Category Archives: Sports – Hockey

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This is all over the NHL network, and the pundits are making hay on this.

My thought: the talking heads need some controversy to talk about, of they have many hours of otherwise boring airtime to fill. This is the biggest, juiciest controversy that they can find?

If this was a “normal” game, it’s unclear that the beat writers would even mention it. it is basically a non-issue, but it’s fun listening to Melrose try to drum up the possibility of rifts in the locker room and stuff. I guess that makes for better television than “and we’re right on track for the game tomorrow, but stay tuned while we show you the video of Jagr walking from the locker room to the ice for the 39th time”.

48 hours from now, this will be forgotten and they’ll be back to drumming up some other controversy, like how screwed up all-star balloting by the fans is.

But I guess grabbing onto this and harping on it is easier than, say, actually generating interesting content to fill the time on air with.

(updated: Barch got a game off and a stern talking to; what he said was inappropriate and vulgar, but not racial. Which is what I’d hoped it would turn out to be…As far as I’m concerned, the system worked as expected — the linesman has to respond to what he thought he heard, but everyone sat down and hashed it out and didn’t over-react, and didn’t sweep it under the rug. )

KuklasKorner : Hockey:

Scott Norton, who has known Barch since he was a 15-year-old junior player in Canada, said that Barch is “upset and concerned for his family.” He added the comment directed toward Montreal’s P.K. Subban from the Panthers bench was misconstrued and “didn’t have any racial undertones nor was a slur. It may have been a misunderstanding or taken out of context” by linesman Darren Gibbs.

A league official told The Miami Herald on Saturday that Barch was ejected for using racially charged language.

This is a tough one, and if it  turns out to be true, Barch needs to be suspended for a while.

But we should also remember that this isn’t the first time an incident like this has happened. A number of years ago, Bryan Marchment was accused of a similar slur, when he was accused of calling a  black player a “little monkey”.

Except as it turned out, Marchment called everyone he was agitating a monkey of some sort. And he was cleared of any hint of a racial slur once everyone sat down and talked it over.

So while it’s clear Darren Gibbs heard something, even if he heard what he thought he heard, let’s wait judgement until everyone has a chance to sit down and talk it out. But it’s good to see the NHL not ignoring potential issues like this when they crop up.

The NHL All-Concussion Team would win a lot of games – Puck Daddy – NHL Blog – Yahoo! Sports:

You’re probably well aware that concussions have become something of an epidemic in the NHL over the past few years. It’s not like nobody’s talking about it. But just recently, the epidemic has taken a nasty turn, targeting star players with sudden aplomb. It’s almost as though the brains of NHL superstars need a tough guy. It’s not just Sidney Crosby anymore. The injury list is littered with big names.

Suddenly, it seems, concussion talk is everywhere around hockey. I’ve been having multiple discussions with people I know about it.

Crosby works his butt off to come back, takes another hit, and is out again. Suddenly, nobody really knows when or how he’ll be back. Or what’ll happen after the next hit. The ghost of Eric Lindros hovers over the league’s move visible player.

And now Pronger goes down. And stays down. Pronger, whether you love him or hate him (probably, both), never stays down.

Out for the season, is Pronger’s career over? – The Globe and Mail:

This is mid-December. NHL playoffs generally stretch until nearly the end of June. So in the opinion of the two specialists who examined Pronger this week – and diagnosed him with “severe” post-concussion symptoms – they do not believe his condition will appreciably improve enough in the next six months to permit him to play again this season.

 

This is not a new problem. Just ask Eric Lindros. Or Brett. Or Nick Kypreos. Or Jay More. Pat LaFontaine. Paul Kariya. Wanye Primeau. Fenando Prisani. Adam Deadmarsh. Scott Stevens. The list goes on, and on and on. I first wrote about concussions back in 2003. I’ve written about it on and off since (2004, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2007, 2009, 2009, 2011 ). I remember going all the way back to the Cow Palace years and talking to the Sharks medical staff about concussions, back when everyone was first trying to get a handle on all of this.

We’re going to continue to write about it into the future, because injuries are part of the game, and given that the core of the game of hockey is the physical (and violent) collision, injuries are not going to stop unless we fundamentally change the game. Which means to fix this, it has to stop being hockey.

But what’s happening now is I’m having conversations with other fans that are some variation of “I’m uncomfortable being a fan of a sport where player’s health and life are damaged for my enjoyment”. It’s a question I’ve struggled with myself. Along with the uncomfortable question of just how you stop injuries to the head when you allow two players to drop gloves and pound each other in the face. Fighting is an elephant in this particular sitting room, and one that has to be grappled with as part of the solution — and I say that as someone who enjoys a good fight during a game.

KuklasKorner:

Even the most passionate hockey fan would be hard-pressed to remember a time when so many stars were out with concussions.  It’s almost as if the scrambled brain epidemic is getting worse, even though body checking is seemingly at an all-time low.

I’ve always been of the opinion that virtually nothing can be done to combat concussions.  Nothing, that is, outside of banning body-checking altogether.  It’s simply impossible to avoid violent collisions in a game played at such a high speed.

And this has become a hot button within the media, bringing it a lot of visibility and commentary.

That is, in fact, part of the problem.

Let me rephrase that.

This is a complex issue. There is no “concussion problem”. There are lots of problems that end up causing or caused by concussions. And there  are “problems” that get raised as part of this that actually make it a lot harder to see the real problems.

One of those “problems” is simply the media making this a high profile issue. It creates a perception that things are a lot worse now than they have been in the past. It gives something Mike Milbury to rant about. It generates headlines. Sometimes, those headlines get in the way of seeing what’s really happening.

Roy Macgregor, I think, gets to a core part of the current “problem” with the media frenzy going on:

NHL’s all-concussion team would be lock for Stanley Cup – The Globe and Mail:

It matters not how concussions are happening – head shots, fights, accidents with sticks and pucks, running into one’s own teammate – they have become an increasingly polarizing issue in today’s hockey. There are as many sick of the issue as there are those wanting the issue addressed – even the media has started sniping among themselves – with the only sure truth being that concussions aren’t going to go away even if they cease to be mentioned. They are, sadly, increasing – or, at the very least, the recording of them has.

 

“Maybe now it’s everybody is more careful with the head injuries,” suggests Boston captain Zdeno Chara, himself out with a knee injury.

“It’s more serious and nobody wants to risk it, so everybody is taking time to make sure they are good before they play again.”

It’s unclear that there are more concussions in hockey today than there were last year or three years ago.

But a lot of things have changed. Our understanding of concussions and the long term health implications is increasing. Some of the recent brain studies, including those of Derek Boogard, that show significant brain trauma, is bringing home the fact that there are problems here that in the past were mostly ignored. It’s not a new problem, some of the NFL brain studies are showing this same brain damage in players going back into the 70′s. I expect if you did brain studies of some of the physical players and fighters of the 60′s and 70′s NHL, you’d  find the same.

The NHL has a long history of “shake it off, get back out there”. Hockey players have a high tolerance of pain, and traditionally play though injuries almost beyond comprehension. Even five years ago there was still a culture of “just got my bell rung” and players got back out there.

The league has made huge changes in the last two or three years. The rules for checking players for concussion have become a lot more stringent. Our understanding of concussions in general has gone up massively. Players have been educated on concussions, and, frankly, probably scared by what’s going on enough to stop doing the macho thing and playing through these “bell ringing” incidents that even a couple of years ago they would have ignored.

So the number of RECOGNIZED and REPORTED concussions is going way up. This isn’t necessarily that there are more concussions, but they’re being more reliably diagnosed, and the league is more careful about tracking them, and giving players less leeway to come back from them early or ignore them and play through them.

So some of the spike is better diagnosis, and better treatment, and better understanding. And the media looks at raw numbers and turns that into a crisis, which makes it harder to see the real problem behind it.

Because, don’t for a second think I’m using this as a way of saying there’s no problem here.

It’s a problem without simple solutions. I think the league has gotten serious about understanding it and solving it to the degree it can. I wish it’d hit this point of urgency five years ago, but I have no issue with the league’s response now (and honestly, five years ago, I don’t think concussions were well enough understood to do some of the things that are being done today — but I do think we could be farther along the path towards solutions than we are).

There’s been work done on improving the safety of the arena — such as the rounded glass installed this year to deal with hits like those that injured Max Pacioretty. The arenas that had the immobile seamless glass have been upgraded to use more flexible (and much safer) boards and glass — anyone remember when that glass was first installed and Mike Modano had his head smushed into it, going out for a significant time with a concussion?

Research has shown hockey helmets actually don’t help much with concussions, and work has been going on to improve head protection. New style helmets are coming onto the market that improve on this problem. Other hockey gear has evolved over the years from being protective to being an effective weapon against other players, especially changes to elbow and shoulder pads, which have added hard shells and rubber knobs that can be used against a player in a check (I once saw Marty McSorley with his shirt off; his shoulder pads were little more than a couple of slabs of leather — he had traps to die for. Today’s shoulder pads look like something stolen from a bad japanese Manga movie).  The league has been working to replace this gear with less damaging hardware, elbow pads without hard caps and less — offensive — shoulder pads. Those safety changes have to get the approval of the players union as well; let’s not forget the players union is the group that has stonewalled mandatory visors choosing “personal choice” over “let’s try not to lose too many eyes” — right, mattias Ohlund and Brian McCabe and Jamal Mayers? — so getting safer gear into the game takes longer than we might hope).

And the rule changes. Rule 48. The OHL just banned hits to the head. There were calls for the NHL to do the same. It didn’t — and they were right to take a more specific approach (but I’ll leave arguing this point to a different article, later); the players are getting it; retraining them takes time (and some will never learn, and as they become problems for the team, they’ll find their careers ending — but if Matt Cooke can figure it out, pretty much anyone can). It’ll take some time to see just how effective these changes are in reducing concussions. It seems to me that it is — but the problem right now is that this real reduction is obscured by the increased recognition and reporting, so it’s hard to see what the difference is. We’re judging numbers based on two very different standards, and trying to make comparisons.

My gut tells me the league is on the right track and making progress; I do think there’s a lot of work to do. I disagree with the view above that nothing can be done here. Lots has been done, is being done, and there’s lots more to do. That’s a defeatist attitude, and probably the most important change being made right now is educating the players and helping them really understand concussions, both to get it through their occasionally thick skulls that making hits that cause concussions is a stupid and dangerous thing — but even more so teaching players that ignoring concussions or playing through them is even MORE stupid. Retraining the league and players that it’s okay to say “I can’t go” isn’t sissifying the game, it’s protecting the future health of the player.

The league can only do so much to stop concussions if the players don’t take them seriously. The big change going on in the league now is that education process; getting the players to understand and accept that they don’t have to “skate it off” when “they got their bell rung”. As this change in attitude gets ingrained in the players, when the players really learn it’s not okay to headhunt — that’s when concussion numbers will realy go down. That process is ongoing, and I think we’re starting to see the effects — the early effect is MORE concussions being reported and MORE man-days lost to them and MORE headlines bemoaning the concussion crisis. But players moving into a situation where they’re safer, and where they’ll be healthier in the future for understanding this now.

Right now, there’s a lot of noise about concussions. That’s good — that’s driving awareness, and that is, if nothing else, motivation to the league to keep looking for ways to make this problem better and the game safer for the players. the tradeoff there is that hockey is inherently a physical and violent sport, and injuries are inevitable — the only way to take injuries out of the game is to ruin it.

That is not, under any circumstance, an excuse to ignore injuries or to think you don’t NEED to find ways to make the game safer. The league has a difficult set of compromises to make on this, and right now, I think they’re doing an overall good job.

We also need to remember that some of this noise is because we’re making progress – because lots of what used to be swept under the rug is now visible for all to see. And that’s the first step in removing move of it to the dust bin of history where it belongs. And this process is not something solved by snap decisions; it’s going to take time, and research, and commitment. which right now, the league seems to be committed to.

And ultimately, I think it means the end of fighting in the game, because at some point we are going to have to come to grips with the reality that we can’t say it’s unacceptable to target the head of a hockey player — unless you take your gloves off for a fight.

But that’s an argument for another article at another time….

After 5-4 win, Pavelski’s thoughts on booing: “”I think guys kind of take that and know we’ve got to play better. It’s kind of a bottom level for us” | Working the Corners:

(Longtime Sharks fans with good memories will remember that during the 1996-97 season — one of the franchise’s low points — head coach Al Sims basically said the fans weren’t booing his players enough, that a team that would go on to finish 27-47-8 had it too cushy here. Classic stuff. Let the record show that season was the only one behind an NHL bench for Sims, who was succeeded by Darryl Sutter).

And back in the day, one of the continuing amusements of the arena were the signs put up by the fans, the most consistent sign lady being none other than Rene. And that statement by Sims led to one of the best, where the players skated out to start the game, and there sitting at the end of the arena was a sign that said:

“We’ll boo, but we won’t enjoy it”

Which, I heard through the grapevine, really, really pissed off Al Sims. Which, honestly, kinda made it even better.

But I think of the Al Sims era, short as it was, as when the hockey fans in San Jose first started shifting from “oh, god, we have hockey, this is great!” to “man, when are they going to stop sucking and win?”. So maybe Sims had a hand in convincing Sharks fans to stop being quite so tolerant of bad hockey.

Doug Wilson: “We believe in this group and we believe in this staff” | Working the Corners:

And GM Doug Wilson, who never comments directly on any kind of speculation, still managed to make it crystal clear that he supports his coach.

 

“We believe in this group and we believe in this staff,” Wilson said. “We look forward to this team playing up to its capabilities.”

If you watched the game Tuesday, you undoubtedly heard the pointed criticism of the Sharks by the Versus analyst tandem of Mike Milbury and Keith Jones. Some of their comments about the Sharks’ lack of energy also are rehashed in the print/web story.

When asked about the criticism, several Sharks were careful to say that didn’t want to respond to things that they didn’t actually hear. (And frankly, that’s very smart of them.) But they disagreed with the idea that lack of effort has been the Sharks problem of late.

“I know how hard we’re trying out there,” Logan Couture said.

Thornton and Clowe added that they try not to listen to the chattering on television.

Based on having watched the Sharks forever, and how Doug Wilson GMs this team, when Wilson says this, what he really means is “it’s time for you guys to get your act together, or I’ll get it together for you”. The Sharks are starting a 6 game homestand (they won tonight, playing occasionally inconsistently but putting it all together to finish strong and winning going away). My bet: if they aren’t at least 4-2 on this homestand, Doug Wilson shakes up the roster and makes a trade in early January.

And probably should, if they don’t shake out of this — whatever it is. I agree with the team about how hard they’re trying. What they aren’t doing is playing smart. What they aren’t doing is sweating the details. That shows most visibly in the penalty kill, which is ludicrously bad given the talent here. And the penalty kill is 90% hard work, and 20% sweating the details. They’re two steps out of place, they’re one step late, they’re missing an assignment — all things that happen once in a while, but not things that should happen constantly.

It’s as if for some reason their heads aren’t consistently in the game. concentration lapses more than lapses of effort. There’s no real excuse for it past the first ten games of the season. By then they should know each other.

The last couple of games looked like they were finding it, but it wasn’t there consistently. Tonight, they got it in the third period and finally got the motor running on all cylinders. The question is, will they keep it going next game? One period is a good start, and got them a good win. But the lack of consistency is making this team both fascinating to watch and immensely frustrating to figure out.

And Wilson’s public show of support is really an indication his patience is wearing thin.

This is not a coaching problem. This is not an effort problem. This is not a conditioning problem. This is a problem of focus and concentration. And those are things only the players themselves can solve, individually.

Welcome to the latest ruling in “Notes from the Commish” where I as the Commish of the NHL (in my universe) and my Vice President of Disclipine Barfy will pontificate upon the state of the game .

KuklasKorner : Hockey:

69.4 Contact Outside the Goal Crease – If an attacking player initiates any contact with a goalkeeper, other than incidental contact, while the goalkeeper is outside his goal crease, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed.

 

A goalkeeper is not “fair game” just because he is outside the goal crease. The appropriate penalty should be assessed in every case where an attacking player makes unnecessary contact with the goalkeeper. However, incidental contact will be permitted when the goalkeeper is in the act of playing the puck outside his goal crease provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such unnecessary contact.

I was watching the game when Lucic rolled through Ryan and started the kerfluffle.

Now, of course, Buffalo is demanding Lucic get suspended.

Regier is adamant Lucic should be suspended for the hit. Lucic will have a hearing today at 1 p.m. to discuss the first-period play in which Miller was knocked to the ice and his helmet was knocked off.

I sympathize with Buffalo. It sucks that he got injured in the play. My take on it is simple. Watching Lucic, it seemed to me he saw he was coming down on Ryan and decided “oh, heck, I’ll take the two minutes”. and did.

Honestly? I don’t blame him.  To some degree,  blame Ryan for being so sure there was going to be no contact that he was completely unready for the contact when it came. Yes, Goalies are “not fair game”, but that was a classic situation where the two players both had a legitimate reason to fight for the puck, only Ryan was so sure he was “safe” he never thought that Lucic would actually challenge him. He did, and Ryan went down and went bang.

I’m sorry, but my view is that this was caused because goalies have decided they are TOO privileged, not that they need to be protected more. Ryan should have been more aware of the chance of contact, and if he was worried about it, either not been so aggressive about going after that puck, or been ready for it. I think Lucic deserved two minutes for the hit, but I don’t think the hit was anything significant, nor do I think he deserves a suspension. I think goalies have to get over thinking that nobody can touch them at all, and have some responsibility for contact, even if we don’t go back to the “if you’re out of the crease, you’re fair game” concept.

Ryan seemed to believe that because he had some control of the puck that Lucic would peel off and not touch him at all. I find that concept both naive and a negative one for the sport overall. I’ve seen goalies chase out after a puck to break up a breakaway by submarining the oncoming player out beyond the face-off dots and haven’t heard anyone call to suspend the goalie for that, so honestly, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

My hint to goalies: if you’re going to wander out away from the blue paint, expect some contact. Ryan didn’t, and when it came, he wasn’t ready. In this case, Lucic clearly made a decision to go for the hit, but think about it: if Lucic instead didn’t see Ryan and hit him inadvertently, Ryan would still be concussed. And that’s why this isn’t a case for “more protection for the goalies” or “suspend Lucic until he rots”, it’s instead time for goalies to stop thinking nobody is allowed to touch them, “fair game” or not, and get back to a mentality where they realize contact is going to happen, and either not be so aggressive thinking this special protection will save them from their actions, or be ready for the consequences and take the hit.

Sorry, Buffalo, but this is more your goalie’s fault than Lucic’s.

(and updated — the nhl agrees with me on no suspension, which came out after I wrote this, but before it was posted)

It’s opening night for the Sharks. I haven’t talked much about hockey leading up to the start of the season, mostly because I’ve had other priorities. Didn’t get to camp, watched some pre-season, but I won’t pretend to have studied the league or am remotely qualified to play pundit right now.

So, surprisingly, I won’t for the most part.

The big question if you’re a sharks fan is whether or not the Sharks are better this season, because last season wasn’t quite good enough. I think so, but the difference between where they were and where they need to go is more attitude and experience and chemistry (as well as luck and whether they stay healthy) that it is about “better players” — and so it’s really hard to judge until we see how the season plays out. In any event, this isn’t a question that’ll be answered in October or December, but in March and April.

But I like the moves Wilson has made. More importantly, I like the fact that he wasn’t afraid to make moves, wasn’t tentative, and didn’t make minor tweaks and hope for major improvements. I really like the Burns acquisition, not just because I really like Burns, but because it’ll help keep Boyle from wearing out.

I think the west is shaping up to be a three and a half team race: I will stand up and say the Sharks should win the west and the sharks should go to the stanley cup final. I think Vancouver will fight them hard for this; I always think Detroit will have to be reckoned with, and the LA Kings worry me. There are another five or six teams a step behind that make the west very competitive, and any one of them can get on a streak and knock off the favorite. It’s going to be lots of good hockey.

In the east, I don’t know the teams as well, but what I’ve seen of Pittsburgh impresses me. Boston is going to have to fight through the Cup Hangover problem, and I’m not sure they can repeat. The Rangers may well be turning into a good team, finally. And Washington has scary talent but hasn’t shown my much yet. I think Philly picking up Bryzgalov solves their big problem, at least this year, and they’ll make some noise. But I’ll pick the Penguins coming out of the east, and it’ll either be Pittsburgh or Philly winning the eastern conference.

A few other non-game notes on hockey this year.

I’m loving what I’m seeing out of Shanahan and the changes in rules and rule enforcement so far. I was a big proponent of “first, double the length of all suspensions” to get the attention of the players. He hasn’t done that, but the new suspensions are a good step in that direction. I see that this new direction has already pissed off Mickey Redmond and Don Cherry, and to me, that means the league is definitely doing the right thing; will it have the willpower to keep at it? I think it has, and I think this means we finally have a generational shift in power among the hockey governors that understand that Don Cherry hockey is not going to drive this sport into the future. Let’s hope the luddites don’t drag it back again.

• • •

Oh, a quick open letter to a man I respect greatly for what he does, when he doesn’t piss me off for what he is:

Dear Don: Please. Retire. It’s time. you’re embarrassing yourself. More importantly, you’re now embarrassing the game and the players you pretend to respect. So let them ride you off into the sunset in glory instead of disgrace, because if you don’t, you’re going to end up saying something that will taint your legacy forever, and I don’t want to see that.

But you won’t, so the circus on hockey night in canada will continue until you finally say the one thing you shouldn’t, and you leave on someone else’s terms with ridicule. Which is a shame.

• • •

With the opening of the season, a few reading suggestions

• Kukla’s Corner is the best place to get a wide view of hockey and the league, with writers on each team and on many subjects around the sport. It’s a great place to get a broad survey of what’s going on without having to track down 93 different news feeds. It’s also where Laurie is writing on goalies this season.
• If you are a Sharks fan, you should be reading Working the Corners, the blog of beat writer David Pollak (and his trusted sidekick backup writer Mark Emmons). David knows and loves the game, knows the Sharks, and has created a nice dialog with the fans here on his blog and gets beyond the 300 words a night summaries we used to live with back in the “old days” of traditional newspapering.
• Tom Benjamin has been writing about hockey online longer than Laurie and I have, which says something. He knows the game very well and reading his blog will make you think about the game and teach you about it. It matters not one bit that I disagree with him on many of his opinions, his views are still something you ought to be paying attention to and then making up your own mind about. It looks like he’s starting the season in good form as he takes apart Cherry’s fighting rant better than I could. Read him, he will teach you.

• • •

A couple of words on the off-season. The hockey world lost some people in tragic ways with Derek Boogard and Rick Rypien and Wade Belak, and before that Tom Cavanagh’s suicide. It’s brought to the surface some issues that have been around for a while but can now no longer ignored or swept back under the carpet the way Don Cherry tried to with his bullshit. The information about the analysis of former player Rick Martin’s brain, which showed clear signs of CTE makes it clear this is not a new problem for the league (and is not a problem specific to hockey, either, since football and boxing also have this issue to deal with, and when baseball takes a close look at catchers, I’ll bet you’ll find some of them, will suffer from it as well).

In the Don Cherry world, hockey players are gladiators and fight the glorious fight for our entertainment — and when they can’t, they go offstage and get replaced by a new gladiator.

In my world, I have real problems enjoying a sport that leaves those entertaining me this damaged; it’s tough enough to see what ex-players deal with in terms or orthopedic challenges later in life, but now we’re talking about damage to the brain; permanent damage that affects their lives and how they interact with life.

I first wrote about concussion issues in the NHL back in 2003 and I’ve talked about it a number of times since. It’s a bit sad that it’s taken the league eight years to get this serious about dealing with head injuries, but I also understand that the medical science of understanding all of this is just catching up to the problem as well.

And it looks like the league really is taking this seriously, and I hope they find some solutions. The changes I see this year are a good start. It’s going to take the players some time to retrain themselves, so I hope the league keeps it up and doesn’t back off under the inevitable whining of the Cherry Cabal.

I struggled during the off-season with the idea of being entertained by people who will end up like Derek Boogard and Wade Belak; whether it was Jay More or Paul Kariya or Sydney Crosby or Nick Kypreos, watching these players struggle simply to have a life while fighting to recover from serious concussions made me wonder whether I wanted to continue as a fan of the sport. I now think the league is on the right track — I won’t pretend we have all of the answers, but we seem to have started, and are helping the players learn and understand. I watched an interview with Matt Cooke on the TV last night, and Cooke has been the poster child of “what we don’t want in the league” for years — and he honestly sounded like he understands and gets that it’s time to change his game. time will tell, but if it got through to him, I think the league will sort this all out.

This isn’t something simplistic “fix it now” solutions is going to solve. It doesn’t help to “fix” the game by screwing it up. Those people are just as wrong as the “leave it alone” crew. I feel like the league now has the right people and the commitment to figure it out, and I think the tragedies of the last year has the players attention. It’s sad that we needed to lose some good people to get this kind of focus on the problem, but in reality, that’s human nature. I do hope the league keeps pushing on this and figures out how to keep the game what it is — while making it as safe as possible for the people who entertain us by playing it.

• • •

One final note; as I’ve mentioned a few times, Laurie and I gave up our season tickets after 20 years; a combination of wanting to back off and go to fewer games and not wanting the hassle of syndicating them. We’ve talked a few times about it to make sure we had no regrets, and we don’t. Going to the arena 35-37 times a year was turning into an obligation, not an entertainment. Tonight we’ll be sitting on the couch watching — the last opening night we missed was season 1, because we didn’t convert to full season until year 2.

A lot of hockey — we’re well over 700 games attended in the last 20 years, when you count in road trips and our jaunts through the WHL and BCJHL and the year with the Spiders where we did 30 Sharks games and 35 Spiders games in one season (THAT was a lot of hockey).

It’s definitely nice that the season is firing up. I’m ready for some hockey. But I also find it nice that I’ll be watching it from the couch and not worrying about the drive and parking and turning 3 hours of hockey into six hours of expedition. We’re talking over what games we want to see this year. Still not decided, but we probably won’t actually get to the arena until January. Or maybe sooner — we’ll see how it goes. But definitely, just because we’re not butts in seats 35 nights a year doesn’t mean we’re not as interested as we were. it’s still the sport that we love…

So, shall we drop the puck already?

Some unexpected news this week in the sports world hit our email when the ECHL announced that they were adding a team starting next year in San Francisco, to be known as the San Francisco Bulls. They’ll be playing in the Cow Palace, which is actually in Daly City. Jon Swenson at Sharkspage has the background on all of this.

This seems to be the new home of the long-hibernating Reno team last seen as the Renegades of the WCHL, a league that has since merged into the ECHL. This will be the first return of hockey to the Cow Palace since the San Francisco Spiders played there in their one season of existence in 1995-1996.

To Laurie and myself, trying to move hockey back into the Cow Palace seems a curious choice. We are probably the two people who’ve watched more hockey in the Cow Palace than anyone alive, having not only been original Sharks season ticket holders for both of the seasons the Sharks played there, but on staff with the Spiders as their Webmasters, and as most of the Spiders home games that year. Laurie, in fact, likely has the largest file of Spiders photos in existence, not that anyone cares or wants them, since she was doing a lot of the photography for the web site.

This is a tough venue in a tough market. Our motto back when we were working with the Spiders was “It’s a pit, but it’s OUR pit”, which kinda sums up the Cow Palace. The sight lines are tough, the building is — it has character — the location is tough with bad transit options and parking is expensive in comparison to the expected ticket prices, and the food will suck (I guarantee it). On warm days, the building tends to have an — ambience — to it because of its agricultural heritage.

We remember the place fondly, but I don’t think we’d be in a hurry to put a team in there. Thinking about it, though, there aren’t many options available.

The ECHL has wanted to go back to Reno for a while, but it seems the Renegades bankruptcy has made getting a venue there tough. Other than the Cow Palace, the only options are Oakland (sharing with the Warriors) or Sacramento (sharing with the Kings), both venues being too big and expensive for ECHL, assuming either is interested in having a second tenant. And the Arco Arena also sucks for hockey.

Fresno has two arenas, the old Selland arena downtown, and the newer Savemart arena. The latter’s not a bad place for hockey and has nice sight lines. The ECHL was there previously with the Falcons, but the Falcons left Savemart and moved back to Selland, then failed. Selland is in a bad part of town and not a good facility; it’s unclear if Savemart got tired of the team or too expensive (I’m guessing the latter), but it just looks like Fresno can’t support an ECHL team in this economy.

One other arena option is in Long Beach, where the IHL and later the ECHL had the Ice Dogs. It’s actually a rather nice facility, but hockey never drew well there. We had some minor involvement with the old IHL Ice Dogs as well, hosting their web site for a friend who ran it, and Laurie did some photography down there when we took in games in that facility.

So maybe San Francisco is the best of a set of bad options for minor league hockey here on the west coast. I do wish them luck.

But…

Minor league sports is a tough sell here in the Bay Area. The San Jose Giants have made it work, but the team is going to find it difficult to get media coverage; with two MLB teams, two NFL teams, an NHL team and two NBA teams in the greater bay area, plus Stanford and Cal as Div I college and the Earthquakes in soccer, there isn’t going to be much interest in covering a minor hockey team here. The Spiders fought hard for any coverage at all, and things haven’t exactly gotten better in the print media world in the last 15 years. Broadcast media is even worse, and it took the Spiders half a season to even get a radio outlet for games, and that outlet was one step above broadcasting using a walkie-talkie out of someone’s basement.

For this to work, the team is going to have to work hard at marketing and be willing to spend to get noticed, because there isn’t going to be a lot of cooperation in the media with free publicity. With the Spiders, we found if we could get people to a game or two, they tended to come back; getting them to that first game without massive ticket giveaways was tough, and if you give away too many tickets, you set the expectation that you don’t need to buy seats, you just wait for the next free giveaway. it’s a tough dance; the Spiders ownership ended up not having the commitment to invest in the team to make it work; when attendance didn’t thrive early, instead of investing more into marketing, they started cutting losses, and that put the team into a death spiral. The new owners are going to have to be willing to lose money to start, work hard to attract their audience, and expect it to take 2-3 years to build that audience to make it profitable.

It’s a down economy, but in the last 15 years since the Spiders the Sharks have done a nice job of building a grass roots hockey community; there are lots of people playing hockey in the Bay Area, and if the Bulls market and create a family atmosphere, they can draw off of that. Tying into the youth and amateur leagues gives them a hook into a market the Spiders didn’t have. That’s certainly one thing I’d focus on if I were involved here.

Even then, I’m not convinced this market can support a minor hockey team. The Sharks were never happy with the Spiders showing up, and I can’t see that they’ll be thrilled with the Bulls, so I tend to think it’ll be tough for them to get any kind of player affiliation with an NHL team, and they can’t expect any marketing cross-promotion or help from the Sharks (if I were the Sharks, though, I’d want to see this as an opportunity, a place to stick kids in the system where they’re easy to watch and coach, and a way to help foster the fan base by creating a new price point for fans priced out of the NHL in a way that’ll generate interest over the long term).

I hope the Bulls succeed. You can bet we’ll show up for a game or two (at least), just to see how it looks. Maybe we’ll be able to get our original seats back again for the third team at the old “Palais du Boeff”. In any event, this is an interesting experiment, one we’re going to watch and see what happens.

I was going to make part of this blog entry my Wednesday in review, but then I got some other info, and things changed a bit…

But here’s a nice arrival: Matt Levine has started a blog. That name is probably not familiar even to most Sharks fans, but he has a long history in the San Jose sports market, he was employee #2 with the Sharks and their first Vice President of Business Operations. He was involved in almost every early key decision and hired many of the early staffers for the Sharks that built that operation and made it one of the great businesses in hockey (and in pro sports, for that matter). You can also, I believe, thank him — or blame him — for the color Teal.

There’s an amazing amount of knowledge and history of how pro sports here in the Bay Area became what it is today locked up in Matt’s brain (and much of it because Matt helped make it happen), and now he’s going to talk about it. If you’re at all interested in sports in the Bay Area, you should check it out.

Matt was one of the early contacts we had at the Sharks back when we were running the mailing lists; he always made time for us; he helped us with access and information when we needed it; we did occasional favors for him and the Sharks in return, and he and the team were very supportive of our efforts to try to foster an online fan enclave at a time when those things were new and nobody quite knew what that meant (and at one point, our research indicated that about 1 season ticket in 11 was controlled by a mailing list member, so it was to everyone’s benefit to work together to help share information).

One of the first people Matt hired in was Ken Arnold, who was the PR department and managed things like the program books and other marketing, PR and communications duties. He was another person we worked with a lot early on over at the Sharks. It’s sad to note that there was a restructuring on the business side of the organization today, and one of those laid off was Ken.  Laurie and I both remember the day we wandered over to the Sharks offices to show Ken this fascinating new thing — something called a browser — and to talk about these strange things called web pages and how a team like the Sharks could interact with the fans on this internet thing with them. That was in (I think) 1994 or so, just after the Sharks moved into their offices in the bowels of the San Jose Arena, and the Sharks were the first team in the NHL with a  web site — only fitting for a team lodged deeply in Silicon Valley. Ken has been a driving force of the Sharks online presence in recent years and really gets the whole “new media” thing.

It’s sad to see one of the really early builders of the organization move on; that’s life in pro sports and the valley, unfortunately. I don’t know what Ken’s plans are (if any), but I wish him godspeed and thank him for everything he’s done for us over the years. (and there are very few PR or MarComm groups that wouldn’t be a hell of a lot better with Ken in them here in the Valley; if you can survive and not burn out doing that in pro sports, high tech is going to be slow and boring in comparison; if you’re looking for that kind of person, I can probably make connections (or you can likely do so through the Sharks).

Most of the cutbacks the Sharks (okay, technically Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment, which runs the non-hockey parts of the business) come from them shutting down a small side operation that did fulfillment of custom logos on various artifacts from T-shirts and hats to glassware; I think that business grew from the time when the Sharks were fostering light dates via secondary sports like Roller Hockey (remember the Rhinos?) and Indoor Soccer. Since they needed that ability for those teams, it got expanded as a general business and handled creation and manufacturing of these items for organizations and events around the valley (I MAY be wrong, but I believe some of the San Francisco Spiders merchandise was source through them).  According to Dave Pollak of the Mercury News, nobody on the hockey side was downsized, but with the ones that were (Kent Russell, VP of sales and marketing being the only other name mentioned and another long time, early Sharks staffer that we maybe met once or twice) some long time Sharks history is now gone. Maybe not names most sharks fans would recognize, but names and people who made being a Sharks fan something enjoyable.

The other interesting note in Pollak’s column today is that the Sharks ownership have more or less decided not to replace Greg Jamison, who retired last year. Instead of bringing on a new CEO, the organizations are being run by the ownership group, with Doug Wilson on the hockey side and Malcolm Bordelon on the SVSE/business side reporting directly into the owners. Since I felt from day one that Bordelon was heir presumptive to replace Jamison, this doesn’t surprise me and I think it’s a reasonable (non-)decision; don’t forget that Wilson was heavily involved in the business aspects of the NHL Players Association after retiring and before coming on board with the Sharks, and an exceptionally savvy guy. In practice, I think this is a good move, and seems to give Wilson a little more (deserved) autonomy, and removes a layer or management from the organization, which I like. Most important, the right people (Wilson and Bordelon) are in the positions of authority, and that I fully agree with and support, however the structure is laid out.

I’m happy to note that Laurie’s back and writing about hockey again (finally!), and her first column over at Kukla’s Corner is now live. She’s going to be talking goalies, which if you remember the old Sharks list was one of her specialties. I’ve been encouraging her to get back in the pundit game for a while, and I’m damn glad to see she’s doing this, and those of you who know her ought to wander by Kukla’s and say hi.

chuq (this must mean hockey season is approaching…)

Welcome to the latest ruling in “Notes from the Commish” where I as the Commish of the NHL (in my universe) and my Vice President of Disclipine Barfy will pontificate upon the state of the game and what I think needs to be changed. The fact is, NHL hockey is in pretty damn good shape overall, not that you’d believe that reading some of the pundits out there.  But the reality is, a business the size of the NHL can never be perfect, and there are always things that can be improved, and there will always be things that need to be fixed. And I’m the guy to fix it.  (or replace this with something witty and snarky)

The Accidental Hall of Famer | American McCarver. Your Sports Blog.:

But jot down a list of the best goalies in hockey from when Osgood entered the league in 1993 to when he retired this past Tuesday, and I bet it will take you some time before you remember to put Chris Osgood’s name on the list.

Chris Osgood has finally retired, after 400 wins, 2 Stanley Cup rings, and 17 seasons.

This, of course, opens season on the whole “should Chris Osgood be in the Hall of Fame?” argument. For the record, I don’t think Osgood will be inducted. I do think he deserves to be.

What I think is, of course, irrelevant.

What amuses me is listening to the fans rationalize their decision. “Yeah, he won 400 games, but HE PLAYED FOR THE RED WINGS!” “Yeah, he has two rings, but HE PLAYED FOR THE RED WINGS!”

The reality is, fans (and when I use the word fans, I am including all professional hockey writers that speculate on, but odn’t vote for, the Hall of Fame. Just to piss them off a bit. But the reality is, I swear most fans put more thought into their Hall of Fame blog posts than most sportswriters do. But I digress.) wait, where was I? damn digressions…..

Oh, yeah. fans (and hockey writers) make up their minds first, and then go off looking for facts that justify their opinion, and wrap those facts around their opinion like a february snow fort. And they look for reasons to denigrate any fact that disproves their opinion that they can’t ignore (like Stanley Cup rings. Ever see one? stands out in a dark room; can’t miss it).

The reality is that “hall of fame member” isn’t an objective decision, it’s a gut call. Most people seem to have decided that Osgood isn’t a Hall of Famer. The way that rationalize away his career numbers is that HE PLAYED FOR THE RED WINGS, and that the Wings were so good, they would have won those Cups with anyone in goal, so he really shouldn’t get more than partial credit for his career. Even though, well, he was their goalie. I boggle at someone using this rationalizing to say that maybe Yzerman isn’t as good as people say he is because he played on such a good team anyone could have played center…

It’s a silly justification, but with some core of truth. I dare you to look me straight in the face and say “The Wings would have won both of those cups with Bob Essensa in goal” and not start laughing. Or Andre Racicot. Or Jamie Storr. or Dan Ryder. I can keep moving down the list until we find a goalie we agree would have blown it for them, if you want, but I think you get the point.

Or go the other direction. Do you think the Wings would have won more Cups if they had Martin Brodeur in goal those years? Well, honestly, yes, I do. So let’s ignore that. No, let’s not. The league has seen a few hundred goalies come and go in the time Brodeur has been playing in the NHL, and it’s safe to say that it’s hard to think of a dozen qualified to carry his bags on a roadtrip. In my book, Martin Brodeur wouldn’t have to retire to be inducted, so it’s no real shame to not be that good. It’s not like we can only pick one goalie….

Osgood to me stands right on the line that defines ‘yes” or “no” to induction. I remember being in the stands for the playoffs here the Sharks surprised everyone (including themselves) by eliminating the Wings. A very young Chris Osgood was in goal, and at the time, both Laurie and I felt that Bowman mishandled the kid and we felt he was broken.

(another digression: sorry, chris, I never get tired of this goal. But I’m sure you are

)

But he pulled his game together. He didn’t break (hello, Jim Carey) he got tough. He reshaped his game, he found ways to win. As the game changed he reinvented his game. He adopted. He looked at the new generation of blockers and realized he wouldn’t stick in the game unless he changed his style, so he went off and learned how to block goals like J.S Guigere instead of stopping goals. He found ways to win, he found ways to stay in the game.

He stayed in the game for 17 seasons, and that’s why he’s a Hall of Famer in my hall. Lots of people put him down or discredit his accomplishments because he did this for the Wings, but haven’t really watched him play (they don’t need to. they already know how to decide!). I’ve followed his career since the Sharks beat him, and watched a lot of his games. Watched him kick the Sharks butt on a number of occasions, too.

The fact is, he’s not a Brodeur-class goalie, but when you’re talkinga bout someone who’s one of the ten best that ever played the position, few are — and few in the Hall of Fame stand up to Brodeur, for that matter. But Osgood is a very good goalie who played for a very good team; he was a big part of why they were very good.

But the reason he’s in the Hall of Fame for me isn’t because he has 2 rings, or 400 wins, or 17 seasons. it’s because the core of his success is that he knew how to find a way to win — and that ability to find a way is why he ended up with 400 wins and 2 rings and 17 seasons — and you can talk all you want about other goalies that the Wings could have won cups in front of, but none of those goalies would have lasted 17 seasons or come close to 400 wins, Wings or no Wings.

He’s a winner. He’s a survivor. He’s a player with the ability to maximize his talent and opportunity. In that way, he’s a lot like Chris Chelios, also not the most exceptionally talented defenseman in the universe, but one that committed to finding a way.

Unfortunately, that argument won’t sway those who vote for induction. Maybe he’ll follow the path of Dino Cicarelli and get in later. My gut tells me not. Which is too bad. He’s a better goalie than people who haven’t watched him much give him credit for — and while the stats don’t tell the whole story, they tell a story that ultimately is hard to ignore.

Even though I expect the Hall will.

(As an aside: American McCarver is a new sports blog that’s recently arrived on the scene.  It includes a bunch of interesting writers including John Gruber of Daring Fireball and Jason Snell of MacWorld. It is not afraid to cop a bit of attitude (I mean, seriously: Gruber is writing for it) and it is worth your time.)

No, I did not see the Dany Heatley trade coming. I was at dinner with friends (at Tigelleria, in fact, with a nice Italian Barolo and a charcuterie plate) when my phone bleeped, and it was a pair of text messages telling me about the trade.

Am I surprised at the trade? Yes, but no. Setoguchi was clearly my disappointing player, but Heatley was a guy that was generally criticized for his play, and while it came out he was playing hurt — many including myself still seemed to feel there was a piece of him missing from the equation. My gut told me Seto was gone, but it also told me if there was another player likely to move, it would be Heatley. I wasn’t sure the contract was moveable, and I didn’t think Wilson would move BOTH. But Wilson is never shy and shaking it up when he thinks it’s warranted, or being timid at doing so.

Heatley reminds me in a way of Todd Elik from the Sharks past, another player that seemed to move to a number of teams around the league in his career, adn consistently seemed to have strong years with a new team followed by declining numbers and criticism. It just seems some players need the “got to prove them wrong” edge, and as they settle into a team and get comfortable, lose it and fade a bit, even though they don’t recognize that as happening. And for those players, it just looks like changing teams every 2-4 years may be the best thing for their careers and production.

Look at Heatley’s past, and that seems to have happened. Look at his Sharks numbers, and it seems to roughly fit that mold, too. if I can see this trend, one can only assume Doug Wilson does, too. Havlat, coming to the Sharks in return, is the same age and has a self-admitted motivation problem playing for a team that isn’t making the playoffs; that’s what drives him, and so playing on a rebuilding team like the Wild was tough for him.

So this is a place where two teams trade their “problems” for each other, solve issues with the team (the Wild were like 26th in scoring, with setoguchi gone, the sharks top six forwards were pretty slow) and this seems like a trade that honestly benefits both players as well. hard to see a loser here, and I like havlat as a fit with the Sharks.

I was a strong critic of the Heatley deal before it happened. Heatley convinced me otherwise after he got here, and I have zero criticism of him and his time in San Jose. And yet, I’m not surprised he’s moving again, and I don’t think this’ll be his final stop in the NHL. Some players just seem to have a career like that. I wihs him well, except when the Sharks are in town.

Seto and Heatley in Minnesota should definitely improve their scoring. I’m guessing they’re not a playoff team, but they’re definitely better. and Burns and Havlat here? Burns is a nice addition, and Havlat, if not an improvement, at least leaves the forwards at par with what we had before.

So no complaints here.

Here’s how to become a more better informed, more knowledgeable hockey fan in one easy step:

Outcry over Spending falling on buffalo’s deaf ears

here’s the step: stop reading Ken Campbell, Bruce Garrioch and Steve Simmons. You stopping the wasting of your valuable time with their writing will stop confusing your brain with their overtly negative “everything about the hockey universe sucks because that drives page views” writing, and you’ll get more thoughtful, more balanced and intelligent hockey writing into your head simply by subtracting theirs from your consciousness.

Try it. You’ll thank me later. These guys are only there to find reasons to rip hockey, the NHL, and especially Bettman, adn that serves no useful or constructive purpose other than them convincing folks to read their stuff. Which is mostly crap and not worth the electrons it takes to stuff it into your monitor’s window.

(edited for Handzus deal)

July 1, Canada day above the border, and NHL free agent day, when some free agents back up the brink’s truck, and other free agents wonder if their phone is working.

The Sharks, as usual, were relatively quiet today, staying away from the frenzy around top tier players and letting other teams make mistakes by overpaying for talent on this day of days. Their primary deal was Jim Vandermeer, rugged defenseman who fills the spot filled by Wallin and Huskins last year.

It doesn’t feel that way, but Wilson and the Sharks have been quite busy in the offseason. The list of changes I have:

New:

• Burns (D)
• Vandermeer (D)
• Handzus

Gone:

• Setoguchi
• Wallin (D)
• White (D)
• Mayers
• Nichol
• Eager

Fading to black (per Pollak)

• Wellwood (F)
• Huskins

Is the Sharks team a better team today than it was when they cleared out their lockers?

Yes, I think so. Impressive work by Wilson.

Blueline:

• Boyle
• Burns
• Vandermeer
• Vlasic
• Murray
• Demers
• Braun

Honestly, on most teams in the league, Braun would be a 4th or 5th best defensemanm, not the 7th. That is a very stacked group. And if, off the top of my head, you put lines of Boyle/Murray, Burns/Vlasic and Demers /Vandermeer together, there are very few teams in the league that can say their defense is better, and there isn’t an offensive forward in the league looking forward to seeing those guys on the ice.

And with players like Mike Moore in the system, the sharks have eight solid players who would be on any NHL team’s starting roster. Nice depth, having given up three guys that were on the roster last season. Unless you are Devin Setoguchi or a Setoguchi groupie, you have to see that Wilson’s done a great job here.

Top six forwards:

• Thornton
• Marleau
• Heatley
• Clowe
• Couture
• Pavelski

Honestly? Replacing Setoguchi with Pavelski makes our top six forwards better. Sorry, Seto fans. but Pavelski is a lot more consistent and deserves a top six placement (it needs to be noted that Pavelski could also play a good 3rd line role, and Setoguchi couldn’t).The rest of the depth:

• Handzus
• Ferriero
• Desjarsidins
• McGinn
• Mitchell

And there are a couple of spots TBD in camp from guys like McLaren, Mashinter, McCarthy, Wingels, maybe Zalewski.

I will make a prediction. I could note that this roster can open camp and this team would be ready to roll; Wilson basically has his work done on July 1. But I think he’s going to add one more player as a 3rd line forward before the season starts. Nothing that’s going to blow away the east coast media elite, but he’ll find someone like Jamal Mayers or Ben Eager to add some depth, but Wilson and the Sharks aren’t afraid to actually let their own prospects earn places; DesJardins basically won the job away from Nichol, for instance.

So without a lot of fanfare (well, okay, some decent fanfare for Burns and Setoguchi) Wilson’s got this team ready for next season — and IMHO, it’s a better team. And it wouldn’t hurt to consider adding a greybeard with some character (like Jason Arnott? who would be affordable). And his wheels ain’t what they used to be, but do you want someone in that locker room teaching the kids how to win? How about giving Kris Draper one more kick at the can? he could play third or fourth line for 50 games and the playoffs, and do a lot of talking in the locker room, and McClellan knows him well. (edited; the handzus deal probably scotches this idea; according to wilson, he’s slotted into the third line center. it’s a bigger deal than I expected, but I like it)

Who else won in the July 1 derby? Detroit and Pittsburgh are two teams, because both of them let Philly win the Jagr derby, and let me predict this now — the Flyers are going to wonder what happened. Because I see no scenario where Jagr will be worth the money he’s going to get. I’m unconvinced he can be an impact player for a full NHL season any more. But we’ll see.

(update: literally as I was posting this, word hits that the Sharks have signed Michael Handzus off of the Kings. is he our third line center? Or is he on the 2nd line and Pavelski back on the third. Either way, this is a good signing)

With the draft happening over the weekend, now’s a good time to close out last season and take a final look at hockey for a while. At least until free agency, which will happen at the end of this week.

To close out my playoff predictions, I picked the Canucks, so I missed on the final round. Still, I was 11-4 in picking the playoffs, which is pretty good if you ask me. I’ll take it.

I don’t talk much about the draft, because I don’t get a chance to see the prospects and I therefore think critiquing the choices is a silly thing to do. I’ll leave it to the experts.

The Sharks highlight during the draft wasn’t their drafting — a few days before the draft, Setoguchi signs a three year deal at about $3m a year, which I thought was a fair deal for both sides. And then suddenly finds himself a Minnesota Wild when Wilson trades him (and a prospect and a draft pick) for Brent Burns. At first glance this looks like a sign and trade, but Wilson has said that wasn’t true, and he’s typically a straight shooter. I believe him when he says the deal didn’t happen until after the signing — but that ignores the reality that the deal Setoguchi signed was an easy deal to build into a trade, and Wilson clearly was willing to trade him; once Seto was signed, I’m not surprised there were phone calls inquiring about him.

Without actually saying “I called it”, I did speculate on the Sharks deciding to shake up the forward lines, and that I felt Setoguchi was the player most likely not to be a Shark from the top six forwards come camp:

If there’s a top 6 shakeup on the sharks, I would be picking him as the player to shake up, if I could. I certainly would be trying to sign him for a shorter deal for not so much money with incentives.

And as it turns out, that’s what happened. Brent Burns? Very nice pickup. Physical, and he’s the kind of player Wilson finds that makes you go “how did he do that?” — in one transaction, he brings in depth to fill out our blueline, replaces Pavelski on the power play point to allow him to play forward, gets Pavelski off the third line and back in the top six forwards, and adds some nice physical play. And he does it with a player that has one year left on his contract, but seems very signable by the Sharks, not someone likely to jump to free agency.

When pavelski is a third liner, you have forward depth to spare, so using it makes sense. I really like this deal on all levels, even though we lose a good prospect n it. It’ll be good for Setoguchi as well, I think.

So, Wallin, Nichols, Mayers and Setoguchi out, and it’s not July 1. Burns in on the blueline. Desjardins filling in Nicholl’s role. Pavelski slipping into the top six forwards, so there are a couple of 3/4 line forward spots at grabs, and a lot of good talent that played part time last season taht can fill it in,  like Mike Moore. Still some work to do on blueline depth, but the team could open camp tomorrow and I think it’s a better team.

Elsewhere in the league?

It’s great to see Winnipeg back, and that they’re the Jets again. Now the hard part starts, which is making money in Winnipeg. I feel pretty good about that happening, though.

And while it won’t happen this season, Atlanta -> Winnipeg means realignment. The rumors have the league looking at a four division, two conference format, with Columbus and Detroit going east and divisions organized around timezones. I’ve been a strong critic of Detroit going back to the east (because it makes the west look even more like a poor cousin to the eastern conference), but I like this rumored realignment a lot, because th schedule gets re-aligned as well, and the plan is to have everyone play a home and home against every team outside their division. I’ve wanted that for a long time, and if they bring that in instead of the current schedule, they have my support.

The realignment rumors also indicate they’re looking at doing first round playoffs in-division, then reseed within the conference for later rounds. I like that as well, so here’s hoping it all comes through.

Drew Remenda gives his view of re-alignment on the Sharks blog. I like it with one exception. That is that he has two 8 team divisions in the east and two 7 team divisions in the west, and I’d prefer the conferences to be 15-15, which means one team needs to move west. And that means either detroit or columbus, but that admittedly screws that team a bit, so it probably shouldn’t happen. But I’d rather the conferences be balanced if possible (and if the league eventually does expand to 32 teams, which I don’t expect for at least five years, it reduces the probability of needing major realignment again. So maybe we go with drew’s idea, but I’d still like to find one team to move west… although I can see why neither of the logical suspects would like that idea much.

One last item I had flagged to mention: the league is tweaking rule 48, the hit to the head rule. I thought it was a good first try at controlling this problem, but also didn’t go far enough — but how to handle this without removing the physicality from the game is a complex dance and not easily resolved (blanket bans to hits to the head won’t work, not at the NHL level). The previous rule made it illegal to hit to the head on a lateral or blind side hit; that restriction is deleted, and so now any hit where the head is targetted and the principal point of contact is now going to be illegal. You NHL players that roll around the ice with your elbows up, get ready to sit.  At first thought, I think this is an appropriate change, but until we see how it’s enforced and whether the players pay attention, I need to reserve judgement.

Also changed for next year is rule 41, the boarding rule, making it clear that players need to protect a defenseless player and avoid or minimize a hit against one. That’s true both along the boards and in an icing situation, and makes illegal a few hits from last season that weren’t illegal (but should have been), so I like this cahnge as well.

So barring a major free agency surprise by the Sharks or a big trade, that’s probably about it until camp opens. The Sharks seem well down the path I wanted to see towards being a bit different and a bit better going into next season; the Jets are back in town (san jose arena music folks, haul out that dusty copy of West Side Story!), and the league is grappling with the hits to the head and pushing the rule forward since it clearly didn’t fully protect players last year. And we’ll see how that goes.

So, when does the puck drop? Can’t wait!