The Two-Line Pass

If Chris Chelios can still go, anyone can.

That’s why Claude Lemieux has been intensively training for the last two and a half months to make a return to either the NHL or AHL (FYI it’s an RDS link, so it’s in French). What he fails to realize, I think, is that he’s 43 years old and fat.

(Choppy translation follows)

“Most people will think I’m crazy, but I miss being with the players and the feeling of being on the rink. We only have one life and if we feel something in our heart or in our head, we have to go for it.”

Yes Claude, I think you’re crazy. A full 10 weeks of training, even if it’s with the Coyotes, won’t prepare a 40-plus guy that hasn’t played professional hockey since 2003-04 (in Switzerland, mind you) for the NHL or even the AHL. This is a terribly misguided thing to do, no matter how much you miss the sport.

Here’s Lemieux’s appearance on the SpikeTV show Pros vs. Joes. He shows up about 40 seconds in. First, he looks terribly out of shape before he even hits the ice, more than a few pounds heftier than the 230ish he was playing at in his prime. Once he does get on the ice, he looks terrible even for someone that isn’t skating particularly hard. Then, to win a puck battle, he high sticks his opponent in the mouth. Circus crap like that will go over real big in the AHL, where some 22-year-old, 245-pound thug is going to beat your old head into a bloody pulp the first chance he gets.

Lemieux, and try to contain your disbelief here, does not — repeat, does NOT — have an agreement with any NHL team at this time. If one would like to contact him, it may do so through his retirement home.

Better solution: I know old people don’t play video games, but Lemieux should really just give NHL09 a whirl. That Be A Pro mode is incredible.

I was watcing bits and pieces of the Rangers game last night online (don’t narc me out!) and there was one name I kept hearing constantly.

“Petr Nedved.”

Apparently, the 37-year-old scored a goal and generally looked impressive (albeit against Senators bench that, sans Spezza, Heatley, Gerber and Fischer, was not exactly rife with talent) in a 2-1 Rangers win to open the preseason last night. PETR NEDVED!

“Surely when I left I wasn’t expecting to be coming back,” said Nedved, the game’s first star. “It is so nice to be back in the National Hockey League. It’s just an exhibition game, but I was nervous before the game to the point that I didn’t know what to expect.”

He also picked up the game’s first star, and the announcers on homeriffic MSG could not stop raving about him.

Still, though, he’d need turn far more heads than this to make the team. If the Rangers think they can get similar production from a 22-year-old for a similar price, Nedved is on the first plane full of chickens and pigs back to Liberec.

Doesn’t sound like anyone’s ready to annoint him the King of Comebacks just yet.

“That’s his first game so I’m not going to draw any conclusions,” Rangers coach Tom Renney said. “Like a lot of others, he’s involved in a process and we’re smack dab in the middle of it. We’ll give him credit for a good game and get ready for the next one.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s something that has to be consistent - at least the chances - and playing a good two-way game and being an influential player for all the right reasons.”

If the announcers on MSG last night were to have been believed, Nedved is still a “great skater” with a “great shot,” so making the team isn’t going to be a big deal.

But seriously, Petr Nedved?

Have a peek at this video of Mark Messier doing an interview with ESPN.

First they talk about Yankee Stadium, then they talk about Brett Favre.

Finally, 2:45 into the interview, they actually ask him hockey-related questions. He has to rate scenarios on a scale of “How Hockey” a situation is. I wish I were making that up. Every time the anchor does the cornball delivery on “HOW HOCKEY IS THAT,” I want him to contract hantavirus from the cheese sandwiches at craft service.

First topic: Players leaving the NHL for the KHL (not that they could be bothered to mention the latter by name). HOW HOCKEY IS THAT?!

“I think we all know the NHL is the best league in the world, and if you are a hockey player with any aspirations, the NHL is the league you want to play in. The Russian league is becoming something we definitely have to pay attention to, and the folks over there have a tremendous amount of money and they’re trying to build the credibility of it. We definitely have to have a working relationship with them in order so we’re not stealing eachother’s players that are under contract.”

Second topic: “Tough guy” Sean Avery works for Vogue Magazine and that’s borderline gay, right? HOW HOCKEY IS THAT?!

“I think it’s great. What makes any sport or any player interesting is what he does other than what we see as fans watching him on the ice. Outside interests are always intriguing to the fans, so what he does away from the ice is good for not only him but for the sport of hockey.”

Third topic: Seriously, bro, wouldn’t you call Avery a big gay loser?

“Personally, I wouldn’t. He’s in the right place. He’s a single guy and he’s getting to meet a lot of girls, so why wouldn’t he do it? He’s smarter than everyone else.”

Fourth topic: Sid Crosby’s living with Mario Lemieux again! What are they GAY or something? HOW HOCKEY IS THAT?!

“What a great opportunity for a young superstar like himself to learn from the best ever. I was there during the playoffs over Mario’s house and saw Sidney there. Great opportunity for him to not only feel comfortable and not have to worry about living by himself as a young guy in the NHL, but to live with Mario who, in my mind was one of the best ever and a tremendous leader in his own right. What a tremendous opportunity for Sidney.”

It’s nice to be pandered to.

First it was the team’s name that drew my ire. Then they offered Brett Favre a contract so everyone could yuk it up and get some cheap publicity. Now, there is a confluence of two events that make me seriously dislike the Iowa Chops even further.

First is that they’re having a contest to name their squad of ice girls. The names you can choose from are exactly as bad and pun-filled as you’d expect. There’s the Ice Girls, which is as inoffensive as it is uncreative. There are the Bacon Bits, Baby Backs and Applesauce, because get it the team’s name is Chops and the logo is a pig! There are also the Chop Chicks and Chopettes.

My favorite, though, is “the Hat Tricks.” Now, I’m not one to feel as though I’m “down” with what happens on “the streets,” but I believe Dr. Dre has a song in which he implies that women are nothing but “hoes and tricks.” So let’s hope that one wins.

The other big reason to dislike the Chops is that they, like John McCain, are now using vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a marketing tool.

The other day, she gave a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in which she expressed her belief that the name Chops was “cool.” Of course, she felt the same way about the Bridge To Nowhere and forcing some poor high school hockey player into a shotgun wedding and the national spotlight, but who am I to judge? Later in the speech, she said she might round up a few local Hockey Moms (yech) and hit up a Chops game. More campaign promises upon which a candidate won’t deliver, and another $100 to the Alaska Special Olympics from stupid Keith Olbermann.

So it begs the question, if Sarah Palin has heard of the Iowa Chops and plans to attend a game, why don’t you?  Opening night (Friday, October 10th at 7:05pm vs. Peoria Rivermen) is just three weeks away, so now is the perfect time to pick up your tickets for the upcoming season.  There is a new team, new affiliate, and lower ticket prices, so now is the time to find out what Sarah Palin knows… it is time to Dig the Pig!

HEY! Barack Obama got in a lot of trouble for using a phrase like that. Apparently, even the elitist, arugala-eating Iowa Chops aren’t above dirty campaign tactics.

Jeremy Roenick is no spring chicken. At 38 years old, he was one of the oldest players in the NHL. So when 18-year-old Samuel Groulx caught him with an elbow during a training camp scrimmage, what was he supposed to do?

He tried to get the kid, who was born over two years after Roenick made his NHL debut, to fight.

The veteran got in Groulx’s grill, threw a few words at him and then a punch to the helmet. A few more words and a second punch earned Roenick a roughing penalty.

A veteran like you should know they always catch the retaliatory penalty, JR. Always.

Groulx, for his part, didn’t know if he should put Old Man Roenick on his ass (and at 6-foot-2, 165, he probably could have), so he just kind of stood there dumbfounded.

“The situation was, I don’t know what to do,” he said after the scrimmage. “It was, ‘OK, sorry about that. I’m just trying to make the team.’ I don’t know, it was a crazy situation.”

If he really wanted to make the team, he would’ve one-punched Roenick. That’s what Kevin Bieksa did that one time, and he’s been in the NHL ever since.

I am not, nor have I ever been, a hockey coach in any sense of the word. But in reading this Damian Cristodero article from the St. Pete Times about Barry Melrose’s plan for the Lightning, I feel like I’d do an okay job with an NHL job.

His big plan to right the Tampa Bay ship is pretty simple. Well, actually it’s shockingly simple.

Step one: Play your best players less.

Martin St. Louis averaged more than 24 minutes a game last year, and Lecavalier averaged just under 23. Melrose said they played anywhere from three to five minutes too much per night. In St. Louis’ case, I agree that almost 25 seems like a lot. In fact, it was the most of any forward by close to 30 seconds a night. Brad Richards, who played with St. Louis for most of his time in Tampa, was second at 23:27, followed by Alex Ovechkin at 23:06. A good four minutes too many for St. Louis, even if he did see time in all situations, and Tampa took a decent amount of penalties last year.

But getting Lecavalier’s minutes down to 20 or less is crazy. The team has no one besides Lecavalier to play in his place. Who picks up those minutes? Gary Roberts? Steven Stamkos? Ryan Malone? Eh, that’s not too good of a substitute.

Both will see their shorthanded minutes drop considerably to cover this, which would be fine except St. Louis averaged 1:46 shorthanded a night, and Lecavalier only had 1:33. Even if those numbers dropped to nil, they’re still losing 2ish minutes a night at even strength or (if Melrose is actually as stupid enough) on the power play.

Melrose calls this “resting,” I ask, “For what?” This isn’t a playoff-bound team, or anything like one. Too many holes, too many projects. Playing your best players as much as they can possibly play doesn’t strike me as a bad thing. It’s not like they slowed down or had the ice time affect them too greatly. Both Lecavalier and St. Louis had better than a point a game.

Step two: Don’t dump and chase.

Again, just brilliant coaching here. The only teams that can get away with the dump and chase are teams with good defenses. Tampa doesn’t have one. Tortorella’s insistence on using it was none too bright, Melrose’s correction of that practice shouldn’t be hailed as anything less than correction of an obvious.

So instead, the plan is (wait for it) puck possession! It’s just so clever.

Here’s Melrose, the master analyzer, on why it will work: “If we have the puck, they can’t score.”

Step three: Play defense.

But what happens when they DO have the puck?

“I’m not going to accept bad pinches,” Melrose said. “I’m not going to accept two-on-ones against. I’m not going to accept bad judgment on defense.”

Saying it is one thing, executing it is another. The fact is that Tampa’s defense features five 23-year-olds and they’re going to make mistakes. Lots of them. That means bad pinches, bad giveaways, and odd-man rushes coming back the other way. Even if they’re encouraged not to jump into the play (and boy won’t Tampa be fun to watch this year if that’s the case?), they’ll still see a lot of forwards busting ass up-ice toward them.

So this is Barry Melrose’s three-part plan. Really.

Doesn’t it make you feel like all you need to do to coach is stand behind the bench in a suit?

During this summer’s Olympic Games, much was made of the diets of both greatest-swimmer-ever Michael Phelps and the fastest man that ever lived, Usain Bolt.

Phelps, of course, eats close to 38 trillion calories per meal. Bolt eats nothing but yams and Chicken McNuggets.

Inspired by their stories, Kyle Wellwood spent the entire offseason living with that guy that’s eaten 23,000 Big Macs. Not surprisingly, he has shown up to Canucks camp out of shape.

Sunday, after the conclusion of the NHL team’s two-day training camp, head coach Alain Vigneault revealed that Wellwood’s fitness tests on Friday were not up to standard.

This is one of those “we told you so” things for the Canucks, who claimed the promising but doughy 25-year old off waivers from the Maple Leafs. The complaint with Wellwood in his Toronto days was that he was often fat and lazy. When you google anything nowadays, one thing that happens is Google completes the phrase that you’re typing and gives you the number of hits it finds. When you type in “Kyle Wellwood,” the second term that comes up, and thus the term most often searched as it relates to Kyle Wellwood without just being his name, is “Kyle Wellwood fat.”

For a professional athlete, I bet that’s a bad thing. This post, from a Maple Leafs-centric blog, is full of all kinds of mean (and accurate) things about Wellwood’s Buddha-like physique.

Of course, Wellwood has also cooked up a host of excuses, some of them legitimate. He has had several hernia surgeries and broke his foot playing indoor soccer early in the offseason. As a result, he missed a bunch of time he would have allegedly spent training (driving through Tim Horton’s counts!) and his fitness level started well behind the rest of the team.

There was a sequence Sunday where Wellwood won a battle for the puck on the side boards, stick handled around two defenders and created a quality scoring chance. But there were other moments this weekend when Wellwood was seen huffing and puffing and looking as though he wouldn’t make it through practice.

Wellwood has a week to get his fitness tests to an acceptable level. If he doesn’t, he’s out.. the Canucks’ one-dimensional offense notwithstanding. He can’t hit and he can’t play defense, so his worth to the team without being in shape is nil.

“If he can’t be an offensive player, he can’t compete here. So, he has to play to his skill set,” Gillis said.

One assumes that, should he get bounced from the team, Wellwood’s career will be on its last, pudgy hippo legs.

When you’re around NHL players a lot, you find out that there are indeed cities, teams and individual players that they just don’t like. The perception that fans can get is sometimes overblown (most guys in the NHL don’t really mind Sean Avery, for example), and sometimes it’s spot-on.

And if you ever considered that Chris Pronger might have really, really hated his time in Edmonton, but never had confirmation, don’t worry. Pronger has now confirmed that he really, really hated his time in Edmonton.

In an otherwise bland Q&A with the Orange County Register (even their website suffers from “The OC” disorder), Pronger offered this gem.

Q: Are there teams you can’t stand to play?

A: You mean, like, I want to puke when I see their players? There’s quite a few of those in the league … there’s a number of cities you want to get in and out. Edmonton’s one of them.

I guarantee that the much-heralded Oilogosphere will be positively seething after this one. Ingrates, all of them. Think about it like this: GETTING Pronger cost almost nothing. Jeff Woywitka, Eric Brewer and Doug Lynch isn’t too bad a price. WITH Pronger, Edmonton was within a Dwayne Roloson injury of winning the Cup. And OFFLOADING Pronger yielded a very good young defenseman in Ladislav Smid, Joffrey Lupul, a first-round pick in 2007 and 2008, and a 2008 second-round pick (which later went to the Islanders in the Ryan Smyth trade).

Lupul plus an aging Jason Smith were eventually traded to Philadelphia for Geoff Sanderson, Joni Pitkanen, and a third-round pick. Pitkanen, in turn, was flipped to Carolina for Erik Cole.

This was the net result of all those trades.

Out:

• Anaheim’s 2007 first-round pick (Nick Ross to Phoenix)
• Edmonton’s 2007 second-round pick (Joel Gistedt)
• Jeff Woywitka, Eric Brewer, Doug Lynch (to St. Louis)
• Jason Smith

In:

• Dallas’ 2007 first-round pick, from Phoenix (Riley Nash)
• Ladislav Smid
• Erik Cole
• Anaheim’s 2008 first-round pick (Jordan Eberle)
• A Cup run

Believe me, you guys made out okay there, so just shut up already about Chris Pronger.

One thing of which Ryan Kesler can’t be accused is being unambitious. As an example, Mr. 81-points-in-238-games says he doesn’t want to be considered just a checking-line player.

“I want to be that guy, the guy the coach looks to put on the ice at the end of a game to win it. That’s what I’m striving for. I’m striving to be a marquee player on this team, a guy who can score 70-80 points a year. I think I’m on the right track. I had a good stepping stone last year.”

EIGHTY points a year? Ryan Kesler? Sure, you scored 21 last season. Great. Know how many the average 70-80-point guy scored last year? 30. So just increase your scoring by 43 percent next year and you’re golden, buddy!

For reference, by the way, there are only six players of the 39 that scored 70 points or more last year and had fewer than or as many goals as Kesler’s 21: Nicklas Lidstrom (10), Scott Gomez (16), Ales Hemsky (20), Patrick Kane (21), Henrik Sedin and Marc Savard (both 15). Several of them missed at least 10 games. But y’know what they do instead? Distribute the puck to the tune of slightly better than Kesler’s 16 assists.

So where does Kesler get off saying he deserves it just because he scored 21 goals on his o…

He had power play opportunities last year with the Sedin twins and was given a brief shot to centre a second line, flanked by linemates Ryan Shannon and Markus Naslund.

But there’s an explanation.

“It had to do with chemistry. I didn’t play with the right guys. With some guys you have it and with some guys you don’t,” Kesler said.

Okay well you’re right about that. It’s not like the Sedins could have chemistry with just about anyone on the ice.

“I’m not saying I’m going to go out there and score 30 goals this year, but I really believe I can be that kind of player,” Kesler said.

Why not focus on believing more realistic things though? Try saying, “I believe I’ll have a sandwich.” That’s the kind of thinking anyone can get behind.

TOEWSFACE !!!

We’re now something like 21 days out from the start of the NHL season, which means I have to get a move on  with these season previews. This is mainly for two reasons: 1) I am lazy and there’s no way I’ll do one of these every day, and 2) These started early enough that if I just stop doing them entirely you’ll have forgotten by October anyway. Oh and I guess also to show off my near-infinite knowledge of the National Hockey League. I’ll be previewing the teams in reverse order of finish in the 2007-08 season. Please note, though, that this is the opinion of one man, however smart and handsome he may be.

Chicago Blackhawks, you’re on the clock.

The last person you want to be like is Bill Wirtz. No one’s death should be a cause célèbre that actually makes people happy.

While he was philanthropic and loyal almost to a fault in some cases, Old Man Wirtz’s stranglehold on the team he owned for more than four decades had an entire city turned against him and it for the better part of the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st.

More after the jump.

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