The Awards -- Other Honors

What we’re left with is the rest of the awards for this 2007-2008 NHL season. So, let’s get to it (without all the data, mainly because of some major issues with my internet provider…).

Norris Trophy…

“The James Norris Memorial Trophy is an annual award given to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position. The winner is selected in a poll of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season.”

Contrary to popular opinion, this is not being renamed the “Nicklas Lidstrom Trophy.” Lidstrom is, of course, a finalist. That makes nine of the last ten years he has been so honored. He’s won the trophy in five of the last six years (Scott Niedermayer will be the answer to a trivia question on this subject). Dion Phaneuf and Zdeno Chara fill out the requirement that there be three finalists. It won’t matter. Not even Ovechkin winning the Hart is this much of a betting certainty.

Nicklas Lidstrom
_______

Selke Trophy…

“The Frank J. Selke Trophy is an annual award given to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game. The winner is selected in a poll of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season.”

If one looks back on the winners of this award, it is quite a mix of style. Dirk Graham won this award in 1991 with 45 points. Sergei Fedorov won it three years later scoring 120 points. Is it a grit guy? A guy who piles up big plus-minus numbers? There is probably no more subjective award in the suite of honors the league bestows on its players. This year, we have two Red Wings – Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk – and the Devils’ John Madden as finalists. The disparity of style that has marked this award is evident in the selection of these finalists. Datsyuk led the league in plus-minus (+41), but perhaps has been thought of often in his career as more than a high-end skills guy. Zetterberg was fourth in the league in plus-minus and comes to the party with something of a more developed reputation as a two-way player, although this was a career year for him in scoring. John Madden is a former winner (the only one in this group) and is perhaps more of the image one gets when one thinks of the award – a shutdown guy for whom any scoring is gravy.

If this award was voted upon now (as opposed to limiting it to the regular season), Zetterberg is the winner. But, this being a regular season award…

Pavel Datsyuk
_____

Lady Byng Trophy…

“The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy is an annual award given to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability. The winner is selected in a poll of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season.”

“Gentlemanly conduct” in a game that has fisticuffs (to use the term of preference in the rule book) shot through its culture is one of those “hockey only” idiosyncrasies that make this sport unique. For us, it has a “who cares” aspect to it (like a “Georgia Frontiere Award” for gentlemanly play in the NFL). But looking at the roster of winners over the years – a Wayne Gretzky, a Ron Francis, a Paul Kariya, a Mike Bossy, and even Pavel Datsyuk the past two years – it is an accomplished group of players. So are these finalists – Martin St. Louis, Datsyuk and Jason Pominville.

Among the three, Pominville and Datsyuk tied for the fewest penalty points, and that impresses us as much as anything else as a reason to select a winner. On “points,” as it were…

Pavel Datsyuk
_____

Masterton Trophy…

“The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is an annual award under the trusteeship of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association and is given to the National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. The winner is selected in a poll of all chapters of the PHWA at the end of the regular season.”

Look back over the winners of this award, and you’ll find some of the toughest guys ever to pull on a sweater – Gary Roberts, Cam Neely, Ken Danyeko, Lanny McDonald, to name a few. You’ll also see some players who came back from health or injury issues to excel at the highest levels of the sport – Mario Lemieux, Pat LaFontaine, Bryan Berard, Bobby Clarke. This year’s finalists – Jason Blake, Fernando Pisani, and Chris Chelios – certainly can claim to be qualified. But the oddity is in the last five years of the award. It seems to have alternated between those who have dealt with health/injury issues (Saku Koivu, Bryan Berard, Phil Kessel) and those who, for lack of a better term, might fall under the “dedication” criteria (Teemu Selanne, Steve Yzerman). This year, it’s dedication’s turn…

Chris Chelios

The Awards -- The Hart Trophy

The Hart Trophy for the league’s most valuable player is accompanied by the following citation:

“The Hart Memorial Trophy is an annual award given to the player judged to be the most valuable to his team. The winner is selected in a poll of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association in all NHL cities at the end of the regular season.”

The finalists are…







Jarome Iginla, Calgary Flames








Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins










Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals





This being the biggest of the individual post season awards, it is perhaps also surrounded by the most controversy regarding what constitutes “value?” Does a player’s team have to make the playoffs to be deemed worthy of consideration? Is this for the “best” player?

Every voter and every fan probably has their own take on those questions, and they might come up with a few more questions of their own. For our purposes, we take that phrase “most valuable to his team” quite literally. And, we tend to think a player needs to be on a playoff squad to be worthy of consideration, but it is not a hard and fast rule. Finally, as suggested by our literal take on the citation, this is not the award for the best player (we think that is the object of the Pearson Award, and this discussion will suffice for a pick for that award as well).

So, what about these finalists?

Jarome Iginla is everything anyone could want in a hockey player, as a professional athlete, and a role model for the sport. Talented, tough, a stand-up guy in the crunch, a fine spokesperson for the sport. This year, he played in all 82 games, posting his second 50-goal season (good for third in the league. He also had 98 points (3rd), was +27 (tied for 9th), had 15 power play goals (tied for 8th), had nine game-winning goals (tied for third), and had two overtime game-winners (tied for 4th). He wasn’t shy about dropping the mitts, either, having engaged in five bouts this season.

The foundation of Iginla’s value is two-fold. First, there is his consistency. Here are his ten-game splits for the year:



In no ten-game segment did Iginla have fewer than 10 points. In none did he have fewer than five goals. In only one was he a minus player. He was involved in 43 percent of the Flames’ goals this year and scored 22 percent of them himself.

Second, there is his durability. He plays a high-tempo, physical game, but has never played fewer than 70 games in his 11 years in the league. This year he played in all 82 games for the fifth time in his career.

How does this get reflected in his value? Well, one way to look at it is in his utter domination of Calgary’s statistics…

First in goals – by 20 over the next highest Flame
First in assists – by five
First in points – by 32
First in power play goals – by one
First in game-winning goals – by four
First among forwards in time-on-ice – by almost three full minutes

Iginla is one of those players on whose back a bulls-eye rests. It is not as if he toils for an otherwise gifted Calgary team. It is, as one would expect of a 94-point team, competent and occasionally dangerous. But it can be, and has been at times, challenged in the offensive end (14th in goals-per-game). Iginla – who also serves as captain – is the night in and night out go-to guy. He wears that responsibility very well. Without his contributions, Calgary is probably not a playoff team in the West. He is unquestionably the most valuable Flame and among the most valuable players for his team in the league.

Evgeni Malkin was the “consolation prize” of the 2004 entry draft – the “1A” pick to Alex Ovechkin being selected first by Washington. Pittsburgh is not crying, for Malkin showed why some (though certainly not most) observers of the 2004 draft class had him rated ahead of Ovechkin. Finishing with a line of 47-59-106, +16, Malkin’s case rests more on his having assumed a larger share of the offensive burden in the absence of Sidney Crosby when Crosby missed time with an ankle injury, and being able to consistently produce at a high level to take the pressure off the club in the absence of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury when he was injured. It is a strong case – to a point.

Including the night Crosby was injured against Tampa Bay (in which he played only 4:27), Malkin had to assume the top center role for 22 games. In that span, he was 14-22-36, +5. That projects to a 52-82-134, +19 pace over a full season. More to the point, when the Penguins were given up for dead – or at least thought of as having their playoff hopes badly crippled – they went 11-7-4.

But, the Hart Trophy is awarded to the player “judged to be the most valuable to his team.” While Malkin was posting his numbers in Crosby’s absence, there was another player filling in for an injured star at a critical position.

Marc-Andre Fleury was injured in a game against Calgary on December 6th. From that point until Fleury’s return on February 28th, Ty Conklin filled in. Did he ever. He went 17-4-5, 2.19, .933. It is worth noting that at the time of his injury, Fleury was 9-8-1, 2.90, .902. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that while Malkin stepped up in Crosby’s absence and put up some gaudy numbers, Conklin saved the Penguins’ season. Is Malkin clearly the most valuable player on his own team this year? Absent a definitive “yes” to that question, he would seem lacking in this field of finalists.

Alex Ovechkin’s performance this year has been chronicled in a lot of places. He is called by many close to the game (although perhaps not by most) hockey’s best player. But this is not a “best player” award, by our criteria. We noted Iginla’s case for value to his team. Ovechkin has that case to make as well.

Consistency? If one looks at his ten-game splits, in only one of them did he score fewer than 13 points. In none did he score fewer than six goals, and in only one of his last six did he score fewer than eight. It is part of the remarkable consistency exhibited thus far in his brief career. He was involved in 47 percent of the Caps’ goals this year and scored 27 percent of them himself.

Durability?...In three years, Ovechkin has missed one game (he played in all 82 games this year). Given that he was 6th in the league among forwards in hits, his ability to dress and deliver night after night is amazing.

Domination?...

First in goals – by 39 over the next highest Capital
Second in assists (Nicklas Backstrom led him, 55-48)
First in points – by 43
First in power play goals – by 12 (his 22 led the league)
First in game-winning goals – by seven (his 11 led the league)
First among forwards in time-on-ice – by almost four full minutes

But there is another dimension to Ovechkin’s performance – his domination over the rest of the league in what is arguably the first element in the job description of a first-line winger – scoring goals. Where do his league-leading results stand in relation to the second place finisher, and how does fit into the context of the recent history of goal scoring in the league?

For example, Ovechkin led the league with 65 goals, the first time a player had at least 60 goals in a season since Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr turned the trick for the Penguins in the 1995-1996 season. Well, that’s half the story. Ovechkin’s 65 goals led second place Ilya Kovalchuk by 13 goals. Put another way, Ovechkin scored 25 percent more goals than his closest competitor. Kovalchuk’s 52 goals was the average number of goals for the league leader in the previous ten seasons. Ovechkin shattered that mark.

There is also the matter of Ovechkin as the go-to player for his club. In the Caps’ 43 wins, Ovechkin was a remarkable 45-30-75, +41. But after the trading deadline, when the Caps were playing what amounted to an elimination game most every night, he was 17-13-30, +19 in 19 games as the Caps went 15-4-0 to finish the season. And, Ovechkin’s points were at least the margin of victory in 22 of the Caps’ 43 wins. If the Caps were without Ovechkin and lost half of those games, it is the difference between a 94-point season and a top-three seed, and another season wallowing around the 70-point mark, pondering a lottery draft pick.

Frankly, this race was settled when the Caps made the playoffs, if not before. What Iginla brings to the debate, Ovechkin has more of (except the fighting part, but Ovechkin is the bigger hitter – 6th in the league in hits among forwards versus tied for 81st for Iginla). As valuable as Iginla was to the Flames (and none of this argument should be interpreted as a litany of Iginla’s faults – he is one of our favorite players in the league), Ovechkin was more so. It is unlikely that Calgary would have been a playoff team in the West, absent Iginla’s performance. There is no conceivable way the Caps would have been within several time zones of a playoff spot without Ovechkin – the Caps would still have been too green in experience to make up the difference.

We have not forgotten Malkin in this discussion, but he is not as clearly the most valuable player on his team that Iginla was for the Flames or Ovechkin was for the Capitals.

This should not be a hard race to handicap. The only mystery at this point is the margin of victory in points. The league’s best and most valuable player for the 2007-2008 season is…

Alex Ovechkin

Eggs...Basket

There has been considerable speculation over the likelihood that the Pittsburgh Penguins can keep their core group together as they come up for new contract deals. Players such as Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Jordan Staal will be interesting decisions for the Penguin front office to ponder over the next 13 months or so (Malkin and Staal becoming RFAs after next season).

And, the Penguins took a roll of the dice in trading for Marian Hossa from Atlanta as possibly only a rental in an effort to bolster a Stanley Cup run that found them falling just short of the prize.

Well, now enter another factor -- draft position.

The NHL has the complete draft order up at NHL.com, and one thing that caught our eye was that the Penguins do not select until the 120th pick (4th round) in the upcoming entry draft -- by way of comparison, the Caps have six picks (23, 45, 57, 58, 84, 93) before Pittsburgh's first selection -- and only have four picks in the entire draft, absent any wheeling and dealing.

Add to this the fact that the Penguins moved last year's first round pick -- Angelo Esposito -- to Atlanta in the Hossa trade (along with this year's first-rounder and a couple of mid-20's players in Colby Armstrong and Erik Christensen), and the Penguins have a couple of years worth of holes at the top of the draft.

Of course, it is entirely possible that the Penguins will end up with gems in guys like Carl Sneep or Keven Veilleux (second round selections in 2006 and 2007, respectively), and they could pull off some deals in the next 10 days to improve their draft position. But with most -- if not all -- of their high-end prospects already on the Pittsburgh roster, they could have some gaps in their developmental pipeline with the moves made to go for the Cup this year. Maybe all the eggs weren't in the 2008 basket, but a fair number of them seem to have been there.

Ray Shero seems a very capable and talented executive, which will make what Pittsburgh does -- at the draft and as free agency season opens -- very interesting to watch.

Awards -- The Vezina Trophy

This year's Vezina Trophy is another of those close competitions among three goalies who were the rocks upon which their clubs built successful seasons. As for the trophy itself...

"The Vezina Trophy is an annual award given to the goalkeeper adjudged to be the best at this position as voted by the general managers of all NHL clubs."

The finalists are:

Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils

Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers








Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose Sharks





If there is an emerging theme in this year’s awards, it is that the finalists took different roads to earn a spot in the final three. The finalists for the Vezina certainly fit that description. Brodeur is a three-time winner and perennial contender for this award (he has been a finalist eight times). Lundqvist finds himself here for the third time in his three-year career – he has not yet won. Nabokov finds himself here for the first time in his eight seasons with San Jose.

Brodeur’s season – excellent in its own right – represents another in a career of sustained excellence:

- It was his seventh (and third consecutive) 40-plus win season (44).
- It was his seventh season with a GAA below 2.20 (2.17).
- It was his sixth season with a save percentage of at least .915.
- It was his eleventh (and tenth consecutive) season with at least 4,000 minutes played.


What made Brodeur’s performance more remarkable this year is that he did it in front of a club that finished 27th in goals-scored-per-game. There was an odd aspect to Brodeur’s game this year, however – a bit of streakiness. Brodeur had six streaks of at least three wins this year, six of at least three losses (five of at least three consecutive regulation losses). The difference was that while he had one streak of more than three consecutive losses (four, from March 21st through March 27th), he had three of more than three consecutive wins – two five-game streaks and an eight-game streak.


What seems odd about Brodeur’s performance this year is his having started and – more important – finishing with diminishing returns as the season came to an end. In his first ten games, he was 4-6-0, 2.93, .887. If you play for a club with a high-powered offense, those GAA and SV numbers aren’t awful, but New Jersey isn’t a high-powered offense, and those numbers are most certainly not Brodeuresque. His next five 10-game splits, however, were (for the most part) a return to the form one would expect from him:


2nd ten: 5-4-1, 1.92, .923
3rd ten: 7-2-1, 2.22, .917
4th ten: 8-2-0, 1.41, .948
5th ten: 4-5-1, 2.73, .904
6th ten: 7-1-2, 2.02, .933


It was at that point that the wheels, if they weren’t coming off, weren’t getting the same traction. From that 2.02 GAA and .933 save percentage in his 51st-through-60th games, his GAA went up and his save percentage down in his next ten games (2.12, .926), and again in the seven games to finish the regular season (2.25, .914). By themselves, those numbers are hardly bad – it might impress some that we’re picking nits -- but compared to those 50 games in the middle of the season, they were a half-step back.


Nabokov looks for all the world – in his overall performance – like the Pacific time zone version of Brodeur…



The difference is not so much in the totals as it is in how Nabokov got there. His season breaks somewhat neatly into three parts. In the first part – his first 40 games – Nabokov was 22-12-6, 2.01, .916. In his last 37 games, he had a better win/loss record -- 24-9-2 – but slipped in the other measures: 2.29 and .901. Within that last 37 games he had a stretch of 17 games from February 21st through April 1st in which he was 15-0-1 (with one no-decision), 1.87, .915.

Like Brodeur, Nabokov played for a team that was at times offensively challenged (San Jose finished 19th in goals-per-game, New Jersey was 27th). Nabokov had little margin for error in many games, and he (like Brodeur) was expected to go just about every night.

One area in which Nabokov did not measure up to Brodeur (and it really…really pains us to say this) is in the Gimmick. Where Brodeur was 8-4 with a .744 save percentage, Nabokov was 6-6, .550.


Henrik Lundqvist makes his third consecutive appearance among the finalists for this award, and if anyone can say of a player playing in New York City that he had a season of quiet excellence, it would be Lundqvist. With the soap opera that accompanies sports in New York (“soap” being another term for “Jaromir Jagr” in this instance) swirling around him, he managed to finish with 37 wins (tied for fourth), a 2.23 GAA (6th), .912 save percentage (15th among goalies playing more than half of their teams’ games), more than 4,300 minutes (5th), and ten shutouts (1st…no small feat given Columbus’ Pascal Leclaire’s efforts in that area this year).


Looking at his season, Lundqvist started and finished fast, with a bit of a lull in-between. In his first 20 games, as the Rangers were struggling to score goals, Lundqvist still managed an 11-8-1 record. Only six times in that opening stretch did Lundavist allow more than two goals en route to a 1.79 GAA and .931 save percentage. In his last 22 games, he was 13-3-5 (with one no-decision), 1.92, .925.


For the season, Lundqvist posted or tied personal career highs in wins, shutouts, and goals-against average. And, he played for a more offense-challenged squad than did Nabokov (the Rangers were 25th in goals-per-game; San Jose 19th), and almost as challenged as New Jersey (27th).


Here is your fun Lundqvist fact – he finished dead last in the NHL in penalty shot save percentage (.333, with one save in three shots faced).


While Lundqvist is arguably, at this point in his career, the goalie one would want on the ice for one big game, he is probably a notch below Nabokov and Brodeur in this race. And while Nabokov raised his game considerably over his career performance to date, there is the smallest sliver of light separating his performance this year from that of Martin Brodeur. We went back and forth on this choice almost on a game to game basis over the last couple of months, but in the end, our choice for the Vezina would be…


Martin Brodeur

Awards -- The Calder Trophy

Since this week is awards week, we take a hiatus (what do you call what you’ve been doing lately, Peerless?) from the end-of-year review to look at another award…

"The Calder Memorial Trophy is an annual award given to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League. The winner is selected in a poll of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association at the end of the regular season."

This year’s finalists are:

Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Capitals

Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks

Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks

This is a hard one. These guys change places, depending on what statistic you’re looking at (and when they’re not tied amongst themselves), more often than NASCAR drivers drafting one another at Darlington.

Points…
Goals…

Assists…

Plus/Minus…
Power play scoring…

Game-winners…
Overtime goals…
For us, the selection turns on the two words, “most proficient.” Accuse us of splitting hairs, if you will, but Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines “proficient” as:

“Well advanced in any branch of knowledge or skill; possessed of considerable acquirements; well-skilled; versed; adept.”

It’s fair to say that all of these players are “proficient,” if somewhat different in style. Backstrom, once he was installed on the top line in Washington, adopted the role of a traditional playmaker. Some will argue that having Alex Ovechkin on his left side made Backstrom’s job a lot easier. There would be some merit in that. As we noted in our look at Backstrom’s season…

“One could argue that [his assist production] was a product of playing with Ovechkin. In fact, of those eight assists Backstrom had in his first 20 games, only one (a secondary assist) came on a goal scored by Ovechkin. In his last 61 games, over which he had 47 assists, Backstrom had 20 assists on Ovechkin goals (12 primary, 8 secondary). But Backstrom found a way to get involved with the big scorers in general. He had nine assists on goals by Viktor Kozlov (three primary, five secondary) and eight more on goals by Alexander Semin (four of each type). That’s 37 of 47 assists in his last 61 games to three of the top five goal scorers on the team. There is a certain chicken-and-the-egg aspect to this – were the goals scored because of Backstrom’s contributions, or were Backstrom’s assists a product of good finishers. Well, probably both, but Backstrom’s production improved in that aspect of the game for which he is most heralded. Caps fans should be rather pleased with the result.”

But Backstrom’s effect might be told in the two-year lament regarding Ovechkin – if he had a true playmaking center…

The fact is, Backstrom – as a rookie – was a considerable improvement as a playmaking center over Dainius Zubrus and the supporting cast that manned the pivot on the top line when Zubrus wasn’t there. Ovechkin turned from a 50-goal scoring phenom into a 65-goal scoring monster. And in the meantime, Backstrom represented himself well in other aspects of the game, most notably his plus-13 for the year, including +16 in his last 20 games.

Kane presents a different set of credentials. He started strong (13 points in his first ten games) and finished strong (13 points in his last dozen games). However, he was very consistent in between, averaging eight points per ten games in those middle 60 games. It is also worth noting that four of his last eight goals were game winners.

For someone as slightly built as Kane (listed at 5’10”, 163 pounds), he was – as noted – remarkably consistent over the six month grind of an NHL season and played in all 82 games, averaging more than 18 minutes a night (fifth among Chicago forwards). He also led his club in assists and total scoring, was tied for second in both power play and game-winning goals, and was second on the team in total shifts taken. He was – as a rookie – the go-to player on offense for the Blackhawks. What might stand improvement is what a lot of rookies must deal with, and that is being as solid in his own end as in the offensive end. He was tied for next-to-last on the club in plus-minus on a club where 15 players were on the plus side of the ledger.

Toews presents another set of credentials – and a different problem. First, the problem. He missed 16 full games from January 1^st to February 10^th. When he went on the shelf, he was 15-17-32, +5 through 36 games. While his numbers slumped ever so slightly upon his return (9-13-22, +6, in 28 games), he ended the season having scored at a rate comparable to Kane – his 64-game totals work out to a 31-38-69, +14. And, even having played only 64 games, only two rookie centers took more draws (Martin Hanzal and Brandon Dubinsky). Only two rookie centers had a better winning percentage on draws than did Toews (David Steckel and Kamil Kreps – among rookies taking more than 500 draws). Toews’ plus-11 was sixth on the Blackhawks.

What we can’t get past with respect to Toews, though, is the effect of his absence. Chicago was 5-10-2 in the 17 games he missed (including the January 1^st game, in which he played only 3:25 before leaving with the injured knee). That stretch might have cost the Blackhawks a playoff spot , having finished three points out of the top-eight in the West.

There is no comparable measure in looking at Backstrom or Kane, since both played in all 82 games. But, by the same token, the award is for proficiency. We do not think that absence due to injury should be a disqualifying element in the same fashion it might for the Hart (if one thinks that a player needs to be available to be valuable). There is no clear winner here; all of the finalists can stake a claim to the award. But merely in terms of proficiency in all aspects, if we had a vote, it would go to…

Jonathan Toews

According to the "market," Ovechkin is your Hart winner

Don't tell me, tell the Caps. They had it at their online merchandise site.

thanks to The Official for the news...

Congratulations, Red Wings...and yes, you too, Penguins

It was not a final for the ages, much as the league would like to have had between the traditional powerhouse in Detroit and the emerging club in Pittsburgh. But it was entertaining, and in many respects displayed some of what makes hockey unique among team sports.

Henrik Zetterberg staked his claim to being the best two-way player in the sport.

Ryan Malone defined grit, having his nose broken not once, but twice, eschewing a visor and skating his regular shifts.

Nicklas Lidstrom was hardly noticeable -- the greatest compliment I can think of for the player who exhibits the ultimate definition of the term, "hockey sense." And, he adds a first -- the first European captain to skate around the ice carrying the Stanley Cup.

Dan Cleary became the first Newfoundland native to skate on a Cup-winner.

Marc-Andre Fleury shook off previous disappointments in his playoff performances and took the club as far as he could.

Chris Osgood was good often, great when he needed to be.

Sidney Crosby did not disappoint in his first final...as a Caps fan it is hard to say this, but one suspects it won't be his last.

Tomas Holmstrom, Sergei Gonchar, Johan Franzen, Petr Sykora, and a host of others played hurt and beaten from the two month grind, but you couldn't drag them off the ice with a Zamboni.

It's over...when does training camp start?

Metro...The Fifth Circle of Hell

Yesterday, I had the occasion to leave downtown for suburban Virginia at about 3:45 pm. I entered the Metro station to board my Orange Line train, as I have done regularly for years. But as I descended into the station on the escalator, I realized…this day would be different.

The disembodied voice echoing through the station was reporting that westbound Orange Line trains were carrying passengers only as far as the East Falls Church station, due to debris and power lines in the tracks. Then, The Voice uttered the two words that send shivers down the spines of riders across the region…”shuttle buses,” as in “there will be shuttle buses between East Falls Church and West Falls Church.”

With great trepidation, I boarded the westbound train for whatever adventure awaited me. At each stop along the way, the driver of the train reminded passengers of the outage between the Falls Church stations, and reassured passengers that Metro was on the case with shuttle buses waiting to ferry passengers to West Falls Church. One could see from the looks on the faces of passengers that those reassurances were being treated with skepticism.

The train emerged haltingly from the bowels of Ballston with dark skies overhead and bumper-to-bumper traffic on either side of I-66. The train inched along, delayed as single tracking ahead caused inbound trains to block our way. Finally, we got to East Falls Church, where trains emptied, escalators backed up, and faregates were clogged with people trying to exit the station.

4:10…Shuffling along with the herd, I made it to the bus stop, where there were…no buses. Not only were there no buses, there was only one sign directing passengers to where they were supposed to be, and that was inside the station. Once outside, one followed the crowd. And oh, what a crowd it was. It would have been one of the larger crowds for a hockey game in December. Spilling over into the exit lanes for buses, commuters looked in vain for a bus.

Meanwhile, Metro transit police were milling about, talking to one another, standing around, and generally doing nothing to direct crowds or to even control them. One officious dweeb in particular (whose name I did not get, but who I will refer to as Officer Shortpants, for the blue shorts he was wearing) was walking up and down the line, strutting as if he was chief of police and making jokes about the situation.

“Where are the buses?”…they’re coming, we were told. Finally, a bus – note the singular – arrived. Having no designated place to stop to take on passengers, the driver merely stopped arbitrarily in front of what I suppose he thought was the thickest part of the crowd. What ensued was a rush that looked like several hundred Rosie O’Donnell’s unleashed on an all-you-can-eat buffet. It was not pretty.

Eventually, the bus filled and groaned with the weight as it rolled away from the bus stop. What it took away made barely a dent in the crowd, now growing as trains rolled into the station above. This scene repeated itself often…a bus would arrive, stop somewhere along the line of people waiting, stand as the throng rushed forward, then crawl away.

In the meantime, Officer Shortpants was strutting, police were walking about with no apparent purpose, people were muttering, and clouds were gathering. One commuter cracked, "someone's going to jail tonight," a reference to the possibility of one (or many) commuter going off.

5:15…Finally, one transit police officer took – for lack of a better term – “charge,” and directed incoming buses to pull to the front of the bus loading area to take on passengers. Unfortunately, those buses had to compete with regular line buses arriving and departing. So, to the extent they were held up, wherever they stopped, that is where they took on passengers. The drivers didn’t know any better…no one gave them any direction (Officer Shortpants playing to the crowd and paying no attention to the buses).

People were getting angry and wondering how far it was to walk to West Falls Church. When asked – pointedly – why buses were being allowed to take on passengers at the back of the bus departure area instead of the front, where most people had been waiting for over an hour and where another officer said they would be stopping, Officer Shortpants replied with arms spread wide, “what do you want me to do?”

Well, that was one answer he could have given, but it wasn’t one that made anyone happy, or made anyone think that the Metro Transit Police could control anything bigger than a one car parade.

5:45…the rain clouds have returned, and people are openly discussing hijacking a bus. I watched as one transit police officer (the same one who told the crowd that buses would be directed to the front of the bus loading area) told a colleague that they needed help. The colleague, a rather fit looking fellow looking all the part of a modern, young law enforcement official, blurted, “go tell the supervisor to get over here to help.” Makes one wonder…with a crowd of several hundred or more milling around in disorganized fashion, with no apparent rhyme or reason to how buses were arriving, taking on passengers, or departing, just where was that supervisor?

6:00…finally. Another officer commandeered an Annandale-bound bus and directed the driver to make a detour to the West Falls Church station, which allowed some of us who had been at the station for almost two hours to make some progress toward our destination.

We did not get to West Falls Church until almost 7:00 (there were pedestrians, in a driving rain, actually passing our bus as it was inching along in traffic), and I didn’t actually “get there,” at least not in the bus. A few blocks from the station, with the bus stalled in traffic, the West Falls Church-bound group on the train got out and walked the rest of the way. At the station, I waited another hour for my commuter bus to take me to Loudoun County. Just before 9:00 pm, more than five hours after I left downtown, I was home, still soaked to the skin from the heat and the rain, and having missed the first period of the Stanley Cup final game I was looking forward to watching.

I can appreciate that there will be acts of nature that will make what is usually an uneventful commute a nuisance, or even a nightmare. What I cannot accept is that Metro has no discernible contingency plan for a station out of service (one cringes at what must pass for Metro's plan for a homeland security event). I don’t fault the drivers of the buses – they had no direction. I don’t even fault the transit police (except the feckless Officer Shortpants, who should be dismissed, or confined to a desk filling out forms for the duration of his career) – they had no procedures. No, the fault lies with the management of the system, which lacks the imagination, talent, or desire to plan for contingencies such as that which interrupted service yesterday.

The irony was watching buses gorged with passengers passing by and a sticker pasted on the window of each bus asking "why travel any other way?" Well, yesterday offered an answer. It was an embarrassment for Metro.

The 2007-2008 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Chris Clark

And the last winger we’ll look at…

Chris Clark

Theme: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘it might have been!’”

Chris Clark played 18 games this season. In his 17^th game – on November 28^th – he hit some bad ice (although on the Verizon Center surface this year, “some” applies more to the patches of good ice one might have found), injured his groin, and saw his season go up in a spray of snow (he played one more game – nine minutes on January 13^th that saw him leave the ice for the last time this season after one shift in the third period of a 6-4 loss to Philadelphia).

It was a waste on a lot of levels. His abbreviated ten-game splits (ok, one split and part of another) suggest he was on his way to a season that would have constituted a step back from his previous two seasons, each of which saw him set personal career highs in goals scored. But the statistics are a bit misleading...

In Clark’s first seven games, he failed to register a single point and was minus-2. This might have been a function of his playing mostly third-line minutes with a struggling Matt Pettinger or a defense-oriented Boyd Gordon. While such a line looked as if it could provide some offensive punch – on paper – at the start of the year, it was not getting the hoped-for results.

On October 24^th, Clark was returned to the top line, where he set those personal highs the previous two years. He responded immediately, with two goals on three shots in a 5-3 win against Tampa Bay. That set off a 10-game stretch in which Clark went 5-3-8, +2. He was looking like the Clark of the previous two seasons. But it was in that tenth game in which he skated off – seven minutes into the third period – with the injury that would essentially end his season.

What the season would have looked like if Clark had not been injured is hard to speculate about. The top line of Ovechkin-Nylander-Kozlov on opening night in Atlanta became Ovechkin-Nylander-Clark in late October, then became Ovechkin-Backstrom-Kozlov when Nylander went on the shelf. Would Clark have been a more productive right wing on the top line than Viktor Kozlov? Hard to say. Kozlov didn’t put up extraordinary numbers (they were consistent with his career averages), but is perhaps a more adept puck handler than Clark and a good fit for the games Ovechkin and Backstrom play.

The interesting part now becomes what happens in the fall. Clark has a new contract taking effect in 2008-2009, and he could end up on the right side on any of the top three lines. With Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kozlov, Nylander, and Semin all being of the top-six forward specie; with Sergei Fedorov perhaps returning; and with Tomas Fleischmann and Eric Fehr competing for time on those lines, it is hard – at the moment – to see Clark on either of the top two lines. But we said that last summer, too. And Clark didn’t miss a beat when he was moved to the top line in October…

“What might have been” is what 2007-2008 was for Clark. It was a waste, a product of bad ice and bad luck, and for that, Clark gets…

Incomplete

The 2007-2008 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Eric Fehr

We’re getting to the end of the look at wingers over the past year, and that brings us to…

Eric Fehr

Theme: “Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Eric Fehr was on a steady rise through his apprenticeship after being selected 18^th overall in the 2003 entry draft. In his last two years of junior hockey following his selection by the Caps, Fehr had seasons of 50 and 59 goals with Brandon in the Western Hockey League. He followed that up with a respectable 25 goals in 70 games in his first year as a pro at Hershey, then 22 goals in 40 games with the Bears the following season.

Then, in February 2007, Fehr came up lame. An injury that defied treatment and (at least for disclosure purposes) diagnosis kept Fehr on the shelf for the better part of a full year, interrupting what seemed like a steady march from juniors to the right side of the top line of the Caps. Eventually diagnosed (or disclosed) as a herniated disk, the injury threatened to delay significantly, if not completely derail Fehr’s future with the Caps. But he returned to the ice to play 11 games in Hershey and 23 with the Caps in 2007-2008. Those 23 games with the parent club were not especially noteworthy…

* three games

…but his return to the ice was the key. He had to come back before he could succeed. There were, however, two games that might have given Caps fans a hint of things to come. The first was his eighth game back, on February 26^th against Minnesota. It happened to be “deadline day,” and the story line that night had nothing to do with Eric Fehr (it was the Caps trading for a goalie and not trading the one they had). But Fehr had a goal and was on the ice for all four goals the Caps scored (finishing +4 for the night) in 11:58 of ice time in a 4-1 Caps win. Less than a week later, Fehr notched three assists in a 10-2 win over Boston in which he played 12:10.

Fehr will be turning 23 just about the time the Caps take the ice on the 2008-2009 season. If one looks at the 17 players selected ahead of Fehr in that 2003 draft, only the Rangers’ Hugh Jessiman has been more disappointing (for the same reasons, by and large – injuries). Except for Jessiman, who has yet to play in the NHL, Fehr has, by far, the fewest games played of the 18 players (48, compared to 112 for Montreal’s Andrei Kostitsyn). That is what the missing year has cost him.

Fehr is a restricted free agent, but it would seem unlikely that a healthy Fehr will be anywhere but in Washington next season. A goal scorer of his potential , who – absent injury – was on a steady upward climb to the NHL, doesn’t seem to be the sort of player the Caps will give up on. For both Fehr and the Caps, the quote from Buddha with respect to endurance seems relevant. The 2008-2009 season could be an important one in Fehr’s development and his future. But for his 2007-2008 season, the only result we can find in it is…

Incomplete

The 2007-2008 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Quintin Laing

And now…

Quintin Laing

Theme: “53 to block”

If Quintin Laing was a square on the game show, “Hollywood Squares,” no doubt you’d hear that a lot. For it is what Laing brings to the game – an uncanny ability to throw himself in front of speeding pucks. His statistics over 39 games do not leap off the page…

By any measure, he is a player who is likely to have to scratch and claw for a roster spot at the NHL level. So, he does what he can, and what he can do is block shots. Among forwards, Laing finished 23^rd in the league in blocked shots. But here is the amazing statistic – among the top 300 forwards in blocked shots, Laing was one of two to average more than one blocked shot per game, and his 1.33 blocked shots-per-game led all forwards among the top 300 in total blocked shots (the Blues’ Ryan Johnson deserves a nod here, finishing .004 blocked shots-per-game behind Laing…it really is a small group).

Laing also complemented that aspect of his game with some otherwise physical play, averaging 1.26 hits per game, seventh on the team and fifth among forwards (late-season acquisition Matt Cooke and injured Chris Clark not among those counted here, each having played fewer than 20 games with the Caps this season).

Unfortunately, Laing’s contributions are not as frequent at the other end of the ice. He was 1-5-6, +4 in his 39 games was the worst points-per-game average among all Caps forwards not named “Pettinger” (“Brashear,” too, but his role is unique on this club), as was his shooting percentage (one goal on 48 shots for 2.1 percent). However, his lone goal was a game-winner – December 10^th in a 3-2 win over New Jersey. Seeing as how the margin for the Caps making the playoffs was two points, that goal is as important as any in this season.

As noted above, Laing is likely to be one of those guys who is always going to struggle to stick on an NHL roster, especially on a contending team. It is worth noting that Laing played in only four games after the trading deadline, when the Caps upgraded their forwards with Sergei Fedorov and Matt Cooke. Of Laing, whose effort cannot be slighted, it might be said that one wishes his talent matched that effort -- he'd be one helluva player.

Laing is very good at one aspect of the game (blocked shots), decent at another (hits), but almost non-existent in others (scoring, passing). In grading, that makes for an A in one class, perhaps a B in another…and iffy grades for the rest of the “semester,” but some credit for the level of effort applied. It is with that in mind that for Laing, he grades out at…

C

Awards -- The Jack Adams Award

Since the awards presentations will be made in a couple of weeks, we thought we’d start weighing in on the candidates and our picks for several of them. We’ll start with the Jack Adams Award…

An annual award presented by the National Hockey League Broadcasters' Association to the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success. The winner is selected in a poll among members of the NHL Broadcasters' Association at the end of the regular season.

The finalists for this year include:

Mike Babcock, Detroit Red Wings

Bruce Boudreau, Washington Capitals

Guy Carbonneau, Montreal Canadiens

There are many ways to exhibit coaching excellence in the context of the Adams award, and the three finalists exhibit different forms of it. There is the coach who, with superior talent, keeps his team focused, happy, and productive, so as to make the most of that talent. That is Mike Babcock. There is the coach who led a non-playoff team in his first year behind the bench, but who has a lot of young talent at his disposal. He has to manage his operation in the most storied franchise in the sport in front of perhaps its most rabid fan following, leading them to the top spot in the conference. Guy Carbonneau is that coach. There is the coach of a team that was given up for dead before all the leaves had fallen from the trees last autumn, but led them back on an improbable run to the playoffs. Bruce Boudreau was the author of that accomplishment.

Long ago, when we were taking courses in management, the art of “management” was described as being able to put your people in the best position to succeed and achieve your organization’s goals. And what is coaching, but “management” of a specialized order? The “art” here would be to put your players in the best position possible to succeed and to win. In other words, to maximize the skills each player brings to the contest.

In that respect, it would be hard to overlook one coach, whose ability to evaluate and maximize his player’s skills stands in such stark contrast to his immediate predecessor. There is a “then and now” aspect to his performance that was a stunning as it was unexpected. The team he took over – comprised of considerable talent, if raw and inexperienced – was underperforming, even by the meek standards set by pundits who had the team on the playoff margin at best, being a lottery pick at worst.

They were dead last in the league.

And, they were boring in achieving that dubious distinction. Despite having some of the best young offensive talent in the game, they were averaging 2.2 goals per contest. They seemed to have resigned themselves to playing to their description as a poor defensive team, giving up 3.1 goals a game. After a three-game winning streak to start the season, they were on a 3-14-1 slide, during which they lost six games by at least three goals, while scoring two or fewer goals 12 times and getting shutout twice.

That was then. The front office decided a change was in order and summoned a long-time minor league coach (successful minor league coach, we hasten to add) to try to right the ship. Well, what happened? The club – under new management behind the bench – went 37-17-7 to finish the season and wrap up an unprecedented rags-to-riches finish, becoming the only team in NHL history to go from 14^th or 15^th in their conference during the season – they were 15^th when the new coach took over and 14^th at the season’s 41-game midpoint – to a playoff spot, winning their division in the process with the second-highest point total earned in the Eastern Conference since the Thanksgiving holiday break.

What did it? A complete overhaul of philosophy and approach. The club has some precocious offensive talent?...well, use it! The star player was 14-9-23, even, in 21 games before the coach arrived, 51-38-89, +28 in 61 games after. The heralded rookie?...1-8-9, -5, in 21 games before the coach arrived; 13-46-59, +18, in 61 games after. The defenseman with a nose for the net the coach had in the minors?...3-4-7, -8, in 21 games before; 15-33-48, +13, after. The result?...The team went from scoring 2.2 goals a game in the first 21 games to scoring 3.1 a game in the last 61 – a 40 percent improvement.

And the more aggressive offense had its effect at the other end of the ice as well. Keeping the puck on their own sticks left less time for the opposition to have it on theirs…the result was to drop the goals allowed per game average from 3.1 to 2.7 (1.9 since the trading deadline).

There isn’t a member of this trio of finalists who is undeserving of consideration. In fact, one might add a few other deserving coaches that did not make the finalist cut, despite a few of them no longer serving in that capacity – Ron Wilson in San Jose, Claude Julien in Boston, Joel Quenneville in Colorado, Michel Therrien in Pittsburgh, Craig MacTavish in Edmonton, Denis Savard in Chicago. It is a crowded field of fine candidates.

However, there is one coach whose performance is extraordinary, owing to the circumstances of his arrival – taking over a team that was perhaps days from its season being all but over in November and guiding it to the playoffs, who stands slightly above the others. While we would not have an argument with any of the other finalists winning, if we had a vote (and we’ll admit to bias), we’d pick…

Bruce Boudreau, Washington Capitals

The 2007-2008 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Donald Brashear

Next up for the wingers…

Donald Brashear

Theme: “My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.”

OK, the quote comes from the late actress Bette Davis, but was there any tougher character on the screen? As for Donald Brashear, we think he – and his fellow practitioners around the league – plays the toughest role of all in hockey, that of “enforcer.” Whether one is in favor of or is against fighting in the sport, it holds a unique – and some believe useful – place in the sport. We won’t opine on that.

What is beyond doubt, though, is that Donald Brashear remains one of the true heavyweights in the NHL. And does that give players like Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom a little more freedom to do what they do? We suspect it does, and in that respect, Brashear plays an important role on this team, regardless of how many points he might put up or what his plus-minus might be.

For the record, here are Brashear’s ten-game splits…

Brashear is not expected to generate a lot of offense, but on a team that looked to generate more offensive pressure than perhaps any of its recent predecessors, Brashear did not generate much. Points-wise, it was his lowest total (nine) in more than a decade (eight, in 1995-96, with Montreal). In terms of the less well-quoted statistics, Brashear was the biggest hitter on the team (0.21 hits per minute played). He also led the club in fighting majors (12).

But if physical play is to be a player’s contribution, there is a fine line between supplying that physical edge and taking undue, undisciplined liberties. On a couple of occasions, Brashear crossed that line this year, most notably in the late stages of a game on March 8^th in Boston. It was already a chippy game, following as it did the 10-2 whupping the Caps laid on the Bruins five days earlier. Brashear has already been involved in the second fight of the game only 14 seconds into the contest (Matt Bradley kicked things off at the five second mark). But late, the Caps were nursing a 1-0 lead when Brashear took a double minor for high-sticking, then compounded the problem by taking a roughing call. The Caps surrendered two goals on the extended five-on-three, and the Caps lost what might have been their most heartbreaking game of the year (had they not reached the playoffs), 2-1. That was a situation one would not have expected a veteran like Brashear to have a meltdown of that magnitude.

After that sequence, Brashear’s ice time was not reduced appreciably, and to his credit he played a much more disciplined game in the season’s final stretch. While he didn’t drop the gloves in those last dozen games he played after the Boston incident, he took only two inconsequential interference minors in those games (both games won by the Caps).

Brashear provides a measure of freedom for others to do what they do best. Perhaps the price to be paid for that is that from time to time, his style will be more a detriment than a positive. For the most part, Brashear was on that side of the line. And for that, he gets…

B-

From Mickey to the Gong Show, by way of...Melrose Place?

In 1984, after a 13-4 drubbing of the New Jersey Devils, the Edmonton Oilers' Wayne Greztky was famously quoted as follows, regarding the Devils...

"They're putting a Mickey-Mouse operation on the ice. It's ruining hockey."

A decade later, the Devils shed their mouse ears and won a Stanley Cup title.

Well, now a couple of others icons from entertainment history have been called to mind to describe another NHL team. James Mirtle evokes "Melrose Place" in describing unfolding events in Tampa as the Lightning go through a change in ownership, one which appears set to replace Coach John Tortorella with Barry Melrose -- yes, that Barry Melrose -- who last coached in the NHL when Gump Worsley was playing in goal (well, it just seems that way).

Meanwhile, Eric Duhatchek wonders if the situation won't turn into a "gong show" that will leave Vincent Lecavalier pondering the wisdom of signing on to a long-term contract extension with the Lightning.

Damian Cristodero lays out some of the particulars in this morning's St. Petersburg Times. There was one part of his article that caught our eye with respect to team management...

"Much depends on how OK Hockey divides responsibilities. How much will [incoming owner Oren] Koules be involved in hockey operations, not to mention the St. Pete Times Forum? What will [co-owner Len] Barrie's job be? Bet that [GM Jay] Feaster, who is somewhat shielded with three years left on his deal, and team president Ron Campbell will be watching."

"OK hockey?" From the looks of things, that might be the best Lightning fans can hope for, perhaps for quite a while. The Caps were 6-2 against the Lightning this past year, including wins in the last five meetings. It is hard to envision the Lightning improving on that next year, given what their team might look like.

It might take a long time to build a winner...the Devils after Gretzky's Mickey Mouse comment, and even the Lightning, which won the Stanley Cup in 2004 after many years at the bottom of the league. But we might be getting a lesson in just how quickly it can fall apart. The Lightning can't be any worse next year than last, having already finished 30th, giving them the pleasure of drafting Steve Stamkos in a few weeks. But they can be just as bad...

Does John Tavares like the beach?

The 2007-2008 season, by the "tens" -- Wingers: Matt Bradley

We’re back with another winger to look at…

Matt Bradley

Theme: “…gives a lickin' and it keeps on stickin'"

That’s a take on the old Timex watch jingle, but it seems to suit Bradley, who is as representative of the term “energy forward” as you’re likely to find anywhere. In a strange way, Bradley is a reflection of the change in philosophy on the part of the Caps that came with the coaching change, although part of what Bradley’s effect might have been could also be a product of the absence of Chris Clark for most of the season. The indicator is ice time.

Here are Bradley’s ten-game splits…

But here are Bradley’s ten-game splits for ice time…

Bradley consistently received more and more ice time as the season progressed. Of particular note, Bradley played in 16 of 21 games through Thanksgiving, and only twice did he receive more than ten minutes of ice time (and one of those was in a blowout 7-1 win in Toronto). Bradley played in all 61 games after the Thanksgiving break, and in only 23 of them did he play less than ten minutes (nine of those coming in the first nine games after the break…and the coaching change).

And why the jump in time?...Well, Bradley hits things. A lot. Alex Ovechkin is acknowledged as a big hitter among forwards, especially skill forwards. However, Bradley more than holds his own in that department. Ovechkin registered 220 hits in 82 games while averaging 23:06 in ice time a game. Sparing you the math, that works out to 0.12 hits per minute of ice time. Bradley, with 126 hits in 77 games averaging 9:59 of ice time a game, averaged 0.16 hits per minute of ice time. If he’s out there, he’s going to punish something.

It isn’t as if he was a stiff on offense, either. While not ever likely to assume the role of a top-six forward, he had two game winning goals this year. It might not sound like a lot, but it was as many as Alexander Semin had…Viktor Kozlov, too. It doesn’t include his game-winning goal scored in the 12^th round of the Gimmick, against Edmonton on January 17^th.

Bradley’s performance this year is also indicative of the benefits of getting supplemental scoring. In 41 Caps wins this year, Bradley was 7-10-17, +14. In 36 losses, he registered only an assist and was -13.

There is another statistic for Bradley that is surprising, and it cleaves into two parts. For someone as rambunctious in his style as Bradley, one might have expected he have more than 74 penalty minutes in 77 games. 50 of those minutes came as a result of ten fighting majors, second to Donald Brashear’s 12 (the Caps were 5-4-1 in games in which Bradley dropped the gloves). Only 24 minutes were earned – 12 minor penalties – otherwise. That was as many minor penalties as Nicklas Backstrom had.

It would be fair to say of Bradley that he is one of those unsung guys that earns a living toiling in the trenches. We can’t know if he likes that role (no kid grows up dreaming of mucking in the corners, we suspect), but it is one he seems to have embraced – gives a lickin’, and keeps on stickin’. And the Caps appear to have embraced him as well, rewarding him with a three-year, $3 million contract extension. Given his role and his ability to play intelligently within the confines of it, Bradley deserves a decent grade for this year…

B+