by Jes

Joe Pelletier, the Legends of Hockey Blogger, is asking for input on the Top 36 Hockey Players of all time.

Now, I can barely rank my favourite Spice Girls, let along hockey players, but I can provide SOME input. Perhaps some of you can as well, so leave comments here or over at Joe's site.

Here is a sample list he provides ...
"

1. The Pantheon - Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr. One could make a good case for any one of these gentlemen to be in the #1 spot, but nobody comes close to these three players.

2. Gordie Howe - Mr. Hockey is a definite #4. Longevity, dominance, and forever changing the way the game was played by introducing the Power Forward concept.

3. Tretiak and Kharlamov are out. The only evidence we have is the games they played on a loaded 'amateur' Russian team against the rest of the world. I realize that this list doesn't have to be exclusively NHL players, but I don't believe there is sufficient evidence to show that these two belong. If we are to add Russians, I'd be more comfortable with the likes of Fetisov and Larionov (Though he is far from the Top 36 of all-time).

4. The list will be skewed towards the current generation. Not only do we have more familiarity with the players of the past 20 years, but the NHL, and hockey world-wide, has expanded over the past 2-3 decades. There are simply a lot more skilled players to choose from.

5. Rank the positions first, and then combine them. If you think Patrick Roy is a better goalie than John Vanbiesbrouck, than Roy shouldn't be behind the Beezer in your master list.

6. I can scratch off a few players easily from the list above: Chris Chelios (good, but not nearly one of the elite), Ted Lindsay (great support player, but not one of the very best), and Bob Clarke, who is notorious and nefarious, but not at all elite.

7. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. If you make a Top 10 or top list of anything, you better not have any doubts about something belonging there. If you feel that Brett Hull shouldn't be there, automatically scratch him off.

8. Ranking the goalies first, I'd go with Hasek, Plante, Roy, Dryden, Hall, Brodeur, and Bill Durnan.

9. Defenseman? Orr, Bourque, Lidstrom, Harvey, Potvin, Coffey, MacInnis, Stevens, and Red Kelly.

10. Forwards? That's a bit too busy for me, but I would consider Bryan Trottier and Pavol Demitra ;)

Once that is done, start combining and formulating your lists. Everyone has their own opinion, so hardly anyone will agree on the same list of players.

Labels: Hall of Fame, opinion

by Jes

I am sure that I wasn't the only hockey fan that was filled with glee over this NBA/Donaghy/Point-shaving scandal. In case you haven't heard, some dumb ref called a lot of fouls to affect the scores of certain games, all to help some bookies make money on betting on games.

Of course, now the NBA is under an intense firestorm of criticism and backlash that it wants no part of. Whoever said that no publicity could ever be bad would obviously be wrong about this situation. The NBA has taken a Brad May shot to the head that it may take years to recover from.

Now that the very integrity of NBA games is at stake (Does anyone seriously believe that only one ref was doing this?), and the NFL is under fire for Michael Vick's dog-fighting activities and crime culture, and the MLB has this whole Barry Bonds/steroids cloud over its head, this is the perfect time for the NHL to capitalize on the misfortune of these other leagues.

For years and years, we know the NHL has been dumped on by the American mainstream media for being violent, irrelevant, etc etc etc... With all of the 'bad news' being reported these days, the worst thing that NHL has against it is the Staal brothers getting a bit too jolly at a bachelor party.
(No, Mirtle, most people don't give a rat's ass about Operation Slapshot. The media might, the league might, but fans do not)

Of course, this NBA scandal will lead to the question of how above-the-level the NHL refs are. Over at The FanHouse, I have an in-depth look at why it would be near-impossible for the NHL to ever face this kind of scandal.

The NHL has worked very hard to improve and standardize their officiating. As much as we might want to wring the neck of Kerry Fraser, we can be assured that an NHL game would never be fixed in quite this matter without it being discovered.

With the other leagues reeling in bad publicity, I'd like to see the NHL capitalize. How? I'm not sure, but promoting the integrity of its referees, the players, and the sport would be a good start. Hell, even a TV commercial where the refs are like "Unlike certain other leagues, we don't believe in fixing games" would be a huge slap to the face of the NHL and totally get the NHL some much-needed attention.

I just hope that all of this darkness in the sports world doesn't negatively affect the NHL as a side effect. If people get turned off of sports, on a mass scale, it could affect the NHL if people just decide to ignore pro sport altogether.

So, NHL, now is the time to rise above the sludge and come out like a white dove.

Labels: gambling, gossip, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, opinion, referees

by Jes





Back on January 29th), I blogged about Markus Naslund's struggles offensively. For whatever reason (missing Bertuzzi, injury, etc), Naslund was far from Vancouver's best offensive weapon, despite the fact he's being paid a superstar's salary.

At the time of the post, Naslund was on a bit of a hot streak and looked to be out of the funk.

For the next 2-3 weeks after that post, Naslund started firing the puck more, playing with a bit more life, and was piling up the points fairly consistently. It looked like we had more of the old Naslund back. Sure, he wasn't the scary-good sniper we'd come to know and love, but we were happy to get about a point a game out of the guy.

Unfortunately, Naslund has fallen back into a funk that's even worse than any point in his Canucks career. In the last 8 games, Naslund has just 1 lone assist, and has developed no chemistry with newly acquired Bryan Smolinski nor Jan Useless. During last night's 5-4 shootout loss to the Crapalanche, Joe Sakic was a man on the mission while Naslund just stood there and watched. It was a great example of where Naslund's head is right about now.

Looking month-by-month:

MONTH     GP G A Pts +/- PIM PPG PPA SOG S/G
October   13 6 5 11   4  10   3   1  37  2.85
November  13 6 2  8   0  10   1   1  54  4.15
December  13 0 8  8  -2  12   0   4  21  1.62
January   12 3 9 12   0   6   1   6  24  2.00
February  12 5 7 12   1   2   3   4  39  3.25
March     12 2 2  4  -1   6   0   0  27  2.25

Somehow, Naslund managed to do quite well in January despite not shooting the puck much at all. February looked like Naslund had perhaps recovered from his shoulder problems, as he was firing the puck on the net a whole lot more.

In March, Naslund's shots on goal has dropped off again, and he hasn't produced a single Power Play point! It's gotten so bad that coach Alain Vigneault actually took Naslund off of the Power Play completely for a brief spell.

The Canucks awesomeness in the standings has really masked Naslund's poor offensive output and hardly anyone outside, or even inside, of our little section of the globe has noticed. I'm just worried that Naslund won't be there when the playoffs start. As good as the Sedinbots are, they can't do EVERYTHING.

At this point, it looks like Naslund will have to be traded in the off-season. There is no way that the Canucks can justify spending $6mil a year on a guy who's been relegated to a 2nd line offensive threat. Yes, his defensive play has improved quite a bit, but we're paying him to be an offensive star, not a Mike Sillinger clone.

---

On a more positive note, congratulations to Henrik Sedin for breaking Andre Boudrias' 30-year old record for assists in a season (62) for a Canucks player. With 3 assists in last night's game, Henrik now has 63 on the season and a few more games to pad his new record.

Labels: Canucks, Canucks team record, Henrik Sedin, Naslund, opinion

By Jes

Terry "My brains are" Frei of the Denver Post, who also writes for ESPN (which gives you an idea of how much he knows about the game), thinks the NHL ought to expand further.

ORLY?

Article Linkage:

Sorry, but I'm about to use a word many consider an obscenity.

Expansion. (Jes: Maybe in Utah, where alcohol is considered a deadly sin)

In the wake of the arena deal in Pittsburgh that comes after years of maneuvering and bluffing, the Penguins seem destined to remain in western Pennsylvania.

Kansas City, with a new downtown arena operated by the Anschutz Entertainment Group about to open, probably won't land the Penguins. Neither will Las Vegas, Houston, Oklahoma City, Portland, Ore., or Hamilton, Ontario.

Here's what the NHL should do: Award expansion franchises to two of those cities for 2008-09.

All things equal, my choices would be: a) Kansas City, which benefits from having a new arena and no NBA competition; and, b) Portland, which has a deep hockey tradition with the minor-league Buckaroos and major-junior Winter Hawks, and has become disenchanted with the Trail Blazers.

Having a new arena means diddly squat if the fans don't attend. Florida got a nice new area, as did the Predators, but the fans simply don't care enough about hockey to support those two franchises strongly.

Portland is a good junior hockey town, and has always been mentioned as a good NHL destination, but what makes Frei think NHL hockey would necessarily work down there? Does Portland have the corporate base to support an NHL team? If not, it would be Nashville II.

Of course, technically it would dilute the talent pool, but it's funny how the folks who whine about that possibility the most long for the days when the NHL virtually was a Canadian, or at least a North American, closed shop. The internationalization of that talent pool - the same thing has happened in baseball and basketball - has changed that picture. Plus, the expansion of NHL jobs by roughly 6 percent isn't going to make that much of a difference.

Mr. Frei obviously thinks all fans who hate expansion are Canadian blowhards like Cherry that would like to see the league free of those damn Euros.

Umm, no, but I would like a league where a guy like Alex Burrows doesn't have a regular job (Yes, Burrows works his ass off, but his talent level is non-existent at the NHL level. Just watch him try to handle the puck some time). The NHL's talent pool has already been quite diluted, and another two teams means even less stellar players to spread around.

The NHL doesn't get enough credit for this, but for all the carping from its dinosaurs, the league was ahead of the NBA in opening its doors to Europeans, and unforgettable competitions such as the Summit Series between the Soviet Union and Canada set the stage. Swedes and Finns came and then the defecting Eastern Europeans, such as the Stastny brothers and Alex Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov, before the Iron Curtain fell, the Soviet bloc crumbled and nations such as the Baltics and Slovakia were reborn.

1. Since when is 'the Baltics' a nation? Slovakia is a country, yes, but The Baltics? Umm, there are quite a few Baltic nations, such as Lithuania and Latvia, which have very little in common with each other. I guess this is what passes for geography in Colorado.

2. The NBA has only RECENTLY delved heavily into the European pool, whereas the NHL jumped in quite deep in the Early 1990s. Europe has been mined of talent for the NHL, and there isn't exactly a large pool of quality NHLers-in-waiting over in Europe.

Anyway, Frei does a horrible job of trying to connect the NBA to the NHL, without realizing that the NHL has a handful of struggling franchises and doesn't need more. A better solution would be to move some of the worst franchises into stronger markets, rather than dilute the talent pool further and create even more weaker franchises that have to be supported with revenues from the strong Canadian clubs. This would also, perhaps, prevent us with being subjected to poor sports opinions from the likes of Terry Frei.

Labels: expansion, mainstream mediots, NHL, opinion, Terry Frei

by Jes

Perhaps we should call it 'uncommon sense', since most people don't seem to possess common sense.

Yes, the NHL, once again, did the WRONG thing and rejected a 3-point system for games.

As it stands right now, not every NHL game is equal. Some games give 2 points to a clear-cut winner, while others give out 3 points (2 to the OT/SO winner and the other to the loser).

It seems like a simple problem to fix...
3 points for a regulation win
2 points for a OT/SO win
1 point for a OT loss

Voila!! Every game is worth 3 points.

Yet, the NHL GMs spout of their usual brand of krap:

"Because it's a terrible idea," Anaheim general manager Brian Burke said Wednesday as three days of GM meetings wrapped up. "That's why it didn't have any support."

Terrible idea??? This is coming from the guy who wants Power Plays to be just a minute long in OT?? C'mon Burkie, you ought to be smarter than this!

Colin Campbell, the NHL's director of hockey operations, says the game needs a breather from the constant change.

"It's time to establish continuity, you can't keep making changes," he said. "Let' s not confuse the fans."
...
Said Burke: "We made some radical changes when we came back from the work stoppage. The game is faster, the game is better, and the game is more entertaining. If something ain't broke, there's no reason to try and fix it."
...
"I think we've had too much change of late," said New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello. "It's a good game, let's enjoy it."

Oh, I see. The NHL has been going spastic with major changes (That nobody asked for) for years, and suddenly now Jean-Luc Picard says "The line must be drawn HERE!"

What a crock!

If you have something that is 'broken', you damn well fix it!!
The trapezoids?? What the hell was that for? THAT was a useless change.

Fixing the current system of standings madness is something that needs to be done, lest the NHL wants to look like the biggest joke in North Amerikan sports. YEah, the fans are just going to be SO confused. How could they ever figure out a new set of standings... trust me, fans can remember exactly how many beers they had at a Ducks/Kings back in 2003, and they can certainly learn a new set of standings (which are less confusing than the dreck they use now).

It's just amazing how the NHL has ever succeeded given the headless chickens running the operation.

---

Edit: Hockey Analysis presents a very simple, but thought-provoking analysis of the current point scheme vs. the old point scheme vs. the 3-point scheme.

Labels: bettman, Brian Burke, NHL, opinion, rants, rules

by Jes

It happens most every season without fail: The refs crack down hard on obstruction early in the season, and then let up later in the season, claiming the 'players are adjusting'.

Last season, such adjustment was not so pronounced, but now the media and some fans are starting to wonder if we're slowly, and surely, crawling back to the 'dark ages' of hooking, holding, and water skiing.

From John MacKinnon, The Edmonton Journal:

Wasn't the crackdown on obstruction supposed to let the speed and skill flow freely in the New NHL? As a byproduct, it cut fighting almost in half last season. This year, turning the tough guy loose is re-emerging as the way to provide some space for the skill players, just like the good old days.

Much has been made of the liberties taken with the league-leading scorer, Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby. But, curiously, Penguins GM Ray Shero is not among the posse who want to change the instigator rule.

While Sidney Crosby does get a lot of attention, he also brings a lot on himself by the style he plays. I can't say he gets an undue amount of 'love' from the likes of Derian Hatcher.

At least one head coach, Buffalo's Lindy Ruff, sounded alarm bells during the all-star break about what he perceives as the rising level of unpenalized obstruction fouls. Rather than echo his concern, other coaches have voiced the view that so-called "soft penalties" be overlooked, or at least called less rigorously. Tilting back in the direction of the old-fashioned situation ethics of the past, in other words.

This is not something I've watched closely over the past few months, but I have noticed that a few 'borderline' incidents are not being called as penalties, while they likely would have been last season.

Are we crawling back to the dark ages? I'd like some of your thoughts and maybe somebody has some numbers to suggest, one way or another, what the standard of obstruction really is. I hate chinsy penalties, but I'd also hate to see a return to the good times for the sloths like Derian Hatcher and Brendan Witt.

Labels: Crosby, NHL, obstruction, opinion, rules

Now that we're 2/3rd done the season, I feel the need to analyze some of the goaltenders in the league as we head into the stretch run.

Martin Brodeur - (55GP 35-15-5, 2.07GAA, 92.7%)

I've been oft-critical of Martin Brodeur, the goaltender with the golden horseshoe up his arse. While he has always piled up the big win totals and made the most out of great situations, he's rarely ever been among the true top 3 in the league in any one season. He's got a nice Vezina replica on his trophy shelf, but it wasn't really deserved.

This season? He's actually got an amazing case for the Vezina, and has truly never played better. He's second in the league with a 92.7SV%, first in shutouts with 10(!), first in wins (35), and first in GAA with 2.07.

He's faced 27.89 shots per 60 minutes, which is a much higher rate than what's he has been used to in past years, and has kept the Devils on a successful path despite many roster deletions over the past couple of seasons.

I'll give him his props, he definitely is Vezina-worthy this season.

Roberto Luongo - (54GP 32-18-3, 2.34GAA, 92.1SV%)

At the start of the season, Luongo was really struggling and was definitely not the "Luongod" we expected. Fortunately, the fans here were willing to cut him some slack (very rare for any goaltender) and supported Luongo through his adjustment period. I guess the fans (as I did) figured Luongo would find himself eventually, and he certainly did.

I don't often pump goalies for the MVP, but Luongo has a great case based on the "Most valuable to his team" argument. No goalie has faced more shots on goal this year (1553, 29.60 per 60 minutes), and no goalie has had quite the profound effect on his team, not even Brodeur. Want to know where the Canucks would be with Dan Cloutier back in net? Sniffing the Blue Jackets' asses like a dog.

---

Sometimes, the best laid plans go to waste, and a backup goalie ends up supplanting the "#1" and doing a much better job.

OTTAWA

Ray Emery: 41GP 24-13-2, 2.40GAA, 92.3SV%
Martin Gerber: 21GP 9-9-1, 2.92GAA, 90.4SV%

...and this isn't the first time Gerber has been usurped. You'd think Ottawa would have looked at Gerber's real numbers from last year before shelling out millions....

COLORADO

Peter Budaj: 35GP 17-13-3, 2.67GAA, 90.9SV%
Jose Theodore: 27GP 10-12-1, 3.30GAA, 89.2SV%

As a Canucks fan, I'm quite happy that the Colorado Avalanche were dumb enough to dress the shell-shocked Theodore so often to justify his large salary. If the Avs played Budaj more than they have, they'd likely be in a playoff spot.

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The best true tandem? That would be the Nashville Predators. When Tomas Vokoun went down with a long-term injury earlier this season, there was much panic in the land that produces really bad "country" music.

Instead, Chris Mason came in and did an ever better job than Vokoun. Given Mason's numbers from last season, it's not a huge surprise...

Chris Mason: 33GP, 21-9-2, 2.35GAA, 92.7SV%
Tomas Vokoun: 27GP, 18-7-1, 2.38GAA, 92.1SV%

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Who has the easiest goaltending job in the NHL? That would be Dominik "Smoker's Teeth" Hasek, who faces a measly 22.53 shots per 60 minutes. He has the very shiny wins (30), GAA (2.08), and gets a load of positive press. What the press doesn't seem to notice is his league-average 90.8SV%.

Still, the Wings are doing the smart thing by keeping Hasek from getting fatigued and tearing up his groin during the season. All the Wings need is for Hasek to 'be there' when the playoffs start.

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Sometimes, a good offence isn't enough...
Q: What do the Carolina Hurricanes, Atlanta Thrashers, and Tampa Bay Lightning all have in common?

A: Great goal scoring and crappy goaltending! All 3 teams have littered the scoring leaderboards with offensive firepower (Whitney, St. Louis, Lecavalier, Hossa, Kovalchuk, etc...), and are struggling to achieve a great deal of success.

The Hurricanes rank 8th in goals for and 22nd in goals against.
The Lightning rank 10th in goals for 20th in goals against
The Thrashees rank 11th in goals for and 25th in goals against.

Somehow, the Tampa Bay Lightning thought that bringing in a guy who could barely handle the #1 duties for the Columbus Blue Jackets would be the solution to their goaltending problems. Huh??!?! Well, he didn't work out so well, so they got some generic Swedish guy to take over...

Marc Denis: 30GP 11-13-2, 3.15GAA, 88.0SV% (2nd worst)
Johan Holmqvist: 33GP 21-11-10, 2.64GAA, 90.1SV% (Winning despite a poor SV%)

The Carolina Hurricanes were smart to let the Sens overpay for Martin Gerber, but fooled into thinking Cam Ward could handle the #1 duties.

While his cup ring will earn Ward a LOT of leeway, it was always hard for me to ignore his really bad regular season numbers last year. He got hot at the right time, and it was hard to project if he could hold his playoff performance into the regular season.

Cam Ward: 46GP 24-14-6, 2.88GAA, 89.9SV%

The Thrashees? Well, Kari Lehtonen's final fantasy is giving out just-below-average goaltending with a statline of 51GP 25-17-8, 2.88GAA, 90.8SV%.

Unlike Hasek, who can sleep through half of his games, Kari faces a whopping 31.51 shots per game! Kari isn't carrying the team, but you can't blame him for the Thrashers inattention to defence.

Labels: Analysis, brodeur, cam ward, emery, goaltenders, hasek, Lehtonen, luongo, marc denis, opinion, statistics

The Nashville Predators are one of the more exciting NHL teams to watch, and sit 2nd overall in the NHL with 79 points.

Despite this, they rank 23rd overall in attendance with an average of 14,727 per game, below such markets as Atlanta, Anaheim, and even Florida.

While the Preds have a good base of hardcore supporters, they don't really have much else. The corporate support just isn't there, and there way too many other entertainment options in that city. Your average Nashville country boy is likely to spend their nights drinking away their sorrows at a country bar, rather than fork over $100 to see Martin Erat pass the puck to Paul Kariya.

With that, Preds owner Craig Leopold is back on the corporate welfare bandwagon, threatening to move the club if the taxpayer's don't give him a free gift.

From Al Strachan's FoxSports column...

Craig Leipold often has his hand out, to both Nashville taxpayers and the NHL.

You can take a boat. You can take a plane. You can take a powder. You can take Dr. Seuss' famous zike-bike or crunk-car. It doesn't matter. Just go. We're sick of you.

This is a franchise that has done nothing but whine since it came into the National Hockey League. Its continued presence doesn't warrant the aggravation.

It has been given every opportunity to succeed, but like the stereotypical spoiled brat, it continues to blame others for its failures — and then stick out its hand.

The latest assault upon our sensibilities came last week with the announcement that if attendance doesn't skyrocket by 25% for the rest of the season, owner Craig Leipold will be in a position to demand a further $2 million from beleaguered Nashville taxpayers and lay the groundwork to move elsewhere.

To this, we say: Please do move elsewhere. Like into oblivion, for instance.

Oblivion being Winnipeg, Manitoba.

For starters, the Predators were given an 18,500-seat arena. Yes, given. Outright. The arena in question was built in 1996 at a cost of $145 million.

By contrast, around the same time, the Montreal Canadiens were building an arena to which the taxpayers contributed not a penny. In fact, the churlish Montreal city council, even though private enterprise was regenerating a part of town that was threatening to go to seed, billed the Canadiens for lost parking-meter revenues caused by the construction.

But back to Nashville. A free arena wasn't enough for Leipold. No, he had to have luxury boxes. So his free arena was remodelled to provide them — at a further cost to taxpayers of $14 million.

But the team would need a place to practice because the arena occasionally would be used by other events — to the benefit of Predators owners, of course.

So the Nashville taxpayers provided a practice arena as well. And just to make sure Leipold didn't have a cash-flow problem, the city even kicked in 25% of the team's $80 million expansion-franchise fee.

But those heartless money-grubbers down at City Hall then made life really difficult for the Predators. It seems the team has to pay rent on the building. All of $50,000 a year.

How can the politicians of Nashville justify subsidizing this club? In a place like Vancouver, where the team provides a lot of free entertainment and prestige to the city, it would make sense. In Nashville? What's the benefit to Joe and Jane Taxpayer?

Octopus over at The Face Off Circle points out just how weak Nashville's market really is, and how even the NHL is giving this team welfare cheques.

I have to admit, I find it truly galling that successful teams like Detroit have to subsidize teams like Nashville, which is leading us in the standings. That's seriously f'd up, from any rational business-standpoint.

If Leipold can't make it in Nashville, where he has made more enemies than friends during his tenure, he should be forced to sell the club. If the club moves, he shouldn't be a part of it anymore, because his crappy personality and "Brother, can you spare a dime?" mentality will follow him wherever he goes.

Grand Rapids sells 7,000 season tickets, and averages 10,000 per game, while the Preds have a season ticket base of 8,600 and sell about 14,700 per game. That's more than the Griffs, but you can't really compare a middling AHL team to a top-notch, Cup-contender. I think the Preds would do better in GR, than they're doing in Nashville, especially if they had a decent businessman running the show.

Population-wise, Nashville is about 1.2 million (few natural hockey fans), Metro Grand Rapids 1.1 million (lots of hockey fans). Metro Detroit is 5.5 mil, Metro Milwaukee is about 1.6 million, larger than Nashville, and is a place where hockey is actually played, hosting the farm team for the Preds. The Generals should switch towns with the Preds.

Would Grand Rapids really make a good NHL market? I wouldn't say so, but it goes to show just how weak the Nashville market really is. If the NHL wanted a weak corporate city to house an NHL team, Quebec City or Winnipeg would have been 1,000 times better.

Sorry, but Nashville ought to go if they can't support their own club without serious handouts all the time.

Labels: business, nashville, opinion, predators, strachan

Continuing the previous discussion on the state of Slovak hockey, it seems the Slovak Extraleague and Slovak Hockey Federation have taken the giant step of creating an exclusive Under-20 team to play in the Extraliga.

The league currently has 8 teams, so this U-20 team and a promoted Division 1 team will be added next year to create a new 10-team league. This is a very unique experiment geared to improve Slovakia's ability to produce good hockey players.

There are still many details to sort out, such as scheduling, who runs the team, etc etc etc..and where will they get the players for this team? Most of the best Slovak juniors play either in the CHL or Czechia.
1. The CHL will reduce their import limit to 1 per team, so more kids will be available.
2. The other Extraliga teams will be forced to contribute their U-20 kids if they are selected.
3. Having a team in the Extraliga will entice many would-be travelers to stay home and earn a regular paycheque in the Extraliga, rather than almost nothing in the junior leagues.

Is this team likely to get slaughtered against older Extraliga vets? Yes, probably. Teams filled with junior aged players in previous seasons tended to get their asses kicked hard. Still, the juniors display a lot of hustle that the grumpy vets and lazy stars sometimes don't. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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It is true that the Slovaks have done a much better job producing goaltenders (their biggest weakness) and defensemen. Long gone are the days of throwing out Roman Mega, Jaromir Dragan, or Pavol Rybar and praying that the opposition didn't score 14 times a period. Youngsters like Peter Budaj, Jaroslav Halak, and Michal Valent are very talented goaltenders who have taken the reigns alongside Jan Lasak, the best Slovak goalie produced since old Vladimir Dzurilla.

The big problem is that the Slovaks just aren't producing many very talented forwards these days and it will catch up to them in a few years. Demitra, Satan, Bondra, Handzus, Zednik, Stumpel, and Palffy (retired, for now) are all 30+. A small core of Hossa, Nagy, and Gaborik are in their primes with just Svatos and Meszaros coming up behind them. There are a few other prospects like Marek Zagrapan and Stefan Ruzicka, but the cupboard will grow bare up front.

Another problem that I see is that TOO many kids are going to the CHL, and it ends up hurting them. Instead of further developing their skills, they spend 1-3 years trying to learn an almost completely different game, and no longer work as much on their skills as supposed to trying to survive physical punishment and learn a new language.

Many of these kids do not do well in the CHL, and end up returning home. Since their skills growth has been stunted, and they've been playing a different game, they often struggle to catch up and adapt back to the European game.

Take Vladimir Kutny, a 6'4" giant from Trencin (and CHL teams love the tall ones) who came to the QMJHL and put up just 69 points in 187 games over 3 seasons.

Kutny went back with Dukla Trencin last season and put up a whopping 6 points in 42 Extraliga games. He has just 2 points in 23 games this season. If he had stayed home the entire time, he likely would have developed his skills further and been a much better player for Trencin in a bigger role. There are many other examples of talented, but not great, Slovak players who end up being worse off for their CHL tenure.

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My Slovak pal, Daniel, had some further comments on why Slovak hockey is struggling to produce talented players up front and sucking so bad at the WJC these days.
***
Here are some thoughts about the ”success” of Slovak national team on WJC. I can see four following main reasons:

1. System of Play - As most of Slovak teams the players do not know what to play. There does not seem to be any team-work and/or system, which is a very important factor of European teams. Except for Slovakia and Czechia, all other teams were comprised of mostly Europe-skating players. All these players have played about 10 games on one team in last 3 months. The Europeans are not like Canadian or US players who are collected from plenty of different teams and leagues. The other teams need just couple of games to play well as a team. Slovak team showed chaotic play without any thought or system.

2. Inability to score - Though plenty of kids were expected to be good scorers, a lot of them struggled to score, especially those who skate in the CHL. Except for Juraj Mikus, Sinkovic (both QMJHLers) and Mikula, the others are not any elite scorers on their teams this season. Slovaks created many good opportunities to score but they did not convert. For your information Slovaks outshoot all teams (GER, SWE, USA, SUI, BLR) except Canada but they lost all of their games except to Belarus.

3. Coach - I mentioned the Jasko’s ”amazing” year. Well, he was fired by the hockey federation from the national team today.

4. Suspect Nominations - It is up to the coach and his ”advisors” to do the best selection of players. There are always questionable players on the team every year. Ones who skate in NA are often preferred, although coaches cannot see them in action and have very poor information about their fitness levels.

One example from last season: Juro Mikus was the best junior on Extraliga but coach sent him to 4th line to play 5-8 minutes per game while preferred Petruska or Lemesani (who played in NAHL). Best scoring junior duo in Extraliga Richard Lelkes (6+2) and Marcal Hascak (4+4) were ignored by Jasko. The player’s agents have very long fingers and push their kids to national teams all the time. Many kids who play in Slovakia feel they are omitted and have no real chance to play in the championships. In the last seasons the coaches always tested 25-30 Europe skating kids on two 4-nations tournaments (in August and November) however 3-4 ones were the favorites (and they have to play on WJC) while the rest of them have to fight for other 3-4 spots because the others spots were reserved for players from CHL.
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Just more food for thought.

Labels: junior hockey, opinion, Slovak hockey

Out of all the major pro sports in North American, hockey is, by far, the most 'Old School' of sports when it comes to analysis.

When you talk about a player, scout a player, or compare two players, you generally see terms such as anticipation, hockey sense, balance, "Heart", "He comes up big in big games!" and so on. Rarely do you ever see a meaningful objective comparison or evaluation of players that isn't influenced by some sort of personal bias.

The problem? All of those traits are subjective, and cannot be objectively measured the same way by two different people. Where as I see Rob Niedermayer as a rather average skater due to his lack of first-step quickness and his apparent clumsiness, other scouts see a fast skater who can chew up ice like a sno-cone machine.

Hockey has very few resources for statistical analysis, an area which has always intrigued me. I have planned a few studies on my own, as I had seen nothing out there before. The famed book MONEYBALL: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, showed how baseball's Oakland Athletics exploited market inefficiencies by using statistical analysis and 'non-traditional' analysis to sign players that other teams didn't value due to lacking 'The Good Face', or the 'Tools' (Speed, Power, etc), yet could perform well enough to justify a roster spot.

As Daryl Shilling put it, "Hockey lives in a completely different world than other businesses. Brokerage firms, for example, review the performances of funds and their workers scientifically, and make business decisions based on study. Hockey
bases almost every one of its decisions based purely on perception, which is
a an extremely limited method of evaluation."

Who is Daryl Shilling? Well, I was absolutely stunned and pleased to recently come across a site called The Hockey Project, where I found a very good counter-argument to my rant for Neely's HOF chances. This site is run by Daryl Shilling, and he has already developed some good studies that could really kickstart a 'Stathead' revolution in the hockey realm.

The Roadblocks to Objective Analysis:

Basically, there are 2 major areas which present problems in performing objective statistical analysis, and then having said analysis accepted by the fans, media, and powers that be.

Lack of Deep, Meaningful, and Objective Data:
When you want to compare two players, say Martin St. Louis and Jerome Iginla , there isn't a lot of measures out there that can tell you a lot about the seasons they had, in context to the league around them.

From the basic stats readily available:

St. Louis - GP G  A Pts +/- PIM Shots  Sh% GWG GTG SHG SHA PPG PPA 
            82 38 56 94 +35 24    212 17.92 7   0   8   3   8   22 


Iginla -    GP G  A Pts +/- PIM Shots  Sh% GWG GTG SHG SHA PPG PPA 
            81 41 32 73 +21 84    265 15.47 10  1   4   1   8   13 

So, from the stats most commonly available to anyone, what can we see?
Well, St-Louis has more points, a better +/-, far less penalties, and most short-handed goals, while Iginia has more goals, more shots, and more game-winning goals.

So, can we truly conclude, from these basic stats, that St-Louis was a superior defensive player (+/- and SHG), while Iginla was more "clutch" because he scored more Game Winning Goals?

Well, most fans probably would and will conclude that from the statistics. There simply aren't details statistics available to measure defensive contribution, or other 'intangibles'.

A question? Do Short Handed Goals = great defensive play? or sacrificing defense for offense?
I ask this because, subjectively, Pavel Bure is the perfect example of racking up Short Handed Goals at the expense of defense.

Bure had 6 SHG in 97-98, and 34 in his career. From his time on the Canucks, I could say that he often 'poached' while killing penalties, looking for opportunities to score goals. For the opportunity to score shorthanded, Bure would give up attention to the defensive responsibilies that he was assigned. So, Short Handed Goals seem like a truly shaky argument for defensive ability, given the fact that the object of killing a penalty should be first and foremost to 'not get scored on'.

Unfortunately, the NHL does not keep much data that is 'deeper' than what I have provided you above. The only other statistic that I have not shown you is 'Time on Ice', where we can see that Iginla played 2:11 of shorthanded time per game compared to St-Louis' 1:36. This tells you that Iginla played more on the penalty-killing units, but it doesn't tell you who was better.

The NHL comes up 'Short Handed':

If you look at a typical hockey boxscore, you can't get very much from it (Who scored, assisted, shots, saves, penalties). Until recently, boxscores didn't even contain the player's individual +/- and Shots on Goal totals. So, if you look at a historical box score, you can't get very much at all from it other than the basic counting stats.

This is where the NHL comes in. As a custodian of the sport, the NHL has recenly gone backwards in the realm of record keeping. Just a few years ago, we were lucky enough to finally have access to statistics like hits, giveaways, takeaways, and blocked shots.

Unfortunately, the NHL stats keepers at most arenas, like NHL referees, were wildly inconsistant in their application of tabulating the numbers. Some arenas were extremely generous in giving out hits (New York), and some were extremely stingy.

When the NHLPA was brilliant enough to use stats to show the contributions of 'role' players, the NHL, in a move driven by simply pure greed, decided to stop providing these detailed stats to the public. Although the NHL was ordered to provide this information to the NHLPA, the NHL simply refuses to release these figures to the public.

So, in the end, we are left with only the basic statistics again, which makes it harder to develop meaningful measures and objective analysis.

Lack of Mainstream Acceptance:

I am sure some of you are reading this and thinking, "What a nerd, this guy has never played the game and he thinks you can know a player just by looking at some spreadsheets!"

This type of attitude is rampant among baseball scouts and executives, despite the inroads of statistical analysis into many front offices in that sport.

Why is it so hard for 'Old School' types, and mainstream media and fans to accept objective studies?

1. It's too 'hard' for them - People tend to fear and dislike things that they don't understand. I don't tend to like nuclear physics because it's just generally too much for my head to wrap around, and 'Old School' hockey types don't tend to be the brightest lights in the chandalier.
Hockey people tend to know and understand the 'basic' stats like goals, assists, and ice-time. If you try to present some sort of basic formula to them, they will likely have trouble understanding it, and will fight it because it could be a threat to them. (Some baseball teams have drastically reduced scouting departments because they could use analysis to draft players for a much cheaper price).

2. "You never played the game" - It's a strange phenomenon in the sporting world where the league's top executives tend to be former players and coaches. Rarely is a hockey business run by a professional businessman, but rather by one of the 'boys'. The Edmonton Oilers are the perfect example of this, as the team is run by Kevin Lowe, who was very recently a coach and NHL player himself.

The Hockey Realm is a very closed group, and they don't tend to look favourably upon 'outsiders' telling them what to do. Unless you 'Played the Game', these guys tend to think that you couldn't possibly understand the game.

To them, I ask them this: If you never practiced politics, or ran for public office, does that mean you cannot have an expert opinion on political issues?

As for the media, they tend to repeat and regurgigitate the same old tried-and-not-so-true cliches. Their mentality matches that of the 'Old School', so the mainsteam media tend to look at objective analysis with a "King of the Mountain" mentality.

3. It's Boring - One barrier to objective analysis is presenting it in a format that people can understand, and that people will want to read it!
I could post pages of very useful information, but if it's poorly formatted and explained, people will not want to read it, nor come out of reading it with an understand of just what I want to explain to them.


When I perform some studies in the future, I hope to do so in a format that is 'easy to read' and 'entertaining' at the same time. You are more likely to accept a new idea if it at least intrigues you in some way, even if it comes down to me posting photos of Anna Kournikova.

Yeah, that got your attention, didn't it???

Labels: Analysis, Iginla, opinion, statistics