Off Wing Opinion

After thinking about the low television ratings the NHL is suffering through, again, Steve Ovadia has a different suggestion:

I've suggested it before, and I'll suggest it again: the NHL should think about less forwards. Nine forwards would make it easier to know players and to follow a game's subtle coaching shifts. It would also let teams pay players more, since the pot could be the same, just divided between less people.

How many teams need to roll four lines? How much more exciting would the game be if coaches knew they needed each line to be good for 15-20 minutes? And for fans, it's that much easier to get to know the players and the lines. Besides, the defensemen have to rotate in three pairs. Why should the forwards have it so easy?

Less forwards mean more quality face time. It's something for the NHL to consider.

Before I get to the reason why I think this would be a good idea, I'll address just two reasons why it won't happen.

First, coaches will scream bloody murder because they'll have less flexibility, and less control over the game. No way somebody like Ken Hitchcock would want to see something like this come to pass.

Second, fewer players means fewer union members, so there isn't a chance that the players will go for it. Imagine yourself as a team's union rep, and you're asked to defend this change. Tell me you want to look somebody in the eye who you know is going to wind up in the AHL or out of hockey entirely. I don't think anybody wants that job coming out of a lockout that was a loser for the players all around.

Then again, on the plus side, fewer players means more ice time. More ice time means fatigue comes quicker, and mismatches occur more often, possibly leading to more even strength scoring, which is something we'd all rather see than the parade to the penalty box we watched earlier this season.

After seeing a pattern in the most recent NHL GM hirings, James Mirtle had this to say:

At this point, only 12 of the NHL's current 29 GMs

Now that's one date in history I never need an excuse to revisit:

Simply the most exciting regular season game of all time.

When Darren McCarty is on his death bed, I'm guessing this is one of the nights he'll be thinking about.

Simply a great playoff moment: Steve Yzerman beats John Casey with a rocket of a slap shot (be sure to listen for the 'clink' when the puck nicks the post on the way into the net) to knock Wayne Gretzky, Brett Hull and the St. Louis Blues from the playoffs.

For years, the shot of Yzerman scoring the goal and celebrating afterwards was part of the open on NHL2Night. It's one of my all-time favorites. For more memories, visit Michigan Against The World.

Here's Colby Cosh on the odd sight during Saturday's Oilers-Ducks clash in Anaheim of a six-on-three power play:

After arranging things Thursday night to give us the rare spectacle of a thirty-second three-on-three game of pond-surface shinny, the refs created another weird scenario last night, allowing Randy Carlyle to pull his goalie with a two-man advantage at 17:42 of the third. It's been a long time since I've seen a three-on-three, but I don't know that I've ever seen a six-on-three. In fairness to Carlyle and the Ducks, there is nothing in The Book telling a coach how to handle a six-on-three power play. But if there were such a chapter, it would probably say three things: (1) don't waste a bunch of time cycling the puck around when you have twice as many skaters as the other guy; (2) don't just leave your extra three men standing around next to the short-side goalpost scratching their asses; (3) you'd better score in that situation or you're going to look awfully stupid. Especially if the best defenceman on the planet is one of the players sitting in the other team's penalty box.

Of course, they didn't score, and indeed the Ducks wound up looking stupid, losing the game and losing the series.

Which brings us back to the previous round, and the comment Sharks head coach Ron Wilson made between periods of one of the games in the Sharks-Oilers series that the Sharks had to stop passing and make a commitment to shoot from the point. Predictably, perhaps, the Sharks didn't listen, and remained enamored of working the puck in from the points and down low to set up a cross ice pass that would always get broken up by the Oilers.

Why bring this up now? Because on Sunday night in Carolina, Hurricanes Captain Rod Brind'Amour scored a power play goal on just that sort of cross-ice pass. If they advance, are they already set up to make the same mistake?

Via Paul Kukla, we found this post from the Black Athlete Sports Network attacking the proposed new arena for the Devils in Newark (I did my best to keep the pagination intact as is):

So getting out of this Deal and stopping construction of this White Elephant before it rises to the eternal dismay of Newark is Mayor-elect Cory Booker's first priority. But to do that he can't act alone. It will take a Municipal Council that is not Bought & Paid For. That will be determined by Council elections in June which Booker is aggressively campaigning for like minded candidates.

How bad is this Deal

Newark tore down a much needed

and brand new Fire Station to

make way for the new Arena

about to be Built.

Yes indeed this Box is ALL about Sports. How Sports can be used again and again to Abuse rather than uplift the African American community if Black America is not always vigilant. The Rich White Boys who own pro sports and Hockey worst of all without even a nod to African Americans, will take everything and anything they can take from Inner Cities and no worse example than this Fiasco in Newark ....

Sans the racial warfare angle (why hockey owners are responsible for more abuse of the African-American community than other sports owners, I just can't fathom), it's impossible not to be sympathetic to BASN's basic argument: That a city like Newark can't afford the financial risk of building a sports arena while so many basic city services go wanting.

I'd love to hear from some Devils fans: How do you feel about going to Newark for games instead of the Meadowlands? Will it drive attendance for the team, or is the arena a white elephant just like BASN says it will be?

In last week's mailbag, John Buccigross continued to address his assertion a few weeks back that retired NHL defenseman Scott Stevens was "unsportsmanlike".

It's amazing to me how much Scott Stevens is viewed as a deity. Well, maybe it's not. He is a player who is easy to latch on to. Hardworking, exciting and tough. Doesn't Ottawa wish he were 32 and a free agent? But you think Scott Stevens played over 20 years in the NHL and never got an elbow, slashing, cross-check, roughing or high-sticking penalty? The Kariya hit was clearly late. I believe Stevens was looking to eliminate this formerly concussed player from the series. He knew how much damage his shoulder pads had done to other NHL brains in the past. He saw them stumbling off the ice or being helped off the ice.

But hockey is a tough game played by tough men, and if the hockey community accepts those hits to the head, whether shoulder pad or elbow pad, then of course you make that play when the player has the puck. I understand the intent for Stevens was usually, and primarily, to set a tone, to steer players away from the center of the ice and have them think wide and/or dump in. Because Stevens was limited offensively, he needed to bring value to his team, and this was it.

Though later in his response, Buccigross gives Stevens his due as Captain of the Devils, a three-time Stanley Cup Champ and future Hall of Fame inductee, I think his analysis doesn't do his career enough justice. After all, what Stevens did as he matured was radically change his game, and buy himself more than an additional decade in the game once his offensive skills began to erode.

For his first 9 seasons in the league (8 in Washington and one in St. Louis), Stevens posted 150 penalty minutes or more each season. In four of those years he went over 200, topping out at 283 in 1986-87. Back during that stretch of his career, Stevens was a well-known hot head, and had a reputation not unlike the one Chris Pronger had earned before he shed it during this year's playoffs.

But Stevens eventually came to knew that he was holding himself back, and he changed his game. So while he was just as tough as he ever was, his game smartened up but good. Funny, but if Stevens' play was so unsportsmanlike, how did he manage to get through the last nine full seasons he played in the NHL while posting more than 100 penalty minutes only twice? Remember, it was during this period more than any other that Stevens cemented his reputation as a fearsome hitter. If he was really that dirty, wouldn't he have racked up more PIMs?

As for the charge that he was "limited offensively," I again ask that you look at the record. In his first nine seasons in the league, Stevens posted 50 points or more in five different seasons (40 or more in eight), his best being 1987-88 where he posted 12 goals and 62 assists for 72 points. No, he wasn't Ray Bourque, but that's hardly a record of a defenseman who is "limited offensively". And in his first three seasons in New Jersey, he posted 57, 59 and 78 points. In terms of offensive production and style of play, Stevens seems to most closely resemble Chris Chelios. And while his game is a shadow of its former self, nobody could look at the totality of his career and call it "limited offensively".

It was then, when his offensive production dropped precipitously during the 1994-95 season, that the Devils started winning Stanley Cups. Funny, but when I think of players who experienced significant drops in their offensive production and then started to win championships, the first name that comes to mind is Steve Yzerman. Perhaps we ought to add Scott Stevens to that list.

At bottom, Stevens was one of the toughest competitors to ever lace up a pair of skates. And like every defenseman worth his salt, he pushed the concept of fair play to its limits. But it isn't any secret that all of the greatest hitters in the history of the game played the same way. Why his play needs to be singled out as "unsportsmanlike" is a mystery to me.

For my initial post on Buccigross' charge, click here. That post also contains a link to a reel of hits, including the one Stevens laid on Kariya in the 2003 Finals.

Kudos to Buffalo's Mike Grier, who just a few minutes ago showed plenty of his NHL compatriots just how you're supposed to defense a two-on-one breakaway.

After a Buffalo player tripped near center ice, Carolina's Doug Weight was sprung on a two-on-one break with Ray Whitney. Grier, who was caught back alone, knew exactly what to do. He simply backed up straight down the slot and played to take away the pass, rather than try to pressure the puck -- something we've seen all too many times this series.

The result: Weight tried to make the perfect pass to Whitney, and Grier blocked it. Scoring chance denied.

BTW -- it's 1-1, and already looking like a classic playoff match tonight in Carolina.

In today's paper, John Branch of the New York Times takes a look at the small market flavor of the NHL Conference Finals:

The playoff survival of their teams represents a be-careful-what-you-wish-for conundrum for the N.H.L. A year ago, after an entire season was wiped out by a lockout, the league faced two tasks: immediately rebuild its business model to make small-market teams more viable and competitive, while trying to generate widespread buzz and capture those loitering on fandom's fringes.

It seems that the first objective was met. It might have come at the expense of the other. But N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman chooses a long-term view, believing that last year's advent of the salary cap and revenue sharing will soon blur the lines between small-market and big-market teams, as they have in the National Football League, whose all-for-one, one-for-all business model the N.H.L. tried to copy.

"I think the market size is irrelevant," Bettman said before Buffalo beat Carolina in Game 3 Wednesday. "The most important thing for people who have any interest in hockey is how compelling the product is on the ice, and the games have been spectacular."

An interesting read, even if it does cover issues that we've chewed to death on blogs for the past year or so.

Here's an email I received from Greg Wyshynski yesterday that I thought I'd share. Here's the setup: During my initial interview with Eklund back in 2005, he claimed that he had been able to finance a career as a freelance hockey writer when he cashed in big on a book he had written.

Which leads us to Greg's note:

OK, so now that the cat is escaping the bag, and the NHL's top annonymous rumor blogger is all but confirmed to be Dwayne Keith Klessel, I have to revisit your amazing interview with him from some time ago.

So...is this the book that allowed him to quit his day job and become a freelance hockey writer?

Or was it another book?

Amazon advises that only three copies are left in stock, so you better order soon. After all, it looks like Ek needs the money.

Dennis Wideman shows us how it isn't done:

Ouch.

Thanks to Mike Klass for passing along this clip of the crowd at Rexall responding to the guy singing "O Canada" by bringing it home on their own:

Absolutely stirring. I'm a proud American, but for me, "O Canada" will always be the international anthem of ice hockey. Be it ever so.

POSTSCRIPT: The man singing his guts out behind the Oilers bench is Joey Moss. Click here for his story.

I know many of my readers also read Eklund's Hockey Buzz. Can any of you shed any light on this item?

Thanks to Tom Benjamin for the pointer.

UPDATE: I've done some more digging on this story, and there aren't a lot of details. So far:

*Called directory assitance in Philly, and there is no "Attorney Offices of Grant Mullen" in any listing.

*I checked Matindale-Hubbel, a directory of attorneys, and found a Grant Mullen in California, but the person answering the phone there said that the suit had nothing to do with them.

*Did some poking around Hockeybuzz.com, and found an entry in the message boards where Eklund boasted about the prizes that fantasy league winners would receive:

The fantasy prizes are as follows...

1. Weekly winners get a Hockeybuzz t-shirt
2. Monthly get a authentic customized jersey of their choice...And I will try and get it autographed if it is a guy I know
3. Overall points winner and the runner play-off winner will win an x-box 360 with NHL 06
4. The Hockeybuzz Cup Winner will win a 52" Hitachi HDTV...just like mine...it is awesome..plus they will also have their name engraved on the HockeyBuzz Cup...And they will get to hold the cup for one year. They will be required to take the cup to wild partys and do crazy things with it...they will have to write of the cups journeys...If at all possible i will deliver the cup to them personally...they will have to sign a legal document stating they will return the cup...we will of course either pick it up or pay for shipping...

Interesting. I'll check some more, and I'll let you know what I find out.

UPDATE: This is getting more interesting. Here's a whole string about unhappy pool winners complaining and getting no answers. A sampler:

last week you posted that you were trying to get a hold of the pool winners and if we didn't get an email from you to send you one. I don't really understand why it is so difficult to go into the winners accounts, find their email address and send them a notification in the first place, but we don't have to get into that.

http://hockeybuzz.com/eblog/ArchivePost.aspx?post=1644

I sent you an email with some questions and haven't heard back yet. I'm the monthly winner for January. Just want to make sure you got it since it came from a hotmail account. The one registered with my account. As long as there is some sort of communication and acknowledgement (and ultimately the prize) I will be happy.

I would have expected a response from you by now since it's so "slow" in the trade rumour department. A simple email saying you received my email, and perhaps even and answer or two to my questions would be great.

(snip)

Monthly winner from December, and I too, did not receive an email from Ek as he stated in his blog post. I have since e-mailed him and haven't heard back either. This wasn't the first time I have e-mailed Ek about the prizes, but since he actually posted a message saying to email him this time, I thought that I might get some sort of response. Not so much.

Love the site and the fantasy game but not holding my breath on getting any sort of prize. Hope the person that wins the X-box or the HDTV doesn't have this much trouble.

Later in the same thread, Eklund claims there's a problem with a third party hired to handle the prizes. Some folks were not amused:

Ok, if you don't handle prizes, then why did you offer to have the monthly winning prizes of Pro Jerseys signed by a player if you knew him? How would you get it signed if you don't handle the prize?

So what else is "normal in these situatiobs"? Will the company contact me to ask which player and Jersey I want?

And a little suggestion about acting and running a company professionally. A quick note would have been nice to receive from you describing the situtation. There aren't that many prize winners that it would have taken you much time. I had personalized questions meant for you, not a "prize fullfilment company"...

I wanted to know which Flyers you knew that could autograph my Jersey.

(snip)

Eklund, a few months ago you stated that you sent out a jersey to a winner. So does this company send you the prizes and you mail them out?

Your stories are not flowing very well, come out and tell us the truth.

And I see you have another major announcement to make, is this just like the last one on late January where you said the press release was allready written and would go out in a few days?

Never saw that release, time to come clean.

I dug into my email archive and sent Eklund a note to see if he'd be willing to comment. If I hear anything, I'll pass it along.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Surprise! My email to Eklund bounced.

OT UPDATES: Vancouver Canucks Op Ed and Paul Kukla have more.