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Nothing to feel blue about in St. Louis
By Ross McKeon
September 27, 2009
No one accomplished more while facing as much adversity last season as the St. Louis Blues.
This was a team that wasn’t expected to compete for a playoff spot even before disaster struck for one of its youngest and brightest stars just before the start of training camp. Defenseman Erik Johnson, the first player drafted overall in 2006, tore his ACL and MCL when his right foot got caught between the accelerator and brake of a golf cart he was driving. The resulting knee surgery cost him what would have been the 6-foot-4, 220-pounder’s second season in the league.
Not long after the season started the injury bug bit again. Rehabbing from a second back surgery limited captain Eric Brewer’s availability to just 28 games, and expected leading scorer Paul Kariya got off to a great start with 15 points in 11 games, but he never played more than that after needing two surgeries for a bum hip.
Maybe because the maladies occurred so early in the season, the Blues managed to overcome the loss of three key contributors. Somehow, despite languishing in last place in the conference in mid-January, the Blues rallied to not only reach the Stanley Cup playoffs but also grab the sixth seed.
The Blues were amazing, going a league-best 25-9-7 in the second half while qualifying for the postseason for the first time in four seasons. Head coach Andy Murray displayed patience with his young core and pushed the veterans to get as much out of their experience as possible. Never mind the fact the Blues got swept in the opening round, they were the feel-good story of the NHL last season.
What the Blues really learned from last season is that David Backes is an emerging star. They learned that Chris Mason can take advantage of a second chance. They also learned that they’ve been drafting pretty darn smart lately as David Perron(notes), Patrik Berglund(notes) and T.J. Oshie would leave one to surmise.
The Blues cannot fall into the trap that simply adding the injured players back into the lineup will automatically improve the team and take it to greater heights. The challenge young teams face is first maintaining a certain level and building on top of it. St. Louis can certainly continue its success, but nothing will come easy, especially in the Central Division.
Last season: 41-31-10 (92 points). Third place in the Central Division, sixth place in the Western Conference and 15th in the overall standings. St. Louis was the third of four teams out of its division to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs – the Blues’ first visit in four seasons – where it lost in four straight against Northwest champ Vancouver.
Imports: D Brendan Bell (Ottawa) and G Ty Conklin (Detroit).
Exports: D Jay McKee (Pittsburgh) and D Jeff Woywitka (Dallas).
Re-signings: LW Keith Tkachuk, RW B.J. Crombeen, D Jay
McClement, D Mike Weaver( and LW Brad Winchester.
Salary cap: The Blues have approximately $52.6 million committed, a surprisingly high number considering the roster is seemingly full of younger players. Several veterans including Paul Kariya, Keith Tkachuk and Chris Mason are in the final year of their deals. St. Louis has about $8.4 million to play with, assuming the budget allows for the extra spending.
Three keys: While the future of the team definitely rests with a well-developed core of young draft picks, the Blues are going to need significant contributions from all of its veterans to maintain what they started last season.
Keith Tkachuk showed versatility by switching from wing to center and remained productive when the team needed it most. St. Louis will be looking for a bounce back from Paul Kariya. Andy McDonald could be a real boost, too, if he duplicates the near point-a-game pace he displayed last year while appearing in only 46 games.
Both Tkachuk and Kariya enter the final year of their contracts, so either it’s a going-away party for the pair or a time to earn another deal. Barret Jackman, Eric Brewer, Steve Mason and Ty Conklin will have to lead both on and off the ice, too, to keep the Blues in the hunt.
Brad Boyes has established himself as the offensive force on the team, not bad for a player who was shuttled around – Toronto, San Jose and Boston – before really being given a chance in St. Louis. Boyes has overcome a knock of being a poor skater to provide the Blues with a legitimate goal-scoring threat.
Boyes has 76 goals and 137 points over his last two seasons, failing to miss even one game. At age 27, he’s just now entering the prime of his career. Surrounded by a young, talented and close-knit group, Boyes could be primed to take his game to an even higher level.
The Blues didn’t lose a lot in the offseason – mainly just a pair of veteran defensemen – but it’s important to find a good mix on the blue line to help the goaltending duo of Chris Mason and Ty Conklin who had mostly been backups throughout their respective careers.
Eric Brewer needed arthroscopic knee surgery in late August, so he’ll get a later start to the regular season, but Erik Johnson is expected to return at full strength after missing all of last season. Combine the hard-nosed Jackman with Carlo Colaiacova, Roman Polak, Brendan Bell, Tyson Strachan and Mike Weaver, and the Blues have more depth at the position than in recent seasons. Rookie first-round pick Alex Pietrangelo(notes) is waiting in the wings, too.
On the hot seat: Erik Johnson has seen what all the other Blues’ recent first-round draft picks have accomplished, and while obviously a freak injury stalled his growth and contributions last season, he has to seize the opportunity to have a clean season and establish himself as the player most expect him to be, especially since it’s his final year of an entry-level contract.
Chris Mason has to prove he can continue to play as a No. 1 goalie.
Poised to blossom: T.J. Oshie got a lot more comfortable with his new-found NHL surroundings during the second half of last season, a development that should propel the 22-year-old into his sophomore year.
After Oshie healed from nagging ankle injuries early, he put together a stretch of scoring 34 points over his final 44 games. There’s no guarantee the lines will stay the same, but having Oshie center 21-year-old wingers David Perron and Patrik Berglund gives the Blues one of the most explosive young groups in the league that very few talk about.
Time has passed: Chris Mason had a nice rebound performance last season, but we’ve seen this act before. Mason pushed hard and won the starting role in Nashville once Tomas Vokoun headed off to Florida. But Mason did not perform up to the necessary standards.
Given another chance with the Blues after losing his job with the Predators, Mason played extremely well, especially in the second half last season when he went 24-8-6 with a 2.08 goals-against average and .924 save percentage. But Mason is 33 years old now, as is new St. Louis backup goalie Ty Conklin. Goaltending will be a key issue for the Blues to monitor.
Prediction: People tend to overlook the Blues, but there’s no reason why they can’t hang with every team in the division, and that includes the perceived big dogs in Detroit and Chicago. Look for St. Louis to finish at least third again, if not higher, by surprising everyone once again. And if they get great goaltending they could be a force in the postseason.
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Los Angeles Kings' decision to hire beat writer a new angle for hockey team, media — NHL franchise's move ensures there's at least one reporter always with the team
By Phil Rosenthal
September 27, 2009
In Los Angeles, trends are born or gain momentum all the time. Many never reach the mainstream, dissipating somewhere between Melrose and the windward side of the Rockies.
Some blow into the heartland, however, taking the nation by storm.
It's too soon to know whether pro hockey writer Rich Hammond's new job is the start of something bigger, but it bears watching in case it becomes a full-force cyclone upending things in its path.
The Los Angeles Kings beat writer for Media News' Los Angeles Daily News since 2000, Hammond has been hired by the Kings to cover the team for its LAKings.com Web site. Beginning this week, he'll report from all their games and practices, home and away, write feature stories, commentaries and more, including moving his popular blog over from the Daily News.
Unless you're a die-hard hockey fan, and particularly interested in the Kings, what makes this notable is that Hammond is being hired to ensure that there's at least one reporter always with the team. Times being what they are, and news budgets what they are, and hockey being what it is in Southern California -- that's hardly a given.
Hammond's marching orders are to report as if he weren't on the payroll, providing coverage for fans (and maybe absent reporters) with a style and authority a media relations staffer can't match.
Although teams have had staff announcers, this sort of reporting arrangement might have seemed preposterous a decade ago. New technology and economic realities for the media business have made it plausible. Now the question is whether it can be credible.
If a success, one has to wonder whether other would-be newsmakers -- in business, in entertainment, in government -- someday will decide this is the way to get news out and remain in the public eye should traditional news organizations no longer dedicate resources the way they did before the revenue crunch.
"In this changing world as it relates to the landscape and consumption of sports news content, we are making an organizational commitment to give our fans one place to go -- LAKings.com -- to satisfy their appetite for Kings news and information," Luc Robitaille, the team's president of business operations, said in the announcement.
"We feel this is a landmark step for us as Rich will have full editorial control."
The Chicago Bulls last year hired former Chicago Tribune basketball columnist Sam Smith to write for its Bulls.com site. The Chicago Bears have been beefing up video content and Larry Mayer's reports on ChicagoBears.com in an effort to make their site a more authoritative source of information for fans, rather than cede that sizable audience completely to other media outlets.
With that same goal, Major League Baseball has assembled a team of beat writers to cover teams for the Internet.
But to be taken seriously and make these efforts effective, independence is critical. If the audience senses it is being fed PR fluff, no one will waste their time, which means no unique visitors, no page views, no ad dollars.
Hammond, in his final Daily News blog post, wrote that nothing he writes about the Kings for the Kings "will be reviewed for approval by any member of the Kings' staff" and he "will not 'go easy' on the Kings out of any fear of retribution, just as I will not take gratuitous shots."
Hammond noted the Daily News, where I worked in the '80s and '90s, hadn't sent him on the road for the last four years. Even Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times doesn't staff every away game.
"The Kings have a passionate following here, but it's also limited," Times sports editor Mike James said by e-mail. "Still, it's an important beat, and we've devoted columnist Helene Elliott, who has been honored with a plaque in the Hockey Hall of Fame, to that coverage. And although we do not routinely travel with the team, Helene provides the kind of in-depth, informed reporting that I would match against that of any other outlet."
James sees the Kings' experiment as an interesting way for the team to keep its fans informed and engaged.
That can be a challenge when it's also L.A. Lakers, Clippers, UCLA and USC basketball season. And when it's open season on media budgets.
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Canucks hope depth will result in Stanley Cup
By Jim Morris
September 26, 2009
VANCOUVER, B.C. — One of the consistencies of the Vancouver Canucks over the last several seasons has been the NHL team's inconsistency.
Sandwiched between winning two Northwest Division titles is a year of missing the playoffs. Last season, the Canucks almost crippled themselves with an eight-game losing streak in January, then recovered to bolt down the stretch with a 23-7-2 record.
When Mike Gillis took over as general manager last year he promised to do things differently. Some of his ideas and moves may have initially raised eyebrows, but he seems to have brought an identity and stability to the franchise that has the players believing the Canucks are ready to challenge for a Stanley Cup.
"A year ago there wasn't an established identity of what this team was all about," said soft-spoken forward Ryan Johnson, one of the more analytical Canucks. "There were a lot of questions, a lot of new faces.
"Now, this team certainly has a sense of direction of what kind of team it wants to be and is going to be. We feel like we left a lot on the table last year and we're ready to pick it up from Game 1. I think you are going to see a much more mature team and a much more focused team."
The Canucks won their division last year with a 45-27-10 record. They swept the St. Louis Blues in the first round of the playoffs before losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in six games in the Western Conference semifinal.
The loss to Chicago exposed some of Vancouver's weaknesses. Gillis spent the summer re-signing the core of the team, bringing in a top forward, and adding speed and depth to the defence.
Goaltender Roberto Luongo was locked up with a 12-year, US$64-million contract. Swedish twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin, who each had 82-point seasons last year, agreed to five-year, US$30.5-million deals.
With his veterans in place, Gillis signed unrestricted free agent forward Mikael Samuelsson to US$7.5 million over three years. The former Detroit Red Wing brings the experience of winning a Stanley Cup along with the scoring potential of playing on a line with the Sedins.
After losing veteran defenceman Mattias Ohlund as a free agent, Gillis strengthened his blue-line by acquiring Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich from the San Jose Sharks and signing veteran Mathieu Schneider, another player who has won a Stanley Cup.
They join a defence that already has Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler, Willie Mitchell, Shane O'Brien and Sami Salo.
Gillis said the faster, stronger defence will help Vancouver offensively.
"We are seeing a lot more offence generated from our defence," said Gillis. "They are skating with the puck a lot more.
"I believe we are really an aggressive team. We have guys that can fight. I think we have the ability to change the course of a game on our terms."
Up front, the Canucks will rely heavily on the Sedins for offence. Vancouver also hopes players like Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Kyle Wellwood can match, or exceed, the career seasons they had in scoring last year.
Past Canuck teams often showed potential but sometimes lacked heart.
Coach Alain Vigneault believes that's no longer an issue.
"I think we've got better depth and that depth is going to permit us to handle the challenge of this year's schedule and also handle player injuries," said Vigneault, who has been rewarded with a three-year contract extension.
"We've always thought that we are a good team and that we are progressing. If we continue to progress, and we continue to get better, we should be able to challenge for the Cup."
Luongo said the Canucks have matured.
"We are all a year older," said the all-star goaltender. "We have been together now a few years.
"We're growing together as a team. I think that transition is going to be important this year to take another step forward."
Samuelsson, who had 19 goals and 40 points with Detroit last year, likes the Canucks' potential but warns about the task ahead.
"I see the potential, but at the same time 10 teams have the potential, even 20 teams," he said.
The 2010 Olympics coming to Vancouver presents special challenges to the Canucks.
Luongo is expected to play for Canada, the Sedins for Sweden and Kesler for the U.S.
The Canucks will also have an NHL-record, 14-game road trip sandwiched around the Games. Counting the break the league will take for the Olympics, fans will go six weeks without a Canuck home game.
O'Brien doesn't think the extended road trip should impact the team.
"I think we have enough character and mental toughness in here, I don't think that is going to be a problem," said the rugged defenceman. "If we put ourselves in a good situation going into that, by getting off to a good start and having a good first half, we should be all right."
Last year's playoff loss left an empty feeling in the Canuck dressing, something the team is anxious to fill.
"I think we are hungrier," said Mitchell. "We think we can beat anyone.
"This year there is the added element that we are a really motivated group from what we felt we left on the table. We're not happy about losing in the second round. We feel we are a team that can win the Stanley Cup."
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As new NHL season dawns, 10 games worth watching
By The Canadian Press
September 24, 2009
There will be 1,230 NHL regular-season games played between Oct. 1 and April 11 in such places as Stockholm, Helsinki and even Phoenix.
With so many different matchups to choose between in the coming months, The Canadian Press highlights 10 games that we'll definitely be watching:
Oct. 1, 2009 -- Vancouver Canucks at Calgary Flames: One of four games on the season's opening night features the two Canadian teams who appear to have the best chance to end the country's long Stanley Cup drought. The best part about it? Both will still be undefeated heading in.
Oct. 3, 2009 -- Pittsburgh Penguins at New York Islanders: First overall pick John Tavares plays his first NHL game and he'll do it against Sidney Crosby and the reigning Stanley Cup champs. As good as this matchup will be, hockey fans will be working their remotes hard on the first Saturday of the season -- all 30 teams are in action over a 10-plus hour period, starting with Florida-Chicago in Helsinki and ending with Phoenix opening its year in Los Angeles.
Oct. 10, 2009 -- Columbus Blue Jackets at Phoenix Coyotes: The Coyotes appear to be staying in Glendale for at least another season, but will anybody come out to watch them? The beleaguered team is selling all tickets to the home opener for $25 or less and encouraging fans to create a Winnipeg Jets-style whiteout at Jobing.com Arena.
Nov. 7, 2009 -- Detroit Red Wings at Toronto Maple Leafs: A classy gesture by the NHL to have the Red Wings pay a rare visit to Air Canada Center for the annual Hockey Hall of Fame Game. With former Detroit captain Steve Yzerman headlining a top-notch class that includes Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille, Brett Hull and Lou Lamoriello, there will be some added buzz as those men are feted during a matchup of Original Six rivals.
Dec. 1, 2009 -- Ottawa Senators at San Jose Sharks: This game would be even more intriguing if it was played at Scotiabank Place instead of HP Pavilion. Even still, there should be plenty of curiosity surrounding Dany Heatley's first matchup against the Senators since forcing his way out of Ottawa. An added level of intrigue comes from the fact it will be one of Heatley's last games before the Canadian Olympic team is selected.
Jan. 1, 2010 -- Philadelphia Flyers vs. Boston Bruins (at Fenway Park): While the outdoor game format might be losing some of its novelty, it should still be pretty cool to see the Green Monster towering over an NHL rink. This will be the third straight time the league has played outdoors on New Year's Day -- and the first two were a smashing success, particularly in the U.S.
Feb. 14, 2010 -- Anaheim Ducks at Edmonton Oilers: On the surface, this looks like a game that won't have much appeal to people who aren't fans of either the Ducks or Oilers. However, it's one the hockey world will be watching closely as it's the last game to be played before the NHL breaks for the Vancouver Olympics.
March 13, 2010 -- Ottawa Senators at Vancouver Canucks: It should be interesting just to see if the Canucks actually find their way back to GM Place. This will be the team's first game on home ice in 42 days -- a stretch that will see it go on a 14-game road trip while the arena is used for the Olympics and Paralympics. Wow.
March 22, 2010 -- Pittsburgh Penguins at Detroit Red Wings: The teams that played for the past two Stanley Cups renew acquaintances at Joe Louis Arena. It should evoke some positive memories for Crosby's crew as it will be their first trip back since a championship-clinching Game 7 in June.
April 11, 2010 -- TBD: With eight games scheduled on the final day of the regular season, at least one of them is bound to feature a team facing a do-or-die situation to make the playoffs. The NHL has enjoyed a fair bit of parity in recent years and the battle for postseason spots always seems to come down to the final day of the season.
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