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[hockeygod]

Move to Winnipeg greatly increased NHL franchise's value

Winnipeg Free Press and Postmedia News, November 30, 2011

WINNIPEG — Moving the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg is paying off big time for the team’s new owners.

According to Forbes, the Jets gained the most value of any of the 30 National Hockey League teams from last season to this season.

A year ago, the Thrashers were valued at $135 million US. The new rankings estimate the Jets are now valued at $164 million, which represents a 21 per cent increase. The average year-over-year increase across the league was five per cent.

True North Sports & Entertainment bought the Thrashers in May for $110 million and paid a $60 million relocation fee to the NHL.

The Jets are ranked 24th in the league and are worth more than the Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers, St. Louis Blues, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Islanders and Phoenix Coyotes, according to Forbes.

The Coyotes, who visit MTS Centre to play the Jets on Thursday night, are owned and operated by the league, and are valued at just $134 million to finish last in the valuation ranking.

At the top of the list are the Toronto Maple Leafs, valued at $521 million. The Rangers are second at $507 million, while the Montreal Canadiens are third at $445 million.

The majority owners of the Leafs, the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, had considered selling part of the team earlier this year, but have since decided to retain ownership. The Leafs’ value increased by three per cent this season, according to Forbes.

The Rangers are up 10 per cent and the Canadiens have seen their value rise nine per cent.

The Vancouver Canucks are the next Canadian team on the list at No. 7. They’re worth an estimated $300 million, up 15 per cent a year after reaching the Stanley Cup final.

The Calgary Flames are No. 13 at $220 million, up seven per cent. Their Alberta rivals in Edmonton are closing the gap — the Oilers jumped 16 per cent in value to $212 million and are ranked 15th.

The Ottawa Senators increased three per cent to $201 million and are ranked 17th.

One surprise on the list was the Dallas Stars, who despite ranking 29th in the league in attendance with just over 11,000 fans per game, are ranked 11th and saw their value increase by one per cent to $230 million. Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi bought the Stars out of bankruptcy two weeks ago. He paid only about $50 million in cash and assumed about $100 million in debt.

© Copyright (c) Winnipeg Free Press

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Proteau: Bruce Boudreau hiring no surprise
The approximately 67 hours it took Bruce Boudreau to get another NHL head coaching job was the quickest transition ever.

Adam Proteau, The Hockey News, 2011-12-01

In approximately 67 hours, Bruce Boudreau went from being a dead duck in Washington to the head Duck in Anaheim. Boudreau’s transition from team-to-team is the quickest in NHL history and proves that if you do solid work behind a bench in the league and haven’t been riding the coaching carousel for decades, some team will be in sufficiently dire straights to snap you up quickly enough.

You need only take a cursory glance at the standings to know how regularly failing and firings are interwoven with fame and fortune in the hockey-coaching community.

Out of the Eastern Conference’s top five teams – the Penguins, Bruins, Panthers, Leafs and Rangers – only Pittsburgh’s Dan Bylsma and Florida’s rookie coach Kevin Dineen are on their first NHL head coaching assignment. Blueshirts bench boss John Tortorella is working for his second team, Boston’s Claude Julien is coaching his third and Toronto’s Ron Wilson is on his fourth. It’s no different with the West’s top five teams: Minnesota has a rookie head coach in Mike Yeo, but Detroit’s Mike Babcock and Phoenix’s Dave Tippett are on their second job, Chicago’s Joel Quenneville is on his third and St. Louis’ Ken Hitchcock is coaching his fourth team.

The fact is, if you’re an NHL coach who’s had success for a decent amount of time either in terms of a Stanley Cup victory that Bylsma, Tortorella, Julien, Babcock, Quenneville and Hitchcock have on their resumes or you’re a Jack Adams award-winner like Tippett and Boudreau, a GM interested in making a coaching change is likely to feel more comfortable bringing you in and selling you to his players, media and fans. That has to be a bit of a comfort to Carlyle, who won the Ducks’ only Cup in 2007 and also has the cushion of a three-year contract signed in the summer to sit on for the foreseeable future.

Just like Boudreau, he’ll probably be back on the scene soon enough. A struggling team with a soft touch of a coach will want the stern, structurally sound philosophy Carlyle offers – in other words, the reverse of what happened in Anaheim, when Ducks GM Bob Murray saw Boudreau’s more player-friendly approach as the balm to soothe what ailed his team. And as we see in Columbus, Long Island, Calgary and Colorado, there is no shortage of struggling teams who might snap up Carlyle before the all-star break, if not the start of next season.

But back to Boudreau for a second. He’ll get the benefit of a clean slate, as well as the return of key defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, due back in a couple of weeks from a broken finger that’s had him out since mid-November. Boudreau will also be far from the churning soap opera in Washington and safe in the knowledge that efforts to motivate Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf (and, if he isn’t traded, Bobby Ryan) won’t be under the microscope to nearly the same degree as his trials and tribulations with Alex Ovechkin were.

However, there are only so many kicks at the can he, and most coaches, will get regardless of their trophy-winning history. Hitchcock and former Oilers coach Craig MacTavish were considered, but passed over for numerous jobs last summer and legendary coaches Mike Keenan and Pat Quinn no longer are the first, second or third choices of teams as they once were.

But that’s the normal order of things in the coaching world. Including Carlyle’s firing, there now have been 167 NHL coaching changes since the Buffalo Sabres hired Lindy Ruff, the league’s longest-tenured bench boss, in 1997. Ruff and Nashville’s Barry Trotz stand out because they are the exceptions to the rule, the rocks in a never-ending sea of shifting sands. For virtually every other coach, it doesn’t matter how many wins they’ve amassed, they have and always will be more expendable and acquirable than talent. They’re the first to fall when things go awry, but nearly as often, the first call made to replace a colleague who has fallen on hard times.

For guys like Boudreau and Carlyle, that’s a curse and blessing they’ve been aware of from the moment they began coaching. It’s the nature of the fickle, insatiable beast.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Spezza the Cowboy

Ian Mendes, TSN.ca, December 1, 2011

On Wednesday morning, Jason Spezza held up a blue and white No. 19 jersey and had a big smile on his face.

But Senators fans can relax — their star centre wasn't trying on a Maple Leafs jersey for size. Instead, Spezza was inside the Pro Shop at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, purchasing a new Miles Austin jersey for himself.

"I've got a Romo one at home, and I love Miles Austin," Spezza said with a grin.

In case you didn't know, Jason Spezza is a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan. And in the interest of full disclosure, so am I. When I noticed the Senators schedule included an off-day here in Dallas, I approached Spezza about the idea of doing a full tour of Cowboys Stadium with me for a TV feature. Spezza jumped at the chance, and thanks to the PR staff of the Dallas Cowboys, we were able to make this happen on Wednesday morning.

As we walked onto the field, Spezza was blown away by the sheer size and scope of Cowboys Stadium. Our microphone caught him saying "Wow" and "This is sick" about a half-dozen times throughout the tour. Spezza was constantly snapping pictures with his iPhone, taking in the stadium like he was a Japanese tourist.

"This is an amazing stadium," he told me. "There's probably four or five times as many people than are at our games. I think it would add to the intensity, and you can see why football guys get all jacked up when they come out here."

Spezza became a Cowboys fan when he was growing up in Mississauga. He was nine years old when the Cowboys won their first of three Supers Bowls in 1993. Those Dallas teams were an offensive juggernaut, and Spezza was immediately drawn to them for that reason.

"I was young, but I remember watching them, with the dynasty they had with the swagger," he recalls. "I think the whole culture of the team, with Jerry Jones as the owner, is what drew me to the franchise."

Being a Cowboys fan means you are constantly the subject of ridicule, since the team is on par with the New York Yankees as the most-hated sports franchise in North America. Spezza says teammate Zenon Konopka gives him the hardest time about being a Dallas fan inside the Sens locker room, but it's nothing compared to the exchanges he has with his good friend Brian McGrattan. The two text each other every Sunday, with McGrattan — a die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fan — ripping Spezza and his Cowboys.

Even with a young daughter at home and a busy work schedule, Spezza says he's able to watch the Cowboys play every week.

"I'm pretty lucky. My wife is good to me. I can watch almost every week, and if I can't, I'll tape the games and watch them before I go to bed," he says. "Sundays are usually our days off, so I'll spend the morning with the family and then spend the afternoon on the couch watching the game."

On the field, Spezza tried his hand at a Tony Gonzalez-style basketball dunk over the uprights inside Cowboys Stadium. He could touch the goalpost, but didn't quite do the full dunk. "I could probably just throw it over like Drew Brees," he laughed.

The tour took us inside the famous Cowboys cheerleaders’ locker room, which unfortunately for us was not occupied at the time. The cheerleaders’ room was more impressive than most NHL team locker rooms, albeit most hockey players don't need lighted mirrors and personalized make-up trays at each of their stalls.

We also had a chance to go inside the Cowboys’ team locker room, which had substantially less pink in the colour scheme — despite what Giants fans might tell you. Spezza was excited to see Tony Romo's game-day locker stall, located on the left side of the room next to Jason Witten’s and Dez Bryant’s. The offensive-minded Spezza shares a connection to Romo and understands the pressures he faces. While Romo can be a polarizing figure to Cowboys fans, there's no denying where Spezza sits on the debate.

"I like Tony Romo. I feel for the position he's in sometimes. He gets some hard knocks towards him, but he's a determined guy,” Spezza explained. “He's taken some flack from the media, but he's proven he can win. I'd like to see him get over the hump and win a championship here."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Flames' Smith took long road to NHL

Vicki Hall, Calgary Herald, November 30, 2011

Derek Smith fully admits the negative notion infiltrated his mind a time or two on those brain-numbing bus trips that come with the job in the American Hockey League.

“You start to think maybe you’re time is up,” the Calgary Flames defenceman said Wednesday. “Maybe you won’t be able to make it full-time in the NHL.”

With every passing year, a new crop of promising draft picks arrive in the AHL with great fanfare. With every passing year, the reputation of a minor-league lifer becomes tougher to shed.

At age 27, Smith accomplished just that in earning his first full-time NHL job with the Calgary Flames.

“A long journey,” he said. “A much longer road than some of the other guys.”

The road took him to the side of the Nashville net Tuesday in the first period at the Scotiabank Saddledome. His defensive partner T.J. Brodie wisely took a look and unleashed a slap pass that landed right on Smith’s tape.

Just like that, a scenario imagined for some 20 years turned into reality.

“Every kid dreams about playing in the NHL,” he said. “And they dream about scoring their first goal.”

As a kid, Smith pretended to score that goal every day in road hockey games on the crescent in front of his home in Belleville, Ont.

“We would scream ‘car’ run to the side of the road to make sure we didn’t get hit,” he said. “There were tennis balls all over the place.”

His father Rick and mother Sandy watched many of those pickup games. Smith hopes they stayed up long enough Tuesday to witness his first NHL strike on television.

Rick toils as a plant manager for a plastics company. Sandy works at the local school board. Both have to be at the office early in the morning.

“They work long hours,” said Smith, who logged a season-high 22:33 after Mark Giordano went down in the 1-0 win over the Predators. “My dad is on the road a lot. They haven’t been out yet to see me this year.

“Hopefully, they get some time off.”

No rush, according to head coach Brent Sutter. Their son is here for the long term.

“He’s so steady and poised,” Sutter said. “I didn’t know much about Derek at all when he came into camp — outside of the fact he put up some decent numbers in the American League.”

Indeed. Besides a nine-game audition last year in Ottawa, Smith collected 10 goals and 54 points for the Calder Cup champion Binghamton Senators.

Smith signed this summer as a free agent in Calgary.

“It’s never too late,” Sutter said. “If you get an opportunity, you take advantage of it. You look at him. It’s obviously been a great fit for us.

“Just so poised. He makes those plays stick to stick. He’s an intelligent guy.”

An intelligent guy who bulled his way into the NHL the hard way as an undrafted free agent out of Lake Superior State University. Mobile and defensively responsible, Smith is a bit of a hybrid.

No one will ever mistake the six-foot-one, 197-pounder for the next coming of Robyn Regehr on the physical side of things. Senators phenom Erik Karlsson need not worry about the newcomer in the defensive scoring race.

“He knows what his game is,” Sutter said of Smith. “And he pays it to the best of his abilities.”

Which is a good thing. Even though his NHL prospects looked dark at times, Smith never seriously considered another career outside of hockey.

“I would like to say I would be in a band,” he stammered when asked about his other options. “But I’m not very good at that.”

Apparently, Smith doesn’t sing or play any instruments, so his chances of joining a band — something like Alice in Chains or Tool — are remote, to say the least.

Guitar Hero doesn’t count.

“I guess I would have to learn,” he said. “There’s no Plan B as of right now.”

In his case, Plan A has finally come true.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Walsh slams Jackets coach Arniel

Sportsnet Staff, December 1, 2011

Outspoken NHL player agent Alan Walsh sounded off again in a statement released Thursday, this time criticizing Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Scott Arniel.

Walsh slammed Arniel for the way he is treating his client and Blue Jackets centre Derrick Brassard, who has been a healthy scratch in eight of the last 11 games.

"While I have tremendous respect for Scott Howson and the rest of Columbus' management team, the situation regarding Derick Brassard has become untenable," Walsh said. "This coach has a history of burying players and using them as scapegoats to mask his own lack of success on the ice.

"Derick has been singled out, almost from the very beginning of the season to be the fall guy in case things don't go well. The Columbus organization cares about Derick and has been good to him, but at some point enough is enough."

Brassard, the Jackets sixth overall pick in 2006, has two goals and four points in 17 games with a minus-11 rating while averaging 13:52 of ice time.

Walsh has a history of brazenly defending his clients, most notably in 2010 when he chastised then-Minnesota Wild head coach Todd Richards for underutilizing winger Martin Havlat.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Realignment on the way?

John Shannon, Sportsnet.ca, December 2, 2011

In a season that seems to be chock full of big stories, the NHL has set the stage for another big story on Monday and Tuesday in Pebble Beach. Many league officials believe that out of the annual Board of Governors' meeting will come the new realignment plan. Earlier this week, the league circulated the two-day agenda. On the agenda were two realignment plans. One simple, one a little more progressive.

I'm told, the two plans will be presented without a recommendation from the commissioner's office, and they are plans that "reflect the greatest level of club interest." The simple one is just a swap of Detroit for Winnipeg. That fulfils the promise of Gary Bettman to Mike Illitch to put the Red Wings in the east.

The second proposal is very close to the one we have been discussing for a few months that would see the removal of the two conferences (and six divisions) for four divisions and would include a more balanced schedule. It would appease the Wings' demand that, if in fact they can't be in the East, every team in the league would play a minimum of one home-and-home series. That proposal would also call for two rounds of divisional playoffs, which would help maintain the regional rivalries, if they don't play as many games against each other in the regular season.

Remember that it takes a two-thirds vote by the group to approve a new system, so nothing can be taken for granted. In fact, on his weekly show on Sirius/XM radio, Bettman has backed off earlier assertions that it would be done for sure by Tuesday.

"If we don't get it done now, we're going to be in really tough shape if we don't get it done by the All-Star Game," he said. "I don't even think we can wait that long. But I haven't figured out what we'll do if it doesn't happen (next week)."

I'm suspect that message was not for the fans but rather for the 30 owners who have their own realignment agendas.

Having worked for the man, I know Bettman goes to every meeting with a plan of getting four or five key issues accomplished. He does a great job of reading the temperatures of the owners. This appears to be one agenda item that has the commissioner in a state of flux. I'm not sure I've seen that before.

—–

The other agenda items are typical of any NHL meeting. Both Colin Campbell and Brendan Shanahan will do updates on the state of the game. Owners will be told that concussions are down and that the competitive state of the game has never been better (so why change the divisions?). Bill Daly will do the CBA update and try to tell the owners what Donald Fehr is talking about with his players' meetings. One would suspect those discussions will lead to thoughts on how the new NBA labour deal will influence next year's talk with the NHLPA.

They will also be told of the new-found success of the game in Europe. This has been an important stress point for many of the owners, when you consider that 30 per cent of the players come from Europe, but it has been an underachieving revenue stream.

Under John Collins, the former NFL executive who now heads all business ventures for the NHL (as COO), this has been a big focus. For the past few years, the NHL has probably netted no more than $5 million from distributing TV and broadband signals in Europe. With new contracts in place (including one just announced in Russia), the NHL will probably be at or close to $30 million. Now, every game of the regular season is available in key hockey hotbeds like Finland, Sweden and the other Nordic countries.

Much of Collins' vision has come from a man named Phil Lines. Lines is a London-based broadcast expert who grew the English Premier League's broadcast business before joining CAA as its media distribution expert.

After a frustrating start to the season, when the league's vision appeared to be blacked-out in Europe, Lines and his people have helped the explosion of the content throughout Europe, into the Middle East and Africa.

—–

For the record, I was not one who supported the NHL signing a 10-year television contract in the United States. The reasons are many, including the ever-changing technology and my gut feel that creating a broader base of distribution over two networks would help hockey. However, the new NBC Sports Group has impressed me with its plan of attack. It has made a concerted effort to cross-promote and use other NBC/Comcast platforms to tell Americans about the game. NBC's nightly coverage with guys like Jeremy Roenick and Mike Milbury is an improvement over previous attempts.

So I can only imagine the frustration in the office in Stamford, Conn., as they watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Right there in the parade was a float with Hall of Famers Cam Neely and Larry Murphy, to help promote the new NBC/NHL event on Black Friday. It was a great idea, and a fantastic demonstration of the new partnership and ability to promote a game outside of the hockey world.

And then Matt Lauer spoke. All he did was read that card put in front of him by a production assistant.

All he said was, "And tomorrow's game features the Detroit Red Wings and the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Boston Brewers."

Yup, the Boston Brewers. I don't blame Lauer, or even the guys at NBC Sports. But it always seems to happen to hockey. Every time there's a breakthrough, there's a gaff. One step forward, two steps back.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Campbell: Acquiring Bruce Boudreau better than trading Bobby Ryan

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News, 2011-12-02

When you think about it, Alex Ovechkin just might have saved Anaheim Ducks GM Bob Murray from making one of the biggest blunders of his managerial career.

Stay with us on this one. In a Nov. 1 game against the Ducks – how’s that for irony? –then-Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau introduced Ovechkin to the pine in the dying minutes of the game, prompting a confrontation between the two men that resulted in Ovechkin referring to Boudreau as something rhyming with ‘Pat Puck.’

Now, if you subscribe to the theory that the confrontation with Ovechkin spelled the beginning of the end for Boudreau in Washington, the first domino to fall in a demise that culminated with his firing Monday, then you can start to connect the dots. (This corner, by the way, doesn’t agree with the notion there was a major rift between Ovechkin and his coach and that the Capitals were ultimately playing to have Boudreau fired, but we can appreciate there are a lot of people out there who do.)

Four weeks after that game, Murray fired Ducks coach Randy Carlyle and you’d have to think the availability of a coach of Boudreau’s pedigree had a lot to do with it. After all, it’s not often coaches get fired hours after their team wins a game. But the Ducks felt they needed a coach with a velvet glove (Boudreau) instead of a spiked club (Carlyle) because the Ducks players were in that abyss where they would no longer respond to a taskmaster. So in comes the players’ coach, who four days earlier was drummed out of Washington because his approach of treating players like responsible and accountable adults wasn’t working and needed to be replaced by the aforementioned club bearer-type coach. The mindset of the NHL millionaire never ceases to amaze.

To get his team out of its downward spiral, Murray felt he needed to either fire his coach or trade Bobby Ryan and he opted for the former, taking Ryan off the trade market just hours after making the Boudreau-for-Carlyle transaction. And that was a very good call on Murray’s part. It has nothing to do with Carlyle’s competence as a coach. But if Murray felt he had to do one or the other, choosing to keep Ryan over Carlyle was the right move.

Not sure what others think, but from this corner the prospect of dealing a talent such as Ryan away so early in his career has Cam Neely-from-Vancouver-to-Boston written all over it. In his previous three seasons in the NHL, Ryan scored exactly 100 goals (31, 35 and 34) and his point totals trended upward each season. So suddenly the Ducks were poised to trade him after one subpar quarter season?

Ryan is not the kind of player easily found. To be sure, there are players who have enjoyed more productive careers so far and were chosen well after Ryan went second overall in 2005 – most notably Anze Kopitar and Paul Stastny – but players of Ryan’s ilk tend to take a little longer to develop. At 6-foot-2 and 209 pounds, Ryan has the pedigree of an elite power forward. For a man of his size, he has the capacity to take you out of your seat with his 1-on-1 moves, as evidenced by this clip, or this one. He has an enormous amount of poise with the puck, is just as dangerous as a set-up man as he is a scorer and possesses a terrific shot. Sure, he has issues with skating and consistency, but so did Dave Andreychuk, and look how he turned out.

Murray actually cautioned that even though Ryan is off the market, it would not preclude him from making a deal involving Ryan or any other player if he thought it would improve the Ducks. In this corner’s humble opinion, if that deal did not include an established roster player, a promising prospect and a high draft pick, it’s not a deal worth considering. Because if you trade Ryan, you do so knowing there’s a chance he’ll play 1,000 games in the NHL and score somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 goals.

Now if the Ducks ever find themselves in a position where they have to trade Ryan because they can no longer accommodate his $5.1-million cap hit or they get an offer that is simply too good to refuse, that’s one thing. But to trade him just to shake things up on a team that has been a colossal disappointment would be shortsighted and foolhardy.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Rumor Focus: Washington Capitals

Lyle Richardson, The Hockey News, 2011-12-01

The Washington Capitals’ 5-9-1 decline after a 7-0 start brought an end to Bruce Boudreau's tenure as coach. He was replaced earlier this week by former Capitals center and London Knights bench boss Dale Hunter.

For the time being, this move has halted speculation GM George McPhee would shake up his roster with a trade.

It remains to be seen how the Capitals perform under Hunter, though their first game with their new coach, a 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues, wasn't a promising start.

Should the Capitals reverse their recently declining fortunes and return to their accustomed status as a Stanley Cup contender, any trade talk involving them this season will be about which “rental players” McPhee might acquire at the trade deadline to bolster his roster for the playoffs.

On the other hand, if they haven't improved by New Year's Day, especially if their playoff hopes are in jeopardy, expect the Capitals trade rumors to roar back to life.

The automatic target, of course, will be right winger Alex Semin, grossly overpaid at $6.7 million and currently on pace for 36-points, his lowest total since the 22 points of his 2003-04 rookie campaign.

Semin, 27, has been frequently brought up as a trade candidate for the past couple seasons, especially among rumor bloggers, who of late have linked him to the Islanders, Red Wings and Kings.

These speculators, however, continually overlook the difficulty in trading an overpaid underachiever, especially in today's salary-cap world. Semin's $6.7 million would be tough to move if he were at least playing decently. Given his current performance, it's almost impossible.

His eligibility for unrestricted free agency next summer could also have an adverse impact on his trade value, making him a rental player for another club. If he continues his current level of production, the Capitals would either have to accept another player on a bad contract or a lesser return, which wouldn't be much help much down the road.

Looking at these factors, it's difficult to imagine any GM at this point believing Semin is worth the gamble, even as a short-term pick-up.

Defenseman Mike Green's name first appeared in trade rumors last season and intensified after the Capitals were swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning in their Eastern Conference semifinal.

The oft-injured Green is once again sidelined, this time indefinitely by a groin injury, putting to rest speculation he could be on the block at some point this season.

Green is slated for restricted free agency this summer. If McPhee were to consider him too expensive to re-sign, he could put him on the block by the trade deadline, but that's unlikely if they're still in the playoff chase by then.

Despite Green's brittleness, his offensive skills from the blueline make him too valuable to part with during the season. It wouldn't be surprising if McPhee re-signed him, albeit for a shorter term around the same cap hit ($5.25 million) as this season’s.

If McPhee were to hit the trade market to bolster his lineup, his rivals would be more interested in promising, affordable young players like defensemen Karl Alzner and John Carlson, who he's unwilling to part with.

Backup goaltender Michal Neuvirth might have some value for clubs seeking depth between the pipes.

While Neuvirth's stats this season aren't particularly notable, he displayed considerable promise last season as a starter with 27 victories, a 2.45 goals-against average, .914 save percentage and four shutouts. He also comes with an affordable $1.2 million per season salary.

With promising Braden Holtby in their system, Neuvirth might be McPhee's best trade chip if the need should arise later in the season to bolster the roster.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

FRASER: WHY REFS DON'T WORK IN TEAMS ON A GAME-TO-GAME BASIS

Kerry Fraser, TSN.ca, Dec 1 2011

Hey Kerry!

First snow day of 2011 in your hometown of Sarnia! I have a question about referee scheduling. A few years back before the four-man officiating system I had a chance to spend some time with local referee Don Van Massehoeven at a game in Detroit.

He said NHL referees don't work in teams on a game-to-game basis, but work in different combinations each game. This is in stark contrast to officials in the NFL, Major League Baseball, etc. Why is/was this system in place rather than working more regularly with the same group of officials to develop cohesion amongst a set grouping as seems to be more common in other sports?

Regards,
Phil Winch
Sarnia, Ontario

Part of the answer to your question is based on the history and tradition of our game dating back to the Original Six teams. Another element in the assignment process includes something that none of us will ever have control over – the weather!

Weather first. Hockey is played during the dead of winter unlike the MLB or considerably shorter NFL schedule. The theory was to send two or even three officials from different directions so that in the event of inclement weather the odds were pretty good that at least one official could make it to the game. In the days of train travel a crew might jump on the train out of Montreal (the train was held until the teams and equipment were all aboard) and go as far as Chicago for a game the next night. Of course Boston, New York, Toronto and Detroit were other platform options if the crew of three was broken up.

Paul Stewart and his crew got stranded in Carolina for the better part of a week one season when a freak blizzard paralyzed Raleigh-Durham. Nothing could come in or out of the Crabtree Marriott Hotel they were staying in. The biggest dilemma the patrons faced was that the hotel ran out of food and beer.

In my final season, six days prior to Christmas I worked a Saturday afternoon Flyers game (close to home) and was scheduled to fly to Carolina the next day. Brad Watson was working a game in Carolina and then assigned to the next Flyers game two nights later. We would pass one another in the air.

Problem was "the perfect storm" was forecast up and down the eastern seaboard. It actually started to hit as I was driving home from the Flyers game so I called NHL assigner, Randy Hall and suggested he leave Watson in Carolina for the next game and I would take his assignment in Philadelphia. I knew nothing would be moving on the ground let alone in the air. Great decision from Mr. Hall since three feet of snow fell the overnight followed by another two feet the next day. Both games were covered.

The cost of doing business: Former Referee in Chief, Ian "Scotty" Morrison told me the team owners wanted his assurance that each referee would work an equal number of times in their building. This was especially true through the years of expansion when new officials were added to the staff. Since the owners paid an equal portion of the officiating budget they wanted an equal share of the more experienced and higher rated referees as opposed to a regular diet of rookies. Overexposure of one official was never a healthy idea for either the official or the team.

One time when my game assignments overlapped from one assignment period to another I noticed that I was scheduled to work the Montreal Canadiens six games in a row while they were on the road. Attention had been paid to the home team cities in my assignments but the visiting team fell through the cracks. When I brought this obvious oversight to the attention of the Officiating Department a change in a couple of the games was made.

Bobby Clarke, as general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers felt there wasn't enough familiarity between referees and players because a team might have a young referee one game and not see him again for a month. Bob felt this contributed to a lack of relationship building between officials and players. This was especially magnified (in Clarkies opinion) if the first game didn't go well since there was no quick opportunity to mend the fence for the referee or the player(s). Let's not forget the coaches as well.

Bobby Clarke's remedy to this perceived problem was to take the senior referees and make them crew chiefs. The veterans would be assigned a pool of younger officials that would rotate amongst them for a number of games at a time. He also felt the groupings should remain within a division/conference for half the season at a time.

As we moved from one referee on the ice to two there were growing pains in implementing this new system. No differently than through expansion of teams that elevated inexperienced players, the NHL Officiating staff doubled in size with the implementation of the four man system.

Every official experiences growing pains until they gain experience and become accepted by the players. Experience aside, the most pressing challenge was to mesh two independent thinking referees into a team that exercised similar judgment from one end of the rink to the other – establish some form of consistency. That's what the players want most so they know what they can and can't do. (And then try and get away with all they can.)

I think the officiating team has come a long way (most of the time) in this regard. To be more direct Phil, there is a standard system in place that each official must work within on a nightly basis no matter who they are partnered with. Their responsibilities don't change nor does their obligation to communicate with their partner on the ice.

Some people are certainly more compatible with certain individuals than others; that's just human nature. There has been an effort made through the assignment process to keep pairings and crews together for a few games at a time to act as mentors and establish familiarity and cohesiveness as you suggest. This is always the case during the Stanley Cup Playoffs where pairings occur with both the referees and linesmen until the deck might be reshuffled towards the later games in a series.

I think a crew that was assigned together for the whole season would have to be very, very compatible. Familiarity might even breed contempt! They might even resort to pranks on one another.

In the days of riding the rails during the original six team league the officials were a small, tightly knit group. They also didn't make very much money and resorted to all kinds of measures to save on expenses. The stories told about rough and tumble Linesman, George Hayes are legendary. He travelled light to be able to fill his equipment bag with beer for the long train rides and would pack a lunch to save money.

Referee, Eddie Powers thought he would help Hayes save money by packing him a "special lunch" for the train ride from Montreal to Chicago. Powers had picked up a can of dog food that afternoon and on the train that night after a couple of beers offered the 'meatloaf' sandwiches to Hayes which he ate heartily. George commented that the meatloaf tasted a little different but thanked Powers none the less for saving him some per diem money.

The Montreal Canadiens were in their private car on that train and playing in Chicago that next night. Powers happened to tell one of the Montreal players that he had given George Hayes dog food sandwiches. That night in the Chicago Stadium every time a Habs player came near Hayes or he dropped the puck at a face-off the Montreal center would begin barking like a dog.

Finally George Hayes asked them what the hell was wrong with them. Near the end of the game one of the Habs players let the cat out of the bag and George learned that he had eaten a can dog food. Rather than chase Powers around the ice he said it was the best dog food he ever ate. Woof…

I really don't see an advantage to keeping a crew together for the extended periods, Phil.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Boudreau preaches optimism, belief in first day

Jon Rosen, Fox Sports West, December 1, 2011

Statistically, there have been worse months for the Anaheim Ducks than their 2-8-3 November, though none of them stung quite like this.

Four and a half years removed from raising the Stanley Cup on the Honda Center ice, the Ducks on Wednesday fired Randy Carlyle, the franchise's winningest coach and the third-longest tenured coach in the NHL.

Friday night, his replacement, Bruce Boudreau, will stand behind the bench for the first time with the Ducks as they host the Philadelphia Flyers — becoming the eighth head coach in club history.

On a professional level, the move was necessary, according to general manager Bob Murray — though on a personal level, it was hard to accept.

"As you guys all know, this is a real rough three days for me just because of what I think about Randy," Murray said.

"It was tough, but after the weekend and watching, we've been through funks before with this group. We're in one, and after watching the way we played Friday and Sunday, I decided that it was time for a new voice.

"It doesn't mean that the guy is a bad coach or a bad person, it's just it was time for this group to have a new voice in the locker room and it was time to move forward. We're all accountable — everybody in hockey ops is accountable for this."

That new voice belongs to Boudreau, the former Washington coach who was fired by the Caps only Monday.

Boudreau is the fastest coach to win 200 games in the modern era, and someone who once again will have an assortment of elite talent – and perhaps a few questions defensively.

"I sat there on Tuesday, and if I didn't believe that this was a team that had the possibilities of making something special, I think I would have sat down and waited," Boudreau said among his first remarks at Thursday's news conference.

The events fell together quickly. Upset with the Ducks' performance in demoralizing weekend losses to Chicago and Toronto, Murray immediately called Capitals GM George McPhee after it was announced Boudreau had been fired. He was granted permission to speak with the coach, quickly noting his desire to get back to work quickly.

"When I talked to Bruce, I wanted to sense in his voice if he was ready to go right back at it or not,'' Murray said. "That was important to me."

Carlyle then coached the Ducks to a 4-1 victory over Montreal Wednesday night, shaking off an underwhelming start before watching the team become more comfortable as the three periods progressed.

After the game, he met with the team and the coaches, spoke with reporters and returned to his office to find Murray waiting to hold the discussion that three NHL coaches have now heard in the last week.

"It's been an awful three or four days," Murray said of the news that he had to break to a close friend and colleague.

The news appeared to shed doubt on the likelihood of a trade involving Bobby Ryan, despite reports less than 24 hours earlier that such a trade was "imminent".

For Ryan, after several days of practicing, playing in games and speaking to reporters regarding the pressures and distractions of his future with the club, there at least was some reassurance taken in being able to put away that discussion and look for a spark under a new voice.

"You try and put things in the back of your mind as much as you can and you try and focus on the good and not the bad and all the things that are coming with the slump that we've had lately, but it's tough,'' Ryan said.

"It creeps into everything, and every outlet is there. For me, it's nice to step away from it a little bit and just get ready to play hockey under a new coach and a new regime, and hopefully turn some of the season around, because there's still time."

After Ryan saw time on the third line Wednesday in an effort to spread the offense around, Boudreau was willing to consider aligning him with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry again, saying he'll send them out together for their first shift.

"Beyond that, we'll have to see how they do," Boudreau said.

Taking the ice as the Ducks' coach for the first time Thursday morning, Boudreau led the team through an up-tempo work-out that had some good battles. There wasn't any prolonged meeting on structure or systems prior to taking the ice, only a discussion of what he expects out of every player on the team, with confidence and belief in one's self recurring themes.

"I want them to be very positive and I want to be aggressive," Boudreau said. "I want them to play the way they're capable of playing, and with energy and thinking that they're going to be successful the way they should be successful.

"This was a team that, before the season started, if you read a lot of the clippings, that they said would really contend for the Western Division Crown or the Pacific Division crown, and I think they're very capable of doing it. I want them to believe in themselves. That's the message for today: believe in themselves."

There still is plenty of time for a new voice to reach through to a capable Anaheim team. Eventually, Lubomir Visnovsky and very likely Jason Blake will return. George Parros comes back Tuesday and adds character to a group looking for veteran direction. Ten points out of a playoff spot with 58 games to play, April still seems quite a ways away.

Getzlaf spoke of his optimism and the belief necessary to turn the Ducks around.

"It was weird coming to the rink today," he said.

"It was different for me. It was exciting. I think it's going to be an exciting time for us. And like I said before, it shows that Murph believes in our group and brought somebody in here that feels that can take this group and run with it."

NOTES: Murray confirmed that trade talks including Ryan as well as several other Ducks did take place. "When you're struggling, and in a funk like we were, you get lots of phone calls," Murray said. "You always get phone calls. Sometimes you listen and sometimes you don't. And I'm not going to lie – I was listening.

"But don't think for one second the calls were just on Bobby. That was a popular one, but don't think it was just him. I'm hoping everything settles down right now. I think it will. But again, I've said this — if you're ever offered something that makes your organization better, I don't care who the player is, it makes your team better, you better damn well look at it." …

With his goal Wednesday night, Getzlaf snapped a 14-game goal-less streak. He now is in a seven-game point/assist streak (1-9-10). … Corey Perry has a four-game goal streak (4-3-7), his longest since a five-game streak since March 19-26, 2011.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Gretzky tones down sexy on Twitter

QMI Agency, Dec 2 2011

Racy Paulina Gretzky appears to be back on Twitter after a short break amid controversy of busty, barely-clothed self-portraits she'd posted.

But the 22-year-old daughter of the Great One seems to have toned down the sexy on her comeback.

The young Gretzky caused a stir when she posted dozens of photos of herself in revealing lingerie, bikinis and tight dresses. She has since posted a wholesome image of herself alongside her mom and brothers as her Twitter profile picture.

Reports surfaced Wayne disapproved of the scantily-clad photos on her account, @PaulinaGretzky. Most of them seem to have been removed aside from a few cleavage-baring shots.

On Nov. 26, the blond party girl posted, "Taking a break from Twitter for a bit. Happy Holidays!!! xoxo."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

It’s the time of the season for NHL coaching upheaval

Stu Hackel, SI.com, Dec 2 2011

Despite his recent three-year extension, coach Randy Carlyle was given the old heave-ho at the season's quarter pole before the struggling Ducks fell too far out of the playoff race. (Joe Scarnici/ZUMAPRESS.com)

As this week dawned, Bruce Boudreau was coaching the Capitals, Paul Maurice was bench-bossing the Hurricanes and Randy Carlyle was directing the Ducks. It’s only Thursday and, today, Bruce Boudreau is directing the Ducks, Kirk Muller is bench-bossing the Hurricanes and Dale Hunter is coaching the Caps. What will tomorrow bring?

Firing coaches has gone viral in the NHL. Why? “It’s about the time,” says Scotty Bowman, the legendary Hall of Famer who won nine Stanley Cups as a coach. “The first quarter of the season is gone. You’re coming up to the one-third mark now. The end of this month you’re halfway. These teams, if they don’t make a move now, it’s going to be a long season and they’re not going to catch up.”

When Bowman looks at the standings, he sees that the league’s recent parity bunches teams together and if one falls too far behind the main group, it will be in danger. “If you’re not in the pack, it shows up real bad now,” he says, looking at teams like the Ducks who, even with their win over Montreal on Wednesday night in Carlyle’s final game, are still 10 points out of a playoff spot with six teams to climb over. “If you’re in the mix, maybe there’s some teams who aren’t doing as well as they thought they would, but they’re in the mix. If you get behind six teams, it’s hard to catch up. The teams ahead of you all play each other. Those three-point games, especially, can kill you.”

With all the changes during the last few days, it seemed like a good time to check in with the greatest coach in NHL history, maybe the greatest coach ever in pro sports, and get his views on the rapidly spinning carousel of his former profession.

Still thinking like a coach, the 78-year-old Bowman knows that sometimes team performances have less to do with the guy behind the bench and more to do with the guy who assembles the roster. Some firings, he believes, are about GMs saving their own necks. “The managers have access to the owners,” he says. “See, there’s no path for the coaches; most owners don’t even know their coaches. If your team is doing lousy, it’s easy for me as a manager to make excuses and say it’s the coach. That’s why some coaches get fired.”

Bowman admits not knowing if that was the scenario in any of the four coach firings so far this season (this week’s trio, plus Davis Payne being replaced in St. Louis), but he does know that they all had their problems.

“I don’t know how good that team is,” he says of the Capitals, wondering if they might have been long overrated. “They’re always in a weak division. They’re always with teams that have no money or don’t spend to the salary cap. They get in the playoffs and their competition is tougher.

“I think what happened with Boudreau, he replaced Glen Hanlon, and they weren’t playing for him,” he continues. ”They bought in Boudreau, some guy from the minors, and they started to win by playing all-out offense. They didn’t play any defense. Then they started to lose in the playoffs and he tried to change,” alluding to Boudreau trying to get his players to become more defensively responsible after having some regular season success playing another way. “I don’t think you can change. It’s too bad for Boudreau, but he bounced back right away.”

Boudreau bounced to Anaheim, certainly a big surprise, considering that he was let go just two days earlier by Washington. Bowman wonders if the coach he replaces didn’t run into problems after changing his approach as well.

“Carlyle, I don’t understand. He was a big line matcher. He always had a defensive line. The year they won the Cup (2007), it was Sami Pahlsson, Travis Moen and Robbie Niedermayer. He changed on the fly (to get them out against their opponent’s best forwards) and they played a very disciplined game.” But those three players are all gone now, the Ducks defense corps is not what it was, and Carlyle seemed to have taken a different approach by playing his best forwards in situations where he previously used checkers.

“I’ve been watching them the last month and a half,” Bowman said. “The goalie wasn’t what he was, but their defense corps is horrible. And Perry, Getzlaf, and Ryan, they weren’t good in their own end. I know he didn’t have a checking line anymore because all those guys are gone. You know when you get star players, you can’t ever get them thinking that you want them to fail. You got to make them believe you’re always in their corner, you’re always trying to insulate them. I don’t know what he was doing.”

As far as Carolina goes, the Hurricanes are in that Southeast Division of lower payroll teams and it’s reflected by their roster as far as Bowman is concerned. “They’ve got Eric Staal and Jeff Skinner. Tuomo Ruutu’s OK. But they don’t have any other forwards. Their defense corps, he keeps getting recycled guys. How can you keep winning with recycled players? You click for a while, eh? They have a goalie (Cam Ward) who’s very good. He’s going to need some relief, though. They get a lot of shots against them.”

Will that doom Muller, Maurice’s replacement? “I don’t know much about him,” Bowman says, ”A lot of people swear by him. They say he’s going to be offensive-minded. Kirk Muller worked with Jacques Martin (in Montreal), and he’s a defensive guy. It’ll be interesting to see what he can do.”

What about the Blues, who have certainly had success after replacing Payne with Ken Hitchcock? “I just find they’re working,” Bowman says. ”They’re on top of the other team. They’re always chasing the puckcarrier. He’s got a guy whose always chasing the puck. They’re playing an uptempo game.” He likens it to the way the Red Wings have played successfully under Mike Babcock, who always has a forechecker going full tilt at the puckcarrier.

One of the great pleasures of a hockey conversation with Scotty Bowman is his ability to take the long view. He frequently refers to historic episodes and figures from the NHL’s past. It could be his mentor, Toe Blake, his days coaching the Blues, his Canadiens teams of the ’70s or anything that followed. He can trace the history of the rules and trends in the game’s sophistication and pinpoint how the current game evolved from the past.

So today, he notes, new coaching hires have an easier time fixing problems that used to confound his contemporaries of years ago.

“If a team was too offensive-minded and they brought in a guy who could tighten up the game, that was not an easy chore,” he says. “The most difficult thing to do was to stop pucks from going in your own net. You’d take over a team and you look at the goals-against and you’d say, ‘My God, we’ve got to cut out 30 or 40 goals here, about half-a-goal a game.’

“But I think now the way the game is, a coach can come in and play a real different type of style. He can play the trap, or have some other changes, don’t play guys against certain lines. I think a guy can come in now and it seems easier to stop teams from scoring.”

And that leads to a discussion on defensive tactics. Even though Bowman was a pioneer in helping develop major defensive systems like the neutral zone trap and the left-wing lock, he’s not a fan of an important strategy in the contemporary game: the way teams group in front of the goal to block shooting lanes. That, Bowman says, inhibits many teams, especially ones that lack high-speed forwards, from launching counter-attacks and fostering entertaining end-to-end hockey. He believes this is a consequence of the 2005 rule changes that included shrinking the neutral zone and cracking down on obstruction while forcing teams into “defending their house.”

“It’s hard to score now. It’s about five goals a game in the West, about five-and-a-half in the East. That’s not very many goals, eh? All the artificial ways they’ve made to score goals — face-offs coming in the defensive zone after a penalty is called, all the penalties they call. But it hasn’t affected the scoring.

“And the big thing is the goalies. They’re really good. Kids come into junior and college and they’ve had some really good coaching. When they get to the NHL now, they’re not learning on their own. They’ve got a certain format they’ve got to follow. Look at the save percentages now — 93 percent.”

Bowman is puzzled by the length of the deals that coaches get these days. “They give them three-year contracts. It’s expensive. I’m surprised, for the last four or five years, coaches automatically started to get three years. That’s been a big change. When I was around, even 10 years ago, you got one-year deals, maybe two years. You didn’t get longer than that. The owner said, ‘No, we’re not going to pay a coach not to coach.’”

Carlyle’s deal had been extended during the offseason and the Ducks are on the hook for his salary for the rest of this season and another two afterward. That didn’t stop his being replaced, however. Coaches come and go, sometimes at speeds that rival the game itself. Fortunately Scotty Bowman is paying attention and helping to provide some valuable perspective on this time of the season.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Don Cherry’s ratings take a hit

Bruce Dowbiggin, Globe and Mail, Dec. 01, 2011

It’s been gospel for a long while that Canadians tune in to CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada specifically to watch Coach’s Corner starring Don Cherry. Proclaims a CBC blurb: “Grapes is a Canadian icon. All because of a few minutes every Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada.”

The Brioux Report, a blog on Toronto.com, trumpeted: “Cherry continues to be ratings gold at CBC, with Hockey Night in Canada storming back to 2.4 million viewers last Saturday night.” One of the voices promulgating the idea of Cherry as must-see TV has occasionally been Mr. Cherry himself.

But recent TV numbers don’t seem to support the notion that Cherry is leading HNIC’s ratings anywhere. There is a considerable drop in viewers the instant game action ends and the theme music for Coach’s Corner begins. For example, ratings during the first period of last Saturday’s HNIC peaked at about 2.2 million viewers at 7:45 p.m. ET. But ratings show that by 7:58, that figure had plummeted by almost 800,000 to about 1.4 million during the first intermission of the show, precisely when Cherry is in mid-jeremiad.

The week before, first-period numbers peaked around 2.5 million viewers. By the time Cherry was on, almost a million people had found something else to do, as the number dipped to around 1.5 million. The numbers from this season have consistently shown such peaks during the action to more modest figures during the first intermission.

While we do not have data from previous years, Usual Suspects has learned that Cherry’s numbers were reportedly higher before the advent of portable people meters when people used written diaries to record their viewing patterns. But in their almost three years of use, the more sensitive PPMs have detected more volatility in the numbers over the course of the night.

All right, so lots of people use intermission to walk the dog or phone Aunt Ethel. And 1.4 million is still a home run in Canadian TV ratings. By comparison, Cherry’s numbers surpass those when HNIC goes from second-period action to the intermission. Last week, ratings peaked at around 2.4 million dropping to about 1.2 million when HNIC went to its Hotstove intermission segment. The week previous saw a drop from about 2.8 million to 1.3 million for the second intermission.

The question is: Why are people leaving their sets in such large numbers when action stops? Would ratings be higher in the first intermission without Cherry or is he a bulwark against a larger drop? Because the former NHL coach has been in the slot since 1981, it’s impossible to compare until he’s replaced, just as Cherry replaced Howie Meeker.

Coach’s Corner is still good business at CBC, however. Cherry’s advertising spots still sell out and garner significant revenue. Cherry does better than later intermission features, albeit with a larger potential audience.

The conclusion is that Cherry remains a strong brand, but claims that he brings viewers to HNIC or that his segment powers the ratings are not borne out by this season’s numbers. The game itself remains the biggest selling point. We asked the CBC about the variation in ratings when Cherry comes on HNIC, but a spokesman declined to comment.

CHERRY GO BRAGH

Sometimes only your best friends will tell you. Here’s the take of Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan when the topic of The Don came up on George Stroumboulopoulos’s CBC talk show.

http: //www.cbc. ca/strombo/videos.html?id=1910295093

SPEEDY BOUDREAU

Getting a kick out of sportscasters saying new Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau was the fastest coach to get to 200 wins in his career. Summons up an image of Boudreau in shorts and track shoes headed for the tape before Dan Bylsma, Mike Babcock and Alain Vigneault in some match race. What the talking heads mean to say is that Boudreau was the soonest to 200 wins of any coach. Donovan Bailey can rest easy.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Coaching carousel keeps going because it works

DAVID SHOALTS, Globe and Mail, Dec. 01, 2011

Reading Anaheim Ducks general manager Bob Murray’s rationale for firing head coach Randy Carlyle was just like listening to Washington Capitals GM George McPhee do the same when he fired Bruce Boudreau on Tuesday:

“This was an extremely difficult decision,” Murray said in a statement released in the wee hours Thursday. “Randy is a terrific head coach, and did a tremendous job for us for six-plus seasons.

“At this time, we simply felt a new voice was needed. Bruce is a proven winner with a great track record, and we are optimistic we can turn this season around under his leadership.”

McPhee had this to say on Tuesday: “This was simply a case of the players were no longer responding to Bruce. When you see that, as much as you don't want to make a change, you have to make a change. Bruce came in here and emptied the tank. He gave it everything he could and did a really good job, but the tank was empty. When that happens, you get a new coach, where the tank is full and see if it makes a difference.”

So Boudreau took his empty tank across the country where it was filled up by the Ducks. He is their new coach because Murray, after wrestling with the decision for the past few weeks, finally decided Carlyle may have directed the Ducks to their only Stanley Cup in 2007 but the reason the team was sitting near the bottom of the NHL’s Western Conference with a 7-13-4 record was that the coach’s players tuned him out.

So not even a 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on his final night on the job was enough to save Carlyle. He was fired along with assistant coaches Dave Farrish and Mike Foligno. Even the video co-ordinator got the chop.

One side note: Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke, who hired Carlyle when he was running the Ducks and holds him in high regard, was quick to head off the inevitable speculation Carlyle might replace Leafs coach Ron Wilson, who is awaiting a contract extension. Burke said on his Twitter account he is “sad to hear about Randy Carlyle. But our coach isn't going anywhere!”

This week’s firings of Boudreau, Paul Maurice of the Carolina Hurricanes and Carlyle and the quick hiring of Boudreau were all about two things: changing the message to the players and taking away their excuses.

The Capitals slid into ennui partly because Boudreau is not a taskmaster and because their resident superstar, Alexander Ovechkin, took advantage of that and his status as the local saviour of hockey. Boudreau tried to take on the disciplinarian role but that never works when you were a friend to the players for years.

On the left coast, Murray had the opposite problem. Carlyle is a demanding coach in the mould of a Ken Hitchcock or Mike Babcock. Many of the their players do not like them but they perform for them, or else.

So just as McPhee realized his team needed someone like Dale Hunter to come in and lay on the whip, Murray came to the conclusion his players needed to hear a more friendly voice. And there just happened to be a player’s coach with a great track record (if you overlook the playoffs) available, so hello Boudreau.

It is a tried-and-true formula in the NHL because it usually works. Boudreau got his first job in the NHL because the Capitals were not moving under the defensive, conservative approach of Glen Hanlon and he made it to 200 wins faster than any other NHL coach. Larry Robinson replaced the dour Robbie Ftorek late in the 1999-2000 season and took the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup. Then he was dumped in mid-season on two occasions in later years.

Now the Anaheim players no longer have the excuse that it’s difficult to play for such a demanding coach. Same thing in Washington, where the players admitted they stopped responding to Boudreau, who said as much himself.

This has been a crazy week for coaching changes but there may be more ahead. If these teams all realize immediate dividends then other GMs with under-performing teams may follow suit.

All eyes will be on the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Islanders in this regard. But a team really in need of a change from taskmaster to worker’s friend is the Calgary Flames. Head coach Brent Sutter is the leading proponent of the family creed that there is no fun in hockey.

Finally, Carlyle’s firing may keep winger Bobby Ryan with the Ducks. Murray reluctantly decided he would trade Ryan but only if he could get a stunning package of players in return. About 20 teams called but if Boudreau gets immediate results Murray may decide he doesn’t need to trade a talented young scorer.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Coyotes continue to haunt NHL governors

DAVID SHOALTS, Globe and Mail, Dec. 02, 2011

By now, the Phoenix Coyotes should have their own permanent entry on the agenda of the NHL board of governors’ annual meeting.

When the group convenes Monday in Pebble Beach, Calif., league realignment is the biggest item to be discussed. But the Coyotes, who have been a discussion point going back to 2008, are a factor in those plans as their ownership future is still uncertain.

At this point, no one knows when the NHL’s longest recurring nightmare will end. Until it does, though, it will be difficult for the governors to produce a realignment plan for the league. At best, they could put forward three plans: One if the Coyotes stay put in Arizona next season, one if they go to the Eastern Conference and one if they go to the Western Conference.

However, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly insists otherwise. He said in an e-mail there is “nothing new to report on the Coyotes’ sale. Any realignment plan approved by the board will be able to accommodate a change in situation for the Coyotes.”

At this point, the only thing certain about the NHL’s efforts to sell the Coyotes is it will not stick to the Dec. 1 deadline it set in previous years for the suburban City of Glendale to find a buyer willing to keep the team at Jobing.com Arena. However, if such a buyer is not found by playoff time next spring, the Coyotes almost certainly will be moved in time for the 2012-13 season.

While the NHL has made it known two groups are in the picture – one led by Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf and another fronted by former San Jose Sharks president Greg Jamison – even those in the middle of the situation don’t know what is happening.

“There’s so many rumours I’m not sure of my own name any more,” Glendale city councillor Phil Lieberman said. “You will pardon the military expression but it’s such an eff-ed up mess, it’s pitiful. I will be glad when the whole thing is settled.

“As a council member, I’ve spent hundreds of hours one way or another listening to deals, talking deals, talking to people making presentations. I’m sick of the whole damn thing.”

Lieberman said he and his fellow councillors expect to get an update on the sale from Glendale city manager Ed Beasley at an in-camera meeting Tuesday. He also said the city will not be covering any of the Coyotes’ losses beyond this season.

No doubt the councillors will get an explanation from Beasley about his announcement Friday night he plans to retire next year. He did not give a date but councillor Joyce Clake told the Arizona Republic Beasley told them he will not leave until “several internal projects are finished.” Clark said she thinks Beasley will wrap up the Coyotes negotiations by January.

Beasley and Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs were the driving forces behind the city’s disastrous entry into the game of building facilities for professional sports teams. The only success is the University of Phoenix Stadium for the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. The rest of the projects, from the Coyotes’ $180-million arena to $200-million spent building a spring-training facility that houses Reinsdorf’s baseball team were unmitigated disasters that left the city of 250,000 facing debts as high as $500-million and a final bill of $1-billion.

Scruggs could also be gone next year, since she and three of Glendale’s six councillors face re-election next August. She has not indicated if she will run again.

Two sources keeping tabs on the Coyotes sale believe Jamison has a conditional agreement with the NHL to buy the team. But he has to raise the money to meet the NHL’s asking price of $170-million (U.S.) and sources believe he has not be able to do so thus far.

If Jamison is unsuccessful, it is thought the NHL and Glendale will go back to Reinsdorf, who has been in and out of the sale negotiations even before the league bought the team out of bankruptcy in October of 2009 for $140-million.

At some point, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is going to face some hard questions from the governors. The league has been pouring money into the Coyotes since the start of the 2008-09 season, when former owner Jerry Moyes said he was finished paying the losses.

Glendale put up a total of $50-million toward the Coyotes’ expected financial losses in 2010-11 and 2011-12. Last season’s loss was $36-million, and it looks like this season’s will be about the same.

One source believes that even if Glendale’s contribution is subtracted, the Coyotes have cost the NHL about $200-million, including the purchase price.

Bettman did get about $60-million from the Winnipeg Jets as a relocation fee last summer, which was expected to offset the Coyotes’ losses. But at least some governors think that was a windfall that should have been shared among the other 29 NHL teams.

The economic forecast for Glendale is not promising. Former Coyotes owner Steve Ellman, whose dream of using the team to jump-start a retail and entertainment complex called Westgate City Center around Jobing.com Arena, recently lost control of the project.

Ellman’s lenders, who are out hundreds of millions of dollars, foreclosed on Westgate but were unable to attract even one bid in two auctions for the outdoor plaza and some land around it.

A New York-based real-estate investment trust, iStar Financial Inc., repossessed the main buildings and land. IStar put Westgate up for auction with a minimum bid of $40-million and now is operating the complex itself because there were no takers. Credit Suisse Group foreclosed on 95 surrounding acres but no one met its minimum bid of $25-million.

Westgate City Center remains open but like the Coyotes, its future is uncertain.

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