Live hockey Q&A

Damien held a live Q&A today, fielding questions from readers about all things hockey:

Hockey chat with Damien Cox

Damien held a live hockey Q&A today, fielding questions on the world juniors, the Olympics and the Leafs.

One Hundred Games, Thirty-Seven Wins

The first 100 days of any U.S. presidency are often viewed as critical. The tone is set, the optimism from the election is still vibrant and there's a freshness to it all.

Maybe the same's the case for the first 100 games for an NHL coach with a team, a milestone Ron Wilson hit Saturday night with the Leafs against Calgary.

With another loss.

If you're keeping score at home, that's 63 losses for Wilson during his Leaf tenure against 37 triumphs. Of those 63 defeats, 18 have been through either overtime or a shootout.

Of a possible 200 points, Wilson has achieved 92 for a "winning" percentage of .460.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is not good. The optimism from Wilson's hiring is gone and it sure doesn't feel fresh.

The tone? Well, the idea was that a teacher was coming to town, a no-nonsense bench boss who would make sure everything, from defensive zone coverage to the laundry, was done correctly. Wilson spoke of a new culture, an end to any sense of entitlement players might have, something he called the blue-and-white disease.

Interesting, then, to hear Wilson discussing on Monday the need to start benching players who make major errors early in games and punishing players for egregious errors.

Shouldn't that have been happening, oh, 100 games earlier?

When Jason Blake didn't do much opening night on the backcheck to stop the winning goal in overtime by the Montreal Canadiens, nothing much happened. When Matt Stajan didn't get to the red line last Friday with the puck, took an icing call to force a group of exhausted Leafs to stay on the ice which resulted in a costly turnover by Luke Schenn, Stajan just kept on playing. There have been occasional instances in which players have been exiled to the press box to put on a big show, but within games, of late only Colton Orr seems to sit in third periods.

Right now, Wilson is safe, which means he's still got time to turn this thing around. In fact, he's probably got at least until early March, after the Olympics, when he'll be guiding Team U.S. under the management team led by Brian Burke, also his boss with the Leafs.

But even though Wilson has a long term contract, this losing, this consistent weak defensive play, can't go on forever. There are people out there right now who could take the helm - Craig MacTavish, even Wayne Gretzky - and there will be more at season's end.

After 100 games, Wilson's honeymoon is over. He's not in danger of losing his job anytime soon. That said, he's got to start winning some hockey games.

Monday Morning Considerations

Take solace, Toronto hockey fans, in the struggles of others.

Nobody expected the Maple Leafs to be a top Eastern Conference team, or one of the better NHL clubs overall. So when you look around for underachieving clubs, there are a few that, while better in the standings than Ron Wilson's crew, are just as much or more under the microscope for their results this season.

You can certainly start with Carolina, a conference finalist last year and a loser of nine straight to begin this season. Boston and Philadelphia are two clubs many mentioned as  teams capable of coming out of the east next spring, but neither has had a great start. The Bruins, at least, are dealing with multiple injuries.

Out west, the struggles of Detroit have been well-documented. St. Louis, which began the season in Europe with the Red Wings, have won only two of seven games at home. Many believed this would be an improved year for the Blues with Erik Johnson healthy and the team buoyed by a playoff appearance last spring, but not so far. Anaheim had a strong playoff last spring but can't seem to get it rolling this fall, at least partly because Ryan Getzlaf is having problems bouncing back from off-season surgery.

So while fans in this market tend to navel gaze a fair bit, there are a half-dozen or more other NHL cities in which the locals are getting restless.

* * * * *

That sound you hear is Steve Yzerman shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

After all, it's going to be tough enough to choose an Olympic team from the 46 players that were in Calgary in late summer for an orientation camp. What Yzerman doesn't need is players who weren't at the camp suddenly injecting themselves into the discussion.

That, however, is exactly what Steve Stamkos is doing. With 10 goals in 11 games, the Richmond Hill product is off to a sizzling start for Tampa Bay, with the Lightning in town tomorrow to face the Leafs. Stamkos may benefit in some way from the memories of '06 when Sidney Crosby was left off the Turin team because, basically, he was young.

If Stamkos continues at this pace, or has 25 goals by Christmas, it's going to be hard to keep him off the team. And one of his Tampa teammates, Vinny Lecavalier or Marty St. Louis, might be the player who gets bumped.

* * * * *

Poor Mother Russia. Its Olympic stars are falling like flies.

First Andrei Malkin Markov is lost for 3-4 months with a severe tendon injury. Then Ilya Kovalchuk suffers a broken foot. Then Evgeny Malkin falls to a shoulder injury. Then last night Alex Ovechkin leaves the game against Columbus with an "upper body" injury.

There's time for most, if not all of these players, to get healthy. But that's not always easy to do amidst the grind of an NHL season.

* * * * *

Awful to see Oakville's Ben Fanelli injured as he was on the weekend after a vicious hit by Erie Otters forward Mike Liambis, a native of Woodbridge. All thoughts and prayers are with the 16-year-old Fanelli as he deals with awful injuries in a Hamilton hospital.

But now OHL boss David Branch has a very difficult issue to deal with; should Liambis be suspended, and for a very long time?

All I've seen is some grainy TV replays of the incident, which occurred behind the Kitchener net. As Fanelli carried the puck in one way Liambis had the bomb doors open coming the other way.

Those hits never turn out well.

But it didn't look to be a charge or an elbow or a high stick. At the last moment, Fanelli turned to pass the puck the other way and the impact of the blow seemed to be from Liambis' right shoulder to the back of Fanelli's left shoulder. Fanelli's helmet popped off as though it was the cork from a champagne bottle, and that may have contributed to the injury.

It didn't look like a dirty play. But the injury is so severe it's hard to ignore.

This might be the most difficult such incident Branch has ever had to deal with as a junior hockey commissioner.

* * * * *

Funny that the NHLPA gang that orchestrated the ouster of Paul Kelly all essentially quit in concert last week after it was announced a committee would be investigating their activities.

Scared of a few questions, gentlemen? 

* * * * *

It was a perfect example of Brian Burke's Joe Schwartz theory.

Partway through Saturday's Leafs-Habs game, Jaroslav Spacek delivered a perfect suicide pass to teammate Glen Metropolit, and predictably Mike Komisarek delivered a very hard but clean check.

Now Metropolit is a good guy, a great story and a hardworking veteran. But he doesn't quite qualify either as one of Montreal's top skill players or core athletes.

Yet Komisarek, after delivering the hit, was immediately confronted by Kyle Chipchura and Travis Moen of the Habs.

Once upon a time, it was just the elite players who received this kind of support from teammates. Now it's anyone, or, as Burke says, everyone including Joe Schwartz.

Those who endorse fighting often accuses opponents of pugilism of trying to take the physical element out of the game.

However, it's becoming more and more evident that fighting is being used as a tool to eliminate hitting.

SpinPlus: The Leafs after 10 games

SpinPlus Video: Cox on Leafs in Anaheim

Changes Afoot

Only player apathy, it would appear, can save Ian Penny and Buzz Hargrove from losing their tenuous grip over the NHL Players Association.

A resounding majority of player reps voted last night by conference call to install a investigative panel of four veteran NHLers - Nicklas Lidstrom, Rob Blake, Mark Recchi and Chris Chelios - to look into the events of the past two months that have made the union the laughingstock of the hockey industry.

Included in those events was the early morning putsch in Chicago in late August that saw executive director Paul Kelly fired, and quickly resulted in the departure of senior executives like Glenn Healy and Pat Flatley.

However, while between 17 and 19 of the 22 teams represented on the last night's call voted in favour of the new committee, by the union's constitution the resolution did not pass because 25 teams were not involved and therefore there was no official quorum.

"It's really discouraging," said one player. "Guys have to understand this is important." Those in favour of the new committee have several days to try and get 20 votes in favour of the new committee, at which point it would be established. If more teams can't be persuaded to either participate or vote in favour of the new committee, it will die.

Penny, who took over as interim executive director after successfully leading the coup that resulted in Kelly's ouster, was asked to remove himself from last night's call and, after some discussion, he reluctantly did so. The players also declined to hear from baseball union boss Don Fehr, preferring instead to have a players only call.

Penny has made his opposition to this new committee known, and now has several days to try and sway the votes of various player reps. Still, this was the latest in a series of internal votes that have gone heavily against him, and it appears the five-year contract he received in June will also be reviewed.

Penny has declined requests for interviews from the Star.

Hargrove, the union's ombudsman and unofficial spokesman since Penny took over, appears on the verge of being dismissed, but he wasn't fired last night.

After allowing various more junior union members like Andrew Ference and Matt Stajan of the Maple Leafs to take influential roles in the firing of Kelly, it's noteworthy that the association seems to now be inclined to put its faith in the hands of more senior players like Chelios, Blake, Lidstrom and Recchi. Lidstrom's involvement is pivotal and there have been few influential European players involved in the union's affairs in recent months.

Ference was the loudest player voice in the room when Kelly was fired at 4 a.m. that infamous day in Chicago, but he has already announced he is stepping down as Boston's player rep. Stajan has consistently backed Penny and said the union was right to fire Kelly.

Chelios, meanwhile, was set to lose his position as Detroit's player rep on Oct. 31st because he is currently not on the Red Wings roster. This will keep him involved, and he was one of the most dogged opponents of former executive director Ted Saskin before Saskin was fired for spying on players emails.

That's not good news for Penny either.

SpinPlus: Leafs lose second game of season

Wake Up Boys

Nothing's been done that couldn't be un-done.

Well, not quite. Glenn Healy, once Paul Kelly's right hand man with the NHL Players Association, has returned to the world of broadcasting in the wake of Kelly's bizarre dismissal two weeks ago. That ship has sailed.

Otherwise, if the NHLPA wanted to reinstate Kelly — more specifically, if the player membership wanted it done — it's still possible.

It's a bit pie in the sky at the moment. But the coup artists and plotters that managed to oust Kelly after a year of planning that began in Chicago in August, 2008, continued in Vegas last June and came to a head in the Windy City last month, have so far failed to consolidate their new-found power after the decapitation of the entire union leadership.

Ian Penny, who managed to wrest a new five-year contract out of the union last June as general counsel and then completed his remarkable year by suddenly succeeding Kelly on an interim basis, remains a cloak-and-dagger figure, an individual of little or no standing in the hockey world and one as of yet unable to explain publicly how and why his predecessor was canned or how he plans to lead the organization. Boston defenceman Andrew Ference has emerged as a ringleader in the ouster of Kelly, but the best defence he's been able to offer up so far is that the players fired Kelly through a secret ballot.

Well, nobody ever said that wasn't the case.

Otherwise, it would seem more and more players are questioning the details of Kelly's suspicious 4 a.m. firing, and their agents are voicing those concerns publicly. Pat Brisson and J.P. Barry, two of the biggest names in the game, are urging players to ask questions and find out what happened. Barry's involvement is particularly important since he used to work for the union.

One of Brisson's most famous clients, Sidney Crosby, chimed in today by saying all the players deserve a "good explanation" of what transpired in Chicago.

Chris Chelios, who was in the meeting that ended Kelly's tenure, is now saying that the entire process was at the very least "questionable." Former NHLPA executive Vincent Damphousse has spoken publicly about the "paranoia" in the union. Players familiar with the entire episode now understand that Kelly was under internal siege for a year or more, that his fractious relationship with former ombudsman Eric Lindros may have been his undoing and that the "office review" that skewered him was a rather clumsy attempt to assassinate his professional reputation. That said, it worked.

Despite his denials, Lindros is still very much a part of this picture. He certainly knew the details of the evidence that was used against Kelly in last month's meetings in Chicago even though he hadn't been working for the union for six months. Asked by text message if he intended to return to a position with the union in the near future, he responded, "I have no intentions."

If there was a groundswell of support for Kelly, could he come back? It's theoretically possible, but unlikely. The fact he was axed under the flimsiest of accusations that the plotters have tried to turn into Watergate doesn't change the fact that he was fired, and it's not easy to go back. Moreover, the dreadful bureaucratic structure of the union will make it impossible for any future executive director to lead the NHLPA without worrying about his job and authority every day.

But at the very least there should be yet another internal investigation of union activities and practices, something similar to that carried out by respected Toronto lawyer Sheila Bloch after the Saskin mess. Players will roll their eyes at that suggestion, but if they're smart, they're starting to understand that a very small cabal of players, retired players and suits — the names of some of whom they wouldn't even know — managed to have their leader canned without asking the wider membership what it thought.

All the player reps had to do was wait a few weeks for the players to assemble for training camp and it would have been easy to canvas opinion and develop a real consensus.

But the plotters didn't want that to happen. That should tell you something. They saw an opportunity and seized it.

Players in general couldn't give a fig about their union. But they'll get their backs up if they think they've been hoodwinked, and that feeling is starting to spread.

Lecavalier at Olympic camp: Feeling good after surgery