Mike Chen’s Hockey Blog

Ok, NHL (and you too, NHLPA), you’ve put on a nice classy press conference with all the right people saying all the right things. Lots of stuff about the history of the Red Wings/Blackhawks rivalry and the resurgence of the Hawks and the uniqueness that is Wrigley Field.

Awesome, ok? I admit it. I’m stoked, and not just cause I grew up a Hawks fan. It’s going to be a great event and quite a spectacle.

Now please, stop doing this, at least for one season. Before the Winter Classic loses all of its novelty, please, please, please do not milk this cow absolutely dry.

I know Gary Bettman understands that concern. He’s said so before on his XM radio show but I don’t want whether or not Winter Classic 3 happens to be based solely on gate revenue and TV ratings. The outdoor game is a thing of beauty, and it should be treasured and handled carefully. Want to ride the momentum of Buffalo into a second consecutive season? Ok, fine. But after that, please handle with extreme caution.

I think every other season is fine. Gives us enough time to miss it but also gives it a frequency that allows a variety of teams to play in it. Every two years still allows it to special but not so common that Johnny TV Viewer will flip by it and go, “Eh.”

Rumors are already flying for Yankee Stadium 2010 (You know, it wasn’t that long ago that 2010 seemed like a super-futuristic date where we’d have flying cars and teleportation. See this old Nintendo example.) and I gotta think I wouldn’t be the only person who may be iffy on having that game be Must See. I mean, I can’t travel forward in time and let you know specifically what I’d be thinking, but I watched every second of the Winter Classic, including pre- and post-game coverage because it was so unique. I’ll watch Wrigley Field because I have a connection to the Hawks and it’s going to be a cool site. But a third go-around, it loses just a tiny bit of its luster, and even just a little ebbing away at the special quality of the Winter Classic means that you’ve dipped into that well too many times.

Keep the Winter Classic, ‘k? Just don’t do it every damn year. Yankee Stadium 2011 is fine with me.

Tampa Bay hasn’t signed anyone in a few days so we must be hitting the slow part of the summer. This is where the silly stuff comes about as I try to fill up the blog with stuff that’s a little off the beaten path.

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ll know from the number of Morrissey references that I’m a pretty big music snob geek. That being said, my indie rock obsession hardly ever gets to Clash with my hockey obsession since arenas tend to stick with hair metal, pop, and mainstream metal. So here’s my chance to play arena DJ for a day — it’s just too bad I don’t have the hockey visuals to go with it. If you know these songs, just try to think about them in a slightly different way. If you’ve never heard these before, well, give them a shot. I think you can make indie rock work with sports; it’s just that not enough people know about it. Picture your favorite hockey highlights with these songs in the background.

And for you fellow indie rockers, I’m not playing any of my softer favorites like Belle & Sebastian, Tanya Donelly, or Vampire Weekend. Some stuff just won’t work.

The Pixies: Debaser

I always thought that Debaser would be a kick-ass nickname for a really effective third line, one of those lines that combines grit, speed, and just enough scoring touch to have some 15-20 goal seasons while checking the hell out the opponent. Give it a listen.

Ladytron: Destroy Everything You Touch

I’m guessing a certain segment of sports fans will instantly hate this idea because 1) it’s a female lead singer and 2) it’s primarily electronic rather than pounding guitars. For those of you willing to give it a shot, it’s got a great menacing (as electro-pop songs go) beat and catchy melody — a perfect way to synth to some highlights of big hits. They’re also dynamite in concert, and I have to admit a little crush on keyboard player/singer Mira Aroyo — she’s cute, European, has a PhD, and she rocks!

Muse: Knights of Cydonia

Muse has had a bit of mainstream success, especially in the UK where they’re on of England’s biggest bands. This song already has a kick-ass video but I think it’d be a great pre-game song to rev the crowd up. Just picture your usual pre-game festivities set to this. I think it’d also be great for the pre-overtime intermission.

Bloc Party: Like Eating Glass

Bloc Party’s got one of the best rhythm sections in rock today and this song epitomizes just how much they kick ass. I’d say it could go perfect with any mix of hits, saves, and goals.

The Smiths: Sweet & Tender Hooligans
(Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an actual full version of this song online. Most of the YouTube clips are of the Smiths cover band of the same name. Here’s a 30-second clip of the actual song.

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands, I think the title kinda sums up how a lot of NHL enforcers are. After all, as tough as they are on the ice, they’re often great community people and extremely nice to fans despite the fact that they’re designated ass-kickers on the ice. Case in point: look at how beloved Georges Laroque was in Edmonton. This song would work great as the background for a montage of a team’s enforcer, including some sappy community outreach clips.

Jarvis Cocker: Running The World

This isn’t a hockey anthem in that it can be applied to highlights, but if you listen to the lyrics — the chorus in particular — you can apply the sentiment to anyone in hockey management that you dislike: Gary Bettman, your team’s owner or GM, the entire NHLPA braintrust, etc. It’s a great singalong song, especially when you see Jarvis in one of his rare live performances.Fun fact: At his show last year in San Francisco, Jarvis gave my wife a bottle of Anchor Steam beer. It’s proudly displayed on our home’s mini-bar.

Got any other indie faves that might make for great hockey songs? Leave your ideas in the comments (all three of you that know what I’m talking about).

Found this goofing around on YouTube…here’s five minutes to show why JR became my favorite player as a kid.

Update: Testing post code because YouTube jacks up my format.

Just saw this via Kukla (original on TampaBay10):

Well, obviously an extension is a sign that Mike Smith is about to be traded and the freed-up cap space will be used to sign another forward who will also double as Olaf Kolzig’s backup (get those pads on and practice!). Also just announced, Kolzig will be asked to skate the every second period as a rover in full goalie gear. You know, to jump-start the offensive rush while scrambling back to cover the net when necessary.

It’s hard to miss any Tampa Bay Lightning news lately since the Bolts seem to make at least one move a day. I think we all figured that Jay Feaster was going to be a lame-duck GM but you’d think they’d at least try to maintain some facade over what’s going on. Since the Koules/Barrie superteam took over, nearly all of the press releases regarding player movement have been announced by one of them or new executive something-or-other Brian Lawton.

Check it out:

PR for Mark Recchi

PR for the Dan Boyle trade

PR for Radim Vrbata

PR for Olaf Kolzig

PR for Vaclav Prospal

I’m not sure what Feaster is doing these days but there’s a good chance he’s collecting a nice check while sitting in an air-conditioned office watching reruns of The Surreal Life on Tivo rather than calling GMs and dealing with the league.

In the coming days, many critics of Gary Bettman will point to the skyrocketing price tags that free agents have commanded and say, “What was the lockout for?”

Bettman, Bill Daly, and others towing the company line will say, “The revenues allow this to happen.”

Me? I’m looking at the general managers and saying, “You’re pretty much all nuts. And stupid. And forgetful. And filled with wishful thinking.” But it’s not because I thought someone like Brian Campbell wouldn’t get 7-some million smackers per season. If you look at how free agency escalates every year, the top guys always get about 5-10% more than the previous year’s top guys. That’s happened before the CBA and that’s happened after the CBA. The top guys aren’t really the ones pushing the NHL further into financial insanity. It’s the mid-level and low-level players. And that’s the one thing I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out.

Unlike Brian Burke, I don’t blame Kevin Lowe for every atrocity known to humanity. In terms of awful hockey salaries, though, some weird stuff has really been happening over the past few seasons. When mediocre players — 3rd-line checkers, 5th or 6th defensemen — start getting multi-million dollar deals, something very, very wrong is happening. Sometimes, it’s so absurd that it’s funny. Case in point: last year, when Darryl Sutter wrote the wrong number in his checkbook and gave Cory Sarich a too-long deal with an average of $3.6 million per season, well, I had a good chuckle.

The problem is that every time one of these chuckle-inducing deals comes along, we may laugh but agents and players start drooling. If Cory Sarich is worth $3.6 million, then someone like Mike Commodore sure as hell is too — right?

No. Sweet jumping jebus, no. No offense to Sarich and Commodore — they’re both steady players and I’m sure they’re nice people that are kind to their families and good to their pets, but come on, that’s just stupid. And that’s the thing — the GMs know that it’s stupid, but they partake in it anyway. It’s like sticking a recovering alcoholic at a frat party and hoping that he’ll do the right thing.

If there’s one lesson the GMs need to learn, it’s that you don’t have to buy something just because it’s for sale. And that’s where I really don’t get things. It seems like free agency is always utterly insane over the first two days, but then it calms down and some reasonable deals are made. This season, after the stupidity of the first two days, Markus Naslund signed for $4 million and Miroslav Satan signed for $3.5 million. Considering that it’s fairly reasonable to believe that these two guys could still pop in at least 30 goals, it’s not a bad deal. On the other hand, you have Jeff Finger — Jeff Freakin’ Finger — pulling in the same amount even though he’s only got about a year and a half of NHL experience on the blueline. When did Bryce Salvadore — another 4/5/6-level d-man — become a $3 million guy? Mike Commodore might be a decent stay-at-home defenseman with a Stanley Cup ring but does he really bring more to the table than Joe Blueliner making $1.5 million?

It’s all about names and opportunity, really. The GMs see the names, they think about the opportunity, and they think that it’ll be a great idea, so mid-level players get stupid contracts. Then next year, more mid-level players point to those contracts and they get better stupid contracts and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

It used to be you’d get either term or price but now it seems like even middle-of-the-road players get both, and there’s no logic to it. It’s not just young guys getting paid for potential, it’s older guys getting paid for what they’ve done. Some get more, some get less, but there’s no real sensibility to it all.

The theory going into this CBA was that with more players available due to lower free-agency ages, inflation would be kept down because there was more supply than demand. If a team didn’t get player A, they’d just move to player B, and this abundance of supply would keep prices down.

Well, the problem is you need a rational system in order to employ a model like that. Unfortunately, NHL GMs don’t work rationally. This supposedly idiot-proof system theoretically provided enough checks and balances to keep things sane, but when you have 25 or so GMs working stupidly, nothing — other than a gun to the head and a chastity belt on the wallet — will keep things sane.

It’s understandable to want to buy the best players out there but at what price? When does the absurd become the downright ass-backwards stupid?

Well, I guess the answer is now. My only hope is that this is all cyclical. GMs will hopefully see that spending whoppers on big-name and mid-name and little-name free agents isn’t really getting it done, so they’ll collectively take a deep breath and chill the hell out for a few summers. But that won’t happen because there will always be a desperate team willing to overpay a ridiculous amount of money (Ron Hainsey at nearly $5 million per season, anyone?), thus setting the marketplace.

I don’t know where this is going but it sure ain’t good. And you know what the really funny thing is? None of this would have ever happened if the Canadian dollar hadn’t gotten so strong against the US dollar, thus driving up revenues and artificially inflating the cap value. Don’t forget, it wasn’t too long ago that fans in Edmonton and Ottawa were bemoaning the weak Canadian dollar and worrying about how their small-market teams could afford a full roster. Oh, the irony of it all.

I’m reserving comments on the whole free-agent idiocy until the second day finishes so that we get the remaining chips (hopefully) off the table. So far, though, what a bunch of freakin’ morons (the GMs, not the players).

What a difference an afternoon makes.

This morning, SJ Mercury beat writer David Pollack posted that he had talked directly with Larry Kelly, agent to Brian Campbell. Kelly stated that the Sharks were still very much in the running but a family issue was tugging Campbell in two directions. This seemed to confirm earlier reports from various sources that Campbell had an ill family member, though nothing’s been mentioned officially. Cue the violins as sympathy and understanding comes from Sharks fandom.

Later this afternoon, word came down from Campbell himself:

Now, it seems like Sharks fandom has reacted pretty negatively to this quote, in essence calling Campbell a mama’s boy and telling him to be a professional. Look, it could be the case where Campbell’s family just wants him on the east coast so they can go to more of his games, or it could be that there’s someone in the family who he’s close to that’s ill and Campbell wants said person to be able to see some of his games. We don’t know. To judge one quote like that without knowing someone’s complete private matters makes it all kinda harsh and silly.

Put it this way: Let’s pretend we found out that, say (and this is totally made up just to show an example), Campbell’s uncle who drove him to hockey practices when he was a kid had cancer and one of his joys is watching his favorite nephew skate live. Wouldn’t that fall in line with what Campbell said while also maintaining the privacy of his family’s situation? And then we’d all feel like a bunch of jerks for judging him, wouldn’t we?

We’ll all know in a few days, but the bottom line is that Campbell has publicly stated that he loved his Sharks teammates, the city, and the organization. The Sharks are in the running, he’s just gotta figure it out. And until it turns out that he really IS being a wussy mama’s boy, I’m not gonna judge the guy.

As the rumor mill continues to swirl around the usual suspects, there’s rumblings (for better or worse) that the Chicago Blackhawks will make mad dashes at Marian Hossa and Brian Campbell (should Campbell make it to UFA status). The number being thrown around is $8 million for each dude, which means that they’ll each be able to buy 16 million tacos at Jack in the Box per season.

Is this a wise move? Let’s consider the current Hawks cap status courtesy of NHLnumbers.com. Even though the Hawks have about $36 million in salary tied up for next season (and that’s without a few utility players signed), you have to remember that bonuses count in the NHL’s cap system. So while Patrick Kane is technically on the books for $875k, he’s actually producing a cap hit of close to $4 million.

Overall, the Hawks have a total cap hit of about $45 million, so they’ve got about $10 million to play with. It doesn’t sound like they’ll be buying out Robert Lang or Martin Havlat (both with one year left on their respective deals), and they’ve got no real goaltending option other than sticking with Nikolai Khabibulin.

In other words, it’ll pretty much be impossible without some movement to sign both Campbell and Hossa. Now, maybe they’re thinking that they’ll try their best to buy both of their services, but since each player will have so many suitors, they’re banking on getting on at best. If, by some miracle, they land both, I’m assuming they’d start a chain reaction of creative roster movement.

And contrary to the opinion of this Daily Herald writer, you can’t backload contracts to work around the cap under this CBA. Cap hits are calculated by an average salary over the life of the contract; the only thing affected by the way the contract is structured is the amount you have to pay to buy someone out.
If the Hawks do try to pull that off though, I’m questioning the logic behind it. Looking at a long-term perspective, you’ve got Kane, Toews, Cam Barker, and Duncan Keith all hitting RFA status in the next 1-2 years. By then, Havlat and Lang will be off the books (and who knows what will happen with Khabibulin), but the combined salary raises–we’re looking at cap increases of anywhere from $2 million to $5 million for each guy–plus potential salary for Hossa and/or Campbell over long-term deals and you’ve got a messy situation.

Personally, I don’t know why the Hawks would want to target either guy. They’re still rebuilding, and it could be another two seasons before they return to the playoffs. Why invest in players that are approaching the wrong side of 30 to big long-term deals when the core of the team is still in their early 20s? I’d think it’d make more sense to try and get mid-level support players this season, then look at making a bigger splash NEXT summer when Lang and Havlat are gone and the team’s gone through another year of maturation.

While many people out in the hockey world (including a bunch of the Bolts fans I know) think that Barry Melrose will be huge gigantic mega-disaster behind the Tampa Bay bench, I’m not totally convinced that it’s really as bad as some people think it is. Yes, he’s been out of the game for a very long time, but he at least has been in a place where he can objectively observe the game change.

There’s no doubt that the game is very different now than it was when Melrose was last behind the bench. However, I think he’s surrounded himself with an interesting crew to help him with the transition:

-Cap Raeder: Here’s an experienced guy that’s been involved with coaching and scouting for a long, long, long time now. He’s also a former assistant with Melrose in LA.
-Rick Tocchet: All gambling jokes aside, word out of Phoenix was that Tocchet was an excellent assistant coach for Wayne Gretzky. Tocchet’s hard-nosed playing style translated into a keen observation of the ice and a good rapport with players.
-Wes Walz: Getting someone straight out of their playing career might be good or bad, but I think it’s good in this case. Since Melrose is primarily considered a motivator rather than an X’s and O’s kind of guy, someone like Walz who’s just leaving the battlefield under an extremely tight Jacques Lemaire system might be a good liason between Melrose’s old NHL and the new NHL.

Let’s not forget that up front, the Lightning should still be one of the most talented squads up there. Assume that Steve Stamkos has a reasonable rookie season and puts up, say, 55-60 points as a second-line center. The top line of Vinnie Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, and Vaclav Prospal will be reunited, and they were one of the top groups in the whole league last season.

Who will Stamkos play with? We won’t know until well into the free agency period as the Bolts plan to be “aggressive” during free agency. The real trouble spot will (again) be the Tampa defense and goaltending. I’d think it’d make sense to get a veteran like Olaf Kolzig to share the net with Mike Smith as Smith tries his hand at being a #1 (which, by all accounts, everyone in the Dallas organization thought he was). As for the defense, well, that’s where things could get really tricky. Dan Boyle and Paul Ranger aren’t exactly the second coming of Scott Stevens, and the Lightning had a tendency to make turnovers that led to bad goals.

Coaching can make a team defensive. However, I doubt that’ll be the case with this group of coaches. Some real steady anchors will have to come to Tampa Bay to help stabilize the defense.

Still, it’s not a recipe for total disaster. If they make a smart move and Melrose still has his motivational chops, this team may surprise. If they solve the defense/goaltending issue and get something that’s good, not spectacular, they should have enough up-front talent alone to at least compete for the 6/7/8 spot.

So I’m not setting any mullets on fire yet. Wait till you see what’s assembled in free agency, then see if the team appears to be gelling defensively over the first few weeks of the season before passing judgment.