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In The Rafters
In this space, we wanted to honor FTR founder James Mirtle by retiring his number. But since he's not wearing a number, we're putting the sportcoat from his photo in the rafters.
Thanks for everything, James!
Storylines from the 2010 NHL offseason
by Cassie McClellan on Sep 2, 2010 8:00 AM CDT
3 comments
It’s a little over two weeks until NHL training camps get going, and things are just starting to ramp up. Major junior leagues have started their camps, and rookies camps and tournaments are about to start. Needless to say, the 2010 NHL offseason is finally winding down to a close.
I took an informal poll yesterday among some of the SB Nation hockey writers on what was the most overrated/overhyped hockey story of the 2010 NHL offseason. I just threw open the doors and waited to see what people came up with. Here was the response:
- Ilya Kovalchuk – need I say more?
- The Dismantling of the Chicago Blackhawks – including their goaltending situation.
- CBA fearmongering – hide the women & children; the next lockout’s coming!
SBN Off-season: Vocal Chords
by Mike Chen on Sep 1, 2010 1:37 PM CDT
in SBN Gameday
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Today's soundtrack: Vocal Chords by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. -- because that's one of the best band names I've heard in a long time.
Atlantic: Where do the New York Islanders stand in the Eastern Conference's probable playoff picture?
Northeast: A look back at the best players to wear #2 for the Buffalo Sabres.
Southeast: Japers' Rink looks at the Southeast's best forwards and defense.
Central: What do the revamped St. Louis Blues forward group have to worry about this season?
Pacific: With a thin defensive corps, will a prospect be skating for the San Jose Sharks defense opening night?
Northwest: Copper & Blue is all over the Nikolai Khabibulin DUI conviction.
Now, there's one quibble we have about Center Ice, and it's a serious one: The picture quality. If you own an HDTV, watching some of the feeds on NHLCI is simply painful.
-Puck Daddy on the Center Ice package's lack of HD feeds.
Just thought it'd be useful to note that if you haven't decided on your provider for the upcoming season yet, DirecTV puts just about every Center Ice game in HD if the feed is available. Yes, it's that good, and no, I'm not getting paid for this.
The Top Five Norris Trophy Candidates For 2010-11
by Cory Lavalette on Sep 1, 2010 7:00 AM CDT
49 comments
For much of the past decade, Detroit defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom has dominated the race to the Norris Trophy. Lidstrom won the Norris six tof the last nine times it was awarded, doing so in both the pre- and post-lockout NHL. While Lidstrom remains a dominant force on the back end, age has brought him back to the pack, leading to different winners the last two years.
With several new faces emerging, the competition to be named the NHL's best defenseman could be tighter than ever in 2010-11. Here's a look at my top five candidates to win the Norris next season, in reverse order.
Where do you get your hockey news from?
by Mike Chen on Aug 31, 2010 7:01 AM CDT
24 comments
In the past week, there's been plenty of talk regarding the credentialing process of bloggers. Of course, this is all stemming from the long debate about whether or not bloggers even belong in the same room as traditional journalists despite the growth in quantity and quality of bloggers -- which begs the question, if a hockey blog for a specific team gets more traffic than the team's section of a local newspaper site, does it make it more mainstream? That got me to thinking about the current state of hockey media, not only how much things have changed in ten years but also how my own news gathering has totally shifted.
Back in the wee days of the interwebs, one of my favorite sites was a now-defunct site called NHL Papers. It was a simple directory site but it had a direct link to every team's local paper. I visited the site every day and from there, checked just about every team's local columns every day. Between that site, TSN and ESPN, I felt like I had everything a hockey fan could want online -- and that was in addition to my Hockey News and San Jose Mercury News subscription.
Now? I can't remember the last time I visited ESPN. The only time I ever go to TSN is on major transaction days like the trade deadline, and even then, it's only because they've got a nice Flash-based tracker. In terms of instant updates, Twitter has got any site beat by miles. Forget about print subscriptions of any kind, and even local papers offer their best value to me through beat writer blogs.
Instead, I go to blogs, both within SB Nation and plenty more outside of it. If there's a big news breaker, I might see the headline first on Twitter, then I go straight to the appropriate blog for analysis. I might also visit the local newspaper, but it's usually for the beat writer's blog collection of quotes on a breaking situation rather than any actual column or story.
Rink Side Radio Tonight From 9-10: Featuring Special Guest Andrew Gross
by Joe Fortunato on Aug 30, 2010 2:00 PM CDT
in Rink Side Radio
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Just a reminder that Rink Side Radio is airing live tonight from 9-10. Tonight we will be joined by special guest Andrew Gross.
Tonight Andrew will go over the most up to date Marc Staal situation, and will go into details about his feelings on the offer sheet and its potential use as a weapon. Travis and I will also bring you all the most up to date information about the Ilya Kovalchuk situation.
It's going to be a fun one tonight guys, so make sure to tune in and give Andrew a listen. The call in number is (646) 595-2440.
A Few Teams Still With Big Questions In Net
by Bob Wage on Aug 30, 2010 10:03 AM CDT
41 comments
As we get closer and closer to the opening of NHL training camps, there are still a couple quality netminders available on the free agent market. There are also teams who should be taking a close at them.
Jose Theodore had a very respectable regular season last year for the Capitals, (.911 SV%), but his disappointing performance in the playoffs has apparently killed his value. Although playoffs or no playoffs, it would seem that he would at least make a dependable part-timer for some team.
Antti Niemi won the Stanley Cup last season but has yet to find a home after the Blackhawks turned down his arbitration award. Is this bizarro world? No one wants to step up to the plate a take a chance on this guy?
Manny Legace should also get a strong look by someone. He bailed out a struggling Hurricanes team, out-played Michael Leighton for his job, and ended up winning 10 games, (with a shutout), as he helped to turn Carolina's season around.
While it's a little puzzling that these players are still out there, what's even more puzzling are the decisions that some teams have already made regarding their goalkeeping. Here are a few teams I think might have future issues.
- The Dallas Stars made their bed with Kari Lehtonen and Andrew Raycroft. Lehtonen has had a plethora of injury issues his entire career and Raycroft is with his fourth team in four years. While it is understandable that the franchise wanted a change from Marty Turco, is this the best duo they could come up with? It would come as no surprise if the Stars were searching for another goalie before mid-season.
- Here is a real head-scratcher. The Montreal Canadiens traded playoff hero Jaroslav Halak, (before even starting to negotiate a contract, according to his agent), and seem to be very happy to depend upon Carey Price, (RFA still unsigned), who has been a disappointment throughout much of his career. Although if Price falters, they have well traveled veteran Alex Auld to back him up. Auld had 9 wins in 21 games for Dallas last season with a .894 SV%. (Manny Legace, where are you?) Price had a decent .912 SV% but he was far from clutch as his record was an unimpressive 13-20 last season with 0 shutouts. Halak was 26-13 with 5 shutouts and a .924 SV%. Plus, the Habs do not escape the first round without his heroics. Thank you Jaro, good luck in St. Louis. Do Hab fans feel warm and fuzzy about this?
- In another bizarre situation where the backup outplayed the original starter, but got dumped anyway, the Chicago Blackhawks allowed Antti Niemi to enter arbitration, then refused to pay the award. Cap issues or not, why not figure out how to get rid of Cristobal Huet, who was badly outplayed by Niemi all season long? Not to worry though, the 'Hawks brought in Marty Turco for insurance, the goalie who was run out of town in Dallas. Make sense yet?
- The New York Islanders are relying on Rick DiPietro and Dwayne Roloson. Ricky "D" has only played in 13 games the last two seasons and Roloson isn't getting any younger at age 40. (He'll be 41 in October). If ever a team needed three goalies on the roster, this might be one.
- The Philadelphia Flyers are going with Michael Leighton and Brian Boucher. Give the team credit for rewarding two guys who did well for them last year, (unlike their counterparts in Montreal and Chicago, who seem to reward failure), but don't be surprised if Flyer fans are clamoring for a change by January.
- Disappointed in his playoff performances, the San Jose Sharks allowed Evgeni Nabokov to defect to the KHL. Instead they signed Antero Niittymaki, who has yet to win a single playoff game in his entire career. Yep, this looks like it will end well.
- The Washington Capitals are gambling a bit as they depend upon two youngsters in net, Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth. One can't blame the Caps though as Neuvirth has earned a shot by backstopping two consecutive AHL championships and Varlamov is at the stage in his career where he needs some heavy duty work to gain experience. Still, between the two of them they have 30 career NHL regular season wins. Things could get dicey in DC.
The Week In Hockey Blogging
by Mike Chen on Aug 29, 2010 6:00 AM CDT
in The Week in Hockey Blogging
1 comment
Every Sunday, FTR will review the best links across the hockey blogosphere from the past week.
New Ilya Kovalchuk deal filed: 15 years, $100 million. Will the NHL accept? They have until late next week to make a decision. Lou Lamoriello is confident, but honestly, what's he going to say? Jewels From The Crown has been all over this, as par for the course during the Kovy saga. I think I speak for a lot of hockey fans when I say that at this point (since I'm not a New Jersey Devils fan), I just want him to sign SOMEWHERE and be done with it. In the meantime, you can remember much simpler times when Brad Park was in a contract dispute.
NHL TV schedule released: The NHL released the upcoming TV schedule, and as expected, opinions varied from a mixed bag to criticism on the conservative nature of the American schedule. The thing is, I'm not sure if there's really a right answer here. Both a conservative schedule and one that pushes the extremes have pros and cons. The NHL Network is obviously a good supplement to the Versus schedule, and you can't complain with more games on Versus. There is a bit of been-there-done-that with the Versus schedule, and I think what might have helped create more balance is if you had more games like the December 20th Anaheim vs. Boston game as opposed to the January 10th Boston vs. Pittsburgh game. What I mean by that is we all know we're going to see a handful of teams again and again; how about using that as an opportunity to put variety into the schedule rather than both of those teams together? That's the closest happy medium I could come up with, but again, there may not be a right answer.
Donald Fehr close to taking NHLPA executive director position: Fear the Fehr? While Donald Fehr has yet to officially assume the position of NHLPA executive director, word is that he'll be in place on at least an interim basis to help guide them through the upcoming CBA negotiations. Of course, this has everyone talking Armageddon or at least a tough fight, even though Bill Daly takes a diplomatic approach. An FTR poll earlier this week spelled out the fan's opinion pretty simply: do what you have to do, but don't kill another season.
Hockey bloggers and mainstream media: The hockey blogosphere exploded this week with more talk about how NHL teams might create a standard for credentialing bloggers. Some teams have been notably resistive while some have embraced it as a balancing act between media outlets. I could personally take or leave an official credential (though most teams have been accommodating to me via phone/email in my various blogging incarnations), but I think some bloggers could do really wonderful work with that access. It's all about quality, and if a blogger does quality work and provides publicity/eyeballs while writing a thought-provoking piece, how can that be a bad thing? Some guidelines are absolutely necessary, but it really doesn't seem to be that difficult to come up with a sensible happy medium.
World Hockey Summit comes and goes: The World Hockey Summit was this week, and at times, it felt like a cable news show where everyone just yelled at each other.However, one of the most interesting things that came from all of the talking ends was the support for women's hockey. One of the problems is that this support has always been lip service surrounding Olympic years. Remember the chatter about a professional women's league following the Nagano Olympics? If there is legitimate support, this can only be good for the support as a whole, and NHL backing will mean a lot. We've seen this show before, though, and it's up to the powers that be to follow through.
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The Top Five Norris Trophy Candidates For 2010-11
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