Shutdown Pair

Category: NHL

  • Bloggerz are teh suck! Newspaper guys R lame! LOL

    Okay, seriously, enough is enough guys.  People suck on both sides, sometimes.  If you are too stupid to judge content being published/posted/tweeted on it’s own merits (whether MSM or ‘new media’), get off the internet.  Conversely, if you are a media member who can’t resist baiting fans with stupid shit and then belittling them, stick your nose back in your antiquated folded paper news delivery system.  Protip:  you can use it to start a fire in a barrel when you’re out on the street, just make sure you take out the sale ads, they’ll smell terrible.

  • Hockey Bloggers and Access

    The big discussion point today (thanks to this article over at Puck Daddy amongst other things) is credentials and access for hockey bloggers.  The sticking point raised on the reference conference call is actually valid (why should someone have access to our locker room on the road when they are not welcome at home?), and that I don’t have a problem with.  Where things break down, though, is where the line is drawn now between bloggers and pro sportswriters.  There are bloggers doing fantastic work, both independently and under the umbrella of a larger media network (such as SBNation).  I see no reason why they (if they want it) shouldn’t be accomodated with full access.  Individual teams (such as the Rangers) disagree, though.

    Let’s look at an example, the Buffalo News’s own Mike Harrington.  He works for a newspaper, and writes columns that get published on actual paper along with his twitter account and the paper’s Sabres Edge blog.  But he has no problem blasting Darcy or Lindy when it’s warranted, which apparently would be enough to keep him out of the visiting room at MSG, without the get out of jail free card that is his News byline.

    Let’s face it:  there should be a way to be a blogger and be credentialed with full access in every city.  The NHL itself has all sorts of social media connections, and should be able to assist teams that need it in fostering them as well.  Bloggers that want access (not all of us do) should be able to request it, and then have their site looked over by the team’s communications team.  If the person can deliver coherent thoughts and doesn’t sound like a moron, step two would be a quick phone ‘interview’ to ensure they aren’t intimidated talking to people and wouldn’t be out of place in a media scrum.  I’d also have no problem with teams having a measuring stick of some type (how long your blog has existed+monthly pageviews+Twitter follower count or somesuch) to weed out people just looking for a free seat in the arena and a chance at getting autographs.

    For my part, I’ve never really looked into the possibility here in Buffalo.  I get the feeling it’s not something that would happen, and anyway I don’t have the confidence in a group to speak up and ask questions.  It would be nice to be in the press box and able to listen in directly to the press conferences and locker room interviews, but really it wouldn’t have a huge effect on what I actually do.  Still, access done right would be a benefit to teams, as the media climate continues to shift towards a mix of ‘new’ and ‘old’ media.

  • Buffalo Sabres: A Look At The Depth Chart

    With training camp less than a month away, and the Buffalo Sabres roster looking pretty much set, I thought now would be a good time to investigate the lines and defense pairings for the coming season.  Starting up front:

    Ennis – Connolly – Pominville
    Vanek – Roy – Stafford/McCormick?
    Gerbe – Gaustad – Kaleta
    Hecht – Niedermayer – Grier

    It’s an odd mix of diminutive players and size/grit, to be sure.  Zack Kassian could make things interesting when he’s off his time-out from GMDR and gets to sign.  I’m not sure what happens if McCormick gets one of the RW spots, Stafford really is the only one that can come out.  I don’t think you play anybody out of position to try and keep him in the lineup.  Gerbe, I suppose, could end up on the fourth line if Lindy wants to keep Hecht up on the third, though my hope is with cagey vets like Grier and Niedermayer taking over the fourth line will get more than 6 minutes a night.  It’s a lineup that has some scoring potential, but should help out the revamped defense core quite a bit as well.  Speaking of:

    Myers (RH) – Morrisonn (LH)
    Montador (RH) – Leopold (LH)
    Rivet (RH) – Sekera (LH)

    Butler (LH)

    Obviously Myers is the top dog, and I slotted Morrisonn next to him as he’s another more stay at home type as Tallinder was for Tyler last year.  You get a similar Off/Def pair with Montador/Leopold, leaving Rivet and his bad shoulder to mentor Sekera and Butler in the third pair.  This keeps the left hand/right hand balance, and keeps Rivet healthier so he can bulldoze some guys in front of Miller.  If Leopold can chip in points to balance the Myers pairing, the offense from the backend will be right where it needs to be.  Now, Morrisonn may not fit in as a first pair guy which blows all this up but I think this works the best.

    I don’t HAVE to go over the goalies, do I?  Miller gets more work than we like (without the Olympics thankfully), especially considering the TWENTY TWO back to back game situations.  Does Lalime get 15 games?  Lalime and Enroth combined for 14 starts last year, I’d like to see that at 20 with all the back to backs but I can’t predict it.

    Look, it’s not the wholesale changes in the top 6 we were looking for, but as we’ve investigated before, there aren’t a lot of guys available who are a for-sure improvement.  Stempniak might be a one-hit wonder, and there’s that self-imposed cap…

  • Odds and Ends

    • Thank goodness Sabres training camp starts soon.  The news has all but dried up, and I just want SOMETHING to talk about.  The cone of silence has descended on HSBC arena and it’s killing me
    • By the way, I didn’t realize anybody wanted to know about the flooding at the arena, I could’ve told you about it.  Surprised that it took a month for me to notice an article on it.
    • That CJ Spiller looks pretty good, eh?  Fun kid to watch.
    • Had to watch part of that new Cats and Dogs movie.  I sure hope a steady gig on NCIS: LA keeps Chris O’Donnell from making further movies.

    Hopefully I have more to fill this space next week.

  • Void Them ALL, Let God Sort It Out

    So you are telling me that the NHL has voided the crazy awesome Kovalchuk contract?  And is looking into some of the other super-longterm deals?  Nice!  But hey, there are plenty of other deals that don’t make sense, so I have a proposal:

    1. As part of the next CBA, roll back salaries again and lower the cap.  $60 million + is getting too high.
    2. After that, set a hard limit on the allowable length of contracts (5 years?  7 years?).
    3. Void all contracts that exceed that length.
    4. Have a contract draft (like an expansion draft) – teams can protect a certain number of NHL player contracts (10?), the rest get voided.  BOOM.
    5. Following that is REAL ULTIMATE FREE AGENT FRENZY the likes of which the league has never seen.  I suppose if you want to wuss out a bit, give the home team a week or two of exclusive negotiations with their former players.

    Okay, I admit that this isn’t entirely serious towards the end there.  Imagine, though, how awesome it would be – every team in the league could get out from under their bad contracts, players could re-sign for what they are actually worth, and the balance of power could be shifted dramatically.  Every fan of every team would be interested…no more could fans of some teams sigh and fuss because ‘we like our core’ or ‘we are priced out of the market’.  You KNOW you’d enjoy it.

  • MacArthur, Kennedy and Arbitration: Validation for Darcy?

    The inestimable James Mirtle wrote an article about the arbitration process, and specifically Clarke MacArthur’s ridiculous award.  We now know how C-Mac got it:

    When it came time to meet with an arbitrator, the Thrashers simply asked for the award to be presented immediately, based on the player’s demands, so they could then walk away from the contract.

    <snip>

    “We said, you know what, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he gets this silly award,” Thrashers general manager Rick Dudley said. “We kind of encouraged it.”

    This was actually crazy like a fox, as it turned out.  With Clarke getting such a high award, the Thrashers could walk away.  If they had wrestled it down to $1.6mil or below, they would’ve been stuck with it the way Buffalo was with Tim Kennedy’s.  Could you imagine how much grief GMDR could’ve saved himself if he had gamed the system like that?  “Yes, please award him $2 million bucks.  WE DARE YOU.”

    Regier’s reasoning behind the arbitration problems:

    Sabres GM Darcy Regier said part of the problem stems from depth players being paid less under the salary cap as stars get a larger share of the pie.

    “The arbitration system has largely been built over the years on a pricing system for these players that, if it’s not obsolete, it’s going to be obsolete,” Regier said. “[Free agents] are available on the market for a price determined by the market and not by an arbitration system that’s running a little behind.”

    The Niemi/Turco situation is the prime example…why pay $2.75 million when there’s a guy who had similar numbers willing to take half (one reason:  if the guy is 10 years younger, but with the cap situation in Chicago…).  Rick Dudley, Thrashers GM says it best here:

    “My theory is very simple,” Dudley said. “If I put the player on waivers tomorrow, would he be claimed? If the answer’s no, then in all likelihood, that’s a contract I wouldn’t want.”

    Tim Kennedy passed through waivers.  Bottom line, his award (even if not crazy) is a contract no one wants.  Teams may regret it in a year or two, but I doubt it.

  • Goodbye, Max

    According to George James Malik on Twitter (via Sovetsky Sport and Sport-Express), Maxim Afinogenov has signed a 5 year contract with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL, with an option for a 6th year.  Kind of expected this after he didn’t re-sign right away with Atlanta.  He’s the sort of player who would get quite a bit more money there (though I don’t know the terms yet).

    I wish him the best of luck.  Max could bring a crowd to their feet like few others the Sabres have had recently, even when, more often then not, we ended up groaning and throwing up our hands in frustration when his dangle fizzled.

    Could’ve met Max at Puck Drop a few years back, but my son was restless so I gave my spot in line to a young lady that was wearing Max’s Dynamo Moscow jersey.

  • Tim Kennedy: WAIT I GOT IT

    You know what this is to me?  It’s like TK and the Sabres are dating in high school.  Tim is head over heels in ‘love’ with Buffalo, like OMG, I never want to go anywhere else!  The Sabres, on the other hand, were never really committed at all.  Nice guy, treats them well, will even watch Sabretooth while his beau is out of town.  Lately, though, the Sabres seem distracted.  They aren’t texting Tim back right away, and when they do, it’s a short reply.  She, sorry, Tim confronts the Sabres (at the arbitration hearing) and gives an ultimatum.  Buffalo shrugs and moves on, deciding the open time in the afternoon can be used to get back in WoW, whereas Kennedy goes home, cries into his pillow and plays Morrissey records for the next month.

    I have too much time on my hands.

  • Get to know Shaone Morrisonn

    I only had to check the spelling once for the title, but as stated, Shaone (pronounced like Shawn) Morrisonn was signed by Buffalo to a 2 year deal.  Financials not confirmed, rumored to be around $1.75mil/year but huge grains of salt there.  He’s 27, having played the last several years with Washington, at times paired with Mike Green.  1G, 11A last year, he is more of a stay-at-home guy that clears out the front of the net (6’4″, 210 lbs).  He had 163 hits last year, which would’ve put him first on the Sabres ahead of Kaleta.  His 104 blocked shots last season would put him second to Tyler Myers.

    Other notes on Morrisonn:

    Really, with all of this, he reminds of Jay McKee.  Big, similar numbers, shot blocker, hard hitter, all around tough guy.  Not a big splashy move, but definitely a guy that can play a role on this team now.

  • Reserving Judgement

    Look, the Tim Kennedy thing is just as baffling to me as it is to you.  I want to hear what Darcy says (and doesn’t say) before I go off the deep end.  I may not do that no matter what, though, as at the end of the day he’s just one $1mil/year player that would be gone. *shrug*