Failure by the Bruins and Wild
If my wife had her way, every game would end in a tie so no one would ever have to feel bad about losing. Luckily, I don’t share this view. I almost enjoy it more when I watch some teams lose than when I watch my own team win. Almost. Sometimes I enjoy watching a team fail because I dislike a player on the roster (any team with Pronger), or the team has recently knocked my preferred team from the playoffs (Nashville, San Jose). Sometimes I want a team to lose because they’ve won too much (New Jersey) or too little (Columbus).
But during this very special lockout-shortened season there are two teams whose downfall would truly warm my icy heart.
There have always been mild reasons to cheer against the Wild. They have a terrible name. They have often lacked skill and relied on playing an uninteresting, trap style as if they were the Devils West. But without question the top reason to root for their failure is the man who signs the Wild paychecks: Craig Leopold.
Leopold got into hockey when the NBA wouldn’t have him. He bought and then owned the Predators for about 10 years, during which time he loudly complained about all the money he was losing. He then sold the Preds and turned around and bought the Wild. But the money complaints did not end, despite being located in one of the best hockey markets in America. Last year Leopold made it known that he felt player salaries were too high. So of course his team signed two players for almost $200 million this summer. This would seem to be contradictory until you realize that he had no intention of paying the full value of those contracts. He immediately went to work leading the owners’ charge into the lockout with the aim of worming his way out of paying the money he owed the players.
But if you think Leopold is bad, he has nothing on Bruins
owner Jeremy Jacobs. Jacobs is famously tight-fisted and really hasn’t been
happy since the players’ position moved away from the indentured servitude days
of the pre-80s. He ran fan favorites out of town to save money and Bruce
Dowbiggin even made the point that he single-handedly kept down the salaries of
defensemen throughout the league by underpaying Ray Bourque for his entire career
(how’d that career end by the way?).
When the Bruins won their last cup, Jacobs used the
celebration as an opportunity to remind
Cam Neely that his injury shortened career included no Stanley Cup rings.
What a guy? Throughout the lockout you read stories about Jacobs laughing at
the players to their faces during negotiations, making it clear he was
incredulous that he had to deign to hold talks with mere athletes. So, yeah, as
long as he’s the owner I will delight in every Bruins defeat.
Teemu trade
Teemu Selanne is one of the greatest hockey players ever,
this is widely agreed upon. And yet, I still think he’s underrated. He was 22
when he joined the league and he’s 42 now. During that 20 years only twice did
Selanne score fewer than 20 goals in a season (and one of those years he played
only 26 games). He has 663 career goals, good for 12th all time, even after
playing through most of the clutch-and-grab ‘90s and with two full seasons
worth of games lost to owner lockouts. Had things gone differently, he could
have already reached the top five in career goals. All of this is to say that a
player of this caliber deserves to go out with a bang. Playing for a mediocre
team like the Ducks is a whimper. He would be a perfect deadline addition for a
contender, and I hope he consents to the trade when the time comes.
Some kind of help for Detroit’s D
There’s really no way to replace Nick Lidstrom. His offense,
maybe, but not his defense and ability to make the breakout pass. He controlled
the play like few people ever have and I imagine things are about to get a
little hot for one James Howard.
The Wings also lost Brad Stuart. Now, down the stretch he’d
become a turnover machine with his heads in the clouds, and his Nashville
series was pretty much as bad as it gets. I mean he didn’t shoot the puck
directly into his own net, or injure someone on his own team, but that’s the
only way things could have gotten worse.
So maybe you’re thinking Stuart wasn’t much of a loss, but
between him and Lidstrom, that’s a lot of pure defensive skill that’s gone. The
rest of the blue line is made up of a bunch of solid second pair guys who do
nicely on the power play. There is no alpha dog who can get inside the head of
the top opposing player. So I would love it if Ken Holland made a move beyond bringing
in Carlo “I’m already injured” Colaiacovo.
Resurgent Alex Ovechkin/Sidney Crosby
After the 04-05 lockout, Ovechkin and Crosby provided two sad sack franchises with two once-in-a-generation talents. As rookies: Ovie had 52 goals and 106 points; Crosby had 39 goals and 102 points. AS ROOKIES! Seven seasons later and neither guy has looked the same in a while. Crosby has missed significant time in three of his seven seasons, and Ovechkin’s scoring has dropped from 109 points, to 85, to 65 over the past three years. I hope that these two guys can return to previous glory and expand the scoring race from just Stamkos, Giroux and Malkin. Things are just much more fun when these two superstars are playing like superstars.
A resolution to that mess in the desert
As I said in my last post, the repeated lockouts and keystone cops running the league make it hard not to be embarrassed as an NHL fan. Trust me, the Phoenix Coyotes are not making things any easier. You often hear that winning is the cure for most problems around pro teams. That may be true some places, but not in Phoenix. The team has racked up 303 points, a division title and a trip to the conference finals over the past three seasons. During that time the ‘Yotes attendance ranked last, second to last and last again.
I’m sure part of it is that the team has been owned by the NHL for three years now and it’s unclear how long they will stick around. But come on, this team has been in the desert for 15 seasons, just two shy of the franchise’s stint in Winnipeg. If the fans aren’t coming out yet, I’m not sure they ever will. It’s way past time for the NHL to close the book on the ownership drama in Phoenix.
