On the Wings

The Hockey News points out an interesting factoid in this week’s issue.

We all know the NHLPA is dead-set against the NHL’s proposed $31-million salary cap. We also know that the players are not opposed to giving back some of their money to NHL owners, proven by their recent offer to reduce every player’s salary by 5%. However, although the players may be willing to give back some of their money, they have a limit, as should be expected.

A major reason that the NHLPA is so against the $31-million proposal is because, from their point of view, it gives back too much. There is some truth in that, it’s not just the players being greedy. THN says that, if the average payroll in the new salary-capped league would be around $27 million,

“……owners would spend a combined $810 million on player salaries — a reduction of nearly 40 per cent from what players are earning today.”

Forty percent is a huge drop. I wonder how many commercial industries would tolerate that kind of reduction in pay. Not very many, if any, that’s for sure.

THN also has a player poll with the question “What will you do if their is an NHL shutdown next season? Play overseas? Play in North America? Wait it out?” 43% of the 30 players polled said they would play overseas. Not surprising. 31% said they’d wait it out, 13% said they’d play in North America and the other 13% said they didn’t know. There are some interesting quotes from the players.

“I’m not sure where, but because of my age, a whole year out of hockey would be a big loss for me.”
–Dan Cloutier, Vancouver

I’m a little surprised Cloutier would say that. If he thinks he’s too old at 27, I wonder what a lot of guys on the Wings and other older teams are thinking.

Chris Chelios said he’d like to play in the WHA, if it gets off the ground but said

“I still don’t believe there’ll be a lockout. They all better wake up and do what’s best for the game.”

I know Bobby Hull, the WHA’s comissioner wants Brett to play in the league as well. It will be interesting to see whether the WHA works out or not.

“I’ll be in a lunch line somewhere.”
-Steve McKenna, Pittsburgh

McKenna has a $400,000 salary.

Tonight is the second of four games between these two clubs this season. The last game was a 1-1 tie and was played last Saturday night, also in Minnesota. The Wings will look to avoid losing two in a row after being shut out by the Jackets 3-0 on Thursday night. The Wild have just one win in their last four games while the Wings have just one loss in their last six.

Dominik Hasek is still out with a groin injury and Manny Legace started in the two games last so expect Curtis Joseph to get the start. Ray Whitney is questionable for tonight with a groin injury of his own. Mark Mowers will play in his spot once again.

I’ll be flipping back and forth between this game and the Heritage Classic tonight, though it sounds like the outdoor game may not happen after all, at least not tonight. The old-timers game will begin at 4:30 on CBC as scheduled but the temperatures in Edmonton are so extreme today that the regular season game between the Oilers and the Habs may be called off because of safety concerns. That’d be a real shame. If the game does in fact go on, it will be begin at 7:00 and will be aired on CBC.

Guy Lafleur, the Montreal Canadians’ legend and Hall of Famer, says this weekend’s Heritage Classic game, which pre-ceeds the big outdoor regular season game between the Oilers and Habs, will be a snapshot of what the league was like in the past. He says today’s league is no fun to watch and hopes the league will soon return to its offensive form and become as it was in the 70s and 80s.

Lafleur’s solution to today’s overwhelmingly boring league is unusual.

“To me they should cut down to 24 teams, meaning more All-Star type players on each team. Eventually, what (the NHL) should do is to have a European division and they play for the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.

“The European hockey players would play in their country and here they would have more players that people would easily identify with. That would make a big difference.”

I completely agree with the contraction half of Guy’s idea. The league is at least six teams too big. There is not currently even enough medium level talent in the world to fill a 30 team NHL, let alone that of the highest level. Too much of the NHL is low level talent, if it can even be called “talent”. As it is, for there be any kind of parity, the game has to be dumbed up and slowed down. In order for these lower level players and the teams stocked with them to keep up with the more talented players and teams, strategies such as the trap and all that comes with it have to be implemented. Though this brings parity to the league, it creates high levels of boredom that keep away prospective fans and eventually drive away all but the most hardcore fans (like me). Cut the league down by a few teams, and talent will be more evenly distributed instead of being locked to a small number of top teams (like the Wings and Colorado). Give the best teams of the league the new talent coming in and those kids won’t have to be rushed into a game they aren’t ready for because their new clubs will have enough depth to get slowly acclimated.

It’s the other half of Lafleur’s plan I don’t like. European division?! Huh? How will that create an exciting league? Some of the most amazing players to watch are European and locking them away across the ocean, with at least a 5 hour time difference from hockey fanship strongholds in North America won’t do anything to create excitement. Who would broadcast the games? Satellite TV? That’s great, force people to pay to watch their favorite players at 1:00 in the morning.

Let the Europeans keep their own pro leagues. They don’t want the NHL to interfere even more with their sphere of influence. If these European players are going to go to Europe, they might as well play for their old European league teams. That’s what they really care about anyway.

If this were to happen, what size rinks would the European players play on? International or NHL? If international, the North American side of the league would have to re-size their own rinks to prepare for the Stanley Cup round. Or vice versa for the European teams. It wouldn’t work. There is too much money to be lost in a larger ice area and smaller seating areas and Europe isn’t going to change for the NHL.

Besides, the Stanley Cup is strictly a North American trophy and the NHL has had a hard enough time generating interest in it with European players on this side of the Atlantic, let alone on their own side.

I’m just glad that won’t happen, at least not officially. We’ll see plenty of NHLers over in Europe during the upcoming strike (yes, it’s coming) but at least most of them will be back in the States eventually.

The league may get contraction whether it wants it or not. A prolonged work stoppage next year will likely push many teams out of business, leaving only those with enough money to hold out.

Wayne Gretzky made similar comments to Lafleur’s league boredom remarks during a news conference promoting his new autobiographical DVD. However, he doesn’t have an active solution to the league’s problems.

“The game is going to always have cycles. The game in the ’70s was pretty defensive and along came (Guy) Lafleur and Montreal and then (Mike) Bossy and the Islanders and that opened things up.

“Along came the Oilers (in the ’80s) and everybody said: `That’s how you win’ so that opened things up, too.”

He says the league is just in a defensive cycle and that it will open up again someday. I can buy that. It makes sense but I just wonder if the league will survive this cycle. Also, if the league is on the brink of another offensive era, it sounds like the Avs may have made the right long term decision in stocking up on the forwards. That scares me because the last thing I want is an Oilers-like Avalanche team rolling over the league. An Oilers-like Red Wings, I’d like, even if it’s not very possible.

The fact is, something needs to be done, whether it’s contraction or the outright ban on the trap. Neither is very likely at all, not with the league’s current management. The NHL isn’t getting very many new customers and is losing the fans it does have. I don’t expect Bettman to do anything about it, though. Not the right thing, at least.

Nick Lidstrom and Pascal Dupuis chase the puck along the boards during last night’s game

The Wings almost completed a comeback of their own last night but fell short of the win in the end and had to settle for the 1-1 tie with the Wild. The game was mainly a defensive and goaltending match between the two clubs, with not very much offensive excitement, at least until overtime, when things finally heated up and both teams came very close to winning the game.

Dominik once again kept the Wings in the game when they were lacking defensively. I’ve been fairly impressed with his play so far this season. Even though it has not been to the same level as it was two years ago, he has played well enough to keep the Wings in games that maybe they should not have been in. I don’t necessarily think he has done a better job than CuJo did up to this point of last year’s season but I don’t think he’s done worse. The difference between the two goalies will be more apparent during the playoffs, when it matters most.

Once again Steve Yzerman showed why he is the best leader in hockey and one of the sport’s best players. His team-leading 9th goal got the Wings their point and kept them from being shut out. It isn’t to the rest of the Wings players’ credit that a man practically playing on one leg is leading the team in scoring but it certainly is to Yzerman’s. He has set a great example thus far and hopefully, the rest of the team will soon follow and play like we know they can. One more thing about Yzerman, check out this PDF file of the giant mural of The Captain in downtown Detroit. It’s pretty cool.

Steve Thomas looked good in his 3rd game with the Wings, logging 13 minutes of ice time, making a few big hits on some Wild players and finishing a plus-1 on the night with 2 PIMs. He moved up a line or two and played with Steve Yzerman and Shanahan in the third, creating chances and having at least a small role in The Captain’s goal.

Jacque Lemaire is the best coach in the NHL. Even though I absolutely hate the system he preaches (the trap), I have to admit that what Lemaire has done with the Wild is pretty amazing. Brian Burke’s comment about the Wild made during last year’s playoffs is completely true: “This is not a hockey team, it’s a cult. They’ve got a total buy-in on their system………” The Wild should be a team of nobodies going nowhere but instead, they’re a team of nobodies going wherever they want to go. It’s impressive though it’s too bad they have to use the trap to do it.

The Wings got five of six possible points on that three-game road trip so I’d say it was pretty successful. The Wings return home for a game on Wednesday with the Blue Jackets and will look to extend their four game unbeaten (instead of winning) streak to five games. They are now 9-7-2-0 and have won four of their last six games. They are improving slowly but surely.

Next up: vs. Columbus, Wednesday, 7:30

News | ESPN | Box Score

Lines-
Maltby-Draper-Holmstrom
Thomas-Williams-Bootland
Whitney-Draper-Holmstrom
Shanahan-Yzerman-Devereaux
Whitney-Datsyuk-Hull
Shanahan-Yzerman-Thomas
Devereaux-Williams-Bootland

Lidstrom-Chelios
Fischer-Schneider
Woolley-Dandenault
Fischer-Schneider
Schneider-Chelios

4 on 4-
Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Shanahan-Yzerman
Datsyuk-Hull
Draper-Whitney

Lidstrom-Woolley
Fischer-Schneider
Lidstrom-Chelios
Woolley-Dandenault

PP-
Whitney-Datsyuk-Hull
Shanahan-Yzerman-Holmstrom

Lidstrom-Woolley
Schneider-Chelios
Lidstrom-Schneider

PK-
Maltby-Draper
Shanahan-Yzerman

Lidstrom-Chelios
Fischer-Schneider

OT-
Datsyuk-Hull
Maltby-Draper
Shanahan-Yzerman
Yzerman-Thomas

Lidstrom-chelios
Fischer-Schneider
Woolley-Dandenault

Net-
Dominik Hasek