Real Denver Sports: Los Angeles Kings

Showing posts with label Los Angeles Kings. Show all posts

Monday, October 10, 2011

Peter Forsberg in Belize

by J. Scott Moore

I have an odd little Forsberg memory I thought I would share with you.

It was spring, 2001 and I was going to Belize, not a hotbed of hockey coverage. The trip took me on a four-seat, single engine plane to a strip of asphalt with three shacks, two of them abandoned. Next it was an hour drive to a resort with zip for communications.

I was having a great time in Belize but that I sure wish I knew what my Avalanche were up to. I heard there was a Canadian owned resort down the beach and that they had a satellite feed for watching hockey in the bar!

It was the April 30^th game against the Kings and I spent the first period enjoying the game. It was into the second with the score tied up when the feed blinked out. The owner promptly headed to the back and eventually the feed blink on again. Now the score was 2-1 Avs, goal by Forsberg and I missed it! This occurred several more times in the third with the score changing, very frustratingly, every time the feed was out. Before the game was over the feed went out for good.

I had a relaxing vacation punctuated by trips down the beach trying to catch Avs games. I was well informed by the owners as to the status of the series, they couldn’t get another Avs game on the feed. He told me that they were stealing the feed so it was very unreliable.

The timing of the final game didn’t allow me to get any info before leaving for home. I was in the airport in Houston when finally I saw some hockey news start scrolling by on the crawler. It said that the Avs had advanced to the next round, YAY!!!

And then it said that Peter Forsberg had season ending surgery…WHAT?????

That was it, no more information and next thing I knew it was time to get on the plane to Denver. That was a long trip home wondering what the hell was going on! It’s safe to say that Forsberg losing his spleen in that game was memorable but so was the suspense I was in while traveling.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Ryan Smyth Traded Again, and Again...

by J. Scott Moore

Is it "The Ryan Smyth Curse?"

It seems to me that if you mess with Ryan Smyth you get nothing!

Let’s look at the trail of nothing left behind this guy

Edmonton trades him for Robert Nilsson (bought out & now out of the NHL) and Ryan O'Marra, (who has scored all of one goal in the big leagues because he can’t break out of the minors) and a first rounder that turns out to be Alex Plante, another guy still in the minors. Not only do these guys look to be a bust, one is for sure, but team has been a bust ever since the trade of Smyth.
Isles lose him for nothing and have been in the bottom 5 ever since.
Avs trade him for essentially nothing. Quincey minus Tom Preissing net sum is zero. And a 5th rounder, Luke Walker, yeah, who cares.
LA tries to trade him to Edmonton for Gilbert Brule and a fourth-round draft pick, Brule was going to be bought out by the Kings. That fell through and eventually ended up as Colin Fraser and a 7th rounder. Fraser is better than Brule who was just going to be cast aside but it still isn't much.

So Edmonton ends up getting Smyth back 4 years after they balked at his request for a $5M per year contract and guess how much he is making? Yep. In hindsight, amazing stupidity.

The exciting part is that we may get to see the contract negotiation fireworks between Smyth and the Oilers again even before the season is at the halfway mark as the Oilers would be smart to start and finish that aspect before Ryan Smyth is traded away once again due to an inability to come to an agreement. Look at the path of destruction that he has already paved.

The safest thing the Oilers can do for the sake of the franchise is get him signed for the future.