The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

How you know Toronto had a bad night: they lost to Carolina 5-4 in a shootout. No, it’s true!

I’m not enough of a masochist to actually sit down and watch a game between the two worst teams in the NHL (and besides I was already planning on subjecting myself to the Blackhawks/Flames game that ended up being evocative of a scene involving a pinball machine in The Accused), but holy crap on a platter. It was like a regional sales convention of failure.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Lead

Poor, poor Cam Ward. He makes THAT stop and in doing so not only keeps his team within one, but also basically sparks the Hurricanes to a comeback in a game in which they were being pretty well handled by the defending Stanley Cup champs. And his boys can’t even pull out a W for him?

The Canes may have forced OT, but the Pens won in a shootout because Carolina got one goal from its SIX shooters. Too bad, really. That’s probably going to stand up as save of the year.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Lead

Kinda funny, I guess, that Scott Walker was the guy to eliminate Boston.

I mean, you knew it wasn’t going to be Sergei Samsonov, who had gotten to the bottom of his “lucky goal” supply earlier in the game. You knew it wasn’t going to be Rod Brind’Amour, who was taken to the dressing room earlier in the overtime and never came back. You knew it wasn’t going to be Erik Cole, who hasn’t scored in about a trillion straight playoff games. You knew it wouldn’t be Eric Staal, who once again had as little effect on tonight’s proceedings as his little brother Marc.

And you knew it wasn’t going to be anyone on the Bruins, who despite scoring both their goals because they had big bodies like Byron Bitz and Milan Lucic going at the front of the crease, never really went to the front of the crease with any great regularity in the overtime period of what was a supremely entertaining game, even if it was a little sloppy because of the circumstances.

It was certainly the most evenly-played game of the series. Wild swings of momentum back and forth led many people to whom I talked to say something along the lines of “Well the Bruins/Hurricanes HAVE to score soon.” They didn’t. Almost all of the goals, save for the Byron Bitz tally that opened the scoring, came on the counterattack. And none was more counterattack-y than Walker’s, which came on a Ray Whitney shot off the transition designed to do exactly what it did: get a fat rebound into the slot that someone could take a whack at. Now, I don’t know why Thomas came out so far to challenge and tried to punch it away instead of backing off a little and smothering it, but I also don’t know why he was so eager to play the puck at every opportunity once overtime hit.

Sure, the Bruins kind of poured it all out in overtime. They had no interest in playing conservative hockey, as it really was not their wont all year. Why start now? But Thomas was uncharacteristically aggressive, I thought, even by his typically challenge-minded standard.

So the puck fell to the guy the Bruins probably least wanted to score an OT series-winner (with all the other Hurricanes in a dead heat for second-to-last). And he scored the knockout blow.

At least he kept his gloves on this time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well apparently, three-ish days after the fact, “Bubba” over at Canes Country is getting after me for my criticism of Eric Staal over at Puck Daddy.

The crux of my argument was this: If I were a ‘Canes fan, I would be incredibly frustrated by the inconsistent play of Eric Staal. This was somehow massively offensive and tipped off a 700-or-so-word rant about what a clown I was (well, they kind of lumped me in with Mr. L. Gregory Wyshynski as though we were the same person. We are not).

So here is my retort, because, as the person that e-mailed me this told me, I need to “Smarten up,” which is something moms say.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is Carolina kidding? They fire Peter Laviolette after the Canes jump out to a 12-11-2 start. Am I missing something here? They’re THREE POINTS back of the division lead! THREE! In THAT division! Do you realize how easy it is to make up three points when you’re playing the Panthers, Lightning and Thrashers 18 times a year?

The fact that the ‘Canes are underperforming this year is hardly Laviolette’s fault. There are the injuries to Justin Williams and David Tanabe that have kept them out since the end of September, there’s Eric Staal’s hideous performance so far this season (he’s had exactly two multiple-goal games this season), there’s the fact that the team, on paper, is pretty goddamn bad. I mean, look at that roster. What’s anyone supposed to do with that? And yet they’re still a game above .500 because Laviolette is a damn good coach.

And the replacement is Paul Maurice? The guy that wasn’t good enough to get a Maple Leafs team like the one they had two years ago into the playoffs? The guy that Carolina already FIRED? He isn’t a good coach. He just isn’t. He’s had losing seasons in seven of his 10 in the NHL. You don’t call a guy like that and offer him a job, regardless of the fact that he helped take your team to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2001-02. It’s ridiculous. What, was Jacques Demers not available?

In the hopes that it’s not too late to squeeze Maurice out, I have composed a list of five better candidates for the job.

Read the rest of this entry »

So today the NHL announced that it had rejected the Carolina Hurricanes’ extension of Eric Staal’s contract for the low, low price of $57.75 million over the next seven years.

“It was just too stupid to tolerate, even for us” sai…

Wait that’s NOT why?

The issue with the contract pertains to the wording of the clause. The contract that was rejected by the league specified that his no-trade clause kicked in on July 1, 2010, when he is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent.

Apparently the problem is that, if Staal doesn’t play those two seasons, which he will unless something goes terribly awry, he won’t be eligible for unrestricted free agency. So they have to change it to “as soon as he’s eligible for unrestricted free agency.”

Come on, NHL. Someone needs to let the Hurricanes know that what they did was flat-out wrong, for both the franchise and the league. Though one supposes that if the Jeff Finger contract is allowed to stand, this one looks like a stroke of frugal genius in comparison. Ah well.

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.