An Intriguing Approach

There are eight teams still competing for the Stanley Cup, and precisely none of them operate on the model now being proposed by the new-look Colorado Avalanche.

Then again, it's hard to explain precisely what the Colorado model is, or how it will work.

What we do know is that of the remaining eight, none are run by Hall of Fame centremen with no previous experience or coached by Vezina Trophy winning goalies straight out of junior hockey with expanded powers beyond just minding the bench.

And the eight other NHL clubs that qualified for post-season play before being eliminated in the first round? Nope, they aren't using the buddy system the Avs are going with, the we-won-championships-together-so-we-must-know-how-to-run-a-team approach.

That's not to say, one supposes, it all won't work brilliantly in Denver with Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy (nobody mentions GM Greg Sherman any more, so why bother?).

This notion that Sakic and Roy were great players so they will be a great executive/coach tandem is certainly exciting.

It has little or no basis is reality or modern NHL history, but it's exciting. Given that a team that was once both a perennial contender and a strong draw in its hometown is now neither, the excitement part is undoubtedly important. Tickets must be solid, merchandise must be peddled.

Certainly, Roy's junior resume stands for something. Just not very much. Coaches don't come right out of the junior ranks and win Stanley Cups, and the fact Roy was owner and GM of the Quebec Remparts doesn't change that. Brent Sutter, with a better junior resume than Roy, couldn't cut it in the NHL. Peter DeBoer had to gain NHL experience in Florida before it clicked in New Jersey.

That Sakic and Roy have also agreed to fuzzify the lines of authority - again, Sherman's in there somewhere - decreases the potential of this actually working.

The best thing that can be said is that Sakic and Roy aren't starting from zero. They have Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly (albeit on a lousy contract), plus they've invested heavily in defenceman Erik Johnson, the first overall pick of the 2006 that cost them Kevin Shattenkirk and Chris Stewart in a deal with the Blues.

As well, Sakic and Roy have the first pick in next month's entry draft. If they're smart they'll either a) grab Nathan MacKinnon and run or b) trade down for multiple picks and prospects.

Sure, they can also take Seth Jones, who looks poised to enjoy a 15-year NHL career. He's tall, he's a great skater, he's very skilled and he plays without an edge.

He sounds like the aforementioned Johnson. Or Victor Hedman. Which isn't bad, but isn't great, or as great as the Avs need it to be.

The two reasons cited most often behind the thinking that Colorado will take Jones - he's a defenceman, which they need, and he grew up in Denver - are both relatively immaterial if the objective is to make the best hockey decision.

First, you draft the best player, not for position. That's Hockey 101. Second, who cares where he grew up?

This is a huge decision, and right now, it's hard to say who will be making it in Denver. Surely not Sherman. But Roy's job description comes with a say in hockey ops. Sakic hardly seems like the "I'm in charge here" kind of guy.

Throw in the influence of Pierre Lacroix, and you have something roughly similar to what the Leafs tried to run with when it was the four-headed monster Ken Dryden, Mike Smith, Anders Hedberg and Bill Watters.

Exciting, yes. And we'll stop there.

 

 

 

Time For Change in Vancouver

Mike Gillis, it's clear, has now put himself in the line of fire.

Just like he inherited almost all of the key components of the Vancouver hockey club, he inherited head coach Alain Vigneault, wisely giving Vigneault the opportunity to continue running the Canucks.

But with the Canucks having been swept in the first round by San Jose, the Vancouver GM was in need of a body to toss overboard, and Vigneault's was the closest at hand and most convenient. Shed no tears for Vigneault; he had a good run on the west coast, and he'll be back working again soon, probably jumping just behind Lindy Ruff in the coaching queue.

Gillis, on the other hand, now has no choice but to make the biggest decision he's yet had to make at the helm of the Canucks. That team is at a very delicate stage, teetering between being a contender and an also-ran as the key players ago, and the choice of coach won't be an easy one.

Ruff is an obvious candidate, although he wouldn't deliver the championship resume that would normally come with a veteran bench boss. There will be calls to hire Marlies head coach Dallas Eakins, who deserves an NHL shot and is now, with the dismissal of the Leafs' farm club from the AHL playoffs, clear to consider other opportunities.

But Gillis will be judged on the success of his choice, that is abundantly clear, and hopefully people will stop parroting his latest excuse that the Canucks were unfairly undercut by changes in the style of NHL play and officiating.

Most of his run in Vancouver has been about avoiding tough choices, and perhaps he was smart to do so given that quality of the core others put in place for him. He has preferred spending money for free agents (Jason Garrison, Dan Hamhuis) and making what appeared to be one-sided trades with the Florida Panthers for expensive salaries (Keith Ballard, David Booth). Pushed into a corner on Roberto Luongo, he conned gullible Vancouver media types into believing he had multiple suitors for a backup goalie with one of the worst contracts in hockey and then was unable to execute a trade at all, injuring his team by leaving an unhappy Luongo in the room. Luongo's designated successor, Cory Schneider, surely didn't benefit by having Luongo around.

Based on Gillis's end-of-season remarks, he still seems reluctant to touch his core of the Sedin twins, Ryan Kesler, Alex Edler, Alexandre Burrows etc., but prefers to replace fading veterans occupying peripheral roles with younger, cheaper veterans despite the fact the Canucks are not thought to be heavy on good youngsters in their system. Through that process, it will also be difficult to make the team better in the short-term, while the players at the core will just keep getting older.

Getting a big return on Luongo remains a pipe dream. This team needs a significant change, and given Gillis's reluctant to move his stars, replacing the coach fits his usual modus operandi of avoiding tougher choices.

Hiring a new coach AND making one or two bold moves with the roster would be more aggressive, particularly given that most of Vancouver's key athletes are assets declining in value. If Gillis chooses to take one more crack at a Stanley Cup with the same playing cast and doesn't make it, the cost will lie largely in being unable to realize significant returns for his stars a year from now.

It's time for him to finally make impact moves, or at least do something more creative than naming a goaltender as team captain. The days of just living off what Brian Burke and Dave Nonis left him are over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leafs Soon To Get Leiweke's Attention

It seemed unlikely that Bell and Rogers, once they announced their joint takeover of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment more than 18 months, would passively stand by and watch the giant corporation run itself.

But then, nobody was quite sure how, precisely, it would unfold, or whether the two companies would stymie one another with competing visions, particularly after their acquisition of 75 per cent of MLSE was formally approved in August.

Well, it may have taken a while for the unfolding to begin, but it has turned into a tidal wave.

On New Year's Day, 2013, a corporate snapshot would have seen Tom Anselmi as Chief Operating Officer without a suit above him, Brian Burke as president and general manager of the NHL Maple Leafs and Bryan Colangelo as president and general manager of the NBA Raptors.

In just over five months, all that has been swept away.

Oh, Anselmi's still there, and apparently Colangelo will be too once his peculiar firing/reassignment is officially made clear today. Theoretically, Burke also still works for the team in some capacity.

But the power structure and the personalities behind it all have changed.

Anselmi has been superseded by Tim Leiweke, the flashy new MLSE president and CEO. How that relationship will spill out over time is unclear.

Burke, of course, was dismissed on Jan. 9 before Leiweke was hired, bad luck for Burke possibly given that he and Leiweke hold each other in high regard. Dave Nonis, much more low-key in his approach, has been running the hockey department.

Colangelo, kicked upstairs, won't get a chance to show Leiweke what he can do with the basketball team, which seems neither fair nor unfair, really. Colangelo had a good kick at the can and came up well short.

With that, Leiweke will now move on to the hiring of a new basketball boss, and presumably sometime this week or next will turn his attention to the hockey operation.

It will be fascinating to see what he thinks of that.

Nonis has several years left on his contract, but that would be unlikely to hold up Leiweke if, like Colangelo, Nonis doesn't measure up in his eyes.

Leiweke wasn't brought in on big ticket amidst the sound of a brass band playing to work with people he didn't hire if he doesn't like the way they do their job.

Nonis is in a somewhat more envious position than was Colangelo. He just took over, and the team made the post-season in a campaign shortened to 48 games by a lockout only to lose Game 7 to the Boston Bruins in rather shocking style.

The Leafs are closer to the ultimate goal of winning a Stanley Cup than they were a year ago.

But they are not close.

Nonis has a vision, and that's to develop a young team that grows together. He's unlikely to start trading young assets and futures for immediate help, although he might trade young assets and futures for other young assets. For example, he might trade Toronto's first round pick (No. 21) if some other team has a 19- or 20-year-old former first round pick they want to move.

Or maybe he might move 22-year-old Jake Gardiner, a marvel in the post-season, if he can get into the top 10 selections of this year's draft.

Nothing's off the table. People need to understand that, and given the way young teams develop, they also need to understand that while the Leafs very nearly upset the Bruins, there's a decent chance Toronto won't be as successful next season as it was this season.

Leiweke may or may not share that outlook. He and Nonis, you should know, barely know one another, and haven't spent recent weeks having beers on patios and trading war stories.

"It will be my GM, and I will have his back," said Leiweke today of the next Raptors GM, and presumably, he'll want to feel exactly the same way about the individual running the Leafs.

Leiweke made it clear when he was hired he was just going to stay out of the way until the Leafs completed their season, and he has, which apparently gave him oodles of time to handle the basketball situation just about as awkwardly as it could have been handled. This notion that Colangelo will stay on in some other capacity is just as absurd as was the announcement on the day Burke was fired that he would stay on as a consultant. The phrase "You're fired!" seems to never really mean that with MLSE.

But the basketball bloodletting is just about done and the Leaf season is over. There are already big decisions pending. Nonis is aware, given the fate of Colangelo, that nothing is guaranteed and he will have to sell Leiweke on his vision, one that MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum didn't enthusiastically embrace when he was looking for a new Leaf GM way back in 2008 and Nonis was interviewed.

Nonis hasn't changed his philosophy. But everything has changed at MLSE.

 

 

 

Draft Intrigue and the Next Domi Generation

Twenty-four years ago, the Memorial Cup was held in Saskatoon and included 19-year-old enforcer and Maple Leaf draftee Tie Domi of the Peterborough Petes, who spent most of his time riding shotgun for star centre Mike Ricci.

Starting Friday night, the Memorial Cup, now attached to a major sponsor in Mastercard, is again being held in Saskatoon, and lo and behold the next generation of the Domi clan will be at centre stage.

Just like his dad back in 1989, Max Domi of the London Knights will be a prominent performaner over the next 10 days in a star-studded tournament featuring a glittering array of NHL-bound talent, including the three players expected to go one, two and three in the June entry draft.

Domi, in case you've never seen him play, is nothing like his father on the ice. Tie Domi fought his way out of Belle River, Ont. to the NHL and ultimately became one of the most popular Leafs in the past 25 years.

Max, by contrast, is a marvellously skilled centre who also plays the wing and led the Ontario Hockey League champions in scoring this season. Stocky and well under 6-feet in height like his father, Max Domi is, really, the kind of player Tie spent years in the NHL "protecting," if you believe in the role of designated policemen.

Max is rated by NHL Central Scouting to possibly go in the second half of the draft's first round, or could even slip into the second if there's a run on Europeans or goalies. On the other hand, there are whispers some clubs see him as a top 10 pick.

That's where this gets interesting.

During his last year's in Toronto, Tie Domi, as politically savvy during his career as any NHLer, became friends with Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. When the Pat Quinn years were winding down, many criticized that relationship, suggesting it gave Domi a special status on the team.

Well, Tanenbaum is still chairman, albeit in a somewhat altered atmosphere at MLSE with Rogers and Bell now sharing majority ownership of the Leafs, Raptors and the rest of the MLSE empire.

The Leafs currently hold the No. 21 pick in the draft, and Max Domi, depending on how the dominoes fall, could be available when GM Dave Nonis and chief scout Dave Morrison come to choose in Newark on June 30.

Might Tanenbaum see fit to influence the Leaf choice? Or are those days long gone?

This isn't to suggest Max Domi would be a poor pick for the Leafs, although playing for the same team as his father did might come with unwelcome attention.

That said, if Halifax Mooseheads goalie Zachary Fucale, 6-foot-5 Rimouski centre Frederik Gauthier or even Domi's London teammate, 6-foot-5 blueliner Nikita Zadorov, are there when Toronto goes to draft and Domi is still available, might they fit the Leafs' needs more than another smallish forward?

Or what about bruising Windsor power forward Kerby Rychel, son of another ex-Leaf, Warren Rychel?

One really can't imagine Tanenbaum would interject his opinions into a process like the entry draft. Tie Domi, other than being an alumni, has no official capacity with the Leafs.

Then again, this is the Leafs. Influence, over the years, has been brought to bear on the hockey department from the strangest of sources.

Bloodlines have certainly influenced NHL drafts and player moves in the past. Teams with Sutters acquired other Sutters. Carolina currently owns three members of Thunder Bay's talented Staal family.

In 1992, the Leafs would have faced an intriguing choice with the No. 8 pick, with the son of former captain Darryl Sitter rated in top 10.

But Philadelpia took Ryan Sittler one pick before the Leafs.

One more note on Max Domi. One of his challenges as a junior hockey player is that he's a Type 1 Diabetic, which might or might not be a factor in where he's taken.

This is also accompanied by a footnote in Leaf history. With the ninth pick in the 1969 draft, the Leafs selected forward Ernie Moser, who never played a NHL game. Like many other clubs, Toronto was scared off a promising centre from Flin Flon because he was a diabetic.

The Flyers weren't. They took Bobby Clarke with the No. 17 selection and never regretted it.

A strong showing by Max Domi in this Memorial Cup, of course, could increase his draft stock significantly, particularly after he was overshadowed in the OHL playoffs by teammate Bo Horvat, who has surpassed Domi in the Central Scouting rankings.

For the first time ever, the tournament will feature the top three NHL draft prospects in Portland defenceman Seth Jones and the dynamic duo of the Mooseheads, Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin.

The Winterhawks face Halifax on Saturday night in a marquee clash of top prospects. The event opens Friday with London facing the host Saskatoon Blades, a team in the midst of one of the strangest major junior seasons in recent memory.

Last fall, the Blades started the season so poorly there were suggestions that like the 1990 Dukes of Hamilton, they might have to pull out of the tournament in there home city.

While Sportsnet highlighted the Blades in a 24/7 style documentary all season long, the Lorne Molleken-coached squad turned their season around dramatically, at one point winning 18 straight games.

Shockingly, they were then swept by Medicine Hat in the first round of the Western Hockey League playoffs, and when they face the Knights on Friday night, it will be their first game in 51 days.

 

The Second Round

No one counted on the Maple Leafs making the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Yet, hours after it all fell apart on a shocking, disappointing night in Boston, it's still rather hard to believe the Leafs aren't in the second round.

But eight teams are, including the Ottawa Senators, who now inherit the responsibility of trying to end Canada's two-decade run without a Stanley Cup champion.

Can the Senators pull it off against a Pittsburgh Penguins squad led by Sidney Crosby that entered the playoffs as the odds-on favourite to make it to the Cup final?

After going 7-1 with my first round predictions - only the Rangers tripped me up - let's have a look at the four remaining matchups matchups:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

PITTSBURGH (1) vs. OTTAWA (7): The Senators dismantled the Montreal Canadiens with greater ease that most imagined was likely, clearly benefitting from the experience gaining a year earlier in a tough playoff loss to the New York Rangers. The goaltending of Craig Anderson may be the best in the league right now and the Sens play a grinding game that will severely test the patience of the Penguins. Pittburgh, meanwhile, survived a tough test with the young Islanders in the first round, and saw goalie Marc-Andre Fleury chased in favour of backup Tomas Vokoun. That unsettled goalie picture is worrisome. But then you list Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, and remain impressed with how veterans like Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz have become playoff warriors. We'll see whether the Matt Cooke vs. Erik Karlsson matter becomes a major series element.

WINNER: This one's going the distance. Unless Pitt's goaltending completely disintegrates, the Pens beat the Sens in seven.

BOSTON (4) vs. N.Y. Rangers (6): You can argue the Bruins should have been eliminated by the Leafs. Or you can marvel at the will of a champion that fought back with one of the best comebacks in playoff history. Either way, the Bruins emerge from that series beaten and bruised, particularly on the back end. Moreover, they remain a puzzle, sometimes a powerhouse, other times an enigma. Neither Tyler Seguin nor Brad Marchand scored in the first round, but Milan Lucic was a beast when it mattered. The Rangers, meanwhile, struggle to score, but they didn't allow the Capitals a goal in the final two games of their opening round series after falling behind three games to two. Henrik Lundqvist, it's fair to say, will pose a larger obstacle than inexperienced James Reimer, and New York is unlikely to struggle with protecting leads as did the Leafs. 

WINNER: This a tricky one. Having thought before the playoffs started Boston would come out of the east, I'm no longer a believer. Rangers in six.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

CHICAGO (1) vs. DETROIT (7): This is the last time these Original Six rivals will meet in a non-Cup final series before the Wings move to the Eastern Conference next season. The Wings struggled to make the playoffs, but then seemed to find their form over the course of a seven-game battle with Anaheim. Henrik Zetterberg was great when it mattered, and some of the young Wings came up with some big moments. Chicago, however, manhandled a pretty good Minnesota team in the first round and after being the best team in the NHL during the regular season are showing few signs they're headed for an early end to their spring. Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa were too much for the Wild to handle, and the Hawks won in five games without either Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews contributing a goal. They're just that deep.

WINNER: If somebody's going to stop the Hawks, it won't be Detroit. Chicago in six.

LOS ANGELES (5) vs. SAN JOSE (6): An all-California matchup involving the reigning Stanley Cup champs from L.A. against a Sharks squad that dumped veterans at the trade deadline, still made the playoffs and then swept Vancouver. The Sharks are an excellent defensive team, strong at home and armed with a lethal powerplay, all elements that can carry a club a long way in the playoffs. Vancouver was unable to expose any vulnerabilities that may exist, and Patrick Marleau has shown a more aggressive playoff bite than we've seen before. The Kings, meanwhile, spotted the Blues a two-game lead then roared back to win four straight and advance. Goalie Jonathan Quick allowed only 10 goals in the series and seems to be back on form. At the same time, the Kings only scored 12 goals themselves and have to be a little beaten up after a vicious, punishing series.

WINNER: The upset special of the second round. It's almost impossible to repeat as Cup champions in this era, and the Kings will find that out. Sharks in seven.

 

 

 

 

 

From Healthy Scratch to Difference Maker

Turning points, there have been a few.

Maple Leaf fans, of course, might be hoping one happened after Game 6 on Sunday night when the Bruins' plane malfunctioned and forced them to stay overnight in Toronto.

We'll have to see on that one.

Otherwise, you could point to Phil Kessel's breakaway goal in Game 2. Or James Reimer's toe save on Patrice Bergeron in Game 5. Or Tyler Bozak's shorthanded goal shortly thereafter.

But to me, this series between the Leafs and Bruins, now scheduled to be decided in Game 7 on Monday night after Boston blew a 3-1 series lead, really changed with Mike Kostka's broken finger and John-Michael Liles' mediocre performance, both of which occurred in Game 1.

That meant for Game 2, Jake Gardiner got into the lineup, along with Ryan O'Byrne.

O'Byrne has been pretty solid for the most part.

But Gardiner has been a revelation.

His skating, his imagination and his daring have given the Leafs a swagger they surely didn't not have when this series began. At the start, this was an inexperienced, uncertain hockey club. But since that lousy performance in the opener, they've gotten better and better with every game, coinciding with Gardiner's nine-day evolution from a nervous sophomore defenceman playing his first NHL playoff game into the kind of blueliner we've not seen in these parts for a long, long time.

He has changed this series with his spectacular skating, but also by introducing an element into the Leaf lineup that the Bruins could not have game-planned for, and one they can't counter with a similar type player of their own.

They may have 6-foot-9 inch Zdeno Chara on the back end. But they don't have a defenceman quite like Gardiner, or at least, a defenceman who plays in quite the way Gardiner is playing right now.

Gardiner was so-so in Game 2, but since Game 3 has been a pleasure to watch, applying all the lessons he's learned in what has been a challenging season, first because of a mid-season concussion and later with his inability to gain the trust of head coach Randy Carlyle and find a regular place in the Leaf lineup.

In Game 4, Mark Fraser was felled by a slapshot to the forehead and knocked out of the series. Since then, Gardiner has been paired mostly with Fraser's partner, Cody Franson, and gradually become an increasingly important element this series.

So, in four playoff games, he went from healthy scratch to top four D-man.

Pretty incredible. It's unexpected individual stories like this that can turn a playoff series on its head.

In Game 6, Gardiner played 21:19, and all but :24 seconds of it was at even-strength. There were times he played almost like a rover - eliminated in NHL play back in 1910 when teams went from seven players on the ice to six - jumping into the play with abandon but never being caught defensively.

Reimer, to be sure,mhas given this team confidence that it can compete with the Bruins.

But in a different by equal way, so has Gardiner, making himself a factor that virtually no one considered when this memorable series began.

Now it's gone to Game 7. And partly because of Gardiner, this Leaf team is a very different squad for this deciding game than it was when this series began.

The Final Days. Well, Probably.

The Boston Bruins had already jumped to a 3-1 lead over the Maple Leafs on Monday night in Game 3 at the Air Canada Centre, with Nathan Horton having just provided the third Bruins goal.

Just past the 15-minute mark of the second period, a long pass burped out of the Boston zone and up the middle of the ice. Lo and behold, there was 41-year-old Jaromir Jagr with the puck on his lonesome, having eluded both Jake Gardiner - two months old when Jagr began his first NHL training camp back in September, 1990 - and Ryan O'Byrne.

In his greatest days, one suspects Jagr would have drained this chance, and the gap would have been much greater between he and the two Leaf defencemen. As it was, Jagr's wheels no longer have that extra burst, Gardiner put a little heat on him from behind and Reimer was able to turn away a wrist shot from the eighth all-time leading scorer in NHL history.

No matter. Daniel Paille made it 4-1 before the end of the period, and the damage was done.

Still, it has been marvellous to watch Jagr in the first three games of these playoff season, one for which he was iffy at the start because of the flu, an illness that had caused him to miss Boston's final two regular season games.

He's not what he was, but he's still something to watch. I remember in the early 1990s somehow ending up in a Pittsburgh bar on the other end of a table hockey game from the teenage Jagr. He was all long hair and sputtered words of English to go with the playfulness of a much younger lad, and he schooled me that night just as he was schooling the Leafs on Monday in the arts of puck protection and possession.

The Leafs were downright disrespectful at times, bowling over the aging winger, with Nazem Kadri doing it twice. Jagr yanked down Tyler Bozak in the Leaf zone at one point and took a foolish penalty.

But he picked the pocket of O'Byrne to set up Rich Peverly on the second Boston goal, and quite possibly had the puck on his stick more in this game than any other individual player.

He can't turn and wheel off the side boards to the net the way he once could, nor is his shot quite as accurate or heavy. But he can still stick his big Czech butt out and ward off checkers nearly as well as ever, and in the final few minutes of the game, with Boston protecting a 4-2 lead, he began a sequence in which the Bruins drained nearly a minute off the clock by simply holding on to the puck in the Leaf zone.

That's defence by simply having the puck and refusing to give it to the other guys. Sergei Fedorov was awfully good at that, Peter Forsberg too, but possibly no one has been better at it than Jagr over the past two decades.

He had 16 goals in 45 games with the Stars and Bruins this season, numbers that would certainly suggest he's not done as a NHL player. He has come and gone before, once leaving the NHL for three full seasons to play in the KHL, then coming back once more.

So this might be it. Or he might play another five years, somewhere if not in the NHL.

Of all the top 10 NHL scorers of all-time, he's the one I've covered as a journalist from his first year to now. I was at the draft when he was the fifth player taken after Owen Nolan, Petr Nedved, Keith Primeau and Mike Ricci, and he has outlasted them all.

On game days, he's still out on the ice a few hours before games wearing shorts and a toque, carefully turning and spinning, testing out his skates so they're just perfect, although with players like him that's an elusive goal.

Even if you're cheering for the Leafs, he's worth watching in this series, folks, even as he infuriates any number of would-be Toronto checkers by refusing to relinquish the puck.

Now imagine that skill welded on to a player with world class speed and peerless hands.

That was Jagr. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And The Window Closes

It took nine seconds for it all to come crashing down on the Vancouver Canucks Sunday night, just one second more than it took for a similar fate to befall the Montreal Canadiens before the Habs chose self-immolation over dignity in the nation's capital.

At least Montreal, trailing the Senators 2-1 in their best-of-seven playoff series, still has time to regroup and recover.

Not so the Canucks.

They're down 3-0 to the San Jose Sharks and on the verge of a playoff defeat that will, you have to believe, result in the kind of roster reconstruction that would have been unimaginable just over a year ago.

The Canucks can't score, and have lost 11 of their last 13 playoff games in which they have scored a total of 17 goals.

The terrific core bequeathed GM Mike Gillis has been squandered. Gillis inherited a great deal from the painful years of building before him and then did little to enhance the lineup or provide a base of young prospects to make the future bright.

Scoring has been identified as the main issue facing the Canucks, and certainly the Sedin twins are now under full assault for their lack of productivity.

It's not the goaltending, goes the argument. The goalies have been fine.

Which kind of misses the point.

Of course it's the goaltending. Or rather, of course it's the goaltending soap opera that has undone this team, and that falls squarely on the lap of Gillis, although head coach Alain Vigneault will probably end up taking the fall.

Vigneault would never have chosen to have both Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider on his team this year, knowing the ongoing drama and conversation that would create. Schneider was deemed No. 1 after last season and signed to a new contract, with Luongo put on the trade market, but then Gillis failed to accept the realities of the market and Luongo stayed, making this an issue that dogged the team every single day this season.

It played out in debates over which goalie was better. It played out at the trade deadline when Gillis still tried to exact an exorbitant fee out of the Maple Leafs for his backup goalie and ended up unable to move Luongo, leaving the popular netminder shattered and his teammates left to accept a terribly uncomfortable situation.

Luongo desperately wanted a trade. He no longer wanted to be a Canuck. Then the deadline passed and he said he would rip up his massive contract just to get the chance to play for another team.

And this was supposed to work internally?

Then Schneider wasn't ready to start the post-season because of an undisclosed injury, which opened the door to all kinds of speculation that the problem wasn't with a limb but rather between his ears.

“Right,” said Schneider on Sunday. “Sure — the injury just can’t be an injury. You tell somebody you’re hurt and they don’t believe you. We don’t view it as a distraction or speculate, that’s your (media) job. I played last year in the playoffs and played in tough games, so I’m not sure where that would come from. It’s not an issue.”

This bitter response came after a dreadful performance in the clutch on Sunday night when the Sharks turned a delicate 2-1 advantage to start the third period into a 5-1 margin mosty because Schneider fell apart. With a Game 3 victory still possible, he whiffed on two shots within a nine-second span then allowed one more before Luongo was summoned to finish the gamei in what was a 5-2 loss.

Schneider starting amidst speculation it should have been Luongo, then Luongo skating out to take the net from a dazed and confused Schneider. Pure symbolism.

The Canucks championship window will close largely because the Sedins have a lot of miles on them, Ryan Kesler couldn't stay healthy and additions like Keith Ballard, David Booth, Jason Garrison and Zach Kassian couldn't provide the elements this team lacked.

Turns out layering a Stanley Cup finalist with pieces from the Florida Panthers - Booth, Ballard, Garrison - wasn't the right way to go.

What we don't know is if Gillis had moved aggressively last summer and found a way to move Luongo, even if it meant little was realized in return, if it would have positively altered the chemistry and dynamics of this team to avoid much of what has happened.

We don't know whether if Gillis had understood the market and simply dumped the contract on the Leafs before the deadline if it would have relieved the discomfort in the Vancouver room. Toronto was prepared to take Luongo. GM Dave Nonis cleared the acquisition of his contract with the MLSE board weeks before the deadline, and then did so again in a more informal way on trade deadline day because he felt there was still a good chance a deal would be made.

Gillis demanded Toronto's first round pick in 2013 and a former first rounder, probably Tyler Biggs, about 30 minutes before the deadline, then softened in the final minutes and would have accepted a second round pick, a third round pick and backup goalie Ben Scrivens. The Leafs, however, wanted Vancouver to retain some of Luongo's salary, and that killed the last minute talks. Nonis was willing to take Luongo only if it was basically for free, and he never altered that stance.

Now, Gillis is left to hope against hope that James Reimer will collapse against the Boston Bruins - so far he's been strong in facing 81 shots through two games - and the Leafs, with new MLSE boss Tim Leiweke pushing hard for immediate results, will be forced to bite on Luongo this summer. Otherwise, Vancouver may now be faced with having to throw in other assets just to move the Luongo contract, or to buy out his deal in what would be a final humiliation.

Many will insist it wasn't the goaltending that undid this talented team. But it really was, or at the very least provided a terribly awkward situation that would have undercut the best efforts of most hockey clubs.

 

Setting Priorities Straight

BOSTON--Having dumped on Brendan Shanahan for going on two years now, I feel compelled to congratulate him when he gets one right.

And I think he nailed it on Eric Gryba.

Well, let me back off that just a bit, since I believe all NHL suspensions are, in general, far too short, which is why there are so many of them. Give Andrew Ference 10 for his latest sneaky elbow and he won't do it again.

But that's just me, and I don't have to answer to owners and GMs and all those who have an opinion on this things.

So within the parameters of his job and precedence, Shanahan nailed it.

Not that I think this one was a clear cut incident of hockey mayhem, but because it wasn't. In other words, suspending Gryba two games for his hit on Lars Eller was the hard way to go, while just saying it was a hockey play and play on would have been the easy way out and might have had just as much or more support among hockey people.

I'm still not sure this was a clear heat shot or a hit to the head as a principal point of contact.

What it was, however, was a hit on a vulnerable player and one that caused severe head injury. In an era where we're starting to understand the gravity of these head injuries and their long-term effects, this was a decision that basically said you can't go out and hurt a guy and inflict a brain injury just because the opportunity is there or because somebody gave that player a suicide pass.

That's old school thinking. New school thinking is that Gryba didn't have to make that hit, that he had options - how about going for the puck? - and elected to make the choice that simply isn't good for the game even if it was once seen as the correct course of action.

This is what we need from Shanahan. New school, not old school. 

People in Ottawa, of course, will be up in arms about this, and it's unclear whether the decision will satisfy folks in Montreal.

But it's good for the game. And don't listen to the alarmists who say this is just the thin edge of the wedge that will lead to the NHL as the No Hitting League. Such nonsense. Did you watch St. Louis-Los Angeles go at it on Thursday night? Did that look like no contact hockey?

What the Gryba decision suggests - and it remains to see whether further decisions will back this up - is that this is, however, the No Hitting To The Head League.

That's just common sense. If they can ever find a way to consistently apply that standard with no exceptions they'll really be on to something.

 

 

Head Games

BOSTON--Part of the philosophy that guides the Brendan Shanahan School of Public Safety is that long suspensions aren't necessary, and that talking to players and convincing them of the need to change has already altered the way in which the game is played in a fundamental way, and for the better.

Shanahan has said he's convinced of this, that the process had produced a game in which players think twice about doing terrible things to each other.

Maybe. Still, with the Stanley Cup playoffs three days old, we're already into our second head shot hearing, with one serious head injury suffered.

Faced with a repeat offender on Thursday in Boston's Andrew Ference, Shanahan gave him a one-game ban for an unnecessary, cheap shot elbow on Toronto's Mikhail Grabovski. Ference is a smart, veteran blueliner and will be missed, so the suspension is to some degree meaningful.

Then again, if Ference didn't learn from a three-game suspension received last January from Shanahan, how will a suspension one-third as long in length change his way of thinking?

A more difficult case comes today after Eric Gryba's hit on Lars Eller on Thursday night in Montreal - about two hours after Ference's suspension was handed down - created a gruesome, bloody scene at the Bell Centre.

This is a tricky, tricky case, filled with the usual arguments and counter arguments. Some want to blame Montreal defenceman Raphael Diaz for the whole thing because he gave Eller a "suicide" pass, which is the hockey culture's way of desperately finding something to blame other than the person who perpetrated the act.

It was a bang-bang play, but Eller was vulnerable and the Ottawa defenceman delivered a glancing, partly blind side blow that knocked Eller out in mid-air, which is why he fell so grotesquely on his face, suffering lost teeth and a broken nose.

There will be debate over whether the head was the "principal point of contact," a absurd, fine line created during Shanahan's wobbly reign as hanging judge designed to make sure all head shots ARE NOT taken out of the game. Some head shots are still okay and good for the sport, is the line the Bettman administration chooses to take on this, apparently unaware of the long line of NFL players suing that league for not doing enough to stop head injuries in recent decades.

On the sidelines in this case are two owners, Ottawa's Eugene Melnyk and Montreal's Geoff Molson, who have both taken issue with the NHL's stance on violent play in recent years. Molson demanded league action after Max Pacioretty was injured by Boston's Zdeno Chara, while Melynk still is on the hunt for "forensic" evidence to prove Pittsburgh winger Matt Cooke deliberately tried to injure star defenceman Erik Karlsson earlier this year.

Lots of personalities in on this one.

Gryba may wriggle free on this on the "no intent" and "principal point of contact" defence. He offered the usual "I didn't intend to hurt him" and "just finishing my check" lines that are pretty much mandatory for any NHLer called on the carpet, and are often all Shanahan needs to hear.

This we know; the hit wasn't necessary, Eller was vulnerable and much of the hockey culture doesn't care about either of those issues and simply craves blood.

Doesn't sound much like anybody's changing how they think, does it?