Parroting the NHL

by J. Scott Moore

Myths, half truths and things people repeat without thinking

Real hockey towns don’t have Ice Girls? Boston, Chicago, Caps, Devils, Flames, Ottawa, Vancouver, Islanders, Pittsburgh…who else?

The Original Six are “real” hockey towns. Oh, so all those empty seats in the Joe and Chicago’s arena were just smart fans staying away from a bad product? And there’s absolutely NO bandwagoning going on in Chicago these days…right….!

The shoot out is a skills contest-this is a team sport. The OT should go from 4-4 to 3-3 to 2-2, etc. Wait, I thought you said this is a team sport!

Players that are suspended for injuring another player should have to sit out as long as it takes the injured player to return. Actually, the player’s association might want to look at negotiating this one into the next CBA because this will undoubtedly increase the number of men that get a shot at the NHL by at least a 1,000 players. There will be so many players sitting on their duff at home waiting for such-and-so to get healthy that the minor leagues will be exhausted of players. Of course never mind that all the players sitting on said duff will need to be paid…so watch those ticket prices go thru the roof! Great idea.

Southern Hockey doesn’t work. How long have the Blues been operating? Wasn’t it Buffalo and Washington that went bankrupt long before Phoenix?

+/- is the most worthless stat in the NHL – that is until it supports that argument you are making about such and so player. Then all of a sudden it’s ok to add it to the argument, though often with a CYA caveat / cliché, “Even though +/- is the most worthless stat in all of hockey…blah blah blah”

What are your hockey pet peeves?

   

That’s Why They Play the Games

The Colorado Avalanche aren’t the only ones that have had an erratic week or two. The fans that live and die with this team have had a rough time as well. There’s been everything from declaring the Avs “done” to rationalizing that it would be a good thing to miss the playoffs.

Even Avs beat writer and reverse jinx extraordinaire Adrian Dater predicted after the Flames loss that the Avs would not win another game the rest of the season.

“…I don’t see them winning even one game the rest of the way. That’s right, I said not one game.”

That sort of nincompoop hyperbole is what makes Dater such a beloved writer guy in this town.  The Avs played the Sharks Sunday night like they DO want to make the playoffs. Where Dater got it right in the article is that the Avs have become victims of the chaos in front of Craig Anderson.

I think there is little doubt that Anderson is a true number one goalie. But the Avalanche have become too dependent on Anderson saving their butt game in and game out. This team needs to clear out that space in front of the net. They need to own it and stop renting it out to the opposition. It’s killing them.

Not everyone was beating the drum of doom. The faithful at Mile High Hockey still believe. And why shouldn’t we? As it turns out the “four-point” game against the Flames WASN’T the end of the world as we know it, though the clichés nearly reached critical mass.

The Avalanche can clinch a playoff spot tonight by winning the game and a regulation loss by the Flames.

Simple as that.

Well, it SOUNDS simple. The surprisingly potent Peter Mueller has been declared unfit for duty for the foreseeable future. Uh-oh. The fact that Mueller has been anything but a bust since he got here makes his absence all the more difficult at this crucial point in the playoff push.

Nonetheless, the ‘Nucks have not preemptively been declared the winners of tonight’s match.

There’s still a game to play.

Avs Falter vs. Frantic Flames

The Avs played with a lot of hustle and toughness but not a lot of smarts. But there’s a silver lining. Let’s break it down…

Hustle

It took the Avs nearly half the game to get their motor running. But it was the unlikely line of Ryan O’Reilly, Kevin Porter and Marek Svatos that suddenly gelled like a checking line that had been putting pressure on the opposition all year, forechecking hard and forcing the Flames to scramble in their zone.

Tonight Svatos was suddenly noticeable, stealing pucks, going hard to the net and best of all staying out of the sin bin. After a great shift they seemed to get the whole team playing well. Unfortunately the score was already 3-0, Flames. To the Flames credit they never let up.

The 3-2 score was not really that close.

Toughness

How about this odd stat for ya: when the Avs have two or more fights in a game they are 10-1-1. Make that 10-2-1 after tonight.  Just realized that I'm lumping Tucker's fight in with tonight's game for some reason.  Ooh, that was a slobber-knocker!  Ok, so if they would have just initiated another fight they might have won!  No, I do like the fighting in hockey but I don't believe that last line.  Settle down Koci-haters!

Not did they lose the game but they may have lost another defenseman in the process. I’ve really liked Ryan Wilson’s abilities as a solid D-man, a big hitter and a guy that will drop the gloves when needed. But he took one in the jaw in this bout that might have him seeing stars. Like Dancing with the Stars while he recovers.



Tough as the Avs were, the Flames were up for it and responded in kind, they were not intimidated.

Smarts

So what do you do when a team matches you straight up with hustle and toughness?

Play dumb!

Wrong-O rookie Avs!

The Avs had a severe case of standing around and looking at the puck in the D zone. That or they were being drawn to the man with the puck. Terrible, just terrible decisions being made defensively in this game.

There were at least three clean breakaways by the Flames, one of them resulting in a short-handed goal.

One in the 2nd period went right through 3 Avs on its way to the blue line.

The Avs were giving out breakaways like candy on Halloween!

The Flames were playing to win, like playoff hockey. Something the Avs need to learn to do soon. The need to step up to that level of play is going to be a challenge to a lot of these guys; it’s a first for many of them.

Silver Lining

Cheer up Avs fans, the Flames are 2 points closer to overtaking the Wings and knocking them out of the playoffs!

-From the Point

Five for Fighting Monday - The Gordie Howe Hat Trick

Chris Stewart of my Avs does it up right in this one, good goal, great assist and an amusing, if not great fight.  The fight isn't so great but it was the opponent that was the problem, Stewart was more than willing, garnering an instigator, the 5 for fighting and misconduct.

After taking a run at Matt Duchene, Bryan Allen was probably surprised at the ferocity that came his way.  You get Stewart fired up and the kid is just dangerous!  Allen may have even hurt himself with all the contortions he performed in the effort to get away from Stewie.

The Avs lost this one in the shootout.  Stephen Weiss had a regular hat trick in the game.  Great as the GHHT is, it's still less goals.






Iginla was SO close to the ever-elusive Double Gordie Howe Hat Trick!
Netting two goals, two assists and a fight. 

This is Calgary's second GHHT as a team.  Brian McGrattan and the Flames notched the first of the season, that was a win for the Flames over the Canucks. 




This could be the cheapest GHHT ever. You call that a fight, Nash?
And what's with that cheap goal? 
This season, the team with the GHHT wins more often than not, way to tarnish the GHHT legacy Columbus.
This is Colunbus' second GHHT, the first by Jared Boll.  Boll registered two fights in the (again) losing effort against the Rangers.
Stupid Blue Jackets.

Who is Ryan Wilson?

Let’s just get the basic data out of the way, Wilson, a native of Windsor, ON shoots left and is listed on the Avs roster as 6’1” and 207, he is 22 years old. Wilson was an undrafted defenseman playing for the OHL’s Sarnia Sting when he was signed by the Calgary Flames in 2008 and spent the season with the Quad City Flames. Look at that great pic from the Flames press release announcing his signing. Way to look alert Willie. Think the guys call him Willie? Haha, hope not.

Wilson’s time in the OHL with the Sarnia Sting was very successful; he led all defensemen in scoring for two straight seasons. His final season with the Sting saw him netting seven goals and 64 assists for 71 points in 58 games. Wilson also wore the “C” for the Sting for two years and totaled 220 PIM.

But despite a year on the Flames farm he never got a chance to play up in Cal Gary.

So how did Colorado end up with this sleepy tough guy? He came over when Colorado traded Jordan Leopold for Wilson, Lawrence Nycholat and a 2nd in the 2009 draft. Most Avs fans thought little of the two warm bodies that were thrown in to the trade. At the time I was thrilled to get a 2nd for Leopold after a pretty disappointing, injury-riddled stint in Colorado.

Wilson only played three games for the Avs farm team before being called up. He hasn’t been back ever since. Not even when the Avs had a log-jam of healthy bodies on the blue line. No, the big $$ John-Michael Liles got the healthy scratch and Sacco raised a few eyebrows with that move. But it’s hard to blame him, the kid is a player!

Looks like James Crider over at the Bleacher Report agrees with me in his midterm grades:

Ryan Wilson - B
Okay, former GM Francois Giguere did one thing right. Wilson was practically a throw in during the trade that sent Jordan Leopold to Calgary
last year, yet has established himself as solid NHLer in no time, and has arguably been better than Leopold ever was in his three-year tenure with the Avalanche.

He’s been paired primarily with Avs captain and grizzled vet, Adam Foote. No doubt he’s been learning a great deal from Foote all season.
We’re overdue to look at some stats: Wilson is 3rd in +/- and 7th in the league in rookie defensemen for points, but it isn’t just about points.
Wilson is third in the league in hits, and although he doesn’t have a lot of take-aways, he doesn’t have a lot give-aways either. I mean you look at a guy like Tyler Myers that is getting some Calder talk and the guy has twice the give-aways of any other rookie in the league.
Now compare him to a guy like Del Zotto who leads the league in hits, but has a lot more give-aways and I think you’ll see what I see: Wilson doesn’t hit guys just to hit them. He picks his spots and lays the lumber like we haven’t seen in Denver since Rob Blake left.

I think it really makes the opposition think twice about skating into the zone with the puck. Personally I don’t want the other team thinking, “Hey look, it’s Liles, I’ll just bounce off of him and keep going.” No, I want “Hey look, its Wilson…crap! I need to dump this puck!”

Steven Stamkos and Wilson played on the Sting together, here’s what he had to say in a recent interview:

If you could lay a big, clean hit on anyone in the league, who would it be?

Ryan Wilson with the Avalanche. He was my captain in junior with Sarnia
(OHL) and he hits hard. Would be nice to turn the tables on him.

I’ll bet, Wilson was recognized as one of the OHL’s hardest hitting defensemen by the annual coach’s poll.
So you want to get Wilson in your sites and line him up, eh? Good luck tough guy.

Avs fans recently voted a hit by Wilson as the play of the week.

Five for Fighting Monday

Definition of a true teammate: anyone that will stand up for Tyler Arnason. Dion Phaneuf knocks Arny on his ass. Never mind that Arny was mesmerized by his own puck handling skills. Haha! But seriously, it was just an excuse for Lappy to go with one of the most hated players outside of Detroit. Thanks for beating the snot outta Phaneuf, Lappy!
Readers, I hope you knock the snot out of your week!

It was the last game of the season and the Avs won, 6-3. Joe Sakic scored the go-ahead goal in the third, giving him 100 points for the season. Sakic, 37 years young, became the second-oldest player in NHL history to reach 100 points. The oldest was some guy known as Mr. Hockey. Joe was the first star, Lappy the second. Those guys are gone, but the Avs will still be kicking some butt tomorrow night.
-From the Point

Colorado Avalanche on the Road in Alberta

One of these days I'm going with the Avs on one of these Alberta road trips. This one I could even get in three Canadian teams (with a game in Vancouver) in less than a week!! That would be so much fun.
No such luck today, so…I'm here with a little Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames history. Though Alberta is full of hockey history, I'll start with the World Hockey Association in the 1970's.
It seems Alberta was destined to have two professional teams; it just took a little time to get all the pieces to fall into place. When the World Hockey Association was formed, Edmonton had the Oilers and Calgary was attempting to ice a team as well, the Broncos, but the team folded before the league got rolling. So the Edmonton Oilers were renamed the Alberta Oilers and were slated to split their games between Edmonton and Calgary. That plan was scrapped before the Oilers and the World Hockey Association opened for the first season in 1972 and it reverted back to the Edmonton Oilers.
Prior to the 1977-78 season the Oilers were nearly a part of the NHL, but a merger was killed and the fate of the Oilers was in the balance, not for the first time. New owner Peter Pocklington was considering closing up the team and was rumored to be trying to buy the Colorado Rockies. The Oilers did continue and in 1978 acquired the rights to Wayne Gretzky. On Gretzky's 18th birthday he would sign a deal with Pocklington at center ice in front of 12,000 fans. And I thought Duchene coming to town was creating hoopla? Wow.
The 80’s for the Oilers are well documented, but it wasn't just the Oilers that were winning championships. The Edmonton Eskimos won five straight Grey Cups from 1978-83, and a sixth in 1978. That's the Canadian Football League, by the way. The Oilers would later be allowed to buy their way into the NHL for a mere $6 million. They are the only original WHA team left in the NHL, in their original city.
Meanwhile, Calgary was still struggling to get into the WHA. The city was home to the Calgary Cowboys from 1975-77. But that team folded in short order.
The NHL arrived in Calgary when the Atlanta Flames arrived in 1980. For reasons I cannot discern, they kept the Flames name replacing a flaming 'A' logo with a flaming 'C'. Not real imaginative but on the upside the team avoided being named after some sort of cowboy accessory as was an apparent obsession of all the previous teams. Though to this day they play in the Saddledome. No need to get into how wound up I get about Denver's identity issues as a cow town.
In the Flames second season in Calgary, they traded for Lanny McDonald from the Colorado Rockies. The mustachioed McDonald would finish his career with the Flames and have his number retired. I believe only he and Mike Vernon are in the rafters.
The flames and the Oilers are separated by a mere 180 miles. A natural rivalry, and in 1983 the Flames took the Oilers to seven games in the Smythe Division finals, eventually losing to the Stanley Cup winning Oilers. And so a great rivalry was born, "...you could feel the electricity in the building, playoffs or regular season." said then GM Cliff Fletcher.
Sound like two teams we know a lot about here in Denver?


-From the Point




Thanks to Mike Board, Michael McKinley and Brian McFarlane for writing such great histories of hockey that I have summarized above.