The Two-Line Pass

We’re now something like 26 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the 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) This is 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.

Florida Panthers, you’re on the clock.

Oh man is this going to be a bad team.

Bryan McCabe is the big offseason pickup is proof enough of that. The Panthers franchise is one with a complete lack of direction right now. It just traded its best player, malcontent though he was, and replaced his offensive production with almost literally nothing.

Not that being bad is an unknown situation in Florida, or anything, but this is going to get ugly even by Florida Panthers standards.

On offense, there’s.. well, there’s Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss who are pretty good and after that.. umm.. I guess David Booth. After that, there’s a bunch of guys who scored less than 40 points. Repeat: less than 40.

More after the jump.

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Yesterday, Eric Staal signed a seven-year extension with Carolina that will pay him $57.75 million over the next seven years.

That’s $8.25 million per season, and that’s ridiculous. I’ve always thought the best way to judge what a player’s average output, and thus what he’s worth, is to take his best and worst seasons, in this case, Staal’s second and first, respectively, and average out everything else. Staal’s worst season was his rookie year, when he scored 11 goals and 31 points in 81 games. His best is when he scored 45 goals and 100 points the year after the lockout in 82 games. They’re right out.

So what are we left with? Seasons of 30 goals and 70 points and 38 goals and 82 points. Similar ice time, all that. So really, the Hurricanes just gave $8.25 million dollars a year for the next SEVEN to a 34-goal, 76-point guy. That is insane.

Here is a short list of players that are paid above $8 million a season, and you can tell me which one of these things is not like the others:

• Alexander Ovechkin
• Sidney Crosby
• Evgeni Malkin
• Eric Staal

I’ll give you guys time to think it over.

…

Okay, so? Here’s a hint: Eric Staal is the only one that deserves to be making less than $7 million!

A brief list of players making less than Staal: Vinny Lecavalier, Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton, Marc Savard, Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Anze Kopitar, Henrik Zetterberg, Patrice Bergeron, Dany Heatley, Zdeno Chara, Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Miikka Kiprusoff, Dion Phaneuf, Ilya Kovalchuk, Rick Nash, Chris Pronger, Scott Gomez, Jason Spezza, Dany Alfredsson, Tom Vanek, Dany Briere, Dan Boyle, both Sedins, and EVERYONE ELSE in the NHL.

I like Eric Staal just fine and everything, but he’s not as good as ANY of the above players. This contract is literally crazy.

In Pierre LeBrun’s first blog on ESPN.com, he also asks what this means for the second Staal boy to hit the NHL: Pittsburgh’s Jordan.

Big brother’s future is secure. But what about Jordan Staal? Was it just me, or was it not interesting to see how the Pittsburgh Penguins took care of some core players this summer, such as Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury and Brooks Orpik, but enter the season with Staal entering the final year of his entry-level contract.

My sense is Staal will probably play out the season and see what happens. He’ll be a restricted free agent July 1.

No doubt Jordan will be careful about how he handles this issue all season long, but I’m guessing in the back of his mind he’d love a chance to play with Eric in Carolina. That’s only going to happen either via trade or offer sheet, but food for thought, nonetheless.

I’m really going to start begging the hockey world to PLEASE stop making a big deal out of Jordan Staal. He’ll score 20 goals a season and be defensively responsible, but there’s no way he’s a “core player” on any team in the NHL. If Staal does play out the season, I have a feeling someone will slide him a good-sized offer sheet, but he won’t be worth it. It would be just as bad as the Dustin Penner offer sheet, but no one will say so because he almost scored 30 goals as a rookie that one time.

Who knows, maybe I’m wrong and the kid rebounds big time and everyone laughs at me for thinking he’s massively overrated, but guess what. He’s massively overrated, just like his older brother.

The Vancouver Canucks are what you’d call a defensively responsible team.

But don’t tell Pavol Demitra.

For starters, Demitra said he’s not a fan of line juggling. And if he’s playing centre, he’d like to take a pass on the position’s responsibilities which are accompanied by the adjective “defensive.”

“When I was in Minnesota, I preferred playing the wing because the centre in Minnesota has to stay back and play defence,” Demitra admitted Monday. “In St. Louis, I preferred centre because I had the puck all the time.”

That’s going to go over big. But Demitra wasn’t done there. The number of inexplicably selfish, stupid things he says in one small interview is pretty impressive.

Some other choice highlights:

“I’m hoping they’re going to try to change it here and they’re going to play a little bit of offence here,” Demitra said.

Uh huh. Getting a 33-year-old past-his-prime Pavol Demitra is going to cause the Canucks to completely rethink the way they go about playing the sport.

“We have a top goaltender and I think we can open it up a little bit,” Demitra said.

You’d know.

I can’t tell what’s worse, the fact that this article blathers on and on about how he’ll be the sure-thing No. 2 center or that he seems to think so as well. Just make sure he gets all the ice time he wants, with the linemates he wants.

In his two years with the Wild, Demitra scored 64 and then 54 points.

“I don’t know what happened,” Demitra said. “I had a good time when I played with Gabby. But what bugged me there, is that I never had a chance to play with the same guys. The first year, I played with Gabby for stretches but not really much in the the second year. The way it works there, the coach [Jacques Lemaire] was always switching guys and the lines around. I didn’t like that.

People thought Markus Naslund was a pain in the ass the last two years in Vancouver because he, too, was not a fan of playing in the back third of the rink. Imagine how Demitra’s going to feel when he’s asked to pick up the defensive slack for Kyle Wellwood. It could turn into a serious problem, and one that’s not going away for another season after this one.

And it’s not like he’ll be insulated against line juggling. The article points out that there’s no one that’s really slotted into the second line. Mason Raymond, Wellwood, Taylor Pyatt, Steve Bernier, etc. could all get second-line minutes and that’ll make for a sad Demitra, who will not be shy about bitching to the media about it.

This really is shaping up to be an outstanding pickup for the Canucks.

At last year’s first annual Bruins season ticket holder meeting, it got a little heated.

Fans all but called Jeremy Jacobs a crook (don’t sue me!), and then his son Charlie basically told the fans this was all their fault.

“Part of the turnaround,” Jacobs says, “is playing in front of a sellout. We were disappointed to only have 10 of our games sell out last year. We have a $10 seat out there and a $19 seat. It’s the general apathy that we have to break.”

Good move, Chuck. It’s the FAN’S fault the Bruins haven’t won a Stanley Cup since your dad bought the team and oversaw its severe mismanagement for the previous 33 years.

Afterward, Savard will shake his head in amazement and say, “That was kind of intense, eh? I looked at their faces and thought, Jesus, we might need some people to hold them back.”

If there’s one thing Bruins fans love, though, it’s a scrappy team that overperforms before losing in the playoffs to Montreal. Actually, if there’s one thing Bruins fans love, it’s the 1992 Bruins. If there’s two things they love, the second is a scrappy team that overperforms before losing in the playoffs to Montreal.

And thus, this year’s meeting was considerably less contentious.

How much better is the mood after an unexpected playoff appearance, and thrilling first-round series against Montreal? So good that none in the crowd of 720 booed the introduction of team owner Jeremy Jacobs.

When even Jeremy Jacobs isn’t getting booed in Boston, something is seriously wrong.

Noteworthy news items were few and far between at the event, but Zdeno Chara said he’s still not 100 percent after offseason shoulder surgery, and may miss the start of the season. The elder Jacobs also revealed that the league and the team are keen on an outdoor game in Boston at some point in the near future.

Not so many tough questions as last year, like “Why are our ticket prices some of the highest in the league when we’ve had two winning seasons in the last five?” or “Why does the team continue to misguidedly spend large amounts of money on players that it doesn’t need (see: Fernandez, Manny)?” Everyone got to meet Cam Neely, so it was alllllll good.

In one of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stories about Sidney Crosby once again delivering season tickets by hand, it was mentioned that Sidney Crosby will be living with Mario Lemieux and his family. Again. For the fourth year in a row.

“I’ve been looking for a place for the last year, but I haven’t found anything I’m quite ready for yet,” Crosby said after spending time at the Mt. Lebanon home of David and Mary Disney, original Penguins season-ticket holders dating to 1967.

Come on, Sid. You’re a rich young man. It’s okay to move out on your own.

At some point, the Lemieuxseses are going to have to consider this creepy, right? Who wants a 21-year-old best hockey player in the world walking around their kitchen eating Captain Crunch with Crunchberries every morning in his pajama bottoms? Let’s face it, at this point Crosby is an unwelcome house guest. He laughs too loud at tivo’ed episodes of Two and a Half Men, drinks orange juice straight out of the bottle and leaves the seat up. He sings Motown songs offkey in the shower and calls Mr. and Mrs. Lemieux “mom and dad.” He also hangs around creepily when Lemieux’s teenage daughters have sleepovers, awkwardly injecting himself into the conversation with things like, “So uh, what’s goin on with you guys?”

The kid’s going to make $9 million this year in NHL salary alone, never mind endorsements and everything else. NINE MILLION! I doubt he can’t find the house he wants for that kind of money. Looks like someone’s got serious issues with letting go.

I usually go out of my way to avoid mentioning piece-of-garbage, no-info, no-contacts hack hockey rumormonger Eklund around here (he is the Voldemort of the Two-Line Pass), but this was just way too much.

Here’s something from HFBoards today that, as a hockey writer, made me want to punch You-Know-Who right in the you-know-what (penis).

Basically, YKW cited his L.A. “source” regarding the Matheiu Schneider trade rumors. The post from his awful website follows:

According to an LA source: “Anaheim’s Mathieu Schneider is the one the Kings are seriously considering. Other names under consideration would be San Jose’s Kyle McLaren, Florida’s Karlis Skrastins, Nashville’s Greg de Vries, St. Louis’ Jay McKee and Pittsburgh’s Darryl Sydor. There’s one more name out there that might surface as a real option in the next couple days, but as always these talks are pretty fluid.”

That source, by the way, was the blog of Los Angeles Daily News beat writer Dan Hammond, who does a hell of a job. Says Hammond:

Lombardi and Hextall made it clear at the GM breakfast that the Kings are still actively pursuing a veteran defenseman. From what I’m hearing, those talks could get particularly intense this week, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a deal get done.

The names? Anaheim’s Mathieu Schneider is one the Kings are seriously considering. Other names under consideration would be San Jose’s Kyle McLaren, Florida’s Karlis Skrastins, Nashville’s Greg de Vries, St. Louis’ Jay McKee and Pittsburgh’s Darryl Sydor. There’s one more name out there that might surface as a real option in the next couple days, but as always these talks are pretty fluid.

I mean, that takes balls to straight word-for-word copy and paste someone else’s work and pass it off as your own. I mean, it’s not even an OBSCURE blog. I read Hammond’s blog several times a week and I really don’t care very much about the Kings one way or another. It’s just a good blog and, obviously a great source of information.

But what YKW did next was really gutless. Instead of, say, apologizing and admitting total fault for committing one of the biggest journalistic crimes one can commit (granted, he is not a journalist, but rather some jerkoff from Philly), he does the following:

It has been pointed out to me that my source emailed me the LA Kings rumour from Rich Hammond’s article found here…
http://www.insidesocal.com/kings/2008/09/defense-options.html

I apologize for this not being corrected as a family emergency has had me out of touch since my update. I have also emailed Rich apologizing directly to him, as I had no idea that he had written the same thing. I have removed it and suggest that you read Rich’s Article here.

http://www.insidesocal.com/kings/2008/09/defense-options.html

I have never had this happen before and I will be sure to do my best to not allow such a thing to happen in the future.

So yeah, a “family emergency” is the reason it’s okay to plagiarize. I’ll be sure to let college students in on the big news.

Professor: “Bill, this paper you handed in…”
Bill: “Yeah?”
P: “It’s literally just a paperback copy of The Brothers Karamazov with Dostoevsky’s name crossed out and ‘Bill Stevens’ written on it.”
BS: “And?”
P: “That’s plagiarism.”
BS: “Well my dog was sick.”
P: “Why didn’t you say so? A+!”

As though it hadn’t been repeatedly proven enough that YKW is a total fraud. This is just sickening, even by his low standards.

Make sure to send him pictures of big black “NHL rumors” at eklund@hockeybuzz.com.

A few weeks ago now, I explored the fantastic travel package that the Pittsburgh Penguins were offering their fans. It was something like $3,000 PLUS airfare.

At least the Rangers are including the flights as they screw you.

For $3,625, you get the following:

Roundtrip air from New York, NY (JFK) to Prague, Czech Republic. Departs JFK on Thursday, October 2nd; Returns on Monday, October 6th

Departing from JFK is a preference, not guaranteed. This flight could depart from Newark, NJ (EWR)

Three night accommodations at the Hilton Prague Old Town Hotel

Check in Friday, October 3rd and check out Monday, October 6th

Reserved upper level tickets to the Rangers vs. Lightning game on Saturday 10/4

Reserved upper level tickets to the Rangers vs. Lightning game on Sunday 10/5

Roundtrip deluxe game transfers

Exclusive access to the Rangers’ morning practice on Saturday with Rangers alumni

Prague Castle Tour on Sunday morning

Roundtrip deluxe airport transfers in Prague with porterage

Daily breakfast at the hotel

Official Rangers Deluxe Gift Bag

Premiere Corporate Events staff pre-planning and on-site to assist

Passport required for international travel

All taxes and porterage fees included

Limited number of lower level ticket upgrades available

The Rangers have partnered with Premiere Corporate Events to bring you this once in a lifetime experience.

If nothing else, this at least seems like a better deal because airfare is included

Once again, let’s break this down (remember 1 US Dollar= 17.5 Czech Kuronas).

• Round-trip flight from New York City to Prague on Delta with a stopover: $848 plus fees, taxes, etc. from Priceline.
• Hotel from Friday to Monday: $259.87 per night, or $849.76.
  
• Reserved upper level tickets to both games: Games are sold out, but people I’m assuming are reputable ticket brokers have them as low as the admittedly steep price of $148 a pop.
• A ride to from the airport: $50?
• A ride to the rink: Call it $60. I figured $15 both ways for both nights if it’s on the high side.
• Castle Tour: If you were going by yourself, it’d be $25.70 for the long tour and an English-speaking tour guide.
• Morning skate with Rangers alum: A morning skate costs $6 where I go. But the inclusion of Jeff Beukeboom and Darren Turcotte makes it “Priceless.”
• Breakfast: Assume $60, just like in Sweden.
• Deluxe gift bag: Assume a $50 value, even though it won’t be that much.

That leaves us with a grand total of $2,097.46.

Total markup: $1,527.54, or 72.8 percent. What a steal.

At least the Rangers also offer a package without airfare that costs $2,525. Even if you use the $848 airfare, you still get out cheaper than the deluxe package.

It’s not Penguins-grade price gauging, which was almost 100 percent PLUS airfare, but it’s close.

Once again, I implore you: stay home.

We’re now something like 28 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the 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) This is 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.

Phoenix Coyotes, you’re on the clock.

We saw a little bit of this team’s capabilities last year. Very little. But there’s reason for optimism in the desert.

Yeah, the Coyotes were pretty bad last year. Granted they finished above .500 (by a game) and ended with 83 points in a very strong Pacific Conference that sent three teams to the playoffs and saw two teams get out of the first round (the one that didn’t, Anaheim, lost to Dallas). However, I liked the Coyotes’ style of play last year and could stomach their announcers, so I watched a fair number of their games, and I can tell you what their problem was.

More after the jump.

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We’re now something like 29 days out from the start of the NHL season so I figure this is as good a time as any to start doing the 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) This is 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.

Toronto Maple Leafs, you’re on the clock.

For the record, I’m still laughing about that Jeff Finger contract.

Jeff Finger. For $3.5 million dollars. Holy hell.

And the best part, it might not even be the worst contract on the team. Jason Blake at $4 million’s right up there. And yeah, the Leafs fans out there are going to argue that he had 52 points last year and that’s no so terrible, which is true enough. But here’s the problem, and it points to a problem we’ve seen with a lot of these bottom-of-the-barrel teams I’ve previewed so far: no offense at all.

Last year, the Maple Leafs were paced by a 78-point season from Mats Sundin. Pretty solid. After that, the next closest guys are Nik Antropov, Tomas Kaberle and the aforementioned Mr. Blake. Point totals for those three: 56, 53, 52. What do they all have in common? Sundin was the player with whom they combined to score the most points. He and Antropov combined on 25 goals (45 percent of Antropov’s scoring), 22 for Kaberle (42 percent) and 16 with Blake (31 percent).

Now the Leafs might have to live with the idea of not having Sundin around any more. That’s a scary thought.

More after the jump.

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Women’s hockey is ultra-competitive. Wow (link opens PDF of box score)!

According to Reuters:

Slovakia crushed Bulgaria 82-0 in a 2010 Winter Olympics qualifier in the Latvian town of Liepaja. Bulgaria conceded a goal every 44 seconds after losing 30-1 to Croatia and 41-0 to Italy.

So what I’m assuming is that Bulgaria will not be showing up in Vancouver. The IIHF lists Bulgaria as having 37 female hockey players in the country, while, say, Canada has 74,000. Yeesh.