Both papers have pieces on Brendan Shanahan today. If reading about Shanny doesn’t depress you these days, here’s the one from the Freep and here’s the News version.
Archive for the 'Hockey Media' CategoryPage 4 of 6
Larry Wigge takes a look at one of the league’s best pairings, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. Definitely worth a read. (via George Malik, who also links to this downer)
Scott Burnside takes a look back at the Hasek signing and discusses the success of Dom’s third tour with the Wings to the mid-point of the season. Thus far, the Wings have handled Dom very carefully and it’s paid off, making my diatribe against the signing look foolish.
Of course, there’s still a chance he could get hurt, but I’m much more confident now than I was in August that he’ll make it, based on how careful the team has been thus far.
In a column on ESPN today, Damien Cox adds to a growing collection of pieces declaring the fall of the “once-mighty” (a term commonly used in such things) Detroit Red Wings, who, we’re told, are on the fast track to again becoming the Dead Things. He pretty much bases this assertion on the fact that the Wings have lost four games already this season, when it took them over a month to do the same last year.
According to Cox, the Wings no longer intimidate anyone because they don’t have any personnel capable of intimidating opponents in the way they used to. By this he means they no longer have the ability to ice the “swashbuckling combination of passing and shooting and stickhandling and speed,” that had them going into “games with a one-goal lead just because the opposition knows it doesn’t have the same talent quotient as the Red Wings.” And the reason they don’t have the ability is because they have lost most of the big-name players they had, leaving the team a lineup that is, “by comparison, pretty darn ordinary.”
Paralleling the Wings’ “fall” is that of the Avs and the Devils, the latter of which, Cox says, has been kept from mediocrity by the merits of Lou Lamoriello and Martin Brodeur. The Avs and Devils, however, still have their mainstays, which in Colorado is embodied in captain Joe Sakic. The Wings, on the other hand, are doomed because of the “serious leadership vacuum” left by Steve Yzerman’s retirement and Brendan Shanahan’s signing with the Rangers. The Wings are seeing holes in other areas, Cox says, particularly in the defense, which will become depleted after Lidstrom, Schneider, and Chelios leave (when’s that going to be, Damien?).
Okay, enough summary. Here are some comments in response.
First of all, the Wings have never been the fastest team in the league. In fact, one of the most common complaints of Wings fans is that the team is too old and slow. For years, their strength was puck possession, which did not necesitate speed, but put a premium on skill.
Second, the Wings’ mostly young lineup is by no means ordinary. Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Jason Williams, Niklas Kronwall, Jiri Hudler, Valtteri Filppula, Tomas Kopecky, Brett Lebda, and Johan Franzen are plenty extraordinary. They may not strike fear in the opposition like Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Nick Lidstrom, Brendan Shanahan, Brett Hull, and the Grind Line used to, but they are a major part of the League’s future and are good players now, as well. Cox, to be fair, covers this a little later in the column but not after making some ridiculous assertions.
Third, the Sharks and Ducks are not powerhouse teams. That Cox would label the latter a powerhouse is more indicative of the hockey media’s love affair with Chriscott Niederprongermeyer than just about anything I’ve seen so far. As for the Sharks, they’ve been “on the rise” for so long that I no longer expect great things of them.
Fourth, Cox makes a number of references to the Wings’ 2002 Cup-winning squad (ignoring the 1998 and 1997 teams), which pretty much explains why he’s so shocked that the Wings are where they are now. The 2002 season was very much a special case and was the only time the Wings came close to achieving the reputation of absolute dominance the media has given them. In that year, their roster truly was stacked and all sorts of platitudes were justified. In other years, the Wings were just a talented team with a solid core that demonstrated wide varience in how they performed when it counted.
Cox’s memory of a Detroit team stacked with marquee players has to come mostly from the 2001-2002 season. Not to say they did not have marquee players in other seasons but they had a lot more players Cox would call “ordinary,” (i.e. Doug Brown, Jamie Macoun, Tomas Sandstrom, Joey Kocur, etc.). Where the Wings are now is, to me, not vastly different than where they were in the early 90s, when Lidstrom, Fedorov, Konstantinov, Osgood, and Kozlov were proto-stars.
Again, the Wings have had a bad start, and it is worrisome. However, they still have a pretty strong team and ought to remain competitive, once they get out of this rut. Personally, I’d rather see them fall a little in the standings rather than go into the playoffs on top of the league and complacent. A fourth or fifth place finish (or even lower) may help them rather than hurt them. Someone like Cox wouldn’t remember it but the Wings won the Cup in 1997 and 1998 but didn’t finish on top of the regular season standings (they were third both years).
They just need to get their offense on track.
Sharp got his annual “let’s bash hockey and the Wings” column in today’s Free Press. Go read it if you can stomach it. Favorite bit of editorial wit:
But change hit home like a cold slap Thursday. Steve Yzerman took the ice in only a ceremonial role. Brendan Shanahan was opening on Broadway. And the goalie that everyone in Detroit truly wanted was on the ice.The problem was he played for the other team.
Yes, Drew, the first two were definite slaps to the face but you’re speaking for yourself on the third.
“Sources say Johnson may soon have to announce his retirement, but he is seeking secondary medical opinions to be sure.”
I don’t see how any doctor could clear him to play if another told him he couldn’t. I’ve been skeptical of the whole Johnson deal all along but in reality, he would have been helpful to have (I’m still not convinced he was the best acquistion the Wings could have made but anyway…) so it’s a shame they would have his servises. The good news, though, is that his condition was noticed before another Fischer-like incident took place.
Update (7:56 PM): According to Ansar Khan, Johnson didn’t just go to any old Detroit heart clinic. It was the Mayo Clinic that didn’t clear him. Good luck finding a contrary opinion, Greg.
Khan also has more on the forwards situation so his blog post is worth a read.
Ansar rehashes a Boston Globe story that reported the Wings had written up an $8.2 million Group II offer sheet for Roberto Luongo. Of course, being a major newspaper, the Globe doesn’t name their sources. However, Khan has an idea of who the source could have been: “Have the Bruins hired anyone from the Wings’ organization lately?” Yes, they have: Dave Lewis.
Wyshynski’s recently-published Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer : The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History looks like a good read.
Good read about the two big deals at the draft yesterday but I like the last two paragraphs the best, especially this part:
The Oilers won’t be in any hurry to accommodate Pronger’s wishes until they get the right deal in place (how about Pronger to Florida for hometown boy Jay Bouwmeester?) ….
After thinking more about that trade request, I’m becoming more and more glad that there’s no chance of the guy coming to Detroit. If requesting to be traded, whatever the reason, is all the thanks the Oilers get for putting Pronger in a position to win the Cup for the first time in his career, maybe they ought to send him where he’ll have no chance of getting that far for as long as his contract lasts (four more years). Maybe his wife would like Miami. (link via. James Mirtle)
Update (10:52 PM): IwoCPO linked today to a Larry Brooks piece in which the NY Post writer opined that the Wings have gone to Lidstrom hat-in-hand, hoping in vain that he will take a pay cut. Can’t say I fully buy into that story. I suspect the Wings’ and Nick are more on the same page than the rumor-mongers would have us believe. - Matt
In a blog post today, Ansar Khan wrote on something I had forgotten to mention in my short response to Game 6, namely Eric Duhatschek’s comments about Nick Lidstrom on Satellite Hotstove (Real Media file) last night. The panel was discussing possible off-season moves by various teams and when asked by Ron MacLean to discuss Detroit, Duhatschek just said he felt the Wings would have a hard time signing Lidstrom because they wouldn’t be able to throw the necessary money at him. (I’m paraphrasing here and since I’m on dial-up at home, I can’t re-watch the clip)
Duhatschek is a big name in the business, a journalist who knows his stuff and he didn’t say that for the heck of it. He obviously had a reason to believe what he said. However, I am fully with the little Detroit hockey journalist Ansar Khan on this one:
There’s a lot of uncertainty about what moves the Wings will make in the next few weeks, but there is one thing that you can absolutely, positively take to the bank: Lidstrom WILL re-sign with the Wings. Frankly, I don’t understand why that would even be questioned.
Me either. It’s reasonable to expect the Wings to be okay with giving Lidstrom a raise from the $7.6 million he earned last season. Nick could easily demand the league max, which is expected to be just under $8.8 million (20% of just under $44 million) but, as Khan says, I think it’s more likely he’ll get $8 million.
I personally doubt Lidstrom will make it difficult for the Wings. The man used to threaten to leave Detroit and return to Sweden but during the lockout, when others of his countrymen were heading off to the SEL, he didn’t go anywhere except for vacation. He was content to stay in town and let his kids go to school and live their life in Michigan. To me, that speaks volumes about his interest in sticking around.
