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'Selfish' Preds duo suspended for breaking curfew

Chris Stevenson, QMI Agency, May 2 2012

NASHVILLE – Idiots.

Nashville Predators forwards Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn apparently decided that going out the night before Game 2 in Phoenix and breaking curfew was a good idea.

As a result, the Preds will be without the skilled skaters for Game 3 of their second-round series against the Coyotes, a series Nashville trails 2-0.

In what was really the only decision available, the Predators suspended the pair for the game Wednesday night.

"Their behaviour was not committed, not focused, not conducive to allowing the team to be successful," Predators general manager David Poile said Tuesday. "What they did was unacceptable and the coaches and myself had to come to the plate and do the right thing for the team.

"It happened. It's really unfortunate. It's selfish behaviour and we'll just have to leave it at that."

He's right, but it should hardly come as a surprise.

Radulov, 25, always has been doing what's best for Radulov, including breaking his contract with the Predators on July 11, 2008 to bolt for the Kontinental Hockey League.

Kostitsyn, 27, had his share of off-hours tales told and written about him in Montreal when he was with the Canadiens.

The two Preds were seen out and about at a Scottsdale hot spot early Sunday morning. Game 2 was Sunday at 5 p.m. local time and there were no morning skates. The spot they were at was about an hour from the team hotel. Apparently they claimed they were not drinking, but the optics were bad.

Neither of them played well in Game 2, although after watching the game you might have thought all the Predators were out together.

Predators coach Barry Trotz discussed the situation with the club's leadership group.

"We said whatever you decide, we will stand by you," defenceman Ryan Suter said. "We're in the playoffs and we don't need distractions."

But they have a big one now.

"I've been a general manager for 30 years and always try to treat each individual player with care, but never, ever put the individual player ahead of the team," Poile said. "In this situation, both these players violated a team rule. This has been no more than a big distraction to our hockey team. It's very disappointing. Obviously, any time something like this would happen it would be disappointing, In the playoffs it's even more so.

"(It's) a pretty easy decision. Our creed has always been to try to do the right thing. I try to do that in my personal life, so I should try to do it in my business life. We've put the team ahead of a couple of individual players and we'll see where we go from here."

Poile brought the pair and their offensive potential into the Predators mix late in the season to bolster the team for a playoff run. There was a gamble associated with the move, given the players' suspect character, but there are still some cards to be dealt.

When asked if was disappointed in his teammates, Predators forward Mike Fisher was clear.

"Absolutely. Everyone is expected to commit at this time of year and be all in. That has been our real slogan. To not have that is definitely disappointing," he said.

"With that being said, we're all going to step up and rally together and get back to the way we know we can play. It's not just a couple of guys. It's going to be everyone. We've all got to be better."

Maybe Fisher's right and this can be a rallying point for the Predators, who haven't looked themselves in losing the first two games to a superior Coyotes squad.

Two of Matt Halischuk, Craig Smith and Jordin Tootoo will get a chance to replace Radulov and Kostistyn.

"(Radulov and Kostitsyn) are great offensively, but there have been guys champing at the bit and practising hard," captain Shea Weber said. "They're ready to go and there are other guys who can contribute here."

There's a slogan over the door of the Predators dressing room at their practice rink. It really resonated Tuesday.

"Unselfishness. It is essential to teammates and team success. We supersedes me."

Guess Radulov and Kostitsyn don't look up when they're walking out of the room.

—–

Radulov not really repentant: Winger broke curfew with teammate Kostitsyn

CHRIS STEVENSON, QMI Agency, May 2 2012

NASHVILLE – Alexander Radulov sounded like he was sorry — for getting caught.

The contoversial Nashville Predators winger broke curfew with teammate Andrei Kostitsyn in the wee hours of Sunday morning before Game 2 in Phoenix. The pair was suspended by the team for Game 3 Wednesday.

Radulov, the Predators' leading scorer in the playoffs, hardly seemed repentant when he spoke with the media Tuesday. He seemed more concerned with the people who ratted him out.

"The whole situation about it, it's something that was wrong, but not really the way it was," he said. "Like I said, I don't want to get into it and try to prove anything. It was something I didn't do right. They brought it up, not on our team, the people. I don't want to talk about those people who did that. Let it be on their side. It's the way it is."

The Predators have about eight to 10 team rules on how players should behave during the season. Radulov admitted he knew he was breaking one of those rules.

"Yeah. I mean, I didn't come back that late," he said. "I don't want to talk about it. They did what they have to do and I'm good with that. Not good, don't get me wrong, I'm disappointed and I understand what is my mistake. I hope that everything is going to work out for the team better and get a chance to play again in the future and help the team win."

Radulov said he would be on hand to support his teammates Wednesday night. Very noble of him.

"I'm going to be out there for the whole team, for all the guys and support them, whatever I can do myself. Hopefully the guys are going to go out there and win Game 3. That whole situation, I don't really want to get into it because I don't think it's really good, all the stuff. Hopefully everything is going to go well for our team and we'll battle through it, I'll battle through it."

Nashville GM David Poile, whose club is down 2-0 in the series to the Coyotes, said it would be up to coach Barry Trotz if the pair would play in Game 4.

—–

Preds coach comes clean: Trotz didn't know about partying pair

CHRIS STEVENSON, QMI Agency, May 2 2012

NASHVILLE – If the Nashville Predators find a way to win, bad boys Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn will continue to be on the outside looking in at the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Predators coach Barry Trotz, who was part of the decision to suspend the pair for breaking curfew before Game 2 of their second-round series against the Phoenix Coyotes, made it pretty clear that if the Predators found a way to win Game 3 Wednesday night, he would go with the same lineup for Game 4 Friday.

“Obviously with our situation, tonight if we get it done, I would expect I would probably go back with the same group, the group that gets it done,” said Trotz as his team prepared to try and get out of the 0-2 hole in which it finds itself.

Radulov and Kostitsyn were suspended by the team when it came to light the pair were out until the early hours of Sunday morning before Game 2 was played that afternoon at 5 p.m. Because of that start time, there were no morning skates.

Trotz said Wednesday he didn’t find out about the curfew violation until after Game 2 or the pair would have been out for Game 2.

“I’ll throw this out because it has been asked on a lot of shows. We did not know before Game 2. We found out after Game 2. Hell would have had to freeze over if they would have played Game 2 if I knew before. That’s how I am, that’s how the management team is and that’s how the Nashville Predators are run.

“There’s been a lot of speculation that we knew and that’s a bunch of crap. We didn’t. I just wanted to throw that out there because it’s been asked a lot, but not never to me.”

The Predators have struggled against the Coyotes, who have been full value for their 2-0 lead going into Wednesday’s game. There was some hope in the Nashville camp that with Radulov and Kostitsyn out of the lineup, the Predators might rediscover the form they showed for most the regular season. The pair were added late in the season, Kostitsyn at the trade deadline and Radulov from the Kontinential Hockey League when his season there ended.

With those guys suspended, it was expected Trotz would insert two of Matt Halischuk, Craig Smith or Jordin Tootoo.

Halischuk had 15 goals in the regular season and Smith, 14, so there’s some offence there to replace that potentially lost without Radulov, who leads the Preds in playoff scoring with a goal and five assists, and Kostitsyn.

“The guys that are out tonight, Andrei and Rad, they weren’t with us for 65 games or so. The guys who are going in have been together. A Craig Smith has been on the power play. We’ve had different people do that. They are going to be put in roles. They did it for 65 games. They’re going to be fine tonight,” said Trotz.

The coach was also expected to jiggle his defence pairings.

Defencemen Kevin Klein and Roman Josi were on the ice for three Coyotes goals Sunday. Josi was expected to be paired with veteran Hal Gill for Wednesday’s game while Klein was to be with Francis Bouillon.

Trotz said he was hoping the contrasting styles of Gill and Josi would mesh.

“Josi is a good transporter of the puck, he’s got good escapabiity sort of in the mold of Ryan Suter. He’s got good instincts to jump up offensively. Hal is sort of that big, steady rock back there who is a good communicator and he’s reliable for a young guy like Josi who will actively jump up into the play at times,” said Trotz.

“He just gives him that confidence that he’s back there. Hal is a great teacher for a young guy like Roman. Obviously their games are almost polar opposites, but sometimes that’s why it works so well.”

The Predators had not had the lead in this series going into Game 3.

Trotz was asked what would be a good start for his club.

“A good start,” he said, “is you don’t get scored on in the first minute.”

—–

Predators take big chance by suspending Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn

Cam Cole, National Post, May 2, 2012

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Putting two and two together, it must have been about the same time this scribe’s plane from Phoenix to L.A. was landing on Monday that Barry Trotz was deplaning in Tennessee to learn that the horse was out of the barn.

Two horses, actually: Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn. Out of the barn, and soon to be out of Game 3.

Out until 4 a.m., according to one report, before an afternoon game. In the second round of Stanley Cup playoffs. A coach said Tuesday: “It’s never good when you want to win more than they do.”

Trotz, the only coach the Nashville Predators have ever had, was quizzed privately after Sunday’s 5 p.m. game — a second straight playoff loss to the Phoenix Coyotes — about two of his team’s best offensive players being spotted drinking in Scottsdale (45 minutes away from the team’s hotel in Glendale) in the early morning of Game 2. At the time, he professed to know nothing about it.

Evidently it was members of the hard-working media corps who, against all odds, were perfectly positioned to witness the Preds’ curfew-busting — research never sleeps — but once the rumour was confided to Trotz, the internal investigation began.

Tuesday, the club announced that Radulov and Kostitsyn would not play Wednesday night at Bridgestone Arena due to a violation of team rules.

And so, let the debate begin.

Not the debate about the riskiness of drafting or signing Russians, though it has been a brutal few weeks for the highest-profile players of that particular ilk: probable Hart Trophy winner Evgeni Malkin a non-factor, except negatively, in the Penguins’ loss to Philly … Ilya Bryzgalov stupefyingly bad in goal for the Flyers for most of the first round … Alex Ovechkin playing severely reduced minutes for the Capitals under Dale Hunter in the post-season … Washington 2010 first-rounder Evgeny Kuznetsov announcing plans to sign in the KHL for two more years before joining the Capitals … Ilya Kovalchuk newly out of the Devils’ lineup with a lower-body injury … now Radulov, who bolted the Preds in the first place to play in the Russian league before returning prior to the trade deadline, suspended for missing curfew. By a mile.

Kostitsyn, who had his own after-hours adventures in Montreal before being dealt to the Preds, is Belarusian, but when it comes to recreational habits, it appears Minsk is not so far from Moscow.

No, the whole question of how much the post-Soviet Russian stars care about team before self is for another day — perhaps the day the Edmonton Oilers’ trigger finger is twitching over the No. 1 pick in the draft, and they wonder about taking consensus top gun Nail Yakupov.

The debate we’re talking about is: Are Trotz and GM David Poile doing right by their team in suspending two goal scorers for a playoff game in the middle of a series they trail 2-0?

“The Nashville Predators have a few simple rules centred around doing the right things,” Poile said in a statement posted on the team’s website. “We have always operated with a team-first mentality and philosophy. Violating team rules is not fair to our team and their teammates.”

Morally, it works for me, and it will work for most observers. But practically? If it’s team-first, isn’t it punishing the non-partying players, to voluntarily go into Game 3 without two significant weapons? Mightn’t a stern “We know what you did, you selfish turds, now you owe us” achieve similar results?

We’ll know by the way the Preds respond Wednesday night at home, after a couple of loose efforts in Phoenix. Perhaps it will be a rallying point for a supposed shutdown team that has looked unfocused in stretches and surrendered nine goals in two games to a Coyotes squad that is not overburdened with high-powered shooters.

Maybe Trotz figures he can’t get a worse effort out of one of his Black Aces, a Matt Halischuk or Jordin Tootoo, than he got in Game 2 from Radulov, who was ripped a new orifice on NBC by Keith Jones and Jeremy Roenick for his lazy, one-way play.

Trotz said Radulov “absolutely” warranted the criticism.

Kostitsyn, on the other hand, has been pretty good, though he shared the blame (or at least the minus-1) when his linemate David Legwand inadvertently threw the puck in front of his own net and gifted the Coyotes’ Radim Vrbata a goal Sunday.

It isn’t exactly unheard of, missing curfew, and partying the night before playoff games — though frowned upon — wasn’t always a suspendable offence.

In 1988, a pair of well-known imbibers, Petr Klima and Bob Probert, a recovering alcoholic, escaped the Detroit Red Wings’ team hotel in Edmonton to tear it up at a now-defunct joint named Goose Loonie’s before Game 5 of a Campbell Conference final against the Oilers.

Neil Smith, then the Wings’ assistant GM, and Colin Campbell, who was Jacques Demers’ assistant coach at the time, went looking for Klima and Probert and found them. Darren Veitch, John Chabot, Joey Kocur, Darren Eliot and two others were also out, according to the Detroit papers. The story didn’t break until after the game, so everyone played (though Klima was out with a broken thumb) but Detroit lost 8-4.

And though Demers had strong, bitter words for the miscreants and later apologized to fans for his players’ conduct, the incident — and the Wings’ five-games-and-out defeat — likely cost him his job.

No one’s likely to lose his job in Nashville over this.

A series, though? It’s a distinct possibility.

Barry Trotz and David Poile are taking a big chance — a chance that they may be doing the wrong thing for the right reasons — with a team that was finally supposed to be built to win a Stanley Cup.

“The decision between the coach and myself was very easy,” Poile said. “Their actions spoke volumes in terms of their lack of commitment and focus to give our a club a chance to win.”

If the hockey gods have a vote, the Predators win Game 3. And lose Game 4.

—–

The NHL’s Russian problems

Bruce Arthur, National Post, May 1, 2012

Sergei Fedorov defected in Seattle during the 1990 Goodwill Games, and he used his first signing bonus to get a two-bedroom apartment and a Corvette, and it was still all very difficult. He was the second Soviet hockey player to leave; Alexander Mogilny was the first, in 1989 in Stockholm. They were following in the haunted footsteps of violinists and ballerinas, playwrights and scientists, mathematicians and chessmasters. Russia was a hard place to leave; North America was a hard place to be.

“[Russian players] come to this country and obviously, we took some — I want to put it so people understand it nicely — we took some let’s say top positions in every team because of our talent, and coaches wants us to perform, and it’s never been easy,” Fedorov said in a 2009 interview. “We sacrificed a lot, and we certainly bent over backwards to make it work. Especially early generation, we know we cannot come back to our home country, which is saddest and most lonely thing you can ever imagine.

“This generation of players knows that they can come back. And they miss home a lot after long season, after hearing maybe only English and dealing with issues that long season presents, and travel presents. It’s not easy.”

Right now it remains difficult. It has been a tumultuous Russian spring in the NHL, for an array of different reasons. But it may not just be a Russian problem, precisely.

“I don’t think it’s anything to do with [being Russian],” says New Jersey Devils forward Alexei Ponikarovsky, who was born in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. “I think it’s either bad luck or injuries or circumstances that maybe bring that kind of impression, I would say. For sure. You take [the Russian stars affected], all those years before that, everyone has up and down. After a black stripe, there’s a white stripe.”

Some people are using this difficult stretch to paint black stripes with broad brushes, and Don Cherry hasn’t even weighed in yet. Evgeni Malkin of Pittsburgh is out of the playoffs after delivering a subpar series littered with sneaky, even dirty headshots; Pavel Datsyuk of Detroit is gone as well, though with rather more class. Washington star Alexander Ovechkin has seen his ice time yanked around, but mostly down, and played a career-low 13:36 in Game 2 against the New York Rangers, though he scored the winning goal; New Jersey’s Ilya Kovalchuk played through what the club called a lower-body injury for several games before finally being rested for Game 2 Tuesday night against Philadelphia.

And then, in the one that the Don Cherrys of the world will seize upon, Nashville forward Alexander Radulov and teammate Andrei Kostitsyn, who is from Belarus, another old Soviet state, were reportedly spotted out partying at 4 a.m. in Scottsdale, Ariz., before Game 2 of their series with the Phoenix Coyotes — a series in which Radulov has been particularly dreadful. They were suspended by the club for a crucial Game 3 at home on Wednesday. Radulov only rejoined the Predators in March, they say, to burn the last year on his entry-level deal, which he left behind when he departed for the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League in 2008.

At this rate of Russian woe, Philadelphia goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov will be lucky if he’s not eaten by a bear.

Add in the report that Washington Capitals prospect Evgeny Kuznetsov remains that team’s Godot, and has agreed to spend another two years in Russia after being told he had to do so to make the 2014 Olympic team in Sochi. Similarly, St. Louis prospect and world junior captain Vladimir Tarasenko has not come. There are reports, already denied, that a KHL team will make Winnipeg forward Alexander Burmistrov an offer.

And with two of this year’s top five CHL-based prospects being Russian — Nail Yakupov and Mikhail Grigorenko — there are already reports that teams such as Columbus could trade top-five picks rather than risk the stereotypically moody, enigmatic, vanishing … oh, you know, the Alexander Semins of this world, or something.

But this is not that, is it? There are genuine questions about the KHL, which can provide money and familiarity for some players; it is a place that has been touched by tragedy and criminality, but for some Russian players it can address the needs that Fedorov outlined. For them, it is home.

In these playoffs, meanwhile, Russia has been unlucky, rather than unreliable. Yes, Radulov is what Russians call “a tower without the roof,” as Russian journalist Slava Malamud roughly translates it; he is considered a talent without a compass, and therefore a risk. He is the example of why deep background research is necessary, but the Predators had to know he was a significant risk when they brought him back. They went all-in, as they put it; Radulov is a bad card.

But Kovalchuk was playing between 25 and 27 minutes per game with what the Newark Star-Ledger reported was a serious back injury; that’s toughness. Malkin was the best player in the league this season, unless it was Datsyuk. Ovechkin is his own opera, it’s true. But is he a Russian puzzle, or just a puzzle? Russian reporters say he hasn’t even spoken Russian in public for months, and that the perception of him back home is beginning to sour.

Russians, in other words, can be complex, in all different ways. There are documented cases of mob shakedowns; there is the KHL; there is the language, the development, and a small crop of hockey artists that can be difficult to put in what has become, more and more, the North American hockey box. There is a higher risk in Russian players, but they’re no more all of the same mind than Canadians are. Sean Avery’s one of ours, you know.

But they are still aliens here, in ways that can matter, and caution is now required. Back in 2009, Fedorov spoke about why the first generations of NHL Russians showed such little emotion — and were often called enigmas and the like for it. To that he said, “Well, because we can’t. We grow up that way. You display that much emotion, your grandparents will be in jail. That’s where we got that sense of behaving yourself, and it’s not appropriate. Just don’t.

“Russians were not suspicious, they were just subtle. Like Vikings. They speak softly, but carry a big stick. I think just in general, it’s been a lot of misconceptions and misunderstanding.”

Some things, as the playwrights tell us, do not change.

—–

Spector on NHL: Bad image for Russians

Mark Spector, Sportsnet.ca, May 1, 2012

There wasn’t a voice across the hockey world that didn’t whisper it, not necessarily for the record, when Andrei Kostitsyn was dealt from Montreal to Nashville at the deadline.

“Uh, is David Poile sure he wants to reunite those Kostitsyn brothers? He knows his team plays in Nashville, right? That town that parties all night, every night.”

Of course, the Belarussian brothers were known to get after it in Montreal, but that city has consumed many a fun-loving hockey player (and sports writer) in its day. In Nashville — and there isn’t a better American equivalent among late-night NHL cities — they would fly under the radar more than in Montreal.

There isn’t a country music lover alive that could spot a Kostitsyn brother if they found one in their soup.

That would be a good thing…. Right?

Then along came Alexander Radulov, whose commitment to the Predators franchise had always been questionable at best. But that was all contractual, wasn’t it?

Sure, he had come back from the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) effectually to burn off the final year of his entry-level contract by playing just nine regular season games, and whatever bothersome playoff contests followed. Then Radulov would be free to negotiate a far richer deal. You know, for the kind of money he had become accustomed to making over in Russia.

Eventually, however, the twain would meet.

Andrei Kostitsyn? Meet Alexander Radulov.

Par-tee meets part-time. In Scottsdale, AZ, no less.

Reportedly, the two were out well past midnight in Scottsdale Saturday night, the evening before a Game 2 against the Coyotes that started at 5 pm local. Their team hotel was a good 40 minutes away in Glendale.

Radulov’s play was an embarrassment in Game 2. Kostitsyn actually scored a goal, and had a couple of shots.

On net, we mean.

But long before they fell under the glare of NBC’s Keith Jones, who absolutely eviscerated Radulov between periods of the Sunday broadcast, the two had been spotted in Scottsdale as late as 4 a.m., Sportsnet’s John Shannon reported.

Radulov and AKostitsyn were spotted in Scottsdale at 4am on the eve of Game 2. Suspended for Game 3 by club.
— John Shannon (@JSportsnet) May 1, 2012

By Tuesday morning, the press release had been issued. The two won’t play in Game 3 Wednesday:

“The Nashville Predators have a few simple rules centered around doing the right things,” general manager David Poile said in the statement. “We have always operated with a team-first mentality and philosophy. Violating team rules is not fair to our team and their teammates.”

The word “suspended” was never used, and no one said what Radulov and Kostitsyn did. They didn’t have to.

A Russian and Belarussian, benched for missing curfew? In what has become hockey’s sternest prejudice, you don’t have to add to the statement that they were out drinking.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/2012/05/01/spector_kostitsyn_radulov_nashville_predators/ For Video.

Yes, it’s not fair. Canadian players can pound ‘em too. We’ve known plenty, believe me.

Back in 1988 it was Czech Petr Klima (who was out with a broken thumb) who they say enticed Bob Probert (Windsor, Ont.) to stay out late at a bar called Goose Loonie’s before what would be the final game of the Western Conference Final in Edmonton. Darren Veitch (Saskatoon, Sask.) was reportedly in the mix — not too much, please — and the Red Wings lost the final game of their season 8-4 to the Oilers the next night.

Probert’s game that night was “God awful,” said his coach, Jacques Demers.

So, it’s not only Russians. You’ve got to admit though, the stigma that has grown on players from that country now far outweighs anyone else’s baggage.

There’s a reason that Boris and Dmitri Mironov became known as the “Smironov Brothers” back in the day. I personally covered two missing person stories involving the younger Boris, both with rumoured ties to the New York Russian enclave, Brighton Beach.

Today, with the infusion of the KHL dilemma, the problematic innuendo extends to potential draft picks. On the same day that Radulov and Kostitsyn — we know, a Belarussian, not the same thing — were outed, Washington’s 26th overall draft pick in 2010, Evgeny Kuznetsov, announced he is set to sign a contract to spend two more years with Traktor Chelyabinsk of the KHL.

Who knows what kind of player he’ll be when and if he finally gets to Washington?

Columbus had has its fun with high drafts Nikolai Zherdev (No. 4 in ’03) and Nikita Filatov (No. 6 in ’08). And now, the Edmonton Oilers may just pass along the Russian problem again, should they trade its No. 1 overall pick or choose a defenceman, leaving Nail Yakupov for Columbus GM Scott Howson at No. 2.

Even the established Russians are having a tough time in the NHL these days. Alexander Ovechkin’s ice time has plummeted. Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov’s a flake. After a 50-goal season Evgeni Malkin managed just three goals in six games of an offence-palooza against Philadelphia in Round 1.

And now Radulov, who was billed as the Second Coming in his second coming, has taken to the vodka.

It’s an old cliché, yes, and it might go away.

If it didn’t keep happening.

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

[hockeygod]

NHL legends talk playoffs, curfew

Luke Fox, Sportsnet.ca , May 4, 2012

Nashville Predators head coach Barry Trotz said that his decision to keep the team’s top playoff point-getter, Alexander Radulov, and the player tied for the team lead in goals, Andrei Kostitsyn, out of Friday’s Game 4 versus the Phoenix Coyotes was “pretty simple.”

The team won Game 3, the game for which the two offensive weapons were suspended, 2-0 in Nashville, bringing the Predators back in the conference semifinal and giving Nashville a chance to knot the series at two games apiece Friday.

As straightforward as Trotz says the call was, many fans and analysts question if keeping two of your greatest talents — one-game suspension served and healthy, no less — is the wisest course of action. But momentum is a funny beast, and one that must be harnessed in the NHL's second season.

“Usually when you win, you don’t change your lineup, so it’s up to them,” says 2011 Hall of Fame inductee Doug Gilmour, who “never, ever, ever” missed curfew come playoff time. “I think everybody’s gone through different times (of being late). The old saying is, it doesn’t matter if you’re two seconds or one minute late, you might as well be three hours late. Curfews are there for a reason, and you gotta follow them.”

Mike Krushelnyski, who won three Stanley Cups with Edmonton in the ’80s and a fourth in 1998 as an assistant coach on the Detroit Red Wings, agrees with Trotz’s if-it-ain’t-broke approach.

“As a coach, I would leave my lineup. I wouldn’t insert them back in. One, you’ve won the [previous] game. Two, you’ve gained momentum, and hopefully they can continue. If [Trotz] loses the next game, then he’s going to bring them in, and he can use it as a tool: We can strengthen our team with these two guys. We’re changing things,” Krushelnyski, 52, explains.

Wayne Gretzky’s frequent linemate points to the recent case of the New York Rangers. Centre Brian Boyle was playing brilliantly in the opening round, and then he suffered a concussion in Game 5 against the Ottawa Senators. Despite his absence, the Rangers won three straight games, closing out the Sens and getting the jump on Round 2’s Washington Capitals. A recovered Boyle was inserted back in Game 2 against Washington, which New York lost.

“So I guessed they learned something,” Krushelnyski says. “I’m a firm believer that if you win, you stick with the same lineup, because the guys have continuity, they know exactly what’s going on. You keep the momentum going.”

Krushelnyski vehemently denies that any of his teammates broke curfew in his 15-year NHL career. After pausing for effect, he breaks into laughter: “Of course, we did!

“Throughout the season guys would break curfew by half an hour, and it was nothing malicious or intended. It was just having a few sociables and talking. Most of the time you get into discussions about the game with your teammates. No, no, no. If we do this, this is how we can score or create a chance. We were usually talking about how to become more successful,” he says.

But once the clock struck playoffs, those 30-minute rule bends tightened.

“We had one incident in one playoff where the player had missed the plane. He had inadvertently slept in, but fortunately he was waiting for us in Philadelphia — dressed, in the locker room, before we even got there. So that situation was nullified right there,” Krushelnyski says.

“You don’t come in at 4 a.m.,” quipped a smiling Curtis Joseph, who tended goal for 14 playoff squads. “You come in at 7 with a paper.”

Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier, 55, has seven Stanley Cup rings to his name. When he says he can’t recall anyone on his ’80s dynasty New York Islanders or his early-’90s Pittsburgh Penguins blowing curfew, it isn’t a setup to a punch line. The Isles’ were as serious about abiding rules as they were winning.

“Not on our team. Curfew was a high priority, something every player respected. Accountability in the locker room was a high priority. From the time I walked into the Islanders to the time I left the Penguins, it was always, ‘Hey, guys, let’s make sure we’re focused on all the things that are necessary,' and that was one of them,” Trottier says.

For coach Al Arbour’s Islanders, a team that reeled off a Stanley Cup four-peat from 1980 through 1983, curfew was 11 p.m. the night before a game and midnight on off nights.

“If you’re out with your family and you run into traffic, big deal, that’s one of those things. It’s common sense. Curfew was never an issue; it was never even brought up,” Trottier says. Occasionally on road trips, he adds, Arbour would mandate an early curfew when he was mad with the team’s performance. “After a game, there’s generally no curfew unless we had another game the next day. So he’d throw and early curfew and do a room-check. I loved that — that was comical. He’d call the room: [mimics Arbour’s stern voice] Are you guys in? ‘I think so. You called and I’m talking on the phone.’ ”

—–

Radulov, Kostitsyn and the NHL's dwindling Russian influence

James Mirtle, Globe and Mail, May 4, 2012

Their numbers have been thinning out almost every year.

Since the so-called Russian invasion began in the late 1980s, fewer and fewer players are coming over from the former Soviet republics to play in the NHL every year.

The creation of the KHL, and the oil money that's been pumped into salaries there, certainly has played a role, but the reputation of Russian players is also under fire.

Not that that's entirely new.

The notion of "do they really care?" has been around almost from the beginning (and especially in the playoffs), as has the idea of Russian players as "enigmatic" and unknowable entities.

This latest curfew incident with Alex Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn, a Russian and a Belarusian, has merely brought out the criticisms and cynicism that have only grown in the NHL over the past 10 years.

"There is a reason NHL teams are scared of drafting and depending on Russians, and what happened last Saturday night in Phoenix is Exhibit A," Hockey Night in Canada's Elliotte Friedman wrote on Wednesday.

"It’s not only Russians," added Sportsnet's Mark Spector. "You’ve got to admit though, the stigma that has grown on players from that country now far outweighs anyone else’s baggage."

Those types of articles drove several Russian members of the media nuts, including Yahoo!'s Dmitry Chesnokov, who voiced his displeasure on Twitter over the articles lumping players from his homeland into one big group.

It's true. Russian players are not all the same. Here in Toronto, the two we in the media see every day are Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski (another Belarusian) and they work harder than anyone on the team.

Their Canadian and American teammates and coaches are the first to admit it.

First on the ice for practice, the last off and always hanging around the rink long after they have to.

What's undeniable, though, is that Russians (and by extension Ukranians, Belarusians, Latvians and the rest) have a perception problem in this league.

And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that has played a role in their dwindling numbers in the NHL.

Look at the 16 teams that made the playoffs this year. Leaving out the two Philadelphia Flyers goaltenders, there were only 12 Russian skaters to play in at least one postseason game. (Last year there were six.)

Even when you add in the handful of players from the other post-Soviet states, we're still talking about only roughly 5 per cent of the league.

So when four of those players are making headlines for either missing curfew or having their ice time dropped dramatically (as with Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin in Washington) people in the hockey world are going to come to conclusions.

Russian players in the NHL playoffs

The number of Russian skaters in the postseason hit a high of 30 in 2000 but has averaged just 13 a season since the lockout

SOURCE: NHL.com

As I said above, that's not exactly new. There were similar things said and written about the first influx of Russian players.

The only difference seemed to be there were far more of them 20 years ago, before they were outnumbered by Americans, Finns and Swedes and become such a minority on every team.

Teams were willing to take a chance on Russian players and Russian players seemed more willing to take a chance on getting a fair shake in North America.

It does make one wonder where this trend will stop. This, after all, is a league with almost no Russian influence among decision makers and a natural bias toward Canadian junior and American college players given that's the route most GMs took to the top.

It's easy to blame these falling numbers on only the presence of the KHL, but there's more at work here.

Are we looking at an NHL that is down to only a dozen Russian players a few years from now?

And how much of that comes back to that perception of a group of players as being too much like Radulov and not enough like Kulemin?

—–

Why mess with winning group? Predators coach Trotz sits Radulov, Kostitsyn again vs Coyotes

The Canadian Press, 2012-05-04

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Predators coach Barry Trotz is sitting forwards Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn for Game 4 against Phoenix on Friday night because he doesn't want to change a winning formula.

The Predators suspended Radulov and Kostitsyn for Wednesday night's 2-0 victory, which pulled Nashville within 2-1 in the Western Conference semifinal. Whether they returned to the lineup was left to Trotz, and the coach announced his decision Friday after a morning skate.

"The decision for me was pretty simple," Trotz said. "The group that went in there was very committed and got the job done plain and simple. Alex and Andrei are good players. They're top players. At the same time, I felt that the group responded really well, and I expect the group to respond again."

Trotz said Radulov and Kostitsyn clearly want to play and will be ready. Injuries or other circumstances Friday night could result in a lineup change.

"They're really good about being good pros, which got them in trouble in the first place. They understand," Trotz said. "They're ready to do whatever it takes to get back in. If it means having to sit this game or the next game or whatever, as long as we're winning we're OK. They're fine. We have to win. If someone doesn't play well or they're injured, they're ready to go."

Radulov is Nashville's top scorer in the post-season with six points despite missing the last game. Kostitsyn has three goals, tied for the team lead.

"As long as we're winning, it's fine," Radulov said. "It's long playoffs."

—–

MCKENZIE: TROTZ, POILE WILL FEEL PRESSURE FOR THEIR DECISION

Bob McKenzie, TSN.ca, May 4 2012

Some quick thoughts from the NHL on TSN panel on Friday night.

I think the Phoenix Coyotes played a great road game in Game 4, especially once they got the lead on the very fortuitous bounce. So often they took a little bit of time or space that just made the Nashville Predators adjust their shooting angle, made them hurry to get a shot off or the shot was outright blocked.

For the Predators, they got shut out and they're going to get killed for making the decision to sit forwards Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn because the team didn't score a goal. But what we don't know is maybe they would have lost the game 2-0 if Radulov and Kostitsyn where playing. They're turnover machines quit often.

While there will be a lot of pressure on head coach Barry Trotz and general manager David Poile for the decisions that they made, the guy behind the bench knows his team better than anybody else so I'll generally air on giving him the benefit of the doubt. But the Predators are in a deep hole and if they are in deep, I think it goes back to those two players that put them in the hole and put them in the position of doing that.

You can criticize the coach or general manager all you want, but this one falls back on the players. I do, however, believe both Radulov and Kostitsyn will be back in the lineup for Game 5.

—–

In defence of the Russians

ERIC DUHATSCHEK, Globe and Mail, May. 04, 2012

In the summer of 1997, eight years after he and Slava Fetisov helped usher in the NHL’s Russian evolution, Igor Larionov took the Stanley Cup home to Moscow’s Red Square for a postseason celebration unlike any other. It was a seminal moment on many levels; Larionov had won the Stanley Cup the previous spring under Scotty Bowman as part of the Detroit Red Wings’ five-man Russian unit. By bringing the celebrated trophy home, Larionov was demonstrating, on the one hand, a respect for his Russian roots, and on the other, how a player who grew up in the Soviet system could pine to win the Stanley Cup with the same fervour as any North American player.

The 51-year-old Larionov has been a pioneer his entire hockey-playing life, and this week he was disturbed by what seemed to be a backlash against the NHL’s shrinking Russian population. In one week, the headlines featured two stories, neither of them flattering. One centred on the limited ice time that the Washington Capitals were allotting to two-time MVP Alex Ovechkin in a playoff game against the New York Rangers; the other on the curfew violation that caused the Nashville Predators to suspend Alexander Radulov for a playoff game against the Phoenix Coyotes.

Lost in the shuffle: The Pittsburgh Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin was one of three finalists for the Ted Lindsay Award, which the National Hockey League Players’ Association hands out to its MVP, as selected by the players; and the Red Wings’ Pavel Datsyuk was a finalist for the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive player.

In the 1980s, Larionov worked aggressively to open the door to the NHL for himself and for a generation of players to follow. Now, in a year when he represents the top Russian prospect for the 2012 NHL entry draft, there is talk that some teams are leery about drafting Nail Yakupov of the Sarnia Sting, the top-rated player, in part because of his Russian heritage.

“Obviously, I’m concerned about that,” Larionov said. “To me, sometimes, before you judge a person, you have to do your homework, see the guy and talk to the kid and talk to the parents and follow him for quite a while to form an impression and make a decision. To me, it’s a lack of communication, and stereotyping. It’s like a bad stereotype of the Russians – doesn’t care about the Stanley Cup, doesn’t respect the fans, doesn’t respect the teammates, doesn’t respect the club. You can’t judge one or two Russian players and talk about everybody. Canadians, Americans, Swedes, Czechs, you can always find a bad apple in the bunch.”

One of the primary reasons for the NHL’s alienation of affection with Russian players was the emergence of the KHL in the fall of 2006. The KHL essentially replaced Russia’s Superleague and began to compete for homegrown players under the watch of Alexander Medvedev, a powerful oligarch who facilitated Radulov’s departure from the NHL in July of 2008 and also coaxed Czech star Jaromir Jagr to play in Russia for three seasons before he returned to join the Philadelphia Flyers this season.

“Obviously, the KHL has a big impact now,” Larionov said. “If you read the press in Russia, they want everybody to stay home. They say, ‘if you go to the NHL, it’s a hard way to make money. It’s hard to make the team. You have to learn the language.’

“In Russia, everything is given to you the first day, and I disagree with that. The way it has been in North America, I think it’s the right way. It’s easy to spoil the players and kill the desire to get to the next level. It is hard to be one of 700 players to play in the National Hockey League and to compete every night and compete in every game.

“To me, it’s a dilemma for the Russian guys. Are they willing to make a sacrifice and go to North America? And so, for the NHL, they kind of worry, should we take this Russian kid?”

Last month, Scott Howson, general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets, described the 2012 draft as “difficult at the top.” Without getting into specifics, Columbus, which has the No. 2 pick after the Edmonton Oilers, is one of the teams that may think twice about drafting a Russian after spending a fourth overall pick on Nikolai Zherdev in 2003 and a sixth overall pick on Nikita Filatov in 2008 and having little to show for both choices.

Under the collective agreement, salaries are capped for players in their first contract, meaning a player such as Washington’s first-rounder in 2010, Evgeny Kuznetsov, passed up a chance to go to the NHL next season in part because he can make a lot more money playing at home. Reports indicated that a contributing factor to Kuznetsov’s decision was his belief that his chances of playing in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, would be enhanced if he stayed home.

Larionov disputes this theory: “If the league is so good, the KHL, why do they wait for Malkin and Datsyuk, why do they leave some space for [Ilya] Kovalchuk and Ovechkin and [Alexander] Semin and some other guys playing now in the second round of the playoffs? So to me, that’s not the right explanation, that the chances will be better for you if you play hockey in Russia.

“With all respect to the KHL,” Larionov added, “the players in the NHL have got more of an everyday reality check. The competition is so high, so you have to compete every night. You are always in the public eye with the way you play. Like [Wednesday], they were showing Ovechkin all night long. They show everything – how you compete, how you’re doing – and that’s what makes the players realize, there is no easy way to make money. You have to compete every single day and when a new day starts, you have to prove again that you deserve to be here.

“That’s the highest level of competition. That’s why these [NHL] players are better. That’s why they’re maturing very quickly, because of that level of competition. That’s why Malkin and Datsyuk play here, and why they play key roles, and why they’re top players in the league.”

SUSPENDED PREDATORS

Dozens of Russian players have won the Stanley Cup since Alexei Kovalev, Sergei Zubov, Alexander Karpotsev and Sergei Nemchinov first did it with the New York Rangers in 1994. Of the 16 Stanley Cups awarded since then, 12 have included at least one Russian-born player (the exceptions: Boston Bruins, 2011; Chicago Blackhawks, 2010; Anaheim Ducks, 2007; and the Colorado Avalanche, 2001.) In 2009, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin became the first Russian player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs.

“It’s a global league now and I like that,” said Larionov, the Hall Of Famer and a member of three Detroit Red Wings championship teams. “I like what Dave Poulin [the Toronto Maple Leafs’ vice-president of hockey operation] says: ‘We’re not looking at the passport, we’re looking at the player. We are willing to work with any player who is the best.’ To me, that’s a really good statement. We cannot divide players into Swedes and Canadians and Americans. As long as the guy is putting his best effort and talent to work, that’s phenomenal. That’s why people come to watch the games and pay big money to do it. It’s all about making the game better.

“To me, it’s not pleasant to read the stuff about the Russians in Nashville. But at the same time, I would be 100 per cent with Barry Trotz and David Poile to do that kind of stuff. I spent some time with David Poile the last couple of years. He’s been asking me the last couple of years about how to get [Alexander] Radulov back, and now it seems like it’s happening, so it [the curfew violation] is not very nice.

“To me, it’s unacceptable the way they behaved and I hope it’s not going to happen again. The new generation of players, the foolish things they do, is going to be a lesson for everybody. But at the same time, the public, the fans in North America, should realize it can happen to anybody.”

RUSSIANS IN THE DRAFT:
LAST SEVEN YEARS PREVIOUS SEVEN YEARS

2011 6 2004 24
2010 4 2003 32
2009 6 2002 33
2008 9 2001 36
2007 7 2000 33
2006 16 1999 29
2005 11 1998 22
Total 59 Total 209

—–

Radulov, Kostitsyn have to play Game 5

TERRY KOSHAN, QMI Agency, May 5 2012

Perhaps Alexander Radulov or Andrei Kostitsyn — positively or negatively — would have made an impact for the Nashville Predators Friday night.

Suspended by the club for Game 3 of the club's Western Conference semifinal against the Phoenix Coyotes, the curfew-breaking pair didn’t play in Game 4 either, thanks to a Nashville victory on Wednesday.

So the Predators wind up without two of their top offensive players for a pivotal game Friday and don’t score a goal in a 1-0 loss. The Coyotes lead the best-of-seven series 3-1 and can wrap it up next Monday at home.

Nashville coach Barry Trotz and general manager David Poile can’t be blamed for benching the pair for Game 3. Nor can Trotz be blamed for sticking with the same lineup for Game 4, leaving Jordin Tootoo and Matt Halischuk in uniform for another night.

If Radulov and Kostitsyn weren’t overly popular with their teammates before, they certainly won't be now.

Trotz has no choice but to re-insert the pair for Game 5. Radulov leads the Predators in playoff scoring with six points. Kostitsyn is tied for the team lead with three goals.

We should find out what kind of heart the two have provided they play Game 5. If either of them takes so much as one shift off, Trotz and the rest of the Predators organization will have their answer.

POINT SHOTS

Try as they did, the Predators couldn’t score in the third period despite crashing the crease of Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith on just about every shift. With just over seven minutes remaining, Nashville thought it had tied the game, but referee Dan O’Halloran lost sight of the puck and blew his whistle. Predators forwards Mike Fisher, Patric Hornqvist and Martin Erat all jammed away at the puck until the play was blown dead … Shane Doan doesn’t need to do anything at this point in his career to prove he is a good captain, but there he was knocking over the 6-foot-7 Hal Gill to take control of the puck and score the Coyotes’ goal. Gill managed to get back in the play, but not in time to stop Doan from releasing a backhand that eluded Predators netminder Pekka Rinne … Nashville defenceman Ryan Suter, who will be an unrestricted free agent in July, had his bacon saved by Rinne when the game was 0-0. Bothered by Phoenix's Antoine Vermette, Suter lost control of the puck and it squirted out to Phoenix's Mikkel Boedker. Rinne coolly stood his ground and made a point-blank save … Coyotes defenceman Rostislav Klesla had a brain cramp 6 1/2 minutes into the game when he drilled Halischuk into the boards from behind. Klesla was tagged with a boarding minor and was lucky that Halischuk was not hurt. NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan might want to give it a longer look, given that Klesla used his left hand to help guide Halischuk into the boards … Nashville’s Paul Gaustad and Phoenix’s Kyle Chipchura seemed like odd fighting foes when they dropped the gloves in the first period, there is a history between the two. When Gaustad was with the Buffalo Sabres and Chipchura with the Anaheim Ducks, the two scrapped with each other in December 2010 … Smith didn’t help himself with some shaky handling of the puck, but he was on point for a 25-save performance. Toward the end of the second, Smith had to be on his toes to stop a high backhand by Brandon Yip … Tootoo put the Predators in a hole early when he was penalized for interference on Keith Yandle. The puck was gone, but Tootoo figured it was a good idea to shove Yandle from behind. A dumb penalty, but Nashville killed off the Phoenix power play.

FROM THE HASH MARKS

Hornqvist will have plenty to think about this summer if his club is eliminated by the Coyotes. It seemed that every time Nashville had a scoring chance in Game 4, Hornqvist was in the middle of it. Except he did not have an actual shot on goal until the third period, instead missing the net five times and having three other attempts blocked in the first 40 minutes. If it’s about bearing down in the playoffs, Hornqvist, who finished with three shots on goal, four shots blocked and five misses, failed miserably … Nashville, it’s fair to say, will need more from stud defenceman Shea Weber in Game 5. Weber must have a bigger presence with his team’s season on the line next Monday … Why is there always an argument for four-on-four hockey in overtime whenever there is a game not decided until double- or triple-overtime? The reason why people can remember Keith Primeau or Pat LaFontaine scoring in overtime after most of the continent was in bed is because it does not happen often. Let teams keep playing five-on-five until there is a goal. It’s bad enough that a skills competition decides games tied after overtime in the regular season. Don’t mess with sudden-death overtime in the playoffs as it stands now.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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The NHL's shot blocking era

James Mirtle, Globe and Mail, May 4, 2012

It was hard to miss on Wednesday night.

As the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals played out their nearly five hour, three overtime Game 3, there were bodies everywhere in front of their goaltenders as two of the top shot blocking teams duked it out.

Among teams that made the playoffs this season, the Rangers blocked the most shots with 1,338 in 82 games.

The new look Caps weren't far behind at 1,302.

The Washington Times' Stephen Whyno had a good piece on this trend before the series started, and it's played out as predicted.

“You can just tell their team by all of them having extra padding on their gloves just because everyone goes down and blocks shots,” Caps winger Troy Brouwer said of the Rangers. “When you get a whole bunch of guys that do that, you can just tell how committed they are towards their team game.”

“You have to try to miss the net a little bit. You just have to the shoot by the block,” coach Dale Hunter added. “You can’t hit the net as much so you have to miss the net by 10 feet and then hopefully it bounces back out in front.”

We often like to blame the goalies for the fact scoring is down of late, but it certainly doesn't help that there are now 12 goalies on the ice in many games.

That's a change from even 10 years ago, when the emphasis on shot blocking was more during penalty kills and only by defencemen.

In these playoffs, teams have blocked an average of 31.6 shots per game, which is one of the highest marks since the league began tracking the stat back in 1998.

A few more long overtime games like Wednesday's, when there were 81 blocks between the two teams, and that blocks per game number will creep up even more.

Consider that the average shooting percentage is roughly 9.1 per cent (or a goal on every 11 shots) and an extra six or seven shot blocks a game could theoretically make an impact.

Instead of the Dead Puck Era from just prior to the lockout maybe we can call this one the Blocked Puck Era?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/the-nhls-shot-blocking-era/article2423223/

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

[hockeygod]

Ovechkin's ice time + 30 Thoughts

By Elliotte Friedman, CBC Sports, May 2, 2012

Sometime this summer, when Alexander Ovechkin runs into Alexander Radulov and/or Andrei Kostitsyn at Garage (look it up in your Moscow nightlife directory), the Washington captain should buy them a drink and say, "Thanks for taking the attention off me, guys." (Yes, Kostitsyn is from Belarus. Maybe he'll visit.)

More on the Predators later. We'll start with Ovechkin, who will be in the lineup Wednesday night in Washington. The question is: How much will he be on the ice?

Captain Capital is saying all the right things about his 13:36 of time on the ice Monday night. That's the lowest of any NHL game in which he wasn't hurt or ejected.

"I don't think we have to talk about it right now," he said on the HNIC postgame, when asked if he discusses the situation with Dale Hunter. "Right now, the most important thing [is] winning in playoffs … I'm not a guy who is going to scream to everybody 'I want to play' … Sometimes you just suck it up and play for your team."

Privately, Ovechkin is not bitching. Teammates and friends who know him well say he's dying to get more action, but realizes this is not the time to demand it.

He's right about that. This is an unexpectedly great stretch in Washington, after a borderline nightmarish regular season. And credit to him for rising to the occasion when a powerplay beckoned.

But here is the money quote from the Game 2 aftermath – critical passage in bold type:

"Dale, anybody who's following our team, you see he's coaching the situations. He's playing certain guys," Mike Knuble told The Washington Times' Stephen Whyno. "If we're down a goal, [Ovechkin's] going to be our main guy. He's going every other shift. If we're up a goal, then Dale tends to lean on other guys. That's the way it is. I guess they can talk about it this summer after the season and figure it out. For now it's working and we're going to run with it."

If the Capitals continue their success, odds are this trend continues. Knuble is absolutely right. This is going to be dealt with in the off-season. Hunter, or whoever is coach, will have a vote. GM George McPhee will have a vote. Ted Leonsis? He'll have 88 million votes.

Why? Because that's how much remains on Ovechkin's contract.

Leonsis is loving it right now. His fans are happy (and he listens to them), his team is guaranteed at least five home playoff dates and there is the possibility of many more. Plus, Ovechkin doesn't collect any of that salary now, so watching him play less than 14 minutes doesn't ache the pocketbook.

I'm a big believer that this could potentially be the best thing to happen to Ovechkin in a long time. The reason Bruce Boudreau didn't get away with telling him "No!" is that the team fell apart. Now that there's success, he must pay attention. The coach wants this, the other players want this and the GM wants this.

If the owner wants this too, Ovechkin will be forced to adapt for the better and become the player he should be. If not, then it's a blip on the radar and everything gained is lost.

Every regular-season game, Leonsis pays Ovechkin $109,756. This summer, he can make that an even more worthwhile investment.

Radulov, Kostitsyn and the Predators

Tuesday, I was chatting with an agent who represents several Russian players.

"They are easy targets," he said. "It's easy to pick on them."

There is some truth in that. Ovechkin, for example, has handled his demotion as well as we'd expect a good Canadian boy to handle it. Ilya Kovalchuk proved he was willing to be a positive part of a strong, structured organization.

But there is a reason NHL teams are scared of drafting and depending on Russians, and what happened last Saturday night in Phoenix is Exhibit A.

The Predators have not confirmed it, but several sources indicate Radulov and Kostitsyn didn't just stay out past curfew – they napalmed it. But, as of this writing, one thing was missing from both players: a sincere, forceful, public apology.

(Maybe it comes after this is published, but that's too late. It should've happened right away.) At least Radulov faced the media horde, albeit clumsily. Kostitsyn was nowhere to be found.

Here is what both should have apologized for:

Blowing curfew the night before a PLAYOFF game, especially after their team was already behind in the series;
Playing horribly after it occurred;
Embarrassing a GM who did everything you wanted and took a lot of heat for it (Radulov), traded for you (Kostitsyn) and a coach who sat out valued players to make room;
Finally, letting down teammates who've never had a better shot at winning the Stanley Cup.

Nashville's done some wonderful things with Jordin Tootoo (one of the guys forced to sit) and Brian McGrattan, both of whom battled addiction issues. To have two players spend the night before the game at a bar flies in the face of everything the organization believes in.

Tried to make contact Tuesday with some former players to ask if they'd come across anything like this. There were three common threads. First, was the apology heartfelt? Second, was this a first-time offence or repeat behaviour? Third, how important was the situation?

The answers are 1) Not publicly, 2) Don't know, and 3) Pretty Freaking Important.

Win or lose, can Barry Trotz afford to play them again?

30 Thoughts

1. Watched Pekka Rinne in Game 2. He is visibly furious, which is rare. Barry Trotz said he didn't know about the curfew violation before Game 2, but watching Rinne, wonder if the players sensed something was up and it affected them.

2. Guarantee Dave Tippett prepares the Coyotes for an absolute onslaught in Game 3. Predators will be at home, in trouble, and seriously angry. Guys who've been sitting will be given a chance to regain their spots.

3. Couple of years ago, we looked into doing a feature on whether or not more players would follow Ovechkin's lead and go without agents. Kelly Hrudey thought it was a poor precedent. Why? Exactly what's going on now. Hrudey believed a good agent could be a good mediator in these kinds of situations. After Game 2, both Craig Simpson and Glenn Healy made the same point.

4. Most hockey people don't believe Hunter will be back in Washington. Spoke to George McPhee about it last week, and all McPhee would say is he would like Hunter to stay. That's going to take a lot of work, and there's no guarantee the fiercest lobbying would be successful. Again, Leonsis could make the decision very hard, depending on what he's willing to pay.

5. The amazing thing about Hunter's coaching is that it's almost the exact opposite of what he does in London. He's brought out the whip before (benching Rob Schremp in a 2004 Game 7 defeat, sitting Nazem Kadri), but, generally, star players get lengthy shifts and a lot of preference.

6. The Ovechkin spotlight overshadows what's going on with Alexander Semin, who played just 12:27 in Game 2. The last three extensions he's signed (a two-year deal for 2008-09 and 2009-10; one-year contracts for 2010-11 and this season) were all inked well before free agency. (We're talking October 2007, December 2009 and January 2011.) Nothing yet this time around.

7. One NHL coach with a great line about the first two weeks of playoffs. He called it: "The Testosterone Round."

8. Convinced the edgier-than-ever John Tortorella media conferences have to do with his recent $20,000 fine. There were always things he wouldn't discuss, but this is a new level. You could always find something he'd have a (great) opinion about.

9. In the room, he's done a couple of things that have gone a long way with the Rangers. Players say he allows the group more leeway to handle things now that he knows them a little better. Also, his decision to dress Steve Eminger as a forward in Game 1 was really smart. Tortorella asked the team to trust the organization's decision to bring in Chris Kreider so late in the season, knowing it could upset chemistry. Putting Eminger in the lineup for that one game showed the Rangers that Tortorella would find opportunity for someone who'd been around most of the year (despite injury). Small thing, but a big thing.

10. Down 2-0 to Los Angeles will be the biggest challenge to the Blues' greatest strength of this season: maintaining patience. They've done it so well this season, with Ken Hitchcock preaching trust in the system no matter the score or the situation. But the Kings are shredding their tremendous positional play with power, strength and fire. Will St. Louis stick with it or try something new?

11. Apparently, after the Kings made it into the playoffs, Darryl Sutter told his players that the worst was over and it was time to relax and have fun. Good message. What probably helps is that he, Jarret Stoll, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter have all gone to the Final from low-seeded teams since 2004.

12. Watching Philadelphia lose a strong Ilya Bryzgalov start in Game 2 of its series with New Jersey was like watching Vancouver waste a great Roberto Luongo performance in Game 1 against LA. If you're Philly, you hope the ending is different.

13. Montreal sure went to the "hire the opposite of the guy you fired" theory in choosing Marc Bergevin to replace Pierre Gauthier. Bergevin will have a very different public persona than his predecessor, which is undoubtedly what the Canadiens want. It's hard, though, to be that guy all the time when you're the GM.

14. Bergevin's strength is in scouting and player development. He's got a good eye for talent and those he's worked with (Troy Brouwer, for example) praise his ability to draw it out. That will be very important. He's also been in several different roles (including assistant coach) which gives him a lot of different perspectives.

15. His lack of administrative experience is only a negative if he doesn't surround himself with (and listen to) people who can support him. Serge Savard will be there, sounds like Rick Dudley, too, and it would be smart to keep Larry Carriere. Curious to see if he brings his own capologist or stays with what was already on staff. Capologist can be your most important position and it's going to be critical with Carey Price and PK Subban negotiations upcoming.

16. Asked a couple of NHL executives what they thought was a fair number for Price. The average was about $5.5 million – but a couple pointed out the player has the leverage here. That will make the number go higher.

17. For those of you who are language-watchers in Quebec, was told that on a couple of occasions, English-only candidates were suggested to Geoff Molson/Savard. The response was that such individuals would only be considered if superstars were not available.

18. That said, wouldn't you love to see what would happen if Bergevin called Detroit and asked for permission to talk to Mike Babcock?

19. Chicago has lost two assistant GMs in two years (Kevin Cheveldayoff last spring), so Stan Bowman has another hole to fill. It's an important time for the Blackhawks. The 2010 Cup win is starting to fade and John McDonough is apparently demanding better than back-to-back first-round defeats. Sounds like everyone there is "on notice."

20. Other GMs aren't so certain Peter Chiarelli will hang on to Tim Thomas, but I can see why the Bruins boss would want to keep him. Neither the team nor the player has ever come clean about the spring of 2010. Tuukka Rask was the No. 1 guy at the time, and it's been reported Boston tried to trade Thomas. Whatever the case, ferociously motivated, Thomas won the Vezina, the Conn Smythe and the Stanley Cup. He'd be just as charged up somewhere else next season.

21. Would there be a market for him? Absolutely. A couple of interested GMs say the political issues surrounding Thomas would not prevent them from going after him.

22. It became very clear early this season that Daniel Alfredsson was going to treat this season like his last. Getting off the bus to shake hands with Ottawa fans after the Game 7 loss and joining Sweden for the worlds is part of that. It's a "Just in Case" philosophy. Before All-Star festivities, the belief was: this is it for sure. That changed, but his recent moves are consistent with his overall philosophy.

23. Wouldn't be surprised if Alfredsson's Game 6 outburst had as much to do with not playing a critical third-period powerplay as much as the hard hit from John Mitchell. You fight to come back from a concussion and don't get out there in that situation? Can be very frustrating.

24. Mike Gillis and Francesco Aquilini were originally supposed to meet Thursday, and it's expected the Canucks GM will tell his owner he does not want to change coaches. There's a lot of speculation that Alain Vigneault is a goner because he left town without talking to the media. It's more likely he didn't want to talk without knowing for sure and didn't want to wait almost two weeks for that discussion to happen.

25. For Canucks fans who want Vigneault fired, my question is this: Who is available that is better? Gillis will not make the change unless that person exists. It's not his way. Would also guess that the meeting between owner and GM was delayed because Aquilini would be very emotional after the first-round loss and that is not the time to make important decisions.

26. Cody Hodgson (and everyone around him) did themselves a great service by not saying anything after Gillis made it very clear why he traded the young forward. When you've played 1350 games (like Gary Roberts), you can say what you want. But, as we've said on Hotstove, the word on Hodgson was the people around him interfered too much. By keeping quiet this time, he comes off looking much better.

27. The annual "Trade Marleau" watch is underway after the Sharks fell in the first round. Here's the problem: The players San Jose got in the Heatley/Setoguchi deals came in 25 goals below the players they gave up. Whatever you think of Marleau's playoff performance, if you don't make up for the 30 he scores in the regular season, do you even get to the playoffs?

28. For those wondering: The self-help books Braden Holtby says had the best effect on him were Mind Gym: An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence by Gary Mack and The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma.

29. The Phoenix Coyotes will survive in Arizona if the "management fee" to run the arena gets through Glendale City Council and The Goldwater Institute. If not, there might be five guys who know what will happen: Gary Bettman, Bill Daly, John Collins and the NHL's top two financial guys, Craig Harnett and Joseph DeSousa. Cassie Campbell-Pascall mentioned the word "fold" in her blog this week. Nothing would surprise me here.

30. Finally, wanted to direct your attention to http://richardmorrisonfund.org/. Some friends of mine in Vancouver know Richard Morrison, who was seriously injured in a freak hockey accident. (He tripped over a goalie pad and fell into the boards.) The father of two young children will spend the next six months in hospital and eventually need an electronic wheelchair to get around. (Here's hoping he will regain the use of his hands.) Take a look, any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

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

[hockeygod]

Jerry Toppazzini's minor role had a major impact

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News, 2012-05-04

An industrious checker and penalty killer who wore his NHL career on his face, Jerry Toppazzini never won a Stanley Cup. He never scored more than 25 goals or 50 points in a season and spent most of his career with three of the more moribund of the Original Six teams. He played almost 800 career games, but you’re probably not terribly familiar with him unless you’re either (a) from Sudbury or (b) a hockey geek.

Thankfully, I’m both. Yes, I’m happy and proud to have been born and raised in The Nickel Capital of the WorldTM. And when I learned Toppazzini had died recently at 81, it brought back a flood of wonderful memories. Not because I knew Toppazzini intimately – in fact, I probably didn’t exchange words with him more than a handful of times – but because he provided me with some of my most enduring memories and some of the most important touchstones for me in hockey.

The first came in the summer of 1972 when I was just nine. Jerry was a good friend of my uncle and it was at my cousin’s wedding reception my father took me over to meet him. I remember my palms were sweaty and all I could think was, “Holy cow! I’m actually going to shake hands with a guy who played in the NHL!” He was gracious, as he always was, but all I could do was mutter something about being a Montreal Canadiens fan before slinking back behind my dad.

I have spoken to hundreds of current and former NHLers since then, including some of the most legendary players the game has known. But none of those encounters will ever match the sense of exhilaration I experienced when I met Jerry Toppazzini.

The second came four years later when Toppazzini was behind the Sudbury Wolves bench. The Wolves haven’t won the Memorial Cup since 1932, but no team has ever come closer to ending the drought than that one. Led by future NHLers Randy Carlyle, Ron Duguay, Mike Foligno, Dave Hunter, Rod Schutt and Hector Marini, the Wolves made it to the Ontario Major Junior League final before losing to the Hamilton Fincups. The fact the Fincups tore the Wolves apart on the strength of Dale McCourt, who grew up in nearby Falconbridge, then went on to win the Memorial Cup was pretty much unbearable for my 13-year-old psyche.

But that Sudbury team was a marvel to watch, losing only 11 games that season with Toppazzini being named coach of the year.

“We were so young and so dumb and so green that we didn’t realize what a great coach we had,” said Jim Bedard, who played goal for the Wolves that season and now is the goaltending coach for the Detroit Red Wings. “I don’t ever remember seeing him play, but the way he coached, you could tell he probably didn’t lose too many battles for loose pucks. We didn’t know how lucky we were to have a guy like that preparing us. I do remember, though, that when we lost the final against Hamilton, we felt like we had let him down. He never let us down.”

The next year, Toppazzini bought a run-down hotel and turned it into the Beef ‘N Bird, a restaurant and bar that became a staple for fans and shift workers. About a decade later, Toppazzini introduced ‘Porketta Bingo’ to the Beef ‘N Bird, where winners would win not money, but a pound of porketta. At last count, Porketta Bingo had raised almost $300,000 for the Copper Cliff Minor Hockey Association. Copper Cliff, a company town that lured top players with the promise of cushy, well-paying mining jobs in exchange for playing for the local hockey team, was where Toppazzini grew up, playing with future NHLers George Armstrong, Tim Horton, Tod Sloan and his older brother Zellio, who was posthumously named to the to the American League’s Hall of Fame class for 2012.

Toppazzini and his ilk represent a golden age for hockey in northern Ontario, a time when a healthy percentage of the league’s players were culled from Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins and Kirkland Lake.

Toppazzini made it to the Stanley Cup final twice with the Boston Bruins, but it was right in the middle of the Montreal Canadiens run of five straight titles. He regularly drew the assignment of checking guys like Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe and earned most of his facial road map when Ted Lindsay clubbed him across the face, breaking both orbital bones and his nose. And for trivia buffs, Toppazzini goes down in history as the last skater to ever play goal when he grabbed Don Simmons’ blocker and trapper for the last 30 seconds of a game in 1960.

None of those things made Jerry Toppazzini a household name. But they were certainly good enough to fuel the passion of a young boy who had never before met an NHL player in the flesh.

Thank you for that, Jerry Toppazzini. Rest in peace.

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

[hockeygod]

Darryl Sutter has Kings invested in winning

Cam Cole, National Post, May 5, 2012

“I’m still an honest guy, right?” said the 53-year-old Darryl Sutter, centre. “It’s what’s best for the team, not always what’s best for what the player thinks."

ELSEGUNDO, Calif. — The one game the Los Angeles Kings have lost so far in these Stanley Cup playoffs — Game 4 of the Vancouver series — Drew Doughty learned a lesson he’s unlikely to forget.

At least, as long as Darryl Sutter is coaching.

The 22-year-old defenceman went into the players’ lounge attached to the Kings’ dressing room at Staples Center to get a cold drink between periods, and his eye was caught by something on TV. He stood and watched for a few seconds.

Big mistake.

“He happened to catch me in there, and yelled at me,” Doughty said Friday. “He was serious. We were losing the game, and he wants our total focus on our next shift. So I make sure not to go in there any more.”

Good Darryl. Bad Darryl. There’s a lot of Darryls inside the frequently frosty, complicated guy Calgary Herald’s George Johnson brilliantly dubbed The Jolly Rancher.

But the Darryl Sutter who replaced Terry Murray and turned around a Kings team that was in a serious funk at mid-season — the Darryl who has L.A. up 3-0 on the St. Louis Blues, a win away from having knocked off the top two teams in the West — is a whole different cat than the one who grew increasingly aloof and snappish as general manager in Calgary while the Flames hockey operation he had built was crumbling on the ice and off.

And though he would never admit that his return to the bench this season was anything more than a favour to his old San Jose boss/now Kings GM Dean Lombardi, he has been in most observable ways reborn as a coach.

And with the Kings perhaps poised to dispose of the Blues here Sunday, he has also freshened up his resume, in a good way. Not that he cares.

He doesn’t believe he’s any different, but the change in his demeanour is evident to those who have seen him before, during and after his early successes and late failures with the Flames.

The Kings players say he rekindled their emotional investment in games. They say he is by turns scary and caring and brutally honest. They even laugh at what captain Dustin Brown calls “his so-called jokes” every now and then, though Doughty admits that there are moments when Sutter’s low and slow delivery — he is the Rocky Balboa of conversationalists — leaves them wondering if they’ve understood him correctly.

“He likes to have fun at the right times, but for the most part he’s serious,” said Doughty. “I sometimes catch myself, kind of waiting for him to smile after he says whatever he has to say, because I don’t want to be laughing when he’s serious.

“I couldn’t understand anything he was saying when he first came, so I always made sure when drills happened to be at the back of the line.”

This was a common problem among the Kings. The now-departed Jack Johnson said Sutter’s mutterings were so indecipherable that he just kept nodding, so that it looked like he was agreeing with him.

But Sutter is aware of all this. And he’s OK with a limited amount of give-and-take with a generation of players far removed from his own.

“I’m still an honest guy, right?” said the 53-year-old third of seven Sutter brothers from Viking, Alta. “It’s what’s best for the team, not always what’s best for what the player thinks. Very clearly that. That’s a good way to do it, and I wish that’s how everyone always approached me.”

The incident with Doughty, he explains away with: “Young guys, right? Drew’s a kid. I’ve got kids older than him. So I try to handle him like I would handle my children. Drew’s an awesome, awesome kid. But he’s no different than any kid that age. Look at last night. He didn’t need any help. But there’s nights, a moment, when maybe he does need help.”

A pat on the back, or a kick. Sutter is capable of either, but usually even the corrections are done quietly.

“You know, it’s a misconception that guys yell and holler — the only reason you holler is because the crowd’s loud,” he said. “I think that (ranting style) is a dinosaur. The best coaches that I’ve played for and worked with are straight up, straight shooters, and they’d look at you and tell you the truth.

“The biggest influences I had, because I was a young guy, were Joe Crozier, Bob Pulford, Roger Neilson, Keith Magnuson. Clearly more one-on-one guys. I prefer the one-on-one stuff, but I know that as a head coach you have to be at the centre of it all, too.”

The Kings are not like the Flames, who were not like the Sharks, who were not like the Blackhawks, whom Sutter coached after playing his entire NHL career in Chicago.

“Every team’s different that I’ve been associated with, but it always comes back to your leadership group,” he said. “I think it’s a big part of the game, the emotional part. They’re not machines. There’s a way to draw that, and a lot of it comes from the leaders. If they can find that in themselves, they can pull guys along with them.

“When teams have success, the biggest reason is that the top players do that.”

Sutter’s top players have all bought in: Mike Richards, Anze Kopitar, Doughty, Rob Scuderi, Jarret Stoll, Justin Williams and especially Brown, who has been both a physical, disturbing force and a contributor on the scoresheet — just about the perfect playoff leader.

“I mean, he pushes the right buttons,” Brown said. “You can do all the Xs and Os right, and if you’re not emotionally attached, it’s really hard to win in this league. He brought attention to that, pushing guys, patting guys on the back at the right times.

“Maybe it’s a little bit of a cliche, but everyone’s equal in that room. If you’re a superstar or a role player, you’re expected to do the right things. He plays no favourites.”

And now and then, he’ll throw in a joke.

For April Fool’s Day, he wrote out a whole itinerary of items for the players to do on what was supposed to be a day off, concluding with a meeting at his house — he’s renting Terry Murray’s old place in Manhattan Beach.

None of the players will admit to having fallen for it, and Sutter wasn’t telling.

“At least they know where I live,” he said Friday.

“You have to have those moments. Like we were in a meeting in our hotel, and someone said the New York-Washington game was going into overtime — the long one — and somebody asks: ‘Are they tied?’ Awesome,” he said, laughing.

“They’ve gotta have some fun. What’s the old saying: Make your work practice and make your practice work. Especially with a young team. It has to be firm and clear, but they also have to be allowed to use their abilities.”

Based on their 7-1 playoff record, it doesn’t appear to be a problem.

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

[hockeygod]

Moyes assails NHL over Coyotes’ operations

PAUL WALDIE, Globe and Mail, May. 04, 2012

The former owner of the Phoenix Coyotes has lashed out at the NHL in court for trying to make him cover all the losses the league has incurred since buying the club out of bankruptcy nearly three years ago.

Arizona businessman Jerry Moyes is demanding that the NHL explain why it didn’t move the Coyotes to Winnipeg, Quebec City or Seattle instead of keeping the team in Phoenix and piling up losses.

“The NHL wants to recoup from [Moyes] wide-ranging damages including the losses for every single day the NHL operates the Phoenix Coyotes and the difference between any future sale price of the team and the amount the NHL paid to purchase the team in bankruptcy,” Moyes argues in documents filed in an Arizona bankruptcy court this week. “The NHL is attempting to make Jerry Moyes and his wife an insurance policy for the bad decisions that the league has made since it purchased the team.”

Moyes wants the league to turn over information relating to its decision to move the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg last year, arguing the NHL should have moved the Coyotes instead since Phoenix was losing more money.

In court filings, the NHL calls Moyes’s demands irrelevant. The league argues the issues have nothing to do with a legal battle it is waging with Moyes over his botched attempt to sell the Coyotes to Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie in May of 2009. Balsillie planned to move the team to Hamilton, something the NHL fought bitterly. The league ended up buying the Coyotes out of bankruptcy protection in November of 2009 for $140-million (all currency U.S.). It has been running the club ever since, with the help of $50-million from the City of Glendale, which owns the arena where the team plays.

The NHL sued Moyes in 2010, alleging he had violated a deal to keep the team in Phoenix for seven years after he acquired control of the Coyotes in 2006. The NHL is seeking more than $70-million in damages and alleges Moyes secretly negotiated the proposed sale to Balsillie and then lied about it. Moyes has denied any wrongdoing. A trial date has not been set.

The fate of the Coyotes, currently in the thick of the NHL playoffs, remains uncertain. The NHL has said that it will consider moving the franchise if a local buyer cannot be found. The league is believed to be seeking $170-million for the team. So far there have been no takers.

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

[hockeygod]

Your stories: Where were you in '72?

Chris Hannay, Globe and Mail, May 4, 2012

It was Sept. 28, 1972. Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series between the Canadian and Russian hockey teams. 34 seconds left on the clock, and Paul Henderson scores the winning goal for Canada with the "shot heard 'round the world."

So where were you when Henderson's puck found the back of the net? For many Canadians, it was a remarkable moment – not just for sport, but for a sense of patriotism and global politics.

We've been collecting your stories and memories as we approach the 40th anniversary of the momentous series. We'll feature some of your stories in print and online.

Some of the stories you've shared so far have been fascinating:

– Newlyweds bumped from a honeymoon suite by celebrating hockey players.

– Watching the game in a packed, stifling high-school gymnasium, which erupted in roars with Henderson's goal.

– An editor for a certain newspaper won a bottle of liquor for writing the best front-page headline in the newsroom.

For more on Paul Henderson now, check out Patrick White's in-depth profile of the 69-year-old hockey legend.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/stricken-by-cancer-paul-henderson-flexes-in-the-face-of-mortality/article2373066/

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

[hockeygod]

NHL Playoff Diary: Less is more for Alex Ovechkin

Michael Traikos, National Post, May 6, 2012

“Ticking away the moments that make up a slow day. You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.”

For a band that appealed to so many stoners, Pink Floyd’s “Time” was a kick-in-the-butt to get off the couch and do something. The song, off their epic 1974 album Dark Side of the Moon, was about how time is precious and that before you know it you grow old and realize that the best years of your life have slipped away.

For Alex Ovechkin, it might as well be his theme song during these playoffs.

The Washington Capitals captain previously had a laid-back lifestyle playing under former head coach Bruce Boudreau. Ovechkin stayed on the ice for as long as he wanted, sometimes scoring, sometimes floating in the defensive zone, without a care in the world. And then Dale Hunter stepped behind the bench with an iron fist and a stopwatch.

He made the enigmatic star make the most of his minutes, playing him for 15 minutes and nine seconds in a 3-2 win against the New York Rangers in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference quarter-final on Saturday.

The thing is, the less Ovechkin gets, the better he seems to play.

Ovechkin, who leads the Capitals with seven points in these playoffs, scored a goal in Saturday’s win. He has three goals and two assists in games when he has played 21 or fewer minutes, and has one goal and one assist when he has played more than 22 minutes.

It should also be noted that the Capitals are 5-2 when he plays 21 or fewer minutes and 1-3 when he plays more than 22 minutes

In a way, this makes sense. Ovechkin’s game is all about explosive energy. And if he is only playing a third of the game, he should have more in the tank to skate, hit and score goals.

In that regard, maybe time is on his side.

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

[hockeygod]

Kings’ Dustin Brown, Blues’ David Backes are perfect playoff leaders

Cam Cole, National Post, May 5, 2012

“You gotta try to go after guys, get them off their game, and maybe I’ve done that a little bit,” said Kings captain Dustin Brown. “Guys don’t like me too much just from the way that I play, but I’ve been able to handle that."

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — If hockey were only about will, and a team exactly mirrored its captain, there might be nothing left of the Los Angeles Kings or St. Louis Blues to go on from here.

By the end of their Western Conference semi-final series, which could come as early as Sunday, there would be Kings’ Dustin Brown on one side, Blues’ David Backes on the other, two goaltenders, and everybody else in the infirmary.

And the goalies would only be safe if they kept their heads up.

U.S. teammates two years ago in the Olympics, Brown and Backes are peas in a pod — skilled, fast, physical, edgy, capable of seek-and-destroy hits, and with an inclination to take the shortest route to the opposition’s most important players, and arrive in ill humour.

Pretty much perfect playoff leaders, in other words.

“It’s always better from a teammates standpoint, coaching standpoint, if (captains) have a strong identity, because that’s how you want your team to play,” Kings head coach Darryl Sutter sad Saturday, “and we’re fortunate that we have (former Philadelphia Flyers captain) Mike Richards and Brownie both that are so close in those areas, in terms of what they bring, in terms of leadership, we’re lucky like that.”

And on the other side?

“Well, (Backes) is clearly an identity player, no different than the last series where we talked about Kesler and Hamhuis, to be quite honest — we felt they were (Vancouver Canucks’) identity players.”

That didn’t stop Brown from singling out Henrik Sedin for a seismic hit in Game 3 that didn’t disable the Canucks’ captain but definitely sent a message — one of many Brown delivered in the series, on the scoresheet and off.

“I mean, you gotta try to go after guys, get them off their game, and maybe I’ve done that a little bit,” the Kings’ gritty captain said. “Guys don’t like me too much just from the way that I play, but I’ve been able to handle that.

“I try to be hard on their top guys, and I don’t think any team really likes that.”

He seems to be particularly obstreperous around captains, and has locked horns with the six-foot-three, 225-pound Backes more than once as the Kings have built their 3-0 stranglehold, with Game 4 Sunday at noon at Staples Center.

“Well, I think both (Sedin and Backes) are top guys, you have to try to push them out,” Brown said. “Backes is a big boy, he’s one of those guys you can hit 100 times, he’s going to be the same David Backes we saw in Games 1-2-3.

“Sometimes it’s an uphill battle with a guy like that. He’s always going to show up and play, and you have to keep after him just to have an effect over the course of a series. A big body like that, with the skill he has, if you’re not running into him every chance you get, he’s going to be running into you.”

“There’s no love lost in the battle of playoffs,” said Backes, “but you saw in the second period when he hits me, he goes down, he’s right back up and into it and he and (Willie) Mitchell almost send me into the bench . . . those are clean hits, they’re hard plays and you can respect the hell out of a guy across from you who’s playing clean but playing his butt off and playing hard.”

Sutter and Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, both old-school guys who insist on stubborn, responsible territorial play, and have no time for soft players, would love this captains’ contest of wills if they weren’t each hoping the other’s leader would go away.

“Well, they’re two big guys,” said Hitchcock. “Man, that hit against the bench — that hurt ME. Cripes, you saw both guys get squished. I’m surprised both of them got up. That was a big, big-time hit.”

Brown, the smaller of the two at six feet and 205 pounds, has been a major force for the Kings in the playoffs, but “it’s not really much different than the impact he has at any point in the regular season,” said Sutter. “I think he’s a strong, fast, straight-line, finish-checks player and when he does that he’s really effective.

“He’s probably no different than their captain. They have an identity, and if they’re doing it right then it’s easy to say, ‘Look, that’s how Dustin does it, that’s how you do it.’ Or ‘That’s how David does it, that’s how you do it.’ ”

From Backes’s point of view, there’s no choice but to man up against the Kings, who’ve been pushing the Blues around for long stretches in the series.

“We’ve got to find that energy and that stomach to stand up to their forwards, they’ve really taken it to us,” he said.

Whatever bond Backes and Brown may have shared en route to the silver medal in Vancouver is out the window.

“Not today. They want to hug, they can hug after the series,” said Hitchcock.

“I think there’s a lot of mutual respect there, but there comes a time when that friendship needs to go to the side, and you’ve got say, ‘It’s either you’re going home early or we’re going home early,’ ” Backes said.

“We’ll be friends later in the summer, but right now this is what we need to do.”

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

[hockeygod]

Is winning enough to keep Coyotes in Phoenix?

Michael Traikos, National Post, May 7, 2012

The Phoenix Coyotes have finally managed to fill their arena in Glendale, thanks to their post-season success.

They say winning cures all. We’ll see about that.

As early as Tuesday, council members in the city of Glendale, Ariz., could vote on a proposal that would grant upwards of US$17-million to the potential new owners of the Phoenix Coyotes in hopes of keeping the team in the desert. But if Greg Jamison and his ownership group have any say in the matter, they will wait until after NHL commissioner Gary Bettman hands the Stanley Cup to captain Shane Doan before votes are cast.

OK, so we might be getting ahead of ourselves.

The Coyotes, who have a 3-1 series lead against the Nashville Predators, are only in the second round of the playoffs. But in a strange situation, where on-ice success could possibly affect off-ice developments, the players might end up controlling where they play next year.

With every win the Coyotes pick up, the argument for staying in Phoenix becomes stronger. It is easy to say no to a team that does not qualify for the playoffs or have any type of success. But can council members really turn the lights out on an arena that is selling out every playoff game?

For NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, this is the big test. He has said in that the only thing standing in the way of success for a non-traditional hockey market was a failure to deliver a winning product. That was the problem in Atlanta. But that no longer seems to be the problem in Phoenix.

The Coyotes, who have qualified for the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, won their first playoff round in franchise history this year. They are one win away from reaching the Western Conference final, five wins from playing in the Stanley Cup final and nine wins away from being crowned champions.

Slowly, roots are being established. The arena, which had fittingly felt like a desert during the regular season, has been packed with fans dressed in white T-shirts and waving white towels in the post-season. It feels like hockey is finally making a footprint in the desert, just as it did in Nashville, Carolina, San Jose and other non-traditional markets.

And yet, maybe because the bleeding has gone on for so long, there is still the feeling that regardless of how this all ends, the Coyotes will inevitably be uprooted and moved to Quebec City.

Four weeks of sellouts do not erase six months of empty seats, nor do they erase years and years of losing money. According to various reports, the Coyotes have never turned a profit since relocating to Phoenix in 1996, having lost somewhere between US$25-million and US$40-million annually. The NHL, which has owned the team since 2009, is looking for US$25-million at the end of this season and next season for running the arena and franchise.

Jamison, who is the former CEO of the San Jose Sharks, seems committed to making it work in Phoenix, as long as the city of Glendale is willing to chip in. For that, he needs help from the Goldwater Institute, the Phoenix-based conservative watchdog that spoiled Matthew Hulsizer’s attempt to purchase the team a year ago and has vowed to scrutinize any city deal with the Coyotes buyer.

Perhaps more importantly, Jamison also might be looking for help from the players. So far, he has been getting it.

This is a team that has consistently been one of the lowest-spending in the league. But like the misfit roster in the baseball comedy Major League, the players have blocked out the relocation rumours and have found a way to get the job done.

Goaltender Mike Smith, who signed a US$2-million contract after being cast away from Tampa Bay, is ranked third among goaltenders in the playoffs with a .946 save percentage. Antoine Vermette, a salary dump at the trade deadline, is in the top 10 in playoff scoring.

Winning cures all. At the very least, it sways popular opinion. And if the Coyotes can continue to generate excitement in this city, perhaps finding money will not be so difficult.

—–

Hurdles remain in Phoenix Coyotes deal

DAVID SHOALTS, Globe and Mail, May. 07, 2012

The NHL's sale of the Phoenix Coyotes to a group led by Greg Jamison may have taken a step forward, according to two reports, but the long-awaited sale still has some hurdles to clear.

The Phoenix Business Journal reported Monday morning there is a tentative agreement between Jamison, the former president of the San Jose Sharks, and the NHL, which could be announced by league commissioner Gary Bettman before Monday night's playoff game between the Coyotes and the Nashville Predators. However, an earlier report on Fox 10 News, a Phoenix television station, was less definite. It said Bettman and Jamison were expected only to publicly discuss "a plan for a new ownership group."

Both Bettman and NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly declined to comment.

While the no comments indicate an agreement may be announced, that is not the biggest problem in the deal. It is thought they agreed on the basic terms of the deal some time ago – the NHL wants $170-million (all currency U.S.) for the team it bought out of bankruptcy in October, 2009 – but a lease agreement with the suburban city of Glendale is needed to complete the sale. The final step will be the approval of the NHL's board of governors but that is not expected to be a problem.

The biggest threat is the looming opposition from the Goldwater Institute, a conservative watchdog group which scuttled a previous bid on the grounds that Glendale would violate Arizona's laws against excessive public subsidies to private companies. The institute is still battling the city in court over access to records related to the Coyotes sale.

Jamison was looking for about $16-million per year from the city as a management fee to operate Jobing.com Arena. Informal declarations from council members showed recently that a slim majority of four of council's seven members would vote in favour of the payment plus another $1-million annually to pay the debt required to pay the fee over a 30-year lease. That vote is not likely to come for at least a week, since the Coyotes sale is not on the agenda for Tuesday's council meeting.

That does not include outgoing Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs, who will not run for re-election this summer although she still has a vote in the city's 2013 budget. The mayor, whose vision of Glendale as a home for various professional sports teams led to a massive debt from building the necessary facilities, said she thinks Jamison should not receive more than $11-million as a management fee.

Over the last two NHL seasons, the city of 250,000 people committed $50-million to the NHL to subsidize the Coyotes' losses, which run to more than $30-million per year. But budget problems resulted in Glendale coming up $5-million short of its obligation this year, which is now due. Scruggs told city council they should ask the NHL for some of the $20-million back that is an escrow account controlled by the league and negotiate a payment plan.

While a majority of councillors may vote to pay Jamison what he is demanding, coming up with the money is another matter. Glendale is facing a deficit of $35-million in its 2013 budget, which has to be in place by late June.

In its ongoing budget deliberations, council is considering raising taxes, laying off as many as 51 city employees and cutting programs.

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

[hockeygod]

Canucks should hold on to Alain Vigneault

Iain MacIntyre, National Post, May 7 2012

VANCOUVER — This was going to begin “Dear Francesco” but a journalism instructor once told me personal letters were a lazy way to write columns and Francesco Aquilini is probably too busy to read correspondence.

The Vancouver Canucks’ managing owner is believed to be meeting his general manager Monday, 15 days after the end of the team’s National Hockey League season.

Don’t expect any announcements or even official confirmation the summit occurred. If Mike Gillis is still the general manager at the end of the week, we’ll know the meeting went pretty well and the Canucks are mobilizing with Alain Vigneault as coach for another run at the Stanley Cup next season.

And if not, well, you better assume the crash position and understand there will be personnel matters this spring and summer more weighty than what to do with Mason Raymond.

Unless every columnist, blogger, commentator, talk show host, NHL insider and hairdresser has it wrong, a key item on Monday’s agenda will be Vigneault.

But there may be an issue even bigger than the coach. The real question may be: Who is running the hockey team? Is it Gillis or the people who hired him?

The Canucks are the shiniest bobble in the billion-dollar empire built by developer Luigi Aquilini and his three sons, Francesco, Roberto and Paulo.

The Canucks have been fantastically successful, as a team and business. Purchased in 2006 along with Rogers Arena from Seattle’s John McCaw for a couple of instalments totalling $250-million, the value of Canucks Sports and Entertainment has probably doubled under the Aquilinis.

The strength of their ownership since they hired Gillis in 2008 to replace Dave Nonis, the general manager they had inherited from McCaw, is their absolute trust in their hand-picked man to make hockey decisions and the Aquilinis’ willingness to fund them.

The result is a team that has averaged 50 wins and 108 points the last four seasons while producing top-five NHL revenue and, likely, profits in excess of $100-million.

Given the consistency and excellence in on- and off-ice performance, two straight Presidents’ Trophies and the fact it was only 11 months ago that the Aquilini-Gillis-Vigneault Canucks came within a game of winning the Stanley Cup, its is natural to scoff at the idea that the coach or any other senior person in the organization is about to be fired.

As a rival NHL manager said recently: “Everyone out there should get a pat on the back and be told to go win the Stanley Cup next season.”

The problem is Francesco Aquilini got worked in 2008, counselled by friends to dump Nonis for Gillis. Gillis turned into a good general manager — the best in the NHL last season according to peers including Nonis’ blood big brother, Toronto Maple Leaf boss Brian Burke, who voted Gillis the GM of the year.

But if the Aquilinis can be successfully lobbied once, it can happen again. And one of the chief lobbyists four years ago has been writing since then that Francesco should get rid of Vigneault.

That media campaign gained some traction two weeks ago when the Canucks were knocked from the Stanley Cup tournament in five games by the Los Angeles Kings. It was Vancouver’s earliest playoff exit since 2004, although given the Kings’ steam-rolling of the St. Louis Blues in Round 2, perhaps it wasn’t as shameful a defeat for the Canucks as some made it seem.

In any case, the Aquilinis were strangely too busy to meet with Gillis after the season, and Vigneault ducked reporters.

Surely, the owners must be furious. Illogically, it’s all the coach’s fault.

There is no sober, statistical argument for firing Vigneault. He is easily the most successful coach in franchise history, a three-time finalist in nine NHL seasons for the Jack Adams Award — the coach-of-the-year trophy he won with the Canucks in 2007 and for which he was the runner-up only last year.

Without any sensible reason to change coaches, the anti-Vigneault campaign floats specious arguments such as:

• The Canucks need a fresh voice (because obviously players weren’t listening to Vigneault when the team finished the season 8-1 and topped the standings again).

• Vigneault can’t coach young players (like Alex Edler, Chris Tanev, Cory Schneider and Cody Hodgson, or the players he developed in Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen).

• Vigneault is dull and defensive-minded (but the Canucks were fourth in scoring this season, first last year and second the season before).

• The Canucks can’t get over the hump (which is, what, Game 7 of the Stanley Cup)?

• Vigneault’s success is a charade because his team plays in the weak Northwest Division (although the Canucks still had the best head-to-head record among Western Conference playoff teams this season and their nine playoff rounds the last four years — none against those Northwest pushovers — are tied for the most in the NHL).

Really, the most cogent argument for dumping Vigneault is that the owners must be angry and “somebody has to pay.” At least vengeance is a natural emotion. But it’s probably neither a prudent nor healthy way to operate a business that is one of the standard-bearers in its field.

Gillis has made it clear that he thinks Vigneault is outstanding. Both GM and coach have a year remaining under contract and have earned extensions.

The manager has not a difficult case to make for retaining the coach if owners ask his opinion. But what if the Aquilinis tell Gillis what his opinion should be and demand he fire Vigneault?

That was not the deal when he became GM.

Gillis is no fool; he fully understood what he was doing two weeks ago when he spoke so strongly in favour of Vigneault. There is no wriggle room, no way for Gillis to call a news conference and say that on second thought the Canucks need a new coach.

If Vigneault’s head rolls, everyone knows it will have been the owners who sprung the guillotine. And then why would Gillis choose to stay? So they can tell him next fall which players should go to the minors and which to the power play?

The Aquilinis have a great thing going with Gillis and Vigneault. All they need to do is nothing.

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

[hockeygod]

Why Glendale will regret keeping Coyotes

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News, 2012-05-07

It’s the perfect backdrop, isn’t it? Gary Bettman in Phoenix, almost three years to the day after former owner Jerry Moyes threw his ownership keys on the table, to announce the Coyotes have been sold just before the team puts a bow on the first second round series win in franchise history.

All will be well in Phoenix, then it’s time to move on to the Florida Panthers and New Jersey Devils, the next two teams requiring the league’s attention.

If only it were that easy. In fact, the prospective sale of the Coyotes might be nothing more than a shell game, with the objective of the game to extract as much money out of the good people of Glendale as possible. For example, if former San Jose Sharks CEO Greg Jamison is to purchase the Coyotes, the new lease could cost Glendale a total of $92 million over the next five years. And that could be with no guarantee the team stays beyond that time period.

According to one source close to such matters, there are a couple of major caveats to this deal.

“It might kick the can down the street by a few years,” the source said, “but that’s about it.”

That’s because there is speculation Jamison will not be required to sign an “unconditional guarantee” attached to his ownership. After Moyes essentially bailed on the Coyotes three years ago, the NHL made it mandatory for new owners to promise they’ll keep paying the bills ad nauseam. Hence the unconditional guarantee. Jeff Vinik had to sign one when he bought the Tampa Bay Lightning and Terry Pegula did the same when he purchased the Buffalo Sabres. The unconditional guarantee basically ensures the owner will be obliged to continue to throw unlimited amounts of money into the sinkhole without leaving the NHL to become a ward of the state.

(Deputy commissioner Bill Daly did not reply to an email asking about the terms of Jamison’s prospective sale.)

There is reportedly no such provision in the deal for the Coyotes with the NHL. The deal will be announced at about $170 million, but our source said it’s unlikely the actual money changing hands will amount to even $100 million. Remember, this is for a team Jim Balsillie was willing to pay $225 million to purchase not long ago.

The deal, of course, will be contingent upon Jamison negotiating a new arena lease with the City of Glendale, which should have anyone who pays property taxes in that city very, very nervous. According to Glendale council member Phil Lieberman, the new lease would cost the city $92 million in management fees over the next five years – $17 million next year, $20 million in each of 2014, 2015 and 2016 and $15 million in 2017. And while Lieberman hasn’t seen the entire proposal, he’s doubtful even that will be enough to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix long-term.

“Who knows?” Lieberman said. “Jamison says yes, but how do we know that’s not a bunch of bull? The NHL is the third owner of this team in the past five years and they’ve wanted $25 million a year to break even. How is Jamison going to make a profit? It’s impossible.”

Lieberman said the city, in return, receives only about $4.5 million per year in revenue, meaning that in order to keep the team in Glendale for another five years, it will cost a city of about 225,000 almost $70 million.

It doesn’t add up for people such as Lieberman. He said Global Spectrum manages the University of Phoenix Stadium, also located in Glendale, for about $9.2 million a year. Lieberman thinks the city can, without the Coyotes, hire someone to manage the facility for less money and attract more non-hockey events to the building to make it profitable.

“That’s where I’m coming from,” Lieberman said. “I’ve owned three businesses in Glendale. How much of a subsidy do you think the city has given me? None.”

Here’s a thought. Isn’t it time that perhaps the NHL did the right thing here and stopped holding this city hostage? Glendale is in for $50 million so far and if Jamison gets his lease, will have to pay another $92 million over the next five years. And so far, there is no guarantee from anyone the Coyotes will stay in Glendale long-term.

But Bettman is capitalizing on a feel-good situation in Glendale, where the team is winning and creating a short-term buzz. Hey, it might even win the Stanley Cup this spring. But does anyone really think that’s going to make one iota of difference in the long run? Will a long playoff run suddenly make the Coyotes profitable?

It’s highly doubtful. What is more likely is it will create a small, temporary spike in interest. None of the Carolina Hurricanes, Tampa Bay Lightning or Anaheim Ducks has seen its long-term numbers go up significantly because of their Stanley Cup titles.

Sources say just over 10 percent of the Coyotes revenues come from corporate business and that simply doesn’t cut it. No corporation is going to invest long-term in a team that can’t guarantee it will be there in a few years. Yes, there is a small, hardcore group of fans that might grow slightly in number, but filling a building with low-priced tickets 50 times a year is not a recipe for long-term success.

Greg Jamison will learn that and the good people of Glendale will continue to pay for a team that will always be in limbo.

—–

Grange on Coyotes: Bettman's bill of goods

Michael Grange, Sportsnet.ca, May 7 2012

In any other context, it would be a story as uplifting and inspirational as the Phoenix Coyotes' unlikely run through the Stanley Cup playoffs has been so far.

Tales of persistence and perseverance, of fighting uphill battles and somehow winning?

Sports fans — even hockey fans in Phoenix — lap that up, with good reason.

That might have explained the smile on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's face as he introduced "tentative" (adjective courtesy of NHL.com) Phoenix Coyotes buyer Greg Jamison Monday night.

After all the doubters, from Jerry Moyes throwing the keys on the table to the Goldwater Institute making Matthew Hulsizer disappear to the cash-poor tire kickers who moved on wordlessly; to all the rumoured interested parties that were never interested enough to give names, Bettman was finally able to announce a buyer for the money-losing team.

He even got a live body, Jamison, the respected former president of the San Jose Sharks, to stand up and say it was so. And he did it in advance of home game with a full(ish) building expected to watch the plucky Coyotes try to advance to the Western Conference finals.

How's that for feel good?

What shame, and a sham.

If Bettman really wanted to hold a press conference that would please someone, anyone, that cares about hockey or about the NHL or about a mid-sized desert town already stretched past its financial limit, he'd announce the Coyotes were leaving, not staying.

The deal for an NHL team in Glendale will likely be so bad the community would be better off if the team simply went 'poof'. Surely the NHL and its players would be better served in a market where there was a fighting chance to make some money.

That's not going to happen in Glendale, based on track record.

According to long-time Glendale city councilor Phil Lieberman, the terms of the deal being given to Jamison — who has partners, apparently, but wouldn't name them — basically see him guaranteed $306 million in management fees for Jobing.com Arena over the next 21 years, or an average of $14.6 million a year. A large chunk of that money is front-end loaded, with Glendale on the hook for $92 million over the next five years.

So no, he and his backers — whoever they are — aren't complete fools to write a cheque for $170 million for a team that has lost more than $50 million the past two seasons despite a rock bottom payroll and consecutive playoff appearances.

The management fee seems like a pretty good deal for them, revenue sharing makes it better. Nearby University of Phoenix Stadium, home to the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL, carries a $9.2-million management fee annually.

Perhaps an even better comparison is the $50 million AEG paid upfront to Kansas City for the right to manage The Sprint Center (which was opened in 2007) through 2033. The arena was built with an eye toward attracting an NHL or NBA team. It never happened, but the city and the arena may be better off for it.

The flexibility the arena has in terms of dates without having to work around a sports team's schedule may actually off-set whatever benefits the facility might get from a sweetheart lease deal the club would surely command.

Since opening the Sprint Center AEG has turned a $6 million operating profit without an anchor tenant and been one of the busiest arenas in North America. So far the city's $14-million bond payment has been covered by a tax on rental cars and hotels. It's not like the city is swimming in cash thanks to their arena, but they're making it work and don't have the burden of under-writing a money-losing sports franchise.

Maybe that's why the former Ice Edge Holdings — who once tried to position themselves as buyers for the Coyotes — recently offered to run Jobing.com Arena for between $5-10 million if and when the NHL club does leave.

Who knows? There might be some money to be made running an arena in Glendale as long as you don't have to fork over $50 million in NHL salaries or more on top of it.

Lieberman has long been a vocal opponent of paying the NHL to stay in Phoenix from his seat on council, and he was no different when Bettman and his posse presented the deal to him in a conference room at city hall Wednesday afternoon.

They didn't change his mind, though it's expected a majority of the seven city councilors will approve the deal.

"If I had to choose between the Coyotes staying and them leaving, I wish they were leaving," said Lieberman.

It's not hard to see why, and they still may yet. Monday night's press conference aside, there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before a deal to keep the Coyotes out of Quebec City is reached.

The city of Glendale has to agree to the deal being sought by the Jamison group, and then a city with a $35-million budget shortfall has to figure out how to pay for it — no easy task given homeowners are already going to be hit with a 30 per cent property tax hike in August that will likely come with a layoff of city employees. There's also the matter of the watchdog Goldwater Institute deciding whether or not the deal is enough of an affront to taxpayers to make it worthwhile opposing through litigation.

Lieberman says he shudders to think what hockey in the desert has cost the city he's lived in, worked in and served for most of his life after returning from the Second World War.

"I figure about $134 million in cold hard cash so far," he said. "Wow is right."

And if this deal goes through it will only mean more of the same. Good money after bad, is the expression.

So come on Gary. What do you say? Do you really want to have press conference people can feel good about? How about giving Glendale, the NHLPA, hockey fans in Quebec City or even Southern Ontario a break and doing the right thing.

Next time you have an announcement to make in Glendale regarding the Coyotes, how about cutting the taxpayers a cheque for $10 million or so as a token of your appreciation, offering a heartfelt apology for everything that's happened and then get the hell out?

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

[hockeygod]

NHL notes: Blues on verge of being sold

QMI Agency, May 8 2012

Another NHL team appears on the verge of being sold.

A day after the Phoenix Coyotes ownership issue was theoretically resolved, with Greg Jamison agreeing in principle of buy the team, word has come down that a group led by Tom Stillman will close his deal to purchase the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The group led by Stillman, the Blues' minority owner since 2007, will reportedly pay $130 million for the NHL franchise and its AHL affiliate, the Peoria Rivermen.

Absentee owner Dave Checketts has been trying to sell the team for the last two years, ever since private-equity firm TCP divested its 70% interest. The had a deal to sell the franchise to Matthew Hulsizer but the league ruled in January that the agreement had been terminated after a dealine to complete the deal was missed.

If Stillman gets approval from the NHL board of governors to buy the Blues, Hall of Famer Brett Hull is expected to be hired in a management role. Hull, who was general manager of the Dallas Stars for parts of two seasons, played 12 years for the Blues.

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

[hockeygod]

The end is the beginning for Flyers

STEVE SIMMONS, QMI Agency, May 8 2012

PHILADELPHIA – Jaromir Jagr stopped himself in mid-sentence, his lower lip beginning to quiver, his expression one of defeat and disappointment.

“This is a sad day for me,” Jagr said, his face contorting, trying hard to keep his emotions in check.

“I want to cry, man. This is probably the most enjoyable year I’ve ever had. I won some (Stanley) Cups. I won some trophies, but I loved this year. From the organization to the last player on the team and the fans, they were so nice to me. I hate to finish right now. That’s the worst feeling, you know. You finish the whole story, the whole year.”

The Philadelphia Flyers didn’t see this ending coming. Not after their first-round dominance of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Not after they played with so much emotion, so much desire, so much speed, and so much dominance. This contradiction of a season is over after five second-round Stanley Cup playoff games against a New Jersey Devils team they had no answer for. The Flyers showed so much good, overcoming the near season-long absense of Chris Pronger, overcoming the mid-season concussions of Daniel Briere and Claude Giroux, overcoming the dubious goaltending of Ilya Bryzgalov and overcoming the favoured Penguins, that in the end none of them saw this defeat coming in such an absolute form.

“We tried,” said Jagr, the NHL great who hasn’t committed to another season. “It wasn’t enough. You have to give them credit. I hate to say this but they were quicker and stronger than us, especially on the boards.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen (with me). It doesn’t really matter what’s going to happen.”

In the Philadelphia dressing room, there was really no talk of an opportunity lost. There was enough respect for the manner in which the Devils owned this series. But there was always acknowledgment of how far the Flyers came, how far they could have gone, and how this season will be looked upon as a mixed bag of so much development followed by a crushing ending.

“I wouldn’t say we underestimated them,” said Maxime Talbot, so large a factor in Round 1. “But they took the momentum and they never let up.”

This season was supposed to be a changing of the guard for the normally competitive Flyers. General manager Paul Holmgren did what few of his colleagues would have the stones to do. He traded away his captain and one of his leading scorers, choosing to take the team in a new direction. With the departure of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter — who ironically are still alive in the playoffs as members of the Los Angeles Kings — the Flyers' transformation was something special this season. When you factor in that Pronger was really a non-factor in a season — and possibly a career — lost to a concussion, Holmgren and the Flyers were starting out minus three of their most important players from a year ago.

They did that as Giroux emerged as a player who will be in Hart Trophy and Team Canada conversations for the next several years. Missing Giroux Tuesday night, the Flyers lacked much offence.

“You lose him, you lose a lot,” Jagr said.

They lost him for the game but have him for a very bright future. They got rid of Richards and Carter, as much for their deportment as for their play, and watched as Scott Hartnell had a career year and youngsters Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek made contributions. The rookies, Sean Couturier, Matt Read and Brayden Schenn all look like fine players to build around for the future.

The Flyers are gone now, but will be back strong in the future. Even with Bryzgalov signed for eight more seasons and his goaltending forever in question. The second goal Tuesday night was a killer. But this is life with Bryzgalov. The unusual is expected. For all the Flyers' promise for the coming years, there is this odd place Bryzgalov holds. Can they win with him? Most would say no. But in this series, they didn’t lose because of him.

Coach Peter Laviolette walked into the Flyers dressing room following the defeat and searched for the right words to address his team. He couldn’t find them.

“It’s hard right now,” Laviolette said afterwards. “When you meet with the players after a season like this, it’s one of those speeches that you never seem to master.”

The speech he couldn’t master. But even in the raw emotion of sudden defeat, there was pride in his voice.

“I can tell you that in that room right now is a terrific group of men,” Laviolette said. “They played hard this year and gave a lot. We came up short. It’s a bright future and we’re looking forward to that. But tonight, it’s disappointing.”

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

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