Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Why Your Team Won't Win the Stanley Cup

Calgary's four points behind eighth placed Detroit, Atlanta's three points behind Boston (the Rangers are five back after losing to Bahston over the weekend - sorry Reader Matt, theyz wicked retahds in New Yawk!) so I'm calling the playoff teams set. Sure, the order will change in the next two weeks, but that won't matter to wizended scribes like myself since we already know why Your Team Won't Win the... well, you already know what I'm doing here.

A shoutout to the Oilers, and this might be the first one of the season. Despite the fact that if the NHL were like the English Premiership, they'd long ago have been relegated to the kind of rec leagues that decree at least two women per team, they recently managed something special. In one week, the Oilers managed irreparable damage to the playoffs hopes of the Detroit Red Wings, the San Jose Sharks and the Vancouver Canucks. Oh, not because they won't still make the playoffs, but because after losing to Edmonton they can't possibly have any Hope left. Sorry to the fans of all those teams, or in the case of Vancouver, "fans," but instead of playoff hockey you'll have to settle for the beach (San Jose), moving your family, drugs and guns to a different abandoned mansion (Detroit), or, wait, nevermind, Canuck fans don't know when the playoffs start. They do know when they end though. Right after the first round!

There are other teams who won't win the Stanley Cup this year though, in fact, there's 13 other teams with serious flaws that just can't be overcome. Without pausing to check my math or spellyng, here they are..

Western Conference:

1. Chicago - Will give Cristobal Huet most of the playing time. This would be fine if anybody knew where he was; in fact, NHL shooters haven't seen evidence of him all year.
2. San Jose - Lost to Edmonton. Strike one. The score was 5-1. Strike two. Prior to Game 1, assistant coach Trent Yawney will open the locker room door, just to let a little air in. The force of the breeze shatters the team's confidence. Strike three, you're out.
3. Vancouver - Lost to Edmonton. Also, at some point in the first round, Southern inbred hick goaltender "Bobby Lou" will let in a goal. Earthquake is caused as entire city jumps off bandwagon, city sinks into the ocean and is destroyed. Post-script: rest of provinces' Canuck fans insist the team will be better next year.
4. Phoenix - Player spirit is crushed when they look into the stands to find the entire crowd was only able to spell GO COYO on their bare chests.
5. Los Angeles - Dean Lombardi decides to play it safe, not deviate from their youth movement, and tank the first round to ensure a better draft pick. Promises fans the future will be bright.
6. Colorado - Suspended from play until team due to inability to field a full NHL roster. Team objects that it indeed has a full compliment of players, it's just that no fan or league official can name any other than Paul Statsny. League concedes that it can name some AHL players, like Darcy Tucker, but will still uphold its original ruling.
7. Nashville - League terrified of a Stanley Cup celebration where XXX appears on the Cup in magic marker and a suspiciously powerful clear liquid is being served. League rigs the first round so that Nashville plays a dominant team with an invincible lineup. Bettman is told too late that the Harlem Globetrotters don't play hockey and there's no time to find a replacement for San Jose.
8. Detroit - Will keep winning until a first-round matchup with Vancouver is achieved. Early in game one Nicklas Lidstrom will take an innocent shot from centre. Seconds later, inexplicably, the city sinks into the ocean and is destroyed.

Eastern Conference

1. Washington - After a disappointing playoff exit, team explains that it just find any rhythm. Just when they thought they had it, the team's best player would start beating the drums, screaming and shouting incoherently, and just generally driving the rest of the Electric Mayhem crazy.
2. Pittsburgh - It's Game four of the Stanley Cup Finals, Pittsburgh is leading 3-0 in the third and a second straight championship is virtually assured. God then calls back His Only Son, sends him to his room and lectures him for not "fitting in down there." Team falls into confusion and disarray as message is lost.
3. Buffalo - You know why. There's still a lot of empty pages in the NHL rule book they can fill in at a moment's notice.
4. New Jersey - NHL is not against seeing the Stanley Cup brought to Russia, but is very unwilling to having Ilya Kovalchuk keep it as a souvenir of his wacky adventures in North America.
5. Ottawa - Maple Leafs have already proven they have the power to make entire hockey teams in Ontario cease to exist. This will be much easier. Also, goaltending issues.
6. Montreal - An exciting year in Montreal as team is featured in a TLC reality series "Little People, Big Trophy." Crew unfortunately runs out of tape, NHL assume that all TV plays by NBC's rules, audience gets to watch the 2010 Preakness instead.
7. Philadelphia - Not enough scoring up front. Team addresses weakness in the off-season by acquiring Joffrey Lupul, a defensive prospect and some draft picks in exchange for some old tall defenseman.
8. Boston - Cannot win games 0-0 despite pressure on the league to go to a European Champions League-style aggregate scoring system. Injuries were also a factor as David Kreiji and Patrice Bergeron are injured on controversial hits. Some say the hits were legal, others suggest that fans in the second deck leaving with player heads as souvenirs proves the need for a head shot rule.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Story of the Oilers Since The Pronger Trade (Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love the Draft Lottery)

It's a big year in Edmonton, not because of anything on the ice of course, but because of the combination of things that could go right for the Oilers this summer and next season. Fans are on board for a full-rebuild, we'll have either the first or second overall draft pick so either Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin, World Junior hero Jordan Eberle will get every shot at being an Oiler next year, and depending on roster space, cap room and talent levels, we might see last year's 10th overall draft pick Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, college star Jeff Petry, Sweden's best 2010 World Junior Anton Lander, as well as the continuing development of Taylor Chorney, Theo Peckham, and Johan Motin. The idea of a dynamic young core of stars is pretty tantalizing here, and management is sounding like they're fully committed to assembling one. We've seen what a well-organized talent development can really do, that's why Edmonton, maybe more than any other city, understands the importance not just of superstar talent, but that it be homegrown.

Before the lockout, Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish were on record, after losing yet again to the Dallas Stars in 2003 (ah, the Marc-Andre Bergeron hipcheck...), as saying that you couldn't hope for too much in the NHL absent a true star. The first move after the lockout? Trading away useful pieces and prospects that had made up the struggling, small-market Oiler identity (Eric Brewer, Jeff Woywitka, Doug Lynch and Mike York) for big names envisioned to make up the New World Order Oilers (Chris Pronger, Mike Peca). That year, Oiler fans saw what a combination of true stars, breakout youngsters and role players could accomplish (along with one of the greatest Trade Deadline Day acquisitions ever, Dwayne Roloson. I'll justify that in a later post) as the team went as far as possible without ultimate glory. It was the first time arguably since 1991 (with a case to be made for the Curtis Joseph years of 1997-1998), that fans and management saw an Oiler team with serious talent and both were seduced by the new NHL where stars could be theirs again.

In the years following the debilitating Pronger trade and departures of Mike Peca, Jaroslav Spacek and Sergei Samsonov, Kevin Lowe tried and failed to duplicate his golden touch of 2006. He attempted to acquire (if you believe the rumours) Tomas Kaberle (in the Pronger trade sweepstakes), Zdeno Chara, Michael Nylander, Marian Hossa, Jaromir Jagr and most infamously, Dany Heatley. That same superstar-first dogma did bring in Sheldon Souray, Lubomir Vishnovsky and Eric Cole but the team hasn't made the playoffs since with an ever-increasing player payroll. This year's team, guaranteed to finish last in the NHL, has all the requirements for a complete demolishing. It wasn't easy putting together this mess of failing players and worse contracts, but it makes a little more sense when looking at each step.

None of Souray, Vishnovsky or Cole were in the same class as Pronger, Chara, Hossa or Heatley but the way they were acquired is indicative of management's focus on older, more expensive and more established players at the expense of youth and cap space. In 2007, Lowe made a huge offer sheet to Thomas Vanek which was matched by Buffalo, did the same with Dustin Penner and signed him to a 5 year, $21.25 million contract, then finally signed Souray for 5 years at $27 million. Penner was certainly a young player but his RFA signing, which famously cost the team its first, second and third round draft picks, forced the team into a win-now mentality. If Anaheim had matched instead of passing, Lowe might have kept trying other RFA offer sheets but it's more likely he would have given up, settled for a rebuild instead, and passed on Souray entirely. After all, you can only drive up the RFA salary base so many times in one off-season. Presumably, Lowe had intentions of attending GM meetings without wearing a black mask with a question mark on it. Penner would have an average year, Souray tantalized early but only played 26 games after a shoulder injury, and the Oilers would miss the playoffs despite a late run fueled by a crop of rookies. More on that later.

On the heals of an unexpected playoff push, the summer of 2008 saw more big swings and bold moves. Hossa and Jagr were sought and missed out on while Cole and Vishnovksy did come to Edmonton in trades. Vishnovsky was acquired at the beginning of a 5 year, $28 million contract for Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene, two players drafted and developed internally. Vishnovsky was having a strong season with 31 points in 50 games before, yes, injuring his shoulder and missing the rest of the season. Losing Stoll and Greene hurt the Oiler penalty kill, it was 5th in the NHL at 84.7% at the end of 2008 and would plummet to 27th (77.5%) by the end of 2009. There were obvious similarities between the Souray and Vishnovsky acquisitions: they were both expensive, injury plagued, effective when healthy, and both their signings contributed to weaknesses in other areas. Penner and Souray are linked in my mind; that combined cap hit of $9.65 million certainly stifled any thoughts of resigning effective role players like Curtis Glencross and Jan Hejda, while also putting pressure on signing today's RFA's Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano and Gilbert Brule. Vishnovsky's salary and the loss of Stoll and Greene hurt the Oiler cap situation, penalty kill and seemed to weaken the leadership core and physical play. The 2008-2009 Oilers often drove fans and media crazy with many subpar efforts and while Vishnovsky wasn't a specific target of criticism, losing Stoll, the team leader in hits the year before and Greene, a big, stay-at-home defenseman, certainly cut into the team's physical intensity.

The Cole story goes back further and serves as a good example of Oiler management trying to retool and rebuild on the fly. Chris Pronger was traded for Joffrey Lupul, Ladislav Smid, a first round pick in 2007 (Riley Nash) a conditional first round pick
(Jordan Eberle) activated when Anaheim made the Finals in 2007, and a second round pick (long story, but it was shuffled around into the Marc-Andre Bergeron/Denis Grebeshkov trade). Lupul was a well-regarded sniper and along with Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Dustin Penner represented the future of the Ducks. He was a restricted free agent when acquired and quickly signed a three year, $6.935 million contract. A reasonable trade on paper for Edmonton, getting a young shooter to pair with Horcoff and Hemsky on the top line, plus one of the best young defensive prospects not in the NHL, and three picks for a player at his absolute peak trade value. This was a true rebuild trade but even so, the Oilers expected to be a strong team in 2006-2007, one that even had aspirations for a 300 goal season (adding up what their assembled roster had scored the previous season). Instead they struggled, ended up trading Ryan Smyth for Robert Nilsson, Ryan O'Marra and a first round pick (Alex Plante), and would eventually plummet in the standings. The Pronger and Smyth trades signaled that it was time to forget the glory of 2006, clear salary, and focus on youth. The Oilers went into the 2007-2008 with recent 6th overall draft pick Sam Gagner, college draft pick Andrew Cogliano, Robert Nilssen, Tom Gilbert and Denis Grebeshkov. They had positioned themselves well for the future in one set of moves, except that a different set would soon be running parallel.

Instead of being content with a true youth movement though, Kevin Lowe got impatient. He aggressively tried to supplement their young core with the expensive signing, in dollars and draft picks, of Dustin Penner and attempted signing of fellow RFA Thomas Vanek. Signing Penner and losing their draft picks meant, obviously, that they had to be good right away lest Anaheim draft a Stamkos, Doughty or Bogosian the following off-season. The Penner signing, therefore, necessitated the Souray signing and would lead to the game of musical chairs to follow as management fumbled around in the dark looking for the elusive formula. That same off-season they gave up on Lupul after his disappointing 28 points and traded him, along with Jason Smith for, principally, Joni Pitkanen. Pitkanen was younger than Smith and gave the Oilers a slightly bigger but far less physical puck-mover who could run the powerplay. Like the Vishnovsky trade to come, they sacrificed grit and intensity for pure skill. Pitkanen played 63 games, had 26 points, was ineffective physically and was traded the following off-season for Eric Cole. Cole's season started terribly and was eventually traded at the deadline for Patrick O'Sullivan, a once well-regarded prospect and current owner of the worst plus/minus in the NHL. Today, it all amounts to Pronger and Jason Smith for Patrick O'Sullivan, Ladislav Smid, Riley Nash and Jordan Eberle (and if you like, you can add the Marc-Andre Bergeron for Denis Grebeshkov component).

The path of Eric Cole to and from the Oilers shows how management was all over the map with their short and long-term planning. The trades in particular made sense on their own and were mostly justifiable, they just never worked out on the ice. Jason Smith was getting older, Lupul crumbled in his hometown and they didn't have any defense who could skate and pass the puck out of their zone, so Pitkonen was a likely target. When his defensive lapses, lack of intensity and Tom Gilbert's emergence made him expendable, he was traded for rock-solid power forward Eric Cole. Cole was struggling and was a UFA so he was traded for O'Sullivan, a young shooter under contract. It all made sense. Management was trying new things, they made trades to address their weaknesses, and any fan or columnist could instantly recognize why each move was made.

The problem was that the team was constantly making trades and personnel decisions that ran parallel to each other. In the summer of 2007, going into a year where they'd start with four rookies (Gagner, Cogliano, Gilbert and Nilsson) in the lineup, they signed Souray and Penner, they pursued Vanek in a deal that would have cost them five consecutive first round draft picks and over $50 million, and were spurned by Michael Nylander, an aging center whose stats were grossly inflated playing with Jaromir Jagr in New York. These are signings a team makes when the young core has some legitimate experience, in other words completely unlike the Oilers going into 2007-2008. With ice time committed to developing so many rookies they should certainly have avoided any RFA offer sheets lest the team fail on the ice. If the rookies fail, a lottery pick stands as a pretty satisfying consolation prize. If they succeed, management can then add veteran talent later when they know what holes need filling.

The summer of 2008 saw more of the same big-money moves and ignored the necessary small steps of rebuilding. They made the Vishnovsky trade, pursued Marian Hossa with a rumoured 9 year, $90 million contract, re-signed Shawn Horcoff to six years and $33 million in a deal that was fairly popular then but since, well, not so much. All this win-now mentality was running contradictory to the product on the ice; in 2007-2008 it was rookies Gagner, Cogliano, Nilsson, Gilbert, Grebeshkov, free-agent Mathieu Garon and the effective checking line of Kyle Brodziak, Curtis Glencross and Zack Stortini who overachieved and lead the late-season charge for a playoff spot. This all occured when the expensive veteran core, made up of
Stoll, Moreau, Horcoff, Torres and Souray, had succumbed to injury and the season considered lost. After an inspiring playoff push it seemed like a great time to go for broke; the Oilers were exciting to watch again and looked to be on the rise. Kevin Lowe thought they were the Chicago Blackhawks and just needed the finishing touches. In reality they just got lucky; the rookies saved the team from watching the Ducks draft a franchise cornerstone and only mitigated the cost of signing Penner. Instead of seeing this, Lowe (and most of the media and fans, including me) dramatically overvalued the Oiler assets, raised instead of tempered expectations, ignored the contributions of young, cheap and soon departed players like Glencross (Oiler stats: 26 games, 9 goals, 13 points. That's 28 goals in 82 games) and Matt Greene and failed to realize the most important lesson: rookies playing freely with no expectations play differently than sophmores in a pressure city on a team predicted by many to win the Northwest division. Going for broke left them as just that.

All this means is that the rebuild occurring now, instead of the 2007 and 2008 off-seasons, is happening under a much more difficult set of circumstances. While selling a complete tear-down so quickly removed from a Finals appearance would not have been popular, they would have been operating under much easier circumstances. First, the NHL salary cap increased in 2007 and 2008 by approximately $6 million each year, meaning any big contracts could have been traded away much more easily. Not that they had many, following the Pronger trade the highest paid Oiler was Ales Hemsky at $4.22 million after re-signing in 2006. Compare that to today. Horcoff, Souray, Nilsson, O'Sullivan and Khabibulin all have contracts considered immovable, especially in an era where the salary cap has been stagnant for the last two years and teams have been extremely guarded with their draft picks. Three years ago they might've got a first round pick and a prospect for Lubomir Vishnovsky. Instead, they had to settle for merely cap savings of just over $1 million on Ryan Whitney's contract of the same length. Of course, nobody could see such a dramatic economic recession coming, but the result was that the Oilers ended up with a long list of long term contracts, no cap space, at the worst time. In retrospect it seems pretty obvious, management totally overestimated the quality of their team, swung for the fences when they should've been conservative, grown their young talent, accumulated draft picks, and planned for the future. It's a disaster, it'll take time to fix and the fans are frustrated with such obvious miscalculations.

It's important to remember the context to understand why Oiler management made so many bold moves and tried for so many more. Suddenly, following the lockout and fifteen years of mediocrity, the Oilers were Haves again. After so many years of low expectations and short ends of the trading stick the team had the means, the cap system and the soaring Canadian dollar to return to the NHL's elite. Stars would come back to Edmonton, the playoffs were no longer an endless gauntlet of big-money American franchises and the Oilers would be a feared calendar date once again. Once the city had that again it was hard to let it go, impossible really, as fans and local media handled the Pronger trade with the highest orders of denial, insisting that since Carolina had won a Cup with a no-name defense, so could Edmonton. After all, there was still playoff hero Dwayne Roloson, our own Dominik Hasek, complete with the flopping and histrionics, a five-forward powerplay begging to be unleashed by Craig MacTavish and newly re-signed core of playoff cogs ready for another run. When it began to crumble away, Lowe did everything he could to quickly put it back together but his magic was gone. Nothing worked, injuries broke the team in 2007-2008, again this year, and all the big signings and trades may have had their individual merits but one can't argue with four straight post-season absences. All the mistakes look obvious now but, given the heady days of 2006 and a topsy-turvy world where a team from Edmonton could make the Stanley Cup Finals, it was probably inevitable.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Squeak

Are you enjoying the squeakity-squeak? It's Final Four time! It's that glorious time of year where Canadians from coast to coast put together something called "brackets," throw themselves into a sport they deliberately ignore the other blessed 11 months of the year, and jump and down when St. Mary's beats Villanova. Final Four BABY!!!

I'm not a fan of American college sports, but I see the appeal. My favorite tournament of any year is the World Junior Hockey tournament which, if the IIHF knew their ass from a hat, will be held in Canada four times a month. The appeal of the World Juniors is pretty similar to college sports, or the Olympics for that matter. Sports fans have the ability to know whatever they have time to expose themselves to. The Great Canadian Myth is dead; there are no more hockey players leaving frozen ponds to be discovered on Opening Night, no Gordie Howes signing with the Red Wings for a jacket or Bobby Orr signing for a new stucco job on his parents' house. Canadians know The Next Big Thing before they're even drafted into the OHL (Crosby, Tavares), Lebron James' high school basketball games were on Pay Per View, Stephen Strasburg was tabbed for the MLB Hall of Fame while still in high school. There aren't a lot of surprises left, and considering Wayne Gretzky had an agent when he was 13, this isn't a new development.

It's a matter of semantics I suppose, the whole idea of "discovering" an athlete. When Gretzky said that Crosby might be someone who could break some of his records, well, I guess that's when many people "discovered" Crosby. Or maybe it was seeing his first big YouTube moment, the goal where he picked up the puck from behind the net, lifted it up, and wrapped it around into the top corner. Knowing that Lebron James would probably be the NBA's next Michael Jordan years before he was draft-eligible was great marketing; it certainly built up anticipation for that draft, revitalized the Cleveland Cavaliers' national and international merchandise sales, TV ratings were up and perhaps, though this being the NBA it isn't really documented anywhere, the play of the team itself. In Canada, we can be a little fragile so it's exciting to know that Canada can still deliver our own heroes even while our game was being dragged through the American swamps, deserts and airplane hubs. Even if we're losing World Championships (we were), World Juniors (we weren't), Stanley Cups to teams with SWEDISH captains (we did, but his English is better than Don Cher... hmm, bad example), Canadians could sleep comfortably knowing that while the future might not see the NHL permanently filled will good Canadian boys, we could still churn out the occasional super-prodigy. The same future would also guarantee that they wouldn't catch us off guard either.

So we love "discovering" new athletes, that's obvious, but what's the difference between discovering Sidney Crosby at 14 and skeleton racer Jon Montgomery in Vancouver? It's all about timing, isn't it? Each day I'd wake up during the Olympics, see who was competing in what, realize I didn't know any of those names and ask friends and co-workers "Are we any good at this?" "I don't know" they'd say, and you'd watch the event and find out. It's the same way with the World Juniors or college sports; we discover these athletes right as they're in the heat of battle. We don't have years to get to know them, form opinions, argue over their value, find flaws, and de-mythologize them. They truly do come out of nowhere, like hockey superstars used to, but then often disappear just as quickly. Think of all the Olympic athletes who's name you recognize but receded into the obscurity in which their sport spends most of its time. Remember Clark McArthur, Anthony Stewart, or Matt Halischuk? Great times. What about Mateen Cleaves? I don't know much about NCAA basketball, but I can't hear the word "floor general" without thinking about him because that's ALL they called him during his Michigan days. The sudden fame of these kinds of athletes, which is just as suddenly gone, give fans the idyllic myths that we instill on our sporting experiences. There's no scandals, no unrepaid hype, no contract disputes and no steroid accusations. In other words, they're gone before they spoil.

I'm not saying that we don't get steroid scandals and other controversies in these kinds of events, that would be silly, I'm just saying that because each World Juniors or NCAA event usually starts on a fresh note, isn't ongoing over several years and features a lot of unknown athletes there's a sense of new beginning. Professional sports don't really end, the offseason can be just as interesting as the regular season and certainly as influential. There's free agents, trades, drafts, rumours, and sometimes international tournaments to track. It's a lot of work being a sports fan, we have to know players, stats, teams, trade and free agent history, draft successes and failures and now we need to be experts on collective bargaining. These kinds of tournaments don't require us to know anything, we just show up, let the analysts spin human interest stories about sick siblings, supportive parents and 5 am wakeup calls. We don't know any better to be cynical, we can't counter the talking heads with mounds of internet data and common sense, so we're resigned to sitting on the couch and enjoying ourselves.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

"Boy, it's bad out there." "HOW BAD IS IT???"

Pretty bad. At least it's bad NOW, but all that could change with a win tonight in Minnesota for the first time in almost three years!*

I wanted to write this at the end of the year, for obvious reasons, but we'll take that drive today if it suits ye. This is a cap system, right? Parity? Right? No, in fact. This team isn't last because of some goal posts and bad calls. They're in last place (by nine points, entering tonight's action with both Edmonton and Toronto playing) like a couple of white people in Mexico: All-inclusively.

Team stats!

-Last in the NHL in goals against
-Second last in goals for
-Last in the NHL in five on five goals for/against ratio (0.75, meaning for every 1.0 goals scored on them they respond with 0.75 goals. That is not enough goals folks)
-They have the most regulation losses in the NHL with 41. Toronto is next with 34.
-They have a .536 winning percentage when scoring first, that's third worst.
-They have a .146 winning percentage when scored upon first. Yes, that's last.
-Their winning percentage when outshooting their opponent is .227. Last
-Their winning percentage when being outshot is, um, .333. Second last. Things are looking up!
-Oh, and their faceoff percentage is 46.8. That is... drum roll... last.

Individual stats!

-They do not have a player in the top 40 in NHL scoring. Their leading scorer, Dustin Penner, is 49th with 53 points. Next is Sam Gagner, 116th, with 39 points.
-They have one 20 goal scorer.
-Of the 10 worst plus/minus players in the NHL, four play for the Oilers: Sheldon Souray (9th worst), Robert Nilssen (6th), Shawn Horcoff (2nd), Patrick O'Sullivan (1st). 4th worst is Steve Staios, who Calgary recently acquired for defensive depth.
-The Oilers top 3 centers, Gagner, Putolny, and Horcoff are 69th, 74th and 75th in faceoff win percentage.

Factoids!

-Of the 69 games they've played, they've lost 41 games. Of those 41 games, 22 were by 2 or more goals and 14 by 3 or more.
-They've played 7 games where they've allowed over 40 shots on goal. Actually, that doesn't sound very bad.
-They have the worst goal differential in the league. By TWENTY goals.

Yeah. A rough year.


*They did not, for those keeping score at home. Why are you doing that anyways? It's being done FOR you by big computers!

Monday, March 15, 2010

There is writing now!

This was a hockey blog once. In the heady days of this site words were plentiful, jokes abundant, laughs occasional, and comments were, well, available. Then, without any warning, the posting stopped. Nobody knows why it stopped, who was responsible for all those opinions drying up, and nobody knows when it will start again. Except that last part, because we DO know when it's starting again! Today!

It's not that I stopped having sports opinions. It's not that both real people and people on the internet stopped being stupid. It isn't that "important people" started coming up with progressive ideas instead of this. It's certainly not that journalists stopped being either hilarious by accident or simply because time has passed them by, and that makes old people funny. More awesome websites indeed kept cropping up that I should've been linking to a long time ago. Writing is like rolling a snow-packed midget down a ski hill: the bigger the hill, the bigger the snowball. It's all about momentum, and unlike sports where momentum is not a Thing or a Reason for Similar Things Happening (I'll never believe in momentum again, after Oilers-Hurricanes Game 6), you need to keep that momentum going or your creativity will dry up like a... umm, how lowbrow did this blog used to be? Not very you say? Okay, creativity will dry up like freshly spat-out bubble gum in the Enchanted But Somewhat Arid Candyland Forest. I will try to gather some momentum today so that your palate is, well, not satisfied exactly, but presented with a menu.

Today's date, March 15th (because you are too riveted to these words to adjust your eyes for even a SECOND), sees the Canadian sports fan with a lot to think about. Matt Cooke on Marc Savard, potentially a new rule on headshots next year (you can't just change rules in the middle of the year! What is this, the NHL (Sean Avery Rule Link)? No, it is not), the Oilers' ongoing attempts to dig for black gold at the very depths of the NHL standings (the luscious crude in question: Taylor Hall. Not because he curses too much or anything, it's just a metaphor for a light at the end of the tunnel... even though oil is black and not light... except... fuck it, jokes in parentheses don't count anyway, why try to save them), to the rest of the sports world: Andre Agassi vs Pete Sampras vs Dignity, MLB spring training (will newly acquired Brenden Morrow and Kyle Drabek smartly take out huge insurance policies on their Tommy John's?) and a pivotal no-cap year in the NFL which will not be looked at here.

But none of that is as interesting as a Live Blog of the epic Oilers-Blue Jackets Game on Sportsnet West! Or not "live," per se, because I won't be time-stamping and there's only five minutes left in the third period. Devan Dubnyk is doing is best Jeff Deslaurier impression tonight; a brilliant pad save followed up with two tough deflections that would have been tough for any goalie to stop, except that he deflected them both with his own glove. It is currently 4-3, Aaron Johnson has a goal and an assist to "lead" the team. Theo Peckam and Jarred Boll had a fight earlier that cost Peckham some light bruising around the facial area and Boll some back-of-head bruising which GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL!!! Sorry to interrupt, Columbus scores the empty netter and the game will end at 5-3.

Where was I? Oh right. Jarred Boll got bodyslammed at the end of the fight and while it was cute to see the linesman cradle Boll's head like an American Girl doll, it's sure to be featured on Sportsnet, TSN and in every column who's writer is looking to explain why Things Are Worse Than They Used To Be. The Oilers' loss, however, guarantees another good night's sleep for the Oiler "faithful". Some folks in E-town were starting to get a little antsy when their beloved Oil managed to win two games in a row, though the recent return to crapitude with four straight losses, including a clutch performance in the big four-pointer against the Leafs on prime time Hockey Night in Canada (an Oiler loss AND no Mark Lee? Good times!) ensures that Taylor Hall (or Seguin, but really Hall) will continue his unabated march into the hornet's nest next year. You'd better like pressure, young squire. You know the last number one pick who went to a Canadian team? Bryan Berard, 1995, to Ottawa. Before that, yep, Alexander Daigle in 1993. It's funny is how Ottawa gained a reputation of building through the draft in the 1990's, and deservedly so (Redden, Alfredsson, Havlat, Spezza) but their two number one picks were a) traded and b) unfortunately not traded for the number two overall pick. I'd ask if you remember who that was, but you don't have to remember anything anymore because of The Internet. It was Chris Pronger. And yes, I know you remembered that.

On to TSN, who's broadcasting Calgary vs Detroit. Holmstrom goes down in the corner, the play goes up the ice and is then blown dead. Holmstrom is getting up slowly and McGuire says that Holmstrom's in a heap of trouble. This is excellent analysis because it goes against the grain, ignores the obvious, challenges our assumptions about God and the Universe because Holmstrom is smiling at the ref and looks just fine. Pierre then admits he was wrong, which also challenges our assumptions about God and the Universe.

Intermission. Duthie voiceovers the clip of Jarred Boll getting slammed by Peckham and yes, asks the question "Is it time for a rule change?" Yes. No. I don't know. But the analysts do! Dreger: "Player safety [matters]. The league would love to push a [rule change] forward. It [could] be enforced." He does not know, I guess. Mackenzie: "Paul Kelley wanted to change things! [And now he's GONE FOR GOOD]" (in parentheses because while he didn't SAY that, it's basically what he meant. Basically. Sort of.) Clip of a junior player delivering a headshot to another junior player, a hit that will be a penalty in the NHL next year. Barnaby admits that his mind has likely changed on the matter, that headshots need to be addressed. Milbury, offscreen from his cave, argues with Barnaby and calls him a nancyboy while dragging Hedger off by her hair. Jarred Boll is forgotten, the matter is unresolved, and viewers are left to believe their beloved game is in terrible shape and no solutions exist.

But wait! From the Desk of Dreger comes exciting news! A new rule with some clear(ish) language about what is a legal or illegal hit! Great news! Will there be anything specific in there about what will constitute supplementary discipline and what the range of punishments will be? What will the difference be between a major and a minor penalty? Hello?

Well that was too much for my first day back. Going to go ice those creamy hamstrings and report back again soon. This time for sure. Maybe. Sort of.