped off his second career hat trick, giving him 24 goals on the season which ties him with Logan Couture for the rookie lead.  What makes this even more surprising is how the Islanders picked up Grabner for absolutely nothing after he was cut by the Florida Panthers in the preseason.  Florida acquired Grabner from Vancouver along with salary dump Steve Bernier and a 1st round pick in exchange for Keith Ballard.  A lot of Canucks fans were upset to get rid of Grabner, as she showed flashes of brilliance in some of the few games he played for them last year.  The Canucks also have a lot of depth up front and at the time needed help on the blue line, so he was an asset they could afford to lose.  But is he an asset Florida can afford to lose?  What were they thinking?  If you can put up 24 goals playing for the Islanders you can pretty much do it anywhere.  Grabner showcased his speed at the NHL allstar game beating Taylor Hall twice to win the fastest skater.  But speed was never the question with him, it was more about his hands and his play with the puck.  He is now starting to show he can finish around the net, and he certainly creates a lot of chances with his speed.  This year's rookie class has been one of the best in recent memory, with Grabner, PK Subban, Jeff Skinner, and Logan Couture all playing big roles for their respective teams, and it will be interesting to see which of these guys takes the ROY award at the end of the season.

old time hockey

How rowdy has the NHL been the past couple of weeks?  Line brawls, goalie fights, guys hoppin off the bench to scrap, it feels like the 1970's all over again!  While there has been a lot of talk of how this has brought negative attention to the league, I personally love it.  The two games that really boiled over were Boston Montreal, and Pittsburgh New York.  In both cases we have division rivals who clearly don't like each other, and incidents in the previous games played carried over.  In the previous Bruins Habs game Max Pacioretty took a shot at Zdeno Chara which sparked a melee with no time left on the clock.  Pacioretty now knows that Chara is a giant that is probably better off left asleep.  Boston is a big, physical team, and Montreal is one of the smaller teams in the league.  While the Habs can't afford to play many games against the Bruins like this, I love how the team stood up for one another and didn't back down.  In the other game, the Islanders were upset about a Maxime Talbot's hit (which I thought was clean) that left Blake Comeau concussed, and a Brent Johnson one punch that left Rick DiPietro with a broken face.  The Islanders responded by rallying every single goon within their organization and sent them out to cause havoc against the Pens.  The game turned into a blowout fast, which certainly didn't help.  I thought Matt Martin's sucker punch on Talbot deserved more than a 4 game suspension, as luckily Talbot wasn't hurt but it was shockingly similar to the Bertuzzi incident on Steve Moore and I thought the NHL would have taken a tougher stand against such a play.  Islanders rookie Michael Haley, who had 27 PIMs in the game, will almost certainly be jumped the next time these two teams play.  You need to earn a little bit of respect in this league before you start running around like a mad man and picking fights with goalies.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

beauchemin back to the ducks

The first domino of the NHL's trading season fell today, with the Toronto Maple Leafs shipping D-man Francois Beauchemin to the Anahiem Ducks for Joffrey Lupul, prospect Jake Gardiner and a 4th round pick.  This is a good deal for both teams.  Beauchemin was a big part of the Ducks' success when they won the cup in 2007, but didn't really raise his game playing in Toronto.  In return Toronto got a 3 time 20 goal scorer who is coming off two injury plagued seasons, but he will provide some much needed offense.  More importantly Toronto got some youth, and lets hope for Leafs fans this is the first step in the right direction for the team.  Beauchemin was certainly drawing attention from other teams, and with him being dealt we may see a few more trades sooner rather than later.  A D-man with playoff experience is one of the biggest assets a team can have this time of the year, and look for Chris Phillips to be traded before the deadline.  Washington, Boston, and San Jose would love to beef up their blue lines, and the deal today may  sweeten the offers for the Ottawa defenseman.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Canucks keep rollin'

Expectations were at an all time high heading into the season for the Vancouver Canucks this season.  Henrik had just won MVP, Ryan Kesler had a breakout year, and they addressed all their needs in the offseason.  The Canucks were a solid team last year, but had every single one of their weaknesses exposed in the postseason by the eventual Stanley Cup champions the Chicago Blackhawks.  Kyle Wellwood was the 3rd line center, and to me the difference in the series was the effectiveness of Chicago's 3rd line (Bolland, Byfuglien, etc.) compared to the ineffectiveness of Vancouver's.  With Manny Malhotra filling in for Well-fed this season, it is a significant upgrade.  Torres provides some much needed grit, and Tambellini has been a nice surprise this season adding even more offensive depth.  Shane O'Brien and Andrew Alberts were also exposed by Chicago in the playoffs, so Gillis responded by going out and getting Dan Hamhuis and Keith Ballard.  Another weakness in the playoffs was Luongo.  I am really liking what I have seen from him so far this season.  Under new goalie coach Rollie Melanson, Luongo is playing with much more confidence, and has changed his approach.  He is playing deeper in his net, using his big body and good positioning to keep pucks out of the net.  This also keeps him away from crease crashers like Byfuglien, and the Vancouver D is doing a much better job of clearing the front of the net allowing Lu to see the puck much better.  Not to mention, Corey Schneider is more than a capable backup, and if Lu gets lit up for 7 like he has in the last couple of playoff series Vigneault will definitely consider throwing in Schneider, I think he has that much confidence in him.  Last year Vancouver had the best home record in the league, but were mediocre on the road with a .500 record.  They are getting it done both at home and on the road this year.  They are #1 in the league in goals for, and in the top 5 in goals against.  Their power play and penalty kill are both top 5 in the league.  Plain and simple, this team is clicking on all cylinders offensively while getting solid D and goaltending.  With 77 points the Canucks are 9 points up on Detroit for first in the West, but whether they finish 1st or 8th this team's success this year will be measured on what they can do in the playoffs.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

ovi's power outage

So who would have guessed at this point in the season Alex Ovechkin would be 22nd in the league in goals for with 19???  No one could have seen this coming.  Washington led the league in goal scoring last year with 313 goals, yet the entire team is having difficulty putting the puck in the net this season.  The stat that is the most surprising to me is Ovechkin's PPG total thus far: TWO GOALS!  Are you kidding me? Not to mention these two power play goals were scored 13 seconds apart from each other in a blowout of the Calgary Flames.  I watched the Montreal Washington game on TSN last night and Ray Ferraro on many different occasions pointed out Ovechkin's body language.  He was seen waving for the puck, and when he didn't receive it he would throw his hands up in frustration, turn around and half ass his backcheck like he was Zach Moe.  This is not something you want to see out of your star player, never mind your captain.  I personally do not think he should be the captain of this team.  I am aware that he is responsible for probably half the ticket sales and over half the jersey sales in Washington, but this is more about the team than the fans.  A captain needs to go out and lead by example, and play hard on both ends of the ice.  Ovi doesn't do this.  If I were Boudreau I would give the C to a guy like Brooks Laich.  It seems Ovi is constantly putting himself above the team, and I feel this has disrupted their chemistry.  Mike Green is having an off season.  So is Backstrom.  This team is clicking when Ovechkin is at the top of his game.  He is the key to their success, and he needs to pick it up if the Caps have any hope of competing with Pittsburgh, Philly, and Boston in the East.