An Intriguing Contrast

They are not the same. Actually, they have nothing, really, in common.

Different players. Different games. Different actions, one actually part of the play, one after the whistle. 

Other than the fact James Wisniewski and Niklas Hjalmarsson are both NHL defencemen, and neither a star, the crime/misdemeanor each committed during Columbus Day matinee games on Monday have nothing in common.

Still, it will be fascinating to see which player gets a bigger punishment.

Does the NHL value class or safety more? Does is despise vulgarity more, or actions which put other players in unnecessary physical danger?

Will one action deserve only a slap on the wrist, or both? Will Colin Campbell decide enough is enough and hammer both Wisnewski and Hjalmarsson?

Only Campbell knows, and as he awakes this morning, he probably doesn't know, either.

After 20 years of seeing various nefarious misdeeds on the rink, I can't tell you with any honesty what will transpire in either case.

Hjalmarsson executed a dangerous hit-from-behind on Buffalo's Jason Pominville that was certainly suspendable, but falls short in terms of sheer recklessness of Matt Cooke's skull-crusher on Marc Savard, which of course drew no punishment at all.

Wisniewski, meanwhile, pretended to be engaging in a specific sexual act in the Islanders game against the Rangers, ostensibly to taunt Sean Avery, although it's unclear why Wisniewski thought he would get under Avery's skin by his actions.

At any rate, have never seen anything quite so vulgar and blatant on the ice, although perhaps years of lip-reading has desensitized me to the way in which NHL players choose to disrespect one another in the heat of the moment. The vile hand gesture most comparable to Wisniewski's would be the old standard, throat slashing, for which Nick Boynton was suspended a game last month. Not sure whether a gesture that suggests murder is worse than one that depicts an act not permitted in public, but I'm sure Campbell and Gary Bettman have an opinion on this one.

At any rate, while the actions of Wisniewski and Hjalmarsson shared no common ground, they happened on the same afternoon of the same day and will thus be dealt with by the league at about the same time.

Which means the punishment will be compared, just as if you had an assault case up before a judge on the same morning as an arson suspect.

In this case, it will be an intriguing look into the mind of the NHL, an expression of what the league values most.

 

 

 

 

Screwing the Cap on Tight

Embarrassing, really. 

That an NHL team in front of its home audience would dress less than the maximum number of skaters seems hard to believe.

I mean, can you imagine the fallout in Montreal or Toronto if such nonsense occurred?

Yes, Calgary did it two seasons ago. GM Darryl Sutter misplayed the salary cap game, but at least it was late in the season when injuries and callups can make the already tricky game of maneuvering the salary cap nearly impossible.

But this year's New Jersey Devils, down to 15 skaters just three games into the season? That's just blatant mismanagement. The fact it is Lou Lamoriello behind it all, a member of the Hall of Fame and one of the best managers of the past quarter-century, has even his admirers - and there are legions of them - scratching their heads.

Good thing it's not the early 1980s again. Someone might suggest this is a Mickey Mouse way to operate.

Some are wondering if there should be a punishment from the league for dressing fewer than 20 skaters. Well, dressing fewer than 20 skaters is the punishment for botching the cap, and anyway you cut it, that's what has happened in Newark with the Devils.

This happened before, and Lamoriello had to get out of it by sending big contracts to the minors and making one-sided trades. This time, there is no easy way out, and so far, Lamoriello hasn't wanted to choose any of the uncomfortable alternatives open to him.

Instead, the Devs started the season with 20 players, and after a suspension and two injuries, found themselves down to nine forwards and six defenceman for Sunday afternoon's game against Pittsburgh. It was a home game, and as a season ticket holder, you'd sure have to be annoyed that the Devils weren't maximizing their chances of winning by dressing a full roster. Ditto for the veteran New Jersey skaters like Martin Brodeur, Jamie Langenbrunner, Colin White and Patrick Elias, who have been put in a difficult position by management and are now winless after three games following Sunday's 3-1 loss to Pittsburgh.

Making it worse, of course, is that the man all of this was done to accomodate, forward Ilya Kovalchuk, hasn't scored a goal in any of those games. The desperation of the Devils to sign Kovalchuk has never been fully understood, and even less so now when it's clearer than ever that the club simply couldn't afford him, at least not without making some other tough decisions on players.

But Lamoriello has not, as of yet, wanted to make any of those tough decisions, and so a contract that has already cost the club millions in salary, fines and lost draft choices is now costing the team competitively.

The strange part is that the Devils have always been all about winning, even ahead of the business of attracting fans. Now, they have been organized in a way that seems to be all about Kovalchuk, to the exclusion of winning.

 

 

Opening Night Observations

One prediction right off the bat: The top-two Leaf lines are going to have to change.

Quite simply, having three right-handed shots on the top line (Tyler Bozak, Phil Kessel and Kris Versteeg) and three left-handed shots on the second unit. (Nik Kulemin, Mikhail Grabovski and Clarke MacArthur) just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It makes even less sense when Ron Wilson keeps those lines together on power plays.

So we'll see. Each line came up with an even strength goal in Thursday night's 3-2 win over Montreal, which is good. But the power play was horrific, which is bad. With the opportunity for a one-timer only on one side or the other, the Habs defended the Leaf power play with ease, although the biggest issue was the absence of any Leaf forward willing to chase down the puck in the offensive zone.

The easy switch on the forward lines would be to flip Versteeg and Kulemin. But that won't happen after a win.

Otherwise, the surprising development from opening night was the elevation of third-year defenceman Luke Schenn up to No. 4 on the depth chart. Schenn played 21 minutes and 36 seconds, more than he was allotted on a regular basis last year, and skated mostly beside veteran puck-mover Tomas Kaberle.

Mike Komisarek, meanwhile, played the least of all Leaf defencemen, just 12:08, and generally worked on the third pair with Carl Gunnarson. It's a sensible way to deploy Komisarek in the early going as he finds his feet after off-season shoulder surgery.

At the same time, Schenn deserves to play more than Komisarek right now, particularly when he goes with his first instinct. He looks bigger and seems more confident, and if Komisarek can get his game going, those two along with Dion Phaneuf (23:45 in the opener) could make the Leafs intimidating on the right side of their defence.

Of some concern, meanwhile, is the shaky play of Gunnarson, who didn't have a strong training camp. His weak puck play created Montreal's first goal, and right now he seems to lack that simple effiiciency that characterized his play last season.

Next up, Ottawa on Saturday night. Have to believe head coach Ron Wilson will go with J.S. Giguere in net again, then turn to Jonas Gustavsson for a start on the road next week in Pittsburgh or New York.

 

Plus Ca Change. . .?

Can't say the Leafs haven't tried to change, or haven't tried to fix their problems.

The team that hits the ice tonight against the storied Montreal Canadiens will have at most eight of the same players who lined up to play the Habs in the home opener one year ago.

Maybe fewer.

That game came earlier, Oct. 1st, as part of the compressed Olympic schedule, a clash between two teams that both went into the season without a captain. On defence, the Leafs dressed Luke Schenn, Mike Komisarek and Francois Beauchemin. Jonas Gustavsson was the goalie in reserve. Up front, there was Mikhail Grabovski, Colton Orr, Jay Rosehill and John Mitchell.

Coming into this season, only those players are back. Phil Kessel, of course, was in the Leaf organization, but wasn't ready for opening night because of off-season shoulder surgery. Today, Rosehill is in the minors and Mitchell may or may not dress, so well in excess of half the lineup will have changed over one calendar year.

That's a heckuva lot of turnover.

The Habs, you'll recall, won the game in OT. Mike Cammalleri undressed Schenn and Josh Gorges pounced on the rebound. Carey Price was terrific with 43 saves, while Vesa Toskala made 23 in the Leaf net. Matt Stajan, with two, and Alexei Ponikarovsky scored for the Leafs. The home team led 3-2 with just over four minutes to play, but Glen Metropolit tied the contest, setting up Gorges' winner with 13 seconds left. It was a sign of the magic that would later show up for Montreal in the playoffs, while it the beginning of a miserable season for the Leafs.

Now, both teams come into this campaign with newly decorated captains, Dion Phaneuf for the Leafs and Brian Gionta for Montreal. Cammalleri won't play because of suspension, while Price is under the gun in net but also may not play because of illness.

The characters are different. In a matter of hours, we'll find out if the script has changed.

More Leafs opening day news and features:

Leafs fans party at Yonge-Dundas Square

Toronto banking on strong start

A Leafs Fan Blogs: Drunk on hope

Cox: Leafs better, but are they playoff-worthy?

 

Athletes Or Cap Hits?

You could forgive Ryan Parent for, as in the immortal words of Bob Seger, feelin' like a number.

Ostensibly, the former Guelph Storm defenceman was moved Tuesday in a four-player deal between Nashville and Vancouver not because the Canucks necessarily like him as a player, but because they like his salary cap number.

Specifically, the 23-year-old Parent's cap hit this season is $925,000. Shane O'Brien, the key player the Preds were getting in the deal, comes with a cap hit of $1.6 million.

The Preds can absorb the extra dollars easily under their budget, which falls well below the league-mandated salary cap of $59.4 million. The Canucks, meanwhile, need the $675,000 in cap relief represented by Parent, and had already ruled O'Brien out of their top six on D.

So Parent was an answer, or at least a partial one, to a mathematical problem the 'Nucks were facing.

Who knows? He might end up playing for them. Reports had him going immediately on waivers, but that might be in the same way the Leafs put Mike Zigomanis on waivers this week despite fully intending to use him as their fourth line centre for Thursday's home opener.

Teams up against the cap like Toronto and Vancouver have to always be mindful of maintaining enough roster and cap flexibility that if a goalie, for example, comes up sick on the day of a game, they can manoeuvre their roster quickly to bring up a netminder from the minors without exposing any players they want to keep to possible waiver claims.

That doesn't make it a whole bunch of laughs for the players involved, of course. For Parent, once a first round pick of Nashville, it has been a rocky, uneven ride through the NHL. He started with the Preds, was traded to Philly in the deal that sent Peter Forsberg to Music City, and was part of the Flyer defensive corps throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs until he was scratched near the end of the final against Chicago.

In June, he was traded back to Nashville for the rights to Dan Hamhuis. The Flyers wanted to sign Hamhuis before he hit unrestricted free agency, but couldn't, and he went on to sign with Vancouver.

Which is where Parent is now headed. Hard to feel wanted, methinks.

 

The Buyout and Beyond

When Darcy Tucker hung 'em up last week after a good NHL career - between 2002 and 2006, he was pound-for-pound the toughest character in the game, and a scorer - it naturally brought focus upon the fact the Leafs are still paying for his 2008 buyout.

Yep. Four more years, with a $1 million cap hit. It doesn't exactly strangle the club, but it doesn't help, either, and at some point might block the club from acquiring a player at the trade deadline it might otherwise want to acquire.

But this much is also true. The Leafs thought Tucker was finished as a viable NHLer when they bought him out, and they were right. Incoming head coach Ron Wilson suggested Tucker had been worn down by all those years of banging and crashing, and wasn't effective anymore. Two non-descript years in Colorado proved that to be correct.

Indeed, while the usefulness of the buyout provision in the CBA can be debated, the Leafs have yet to mis-fire on a player when they figured that player was no longer able to play at a level commensurate with their contract. Not exactly an achievement to brag about, but there it is.

When Tie Domi was bought out in '06, he realized his career was over and he retired the following September. The Leafs also bought out the final year of Ed Belfour's contract that spring, and after one forgettable year in Florida - Belfour's numbers actually weren't bad - the former all-star headed off to Europe and hasn't played in the NHL since.

In 2008, along with Tucker, the Leafs bought out another goalie, Andrew Raycroft. Raycroft is now on his third team in three years and nobody has seen fit to use him as a starter.

The negative side of these stories, of course, is that the Leafs initially gave each of the players a lucrative new contract before realizing - too late - they couldn't play at that level.

But when buyout time came, the right decision was made, although these ongoing cap charges are tough to swallow. That is, unless you're the New York Islanders, who are still using Alexei Yashin's buyout as a cap charge that allows them to raise their payroll past the minimum $43.4 million "floor." Now that's a different approach.

The last bad contract the Leafs signed was in the summer of '08 - right after buying out Tucker and Raycroft - when journeyman defenceman Jeff Finger was inexplicably awarded a four-year deal for $3.5 million per season that still has two years to run.

Otherwise, the next most contentious would be Dion Phaneuf ($6.5 million per, four more years), Mike Komisarek ($4.5 million per, four more years) and winger Colby Armstrong ($3 million per, three more years.)

Phaneuf's deal was signed in Calgary, while GM Brian Burke gave Komisarek and Armstrong their contracts. We'll see how they play out.

 

 

 

 

This New Era

You could look at the situations of veteran defencemen Wade Redden and Sheldon Souray and regard one or both as spectacular falls from graces.

Four years ago, Redden was a Canadian Olympian. Souray was seen as a unique offensive force with his awesome shot, a 26-goal shooter, and a very popular member of the Montreal Canadiens.

And today both are essentially homeless. Well, as homeless as millionaires many times over can possibly be.

A decline in the 33-year-old Redden's play hastened his departure from the New York Rangers, or at least from the Ranger payroll. Souray's game might be similar to what it was in recent years, but injury problems and voicing his displeasure with Oiler management made him persona non grata.

The $23 million and the four years Redden has left on his contract might mean, rather incredibly, that his NHL career is over. For the 34-year-old Souray, there appear to be takers, possibly on re-entry waivers, with Columbus the most frequently mentioned destination and the Rangers always a possibiity when you're talking big-salaried players wanting out of Edmonton.

And wouldn't that be interesting to see the Rangers dump Redden only to be the team that adds Souray?

If there's a common ground in both cases, it's that salary, and the salary cap system, has imprisoned both players, although it may be temporary in Souray's case.

If this is 2002, one of the wealthy teams would be adding these players. Maybe it would be the Leafs adding Souray, or Chicago adding Redden, or whatever. At one time, St. Louis was a haven for big-salaried vets. Back then, these teams could spend to the moon and it didn't matter. Now, even if they liked the players, none could possibly take Redden and his full $6.5 million salary or Souray and his full $5.4 million figure because of what it would force them to do with other players.

Once 30-something players with enormous salaries could find a home, particularly under the old system where teams could absorb some of a player's salary as part of a trade. Now, it's an easier play for the blueline-challenged Anaheim Ducks to see if 18-year-old Cam Fowler can play in the NHL than to take a shot at Redden or Souray.