Summer sucks. It’s hot, sweaty, stinky, and worst of all, there’s no good hockey news out. Oh, sure, if you’re big on legal shenanigans, you’re probably in heaven: we’ve got the never-ending Kovalchuk saga and the can of worms that could potentially open, Khabibulin’s DUI, the Blackhawks’ cap crunch, Tom Hicks’ financial woes, and if you’re really feeling nostalgic for 2009, some more Phoenix Coyotes ownership malarkey. For those of us who hate the business end of the game, though, it’s been another dreary summer. So, I decided to take some time out and write an article or two about the history of the game, and for my first topic, I naturally picked a subject near and dear to my heart: the Edmonton Oilers. Or at least, that’s what I had intended.

See, when I started writing this article many weeks ago, I thought it would be interesting to trace back the history of the dynasty Oilers, not so much through the NHL period – everyone knows that story – but in their origins with the World Hockey Association and more specifically, the profound influence of the Winnipeg Jets of the latter half of the 1970s. But as I was writing it up, I kept coming back to not just the specific details of the Jets and their dominance, but the way the WHA did business as a whole, and how it planted the seeds for the way the NHL does business today. Many of the changes wrought in the NHL through the ‘70s, ‘80s, and early ‘90s had their origins in things the WHA did to try to get an edge on the NHL (or later, blackmail them into a merger deal), with the 1980s Oilers being the most prominent symbol of those changes. So, I’ve refocused a bit on the larger story of the World Hockey Association, and how a small, crazy, but determined league, with more dollars than sense (and not that many dollars to begin with) managed to change professional hockey forever.

The Golden Jet

The WHA was borne out of the same era that gave us the American Football League and the American Basketball Association, two rebel leagues that changed the faces of their respective sports through the 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, the WHA was founded by some of the same businessmen who had founded the ABA some years earlier, with a similar goal in mind. The problem was, they didn’t know a hell of a lot about hockey, and didn’t have many contacts in the hockey world. Enter “Wild Bill” Hunter, a junior hockey owner in Edmonton who’d made his reputation as an anti-authoritarian by founding the Western Canada Hockey League (now the WHL) in the late ‘60s against the express wishes of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, stealing the best teams from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba out of their respective provincial junior leagues in order to provide better overall competition for Western teams¹. Hunter helped put league brass in touch with a number of other hockey men, many of them NHL expansion rejectees or old buddies from the WCHL, and the WHA was set to drop the puck with a slate of twelve teams in the fall of 1972.

In the beginning, it was pretty easy to sign players. NHLers and AHLers alike were woefully underpaid compared to their brethren in other sports, thanks to a couple of unfortunate circumstances of that period. One was their weak union, led by the conniving and thieving Alan Eagleson, who posed as the players’ best friend while acting as the NHL’s puppet ruler. The other was to the reserve clause, a restrictive and illegal bit of language that allowed NHL teams to keep their players in perpetuity, and intimidate anyone who got uppity with the threat of being traded to a league also-ran or simply shipped down to the minors. The WHA used this to their advantage, deciding early on that they would not use the reserve clause, and offering two to three times more money than whatever the player had previously been making. For minor leaguers in particular, this was a pretty sweet deal: $12,000 per year in the AHL, or $30,000 in the WHA? Not much of a choice.

But while the new league had money and ideals, they didn’t have a marquee player, a legitimate star who would lend them instant credibility. After considering and dismissing recently retired Detroit star Gordie Howe – who’d eventually spend six years in the WHA with Houston and New England – they settled on Chicago’s Bobby Hull, and decided that the Winnipeg Jets, one of the more well-heeled teams in the new league, should sign him. His contract was up in 1972, which was perfectly timed, and he’d recently come off a bitter public feud with Bill Wirtz and the Black Hawks organization over that same deal. The Jets made their first overtures in the fall of 1971, and were greeted with a polite thanks-but-no-thanks. Hull’s agent was intrigued, though, and kept pushing for a deal. Eventually, Hull said he’d agree to play in Winnipeg for a million dollars – “to get rid of them,” he’d later admit – but despite the absurdity of his demand, the Jets came through. In the summer of ‘72, Bobby Hull became the Golden Jet, the face of the WHA, signing for five years and $2.75M, which included that crazy $1M signing bonus.

The NHL had not taken the WHA very seriously to this point, and with good reason: the new league had already seen five franchise relocations before a game had even been played, and hadn’t really signed away anyone of consequence. In response, the NHL expanded to Long Island and Atlanta for ’72 and announced plans for more expansion in ’74, to cut off potential expansion sites for the WHA, and also declined the new league’s challenge for the Stanley Cup². Moreover, there were two WHA teams – the New England Whalers in Boston and the Raiders in New York – challenging long-established NHL teams (and the most recent Stanley Cup finalists) in their own buildings! Little wonder, then, that NHL president Clarence Campbell wasn’t convinced that the newcomers posed a real long-term threat: the whole thing read like a flash in the pan, a bunch of crazy moves to drum up publicity based around an unsustainable financial model. By signing Hull, however, the WHA had crossed the line: they’d not only signed away one of the NHL’s best players, but in the weeks that followed, dozens more NHLers, this time of a somewhat higher calibre than before. Boston, Toronto, Chicago, California, and the expansion Islanders had been particularly hard-hit, and many other teams, most notably the Rangers, had to pay through the nose, relatively speaking, to keep their stars in the fold.

The NHL’s response this time was swift and predictable: they filed injunctions against Bobby Hull and every NHLer who had followed him. While all the other injunctions were thrown out immediately, the NHL won the one that mattered, against Hull in Chicago, setting up an appeal that would drag into the WHA’s inaugural season. Fortunately for the Jets and the WHA, however, the appeals judge was not terribly impressed by the NHL’s arguments citing the reserve clause: he slammed the NHL’s business practices as monopolistic, conspiratorial, and illegal, struck down the injunction, and made it clear that any future injunctions based on the reserve clause would be stillborn, essentially killing that, too. Of all the crazy moves they made in their early years, it was the WHA’s craziest move of all that changed everything. Not only were Hull and the others to play in the WHA, but the foundation had also been laid for the modern free-agency system, though thanks again to Eagleson and his intentionally toothless NHLPA, true unrestricted free agency didn’t come to the NHL until the 1990s.

European Invasion

Of course, the new league may have had Bobby Hull, and later Gordie Howe, but that was really about it. Even the NHLers who followed Hull, capable as they were, weren’t the sort of players that put bums in seats, and there were a lot of has-beens and never-weres in the mix, thanks to those rich contracts to minor-leaguers. Hull was getting frustrated with the lack of help, and was on the verge of retirement. To placate the league’s meal ticket, the Jets made one of the most forward-thinking and unusual moves in hockey to that date: since they weren’t exactly going to be plucking Stan Mikita out of Chicago for Hull to play with, they decided to try their luck overseas³. Through a friend of chief scout Billy Robinson, they got in touch with winger Anders Hedberg and centre Ulf Nilsson, who would join Hull in forming the greatest line in WHA history, the Hot Line. With them came smooth-skating defenceman and future captain Lars-Erik Sjöberg, whose skillset reads not unlike that of Scott Niedermayer.

When the three Swedes signed in the summer of ’74, they agreed that they would try to influence the Jets towards a more European style of play. This meant much more east-west movement and changing of positions as holes opened up, as opposed to the traditional north-south, stay-in-your-lanes game that the NHL and WHA had played to that point. It was a beautiful, flowing game that would require significant skill, great skating, and above-average hockey sense, but all three could bring it, and most importantly, Hull had been keen to play in that style since before leaving Chicago. After just one practice, the Hot Line was ready to take the league by storm, which is precisely what they did. That first year, Hull set the WHA record at 77 goals, while Nilsson finished second in assists with 94. Granted, the Jets still missed the playoffs in 1975, but it wasn’t due to any failings on the part of their Europeans, who now numbered seven or eight, and included a couple of Finns in addition to the many Swedes they’d recruited. In fact, the Jets found their Canadians to typically be the ones lacking, and turfed some of them in favour of more Swedes!

As you might expect, the Jets’ European contingent proved to be popular targets, especially the two on the Hull line. Euros were “soft,” and easy to intimidate, so the theory went: scare off the Swedes, lock down Hull, and call it a night. Problem was the Swedes didn’t scare that easily. They took their lumps, played through the abuse, and frustrated their opponents by dominating them, anyway, particularly on the many power plays they earned. From 1975-79, the Jets played in all four Avco Cup Finals, winning three of them; they beat the Soviet Red Army 5-3, two years after the Habs tied them, with the Hot Line outscoring the Kharlamov line 5-0⁴; they even challenged the Canadiens to an exhibition series, which was sadly never played. They were the dynasty of the WHA, and there didn’t seem to be much anyone could do to stop them. WHA veteran Dennis Sobchuk summarizes the experience of “defending” against Hull, Nilsson, and Hedberg:

“They’d do all these criss-crosses and drop passes, and the puck would just be sitting there between the dots while you took your man to the net. Then you’d look up and see Bobby going a hundred miles an hour with his stick over his head. You’d just close your eyes and you wouldn’t open them until you heard the puck hit the glass or the crowd react to the goal. It was one of the scariest sights you could imagine.”

Slats and Gretz

The nigh-unstoppability of the Jets was a source of frustration for most, but for journeyman winger Glen Sather, in the twilight of his career as captain of the Edmonton Oilers in 1976-77, they were a source of inspiration. Sather saw the magic up close and personal, playing twelve games against the Jets and seeing his team go 4-8 (0-6 in Winnipeg) and get outscored 72-33, including 61-15 in the eight losses. No, that’s not a typo. He witnessed firsthand how they frustrated defences, and realized that understanding and emulating them would be the key to beating them (or at least staunching the bleeding). So, when head coach Bep Guidolin stepped down late in the season and handed the reins of the team to his captain, Slats immediately changed the game plan. Amazingly, the Oilers, who had gone 11 games under .500 to that point, finished the year 9-7-2 and snuck into a playoff berth on the final weekend of the year. They followed that up with a one-game-below-.500 performance the next season and another low playoff seed. Granted, they got pasted 4-1 in the playoffs both years by league powers Houston and New England, respectively, but it was a step in the right direction, which the fans appreciated, if nothing else. Still, Sather wanted to challenge the Jets, and in order to do that, the Oilers would need a major infusion of talent, which serendipity would provide in 1978.

To give a bit of background, during the ‘70s, the NHL draft age was 20, meaning that no matter how talented you were, you weren’t making the NHL until at least then. The WHA felt this, too, was an unfair and illegal practice, and eventually got the courts to see their way on this topic, as well.⁵ After merger talks fell through in 1977 thanks to three of the old-guard owners the WHA had wronged five years earlier – in Toronto, Boston, and Chicago – the rebel league decided to step up the pace on signing kids, reasoning that eventually, the NHL would have to accept a merger, just to gain the rights to those players. Among the players who got their start in the WHA as teenagers were longtime NHLers Ken Linseman, Rick Vaive, Craig Hartsburg, Rob Ramage, and Michel Goulet, as well as future Hall of Famers Mark Messier and Mike Gartner. The biggest prize of all, though, was the 17-year-old kid from Brantford who’d just lit junior hockey on fire, scoring three points per game and setting an OHA record with 70 goals as a 16-year-old in 1977-78, leaving little to prove at that level despite not being draft-eligible until 1981. Wayne Gretzky was ready to turn pro; the only question was, with whom.

It turns out that it wasn’t originally supposed to be with Edmonton: while he’d later be the perfect cornerstone for Glen Sather’s European-by-way-of-Winnipeg system, he was first courted by the Birmingham Bulls at the 1978 World Juniors, declining then because his father insisted that he finish his junior season. By the time Gretzky came available, the Bulls had no room for him, opening the door for Nelson Skalbania, former Oilers owner and future Flames owner, to sign him as the star attraction of his revitalized Indianapolis Racers, much as Sidney Crosby would be in Pittsburgh more than 25 years later. Unfortunately, Indy didn’t have the hockey history or appetite that the Steel City did, and moreover, the pressure seemed to be getting to the young prodigy, who had failed to impress in his early games. He finally broke out of his slump and showed his phenomenal gifts during a home game against the Oilers, scoring his first two professional goals against Sather’s club that night in a mere eight seconds, no doubt leaving an impression on the young bench boss. When Skalbania decided the experiment was over and started shopping Gretzky to make ends meet, it became a match made in heaven. While the Jets themselves made a competitive offer, they couldn’t afford to match Peter Pocklington’s pure-cash deal⁶. Gretzky, Peter Driscoll, and Eddie Mio became Oilers for $850,000, giving the Oilers the foundation for a dynasty; Indy, despite the cash infusion, bled out before Christmas.

Wayne flourished in his new environment, surrounded by veterans who could show him the ropes and support him through his early growing pains, and placed into a system that gave him free reign to take offensive chances when he saw the opportunity. Even at 17, he was making those signature two-moves-ahead plays that left opponents wondering just how he knew a guy would be there, or how he found the back of the net. He finished third in league scoring, won rookie of the year in what one would assume to be a landslide, and then paced the Oilers with 15 points en route to a seven-game victory over the Whalers in the semi-finals. Waiting for them in the Avco Cup Finals was their old nemesis, the Winnipeg Jets, setting up a showdown between master and apprentice. On paper, the Oilers were the superior team, having finished in first place by a double-digit point total while Winnipeg barely managed .500⁷, but when the teams hit the ice, the result rather resembled that of the initial meeting between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader: disaster for the upstarts. The Jets had now lost the Hot Line to the NHL and retirement, but found scoring from all over the roster, and were able to hold Gretzky off the scoresheet in the opening set in Edmonton, stealing a 2-0 series lead and all but ending things right there. While the Oilers would win a couple of blowouts, and outscore Winnipeg in the series altogether, it was the Jets who emerged victorious in game six, the last game in WHA history, by a 7-3 tally, with a late and meaningless Dave Semenko goal serving as the league’s last.

The Legacy of the WHA

It can be fairly said that the WHA is to some degree responsible for hockey being the high-stakes business it is today. Gretzky and company were a big hit even playing out of remote Edmonton in the ‘80s; having Gretzky in L.A. and Messier et al. in New York in the early ‘90s, though, was a massive coup for the NHL. The former grew the game in non-traditional markets, paving the way for the Pacific and Southeast Divisions to, well, exist, while the latter brought the Cup to the NHL’s biggest media market for the first time since World War II, ending the longest drought in League history. While the lockout and the trap era sapped a lot of the NHL’s momentum from that period, the impact of those moves is unquestionably felt to this day: the WHA itself may have brought hockey to Arizona and Texas 20-plus years before the NHL did, but it was WHA alumnus Wayne Gretzky and his profile in the Sun Belt that made it possible for it to survive. It’s all very ironic, really, coming from a league that lived paycheque to paycheque for much of its existence: WHA history is littered with league cash calls, franchises moving in the middle of the night and folding mid-season, of missed paydays and envelopes of cash being divvied into stipends by coaches on airplanes. Even before all of that, though, the pressure the WHA put on the NHL forced salaries upward, firmly into the six-figure range for high-end players, and the death of the reserve clause made life at least a little easier on players, in terms of free agency, especially during the WHA period, when they had the leverage of another league to play in. Even after that, contract holdouts – which could almost never happen before – were now enough of a weapon that players could finally be well-compensated. The money Bruce McNall gave Gretzky in 1988 probably didn’t hurt that upward trend at all, either.

The WHA also brought a stylistic change to the game of hockey: the bubble-hockey game of yesteryear was on its way out, thanks in large part to the dominance of the Oilers, and the tendency of others to mimic their successful formula just as surely as the Oilers had imitated the Jets years earlier. Today, the North American and European games have hybridized each other to a degree: while there are still some clear stylistic differences, owing to different rules and rink dimensions, European hockey is much more North American in style than it was 30 years ago, and vice versa. The WHA also pioneered making European players integral to the roster of a North American team: Lars-Erik Sjöberg was the first European captain of a WHA and NHL team with the Jets, and was the first European captain to hoist a North American pro hockey trophy, in the 1976 and 1978 Avco Cups. The 1970s Jets were, at their peak, about half-European and half-North American, well before the Red Wings enjoyed success with the Russian Five in the ‘90s, or their ample complement of Swedes in the 2000s.

The other underrated impact of the WHA was the reintroduction of the 18-year-old draft. Steve Stamkos scored 51 goals in his 19-year-old season this past year: in the old system, he’d still be in Sarnia. Steve Yzerman scored 176 points his first two seasons, years he would’ve spent in Peterborough otherwise. I could go on down the list of high selections and see guys who’ve made immediate impacts in the NHL who wouldn’t have even been considered prior to 1979. Of lesser note, but still worth mentioning, is that the new Entry Draft – replacing the Amateur Draft of years past – allowed teams to select draft-aged pros. While it was targeted at allowing the NHL to snag 18- and 19-year-olds who had played in the WHA, it also allowed, for example, Boston to choose Sergei Samsonov out of the IHL in 1997.

Most immediately, though, there are the teams. Unfortunately, Quebec, Winnipeg, and Hartford all wound up finding new homes, as the fall of the dollar and the rise of the large market – as noted above, another indirect WHA legacy – took their toll through the ‘90s, and Edmonton was only saved by some last-minute intervention on the part of a massive number of local businessmen. Then again, former WHA teams account for eight Stanley Cups and eleven Finals appearances since the merger in 1979. Gretzky’s Oilers, of course, went on that legendary run in the ‘80s, while Colorado (Quebec) was a League power through the late ‘90s and early 2000s, winning two Cups, and Carolina (Hartford) won the first post-lockout Cup, and the first all-WHA Final, against Edmonton in 2006. Former WHA teams have made a tremendous impact on the League, but the funny thing is, none of them might have been there at all if not for Canada’s love of beer.

Epilogue: The Beer Boycott

The WHA always was a little…different. Aside from the perpetual off-ice eye-poking of the NHL, there were a lot of things that happened in the WHA that you’d never have seen in the senior loop: the short-lived blue puck, rat-killing competitions in musty old dressing rooms, players smuggled out of road cities in equipment bags, guys jumping into hotel pools in full gear, drunken fans challenging entire dressing rooms to a brawl (and subsequently being chased down by a dozen half- or fully-naked hockey players, fresh from the showers), and so on. So it’s only appropriate that things ended the way they did.

Back in 1977, the proposed merger would’ve seen six WHA teams – the four ultimate survivors, plus Cincinnati and Houston – join the NHL intact and play in their own division, slowly integrating with the rest of the League over the course of five years. With the defeat of that merger, and the subsequent collapse of several more teams, the NHL mostly had the WHA over a barrel. Despite their bravado, the WHA was forced to sign the terms of their surrender in 1979: the four surviving clubs would be allowed to protect just two skaters and two goalies, with the rest either reclaimed by their NHL clubs or sent to the draft pool⁸; the other two teams, Cincinnati and Birmingham, would be paid by the survivors to go away; and the WHA teams selected from the bottom of the draft, instead of the top, as most expansion teams would. Oh, and they each had to pay a $6M expansion fee for the privilege. Great deal.

Despite the overwhelmingly pro-NHL terms, the hardliners held strong, and defeated the measure by only voting 12-5 in favour, with LA, Boston, and the three Canadian teams in dissent. (One presumes that they didn’t want to lose half of their Hockey Night in Canada royalties to the three new Canadian teams.) That might have been it, but for Canadian beer drinkers. The Montreal Canadiens, then as now, were owned by the Molson family, of Molson Breweries. The people of Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Quebec City started a boycott of Molson products and, in short order, made their message heard: the Habs and Canucks changed their votes, allowing the WHA merger to go through, much to the fury of Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard (pissing him off was a side benefit of the whole affair). The course of hockey history was changed, and the WHA’s legacy was preserved, all because of beer, which really goes to show that the stereotypes are, to some degree, true: we may love our brews up here, but nothing, not even beer, will come between us and our hockey teams.

Special thanks to Ed Willes, whose marvelous book The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association furnished many of the facts, quotes, and stories in this essay, and Oilers blogger Bruce McCurdy, who held season tickets from 1977-93, and shared his first-hand observations of those late-‘70s and early-‘80s teams with me.

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¹ Hunter would take one more opportunity to piss off the Establishment in 1983, when he attempted to buy the St. Louis Blues and move them to Saskatoon. Not surprisingly, the NHL kicked up a fuss and blocked the bid at the end of the season. For more on that situation, including how the Blues missed the 1983 draft because of it, check out this great post on St. Louis Game Time: it’s a story worth reading. Given Hunter’s life and contributions to the sport – the creation of the WHL, the creation of the WHA and the Oilers, and the long-reaching effects of those manoeuvres – it boggles my mind that he’s not in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder.

² While the challenge format was effectively terminated in 1915, in favour of various pre-arranged interleague (and later, NHL-only) series and tournaments, the Stanley Cup is still technically a challenge trophy. The initial rules set forward by the Trustees of the Cup in 1893 specify that the Cup defaults to the champion of the previous winner’s League, and that any challenges from there would have to come from the champion of another “senior hockey association,” which in the modern understanding, could conceivably have included the WHA. However, the NHL was granted the authority to determine the conditions of Stanley Cup competition and qualification of future challengers in a 1947 agreement with the Trustees of the Cup: because of this, the Trustees have rejected all challenges since its inception, even in 2005, when the NHL wasn’t actually playing for it. In 2006, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that, should the same thing happen again, the Cup could be awarded to a non-NHL team.

³ Of course, this wasn’t an entirely unusual move for the WHA. The Calgary Broncos, before closing up shop and moving to Cleveland, had drafted a large number of Eastern Europeans, including future Summit Series stars Valeri Kharlamov and Alexander Maltsev. The Toronto Toros signed Vaclav Nedomansky out of Czechoslovakia around the same time the Jets went shopping in Scandinavia. Hell, even the NHL was getting in on the act, with the Leafs signing Börje Salming and Inge Hammarström out of Sweden in 1973. Still, the Jets were far and away the most aggressive and successful participants in the first wave of European recruitment.

⁴ Strangely enough, the games between WHA teams and international all-star teams counted in the standings during the league’s last couple of years. This was done primarily to make teams and fans alike take the game seriously, rather than treat it as an exhibition, though I suspect it may have been done in part to paper over holes created in the schedule by the numerous franchise collapses in that later period. If nothing else, it gave the hybrid-style teams, Winnipeg and Edmonton, loads of practice against European squads.

⁵ I don’t know if this was their intent, but they certainly got this by barring Ken Linseman from playing as an underager in Birmingham in 1977, despite signing away other underagers in prior years; Linseman filed an injunction and won the right to play. If that really was their gambit, it worked out brilliantly.

⁶ No truth to the rumour that a game of backgammon actually decided the thing: the Jets offered less money and a stake in the franchise, and with no guarantee of an NHL merger and the Racers losing money at an alarming rate, the Oilers’ up-front cash was the obvious choice. A game was, in fact, offered but ultimately rejected.

⁷ A point worth making regarding the matchup is that Sjöberg missed most of the regular season with injury. Certainly, one would think that with their Niedermayer healthy for the whole year, the Jets would’ve finished much better than they did.

⁸ The reclamation draft was a disaster for the WHA clubs, with most of the good players from that league being spread throughout the NHL, forcing the WHA teams to pay through the nose in a trade or burn expansion-draft picks in order to keep more than a couple of them. Even when the WHA teams played by the rules, they got screwed: the Oilers initially claimed Wayne Gretzky and Bengt-Åke Gustafsson as their two protected skaters, but lost Gustafsson to the Capitals anyway, and likely only kept Gretzky because he’d signed a 21-year personal services contract with Peter Pocklington directly.

See what I did there? (Sorry.)Anyway, so like all hockey fans living in Calgary, I was keenly waiting for the Heritage Classic announcement on Wednesday, curious what the Flames and Habs would dig out of their closets. Ken King had promised something from Calgary’s deep hockey past, which had me thinking of the Calgary Tigers, who played the Habs in the city’s first Stanley Cup Final in 1924; sure enough, the Flames delivered precisely that, while the Habs went conservative after a year and a half of blasts from the past that ranged from the elegant (1910-11) to the eyesore (1912-13). Their only change was to revert to the numbering and lettering style they used in their final years at the Forum, in the ’80s and ’90s. Some have complained that they lacked imagination, saying they should’ve gone with one of their early white sweaters, but to hell with it: the Habs have given us enough retro nightmares to last a lifetime, thanks, though I wouldn’t have said no to their 1924-25 “globe” sweater, which they wore after beating the Tigers for the Cup.

Which brings me back to that Flames/Tigers jersey. Now, you know me, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the game’s past, and fascination with the way things used to be. I’m also a jersey collector: I own 18 jerseys now, and I’m sure to add more later. I own the Habsbarberpole and make no apologies for it. That being said, the Habs were wise to leave the barberpole in the pre-Great War era, where it belongs, and on a similar note, the Flames might have been wise to go with a design that’s less…well, garish. See, the problem with both the barberpole and the Flaming Tigers there is that back in 1912/1924, we didn’t have post-space-age fabrics, vibrant dyes, HDTV cameras, television floodlights, and white painted ice: it was coloured wool, sunlight, natural ice, and your own two eyes. The Sens are trying to evoke their old barberpoles with their current third, and it’s the same problem: it’s just too much of an eyesore in the modern environment.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what the Flames have done here in principle, but in practice, I’m deeply concerned that it’s going to look like hell; it certainly doesn’t show well in the August sun, though some Flames bloggers assure me that it looks better in person than it does on a computer screen. Problem is, that’s where most people are going to see it: on their TVs or computers. There’s a half a percent chance I might go to the game myself, being local and being a Hitmen season-ticket holder (side note: how awesome is it that the Hitmen are going to be playing outside the day after the Flames do? I hope they also go into the wayback machine, maybe pull out the sweaters of the first Calgary junior WHL team, the Buffaloes; Lord knows the Pats have the history in spades), but I imagine it’ll be far too rich for my blood; more likely, I’ll be watching from my couch on my HDTV, and…oh, man. It’s gonna be a trip. I also can’t wait for the first Flaming Tigers sweater I pass in the hall this year at the University. I fear for my eyesight already.

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Since it came up on the show this week, as well, a brief word about Chinook winds: about three times a year, warm winds descend from the Rocky Mountains - by a process I still don’t understand, even after reading the Wikipedia article - inducing significant temperature spikes for a handful of days. The phenomenon isn’t unique to southern Alberta, but it’s far and away more prevalent here than anywhere else. While the usual effect is simply to bring the temperature from around -15°C to about the freezing point, melting the snow and making for hellish driving conditions after it refreezes, I do remember one winter growing up in Drumheller, an hour and a half from Calgary, where the temperature actually got up to about +10°C, which was truly remarkable. That being said, Ken King is clearly describing a worst-case scenario: it’s just as likely that it’ll actually be colder here than it was in Edmonton in 2003, but far more likely than either of those cases is that conditions will be akin to those in Buffalo, Chicago, and Boston: cold enough to keep the ice, maybe get a touch of snow, but not so cold as to be bloody miserable. Actually, if I remember correctly, there was also a contingency plan in Edmonton, in case it got too cold for the ice to still be playable - the surface would get brittle and start shredding under the intense skating - but obviously, that never came to pass.

Goaltending is probably the toughest position to evaluate in all of hockey. A poor performance by the numbers may betray a goalie hung out to dry by his teammates. A flashy performance in net - acrobatic glove saves and desperate cross-crease slides - may mask poor fundamentals. Today’s touted first-rounder may be tomorrow’s franchise goalie, or tomorrow’s unremarkable journeyman. A playoff hero may be a legend in the making or a flash in the pan. Well-compensated ‘keepers can be subsequently relegated to the backup role, often without warning. The only consistent thing about goaltending, it seems, is that it’s inconsistent.Some, like Gabriel Desjardins at Behind the Net and Philip Myrland at The Contrarian Goaltender, have tried to attack the problem statistically. They, and others like them, have figured out a few interesting things, like how shot volume affects save percentage, how playing with or without the lead affects where the balance of play occurs, how play in different situations creates dramatically different expectations for save percentage¹, and how bloody terrible the NHL’s scorers actually are - seriously, read this article about the MSG shot-distance estimates, that guy is out to lunch. On the other hand, some of the stuff these guys write can get pretty heady, especially the notion that luck can be a big factor in short-term results: not every fan is going to have the time or interest required to understand and apply this stuff to their own armchair-GM assessments. Furthermore, even the most repeatable statistic, even-strength save percentage, seems like it would be rife with complications due to variations in defensive play, as well as other, less tangible factors - confidence, personal issues, disputes between teammates, whatever - leaving plenty of room for variation and debate. I’m not yet convinced that there’s a single, reliable way to evaluate goalies, especially given the inconsistencies noted above.

So where am I going with all of this? Well, while different NHL teams use these sort of advanced stats to inform their decision-making process to differing degrees - some use them quite a bit, while others don’t use them at all - when it comes to the media and fans, it seems like the most important statistic is the simplest, the win. It’s the first number you hear in a stat line most of the time, and many times, it’s played as a trump card to end all debate. “At the end of the night, this guy wins hockey games, and that’s all that really matters,” the radio host smugly concludes before hanging up and taking the next caller. The problem with that line of thinking is that it ignores over half the game, and does a grave disservice to the other 18 guys on the ice.

To borrow a line from long-time checker and coach Craig MacTavish, hockey is a game of what you create minus what you give up. While the goaltender may be the final arbiter of “what you give up,” in the most critical sense, he’s far from the only contributor: the defencemen and forwards obviously have to cover their men and break up opportunities, and the best of each at that job are given major awards at the end of the year, highlighting their importance. More to the point, the goaltender has very little influence on “what you create”: save for the odd clearing pass that’s taken all the way, you’re talking about half of the game the goalie has nothing to do with, yet the win or loss is credited or blamed on them alone on the stat sheet. How is it fair that the goalie gets slapped with the loss when their team fails to score? Or that the goalie gets credit for the win even when they were terrible and their teammates bailed them out in a 6-5 game?²

Here are a couple of recent examples to illustrate my point:

1) Miikka Kiprusoff: In 2008-09, Kiprusoff led the NHL with 45 wins, leading certain local radio hosts to tout him as not only the team MVP, but also a Vezina candidate, and possibly Mayor of Calgary. It was crazy. Problem was, every Flames game that I had seen (excepting those against my Oilers, funny enough), Kiprusoff looked like a shadow of his former self, biffing saves he would’ve readily made in his Vezina year of 2006. I couldn’t accept that he was the best Flame on the ice, especially with the years Cammalleri and Iginla had had. So I went to the stats to see what was going on and there it was: his GAA (2.84) and SV% (.903) were both good for 32^nd in the League, putting him behind not only most starters but several backups as well. Then, I checked the team stats and saw that he was being bailed out by his teammates, to the tune of 251 goals, 8^th-best total in the NHL and 4^th-best in the West. In a hilarious cruel twist of fate, he posted top-ten marks in both goals-against (2.31, 7^th) and save percentage (.920, T-9^th) this year, but won just 35 games and missed the playoffs because this time, his ‘mates failed him, putting up the second-worst offensive totals in the League at just 201 goals. Ouch.

2) Carey Price: According to the storyline for this past season, Carey Price floundered under the pressure of Montreal’s media and fanbase, and the allure of the city’s famous nightlife, while Halak remained focused, won the starting job halfway through the year, and carried the team to the conference finals. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really tell the whole story: Chris Boyle of Eyes on the Prize, an excellent Canadiens blog, did statistical breakdowns of the two goalies, and in November and December, augmented them with a look at the goal support they received. To summarize all of that, it appears that Price got weaker goal support (to the point where he’d have needed to play like vintage Hasek just to salvage .500), put up better individual numbers in those low-scoring games (and, strangely enough, worse numbers in higher-scoring affairs), but lost a lot of games, anyway, because no one bloody scored for him. In the end, their individual stats were almost identical through the first half, with Price giving up a few more bad goals by Boyle’s eye during December, yet Price had the far worse record (10-13-3 vs. 11-6-0), a difference that appeared well before any drop-off in play, and became the goat in Montreal for his efforts. While he could be criticized for some lapses in December, despite having overall strong individual numbers, the W-L record clearly didn’t tell the whole story here.

So given that the win stat is only partially based on what the goalie actually does in-game, why do we still use it? I think in the end, it’s just the culture of sport: winning is everything. While the way a person plays should trump whether they happened to win or lose that night, results are, for better or for worse, how all sports and athletes are judged. To take another example, let’s look at current UFA Ilya Kovalchuk³. It’s been said on this very show that he’s “never won anything,” or something to that effect, which to my mind, is completely irrelevant and only partially true anyway. For one, he has three international gold medals to his name from Team Russia; for another, he played for the Atlanta Thrashers for most of his career. No one has won with that club. Speaking of ex-Thrashers, was Marian Hossa a “loser” before last month? If so, why did Chicago sign him? If winners beget winning, and winning experience is such a key, how did Pittsburgh defeat Detroit last year? The fact of the matter is, it’s not winners or winning that produce the best teams or the best hockey players. Talent, combined with hard work and a keen understanding of the game, are they keys to being a good hockey player, and good hockey players who function well together within their defined roles in the group make good hockey teams. It’s true in any era, and it’s not something that can be captured with a simple win tally.

*   *   *

Before I go, I’d like to point to this article by “E” at Theory of Ice (mild language warning), which is tangentially related to the topic at hand. She doesn’t write terribly often anymore, which is a crying shame, because she’s much more eloquent and thoughtful than I am. Anyway, that article sums up my own feelings on the way we analyze and discuss hockey pretty nicely. Suffice to say, when you read a post-game summary and wonder if you even watched the same game as the reporter in question, it’s usually a bad sign.

¹ The answers, in order: more shots tend to produce higher save percentages, because there’s usually a higher volume of crappy shots; the team with the lead usually winds up defending more, especially as the game goes on; save percentage tends to go down on the PK, and up on the PP.

² All of this leaves aside the slightly-weighted coin-flip that is the shootout, which has made a mockery of the record book in recent years, especially with the already-dubious win stat. Ilya Bryzgalov and Jonathan Quick both set franchise records for wins in 2009-10, and while Bryz may ultimately prove to be the best goalie in Coyotes-Jets franchise history, with only Nikolai Khabibulin as serious competition, there’s no way Quick belongs in the conversation with Rogie Vachon and Kelly Hrudey in LA at this point. Vachon should be in the Hall of Fame, and while Hrudey isn’t in that category, he’s a lot closer than people give him credit for. Also, you damned kids can get off my lawn.

³ You know, when my schedule started slipping and one week became two, I figured I’d have to rewrite that sentence. Little did I know…

So first off, before I get too far, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Jason Robertson, longtime listener, two-time telephone guest, and damn-near-every-time emailer to the show. I’m a university student, I support the Oilers and, to a lesser extent, the Canadiens. I like long walks along the beach, and…wait, wrong window.

Anyway, I’ve been watching and/or listening to hockey games basically since the womb, though my first concrete memories come from around 1990 or 1991. I remember my confusion upon the Oilers’ elimination at the hands of lowly Minnesota in the ‘91 Campbell Conference Finals, as they were called in those days. To the best of my young recollection, the Oilers had always won, so how could they possibly have lost? (If only you knew, four-year-old me. If only you knew.) I went back and forth between Mom’s Habs and Dad’s Oilers in my youth, and still hold the 1993 Habs’ Cup run as one of my dearest early memories of hockey. The death of that ‘93 team, culminating in the Patrick Roy trade in 1995, was the death knell for the Habs as my #1 team: they’d gotten rid of everyone I liked on the team, and this new team was kind of crap, and you’re still allowed to do that when you’re nine. Then came the Cujo-Marchant sequence that eliminated the hated Stars in that classic ‘97 series - Joe Nieuwendyk probably still sees that save in his nightmares - and my loyalties were sealed, for better or for worse. Okay, mostly worse.

In recent years, my perceptions of the game have been influenced somewhat by the blogosphere (is that a word people still use?), especially the stat-heavy Oilers blogs. I’ve spent parts of the last six or seven years periodically trying and failing to make a sports blog of my own out there on the Interwebs, which may be due in part to the fact that I spend an inordinate amount of energy on rants or considered responses to points Eddie and Doug make. Many weeks, I’ve sent in pages-long comments on various topics in the NHL, which there’s no way on Earth they could possibly read on the air. So, Doug approached me recently about contributing an article here or there to the website, and I figure that’s probably something I can do, in lieu of some of the less-airable emails. I promise I won’t get bogged down too much in the advanced stats - in no small part because I don’t have the time or interest to do the math myself - but I’m sure some of the attitudes and ideas of the stats bloggers will filter down into the stuff I write, which may prove unpopular. Regardless, I hope whatever I write leads to some good discussions, and not a bunch of TLDRs in the comments.

The topic Doug and I were talking about when the idea of this column came up, actually, was the pending free-agency lunacy, which Eddie, Doug, and Adam talk about on this week’s supplemental show. Now, it seems to me that the “winners” of free agency are often awarded in the media around July 2, and secondary consideration is only given well into the season when a team dramatically succeeds or fails, or when a cap situation like the one we saw in Calgary a couple of years ago - where the team was literally unable to ice a full team due to injuries and lack of cap space - rears its ugly head. More to the point, it seems that most outlets tend to reward the team that nabbed the biggest Name Star, unless they spent more money than God on the guy, in which case, they get pasted. Me, I’d rather take the long view, but I understand that’s hard to do when there are inches that need filling and blogs that need posting, so hasty judgments will always reign. Still, if we’re going to make snap judgments, I’d at least rather consider the whole picture.

Free agency is, for all intents and purposes, an auction, and in many ways, it behaves similarly. For starters, you have your big-ticket items, the stuff everyone brought their money to try to get their hands on. These things will almost always go for an absurd amount of money, well above “book value,” simply due to supply and demand. There’s always at least one or two people who will see this as their one chance to get their hands on something dear, rationality flies out the window, and Bob’s your uncle. If you can afford it, great; you still overpaid, at least until the next guy comes along and spends even more on another, similar, tchotchke. So it is with top-end free agents, as well. Every year, some marquee name goes for crazy money, usually for a number of years, and everyone shakes their head and wonders what that gol-danged lockout was for, anyway. I mean, I love Ryan Smyth in ways that aren’t entirely healthy, but he’s not worth $6.25M for five years. That’s the same money Chris Pronger got from the Oilers two years earlier, for crying out loud, and only one of those men is going to the Hall of Fame. This year’s big ticket item is Ilya Kovalchuk, and unless he pulls a Hossa and signs for one year with a contender, he’s going to cause some team a lot of headache a couple of years down the road when they need to shed salary in order to sign all of their young free agents. That’s not to say that Kovalchuk will be a bad pick-up, as such, but the key to success in a salary-capped world is players outperforming their contracts, and anyone of any significant repute who signs a UFA contract on July 1 probably isn’t going to do that: again, supply and demand leads to overpays. Hell, anything less than meeting some pretty lofty expectations will probably lead to the guy that signed him getting fired well before the contract’s even up. Yet, I’m sure, whoever signs him on Thursday is going to be lauded for making his team better, irrespective of what it does to his team tomorrow. The way I see it, unless he wins the Stanley Cup in June, that guy’s made a mistake.

Personally, I’d rather see my team go for the small-ticket items, which in free agency as in auctions, generally fall under three broad categories:

1) Something no one knows is out there. Much like my grandfather likes to buy a broken oil lamp for $2, throw out the crappy bits, and keep the 18^th-century base worth hundreds of dollars, I like it when a team signs someone unheralded but with potential to have a great impact. The poster boy for this is Jan Hejda, the shutdown defenceman for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Prior to his signing, no one outside of Buffalo Sabres draft junkies and the aforementioned stats-obsessed Oilers fans knew this guy from Adam, and now he’s doing one of the most important jobs on the Jackets for relative pennies: just $2M per year for someone who can play top-pairing defensive minutes is fantastic. I haven’t done enough legwork to know who this year’s Jan Hejda is in the free-agent market, and we may not know until well into the season, but whoever unearths that guy is going to look like a genius a few months from now; more importantly, he’s either solved a problem that needed solving or created a position of strength he can deal from to solve other problems down the road.

2) Something that’s undervalued. Being a checker in the NHL is a bit like being a rare stamp at a coin-collector’s auction. Sure, you’re valuable for what you are, but you’re not what the guys around the room are interested in. Fact is, NHL GMs value goal-scoring to a tremendous degree, and will overpay massively to get it, leaving the muckers and grinders to pick up the table scraps between mid-July and the end of September. I mean, think of how many role-players there are getting $2M or better: they’re all either “name” guys, like Pahlsson or Madden, or they’re now-former Edmonton Oilers. That’s not to say that I think they should be getting a ton of dough, merely that they’re a good place for a GM to pick up a value contract or two that will make the team better beyond the third-liner’s rather limited scoring ability. Guys who can take shifts against better hockey players without giving anything up, who can kill penalties and win face-offs and block shots and do all the little things that coaches love, they soak up defensive minutes with minimal worry, which leaves a lot more opportunity to deploy the team’s scoring stars in offensive situations.

Another place GMs can find bargains is in players who are coming off massive injuries or slumps. Injury not only leads to deflated numbers, which immediately shaves a bit off the top, but also represents a risk of future re-injury. This will scare away some teams, and a shrewd negotiator can use this to get a further discount, especially if it’s an injury known to recur like concussions or groin pulls. As for slumps, sport is a “what have you done for me lately” business, and guys who’ve had an off-year in their contract year will often wind up undervalued compared to their career norms. One of the things the stats bloggers have found - and which I’ve been able to corroborate with five years of fantasy hockey experience - is that slumps and career years tend to be driven by low and high shooting percentages, respectively, and that shooting percentages well outside a player’s established norm tend not to repeat themselves over multiple years without an underlying cause, like age or injury. Sometimes, a slump might also be due to a player simply being unhappy in his situation, hating his coach, his role, his captain, whatever. Regardless, a penny-pinching GM might exploit this by giving a player coming off a bad slump a bargain deal, for short term and low dollars, and putting him in a position to succeed. After he’s reaped the rewards of his shrewd move, this GM would then presumably let some other poor sod pay the guy what he’s actually worth. The key here, in any case, is not to spend too much, because you’re betting on your target being a diamond in the rough, but not spending too much in case he’s actually…

3) Complete junk. Sometimes a busted oil lamp is a hidden treasure. Sometimes, it’s Jeff Finger. Yeah, I’m arguably being lazy not going for something more recent, but that signing still holds as one of the best examples of what not to do in free agency. I still can’t believe Fletcher mistook that guy for Kurt Sauer.

In my view, the GM who “wins” free agency is the guy who makes his team better without completely screwing it for the future unless he’s absolutely certain he can win the Stanley Cup this year. And usually, that means the guy who bought a lot from those first two small-ticket bins, avoided the third, and stayed the hell away from the big-ticket items, especially the ones coming off career years. Of course, if it comes down to it, the guy who sat on his hands might be the true winner of the day: sometimes the wisest course of action is to avoid unnecessary spending, try to meet your needs with homegrown kids on value contracts, and fill any holes they can’t occupy down the road by trade. It’s hard to judge after just one or two days, and it’s certainly not a sexy course of action, but as a general rule, smart tends to outlast sexy. Just ask your grandparents.

Phoenix Coyotes GM Don Maloney after day two of the draft.

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Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli after day two of the draft.

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Florida Panthers GM Dale Tallon after day two of the draft.

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Anaheim Ducks GM Bob Murray after day two of the draft.

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Anaheim Ducks GM Bob Murray after day one of the draft.

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Once again, the trades you hear about rarely happen and the trades that happen you rarely hear about. I heard nothing from any of the so-called NHL internet insiders who charge people money to get the inside scoop on trades before they happen about either one of these deal. So, out of nowhere on Saturday, the Predators traded Dan Hamhuis to the Flyers and traded Jason Arnott to the Devils.

Dan Hamhuis was set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1^st and, apparently, Predators GM David Poile knew he would not be bringing him back for one reason or another. So he dealt his rights to Philadelphia and got something for, essentially, nothing. Hamhuis would have walked away in less than two weeks leaving the Predators with a big hole on defense but now they’ve got their first round draft pick from 2005 who they had dealt to Philadelphia as part of the package to acquire Peter Forsberg. Parent has 102 games of NHL experience and played in 17 playoff games for the Flyers this past season so he’s a suitable replacement for Hamhuis’ minutes. Remember, the Predators have Ryan Suter and Shea Weber so with Parent they now have three good, young defenseman to build their team around and that’s not bad. Each of those guys is 25 years old or younger.

For the Flyers this is an interesting deal as they were already in a pinch with regards to the salary cap and here they’ve traded a guy that is set to be a restricted free agent this summer in Parent for a guy that is set to be an unrestricted free agent in Hamhuis. It seems like they are trading to spend more money on that position and while Hamhuis is better than Parent right now I don’t know that the difference between the two is that great – or at least not as great as the difference between their salaries could end up being. The Flyers still have to get Hamhuis signed as well as Dan could simply say no thanks to any offer they make and test free agency on July 1^st to see what he’s worth on the open market. If that happens the Predators would owe the Flyers a 7^th round pick in 2011 which means that the Flyers could have dealt Ryan Parent for a 7^th round draft pick. That’s a gamble and we’ll see if it pays off. If Hamhuis does sign with the Flyers then they will once again have one of the best defenses in the NHL. Chris Pronger, Kimmo Timonen, Braydon Coburn, Dan Hamhuis and Matt Carle would be as good a top five on the blueline as you will find in the NHL right now. We’ll see if they are able to sign Hamhuis and retain that impressive depth.

The Arnott trade is a little less easy to understand for the Predators. According to GM David Poile he and Arnott talked at the end of the season and it became clear that it would be best for the two to go different directions. Arnott, who had a no-trade clause, gave the Predators a list of teams he’d be willing to waive it for and the Devils were the top of the list. Arnott scored the Cup clinching goal for the Devils in the 2000 Stanley Cup Final and was heartbroken when the team traded him to Dallas a few years later. Now he’s back in New Jersey and says he couldn’t be happier. He’s got one year left on his deal and the Devils are now looking very good down the middle with Patrick Elias and Jason Arnott centering the top two lines. I would imagine this takes the Devils out of bidding for Ilya Kovalchuk but we’ll see what happens.

The guy the Predators got in return, Matt Halischuk, doesn’t appear to be a star in the making but they also got a 2^nd round pick in 2011. Knowing how well the Devils usually do that should end up as the 50^th overall pick at best. I am not quite sure how you get Ryan Parent for a guy that is not under contract and Matt Halischuk for a guy that is but that’s the way the NHL works in the salary cap era.

Overall the Predators did a good job of managing their assets and the Hamhuis trade was a great trade for Nashville. We’ll see if Halischuk or the 2^nd round pick ever turn into anything and I am not a fan of that trade for Nashville but their hands were tied with regards to where they could shop Arnott. It’s a great trade for the Devils as they improved their active roster without having to give up anything from their active roster. It’s a questionable deal for Philadelphia, especially if they are not able to get Hamhuis signed to a contract.

One of my favorite lines from The Simpsons is when Principal Skinner says, in response to Mrs. Krabappel asking him to think of the children’s future: “Oh Edna. We all know that these children HAVE no future.” All the kids stop and stare at him in shock and he says, “Prove me wrong, children. Prove me wrong.” In the spirit of that great scene I am going to list something I believe to be true of each NHL team that is in the playoffs and I challenge each team or player to prove me wrong.

Western Conference:

Sharks:

Evgeni Nabokov is not capable of winning enough big games to get the Sharks to the Western Conference Finals, much less the Stanley Cup Finals.

Blackhawks:

A defensive lapse by the Blackhawks young star players (Kane & Toews) will cost them at some point in these playoffs.

Canucks:

Roberto Luongo still has yet to win a big game in the NHL. Until he does I will doubt that he can do it.

Coyotes:

There are no more shootouts and you don’t get to play 4-on-4 after the third period any longer. This team is not capable of scoring enough 5-on-5 goals to win consistently.

Red Wings:

Age will finally catch up to the Red Wings and they will not be able to beat a hungrier, faster and deceptively deep Coyotes team.

Kings:

Jonathan Quick is out of gas and cannot beat the Canucks four times in seven games.

Predators:

Playing it safe and trying to win 2-1 or 3-2 works in the regular season but not in the playoffs. The Predators lack the explosiveness and passion that it takes to win in the postseason.

Avalanche:

Craig Anderson is out of gas and this team will be overwhelmed by the Sharks in the first round.

Eastern Conference:

Capitals:

You cannot emphasize offense as much as Washington does and be successful in the playoffs. A round or two? Sure. Hoisting the Cup? No.

Sabres:

Tomas Vanek is not worth the money the Sabres are paying him and, if he does play, he will not be the type of player that Buffalo needs. They need him to score often and in the clutch and he will do neither.

Devils:

Ilya Kovalchuk was a wasted acquisition. He is good but he will not be the difference between the Devils advancing a round or not and he will leave the team as a free agent in July.

Penguins:

The supporting cast is not good enough to win another Cup and Sergei Gonchar’s best days are behind him.

Senators:

Ottawa does not have enough scoring depth beyond the top line, and Mike Fisher, to consistently score against the Penguins. The top line + Fisher will score 66% of the Senators goals in this series if not more.

Flyers:

Brian Boucher will not earn more wins in the playoffs than he did in the regular season (9).

Bruins:

You cannot be as bad at scoring goals as the Bruins are and win a playoff round.

Canadiens:

If you have two starting goalies what you are really saying is that neither is good enough to be your starter. Flopping between Halak and Price will cost this team what little chance they have to upset the Capitals.

With the NHL season set to begin tomorrow I was looking around at each teams final rosters and noticed that some players are being paid way too much for what they bring to the ice. That inspired me to compile a roster of the most overpaid players in the league.

Here’s how it will work. An active NHL roster has 20 players on it (12 forwards, six defenseman and two goalies) and that’s what I’ll put together here. I’m going to select four centers, eight wingers, six defenseman and two goalies who I believe are being paid much more than their talents and skills deserve.

Don’t get me wrong - this is not a slam on the players at all. These guys were offered a salary and they accepted it just like any of us would have done. This is more a reflection on the GM’s that signed these players to these contracts. So, without further ado, here is the 2009/2010 All-Overpaid Team!

Centers:

- Scott Gomez ($7.357 million)

Gomez is the highest paid player on the All-Overpaid team and what does all that cabbage get us? 16 goals and 58 points, apparently. Gomez was a huge disappointment with the Rangers and was dealt to the Canadiens over the summer. He’s one of many players that could play his way off of this team this season but until he does he’s a no-brainer pick for this squad.

- Chris Drury ($7.05 million)

Making just a little less than Gomez is another Rangers disappointment - Chris Drury. He put up a whopping 22 goals and 56 points last season which are not terrible numbers, but they are not worth more than $7 million a year, either. Drury is allegedly a great leader in the locker room though we haven’t seen that impact the Rangers on the ice yet and when you are making the 15^th highest salary in the league you’d better be higher than 81^st in the league in scoring.

- Shawn Horcoff ($5.5 million)

Compared to Drury and Gomez, Horcoff seems like a bargain at just $5.5 million a year! But when you realize that he put up 53 points last season and that the Oilers paid him more than $100,000 per point…he doesn’t seem like much of a bargain anymore.

- Michal Handzus ($4 million)

Handzus is a good third line center for the Kings but third line centers should not be paid $4 million. He was the Kings highest paid forward last season and, again, for a guy that plays on the third line that is absurd.

Total spent on centers: $23.907 million

Left Wingers:

- Paul Kariya ($6 million)

Paul Kariya had 15 points in 11 games last season and ended up missing most of the year due to injuries. But before that his production had gone down three years in a row and he’s become more of a passer than a sniper. $6 million seems a bit steep for a veteran playmaker coming off a major injury and who has never been confused for a Selke candidate.

- Martin Erat ($4.5 million)

Erat is not quite in the Horcoff “$100,000 per point” club but he did make $90,000 per point last season and supplemented that by being a -7. He’ll have to play better this season to find his way off the squad next season.

- Dustin Penner ($4.25 million)

Penner was another no-brainer for this team. I remember when he went to the Oilers many Edmonton fans were thrilled about getting a big man with such soft hands. Then they watched him play and the excitement wore off…quickly. Penner is big, but plays like he’s either fragile or tiny as he does not use his size to his advantage nearly enough, and he’s prone to taking entire shifts, periods, games and weeks off with lazy efforts. Maybe Pat Quinn can get through to him and tap his potential but until he does he will be welcome here on the All-Overpaid Team.

- Ryan Smyth ($6.25 million)

Ryan Smyth is one of my favorite NHL players and has been for a long time. I love the way he plays the game and the sacrifices he’s willing to make for his team. But $6.25 million a year for a guy that averages 58 points a year? That seems like a bit much to me.

Total spent on left wings: $21 million

Right Wingers:

- Brian Rolston ($5.062 million)

Rolston’s salary is an example of paying a guy for what he’s done and not what he will do. He used to be a great scorer for the Wild but last year he put up just 32 points in 64 games with the Devils and at 36 years old I don’t think his best years are ahead of him. (By the way, he made more than $158,000 per point last year! Think about that the next time you get your paycheck).

- Joffrey Lupul ($4.25 million)

Lupul is a good young player but he’s fairly one-dimensional and he seems to be settling into a career as a second line winger. He’s only scored 50 points twice in his career and has never reached 30 goals in a season. When you’re one-dimensional you’d better be really good at that one dimension and Lupul is not. He’s good, but not great, and he’s not worth $4.25 million a year in my opinion.

- Pavol Demitra ($4 million)

Like Rolston, Demitra is being paid for what he’s done. However, getting paid $4 million for 20 goals and 53 points is a bit excessive. He’s not the most overpaid on this team, and might be one of the players that least deserves to be here, but he’s here none-the-less.

- Jonathan Cheechoo ($3 million)

We all know that Cheechoo once scored 56 goals in a season but we also all know that he’s become a shell of his former self offensively. I don’t care what role he was asked to play for the Sharks last season he put up 29 points in 66 games and is part of the elusive “$100,000 per point” club. He’s got a new chance in Ottawa and perhaps he can find his scoring touch. If he does, he could play his way off this team.

Total spent on right wings: $16.312 million

Defenseman:

- Jeff Finger ($3.5 million)

Finger could be the captain of the overpaid team. I remember when it was announced that he had signed a four-year, $14 million deal last summer my first reaction was, “Who?” Finger did nothing to prove the doubters wrong last season and could very well be the most expensive healthy scratch in the NHL this season. I’m still not sure what Finger does well but I know for sure that he’s not worth $3.5 million a season.

- Rob Scuderi ($3.4 million)

Scuderi had a phenomenal Game 7 against the Red Wings last year and he’s a big reason the Penguins won the Stanley Cup. However, he’s a defensive defenseman who blocked 164 shots last season - and that’s a nice number, but it’s more than 100 less than the 271 blocked shots that the Coyotes Zbynek Michalek had last season. Anyone think Michalek is worth $3.4 million a year? Me either. Scuderi was a +23 last season but he was also a -18 four years ago and is a +13 in his career so I’d say that was a bit of an aberration last year. A defensive defenseman coming off a career year and a Stanley Cup championship are frequently overpaid and Scuderi is no different.

- Wade Redden ($6.5 million)

Redden could play his way off of this team if he has a good season but based on last year he’s a no-brainer for this squad. $6.5 million bought the Rangers three goals, 26 points and a -5 rating. Woof. There are 68 other defenseman that scored as many, or more, points as Redden did last season including our old friend Zbynek Michalek. (I’m actually making a great case for Michalek to be given a sizable raise!) But at least Redden came through with 99 hits last season - good for 166^th in the league. Welcome to the squad, Wade, practice begins at 10am.

- Kim Johnsson ($4.85 million)

Johnsson and Redden are two peas in a pod as both got paid a lot of money to put up similar numbers last season. Johnsson had two goals and 24 points last year and was a -3 on a team coached by Jacques Lemaire with a Vezina Trophy finalist in net behind him. Woof. In his three years with the Wild Johnsson has averaged three goals and 24 points per season and is a -11. Johnsson is a UFA after this season and my guess is that he’ll be taking a paycut.

- Andrej Meszaros ($4 million)

Having already spent $18.25 million on my first four defenseman I was feeling good about my squad but I wanted to add a couple of more names to really round out the group and see if we couldn’t get that number up over $20 million. Enter Andrej Meszaros! Meszaros had some injury problems last year and only played in 52 games but in those games he put up two goals and 16 points. Projected out over an 82 game season that’s equivalent to three goals and 22 assists. Sound familiar? If not, go read the comments about Wade Redden and Kim Johnsson again. Having an offensive defenseman score less than five goals and 30 points a season is a sign you have a bad offensive defenseman. The All-Overpaid Team now has three such players.

- Mike Komisarek ($4.5 million)

I gave thought to giving this last spot to Andy Sutton ($3 million) or Ruslan Salei ($3.025 million) but in the end it was too tough to pass up Mike Komisarek and his $4.5 million salary. Komisarek is the 88^th highest paid player in the NHL which doesn’t sound too impressive until you think about it. If you took the top three players from each team that would be 90 players and I doubt Komisarek would make that group. Yet, he’s among the 90 highest paid players in the league. Komisarek is a good player and he’s big but $4.5 million should be reserved for very good, if not great, defensive defenseman. He brings very little offense to the team and is not exactly a shut-down defenseman when it comes to neutralizing the other teams’ top players. I would also argue that Francois Beauchemin, his new teammate with the Leafs, is the better defenseman of the two and yet Beauchemin makes $700,000 less and got two less years on his deal.

Total spent on defense: $26.75 million

Goalies:

- Cristobal Huet ($5.625 million)

Paying a 34-year old goalie who has never started more than 42 games in a season, never won more than 21 games in a season and who has a career playoff record of 6-10 with a 2.73 GAA in the postseason, over $5 million a year is ridiculous.

- Ilya Bryzgalov ($4.25 million)

Bryzgalov was claimed off waivers by the Coyotes and then signed a big contract after a decent season with them. Last year was a step back as he was 26-31-6 with a 2.98 GAA. Jose Theodore was considered for this spot but when you have a Hart Trophy and a Vezina Trophy on your mantle you get the benefit of the doubt.

Total spent on goalie: $9.875 million

Total spent on entire 20-man roster: $97.844 million (a mere $41.044 million over the salary cap!)

And what do I get for that money? Not one player scored 60 points last season - not one player had 30 goals last season and my goalies are average, at best. This is a roster that only Glen Sather could love.

So what do you think? Do you agree with these picks? Think a player that’s on my team should be off of it? Think a player not on my team should be on it? What about your picks? Who would you select for your All-Overpaid Team? Post your thoughts for all of us to enjoy and discuss.

This past summer there’s been a lot of talk about which markets do and do not deserve an NHL franchise. That got me thinking about a project and it’s one that I’d like to get you involved with as well. Here’s the deal:

Imagine you were starting the NHL from scratch and could put a team in any city you wanted. Where would you place the 30 franchises? You can put them in any North American city you want and you don’t have to worry about Divisions, Conferences or anything else - simply focus on which cities and areas you would give an NHL franchise. Please post your thoughts here for all of us to see and discuss and if you can please include a brief note explaining your reasoning and whether you were seeking growth, exposure, fan base, etc. I look forward to seeing what all of you think and hope we can get a good dialogue going.

When considering where to put the 30 NHL franchises I wanted to do three things - expose the game to as many people and regions as possible, bring the game to fans that grow up playing the game while at the same time maintaining tradition.

Let’s start with the tradition and the Original Six cities - they all get to keep their teams:

Toronto, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago and Montreal

Now let’s move on to exposing the game to as many regions and people as possible. Here’s a list of other cities that currently have NHL franchises and who deserve to keep them:

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Denver, Minneapolis, Dallas, Buffalo, Vancouver,  St. Louis, Ottawa, Columbus, Calgary, Edmonton, San Jose, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tampa Bay and Charlotte

As you can see I’ve kept the six current Canadian teams and have two teams in California. I think that’s enough for California to be honest, one in Northern California and one in Southern California. I’ve also left the Lightning in Tampa Bay because it’s Central Florida, they have a Stanley Cup Championship and I think Florida deserves one team but not two of them.

You may think I’m crazy to leave a team in Phoenix and Atlanta but here’s my reasoning. First of all I said Phoenix, not Glendale. I believe that if the team were to play in downtown Phoenix they would draw much more fans and if they were given good ownership and a competent coach/GM they could thrive. There are a LOT of people in Phoenix and the Southwest area in general (10.34 million in Arizona, New Mexico and Las Vegas which would be the broadcast range of Coyotes home games) and I want them to have a team to root for and a reason to follow the NHL.

As for Atlanta, much of the same reasoning applies. The Thrashers have a gorgeous arena that is right in the heart of Atlanta so all they need now is some good teams and some time to develop fans. Atlanta is also the “capital of the South” so it’s vital to have an NHL team in that area to give fans throughout Georgia and the South a reason to watch and follow the NHL.

Then there’s Charlotte. The Hurricanes have a Stanley Cup Championship and they have a raucous fan base so I don’t want to take away their team but I do want to move it to Charlotte which has a larger population and, being on the border of North Carolina and South Carolina, allows both states to feel like the Hurricanes are their team.

That’s 24 teams total which means I still have six teams to place. That gives me plenty of opportunity to spread the game while also satisfying some new fans.

Let’s give some cities that don’t currently have an NHL team a franchise:

Seattle, Winnipeg and Memphis

Seattle is a natural to me. They were the first American city to win the Stanley Cup so they have a hockey history, they have a huge population in a gorgeous city, there’s a natural rivalry with the Canucks and the Pacific Northwest (in America) is completely unrepresented in the current NHL. Plus, now that the Sonics are in Oklahoma City there’s no competition for fans during the winter other than the Seahawks on Sundays so they will have the sports landscape and media to themselves!

Winnipeg is also a natural. They had the Jets, of course, and as you look at a map of Canada they are pretty much in the middle. There are currently teams in Western Canada and teams in Eastern Canada but no teams in the middle of Canada. Placing a team in Winnipeg fixes that and, “makes it seven”.

Memphis gets a team because, again, I am interested in exposing the game to as many regions and people as possible. Nashville is a fine city but Memphis is located near the border of both Arkansas and Mississippi so you can expose the sport to three states at once. The total population of those states is 12 million (more than 1/3^rd the population of Canada) and that’s enough to warrant having a team. If you can turn on a potential 12 million fans to your sport and give them a reason to watch, follow, attend or play your sport you should do it.

I should point out that I believe the teams in Phoenix, Columbus, Dallas, Memphis, Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Seattle should play a handful of home games in other cities each year. The Green Bay Packers used to always play a couple of home games in Milwaukee and I’d like to see each of these teams do something similar. Have a game in Houston, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Miami, Orlando, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Nashville, Little Rock, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Raleigh and Portland. Let the fans throughout your region see the team at least once a year to experience the game in person. We all know that hockey is at its best when you are at the arena so let’s take the game to those people at least once a year to show them how great this sport is. I’d also like to see the AHL teams for these franchises be located in their areas. There’s no reason the Coyotes AHL team can’t be in Albuquerque, the Stars affiliate in Oklahoma City, the Seattle affiliate in Portland, etc.

Back to the placement of the teams, though, as I still have three to place. Looking at my map of North America I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got as far as representation throughout North America so I’ve accomplished my goal of bringing the game to as many regions and people as possible. Now it’s a matter of satisfying the fans that are passionate about the sport which means I am going to place the following teams:

Hamilton, New York (Long Island), Washington D.C.

Alright, Hamilton - you’ve got your team. That gives Canada eight teams which should be plenty. We also put a team back on Long Island since an area of over 18 million people deserves two teams, and the Islanders have a nice hockey history that is just waiting to be resurrected. The final team goes in the Capital of America - Washington D.C. The Capitals have a nice history, a strong fan base and a huge potential to grow into one of the strongest NHL teams in the league.

Here, then, are my Conferences & Divisions:

Conference #1:

Pacific:

Vancouver, Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and Phoenix

Midwest:

Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Denver and Dallas

North:

Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Pittsburgh and Minnesota

Conference #2

Northeast:

Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo

South:

Florida, Carolina, Atlanta, Memphis and St. Louis

Atlantic:

Boston, NY Rangers, NY Islanders, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.

If you haven’t already seen the hit that Kings prospect Colten Teubert put on Bruins prospect Jordan Caron during a recent Junior Team Canada scrimmage take a look at it by clicking on this link.

Now that you’ve seen it I ask you - was that hit clean or dirty? Do those kinds of hits belong in a intrasquad scrimmage or not? Eddie and I will be discussing this on the show this week (August 15th episode) so I’ll save my comments for that but I am interested to hear what you think and we may read your comments on the air as well.

On April 27^th of this year the San Jose Sharks were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Finals after just six games. After a regular season that saw them win the President’s Trophy for having compiled the most points of any NHL team, after winning 53 of 82 regular season games, the Sharks season was over in the first round of the playoffs. It was only the fifth time since 1968 that the league’s top seed had been eliminated in the first round.

Fans in San Jose were justifiably outraged, as were members of the Sharks front office. Two days after their season had ended Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson had this to say to the media:

“The frustration is overwhelming. We owe an apology to our fans and our ownership. Everything will be evaluated. There’s nothing that’s off the table. This is going to be a tough, painful summer, and it should be. Every one of us should feel uncomfortable. There comes a time when this group needs to grow up and deal with what’s in front of them.”

Wilson did not go into specifics as to what he would do over the summer and mentioned that he would need time “to conduct the autopsy”. He did make it clear that while there was nothing “off the table” he had no intention of replacing head coach Todd McLellan.

With the head coach safe and with the GM apologizing and insinuating that his players were immature much of the focus fell onto the Sharks three marquee players - Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Evgeni Nabokov. Even head coach Todd McLellan chimed in with criticism of the big three:

“The team hasn’t succeeded with them driving the bus. That doesn’t mean they can’t do it, but I think the questions grow every year that you don’t succeed.”

In the Sharks case that means that the questions are growing to giant proportions. In the last four years the Sharks have won two Pacific Division titles, averaged 107 points per season and compiled a regular season record of 197-94-37. Over that same time they’ve had a Hart Trophy winner (league MVP), an Art Ross Trophy winner (league scoring champ), a Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy winner (most goals) and a President’s Trophy. But in the playoffs following those four years they have been eliminated in the second round three times and eliminated in the first round once. Their combined record in the playoffs the last four years is 20-21.

Had this first round exit happened to any other NHL team the reaction might not have been so angry. But, in San Jose it’s become a case where regular season success receives very little fanfare because many fans are now waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s gotten to the point where the President’s Trophy means virtually nothing to the fans because it was followed almost immediately by another early exit from the postseason.

So after all this it was expected that we would see big changes made to the Sharks roster this summer. Many people guessed that team captain Patrick Marleau would be traded in order to give the team a new captain, new leadership and some much-needed cap space in order to pursue other players. Others guessed that goalie Evgeni Nabokov would be dealt in favor of a more proven playoff goalie like Nikolai Khabibulin. One thing everyone agreed on, though, was that changes were needed and changes were coming.

It is now July 14^th and as of this writing, no significant changes have been made. The Sharks have not made one single trade since being eliminated by the Ducks and are one of just three NHL teams (Detroit and Nashville are the others) that have yet to sign a single free agent that was not already on their roster.

The only changes that have happened in San Jose thus far are departures of back-ups and role players. Back-up goalie Brian Boucher signed with Philadelphia and third line grinder Travis Moen signed with Montreal. In addition to that fourth line winger Claude Lemieux retired and fellow fourth line forward Jeremy Roenick is debating retirement. Meanwhile three players have been re-signed by the Sharks - defensemen Kent Huskins and Rob Blake and forward Ryan Clowe. At the draft the Sharks had no first round draft pick and made no trades of consequence.

So where are the changes? Where is the shake-up? Has Wilson finished his autopsy and concluded that his roster still has some life in it?

If the Sharks are to go into next season having made only minor changes to their roster, no changes to their teams leadership and no changes to the coaching staff…why would anyone expect different results? We all know that this Sharks team is capable of dominating the regular season. We also know that this Sharks team is capable of folding like a wet taco in the playoffs. When the eighth seeded team in the Conference, a team that barely made it into the postseason to begin with, can bounce you out in the first round despite the fact that you have home ice advantage and sported a 32-5-4 record on home ice in the regular season I believe you need to do more than change the back-up goalie and get a new forward for your third and fourth lines.

The NHL entry draft has come and gone. The free agency period is concluding its second full week tomorrow and all impact players are long gone. The window of opportunity for Wilson to make dramatic and meaningful changes to his roster has all but closed.

While it is still possible for Wilson to make a trade to ship out a veteran or bring in a key player the market for such trades is drying up. Most teams have already made trades or signed free agents to fill in their rosters and no longer have the need, or the room under the cap, to take on a large salary. Even fewer teams are looking to shed talent right now so the Sharks could be hard pressed to find players worth trading for.

Making life even tougher for Wilson is the salary cap, but that’s a problem he brought on himself. As it stands right now the Sharks have already got 16 skaters and one goalie under contract for $55.5 million and only have $1.6 million left under the salary cap. Perhaps most baffling is the defensive corps where Wilson has mysteriously signed seven veterans to deals of $1.7 million per year or more. With only six defensive spots to fill the Sharks are assuring themselves of having one of the highest paid healthy scratches in the league every single night unless they make a trade but again, few teams have the cap space or the need to take on a high priced defenseman right now.

Doug Wilson is obviously a very smart man when it comes to running a hockey team and there’s no doubt that he has a plan for this franchise. However, if going into this season with the same cast of characters that failed on such an epic level last season is his plan then I cannot see how he expects to enjoy any more success the second time around. Maybe they get past the first round this year, maybe they even make it into the Conference Finals. But after four years of dominating in the regular season and flopping in the postseason, would that be enough? Would anything other than a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals be enough to call the Sharks season a success? And if this group was unable to beat the eighth seeded Ducks three months ago what makes anyone think that they would be capable of making a run to the Finals the following season?

As it stands now Doug Wilson has simply picked up where his players left off in late April. He is dropping the ball and letting down the fans, and ownership, of the Sharks. I simply see no reason to believe that this Sharks team will suddenly find the ability to win in the postseason and realize their potential. Unless Wilson is able to make some meaningful changes to the roster before opening night I believe that he will either apologize once again for an early playoff exit or he will be dusting off his resume and packing his office.

July 1^st represents the start of free agency - a time when all 30 teams are able to go shopping for free agents to fill their rosters in an attempt to build the best team possible entering the 2009-2010 season. All 30 teams have holes to fill, and all have money to spend. Some, though, will have to spend more than others to get players to sign with them.There are about 11 teams, just over 1/3 of the entire league, who simply cannot get elite players to sign with them as free agents.

The reasons each team struggle to attract free agents vary but the end result is the same - players simply don’t want to play for them. I believe those teams to be (in alphabetical order) Atlanta, Buffalo, Carolina, Columbus, Edmonton, Florida, Los Angeles, Nashville, NY Islanders, Phoenix and Tampa Bay. As a result those teams are forced to either acquire talent via trade or to overpay to get players to sign with them.

There is anecdotal evidence that each of those teams can recruit and sign marquee free agents and I’m sure fans of those 11 teams will point to the signing of Sheldon Souray, Rob Scuderi, Mattias Ohlund, Paul Kariya and others as proof. I believe those to be the exceptions to the norm and would contend that, in most cases, the teams paid more than market value to get those players under contract.

The Oilers are a curious case. This is a team that has been rejected by numerous NHL stars over the past few years. It began with Chris Pronger demanding a trade less than a month after helping Edmonton reach the Stanley Cup Finals. Then Ryan Smyth was traded away and signed with the Colorado Avalanche the following summer. Then Marian Hossa turned down a lucrative offer to instead play for the Red Wings and, most recently, Dany Heatley refused to waive his no-trade clause two separate times despite claiming to want out of Ottawa. Those are all elite NHL players and none of them wanted to play in Edmonton. Why?

In the case of most of the teams I listed the teams’ location in a non-traditional hockey market, lack of on-ice success and/or lack of an ownership committed to winning is to blame for the franchise struggling to recruit talent via free agency. After all, if you were a star player who could play for any team in the league would you choose to play in Phoenix? Or Atlanta? Neither would I.

But in the case of Edmonton they’ve got a great tradition of winning in the NHL, they’ve got a rabid fan base that supports the team 100% and they’ve got owners committed to brining the Stanley Cup back to the City of Champions. So why are players so reluctant to play there?

The salary cap has helped these teams acquire talent if only because the elite teams and the teams with deep pockets can no longer stockpile star players. Is there any doubt that the Red Wings would have re-signed Marian Hossa had there not been a salary cap? Or would Pittsburgh have re-signed him the year before?

There’s very little the NHL can do to change the fact that free agents do not even consider over one-third of the league when it comes to free agency but it does take  a lot of the drama out of July 1^st. When you know that no matter how badly those 11 teams need to add a star player they are not going to sign anyone significant it makes things a lot less interesting. It’s kind of like being a Jewish kid on Christmas and watching the other kids open their presents while realizing that there are none for you. Or, if there is one, it’s a hand-me-down.

It also keeps those teams from improving themselves and moving from the bottom of the league to the top which would, conceivably, help them attract more players in the future. Many people claim that teams simply have to draft better but when teams like the Panthers watch Jay Bouwmeester, their first round draft choice in 2002, leave town the first chance he gets and see him be replaced by Jordan Leopold it’s tough to see a way that they can ever become an elite franchise regardless of how well they draft. The same is true in Buffalo where the Sabres had to watch both Daniel Briere and Chris Drury leave town the same summer.

Again, there is no solution to this problem - at least not one that I know of - but it is a problem that is affecting over one-third of the league. Teams in non-traditional hockey markets will have a tough time gaining die hard fans when they are constantly losing players in their prime and fighting for the bottom couple of spots in the playoffs. One year of excellence followed by years of mediocrity is not enough for most fans which means the team suffers at the box office which affects their budget which affects their ability to sign or retain star players and the cycle continues.

I am curious if any of you can see a way that teams like Atlanta, Florida, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Nashville, Columbus, Carolina or Tampa Bay can ever become an elite franchise for an extended period of time? If so please post your thoughts or ideas here for all of us to read and discuss.