The Two-Line Pass

The Ducks have begun using an interesting strategy to save cap space: send down guys on two-way contracts every off-day.

In order to save $12,000 in salary-cap space, the Ducks on Monday assigned two rookies, left wing Bobby Ryan and defenseman Brett Festerling, to their ECHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors.

The Ducks, who did not practice Monday, will recall Ryan and Festerling in time for the two to practice with the team Tuesday morning at Honda Center.

It just seems so.. odd. What does the extra $12,000 in cap space mean to the Ducks at the end of the day? It’s almost nothing in terms of an NHL contract and means even less against the cap. But Dan Wood says that the pro-rated $50-60,000 Anaheim saves could help them land a “relatively high-priced” player at the deadline.

It kind of makes sense because the salaries of players acquired through trade are pro-rated but by sending these kids up and down all season doesn’t that mean that the value of their salaries (a pro-rated base of $850,000 with bonuses that could push it up to $1.539 million for Ryan and a pro-rated $379,000 for Festerling) mean that they can only get a guy whose pro-rated salary is that much?

For example, the Ducks want to trade a draft pick (just so there are no sticky numbers going the other way) for a “relatively high-priced” player. Can’t that player’s salary, at best, be the sum total of Ryan and Festerling’s? I don’t know when a player in the $1.1-1.9 range became “relatively high-priced” but okay, sure.

Why, then, doesn’t every team do this? Wouldn’t it make sense to just constantly send your young guys up and down? The Islanders, just as a for-instance, have roughly 43 guys on the 20-man roster on two-way deals. Why not send ALL OF THEM down to Bridgeport on off-days to save however much against the cap and, if they fancy themselves playoff contenders around deadline time (ha!), they could then trade for your Jason Spezzas and Ilya Kovalchuks because they’ve saved x amount against the cap through this silliness.

Maybe the Lightning can do this and get that free agent center they’ve had their eye on.

Brian Burke has been let go as general manager of the Anaheim Ducks for no readily apparent reason.

Details to follow at the afternoon press conference, or so they say.

Interesting to note, though, that in this week’s Hockey Notes from the Boston Globe, Kevin Paul Dupont pondered what was next for Burkie, whose contract was up after this season. In fact, Burke even said he had a substantial offer on the table to return as Ducks GM. His return was unlikely, however, since, “Family issues, related to his first marriage, would be eased greatly if he worked closer to Boston, where he lived and worked for years as a player agent before going into hockey management.”

Obviously there are the rumors that he’d be jumping to Toronto as soon as his deal with the Ducks was done, but as Dupont points out, there are a number of teams that could use Burke’s services in one fashion or another, including the Blackhawks, who appear to be in complete makeover mode, and Bruins, who are still without a president and have been since Harry Sinden was crowbarred out of the job a few summers ago.

One thing’s for sure: Burke won’t be out of work for too long.

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.

The Lead

Looking at the scores from the last few Red Wings games, you don’t get the feeling that this is the best hockey team we’ve seen in almost a decade.

4-3 over the Kings, 6-5 over the Blackhawks, 5-3 over the Thrashers, 4-3 over the Blues, 5-4 over the Rangers, and a 4-3 overtime loss to the Canucks.

That’s a lot of crooked numbers there. The Red Wings, in fact, haven’t allowed less than three goals since Oct. 13 against Carolina. Tonight’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Ducks didn’t help assuage the growing worries in Hockeytown.

This was the first Wings game this year I actually sat down and watched all the way through and I feel like I saw everything that’s good about them (the power play, ability to keep the puck in the offensive zone, the pretty little passing plays, etc. etc.) and everything that’s been wrong with them for the last two weeks (an ineffective breakout, the penalty kill, d-zone weak-side coverage, stupid penalties, lazy neutral zone play, faceoffs, etc. etc.).

The Ducks, led by Teemu Selanne’s power play hat trick and Ryan Getzlaf’s five helpers, played to these weaknesses perfectly, and, despite four two-man advantanges, still needed part of overtime and an iffy goal (I think it was a high stick, personally) to beat them. That’s how good Detroit is on the attack.

That Detroit power play, too. Wow. The way it moves the puck is barely comprehensible to the human mind. One second it’s at the point and the next it’s behind the goalie and both he and the viewer are left wondering how the hell it got there until a slow-mo replay reveals that Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Zetterberg somehow went uncovered in the middle of the ice and redirected a shot through the screen and in. Both scored goals exactly in this way tonight.

They both also added even-strength goals and each was just as pretty. You forget the kind of skill these guys have until you watch them, and then you go, “Jesus Christ these guys are good. How did I ever forget that?”

But for how good both those guys were, neither held a candle to Selanne tonight. Teemu picked up two identical power play goals, wristing the puck from a low angle on a cross-ice feed. The misfit, his second, was an attempted cross-ice pass that went off Andreas Lilja’s skate and in.

The two ugliest goals of the game proved the most important for Anaheim. Brian Sutherby followed the play of Corey Perry and Getzlaf and put a rebound off the crossbar and in to put the Ducks up 4-3, and Francois Beauchemin swatted a puck out of midair (it sure as hell looked like a high stick, but I’ll defer to the war room in Toronto) at 1:39 of overtime to wrap up the game.

JS Giguere got the win in making 38 saves, while Chris Osgood managed to stop 29.

(But I’ll say this about the game: it reminded me, despite my dislike of the Red Wings because of their spoiled fanbase, just how hateable the Ducks are. They play an ugly, boring game (conceding most of the neutral zone in favor of dropping three behind the blue line on every rush makes hockey awful) and pretty much act like jerks the entire night while holding onto a “Who? ME!?” attitude every time someone is called for shoving a Red Wing into his teammate. This specific example happened twice. Selanne shoved Tomas Holmstrom into Osgood and negated a goal, and late in the game Scott Niedermayer pushed Pavel Datsyuk into Marian Hossa, who had the puck along the boards. Both times, the players reacted with disbelief, and the Ducks’ announcers scrambled to say that it was indeed Holmstrom and Datsyuk who were at fault.

And if you want to see what I think is a dirty hit to the head with the arms down, check out Chris Pronger’s hit on Pavel Datsyuk (if you can find it anywhere online.. I can’t) in the third period. Well after Datsyuk dumps the puck in and begins to turn to chase after it, Pronger throws him a quick shot to the jaw that dropped him pretty quick. Totally intentional, malicious, calculated hit from one of the true scumbags of the NHL. For the huge deal that was made out of the perfectly clean Weight-on-Sutter hit, this one won’t get 1/10th the coverage because Datsyuk was fine, and it was easily a more egregious attempt to injure an opponent. Who could expect anything less from a douchebag like Pronger though?

Another hateable thing about the Ducks is their broadcast. They INSIST on using the low-level “ice view” cameras stationed at the top of the glass between the penalty boxes and above the goal judges. Both angles make the game unwatchable. You can’t watch the rush develop through the neutral zone and you can’t see the puck go in the net on power plays. The X-Mo replay is a great feature but we didn’t see the puck go in the net from a proper camera angle once tonight. Another problem with the broadcast: it’s so busy showing commercials that it missed eight faceoffs, the start of the second period (by 27 seconds!) and the start of a fight. It was unbelievable and I can see why people in Anaheim don’t care very much about the Ducks.)

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In a stunning move, the Thrashers have traded Ken Klee, Brad Larsen and a prospect of little consequence to Anaheim for Mathieu Schneider.

Well, okay, it’s not all that stunning. The Thrashers are now on the hook for Schneider’s $5.75 million contract but have the No. 1 defenseman they desperately needed, and the Ducks just saved themselves $3.7 million against the cap. That’s some Teemu Selanne money right there.

By adding Schneider, the Thrashers have essentially achieved their objective of dramatically changing their defense.

It is important to note, however, that “changing” and “improving” have two entirely separate definitions.

A top four of Schneider, Ron Hainsey, newly re-signed Tobias Enstrom, and (maybe) rookie Zach Bogosian isn’t bad by any means, but the Thrashers seem, at least by USA Today’s Kevin Allen’s reckoning, to be operating under the impression that they’ll have the remotest chance of making the playoffs. A clue: No. This is still a team with no forward depth and a very questionable goaltending situation, and having three puckrushing defensemen who range from good (Schneider) to iffy (Hainsey) in their own zone isn’t exactly the recipe for success that’s going to get the Thrashers out of the basement.

I hate to disagree with Kevin Allen, but even with this trade, the Thrashers are still the absolute worst team in the NHL and they’ll still score only about 150 more goals than Ilya Kovalchuk’s total. Call me when Atlanta trades for a center.

What this is for the Thrashers, really, is smart asset management. Come deadline time, they’ll be able to get a lot more for a few months of Mathieu Schneider, in his declining years though he is, than Ken Klee and Brad Larsen. If this is the best deal Burke could get, the five or six we heard about the other day had to have been just atrocious HFBoards-type proposals.

It hasn’t even been a week since Gary Bettman politely asked Brian Burke and Kevin Lowe to stop hitting each other or he will turn this car around right now. But Burke was contrite in his acceptance of the league’s decision, saying:

“The NHL has stepped in and stopped the fight, and we respect that,” Burke said. “We believe the NHL has a perfect right to do that, and we intend to abide by the league’s directive, which is to stop the criticism. There is no question in our minds, or no defiance. I consider the public debate to be at an end, because that is what the commissioner has ordered.”

What he meant to say was that he doesn’t take orders from anyone, least of all a smarmy commissioner whose wild mid-’90s over-expansion almost killed the entire NHL. While he technically played by the league’s rules, he still went out of his way to make Kevin Lowe’s life just a little bit tougher for old times’ sake.

In last Friday’s interview on an Edmonton sports talk radio station, Lowe expressed great admiration for newly re-signed Duck Corey Perry, saying he’s a “hell of a player” and that if Anaheim doesn’t want to pay him, the Oilers would be “glad to have him.”

Burke’s response was not unexpected.

“It is our understanding that NHL member clubs are not entitled to express interest in the services of a player belonging to another NHL organization. Our understanding is that such an expression of interest constitutes tampering. We have asked the league to investigate whether a tampering episode has taken place. We’ve asked them to make a full investigation into that. We will have no further comment on this, and whatever the league’s decision is, we will abide by that.”

What a prick. I doubt there’s ever been an general manager as awesome as Brian Burke.

From the mental giants in minor league hockey that affix the word “Ice” in front of every noun under the sun comes the newest, worst hockey team name I’ve ever heard in my life: the Iowa Chops.

Really.

The former Iowa Stars changed their name once the Ducks took over the franchise. This was the result.

“We wanted a name that would catch people’s attention and spark discussion, not just in Iowa but nationally as well,” team president Steve Nitzel said in a statement.

Mission accomplished. This name sucks. It’s really bad. Know why it’s unique? Because no professional hockey team on the planet should ever be named after food.

The reason the team picked the name is because, to quote the press release, “The word chops can mean continually defeating someone.”

Yeah, no it doesn’t. I looked it up in a dictionary and it just doesn’t. That’s a remarkable stretch, even though I understand the agricultural context by which the name was chosen.

This is all an elaborate joke, right? They can’t expect people to actually buy jerseys with this on it, can they? Tomorrow they’re going to say, “Fooled you! We’re the Iowa Ducks!” Even Des Moines residents on that comment section are almost unanimous in their hatred for the team name and logo, with one “ilovespoon” going so far as to say: “This has been a sad day in Iowa’s history.”

With so many to choose from, that’s saying something.

And the logo! Oh my. Not only is it a backwards Carolina Panthers logo colored red, it also only vaguely resembles a pig.

AGH!

Aw yeah son, the long-broiling feud between Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe and Anaheim GM Brian Burke came to another head this week when both took shots at the other through the press, again.

Some history: Lowe and Burke famously completed the deal that brought Chris Pronger to the Ducks and pretty much shored up a Stanley Cup for the franchise, but they’ve since fallen out. See, Lowe poached restricted free agent Dustin Penner from the Ducks with a ridiculous $21.25 million, five-year contract last summer. Lowe also offered Buffalo star Tom Vanek a deal that topped $7 million a year, which the Sabres had to match. That’s where Burke began to regard Lowe as being TOTALLY wack!

Burke was incensed, and calling the Edmonton GM things like, “gutless.” He also said Lowe’s management drove Edmonton “into the sewer” and that the Penner contract was a “grenade” to the rest of the league. Lowe responded by calling Burke a “blowhard” and an “egomaniac.”

Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish considered the whole thing grand theater at the time.

The feud simmered over the course of this season, but was brought to a boil once again last week, when Anaheim signed forward Corey Perry to a pricey deal. That prompted Burke to complain about the elimination of the theoretical “second contract” for RFAs.

“They’re all being re-signed at inflated prices,” Burke said. “Everything I said a year ago has come true. Every single word.

“Most [general] managers don’t like starting fights with any other managers. . . . Thanks to the Edmonton Oilers, the second contract [for players] has disappeared.

“You go right now from entry-level to what used to be the third contract, thanks to two offer sheets from Kevin Lowe.”

A childish response, sure, but what about Lowe? That’s right, he got on Team 1260 and SO went there!

“Where do I begin?,” started Lowe. “He’s a moron, first of all. Secondly, he really believes that any news for the NHL is good news. Thirdly, he loves the limelight and I don’t think anyone in hockey will dispute that. Lastly, he’s in a pathetic hockey market where they can’t get on any page of the newspaper let alone the front page of the sports, so any of this stuff carries on.”

Aw yeah! But Lowe went on to dis Burke even harder:

“I remember (L.A. Kings general manager) Dean Lombardi last summer saying to me, ‘You guys are (just) putting this on, you’re not really feeling this way. The NHL likes this stuff, they want to create a little angst in the media and stuff and get some headlines?’” recalled Lowe.

“I said, ‘No Dean, this is real.’ He was shocked that this was going on but Burkie loves the limelight. He’s all bluff and loud and Mac T (head coach Craig MacTavish) said it best - he’s like the Wizard of Oz, you pull the curtains away and there’s not much substance.”

No he didn’t!

It’s too bad Gary Bettman had to step in and tell both of them to stop attempting to serve each other. We were anxiously awaiting the Ducks vs. Oilers break dancing competition that would surely have followed.