I'm not actually down on Dion Phaneuf. He can do things that few other players can do, and by my eye he makes incremental progress in his all-around game and decision-making.

Occasionally I have this dream where he gets dumped by his girlfriend, and is so goddamned mad and frustrated that he goes on an absolute tear: the kind where he becomes the player Pierre McGuire always thought he'd be, and possibly becomes hated by other NW fans for real sins, rather than imagined or trivial ones. But whatever. He's frustrating sometimes, but it's not often that I slap my forehead and say I can't believe we're paying this guy six-point-five mil a year until 2014.

But the facts are facts, and here are the two important ones:

ONE. The Flames need another difference maker at forward. And not just this season, but going forward as well, so it needs to be someone in his prime or just about.

TWO. Phaneuf's role, his wage, and the team's needs no longer align. Here's something I wrote in July 2008 that gets at my point:

I have written before that, while there is no magic formula when it comes to signing free agents, there are pitfalls to be avoided. They include [...] paying for offense from more than one defenseman, which is why I'm pretty skeptical about the Brian Campbell signing by the Hawks. On the one hand, their PP was pretty lousy last year (24th), and they don't presently have a clear #1 point man who can shoot, distribute, etc., so maybe he was a smart acquisition, in the same manner as he was an excellent acquisition by the Sharks last season. On the other hand, Seabrook and/or Barker are supposed to be growing into that role, and they already have a "do-it-all" d-man in Keith. The Campbell contract only makes sense if he provides a huge marginal advantage over the alternatives, and I'm not at all sure that he does. (And this is setting aside the too-long term, and the fact that he looked very ordinary in the playoffs.)

By definition, you can only have one #1 defenseman. You can only have one featured shooting threat on the PP. Most importantly, you can't pay elite wages for depth.

I think the backup G position is important. You want that guy to be solid when your #1 needs a break, and if there's an injury, well, god help you if you're unprepared. But that doesn't mean you go out and sign the best available goalie next July to be your backup, because on balance, you can't afford to devote those resources to that position.

To a lesser extent, this is the situation in Calgary on D. When Darryl Sutter signed Jay Bouwmeester on June 30 to a five-year, $33.4M deal with a NTC, he made the decision that JB would be heading up the blueline for the next 5 years. He can't afford to pay Dion Phaneuf to play the "Jay Bouwmeester" role, because he now has Jay Bouwmeester filling that role.

(Yes, yes, Pronger and Niedermayer won a Cup together... I believe those Ducks also proved that being the toughest, fightingest, penalty-takingest team was the winning formula, which is why the Maple Leafs are leading the Eastern Conference and are prohibitive favourites to win the Stanley.)

I think Darryl Sutter needs to shop Phaneuf for an elite young forward. There might be a few good reasons, but the important one is, It's what's best for the team.

Olli Jokinen went the final 13 games of the 08/09 regular season without scoring a goal. He scored twice in the 6-game playoff series against Chicago. And in the first 19 games of this season, he has scored two goals: one was shot from the corner that deflected off Kyle Cumiskey, and one was a dribbler that even Antti Niemi would agree was one of the five worst goals in the league this season. Count 'em up: that's 4 goals in the past 38 games.

He's recording 2.3 shots per game; he averaged 4.2 in his three post-lockout seasons. You notice different things in different games, but on Tuesday against Colorado, his unwillingness to shoot the puck was glaring; he didn't pass up prime scoring chances, but he certainly passed up some open lanes to the net.

Robert Cleave made a good point the other day that, like it or lump it, Jokinen is here for the duration. And I wasn't going to keep banging the Olli Sucks drum, but, this annoyed me:

"I think I have seven or eight times I hit the post so far this year, if half of those would’ve gone in, nobody would be questioning anything," he said following this morning’s skate.

While I appreciate that he's been a bit unlucky, that statement is not true, and I really hope he doesn't think it is. The gap between (A) the expected performance of a $5.5M/yr "#1 centre" (acquired for a steep price) playing next to Jarome Iginla and (B) Jokinen's performance to date this season is a lot wider than that.

Go Flames.

"...we spent about five years lambasting the organization at almost every turn, and I don’t think its an exaggeration to say that there was some hostility on both sides towards the others. We were fans of the team, but not of the organization, and they weren’t big fans of us either. There were times when it became clear that rooting for the team to fail was our best option, because things weren’t getting better without hitting rock bottom.

They hit rock bottom in 2008. And things have gotten significantly better since then, and not just in the decision making that goes into putting the roster together..."


Still waiting on that whole "getting better" thing, but otherwise, this is pretty spot-on.

Glove tap to Avi for the link.

**The trapezoid was back in the news again, and the usual Devils/Stars fans were agitating for its removal. (As well as some new people who have decided that, as a means of reducing boarding, it makes more sense that penalizing boarding more harshly.) I was chatting with Cosh about this nearly 3 years ago, and he nailed it IMO:

me: I find the whole "why should one of Goalie X's skills be neutralized by some rule?" to be very uncompelling.
Colby: It's not a bad question to ask, but when the obvious answer is "Because X's skill really has nothing to do with the essence of the game and isn't any fun to watch", why bother asking.

**Also on the GMs: what's interesting to me is not so much the fact of the change (or "softening") of position on head hits, but rather the way the change was framed. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if George McPhee really thinks the NHL rulebook can be employed with this kind of surgical precision...

“The only issue I have is when the player is vulnerable, there is a blindside hit and the only contact is made to the player’s head. [...] If there are three or four of those a year, maybe we can attack and eliminate a lot of them.”

...he's just dreaming. As I wrote a couple of autumns ago, in the course of getting rid of some unwanted physical play, you're going to end up eliminating some wanted physical play. If someone (besides Bob McKenzie) wanted to be grown up about it, they could just be frank: there will be a bit of a tradeoff, but it's the right decision. Which, it is.

**My favourite contribution to #unpublishedNHLbooks on Twitter yesterday (I'm @FenwickMatt btw) was, "Now I Can Die In Peace", by Tom Benjamin. Nothing personal Tom, I just went for the most well-known Canucks fan I could think of (and thought using Jim Hughson or Michael Buble would confuse the gag).

**There is no way no spin Olli Jokinen's awful performance this season in a positive way. I'm changing my assessment of him from "Bad player with a good shot" to "Bad player with a hard shot".

** This month's Post I Wish I Had Written: Kent's appreciation of Craig Conroy. I second every word.

**Pleasant surprise of the season: Kipper. If he's back as a Top 10-15 NHL goalie, that mitigates a lot of other worries.

**Flames @ Slugs tonight. They haven't won in Buffalo in 13 years, so I think I'll just cheer for no one to get injured. Go Flames.

"And while it's far too early to know whether Darryl Katz's dream-arena plan will go ahead, if it does come to pass, it will be vital to have an LRT line running straight from West Edmonton Mall to the new arena site."

Um, okay, I have a question. Why? Why is a straight line from WEM to The Katz & LaForge World-Class Wonder Emporium™ "vital?" I mean, vital is a pretty serious word. Synonyms include "essential," "paramount," and "imperative." So when I see a journalist suggesting that level of importance to a public transit line running from a mall to a hockey rink-- a hockey rink that doesn't even exist, and if it does, with all its apparent city-healing powers, will likely cost taxpayers so much money that it will prevent some of those very same public transit lines from being built--I have to ask, really? It's that important? That crucial? So important that to think otherwise is unfathomable? Why? Because we'll need to get people from one big casino to another? Because people will be pissed if they can't get from Bootlegger to box seat in under twenty minutes? Oh! Oh! Is it because doing so will rejuvenate, rehab, renew, restore, refresh, refurbish, regenerate, reinvigorate, revitalize, and revivify the downtown core, transforming Edmonton into a shiny, shimmering, utopian metropolis ? Is this the case? It is, right? Okay, then. If you say so.

I'm agnostic about a line going to WEM. If it's the best place to end or anchor the line, so be it. But I'm pretty certain that building a straight line from there to a new arena isn't the best course of action. And it's definitely not vital. For one, the arena doesn't exist. Second, it never should, if it means taxpayers have to foot the bill. Third, as Patrick LaForge has noted, there will only be 90 hockey events there every year. Even if you scatter in another 75-100 events throughout the year (and I am being generous), the reality is that the "anchor tenant" (I'm assuming the full-blown Wonder Emporium™ will be the course of action, because it's the best way to trick people into supporting the public funding model) will be full less than half a year, every year, and even then only for a few hours at a time. Why would you build a straight line to a destination that, in the grand scheme of things, no one goes to? Because there'll also (supposedly) be a casino, some shops and some housing around it? There's lots of places like that (shockingly, they didn't need an adjacent arena and public funding to get built). Are we going to say it's vitally important to build straight lines to all those places, too?

Listen, I'm all for more public transit. And I'm all for public transit that takes people where they actually need to go. As with most cities, getting people in and out of our downtown core in an efficient, expedient and environmentally-friendly manner makes sense. Heck, it's important. What isn't important, however, especially not vitally important, is getting that public transit line to go straight from a mall to a proposed hockey arena, particularly when it's motivated by the unsubstantiated and therefore misguided belief that doing so will revitalize or save a section of our city. This simply will not happen. An LRT line will move people from place A to place B. You want each place to be an optimal destination. A new, publicly funded hockey arena will make Daryl Katz even more wealthy than he already is. You'll probably think it's cool. If those are your points, or your goals, then great. But let's just leave it at that, and save the vitally important words for the vitally important matters.

Labels: New Arena

"Fantasy, it gets the best of me
When I'm sailing, all caught up in the reverie"

I've being listening to Yacht Rock all day. Hence the Christopher Cross reference. Even made a Yacht Rock mix. Got me some Cross, the Michael McDonald-led Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, Boz Scaggs, Toto, Kenny Loggins...all of it. So white. So smooth. So wonderful.

So far so good with the Oilers this year. 6-2-1 on the season. 2nd in the NW, 4th in the Western Conference. 36GF. 26GA. Dustin Penner tied (with Ryan Smyth) for 4th in league scoring with 14 points. And all this with a bunch of key players (Fernando Pisani, Sheldon Souray, Steve Staios, and Marc Pouliot) injured. Not too bad, right?

Nope, not too shabby. I'm the biggest cynic in the world when it comes to this hockey club, and even I'm impressed. At the same time, there are concerns. They've only played two games on the road. They've only beaten two teams with a winning record (Dallas and Columbus). The injuries, and a crazy case of the flu, have exposed the lack of depth at forward. They still look really bad in their own end, continually failing to clear the zone. They like to give up goals in the last minute of periods. The starting goaltender plays rebounds like he's playing a game of Pong. The coach isn't Bill Walsh. And Dustin Penner isn't Frank Mahovlich. So, you know, some perspective is probably in order.

As Matt so kindly pointed out, the 2006-2007 Oilers started out 6-2. That was the year of "The Vaunt." They beat some good teams to start the season, too, including the Flames, Sharks, Canucks and Red Wings. Then the wheels came off (on October 25th they were hammered 6-2 by the Ducks and their new defenceman, Chris Pronger). My shrink has advised me to not spend too much time dwelling on that season, but let's just say that it didn't end on a high note.

I'm not saying this season is going to go off the rails like the 06-07 season did (may the Good Lord have mercy on our souls if it does). But there's still a lot of hockey to be played, and this team hasn't really been tested. Tonight's a good test. So too are the next 12 games, 9 of which are on the road. If they can avoid a late-game screwup against the Flames tonight (wouldn't that be nice?), and go even 6-6 over the next 12, I'll be a lot more convinced that this team is the real deal. Right now it's all just a fantasy.


Prediction: What this fool believes is that Oilers ride like the wind in a 5-3 victory. Minute by minute, they take it to the streets, cycle the puck lowdown, and make my dreams come true. Ya mo be thinking Hemmer gets the hatty, and Chopper reels back the years with a pair. Sarah smiles, and the boys Lido shuffle all the way to Margaritaville to meet Rosanna for some post-game celebrations.

GOILERS

Before I type this next sentence, I want to assure you that I am not on any type of drugs. Okay, here goes: Brian McGrattan was the best player on the ice for Calgary on Friday.

Yeahhhhh, let's not get carried away here, Lambert. He had a fine game -- and for Brian McGrattan, a tremendous one -- but he was the 3rd best player on his line. Prust set up two beauty chances in the high slot, the 2nd of which resulted in McG's assist when his miss was redirected into the net by Boyd. The goal came on one of the several chances Boyd created.

Full credit to McG for getting into good scoring position three distinct times. If he averages 1/3 that rate over all the games he plays this season, I'll be thrilled. But he wasn't the guy making things happen out there. And you know what? He's not going to average a scoring chance per game. Not close. It was his first goal in 91 games; no amount of improved skill and luck will turn him into a reliably competent player in the offensive end.

And it's not like this is all calculator skepticism either. In Eric Godard's third game as a Flame, on October 13, 2007, he drove the net on a 2-on-1 with Stephane Yelle and potted the game-winning goal. This spurred some chatter along the lines of ,"Well if he can chip in once in a while on the scoresheet, as well as providing some energy and a physical presence, then we might have a gem in this here heavyweight."

We didn't. He didn't score again in the subsequent (and final) 76 games of his Flames career. He scored twice last season for the Cup champ Pens, dressing for 71 of 82 regular season games and 0 of 24 playoff games. So I guess what I'm trying to say is: my expectations for Brian McGrattan's helpfulness going forward, with respect to Winning, have not been raised one iota.

**Congratulations to the Oilers; they haven't looked this good in October since the Lupul team started 6-2.

**This crossed my mind a few times in the past couple of weeks: I wonder if the NW Division is the new SE Division. It certainly seems, early on here, that every team has serious flaws -- the NW may spend this season getting bootstomped by the other two divisions, and have one of those races where the div champ gets the 3rd seed and the runner-up finishes 9th.

**Thanks to Robert Cleave for pointing out this brief blog post by radio colour guy & WHA legend Mike Rogers. First Rogers lets the cat out of the bag:

People make out that Sutter’s system is so complicated that Albert Einstein would have trouble figuring it out. Brent’s approach is no different than pretty well every team in the NHL.

I knew it! I frickin' knew it. Every time a team gets a new coach, the players gush about his new system, and say something almost exactly like, "Coach has got us playing a lot more aggressive, up-tempo game [...] we just have to make smart decisions." Accordingly, it derives straight from Rogers' comments that, within a fairly narrow range, there is a commonly-accepted "right way" to play successful hockey.

So why the problem? The system will only work as long as the individual will buy in and I believe that some of the Flames players are not willing to do so. Playing a strong defensive game is not glamorous, but scoring goals is. So what would the player rather do? I think you know the answer. Once the individual commits to the idea that everyone has to be on the same page, the team will be successful.

I dunno, Mike. If the players are being asked to do things that are "no different than pretty well every team in the NHL", then how can this be a committment thing? How did the players on the Flames roster get to where they are today if they can't do the things that are acknowledged league-wide as being important? If Jarome Iginla had 7 goals right now, but an identical number of goals against, would you suggest that he needs to commit to a strong defensive game, or that there was any problem at all? I think you know the answer.

**Get well soon, Moss. Go Flames.

If only the Oilers had a Coach who put an "emphasis on determining and going with what actually leads to success (wins) . . . rather than "hamstring[ing his team's] chances of victory based on some antiquated and unproven model of success".

"There's a thousand stats and the one I look at the most is chances, for and against," said Quinn.

Dummy.

Ahhhh, I'm just bustin' your balls Andy.  I could care less what he looks at, so long as he keeps those Irish eyes a smilin'.

Seems like Matt and I are enjoying the same stuff right now.

"The radio guys here protest a little … they point out that while Drew’s OPS is usually good, they aren’t sure that it has led to PRODUCTION — namely runs scored and RBIs. And this is when Theo really takes over. I bold out a few of my favorite thoughts in this wonderful little lesson:

"That’s not true. With RBIs, yes. Based on his skill set, he’s always going to have underwhelming RBI totals. I couldn’t care less. When you’re putting together a winning team, that honestly doesn’t matter.When you have a player who takes a ton of walks, who doesn’t put the ball in play at an above average rate, and is a certain type of hitter, he’s not going to drive in a lot of runs. Runs scored, you couldn’t be more wrong. If you look at a rate basis, J.D. scores a ton of runs.

“And the reason he scores a ton of runs is because he does the single most important thing you can do in baseball as an offensive player. And that’s NOT MAKE OUTS. He doesn’t make outs. He’s always among our team leaders in on-base percentage, usually among the league leaders in on-base percentage. And he’s a really good base runner. So when he doesn’t make outs, and he gets himself on base, he scores runs — and he has some good hitters hitting behind him. Look at his runs scored on a rate basis with the Red Sox or throughout his career. It’s outstanding.

“You guys can talk about RBIs if you want, I just … we ignore them in the front office … and I think we’ve built some pretty good offensive clubs. If you want to talk about RBIs at all, talk about it as a percentage of opportunity but it’s just simply not a way or something we use to evaluate offensive players.”



Now, I am well aware that baseball isn't hockey. I say this to preempt the people who will want to drive home this point in the comments section, knowing full well that they will say it anyway. Baseball is not hockey. Hockey is not baseball. Baseball is not hockey. I know. I get it. And I don't care. What I care about is the broader point of Posnanski's post, and Epstein's interview, which is this: far too many professional sports teams, sport reporters, and sports fans focus on aspects of their particular game that are either secondary or irrelevant to the game's primary purpose, which is winning. They elevate things that, while perhaps fun and entertaining, haven't really been proven to exist or matter. Coaches who talk about players needing more "crust" in their game, for example. Fans who brag about a player being the team's best body-checker, for another. Reporters who mythologize a player for being "clutch" in "crunch time." Me, I'd rather people--managers, coaches, players, reporters, fans--worried more about figuring out what things actually determine success in a sport. Do I know exactly what those things are? Hell, no. But I do have some guesses.

Flames @ Oilers, 730PM MT, RSN West. So not only have I not found time to put up much of a post today, I'm also going to be curling tonight at the Saville Centre (w/ Sacamano) and will miss the 2nd and 3rd periods. I think I'll wear my Warrener 44 jersey, so mental note, keep my head up. Two things though:

Scott Reynolds' wonderful Gospel of Hockey preview routine, now featured at Copper & Blue, reminded me of this Battle Game Day from 4(!) seasons ago.

Also, Vic and Dennis are back. Vic shows that, as recorded so far, Scoring Chance +/- and Corsi# correspond awfully closely. Dennis is kibbitzing at Lowetide's; here is his latest presented without comment in its entirety.

It seems like I am always picking up for this guy:) but even though I've never had the same injury as 78, I have been injured in that area before and let me tell you, it's pure hell.

It happened while I was at the gym and attempting an exercise on an ab machine and because I'd been doing like 150 situps-a-day for like 2 years before I even started at a gym, I figured I would be Boss when it came to this piece of equipement. Well, I set the gauge too high and when I did the first crunch, I could literally feel something tear.

This was just before christmas and I was gonna stay away from the gym for a couple of weeks anyway so when I finished up that day, I said I'd take awhile off and hopefully this would heal (I had finished my workout after feeling this tear because you never really full the full effects of an injury until the adrenaline wears off, anyway).

So, for a week I'm a little sore but then I start my christmas drinking and my stomach literally grinds everytime I take a drop and the next morning it's like I'm pissing honest-to-goodness fire.

Note: I still powered through because it was Christmas;)

Anyway, as soon as I got back to town after the holidays, I tried out the gym again and wound up in the absolute racks-of-pain for a full week. I remember going to the gym on a Monday and for the first next few days I could hardly get out of bed. I mean I had shooting pains in my stomach, groin, my balls, my ass and even in the head of my Brian Burke! The #1 and #2 bodily functions were resolute murder and I didn't know what was going on.

Note: I hope LT's daughter isn't reading this!

So I go to the doctor and he says it's likely prostatitis and it's either from a muscle pull or an infection. I get a bunch of bloodwork done - if you have this, you want it to be from an infection because that's the easiest way to treat it - but no such luck, it's a muscle pull.

So the doctor tells me no physical activity for six weeks and even when I resumed that, I should consider giving up alcohol and caffeine for an even longer period of time.

So, because I'd been in such rough shape before, I went from early Jan to early June without drinking a beer because I was fearful of bringing the pain back upon myself. And because I wasn't hungover or hungover hungry, I eventually worked out like never before and went to the gym six days a week and was in the best shape possible.

Note: my friends kept going out once a weekend but I've never been one to go out without getting hammered:)

Also, do you know what the doctor suggested would sooth flare-ups?

E-jackulation!

So, the girlfriend wasn't overly happy about that but I certainly was:D

The moral of this story is I don't know what's going on with 78 but I feel bad for the kid and I felt like sharing.

Go Oilers?

Calgary 5 (Iginla, Phaneuf x2, Conroy, Boyd) Edmonton 4 (probably the Comrie-Brule-Stone line, that looks fearsome). Go Flames.

From a piece by Chicagoan Steve Chapman, Chicago Wins By Losing: Why losing the Olympics is a blessing in disguise for the Windy City:

Here, as elsewhere, public opinion does not always matter. When the mayor and assorted corporations and interest groups line up behind something, even a grandiose vanity project, it's a good bet they will prevail over petty malcontents.

Insightful? Not particularly. True, and well said? Yep-per.

Labels: New Arena

The Lions in Winter come for an autumn visit to the Saddledome tonight (7PM MT, RSN West). The reaction around Flamesland to the lads' 2-0-0 start seems to be pretty much unanimous: they don't look that great yet, but it's nice to see Kipper making some stops, and we'll sure as hell take the points.

I quite agree, and for beyond the usual reasons (i.e. better to hav'em than not hav'em, they count the same as ones earned in March, etc.). Because of the Flames' unevenly compressed schedule this season, it's absolutely critical for them to gain points when they're healthy and coming off of real rest. I may get into this again next week, but for now let's just note that in the next 8 days, the Flames play 5 games. In the following 21 days, the Flames play... 5 games.

In other words, a game like tonight's -- off 2 days' rest, at home, opponent not a powerhouse -- represents points the Flames cannot afford to get away. Because even if they're playing really well after Christmas, they have 14 games in 23 nights: what would you use as an optimistic forecast for that stretch, that includes 4 games in 5 nights twice?

Calgary 4 (Iginla x2, Jokinen x2) Lez Habz 1 (Cammo). Go Flames.

Bill James said something a while ago that I thought was about as good a thought about bad baseball teams as anything I’ve heard. He said, “The future is not a plan.” And I think that’s exactly right. Every baseball team has a future. Every one. Every team has “prospects” — Baseball America next year will list off 30 for each team. Every team is loaded down with players in Class A who, if things go well, can emerge as the next great superstar. Every team has pitchers who could, and hitters who might, and catchers who should, and base runners who conceivably can. Every team in baseball.

And because every team has a future, it’s easy to fool yourself. It’s easy to talk about how things will get better. This is not always a bad thing. This is what gives fans hope every spring training. This is what keeps players inspired. This is what keeps baseball people going forward. And sometimes, rarely, a team even might fool itself into believing that it is better than the apparent talent and play at that higher level, at least for a while.

But … more often than not, fooling yourself isn’t much of a plan for survival. And thus, The Hochevar Principle: The future comes to all teams. Some teams wait for it. Those teams finish in last place a lot.

-- Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Royals fan, today

Don't know if Matt is throwing anything up, so I'll just give a quick prediction. I had a busy day at the waterpark that prevented me from doing anything further. I'd apologize, but it's the waterpark. That's a park, full of water slides. And a wave pool. And hot tubs. And girls far too young for me. Yeah. Exactly. BUSY.