The Two-Line Pass

So yesterday the Habs’ Tom Kostopoulos was given a three-game suspension after he demolished Mike Van Ryn from behind along the endboards, which was a perfectly reasonable suspension.

But how is there no action being taken against the Canadiens for the way they treated former teammate Mikhail Grabovski?

I hate to be the one that is constantly calling for this player or that player to be suspended or fined or whatever and I’m not doing so here, but it’s pretty clearly a team directive to punish Grabovski for the crap he pulled with Montreal last year. Not that he helped his own cause by taunting various Habs players over the course of the night, but again, this strikes me as something that came down from the top.

Watch that video around 1:10 into it. Right before Koivu gets in his face about something, he makes a point to not pull up short of Grabovski even though he is clearly prone on the ice after having been drilled just after the whistle on an offside call.

For those that don’t know the full story here, Grabovski spent much of the season as a healthy scratch and one day, before a road game in Phoenix for which he was once again going to be watching from the press box, he flew to Los Angeles instead to meet with his agent. Neither the Habs players nor front office types took too kindly to that and now that Grabovski has been traded to the Leafs, even his lifelong friends the Kostitsyn brothers are lining up against him.

According to La Presse (click for moon language.. translation from HFBoards):

“He is not my friend anymore,” said Kostitsyn on Monday. “I do not have respect for him. He’s not even a team player.”

…

”I have a good memory, we’ll see each other again,” when thinking about the next game between the two team on January 8th.

Other pertinent quotes followed.

Alex Kovalev: “No, don’t talk to me about him. He’s in Toronto and I am here. I’ve got nothing to say.”

Chris Higgins: “He’s not here anymore. I don’t care about him.”

Guy Carbonneau: “He’s playing a lot and he’s happy in Toronto. Good for him.”

Now I’m not saying Grabovski’s actions were justified because they weren’t, but they were taking run after run at him on Saturday with very little recourse from the Leafs and surprisingly no action from the league, especially in light of that second Kostitsyn quote. Even Grabovski seems to imply that he believes the orders came down from Carbonneau.

It will be interesting to see how everything shakes out on Jan. 8.

Jeez, you take one lousy Tuesday off and the whole system breaks down.

The Devils went down to a draft lottery spot

Martin Brodeur’s out three to four months with a torn bicep (but PJ Stock says no one touched him !!!!) and suddenly the Devils don’t seem quite so playoffy. How’s that new mask working out for ya, Marty?

Losing the best goalie of all time certainly doesn’t help matters, and now there are rumors that Patrik Elias didn’t skate this morning and Sutter “doesn’t know” if he can play tonight. That’s really, really awesome, New Jersey. Fortunately they’re only playing Tampa tonight.

This will also be the first season Brodeur plays less than 67 games for the Devils since 1994.

All-Star Game ballots have been released

Now that the NHL has made a decision to have completely transparent voting (poor Rory), fans can watch Tim Thomas and Patrick Sharp get screwed in real-time. Here’s the list of potential All-Stars for those who missed it.

Eastern Conference
Goalies: Biron, Brodeur, DiPietro, Fleury, Lehtonen, Lunqvist, Miller, Price, Toskala, Vokoun
Defense: Bouwmeester, Chara, Gonchar, Green, Kaberle, Komisarek, Markov, Numminen, Phillips, Redden, Timmonen, Whitney
Forwards: Alfredsson, Bergeron, Briere, Brind’amour, Crosby, Drury, Elias, Gagne, Gomez, Heatley, Hunter, Koivu, Kovalchuk, Kovalev, Lecavalier, Malkin, Naslund, Ovechkin, Parise, Richards, Rolston, Roy, St. Louis, Savard, Semin, Spezza, E. Staal, Tanguay, Vanek, Whitney

Western Conference
Goalies: Backstrom, Bryzgalov, Giguere, Kiprusoff, Leclaire, Luongo, Nabokov, Osgood, Turco
Defense: Blake, Boyle, Burns, Campbell, Lidstrom, Niedermayer, Phaneuf, Pronger, Rafalski, Regehr, Souray, Weber
Forwards: Arnott, Boyes, Brown, Datsyuk, Doan, Gaborik, Getzlaf, Hejduk, Hemsky, Horcoff, Hossa, Iginla, Jokinen, Kane, Kariya, Koivu, Kopitar, Marleau, Modano, Morrow, Nash, Ribiero, Richards, Sakic, D. Sedin, H. Sedin, Stastny, Thornton, Tkachuk, Toews, Zetterberg

Where are Thomas and Sharp on that list? It’s crazy, right? No Pominville either. I don’t get it at all.

And finally, the worst lead-up to a fight in the history of the NHL

Good work, Eric.

There have been a myriad of ways the NHL has repeatedly screwed over its longtime fans, but the most egregious of these just might be the way it’s handling the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field.

Today, the league announced that it would hold a lottery for the general public to get tickets.

A general public random drawing will be held to determine who will have an opportunity to purchase the remaining tickets with a limited number of tickets set aside for the community ticket initiative described below.  Fan registration for the random drawing will be conducted through the Chicago Blackhawks’ official website (www.chicagoblackhawks.com) beginning on or about Noon ET/11 a.m. CT, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, through on or about 11:59 a.m. ET/10:59 a.m. CT, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008.  Registrations received after the deadline will not be accepted.  There is no fee to register.  Limit one entry per person.  Each registrant selected will have an opportunity to purchase a limited number of tickets.

Which would be cool. Except this ignores that guaranteed opportunity to purchase tickets to this is only given to full Blackhawks season ticket holders.

So the 14,000 full season ticket holders will take up 34ish percent of Wrigley’s 41,000 seats. The NHL then has the right to decide who gets the rest. They’ll give out some to local youth hockey programs, which, if you look at the seating chart I posted last week, won’t be that many. So call it 25,000 seats the NHL gets to give out to whomever they like apart from youth hockey programs. The league will certainly hand some out to local sponsors and the Red Wings organization will take about 8,000 (that’s the rumor at least), what’s that leave?

Oh know who else gets a crack at tickets before the general public? The “NHL Winter Classic partners” meaning the clowns at AMP Energy and all the other stupid crap they’re always peddling on Versus. Doesn’t make a lot of sense because the Winter Classic is ostensibly for the benefit of the fans, right?

They are effectively ignoring the Blackhawks’ partial season ticket holders, the Red Wings’ full season ticket holders, and hell, even Cubbies’ season ticket holders who deserve it more than the clowns the NHL will eventually give these tickets to.

Good work, Bettman.

Hey, Anaheim has a cap hit of $56.31 million and has been playing very well since a shaky start.

So what do you get for the team that has everything and no cap room?

Mats Sundin!

The 37-year old Sundin has begun working out in Los Angeles as rumours continue to swirl about his potential NHL comeback.  He is set to meet with Ducks general manager Brian Burke either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Makes all the sense in the world. The Ducks have been scoring goals by the bucketful lately and have center depth of Ryan Getzlaf, Todd Marchant, Rob Niedermayer, and a number of grinders but most notably Sami Pahlsson. So signing Mats Sundin to some insane contract makes all the sense in the world.

The Ducks already got rid of a player they wanted to keep in Mathieu Schneider, so now they’d have to get rid of.. I don’t know. Apart from Chris Kunitz who for some reason makes almost $4 million, anyone that makes more than $2.5 million is more or less indispensable to the team. Forwards in that category: Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Kunitz, Brendan Morrison, Teemu Selanne. Defensemen in that category: Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger. Goalies in that category: JS Giguere. Who do you get rid of in that group? Morrison maybe (he’s Burkie’s bestest pal though) and Kunitz signed his four-year deal this year.

This is an unimaginably stupid thing for the Ducks to be doing if it’s true.

“Out indefinitely.”

First it was Erik Johnson getting his season ended by a golf cart. Soon after it was Manny Legace and Ben Bishop. Now TJ Oshie has gone down with a high ankle sprain.

“I was talking to Dr. (Rick) Wright and he told me as far as sports go, ankles are the toughest injuries to put a time frame on,” Blues President John Davidson said Sunday. “We don’t know how long it’s going to be. It’s just a shame because he’s been as good as anybody on our team.”

Great. Now St. Louis can call up.. nobody. Prepetual healthy scratch Yan Stastny will be filling in for Oshie.

Yan. Not Peter. The bad Stastny. Yan. The one who played for like three different organizations in the last four seasons. Yan. Not the guy on the Avalanche. No, his brother. His brother’s name is Yan. The one with nine career points. Yan Stastny.  The one that got traded to Boston for Sergei Samsonov with Marty Reasoner and the pick that became Milan Lucic. Yeah, that Stastny. Yan. So that’s two more words: “Yan Stastny.”

Other exciting Blues news in that link: They might sign Brendan Shanahan, but they might not.

For years, everyone was passing Hugh Jessiman by. Eric Fehr, Shawn Belle, Tibor.

Well no more! The Rangers called up Jessiman, the only first-round pick in the 2003 entry draft to have never played an NHL game, earlier today. He’ll finally get his chance with the Blueshi… oh he got traded to Nashville. For future considerations. Ouch.

Jessiman, who is 6-foot-6 and 235 pounds, has split the four seasons he’s been out of college between the AHL and ECHL and has 57 goals and 62 assists in those four seasons. He has no points in six games this year and has apparently been pushing his agent for a trade because the Rangers aren’t giving him a chance.

Memo to Mr. Jessiman: The reason the Rangers, who aren’t exactly lighting the world on fire offensively, aren’t giving you a chance to play in the NHL is because you are not good at hockey. You have had ONE (1) good season in your entire hockey career, that being the 24-23-47 freshman season at Dartmouth that got you drafted No. 12 overall in the best draft in hockey history, ahead of guys like Mike Richards, Ryan Getzlaf and Zach Parise. You are injury-prone at worst and a mediocre player at best. That’s why you’ve never played an NHL game, and likely never will. You’re an answer to a trivia question, not someone that’s earned a shot in the best hockey league in the world.

Give the KHL a whirl or something. Hockey on this continent is a dead end for you.

(Yes, I am still bitter about Jessiman scoring a hat trick against my college that freshman year, thanks for bringing it up.)

Daniel Alfredsson re-signed with Ottawa today to a cap-friendly deal worth $5.5 million a year over the next four. When the contract expires, he will be 39 years old.

As reported first by Sun Media this morning, the Senators have called a 12:30 p.m. press conference today at the BankAtlantic Center to announce the club’s captain has signed a four-year, $22 million deal.

Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is flying in front his ranch in Ocala, Fla. to participate in the press conference with GM Bryan Murray and Alfredsson. Getting him signed is a huge relief for the club because he had the ability to go to unrestricted free agency next season.

This is a very good thing for the Senators in theory. They get to keep their franchise player for below market value (if you think Alfie couldn’t get $6.5 from someone, you’re crazy) in favor of keeping the band together. Whether or not said band is capable of winning anything is up for debate, but it at least puts the Sens in a position to re-sign some guys like Mike Fisher and Antoine Vermette or the entire Sens D corps save for Chris Phillips, whose contracts are up in the next two years, if they’re so inclined.

But the contract will also allegedly contain the dreaded “no-movement clause” which, ehh, it’s not so good for the team. Now, regardless of whether or not he’s earning his $5.5 million in three years, he’s going to be making it in Ottawa until he’s 39. Even if they could move him for something that helps the team long-term, Alfie probably wouldn’t want to go, which isn’t helping anyone but Alfie.

The good news is that a front-row seat for the Winter Classic costs $75. The bad news is that the nosebleeds cost $325.

Not sure I get it either.

Yeah, the NHL released its Winter Classic seating charts yesterday and, well, you figure it out.

What a disaster this turned out to be. Seats out in center field that are an easy 250 feet from the rink cost $75, the same as seats that are closer to 100 but apparently have obstructed views of some parts of the rink. Why only three pricing levels? Why so expensive? Why no seats on the field? It’s going to look stupid with a full baseball outfield of NOTHING as the backdrop to the game.

At least Gary Bettman isn’t Bud Selig, right? Right?

Somehow, I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere.

Friday night, Minnesota State played North Dakota in a WCHA matchup and the craziest goddamn thing you will ever see in a hockey game happened.

Zach Harrison scored a natural hat trick consisting of nothing but shorthanded goals.

Midway through the second period, Zach Harrison picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and broke in one-on-one with a NoDak defender, then wristed a nifty little shot past Sioux goalie Adam Walaski to make it 3-1 to Harrison’s Mavericks.

In the third, he outhustled four Sioux on a power play breakout, got to a loose puck first, took it wide, and beat Walaski to put the Mavs up 4-1. Then, late in the game with two Mavericks in the box and an empty net 185 feet away, Harrison shoveled the puck out of the zone on a backhand and saw it bounce into the goal.

Natural. Shorthanded. Hat trick.

Of all the things I’ve ever seen in spending my life around hockey, nothing has ever compared to how zany this is. Harrison’s stick from that game is on its way to the Hockey Hall of Fame. The HHOF says that this might be the first natural shorthanded hattie in the HISTORY of hockey.

Said Harrison of the feat: “That’s not really something you even dream about.”

Yeah, you might say that.

So with Johan Franzen going down for a few weeks with a knee injury, the Red Wings needed a forward.

They called up Ville Leino, a highly-regarded rookie free agent out of Finland, from Grand Rapids. Except not. Because they don’t have the cap space.

There was talk that Leino was good enough to have made the team out of camp, but then the Red Wings went and inexplicably signed Darren McCarty to a contract and kept him on the team instead, and there he remains. The problem is that Franzen’s injury might not be bad enough that the team can put him on the long-term IR (meaning he’d miss a minimum of 24 days or 10 games).

If Franzen’s injury is that bad, he can go on IR and have his salary not count against the cap for the length of his stay in the M*A*S*H unit. But until the Red Wings determine that or send McCarty down (where he belongs), and one assumes that with a game tonight they’ll get the decision squared away fairly quickly, Leino, who has an $875,000 cap hit, will continue to play in a league he’s obviously far too good for (he’s 4-5-9 in five AHL games) and Detroit will look for scoring from within the team itself.

I really do wonder what was going through Ken Holland’s mind when he signed McCarty. The guy can’t really fight, skate, shoot, or defend any more and is obviously not trusted by his coach (witness his team-low 7:03 of time per night with no special teams play) but they signed him to a deal that was above league minimum. Out of loyalty or something? I don’t know. But for a top-class organization like the Detroit, it was a particularly dumb move, and now it’s coming back to bite them on the ass.

Tough break for the kid, but this is on the front office.