While Waiting For Baseball. . .

DUNEDIN--Some meandering hockey thoughts this morning while waiting for the rain to clear and Brett Lawrie to appear:

--Dead last in the west for the Calgary Flames. Yikes. Those who promised this team could win now and rebuild on the fly - Murray Edwards, Ken King, Jay Feaster - have done this team a terrible injustice. Edmonton's not much better, but Oilers are losing with kids; Flames are losing with a mish-mash of nothing in particular.

--The Wild are making a big push in the west after a slow start, and the No. 1 line of Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu and rookie Charlie Coyle is a big part of the reason. Coyle, you'll remember, came to Minny in that deal that sent Brent Burns to San Jose. Like the Parise/Ryan Suter signings of this past summer, the Coyle acquistion didn't pay off right away as he was still in junior, but now he's making a statement as a power forward in St. Paul.

Burns, meanwhile, has played only six games this season because of a leg injury and has no points. There is some talk he could be back this week, possibly as early as tonight in St. Louis. But right now Coyle is starting to make this deal sing for the Wild.

Minny's 2011 first rounder, defenceman Jonas Brodin, is also making an increasingly significant contribution. In the Wild's two weekend victories, he played more than 23 minutes.

--Don't think there's anyone in Montreal worrying any more that Michel Therrien was a second choice to coach the team behind Bob Hartley.

--You might think with the way in which Nazem Kadri has matured nicely this season there would be a little more faith with the way in which the Leaf front office chooses to slowly bring along players in the minors. But that's not the case, apparently. The growing angst over the status of Jake Gardiner - just wondering, to those convinced he should be in the NHL actually go to Marlie games? - has many, it would seem, worried the club is wrecking Gardiner's development.

Understand, there's work that needs to be done on the young blueliner's defensive game, and at the Ricoh under Dallas Eakins is the place to do that work. Again, there needs to be a new culture in Toronto that's its not an insult to a player to be with the Marlies.

--Tonight's Leaf game in Winnipeg just has the feel of a pivotal one. Beat the Jets there and the spread between the Leafs and ninth grows a little more. Lose to a Winnipeg club that struggles at home and the dog fight for the eighth and final playoff spot begins.

--Yup, it's true. Drew Doughty still does not have a goal this season in 24 games. Guess the Norris votes won't be pouring in.

The Kings have recalled former Ottawa 67s sniper Tyler Toffoli after he registered 48 points and a plus-20 rating in 55 AHL games this season. Toffoli didn't play in Monday's win over the Flames.

--The season of the Moose Jaw Warriors ends Saturday, which means Eakins will get to start working with Leaf first rounder Morgan Rielly next week.

--Most surprising name among the NHL top scorers has to be Jakub (or just Jake) Voracek at No. 10. Seventh overall in 2007 by Columbus, Voracek is just another example of the risk of evaluating drafts too quickly. Before being dealt to Philly, Voracek was slowly developing. Now he might be third best forward in the draft, depending on how you view James van Riemsdyk (2nd overall) and Max Pacioretty (22nd).

--This is NOT an attempt to stir up a new round of Roberto Luongo-to-Toronto rumours. Honest. Just spitballing, noodling on a scrap of paper, so everyone relax.

Just thinking, however, that nobody's fooling anybody here anymore. Vancouver, falling in the Western Conference standings, needs help at positions more than they need a backup goalie with a $5.333 cap hit. The Leafs, meanwhile, may like James Reimer, but he's not as good as Luongo and may never be.

The landscape seems ripe for a deal. Vancouver obviously has no other serious suitors. The Leafs are in a solid playoff position now but know that could slip away, and the goaltending was iffy last week.

Tyler Bozak seems to be the element that could work for Vancouver, although he's UFA in July. Otherwise, the Canucks know they're not getting a top pick or prospect for Luongo in any deal unless they include other elements. Would they move a player like Zack Kassian along with Luongo, if they could get a player like Jake Gardiner back along with Bozak?

Again, just spitballing here. That's NOT a trade rumour.

Luongo, meanwhile, comes with the dreadful contract, but let's be honest; he would solidify Toronto's goaltending for 3-5 years.

This is still a deal that makes a lot of sense if both teams behave sensibly and creatively. But the bad blood between these two organizations - Mike Gillis took Dave Nonis' job in Vancouver - makes working together very difficult.

 

 

 

Visors. Again.

Hate writing this. AGAIN.

But the boss wants it. Hopefully, by being semi-cooperative on this issue, it'll get me off the hook for the Winter Classic next January.

Look, the visor debate always comes off as kind of preachy. Second, we usually talk visors when something bad has happened, which makes it seem opportunistic to bring it up even if, like myself, you think visors should have been made mandatory in the NHL a decade ago.

I've never understood why NHLers love for personal choice doesn't extend to jocks or shinpads, but visors have been the line in the sand for years now. Don Fehr didn't want baseball players drug tested - now baseball players want more testing and harsher penalties! - so it's no surprise that he wasn't pushing hard for it as a health and safety matter during the months that the lockout dragged on.

The NHL and its governors, to be clear, want mandatory visors. That's been the case for upwards of five years. Maybe 10. But the players won't go for it, and so during the lockout, the issue only came up briefly, and it was clear neither side had altered their position.

The NHLPA wants to reserve the right of its players to take a chance. And so we continue down this same ridiculous path.

Here's hoping Marc Staal is okay. The scene of him grabbing his face and thrashing his legs as he lay on the ice Tuesday was just awful. So reminiscent of similar injuries in recent years. There's no update on his condition this morning, so fingers crossed.

This is a player who missed a ton of time due to an injury (concussion) last year. He knows well the dangers of flying pucks and had never played a competitive game without face protection until 2007. He has a brother, Eric, who barely avoided calamity in November, 2011 when hit in the face by a stick, and another brother, Jordan, who plays in the league.

And not one of the Staal brothers wears a visor. How do you rationalize that, particularly at a time when about 70 per cent of NHL players wear them and all juniors and AHL players do as well?

"I like my eyes and I'd like to keep them," was Leaf centre David Steckel's quote on the issue. Jonathan Toews? "I wear a visor because there's no reason no to wear one."

But Marc Staal chose to hit the ice Tuesday night without one. How could his union allow him to jeopardize his career and future earnings? How could the Rangers, who are paying $3.975 million per season to Staal for this year and two more seasons, not insist and insist and insist that such a pivotal player take all precautions against injury?

Nicklas Lidstrom had to endure a serious face injury before putting on a visor after 15 years of playing without one. If Lidstrom could adjust, anyone could. Chris Pronger had to deal with a serious eye injury. Manny Malhotra's career has been derailed. On and on it goes.

Instead of a common sense approach, we have this incident and this debate and this written opinion all over again, just as we did when Bryan Berard was hurt.

Next Wednesday it will have been 13 years since Berard was struck in the eye by Marian Hossa's stick. And not a damn thing has changed.

 

 

Only Way Out

Monday was a disappointing night for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

And they didn't play. No player was injured stepping off a curb or caught drunk and disorderly. Ownership didn't throw the keys on Gary Bettman's desk.

What went wrong, however, was that the L.A. Kings spanked the Nashville Predators, and in so doing moved from 11th in the Western Conference to fifth, and from 19th overall to 12th.

The Jackets, dead last once more on your scorecard, have to care about such things because they own L.A.'s first round draft pick courtesy of the Jeff Carter swap, something that theoretically, at least, means a lot more now that the NHL has gone partway in reforming its flawed draft lottery process.

Until that win, the Kings were one of the 14 teams staring at being inactive when the post-season begins. Their draft position, now owned by Columbus, would have been eligible to cop the first overall pick at the June 30 draft in Newark if all the bouncing balls had gone a certain way.

That's new. Before teams could only move up four spots, a ridiculous system that allowed a team to win the lottery against all odds and yet not win very much at all.

Now, the team with the best record among the non-playoff teams could win the lottery. For a team like Columbus, which also owns the first round selection of the New York Rangers from the Rick Nash trade, it means that if both the Kings and Rangers miss post-season play, the Jackets would have three shots at the first overall pick.

Let's say either the L.A. pick or the New York pick cashed in and won the first overall pick. If Columbus finished last overall, they could only move down one slot in the draft selection.

And thus could end up with Seth Jones AND Nathan MacKinnon.

That's how you rebuild a franchise at warp speed, something new team president John Davidson and GM Jarmo Kekalainen are trying to do before all of Ohio turns off the Blue Jackets for good. Already, the Jackets have a decent cupboard of prospects that includes Ryan Johansen, Ryan Murray, Boone Jenner and goalie Oscar Dansk, and hitting the jackpot this June could make an enormous difference to this franchise.

Then again, that's what the Islanders and Oilers have been saying for years.

Columbus is also a prime example of a franchise that hasn't been able to use the draft very effectively. Of the team's first nine first round picks from 2000-08, just one of those players is currently skating for the team (Derrick Brassard). Some, notably Pascal Leclaire, Nikolai Zherdev, Alexandre Picard, Gilbert Brule and Nikita Filatov, just bombed.

So no guarantees, even under new management, that Columbus will get it right this time around.

Multiple opportunities might be the answer. Three lottery picks would mean, theoretically, the delivery of a franchise player to replace the departed Nash. Or maybe two of 'em.

The Jackets desperately need this new draft lottery system to bounce their way.

 

 

 

 

Habs Rise, Oilers Stay the Same

We've spent a fair bit of time of late extolling the virtues of this season's play by the Montreal Canadiens, and for good reason.

Not only are the Habs in first, but they've become the most entertaining team in Canada to watch, including two rollicking games against Pittsburgh and Boston on the weekend that earned the Canadiens three of a possible four points.

That nobody saw this coming out of Montreal just makes it that much more interesting.

At the other end of the spectrum, it comes as an enormous disappointment that the Edmonton Oilers have proven to be neither more successful this season nor the entertaining, offensive-minded team we'd hoped would finally emerge.

An Edmonton fan might ask; why can the Canadiens go from last to first, while the Oilers stay the same?

Right now, the Oilers sit second from the bottom in the tougher Western Conference - maybe they should ask to move east in new realignment? - and 24th overall. They're also 24th in goals scored, not quite the run-and-gun offence that many projected would materialize in the Alberta capital after the drafting of Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle and Nail Yakupov was complemented by the signing of flashy free agent rearguard Justin Schultz.

Spending $78 million on Hall and Eberle alone over summer increased the expectation that they were about to emerge as true NHL stars and lead the Oilers at least into the realm of serious playoff contender. Ralph Krueger was an unconventional choice as head coach, but the Oilers seemed very confident he was the perfect choice.

Well, in a season in which the Oilers hit one historic low by giving up six goals in a single period, right now none of it is really working. Last night produced a frustrating loss in Minnesota, one in which the Oilers were outshot 18-0 in the second period. It was the fourth game of a monster nine-game road trip that has already including three defeats.

Not sure Mike Brown is going to be able to change this.

Hall is a point-per-game player, but has only four goals and he's injured again (he missed Sunday's game vs. the Wild, perhaps a precautionary measure after he was suspended 10 days earlier for a dangerous hit on Minny's Cal Clutterbuck). There was and is a dream in Edmonton he can be an Alex Ovechkin-like find for the Oilers, but by Ovechkin's third season, he was scoring 65 goals. Hall shares Ovechkin's penchant for reckless play and love for speed, but not his productivity as of yet.

Eberle is a player every team would love to have, quick and creative. But he has only six goals. Yakupov is a minus-11 already with six goals, but the biggest stunner is RNH, mired in a terrible slump with just one goal in 20 games. Only eight centres play more minutes than Nugent-Hopkins, but 89 sit higher in the NHL scoring parade.

After spending a half-season in the AHL while the rest of the NHL was locked, it was hoping Hall, Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins would have a huge step up on the field, but not yet.

Schultz has been very productive, but his plus-minus is starting to slip, no surprise for a young defenceman gaining experience.

Could it possibly be that this Oiler group is made up of players who will be good NHLers, but not great ones or all-stars? An even more intriguing question is whether by putting Hall, RNH and Yakupov directly into the NHL as teenagers, did the Oilers rush them and skip valuable apprenticeship lessons along the way plus a chance to mature physically? Hall and RNH, in particular, have had a hard time staying healthy.

Still, its too early to tell. The Quebec Nordiques run of three straight No. 1 overall picks (Mats Sundin, Owen Nolan, Eric Lindros) began in 1989 and it was 1993 before the Nords were back in the post-season. Three more seasons after that, the Nordiques were NHL champions, albeit in Denver as the Avalanche, and without any of Sundin, Lindros or Nolan in their lineup.

So even though the Oilers may be disappointing so far this season, they're on that Quebec time line to some degree, although Sundin was a 100-point-plus player by his second year and Lindros was converted into a package of talent that included Peter Forsberg.

So perhaps it's next year - and possibly after a significant trade? - that we should be looking at for the big leap ahead in Edmonton, not this one. 

 

 

Clueless and Pointless

It's really amazing how dumb the Calgary Flames have become.

A lack of strategic thinking has the Flames in a terrible spot with a disappointing record, still trying to deny all the strong evidence that they need to take a giant step back and rebuild, hanging on to veteran players beyond their due date in some faint hope that the club can scrape into the post-season and make magic happen.

It was evident last season in the way they hung on to Jarome Iginla, and with the deal done to give up a second round pick and a prospect in the deal to bring forward Mike Cammalleri, then 29 years old, back to Alberta. It was further evident in the free agent signings of Jiri Hudler and Dennis Wideman last summer to inflated salaries.

What are these guys thinking? Its like the Leafs of the final days of Mats Sundin being played out all over again in western Canada.

Maybe they'll clue in and move Iginla (Miikka Kiprusoff too?) by the trade deadline and get the necessary process started. Or maybe not. If they do, it will take 4-5 years to get back to competitiveness, and they seem to believe the hockey public in Calgary won't go for it.

Still, this plan to try and acquire centre Ryan O'Reilly through the offer sheet process really didn't make a whole lot of sense and smacked of desperation. Even worse, Sportsnet.ca is reporting that if the Flames had successfully landed O'Reilly, they likely never would have got him in uniform because he would have had to go on waivers first after playing in the KHL on Jan. 23rd. 

Oh my.

Look, this was never going to work anyway. Colorado had no choice but to match rather than take the first and third rounders as compensation. The issue of compensation for restricted free agents wasn't a significant one during the lockout, but clearly a system in which compensation was higher for RFAs might provoke a more fruitful offer sheet process. The Avs might have been tempted by two firsts and a prospect.

But right now, matching is almost obligatory. If Nashville had to match Philly's offer for Shea Weber, matching the O'Reilly sheet was even more automatic for Colorado. Moreover, Colorado was and is under no salary cap pressure at all, and so wasn't vulnerable in the same way other teams might be.

Second, the Flames have helped a team mired in the same area of the Western Conference standings by getting a player signed and back to active duty that the Avs weren't otherwise able to sign. So the offer sheet, essentially, bolstered Colorado's lineup.

Third, the Flames have now set the price for a young centre of O'Reilly's calibre at $6.5 million, an arbitration comparable that will send shock waves through the league and could ultimately cost Calgary more as well. Sure, the Avs are now stuck with an awkward contract; O'Reilly will have to be qualified in June of 2014 off that $6.5 million figure, way too much unless he becomes a much bigger scorer than most believe.

But Calgary might have stuck themselves with that contract if the Avs hadn't matched. And now they have to live in the same world in which a sturdy, 50-point pivot can command those kinds of dollars.

Look, maybe the RFA system stinks, and yes, you could argue that the Flames were being aggressive in trying to improve their team.

But strategies for player procurement need to be based in logic and reality. This one wasn't based in either. The best hope for Flames fans is that perhaps Seth Jones or Nathan MacKinnon is one the way. But the fact Calgary was willing to give up its first rounder to get O'Reilly suggests that pick is now in play as the Flames continue to fool themselves that the future is now.

Now, the fact they would have lost their first and third rounders and never got O'Reilly at all is looking like one spectacular embarrassment for a once-proud franchise.

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Fish. . .Er, Duck

We're waiting for the first big move by Dave Nonis as GM of the Maple Leafs.

It might have to be a really big one.

See, if it turns out, as is being widely speculated, that the Anaheim Ducks can afford to keep only one their dynamic duo, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, and that Getzlaf is the one most likely to get the new long-term deal from the Ducks, then Perry could be available before the April 3rd trade deadline.

If that's the case and Perry hits the trade market, it's a competition the Leafs must be in.

Perry - who registered a nice three-assist effort in an Anaheim win over Nashville last night - isn't a perfect fit for the Leafs, a team desperate for a No. 1 centre. But he competes like hell, is a former Hart Trophy winner and the proud owner of a Stanley Cup ring. He'll be 28 in May, not too old to still be a dominant player for years to come.

He's the kind of player who could transform the Leafs in a way it was once believed Phil Kessel could, but clearly never will.

It will be an expensive deal to make, both in terms of players, and in terms of a contract. Perry deserves a sizeable increase on his current $4.875 million salary, and depending how high he wants to drive the price, he could be headed north of $8 million.

The Leafs can pay that. They'll have the room. They surely have the need to bring in a player who has actually accomplished something big in this league. And he's accomplished a few big things.

Assuming the Leafs would be very interested, here's where it gets really interesting. Ex-GM Brian Burke, as we know, is now a part-time scout with the Ducks. He can supply Anaheim with the inside dope on every single Leaf player and prospect, plus he knows how Nonis feels and thinks about every single Leaf player and prospect, and how he values them.

Leaf head coach Randy Carlyle, on the other hand, has intimate knowledge of the Anaheim roster. So that factor is somewhat counter-balanced.

Would Burke, who brought Kessel to Toronto and still believes in him, recommend the Ducks look at acquiring Silent Phil as part of a package for Perry? Would Nonis need to be able to have a contract in place with Perry before a trade could be consumated?

Lots of moving parts here, and lots of speculation. Heck, Anaheim could sign both Getzlaf and Perry - that seems unlikely - or keep both beyond the trade deadline even if unsigned.

That also seems unlikely. They already tried and lost that gambit with Justin Schultz.

So this is going to be a hot story to watch. Starting. . .now.

 

Quick Leaf Considerations

Some bits and bites on the Leafs for a Tuesday morning:

--Tom Brady's new contract with the New England Patriots, one that pays him half the going rate for star NFL quarterbacks, will have many NFL teams thinking about getting their players to think less about maxing their salaries and more about finding ways to give teams flexibility under the cap. Problem is, of course, that few players have the trust in ownership and management that Brady enjoys with the Patriots.

So what's this got to do with the Leafs? Well, to this point, the Leafs have been one of the better NHL clubs when it comes to managing the cap. They have no forwards north of $5.5 million, and only Dion Phaneuf on the back end ($6.5 million cap hit) comes in above $4.5 million. The cap drops to $64.3 million next season, and right now the Leafs are in a solid position with about $47.1 million committed to 13 players.

The trick will be to successfully maintain cap flexibility as the team improves, assuming it does. Young players will want more, with Nazem Kadri (restricted free agent this summer) at the top of the list. The key will be finding ways to satisfy Phaneuf and winger Phil Kessel (assuming both remain Leafs) after their deals expire after next season. Joffrey Lupul has already signed a five-year cap friendly arrangment, so the tone has been set.

Detroit and New Jersey are two teams that have successfully convinced players to take a little less to stay in successful organizations. Can the Leafs become one of those teams?

--Ben Scrivens hasn't established himself as an NHL starting goalie. Not yet. The sample size is too small.

But Scrivens, at 26, has established himself as an NHL-calibre goaltender, a remarkable story given that it was only 2 1/2 years ago he signed for a $67,500 AHL salary and $90,000 salary bonus as a free agent out of Cornell University. Remember, the Leafs has signed Jonas (The Monster) Gustavsson the summer before, in the summer of 2010, were more focussed on getting Jussi Rynnas under contract. Scrivens was an afterthought, and even though he started out a distant fifth on the team's depth chart and far from the NHL on the roster of the ECHL team in Reading, here he is, having outlasted all those who once stood above him in the organization. Impressive.

--Just the Leafs luck. They finally have their act together, it would seem, and now they emerge from years of struggling to find themselves playing in what is currently the NHL's best division, the Northeast. The Leafs, Habs, Bruins and Senators all reside in the top nine of the NHL's overall standings this morning.

--It's popular to say Phaneuf isn't worth the $6.5 million cap hit off a contract he actually signed in Calgary. And maybe that's true. But only four NHL defencemen - Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, Mike Green and Ryan Suter - are logging more ice time this season than Phaneuf's average of 26:27. Phaneuf has the sixth highest cap hit among NHL blueliners and nine defencemen will earn more in salary this season. Across the league, 37 players will make more in salary this season, and 32 come with a higher cap hit. 

So is Phaneuf overpaid? Maybe. But the comparisons would say not wildly so, particularly given the extra burden he carries as captain, and given what he does for the Leafs on a deal that was signed with another team, they can't be unhappy.

--Mark Fraser is back on top of the NHL plus-minus chart at plus-13 for the season. Most impressively, Fraser is plus-11 on the road. It will be one year tomorrow that the Leafs acquired Fraser from the Anaheim Ducks for forward Dale Mitchell, a deal that at this moment looks very good from a Leaf perspective as Mitchell has left North America and gone to Austria to ply his trade. Why did Anaheim move him? They wanted to dump his small, one-way contract, worth $600,000 this season.

In fact, the Fraser acquisition was barely mentioned at all when it happened. The big news that day for Leafs was trading defenceman Keith Aulie to Tampa for winger Carter Ashton.

 

Malkin and Head Games

This time, there's no getting right back out on the ice.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are a franchise that has learned the hard way that being anything but extra-cautious with concussions is a dangerous business.

So while most of the teams in hockey wouldn't even admit it if one of their top players was concussed, the Pens officially acknowledged Sunday night that reigning NHL scoring champ and MVP Evgeny Malkin had indeed suffered a head injury and won't be available for a few games at least. Malkin crashed into the boards after a collision with Florida defenceman Erik Gudbranson, missed Sunday night's game against Tampa Bay and isn't heading out on the road with the team.

After that, who knows? Sidney Crosby missed much of a year-and-a-half battling a concussion he suffered in January. The good news is that Crosby appears most of the way back, finally, and sits second in NHL scoring this morning.

The less positive part of the story, of course, is that there were plenty of stops and starts along the way. Interestingly, Crosby's start against Tampa Bay on Sunday night was his first meeting with the Lightning and Victor Hedman since that infamous game back in Jan., 2011 that he shouldn't have been allowed to play after being injured in the Winter Classic several days before.

Beyond that, an NHL season defined mostly by injuries is continuing with that theme. Jamming this many games into this short of a period of time was always an iffy proposition, and the players are the ones paying the price.

Beyond Malkin and his head, other hockey notes:

--Any realignment plan that brings Detroit to the same conference as Toronto, Boston and Montreal gets a thumbs up here. That said, the NHLPA has yet to begin obstructing the process, so don't get too excited yet.

--Given the start they've had, the Blackhawks might reasonably expect to have a huge lead in the Western Conference. Instead, there's Anaheim just six points back with a record that would have them first in the Eastern Conference. One of the great stories for the Ducks is defenceman Francois Beauchemin, still decried by folks who don't understand the game as a poor free agent signing by the Maple Leafs several years back.

Beauchemin leads the NHL with a plus-15 rating while skating almost 24 minutes a night. He's certainly playing better back in Orange County than he did in Toronto, but then again, he's playing on a much better team.

Unrestricted free agents signed by the Leafs during the Brian Burke years, meanwhile, make up a significant part of the team's current lineup. The list includes Ben Scrivens, Colton Orr, Tyler Bozak, Clarke MacArthur, Jay McClement and Mike Kostka. None are stars, but only MacArthur comes with a cap hit of more than $1.5 million per season.

--Bozak, by the way, has more than his fair share of critics, and he's no No. 1 centre. But he is very good on faceoffs - among centres with more than 150 draws, only Jonathan Toews is better - and sits higher on the NHL scoring parade this season than a long list of centres. That list includes Brad Richards, Mike Richards, Patrice Bergeron, Tyler Seguin, David Desharnais, Paul Stastny, Val Filpulla, Jiri Hudler, Derek Stepan, Derek Roy, Adam Henrique, Mike Fisher, Sean Couturier, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Travis Zajac and David Legwand.

--Not surprisingly, Alex Ovechkin's first hat trick in almost two years on Saturday was huge news in Washington. Head coach Adam Oates, while an assistant in New Jersey, pushed for Ilya Kovalchuk to move from left wing to right wing, and while Kovalchuk fought it, the move eventually paid off.

Now perhaps the same process is starting to work for Ovechkin. Part of the reason for his drop in production has been how predictable he had become as an attacker from the left side.

“You’ve got to be a complete player and you’ve got to grow as a player and you’ve got to get better and he’s no different than everybody,” Oates told The Washington Post. “The good thing is that he wants to.”

The Caps need to start making a move soon if they want to be in the post-season. Otherwise, don't forget that it was GM George McPhee back in the 2003-04 who gutted the team for a shot at Ovechkin and was rewarded with the first overall pick.

Would the Caps do it again to get Seth Jones or Nathan MacKinnon if the playoffs look out of reach? Won't be nearly as easy this time around with players like Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green on the roster.

--"I was just finishing my check" has become the catch-all phrase for any NHL player who makes an illegal hit. Of course, given how much contact there is these days on players who don't have the puck, what is legal and illegal has become seriously blurred.

--What will the reaction be if the Leafs make the playoffs and Phil Kessel doesn't score 10 goals?

Second question: What will the reaction be if the Leafs are in the playoff hunt and trade Kessel? The market for his services is likely never going to be as good as it will be by the April 3rd trade deadline.

--One of the oddities about this year's Leafs is that Scrivens, Mark Fraser and Korbinian Holzer look better as NHLers than as AHLers. There's a suspicion the same might be the case for Joe Colborne, who isn't have a boffo season with the Marlies but seems certain to get a serious look at the NHL level this season.

--Jordan Eberle hasn't been in the AHL for six weeks and he's still just a point off that league's scoring lead.

--There's been lots of talk about Kessel's scoring troubles, and Jarome Iginla's problems around the net. Well, in New York, there's lot of chatter surrounding the miserable start of Brad Richards, who has two goals and 11 points and has seven more seasons on his contract left at a $6.66 million cap hit.

Columnist Larry Brooks speculated in the New York Post on the weekend that the Rangers might even look at a compliance buyout this summer should Richards not snap out of his funk. It was never a good contract - no wonder only a couple of teams wanted any part of that type of long-term arrangement with Richards.

--The Buffalo Sabres are moving into contention in the race for the No. 1 pick in next summer's draft. Meanwhile, keeping last June's first rounder, Mikhail Grigorenko, in the NHL this season is looking less and less like a good idea every game. Grigorenko has one goal this season, has been scratched four times and played only six minutes for new head coach Ron Rolston in Saturday's dismal 4-0 loss to the Islanders.

He is the only 18-year-old left in the NHL. Buffalo might like to send him to Rochester but he can only go to the Quebec Remparts.

--There's never an end to the teams who believe it will be different with Olli Jokinen. Well, add Winnipeg to the list. Jokinen has five points this season to go with a league worst minus-11 rating.

Tied with Jokinen for last place in plus-minus is Florida centre Stephen Weiss, who has one goal and was benched for most of the third period against Boston on Sunday night. Weiss, 29, is a UFA this summer and probably gets moved by the trade deadline, but his poor play is only going to make it harder for GM Dale Tallon.

--Jokinen was one of two players clipped in the face by skates on the weekend. The difference between Jokinen and Oliver Ekman-Larsson of Phoenix, however, is that Ekman-Larson was protected by his visor. Jokinen doesn't wear one - why are shields not mandatory again? - and escaped with only a cut by sheer good fortune.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Young Star in Hot Water

It's easy to suspend the likes of Jannik Hansen, banned for one game this week by Brendan Shanahan for a sneaky elbow/forearm on Marian Hossa.

It's quite another, as we've seen over the years, when it's a star who delivers a controversial hit.

After an incident in Edmonton Thursday night, Shanahan will have one of those cases on his docket Friday morning when he begins to sift through the evidence following a controversial bodycheck by Oiler youngster Taylor Hall on Cal Clutterbuck of the Minnesota Wild.

Hall isn't an established star yet, and in fact with only three goals so far this season, he's struggling to do what he does best, and that's score.  But he is a former first overall draft pick and many anticipate that as such he'll ultimately evolve into a franchise-type player.

Late in the third period against the Wild, just after Minny had potted its third goal of the night in what would be a 3-1 victory, Hall laid out an unsuspecting Clutterbuck with what may have been intended as a hip check but became an unnecessary cheap shot and should get Hall suspended.

Clutterbuck, for starters, never at any point had possession of the puck. At best, the bouncing rubber glanced off his skate. Hall saw the chance for a big hit as Clutterbuck turned towards the middle of the ice, lowered his shoulder but then appeared to make contact with his knee on Clutterbuck's knee/hip area.

Clutterback collapsed in obvious pain, and ultimately had to be helped off the ice with an undisclosed injury. Hall received a five-minute major for kneeing and a game misconduct.

"I really didn't feel like it was knee-on-knee at all," said Hall afterwards. "It was just a weird play. . .I thought the puck was going to bounce right to him. . .it hit his skate. . .it might have been a bit late.

"I felt I got a good chunk of him with my hip. It sucks to see him down but I don't really think it was that dirty. . .I could have hit him in the head. That thought crossed my mind. I didn't really want to bury him too bad. I just thought the puck was right there. I thought that for that instant he was a little vulnerable but I didn't want to catch him with his head down or hit him in the head. I just wanted to get a piece of him and hopefully get the puck back."

Minnesota coach Mike Yeo seemed stunned by the play.

"(Hall) looked like he was trying to hurt a guy," said Yeo. "The thing I would say about this is how would it be if it was reversed, if it was (Clutterbuck) hitting Taylor Hall?"

Hall will, one imagines, receive at least a phone hearing with Shanahan, and it's hard to believe he won't get more than a game suspension. Complicating matters is that the two teams will meet in St. Paul on Tuesday, setting the stage for trouble if the league chooses not to act.

Hall has been indentified as a reckless player before, but that's mostly for endangering himself and hurling his body into harm's way.

This, however, is different. There was no need for that kind of hit, which seemed mostly the product of a frustrated player on a team struggling to win hockey games.

We'll see what the sheriff has to say.

 

 

 

Burke On The Move

Can't imagine a single person should be surprised.

Brian Burke wants to work, not sit around and collect a paycheque. The Anaheim Ducks used to employ him and he left there on good terms. The Ducks are a serious contender in the Western Conference and teams in those positions tend to like to gather as many quality hockey people as possible - particularly those with championship pedigree - to deal with the tricky personnel decisions ahead.

And Burke's a highly regarded hockey person. Indeed, it's looking like he put together a pretty decent squad here in Toronto before he had the rug pulled out from under him by corporate meddlers right after the NHL lockout ended.

So surprised? Not a chance.

We can argue all day long about the decisions Burke made in Toronto, the good and the bad, and the development arc of the team. But it's pretty clear those who contended that the Leafs had nothing - many of them lazy media types who never bothered to take in a Marlie game or check out the team's prospects - and that Burke had created nothing were about as far from the truth as one could imagine.

There's going to be some serious back-peddling by some if this team turns out to be as good as it seems right now. (Not to mention by those who contended, and in some cases have actually written, that there's some dirty, nasty story that's yet to be told. But such people never correct the record, do they?)

Anaheim, and GM Bob Murray, already knew that Burke knows something about the sport, of course, and Murray and Burke are thick as thieves. This is a reunion, not an experiment. So the Ducks will use Burke as long as they can until he gets that next GM job.

Meanwhile, this brings to a close the awkward situation created in the wake of Burke's dismissal in Toronto. He believed the day he was fired that he had agreed to be retained as a consultant to GM Dave Nonis and the hockey departement, and declared he was more than willing to travel and scout and do whatever was needed.

Within 24 hours, however, it was clear that wasn't MLSE's intention at all, and the "consultant" tag hung on Burke was simply window dressing. Leaf ownership, notably Bell boss George Cope, wanted Burke gone, and that didn't include hanging around the team or the press box and giving advice to Nonis.

The uncomfortableness of the situation became clear recently when Burke returned to the ACC scouting for U.S.A. Hockey and had a press box seat with that designation. But wasn't he still working for the Leafs? If so, why would he require a special press box seat?

The whole thing was a bit of a sham, and this part-time gig with Anaheim rescues everyone from having to pretend any longer. Burke is history as a Leaf executive, and no connections are left. None, that is, except for the executive, coaching and playing talent he put together that has produced solid results in the early part of this season.