In the words of the perpetually young Teemu Selanne, you never know what's going to happen with the Ducks.

Anaheim continued to switch things up with a 4-3 victory over the Dallas Stars with just 3.8 seconds remaining.  Lubomir Visnovsky had the game winning goal, as well as his second career hat trick, to help the Ducks come back from a 3-1 deficit.  

The Ducks began the evening one point behind their division rivals and in 11th place in the Western Conference.  These two points, as with all the others, were critical.

Visnovsky got his first goal of the game at 9:22 of the first period when Dan Sexton helped to screen Kari Lehtonen.  Taking the 1-0 lead into the second period, the Ducks fell flat.

Dallas scored the next three goals to take a commanding lead.  Jamie Benn, who is having a breakout season, scored his 15th of the year 15 2:23 with a nice redirect from Alex Goligoski.  no comments

 

The Phoenix Coyotes are not walking (back) through that door.  

I don't know a damn thing about the Goldwater Institute, or the Arizona Constitution, but I will tell you this: the Jets did not buy a round-trip ticket all those years ago. Below the jump, I will offer you five completely indisputable reasons, and four made-up ones, why the Coyotes will be in Glendale for the forseeable future.


1) The problem is not because it's hot in Arizona. For the players, Arizona is fucking PERFECT. You get to winter in a place where you can play golf in shorts on off days, and during the summer you go back home to Saskatchewan where you can ice fish or whatever. So if you say "southern market" I just hear a buzzing sound. 

2) The NHL stands to make more money, long-term, by making Arizona work than by retreating to Winnipeg. Phoenix is a growing (and wealthy) market; Winnipeg is a stagnant one. This is not about fans in arenas, it is about television eyeballs and corporate dollars. Sports stopped being about fans 50-60 years ago (see: Dodgers, Brooklyn). If you think otherwise, you're a fucking sap. South and West is where the money and people are going. Get this: the metro Phoenix area grew by 45 percent from 1990-2000, and another 34 percent from 2000-2009. That's nearly a doubling in 20 years. The Phoenix metro area is 6-7 times larger than Winnipeg and getting bigger all the time. Only a dummy would choose to put a pro sports franchise in Winnipeg over Phoenix. Hockey may be a niche sport in the U.S., but a niche of Phoenix is still bigger than most of Winnipeg. no comments

 

For most of us, Monday morning represents an end to the weekend - All That is Fun - and a beginning to the work week - All That is Hell.  Regardless of this calendar-driven transition, you have a pretty reasonable expectation of how your first day back will play out.  It starts in the closet when you realize you forgot to pick up your dry cleaning on Friday afternoon, leaving you with one option: throw a shirt from last week in the dryer to dewrinkle, and go with the emergency pants you keep behind your old Anaheim Ducks jersey in hopes of never having to wear them (black with orange pinstripes aren't your best look).  After that, you make the morning drive to your place of employment.  At that point, it's a safe assumption that said locale will remain your place of employment throughout the rest of the day - when you will drive home and forget the dry cleaning once more.

In the NHL today, this is not the case.

Today is the NHL Trade Deadline, a day for rash decisions - and that doesn't even include the mental meanderings of Brian Burke.  Stay tuned to MYFO today with running updates on trades, wheelings, dealings, and hilarious AHL demotion of high-priced, underperforming veterans!  I am back on the bench and ready to play, and hopefully LeNoc drops in as well.

11:11 - The Atlanta Thrashers acquire Radek Dvorak from Florida in exchange forPatrick Rissmiller and Niclas Bergfors.  The Thrashers need to make a push for the postseason (so as to keep Jim Balsillie from becoming General Sherman), so why not get a veteran whose been playing NHL hockey longer than the franchise itself.  Throw out the skate sharpeners, kids. no comments

 

We're a day away from the point where we will spend the next 20 games actually talking about Hockey instead of player movements. Huzzah. While there has been a lot of attention paid to who is going where for what, the Leafs have managed to put together a 8-2-3 record so far in February. easily their strongest month of the past two seasons. Despite being 5 points out of a playoff spot a uphill schedule in March still leaves the impression that the Leafs should be sellers rather than buyers. Two back to back games, a couple of Flyers games highlight the concerns as well as key games against Carolina and Buffalo.

So as with my previous "Be a GM" posts I offer nothing more than HF Boards garbage as my suggestion for what the Leafs should consider heading into this player movement situation.

First thought, is Grabovski, MacArthur need to stay. If Burke hasn't been able to put together a blockbuster overpayment for one of these two players by now, it's not likely to come together at the last minute. There is also still the larger issue of who do eventually replace them with? The summer UFA market is limiting, and if they are retained by the Leafs we may be able to avoid a late summer surge of "How will they score?" articles from the always creative Toronto media. no comments

 

Now press boxes are not going to explode over this debate but Patrick Hoffman offers his own two cents on the subject.  Please comment away and share your opinions and experiences.

Over the past day and a half, there has been a debate on Twitter between several MSM hockey writers and bloggers regarding cheering the press box, a topic that always generates a ton of responses.

With that in mind, I just wanted to say that I believe that there should be NO cheering of any sort in the press box, even if you are a blogger. If you are a blogger and are in the press box for a game, that means that the National Hockey League and one of its member organizations credentialed you. 

Being credentialed is a privilege and one that simply cannot be abused. You need to dress appropriately and act like a professional since you are surrounded by a large number of professionals at the game.

Secondly, if you are a blogger, you have to remember that the MSM are there to do a job. They have a deadline they have to meet, which actually occurs during the game so they need to be able to get their work done without a blogger hounding them or cheering next to them.

Lastly, as bloggers, we need to do everything we can to show MSM that we are for real and that we can write/blog with the best of them. The last thing we want to do is be roudy and unprofessional in the press box.

While this is just my opinion, I do have a reason for stating it. During the 2006-07 season, I was lucky enough to get into the New York Rangers' press box for 10 games as a volunteer correspondent for Hokeja Vestnesis. 

If you know of my work, you know that I am a big Rangers' fan. With that said, however, I never let that show while in the press box. Instead, I just showed that I had a lot of knowledge about the team and the game of hockey. I was able to earn a bit of respect that way.

I know it is tough and I'm certainly not trying to knock bloggers down. Fan bloggers have to realize that if they want to cheer, they can always either watch the game at home or buy a ticket and attend the game as a fan.

Pretty simple, right?

no comments

 

For my masters program, I had to write a paper that had something to do with management & labor relations. So I chose the NHLPA.  

Long Title:

The NHLPA's Hiring of Donald Fehr as Executive Director for Collective Bargaining in 2012

Short Title:

The NHLPA's Hiring of Donald Fehr

September 15, 2012 will be a very important date for the National Hockey League (NHL), the players and the fans. The events leading up to this date will determine if there will be another lost season. The NHL last missed an entire season in 2004-2005 when the owners staged a lockout. No one can say if the NHL will be able to withstand another lockout. The National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA) recently appointed Donald Fehr as director which will drastically shape the direction in which the contract negotiations will go.

Over the next year and a half the NHL and NHLPA will need to reach a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) without the disastrous results of years past. In April 1992 a strike led to the postponement of 30 games (Stoppages Possible for both NFL and NBA, 2010). The 1994-1995 season was shortened to 48 games (down from 82) when the owners staged a lockout over putting a salary cap in place (Elliott, 2011). This caused a total of 468 games to be missed (Stoppages Possible for both NFL and NBA, 2010). Then in 2004 the NHL made history. The NHL became the first professional sports league to cancel an entire season ( Elliott, 2011). Commissioner Gary Bettman was looking to control costs and “reduce the percentage of revenues funneled toward players' salaries” ( Elliott, 2011). The NHL wanted a hard salary cap plus a 24 percent rollback on current contracts; eventually the NHLPA broke down and agreed to the NHL's demands ( Elliott, 2011). no comments

 

It will quite interesting, given the recent surge in the fortunes of the CBJ - BTW, great effort to come back, 3 times, tonight, by the boys - whether they'll actually participate as buyers, sellers or at all (the theory that the recent surge might make Howson even more risk adverse - to 'not tip the apple cart' so to speak).

But here is a recent article in which I assess the Top 25 players "in play" for the upcoming trade deadline.  I have included 3 CBJ players, but now I seriously doubt that Klesla - starting to become our version of 'The Tin Man', which has really killed our chances to trade him, last year as well - will be "in play" for this trade deadline frenzy.  With that...

The NHL's Trade Deadline is just two weeks away (February 28th, 3 P.M. EST).

There have already been four intriguing trades, to date:  Mike Fisher to the Nashville Predators for Nashville's first round pick in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft and future considerations in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft; Michael Frolik to the Chicago Blackhawks in a five-player deal, to include Jack Skille; Francois Beauchamen returning to Anaheim in exchange for Joffrey Lupul, a prospect and a conditional pick; and Kris Versteeg to the Philadelphia Flyers for a pair of draft picks, one of which is a future first round pick. Add to that the ultra-tight races for the Stanley Cup playoffs, and you have the makings of a very interesting trade deadline season.

Here are the most intriguing players who might be "in play" between now and the trade deadline: no comments

 

In the wake of tonight's 4-3 shootout loss to the Islanders, Bryan Murray has dealt center Chris Kelly to the Boston Bruins for a second round pick. According to Bob McKenzie's Twitter (@TSNBobMcKenzie), Boston dealt their own 2011 second round pick.

News of the trade is somewhat shocking to me. Mind you, I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. Far from it. I just never would have imagined a week ago that the Senators would move Chris Kelly or Mike Fisher, let alone both. I just never foresaw moves of this magnitude being made in the rebuilding effort. 

The new cliche in Ottawa these days is that these moves are tough but necessary hockey decisions. In the greater scheme of things, Chris Kelly was a highly paid third line center on a bad team. At his age and with his value relatively high, it was a great time to capitalize on Kelly's high market value. Considering alternatives on this summer's free agent market and the glut of projected third and fourth line players that are currently in the system, he is replaceable.  no comments

 

I'm in a glass case of emotion!

Kris Versteeg has been traded to Philadelphia for their 1st and 3rd Round picks in this years draft.

I'm glad I never ordered that Versteeg jersey I planned on getting over the summer as his tenure at best was short lived. If we want to trace the history of the deal, the Leafs over the course of a season flipped Jiri Tlusty, Victor Stalberg, and Chris diDomenico for a 1st round and 3rd round pick, and in that regards this deal is huge success and is something Burke can be proud of.

The deal is a shock, one because 2 posts ago I spoke out about dealing in Versteegin this kind of deal, and as such still consider this to be a miss (If Nashville wins a playoff round Ottawa received a greater return on Mike Fisher.) It's also a shock in that Burke has been very vocal about wanting players who could help the team now. It's that factor that makes me wonder how attached we should get to the first round pick.

Here's a quick break down of the Pros and Cons of this deal no comments

 

It seemed as though the WWE was back at the Coliseum last night, but it was only a game between the Islanders and Penguins.  Going into the game the Islanders had the events of last game in their minds and the Penguins knew they could be in for a tough one. But nobody could have expected what Transpired.

Scoring

The Islanders played a great game offensively. Early on they put pressure on the Penguins net minder, Brent “one punch” Johnson and it paid off.
-Travis Hamonic scored at 8:51 of the first period on a shot that hit the cross bar and bounced into the net off of Brent Johnson.
-Jessie Joensuu scored on a wrist shot to make it 2-0 at 12:52.
-PA Parenteau tipped in a shot from Travis Hamonic to make it 3-0 Islanders.
-In the closing minute of the 1^st period, Michael Grabner scored all alone as everybody was distracted by Zenon Konopka and Deryk Engelland were shoving and yapping at each other by the player benches. no comments