5 things to watch in the 2014-2015 NHL season

NHL hockey has returned and I thought I’d post a few stories I’m eager to watch unfold this season. But first, I highly recommend checking out the season review done by The Score. In particular Justin Bourne’s posts are fantastic, identifying a unique trait for each one of the 30 teams.

On to my list.

Will the President’s Trophy winner earn 125 points?

The consensus after the free agent season was that the dominant Western Conference only got more dominant. The powerhouse clubs were mostly able to remain intact, while fringe teams like Minnesota, Dallas, Edmonton and Nashville all made significant additions. The flip side of this coin is that the path has likely been cleared for an Eastern Conference team to again feast on weaker competition and win the President’s Trophy.

Nothing new here, but I have a theory that the team with the best record has the chance to crack 125 points for the first time since the ‘95-’96 season. And that is because Connor McDavid is finally going to be eligible for the NHL entry draft. If you’re not familiar with McDavid, he is the latest in the long history of Canadian teen phenoms. He was so dominant as a youth, Canada granted an age exception so that McDavid could start his junior hockey career at the age of 15 instead of 16. He’s done nothing but dominate since. To put him in historical perspective, he’s doing things that only players with names like Crosby and Tavares have done.

But as good as McDavid is, there is now more incentive than usual for bad NHL teams to be very bad this year. The competition for the No.1 draft pick may be even more heated than the race for the playoffs. And that could mean that the good teams rack up points at a level we haven’t seen in some time.

Will the President’s Trophy winner be in black or blue?

Most of the teams you could expect to vie for the best record in the NHL actually have black in their color schemes (Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, LA, San Jose). With Tampa Bay and St. Louis representing the blue contenders (and yes, I’m leaving out the Rangers). But as I mentioned, I just don’t think a Western Conference team will be able to earn as many easy points due to playing so many more games against other teams in the west. So let’s look at the East.

Pittsburgh has a shot if their stars remain healthy and they aren’t hit with the massive number of depth injuries they had last year. But the bottom-feeders in the Metro have gotten better. The Islanders have filled holes in net and on defense, their biggest weaknesses. New Jersey finally shed the albatross of Martin Brodeur. And even the eliminated-before-game-one Hurricanes sound more likely to limit the damage of their own overpaid, aged goaltender Cam Ward.

The Bruins have an excellent shot to make it back-to-back seasons with the President’s Trophy. Though they are gradually starting to feel the cap crunch, with Johnny Boychuck joining Tyler Seguin and Jarome Iginla as players too expensive to keep. And the Bruins will have to contend with a Tampa Bay Lightning squad that is significantly improved from the team that already earned 101 points last season.

Will Detroit continue repeating recent mistakes?

Ken Holland is loyal, no doubt about that. But his loyalty has often caused him to pay a little extra and for a few extra years when signing his own players. All that little extra has begun to add up over the past few seasons. Holland has claimed all of these aging/ineffective veterans under contract are strategic and intended to build depth. Unfortunately the reality has been the exact opposite - stunted growth for prospects and thinner depth on the NHL club.

By artificially holding players down in the minors, sometimes 1-3 years into their prime, Holland has essentially wasted cheap contract years for talented players while overpaying to get the same (or lesser) results from veterans he then can’t trade when he needs to make space. The Red Wings have easily had $5 million to $10 million in wasted salary the past several seasons. Meanwhile, teams like Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles have deftly integrated cheap youngsters into their rosters and used the savings to sign and trade for elite, impact players.

The truth of Holland’s folly was finally laid bare last season, when a mountain of injuries forced the Red Wings to play their NHL-ready prospects. And shockingly (or not) the team did just fine. And this season appears like it will play out similarly, only on the blue-line. The pre-season made it clear that multiple prospects (Xaiver Ouellet and Nick Jensen) were superior to Detroit’s third pair Jakub Kindl and Brian Lashoff. Unfortunately, the market is pretty dry for unloading AHL-quality defenseman signed to NHL contracts, so Ouellet and Jensen will likely start the season in the minors, waiting for an injury to let them take the place on the roster they’ve already earned. How many games is Holland willing to burn using his less than best lineup? And will this strategy ultimately cost him his coach?

Will the Western Conference send 10 teams to the playoffs again?

When NHL re-alignment debuted, there was a fair amount of complaining about the unequal conferences. Don’t the teams in the West have an easier go of it since they only have 14 teams fighting for 8 playoffs spots versus the East’s 16 teams vying for 8? From a pure numbers perspective, yes. But that ignored the fact that most of the 14 teams in the West play at a level that’s on another planet than the teams in the East. Last year, the two teams moving West (Detroit and Columbus) both made the playoffs in the East. Will they be able to repeat? I’ve already touched on Detroit, but what about Columbus?

It took a long time drafting at the top and a rebuild of a team that was torn down before it even accomplished anything, but the CBJs finally look to be consistently competitive. Right now they’ve been hit by the injury bug, with Brandon Dubinsky, Boone Jenner and Ryan Murray all sidelined.

You’ll note that I left off Nathan Horton, whose return is uncertain right now. But having only gotten 36 games and 19 points out of the rugged winger since he signed in Columbus, the Blue Jackets have shown they can compete without him. And they may have to get very comfortable with his absence, you never want to hear words like “degenerative,” “back” and “condition” in the same sentence when a player’s injury status comes up. Long-term, this could hurt, since the oft-injured Horton is only in year two of his seven-year contract.

If all goes well for the squad, new addition Scott Hartnell will help cover up some of the thinned forward depth, Ryan Murray will take a step forward allowing Jack Johnson to play a reduced role and Sergei Bobrovsky will have another good-to-excellent season.

My hunch is Columbus will make it in again. While non-playoff teams like the Devils and Islanders should be better and make the race tighter, I think the Flyers are going to miss out. After all, the Flyers have yet to learn the lesson of goalie Steve Mason, one the Blue Jackets learned a long time ago. That lesson: Steve Mason is not an NHL goalie.

What happened to Vancouver?

I was very tempted to make my last question about Jaromir Jagr. The aged Czech had a monster year last season. Jagr showed he actually was the player that Teemu Seleanne imagined himself to be. The good year put Jagr within striking distance of moving into the top four all time for goals and points scored. But this is supposed to be about Vancouver.

Only two years ago the Canucks were coming off of back-to-back President’s Trophies. How is it possible they dropped so far, so quickly? Has father time finally caught up to Vancouver? Or was it just a case of John Tortorella being a terrible coach? Probably that one. Well, that and bad luck.

The Canucks actually had the 8th best possession numbers in the league and were 5th in the gauntlet of the Western Conference. Meanwhile, mediocre possession teams like the Ducks and Avalanche made the playoffs by finishing two and three in PDO (shooting% plus save%), meaning they were getting every lucky bounce offensively and defensively. Could one or both of these teams falter to make room for a playoff return for the Canucks?

The Ducks added Ryan Kesler and added by subtraction when Teemu Seleanne retired, but they also have the untested duo of Frederik Andersen and John Gibson in net. Meanwhile, the Avalanche let legit contributors Paul Stastny and PA Parenteau go so they could bring in washed-up Brad Stuart, Daniel Briere and cement-feet Jarome Iginla. I look forward to watching Nate MacKinnon and Ryan O’Reilly blazing up and down the ice as the aforementioned trio huffs and puffs, failing to keep up.

As to the Canucks? Despite losing Kesler to the Ducks and driving out Roberto Luongo and Cory Schnieder over the past few years, I do like the additions of Radim Vrbata, Derek Dorsett and even the maligned Ryan Miller. WIth a change of luck swinging their way this season, I would not be shocked to see the Canucks again break 100 points and return to the playoffs.

Alright, lets drop the puck already.

Drop Pass Season 2 starts now!

Check out the first episode of Drop Pass: Season 2. Neil Critchley joins me to chat about the upcoming NHL season. For season two I've updated the RSS feed, so if you've previously subscribed, you'll have to re-add the feed. Subscribe here.






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Drop Pass episode 10: Stanley Cup Final preview

Amy Fiscus joins me to preview the Stanley Cup Final and talk about the offseason move every hockey fan should be rooting for.



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Drop Pass: Episode 9

Amy Fiscus stops by to talk about the Stanley Cup conference finals and latest NHL news. Had some minor technical difficulties this episode, so thanks for powering through that.


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A quick thought on the Red Wings 2014 season

Well, that did not take very long. The Boston Bruins thoroughly out-played Detroit in the brief five game series. Detroit had moments of promise against the Bruins but Boston was never really in any danger, even after dropping game 1 at home.

I'm not sure anyone is that surprised. This was not like last year when the Red Wings knocked off an overrated Ducks team, totally lacking in depth. As a fan, I silently hoped Detroit could at least make a real series of things. Maybe their speed would give Boston the same fits that Chicago did in the cup final a year ago. If Detroit got by Boston, the East was wide open enough that they could very well have made it all the way to a rematch with Chicago. Alas, it was not to be.

My hope is that the drubbing Detroit took will open Ken Holland's eyes to the realization that he can no longer paper over the team's weaknesses. While injuries to Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Jonathan Ericsson didn't help Detroit's chances, I think it's pretty clear that even if fully healthy the end result would likely have been the same. Boston has remarkable depth and, just as impressive, clear structure and roles from top to bottom. I'm sure it's not true, but it felt like I could count on one hand the number of times the Bruins were ever really out of position in that series. Every rush, Boston seemed to have four guys back.

Would it have been more fun if Detroit had made it into the seven spot to knock off the Penguins? Or maybe into the 2-3 match up with Montreal/Tampa Bay? Sure. But if the goal is to win the cup, then why waste time? For the next few years, the road to the cup is going through Boston and the Red Wings need to get used to trying to measure up.

Obviously things have gone disastrously when the calendar has not even hit May and the Red Wings are already done playing hockey. I've complained a lot about Ken Holland's wasted millions on useless players, so I won't go into that. It's hard not to wonder what could have been if the roster had been built a little more soundly.

But there are some positives to come out of this season. The young, speedy forwards are not going anywhere (well, maybe Tomas Jurco. I could see him starting in Grand Rapids next year). Gustav Nyquist, Riley Sheahan, and Tomas Tatar will be able to provide depth scoring at a really cheap price. Danny DeKeyser and Brendan Smith proved they can be top four defensemen. Also for a bargain price. And Holland and Babcock realized they can get the same crap numbers and mediocre penalty killing that Dan Cleary provides at the scrapheap price they're paying Luke Glendening.

That should give Detroit the cap flexibility to bring in at least two more elite-level players. With the right additions, suddenly everyone moves down to a proper role, reducing mistakes, and getting results. In today's parity driven NHL, that can be all you need to get back on top.

Drop Pass: Episode 8

College chums Amy Fiscus and Sarah Larimer call the Center of the Universe to hand out some end of the year awards.


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3 more years of Luke Glendening

While there are a fair number of off-season questions ahead for Detroit, they did take one of them off the table by extending Luke Glendening with a three-year contract, paying just more than the league minimum.

In one way, this is a low-risk deal. Glendening will just have to out-perform an AHL replacement-level player to live up to this deal. In every other way, this is probably not a good contract.

As I said, this is a very low-bar for Glendening to clear. What's disturbing is that he has not done so this year. The 24-year-old center should be in the middle of his prime scoring years, but he has yet to score an NHL goal. In fact, Glendening is one of only five forwards in the entire NHL to play in at least 50 games and fail to score this season. That puts him on a list with Krys Barch and Colton Orr.

You would think just out of sheer luck he would have potted one by now. Of course, it's easier to get a lucky bounce if you occasionally are able to get the puck out of your own end. That's another thing Glendening has struggled to do. Detroit has been a middling possession team this year, with a 5-on-5 close Corsi of 51%. Glendening's rating is 48.7%, better than only Stephen Weiss and basically tied with Todd Bertuzzi. The story only gets worse when you consider two players in a similar role, Drew Miller (50.1%) and Joakim Andersson (53.1%), are easily out-performing him in that metric. In fact, Miller would probably have even better numbers if he was not so often paired with Glendening.

It's true, Glendening's role is a defensive specialist and he plays the second most time on the penalty kill among forwards. But Detroit is not exactly hanging its hat on defense this year (ranked 19th in goals against and 11th in penalty kill).

The Detroit broadcast crew likes to play up Glendening's role as an agitator. However, when you look at his penalties drawn versus penalties taken, he's only plus 4 on the season. Good for only 9th on the team.

In the salary cap era, when every dollar and roster spot counts, strong depth is what makes elite teams elite. Too often in the past couple of seasons Detroit has tried to achieve this by dolling out overly long contracts to depth players (when they were completely unnecessary). Bertuzzi, Samuelsson, Tootoo. Four years for Kindl, three years for Lashoff. These players have had the type of production that can easily and cheaply be replaced every year in free agency. On the flip side, locking up these mediocre players leads to situations where Gustav Nyquist is forced to sit in the minors for the first two months of the season.

So Glendening may play a small role on the team and his deal is going to count almost nothing against the cap, the fact is, he's thus far contributed less than what most teams would expect from any AHL call up. There's basically no reason to lock him up beyond one year, and some pretty obvious reasons not to. 

Drop Pass Episode 7: NHL trade deadline edition

Amy Fiscus drops by to chat about the big trade deadline deals and we look at how those may shape the final push toward the playoffs.



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Detroit Red Wings trade deadline move

Well, I guess the Wings are going to go for the playoffs. With the team absolutely getting killed by injuries, yet still clinging to the final playoff spot, deadline day was a tough call for Detroit GM Ken Holland.

 Let's run down the list of injuries really quickly:

• Captain Henrik Zetterberg out for the regular season.
• Pavel Datsyuk out for likely half of the remaining games in the regular season.
• Stephen Weiss (the guy who was supposed to be the second line center at the start of the year), out for 2 months and counting. Apparently had another set back.
• Darren Helm, (supposed to be third line center) out once again with who knows what now.

If healthy, that group of centers would rival most teams in the league. Instead, on Tuesday Detroit was rolling out Joakim Andersson as the No. 1 center. He, of the 21 career points.

So at the trade deadline there seemed to be three options.

1. Add to the roster to try to hang on to that last playoff spot.
2. Do nothing and hope for the best.
3. Accept defeat and trade off players of some value in exchange for draft picks.

Leading up to the deadline Holland said he was not interested in acquiring a "rental" player who would not be under contract for next season. Also, with the cap and roster limitations he needed a partner interested in taking players back. He did not want to trade a first round pick, especially since that could be a lottery pick for the first time in more than 20 years. And his stated target would be a veteran defenseman.

So of course he went out and got Michigan native David Legwand ($4.5 million cap hit, actual salary $3.5 million) from the Predators, parting with Patrick Eaves, prospect Calle Jarnkrok and a third-round pick.

So was this a good move?

First let's take a look at Legwand. With 40 points in 62 games, Legwand would be second in scoring on the Red Wings. Of course, that is largely due to the fact that he's played 62 games and all of the Red Wings top offensive players have played nowhere close to that many. If you look at Legwand's points per 60 minutes, he is at 1.78. That is good enough to be second among forwards on Nashville, but only ranks him 10th on Detroit, just ahead of Justin Abdelkader (1.65/60).

If you look at the list below, most of the players are either veterans who have been injured or young players who should have been played more. Offensively, Legwand is not a huge boost for the Red Wings. But he is certainly miles ahead Todd Bertuzzi (0.79/60) and Dan Cleary (0.76/60).

Of course, offense is just one way to look at things. The Predators are famous for their two-way play. Let's see how Legwand fits in using Rob Vollman's player usage charts over at Hockey Abstract. If you are not familiar with player usage charts, they are fantastic. They combine several elements visually so you can right away see certain trends. This is how the charts work:

• A player's percentage of shifts started in the offensive zone are plotted on the X axis. So the further to the right, the more sheltered a player is.
• The quality of competition a player faces is plotted on the Y axis. So the higher up the chart you see a player, the tougher the competition.
• Also, the size of the player bubble represents how much ice-time they are getting.
• And finally, they are color-coded to show a player's shot attempt plus/minus compared to the rest of the team. A dark red bubble means a player is doing much worse than the rest of his team on the other end is dark blue, meaning that player is a top performer on the team.

 A few things stand out right away:

• Zetterberg is awesome. He is playing the toughest minutes on the team and yet his shot attempt plus/minus is better than just about everyone.
• Earlier in the year Datsyuk's bubble was right on top of Zetterberg's. But with his recent knee injury Coach Mike Babcock has been playing Datsyuk against slightly weaker competition and more often in the offensive zone. He's still solidly in the "two-way" player zone.
• The Red Wings third-line of Tomas Tatar, Riley Sheahan, Tomas Jurco is playing against weak competition and starting heavily in the offensive zone. And they are destroying the opposition.
• On the flip side, the fourth line of Drew Miller, Joakim Andersson and Luke Glendenning is facing weak competition. but starting more in their own zone, and getting the worst results compared to the rest of the team.

From the chart we can see that Legwand was facing tough competition without the benefit of starting the offensive zone an abnormal amount. He's not quite on the Zetterberg level, but has played some hard minutes. And another positive, his shot attempt plus/minus was still one of the best on the Predators. The closet possession comparison on the team seems to be Justin Abdelkader, but part of that is the great linemates Justin has played with. As to Detroit centers, Legwand is about where I think Darren Helm could have been had he stayed healthy all season.

So Legwand would certainly be a welcome addition to any team. But now it's time for the "but." Legwand is not a game changing offensive player. Something pretty much every team wants. He's also not a defenseman. It's obvious that the Red Wings defense is not good enough to realistically compete in the playoffs. One area that is really striking is the number of penalties the Red Wings now take. After years of being one of the least penalized teams in the league (thank you Lidstrom) the Red Wings now are ranked fifth in power play attempts faced. The biggest reason? Defenseman playing above their ability. Jonathon Ericsson and Niklas Kronwall have combined to take 27 more penalties than they've drawn, and Kyle Quincey is -20 in that category himself. Add in Todd Bertuzzi (-11) and those four players have accounted for an extra 58 power plays for the opposition. The Red Wings desperately need a top four defender who can actually defend without constantly going to the box.

There is also the issue of what the Red Wings gave up. Legwand is 33, on the decline and might not re-sign with the team. So did they give up too much? Probably.

If Detroit had only given up Patrick Eaves, a third-round pick and, say, Landon Ferraro, this would have been a great move. Eaves was redundant back in July when the Red Wings signed Drew Miller to a new contract. Eaves in fact was passed on by every team in the league when he was sent through waivers to play in the minors. The Predators were basically taking a contract off the Red Wings' hands (and his $1.2 million cap hit). A third-round draft pick is a crapshoot, and Legwand is certainly worth at least that. Where this one may come back to haunt the Wings is the prospect in the deal, Jarnkrok.



Jarnkrok has been a highly-touted prospect in the Detroit system for a few years. He was drafted in the second round in 2010. He played three seasons in the Swedish Elite league racking up 102 points in the defensive league. After a slow start in the AHL this year, he'd exploded recently with 35 points in 57 games on the season. The thing that should make any Wings fan shudder is that Jarnkrok was most often compared to a young Zetterberg, due to his two-way game, scoring touch and ability to hold on the puck despite his size.  Jarnkrok would likely be the top prospect for several NHL teams and possibly on an NHL roster for a few others.

Of course, the Red Wings seem to have the skilled, but undersized European forward role pretty well covered, both on the big club and in the minors. With Nyquist, Tatar, Sheahan, and Jurco all showing they are NHL ready, there is actually becoming a glut of young, skilled forwards on the roster and in the minors. Likely sooner than later the Red Wings needed to make a move and they say you have to give something to get something. Given the injuries, it's possible Legwand could be the difference that gets the Wings into the post-season. My only wish was that the trade had been for a defender. The Wings will have a lot of useless cap spending coming off the books after the season closes, but as has been the case since the second Bettman lockout, the free agent market is just not going to have many game-breaking players. That means the Wings might find the best way to fill that space is via trade. And one of their nice trade assets just went to Nashville.

Drop Pass: Episode 6

The podcast is back! Fiscus joins me to talk about Olympic highlights, some of the fallout of the Winter Games, and we look forward to the trade deadline and push to the playoffs.




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Olympic hockey preview

The Olympics are here and despite the time-difference between Seattle and Sochi, I will be obsessively watching the men's ice hockey tournament. That is as long as my DVR keeps working and I can somehow figure out NBC's broadcast schedule. So to get ready for the tournament I've done some research and perfectly identified a hockey movie and/or character to correlate to each Olympic team.

Austria, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland

OK, maybe not for every team. Of the 12 teams in the tournament, five will for sure be getting the "Thanks for showing up" participation awards. The best they can hope for is giving one of medal contenders a scare or maybe even squeaking out a tie. The only reason to pay attention to these jabronies  is to see if they reveal which "top tier" team might be a pretender or to hear stories about how one guy on the team is actually a 45-year-old fisherman when the Olympics aren't happening. These teams would definitely be the "Tallahassee Warthogs."

Slovakia and the Czech Republic

These two teams are not likely to make it on to the podium. But they have enough NHLers that they could legitimately pull off an upset against pretty much any team in the tournament. As a Wings fan I'll be checking out Slovakia to watch Tomas Tatar and Tomas Jurco (two of the six players named Tomas on the squad). The Slovaks will also have one of the world's best defensemen (Zdeno Chara) and a pretty decent goalie in Jaro Halak. And one other thing, they will also have the Hossa brothers. I get Marian and Marcel mixed up more often than I do actual twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin. So team Slovakia gets the Hanson brothers.

As for the Czech Republic, it might be generous to say they could pull off an upset. They picked guys like Petr Nedved, Jaromir Jagr and Martin Erat who would have been formidable 10 years ago, and left off Jiri Hudler. If the Czechs hope to get back on the podium, they will need to part ways with more of these grey beards. So I'm giving them the movie Mystery Alaska. Now I've never scene Mystery Alaska, but according to IMDB it's about a pickup team in Alaska that for some reason restricts their unorganized hockey game to a set roster. And as young players come along, the elder statesmen are forced to "retire." Makes perfect sense for a place full of freely available ice surfaces for hockey. About as much sense as some of the roster moves the Czechs made. Also, the New York Rangers are involved some how?

Legit medal threats

Finland

Finland just won the world junior championship in hockey. They've had some surprising runs in the past. But some key injuries likely mean they will not win much in this tournament. With the brothers Koivu (Mikko and Saku) and Valtteri Filppula all on the shelf for the Winter Games, that leaves holes for the No. 1, 2 and 3 center spots. Still there are two reasons that could make a medal possible. This will be the final Olympics for Teemu Selanne and could inspire the team to a super human effort to send the wily vet home with another medal. And the more likely reason if they succeed: They have the best goaltending in the tournament, even with Pekka Rinne injured. Kari Lehtonen, Antti Niemi, and Tuukka Rask could all probably make the case to start for any team in the tournament, with Rask standing above everyone. With goaltending being their overwhelming strength I obviously need to give team Finland the goalie for the Thunder Bay Bombers in the movie Youngblood. Don't let the fact that he gets owned in this clip fool you, during my childhood I considered this goalie to be vastly superior to Patrick Roy, based only on the fact that he could do the splits and had the coolest goalie mask I'd ever seen.

USA

Sticking with movie Youngblood, team USA will get the title character, Dean Youngblood. (You may have figured out that I love this movie) Dean Youngblood is an American trying to win against Canadians, he's got the skill but his coaches think he needs to learn to fight before he can learn to win. This should sound familiar if you've followed the way team USA was put together. When choosing the roster, David Poile and Brian Burke placed a high importance on things like grit and intensity. That's why the American with the second most goals over the past 5.5 seasons, Bobby Ryan, will be staying home while Blake Wheeler enjoys the big ice surface. Seriously, this could have been the most talented American roster ever put together. Sigh.

Sweden

Team Sweden will be taking one of their best teams in Olympic history. They have a great mix of young stars and veterans who are still effective. They're deep enough at forward that they could lose Henrik Sedin and Johan Franzen and still be considered one of the favorites to win the gold. They have the only blueline that could rival Canada's and that fluid, puck-moving defense will be working in front of one of the best goalies in the tournament, Henrik Lundqvist. There is no one like Ovechkin or Crosby on Sweden. But they are packed with responsible, skilled-yet-defensive players. They could win out of sheer stoic competence. Team Sweden is Charlie Conway from the Mighty Ducks. An apple-polishing coach's boy who is so boring at one point he volunteers to coach the team instead of play in the championship game.

Russia

A strange hodge-podge of NHL and KHL players, trying to win gold on their own soil while blocking out all of the pressure and politics being injected into the games? That's right, the Russians are actually the Americans from Miracle. There can be no illusions that Russia has the depth or skill to match up with the other medal favorites. And much will depend on the health of team captain Pavel Datsyuk. But they will be playing at home in a sport where determination and some good luck can trump talent, Will they wilt? Or will they rise?

Canada

What can I say about Canada? The guy who won the NHL scoring title last year only made the team because another guy got injured. This might be their best team since the '87 Canada cup team was able to roll out Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux on the same line. You could say they might be weak in goal, but will that even matter with this roster? Team Canada is basically the super talented, front-runner villain team from every sports movie ever. So I'm not even going with a hockey movie for team Canada, they get the Cobra Kai from Karate Kid.

Bonus video

My wife noticed I was going through hockey videos to share on the blog and she demanded I include a clip from the following movie. The greatest Olympic movie of all time: The Cutting Edge.

Drop Pass: Episode 5

Back from the holidays, Amy Fiscus calls in to talk Olympic rosters, video review, and staged fights.


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Checking in on the Red Wings at the halfway point

Though the Winter Classic was technically the first game of the second half of the season for Detroit, it seemed like a good time to stop and look at where the team is at.

The Red Wings have been decimated by injuries, have struggled to score goals (17^th), or prevent them (22^nd) and their only consistent play was during two losing streaks of seven and six games (where they were consistently bad). Yet in a league that rewards losers with points and has one supremely mediocre conference the Red Wings find themselves with the sixth most points in the Eastern Conference and the inside track on the last wild card playoff spot.

The good

While Detroit has been plenty frustrating to watch this year, there has actually been a fair amount to be happy about.

Magic and his Euro twin

First, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg have been fantastic again this season. They have missed a few games (something I've come to expect of the aged duo). But when in the lineup they've both been nearly point-per-game players. All while playing some of the hardest minutes in the league against the toughest competition without the benefit of heavy offensive zone starts. One day these guys are going to slip, but luckily we're not there yet.

Nick Jr.

Similarly Nicklas Kronwall is submitting an excellent season. He's tied for 5^th in league scoring among defensemen, has lined up against the top opposing forwards every night and yet has an even strength Corsi of 52.3%, meaning more than half the shots when he's on the ice are going toward the opposition's net.

Some signings do work

Another veteran who has kept Detroit in a playoff spot is new addition Daniel Alfredsson. Unlike some of the past veteran signings by the Wings, Alfredsson has worked out amazingly well. At 41, he's been a consistent top six forward, scoring 30 points in 36 games. The ageless Swede could very well lead the team in goals by season's end.

Young guys get a chance

And while the injuries have probably resulted in a lower place in the standings, the team was finally forced to give important playing time to some of the younger players. Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist have cemented their place in the starting lineup. Tomas Jurco got a chance to experience NHL speed before likely coming back to stay next year. If I were in the GM chair he would not be in Grand Rapids. And Danny Dekeyser and Brendan Smith are both playing big minutes.

Hey, we'll take it

Jonas Gustavsson also somehow played 17 games while maintaining a save percentage higher than .910, something he's never accomplished in his career (and likely never will again).

The bad

Oh, boy, the bad. What is it about Ken Holland and that extra year on the contract? His itchy signing finger has the team locked into several contracts I'm sure he regrets now.

So … that's not good

Let's get the obvious one out of the way. Mikael Samuelsson. What does it say about you when 8 regular players are injured and your coach/GM are bringing up players from the AHL before dressing you? Slamin' Sammy, as no one calls him, has pretty much been relegated to the fourth line when he has played. He has gotten a few looks in the top six and always plays on the second power play unit even when on the fourth line.

He's faced some of the weakest competition and mostly started shifts in the offensive zone. Despite these factors, he's scored only three points in 21 games. Not exactly the kind of production you want from someone making $3 million (almost six-times the league minimum salary). My best guess is he'll continue to stay on the bench until close to the trade deadline, when most of his salary has been paid and he can be picked up for a conditional seventh round pick.

Iron man

Only two players have dressed for every Wings game this season. Drew Miller and … Kyle Quincey. How is it that of all the players to dodge the injury bug, one of them is the walking blood pressure test that is Kyle Quincey? Q does face some of the tougher competition among Wings defensemen and starts in his own zone more often than any other Detroit defender. Unfortunately, his numbers seem to reflect this tough assignment. His Corsi rating is 2.3% lower than the team average, he's a team worst -14 and his 49 minutes in penalties easily lead the team. Put simply, Quincey has done the exact opposite of rising to the challenge. Hey, at least his contract comes off the books after this season.

So about those other signings

It's early yet, but Stephen Weiss has been a disastrous signing. While the Red Wings are known for their puck possession game, Weiss is in the bottom 25 players by Corsi in the entire league. THE ENTIRE LEAGUE. That means he's driving the play at the same level as fourth-line enforcers and AHL call ups. This is despite the fact that Weiss was starting almost 58% of his face-offs in the offensive zone. It's possible Weiss has been much more hampered by injuries than anyone realized and that once healthy he'll return to an elite level. The Red Wings had better hope so, with 90% of his nearly $25 million contract remaining to be played out over the next 4.5 seasons.

While the Weiss signing certainly looks catastrophic, there are plenty of other bad deals on the roster. Patrick Eaves was never moved, despite the fact that he became mostly a redundant piece when Detroit resigned Drew Miller. It's great to have depth, but how many fourth-line penalty killing experts do you need?

Jordin Tootoo's deal was bad the second it was signed. It's obvious no one was knocking down the door to sign Twos, why give him three years and almost $6 million? Before the first year was done he'd already been displaced on the roster. It would be one thing if Tootoo could kill penalties or chip in a little offense. If Detroit were overflowing with goals, I could see keeping the little guy around for his energy and scrappiness. But when your team is hoping to win 2-1 every night, a roster spot reserved for a face-puncher is a luxury. Tootoo will likely spend his remaining 1.5 seasons in the AHL before signing on to the KHL (unless he's bought out first).

It's early, but I think we can put Jakub Kindl's contract in this category. Kindl plays some of the softest minutes on the team, and yet is just barely above the team Corsi average. If he were an impact player he'd be driving shots the other way with his easy assignment, and that's just not happening. Kindl's cap hit is not bad at $2.4 million, but the Red Wings are stocked with defensive prospects and by year four of this deal, Kindl likely will be taking time, money and a roster spot that should be going to someone else. I think Kindl is a strong candidate to be traded sooner, rather than later.

And talk of bad contracts would not be complete if I did not mention Dan Cleary. It's not that Cleary's contract is that bad, he has half a year left on his deal with a $1.75 million cap hit. Sure, Cleary's performance could have been replicated by an AHLer making the league minimum; he's definitely being overpaid. In the four games Riley Sheahan played this year, he matched a third of the points Cleary's scored in 41 games.

But the real reason Cleary's contract is bad is that it prevented him from signing a much worse deal with Philadelphia. If Mike Babcock had just kept quiet, Cleary could be wearing orange and black now with 2.5 years and $6 million remaining on his contract. The move would have put the Flyers further over the salary cap and likely resulted in the team moving a legitimate NHLer off the roster to make space for the decrepit Cleary. Every edge you can get counts, so you should never prevent your foe from shooting himself in the foot.

The most frustrating part about these small contracts is that they add up. Take Eaves, Samuelsson, Cleary and Kindl off the books and you've suddenly got almost $8.5 million in cap space to work with. It would be one thing if these veterans were contributing above and beyond what the Wings have gotten from the AHL kids, but the reverse is likely true. These players are either at the bottom of the lineup, stuck on the bench or wasting time in the minors. Meanwhile the going rate for a top pair defenseman is in the $5-7 million range.

Money in the bank

Year one of Jim Howard's new, nearly $32 million dollar deal has not gone according to plan. Howard was a big reason the team made it into the playoffs last year and just shy of the conference finals. This year, you could make the case he's done more than most in hurting the team's playoff chances. Before getting injured for three weeks, Howard was posting a career worst .907 save percentage. In his return from injury he looked putrid, giving up 5 goals to the offensively challenged Predators. But there is reason to think this funk will pass. In three out of Howard's four full seasons he's posted numbers better than .920%. If he rebounds to that level of play, the Wings will start banking points at a much higher rate and move out of the wild card spot.

What's next?

While the first half of the year has been a challenge with injuries, poor performances and regrettable contracts, there is hope that the fortunes will turn in the New Year. Detroit's Fenwick number (the percentage of even strength, non-blocked shot attempts when the score is close) is 13^th in the league at 51.4%. Historically being above 50% is good enough to get into the playoffs. This is the lowest rate the Wings have had in several years, but I expect this number to climb.

Darren Helm and Johan Franzen should be back soon from injury. Tatar and Nyquist were needlessly held out of the lineup for the first 15-20 games of the season and are both some of the best puck possession players on the team. Dekeyser and Smith have tons of potential and will hopefully continue improving. I expect Howard to rebound to his normal performance level. And there is always the hope that Ken Holland makes a move to improve the team by the trade deadline.

All of this should add up to a better second-half, climb up the standings and strong push into the playoffs. Hey, even if it doesn't, they're still in the East so they'll probably make the playoffs anyway.