For the Flight home from my travels I snagged The Sporting News Hockey magazine at some anonymous American airport stand (I was fairly surprised to find it). In contrast to the Hockey News Ultimate Pool Guide I discussed in the post below, the SN publication is more of a general team by team analysis. The book starts out with basic NHL pieces - they discuss the Sabres as potential cup favorites this year and include a preseason "power poll" (a decent overall ranking, unless you consider that the Canucks (7th) are ranked above the Flames (8th) and the Predators (5th) are ranked above the Senators (6th)). Of course, Crosby is discussed briefly, as are some of the top picks from the most recent draft. The magazine also goes over the issue of "team chemistry" citing the Rangers and the Hurricanes as two organizations that explicitly pursued the all-elusive element of "team cohesiveness" through various means last year. The bulk of the book, however, is dedicated to Team analysis.
I'll admit, it's a fairly decent read. Each club gets about two pages, with each being graded across 4 categories: Forwards, Defensemen, Goaltenders and Special Teams. I have issues with the grading criteria in that...well...none are stated. Further, team's aren't given an "overall" grade - simply a "bottom line", which is typically a 3 paragraph blurb. One might think that, logically, assigning an overall grade would follow from grading a squad's component parts. But, I guess not.
As mentioned, the grading criteria for each category isn't explicitly elucidated. As a result, the grades seem to vary in consistency across divisions (and, sometimes, from team to team within one division even - despite the fact that it's the same writer for both!) For example, Chuck Gormley gives the Toronto Maple Leafs a "B" for Defensemen with the reasoning that "...Kubina and Gill provide the muscle, McCabe and Kaberle will provide the offensive punch" and "the Leafs have strong prospects in Jay Harrison, Ian White and Andy Wozniewski". Fair enough. Except two pages before that he gives the Senators a "B-" for Defensemen. Apparently because "after Redding, Preissing and Corvo the corps. is solid but not spectacular with Andrej Meszaros, Chris Phillips, Anton Volchenkov and Christoph Schubert."
Now, I don't know if Chuck is a Leafs fan or what, but this borders on the absurd. Toronto's #4 defenseman is Hall Gill. Big, slow and offensively useless, Gill is hardly a top 4 guy these days. After him, they have the likes of Khavanov, Colaiacovo, Kronwall, White and Wieniewski to fill the 5th and 6th positions. Who and who? Exactly. In comparison, The Senators have future Norris candidate Redden, as well young stand-outs Preissing, Corvo and Meszaros. All 4 are young, mobile, scored 10 or more goals last season and ended up on the + side of the ledger. The bottom pairing on Ottawa will consist of former #1 draft pick and stalwart Chris Phillips and young up-and-comer Anton Volchenkov, who already has a full season of NHL experience under his belt. Both players can deliver the big hit when need-be (and both can skate faster than Hal Gill).
For quantative types out there, here's a basic statistical comparison: Together, the Senators top 6 (Redden, Corvo, Preissing, Meszaros, Phillips, Volchenkov) scored 218 points in 445 games played and were a collective +146. The Maples Leafs top 6 (McCabe, Kaberle, Kubina, Gill, Khavanov, Colaiacovo) scored 202 (135 by Kaberle and McCabe alone) points in 396 games and were a collective -32. Offense between the two groups is comparable, although the Leafs corps is very top heavy. While +/- is, at best, a suspect stat to use to compare players across teams, consider that both Corvo and Preissing's numbers (+16 and +17, respectively) were not inflated by playing behind the likes of Heatley, Spezza and Alfredsson all year. In fact, Corvo managed his decent showing despite playing in front of 2 young, inexperienced goaltenders in LA.
So...to me at least, The Senators have a very solid 6 defense group. The Leafs, on the other hand, have 3 very good NHL defensemen, 1 lummox, and 2 question marks. Course, Im not certain what criteria were used for grading the defense of each team - but I just can't see how the Leafs could be considered superior as a group to the Senators.
Not that the errors end there. Other teams with supposedly superior defensemen to Ottawa? Buffalo (B), New York (B), Carolina (B+!) and San Jose (B). Plain silliness.
The forwards rankings tend to be pretty decent, I'd say, aside from the assertion made by Elliot Teaford that Dallas has "so much skill, so much potential: it's a wonder the Stars don't skate every team off the ice." Is he looking at the same roster as I am? Observe:
Modano, Lindros, Morrow, Lehtinen, Halpern, Barnes, Stefan, Ott, Jokinen, Hagman, Miettinen, Barnaby.
The Stars will be lucky if they have 4 twenty goal scorers among their top 12 forwards. Modano is 36 and on the downslope of his career. Lehtinen is usually good for 25-30 goals and Morrow for 20...but besides that, there's not much else. Lindros is an injury waiting to happen and Patrik Stefan is one of the biggest first-choice-overall busts in the last 10 years (he scored 10 last year with the Thrashers). Ott is an agitator (5 goals), Barnes is a 36 year old 3rd liner (15 goals) and Halpern is a checking center (11 goals). Jokinen had a decent rookie campaign with 17 tallies last season, but he'll no doubt have to improve on the those numbers for the Stars sake. Miettinen managed all of 11 goals and 31 points last year. Hagman had 6 markers in 54 games with Dallas. Hmmmm.
Confused with his opening statement and his subsequent grading of the Star's forwards (A), I was rather intrigued to read the rest of Teaford's accompanying explanation. He goes on to claim that Lehtinen "is a sublime offensive player, a deft passer and playmaker..." Ummm. No, he's not. He's a consistent enough goal-scorer and a Selke candidate, but he's hardly a playmaker. In fact, his goals almost always
outnumber his assists and he's never had more than 32 helpers in a single season. Lehtinen is a valuable top 6 guy, as much for his defensive acumen as for his 30 goals, but he's absolutely nothing at all resembling a "sublime offensive player".
I found Teaford's appraisal of Lehtinen a little out-there, but I was floored by his next baseless claim:
"By excercising a one-year option on Lehtinen's contract and re-signing winger Niklas Hagman to a two-year contract..the Stars eliminated a good deal of hand-wringing for nervous fans. The pair will force opponents to focus on someone other than Modano..."
Waitaminute, let me get this straight; Stars fans were worried about Niklas Hagman re-signing? The same Hagman that has never scored more than
10 goals or 30 points in one of his 4 NHL seasons? And he's going to be the guy taking pressure off of the Star's other offensive forwards?? BWAHAHAHA!
Either Teaford is a shamless fan-boy of the Dallas Stars or he's never really watched them play. Or looked at their stats. What's even stanger is he grades the Dallas defense, their organizational strength, a (relatively) modest B+. Well...whatever you say, Elliott.
My final complaint concerns Iain MacIntyre's grading of the Calgary Flames forwards. His anaysis is relatively sound: he mentions the additions of Tanguay and Friesen, the need for better secondary support from players like Nilson, Lombardi and Yelle and Kobasew's break-through as a 20 goal scorer. He doesn't mention the fact that Lombardi was injured for a large portion of the season, nor that Huselius scored at a 60 point pace once he moved to Calgary from Florida last year...
So, he ends up giving the Flames forwards a D. While Im the first to admit that Calgary was very bad at scoring last year (particulary at ES scoring), I hardly think a roster boasting a two-time Rocket Richard winner in Iginla, a PPG producer in Tanguay and 2nd line populated by 20 goal getters (Huselius, Langkow and Kobasew) is worthy of a "D" mark. Especially if one considers Teaford's ejaculatory grading of the Stars forward ranks. Is Calgary an "A" offensive club? Nope...but I also don't think we should be considered bottom of the barrel - here are the forward marks for some of the worst teams in the league: St. Louis (C+), Columbus (B-), Chicago (C-), Washington (C+!) and Pittsburgh (B-). Hmmm...in fact, the only other team to garner a (D) for the forwards was Phoenix. As you can see...there are some consistency issues with the grading.
Rants and nit-picking aside, the Sporting News mag is worth a look. Most of the punditry is sound if you can forgive the slight lack of grading continuity and Elliott Teaford's incredibly odd man-love for Jere Lehtinen and Niklas Hagman, you won't be terribly disappointed.
