my thoughts on the sharks…

In a hockey writing mood tonight — catching up, in some ways, for the last couple of weeks when I’ve been off thinking through stuff (hockey and not….) and trying to shove some things to closure (of which, stay tuned).

I’m sorry the Sharks didn’t go further. I thought they would. Watching the Oilers, though, they sure seem to have gotten into “mission from god” mode, and I’m not sure anyone’s going to keep them from winning the Cup. It’s no great insult to lose to a team everyone else loses to….

I’m going to say something that’s probably never been uttered by a hockey fan before in the history of hockey:

If the sharks show up opening night with exactly the same roster as they played their last game in the playoffs with, I’ll be perfectly satisfied. They can make NO CHANGES WHATSOEVER, and I won’t complain. 90% of what was “wrong” with the Sharks in the playoff series against Edmonton can be improved by having our young players be a year older, and a year wiser, and a year battle-hardened in the playoffs.

That’s how much I like the team, and how satisfied I was with their play — given circumstances. I sure would have liked a conference finals, but the same could be said of Anaheim’s team and fans….

Now, having said that, do I think they WILL come in with no changes?

Not a chance. and I think there are some likely improvements and/or updates coming.

First and most important: they gotta do something with goaltending. I simply don’t see any way they’ll open camp with both Toskala and Nabokov on the roster. I also don’t see any way they can anoint Naobkov with the “# 1 goalie” mantle again, not with a straight face. The best Nabokov can hope for is an opportunity to take the starting job back if Toskala struggles or gets hurt; I fully expect Toskala not to give him that chance….

Yet both goalies are clearly #1 goalies, and both have made it clear they want to be the starter — preferably san jose, but Nabokov isn’t stupid, and he’s intimated in the press he sees the writing on the wall, and made it clear he’d rather be the starter elsewhere than the backup here, although he’d really like to be the starter here. I’ve read unconfirmed reports that his no-trade clause doesn’t go into effect until July 1, so before then, the Sharks can evidently trade him as they wish — but even after that time, if Doug Wilson offers to send him to a good team where he can be #1, Nabokov would be an idiot not to waive the no-trade. If I were him, I wouldn’t accept a trade to, say, Chicago if I were him — but XM radio was mumbling a bit today about Nabokov for St. Louis, which frankly seems like a good deal for both sides, talent-wise and salary/cap as well.

So sometime this summer, Nabokov will be moved, perhaps sooner than later. The Sharks will likely start the season with Toskala and Schaeffer (the first five-win rookie goalie to NOT be good enough to actually play in the NHL this year, given how the sharks limited his playing time as much as possible while he was called up). Schaeffer is another good goalie, more in the Irbe mode than Nabokov’s more technician style — Schaeffer will grow grey hairs on his coaches, but also wins on the docket.

Other changes?

I have one request, and a few questions.

the request: we can do better than Ekman. when he was good, he was very good; when he was not good, he was invisible; his inconsistency drove people crazy. On balance, he was a positive for the team, but this is the one position up front I think can be and should be upgraded. Nabokov for St. Louis would be close to ideal for this, of course. But in any event, I’d rather see the sharks replace Ekman with something better — although I like the guy and his attitude; although, naming your kid “Melvin”? Huh?

The questions:

Alyn McAuley: fought a bum knee all season, offense disappeared, but he did what he could to contribute how he could. Will he be the old McAuley after surgery? or even close to it? I’d hate to see him leave, but I believe he’s an unrestricted free agent, and I might not fight like crazy to keep him. however, even if he stays as a 3rd line defensive center, that’s not bad — as long as we understand his role going in, where scoring is a bonus, not an expectation. I’d love to be pleasantly surprised here, and i think there’s some upside, but also risk.

Scott Parker: is his head ever going to be really okay again? does it matter? is there a place for someone like him in the league today? I wonder, and tend to doubt it; Parker’s a more legitimate hockey player than, say, a Dave Brown ever was — but while he’s clearly tougher than someone like Georges Laraque — he’s not the skater or grinder, and I just don’t know if a team needs, or wants, a specialty player like this any more. Unlike someone like Donald Brashear, who worked his butt off to be a 12 minute a game guy, Scott Parker is still more of a 6 minute intimidator. I tend to think the day has passed him by. We still need physical play and intimidation — but more in the mold of a Scott Thornton type, not a Parker type.

Speaking of — Scott Thornton — does he have another year in him? God, I hope so, but he’s getting older, and you have to wonder how long you can depend on him.

Then there’s Doug Murray, the guy with the funny swedish name. Showed up, made a big impact, played for a while, retired to the pressbox. I wondered if he was hurt, I heard through sources htey decided he was simply too slow for the NHL; is he working on his power skating as I type? I hope so, because boy, is he fun to watch — if he can catch someone.

What team will Jim Fahey play for? And will it be in the NHL? He disapppeared into the pressbox early, never to return, and he seems to have no future here.

And what about Matt Carle? Lest we forget, it was only a few years ago that we were saying things about Jim Fahey really similar to what we’re saying about Carle now. What an auspicious debut — but will he be able to sustain and improve?

Man, I’m already looking forward to camp.

The problem with diving….

Teal Sunglasses: Rules are rules, even when they’re dumb:

By the way, um, how many times did Jason Pominville “draw” penalties against Carolina? oh, wait. if you don’t get called for diving, it’s just playing hard and competing….

But that’s an argument for another blog posting…

One area the NHL still needs to work on is how to handle diving. It’s called far too infrequently, for one (and it’s far too difficult, in many cases it’s tough to tell, especially from on-ice in the fog of war referees live in.

There are deeper problems with diving as the NHL handles it, too. Far too often, even when it IS called, the diving team isn’t really penalized severely, beacuse of the “hook and a dive” problem.

By making diving a 2 minute minor, it’s really hard for a referee to call it in a way that properly penalizes a player. Much of the time a dive isn’t a penalty in isolation, but an embellishment on a real penalty. So all to often, players go off four on four. If I’m a player and I’m considering “an embellishment”, hell, I love those odds. I’d do it. And you can tell, in any game on any sheet of ice in any city, that there are a number of players who agree with me. Some way to excess, but I have to say, I doubt there are many players on ANY team in the NHL that, over the course of 80 games, didn’t play up something at least once to draw a penalty. Even players as, well, “don cherry”-like as Chris Chelios and Brendan Shanahan have, once in a while, um, “drawn” a penalty. (guffaw).

The problem is — that hook DOES have to be called. So does the dive. the big problem is, if you DO it, then nobody’s really punished. And so it doesn’t clean up the sport.

That’s bad.

I have an idea on this. I don’t for a minute claim it’s perfect. I simply think it’s better than the status quo.

I suggest we create a variation of the ten minute misconduct penalty, but shorter: five minutes. If you dive, you draw a misconduct, and you go to the box for five minutes — but that five minutes doesn’t trigger a penalty.

That resolves the problem of “hook and a dive” — because the hook gets called and creates a power play against the player doing the hook — AS IT SHOULD (the fact that the player being hooked dove doesn’t remove the problem of hooking in the first place). It removes the worry from the referee’s mind that calling the dive will turn it into a 4-4, in some ways rewarding the player who took the initial penalty. It’s my hope this will encourage referees to call this more often, since calling diving wouldn’t screw with game balance as much as it does now.

the coach of the player taking the dive loses that player for five minutes. That’s not as severe as a 2 minute power play, but it can really inconvenience the coach and the team; that gives the coach incentive to “talk” to a diver. And most important: the player taking a dive takes a hit in his minutes in the game. Frankly: a two minute penalty isn’t long enough to act as an incentive without a power play attached, since a team rolling three lines basically wouldn’t use that player again until his time is up — but make it five minutes? You’re forcing that player to lose a shift or two, perhaps on the power play (given the hook), and enough time that it forces the coach to play with his lines. But to me, a 10 minute misconduct would be too long, and discourage refs from calling it. five minutes is about right.

So, one might hope, it’d make it easier for refs to call, and act as more of a deterrent, while causing less impact to the balance of the game. What’s NOT to like here?

I’d even consider going one further: since it can be hard to tell who’s diving in real time, on the ice, let the linesmen help out and call it, too. And let the league office report back diving incidents to the referees from their “eye in the sky” — and let the referee review the video of those during intermission, or at the end of the game, and if they agree, assess 20 minute misconducts to a player (ONLY if the on-ice ref agrees with the league after viewing the video, not just if the league office says so).

And then treat these misconducts like we do stick fouls; after you accumulate a few of them, you start accumulating games off.

THAT would slow it down….

Rules are rules, even when they’re dumb

Rules are rules, even when they’re dumb:

Sure, Brian Campbell’s toss over the glass was technically a penalty. But the nature of the delay-of-game penalty has been discussed relentlessly this season. And when things mattered the most for the Buffalo Sabres, it was the cause of the game-winning goal.

Mr. Campbell’s not very happy about these circumstances:

“Stupidest thing ever. I don’t see how that should ever decide a game. Two guys forechecking a player, he goes to make a quick play in the bad ice in springtime, and it goes out of play. You’re telling me that’s a rule? They gotta wake up.”

Okay, first I’m going to yell at Brian Campbell, and then I’m going to defend him a bit.

The “over the glass” penalty is a penalty. Has been since April. If you haven’t figured that out — whether you like it or not — by June, then you deserve what you get if you do it.

But more important, think about what this penalty is against. You have a defender, most likely under heavy pressure. The defenseman is trying, effectively, a panic move here to clear the zone. Yes, there are exceptions, and yes, sometimes the puck bounces on you, but life sucks sometimes (and it sucks even more if you’re Doug Weight and a Sabre TURNS HIS BACK ON YOU after seeing you coming and draws a boarding call that helps Buffalo win game six — but instead of whining, Carolina and Doug Weight simply came back and made sure they won game 7. But, of course, that’s completely different and not relevant, right?)

So what’s this penalty a penalty on? Stupid, lazy, low-skill play. What’s the NHL supposed to be about? The most skilled players win and succeed. So why are we complaining about a penalty that penalizes a player who’s not making a skill play to avoid a pressure situation? To me, this penalty is a good one, because it is attempting to force players to make skilled plays, not simple ones. It exists for the simple reason that too many players WERE taking the easy way out and ducking pressure instead of combating it. So at that level — I love this penalty, and I consider it to be the same as a defenseman putting his hand over the puck in the crease.

I see no reason to change the rule, since doing so would only benefit the lower-skilled players and players taking the easy way out by flipping the puck out of play under pressure. That’s the exact OPPOSITE of what the NHL is trying to do, which is to encourage fewer whistles and higher skilled play.

Now, having said that, let me take a bit of a devil’s advocate. I sympathize with those who feel that a 2 minute power play is excessive. NO penalty is excessive in the wrong direction, but two minutes and a power play is too draconion, especially in key game situations. We’re in this situation basically because the rule is an extension of a long-standing rule against goalies (that was unfair and everyone basically hated); extending the rule out to all players is good; extending the power play out to all players as well isn’t.

This is especially true because, if you think about it, the over the glass rule is a special case of another rule that the league tweaked, one that most people really like in the new form: it’s a special flavor of icing the puck, one that leaves the surface.

So I suggest we keep the rule, but tweak the penalty. If the puck leaves the surface, treat it as icing: faceoff in the defensive zone, defensive team not allowed to change players. (I would also, for the sake of coach’s teeth everywhere, extend it to pucks that go into the benches directly, too). That avoids the power play, but prevents a team from benefitting from the low-skill play by being able to change lines — just as the icing rule does now.

It’s a much lighter penalty, and frankly, more in line with what the league is trying to do — and less able to SEVERELY change the outcome of a game, as a power play can (and does). And I think most people in hockey would buy into that idea: it’s a nice compromise between doing nothing (bad) and the power play (overkill).

That’s the thing that I never understood about fans/pundits/players not wanting “the refs to decide a game.” If the refs make a bad call, that’s taking it out of the players’ hands and deciding the game. If the players break the rules and the refs make the calls, the players decide their own fate.

What I’ve been saying all along: choosing to NOT call a penalty also decides a game, only it decides it in the other direction: in favor of the person stretching (or breaking) the rule. That’s not a behavior we should encourage out of referees, or we might as well not have them. Down that road lies the world wrestling federation and roller derby, not a legitimate sport.

But in reality, most fans (and players) blame the refs, because fans want to blame anyone but their players for failure, and far too many players prefer to blame others for stupid plays than admit their own mistakes. It’s always easiest when it’s some outside conspiracy, and not your own weaknesses and mistakes. And refs are easy targets.

By the way, um, how many times did Jason Pominville “draw” penalties against Carolina? oh, wait. if you don’t get called for diving, it’s just playing hard and competing….

But that’s an argument for another blog posting…

update: from the Star (Via Kukla’s):

TheStar.com – Delay of game rule assailed:

NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell, who oversees the committee as a non-voting member, said people should not forget that the effect of the delay of game rule has to be considered in concert with all the other radical changes the NHL made prior to this season to enhance offence. In fact, Campbell suggested the rule worked to perfection, pointing out that Brian Campbell was tired and under pressure and he was trying to clear the puck out of danger. It was exactly that kind of scenario that the competition committee had in mind in adopting the rule.

Campbell said the committee considered the ramifications of the rule before it recommended it to the GMs and that it was established not only to increase offence, but also to maintain the flow of the game.

“That was discussed at the time and people brought up that it might hurt a team in an important game,” Campbell said. “We know that. What penalty doesn’t? All of the rules we put in place, including this one, were to enhance offence and negate the defensive mechanisms that coaches have put into the game.”

thoughts on the Buffalo/Carolina series.

I was truly impressed by both teams. Evenly matched, fast, aggressive, giving no quarter. And while it’s a tough day in Buffalo — they have nothing to be ashamed of.

And while Buffalo did the “Black Knight” thing — constantly losing key pieces while claiming it to be flesh wounds and nothing to notice — they actually DID find a way to carry on, despite losing four key defensemen and a top-six forward. that they even made it into game 7 is in some ways a miracle (actually: an indication of the guts the team showed); that it took until period 3 for Carolina to take the lead and then put it away was amazing.

Some folks I’ve talked to have made this sound like Carollina isn’t the team people say it is; I think the opposite is true, that Buffalo did things nobody had any right to expect of them. Health and experience finally won out, but the Sabres should be proud; and a bit angry, and use that anger to drive themselves next year….

But thanks, to both teams, for some really wonderful, memorable hockey.

Stanley Cup final prediction…

Going into the conference finals, was 6-6 and I predicted Edmonton in 7 and Carolina in 7.

So now I’m 8-6, and guaranteed to be over .500 for the playoffs. amazing. lucky. I guess. Heck, Maggie the Monkey won the playoff pool on TSn, and was just 9-5.

So anyway…. It’s going to be an interesting series. I’m going to pick Edmonton, and I’m going to pick them in 7 games.

It’s a tough call, because ultimately, this time of year, the two teams are generally very evenly matched and playing well (or they’re GOLFING ALREADY!); to me, it usually comes down to a couple of key guys who know how to elevate their game that last little bit, who refuse to NOT make a difference.

And both teams are full of those guys.

For edmonton, you have Pronger, who’s impressed the hell out of me, and Roloson in goal, and Jason Smith, and Mike Peca. Any one of which could be a legitimate Conn-Smythe candidate; but to me, it’s Roloson’s award to lose if Edmonton takes this, and if he does, he’ll lose it to Pronger.

For Carolina, it’s Rod Brind’Amour, and it’s Doug Weight, and to a lesser degree Ray Whitney — and a bunch of other guys contributing as well, but in the world of “game changing” and “series changing” goals, and experience, and history, and willingness to sell-it-out — it’s Brind’Amour as Conn-Smythe if Carolina wins this.

I can’t wait to see Pronger and Brind’Amour go at it. Could be classic.

But I really have come to feel this is Edmonton’s year. both teams have earned it — hell, so did Buffalo, but someone’s gotta lose. And Roloson on a run, and Pronger — being Pronger — I’ll go with the Oilers. But if I’m wrong, I still won’t be disappointed; Carolina’s a hell of a team, too.

To the Edge of the World….

So, it’s my last working-day of freedom, and I didn’t want to face the crowds on the weekend, so I spent today out on the coast, driving to half-moon bay, and I ended up starting by heading up to Montara, which is about as far as you can go these days up Highway 1 because of the slide on Devil’s Slide (which they are still saying is months from opening, if it ever does, because they aren’t sure there’s any support left to rebuild the road on — and it’s still sliding).

Now, as you leave highway 280 to 92 to go to Half Moon bay, there are signs warning of the closure. there are signs on highway 92 as you go over the hill to the coast that it’s closed. It’s been in the news on and off for months, because of the inconvenience and business impact. And as you drive north on highway 1, there are multiple signs warning of the closure, most in bright highway orange with flashing lights. (yes, I’m leading you somewhere….)

So I’m at the point where the road closes, a parking area on Montara State Beach, taking pictures of the coast, and some of the flowers, experimenting with my macro lens and a 12mm extension.

And suddenly this moving van drives up. It sees the big “ROAD CLOSED” sign across the road and stops.

And I suddenly hear this voice yelling “Hey! Can I get through there?” at me.

I have to admit — all I did was shake my head, because if I’d opened my mouth, I’d have fallen over laughing — how could anyone have gotten there and not noticed ANY of the signs?

Um…. okay.

And, of course, Caltrans has been working on a solution to Devil’s Slide — and it has been held up in various forms by opposition over cost, over environmental impacts, etc, etc, etc.

Caltrans first recommended replacing Devil’s Slide with a new route in — get this — 1958. And now they’re piecing it back together again, since the final solution that was (more or less) agreed to (in 1996) won’t be ready until 2011.

The mind just refuses to accept how some things get bogged down in the political process. 38 years of fighting?