Arms race now on after Kovalchuk deal

The Atlanta Thrashers did not get value for Ilya Kovalchuk. Not even close.

Then again, getting equal value was nearly an impossible task for Atlanta GM Don Waddell given that Kovalchuk was set to be an unrestricted free agent. So just as was the case with Marian Hossa two years ago, Waddell did the best he could.

And therein lies the lesson. Again.

NHL teams don't seem to want to absorb the concept that if you go into a season with a star player facing unrestricted free agency, chances are that player isn't going to sign a new contract. Why would he? Having gone that far, at that point it just makes sense to test the market.

It was that way last season with the Florida Panthers and Jay Bouwmeester, and the Panthers took an even bigger bath than the Thrashers, losing Bouwmeester to free agency with almost no return.

And it will be that way the next time a marquee talent goes into the final year of his contract.
You might get something. But never enough.

Atlanta got bits and pieces, a decent prospect in Patrice Cormier, a useful defenceman in Johnny Oduya, a possible scorer in Niclas Bergfors and a first-round pick.

But nothing special. And while New Jersey, Kovalchuk's new home, is almost certainly looking at this as a rental situation - no way would the Devils pay Kovalchuk twice Marty Brodeur's salary of $5.2 million - the Devils can live with giving up those assets for less than one third of the regular season and the playoffs.

No problem.

If Atlanta wanted more for Kovalchuk, they had to trade him last season, or at the very least, last summer.

Once this season began, all the leverage went to the player and the Thrashers essentially committed themselves to losing their best player for not much in return.

And the Devils were the beneficiary.

It will be interesting to see how the other big players in the Eastern Conference - Washington, Pittsburgh, etc. - respond to Jersey's bold move. The arms race is surely now on, but there may not be players available that can approximate Kovalchuk's possible impact with the Devils.

Does it now make the Devils favourites in the east over the Caps and Pens? No. But it gives the Devils two big guns up front in Kovalchuk and Zach Parise, three if Patrick Elias can bounce back from injury and finish the season strongly.

Oduya was a very useful guy on the back end, meanwhile, so in the same vein, the ability of Paul Martin to return after the Olympics at a high level will play a major role in how deep Jersey can go.

The best news is that despite the heaviest workload in hockey, goalie Martin Brodeur isn't feeling the least bit tired.

"I feel the best I've felt in. . .well. . .the best I've felt ever," said Brodeur this week, crediting his two-year-old committment to a new nutrition and conditioning program.

Hockey Q&A with Damien Cox

Damien Cox held a live Q&A at noon Monday, answering readers' questions about all things hockey -- especially the Leafs trade.

Hockey chat with Damien Cox

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

Apprenticeships in a Demanding Market

They are two stories from two different sports about two young people from two different countries.

Yet in some way, the circumstances are the same.

Both Phil Kessel and Alex Anthopolous have, by combination of their own choice and the decisions of others, been thrust into situations for which they aren't quite ready.

For the 22-year-old Kessel, it's to be a franchise player for the Maple Leafs. For the 32-year-old Anthopolous, its to run the baseball operations of the Blue Jays.

In today's Star, the pitfalls for both are reported on in pieces by Paul Hunter and Rich Griffin. Griffin highlights Anthopolous's efforts at his first ever winter meetings as he tries to not only take over from J.P. Ricciardi, but set a new tone for the franchise.

To me, he's reminiscent of John Ferguson Jr. when he took over the Leafs. He even has a quickee nickname as Ferguson did. Fergie was JFJ, while Anthopolous is Double-A, not exactly a comfy nickname for a baseball man.

Anthopolous is young, eager, hardworking, wildly inexperienced and very unsure of how to handle the Toronto media, which, as it was for Ferguson, could be a ticking time bomb.

Cutting guys off is okay if you win. But if you don't, you'll have no friends when you need 'em.

All that said, the good news is that Anthopolous isn't a finished product. He has time to learn. He has time to figure it out.

Kessel, meanwhile, again underperformed last night in a visit to his former hockey home of Boston. He was better, but not good enough, and the Leafs went down to defeat.

In some ways, Kessel right now is reminiscent of a young Mats Sundin, who, during his early days in Quebec City and then Toronto, was viewed as marvelously talented but unable to rise to the moment and compete harder when the environment became nastier.

Sundin ultimately conquered that and became a solid playoff warrior, but it took time.

But what people forget is that the Leafs didn't acquire a finished product when they traded for Kessel. They acquired a player with exciting offensive talent who has scored some goals in the league but has yet to prove he can grind it out when the compete level of everyone goes up.

That's okay. He has time to learn. He has time to figure it out. If this trade ultimately works out, it will be because Kessel improves as a player, not because he's all he can be right now.

The Leafs might want him to be a star, but at 22, he's at an age when only the truly exceptional - like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin - are prepared to walk among the league's elite every night.

Everyone should understand that the plan for Kessel should be that he's really hitting his stride two or three seasons down the line.

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

Troubling Times in Anaheim

ANAHEIM

The Maple Leafs, quite obviously, were a lot more concerned with getting their first victory of the season than helping sell hockey in southern California.

But as the boos rained down on the hometown Ducks last night at a half-empty Honda Centre after a 6-3 defeat at the hands of the visiting Leafs, it was certainly time to take notice on the impact the recession and a variety of other issues have had on the Anaheim franchise.

At one point, the Ducks had sold out 78 straight games, including the entire 2007-08 season that followed their Stanley Cup triumph over the Ottawa Senators. That streak ended early last season, and since then there’s been a decline in attendance at Anaheim home games, although the Ducks still boast a strong season ticket base of 11,500.

The recession hasn’t helped any of the U.S. teams, particularly those in the southern states. Second, as many markets have shown, in three-quarters of the NHL’s American cities the fans don’t come unless the home team is winning.

Right now, the Ducks are one of the worst teams in the league after off-loading great chunks of contractual commitments and experience over the past year.

Thirdly, the competition in this market is ferocious these days. As the Ducks started their season, they were going up against USC football, playoff baseball teams in Los Angeles and Anaheim, and the opening of training camp for the defending NBA champion Lakers. Having the nearby L.A. Kings get off to a strong start isn’t helping.

When Brian Burke ran the Ducks, he established a team personality in which Anaheim bullied as many teams as possible, killed off tons of penalties and scored just enough to win. These days, the Ducks aren’t quite as tough without Chris Pronger on the blueline, and as they showed last night in giving the Leafs 11 power plays and five power play goals, they aren’t quite as effective killing off the penalties.

“It hasn’t been an issue up until tonight,” said Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle afterwards. “The frustration level goes with the lack of success we’ve been having. When you start to see players like Saku Koivu and Scott Niedermayer in reaction mode, then you start to question if we are putting ourselves in a can’t-win situation. Was our attitude and frustration getting the better part of us? I’d have had to say yes in some of those instances.”

Including a loss to Columbus on Saturday night, the Ducks have surrendered 12 goals in their last two home games and are one point out of dead last in the west. It wasn’t that long ago that the Ducks were drawing crowds of less than 10,000, and even winning the Cup hasn’t made this market any less vulnerable to competition, economic downturns or losing.

The Leafs, needless to say, weren’t too bothered about the boos or the size of the crowd. Afterwards, head coach Ron Wilson praised rookie goalie Jonas Gustavsson for making some significant stops early, including one splendid stop on Erik Christenson just six minutes in with the game scoreless.

“That one, at the time, I thought, ‘Here we go, they’re up one nothing just like that.’ But he found a way to make the save,” said Wilson.

Gustavsson made 25 saves to secure his first NHL win.

“For the team, it was big to get the first win,” he said. “Everybody can stop talking about it and move on and try to get the next one. For myself, it was a big step for me to get my first NHL win. I’m really happy about it.”

He said he’s still adjusting to the North American game.

“You have to be ready all the time for shots, shots from everywhere, and it feels like the shots are coming from closer here than in Sweden,” he said.

The Leafs pelted Jonas Hiller with 39 shots, many of them during power plays.

Lee Stempniak played more than 22 minutes to lead all Leaf forwards, while Luke Schenn’s ice time continued to shrink, down to 10:03 last night.

Niklas Hagman had seven shots on goal and scored three times.

SpinPlus Video: Cox on Leafs in Anaheim

SpinPlus Video: Leafs practice in Vancouver