Hockey Things That Don't Make Sense

Didn't know you can't intentionally head a hockey puck into the net. Learned that Wednesday night during the Memorial Cup when Devante Smith-Pelly of the Mississauga St. Michael's Majors executed that rather slick maneuver against the Owen Sound Attack, and had then had the goal disallowed.

Basically, the rule book says any deliberate motion using a body part to score is illegal. You have to use your stick, unless it's by accident. So a puck can carom off your head into the net - we saw that happen with Mikhail Grabovski of the Leafs during the regular season - but you can't head it intentionally past the goaltender.

My question would be, why? I can see why you don't want players kicking at the puck in the crease, or swatting it into the net with their hands.

But heading it soccer-style? How could that possibly be either illegal or detrimental to the game?

Doesn't make sense. These rules made sense to somebody at one point or another, and then they just live forever.

In a more general, philosophical sense, it continues to baffle the mind how suspensions in hockey often seem to bear no relation to the damage done to the victim. Punishment is designed so as to not be unduly harsh, rather than to offer some concept of fairness and justice to the aggrieved.

We saw this years ago when Todd Bertuzzi ended Steve Moore's career, and then, after a suspension, resumed playing and getting paid, while Moore could not. That would be the most extreme case.

This year in the NHL, San Jose Sharks centre Joe Thornton came out of the penalty box in a game against St. Louis Nov. 4th and nailed David Perron of the Blues with a nasty, blindside head shot. Thornton got a two-game suspension. Perron didn't play the rest of the season.

Where's the proportionality between Thornton's punishment and Perron's pain?

Then you have the Joey Hishon injury at the 2011 Mastercard Memorial Cup last weekend. The Owen Sound centre was crushed at centre ice by an elbow from Kootenay Ice defenceman Brayden McNabb and left stunned and bloodied on the ice.

McNabb received a one-game suspension. He'll be on the ice for Kootenay tonight in a sudden-death tiebreaker against Owen Sound. Hishon, however, won't play, and is still recovering from concussion-like symptoms related to the nasty hit. According to Attack head coach Mark Reeds, Hishon right now can do little more than sit in a darkened hotel room. Making Hishon's absence even worse is the news that Owen Sound captain Garrett Wilson won't be available for the rest of the tournament after a controversial hit by St. Mike's forward Chris DeSousa.

How, exactly, is Hishon-McNabb situation fair? Games are assigned extra value by hockey administrators when it comes to assigning supplemental discipline. But the games missed by the victim don't seem to be assigned that extra value. So you get this kind of competitive imbalance and inherent unfairness. Nobody seems to think MacNabb is a dirty player or that he intended to hurt Hishon. But if he had, surely it's clear at this point it would have been a very worthwhile strategy.

There's no easy answer here. Simply saying the perp has to sit out as long as the victim doesn't necessarily make sense. But neither does the current philosophy that reigns supreme throughout the sport, one that seems to provide ample motivation for players to injure opponents knowing the tradeoff of discipline versus injury will almost always work in their favour.

Just one of those things in hockey that doesn't make sense. . . 

 

 

 

 

The Leafs and Brad Richards

The Maple Leafs want to be in on the free agent bidding for Brad Richards.

If there is any.

This, obviously, could be a situation similar to that in 2009 when Brian Burke quietly journeyed to Sweden on the final day of June hoping to be able to present the Sedin twins with contract offers the next day. Vancouver GM Mike Gillis, however, beat Burke to the punch, and Daniel and Henrik stayed out west.

This time around, Burke would like to at least have a chance to negotiate with Richards, and it's been suggested he might be willing to, if not break the bank, do some things contractually that he hasn't be willing to do before in Toronto.

Like go beyond five years. Not anything crazy along the lines of those 10, 12-year contracts, but perhaps seven or eight.

And Dion Phaneuf's $6.5 million annual cap hit would not be any kind of artificial individual cap for the Leafs. It's understood that Richards will go north of $7 mlllion, and possibly $8 million, in his new deal.

Now whether the Rangers or Kings would be willing to do more, well, we'll see.

But the real challenge for the Leafs is that Richards may not get to July 1st. Before the March trade deadline, Dallas GM Joe Nieuwendyk was asking prospects and picks in exchange for Richards and the right to talk about a new contract with the veteran centre.

That could well happen again before July 1st. The Stars are in a team in iimbo, with Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi expected to buy the club from Tom Hicks (remember the days when American businessmen like John McCaw and George Gillette were buying Canadian NHL teams??) but not before the club is run through some kind of "organized" bankruptcy proceeding to clear it of creditors. Dallas reports have suggested that may not happen until late June, and even then, would give Gaglardi very little time to decide on whether he wants to try and negotiate a new contract with Richards or whether Nieuwendyk should be authorized to trade exclusive negotiating rights with the centre to get a package in return.

The Stars are also looking for a head coach to replace Marc Crawford. Obviously, to have any chance of retaining Richards, they'd want to hire a coach he might prefer. So that's a further complication.

So the timing here could get very, very delicate.

In theory, the Leafs could get in on trying to buy the rights to negotiate with Richards, but not if it costs them a top prospect like Nazem Kadri. They just don't have enough in the cupboard to start giving those up, particularly without a deal in place for Richards. That's not even considering getting team doctors to have a look at him, something clubs may want to do because of the serious concussion Richards had this season.

Clearly, Burke's preference would be to wait until July 1st. But he knows Philly landed Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timmonen a couple of years ago from Nashville in this way and benefitted from that aggressive move, and he also knows the market for No. 1 centres via trade or free agency looks mighty slim this summer. He also knows he could have made a trade for Marc Savard last summer and been the one holding the bag when Savard was lost to another concussion.

This could be the biggest call of Burke's career in Toronto. If he even gets a chance to make one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Soap Opera Turns

It's going to be hard for the Bettman administration to portray this as a momentous triumph.

Yes, the 14th richest man in the world, David Thomson, is about to become an NHL owner, which should make him somewhat more worthy than John Rigas, Bruce McNall, Boots del Biaggio, John Spano, Bruce Firestone and some of the other folks who have successfully infiltrated the NHL's board of governors in the last 20 years. In fact, it immediately makes Thomson the richest guy at the NHL table.

That's gotta be a good thing.

But Bettman went back to Atlanta in 1999 saying the city had changed in the two decades since the Flames had left for Calgary, and that it would be different this time.

It wasn't. The Thrashers began their existence with one of the worst drafting efforts in NHL history and 12 years later are pulling up stakes. For the second time, the league is beating a hasty retreat out of Georgia, leaving a huge U.S. market for a tiny Canadian one.

During those dozen years, Bettman has said over and over and over, whether he was talking about Edmonton or Pittsburgh or Ottawa or Buffalo or Phoenix or yes, even Atlanta, that he didn't like relocating teams, that he didn't like the example it set or the message it conveyed to loyal fans.

Now, with nowhere near the fight that was put up to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix, the Thrashers are packing up the moving vans for The Peg. Market forces are market forces and those created by the downturn in the U.S. economy are powerful indeed.

Still, there's no chance this is what the NHL wanted to do, so finding a way it make it seem that's the case is going to be a real trick. It cannot portray this as a calculated maneuver. The likeliest strategy now will be to announce a season ticket campaign in Winnipeg - there are suggestions the team will be looking for a three-year committment from buyers - which will be the NHL's attempt to assert "control" over the process. It's why you're the league can say last night and today that this deal isn't official. The Bettman administration likes to stage-manage these events, and putting conditions on an already done deal after the fact is one way to at least be seen to be doing that.

Meanwhile, its going to be very hard for the NHL commissioner to ensure this isn't the beginning of a stampede to the Great White North.

For starters, interested parties in Canada now have hard evidence that a franchise can be extricated out of the U.S. and moved north. That will encourage the folks in Quebec City to get that arena up and built on schedule by 2015, and quite probably encourage those in the GTA who think announcing a new NHL-sized arena is all that would be necessary to land an existing franchise.

As well, U.S. teams spurting red ink now see a way out of their predicament, with the Thrashers likely to be sold for something well in excess of their actual value. Tampa Bay went for cheap to Jeff Vinik, and NHL owners of money-losing teams might look at Atlanta's impending sale to Winnipeg as evidence there's more money to be made - or recovered - by dealing with a Canadian suitor.

Then again, we probably already knew that, didn't we? Jim Balsillie was willing to pay a lot more for the Coyotes than Matthew Hulsizer is, and it's an intriguing debate as to whether the NHL would be a stronger league today with a Balsillie-owned franchise in Hamilton rather than the taxpayer-supported mess in Glendale.

Phoenix still doesn't have an owner. Meanwhile Florida and Columbus are two clubs that will be watched carefully now for possible moves. If a real arena project ever gets announced in the GTA - Markham rumours are rife - you know that will generate all kinds of momentum. Let's just say if there was a building set to open in the GTA in the next two years, there would be two or more NHL clubs angling to move into it, with or without NHL permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Leo For Leafs

It's not a big deal, but the Leafs have experienced their first disappointment of what is shaping up to be an eventful and pivotal off-season.

Instead of signing an entry-level contract with the Leafs, 24-year-old centre Leo Komarov has instead opted to ink a deal in the KHL. Komarov, born in Estonia but a Finn by nationality who played for the gold-medal winning Finnish side at the recent world championships, is a 5-foot-11 disturber who had been described as a smaller version of Jarkko Ruutu.

He was drafted in the sixth round by John Ferguson Jr. in 2006, and the Leafs had hoped to sign him this summer to add more sandpaper to their bottom six forward. Ideally, he might have filled the crucial checking role that Sammy Pahlsson did for Brian Burke's Cup-winning club in Anaheim in 2007.

Komarov played for Moscow Dynamo the last two years and apparently also carries a Russian passport. He believes he can make more money playing in the KHL than under an NHL entry-level deal, and now will become a free agent this summer.

The Leafs first round pick acquired from Philadelphia in the Kris Versteeg deal, meanwhile, is now slotted in at No. 25. The pick acquired from Boston depends on how the B's finish.

Finally, hearing whispers that negotiations between Atlanta and Winnipeg over the future of the Thrashers may be slowed by the difficulty in reaching a sale price. The team is valued at about $60 million by industry analysts, and the Winnipeg group backed by Mark Chipman and David Thomson may be wondering why they are being asked to pay $160 million or more.

Part of that is an NHL relocation fee, to which Chipman and Thomson might wonder why they should have to pay such a cost given that the Thrashers can't stay in Atlanta and have nowhere else to go but Winnipeg. Short of folding the Thrashers, which in many ways would be the most sensible thing to do, the NHL has to do business with Winnipeg, which should give Chipman and Thomson useful leverage.

 

 

The Arrival

There's two ways to look at Tyler Seguin's coming out party on Tuesday night.

The easy perspective, and therefore the most popular, is to suggest head coach Claude Julien unfairly held back Seguin during the regular season and by sitting him out in the first 11 games of the playoffs. A four-point explosion from the kid in a 6-5 Boston win in Game 2 is clear evidence of that, right? Evidence he should have been playing all along, right?

Well, hang on.

Now, Julien is one of those coaches who can't seem to win by winning. Got fired in Montreal. Got fired with a 100-point team in the final few days of a regular season in New Jersey. People think he coaches boring hockey. And so on. Julien's an easy target because he's not a fiery, John Tortorella guy who fires back. He's more of a gentleman, and a quiet man who simply believes what he believes in and is willing to suffer the slings and arrows to pursue his craft.

But it's possible to also look at Seguin's four-pointer on Tuesday as evidence of a player who was carefully prepared for his big momemt, brought along slowly by an experienced coaching staff, asked to be able to play an all-around game before he displaced a more senior player. Instead of slighting Julien, it's equally if not more sensible to give the coach credit for effectively grooming a 19-year-old forward so that when he was needed in the post-season, he would be ready to contribute.

Don't forget, it's not like Seguin was burning it up during the regular season. He had one point in his final 19 games, some of which he played as little as eight minutes, some of which he played more than 16 minutes. Some analysts argued as late as this week that Seguin didn't deserve to be in the NHL and should have been sent back to junior hockey during the season.

In these playoffs, Seguin sat in the press box for the first two rounds watching. But to be fair, after losing the first two games of the post-season to Montreal, Boston had been on a serious roll, winning eight of nine before Seguin was inserted as an injury replacement for Patrice Bergeron in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final. You don't change a winning lineup, and there wasn't an obvious choice of a player who needed to be deleted from the Beantown lineup in order to get Seguin in.

In Game 2, he was explosive and productive with two gorgeous goals. But rather than slight the Boston staff, credit them for holding this young colt until he was ready to do exactly what he did. Don't forget, it hasn't been like he's been sitting at home watching television since the playoffs started. Every day in practice, the coaching staff has been working with him, coaching him, showing him the things that would be necessary once he got his chance.

When he got his chance, he delivered like a player with enormous potential. And when he delivered, Julien gave him even more ice time. Now, the challenge will be for the young man to keep it going, to keep that ice time, and don't be surprised if he can't and ends up back in the press box, continuing to learn all the difficult lessons necessary to be a pro in the world's toughest hockey tournament.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to work? Good for Seguin, good for Julien and good for Boston.

First Impressions

The Leafs started 4-0.

The Argos were a surprising 5-2 out of the gate.

Even the Raptors were 1-1 after two games. That was the high water mark.

So we know all about good starts.

So how to assess a local baseball club that sits with a winning record, 21-20, with a quarter of the season having elapsed?

Different, I'd say.

It's hard to say how this will play out over the next 121. But it's the way in which the Blue Jays have navigated the season to this point that matters.

They've had all kinds of injuries. Everyone does, but the teams that battle through them and manage to keep their heads above waters are teams worth watching.

They are, as Sportsnet analyst Greg Zaun noted before Monday's triumph in Detroit, starting to consistently "hit to win." In other words, players doing things at the plate that may not help their personal stats but help the team win. Three sac flies Monday night were evidence of that. Juan Rivera delivered one of them, and there's a guy who desperately would like his own numbers to look shinier but did what was necessary for the team.

As well, this was a team five games under .500 just a short while ago that could easily have been 10 under in a heartbeat, with lots of excuses available. Instead, the ship was righted.

Finally, management decisions are paying off, which breathes confidence throughout an organization. Jose Bautista's contract, for starters, is looking like a very good deal, and if anything, he's looking even more like a leader now than he did last year. Watching him confer in the dugout in such an animated way with outfielder Rajai Davis after Davis had made an out is not necessarily something you see great players doing all the time.

Meanwhile, while Roy Halladay is Roy Halladay, so often when big names get dealt the team losing the star gets nothing of particular value in return. It's usually futures for now, and the futures often never pan out.

But in Kyle Drabek, there's a definite benefit from the Halladay deal walking out to the mound every five days. He's a work in progress, but also a young guy with all the possibilities in the world who was intriguing to watch on the mound Monday night while tossing seven innings of three hit ball.

Those are all smaller stories that are part of the bigger story. Like the Leafs and Argos and Raps, this ballclub may not finish with a winning record. But very good things are happening, and in the right way.

 

 

Small Ideas that Could Grow

Some partial notions for a Monday morning:

--Is this the week that Atlanta loses its Thrashers? Or are the attention of the hockey community and the City of Winnipeg again being used to create leverage for a team looking for a better deal where it is?

Problem is, there's no better deal out there for the Thrashers. No lease to be fixed, no money coming from the city (wise). A new ownership group must step up. Now. And that sounds very, very unlikely.

--I'm not one of those guys who is going to lecture you on how you're missing something by not going out to support junior hockey. To me, the customer is always right, and if people haven't wanted to go, that's no failing on their part. But it surely will be interesting to see how the GTA responds to the Memorial Cup in Mississauga, which starts Friday with the Majors playing the Saint John Sea Dogs. It's a four-team tourney that lacks a marquee name, but does have four good teams, all of which come with good stories, and all of which could win the thing.

The Sea Dogs do arrive with four of the top 20 rated prospects for this summer's draft, including centre Jonathan Huberdeau (No. 3), defenceman Nathan Beaulieu (5th), centre Zack Phillips (15th) and right winger Tomas Jurco (20th). The Majors' D-man Stuart Percy from Oakville was ranked 53rd in the year-end NHL Central Scouting ratings. Owen Sound goalie Jordan Binnington, who backstopped the Attack to the OHL title on Sunday, is the third-rated North American goalie.

--An average of $13 million a year for five years for Jose Bautista is looking like a shrewd deal for Alex Anthopoulos, although its early. After the Vernon Wells deal,  and the Alex Rios contract, and others like it, it was easy to wonder if the Blue Jays were ever again going to make the right call on a long-term deal for a star player. And man, is this guy a star.

--Joe Thornton vs. Ryan Kesler is going to be a battle royale throughout the Western Conference final. The big news for the Canucks in Game 1 was that Henrik Sedin showed some flash, setting up the tying goal and scoring the winner in the hard-hitting affair. The missing elements for San Jose these days, meanwhile, seem to be Dany Heatley and Joe Pavelski. With Thornton tied up dealing with Kesler, those boys need to get it going. Heatley has one goal in his last eight; L'il Joe has one goal, one assist in last seven.

--Apparently, it's all about the diet. Since going gluten-free, Novak Djokovic has soared to become the best tennis player on the planet. Rafael Nadal can't beat him, neither can Roger Federer, and the level to which the unbeaten Serb has lifted his game in 2011 is utterly astounding. He's leaner and fitter, and his 500-horsepower backhand permits him to rarely need to run it to hit his forehand, and therefore he's rarely out of position. He's also the best returner in the game. We'll see if he can keep it up at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

--The death of the NHL's top heavyweight, 28-year-old Derek Boogaard, was a stunning tragedy for his family and reverberated throughout the sport on the weekend. Answers to how he died could make his passing yet more meaningful to those outside the family.

He was rocked by a Matt Carkner right cross to the button on Dec. 9th and never played again, although it sounds like his training was going well. Sadly, he was challenged by Carkner after landing a good, perfectly legal bodycheck in the open ice on Jesse Winchester of the Senators. That the sick nonsense the NHL needs to crack down on but doesn't seem to want to. Boogaard knew his job and accepted it, but surely the guy had a right to be able to play the game within the rules without having to scrap every single time.

 

 

 

 

Far East Vs. Far West

Whoever gets to the Stanley Cup final, it's going to be the Air Miles Classic.

Could be Boston travelling to Vancouver, or to San Jose. Or Tampa Bay taking on the Canucks or Sharks.

Wow. The shortest distance required would be Tampa and San Jose, and they're 3,800 kilometres apart by air. The Cup final could be a 20,000 kilometre sojourn - or more - for the lucky contestants.

The Sharks became the fourth member of the NHL's Final Four with a dramatic, thrilling 3-2 triumph over Detroit on Thursday night in northern California. Of the quartet of teams remaining, neither of the western reps have ever won the Stanley Cup, while Boston hasn't won since '72. Tampa, by comparison, is the franchise most familiar with winning it all, having taken the Cup for a skate in 2004.

None of the remaining four clubs, meanwhile, has ever played any of the others in an NHL playoff series.

So it'll be all new ground to be plowed the rest of the way.

The Sharks barely survived, hanging on by their fins against a Detroit club that refused to give up, fighting from behind after falling behind three games to none to force Game 7 in Silicon Valley. Once more, they trailed 3-1 in the third period, the same third period margin they'd blown in Game 5, but a Pavel Datsyuk goal with 5:01 remaining in regulation made the dying moments memorable.

Twice, Patrick Marleau made key defensive plays to thwart chances by the Wings, who entered the game without Johan Franzen and lost Daniel Cleary and Todd Bertuzzi to injuries during the hard-hitting, gruelling match. The critical difference, in the end, was while San Jose was able to get a power play goal from Devin Setoguchi in the first, the Detroit extra-strength unit was uncharacteristically punchless, going 0-4, including a glorious chance on a Torrey Mitchell slashing foul in the final minutes.

Marleau got the winner on a goal-mouth tap-in, while Joe Thornton set up Setoguchi's goal and played a whale of a game. Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg were both fabulous for Detroit, but simply didn't have enough help from the other Red Wings forwards during the series to avoid being eliminated by San Jose for the second straight year.

For Detroit, the question will be not good enough, or just not good enough to beat the Sharks? GM Ken Holland has a very tough assessment to make of his club, particuarly with the possibility that 41-year-old Nicklas Lidstrom may not return next season.

The Wings are fiercely competitive, skilled and entertaining, but they are also the NHL's oldest team that has seen injuries become a familiar story in recent playoff seasons. Of the three forwards that couldn't contribute in Game 7, Franzen is 31, Cleary is 32 and Bertuzzi is 36. Kris Draper (39) and Mike Modano (40) may retire. Datsyuk is 32 and Zetterberg is 30, and both were hampered by injuries in these playoffs. Tomas Holmstrom, meanwhile, is 38, and Brian Rafalski is 37.

The Wings were gallant and dogged to the end. But at some point, Holland will have to make the transition to a younger team, and he'll have to decide now if that time should be this summer for a remarkable franchise that hasn't missed the playoffs since 1990, the year Steven Stamkos was born.

For the Sharks, so long tagged as underachievers, it's their third visit ever to the Western Conference final, and second consecutive advance to that point in the NHL playoffs. Last year, they were swept in four by Chicago, and this spring they'll be looking to make the next step against a Vancouver club that itself hopes this is its year after being the NHL's best team during the regular season.

San Jose's youngsters, particularly Setoguchi and Logan Couture, look to be coming of age at exactly the same time the older Sharks - Thornton, Marleau, Dan Boyle - appear to have good miles left on their chassis. They also have, in Antti Niemi, a goalie with a Stanley Cup, while Vancouver can counter with Olympic gold medal winner Roberto Luongo.

For this conference final, the Sharks will be underdogs. After what they went through to get here, they may welcome the distinction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Octopus and The Shark

They don't get to choose. But if the Vancouver Canucks were told today they could pick either the San Jose Sharks or the Detroit Red Wings to take on in the Western Conference final, you have to wonder who they'd pick.

On one hand, you have San Jose, a star-crossed team just like the Canucks, a club that - just like the Canucks in the first round against Chicago - has coughed up a 3-0 series lead and now must win Game 7 on home ice to survive and avoid humiliation.

Then you have battered, bruised and aged Detroit, a team with all its star players suffering through one injury or another, yet a team with enough pride and collective will that it has twice in two games overcome third period deficits to force that seventh game.

The Sharks or the Red Wings? If you're Vancouver, just a chance to get back to playing some kind of hockey with flow after a six-game taffy pull with Nashville is what you can hope for most, plus for whichever team survives Thursday's final match to be as worn and fatigued as possible heading into the conference final.

Clearly, the Wings have the Sharks staggered now. The Silicon Valley squad seemed to be on the verge of sweeping Detroit just days ago but now has found itself unable to finish after being in a position to end this series in three consecutive third periods.

In Game 6, Antti Niemi's brilliance and Logan Couture's fifth goal of the post-season seemed to have the Sharks well-positioned to win. But just as they had in winning Game 5 in San Jose 48 hours earlier, the Wings produced goals in pairs, this time one from Henrik Zetterberg and one from Val Filpulla in a 1:46 span to overcome the Sharks' lead and ultimately produce a Detroit triumph.

The Sharks, missing Ryan Clowe after a big hit from Niklas Kronwall in Game 5, tried to shuffle their lineup, bumping non-producer Patrick Marleau off Joe Thornton's line and replacing creating a new line of Marleau, Dany Heatley and Torrey Mitchell. None of it worked, as the Wings dominated the game, and the perenially underachieving Sharks flew home knowing just how awful this will sell in northern California if they become the fourth team in NHL history to blow a three games to none lead in a playoff series.

It's not like the Sharks are getting blown out. They've lost three one-goal games. But while the Wings are getting contributions from throughout their roster, the Sharks seem to be mostly about Couture, Devin Setoguchi and Dan Boyle, and simply don't seem to have enough hands on deck to handle the Wings.

Clowe has been their best forward, and his status for Game 7 is unknown. Ditto for Detroit's Johan Franzen, replaced in the lineup for Game 6 by the ancient Mike Modano, with Jiri Hudler also back in the Detroit lineup in place of Kris Draper.

The Wings seem to be surging, the Sharks stumbling around the final turn of this very good series. From a Vancouver standpoint, the Wings, if they were to survive might well be the tougher opponent, for the always uncertain confidence of San Jose surely has been shaken regardless of the Game 7 result.

The gruelling travel of this series has worn down these two clubs, yet the standard of play seems to be rising, mostly because Detroit keeps pushing it to another level. If the likes of Thornton, Marleau and Heatley have another level themselves, now would be a good time to show it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Power Shift

Rafael Nadal is still No. 1 in the world. But most in the tennis industry would concede he is not the best player on the planet right now.

That honor would go to Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who did what is nearly undoable, and that is beat Nadal on clay, and in his home country, at the Madrid Open final on Sunday.

Nadal had won 37 straight matches on clay going into the match, while Djokovic had won 31 consecutive matches to open the 2011. Something had to give, and it was, surprisingly, Nadal, in the two-set match that featured long, heavy rallies and brilliant shot making from both. When it matter, Djokovic was able to use his two-handed backhand to hit clutch winners, something most players can't do on clay against Nadal because of his heavy spin and brilliant defensive abilities.

The 7-5, 6-4 final, Djokovic's third straight big tournament win over Nadal this season, sets up a spectacular seven weeks of tennis coming up. It will start with the French Open in Paris beginning May 22, and by the end of June will switch to grass for the granddaddy of 'em all, Wimbledon.

Djokovic will be favoured for both, but Nadal will be looking to claim his sixth title at Roland Garros in the past seven years and Federer, who played Nadal very tough in the Madrid semifinals, will be determined to reclaim the Wimbledon championship he used to own.

Canada will have a dog in both fights, with Milos Raonic up to 25th in the world after doing what most North Americans avoid, and that's stick his nose into the middle of the clay court season in Europe. But it will be on grass that Raonic may really have an opportunity to make his mark, a surface that should complement his enormous serve - he leads the ATP in aces - if he has the maturity required to play in the world's most important tennis tournament.

On Sunday in Rome at the Italian Open, Raonic lost his opening round match 6-4, 6-4 to Fernando Verdasco, who Raonic beat twice on hard courts earlier this season but also lost to in Madrid last week. Still, the 20-year-old Raonic is 9-5 on clay heading into Paris, not bad at all.

Nadal, meanwhile, will still be No. 1 for a while yet, but even he seemed to concede that Djokovic will have his paws on that distinction soon.

"The No. 1 ranking is not in danger -- it's finished. Let's not lie to ourselves, that's the reality," Nadal said after losing to Djokovic.