Archive for June, 2010

Cap Story to Watch

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James Mirtle’s piece on Donald Fehr and the question of the 5% cap increase everyone assumes the players will approve is an important read. If you’re not sure why, here you go.

Talk about divided feelings. On the one hand, I want the Wings to be able to spend to the projected augmented cap because they need the space. On the other, I sympathize with the lesser players who are tired of handing over such large chunks of their salary to escrow. And, if Ovechkin’s comments are any indication, some bigger name players are starting to sympathize, too.

So a $58.8 million cap may not be a slam dunk.

Wings Fans, You Have Your Whipping Boy For Two More Years

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For a cap hit of $1.93 million. So it’s a raise. But still not a bad deal for a guy who, all things considered, was the best option for the money.

18 players signed and $4 million in space to sign Abdelkader, Helm, Miller, and Eaves*, as well as either Meech or Lilja. Lilja’s price is probably too high to fit in with that group, so unfortunately for us we’re likely stuck with Meech. But here’s hoping a way to keep Lilja is found.

*I’m making the easy assumption on Maltby: organizational loyalty only goes so far, unfortunately for him.

Thank You, Mrs. Martin

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Ryan Martin’s staying, thanks, at least in part, to his wife. This is great news. Sucks for Tampa Bay and Steve Yzerman, but so would have losing him from the Detroit perspective. As I said before, “[a] brain trust that formerly consisted of Holland, Nill, Bowman, Martin and Yzerman suddenly stops looking like an embarrassment of riches with yet another loss.”

We can now stop pretending to be sorry for the Wings front office excellence by downplaying the importance of Martin.

On Jim Joyce and NHL Officials

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By now, virtually everybody has heard how Jim Joyce robbed the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga of an official perfect game with one of the most badly-blown calls most of us has ever seen. And most of the people who heard about that are also aware of how Joyce handled himself after missing the call.

“It was the biggest call of my career and I kick the (stuff) out of it. I just cost that kid a perfect game. I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay.”

That’s a man owning up to a mistake. It’s genuine realization that he blew it.

Joyce also made a point of apologizing to Galarraga for denying him a personal achievement only 20 other pitchers in MLB history have accomplished.

The MLB’s stance on the situation was that Joyce made a mistake. In fact, the MLB is looking into ways to prevent that kind of thing from happening again, through the possible introduction of more instant replay. Commissioner Bud Selig has not gone so far as to reverse the decision, but everyone in baseball agrees: Joyce made a mistake and Galarraga actually had a perfect game, even if it won’t go down in the record books as one.

Contrast all of that with any blown call in the NHL. You wouldn’t get the official apologizing because those guys are protected from the media by the League. You wouldn’t get the NHL issuing a statement acknowledging a mistake. You wouldn’t see the League looking at the possibility of making immediate changes to protect the integrity of the game and ensure the correct outcome.

The NHL’s stance seems to be that their officials are infallible and that any criticism of them is illegitimate. The basis for this stance may be that the League feels trust in the officials would be eroded by any kind of nod to the fact that they are in fact human and capable of making mistakes. The NHL may feel it is protecting the reputation of the office of the referee with this stance and safeguarding the trust fans have in the men with orange armbands.

If this is truly the thinking in League offices, they are more out of touch with the fans than we thought. This isn’t news to any hockey fan, but it may be news to the likes of Colin Campbell, Terry Gregson and Gary Bettman: there is no trust to safeguard. Fans, generally speaking, loathe referees and think almost nothing but the worst of them.

I suggest that this is due to the utter lack of transparency and honesty on the NHL’s part. The League’s efforts to protect referees’ reputations have in fact hurt them. Instead of fostering a referee corps the fans can trust, they’ve created a system with zero apparent accountability. If NHL refs are ever disciplined for mistakes they make, fans don’t see it. Fans don’t hear from officials. They don’t see officials apologizing for anything. They don’t see the NHL recognize problems with officiating.

Instead, we see officials that seem to feel secure in the knowledge that they will not have to answer to anybody for the decisions they make. We have officials that come across as the worst kind of stereotype of a cop, carrying an attitude that says, “I am the law. I can do no wrong.”

Now back to Jim Joyce. Did his apology and MLB’s discussion of his mistake erode the authority of either party? Did Joyce tearing up before the next game cause fans or players to respect him less? No. I would argue quite the opposite: all of those things showed Joyce to be a man and an official to be respected. His owning up to the mistake he made was the best possible thing he could have done, aside from getting the call right in the first place. He humanized himself in the eyes of the fans and may have actually established himself as someone fans can trust.

The NHL should learn from Jim Joyce’s example. Open referees to examination by the media. Admit it when they make mistakes*. It’s not hanging them out to dry. It’s not throwing them to the wolves. It’s a level of honesty that will repair fan trust in officials.

*And give them the tools they need to make the right calls when they may have gotten it wrong at first: let them review intent-to-blow goals and others in the zamboni entrance.

On Leino and Hype

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Great post by Drew.

Would Leino have flourished in the Detroit system if he would have stayed?  Maybe, maybe not.  But the same holds true for whether or not he’ll be able to keep the pace as a Flyer.

That last part is key. One thing fans and media who are drooling over Leino seem to forget is that he’s doing this in the playoffs, a highly concentrated tournament with exceptional circumstances that aren’t replicable over the course of a regular season.

This seems like the result of some kind of collective amnesia, like we’ve never seen a player underwhelm in the regular season and then come off the bench hot in the playoffs before. So he’s hot now, as a member of a team that was hot going into the Finals. Let’s see him do it over an 82-game grind. Because his history has shown that he can’t. He couldn’t maintain consistency in the AHL over a long season and he definitely didn’t do it in Detroit, where he had a breakout season gift-wrapped to him by the team’s incessant health problems.

That gets into the first point of Drew’s in the quoted section. I firmly believe Leino would not have flourished with the Wings. He has skill and ability. There’s no denying that. But if you don’t fit the coach’s system or plans for the team, you’re not going to work out. Leino refused to adjust, refused to work with Babcock. The guy had every opportunity, but didn’t earn a consistent spot on the team. In a year with all the injuries the Wings had, there is simply no excuse for a guy with the skill of Ville Leino not to earn a spot in the lineup. His future as a Red Wing was written on the wall over and over again as he was a healthy scratch again and again while less talented but more driven guys like  Drew Miller and Patrick Eaves continued to make it in.

Ville Leino may have what it takes to be a Flyer—at least as part of their miraculous, exceptional playoff run. But he didn’t have what it takes to be a Red Wing. Not under Babcock, anyway.