The Two-Line Pass

Because I tend to not blog on the weekends, here is a feature that will run through the entire season. It aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact about each team that played. And hell, there’s a ton of other crap for me to blather on about too. And yes, I’m totally ripping off just about every other blogger ever’s weekly column, but that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own time.

Danger: This post contains language that some people might not like. This will be the only thing on the site that regularly does so.

Yet another coaching change this week caused me to wonder just how many coaching changes we’ve gone through since the end of last season. The answer was, shockingly, 11. Exactly a third of the league has turned over its coaches in just seven months. Some, like Ottawa and San Jose, made the playoffs last year but bowed out after predictably early exits. Most were actually above .500. But not every change has been helpful, or even anything like it.

At any rate, here are all 11 coaching changes for 10 teams:

Carolina Hurricanes

Change: Peter Laviolette (12-11-2 through 25 games, 26 pts) out, Paul Maurice (1-1-1 through three games, 3 pts)

Notes: When your team isn’t performing to its expected standard, that’s on the coach. When your team isn’t performing to its standard because Joni Pitkanen and Denis Seidenberg are the team’s two leaders in ice time, that’s on the general manager. But since no general manager is ever going to fire himself, the coach that has the balls to tell Eric Staal to park his no-tryin’ ass on the bench some nights and actually challenges the front office has to be the one to go. His replacement should do neither of those things. Big ups to Maurice for getting the job of marionette until the Hurricanes miss the playoffs (again) and the team hopefully, for its sake, finds a new coach and general manager. Jim Rutherford is to blame for this entire mess.

Grade so far: C-. Tough to judge on three games with a -1 goal differential, but that win today against Washington was absolutely against the flow of play (more on that down in the WWL portion). They deserved to lose today and will do so more often than not the rest of the way.

Chicago Blackhawks

Change: Denis Savard (1-2-1 through four games, 3 pts) out, Joel Quenneville (11-4-6 through 21 games, 28 pts) in

Notes: Savard’s firing was as much the result of so-so play from a team with great expectations as it was the new regime’s desire to eradicate all thought of the old one. That being said, Quenneville has done a marvelous job to get points from 17 of the 21 games he’s coached, and at times Chicago has looked dominant, as they did tonight against the Coyotes in a 7-1 win. Initially I thought the change a bit odd, but seeing what Quenneville has done with this team has completely erased an slight criticism I may have had. Also, that record with those goalies? Wow.

Grade so far: A-. They probably can’t do much better, but they’re winning a lot of close games that shouldn’t be all that close. If the Blackhawks can step up and put teams away more efficiently, they’re going to be a playoff juggernaut.

Colorado Avalanche

Change: Joel Quenneville (44-31-7, 95 pts) out, Tony Granato (13-13-1 through 27 games, 27 points) in

Notes: Not the best call here. Quenneville got a surprising amount out of a so-so team last year, including a sixth seed in the West despite having Jose Theodore as his No. 1 goalie. Did he make some shithead moves in the playoffs? For sure. But with that roster and that amount of injuries (Paul Stastny missed 16 games and still led the team in scoring with 71 points), they probably shouldn’t've been there at all. Granato’s team looks like it’s going to miss the playoffs.

Grade so far: D-. Stastny once again seems intent on doing it all himself.

Florida Panthers

Change: Jacques Martin (38-35-9, 85 pts) out, Peter DeBoer (11-12-3 through 26 games, 25 points) in.

Notes: DeBoer, who had never coached an NHL game in his life before taking the job in Miami, is probably doing about as well as he can. Which, of course, isn’t good. Scoring is down (2.63 a night down to 2.42) as a consequence of trading Olli Jokinen to Phoenix for a pair of low-scoring defensemen in Keith Ballard and Nick Boynton. To wit, Jay Bouwmeester, also a defenseman, leads the team in scoring with 15 points. Fifteen, okay? That’s the lowest total of any team leader in the NHL, a full four points behind Mark Streit’s 19 points for the Islanders. Goals against? Up from 2.76 per game to 2.81. Not good. Though management has an awful big hand in the cookie jar with the Jokinen trade, DeBoer’s actually made a bad team worse. That may, however, have been the goal. Winning can’t be the priority with a team that young.

Grade so far: C-

Los Angeles Kings

Change: Marc Crawford (32-43-7, 71 pts) out, Terry Murray (11-11-4 through 26 games, 26 pts) in

Notes: Murray’s done a very good job with a very young team that was torpedoed by management’s mandate to cut salaries, necessitating the trade of Lubomir Visnovsky for Matt Green and Jarret Stoll from Edmonton, both of whom have performed well. Though some stars *cough*Anze Kopitar*cough* have drastically underperformed, other players, like rookie Drew Doughty have been immense. Would you believe that goaltending is still an issue? Even still, the Kings should probably be worse than they are, so good job by Terry, I guess?

Grade so far: B.

New York Islanders

Change: Ted Nolan (35-38-9, 79 pts) out, Scott Gordon (10-14-2 through 26 games, 22 points) in.

Notes: Interesting to note that even with a slightly worse roster, Gordon has been recognized in several places, including here, as doing a very good job with the Islanders. After a slow start, the Islanders are positively humming along at an “impressive” 5-5-0 in their last 10 games. Why is that good? Well, that the Isle has been loaded with injuries this year and thus a .500 record with an already-bad, aging and now-banged up team is about the best you reasonably can hope for. Rick DiPietro’s been out since the end of October and will remain that way for quite a while. Mike Comrie’s been down since mid-November. Promising rookie Kyle Okposo’s been out for about two weeks, as has Frans Nielsen and Bruno Gervais. So being .500 is something Gordon and the rest of the Islander’s 17 fans have to be happy with.

Grade so far: B+. Probably the second-best new coach of the bunch.

Ottawa Senators

Change: Bryan Murray (43-31-8, 94 pts) out, Craig Hartsburg (10-10-4 through 24 games, 24 pts) in

Notes: Murray got fired despite making the playoffs and Hartsburg is nowhere near that mark with a somewhat similar team. With little roster turnover and even a few improvements in certain areas, Hartsburg still seems to slap his lineups together by throwing shit at a dartboard. Dany Alfredsson, for example, has been on a line with everyone but the equipment manager. Then Hartsburg put the Alfredsson-Spezza-Heatley line that terrorizes everyone in the East back together and the Sens started scoring goals. Go fig.

Grade so far: D+. If the expectation is to win a few rounds in the playoffs, shouldn’t you try to make the playoffs first? No?

San Jose Sharks

Change: Ron Wilson (49-23-10, 108 pts) out, Todd McClellan (22-3-2 through 27 games, 46 pts) in

Notes: Wow, McClellan. The Sharks had the highest point total through 25 games of any team in the entire history of the National Hockey Leage. You can’t do better than the best ever. Just a third of the way through the season, the Sharks already have 43 percent of their points from last year and are on pace for about 138 points. Not even the 1995-96 Red Wings, the winningest team in the history of the game, had that many. But then again, Wilson got shitcanned for having a great team that always lost in the playoffs, so as far as the Sharks are concerned you might wanna put this one down as an “Incomplete.”

Grade so far: Fuck it, A+. What else can you say?

Tampa Bay Lightning

Change(s): John Tortorella (31-42-9, 71 pts) out, Barry Melrose (5-7-4 in 16 games, 14 pts) in and then out, Rick Tocchet (1-5-4 through 10 games, 6 pts) in

Notes: We can all agree that Melrose was a bad hire with big expectations that was an abject, miserable Nagasaki bomb of a failure. Players hated him, media ridiculed him, no one respected him. Rick Tocchet’s been worse. Six points from your first 10 games? That’s terrible, even by Melrosian standards. At least, though, Tocchet is doing what management asks of him and doesn’t have the players hating him. But would you rather a) be hated and successful, or b) be liked and a failure. If you choose “b,” you shouldn’t be allowed to coach in the NHL.

Grade so far: D- for Melrose, F for Tocchet

Toronto Maple Leafs

Changes: Paul Maurice (36-35-11, 83 pts) out, Ron Wilson (9-12-6, 24 pts) in

Notes: Maurice took a good team and made it pretty goddamn bad — seeing Toronto drop from 91 points to 83 in one year despite an arguably improved roster — and now Wilson has a very, very young team that even got worse from last year’s 83-point campaign. Everyone had the Leafs down as one of the worst teams in the NHL, but in reality they’re not too far out of the last playoff spot in the East, they’re not even the worst team in their division on a night-in, night-out basis (lol Ottawa), and they’re actually a tough team to play against. Is everything going perfect in Leafland? Of course not, but things could be so much worse that it’s hard to get on Wilson too much.

Grade so far: C

So these coaches have been, more or less, not-terrible (an average grade of about a C, and that’s weighed down a bit by TWO shit coaches in Tampa). But coaching changes are often symptomatic of a deeper problem within an organization that, until fixed, are going to cause problems for whichever coach is unfortunate enough to have the wheel of those doomed ships.

Toronto’s on its way up from lowly depths thanks to changes of this kind, as are the Islanders and Kings, probably, based on a change of front-office philosophy. The Blackhawks’ changes have been so abrupt that they’re headed up at Mach 5. The rest of the teams are either flatlining (Florida, Tampa) or sinking (everyone else). I don’t envy those coaches. Poor bastards.

What We Learned

Anaheim —So the Ducks’ AHL affiliate, the unfortunately named Iowa Chops, recently added this blog’s poor excuse for a Twitter feed (add me!). Since I added them on Dec. 3, they have made 51 updates (including real-time updates during the game), added several new pages to their website, and started an official team blog. That’s pretty awesome and very progressive for a team in a league like the AHL, which tends to be quite behind-the-times with that kinda thing. ‘Course, they’ve also wondered aloud several times on said Twitter feed if they should make a run at Sean Avery once he inevitably falls to them on waivers (Dallas’ AHL affiliate says they don’t want him). Some things with this team never change.

Atlanta — Sign No. 312 that this team’s already packing it in: the fans are pondering whether they’d like Hedman or Tavares No. 1 overall. Not “if we get…,” just “should we take…” Brutal. Oh yeah, and who would they even get if they trade Kovalchuk anyway?

Boston — Big day for the Bruins. They got A1 centerpiece treatment in the Sunday Globe. Gotta be a long time since that happened. But not everything can be perfect: the woeful Shira Springer’s accompanying article was neither for hockey fans nor in any way good or interesting. Basically she is the opposite of the Bruins.

Buffalo — Finally, the Sabres called up Nate Gerbe, who is awesome and so teeny tiny you can’t help but find him adorable in a Hobbit-y way. Gerbe’s first NHL game, against Tampa, went like this: 0 points, +2, 2 PIM, and four shots in 15:09. He did get steamrolled a couple times though, but that had to be expected. Not a bad start for a kid that got stuck on Derek Roy’s line.

Calgary — Holy Jesus a winning streak! Okay, it’s only two games and one of the wins was in overtime against the Blues, but fuck it, I’ll take the wins anyway we can get them.

Carolina — Hey they gave Paul Maurice his second first win with the franchise today. Didn’t deserve to though. Washington outshot them 39-25 and Ovechkin blew a penalty shot (which incidentally might be the only thing he’s not good at. More good news: Cam Ward to the IR. Good luck, Paulie!

Another funny note regarding the Hurricanes that I had to save for this space thanks to COPIOUS saucy talk came in the form of a comment on the Paul Maurice vs. a sponge post.

It came from “Fuckwhoeverthedoucheiswhowritesthisblog,” which I doubt is anyone’s real name. His e-mail address, for the record, is listed as “fuccckyourself@thereaderofthisisadouche.com.” I’m surprised that domain was available. As for the comment itself? Epic. Here goes:

In all seriousness, the internet should be shut off.  People like you blogging is like a monkey masturbating in a cage.  Piss on your keyboard…it would be a better use than you’ve put it to.  God damn, i was directed here through a Yahoo! blog that I was sent to from a yahoo! site.  What in the fuck is wrong with that company?  no god damned wonder the share prices are so fucking low; it’s business is the internet and it chooses to connect itself to YOU!  Fuck it, i’m done. go fuck yourselves.

So really, the guy to blame here is Wyshynski. I’ll let him know.

Chicago — Mouthpiece Sports, and specifically Sarah Spain (well hello there!), does a great job covering the Blackhawks, but this is at once the most unsettling and impressive video of James Wisniewski’s abs you will ever, ever see.

Colorado — Does anyone else find it hilarious that Ryan Smyth, he of 9-7-16 in 27 games, is the highest-paid member of the Avalanche? I sure do. That’s $6.25 million in cap space down the drain for the rest of this year and then three more. Boy has the shine worn off his ugly mug.

(I like to imagine that he makes this face ALL THE TIME!)

Columbus — Aaron Portzline over at Puckrakers thinks the Blue Jackets played their worst game of the season against the Kings in a 3-0 loss on Saturday. Christ am I glad I didn’t see that one, because I’ve seen a handful of their games and almost all of them have been fucking awful. The worst of that bunch must have involved Rick Nash pushing a crippled baby into an airplane propellor before scoring an own goal and invading Poland.

Dallas — Hey, Dallas, what’s up with you guys this week? … What’s that you say? … Sean Avery? … Again? … No I didn’t hear a THING about it.

Detroit — Red Wings fans rejoice! Tomas Holmstrom returned to the lineup after sitting out with a sore back for a little while, and was immediately reinserted on the top line alongside Marian Hossa and Pavel Datsyuk. His impact on the game can be summed up by the fact that his return is all the way down at the bottom of the linked article. In a little over 12 minutes of ice time, Homer got off one shot. Bring back Maltby!

Edmonton — Crazy as it sounds, Emdonton actually did beat San Jose in overtime the other night. I didn’t beleive it either. Fellow former River Hawk Dwayne Roloson made 41 goddamn saves AT the Shark Tank. Only reason they won. How ’bout dat? Keep upping that trade value, Rollie, so they ship you out of town I don’t feel like an asshole cheering for you to do well.

Florida — So apparently the Panthers, not content with just being bad, are looking to trade not only Bouwmeester, but also Nathan Horton, Rusty Olesz and Brett MacLean. They’ll find buyers but they won’t get fair value. Have fun in Kansas City or wherever next year.

Los Angeles — Maybe the stupidest headline so far this year: Young Kings care enough to play their very best. Well Jesus Christ, I’d fuckin’ hope so. And even if they weren’t, would you expect them to admit it?

“Hey Drew are you playing as hard as you possibly can?”

“Nope!”

“Great! Keep it up buddy!”

Minnesota — The Wild have one goal in their last two games. Yeah, that sounds just about right, doesn’t it? When’s Gaborik coming back/getting traded again?

Montreal — Over at the unbelievable Canadiens blog, Habs Inside Out, he opening of Mike Boone’s lengthy wrapup of the Habs’ 2-1 loss to New Jersey was just stupendous, and thus I present it in full without permission because what the hell do I care:

Sitting in the press room after the game, looking over the stat sheet and waiting for Guy Carbonneau, a few of the beat guys were moaning about how boring it would be to cover the New Jersey Devils.

“If I had to watch that team play 82 games, I’d open a vein” said Marc-Antoine Godin of La Presse, feigning a slicing motion on his left forearm.

No one asked Carbo what it’s like to watch Alex Kovalev play 82 games.

The coach might have pretended to slit his own throat.

The burns were a-flyin’ in Montreal that night, yes indeedy.

Nashville — Pekka Rinne has won his last four games, and two of those were shutouts. In another he only allowed one goal. In those games he’s got a goals-against of just under 1.20 and a save percentage of .954. And thus Nashville has its 16th clear No. 1 starter in four years. Or something like that anywho.

New Jersey — Hahaha, open a vein, he says.

New York Rangers — Congratulations go out to faithful reader/commenter and good buddy UnmaskedGremlin, who got his first child, a healthy boy, today. Little Cole, sadly, will be raised a Ranger fan. Come on man, those bums got shutout by the FLAMES tonight. The Flames STINK! Buy the kid a Crosby jersey so he can have some happiness in his hockey life. Mazel tov, though. For real.

New York Islanders — According to the Islanders’ website, YesIslanders.com is hosting a “best blog” contest. If I gave a quarter of a shit about that team I could clean up and get two free tickets to see the Isles get bulldozed by the Panthers or something. Pretty cool of the Isles to promote that though. Interestingly, I still get some hits on a post I did about DiPietro going to some WWE pay per view at the Coliseum that was entitled “Rick DiPietro loves sweaty men in their underwear.” Sadly many of these hits are from people googling “men in underwear.” I fear this site was not what the googler sought.

Ottawa — The Sens Army’s “No Habs No” campaign, which gives a dollar to every player that causes the Canadiens to lose a game may be hilarious, but judging from the handwriting on this guy, if authorities start finding the headless body of Sergei Kostitsyn and Alex Kovalev floating in a Montreal canal, we have a suspect besides Guy Carbonneau. Those pages look like they were ripped out of the loose-leaf binders from Se7en.

Philadelphia — In honor of Scott Hartnell’s mindbogglingly stupid penalty the other night, the Philadelphia Phantoms are hosting the “Scott Hartnell Glove and Mitten Toss” to benefit Operation Warm. Even better, Hartnell’s being a good sport and actually showing up. Fucking hysterical is what all that is.

Phoenix — Your weekly Enver Lisin update: The goal he scored tonight was SICK! ‘Course, the Coyotes were down 7-0 when he scored it but that matters not. Three goals in his last four games. Lovin’ this kid.

Pittsburgh — Sid Crosby and Geno Malkin have 83 combined points and are 1-2 in league scoring. The next closest teammates are Joe Thornton and Devin Setoguchi with 62 with an extra game played each. Jeez, I think these kids in Pittsburgh might turn out to be pretty okay.

San Jose — The Sharks launched a new ad campaign that is not unfunny. The old lady checking the old man over a taxi was the highlight.

St. Louis — The Blues now have a Facebook page. Worked pretty well for Barack Obama, I guess.

Tampa Bay — Was watching the Bruins play the Bolts the other night and saw a kid I enjoyed seeing in his college days: former member of the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, Matt Smaby. Well he got sent back down yesterday, and I am somehow upset about this. I care far too much about college hockey.

Also, note to Jack Edwards: It’s pronounced Smahby. Not Smaybe. Smaaaaaahby. You idiot. There’s a pronunciation key in every goddamn media guide in the league.

Toronto — Luke Schenn injured. Leafs fans sad.

Vancouver — How long until Luongo comes back? The Canucks are awful without him.

Washington — In Sports Illustrated this week (the one with Michael Phelps on the cover) there was an article about Alex Semin. And of COURSE it brought up the fucking “Sid Crosby’s not that exciting” interview he did with Sovetsky Sport/Puck Daddy. Why wouldn’t it? Because a day can’t go by without some media asshole giving the kid shit about having an opinion. Oh no, he thinks Sid Crosby is boring. Guess what: Sid Crosby is boring as piss. He’s a hell of a player but what a Belichickian snoozer of an interview he is. Semin isn’t wrong. Let the kid play (or recover from injury, I guess) instead of having everyone, including Ted Leonsis, scramble to say, “Well he didn’t MEAN that, of course. That’s preposterous.” Christ, he said it like six years ago now, why didn’t Michael Farber just let it go? There are more important things to write about concerning Semin than this.

(Fun fact I found out the other day: my parents both worked with Ted Leonsis at Wang Laboratories in Massachusetts back in the ’80’s. Very strange to hear something like that. Maybe he’ll give me free tickets to a Caps game or a job.. or something. I’m not holding my breath.)

Play of the Weekend

Think this Toews kid is any good?

Gold Star Award

Jason Spezza had a hat trick in a 3-2 win against the Penguins. Guess that’s pretty acceptable.

Next week’s game I’m totally going to watch on Center Ice if I’m home

Anaheim visits San Jose on Thursday at 10:30. That’s it. That’s a good one.

Event that should replace the shootout and would be just as relevant to hockey skill

Full-contact Name That Tune. The ultimate mix of strength and mental acumen!

Soccer update only I care about

Liverpool made me suffer through a ghastly scoreless draw with West Ham on Monday. It was just terrible. But because they must’ve felt bad about it, the Reds stayed one point ahead of Chelsea atop the Premier League with an easy 3-nil win over Blackburn. We’ll take it.

College hockey update only I care about

UMass Lowell was punked out by UNH in a two-game series, 2-0 and 3-2. Inexcusable play all weekend, save for the furious third period on Friday that still yielded zero (0) goals. THIS TEAM AGHHHHHH!

The No. 1 DVD I own and kind of want to watch this week but likely will not

Because “Frost/Nixon” comes out soon, I may as well watch Oliver Stone’s NIXON again. Right? Does this seem like a bad idea?

An update on last week’s “No. 1 DVD I own and kind of want to watch this week but likely will not“

No.

Perfect HFBoards trade proposal of the week

Any time you can put together a Penguins package for Ilya Kovalchuk, you’ve got a good shot to win this award in a walk. This time, it’s a double shot from donJones, veteran of three posts and who somehow appears to be a Thrasher fan.

Proposal 1:

To Penguins: Kovalchuck and 2nd round pick
To Thrashers: Staal, Whitney and Eaton

Proposal 2:

To Avalanche: Lehtonen and Thorburn
To Thrashers: Svatos and Leopold

Both are unbelievable, and even better considering they were his first two posts. Sadly, Don Waddell could be offered both these deals and accept only the first one.

Signoff in a language that’s not English

Brinuti sada.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 5:36 am and is filed under What We Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.