Monday morning musings

A few points to ponder on a Monday morning:

Of the eight teams still alive in the NHL playoffs, only two have goalies who were starters in February. That would be New Jersey (Martin Brodeur) and Buffalo (Ryan Miller).

Vesa Toskala (Sharks) Ilya Bryzgalov (Ducks), Ray Emery (Senators), Cam Ward (Hurricanes) were backups on their current clubs, while Dwayne Roloson was sharing the job in Minnesota with Manny Fernandez and Jose Theodore had lost the No. 1 position in Montreal to Cristobal Huet.

With the Ducks up 2-0 on Colorado and the Sharks looking sharp in their series opener against Edmonton, the possibility of only the second all-California playoff series in NHL history is looming larger.

The first came in 1969 when the Los Angeles Kings, coached by Red Kelly, played the Oakland Seals. The Seals led the series 3-2, lost Game 6 and then lost Game 7 on home ice. The Kings then went on to be swept in the next round by the Blues. The attendance was horrible, with the Seals drawing audiences of 5,449 and 5,232 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena for the first two games. For all the seven games, not one crowd hit the five-figure mark.

You can bet that the Argonauts will never agree to terms with Dolphins running back Ricky Williams unless he is willing to publicly disavow any ongoing drug use rather than casually admit to enjoying marijuana as he has in the past.

Quite simply, the Argos have done too much work in the community, particularly with their "Stop the Violence" campaign, to put themselves in the position of hiring an unrepentent Williams. No other pro team in the GTA has been as effective in reaching the grass roots than the Argos, and they can't afford to throw that away on a running back who can't catch and might well not do well in the CFL.

Meanwhile, Dolphins coach Nick Saban isn't saying whether he likes the idea of Williams playing in Canada, while one of the players auditioning to assume Williams' spot in the Miami backfield is Gerald Riggs Jr., son of the former Atlanta Falcons Pro Bowl runner.

An intriguing choice by Team USA for the world championships in Latvia was 18-year-old Phil Kessel of the University of Minnesota. Kessel was once the hands-down favourite to go first in the NHL draft this summer, but his stock has fallen and he could go as low as fifth. That didn't stop U.S. general manager Paul Holmgren from inviting him to Riga, which is either an indication that Holmgren believes Kessel is a star in waiting or was having a heck of a time convincing American NHLers to play in the tournament.

What's with the NBA? First the Arizona Republic breaks the news that Steve Nash is going to named the league's MVP for a second straight year, and now the Associated Press is reporting that Detroit's Ben Wallace will be named the league's top defensive player for the fourth time in five years.

Does the NBA not care this stuff is leaking out? Can it not control these very basic news stories that every other league in North America seems to be able to handle without a problem?

Cowtown Blues

In the end, it was an upset only to those who haven't been paying attention.

The Anaheim Mighty Ducks, after all, only finished five points behind the Calgary Flames during the NHL's regular season, and in the second half the Ducks were the better of the two teams.

The only surprise, really, was how meekly the Flames went down 3-0 in Game 7 on home ice Wednesday night to bow out of the Stanley Cup playoffs, leaving both 2004 Cup finalists out in the first round after Tampa was ousted by Ottawa last weekend.

Anaheim's victory also ruined the chance for the first Battle of Edmonton in 15 years, with the Edmonton Oiler having already advanced at the expense of the Detroit Red Wings.

The Ducks sucked the emotion out of the Saddledome and forced the Flames to play catchup in the seventh and deciding game, a situation that was clearly uncomfortable for a Calgary squad that was the NHL's third lowest scoring team in the regular season.

In the final two games of the series against the Ducks, the Flames scored just one goal and didn't manage a single goal in the final 109 minutes and 42 seconds of competition.

Indeed, the willingness of Anaheim's unsung hero, defenceman Francois Beauchemin, to go toe-to-toe with Calgary's top forward, Jarome Iginla, seemed to symbolize the ability of the Ducks to shut down the Flames when it mattered.

Calgary couldn't mount a consistent forecheck and only managed 22 shots on the Anaheim net in Game 7, and at one point over the first and second periods went 23 minutes without any shots at all.

The result leaves Canada with just two Stanley Cup hopefuls in the Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators. Montreal was the last Canadian team to win the Cup in 1993.

In the east, the Sens meet Buffalo and red-hot New Jersey plays Carolina, while in the west the Oilers face Joe Thornton and the San Jose Sharks while the Ducks take on Colorado.

Look for the Sabres to upset Ottawa and move on to face the Devils in the Eastern Conference final.

San Jose and Anaheim should triumph and move on to meet in what would be the NHL's first all-California playoff series since the Los Angeles Kings beat the Oakland Seals in the first round of the 1969 post-season.

The most fascinating part of the Western Conference playoff picture is that only the bottom four seeds are left, with Detroit, Dallas, Calgary and Nashville all sent packing in the opening round.

Conversely in the east, all of the top four seeded teams advanced.

Anaheim GM Brian Burke, meanwhile, has to be feeling a satisfying sense of redemption after being rinsed from the Vancouver Canucks organization at the end of the '03-04 season. While the Canucks missed the playoffs entirely this spring, Burke utilized the youth that was already in Anaheim, sent Sergei Fedorov packing to Columbus for salary relief and Beauchemin, and hired Randy Carlyle away from the Canucks to coach the Ducks.

Despite being a rookie coach, Carlyle had the guts to not only lift starting goalie Jean Sebastien Giguere in Game 5 of the series against the Flames, but to also start backup Ilya Bryzgalov for the final two games, both Anaheim wins.

For the Flames, meanwhile, it will be a fascinating off-season. A team built on speed and grit lacked enough finesse when it mattered, or at least lacked a system that could capitalize on the finesse that existed in the Calgary lineup.

We'll also see whether GM/head coach Darryl Sutter chooses to remain behind the bench or hands over the reins to someone else, perhaps his brother Brent.

The Not-So-Grand Motown Illusion

When it was suggested here on the eve of the playoffs that the spectacular regular season of the Detroit Red Wings might have been based more on the quality of their divisional opponents than their lineup, the angry rebuttals arrived fast and furious.

We now invite another discussion on the same topic.

The Red Wings imploded in the first round, losing Game 6 in Edmonton Monday night, and suddenly all those nights pounding the bejeezus out of the Blue Jackets, Blackhawks and Blues from October through April don't mean a heck of a lot.

This will cause earth-shaking change in Motown, one suspects.

At the top, GM Ken Holland will have to answer for two first round exits and a second round ouster in the past three NHL seasons.

Steve Yzerman, a player with possibly the greatest pain threshold of any modern day NHLer, tried to skate through a torn oblique muscle in Game 6 but was only moderately effective. Almost 41, he will likely retire, joining the likes of Mark Messier, Scott Stevens, Brett Hull and Ron Francis as brilliant talents who have left the NHL over the past year.

The league can only thank its lucky stars Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin et al arrived at the same time.

Manny Legace, meanwhile, is done as the Wings No. 1 goalie, although his "I feel like hanging myself" comments after the loss left everyone feeling a little disappointment for one who waited so long for his big chance.

Chris Chelios is what, 57? Actually, he's 44, and it is clearly over. With Yzerman, he can sit back and wait for his Hall of Fame induction.

Brendan Shanahan, meanwhile, is 37 years old, and after popping in 40 goals during the regular season he came up with only one against the Oilers.

Just spit-balling here, but Shanahan's a free agent this summer, and there would be a certain logic to it if Leaf GM John Ferguson were to court the Mimico native for one last go 'round with the Leafs.

Bad idea? Just another retirement contract? Maybe, and certainly Shanahan's lack of footspeed worked against him in the newer, faster NHL.

But the Leafs will need players to help their youth along, and in Shanahan, you have a quality person and a Stanley Cup and Olympic champion, a real winner as opposed to the phony "leaders" that follow their own agendas in the Leaf room.

Not Mats Sundin. But take your pick after that.

Anyway, Shanahan might also give Sundin a quality shooter to play with for one season. Patrik Elias, after all, looks awfully attractive from a distance, but its hard to see the Devils letting their best player walk, isn't it?

Without being too harsh, Shanahan on his worst day is a better playmate for No. 13 than Nik Antropov and Alexei Ponikarovsky, who apparently were awarded permanent jobs on Sundin's wings last season as some kind of Crackerjack prize.

For one year at something in and around his current $2.3 million salary, the Leafs might help themselves through the transition to a younger, faster team.

Back to the Wings. Don't feel too sorry for them, for in Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Niklas Kronwall they have a very nice core of players moving into their prime. Datsyuk, injured for Game 1 against Edmonton, didn't deliver in these playoffs, but Zetterberg sure did and Kronwall is the natural successor to countryman Nicklas Lidstrom.

Probably the best thing that could happen to Detroit is for Columbus, Chicago and St. Louis to get better, and fast. It wasn't hard to see that the Oilers, playing out of the super-tough Northwest Division where the worst team, Minnesota, had 84 points, were a lot more battle ready for these playoffs than the Wings.

The Long And Winding Road

The Ottawa Senators sure have reasons to feel good about themselves today.

They wiped out the defending Stanley Cup champions from Tampa Bay in five games. They did it with youngster Ray Emery in goal and Dominik Hasek barely a footnote. They got through the series without serious injuries, received strong performances from most of their key players and even saw star defenceman Wade Redden deal with the death of his mother during the competition in a classy, impressive manner.

There is a heart beating within this Sens team that may make it different from the Ottawa squads that have fallen short in the post-season previously.

But here's the hard part. There's still a long, long, long way to go for the Sens in a season in which anything other than winning it all will be a disappointment.

For starters, barring turnarounds by Montreal and Philly, it appears Ottawa will have to defeat two of Buffalo, New Jersey and Carolina just to get out of the east.

Those will be two very tough playoff encounters.

Then, the Sens will have to face a battle-hardened team from the west, possibly the sandpaper-like Flames or the multi-talented Sharks.

Beating the defending champs was just a quarter-step to the Stanley Cup and likely the easiest step. More than ever, this is a hockey tournament that is becoming excruciatingly difficult to win.

With the Bolts out, this spring will mark the seventh straight season a different team will walk away as champion.

Winning two straight, something done once in the NHL over the past 15 years, is starting to look like it will be a next-to-impossible feat in the new salary cap era.

Take Tampa. While the picture is distorted somewhat by the lockout that wiped out the season between the Lightning's Cup win and their brief playoff effort this spring, the fact is that Tampa returned as nothing nearly as good as the team that won it all in '04.

The trio of Brad Richards, Vinny Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis, with Lecavalier and St. Louis tied up under rich new contracts, wasn't as a good. Neither was the goaltending, with Nikolai Khabibulin lost to Chicago (four years, $27 million) as a free agent.

"With Nik, and I say this very candidly, Nik turned into a banker," said outspoken coach John Tortorella. "I don't think he was very excited about playing for us again and I don't think Nik was the answer for us."

With the extra year off, Dave Andreychuk was too old to serve as the club's leader, and useful working parts like Jassen Cullimore were lost as well, giving the team a lot less sandpaper.

Now, the Lightning face very difficult cap choices over the future of Richards, who can go to arbitration and is one year away from being unrestricted, as well as defenceman Pavel Kubina and arbitration eligible winger Ruslan Fedotenko. Keeping all three will be tough, particularly if the club has any hope of seriously bolstering itself between the pipes. Sure, maybe Tampa could pry Evgeni Nabokov and his $5 million salary out of San Jose, but with $27 million already committed to 11 players and Richards to sign, it starts getting tight again in a hurry for GM Jay Feaster.

This is a team, quite frankly, that is unlikely to challenge again for the Cup for another two to three seasons at the earliest.

The moral of the Tampa story is that you win it while you can, and that's something the Sens should take very seriously.

Who knows if the club will be able to retain any or all of Redden, Zdeno Chara and Martin Havlat?

More important, at this moment, who cares?

You go for it within reasonable limits while the chance is there knowing full well the nature of the NHL system is going to make repeat efforts very, very difficult.