As the last significant date of the long, hockeyless off-season approaches, the Canadiens still have some very important positions available. A look at the Habs job board reveals the following ads for employment:
WANTED: One backup goalie. Must have degree from School of Hard Knocks or recognized alternative. At least five years of experience with a minimum of five different teams preferred. Successful candidate should have an uncanny ability to show absolutely no rust after sitting for fifteen straight games. Should also exhibit an ability to talk the starter off a ledge if required. Compensation to be discussed, but bargains preferred. No ambition necessary.
ARE YOU HUGE? Would Benoit Brunet describe you as "un gros bonhomme?" Do you play on the wing on an NHL team's top-two lines, or did you in your prime? If you answered "yes" to those questions, and you can put the puck in the net more often than Andrei Kostitsyn, the Montreal Canadiens have a job for you! The successful candidate should have a mean streak, but brains enough to avoid suspension, and enjoy standing directly in front of the opposing goalie. You should have been referred to as "a big body presence" by Pierre McGuire at least once, preferably with a lascivious glint in his eye. Leadership without ego and a willingness to sign for market value or less also appreciated. Centreman to be determined, but employer is open to discussing a "No Gomez" clause.
SEEKING: Assistant coach for storied NHL franchise. Prerequisties include actually having played a game of pro hockey, ever, and the ability to feel and exhibit emotion. Among the successful candidate's duties will be planning the powerplay, encouraging the team's youth and talking strategy during time-outs. In-game interviews with RDS, with the ability to deliver a convincing "merci" also required. Unilingual English-speakers who pose no threat to current boss preferred. Stanley Cup-winning experience, a playing connection to the team and a deep passion for the game are optional.
CALLING ALL UFAs: If you're a centreman from Prince Edward Island, and if you've won the Conn Smythe trophy at some point in your career, we'll overpay you to come to Montreal! Successful candidate should expect tremendous opportunities to play the best hockey of his life every night while getting skewered by the pundits on RDS. Optional chances to see himself burned in effigy by dissatisfied fans also available. French lessons not required, but recommended. An "I'm taking lessons but you'll never hear me actually speak French out loud" package is, in most cases, sufficient. Position contingent on successful disposal of current employee.
AVAILABLE: One smallish, slightly overused centreman with attitude. Average on faceoffs and the equal of a decent fourth-liner in point production, but still useful for achieving cap-floor status. Well-liked in the room and quite able to provide sarcastic, devil-may-care comments to the media. If you're in the market for a veteran presence who can take an ill-advised retaliation penalty at the most inopportune moments, then this guy is for you! Cost is minimal and may include late-round draft picks, promissory notes and/or bags of pucks. Shipping from Alaska will be at buyer's expense.
FOR HIRE: One cuddly Czech defenceman, love handles and quizzical expression included. Former Olympic gold medalist and Stanley Cup finalist. A vintage model, this D is still prepared to score up to five goals a season, and comes with a great attitude. Available as is, where is, for the low cost of "future considerations." Not recommended for teams who list "speed" or "value for money" as priorities.
NEEDED: French Canadian hockey player. Any skill level acceptable. Quebec-born candidates preferred, as Franco-Ontarians are often considered imposters in this role. Also, skaters preferred over goaltenders in order to minimize demands for the locally-born backup to take the net the minute the starter has two bad games in a row. If no stars available, a warm body who can fight and help Desharnais and Darche with post-game interviews will be considered. Interested parties please contact Pierre Boivin before Friday.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Shaping Up
As we head into draft weekend, it appears Pierre Gauthier's got a definite plan and is taking care of business early this summer. The shape the team is taking is both familiar and intriguing.
The re-signings of Mathieu Darche, Hal Gill, Andrei Kostitsyn, David Desharnais and Max Pacioretty were safe, and probably wise, decisions. Darche adds an element of heart and hard work that only a guy with his hard-knocks experience in the game can contribute. He's an example of how working your ass off, even with limited talent, can get a player. For that, he's inspirational. As a bonus, he can also pop in a few goals on the second PP unit and kill penalties. Gill's a leader and one of the guys who can effectively give "The Look" in the room when things aren't going well. He's willing to beat himself up to win, even if he handles the puck like play-doh, and he's excellent on the PK. Kostitsyn is straight-forward. He has the talent to score forty goals, but he will never do it. He can, however, score 25 every season, and that's not something just any second-liner manages to do. It seemed that last year he finally managed to figure out he's a large mammal who can do some damage in the hits department as well. He has significant value. Desharnais and Pacioretty are full of potential. Each of them has leaped his own hurdles to get to this point in his career, and together in Hamilton, they were dynamite. With Pacioretty fully healed from his attempted murder at the hands of Zdeno Chara, there's no reason to expect them to do anything but improve. Two years for each of them gives them the security to take chances and management the time it needs to assess them properly.
On defence, the signings of Alexei Yemelin and Raphael Diaz are very interesting. The Habs have long been craving a tough-as-nails defender with wheels and a mean streak. By all accounts, Yemelin is that guy. It's kind of funny, though. For Habs fans, he's the equivalent of Sesame Street's Snuffaluffagus. Everyone swears he's real, but nobody ever sees him. At the same time, he's been lauded as The Best Defenceman Not In the NHL (thanks, McGuire.) That'll change at camp, and it'll either be a big deflation of our Sesame balloon, or he'll be for real. If the Habs scouts, who've presumably seen more of him than we have, think he's worth signing, perhaps he'll actually be good enough to make a difference. Diaz, on the other hand is a mystery. Like Streit, but not quite like Streit. The best all-around defenceman in the Swiss league, but what does that really mean? Habs fans assume he'll start in Hamilton, but the element of the unknown about him is fascinating. What if he's better than Spacek in camp? What if he's better than Yemelin? Interesting stuff.
Then there are the rumours. Yannick Weber's rumoured to be close to a two-year deal. So's Andrei Markov. And, of course, there's Jaromir Jagr. Weber, really, should be signed. He's the perfect example of the kind of player the Habs tend to develop to the point of NHL usefulness, then quit on while fans gnash their teeth watching him score for somebody else. After watching his playoff performance, it's easy to imagine him stepping onto some other team and putting up a solid 40 points on the blueline. This is a player who needs a real chance in Montreal so management doesn't regret letting him go. Markov is rumoured to be close to signing for two years at the same salary as last season. If he stays healthy, that's a steal with the cap going up to $64-million. There's no reason to think his string of bad luck will continue, so fans can hope he's going to play more than a handful of games next year. That immediately makes the Canadiens better than they were last season.
Jagr's a different kettle of fish altogether. He's of the "almost came to Montreal" breed that includes Briere, Shanahan, Sundin and countless others. Sure, he'd be an asset, if he can keep his head out of his own ass for 82 games plus playoffs. He looked great with Tomas Plekanec at the Olympics and again at the Worlds. Those, though, were short tournaments. Who knows if he remembers what an 82-game grind is really like? The idea of a Cammalleri-Plekanec-Jagr first line makes a lot fans swoon, but on this one we should take a chill pill. Too many free agents have sized up the tax and fan obsession levels in Montreal and decided to go somewhere more peaceful. Gauthier's the only one who knows how serious the man is about the Habs, and he's not talking anytime soon.
Among the outstanding questions are: Will Wisniewski be re-signed, now that the cap has gone up? Who will be the backup goalie? Is there space enough to sign a top-six forward if Jagr doesn't sign, and if so, who's out there? Now we're entering the intriguing part of the next couple of weeks.
James Wisniewski isn't perfect, by a long shot. But, he's got a long, hard shot. That makes him an asset on the PP. His willingness to fight if he's got to is a point in his favour as well. Signing him's a tough choice though, because he's one of the players you'd call a luxury guy. He makes some bad decisions in his own end, which end up costing goals. Then again, his offence and mobility make him more of a compensation-for-error type player than, say, a Sheldon Souray was. The thing with Wiz is he should be on the second or third pairing on a good team. In his last few seasons, he's been stuck playing top-line minutes because one of the guys higher up the food chain has been hurt long-term. Given his proper role, he could excel for a team. The problem is, because he's been given primo minutes, he's put up lots of points. Unfortunately, his numbers will dictate his market value, and in that case, he might be too expensive for Gauthier. If he's reasonable, however, he should be signed because he offers a lot in a second-pairing role. And, given the recent state of the defence's long-term health, he's the kind of guy who can step into a more demanding role if needed.
As for backup goalie, Alex Auld did a decent job behind Carey Price, but he wasn't the kind of guy you'd put in net for twenty games if Price were hurt. Perhaps it's time to look elsewhere, for a guy who's had to fill in for long stretches before. Price was lucky to be healthy all last season, but butterfly goalies are known to suffer joint injuries. Habs need a goalie who'll be able to step in if that should happen.
In terms of rounding out the top-six, everyone agrees Travis Moen cannot continue to be a top-line forward. No team with him playing an important offensive role is going to win. That's the reason why Jagr's a consideration, even at his advanced age. Among the other options, Brooks Laich of the Capitals is a possibility. He's big, he goes to the net and he's got the ability to chip in some backbreaking goals. Depending on what Wisniewski asks for, Laich could be a possibility.
Among the recent rumours is one that the Habs are thinking of offering Roman Hamrlik a contract. Inarguably, he's stepped up in the last two seasons when Markov went down to injury. However, the Canadiens defence must get younger and faster than it was last year. Keeping Gill, Spacek AND Hamrlik does nothing to help. If Hamrlik is to be offered a contract, it must mean Spacek is traded to a team that needs to hit the cap floor. Both of them can't remain on the same team if the defence is to improve.
Disturbingly, there's been no talk at all about Josh Gorges. Gorges must be signed, as he's one of the few defencemen in his prime who's rock solid in his own end. Hopefully, news of his contract will come soon.
It's interesting that the skeleton of last year's team is intact, and Gauthier seems intent on bringing back much of the flesh as well. That would indicate to fans that team management believes these guys are close to contending. That they were one goal away from eliminating the Bruins even without Markov, Gorges and Pacioretty backs up that theory.
Familiarity is a good thing within a team that gets along and knows how to work together. Gauthier is providing lots of that, and proving he believes the team can win as is. On the flip side, the newcomers he's brining, or is rumoured to be bringing, can only help the team improve.
All in all, the off-season so far has been very reassuring for fans. We know management thinks the team is close. We must take heart from that.
The re-signings of Mathieu Darche, Hal Gill, Andrei Kostitsyn, David Desharnais and Max Pacioretty were safe, and probably wise, decisions. Darche adds an element of heart and hard work that only a guy with his hard-knocks experience in the game can contribute. He's an example of how working your ass off, even with limited talent, can get a player. For that, he's inspirational. As a bonus, he can also pop in a few goals on the second PP unit and kill penalties. Gill's a leader and one of the guys who can effectively give "The Look" in the room when things aren't going well. He's willing to beat himself up to win, even if he handles the puck like play-doh, and he's excellent on the PK. Kostitsyn is straight-forward. He has the talent to score forty goals, but he will never do it. He can, however, score 25 every season, and that's not something just any second-liner manages to do. It seemed that last year he finally managed to figure out he's a large mammal who can do some damage in the hits department as well. He has significant value. Desharnais and Pacioretty are full of potential. Each of them has leaped his own hurdles to get to this point in his career, and together in Hamilton, they were dynamite. With Pacioretty fully healed from his attempted murder at the hands of Zdeno Chara, there's no reason to expect them to do anything but improve. Two years for each of them gives them the security to take chances and management the time it needs to assess them properly.
On defence, the signings of Alexei Yemelin and Raphael Diaz are very interesting. The Habs have long been craving a tough-as-nails defender with wheels and a mean streak. By all accounts, Yemelin is that guy. It's kind of funny, though. For Habs fans, he's the equivalent of Sesame Street's Snuffaluffagus. Everyone swears he's real, but nobody ever sees him. At the same time, he's been lauded as The Best Defenceman Not In the NHL (thanks, McGuire.) That'll change at camp, and it'll either be a big deflation of our Sesame balloon, or he'll be for real. If the Habs scouts, who've presumably seen more of him than we have, think he's worth signing, perhaps he'll actually be good enough to make a difference. Diaz, on the other hand is a mystery. Like Streit, but not quite like Streit. The best all-around defenceman in the Swiss league, but what does that really mean? Habs fans assume he'll start in Hamilton, but the element of the unknown about him is fascinating. What if he's better than Spacek in camp? What if he's better than Yemelin? Interesting stuff.
Then there are the rumours. Yannick Weber's rumoured to be close to a two-year deal. So's Andrei Markov. And, of course, there's Jaromir Jagr. Weber, really, should be signed. He's the perfect example of the kind of player the Habs tend to develop to the point of NHL usefulness, then quit on while fans gnash their teeth watching him score for somebody else. After watching his playoff performance, it's easy to imagine him stepping onto some other team and putting up a solid 40 points on the blueline. This is a player who needs a real chance in Montreal so management doesn't regret letting him go. Markov is rumoured to be close to signing for two years at the same salary as last season. If he stays healthy, that's a steal with the cap going up to $64-million. There's no reason to think his string of bad luck will continue, so fans can hope he's going to play more than a handful of games next year. That immediately makes the Canadiens better than they were last season.
Jagr's a different kettle of fish altogether. He's of the "almost came to Montreal" breed that includes Briere, Shanahan, Sundin and countless others. Sure, he'd be an asset, if he can keep his head out of his own ass for 82 games plus playoffs. He looked great with Tomas Plekanec at the Olympics and again at the Worlds. Those, though, were short tournaments. Who knows if he remembers what an 82-game grind is really like? The idea of a Cammalleri-Plekanec-Jagr first line makes a lot fans swoon, but on this one we should take a chill pill. Too many free agents have sized up the tax and fan obsession levels in Montreal and decided to go somewhere more peaceful. Gauthier's the only one who knows how serious the man is about the Habs, and he's not talking anytime soon.
Among the outstanding questions are: Will Wisniewski be re-signed, now that the cap has gone up? Who will be the backup goalie? Is there space enough to sign a top-six forward if Jagr doesn't sign, and if so, who's out there? Now we're entering the intriguing part of the next couple of weeks.
James Wisniewski isn't perfect, by a long shot. But, he's got a long, hard shot. That makes him an asset on the PP. His willingness to fight if he's got to is a point in his favour as well. Signing him's a tough choice though, because he's one of the players you'd call a luxury guy. He makes some bad decisions in his own end, which end up costing goals. Then again, his offence and mobility make him more of a compensation-for-error type player than, say, a Sheldon Souray was. The thing with Wiz is he should be on the second or third pairing on a good team. In his last few seasons, he's been stuck playing top-line minutes because one of the guys higher up the food chain has been hurt long-term. Given his proper role, he could excel for a team. The problem is, because he's been given primo minutes, he's put up lots of points. Unfortunately, his numbers will dictate his market value, and in that case, he might be too expensive for Gauthier. If he's reasonable, however, he should be signed because he offers a lot in a second-pairing role. And, given the recent state of the defence's long-term health, he's the kind of guy who can step into a more demanding role if needed.
As for backup goalie, Alex Auld did a decent job behind Carey Price, but he wasn't the kind of guy you'd put in net for twenty games if Price were hurt. Perhaps it's time to look elsewhere, for a guy who's had to fill in for long stretches before. Price was lucky to be healthy all last season, but butterfly goalies are known to suffer joint injuries. Habs need a goalie who'll be able to step in if that should happen.
In terms of rounding out the top-six, everyone agrees Travis Moen cannot continue to be a top-line forward. No team with him playing an important offensive role is going to win. That's the reason why Jagr's a consideration, even at his advanced age. Among the other options, Brooks Laich of the Capitals is a possibility. He's big, he goes to the net and he's got the ability to chip in some backbreaking goals. Depending on what Wisniewski asks for, Laich could be a possibility.
Among the recent rumours is one that the Habs are thinking of offering Roman Hamrlik a contract. Inarguably, he's stepped up in the last two seasons when Markov went down to injury. However, the Canadiens defence must get younger and faster than it was last year. Keeping Gill, Spacek AND Hamrlik does nothing to help. If Hamrlik is to be offered a contract, it must mean Spacek is traded to a team that needs to hit the cap floor. Both of them can't remain on the same team if the defence is to improve.
Disturbingly, there's been no talk at all about Josh Gorges. Gorges must be signed, as he's one of the few defencemen in his prime who's rock solid in his own end. Hopefully, news of his contract will come soon.
It's interesting that the skeleton of last year's team is intact, and Gauthier seems intent on bringing back much of the flesh as well. That would indicate to fans that team management believes these guys are close to contending. That they were one goal away from eliminating the Bruins even without Markov, Gorges and Pacioretty backs up that theory.
Familiarity is a good thing within a team that gets along and knows how to work together. Gauthier is providing lots of that, and proving he believes the team can win as is. On the flip side, the newcomers he's brining, or is rumoured to be bringing, can only help the team improve.
All in all, the off-season so far has been very reassuring for fans. We know management thinks the team is close. We must take heart from that.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Deconstructing a Champion
So, here we are, eighteen years after the Canadiens last won the Stanley Cup. Fans who remember the sixties and seventies must feel as though they're trudging through the desert with no oasis in sight, but, thanks to the Canucks choke job, the Habs remain the most recent Canadian champion.
Reflecting on the great moments of '93, and the players who provided them, one must wonder why that success didn't continue. The Canadiens had some very good players which should have either kept producing well or brought a solid return that would have produced in their stead. Shockingly, however, a series of absolutely disasterous trades let Cup-winning players go for guys who were never able to duplicate any level of their success. In fact, if you break down where each player ended up, and what the Habs got back, it turns out there are only two players affiliated with today's organization with any links at all to that last champion.
Take that year's Conn Smythe winner, for example. Patrick Roy was one of the best goaltenders the NHL had ever seen, and was instrumental in bringing the last two Cups to Montreal. When he and management fell out and Ronald Corey decided he had to go, Roy and heart-and-soul Mike Keane went to Colorado for Andrei Kovalenko, Martin Rucinsky and Jocelyn Thibault. Kovalenko was later traded to Edmonton Oilers for Scott Thornton, who was then traded for Juha Lind (who went back to Europe). Rucinsky was later included in a trade that sent Benoit Brunet to Dallas. Thibault went in the Dave Manson trade to Chicago. Neither the Rucinsky or Thibeault trades returned anything worthwhile to Montreal.
The Cup-winning captain, Guy Carbonneau, was dumped to the St.Louis Blues one year later for Jim Montgomery, who was claimed off of waivers after playing five totally unproductive games for the Canadiens.
The big stars on offense went for little-to-nothing as well. Brian Bellows, who put up 88 points in '93, and 15 more in the playoffs, was traded for Marc Bureau who later left as a free agent.
Vincent Damphousse, led the team in scoring in the Cup-winning season with 98 points, and was traded to Tampa for draft picks that became Marcel Hossa (traded for Garth Murray, who was lost to waivers) and Marc-Andre Thinel (left for Europe).
Kirk Muller was the second-highest scorer on the '93 Habs, and a revered leader in the dressing room. He has a complicated legacy with the Canadiens. Two years after the Cup win he was traded to the Islanders for Vladimir Malakhov (later traded to New Jersey Devils for Sheldon Souray (walked as a free agent), Josh DeWolf (left for Germany) and round 2 pick in the 2001 draft (Andreas Holmqvist, who played out his career in Europe)) and Pierre Turgeon. Turgeon was later traded to St. Louis Blues for Murray Baron, Shayne Corson (left as a free agent) and 5th-rounder in the 1997 draft (Gennady Razin who left for Russia). Baron was traded for Dave Manson the same year. Manson was later traded to the Chicago Blackhawks for Jeff Hackett, Eric Weinrich, Alain Nasreddine and a conditional draft pick (Chris Dyment, traded for a Czech pick who never came over, who, in turn was traded for Michael Lambert who never made the NHL). Hackett was traded to San Jose Sharks for Niklas Sundstrom (left Montreal for Sweden) and a 3rd-round pick in the 2004 draft (Paul Baier, who never made the NHL) who became part of a package to the Kings for Christobal Huet and Radek Bonk.) Huet was traded to Washington for a 2nd round pick (which became Jeremy Morin), which was traded along with the Habs 2010 3rd to Atlanta for Mathieu Schneider (left as a free agent) and a third round pick (Joonas Nattinen). Weinrich was traded to Boston for Patrick Traverse (later traded for Mathieu Biron, who left for Europe). Nasreddine was traded to to Edmonton Oilers for Christian Laflamme (left as a free agent) and Matthieu Descoteaux (left for Europe). So, Nattinen, recently signed to an entry-level deal with the Habs, is one of the two players directly connected to the '93 Cup victory.
Then there's the defence. The Cup-winning defence consisted of, at various times, Eric Desjardins, Mathieu Schneider, Kevin Haller, Patrice Brisebois, J.J.Daigneault, Lyle Odelein, Rob Ramage, Sean Hill and Donald Dufresne. Daigneault was traded to St. Louis Blues for Pat Jablonski, who, in turn, was traded to Phoenix Coyotes for Steve Cheredaryk (left as a minor-league free agent). Schneider was included in the Muller trade to the Islanders. Haller was traded to Philly for Yves Racine, who was then claimed on waivers by San Jose. Breezer left as a free agent. Odelein was traded to Devils for Stephane Richer, who was then traded to Tampa Bay Lightning for Patrick Poulin (demoted and retired), Igor Ulanov (included in Nasreddine trade) and Mick Vukota (went to IHL and then retired). Ramage was traded to the Flyers for cash. Hill was claimed in the expansion draft by the Ducks. Dufresne was a weird one. He actually was traded for Rob Ramage, but as a "future consideration." Because Tampa hadn't settled that part of the trade with Montreal, both Dufresne and Ramage won the Cup.
Then there's Desjardins. He, along with Gilbert Dionne and John LeClair went to Philly in one of the worst trades of the period. They were traded for Mark Recchi and a 3rd-round pick in the 1995 draft (Martin Hohenberger, who left for Europe). Recchi was later traded back to the Flyers for Dainius Zubrus, a 2nd-round pick in the 1999 draft (Matt Carkner, who left as a free agent) and a 6th-round pick in the 2000 draft (Scott Selig, who left hockey in 2006). Zubrus was traded to the Capitals for Jan Bulis, who left as a free agent, Richard Zednik and a first-round pick in the 2001 draft (Alexander Perezhogin, who left for Europe). Zednik was traded for a Capitals 3rd-round pick in 2007. That pick was Olivier Fortier, the only other player in the Canadiens organization with a direct link to the '93 Cup.
If a team is to have long-term success, it needs to make the most of its assets over the years. Some of the players the Canadiens got back for the Cup-winners they traded were useful and helped the team for a time. In the end, however, management's failure to bring back a solid return for star players like Roy, LeClair, Muller, Damphousse and Desjardins, as well as important support players like Carbonneau, resulted in the arid period of stagnation we witnessed through many of the years following that Cup win.
It's kind of sad that the legacy of the last Canadian champion consists of only Olivier Fortier and Joonas Nattinen; a third-line grinder with a big heart and a Finnish centreman who's good on the draw. They may or may not ever make the NHL, but back in '93, you wouldn't have traded both of them for Guy Carbonneau. As it turns out, the Canadiens traded the entire Stanley Cup-winning team for them.
Reflecting on the great moments of '93, and the players who provided them, one must wonder why that success didn't continue. The Canadiens had some very good players which should have either kept producing well or brought a solid return that would have produced in their stead. Shockingly, however, a series of absolutely disasterous trades let Cup-winning players go for guys who were never able to duplicate any level of their success. In fact, if you break down where each player ended up, and what the Habs got back, it turns out there are only two players affiliated with today's organization with any links at all to that last champion.
Take that year's Conn Smythe winner, for example. Patrick Roy was one of the best goaltenders the NHL had ever seen, and was instrumental in bringing the last two Cups to Montreal. When he and management fell out and Ronald Corey decided he had to go, Roy and heart-and-soul Mike Keane went to Colorado for Andrei Kovalenko, Martin Rucinsky and Jocelyn Thibault. Kovalenko was later traded to Edmonton Oilers for Scott Thornton, who was then traded for Juha Lind (who went back to Europe). Rucinsky was later included in a trade that sent Benoit Brunet to Dallas. Thibault went in the Dave Manson trade to Chicago. Neither the Rucinsky or Thibeault trades returned anything worthwhile to Montreal.
The Cup-winning captain, Guy Carbonneau, was dumped to the St.Louis Blues one year later for Jim Montgomery, who was claimed off of waivers after playing five totally unproductive games for the Canadiens.
The big stars on offense went for little-to-nothing as well. Brian Bellows, who put up 88 points in '93, and 15 more in the playoffs, was traded for Marc Bureau who later left as a free agent.
Vincent Damphousse, led the team in scoring in the Cup-winning season with 98 points, and was traded to Tampa for draft picks that became Marcel Hossa (traded for Garth Murray, who was lost to waivers) and Marc-Andre Thinel (left for Europe).
Kirk Muller was the second-highest scorer on the '93 Habs, and a revered leader in the dressing room. He has a complicated legacy with the Canadiens. Two years after the Cup win he was traded to the Islanders for Vladimir Malakhov (later traded to New Jersey Devils for Sheldon Souray (walked as a free agent), Josh DeWolf (left for Germany) and round 2 pick in the 2001 draft (Andreas Holmqvist, who played out his career in Europe)) and Pierre Turgeon. Turgeon was later traded to St. Louis Blues for Murray Baron, Shayne Corson (left as a free agent) and 5th-rounder in the 1997 draft (Gennady Razin who left for Russia). Baron was traded for Dave Manson the same year. Manson was later traded to the Chicago Blackhawks for Jeff Hackett, Eric Weinrich, Alain Nasreddine and a conditional draft pick (Chris Dyment, traded for a Czech pick who never came over, who, in turn was traded for Michael Lambert who never made the NHL). Hackett was traded to San Jose Sharks for Niklas Sundstrom (left Montreal for Sweden) and a 3rd-round pick in the 2004 draft (Paul Baier, who never made the NHL) who became part of a package to the Kings for Christobal Huet and Radek Bonk.) Huet was traded to Washington for a 2nd round pick (which became Jeremy Morin), which was traded along with the Habs 2010 3rd to Atlanta for Mathieu Schneider (left as a free agent) and a third round pick (Joonas Nattinen). Weinrich was traded to Boston for Patrick Traverse (later traded for Mathieu Biron, who left for Europe). Nasreddine was traded to to Edmonton Oilers for Christian Laflamme (left as a free agent) and Matthieu Descoteaux (left for Europe). So, Nattinen, recently signed to an entry-level deal with the Habs, is one of the two players directly connected to the '93 Cup victory.
Then there's the defence. The Cup-winning defence consisted of, at various times, Eric Desjardins, Mathieu Schneider, Kevin Haller, Patrice Brisebois, J.J.Daigneault, Lyle Odelein, Rob Ramage, Sean Hill and Donald Dufresne. Daigneault was traded to St. Louis Blues for Pat Jablonski, who, in turn, was traded to Phoenix Coyotes for Steve Cheredaryk (left as a minor-league free agent). Schneider was included in the Muller trade to the Islanders. Haller was traded to Philly for Yves Racine, who was then claimed on waivers by San Jose. Breezer left as a free agent. Odelein was traded to Devils for Stephane Richer, who was then traded to Tampa Bay Lightning for Patrick Poulin (demoted and retired), Igor Ulanov (included in Nasreddine trade) and Mick Vukota (went to IHL and then retired). Ramage was traded to the Flyers for cash. Hill was claimed in the expansion draft by the Ducks. Dufresne was a weird one. He actually was traded for Rob Ramage, but as a "future consideration." Because Tampa hadn't settled that part of the trade with Montreal, both Dufresne and Ramage won the Cup.
Then there's Desjardins. He, along with Gilbert Dionne and John LeClair went to Philly in one of the worst trades of the period. They were traded for Mark Recchi and a 3rd-round pick in the 1995 draft (Martin Hohenberger, who left for Europe). Recchi was later traded back to the Flyers for Dainius Zubrus, a 2nd-round pick in the 1999 draft (Matt Carkner, who left as a free agent) and a 6th-round pick in the 2000 draft (Scott Selig, who left hockey in 2006). Zubrus was traded to the Capitals for Jan Bulis, who left as a free agent, Richard Zednik and a first-round pick in the 2001 draft (Alexander Perezhogin, who left for Europe). Zednik was traded for a Capitals 3rd-round pick in 2007. That pick was Olivier Fortier, the only other player in the Canadiens organization with a direct link to the '93 Cup.
If a team is to have long-term success, it needs to make the most of its assets over the years. Some of the players the Canadiens got back for the Cup-winners they traded were useful and helped the team for a time. In the end, however, management's failure to bring back a solid return for star players like Roy, LeClair, Muller, Damphousse and Desjardins, as well as important support players like Carbonneau, resulted in the arid period of stagnation we witnessed through many of the years following that Cup win.
It's kind of sad that the legacy of the last Canadian champion consists of only Olivier Fortier and Joonas Nattinen; a third-line grinder with a big heart and a Finnish centreman who's good on the draw. They may or may not ever make the NHL, but back in '93, you wouldn't have traded both of them for Guy Carbonneau. As it turns out, the Canadiens traded the entire Stanley Cup-winning team for them.
Friday, June 10, 2011
The State of the Game
As I watched Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals, I realized the Boston Bruins would be very fitting NHL champions this year. A league champion should be the team that best exemplifies the qualities of the game as it exists in a particular season. This year, the Bruins are that team.
Let's take a look at the most important stories in the league this year. Perhaps the most significant of those has been the devastating hits to the head sustained by so many players, including superstar Sidney Crosby. The hit that galvanized the entire hockey world with the single demand to "DO something," however, happened when Zdeno Chara crushed Max Pacioretty into a stanchion and broke his neck. Nobody who watched that game will forget the young Canadien lying motionless on the ice, not knowing if he would play hockey again, or even live. The timing of it, with the Bruins getting creamed by the Canadiens and Chara having developed a dislike of Pacioretty to go with his frustration at losing that game, smacked of intent to "teach the guy a lesson." Of course, the hit, while bringing the debate on head shots to a boil, cost Pacioretty the remainder of his season and quite likely helped the Bruins win their first-round series.
Following from that was the second-most important NHL story of the year. The league's discipline policy has always been vague and inconsistent at best, but the decision to let Chara go without a single game's suspension set off a level of public outrage the NHL brass was obviously not anticipating. The conflict of interest in having the father of a player acting as league disciplinarian began to take on a level of rather ominous significance. In that sense, the Bruins were the poster team for what's wrong with NHL discipline.
I talked to a former NHL player yesterday who told me he's not impressed with the way so many current players are acting like they're still in minor hockey. The constant pushing after the whistle by some teams, the childish taunting of opponents and the public bitching about other players is becoming embarrassing. Prominent examples of such behaviour have been on public display during these playoffs. The Bruins have become notorious for initiating post-whistle garbage in every game they've played. We saw it during the season as they facewashed and crosschecked their way to the Northeast division title, and it's been even more noticable during the post-season. Even goalie Tim Thomas is in on the act, throwing himself at opponents in his crease. (Which, incidentally is a penalty, but was twice uncalled in the playoffs.)
The taunting in the Finals, which respected pros have called ridiculous, has been the epitome of sore winning. There's nothing quite as unpalatable in the world of sports as a team or player that can't win with grace. Watching Max Lapierre tease Patrice Bergeron by shoving his fingers in the biting victim's face was bad enough. Seeing Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic duplicate the gesture in the next game with the gleeful meanness born of gloating was stomach-turning. Couple that with classy gestures like Andrew Ference's one-finger salute to the Bell Centre crowd after a Bruins win, and Nathan Horton's squirting a fan with water before flinging the bottle at him in the stands, and the poor sportsmanship displayed during these playoffs has reached a new low.
Then there's the bitching. Players like Brad Marchand and Mark Recchi complaining about the Canadiens for being a team of divers is more than a little hypocritical. Marchand's got two diving penalties in these playoffs and has attempted the manouver many more times than he's been caught. Recchi's dismissal of the seriousness of Max Pacioretty's injury in the media before the playoffs began revealed a bit of the character of these Bruins. Tim Thomas revealed a bit more when he had an opportunity to be gracious following his team's defeat of the Canadiens. When asked about the play of Habs rookie P.K.Subban, Thomas could have taken the high road and said something non-committal. Instead, he chose to sink as low as possible and call the kid a "travesty" to hockey.
I've been disillusioned with the NHL since the league's lack of intestinal fortitude both led to the Pacioretty hit and failed to levy justice for it. The playoffs have served to underline a lot of the inherent problems in the NHL right now, not least by presenting the Bruins as a Stanley Cup finalist. Should the Bs win, they'd certainly be fitting champions. After all, no team exhibits the cheap shots, public whining and poor sportsmanship polluting the league better than the Bruins.
*Post Script: I neglected to mention a side effect of a team like the Bruins doing well. The attitude and behaviour rubs off on those who follow the team, especially if those fans have been long deprived of any kind of notable success. Look no further than the comments section below for an example of such behaviour, better than anything I could describe. Naturally, it's posted by "anonymous."
Let's take a look at the most important stories in the league this year. Perhaps the most significant of those has been the devastating hits to the head sustained by so many players, including superstar Sidney Crosby. The hit that galvanized the entire hockey world with the single demand to "DO something," however, happened when Zdeno Chara crushed Max Pacioretty into a stanchion and broke his neck. Nobody who watched that game will forget the young Canadien lying motionless on the ice, not knowing if he would play hockey again, or even live. The timing of it, with the Bruins getting creamed by the Canadiens and Chara having developed a dislike of Pacioretty to go with his frustration at losing that game, smacked of intent to "teach the guy a lesson." Of course, the hit, while bringing the debate on head shots to a boil, cost Pacioretty the remainder of his season and quite likely helped the Bruins win their first-round series.
Following from that was the second-most important NHL story of the year. The league's discipline policy has always been vague and inconsistent at best, but the decision to let Chara go without a single game's suspension set off a level of public outrage the NHL brass was obviously not anticipating. The conflict of interest in having the father of a player acting as league disciplinarian began to take on a level of rather ominous significance. In that sense, the Bruins were the poster team for what's wrong with NHL discipline.
I talked to a former NHL player yesterday who told me he's not impressed with the way so many current players are acting like they're still in minor hockey. The constant pushing after the whistle by some teams, the childish taunting of opponents and the public bitching about other players is becoming embarrassing. Prominent examples of such behaviour have been on public display during these playoffs. The Bruins have become notorious for initiating post-whistle garbage in every game they've played. We saw it during the season as they facewashed and crosschecked their way to the Northeast division title, and it's been even more noticable during the post-season. Even goalie Tim Thomas is in on the act, throwing himself at opponents in his crease. (Which, incidentally is a penalty, but was twice uncalled in the playoffs.)
The taunting in the Finals, which respected pros have called ridiculous, has been the epitome of sore winning. There's nothing quite as unpalatable in the world of sports as a team or player that can't win with grace. Watching Max Lapierre tease Patrice Bergeron by shoving his fingers in the biting victim's face was bad enough. Seeing Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic duplicate the gesture in the next game with the gleeful meanness born of gloating was stomach-turning. Couple that with classy gestures like Andrew Ference's one-finger salute to the Bell Centre crowd after a Bruins win, and Nathan Horton's squirting a fan with water before flinging the bottle at him in the stands, and the poor sportsmanship displayed during these playoffs has reached a new low.
Then there's the bitching. Players like Brad Marchand and Mark Recchi complaining about the Canadiens for being a team of divers is more than a little hypocritical. Marchand's got two diving penalties in these playoffs and has attempted the manouver many more times than he's been caught. Recchi's dismissal of the seriousness of Max Pacioretty's injury in the media before the playoffs began revealed a bit of the character of these Bruins. Tim Thomas revealed a bit more when he had an opportunity to be gracious following his team's defeat of the Canadiens. When asked about the play of Habs rookie P.K.Subban, Thomas could have taken the high road and said something non-committal. Instead, he chose to sink as low as possible and call the kid a "travesty" to hockey.
I've been disillusioned with the NHL since the league's lack of intestinal fortitude both led to the Pacioretty hit and failed to levy justice for it. The playoffs have served to underline a lot of the inherent problems in the NHL right now, not least by presenting the Bruins as a Stanley Cup finalist. Should the Bs win, they'd certainly be fitting champions. After all, no team exhibits the cheap shots, public whining and poor sportsmanship polluting the league better than the Bruins.
*Post Script: I neglected to mention a side effect of a team like the Bruins doing well. The attitude and behaviour rubs off on those who follow the team, especially if those fans have been long deprived of any kind of notable success. Look no further than the comments section below for an example of such behaviour, better than anything I could describe. Naturally, it's posted by "anonymous."
Monday, May 30, 2011
Mr.Smith Goes to Montreal
"My memory of that game is tying it up with about a minute left, so I have a different memory of it than most other people," Smith laughs.
A look back at the box score from that night proves his sense of recall is still pretty sharp a quarter century after the fact. The Rangers were up 3-2 and took a penalty with about three-and-a-half minutes to go. With 8 seconds left in the PP and 2 minutes in the period, Smith tipped a Larry Robinson shot behind John Vanbiesbrouck and set the stage for Patrick Roy's command performance.
The goal was typical of the very good, but understated...some would say underappreciated...player Smith was in his seven seasons as a Hab. In that Cup year, for example, he scored 31 goals and 86 points, but played second fiddle to Mats Naslund's 110 points. In 1988, Smith put up his best numbers in Montreal with 93 points, but the Habs lost out to Boston in the post-season and a great year was forgotten. The truth, though, is that Naslund would never have had his best season without Smith. And a player who was nearly a point-a-game through more than a thousand NHL games shouldn't be forgotten.
Bobby Smith arrived in Montreal in 1983, shortly after requesting a trade from the Minnesota North Stars. The Stars had hired a new coach with a different philosophy and Smith wanted a change of scenery. In this age of "Codes" and strange notions of what constitutes "respect," players are villified for asking to be traded. Smith thinks that's unfair.
"I used to always say it's the best job in the world except you spend too much time in the dentist chair and you don't get to choose where you live," he quips.
When he got the word that the trade to Montreal went through, the kid who grew up in nearby Ottawa was delighted.
"I can still remember the surreal feeling of my first practice with the Canadiens, and skating around and looking at my reflection with the CH on my chest in the glass," he recalls. "I always thought if you played baseball, you should play a few years with the Yankees, or football with the Dallas Cowboys. It's the same thing with the Canadiens. It was special in Montreal. I thought it was the centre of the hockey universe. Game night was a big special occasion. We played at about 107 percent of capacity most nights. There was a serious attitude there that was a surprise, even coming from a good team like Minnesota."
Smith says some of his most cherished hockey memories come from his time in Montreal, including what was, for him, the greatest moment of the 1986 Stanley Cup finals.
"No question. Being on the bench as the clock ticked down against Calgary. The score was 4-3 and the puck went across our blueline and you knew it was over. That was the moment. It wasn't clear until that moment that we were going to win the Stanley Cup, but I remember that moment very well," he says. He modestly neglects to mention that he was the one who scored the Cup-winning goal for the Habs, converting a Naslund feed about halfway through the third.
"For a point during my career,it was like that was a thing guys on other teams got to do," he continues. "For a while, the Islanders had three of the best six or seven players in the world and they kept winning. Then the OIlers seemed like they were going to win every year. It seemed that winning the Stanley Cup was something other teams did. Then all of a sudden, I was playing for the Montreal Canadiens and we weren't the best team in the league, as we may have been in '89, and we won."
Ah, yes. Eighty-nine. "The year that should have been" for many Canadiens fans who've never gotten over watching the best team in the league lose in the finals, while Lanny McDonald skated the Cup around Forum ice. Fortunately for Bobby Smith's peace of mind, however, he's able to put that loss in perspective.
"I played in 35 playoff series during my career. It's a tremendous accomplishment to win a playoff series," he explains. "It's far different from beating a team in the regular season, where you play a team on October 13, then you play them again on December 5. When you play against each other every second night and your team wins, that's a major accomplishment. Even at the end of a season, if you've won three playoff rounds and lost in the final, when the disappointment wears off, you say, hey, we won three playoff rounds. We're a good team."
The Canadiens were a good team in the '80s, and Bobby Smith was a big part of the club's success. Eventually, though, he decided it was time to move on. The Habs were bringing in younger centres and he could see a shrinking role in his future. He once again took control of his own hockey fate and asked for a trade back to Minnesota. He finished his last three years in the NHL back in the city where it all began. When the end came, he had no regrets.
"I was completely ready for it. I feel bad for the guys who leave and really have a tough adjustment," he muses. "Our final game was on a Sunday. I think I had a press conference on Tuesday. I was not a good player in my last year in the league, which made it a lot easier. I was a full-time student at the University of Minnesota and I did that for three years. So I never had a single day where I looked back and said, Oh, I wish I were still playing."
Of course, Bobby Smith and hockey have never been very far apart. The 1979 first-overall draft pick and Calder Trophy winner, who still holds the OHL single-season scoring record, is deeply involved in junior hockey. He's the majority owner of the QMJHL's Halifax Mooseheads, and spent the season just past behind the team's bench. Being Coach Smith wasn't something he'd envisioned for himself, but he says it was a valuable experience.
"I enjoyed it. I had a lot of experiences to pass on to those guys. I liked being around it all the time."
Even so, Smith has no desire to be a career coach. He's passed the reins in Halifax on to Dominique Ducharme, but will continue to be a hands-on owner with the Mooseheads. He lives in Arizona these days, where he moved when he took over as GM of the NHL's Coyotes after completing his B.S. and MBA degrees in 1996, but he makes several trips a year to catch his team in action and stay abreast of the daily details. He also keeps in touch with some old Habs teammates, including Mike McPhee who's now living in Halifax. The pair of them got together with the best and brightest of their former mates last year to talk about old times and celebrate the Canadiens' Centennial in Montreal.
On December 4, 2010, management invited the hundred players who contributed most to its century of success to come back for the big party. The official photo from the night shows Bobby Smith, the tallest guy in the back row, proudly wearing the CH one more time. He says the night was special, almost as though he never left.
"That's a bond that's always there, with those guys who you spend so much time with," Smith reminisces. "There are certain friends who you don't need a lot of time to reconnect very easily, so that hundredth anniversary was a lot of fun. If you're going to play a few years in the NHL, it's a treat to spend some of them in Montreal."
Smith says now he also received one of the best pieces of advice he ever got when he played for the Habs, but it didn't come from a coach or teammate. Even in the '80s, before the internet-fuelled obsessions of the new millenium, the Canadiens were the living competitive heartbeat of Montreal. Fans would gather outside the Forum before and after every practice and game, in the hope of making contact with their heroes. After one particularly bad night, Smith recalls being in no mood to greet the people who wanted to talk about what went wrong. His wife, Beth, caught his arm as they were about to walk out of the building.
"She said, these people will see you for two minutes and you will never see them again. If you make a bad impression, they'll remember that for the next twenty-five years," Smith laughs. "She was right."
Bobby Smith made very few bad impressions in his NHL career. While he remembers Montreal fondly, twenty-five years after he watched the clock tick down on a Habs Stanley Cup victory, Canadiens fans remember him with a smile as well.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Art of the Draw
There may, possibly, be a few things in the world closer than the Montreal/Boston playoff series this year. Henrik and Daniel Sedin are probably closer. So's John Tortorella's temper to the boiling point of mercury. Other than those examples, it's tough to think of anything that's been as neck-and-neck as that Habs/Bs series.
The stats show just how close it was, but if one team had a slight advantage in the numbers, it was actually the Canadiens. Each team scored 17 goals in the seven games. The Habs won the special-teams battle. They went 22.2% on the PP, while the Bruins failed to score. That gave the Canadiens a perfect 100% on the PK to Boston's 77.8%. The Bruins took more shots, with 243 versus the Habs' 229, although the Canadiens won the three games in which they were significantly outshot. In goal, Carey Price's .934 save percentage and 2.11 goals-against average beat out Tim Thomas' .926 and 2.25. The only area in which the Bruins had the clear upper hand was on faceoffs. They were 53.3% for the series, while the Habs were just 46.7% on the draw.
The numbers mightn't seem that far apart, but the experts, the guys who built their reputations as faceoff specialists, say there's a world of difference between the Bruins' success rate and that of the Canadiens. The NHL didn't publish official faceoff stats before 1998, but that year, at age 39, Guy Carbonneau was second in the league, winning 59.4% of his draws. He says the faceoff was important then, but it's even more so now.
"In the past, because there was more scoring, I think faceoffs weren't as important as they are now. Now it's huge," Carbonneau states. "Games are tighter. Teams are a lot more equal. Every little detail is important. You talk a lot more now about power play and penalty killing. It was important in the past, but not life and death. And now, because of the new rules on the power play, time of possession is really big. Every time you win the faceoff, you don't have to chase the puck."
Carbonneau says the importance of faceoffs increases exponentially when a team doesn't score many goals to begin with.
"For low-scoring teams, all these little things are really important. I know Jacques Martin is spending a lot of time on penalty killing and power plays and those areas of the game because they're not going to score four or five goals a game. They have to really work on those little things, and faceoffs are a huge part of it," he says.
And the man who captained the Canadiens to their last Stanley Cup takes it a step further. He thinks teams without really good faceoff men are hard-pressed to win at all.
"There were not a lot of specialists in the past. Doug Jarvis comes to mind as one of the best, and as one of the guys who kind of built a career on that. Now every team is looking for one of those guys," Carbonneau explains. And if you don't have one? "You better score a lot of goals. There's less faceoffs now than there used to be during a game, but because every power play starts in the opposing zone, you need to win the puck, especially during the playoffs when the games are even closer."
Carbonneau's observation is right on, statistically speaking. There were actually about ten thousand fewer faceoffs in the league this year than there were ten years ago, dropping from an average of 5381 per team to 4709 per team. That's where Carbonneau's anecdotal evidence separates from the numbers, though. The top ten teams on faceoffs ten years ago scored 68 more PP goals than the bottom ten teams. This year, the bottom ten teams on the draw actually scored 109 more PP goals than the top teams. When you figure in PP opportunities, the scoring percentages of the top ten faceoff teams are pretty comparable to those of the bottom ten. So it seems that winning the faceoff in the opposing zone to start the PP actually doesn't improve scoring that much.
The Canadiens supported that in their only playoff series this year. Tomas Plekanec was a disappointing 43.3% on faceoffs. Scott Gomez was even more dismal, at 40.7%. Jeff Halpern won 73% of his faceoffs, but he played in only four games and didn't take any draws on the PP. Yet, winning all those faceoffs didn't give the Bruins a great advantage overall.
What's interesting, however, is that while Plekanec's faceoff average was generally poor, on the PK he was over 50%, and he took almost all of the shorthanded draws for the Habs in the series. So, while the Bruins controlled the faceoff at even strength, the Candiens did so on the PK, which perhaps explains, at least in part, why the Bruins got shut out with the man advantage.
Tim Taylor took thousands of faceoffs in the NHL as well, and managed to keep his percentage in the mid-fifties most years. He actually ranks sixth in the league since the lockout. He agrees with Carbonneau's idea that a team must have a faceoff specialist if it's going to win. In his theory, however, it's more an overall team performance stat than just a special-teams one.
"Puck possession is what it's about. The best teams in the league do not give the puck up much. You win the draw, you possess the puck and now the other team is chasing you. There's a huge connection between good teams and the teams that win the most faceoffs," Taylor attests. "You have to have one guy who can win big. If you can't win faceoffs, you're giving the other team a huge advantage. If you're chasing the puck all night, statistics say it's going to be really hard to win. If you don't have that guy it's going to be tough to win in the playoffs."
The standings back up Taylor's belief. The top faceoff teams this season were Vancouver, San Jose and Detroit; first, fourth and fifth overall in the league respectively. Same thing in the playoffs. The four remaining teams are all among the seven that are above 50% on the draw.
Still, having one guy in the top-six who's above 50% on faceoffs might not be enough. There's still a need to add that type of guy on the third or fourth lines as well. Those lines are responsible for secondary scoring, and, just as importantly, preventing goals against. Winning faceoffs helps with both those lower-line tasks. The excellent statistics website Behind the Net has figured that in the first seven seconds after a face-off in your own end, you are 10 times more likely to be scored on if you lost the draw than if you won it. The number crunchers at Behind the Net also have concluded 10% of all goals are scored within twenty seconds of winning the draw. Those stats indicate that a team's ability to score...and prevent being scored upon...improves when it's good at faceoffs.
The numbers also show that the top ten teams in the league on faceoffs average three more wins than the bottom ten. They tend to give up fewer goals overall, score more at even strength and are better on the PK as well. Habs fan-extraordinaire Jason Weiss figured out that the top six teams (the top 20%) in the league were 6.12% better on faceoffs than the bottom six (the lower 20%) this year. They also average six more wins, which leads him to conclude that each percentage point of improvement on the draw equals an extra win. If you look at the Habs with that in mind, a team average of 53% rather than 49% would have meant four extra wins. That would have translated to 104 points and the division title.
Of course, faceoffs are just one part of a very complex game. It's one thing to win the faceoffs, but quite another to take advantage of that by scoring. Just looking at this season, the Florida Panthers were fourth in the league in faceoff percentage. However, their two top faceoff men, Marty Reasoner at 54.5% and Stephen Weiss at 53.9%, managed to score only 81 points between them. They were winning the draws, but couldn't do anything with the puck afterwards. Contrast that with Vancouver's league-leading 54.9% success rate on the draw, coupled with the scoring exploits of top faceoff men Ryan Kesler and Daniel Sedin (combined 177 points between them) and you can see the difference. That's why it's important for the players who have the best chance of scoring be able to win more draws.
In the Canadiens' case, their two top centres take nearly half of all the team's faceoffs. Scott Gomez and Tomas Plekanec combined for just 95 points, and neither of them were over 50% last year. This season, Gomez was at 48%. Plekanec was exactly 50%, although he was slightly below that on both PP and PK draws. He was also markedly better at home than he was on the road. That doesn't surprise Carbonneau.
"I still don't like that the home team has to put their sticks down second because ninety percent of the time they don't put their stick down. I think they made a big deal of it because they didn't want any cheating at first, but it's a lot different now," he says.
Taylor says that requirement for the road player to put his stick down first is directly responsible for most players having better percentages at home.
"Faceoffs are one of those intriguing areas of the game where you can really cheat, and the best cheater is often the best one at winning the faceoffs," he explains. "What I mean by that is the visiting team has to put his stick in first, so the home team puts his stick in last. So actually, when you put your stick in, you don't actually stop. You go in in one swoop right away and time it so the referee is dropping the puck at the same time you're putting your stick in, which means you have a big advantage at home."
Some players learn how to compensate. Plekanec, Carbonneau says, was actually better three years ago when he coached the young Czech. He says in Plekanec's case, opponents started complaining about his favourite cheat.
"Tomas has a different style," Carbonneau says. "Europeans go on their forehand a lot. Tomas uses not only his stick, but uses his skate a lot. That kind of pisses off a lot of the guys, and when you piss off the other side, they tell the linesmen. Once in a while, they forget about it and he does it because he's got really good timing, good instinct and good anticipation. I wouldn't say he cheats, but he's got great timing of when to bring that skate to make it really hard on the opposing centreman. Now they've found a way to get around it."
Carbonneau says if he studied slow-motion video of Plekanec's faceoffs, he'd probably be able to find something to help him improve. (This from the man who'd stay after practice and take draws against Plekanec, beating him and all the other Canadiens centres handily at nearly 50 years of age.) He thinks there's only so much you can teach when it comes to owning the draw, however. Some of it is practice, some of it's learned technique and a lot more is instinct. But, he says, the biggest factor is wanting it more than the other guy.
"To me, you can't win them all, but you can't lose them all either. If you have a tough night and you can't win them, at least try to tie them up. If you tie up the stick, then the puck is lying there and someone can come in and get it. Communication is important," he believes. "It's the difference between a guy who's 56% or one who's 49%. A lot of it is attitude, going in there and wanting to win it."
Taylor agrees the mental aspect of faceoffs is very important, and that's something that can be taught.
"You can teach the importance of it. As the years go on, you realize the importance," he says. "You're trying to establish one up on a person. If you beat a guy three times in the neutral zone, it doesn't mean a whole lot. But then you have a big, important draw in the defensive zone and you've got him thinking, 'He's beaten me three times so I'll have to do something different.' Now this guy's out of his comfort zone, and getting in someone's head is huge. Every faceoff you take from the start of the game to the end is important."
Taylor points to Carbonneau as an example of how a player can really hone his faceoff technique and make himself dominant, if he has the will and work ethic to do so.
"He concentrated on it. He wasn't a guy on a PP who was going to take a one-timer. He was a defensive guy who took a lot of defensive faceoffs and he took pride in it. It was something in the character of his game that kept him in the league as long as he was," he states.
That, then would indicate that Plekanec and Gomez should be able to improve on the draw. We know they can do it. Plekanec was 51% a few years ago, and has proven his ability to put in the extra work he needs to do in order to improve himself. Gomez was around 53% with the Rangers and Devils, and 51% in his first year as a Hab. His 48% this year may have been further evidence of his generally listless play this season. Taylor says it's possible for centres to improve if they want to. He thinks the wingers also have to buy in, if the team's average is to get better.
The player's role in working on the technique and concentrating on the importance of winning draws is unquestionable, but his relationship with the linesmen is also a factor. Taylor thinks it's the most important variable for a centre.
"I think the best cheat is getting to know the linesmen really well, and being friendly with them. It's hard for a linesman, as a human being, if you're nice to him all the time, for him to kick you out. But if you're always "Oh, what the hell is that?" and giving him grief, then it's easy for him to kick you out. If you're nice as can be to him, it's tougher for him to kick you out. Now, being nicer gets you a bit more of an advantage when you're about to take a faceoff," he laughs.
Carbonneau says Taylor's spot on with that observation.
"They're pretty fair and they won't try to screw you over, but they do have a say about which side they throw the puck. If you piss off the linesman game in and game out, not only are they going to kick you out, but they'll drop the puck on one side of the circle a little more often and nobody can tell the difference," he grins.
Whether it's through watching video, practicing technique or befriending the linesmen, the conclusion here is that the Canadiens need Plekanec and Gomez to improve on faceoffs. That's the most important thing they can do this summer. They've both been better in the past, and can conceivably get there again with some attention to detail. Backing them up, within the current roster of centremen, there's hope Lars Eller and David Desharnais can improve on their 42.5% and 49.7% respectively. Some of the top-ten faceoff men in the league have improved as they got more experience. Ryan Kesler, for example, was 46.1% in his rookie season and has improved every year to sit at 57.4% this season. Carbonneau says experience plays a big role in learning the habits of opponents as well as the tendencies of the linesmen, and that helps young players improve as they progress in the league.
If the younger Habs don't improve right away, the Canadiens need a solid player on the lower lines who's excellent on draws. Jeff Halpern was really strong this season, but there's a question about how long he can stay healthy. Coming up in this free agent season, Marty Reasoner is available. He's good for maybe a dozen goals a year from the bottom lines, and was 54.4% on the draw last year. Vernon Fiddler doesn't put up as many points, but he's a solid 53.9%. Zenon Konopka is fourth in the league, with an impressive 57.7%, but he only scored 9 points last year. He's tough as nails, which wouldn't go astray with the Canadiens, but there, again, is the conundrum of an ability to win draws with no ability to handle the puck when you do.
In the end, winning faceoffs brings with it a great many benefits for a team. Tim Taylor explains it best: "You have to be able to win faceoffs. You might think the difference between 49 and 52 isn't that big, but it is because those are scoring opportunities you're giving up."
The Canadiens loss in the playoffs this year is proof the team needs to improve its faceoff success. Without winning draws, the team is limited in its ability to take advantage of its scoring talent. The experts agree.
*Thanks to Guy Carbonneau and Tim Taylor for their input. Also thanks to Jason Weiss. Photo is of Ken Danby's 1997 work, "Face Off."
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Whatever You Do, Don't Say "Habs"
I'm waiting for the axe to fall, and I've got my legal defence all planned. The Habs are on the warpath, and have been for the last few months, stomping foes who dare defy their copyright.
So far, we know about the former Habs Inside/Out website being forced to change its name to "Hockey" Inside/Out. Then there's the schwarma restaurant in Montreal that got slapped with an $89-thousand fine for displaying a cartoon picture of the owner in a Canadiens' sweater on the outside of the building, with a "Go Habs Go" caption underneath. He got a warning letter from the league about copyright infringement and so he painted over the logo on the sweater. That wasn't enough for the Canadiens or the NHL, though, so they levied the fine, which totals a thousand dollars for each day the picture (now removed) was displayed.
It's an interesting tactic for a league dependent on the goodwill of fans to keep it afloat. On one hand, it's understandable that the NHL, which enters into sponsorship agreements with businesses and service providers for lots of dough, would want to protect the integrity of those agreements. After all, if Tim Horton's pays a hefty sum to be the official restaurant of the NHL, it's not really fair for other restaurants to give the impression through their advertising that they're affiliated in some way with the NHL or the Canadiens without paying.
On the other hand, the arbitrary nature of the fine in the restaurant's case raises an interesting question: When does displaying a slogan or team colours cross the line between showing fan pride and breaking copyright? According to the NHL, it seems to be when the person or business using the word "Habs" in its name or showing the colours on its restaurant wall has the potential to make money from the exercise, of which the league doesn't get a cut.
The NHL and the Canadiens are about business, of course, and they have to protect their bottom line. The problem is, they're a lot more than just a business. If Bell Canada or Via Rail sees another company using their logos or implying a relationship with their colours or slogans, there's an obvious copyright infringement. It's not likely the guy with the schwarma place in downtown Montreal would display a picture of himself riding a Via train or using a Bell phone to show his love of those companies.
The Canadiens inspire love, devotion and a fervent desire to show support for the team. They're an integral part of the history of Montreal and Quebec, and the fans who support them feel a sense of ownership toward them. After all, without the fans' adoration and the dollars that love inspires them to spend on tickets and merchandise, there would be no team. People need trains and phones. It can be argued they don't actually need professional hockey. It's particularly galling that the "Go Habs Go" slogan the NHL is fining people for using improperly was actually invented by the fans, who've been passionately shouting encouragement to their team for a hundred years.
It's a risky thing for the league to take that devotion and hang a cynic's label on it. The restaurant owner in question claims he was only showing support for his team. The NHL says he was illegally using the Habs logo, colours and slogan in a cold-hearted attempt to attract more business. In the big picture, though, what did the league gain by fining him? The move has made a great many hockey fans, who themselves wear the sweater, display banners at work and scream "Go Habs Go" at every opportunity, angry. They feel one of their own has been singled out and punished by the corporate machine of the league. The move seems a tad arrogant; a "there are always other fans to replace you if you don't like it" approach. Fans wonder where the crack-down will end.
In these cases, it's not as though the restaurant owner was claiming to be associated with the Habs or promising anything he shouldn't have. Similarly, it's not like the Montreal Gazette's hockey-themed web page was claiming to be anything more than a site where fans could gather to talk about hockey and get the latest news. In the latter case, especially, the cease-and-desist order was against a company offering a service appreciated by the fans who pay the team's bills.
The NHL and the Canadiens are legally entitled to take a hard line on enforcing their copyrights. (Although when the hell did they copyright "Habs" anyway? Seems to me the journalists who coined it and the fans who adopted it should have had some rights there.) Their choosing to exercise those rights in the way they have is really bad PR and, many fans feel, unnecessary. The Canadiens didn't lose anything in either of those cases, and in the case of the Gazette, they may actually have gained some new fans.
So, I'm waiting for the hammer to come down on my poor blog now. My legal defence is that I'm saying the "H" does NOT stand for Habs. If, one day, I get a letter from the Canadiens lawyers, I hope it stands up in court.
So far, we know about the former Habs Inside/Out website being forced to change its name to "Hockey" Inside/Out. Then there's the schwarma restaurant in Montreal that got slapped with an $89-thousand fine for displaying a cartoon picture of the owner in a Canadiens' sweater on the outside of the building, with a "Go Habs Go" caption underneath. He got a warning letter from the league about copyright infringement and so he painted over the logo on the sweater. That wasn't enough for the Canadiens or the NHL, though, so they levied the fine, which totals a thousand dollars for each day the picture (now removed) was displayed.
It's an interesting tactic for a league dependent on the goodwill of fans to keep it afloat. On one hand, it's understandable that the NHL, which enters into sponsorship agreements with businesses and service providers for lots of dough, would want to protect the integrity of those agreements. After all, if Tim Horton's pays a hefty sum to be the official restaurant of the NHL, it's not really fair for other restaurants to give the impression through their advertising that they're affiliated in some way with the NHL or the Canadiens without paying.
On the other hand, the arbitrary nature of the fine in the restaurant's case raises an interesting question: When does displaying a slogan or team colours cross the line between showing fan pride and breaking copyright? According to the NHL, it seems to be when the person or business using the word "Habs" in its name or showing the colours on its restaurant wall has the potential to make money from the exercise, of which the league doesn't get a cut.
The NHL and the Canadiens are about business, of course, and they have to protect their bottom line. The problem is, they're a lot more than just a business. If Bell Canada or Via Rail sees another company using their logos or implying a relationship with their colours or slogans, there's an obvious copyright infringement. It's not likely the guy with the schwarma place in downtown Montreal would display a picture of himself riding a Via train or using a Bell phone to show his love of those companies.
The Canadiens inspire love, devotion and a fervent desire to show support for the team. They're an integral part of the history of Montreal and Quebec, and the fans who support them feel a sense of ownership toward them. After all, without the fans' adoration and the dollars that love inspires them to spend on tickets and merchandise, there would be no team. People need trains and phones. It can be argued they don't actually need professional hockey. It's particularly galling that the "Go Habs Go" slogan the NHL is fining people for using improperly was actually invented by the fans, who've been passionately shouting encouragement to their team for a hundred years.
It's a risky thing for the league to take that devotion and hang a cynic's label on it. The restaurant owner in question claims he was only showing support for his team. The NHL says he was illegally using the Habs logo, colours and slogan in a cold-hearted attempt to attract more business. In the big picture, though, what did the league gain by fining him? The move has made a great many hockey fans, who themselves wear the sweater, display banners at work and scream "Go Habs Go" at every opportunity, angry. They feel one of their own has been singled out and punished by the corporate machine of the league. The move seems a tad arrogant; a "there are always other fans to replace you if you don't like it" approach. Fans wonder where the crack-down will end.
In these cases, it's not as though the restaurant owner was claiming to be associated with the Habs or promising anything he shouldn't have. Similarly, it's not like the Montreal Gazette's hockey-themed web page was claiming to be anything more than a site where fans could gather to talk about hockey and get the latest news. In the latter case, especially, the cease-and-desist order was against a company offering a service appreciated by the fans who pay the team's bills.
The NHL and the Canadiens are legally entitled to take a hard line on enforcing their copyrights. (Although when the hell did they copyright "Habs" anyway? Seems to me the journalists who coined it and the fans who adopted it should have had some rights there.) Their choosing to exercise those rights in the way they have is really bad PR and, many fans feel, unnecessary. The Canadiens didn't lose anything in either of those cases, and in the case of the Gazette, they may actually have gained some new fans.
So, I'm waiting for the hammer to come down on my poor blog now. My legal defence is that I'm saying the "H" does NOT stand for Habs. If, one day, I get a letter from the Canadiens lawyers, I hope it stands up in court.
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