Scoring Chance - Game 6 versus the Hawks

Scoring Chances for NHL Game Number 20071

Team	Period	Time	Note	CGY						Opponent
CGY	1	18:19		3	15	17	22	28	34	4	10	19	32	39	51	5v5
CGY	1	13:46	Boyd goal	6	7	10	16	33	34	5	11	25	39	46	82	5v5
CGY	1	13:12	Nystrom goal	3	20	23	24	28	34	4	11	16	22	39	51	5v5
CGY	1	12:53	Iginla goal	4	5	11	12	21	34	2	7	33	36	39	88	5v5
CGY	1	11:37	SH chance for Glencross	3	7	20	24	34		7	19	25	31	32	82	4v5
CGY	1	9:15	Bourque goal	6	7	16	17	33	34	4	20	31	46	51	82	5v5
CGY	1	4:33		4	5	15	17	22	34	4	11	16	22	31	51	5v5
CHI	1	2:17	Madden goal	6	7	15	17	22	34	5	11	16	22	25	31	5v5
CHI	1	1:42		6	7	16	21	33	34	2	7	20	31	46	82	5v5
CHI	1	0:57		4	5	10	12	33	34	2	7	31	33	36	88	5v5
CGY	1	0:14	Jokinen break-away	3	11	12	21	28	34	4	10	19	31	32	51	5v5
CGY	2	16:17	SH chance for Langkow	6	17	22	28	34		10	19	25	31	32	82	4v5
CHI	2	13:07		3	11	12	21	28	34	2	7	10	19	31	32	5v5
CHI	2	12:25	Kane goal	4	5	15	17	22	34	4	31	33	36	51	88	5v5
CHI	2	8:50		4	7	10	16	33	34	4	11	16	22	31	51	5v5
CGY	2	8:25	PP Opp for Iginla	3	4	11	12	21	34	2	7	16	31	36		5v4
CHI	2	6:53	SH chance for CHI	5	12	17	24	28	34	25	31	33	46	51		5v4
CHI	2	6:16	Byfuglien goal	6	7	12	23	24	34	25	31	33	46	51	88	5v5
CHI	2	5:35	Bolland goal	3	15	17	22	28	34	4	10	31	36	51	88	5v5
CGY	2	3:43	SH chance for Boyd	6	11	16	28	34		7	31	33	36	51	88	4v5
CHI	2	3:28	PP chance for CHI	6	11	16	28	34		7	10	31	33	51	88	4v5
CGY	2	2:36		3	4	17	20	22	34	7	11	16	19	31	51	5v5
CHI	3	15:45		4	5	11	12	21	34	2	7	31	33	36	88	5v5
CHI	3	15:26	Sharp goal	3	20	23	24	28	34	2	7	10	16	19	31	5v5
CHI	3	12:44		4	5	12	15	21	34	2	7	11	19	22	33	5v5
CHI	3	12:25	CHI PP opp	4	21	24	28	34		7	31	33	36	51	88	4v5
CHI	3	10:51	CHI PP opp	3	11	20	28	34		10	19	25	31	32	82	4v5
CHI	3	9:10		4	7	17	20	24	34	7	11	20	31	51	82	5v5
CGY	3	7:43		3	12	20	24	28	34	4	11	16	22	31	51	5v5
CGY	3	0:35		4	5	15	17	22	34	2	7	31	33	36	88	5v5
CHI	4	4:36	Seabrook goal	4	5	12	21	34		2	7	31	32	36		4v4

#	Player	EV			PP			SH
3	D. PHANEUF	20:11	5	3	1:13	1	0	2:22	1	1
4	J. BOUWMEESTER	22:54	4	7	1:13	1	0	4:17	0	1
5	M. GIORDANO	19:45	3	5	0:43	0	1	0:52	0	0
6	C. SARICH	8:51	2	3	0:09	0	0	2:52	2	1
7	A. PARDY	10:55	2	5	0:04	0	0	2:20	1	0
10	B. MCGRATTAN	5:18	1	2	0:00	0	0	0:00	0	0
11	F. SJOSTROM	15:33	2	2	0:36	1	0	3:32	1	2
12	J. IGINLA	15:55	3	6	1:38	1	1	0:00	0	0
15	N. DAWES	13:57	3	4	0:46	0	0	0:00	0	0
16	D. BOYD	6:07	2	2	0:00	0	0	3:02	1	1
17	R. BOURQUE	14:03	5	4	0:59	0	1	1:49	1	0
20	C. GLENCROSS	14:48	3	2	0:00	0	0	1:29	1	1
21	O. JOKINEN	17:39	2	5	0:36	1	0	0:44	0	1
22	D. LANGKOW	14:43	4	3	1:06	0	0	2:26	1	0
23	E. NYSTROM	13:37	1	2	0:01	0	0	0:46	0	0
24	C. CONROY	13:39	2	3	0:18	0	1	2:12	1	1
28	R. REGEHR	18:33	4	3	0:38	0	1	3:17	2	3
33	B. PRUST	5:16	2	3	0:00	0	0	0:00	0	0
34	M. KIPRUSOFF	50:26	10	13	2:00	1	1	8:00	3	3

Period	Totals		EV		PP		5v3 PP		SH		5v3 SH
1	8	3	7	3	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
2	4	7	1	5	1	1	0	0	2	1	0	0
3	2	6	2	4	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0
4	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Totals	14	17	10	13	1	1	0	0	3	3	0	0

Starting Goalies for Poolies

I visited Goalie Post daily last year for updated starters information. Unfortunately, they've gone to a pay model so I've been looking for another site to scratch my itch. Enter Between the Posts from Daily Face-off. Not sure how accurate they are given the short season, but so far so good.

Me About Town

I have some posts lined up for this space, but things have been rather busy recently. Some quick news items:

1.) I've been asked to appear on www.cbcsports.ca for a one hour live chat on the Flames. Should be interesting and I'm flattered the CBC thought of me for the occasion.

2.) I'll be covering the Flames for Hockey's Future from here on in. I began with the Predators, but following their prospects from up here proved rather difficult.

3.) My weekly fantasy article for rototimes.com will be back up soon. This year, I'll be focused on undervalued and overvalued players. The column is appropriately dubbed "Buy low, sell high".

Your 09-10 Predictions

Ever year I make a post this this and every year it makes me look foolish by April. And yet, that never deters me from doing it all over again the very next September...

I'll have more in depth looks at NW division elsewhere, but here's my guess for Conference Standings:

EAST -

Pittsburgh
Washington
Buffalo
Philadelphia
Carolina
Boston
Montreal
New Jersey
-----------------
New York
Toronto
Ottawa
Tampa Bay
Florida
Atlanta
New York Islanders

I know, picking the Stanley Cup champs to win the division isn't terribly ballsy, but it's hard to ignore the turn around the team experienced under Byslma last season. I think they're legit. Washington looks like the real deal to me as well, especially if Varlamov gets more starts and can give the team better goaltending than the worse-than-average fare Theodore served up last season. They will probably feast on the weak sisters in their division again as well.

Nothing else is too controversial there aside from Boston falling down the standings and Buffalo winning the NE.

The Bruins won the Conference last year on the back of some unreal percentages (both SV% and SH%) that created a whole host of simultaneous career seasons as well as the best year goaltending we've seen since Kipper broke the modern SV% record back in '04. The Bruins also lost Phil Kessel to Toronto, David Krejci had major off-season surgery and the only significant summer acquisitions were Steve Begin and the criminally overrated Derek Morris. I think they're a decent team with a good coach, but there's bound to be some regression to the mean there.

As for Buffalo, they'll benefit from the still relatively weak NE division and they were the only non-play-off club with a positive goal differential (+16) in the EC. They probably got unlucky last year and should be in line for bump up the standings - especially if BOS falls.

WEST -

Chicago
San Jose
Vancouver
Detroit
Calgary
Anaheim
Columbus
St. Louis
----------
Minnesota
Los Angeles
Edmonton
Dallas
Nashville
Colorado
Phoenix

I expect basically the same crew to make the post season again in the West with the only significant difference being Chicago un-seasting Detroit at the top of the Conference. The Red Wings are still quality, but Lidstrom isn't getting any younger, they still have Osgood as a starter and they bled too much talent this summer (Hossa, Hudler, Samuelsson) without replacing it. Addiing Bertuzzi didn't help either.

Most would make a case for San Jose over Chicago, but I like the Blackhawks depth at both forward and defense better. The Sharks have the most formidable top line no doubt, but things get real ugly real fast. The Hawks, in contrast, boast Toews, Kane, Hossa, Ladd, Sharp, Bolland, Versteeg, Madden, etc. They also have some of the best young defensemen in the game, including Duncan Keith who should have been in the running for a Norris last season in my humble opinion. If Huet can bounce back to his previous form I think the Hawks take the West.

St. Louis was as surprise to make the play-offs at all last year, but with guys like McDonald, Kariya and Johnson healthy and ready to compliment the likes of Berglund, Perron, Oshie, Backes, Tkachuk and Boyes, the Blues should be a more legitimate threat going forward. Add in a cheap but capable goaltending duo in Mason and Conklin and St. Louis is difficult to ignore.

Vancouver winning the NW was a tough one, but we'll get into that elsewhere...

Flame away folks.

Canucks Walking the precarious LTIR Wire

Tom Benjamin has a post on the Canucks cap position, noting the club is currently well over the ceiling but are enabled in their over indulgence by the LTIR exemptions of Pavel Demitra and Mathieu Schneider.

Take it from a Flames fan, folks - betting on LTIR to stay under the cap is dancing with the Devil. last year, Calgary was flush against the upper limit thanks to Sutter's failure to buy out Rhett Warrener before the year began. The broken warrior remained on the Flames cap hit all year long, albeit "exempt" via LTIR. Which meant it wasn't an issue...right up until the point when it was. Cap space isn't static as players cap hits tend to shrink as the season progresses. That also means that any extra cap space tends to "expand" in relation to the maturity of the year as well.

But the Flames didn't really have cap space all year. They began the season with Dustin Boyd on the farm because he could be demoted without being exposed to waivers. Sutter was able to employ some more LTIR exemptions thanks to Bertuzzi, Giordano and Langkow injuries (plus move out a bit of salary in Lombo and Prust) to deal for Jokinen and Leopold at the deadline, but those moves came back to bite him in the ass when the schedule caught up to the club at the end of March. Not only was Dustin Boyd once again subject to a demotion of convenience, but the team was forced to play several meaningful games short a number of men - in the midst of a NW division title race, no less.

The Canucks are a team prone to injury and for good reason - they travel a lot. They could be in line for a disaster similar to the Flames if Gillis doesn't do something to clear out some of the bloat.

Cliches: not just for talking heads or casual fans

I like to read Jay Feaster's blog now and then on The Hockey News website. Sometimes it's fluff, but sometimes he brings his past experience as the Lightning's GM to bear.

That's why I was looking forward to his recent post entitled "Trading for Heatley a mistake." I figured he might shed some light on the real issues behind Heatley's trade demand or, at the very least, discuss the nature of San Jose's resultant cap crunch and top heaviness.

No such luck.

First, he declares Bryan Murray to be the front runner for "the executive of year" for extracting Milan Michalek and the broken Jonathan Cheechoo from San Jose. The same GM that paid Alex Kovalev $5M and signed Chris Neil to a $2M contract this summer. Maybe Feaster relates to the pain-in-the-ass of trying to deal a high-priced malcontent with a NTC, but that's a pretty silly statement even if you agree the package the Sens got for Heatley was a good one.

Things get worse after that:

Historically, I have been a Doug Wilson fan. He seemed to understand the importance of chemistry and the need to acquire players who value the crest on the front of their sweater more than the name on the back.

...

For a group that appears to need more leadership, grit and mental toughness how is Heatley the answer?

This sounds eerily like the diatribe of a ranting no-nothing fan during a post-game radio call-in show rather the insights of a former NHL executive. I don't know if Feaster is writing for his supposed audience here, but giving credence to the mythical values of "more leadership!" and "mental toughness" is dubious enough to make me question Feaster's qualifications as an analyst, let alone an NHL decision maker.

Do fuzzy things like "playing for the team!!1!" exist? Probably. Do they outweigh the fact that Heatley is one of the best pure offensive players in the game (who will, incidentally, be playing alongside one of the best puck distributors)? I really doubt it. It's like Feaster forgets Heatley was part of one of the most dominant lines (and teams) in hockey a few short years ago - one that, incidentally, made it to the Stanley Cup finals.

Maybe Heatley is a gaping asshole who is going to stamp his foot in the middle of the Sharks dressing room and piss everyone off and that's somehow going to impair the Sharks "chemistry". And maybe we don't know the real reasons he wanted out of Ottawa (like, say, the club's rapid decline under Murray?) and Heatley's just going to score 50 goals and 100 points. Again. I have my own reasons for raising an eyebrow at the trade for Sharks perspective but Feaster doesn't touch on a single one of them.

Some Thoughts Heading into 09-10

With the season nearly upon, it's time to put together (another) post that will almost assuredly make me look foolish in 7 months or so. No, it's not my annual standings predictions (that's upcoming), but some gut feelings heading into the new year which may contradict the intuitions of many. Shared in no particular order:

- The Boston Bruins are going to disappoint some people. They had the lions share of the bounces last year (PDO = 102.8), they lost Phil Kessel in the off-season, their defensive depth after Chara and Wideman is questionable (Morris, Hunwick, Ference, Stuart) and, as good as he is, I can't imagine Thomas will save 94% of the shots he faces at ES this season. They're a good team and well coached, but they aren't the class of the Eastern Conference. I think they'll place middle of the pack.

- Similarly, I don't think San Jose will be all that dominant, even with the Heatley addition. Their depth at both forward and defense drops off sharply after the difference makers and they don't have the cap space to rectify anything if injuries cause things to go sideways. Like Calgary, they also have serious serious question marks in goal with the increasingly mediocre Nabokov backed-up by Thomas Greiss who has only had one stand-out season in the AHL out of three - and that was his rookie effort. Heatley and Thornton will probably get a lot of points, but the Sharks bottom two lines are going to be a black hole.

- It'll be fascinating to watch what happens in Minnesota this season under a brand new regime. Adding Havlat gives Koivu some support meaning he'll either have a quality linemate to take on the tough minutes or he'll be relieved of facing the big boys every night. Either way, the young Koivu, who led his club by a full 17 points depsite the tough assignment last season, could surprise a lot of people. In addition, new coach Todd Richards promises to implement an upbeat, offensively charged system instead of Lemaire's stifling defensive strategy.

Minnesota still has lackluster forward depth, but at least it'll be more entertaining to watch them this season. If the players take to the coach - and if Richards is competent - they could surprise some people. Especially in the NW division, where things are wide open after Calgary and Vancouver.

- A Western bottom feeder is going to move up the charts this year, but I can't decide if it'll be St. Louis or Los Angeles. The former surprised by sliding into the post-season last year, despite numerous injuries to key pieces. They also have a whole bunch of fantastic youngsters who may or may not take a step forward (Oshie, Berglund, Perron, Johnson, Backes, Polak) and a cheap but capable goaltending duo (Mason, Conklin). If Kariya, McDonald and Johnson stay healthy and a couple of the kids outperform their entry-level deals, the Blues could be better than respectable.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, might be my dark horse pick. I really like their top 9 depth:

Smyth - Kopitar - Brown
Frolov - Stoll - Williams
Prucell - Handzus - Simmonds

and they're a team that actually excelled defensively last year despite a roster full of kids (only Columbus, Detroit and San Jose allowed less shots on net) and it was only a team wide power outage at ES that killed their play-offs hopes. If guys like Kopitar, Brown, Purcell and Williams get their SH% back up within range of career norms, LA should be at least passable offensively, if not better. Goaltending is an issue, although at some point you'd think one of Quick, Ersberg or Bernier would emerge as a legit starter.

- Phoenix has a 45M payroll, no coach and no future to speak of. If anyone finishes behind them in the WC (if not the NHL) there should be a public flogging of the coach and GM behind the team in question.

- Chicago looks frightening to me. I expect them to challenge for the Conference crown, even with Hossa out till December. Three lines deep, two of the best shut-down defenders in the game and an underrated starter in Huet. With Lidstrom aging and Osgood in net, Detroit could fall to CHI in the Central.

- Anyone else think the Tampa Bay Lightening won't be terrible this year? A top six that features St. Louis, Lecavalier, Tanguay, Stamkos and Malone can't be that bad. In addition, they actually have some quality on the back-end with Ohlund, Hedman and Ranger. If Mike Smith - who put together better than solid numbers last season behind an awful squad - can stay healthy, TBay could be battling for a play-off spot.

- With Sammy Pahlsson in Columbus, Rick Nash might be freed up from facing the big boys every shift, meaning he may be in line for an even better season. Also, I can't imagine guys like Huselius and Nash (2.85 and 4.27 PPP/60 respectively) scoring at such relatively nominal rates with the man advantage again this year, even if the club failed to land a PP quarterback. A healthy Derek Brassard and a full season of Vermette should help as well. Despite all the accolades, Mason remains a question mark until he can repeat his Calder performance, although Garon should be a capable back-up. Flames fans should keep an eye on Kevin Lalande in the BJ's farm system, especially since Matt Keetley is looking more and more like a bust.

That's it for now. Full standings predictions coming once the pre-season comes to a close.

Glen Sather, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Foudn via Kuklas Corner:

The contract situation is the same as it has been for weeks. The Rangers have their one-year qualifying offer of $522,500 on the table to Dubinsky that represents nearly an 18-percent cut in pay from last year, when he earned $635,000, including Entry Level bonuses.

Ha! I've enjoyed making fun of Sather in this space this summer, and if stuff like this keeps up there'll be plenty more in the future. Ol' Glen has already chased Nik Zherdev out of town. Now, in the same off-season in which he signed washed-up enforcer Donald Brashear to a $1.4M contract, he's nickle-and-diming Brandon Dubinsky. Hands up those of who think Brashear will be of more value to the club? I didn't mention the 700k deal for Tyler Arnason (who is, quite frankly, terrible at this point in his career), but you get the picture.

Has anyone taken a close look at the Rangers roster recently? Delete Marian Gaborik (since he's a good bet to be out of the line-up for a third of the season) and things get scary fast. Look at the blueline...they still only have 5 NHL defensemen by my count.

I don't think I'll ever stop asking this, but...how do Rangers fans put up with this?

Offensive Defensemen are grossly overvalued

One of my expressed goals for the summer was coming up with a way to determine the value of defensive defenseman.

It hasn't gone all that well.

A result of this endeavor, however, was the realization that NHL GM's pay entirely too much for offense from the blueline. By way of introduction, here's the leagues top paid blueliners next season, by cap hit:

Zdeno Chara
Nicklas Lidstrom
Brian Campbell
Scott Niedermayer
Jay Bouwmeester
Dan Boyle
Wade Redden
Dion Phaneuf
Ed Jovomonkey
Kimmo Timonen
Chris Pronger
Brian Rafalski
Andrei Markov
Bryan McCabe
Lubomir Visnovsky

Some of these guys play against top notch competition. Some don't. They all play on the PP. Some got their dollars because of a single season of offensive brilliance. Some are more consistent.

That's not really the point, though. Here's the ranked ESP rates of all NHL defenders last year. You'll notice that only one rearguard topped 1.5 ESP/60 (Mike Green) and 1 point per 60 minutes of ES time was the 86th percentile. Most of the leagues defenders scored less than a point per hour at 5on5 (even those expensive guys listed above). The mean rate was a mere 0.70 ESP/60.

By contrast, most forwards who garner less than a point per 60 at ES are scrubs - 4th liners, goons, guys on the downslope or the rawest rookies. Of the Flames regular skaters, only Eric Nystrom scored at the defenders mean rate (0.76).

If the rates thing is too ephemeral for some, let's go by the raw totals. last year, only 13 defenders scored 50 or more points. Three scored 20 or more goals. Not even 30 guys broke the 40 point plateau.

Now, it's only human to covet that which is rare. The unique is frquently in high demand. Thus why blueliners with relatively big points score massive contracts. But to my eye, paying a guy 6M to score 50 points a year is poor use of cap space in most instances - because forwards are far more efficient producers of offense.

96 forwards scored 50 or more points last season. One hundred and seventeen of them scored 20 or more goals. Sunny Mehta recently posted this article on the subject of positional shooting percentage - in his analysis, he found that forwards averaged 134 goals over 1385 shots or 9.6% in 08/09. Defensemen averaged just 18 goals over 442 shots for a 4.1% average.

By the virtue of the nature of their position, forwards are more dangerous offensively - they get closer to to the net and therefore manage more shots from better positions. Plus, many of them are more adept offensively, that being a primary requirement of being a forward.

What's more, Defenders are even more circumstantially reliant than forwards when it comes to generating offense. Blueliners need lots of ice time (since they are much more inefficient at scoring), they need capable forwards (since a bulk of a defenders points come in the form of assists) and they need favorable deployment by the coach (PP time, offensive zone draws, weaker match-ups). Take a gander at the ranked defender offense by efficiency table: you'll notice a lot of names in the 90th percentile or above are 3rd pairing guys who didn't actually score a lot of points (Goligoski, Giordano, Bogosian, Lebda, Hunwick, Montador). All sheltered. All limited ice-time. They scored at a good rate, but didn't have enough volume of minutes to make much of an impact. And even with the best circumstances - think lots of PP time, second tier competition, lots of offensive zone face-offs - your 6.5M PP quarterback might not even break the 50 point barrier.

The flip side, of course, is that defensive defenseman are relatively undervalued in the league. Let's look at that list of cap hits again. How many inside the top 30 are "pure defensive" types? I count three: Hannan (4.5M), Komisarek (4.5M) and Brewer (4.25M). Jan Hejda took on some of the toughest competition in the league for the Blue Jackets last year. He wouldn't even register on most fans radars: not only because he isn't the flashiest of players, but because his counting stats are necessarily suppressed by the circumstances in which he plays - own zone draws versus tough assignments. How would his results look like if someone else was getting fed to the wolves? Because the range of production at ES for rearguards is so limited (1.50 - 0), it probably makes sense to have a team full of $2M Jan Hejda's: you'd likely find a production efficiency curve based on the level of competition (and concurrent circumstances, ie face-off position) each Hejda clone was facing. Put another way - Cory Sarich faced the second toughest competition on the Flames amongst defensemen in 07/08 - he had a negative corsi rate and scored 0.25 ESP/60. Last year, Sarich spent most of the season on the third pairing. His level of competition was on par with Mark Giordano. His corsi jumped to +10 and his ESP rate more than tripled to .89.

So when GM's shell out dollars for points from the blueline, a lot of the time they're probably paying for a perception based on circumstances. They're also putting money into a vastly inferior offensive option in terms of efficiency relative to forwards. This isn't to say that some defensemen aren't better than others offensively speaking - that's self-evidently false. However, even the best defenders offensive contributions are muted. Suppressed by the demands of the position, by circumstances and by the fact thet they're beholden to the men in front of them; defenders need a lot of things to go right in order to be (seen as) offensively capable. Even then, they probably won't outscore your better than average 2nd liner.

As such, I think it makes sense to invest the big dollars (assuming offense is the goal) in forwards and then target the guys who can quietly handle the tough minutes in the defensive end. Like goaltending, it may make sense to abandon this strategy if one of the truly elite players is available (Nik Lidstrom), but, overall, I think the market overvalues offense from the back-end.

Another take on the Coyotes/Jim Balsillie Issue

One of my favorite non-sports blogs "Coyote Blog" has a look at the Balsillie thing from a different angle:

One of those 88 I spent a year with was a guy named Jim Balsillie, now famous as billionaire CEO of RIM (Blackberry) and, more recently, for trying to buy an NHL franchise. Jim is not a close friend, and in fact I probably haven’t exchanged a hundred words with him since we graduated. But over the period of a year I feel like I had the measure of him, as quiet, bright, kind and fairly humble. Jim was a much, much nicer guy than I was...

I write this all because I just have to make a public statement concerning a recent statement about Jim Balsillie by the NHL. The NHL recently chose to vote against letting Balsillie buy the Phoenix Coyotes. Fine. I think they are idiots – they should be begging to have a guy of his talents and money in their fraternity – but whatever. What ticks me off, though, is that instead of dicussing the controversial business reasons for the vote and they choose to smear Jim: (via Market Power)

“We voted to deny approval to Mr. Balsillie because we concluded he lacks the good character and integrity required of a new owner” under NHL bylaws, said Boston Bruins Owner Jeremy Jacobs, chairman of the league’s board of governors.

Matt Nestor has some fun with this:

The NHL owners are obviously good judges of character. Some that have been approved:

- William “Boots” Del Biaggio (Nashville Predators), now headed to jail on fraud charges.

- Henry Samueli (Anaheim Ducks), now awaiting sentencing on SEC violations.

- John Rigas (Buffalo Sabres), currently in jail on embezzlement charges.

- Sanjay Kumar (New York Islanders), now serving time for conspiracy.

- John Spano (Islanders), who deliberately misled the NHL and the Islanders about his net worth.

- Bruce McNall (Los Angeles Kings), who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and defrauding six banks of $236 million.

Why would you want a successful businessman to taint such a group?

Tom Benjamin and James Mirtle are the two authorities worth following as the Coyotes story unfolds, but I thought it was worth sharing the perspective of a man who knew Balisillie personally.

For New Readers

A gracious reader has added me to Stumble Upon recently, resulting in a bit more traffic than usual.

To anyone new to this page, It's been my personal NHL ranting area for the last 5 years or so. It started out as a Flames focused blog, but I have recently moved my Calgary-only thoughts to SBNation and FlamesNation. I also have work that appears on Rotowire.com/Fanball.com (Fantasy hockey advice) and Hockeysfuture.com (Predators prospects).

I recently added a link to the sidebar which links to my favorite articles that have appeared here over the years. Some of them I still refer to every so often today, so please take a few minutes to click through some of my "greatest hits". To any of my regular readers, let me know if one of your favorites is excluded and I'll added it to the list.

As always, thanks for stopping by everyone.

Who's getting deep sixed in Detroit?

It's been a rough off-season for the NHL's model franchise. Hossa bolts to rival Blackhawks. Samuelsson gets signed by the Canucks. Cap restrictions cause them to sign stop-gaps like Williams (okay) and Bertuzzi (yuck). Dead weight like Matlby and Draper are still on the books. And then Hudler bolts for Russia...

...excpet word is the IIHF isn't going to allow him to honor that agreement. If so, he and his 2.875M cap hit are Detroit property again. That's bad news, because the Wings have already signed replacements and are already above the cap ceiling.

Holland doesn't have a lot of options if things play out like this: even if he sends guys like Draper (1.583M) and Maltby (883k) to the minors and replaces them with the likes of Helm (600k) and Abdelkader (861k) AND if they ran with 7 defensemen rather than the 8 listed on cap geek...they're still under water by about 1.6M with Hudler added in there. Ouch.

Meaning the Wings would have to deep six a couple of the aging vets, promote a couple of kids and give someone away for minimal (read: no salary coming back) return.

The obvious candidate to my eye is Thomas Holmstrom (2.25M). Homer turns 36 in January and has had problems with injuries for years owing to his style of play. He hasn't played more than 60 games in either of the last 2 years and his production is poised to drop off now that he's entering the dreaded 35+ club. He's probably still a useful player (best crease crasher in the league I'd say), but his utility is fading.

Anyways, it's going to be a tough 5 or so weeks for Detroit whatever happens. I wonder if anyone will be able to take advantage?

Me About Town

With things moving along nicely at SBN, I also have some other stuff popping up here and there over the next month:

- My take on the Flames recently appeared in the Score's "Hardcore Hockey Guide", an insert in their Sports Forecaster which appeared on newsstands a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, my name isn't mentioned, just the site (FHF).

- I was also contacted by Adam Proteau of the Hockey News for a blurb on Flames coming season. I'm thinking it will appear in this months or next months issue.

- I also recently contributed a top-20 ranking of Nashville Predator prospects for Hockeys Future which should be appearing shortly. I'm sure the Forechecker will let me know if I made a mess of it or not.

- I'm also finishing up work on the Rototimes/fanball.com Fantasy draft guide, which should come out around the end of the month.

It's been a pretty busy summer, clearly.

Summers Summation

The Hockey News has already done something similar, so let me add my snarky 2 cents to each team's off-season.

1.) ANA - luckily, this ones already been done for me by Earl:

Oompa Lupul doompadee doo,
I’ve got a hockey lesson for you,
Oompa Lupul doompadah dee,
If you are wise you’ll listen to me.

What do you with a kid who shoots hard?
Trade him for Pronger, send him northward,
When it comes time when Pronger must be moved,
Reverse the trade and hope the kid’s improved.

2.) ATL - Waddell acquires Antropov to help Kovalchuk to not play defense.

3.) BOS - Plays hard ball with Kessel but signs the thoroughly mediocre Derek Morris to a 3.3M contract. Brilliant.

4.) Buffalo - A non-playoff team looks to make an impact by signing...Mike Grier and Steve Montador. Uh...

5.) CGY - Flames have 8 NHL defensemen, picked a defenseman in the first round of the entry draft, traded for another prospect defenseman and have $20M+ tied up in their top 4 blueliners. Im starting to think Darryl would ice an entire team of defenders if he could get away with it.

6.) CAR - How do you reward Dennis Sedeinberg and Anton Babchuk for having career seasons last year? By telling them to hit the road, of course!

7.) CHI - Im starting to think it was actually Kane that buggered up Hossa's shoulder. Or maybe it was Patrick's cousin - at least, according to Kane's lawyer.

8.) COL - JM Liles makes more than every Avalanche forward except for Paul Stastny. Ouch.

9.) CBJ - In their desperate need for a PP quarterback, the Blue Jackets signed...Mathieu Roy.......*cough*.......

10.) DAL - Neiuwendyk's major contribution this summer has been firing Dave Tippett and hiring Marc Crawford. Sales of whiskey have gone up in Marty Turco's immediate neighborhood as a result.

11.) DET - Bye Hudler. Bye Hossa. Bye Conklin. Bye Kopecky. Hello...Patrick Eaves? Bah. They're still going to kick everyones ass.

12.) EDM - Tambellini's strategy had two main prongs this summer: 1.) Replace an aging goalie with an even more expensive aging goalie and 2.) hide under some coats and hope that somehow everything works out.

13.) FLA - Replaced Bouwmeester with Leopold and Anderson with Clemmensen. The playoffs will remain an elusive dream.

14.) LAK - Ryan Smyth to join Justin Williams in the Kings infirmary all year. Question is: who will become the better ping-pong player?

15.) MIN - "Know what I hated about Gaborik? The fact that he was always injured. Not like Martin Hav......god damn it!"

16.) MTL - Gainey is spending $18M+ to ice the lollipop guild as the Canadiens #1 line. Oh and he was outsmarted by Glen Sather to boot.

17.) NSH - Major signing this summer was 35 year old perpetually injured Steve Sullivan. A such, there's going to be more scoring problems in music town - perhaps someone can write a sad country song about it.

18.) NJD - What are the chances ancient buddies Lou Lamoriello and Jacques Lemaire forget what year it is half way through the season?

19.) NYI - With Guerin, Sillinger and McAmmond all leaving, Doug Weight must look around the dressing room and think "WTF am I doing here?"

20.) NYR - Points for getting rid of Gomez. Major deductions for spending the savings on Gaborik and Donald Brashear and not, you know, an NHL defenseman or two. Further deductions for spurning Zherdev but signing Kotalik.

21.) OTT - Yes, Murray, 36 year old Alex Kovalev certainly deserved a raise after a season in which he was scratched by the GM while his team struggled. And good work with that whole Heatley thing. Well handled.

22.) PHI - With the cap hits on Rathje and Hatched finally (close to) expiring, the Flyers figured they should add another salary they can never get rid of in Chris Pronger. Almost as smart a banking on Ray emery as your starter when there were oodles of other options in the UFA pool.

23.) PHX - Something about fishes and barrells comes to mind here. Poor Matthew Lombardi.

24.) PIT - Malkin scored 113 points last year. Crosby scored 103. Jordan Staal and Petr Sykora were the only other Penguins to manage more than 40 points and they let Sykora walk this summer. Even Bob MacKenzie with his pumpkin head isn't this top heavy.

25.) STL - spent the summer sacrificing small animals to the hockey gods in exchange for fewer injuries to their expensive players. Oh...and signed Barry Tallackson.

26.) SJS - Three RFA's still twisting in the wind, 11 NHL forwards signed (if you include Jody Shelly and Jed Ortmeyer) and about 900k in cap space and they're talking about acquiring Heatley? Even Tom Cruise would think that's nuts.

27.) TBL - Chose Victor Hedman in the draft. Then signed Mattias Ohlund. Then signed Matt walker. Then signed Kurtis Foster. Then traded for David Hale. on top of which, they already had Meszaros, Ranger, Krajicek, Smaby, Wyshart, Mihalik, Lashoff (RFA) and Lundin (RFA). And the owners are squabbling over money. Related - Lecavlier will make $10M in salary this season.

28.) TOR - Brian Burkes approach to team building this summer seems to mirror Mark Trail: a man whose main problem-solving algorithm consists of “Does it have a face I can punch?” and “Are there any intervening objects that would impede the trajectory of my fist?”

29.) VAN - The only reason I can think of for signing Andrew Raycroft is to convince Luongo they really, really need him.

30.) WAS - Michael Nylander and Jose Theodore stick around in order to to prove, once and for all, who was the worse mistake.

Hurricanes sue Rapper for liking the Hurricanes

The federal lawsuit accuses Tyrone Banks of misusing trademarks by referring to the tune as "the official Carolina Hurricanes song" and wearing a Hurricanes jersey in promotional material.

"We look at our name and our trademarks as our most valuable assets, and they need to be protected," said William Traurig, general counsel for the Hurricanes.

Banks produced "Carolina Hurricanes" in 2007 and provided a copy of the song to the team, asking the Hurricanes play the music during games, according to court documents. The lawsuit said the Hurricanes did use the song during games and short segments of it appeared in a television ad and online video.

Banks also received complimentary tickets to a game, when the Hurricanes played the song, highlighted Banks in the audience and displayed his name on the scoreboard.

"Carolina Hurricanes. That's our team, say the name," the song's chorus repeats.

But the Hurricanes say Banks is promoting sales of the song in a way that would incorrectly suggest an affiliation between him and the team.

Via MSN Sports

Im reading through "The Age of Engage" by Denise Shiffman right now. The book is about the emergence of "Marketing 2.0" in the age of new media (read: social networking, viral advertising, user generated content, etc). From her introduction:

There are companies that believe their brands are being hijacked. They fight their own customers, and they use the legal system to assert control over the matter...

Obviously clubs are going to want control over their own brand, and it's not something I necessarily begrudge them. But isn't it wise to, you know, pick your battles? Here's a guy voluntarily (and positively) promoting the team via a different channel and the franchise is suing him for it (after embracing him initially might I add). You know how many businesses pay agencies to concoct terrible faux hip-hop and rap songs for radio and TV spots?

The Hurricanes sent Banks a cease-and-desist notice in February and he responded by removing the term "official" or "anthem" from his website and added disclaimers, according to the suit. But the Hurricanes complained that Banks is still seen wearing a Hurricanes jersey in promotional material and said the franchise has been damaged by the unauthorized use of trademarks.

I'd like to see them explain what "damages" could possibly come from a rapper wearing the club's jersey in promotional material. Hell, the NHL basically followed Snoop Dog around with a smile and puppy dog eyes when he was found attending Ducks games. Wearing a Ducks jersey, no less.

New Media and Journalism - on innovation

Since this an issue I've tackled occassionally in the past, I figured I'd share this post I found via Tim Lee's "Bottom up" blog. The article looks at how sports writing is changing and the direction it may be taking in the near future...

Rip-off blogs rarely get much traffic, and it’s not obvious that the world needs a dozen people covering the Yankees. But the thing that caught my eye was that last sentence: “Somebody has to get on the plane, go to Toronto and ask the questions.”

Actually, no they don’t. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there are a lot of people in Toronto. Many of them are good writers. Some of them even cover sports for a living. And the Internet makes it easy to transmit content from place to place. So there are plenty of places the information can “come from,” and plenty of ways information about the game in Toronto can get back to readers in New York.

Most obviously, Toronto presumably has sports reporters of its own. They presumably cover Yankees away games. So one obvious approach would be for New York publications to syndicate the content of Toronto publications when the Yankees are in Toronto, and for the opposite to occur when the Blue Jays are in New York.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Of course, an obvious objection would be the potential lack of in-depth coverage that comes from a dedicated team reporter traveling with the team. As we've discussed at this space previously, though, team reporters are put in an tenuous position; report enough to be relevant to the paying customer, but avoid stepping on the toes of the team for fear of losing "access". The result is pulled punches and a lot of interesting stories getting buried and thus the ostensible advantage of a dedicated team reporter is all but lost or at least severely compromised.

If in the new age of journalism the relationship between team and reporters/anaylsts can be effectively de-coupled, the resultant industry and public would likely be richer for it.

Patience is a virtue

In light of the Zherdev decision in New York, one has to marvel at the potential bargains that are available in the free agent pool currently. Alex Tangany, Mats Sundin, Robert Lang, Mike Comrie, Petr Sykora, Jason Williams, Mike Griere, Mike Peca, Manny Malholtra, Andy Hilbert and Blair Betts are all still looking for homes.

Some lucky GM is going to come along and snag at least one of these guys up, no doubt. Obviously Tanguay and Zherdev are probably the biggest most interesting, but all of these guys could be outperformers next year given what they'll likely be offered - and paid - going forward.

Even GM"s that don't necessarily need a guy like Tanguay or Zherdev should be looking into inking these guys just from a straight up "buy low, sell high" commodity perspective. If Alex Tanguay rebounds to an 80 point player, you now have one of the shiniest baubles on the trade market.

From a Calgary perspective, it would be hilarious (read: great) to re-acquire Tanguay at a fraction of his previous contract. He was the Flames second best forward at ES while he was here and the team is in desperate need of another top 6 forward if they are to be legit contenders next season. They'd have to move a forward and probably a defenseman (Sarich) out to fit the contract, but, damn...

Every move the wrong one

So...let me get this straight. Years ago, Glen Sather inked checking forward Bobby Holik to an outrageously long and expensive contract. He did the same thing again with Chris Drury and Scott Gomez - lots and lots of dollars over many years for slightly better than average players. Then he did it again with Wade Redden last summer - except Redden isn't even better than average anymore. Marian Gaborik was the lottery winner this summer. At least he's a phenomenal talent I guess. Shame about the tissue paper groin though.

But suddenly, 3.9M for one year is too much for 24 year old Nikolai Zherdev? Forget about whether Zherdev is actually worth the money or not (seems like a decent bet to me) - how they hell does Sather live with that kind of cognitive dissonance? The irony itself should be causing his skull to explode like a victim in a Scanners film.

I mean, really - WTF is Sather doing this season? We're nearly a week into August and the Ranagers have just 11 NHL caliber forwards and 4 NHL defensemen signed. They have a significant RFA still twisting in the wind (Dubinsky) and all of 3.6M in cap space left. That's right...a team icing this line-up:

Avery - Drury - Gaborik
Kotalik - Higgins - Callahan
Voros - Arnason - Rissmiller
Brashear - Boyle - Lisin

??

Redden - Rozsival
Staal - Girardi
Gilroy - ??

??

is not only walking away from Zherdev, but is basically a cap team as well. When looking at the roster and cap situation, keep in mind that 37 year old Donald Brashear was signed to a 2.8M, two year contract (1.4M cap hit) this year. Seriously.

I'm starting to think that Sather doesn't really watch hockey anymore and that his impressions of players and teams are remnants from when he was actually involved in the game and not some overly tanned stuffed shirt big wig in New York. He must basically make his moves based on fuzzy name recognition. Kinda like Mr. Burns picking stocks. And his underlings are too spineless to tell him he doesn't have a clue...

Mr. Burns: Where did I go wrong? I made all the right moves, didn't I?
Burns' Underlings: Yes, sir. Absolutely.
Mr. Burns: Oh, I see it now; you're nothing but a bunch of yes-men. I was making all the wrong moves, and you were too gutless to tell me!
Burns' Underlings: Yes, sir. Absolutely. Every move the wrong one.

Forwards and shot prevention

Pursuant to my earlier post, here's the Flames forwards from last year (minus Jokinen) and their shot against rates at ES:



I've included each guy's QUAL COMP from behindthenet, just to add a layer of context.

Im still trying to decide if this number is telling me anything useful or not. That said, the results seem to be sensible, given what I know and observed about Calgary last year and in light of the quality of opposition each player faced. Boyd and Bertuzzi at the bad end of the spectrum makes sense, as does Moss and Glencross leading the way. Nystrom's number also indicates that the "defensive specialist" label applied to him as a prospect might actually be accurate.

Again, numbers via timeonice.com (shots) and NHL.com (ice time).

Defensemen and shot Prevention

Capturing a defenseman's contribution to defense is tough to do quantitatively, given what we know about individual players effects on SV% (it's relatively negligible), which means relying on goals against is out. Also, does a stalwart defender cause more opposition shots to get blocked? Go wide? Or, in fact, do good defensemen prevent shots from happening at all by anticipating plays, intercepting passes and rubbing out guys along the boards (etc)?

It's this latter point I chose to explore recently. Having a lot of shots blocked or go wide while you're on the ice can also be a sign of weakness - for example, the defender that gives the puck away at his own blueline would get credit under such an assumption if the shot during the resultant break-away happened to miss the net.

It strikes me, therefore, that a measure of total shots against/60 will give us an idea of the relative strengths or weaknesses of a given player versus his teammates and, perhaps, the rest of the league (the lower the better).

Here's what I found for Flames defenders last year. All numbers are ES, of course:

click to enlarge

Keep in mind these numbers are absent context (quality of competition, quality of linemates, starting position). That said, this initial look passes the sniff test I think. The ranking roughly accords with who were the best to worst defenders on the club last year (in my estimation at least). I think if we were to map something like this on top of contextual factors, the rate becomes more meaningful. For example, Reggie's number is middling on the team, but given the fact that he faced the toughest opponents and started in his own end the most, his number becomes more impressive.

I haven't carried out this exercise for any other team, so maybe this is all coincidental and Im not really measuring anything here.

What so you folks? Useful? Not useful? Should it be applied to forwards as well? I'd like to see how some of the other clubs turn out...

PS - ES shot totals found via timeonice.com.

Fantasy Draft

I'm taking part in a Fantasy Draft over at Cycle Like the Sedins. I'll be drafting for the Flames (naturally) and was gifted with the first overall selection for the first time in my hockey pool career.

There's quite a bit of pressure associated with first overall. On one hand, it's hard to go wrong...on the other, there's a lot of great choices available. A number of choices ran through my head, including:

1.) Pavel Datsyuk. We're operating under a cap for the draft, so the fact that Datsyuk is one of the best players in the league but only costs around 6M a year was attractive.

2.) Crosby and Malkin. Both young, both elite, both centers.

3.) Joe Thornton. Similar to Datsyuk in that he's consistently top tier but is relatively cheap.

After all that, I settled on - who else - Alexander Ovechkin. He's the most expensive player in the league but he's just so damn good. He outshoots and outscores the competition and is deadly on the PP. I'll obviously have to find bargains later in the draft in order to compensate for his huge cap hit, but I dont think that'll be a problem.

I'll update Other picks and the final roster (as well as my competition, which should be fierce) as we move along.

Zubov to Columbus makes all sorts of sense

It's a poorly guarded secret around here that I've come to adopt the Columbus Blue Jackets as my "second team". I like a lot of their players (Nash, Huselius, Vermette, Voracek), I like their underdog status and I think Scott Howson has quietly been one of the better GM's in the league since he took the reigns from that bumbler MacLean. As such, I may add a few thoughts on them from time to time around here.

Anyways, it strikes me this summer that the BJ's should be shamelessly courting Sergei Zubov. There's obviously a lot of big question marks surrounding the former superstar: his age (39) and injury history (extensive) being the primary ones...obviously there's a reason the Stars aren't bothering to renew his contract.

On the other hand, the Blue Jackets have an urgent need for an offensively capable blueliner. Their PP was abysmal last season and though some of that was undoubtedly bad luck, a lot of it had to do with a back-end that featured Kris Russel, Rusty Klesla and not much else in terms of PP quarterbacks. Zubov - at least, the player Zubov used to be - obviously fits the bill having scored 50+ points 8 times in career. Aside from his extensive list of injuries, which I admit is non-trivial, there is little evidence that Zubov is on a steep decline: in 07/08, he scored 35 points in 46 games at 36 years old.

The various risks associated with Zubov means the Jackets can probably sign him to a low base salary buttressed by performance incentives. The risk of him retiring and the club eating the cap hit is there, but avenues exist to at least minimize the risk by lowering the cap dollars.

In addition, the problem with offensive defensemen is they are relatively rare and almost universally expensive. The UFA market is basically bereft of blueline scoring threats at this point (outside of perhaps Dennis Seidenberg, although his career high of 30 points is hardly impressive), and trades for such guys are difficult outside of salary dumps (JM Liles anyone?).

Zubov won't cost anything to acquire, he should be relatively cheap to sign and he has a positive prior association with Ken Hitchcock. Heck, Im surprised this hasn't happened already.

On Dale Tallon

His firing was considered an inevitability back when Bowman was hired, but it sounds like the Hawks have legitimate beefs with his management - meaning the pink slip wasn't simply a formality.

The RFA situation was a very obvious, very public F-up. The team is lucky he managed to sign the guys in question.

Then there's the Martin Havlat stuff. If you don't have Twitter or aren't following Havlat, here's some of his most recent "tweets":

Lot's of people are telling me to stay quiet but shouldn't the fans know the truth? It's your loyalty, season ticket money and emotions here.

I guess everyone saw what happened to Dale....yes, the story is starting to come out but it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Excited to be in Minny where I was welcomed and appreciated by management. The real story about what happened in Chicago to come out.

Yikes. Some serious bad blood there, despite the fact Tallon signed Havlat to a big, long term deal the first time. It's going to be fascinating when Martin spills the beans because NHL players are usually so tight-lipped.

EDIT - Looks like I've misread the situation. According to Mirtle and some of Havlat's more recent tweets, Tallon apparently wasn't at all the target of his discontent.

Flames sign McGrattan, perpetuate fraud.

Enforcers are the great placebo of the NHL. They persist because everyone thinks they do something positive (intimidate other teams, "protect" star players) even though there isn't a shred of evidence that they actually accomplish anything.

The goon in the modern NHL is a castrated beast. He bleeds goals against and his every move on the ice is tracked by nervous eyes and quick whistles. Fines and suspensions are the primary fruit of his labor. He is rendered impotent by two simple letters: "no". Pests laugh in the goons face. All that's left is the occasional, ritualistic dance with another anachronistic brute before the hoots and hollers of the crowd. It's exciting, it's gladiatorial, but...I doubt it helps win hockey games.

EDIT - Just stumbled upon this expansive essay on the subject by E over at Theory of Ice. Similar sentiments are expressed more thoroughly:

The power of a fight to resolve violent tension in a hockey game is, in essence, the ultimate placebo effect. It works not so much because of anything it does in itself, but because of what the concerned parties believe it does. As such, it’s a highly imprecise conflict-resolution technique. While there are many incidents one could point to where two fighters thwacking at each other after a dubious incident provided satisfactory resolution to both teams, one can also point to at least a few very high profile cases where a fight not only failed to resolve tension, but perhaps escalated it. It may indeed be a safety valve of sorts, but it’s a defective one that can fail at any moment. However, whether or not fighting serves the function people claim for it is somewhat secondary, because what matters for professional hockey-fighters is that placebo effect- the belief that it can control the inherent danger, violence, and unpredictability of the game. Surveys occasionally show that players generally like having a fighter on their team- not, perhaps, because he actually makes them any safer, but because he makes them feel somehow safer.

Defense, Goalies and Perception

If you talk to Avs fans about their lousy season, you'll often hear how awful the defense was. It was obviously a sore spot with the team placing 26th overall in terms of GA.

The strange this is, none of the metrics aside from goals against suggest that Colorado was bad in their own end. The Avalanche actually allowed the 9th fewest shots against per game (29). And it's not like they were giving up break-aways or point blank chances: according to sites that track quality of shots against, Colorado was also in the top third of the league by these metrics: Desjardins has both Avs goalies with expected SV% of .915 (Budaj) and .916 (Raycroft). Nik Backstrom was the only regular starter with a higher expected SV% according to this process.

In addition, Hockey Numbers has COL SQA (shot quality against) at 0.97, good for 7th in the NHL.

The primary culprit, therefore, was the Avs crap-tastic goaltending. Colorado fans can thank the duo of Budaj and Raycroft for the Duchene pick this past entry draft.

It's funny how much blame the COL defense absorbs however. I'm certainly not calling Avs fans thick or unobservant, it's just the nature of perception: on almost every shot on goal, one could probably identify a mistake or missed opportunity to deny the chance. When pucks go in, the "mistakes" are noticed and tallied. If not, then not. For example: Jarome Iginla charges into the zone, one-on-one with Scott Hannan. Jarome makes a strong move left and fires the puck through Hannan's legs at the goal. Outcome one: Budaj makes the save, Hannan is lauded for not allowing Iginla a better chance. Outcome two: the puck sales through Budaj (again!) and Hannan is pilloried for not denying the shot AND providing an unwitting screen. The same play could be perceived differently based solely on the outcome. There's a reason bad goaltenders are coach killers (and good goaltenders make for genius coaches).

Something similar has been happening in Flames circles the last couple of years, although Calgary has been decidedly middling in terms of defensive performance in contrast to Colorado. That said, it'll be instructive to see what happens this year should the projected defensive improvement under Brent Sutter occur but without a concurrent rise in Kipper's SV%.

Luongo or Schneider. Pick one.

Despite being one year away from unrestricted free agency, reports are saying that goalie Roberto Luongo is discussing a contract extension with the Vancouver Canucks.

CKNW Radio in Vancouver is speculating that Luongo and his agent, Gilles Lupien, are asking for a long-term deal that would be at least five years in length...

From the start of the month.

Versus:

Goaltender Cory Schneider will be given a chance to make the Vancouver Canucks this fall, which could result in recent signing Andrew Raycroft playing for the AHL Manitoba Moose, general manager Mike Gillis said Tuesday.

"Our long-range plans are to keep him as a Vancouver Canuck and having him play here."

From two days ago.

Here's the problem with goalies...it just can't be both, folks. If Vancouver locks up Luongo long-term for big bucks - unless Schneider is happy watching most of the season as a door opener or "seasoning" in the AHL till his mid-20's - I don't think he'll be sticking around.

Ideally, signing Luongo short-term and aggressively developing Schneider in the mean time is the answer. Of course, you can only develop a kid in the minors for so long before he has to be tested against NHL shooters to see if he can make the leap. Problem is, that requires trying to split time with the expensive superstar - a job so thankless the Canucks apparently went out and got the worst (and therefore best) guy they could find to fill it this coming season.

If indeed Gillis manages to get Luongo's name on a long-term deal, it'll be fascinating to see what the Canucks do if Schneider knocks it out of the park in the AHL again - especially considering the trade market for AHL goalies (even really, really good ones) is quite poor.

Go get Nik Zherdev

Ever since he and his agent pulled a "hold out in Russia for more money" stunt in Columbus, Zherdev's reputation has taken a dive from "burgeoning superstar" to "enigmatic and inconsistent russian". At best. The fact that he had a rough season right after holding out for a big contract didn't help any.

Truth is, Zherdev was still a kid at the time, going through a kid's growing pains. Hell, he's still a kid at 24 years old. In terms of pure talent, he's up there. He's also already scored 20+ goals 3 times in his young career.

His boxcar numbers aren't staggering from last season (23-35-58), but keep in mind the Rangers were a brutal club in terms of offense at both ES and the PP. In contrast Zherdev's advanced ES stats speak pretty highly of him:

QUAL Comp: +0.03 (middling)
Corsi: +14.6 (second)
ESP/60: 2.56 (first)
+/-: +12 (first)

Zherdev outshot and outscored the opposition handily last year, even though most of his team was in the red in terms of plus/minus and he wasn't playing against 4th liners.

Of course, as per the Rangers habit of mismanagement, it looks Zherdev is on his way out of broadway. Apparently the club is annoyed that the kid filed for arbitration like 20 of this peers. Word is, the Rangers will walk away from any award that is too far north of 3M, making Zherdev a free agent. That also means the kid is up for grabs for peanuts prior to arbitration, meaning someone could pick Sather's pocket as long as they're prepared to deal with whatever Zherdev's awarded (or just negotiate a longer term deal with him before the hearing).

There's a good, young player up for grabs here. It'll be interesting to see who's paying attention.

Ah Murray Murray...oh Baby! You Gotta go...

I wondered aloud a few posts ago whether the Sens Bryan Murray might be the worst GM in the league. That was in response to the 8M Chris Neil contract, but there's a laundry list of F-ups to choose from: the deterioration of his team and blueline since making the finals, the Vermette for Leclaire trade, not to mention the ham fisted manner in which the Dany Heatley situation has been handled.

Now this. Murray has signed 36 year old Alexei Kovalev to a 2 year, $10M deal. Not only is Kovalev old, but, outside of that outlier season built on percentages in 07/08, he's not much of a player at ES. Last year, for example, he may have led the Canadiens in scoring but that had a lot to do with copious amounts of PP time as well as the injuries to Tanguay, Koivu and Lang. He actually placed fifth on the club in terms of ESP/60 (1.78), behind Tanguay, Koivu, Lang and Latendresse. Aside from 07/08, the last time he scored more than 70 points was 02/03. He's a career minus player as well.

Kovalev is still a capable enough as to not be totally worthless, but at that price and at that age, he's a bad bet. Hell, his salary is just 400k less than Daniel Alfredsson who is vastly superior player in my estimation.

Kings Ascension?

News came out recently the LA Kings have moved a couple of extra pieces for Ryan Smyth. Their top 6 now looks something like this:

Frolov-Kopitar-Brown
Smyth-Stoll-Williams

Scary. I count at least 4 or 5 guys who can take on heavy competition and keep their heads above water. Hell, I'm betting that first line could hang with some of the best in the league. None of those three guys scored at a good rate last year at ES, but they were all in the black in terms of corsi. The Kings outshot the opposition routinely despite being a bottom of the barrel club; it was a terrible ES SH% (a ghastly 6.8) that suppressed everyone's scoring. If this were, say, the Islanders inflicted with injury I'd admit that that pathetic success rate was indicative of a lack of skill - but, the Kings had a decent group of forwards (thus the outshooting) and I think it was just their time to be at the wrong end of the curve.

One guy to keep an eye on in particular is Dustin Brown. He led the league in terms of penalty differential by a country mile last year and he managed to fire 292 shots on net in just 80 games (Iginla had 289 in 82 by way of comparison). His PDO was 98.3, putting him in line for a rebound and the dude is 24 years old. He seems to have things figured out already and he's got a few more years to improve.

There's always a couple of Cinderella stories every NHL season. I half expect the Kings to be the WC's big mover next year, assuming Lombardi doesn't somehow fumble the ball at some point this summer.

Impressions after day 1

The good:

- Flames sign Bouwmeester. Yeah, the budgeting becomes more difficult going forward, but Bouwmeester is special class of player - already one of the best in the biz and just 25 years old. That's the type of player that you add if you can and make it work around him. Can't complain about the Pardy or Sjostrom signings either.

- Mike Knuble in WAS for 2.8M was a nice find. The big guy is a consistent 20+ goal scorer and can play against almost anyone without being under water. Solid player for a decent price - I was hoping the Flames would go after him with a similar deal.

- Craig Anderson in COL for pocket change is the deal they should have made last year instead of inking FAILcroft. The former Flames 3rd rounder hasn't played a ton the last few years, but his results have been outstanding. He's at the very least a good bet to provide league average goaltending, which is a steal at his price point. If he's any better than thay, the Avs win with this one big time. Low risk, high reward.

- Joel Ward at 3M for two years back in NSH is probably a good move. Did you know Ward had 17 goals last year? Do you know who Joel Ward is at all? He's basically the Preds David Moss - solid all around, scores enough to be useful, etc. These are great players to have for 1.5M.

- I also like Minny's signings of Greg Zanon at 1.93/year and Martin Havlat at 5. I've liked Zanon for awhile even though there's not much offense in him. Good penalty killer, solid and ES, blocks a ton of shots. He firms up any blueline. It's also hard to believe the Wild got Havlat for just 5M a year after the best season of his career. Not only did he finally play most of the games, he was also pressed into shut-down duty by Quenneville and he still slapped the opposition around at ES. Good to see Miikko Koivu finally get some help.

- Sammy Pahlsson probably isn't bad value at 2.65 for the Blue Jackets, who were in the market for a Malholtra replacement. Im guessing Hitchcock is pretty thrilled to have the checking center on his club.

The Bad:

- I laughed out loud when they announced Colton Orr to TOR for 4M over 4 years. Good ol' Burke and his cowbells! What a ridiculous contract for a guy who gets his ass-kicked (figuratively, of course) by other 4th liners.

- Pretty much everything touched by Bob Gainey: he trades a useful bunch of players and prospects to NYR in exchange for one of the worst contracts in the NHL in Scott Gomez. Then he lets Komisarek walk over a seemingly reasonable contract, but signs 35 year old Jaroslav Spacek for 3 years and bunch of cash. Not being satisfied with that, he marginally overpays Mike Cammalleri (5 years, 30M) and then grossly overpays Brian Gionta (5 years, 25M). Yuck. I'd be pretty down if I were a Habs fan today.

- Good to see Sather up to his old tricks. He scores a coup by fooling someone into taking Gomez off his hands...and then re-invests the savings in another bad bet, Marian Gaborik. The guy is fast and a top notch scorer, but there's probably no one in the NHL who is more injury prone. I can't imagine him covering his whole 7.5M salary each year.

- On a similar note, Steve Sullivan for 3.75M/year doesn't make much sense to me either. I'm a fan of Sullivan and think he's effective when healthy, but that's really rare. And the dude is 36 years old. It makes sense to try to sign someone like Sullivan, but only if you can get him at a sizable discount.

- Khabibulin to the Oilers. HAHA!

- Chris Neil for 2M for 4 years is total nonsense. He's a goon who is marginally better at ES than guys like Orr and Godard. Is Murray one of the worst GM's in the league right now?

- Scott Clemmensen lands in FLA for the same price Anderson got in COL. Anderson is younger and his career stats in both the NHL and AHL are vastly superior. Given how mediocre Clemmensen has been for years, there's probably no chance he repeats the run he had with the Devils last year.

More as they come in...

2009 Free Agency

I'll add my thoughts here as deals come in. My Flames stuff is elsewhere, but I'll talk about everything else here.

Some initial thoughts:

- I'm really interested to see what Minnesota will do. As of right now, I have no idea what direction the new regime will take. Risebrough was almost never a player on July 1, so I half expect Fletcher to try to make splash or two. I also think Saku Koivu will end up a Wild by the end of the day.

- The Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers both have a lot of spaces to fill and, with the Gomez deal, both have some money to spend. If every third contract today involves NYR or MON, I won't be surprised.

- Mike Cammalleri will end up in Toronto I think. Burke was probably hoping to see the Sedins make it to free agency, but with them off the table he'll turn his attention to other shiny baubles like Cammalleri.

Trickle up

From Nathan Fournier via The Hockey Program:

I think the new trend from now on is goalies aren't going to be selected in the first round unless they are elite. Goalies who I thought were late 1st round or second round players went in the third round or later. Goalies I thought were late round picks went earlier then I expected.

I noticed the same thing this season: for the first time in recent memory, a puck stopper wasn't chosen in the first round. Coincidence? Or is theory from the lowly blogosphere somehow trickling into the NHL team's offices?

Draft Thoughts

- Not sure what to make of the Flames draft at this point. I was somewhat surprised with the Erixon pick and disappointed Calgary didn't grab Schroeder when he fell to them at 20. Bjorklund and Howse are intriguing mid rounders, especially the Swede who will playing in the SEL as a teen this coming season. I know absolutely nothing about the goalie and Gaelen Patterson was passed over in his draft year but put up decent enough numbers to be worth a late round gamble this time.

I was surprised Calgary took a d-man with their first pick, although Tod Button mentioned in a post-draft interview that the focus after that was to get scoring wingers (as I surmised previously). Thus the Howse, Bjorklund, Bennett picks later on.

Whether or not Bouwmeester signs with the Flames, I approve of Sutter's gambit to acquire his rights, if only because the price was so small. Leo wasn't coming back anyways and a 3rd rounder is about a 19% chance at a future NHLer.

- The Oilers draft looked like a mix of good and bad to me. They got a really nice player in the first round in Paajarvi-Svaslkahjsdlkasj*&! but then opted to use their 3rd round choice on a guy might have an Eric Godard-type ceiling. Now, as established, 3rd rounders aren't exactly worth a whole lot anyways, but pissing one away on a potential goon makes precisely zero sense to me. Goons don't have to be drafted or developed - there's plenty of them floating around for league minimum.

The Brodziak trade was pretty bizarre as well. He's never going to be a star but I got the feeling that at 25 he had established himself as an NHLer and still had a few years to grow...moving him for a 4th round pick is selling for pennies on the dollar. Unless he's roundly hated in the dressing room for some reason, doesn't make much sense to me.

- NYI moves at the draft were, appropriately enough, baffling. They moved a handful of picks to move up from 26-16...then did it again to move from 16-12...only to choose Calvin DeHaan, who very likely could have been available at 26 anyways. He was rated as the 25th skater in North America by Central Scouting and is said to have sizable holes in his game outside of the offensive zone. Erixon, Rundblad, Despres, Moore and Olsen were all still on the table at 12, BTW.

- Equally head scratching was the Nick Leddy choice by Minny at 16. He won the "Mr. Hockey" award in Minnesota for his work last season, but that's a fairly high draft choice to invest in a kid that hasn't played more than HS hockey.

- Scott Howson was quietly busy at the draft. He traded moved 16-77 for 26-37-62-92 and then dealt 26-37 to Ana for #21. He started with 16-77 and ended with 21-62-92. Decent work I'd say.

- My mock choice Landon Ferraro went to the Red Wings. Lucky bastard. And good on Detroit, Ferraro looks like decent value in the second round to me.

- Philly's trade for Pronger is either going to pay off in spades or completely blow up in their faces. He's 34 years old with a year left on his contract and the Flyers moved 3 first round picks and a somewhat useful roster player for him. That's a really high price to pay and one that may hobble the club in the future, especially if he starts to decline or doesn't sign to stay after this season.

All that said, a marriage of Captain Elbows and the broad street bully franchise seems like a match made in heaven.

- Im somewhat surprised LA kept the 5th overall choice. For two reasons:

1.) They're a club on the verge of breaking out of the basement I think. All they need is some true-blue veteran talent to prop up their bevy of skilled youngsters. A 5th for a signed star at either forward or defense really would have made sense.

2.) A huge portion of their roster is kids. Cheap kids for now, but once they all come up for renewal the Kings are going in for a world of hurt. Adding to that cohort may be a problem.

- It was terrible to see Vancouver scoop Schroeder at 21. He was the best value player at the time and apparently fell due to size and attitude concerns. I have a feeling he's going to be a quality NHL player though and I hope he doesn't make the Flames regret missing him at 20.

Draft day links and such

I'll be following today's action over at M&G. No doubt the Flames will be involved with a move or two, so it should be interesting. SBN also has a big draft hub here.

- The Nations Sites have sent Jason Gregor to Montreal to cover things close up. Im sure he'll be furnishing us with updates frequently.

- I also have some thoughts on the draft over at Cycle Like the Sedins. I discuss what I look for in evaluating prospects as well as Calgary's top 3 draft steals and busts over the years.

- Looks like we might have another Flames blogger on our hands. Stop by and make Cassie feel welcome - with Open Ice Hits and Battle of Alberta dwindling, Flames-centric fan writers are about as rare as desert flowers.

Sign of the times

I rarely use this blog for anything besides hockey analysis, but this is one of those personal posts...

The small start-up/ R&D company I've worked for the last few years is having trouble paying me due to economy-related funding issues. As such, I'm on the look out for part -time or full-time contractual or long-term employment.

I have experience writing and editing business documents ranging from business plans/ executive summaries to producing PPT presentations and investor relation communications. I also have some skills at research and analysis. I have 6 years of formal education invested in business admin (2 years) and a Bachelor of Arts (4 years).

Some of my best work for this space can be browsed here. Anyone interested in my full resume and such can email me @ kent.wilson@gmail.com

This post may not bear any fruit, but I figure it can't hurt to get this kind of thing in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

The Best Player Available myth

It's commonly held that a dichotomy exists in fundamental draft strategy in hockey: pick for need versus best player available. Sensibly, most hockey fans and pundits eschew the first strategy: outside of picking a generational Crosby-like talent in the first round, a vast majority of prospects won't contribute anything valuable at the NHL level for at least 5 years, at which time the needs of the big club may have drastically changed.

But outside, say, the first five choices in every entry draft, is picking the "best player available" actually possible? From my own investigations into the matter, chances of picking an actual NHL player drop from 95% in the top 5 to about a coin flip by the end of the first round. Chances fall precipitously after that, to about 25% in round 2, 19% in round 3 and so on. In fact, as the draft progresses, the talent tends to be scattered more liberally throughout each round, rather than clustered close to the top as it is in first.

What I'm getting at is: things turn into a crap shoot pretty quickly in the draft. That means there isn't a lot to choose from once you get beyond the few sure-fire NHLers that exist at the very pinnacle of the prospect pyramid. This issue occurred to me while doing up profiles for potential Flames targets in this year's up coming roll of the dice - Rundblad, Kreider, Budish, Holland, Ferraro, etc - pretending all of them are available when the Flames take the stage on the 26th, which amongst those named is the "best player available"?

The challenges for an NHL scout extend beyond projecting the potential future contributions of some teenager some five years hence, but also -

1.) Comparing relative values of players across positions is problematic and rife with subjectivity and
2.) Many of these kids play at different levels in different leagues against different competition.

For example, let's talk about David Rundblad, a Swedish prospect who played as a teen in the SEL last season versus Zach Budish, an American High School winger. Rundblad garnered 10 points as a defender in the top professional level in Sweden last year against grown men. Budish collected more than 60 points in 30 games against pimply-faced HS kids in Minnesota. How does one even go about comparing the two players? Not only do they play different positions, but they performed against vastly different levels of competition - even subjective viewership and analysis would be effected. For intance, I would look like a thoughtful tactician and sniper if you put me on the ice against 12 year olds, but would be completely lost if I squared off against, say, the UofC mens team. That's an extreme example, but the principle is the same. This may be why clubs develop what I call "fishing holes", by which I mean they concentrate their scouting in certain amateur/developmental leagues (for the Flames, it's the WHL/CHL) - they can become familiar with the relative degree and value of the competition and therefore can more capably gauge a prospects level of performance. But I digress.

As such, I think it would be foolhardy to ignore an organizations areas of weakness when drafting. By that I certainly don't mean the woeful Florida Panthers should show up on the 26th this year and look to pick as many scoring forwards as possible because the big club had issues putting pucks in the net last year. That would be silly. However, simply due to the variable and unpredictable nature of developing prospects, every org is going to have certain areas that are weaker than others heading into the draft every year.

Taking the Flames again as an example, the club is relatively healthy at center and defense, but thin in terms of scoring wingers. Dustin Boyd - Warren Peters - Mikael Backlund - Mitch Wahl - Brett Sutter - John Armstrong are the young, promising pivots in the system. Calgary also has Phaneuf - Giordano - Pardy - Palin - Pelech - Aulie - Negrin - Brodie as young 20 something's and below on the blueline. However, aside from Moss and Glencross on the big club (who have already passed the quarter century mark), the org boasts overager Kyle Greentree, Greg Nemisz and tweeners like David Van Der Gulik and Kris Chucko on the wings. And that's about it.

As such, I honestly think this issue should inform if not dictate the Flames draft strategy heading into next week. We know that the org needs some offensively capable talent at the winger position. Therefore, unless they have the chance to pick Victor Hedman or perhaps Ryan Ellis in the first round, doesn't preferring a winger to a defender make sense from a Flames perspective? Back to the Rundblad and Budish example - since there's little chance of definitely determining which is the better player (either now or in the future), I would prefer the Flames emphasize the latter (Budish) over the former (Rundblad), given the clubs organizational strengths and weaknesses. In fact, considering we're dice rolling, Calgary should have a goal of claiming more wingers than defensemen and centers over the course of the 7 rounds in order to increase the chances of scoring a "hit" in that area.

Obviously clubs develop draft lists based on who-is-better-than whom and taking a 60th ranked forward ahead of the 12th ranked defender simply because the org has a greater need up front would be nonsensical. If an opportunity to choose a player who is *apparently* head and shoulders above the rest of the list occurs, it has to be taken. My guess is this seems more likely in theory than what happens in practice, however, especially due to the scouting challenges described above and especially once the cream of the crop has been skimmed. Overall, outside a few rare or extreme circumstances, I've come to think of the "BPA" draft strategy as rather meaningless and the whole "team need versus best player" dichotomy as a false one.

Congratulations Pittsburgh

I picked Detroit, but Pittsburgh was full value in the last two games. Congrats to the 2009 Stanley Cup champions!

A rare link day

- As the play-offs wind down, *other* NHL news is starting to pick up again. Most significant for Flames fans is the fact the Brent Sutter announced his departure from Devils today. I have discussions going here and here, while Duncan (who wins the "best headline" contest with his effort) and Matt add their thoughts elsewhere. Take a trip to In Lou we Trust for a NJD perspective.

- Heatley apparently wants out of Ottawa. Let the rampant speculation begin! I'll get the ball rolling - Jokinen + for Heater. Flames are weak on the left side, strong up the middle and Im not a fan of Jokinen anyways. Plus Heatley is a native Calgarian. It only makes sense (E3)!

- Some of the statzis around the blogosphere have made progress in adding further context to the numbers recently. Mudcrutch discusses the effect of face-off location and offensive/defensive zone ratios. This work will likely help me in determining relative value of defensive defensemen, which is going to be a summer project round here I think. JLikens has done some work with the "scoring chance" stat Dennis King put together this past year for the Oilers. Vic has some additional material on scoring chances, SH% and the importance of possession and outshooting here.

- The scoring chance thing intrigues me and I'd like to start doing it for the Flames next year. However, I'd also like to settle on a meaningful definition of "scoring chance" which is reliable across observers before proceeding. Perhaps something else to kick around in the dull days of August...

- Finally, I think the Cup is going to be awarded (either tonight or later this week) to the Red Wings for the second straight year. Love 'em; hate 'em; envy them; you have to respect that organization whatever your perspective. Everyone else is so far behind at this point, I think Ken Holland has actually lapped the field.

2009 Hockey New Media Awards

I was alerted recently that "The HockeyBarn Writers Association" (a community of writers open to all hockey journalists across the blogosphere) is holding the first ever New Media Hockey awards on June 17th.

According to the press release, there'll be prizes for "Writer of the year", Rookie of the Year", "Unsung Hero" "Mom/Dad writer of the year" and, yes, even the "Glenn Anderson Leader award". Judges for the contest include the ex-Oiler himself (who will also be handing out prizes apparently), Eric McErlain of "Off the Wing" fame and the venerable James Mirtle. You can nominate a writer for any one of the prizes listed via this link.

This isn't my transparent play for a nomination. Frankly, I don't belong in the conversation of hockey's best bloggers. Were I to pick writers for each award I'd go with:

"Writer of the Year": Lowetide, Mudcrutch, Mirtle (probably exempt, being a judge), Puck Daddy, Tom Benjamin
"Rookie of the Year": Contrarian Goaltender, JLikens, Jonathan Willis (is he still a rookie?) or TLP
"Unsung Hero": Vic Ferrari, Scott from Gospel of Hockey
Mom/Dad Writer: Uhh...not familiar enough with everyone's personal life Im afraid. How about BDHS since Pat should certainly be winning something for his unique style.
Glenn Anderson Leadership Award: for the "writer who best demonstrates a desire to grow hockey the popularity of ice hockey..." Paul Kukla?

No doubt there's others Im missing here - the Battle of Cali crew and Cycle Like Sedins put out good stuff this season too. Lots of deserving "New Media" writers out there right now.

Ranked even strength production by defensemen

I did something like this for forwards awhile back and it proved to be fairly popular. So, here's a ranked (by ESP/60) list of defensemen from the regular season. I've marked Flames players in yellow. Also included are QUAL COMP ratings, corsi/60 rates, ES plus/minus and the PDO numbers of guys inside the 90th percentile (plus a few others I bothered to look up). Excluded are players that failed to play more than 30 contests this year.

**(Spreadsheet won't publish for whatever reason - here's a handy link to the numbers instead)**

Looking at this list made me wonder: is there any way to rationally and quantifiably capture the contributions of low-offense, hard minute defensemen? I mean, none of Regehr's stats are impressive at a glance, but well all know he's the best defender the team's got. The issue for me is - how good is he, really? Is there any way to know outside of "he plays the big guns on the other team consistently and doesn't seem to get killed"?

Other items of interest: Mark Giordano's standing in ESP/60 and corsi rate, the ridiculous PDO's of Boston defenders and Jason Smith apparently not scoring a single ES point the entire year.

What's the opposite of a prophet?

Well, the NW division's "best coach" has been fired. Again. Course, he was pretty much a dead man walking as soon as the Avs approached Roy.

What a terrible mess that once great team has become. Good news for me as a Flames fan I guess, but it's still a little sad to see nonetheless.