2010-2011 Previews: Defensemen -- John Erskine

John Erskine

Theme:  "'Manage' is a verb..."

John Erskine is the designated “physical defenseman” for the Caps. In 182 games as a Cap he has recorded 391 hits (2.1 per game) and 294 penalty minutes. But there is another number that lurks ominously among Erskine’s tenure as a Cap – 87. Nope, not the player he’d like most to smear into the glass (ok, maybe). It is the number of games he has missed to injury over his four seasons with Washington. On a club that has only seven parent roster defensemen at the moment, the fact that Erskine has missed so many games to injury and has not played in more than 52 in any of his four seasons with the Caps is an issue. In fact, based on his previous three seasons – 50, 52, and 51 games played – he is a pretty good bet to miss 30 games or so (you might think you’re having déjà vu if you read this space, and yes, we did make this point last year).

On a team that has offensive capability from the blue line from such as Mike Green, Tom Poti, and to a lesser extent John Carlson, Erskine doesn’t have to contribute at the offensive end. What a 5/6 defenseman in his situation has to contribute is a physical edge and not be a liability in his own end. Erskine does provide that physical edge, but he gets next to no penalty killing time (he has barely ten minutes of total shorthanded ice time in his entire career with the Caps). So that’s going to leave 5-on-5 defense. He was one of three Caps defensemen last year with a Corsi differential in negative territory (Corsi-on ice minus Corsi-off ice). Parenthetically, it is more than a little ominous that the other two – Tyler Sloan and Karl Alzner – along with Erskine make up three of the seven parent roster defensemen at the moment. A related number (all numbers from behindthenet.ca) – shots on/off per 60 minutes differential – also show Erskine finishing as one of three defensemen in negative territory (Sloan, Alzner).

Curiously enough, however, he did post the fourth best goals for/against per 60 minutes differential on the club, but this might be as much a product of his time and matchups being managed. Erskine finished the season last year having faced the weakest competition of any Caps defenseman.

However, even with the competition against which he played being relatively weak, Erskine had difficulty in this respect. He led all Caps defensemen in penalties taken per 60 minutes and tied for second worst in penalties taken/penalties drawn per 60 minutes differential among the defensemen (largely a product of Karl Alzner not having drawn a penalty).

Erskine does not drop the mitts as often with the Caps (16 times in four seasons with the Caps) as he did when he split the 2005-2006 season between Dallas and the Islanders (13 fights). That will be more D.J. King’s role on the club. And that’s probably a good thing, given his injury history. Not that one is necessarily the product of the other in each instance of injury, but the two do not go hand-in-hand, either.

But here is the thing. Erskine was a plus-16 in 50 games. And say what you will about plus-minus, but more good things happened than bad ones when Erskine was on the ice. And while his play against playoff teams was not up to what it was against non-playoff teams, it isn’t clear that his play was significantly weaker against one than the other. He was 0-1-1, plus-7 against teams that would make the post-season and 1-4-5, plus-9 against teams that sat home in the spring.

Fearless: Caps fans might take comfort that the team plays 14 Tuesday games this season, cousin. Erskine was 1-2-3, plus-7 in seven Tuesday tilts last year. He was 0-2-2, plus-5 the previous year (his best day of the week).

Cheerless: If he plays 50 games, he probably has a pretty decent season – might look a lot like last year’s. If the Caps are expecting 70 games out of him, playing against all manner of team, including the ones that will leave him standing by the side of the road… Well, that ain’t gonna be good.

It would be easy to dismiss Erskine as a 6/7 defenseman. Truth be told, that is probably the role he should have on this team, given his skill sets and the likely number of games he might play. But you have to have such a defenseman to fill in gaps and contribute against opponent against which he might match well. He can contribute minutes as long as he’s not put in situations outside his comfort zone. An example. Last year, Erskine was scoreless in four games against Montreal and was a plus-3. He did not see action in the series against the Canadiens in the playoffs (John Carlson played in all seven games, getting the ice time that an Erskine might otherwise have received). Some players need to have their appearances and ice time managed more than others, and Erskine might be just such a player. But if that is accommodated, he can be a positive asset. What he probably should not be is an every night 5/6 defenseman on this team, which is probably where he resides at the moment.

Projection:

56 games, 1-4-5, plus-9

Do the Caps just need to "chunk" better?

Saw this column by Peter Orszag in today's New York Times.  What he said here about Matthew Syed's book, "Bounce," struck a chord...

"...the stars among us have practiced so much that they are better at what psychologists call “chunking.” Imagine trying to remember 41 letters or numbers. Most of us couldn’t come close to doing that. Now imagine trying to remember a sentence with 47 letters or numbers, like: “Imagine trying to remember 41 letters or numbers.” Most of us can do that with little difficulty, because we are chunking the letters and numbers. We remember the words, and we know the letters in each word.

"Syed shows that most better performers have practiced so intensely that they chunk better at their tasks than normal people. So we see impressive performance and think someone is naturally skilled, whereas the reality is that person has simply practiced for longer and more intensely than others."

Better performers "chunk" better than normal people? OK Caps...chunk as if your lives depended on it!

I wonder if this applies to peanut butter...

2010-2011 Previews: Defensemen -- John Carlson

John Carlson

Theme: “Mountaintops inspire leaders, but valleys mature them.”

-- Winston Churchill

Since John Carlson was taken by the Capitals with the 27th overall pick in the 2008 NHL entry draft, John Carlson’s career seems to have been an unbroken arc of advancement and success. After being drafted by the Caps, Carlson joined the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League and led all rookie defensemen in that league in goals, assists, overall scoring, and plus-minus; and was an important ingredient in London’s advancing through the playoffs until losing to eventual Memorial Cup champion Windsor. The bitterness of losing didn’t last long, as he was assigned to the Hershey Bears, where he played in 16 games and was 2-1-3, plus-3 for the 2009 Calder Cup champions.

His meteoric climb continued the following season, one in which he would split time between the Bears (48 games, 4-35-39, plus-37), whom he would represent in the AHL All Star Game, and the Capitals (22 games, 1-5-6, plus-11). He would experience a reversal of fortune, of sorts, being called up to the Caps for the opening round of the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, where the Caps would lose in seven games to the Montreal Canadiens. He would return to the Bears, however, where he would go 2-5-7, plus-7 in 13 games as the Bears repeated as Calder Cup champion. In the midst of all of this he was able to participate in the IIHF World Junior Championship, where he finished third in scoring among all defensemen in the tournament, leading all defensemen in goals scored. Oh, and one of them happened to be the championship-winning goal, scored in overtime against Team Canada in a 6-5 win.

Quite a ride in less than two years following his being drafted by the Caps, in more ways than one.

Success seems to follow Carlson around, and we do not view that as a coincidence or Carlson as a mere passenger on the Good Times Express. He has been an important element in all of the success his teams have enjoyed. But it is the two incidences of team disappointment that might be instructive here. In the first, his London Knights dropped four of five games to the Windsor Spitfires in a series in which all five games were decided by one goal, all of them in overtime. An excruciating way to lose. But after a week off, he stepped into the lineup for the Hershey Bears and was promptly thrown into what would be another seven-game series, this time against arch-rival Wilkes-Barre Scranton. He accorded himself well (11 shots on goal, one goal, even, no penalty minutes). In fact, Carlson would not see the penalty box in any of the 16 games he would play for the Bears in their Calder Cup run, perhaps an indicator of his ability to focus and play disciplined hockey.

Then there is last year’s disappointment at losing to the Canadiens. It is revealing that in Game 7 of that series Carlson had more ice time than any defenseman not named “Mike Green.” And it wasn’t as if he was a victim of the bench being shortened in the third period as the Caps sought to overtake Montreal. He skated 6:34 in that third period, again second to Green. It wasn’t enough, as the Caps lost, but Carlson again had more work to do. He would skate in Albany on the night after the Caps’ loss and contribute an important third period assist in the Bears’ 5-4 overtime win to clinch the second round series with the River Rats. He would come up especially big later, in the Calder final against the Texas Stars, after the Bears dropped the first two games. In Games 3-6 Carlson was 2-3-5, plus-5, his goals being the game-winners in Game 5 and the championship-clinching goal in Game 6.

His valleys have been infrequent, but he seems to have responded well to having found them. And that could have meaning for the coming season and a franchise that has known a lot of valleys in more than 30 years. A lot is expected of Carlson to help get the Caps out of those valleys, precisely because he has enjoyed such frequent team success at such a young age. He has to be considered a potential Calder Trophy candidate.

Amid all this heady talk, though, there are other things to consider. First, Carlson is, after all, only 20 years old. It’s asking a lot to put him into a top-four position on a team with Stanley Cup aspirations and expect an uninterrupted path to success, even for a youngster as accomplished as Carlson, especially over an 82-game grind followed by a two month march through the playoffs. But about that 82-game season. Last year, Carlson played in 78 regular season and tournament games from October through early April (48 with the Hershey, seven in World Juniors, the AHL All Star Game, 22 with the Caps), followed by 20 playoff games (seven with Washington, 13 with Hershey). In 2008-2009 he played in 59 regular season games with London, followed by 30 playoff games (14 with London, 16 with Hershey). Carlson has not been a stranger to long seasons and long playoff runs the past two years. There were times late last year when Carlson looked a bit overcome by the wear and tear, and for this season the question will be whether all that hockey over the last two years has primed him for the nightly grind of an NHL season, or whether, like too many pitches for too young an arm of a major league pitching prospect, it was too much hockey for too young a player.

Fearless: Uh, cuz? Those 98 games Carlson played last year? Well, Tyler Myers played in 90 the year before he won the Calder Trophy (58 regular season games with Kelowna in juniors, 26 in the WHL and Memorial Cup playoffs, and 6 in the World Junior). Fellow rookie and Calder candidate P.K. Subban played in 101 games last year. Good players on good teams do that.

Cheerless: I’m havin’ trouble thinkin’ up anything bad here. Maybe that he wears his helmet kinda funny, like a kid with a ball cap on the back of his head. OK, here… the Caps have drafted 110 defensemen in franchise history. 46 have actually dressed for at least one NHL game. Only 17 of them have dressed for at least 250 NHL games. Three have played on Stanley Cup championship teams. None of them did it for the Caps. John Carlson, welcome to our nightmare. Your “Real American Hero” thing is going to be tested… big time.

In the end…

Given Carlson’s speedy rise through the ranks and uncommon success in doing so, there is almost an assumption that his success is going to be repeated here, now, at this level of hockey. Part of that is the fact that the Caps have sputtered in the post-season recently with the other defensemen on this squad and that the club hasn’t added to that group, other than Carlson and Karl Alzner now penciled in as every night defensemen this coming season. He certainly has had a flair for the dramatic – the championship-winning goal in World Juniors, the tying goal that saved (for a while) the Caps’ season in Game 2 of the opening round of the 2010 playoffs, the game-winners in Games 5 and 6 in last spring’s Calder finals.

It’s hard not to expect big things for Carlson this season, but that has to be tempered by the fact that he is a rookie and that he is going to be facing top-flight competition on a nightly basis. He is not likely to put up the offensive numbers of, say, a Tyler Myers last season, but remember that Myers did not have nearly the top-end defenseman playing on his team that Carlson will have in Mike Green, who will get the lion’s share of ice time (including perhaps almost all the power play time). He could, though, end up being the second leading scorer among defensemen on this club. Why? Here is one thing to watch for. Mike Green was fifth in the league among defensemen in shots on goal, but you’d have to go to 94th before you’d seen the next defenseman who played at all for the Caps last year (Brian Pothier) and 116th before finding a Cap who spent all his time with the club last year (Tom Poti). Carlson might do a better job of getting the puck to the net for the likes of Mike Knuble and Brooks Laich to pick up rebounds.

Projection:

73 games, 6-22-28, +17

2010-2011 Previews: Defensemen -- Karl Alzner

Labor Day has come and gone here in the States, which means we now begin our headlong rush to training camp and the opening of the 2010-2011 NHL regular season. And with that, we begin our 2010-2011 previews of the Caps with a look at the defensemen.

Karl Alzner

Theme: “You’re still here?”

Between a bad finish in April, the emergence of John Carlson as the prospect defenseman to watch, and a summer inactivity on the part of the club, one might be forgiven for forgetting that Karl Alzner is still a Capital and is ready to finally stick as a member of the big club. Unlike last year, when the Caps had perhaps seven defensemen ahead of him on the depth chart, Alzner is slotted to be an every night starter this time around.

Last year might have been something of a disappointment for the fifth overall draft pick in 2007. Alzner played in only 21 regular season games, none after February 13th. But he remains the games-played leader (51) among defensemen drafted in his 2007 class.

Still, those 21 games last year did not improve much, if at all on the 30 in which he played in 2008-2009. The last half of his NHL stint last season was especially disappointing. After going 0-4-4, plus-2 and skating 18:25 in ice time per game in his first ten games, he was 0-1-1, minus-4, and skated an average of only 14:34 in his last 11 games.

But Alzner was an important cog in the Hershey Bears’ march to a second consecutive Calder Cup. Upon returning to Hershey Alzner finished the regular season 2-12-14, plus-11 in 26 games, then went 3-7-10, plus-7, in 20 post-season games. Sandwiched between the two was his appearance in Game 7 of the Easter Conference Quarterfinal series against Montreal in which he skated 15 minutes and change (no points scored, no goals scored against while on the ice). Based on his end-of-year performance, one would have to think he is done proving he can play at the AHL level and will now embark on his NHL career in earnest.

What might we expect in terms of Alzner? He will probably start the season on the third pairing. Given the state of the Caps’ defense, he will probably get some penalty killing time. On the other hand, if he gets any power play time at all, it’s because he’s taking the ice as a power play expires. He averaged 16:24 in ice time in his 21 games last year, and for the moment, that looks to be what his high-side might look like.

What he is not going to be is a big hitter or a big scorer. Of the returning Caps defensemen, he had the second-lowest hits-per-game average last season (Tom Poti ranked lowest… bet you thought it was Jeff Schultz). And, in 51 career regular games he is 1-9-10. What he is going to be is smart, sound, and capable in his own end. At least that’s the game plan. Any “numbers” he puts up is gravy. You guys have anything to add?

Fearless: Talk about strange numbers. The Caps were 11-2-0 in games Alzner played against the East last year, but he was a minus-6 in those games. The Caps were 4-3-1 in games he played against the West, but he was plus-4. Does that mean anything? No.

Cheerless: Cuz, you said that Alzner wasn’t going to be a big hitter or a big scorer. I’m just worried if he’ll be a “no-show” as the season wears on. You said he had a pretty good first ten games and a pretty poor eleven games to finish up. Well, that’s what he did the year before, too. In his first 17 games he was 1-3-4, plus-7, then he was 0-1-1, minus-8 in his last 13 games. That’s 1-7-8, plus-9 in the “first half” and 0-2-2, minus-12 in the “second half” over two years. If the Caps don’t add a defenseman, they’re going to need this guy next spring. And it can’t be with that “second half” stuff, either.


In the end…

Alzner has to avoid having a good start dissolve into an iffy finish. And with an 82-game season, that might be an issue. Under normal circumstances, he might benefit from the odd night off in those grey days of January and February. But the Caps don’t have a lot of strength in terms of the 7/8 defensemen that might get a sweater in his place. His game is to play mistake-free hockey. If you don’t notice him, chances are he’s getting the job done. However, we should not forget, either, that Alzner has yet to reach his 22nd birthday (he turns 22 on September 24th). It is one thing to expect a top-five draft pick to be a cornerstone contributor at 25 or 28; it’s another to expect that at this age (and we’ve seen what experience means to defensemen). He might need to have his time managed. If he starts fading as the season wears on, that’s when mistakes happen, and he’ll be noticed…not in a good way.

Projection:

66 games, 2-9-11, +8

Four of a Kind -- Part II

We covered the growing importance of top-four defenseman corps in Part I of this exercise, and now it is time to turn to the Caps and their top-four blue-liners in the context of their competition. The Caps will enter the 2010-2011 season as one of the prime contenders for a Stanley Cup. If history – both that of recent Cup winners and the Caps – is a guide, then one of the important questions lingering around the club is whether their top-four defensemen can compete with those of their competition. First, the competition. You are free to quibble with us over which teams the Caps are competing with in the march to the Cup, but for our purposes, the competition boils down to:

(based on a survey of Las Vegas odds)

So, if this is the competition, how do they stack up in terms of their top-four defensemen? Objectively, the Caps will enter this season (absent any further changes) with a top four group that is less experienced than that of their competition.* Washington will enter the season with the least experience – both regular season and playoffs – of any of the top eight challengers for the Stanley Cup:

With 1,373 games of combined regular season experience, the Caps will go into this season with fewer combined games among their top-four defenders than any Stanley Cup champion since the lockout, except the Chicago Blackhawks (1,163). They will have approximately 1,000 fewer games than Anaheim (2,620 heading into the 2006-2007 season), Detroit (2,341 in 2007-2008), and Pittsburgh (2,209 in 2008-2009).

Of the eight teams we have identified for this exercise, only Washington and San Jose will start the year with a top-four squad that includes only one defenseman with more than 400 games of regular season experience. Three of the teams – Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and Detroit – have three such players.

The Capitals are the only team among the eight clubs that has one defenseman with more experience than the rest of his foursome combined (Tom Poti – 787 of the 1,373 games of experience). The other three – Green, Schultz and Carlson – have fewer regular season games combined (586) than eight of the other 29 defensemen identified here.

The playoff experience deficit is equally pronounced. With 96 games of combined experience, the Caps will have fewer post-season games under their belts than any of the other seven competitors going into the season, and they will have fewer than any of the five Stanley Cup champions since the lockout ended. None of the other seven challengers heading into this season will have two of their top-four defensemen with ten or fewer games of playoff experience. The Caps, however, will have two such defensemen: Jeff Schultz (10) and John Carlson (seven). 

The Caps are one of two teams with one defenseman having played more playoff games than the combined total of his three teammates (Philadelphia, with Chris Pronger having 170 of the total 333 games of playoff experience, being the other). Tom Poti’s 51 games of post-season experience eclipses the combined total for Green, Schultz, and Carlson (45).  That combined total of 45 games is fewer than 15 of the other 29 defensemen in this group.

And here is the kicker. If you look at the five Stanley Cup champions since the lockout, only one – Detroit in 2008 – added what would be a top-four defender at the trading deadline (Mark Stuart). There is some history for adding that asset early, though. In 2006, Carolina won a Cup after having added Frantisek Kaberle and Mike Commodore before the regular season began (Kaberle having been signed as a free agent in July 2004, Commodore acquired by trade in July 2005). Chris Pronger was traded to the Anahelm Ducks in August 2005 before the Ducks embarked on their championship season. And the Detroit Red Wings signed Brian Raflaski as a free agent in July 2007 before going on to win the Stanley Cup the following spring.

If you look at the last five years of champions, the eventual Conn Smythe Trophy winners have tended to be young stars. Cam Ward in 2006, Henrik Zetterberg in 2008, Evgeni Malkin in 2009, and Jonathan Toews in 2010 all were under 30 years of age when winning the most valuable player trophy for the playoffs. In fact, Ward, Malkin, and Toews all were 22 when winning the award. But just as important, the teams on which they played had deep, experienced top-four defensive squads. Going into this season, the Caps do not match up with their likely competitors when it comes to that experience on the blue line. And if post-lockout history is indicative, adding that asset at the trading deadline might not have the intended effect. Caps fans might like to have (ok, they would like to have, if this summer’s commentary can be believed) that asset now, heading into the season.


* We make no accommodations for any players who might begin the season injured, since our focus is on the experience a possible playoff squad will have as they enter the season.  And you, dear reader, might quibble with who we identify as a top-four defender on any of these teams, but we do not think it detracts from the larger point we are making.

Two Russians and an Owner Meet in the Star

If this summer’s hockey off season has a subject it is “circumvention.” No, it’s not a movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a hockey player who dreams of a $100 million contract, it would be the concept of structuring an NHL player contract in a manner that adheres to the arithmetic of the league salary cap while subverting the intent of the cap to provide for competitive balance (i.e., the ability to pay and retain players) among the clubs and cost control.

The poster child for this summer’s defining issue is, of course, Ilya Kovalchuk. The once and future New Jersey Devil forward sat on the sidelines as the league and the players’ association wriggled their way to an agreement over the contract for Kovalchuk, finally agreeing on a $100 million, 15-year deal. There is much that remains unsettled about what the contract means for what shall remain allowable in terms of length of contract and the ability of teams to front load agreements. But for the moment we have the reaction to the Kovalchuk deal to contemplate. And one reaction was baffling to read.

Which brings us to this article in the Toronto Star by Damien Cox. First, a bit of context. Cox’ columnist page in The Star described him as a columnist who “loves to stir up trouble while chuckling at the foibles of the sporting world. He'll start with the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, an organization he's been snooping around for almost two decades, but is happy to stick his nose into a few other games and places where athletes reside.” Well, he stirred up trouble and stuck his nose into a few other places in his column outing the “outlaw owners” who benefit from the Kovalchuk deal.

Of Capitals majority owner Ted Leonsis, Cox writes:

“Ted Leonsis, to name another, was a hawk during the last labour struggle and now drinks deeply and gratefully from the revenue-sharing trough. The president of his Washington Capitals, Dick Patrick, is part of one of hockey’s most famous families and a committed league man.

“But when they wanted to give Alexander Ovechkin a 13-year, $124 million contract, one they knew Bettman wouldn’t approve of, they did it anyway. That encouraged others, like the bizarre Tampa twosome of Len Barrie and Oren Koules, to engineer a deal with Vinny Lecavalier that started with a $10 million salary and wound down to $1 million.

“Why? Why did all these powerful owners, largely devoted Bettman supporters, repeatedly ignore his advice and pleadings?

“Well, because they wanted to win Stanley Cups. So they worked in concert with player agents — the very people they have accused of wrecking the industry — to cook up contracts that basically allowed them more bang for their cap buck.”

Conflating the Capitals’ contract with Alex Ovechkin and the Kovalchuk deal or similarly structured contracts under the current collective bargaining agreement is a stretch at best. There are six contracts that command attention as a product of their length, total dollar value, and year-to-year variation in salary. They belong to Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Lecavalier, Marian Hossa, Roberto Luongo, and Rick DiPietro. All are more than ten years in length; all have a total dollar value in excess of $60 million (two – Ovechkin’s and Kovalchuk’s – are at least $100 million). There the similarities end. The six contracts break down into two general groups. There are those that snake through their respective terms with different annual salary amounts that suggest, at least, a desire to satisfy the “having one’s cake” (satisfying the player’s demand for high overall compensation value) and “eating it too” criteria (ensuring that the later years of the contract are cap-friendly and, if need be “trade friendly,” or if the player decides to forego the later low compensation years, convenient). Then there are those deals that track roughly evenly the average annual compensation determined by years and total dollars.

Here are the four contracts that fall into the latter group, those of Kovalchuk, Lecavalier, Hossa, and Luongo:

There is a common “look” to them, but beyond that is a common structure, most notably the precipitous decrease in compensation after year eight of the respective deals. After year eight, Kovalchuk’s compensation (preliminary, according to capgeek.com) drops 30 percent, Lecavalier’s by 53 percent, Luongo’s by 49.6 percent, and Hossa’s by 75 percent. The other side of that coin is that though year eight, the bulk of compensation has been paid to the player. Through year eight, Kovalchuk would have received 79 percent of the total value of his contract, Hossa 94 percent, Luongo 89 percent, and Lecavalier 92 percent. All of these deals would still have at least four more years to run, and Kovalchuk’s would have seven years to recover the remaining 21 percent of the deal.

Now, compare those to the contracts of Alex Ovechkin and Rick DiPietro:

These contracts have a common look about them, too. They show little, if any, year-to-year variation in compensation. In fact, while all four of the first group show those significant decreases in the out years of the respective deals, Ovechkin’s shows a bump up in year seven that carries through over the remaining seven years of that deal. DiPietro’s compensation is evenly distributed among all 15 years of his deal.

If one looks at the other side of the coin, DiPietro receives 6.7 percent of the total value of his contract in each and every year (his deal, controversial when signed, looks almost quaint now). Ovechkin receives 44 percent of his total dollar value through year six, 56 percent over the last seven years of the contract. These values are not significantly different that the 46 percent of total compensation he would receive over the first six years if the total value was divided evenly over the years, or the 54 percent he would receive over the last seven years. And then there is again the matter that his compensation actually increases in year seven and is maintained over the remaining life of the contract.

Cox’ article appears to suffer from a divergence of issues. The Kovalchuk issue is one that dominated the summer off-season, and its meandering path to a solution does have its consequences for future contracts, and perhaps the next round of collective bargaining. The article is far from clear, however, what Alex Ovechkin’s contract (or the manner in which it might have been negotiated with club management) has on that matter.

What does Kovalchuk’s deal (or Ovechkin’s) have to do with revenue sharing? Perhaps there is a point to be made that there is a connection, but Cox doesn’t make it. What does the relationship among owners and player agents have to do with Kovalchuk’s or Ovechkin’s respective contracts (Ovechkin’s contract, not insignificantly, was finalized without the benefit of a player agent in direct negotiations with the club)?

Cox introduces issues (we hesitate to call it “evidence”) that suggest one could draw a straight line from the machinations of the Kovalchuk deal to a cabal of outlaw owners turning on the Commissioner, with an impotent players union in the middle. Frankly, we do think that there are owners out there who in their own sense want their cake and eat it, too. They want that fine patina of “cost certainty” that a salary cap provides in theory. But they like having, or would like to have, the freedom to game the system to be able to bend the cap to their liking, to pay those high-end players the compensation they might otherwise (read: in the absence of a cap) pay, tacking on meaningless seasons at the end so that the arithmetic works to bring in other players. They can afford to make those up-front outlays that other clubs perhaps cannot afford.  It is a close cousin of the spendthrift ways in which some franchises engaged before the lockout – behavior that required a cap so that ownership could be saved from itself in the name of "cost certainty." Maybe some owners won’t take being “saved” for an answer.

What Ted Leonsis has to do with this issue escapes us. If Cox wanted to expose the Caps participation in revenue sharing, or if he wanted to make an argument on the damage that 13-year, $124 million contracts do to the game, he could have done that. But linking Alex Ovechkin’s contract and Ted Leonsis’ role in it to the Kovalchuk issue as a means to “prove” that there is a group of outlaw owners looking out only for their competitive interests? Maybe there are outlaw owners who will, out of selfish motives attached to the salary cap or revenue sharing, do damage to the sport. We wouldn’t be surprised if there are, but we don’t know, certainly not from the arguments made in this article. Maybe Cox just has a beef with ownership in general and perhaps Leonsis in particular. We don’t know, but whatever case he is trying to make, the dots just don’t connect...

...unless this is part of an "Ovechkin Project."

Four of a Kind -- Part I

If there has been one subject about which there has been more than a little navel-gazing going on this summer with respect to the Capitals, it has been the state and the promise of the defense for the 2010-2011 season. We’ve done it ourselves, and our fellow wizards have engaged in the exercise as well.

Well, we return to ponder our midsection once more in terms of the Caps’ top-four defenders. If there is an emerging concept with respect to the most important ingredient in a Stanley Cup winner in the past few years, it is that a winner needs a solid top-four blue-line crew, even more than they need an elite goaltender. If you look at the goalies that have won since the lockout, they might have played well (in most circumstances), but none would necessarily be called elite. It might have been a case in which their defensemen in front of them were better. For example:


2006: Carolina Hurricanes (Goalie: Cam Ward)

In terms of ice time, the top four defenders for the Hurricanes were Bret Hedican, Aaron Ward, Mike Commodore, and Frantisek Kaberle. You might not think of this quartet as being elite, but what they were was balanced. Only four minutes of ice time separated them in the post season in 2006; all of them had at least two goals in the Hurricanes’ playoff run. All but Kaberle were at least “even” on the plus-minus scale (although Kaberle did chip in the only three goals scored by defensemen for the Hurricanes in the playoffs). Although Cam Ward played admirably in relief of Martin Gerber in the playoffs that year (15-8, 2.14, .920), he didn’t do it without help, especially when you consider that he faced only 26.5 shots per 60 minutes of playing time and that they led all playoff teams in blocked shots and takeaways. Three of these four Hurricane defensemen were among the top nine defensemen in blocked shots; three of them were among the top six defensemen in takeaways. It’s true that such a finish is (in part) a function of the greater number of games played by Carolina, but it would be hard to argue that their top-four defensemen, unheralded as they might be, didn’t do their share to keep their net clear of pucks.

2007: Anaheim Ducks (Goalie: Jean-Sebastien Giguere)

The top four defenders for the Ducks in terms of playoff ice time in 2007 was truly “top four,” not just in terms of the names fans might recognize (Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger, in addition to Francois Beauchemin and Sean O’Donnell), but also in terms of ice time. O’Donnell’s fourth highest total of 20:20 a game was almost nine minutes a game more than fifth in line Kent Huskins (11:44). All four finished on the plus side of the ledger, all but O’Donnell finishing at least plus-8. All but O’Donnell finished with at least three goals in the playoffs, Beauchemin contributing four power play goals. For all the reputation the Ducks had that season of being a physical bunch, it didn’t really show up in the individual statistics for defensemen. Only one Duck (Niedermayer) was in the top ten defensemen in hits, only two (Niedermayer and Pronger) in blocked shots. And all four could be lackadaisical with the puck (all four finished among the top ten in giveaways). But consider that goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere faced only 25.3 shots per 60 minutes played in posting a 13-4, 1.97, .922 record. Having a stalwart foursome in front of him had to play a role in his relatively light load (he faced almost 28 shots a game in the regular season).

2008: Detroit Red Wings (Goalie: Chris Osgood)

The 2008 Detroit Red Wings resembled the previous year’s Anaheim Ducks in this respect – they had four defensemen carrying the skating load. Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall, and Brad Stuart all logged over 21 minutes a game (Andreas Kilja was fifth at 14:05). All but Stuart finished the post-season with more than ten points; all of them finished with at least a plus-6 (Stuart and Kronwall finishing at least plus-15). Perhaps inconsistent with the team’s reputation for getting the job done without being ostentatiously physical, you would find Stuart and Kronwall among the top six in hits. But consistent with the reputation, you would not find any of these four highly ranked in blocked shots (Stuart finished 16th among defensemen in the playoffs). This foursome was a unit well-integrated into the overall Red Wing scheme of things, allowing goalie Chris Osgood to face the microscopic total of 22.2 shots per 60 minutes played. Think of it this way – Osgood and Marc Andre-Fleury had almost identical save percentages for the playoffs that year (.933 for Fleury, .930 for Osgood). But Fleury faced almost seven-and-a-half more shots per 60 minutes, the reason why he (even with a 1.97 GAA) allowed almost half-a-goal more than Osgood per 60 minutes. That foursome on the blue line played a big role in keeping Osgood on his feet instead of dropping to block shots.

2009: Pittsburgh Penguins (Goalie: Marc-Andre Fleury)

The Penguins took, if not a chapter, at least a theme from the Carolina season for their top four defensemen in this respect. There wasn’t a lot of separation between their top four defensemen in terms of ice time and the next four that dressed. Of the top four (Sergei Gonchar, Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik, and Hall Gill), none played more than 23:02 (Gonchar, and that owing to his heavy power play responsibilities), and the fourth leading defenseman in ice time per game (Gill) average only seven seconds more than fifth place Kris Letang (although almost a quarter of Letang’s ice time came on the power play). What this group was, was disciplined. Only Brooks Orpik recorded more than a dozen penalty minutes in 24 games; Scuderi and Gill split a dozen minutes. Perhaps the flip side of this coin was that they were not an impressively physical group – only Orpik ranked higher than 22nd in hits (he led all defensemen in the 2009 postseason). But they were quite physical in another important respect. All four in this group ranked in the top seven in blocked shots. Even Sergei Gonchar, not generally known as a shot-blocking force and who missed two games to an injured knee (which would be an issue even upon his return), ended up seventh.


2010: Chicago Blackhawks (Goalie: Antti Niemi)

Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson, and Brian Campbell made up the Stanley Cup-winning Blackhawk top-four blueliners in ice time. All except Campbell logged in excess of 21 minutes of ice time (Campbell alone among the four in getting almost no penalty killing time, while the others recorded at least 2:38 a game in shorthanded ice time). It was not an especially prolific group offensively (only Keith recorded more than seven points), nor was it especially physical in terms of hits recorded (Seabrook led all playoff defensemen, but none of the others in this group finished in the top 20). But it was a group that paid a price. Three of the four (Hjalmarsson, Keith, and Seabrook) finished in the top nine in blocked shots. It also was a clever group in this respect – All four were in the top nine in takeaways among defensemen, Keith leading all defenders.

The common thread…

Experience. We touched on this a little while back but if you look at these five winning foursomes, what they share in common is experience. Here is how their total regular/playoff game experience breaks down going into their Cup-winning seasons…

Carolina (2006): 1,663 regular season/156 playoff
Anaheim (2007): 2,620/347
Detroit (2008): 2,341/374
Pittsburgh (2009): 2,209/189
Chicago (2010): 1,163/115

Looking at the five foursomes, you do have instances of green defensemen. Carolina’s Mike Commodore had only 75 games of regular season experience. Frantisek Kaberle had no playoff experience heading into Carolina’s championship season. Francois Beauchemin had only 75 games of regular season experience for Anaheim, and Niklas Hjalmarsson had only 34 games for Chicago heading into last year. But while there was that hint of inexperience on the blue line among a few of these foursomes, these five teams also employed defensemen with considerable experience. Four of the five teams had at least one defenseman with more than 750 games of regular season experience, one had two such defensemen (perhaps surprisingly, Pittsburgh in 2009), and one – Anaheim in 2007 – had three defensemen with at least 750 games of regular season experience.

These five teams also had at least one defensemen among the top four with significant playoff experience. Every team had at least one top-four defenseman with more than 60 playoff games under his belt. Two teams (Anaheim in 2007 and Detroit in 2008) had two defensemen with at least 100 games of playoff experience.

As you might expect, this is all prelude to a discussion of the Caps and what appears to be their “top-four” defensive corps going into the season. Having set the stage by looking back at championship foursomes since the lockout, we will turn later to the Caps and their likely competition this coming season in the race for the Stanley Cup.

2nd Annual Charity Hockey Classic

From the press release...

“Give Blood, Play Hockey” has long been an adage among the hockey community. This tradition will be on display in full force on Saturday, September 11, 2010, when the Virginia Coaching Cardinals take on the NCR Eagles in the second annual Charity Hockey Classic at Kettler Capitals IcePlex to benefit Inova Blood Donor Services.

Comprised of coaches from youth hockey clubs including the Ashburn Xtreme, Reston Raiders, Virginia Wild, NoVA Ice Dogs, Prince William Panthers and Washington Little Caps, The Virginia Coaching Cardinals will face the NCR Eagles, a joint military hockey team consisting of players from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines, in what promises to be a thrilling exhibition game. The beneficiary will be Inova Blood Donor Services, a service line to the not-for-profit Inova Health System that collects, tests and provides blood and blood products each day to 15 hospitals and medical centers throughout the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Last year‟s inaugural event saw coaches from the Ashburn Xtreme defeat their counterparts from the Reston Raiders before a raucous crowd of supporters from both clubs by a score of 7-1. More importantly, the event raised over $40,000 for a new Inova bloodmobile, easily exceeding the initial goal of $25,000. The second annual Charity Hockey Classic will unite the rival hockey clubs and other clubs from Northern Virginia against their U.S. armed forces opponents in an effort to raise funds for a new value-added testing (VAT) machine, an instrument that provides free screening to donors for diabetes, cholesterol, and heart disease. The bar has been raised this year to $40,000, with each player from the respective teams challenged with generating $1,000 to help secure their spot on the team.

Taking place for the first time at Kettler Capitals IcePlex in Arlington, VA – home of the Washington Capitals – rink time has been donated for the event, which will run from 4:00 until 7:00pm. In addition to the main attraction, other activities throughout the afternoon will include a silent auction, appearances by local celebrities including Washington Capitals players, and „Mites on Ice‟ youth hockey exhibitions.

“We are excited to build upon the successes of last year‟s event, especially with this year‟s new military focus,” said Charity Hockey Classic chairman Adam Bartholomew. “Seeing the entire hockey community continue to rally around such a worthy cause as blood donation makes me very proud to be a hockey player.”

Inova Blood Donor Services, a 501(c)(3) organization headquartered in Sterling, VA, also maintains its strong ties to the hockey community as the Official Blood Collection Agency of the Washington Capitals.

“Our donors save lives every day in our community. This is our chance to return the favor,” said Terri Craddock, Director of Inova Blood Donor Services.

For sponsorships, tickets or additional information, please contact Adam Bartholomew at Adam.Bartholomew@inova.org or visit http://www.charityhockeyclassic.com/.

Blogger Training Camp 2010 - Day 3

Day 3 of Blogger Camp 2010, and the cousins have mastered – well, “mastered” might be too fine a term – slogged through their physicals and social networking drills. Now, we get to the guts of the playbook. Today we start running the blogger’s equivalent of “plays” from the playbook. And in taking the first step of a long journey, we start with…

Cliché Composition

The legendary baseball player Crash Davis once said to phenom Nuke LaLoosh of clichés, “You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends.” It’s no less true for the blogger. Sprinkling one’s blog entries with such time-honored gems as “they have to play them one game at a time,” or “nothing less than 100 percent effort is acceptable” gives the blogger credibility. And if you can add a few hockey-specific phrases such as “bench-clearing brawl,” or “when you put the puck on net, good things happen,” you gain the gravitas you need to be a truly top-shelf (get it?) blogger. Yes indeed, clichés are the blogger’s friend, as Cheerless shows us…

“I’d rather be friends with those hot hockey babes I was googlin’ at yesterday, cuz…”

Good luck with that. Fearless, give me an example of a hockey cliché…

“He put the biscuit in the basket.”

Excellent example. Cheerless, do you have one?

“Where are the biscuits?”

No biscuits, give me a cliché?

“Muffins?”

No muffins, either. No toast, no donuts, no Danish. Just clichés. Do you have one?

“OK, OK… ‘Mike Milbury is a goober.’”

Excellent!


Names

Hockey is nothing if not international. It's one of the things that makes the sport great.  And that includes many players whose multi-syllabic names are starved for vowels and difficult to spell. You have to be quick on your feet, so to speak, to anticipate problems in getting names straight. You have that thing the Finns have with doubling up on letters – Ilkka Heikkenen, Teemu Laakso, Antti Miettinen, Ilkka Pikkareinen. You have to be careful not to stutter and hit that ‘k’ key three times. With the Czechs, it’s keeping your Radek’s straight…

“Cuz, can you say ‘keeping your Radek straight’ in a family blog?”

Not to mention the Michaleks. You have to keep your Milan apart from your Zbynek.

“The Zbynek bone’s connected to the… shoulder bone…”

And there is that whole Brendan-Brenden-Brandon thing in Canada (eight players with that first name dressed last year). Just one more reason bloggers need their own training camp. You don’t want to mix your Filatov’s with your Frolov’s in mid-season.

OK, now… can you put these together and give us an example of names and clichés in a sentence or two? Fearless?

“They realized that they just had to play their game, and to do that this had to put their game faces on so that they could step up to make plays. They needed to have Ruutu and Koivu, Lehtinen and Lehtonen, Michalek and Plekanec, Enstrom and Lidstrom, Boychuk and Boynton put their game faces on and give 110 percent if they were going to drink from Lord Stanley’s chalice.”

That was…uh… really good, Fearless. In the sense that a dozen Twinkies are good, if you get what I mean. Now, Cheerless…

“The Teemu’s were evenly matched in a hard hitting game where every check was finished with a bone-rattling Radek Bonk.”

Needs work, cousin.

“Needs more Bradley?”

At least.


Stats

We're not quite to the state of the art that baseball has achieved in parsing, dissecting, and massaging statistics, but hockey is getting there.  Corsi, GVT, zone starts, breaking down production into per-60 minute units.  Hockey statistics is an evolving art, and sites like the data-rich behindthenet.ca give the stats hound a buffet of data points to load into their own models of team and player success.  For the blogger, statistics and the sites that develop them are absolutely essential to provide the meat behind their analysis.  On the other hand, some bloggers struggle with the concepts...

Cheerless, can you define "Corsi" for us?

"Oh, I got this one cuz... he's the guy on ESPN who does those college football shows on Saturday after he lost all those games coaching at Indiana."

Cheerless, that's Corso, not Corsi... Lee Corso.  Feerless, you want to take a shot at this?

"The Corsi Number is the shot differential while a player was on the ice. This includes not just goals and shots on goal, but also shots that miss the net, and in some formulations, blocked shots. In other words, it's the differential in the total number of shots directed at the net."

"HEY!  He's cheating!!  He's got the behindthenet.ca page up on his computer and he's reading right off it!!!

"If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

"Cliches have already been covered, cuz."

OK, let's try something else... GVT.  Cheerless?

"That's one of them home-shopping networks, ain't it?"

"Thats 'Q-V-C,' you idiot."

Either of you guys want to take a crack at "zone starts?"...

...either of you guys want to take a crack at "2-plus-2?"


Schemes

In football, training camp is for committing the playbook to memory, to learning the nuances of the 3-4 defense, zone blocking, cover-two coverages, and the like. It’s no different with blogging. Every year presents its new challenges to keep the blog fresh. It might mean adding features such as video, images, or audio. It might mean writing in short, punchy bullet point format. It might mean introducing characters to the narrative…

“Did he just call us ‘characters,’ cuz?”

“Yeah, it did seem kind of cold…”

No offense, guys, just trying to make a point. You have to know your blogging playbook. Just like some football teams use the west-coast offense or go for the I-back pound-it-down-the-field style, bloggers have their own schemes. Some are stats-heavy, some focus on the human side of hockey, others tell a story or have an historical focus.

“It’s a regular blogging bouillabaisse out there, isn’t it, cousin?”

Right you are, Fearless. And training camp is an opportunity for bloggers to find their voice. Fearless, if you had to describe your style in five words, what would it be?

“Erudite, educational, energizing, exciting, effervescent.”

Hmm… interesting. And how about you, Cheerless? Do you have a style you can describe in five words?

“I am the anti-Fearless.”

I think you guys are ready for the season…

…well, as ready as you’re going to get, anyway.

"Can we have those biscuits, now?"

Blogger Training Camp 2010 -- Day 2

Day 2 of Blogger Camp 2010, and in getting familiar with the tools of the trade, it’s “Social Networking Day.” The day when the cousins go through their paces in navigating the ins and outs of working online and social networking. Today’s session starts with some basic drills…

Googling

The ability to find information at the click of a mouse quickly and efficiently is the life’s blood of the blogger. Whether it is statistics, records, quotes, the latest trade rumor, or just a feature on their favorite club, being quick on the click is one of the most important tools in the blogger’s arsenal. Cheerless is in the midst of the daily Google drill…

“Hey cuz, look what I get when I type in ‘hot hockey babes…’ would ya look at the Koho’s on that one!”

A prodigy, ain’t he?...

“Cousin, if you google 'Google,' do you go into an infinite loop?”

Fearless, I think YOU are an infinite loop.

“Hey, cuz! What does it mean when this Norton screen comes up and says you’ve been attacked by a virus? Is that one of those computer games I keep hearing about?”

I think we’re going to need two-a-days…


Twitter

If you took a message board and mashed it up with instant messaging, then concentrated it into a 140-character nugget, you’d have Twitter. In barely four years of existence, it has become one of the most important tools for the advanced blogger. Blogger training camp is the time for the denizens of the keyboard to master the hash mark and the “at” sign, to keep their #’s and @’s straight. Cheerless has been having trouble getting the knack of it…

“#@%&it!”

Not what we had in mind, cuz…Now, let’s go over the terms. Cheerless, can you tell me what a “tweet” is.

“Something folks give you on Hallowe’en, or you play a twick on them.”

C’mon, it’s in the “Bloggers Playbook.”

“Twut?”

Fearless?

“A ‘tweet’ is a message posted via Twitter containing 140 characters or fewer.”

Very good…

“suck up”

Cheerless, can you give me a definition for “twitterer?”

“Uh, cuz, I think you mean ‘twit.’”

OK, let’s try this…what does “FF” stand for?

“I heard of MF, and that stands for mother-fu…”

HEY!!!

I see three-a-days in our future.

Facebook

At last count 5.8 billion people were registered to this, allowing them to add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college.

“There aren’t 5.8 billion people on Facebook, cuz…”

No, it only seems that way.

“There are 5.8 billion Capitals blogs.”

No there aren’t…now let’s keep our focus. Fearless, can you tell me what a “friend” is in Facebook?

“A person who has joined a profile, usually by invitation.”

Very good, and Cheerless, what is a “profile?”

“It’s how they made me stand to get my picture took when I crashed the truck into Old Man Grabowski’s front porch and the sheriff hauled me in to the hooskow.”

OK, forget that… what’s a “mini-feed?”

"Ooh! I know!!"

OK, Cheerless…

“It’s the small bag o’ food for chickens.”

“Hey, cousin, did you know that you can Facebook on Twitter?”

Is it too early for waivers?


Message Boards

They might seem passé in the age of Twitter and Facebook, but message boards still command a lot of time and attention from the die-hard hockey fan. Bloggers ignore them at their peril. They also post there at their peril.

“You do it…”

“He drinks heavily, too. Think that’s a coincidence?”

Anyway… message boards give the everyday fan the forum to opine on any number of subjects. For the Caps, you might find any number of “discussions” going on covering a plethora of subjects.

“I loved Godzilla vs. Plethora.”

“Plethora!”… Not “Mothra,” you twit!

“Did we cover that in Twitter?”

UGH! Anyway, you might find such subjects as these on Capitals message boards giving the blogger an opportunity to take the pulse of the fan…

“George McPhee Sucks”
“Bruce Boudreau Sucks”
“Ted Leonsis Sucks”
“Trade Tyler Sloan and a draft pick for Sidney Crosby.”
“Beer Costs Too Much at Verizon Center.”

“Is that it?”

Yup, pretty much.

Cheerless Has An Idea

Blogger Camp 2010 must have shaken a brain cell free in the head of the slow-on-the-uptick cousin of mine, because Cheerless has an idea.  Oh heck, let's just let him explain it...

"You know what we need, cuz? We need a TV show. Maybe we can get that Bravo TV to produce it. We could have Caps bloggers sitting around talking about Corsi and GVT and getting all snarky with one another.  And we can go on field trips and such.  Not that hoity-toity citified go-out-to-the-country-and-drink-chardonnay stuff you see on that housewives show, either.  We could sit around horkin' down brats and drinkin' beer talking about how misunderstood Jeff Schultz is, or how Mike Green does so play defense.

And instead of dressing up in those real fine clothes those reality babes always seem to have falling out of their closets, the bloogers..."

That's "bloggers," cuz...

"Bloogers, bloggers, whatever.  Y'all could dress up in Caps jerseys of your favorite players.  You could pull out that Mike Eagles jersey you've been dyin' to wear.  You could visit celebrities at their houses.  You know, drop in on Brooks Laich or Bruce Boudreau or Alex Ovechkin."

It's a fine line between "dropping in " and "stalking," cuz...

"Well, maybe if you took along a six-pack to break the ice.  Oh, and instead of talking about shoes like those bimbos prattle on and on about, you could talk about sticks and skates and stuff.  And you could give the folks watchin' the inside stuff about blogging, like, why do you guys always write stuff at four in the morning, anyway?"

Seems like you've thought a lot about this.

"Well, someone's got to do the thinkin' around here.  I even got a name for the show."

Well, don't keep it a secret.

"The Real Caps Bloggers of DC."

Blogger Training Camp 2010

It’s that time of the year. In the NFL, clubs are winding down their respective training camps and settling into their weekly routines that will carry them into and through the regular season. But for hockey fans, it’s just beginning. In less than a month clubs will be gathering at their own respective training sites for training camp and the preseason that announces a return of NHL hockey to the sports landscape.

It is no different for those among us who scribble about hockey. And just like the on-ice warriors who will be going through their drills and routines next month, so shall we. In fact, the cousins and yours truly are embarking on Blogger Camp 2010 this very week…

Physicals

Before taking the ice or sitting behind the keyboard, we have to make sure that we have the physical wherewithal to tackle the rigors of the season ahead. First up…a visit to the team doctor.

“Team doctor?”

Fearless signed up for one of those online schools.

“Turn your head and cough”

Oh damn...

Reflex Testing

Then there is the testing of reflexes. No, we don’t mean that nonsense doctors engage in by applying a hammer to your kneecap. We mean the instant reflex bloggers need to have when waxing with righteous (as if there is any other kind) indignation. Fearless is taking his tests right now…

"Gary Bettman…"

“A pox on the game, a know-nothing Commissioner who has presided over an era when hockey has seen its status as a top-four sport diminish, whose biggest accomplishment is putting teams in south Florida that no one bothers to show up to watch…”

Too slow, not enough indignation. How about you, Cheerless. "Gary Bettman…"

“ARGGHHHHHHH!!!”

Excellent.

Speed Typing

They say you can’t teach speed. In football training camp, players are timed in the 40-yard dash. Bloggers have to be quick off the mark, too, for they are not unlike mainstream media types in one important respect, and that means getting the story out as fast and as accurately as possible... well, fast anyhow.  And that means having fast fingers. Cheerless, however is having trouble with the drill…

“eKlundsuck…EkLundsux…EklundSuks…EkluandSucks…”

Quick he is, but he’s about as accurate as a Willie Mitchell slap shot.

“Hey! Couldn’t you at least say ‘Milan Jurcina slap shot?’”

Weight training

A large part of football is the ability to move large men with malice in their hearts to places they don’t want to go. Strength is a key ingredient for the successful football player. It isn’t much different with blogging. The modern blogger (as opposed to the one, say, a year ago) has to be proficient on any number of devices – laptop, netbook, smart phone, iPad, you name it. It could be a lot of equipment to haul around, and the blogger needs to be in tip-top shape to be at the top of his game during the season. Cheerless is trying his hand at managing his gear…

“Gear?”

You don’t have your laptop?

“Nope…”

Your iPhone?

"My yourPhone?”

No…iPhone.

“Why would I have your phone? Don’t you have your phone?”

It’s not a yourPhone, it’s an iPhone. I-I-I-I...

"I am the Frito Bandito..."

Can we get serious for a moment?...now, the iPhone...

“You mean like what you see with?”

No, “I” as in “me.”

“Then why don’t you call a “mePhone?”

Because it’s an iPhone.

“Can’t I just use a pencil and paper?”

It’s going to be an interesting training camp…

Well, that's that

So… he stayed out west after all.

Willie Mitchell signed with Los Angeles. A two year deal for $7 million (capgeek.com). Think that’s a price the Caps should have paid? That’s a tough one. And it isn’t even the second year that’s the issue (that essentially replaces Tom Poti’s cap hit). It’s the first year. A $3.5 million cap hit in the first year puts the Caps at $58.45 million with one roster spot to fill (using capgeek.com’s cap calculator, including Mathieu Perreault, and taking off Tyler Sloan).

If Marcus Johansson makes the squad, the Caps are less than $100,000 from the cap, and this does not include the compensation for Eric Belanger, widely reported to have signed a $1.875 million deal. You could then argue that the Caps would make another move (they would have to make some move), perhaps Tomas Fleischmann’s $2.6 million contract. Making those moves puts the Caps at $58.62 million, about $777,000 under the cap (note: Karl Alzner has $850,000 in bonuses included in these calculations), and this does not account for whatever return might come for Fleischmann.  And this doesn't include whatever premium the Caps might have had to pay above $3.5 million a year to convince Mitchell to come east.

Now ask yourself, is $777,000 enough flexibility for the club going forward this year? It’s just hard to make that first year’s set of numbers work for Mitchell, given the deal he accepted, not to mention the risk the club assumes in light of Mitchell's coming off a serious injury. You could say, “well just move John Erskine ($1.25 million)…or just move David Steckel ($1.1 million).” We’re leery of any sentence involving a personnel move that includes the word “just,” as if one could snap one’s fingers and rid themselves of a problematic contract. Professional managers in sports franchises are paid to make these kinds of moves, but we don’t think for a moment that it is as easy as all that, given that there are two parties to every transaction.

There will be a lot of wailing about how the Caps (again!) were asleep at the switch as another club improved itself with a player that would have been a good fit (on paper) with the Capitals. And to tell the truth, there is a little voice in our head saying just that. But as much as we like the idea of adding a veteran defenseman (and Mitchell brings elements lacking on the Caps’ blueline), every deal has to be looked at in the context of the salary cap.

Today's the Day!

Write...it...down.

An announcement of where Willie Mitchell is signing?  Book it.

A press conference to announce the signing of Ilya Kovalchuk by the Devils?  Bet on it.

A notice in the transactions sections of sports sites that Sheldon Souray, Kevin Bieksa, and fill-in-the-name-of-rumored-to-be-traded-player here?  Today is the day.

How do we know this?  Because on this date in 1921, Monte Halperin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  Who is Monte Halperin, you ask?  Well, he happens to be the holder of the Order of Canada and the Order of Manitoba. 

He also is the namesake of a famous problem in probability.

Still stumped?  OK, you know him as the long-time host of "Let's Make a Deal," Monty Hall.  Happy Birthday, Monty, and may all the doors you pick be the right ones.

AHL Schedule To Be Released

Tomorrow, according to the league.  Let the road to the threepeat begin for the Bears.

Hockey - Golf - Tiger

Hockey and golf have a long and binding relationship. Caps fans are especially knowledgeable about this. So, it isn't entirely unrelated to hockey (well, yeah, it is), but we offer this in light of the latest off ice news concerning one of golf's most famous players...

Remorse from divorce, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to the source, of course
That is, of course, unless the source is the famous Tiger Woods.

Go right to the source out on the course
He'll give you the answer that he'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Tiger Woods.

Sports talk yakkity yaks a streak and wastes your time of day,
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Making the Most of the "Southleast"

Last week, James O’Brien at Pro Hockey Talk wrote the following…

“One of the easiest questions for most hockey people - aside from the least objective Washington Capitals fans, perhaps - was "which division is the weakest in the NHL?" Any puckhead worth his or her salt would swiftly choose the Southeast Division as the league's worst.”

The context of this statement was that the other teams in the Southeast were improving enough to battle the Capitals for divisional supremacy. But the statement itself reflects a widely held belief in hockey circles, that the five teams of the division constitute the “Southleast” Division of the NHL. It is a label that has stuck hard and fast to the division since its current configuration was established in the 1999-2000 season.

The question is, does it fit? Well, let’s take a look at the five teams and their overall win-loss records outside the division in the ten seasons they’ve been playing as “Southleasters:”

Over the entire ten-year period, only the Capitals have compiled a winning record against a majority of the other divisions (4-1). Only Carolina and Tampa Bay have a winning record over as many as two of the other five divisions. The other two teams – Atlanta and Florida – have losing records against each of the other five divisions over the last ten years. Overall, the Southeast Division has a 1,147-1,292-442 record against the other five NHL divisions, a .475 winning percentage in terms of standings points.

But those records since the lockout are interesting. Things do change. Since the teams retured from their 2004-2005 hiatus, the Southeast Division has compiled a 606-553-171 record, a .520 winning percentage.

You could say that the change of fortunes since the lockout is a product of the success of the Capitals, and to a degree, you would be right. But remember, too, that the Caps struggled quite a bit out of the gate following the lockout. They posted back to back 70-point seasons in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 before winning the Southeast Division in each of the past three years. If you take the Caps out of the mix, the Southeast has earned its “Southleast” label in terms of its overall record, but since the lockout has been quite something else. The 893-1,053-352 overall record (not counting he Caps) includes a 477-453-134 record since the lockout, a .511 winning percentage.

What you will find in the performance of the Southeast Division is a considerable difference in their performance against Western Conference teams versus that against Eastern Conference teams…

Overall, the Southeast has a losing record against each conference, but it has had considerable success against the Eastern Conference since the lockout. The 464-406-130 record works out to a .529 winning percentage. Yes, the Caps influence this result with their 96-75-29 record against the East over the past five seasons, but even without the Caps in the mix, a 368-331-101 record translates to a .523 winning percentage.

Where the Southeast has come up short is in its performance against the West. The Caps have a turned a losing record against those clubs before the lockout (36-54-17) into a winning one since the lockout (33-25-8). However, the other teams of the Southeast have an overall losing record both before the lockout (137-202-90) and after (109-122-33).

What is perhaps most striking about the record of the Southeast Division over the course of its history is its record against the Atlantic Division. Although it struggled early on, with a 112-160-49 record (.425 winning percentage), it has played at .500 or better against the Atlantic in six of the past seven seasons and has compiled a post-lockout record of 240-192-68 (.548 winning percentage).

So what contributes to this notion that the Southeast remains the door mat division it was in its early years? Well, here are some unfortunate facts for fans of the Southeast…

-- In ten seasons, four times the Southeast qualified only a single club for the playoffs

-- In those same ten seasons, the Southeast has never qualified more than two teams for the playoffs

-- Three times, the Southeast had the two worst teams in the Eastern Conference; once they had the three worst clubs (2001-2002).

-- Of 50 possible “lottery pick” finishes (bottom-five finishes), the Southeast has 18 of them. They have never had a season without at least one team in the lottery mix.

-- Four times, a team from the Southeast finished the regular season with the fewest standings points in the league.

What can we conclude? Is the Southeast Division really as bad as all that?

-- Well, first of all, that the Southeast Division is no longer the push over it was in past years, as a whole. Its overall winning records in a variety of depictions indicate that.

-- There is also usually quite a gap between the best clubs in the division in any one year and the worst. Teams that are bad in the Southeast are really, really bad. But they spread it around; three different teams have occupied last place in the league at season’s end at one time or another – Atlanta, Carolina, and Tampa Bay. Every club at one time or another finished in the bottom three.

On the other hand, when they are good, they can be really, really good. Of the ten Stanley Cups won since the Southeast came into being, only the Atlantic and Central divisions have won more than the two won by the Southeast (Carolina and Tampa Bay). Only those two divisions have more Stanley Cup finals appearances than the three made by Southeast Division teams.

The Southeast has improved quite a bit since its early days, although the success is very uneven (very good and very bad clubs) and inconsistent (the misfortune has been spread around). More recently, the division has been competitive playing against teams outside its own division, and it has had particular success against the often-assumed-stronger Atlantic Division.

Right now, the Caps carry the Southeast Division banner, and likely will be the class of the division for the next few years. But the gap is closing. On paper, Tampa Bay has improved, and Atlanta could make another step forward after improving their standings points total last year. Their improvement won’t ensure a playoff berth, but it could make things more difficult for the rest of the league as it might for the Capitals. The Southeast Division might not be the best division in the NHL going into the 2010-2011 season, but “Southleast” might not be the appropriate adjective, either.