Off Wing Opinion

The Hockey News surveyed one player from every NHL franchise and asked them whether or not they liked having a shootout to decide tie games. THN lists the result as 70 percent in favor, but that seems split between players who think the results have been good, but still aren't warm to the idea on one hand, and players who genuinely like it on the other.

Here's a sampling:

"I like it. I mean, I don't like it, but I like it. I don't personally like it, but I think it's good for hockey. You can look at 100 different ways, but I think it's good for hockey overall for now. Maybe re-look at the way everything is done at the end of the season but I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's getting on ESPN. That's what matters right now.'' -- Andrew Raycroft

"I think the shootouts are OK, but I think they should give three points to a team that wins in regulation, and two for overtime and the shootout. I don't think winning in 60 minutes should be the same as winning a shootout." -- Jaromir Jagr

"Actually, I absolutely love it. Not that I'll get a chance to be part of it anytime soon, but you can see the fans on the edge of their seats in overtime, almost hoping that the game stays tied to they can see it. It's exciting and entertaining and it's done what I think we wanted." -- Tyson Nash

I wonder what they're going to think when NBC asks that the shootout gets ported to the playoffs?

Click here for a humorous take on the MyNHL ad campaign.

Thanks to James Mirtle for the pointer.

John Niyo of the Detroit News poses a question about WADA head Dick Pound's assertion that one-third of all NHL players use performance enhancing drugs:

Question his methods. Question his motives. Go ahead and question his message, too. But when you're through with all that, ask yourself this: What if he's right?

One thing is for sure: Whenever we've turned over a rock on this issue, we've never liked what we've found.

Just a gentle reminder that Martin Thornell of Hockey Dirt is hosting the 14th edition of the Carnival of the NHL, and he hopes to post it sometime on Friday. Be sure to get in your post today.

Brendan Shanahan says there was one change he wanted to see this season that couldn't be implemented in time for the 2005-06 season: expansion of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to 20 teams:

"I really like the idea of the 10-team playoff play-in and so did the guys on the competition committee," said Shanahan.

"We couldn't put it in the schedule because of arena availability but there was a lot of talk about putting the team finishing seventh and eighth against No. 9 and 10 in a best-of-three series. Timing-wise, we couldn't get it done this year."

Next year it will undoubtedly become a reality. Not only would it increase playoff revenue for several teams, it would also pique fan interest in several cities that would otherwise have given up on their club's playoff hopes.

One of the few things that I liked about the spate of expansion during the 1990s was the fact that sportswriters couldn't say that the NHL regular season wasn't important anymore. That's something you would hear all the time in a 21 team league where 16 teams would qualify for the postseason. In fact, now it isn't any easier to make the NHL playoffs as it is to get to the NBA postseason.

Then again, this change would have a number of positive effects. First off, winning the first or second seed in the conference would now mean you would face a team that would have had to play an extra mini round against a desperate opponent.

Next, it would give just about every team at the bottom of the standings a reason to hang in the race until the very end. In European Soccer, one of the interesting twists concerns the race at the bottom of the table to see who can avoid being one of the team relegated to a lower level of competition at the end of the season. While this wouldn't exactly be the same, the effect would be similar.

Sure, the playoffs would be a couple days longer, but the postseason is so long now that I'm not sure most of us would notice. Besides, I can still remember the days when we had a preliminary round and byes in the playoffs, and those best of three series could get exciting.

Q. When is a $10,000 fine not a $10,000 fine?

A. When your name is Wayne Gretzky.

Don Cherry was right on Saturday, Gretzky should have been fined.

Riffing off a Larry Brooks column about a rumored trade of Roberto Luongo to either Vancouver or Colorado, Steve Ovadia writes that the Canucks ought to be inquiring about Isles goalie Rick DiPietro:

DiPietro is one of the game's most athletic goalies. He's fantastic with the puck, often able to clear it out of the offensive zone on his own.

Because the new NHL is all about that first pass out of your own zone. If you have defensemen who can clear it and forwards with the speed to pick it up, you're going to dominate in the league. But it's shocking to see how many defensemen can't move the puck. So with a goalie like DiPietro, you know you'll have at least have one guy in your zone who can spring the forwards. For a fast team like Vancouver, that's key. Ed Jovanovski has one of the league's great outlet passes. But he can't do it alone. Why not grab a goalie who can multitask?

Why not indeed? Unfortunately, before we start thinking up combinations of players that might actually pry DP out of Mike Milbury's hands, we'd have to take a hard look at the salary cap, which last time I looked, both teams were up against pretty hard.

And then, if you look at this list of Canucks salaries (for the Isles, click here), you see that there aren't a whole lot of options, that is, unless you make this a huge multi-player deal.

Here's an idea for the league: Why not publish the league's salary information in a real-time interactive database that lets fans figure out their own trades. I guarantee that the feature would become the most popular on NHL.com overnight.

A couple of weeks ago in a speech at the National Press Club, NHL Comissioner Gary Bettman promised that the league would never adopt the shootout as part of the Stanley Cup Playoffs because multiple playoff overtimes where part of the essence of the sport.

But after Saturday night's epic 15-round shootout between New York and Washington, Larry Brooks thinks that it's only a matter of time before endless playoff OT finds itself on the endangered species list (registration required):

[Y]ou can take this to the bank right along with the owners' share of the players' escrow fund

The Caps and Rangers needed 15 shootout rounds to get to a decision before Marek Malik used a little trickery to get New York a 3-2 victory. Be sure to kee your eye on the highlight reels tonight, as Malik's goal -- one where he drew the puck and stick between his legs before beating Olie Kolzig stick side -- will be replayed for sometime to come.

A few days back when Steve Yzerman expressed his displeasure that the "new NHL" wasn't hockey, I asked what Yzerman's teammate and founder of the NHL Competition Committee, Brendan Shanahan, thought about Yzerman's take.

Turns out James Mirtle tracked him down -- though the following wasn't directly in response to Yzerman, I think it's illuminating nonetheless. From the Globe And Mail:

"You can bodycheck. There hasn't been a change in the rule of hitting. If anything, we've encouraged hitting by taking away other options. Some clowns like to call this the no-hit league. I've seen lots of games when the collisions are great. And you know what else? Some of these [players], who've never hit before, are now saying, 'Oh, I can't hit any more.' My question is: 'When did you ever hit before? Who are you trying to kid?' But you can't please everybody."

Indeed, you can't. As I've said before, we need to get to the Olympic break before we pass any sort of judgement on this experiment. Stay tuned.

Jane McManus of the Journal News takes a look at the NHL's new cable television partner:

The Comcast-owned cable network was cleared for takeoff on Cablevision just a few weeks ago, and the growing pains are evident in the Stamford, Conn., studios.

With a new set due after the Olympics hiatus, plywood boards and a vase of dying flowers hint of changes to come. There were six weeks to prepare after the NHL announced it was shunning traditional sports outlets for the former Outdoor Life Network. Let the rebranding begin.

(snip)

There are still some obvious kinks. OLN went with the Tampa Bay-Flyers game Tuesday rather than the matchup between the game's future stars, Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, but cut back and forth during the broadcast. It was a nice dilemma to have.

Here's a news flash: I don't find myself watching the OLN broadcasts very often at all. Why is that?

First of all, they've decided to camp out on Monday nights, not such a good idea as I anticipate that like myself, most hockey fans have some overlap with following the NFL.

Next, the quality of the broadcast (though it has improved) is inferior to the productions I see coming out of Canada from TSN, CBC and Rogers SportsNet. And with NHL Center Ice, I find myself shuffling past OLN and into the high 700s on my cable system to check those games out.

I don't want to bang on these guys too hard, because they had to go from a standing start to full speed in a matter of weeks. Then again, there's still a lot of room for improvement (though I have to say the play-by-play teams have been great).

I hope all my readers in the U.S. enjoyed Thanksgiving Day. And while readers in the U.S. might not have been looking, the world's leading anti-doping official decided to call out the NHL:

"I spoke with Gary [NHL commissioner Gary Bettman] and he said, 'We don't have the problem in hockey,' " Dick Pound told the London Free Press yesterday in an interview for a story to be published today. "I told him he does. You wouldn't be far wrong if you said a third."

The NHL's Bill Daly responded pretty angrily, suggesting that Pound doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the NHL.

A few weeks ago at the National Press Club, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman made it clear he thought the NHL didn't have a problem with steroids, after going on record that he thought steroids couldn't help with performance in ice hockey.

Is there a steroid problem in the NHL? I honestly don't know. But to suggest that steroids can't improve performance in ice hockey is disengenuous (though it looks like Bettman has abandoned that talking point) -- check out my friend Jes Golbez for the details.

Jes makes an interesting point here:

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In response to a statement by Don Meehan on Steve Larmer's resignation from the NHLPA, Trent Klatt doesn't mince words with what he think went on behind closed doors at the union:

Does Don Meehan have inside information or knowledge that Steve Larmer and Trent Klatt don't have or visa versa? Does Don Meehan know more of what went on than Klatt or Larmer since he also represents Trevor Linden? Is it possible Don Meehan was advising Linden during CBA negotiations and helped orchestrate Ted Saskin's rise to power?

We would like to know. Would you? Does the media?

I don't know about the media, but I'd like to know. If Trent would consent to an interview, I'd do it.

When: Tonight, 7:00 p.m. U.S. EST

Where: Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Why: To watch the first edition of what hockey fans hope will be the sport's 21st century answer to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

Tale Of The Tape:

Sidney Crosby: GP: 21 G: 10 A: 15 +/-:-6

Alex Ovechkin: GP: 21 G:15 A:6 +/-: -3

For more, visit the AP, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

UPDATE: Round 1 goes to the pride of Nova Scotia -- though the Caps are proving to be plucky. Round 2 is January 25, 2006 back in Pittsburgh.

More details are coming out about the seizure that struck Jiri Fischer of the Red Wings during the first period off a game with the Predators last night in Detroit. As it turns out, things were scarier than we even knew at the time. From the Canadian Press:

Fischer was given CPR at the bench by team physician Dr. Tony Colucci before the 25-year-old native of the Czech Republic was removed on a stretcher. He was taken to hospital and listed in stable condition.

''His heart was stopped,'' Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. ''They hooked up the auto defibrillator and shocked him.''

While Red Wings officials had no explanation for the seizure, it should be noted that Fischer's career was threatened a few years before when he was dignosed with a heart abnormality. He was eventually cleared to resume playing.

I could link to all the individual stories, but there aren't anymore vital details at this time. Thankfully, Fischer is awake, alert and "jovial" according to the Red Wings, while he recovers at Detroit Receiving Hospital. Best of luck to him and my wishes for a speedy recovery.

As for the game, which was suspended with a little more than seven minutes left in the first period, the Red Wings have promised to announce the resscheduled date in 48 hours.

For more, visit the Red Wings section at the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.

For the wavefront on this story, as always, check Google News.

Washington and its hockey fans got dinged a bit -- and not without reason -- in the latest from John Buccigross:

Alexander "Red Bull" Ovechkin, the most exciting athlete in Washington D.C. I'm thankful he turned down more money in Russia to play in the world's greatest hockey league. It's too bad his city's sports fans don't appreciate that -- only a select, passionate few.

That's all too true, and it's a shame. As I've written before, Ovechkin is simply the most talented player the Capitals have ever had on their roster, and folks should be making a beeline for the MCI Center to see him play this year before ticket prices get rise in subsequent seasons and demand fills the arena.

Right now, the most exciting play in hockey is Ovechkin picking up a loose puck at center ice, streaking down the left wing, turning the corner on a surprised defenseman, and roofing a backhand over a goalie's shoulder. You'll see that play, or a reasonable facsimile of it, every game he plays.

Later, in response to a question of which city without an NHL franchise should get one, Buccigross writes:

Baltimore -- It feels like a hockey city to me. I'd build a cool, intimate 15,000-seat arena on the harbor and move the Capitals there.

I can understand why John thinks Baltimore is a hockey city. It's a tough blue collar town that has more in common with Detroit or Newark than it does with Washington, D.C., its neighbor at the other end of I-95.

But serial failures of both the Baltimore Skipjacks (old Caps affiliate) and the Baltimore Bandits (Mighty Ducks) just about rule out ice hockey for Charm City. Baltimore was once owned by the Colts and the Orioles, but those days are long gone -- in the case of the O's that's courtesy of Peter Angelos. If anything, Baltimore is a football city and the Ravens own the town.

I can't blame Buccigross for his view of things. If anything, I wish he could have been here in the Spring of 1998, where, at least a few days, Washington was a hockey town. Back then, the Washington Post draped a large banner counting down the number of wins to clinch the Stanley Cup once the Caps made the Finals.

For six weeks or so, I had a blowup Godzilla (Olie Kolzig's nickname) in my living room draped with a Caps jersey.

Things began to pick up once the Caps finished off the Senators in five games in the second round. What came next was an Eastern Conference Final with Buffalo that brought out the hockey fans from all corners of the D.C. area.

Some of my favorite moments: Caps fans heckling Matthew Barnaby, only to be silenced by a goal later in the game; Peter Bondra clipping Domink Hasek after he strayed too far from the crease, sending Hasek into a frenzy that took him off his game for the rest of the night; and Kelly Miller's OT goal at home in Game Five -- one of the most electric moments I've ever experienced as a fan.

One Joe Juneau OT goal later, and the Caps were in the Finals.

Of course, we all know the rest of the story: A sweep by the Red Wings, and Lord Stanley's stop in Washington ended after two games over the course of a long weekend. And instead of building off the experience, the Caps, like many other franchises who are surpise entrants in the Finals (see Hurricanes, Carolina; Panthers, Florida), self-destructed the following season and failed to make the playoffs.

And hence, the one chance D.C. had to become a hockey town was lost. Not that there won't be another, as there may very well be. But that was an opportunity that can't ever be recovered.

But I have my memories. And that I'll always be thankful for.

Jiri Fischer, a 25-year old defenseman for the Detroit Red Wings collapsed on the bench with about 7 minutes left in the first period.

The Red Wings local radio team is reporting that Fischer had a seizure. CPR was administered, and he's now listed as alert and responsive at Detroit Receiving Hosptial. In addition, the radio crew is also reporting that Red Wings and Predators are on the phone with NHL HQ in New York on whether or not they shoud continue to play.

It's been two full days since Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman let loose with a blunt and simple critique of the new NHL:

"Everybody keeps saying this is great. It's not great. It's not hockey."

Which also means it's been two full days and nobody seems to have been able to talk to Brendan Shanahan, Yzerman's teammate and the author of many of the rules changes implemented this year via his Competition Committee.

Big points for the reporter who gets him on the record first, or at least tries to.