CHÂTEAU LA PUCK

Flames Love?

chateaulapuck — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:12:08 +0000

The Calgary Flames are getting a lot of respect on boards and in early season predictions. I don’t see it.

Goal. The Flames get huge benefit of the doubt here. But why does everyone assume they are so solid in net with Kipper? Answer: because he was the best goalie in hockey five years ago, and people do not realise how vastly his game has deteriorated. Witness his annual save percentages since that time: .933, .923, .917, .906. Or his GAA: 1.69, 2.07, 2.46, 2.69. The steady decline is from almost unbelievable in 2003-04 to well below average in 07-08. Yet the common assumption seems to be that he is one of the best goalies in hockey — and he is paid as such, now and for the next several years. He has to be seen as risky at best (okay, he might reverse a 5-year trend at age 31 and all of a sudden become the player he once was, but can you count on that?), and is quite possibly an outright liability given the contract. They have no backup of any sort.

Defense. Big, mean, reliable, and reasonably skilled. The strength of this team, no question. But: Phaneuf had a huge season last year — how much better can he really be expected to get? Same with Regehr. You can’t expect any improvement over last year.

Forward. Like Phaneuf, Iginla had a monster year. A tremendous player, but the best that can be hoped for is a repeat performance. More likely, he’ll revert from 50 goals back to his more recent average of around 40. As for the rest, they essentially replaced Tanguay, Huselius, and Nolan with Cammalleri and Bertuzzi. That is not a trade up — it’s lateral at best. And after the top 2 lines, this is essentially a group of pluggers and journeymen.

And, they are over the salary cap as of today. No reinforcements are coming.

On paper, you have a team here that will be doing very, very well to repeat last year’s performance, and more likely they slide a bit. They are still going to be a big, tough team to play against, but they only finished 7th in the conference last year, and even a 4-5 point drop — highly plausible — puts them out of the playoffs.

That’s the most likely scenario.

On salaries

chateaulapuck — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:14:44 +0000

Frankly, when Joffrey Lupul is signing a long-term extension at $4.25M per, Horcoff’s $5.5M looks like a veritable bargain. Such is the way of things today. Big numbers abound.

So long, Marty

chateaulapuck — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:13:02 +0000

As predicted, Reasoner is gone. Signing Pouliot was the final nail in the coffin. Marty is a great character guy and I wish him well, but can’t say I disagree with the strategy.

Horc!

chateaulapuck — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:22:54 +0000

You just have to feel good for this guy to finally hit the big reward. There is nobody who works harder or is more dedicated to the game than Horc. He has had his doubters over the years (me not among them) but last season fully deservedly made the All-Star Game and I think silenced pretty much everyone. Will we still hear the calls for a “real” #1 centre? Probably. But with the emergence of Hemmer into the 90-point range, I think Horc should be a good bet for 75-80 a year, which is enough for such a well-rounded player.

These days it seems contracts are always for a bit more than you’d like to or hope to spend ($5.5M feels a bit high), and with Horc at age 29, I could have lived with this being a 4-year rather than a 6-year extension, but in the big picture this is a great day for the Oil.

2008-2009 Forwards

chateaulapuck — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:40:23 +0000

I would see some switching around up front because we have some guys who could fit in multiple places, but here’s how the forwards are lining up now that most everyone has been traded or signed.

Cole-Horc-Hemmer

Penner-Gagner-Cogs

Nilsson-Brule-Pisani

Chopper-Brodziak-Stortini

Pouliot

That’s 13 forwards, which is all you get. Injuries happen, so there will be openings, but absent that I would not see other forwards cracking the lineup. It’s going to be a tough year for the Springfield guys to make it to the show out of camp. Probably the most likely guy to make it still has to be Schremp (who is apparently in LA doing conditioning with the Moreau crew, which is exactly what he should be doing), but I think getting Brule was another nail in his coffin. Brule is a similar profile guy and even a more highly touted prospect, and I think he has to get a roster spot. Pouliot needs to stop thinking he’s a star and remake himself as a number 3 centre if he’s going to play in the NHL and I think he understands that. If he does, he should keep a spot too given his size and physical tools. Brodziak is still unproven but had a great rookie year. There is not really anyone else who Schremp could bump, so unless one of those 3 fades bad and/or Schremp just dominates in camp, I think that has to be our starting forward lineup.

I like it.

Zack Attack

chateaulapuck — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:21:22 +0000

3 years, $2.1 million — not far above the league minimum. I really like this signing. Zacman is not the league’s top heavyweight, but he will go with anyone, he provides some muscle out there that the Oil desperately need, and he can actually play a bit of hockey. I loved Laraque, and he can kick sand in Stortini’s face, but let’s face it, Zac is a much better hockey player and he generates more energy out there because he’s a way better skater. And he’s only 22 years old. I look forward to seeing the big guy in the lineup for the next 3 years.

1995 Siro Pacenti Brunello di Montalcino

chateaulapuck — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:53:20 +0000

1995 Siro Pacenti Brunello di Montalcino

Just a beautiful wine. Clear dark ruby, barely any brown shift. From the moment it’s open, billowing, intoxicating nose of iron, flowers, spicy black cherries. Round in the mouth, sweet cherry, a touch of spritz still. Great sweetness and inner-mouth perfume. Long, smooth but grippy finish on dark fruit, and maybe a hint of oak showing itself only here? Ending on autumn leaves. Still tannic too; this has years to go, though for me it is drinking extremely well today.

A lovely, harmonious wine that I wish I had more of. This was my last of four bottles bought on release; none of the previous ones showed nearly this well. (The cork was so tight I could barely pull it out, and had been penetrated by wine maybe 2mm — as good as one could possibly hope for.)

94 points (in 2004, my previous bottle, I rated it 89 — testimony to the benefits of cellaring).

Edmonton Oilers – 2009 NW Division Champions

chateaulapuck — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:49:33 +0000

After the dust settles on free agent season, it seems clear that the NW Division is there for the Oil to take this year.

Vancouver looks to be in a shambles. They have some solid Dmen and a good goalie, but at forward they are a mess after the Sedins and now an ok Demitra, they just have nobody else of any standing at all (Ryan Kesler might be their third-best forward — yikes). And the Sedins are UFAs next year; in fact they only have 3 forwards signed beyond this season. 1 year after that, Luongo’s contract is up. Plus, their new management just seems insane. They have some cap money to spend and will probably add a good player or two, but I see this as a team going in the wrong direction and in the early stages of a total rebuild. Signing Sundin would be like putting a bandaid (a very expensive bandaid) on a mortar wound. They need surgery and antibiotics, i.e., a major youth movement and a couple years of patience.

Calgary will miss the playoffs this year. The main reasons being: (1) they barely made it in last year, with both Iginla and Phaneuf, on whom they are almost entirely reliant, having career seasons — you cannot possibly expect either of them to improve; (2) Kiprusoff is not the goalie he used to be, he was statistically about the 25th best goalie in hockey last year, and teams are rightly not afraid of him any more; (3) guys who made important contributions last year like Huselius and Nolan are gone or a year older; (4) they have an excellent D core but will struggle to score goals — Cammalleri for Tanguay is probably an equal exchange, not an upgrade; (5) in the bad old days, guys like Nieuwendyk and Fleury would be emerging from nowhere and scoring 50 as rookies, but I don’t see anyone like that in Calgary’s pipeline. They will continue to be hard to play against with their D but they seriously lack depth and talent up front and I just don’t think they are good enough to win consistently. This is a team that is built to win around the abysmal strategy of allowing under 2 goals a game, but they don’t have the keeper or, really, the coach and philosophy needed to make that successful.

Colorado has goaltending questions (Budaj and Raycroft?), probably no Sakic (and even if he returns, certainly no longer the player he once was), no Forsberg, decent D, and a talented but extremely young bunch of forwards. Tucker may have been a good pickup for them. An ok team but one in transition, maybe playoff contenders if their goalkeeping somehow solidifies. They also have lots of cap money to spend but will need some of it for RFAs like Svatos and Wolski.

Minnesota is always hard to predict. They picked up Brunette (weakening Colorado) but lost some more important guys (Rolston, Demitra) too. Going down their lineup they sure don’t look very intimidating. They speculate about moving Gaborik, would be quite a change. Certainly they had the Oil’s number last year but it’s hard to see why. I think they overachieved last year and they have not improved in the off-season, so look for them to be less strong.

I have a hard time being objective here but I think on paper the Oil now have the best team in the division. There are always questions but if we have another strong year out of Garon (who is in a contract year and will have noticed what guys like Huet are getting), Souray and Moreau return to some form, and the kids don’t have a collective sophomore slump, I see us winning the division. You heard it here first.

Long term veteran contracts

chateaulapuck — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:34:39 +0000

As the trade season winds down and we take the next 6 weeks off from hockey, something to reflect on (again from my man Dan Tolensky, the smartest hockey commentator on the internet). This graph shows goals per year, by age, scored by the top 100 goal scorers of all time.

Res ipsa loquitur. Can there be any more demonstrable proof that teams should be paying up to sign players so they are playing for you at age 23-29? Does anyone need more evidence that the odds are heavily against succeeding if you sign 29+ year old forwards to huge long-term contracts? This just speaks for itself. It completely obliterates Brian Burke’s position that players should have to sign for a mid-level “second contract” before moving onto the big money in their late 20s-early 30s. I hope Burke keeps applying that philosophy because he will run his teams into the ground.

I’m glad the Oil didn’t pay Hossa $70 million. It would have been fun, but the odds are very high that it would not have been a good use of scarce salary cap resources over the term of the deal. The salary cap fundamentally changes the game.

I’ll say it again: the name of the game is not UFAs any more, if it ever was. It’s making good trades, drafting well, developing players in your system, and signing your own good young players long-term. That’s how to build a winning team in the salary cap era.

Smith, Pitkanen

chateaulapuck — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:27:19 +0000

Just reflecting, what’s the deal with Jason Smith? I understand why the Oil traded him — moving from rugged stay-at-home dmen to puck movers. They wanted Pitkanen. Plus, Philadelphia presumably wanted Smith. I was a bit surprised that he was made Captain of the Flyers immediately, as I tend to prefer when the Captain is a team’s best player or close to. But having made Smith Captain, and having a successful year with him in that role, I was even more surprised that the Flyers didn’t try to re-sign him. He moved to Ottawa for $5 million, 2 years, and that took a couple of days to happen so nobody was caught off guard. It’s not a huge amount of money to pay your Captain, who presumably brings more than just his on-ice contribution. I conclude that the game must really have passed him by. Very rare that a team Captain gets moved twice in 2 years. He must be a liability out there.

And speaking of Pitkanen (who also signed for a relatively reasonable amount of money), I saw Ethan Moreau said the other day that Pitkanen never really fit in with the team, wasn’t close in the dressing room. There was also a sense from MacT during the season that he was a bit soft, taking time off for “injuries” that wouldn’t have kept other guys off the ice. Add those things together and you see why he was replaced. I think he’s a great talent but you don’t need headcases on your team. (See also Torres, Rafael.)