Wow. It wasn't all that long ago that a certain over-optimistic homer (or former-home-r?) wrote about the Vancouver Canucks making a run at the Northwest Division title. Not only did that fail to materialize, but the opposite happened: they promptly went into a slump and are now on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. To squeeze into the playoffs, the Canucks now likely have to run the table and hope Nashville drops points against either St. Louis or Chicago. The Vancouver Province does a nice job of breaking down the potential scenarios here (except if Chicago and Edmonton both pass the Canucks, they'd finish 11th, not 10th).
Tonight's game against Edmonton could decide things one way or another, and the interesting part is the staggered time zones. The Nashville-St. Louis and Calgary-Minnesota games both start at 8 ET, while the Canucks don't take the ice for another two and a half hours. As the Globe's Matthew Sekeres points out, there will probably be a lot of scoreboard-watching in the dressing room. Regardless of what happens in the other games, though, the Canucks really need to take this one to have a good shot at the playoffs. If both Nashville and Vancouver win, it's not the end of the world: that's postponed until Saturday. What would be much better from a Vancouver perspective would be a victory for the Canucks and a loss by the Predators, which would vault Vancouver back into the final playoff spot.
Unfortunately, the Canucks again have injury issues. The Province's Ben Kuzma tells us that Taylor Pyatt, who's been one of the better forwards recently, will miss the game with a concussion. He'll be replaced by Rick Rypien. Sekeres adds that Matt Pettinger, who's also made a surprisingly positive contribution since being snagged at the trade deadline, is also likely to miss tonight's clash: Jannik Hansen may take his place. On the bright side, the Oilers have their own injury woes: they're missing Kyle Brodziak, Ales Hemsky and Mathieu Garon, so the Canucks will probably only have to deal with Rollie the Goalie.
The thing that's so frustrating about following the Canucks is their highs and lows. One day, they'll put a great 6-2 thrashing on the Flames and look like a team that could actually do some damage in the playoffs. The next game, things will start well and then go completely off the rails. Alanah perfectly nails the frustration that comes with being a Canucks fan these days. "I wouldn’t bet on either of those Vancouver games, other than to say that the Canucks will win one of them FOR SURE—probably Thursday’s against Edmonton—just to keep the pain alive," she writes. That seems like the most likely option, having it come down to the wire and falling just short: it would be completely in character with this season.
A special hockey edition of the Links of the Day:
Canucks:
- Kuzma has another great story referencing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of my favorite movies of all time. There's some good parallels, too: the Canucks seem to be insisting that they're "not dead yet".
- Sticking with the Province, Jason Botchford has a good piece on Roberto Luongo, and how a superlative performance from him will be crucial to any hopes the Canucks have of success.
- The Hockey News has a pretty funny Top 10 list of Canucks' excuses for missing the playoffs. My favorite? "We haven’t been the same since losing all-star Rory Fitzpatrick."
(Thanks to Alanah for spotting this one).
- Zanstorm has a good game preview up. Despite the Canucks losing 4 of their last five, he's still feeling pretty positive: wish I could share that emotion.
General hockey:
- The guys at Orland Kurtenblog remind Vancouver fans that fans from the rest of Canada (except those from Montreal) are feeling the same pain.
- James Mirtle has a nice post on Ken Hitchcock's selection as head coach of the Canadian World Championships team. Hitch is a pretty good pick in my books as well.
- The Globe's Roy MacGregor on the Sens' latest struggles. Best lines: "Murray candidly admits he has no idea what went so very wrong with this group. No one really does. 'I'm not throwing anybody under buses,' the coach said, while the rest of the city was busy tossing so many players under the bus, that the wheels no longer touched the ground." For some reason, that sounds pretty familiar.
- Neate has a brilliant demolition of Pierre LeBrun's ill-advised piece on sportsnet.ca the other day calling Bobby Nadeau a "Nancy Boy" for letting Jonathan Roy punch him without fighting back. I usually like LeBrun and find him pretty insightful, and he makes some valid points in the column, but there's no reason to start throwing out those kind of terms, and Nadeau is the wrong person to blame. I enjoy the occasional hockey fight myself, but it's never been acceptable to go and just start beating on someone who clearly doesn't want to drop the gloves. Hockey has had a long history of on-ice violence, but that also doesn't justify making it a taboo topic. The world has done some pretty horrible things in the past (say immigrant head taxes or Jim Crow laws, for example), and we don't advocate keeping those just because they used to be enforced.
Showing posts with label Jason Botchford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jason Botchford. Show all posts
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Canucks: Gunning for the division
Funnily enough, the Canucks have kept up their string of incomprehensible play lately. Things were looking bleak around the trade deadline while the team was hovering on the playoff bubble, and some demands for the head of general manager Dave Nonis were even heard after he failed to do anything more significant than swapping Matts. The team promptly continued their slump, scoring only five times in three games and recording only 10 shots against woeful Chicago, which captain Markus Naslund accurately described as "embarrassing." Since then, they've put up some better results, are now inside the playoff picture looking out instead of the converse, and could take the Northwest Division lead tonight with a win over Minnesota.
It's hard to tell if this string of results flows from better plays or merely better bounces, though. Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun nailed it after the Canucks scraped out a win against Dallas last Saturday.
"Seventy-two games into the Canucks' National Hockey League season, we still don't know what to make of them," he wrote. "In any game, they are as liable to be discouraging as impressive, heartening as alarming. They are praised and they are derided, and are almost never beautiful."
That's been the reality of life as a Canucks' fan since the Luongo trade, when they went from being a fun-to-watch hockey version of the West Coast Offense to beating Jacques Lemaire at his own trapping game. They're probably a better team for it, but they now live on that razor's edge, where the difference between a win and a loss is usually a bounce. Sometimes, they get the breaks, like Brendan Morrison's winning goal in that Dallas game, which MacIntyre appropriately called "a thing of ugly". At other times, they don't. It's tough to tell if the glass is half-full or half-empty. On the one hand, they have Mr. All-World minding the nets, they've got a defence that does a good job despite half of its roster usually being on the injury list, and they're only one point out of the division lead. On the other hand, they rarely win convincingly (even last night's 4-1 win over Edmonton didn't look close to a sure thing for most of the game), and there's the ever-present worry of where the offense will come from. I could see this team making a Cinderella run deep into the playoffs, but I could also see them crashing out in the first round or maybe even pulling off such a drastic collapse that they don't even make the dance. In any case, you never know what you're going to get from this team, which is more entertaining than any firewagon style.
Related:
- Matthew Sekeres' piece in the Globe on tonight's game
- Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province seems unusually optimistic on the team's prospects: "When this team is killing off penalties confidently, Luongo is very much on his form and they get goals from unlikely sources the way they did here Thursday, these guys can appear as a mean piece of business to any opponent in the playoffs."
- The Province's Jason Botchford tells us Ryan Kesler's going to be fine after taking that slapshot off the leg last night: given that he's been one of the best Canucks lately, that's certainly good to hear.
- In contrast tp the optimism of Gallagher and Sekeres, Alanah's still worried about the chances of a late-season collapse taking the Canucks out of the playoffs: not unthinkable given the streaky nature of this team and the parity in the West, plus the tough divisional schedule the Canucks play from here on in
- Zanstorm weighs in on the recent injuries to Mason Raymond and Aaron Miller
It's hard to tell if this string of results flows from better plays or merely better bounces, though. Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun nailed it after the Canucks scraped out a win against Dallas last Saturday.
"Seventy-two games into the Canucks' National Hockey League season, we still don't know what to make of them," he wrote. "In any game, they are as liable to be discouraging as impressive, heartening as alarming. They are praised and they are derided, and are almost never beautiful."
That's been the reality of life as a Canucks' fan since the Luongo trade, when they went from being a fun-to-watch hockey version of the West Coast Offense to beating Jacques Lemaire at his own trapping game. They're probably a better team for it, but they now live on that razor's edge, where the difference between a win and a loss is usually a bounce. Sometimes, they get the breaks, like Brendan Morrison's winning goal in that Dallas game, which MacIntyre appropriately called "a thing of ugly". At other times, they don't. It's tough to tell if the glass is half-full or half-empty. On the one hand, they have Mr. All-World minding the nets, they've got a defence that does a good job despite half of its roster usually being on the injury list, and they're only one point out of the division lead. On the other hand, they rarely win convincingly (even last night's 4-1 win over Edmonton didn't look close to a sure thing for most of the game), and there's the ever-present worry of where the offense will come from. I could see this team making a Cinderella run deep into the playoffs, but I could also see them crashing out in the first round or maybe even pulling off such a drastic collapse that they don't even make the dance. In any case, you never know what you're going to get from this team, which is more entertaining than any firewagon style.
Related:
- Matthew Sekeres' piece in the Globe on tonight's game
- Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province seems unusually optimistic on the team's prospects: "When this team is killing off penalties confidently, Luongo is very much on his form and they get goals from unlikely sources the way they did here Thursday, these guys can appear as a mean piece of business to any opponent in the playoffs."
- The Province's Jason Botchford tells us Ryan Kesler's going to be fine after taking that slapshot off the leg last night: given that he's been one of the best Canucks lately, that's certainly good to hear.
- In contrast tp the optimism of Gallagher and Sekeres, Alanah's still worried about the chances of a late-season collapse taking the Canucks out of the playoffs: not unthinkable given the streaky nature of this team and the parity in the West, plus the tough divisional schedule the Canucks play from here on in
- Zanstorm weighs in on the recent injuries to Mason Raymond and Aaron Miller
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Stomp the rink
The NHL announced today that Anaheim Ducks defenceman Chris Pronger would be suspended for eight games for his stomp on Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks. Outstanding CKNW and Canucks TV colour man Tom Larscheid nailed it towards the end of the clip, calling it "A deliberate play by Pronger just to stomp on Kesler with his skate." In my mind at least, this was out-and-out dirty, right up there with the infamous Chris Simon on Jarkko Ruutu play. Of course, Simon's a fringe player, so the full book (a 30-game suspension) got thrown at him: Pronger wouldn't even have been suspended without the NHL suspiciously finding a "new angle" after they'd already ruled it was inconclusive. According to Pronger, the league told him Thursday night there would be no suspension, but then re-reviewed the tape on Friday and came up with the new punishment. I don't see how they deemed it inconclusive in the first place: even the original camera angle was far better than most of the footage of the Simon-Ruutu incident. Simon also hit Ruutu's skate, while Pronger went straight for Kesler's leg. Methinks perhaps Simon's widely reported comments and the increasing media and fan pressure targeting the obvious inequity here got league disciplinarian Colin Campbell to reconsider: there are those who agree, like the Battle of California's Earl Sleek.
It would be nice to have things treated fairly, at least," Simon told the Associated Press after the Wild practised on Friday. "I don't think in that instance it's fair at all. I couldn't believe right away that nothing was going to be done about it. I still can't believe it."
Simon should start believing it. Even with a suspension handed out, the NHL's two-tiered system of justice is still blatantly obvious. There's one code for superstars like Pronger and a different one for everyone else: consider Pronger's pair of one-game suspensions last playoffs for offenses that likely would have meant multiple games for anyone else. Campbell cited history as a factor in determining the length of the Simon decision, but Pronger's history is almost as bad: Simon has 8 suspensions in 15 years, while Pronger's racked up 7 in 14 (including three in the last calendar year). The relative lengths further demonstrate the special treatment Pronger gets. The longest suspension he'd ever received previously was four games, and his total suspensions including this one only total 20 regular season games and two post-season games. By contrast, Simon's two longest suspensions amounted to 25 and 30 games each, respectively.
The offenses aren't that dissimilar, either. ESPN has a great breakdown of the incidents involving Pronger, which include hitting Pat Peake in the throat with a stick, swinging a stick at Jeremy Roenick's helmet, cross-checking Brendan Morrow in the face and kicking Ville Nieminen. By contrast, Simon's suspensions are generally less physically harmful: his longest suspension prior to the March 2007 stick-swinging incident (similar to both of Pronger's stick incidents, but worth a 25-game suspension instead of a four-game ban) was three games for alleged racial remarks. Add the incidents up, and it's Pronger who looks like the bigger goon, but Simon with the harsher punishment.
The league's also giving Pronger the benefit of the doubt, as the Vancouver Province's Jason Botchford reports. "In attempting to free himself, Pronger carelessly and recklessly brought his foot down," Campbell said in a statement. As Botchford writes, "The other possibility is that Pronger wasn't careless at all, that he intended to injure in an act of frustration."
Campbell's release makes Pronger's actions sound like an accident, unlike his comments in Simon's case. "But he just snaps," he told the Canadian Press back then. "And we can't have that. Because now we're talking about the safety of other players on the ice. ... You would hope he wouldn't do it again but maybe he can't help himself. I don't know. He's never actually come out and said, 'I will never do this again.'"
Oh really, Mr. Campbell? Where's your concern for other players in the Pronger incident? This guy's done a lot to hurt players over the years: look at the concussion he gave Dean McCammond last playoffs. Playing with skates is a dangerous business: see Zednik, Richard, Perry, Corey, and Bieksa, Kevin, to name just a few. However, he's a star who sells jerseys and draws fans, so he gets the kid-gloves treatment while Campbell muses about ending Simon's career. That's not right, and it's not fair.
I have every bit of respect for Pronger's abilities as a player, but there can't be one standard for stars and one for role players. The Globe's Allan Maki summed that up nicely on the Globe on Hockey blog. "Simon deserved his suspension, no one’s quibbling about that," he wrote. "But letting Pronger go unpunished only raises more incriminating questions, such as: Is the NHL afraid of affecting Anaheim’s playoff push by suspending Pronger? Is the NHL afraid of invoking the wrath of Ducks’ general manager Brian Burke? Is the NHL hiding behind the old bit about not knowing what a player’s true intent is in such heat-of-the-moment moments? Based on what we’ve seen thus far, we certainly know what the NHL’s intent is: suspend the easy targets but let’s not be so hasty when it comes to our superstars."
Another intersting take is from New York Islanders' media relations VP, Chris Botta. Botta hits most of the points I've already elaborated on, but adds this about the initial Simon on Ruutu incident. "I'm going to step out just a bit here and share something that Chris said to me a few times," he wrote. "In all honesty, when he volunteered his thoughts I was torn between being sympathetic and concerned that Chris had lost his way. Basically, Chris felt that on judgment day he was treated differently than other players. I never let the conversation get to the subject of why." What's interesting here is what Botta doesn't say. Clearly, a PR guy wouldn't bring up anything this controversial (I'm impressed that he was so vocal about this in the first place), but one gets the impression Simon might have felt that race could have played a role (Simon is half Ojibwa): there have been suggestions that racism played a role in Islanders' coach Ted Nolan getting blacklisted from the NHL for years after winning the Jack Adams Trophy, and he certainly had to struggle with racist taunts while coaching junior hockey. I really hope that this isn't the case, that our society has moved beyond that, and that Colin Campbell treated Chris Simon the same way he would have treated a white role player (we already know it's not how he would have treated a superstar), but the shadow of possible racism still lingers.
In the league's defence, it wouldn't have been easy to suspend Pronger for 30 games, particularly with the playoffs looming: that would have taken the Ducks from favorites to repeat as Stanley Cup champions back down to the realms of the merely mortal contenders. They did it with Todd Bertuzzi, though, which certainly hurt the Canucks that year. That incident was different, and obviously more serious in terms of its consequences, but the precedent was set that the league didn't mind severely reducing a team's playoff chances via suspension if the situation warranted it. The Canucks of that year took the eventual Stanley Cup finalist Calgary Flames to seven games and overtime in the first round that year: who knows what they could have accomplished with Big Bert? Pronger should have gotten the same treatment as Simon, regardless of where the season was at.
Related:
- James Mirtle's take: interestingly, 77% of respondents to his poll (122 people) agree with me that the suspension was too short.
- Tom Benjamin's take
- Alanah's take
Update: As usual, the Globe's Eric Duhatschek nails this one: "Simon's act may have been slightly more egregious than Pronger's, but it's hard to understand why the sentence was almost four times as long – unless you're prepared to consider that Pronger is a former Hart Memorial Trophy winner and an important cog on the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks, whereas Simon is a fringe player and thus a far-easier target for NHL justice. ... Under the current NHL rule of law, it isn't justice for all. It is justice for some."
It would be nice to have things treated fairly, at least," Simon told the Associated Press after the Wild practised on Friday. "I don't think in that instance it's fair at all. I couldn't believe right away that nothing was going to be done about it. I still can't believe it."
Simon should start believing it. Even with a suspension handed out, the NHL's two-tiered system of justice is still blatantly obvious. There's one code for superstars like Pronger and a different one for everyone else: consider Pronger's pair of one-game suspensions last playoffs for offenses that likely would have meant multiple games for anyone else. Campbell cited history as a factor in determining the length of the Simon decision, but Pronger's history is almost as bad: Simon has 8 suspensions in 15 years, while Pronger's racked up 7 in 14 (including three in the last calendar year). The relative lengths further demonstrate the special treatment Pronger gets. The longest suspension he'd ever received previously was four games, and his total suspensions including this one only total 20 regular season games and two post-season games. By contrast, Simon's two longest suspensions amounted to 25 and 30 games each, respectively.
The offenses aren't that dissimilar, either. ESPN has a great breakdown of the incidents involving Pronger, which include hitting Pat Peake in the throat with a stick, swinging a stick at Jeremy Roenick's helmet, cross-checking Brendan Morrow in the face and kicking Ville Nieminen. By contrast, Simon's suspensions are generally less physically harmful: his longest suspension prior to the March 2007 stick-swinging incident (similar to both of Pronger's stick incidents, but worth a 25-game suspension instead of a four-game ban) was three games for alleged racial remarks. Add the incidents up, and it's Pronger who looks like the bigger goon, but Simon with the harsher punishment.
The league's also giving Pronger the benefit of the doubt, as the Vancouver Province's Jason Botchford reports. "In attempting to free himself, Pronger carelessly and recklessly brought his foot down," Campbell said in a statement. As Botchford writes, "The other possibility is that Pronger wasn't careless at all, that he intended to injure in an act of frustration."
Campbell's release makes Pronger's actions sound like an accident, unlike his comments in Simon's case. "But he just snaps," he told the Canadian Press back then. "And we can't have that. Because now we're talking about the safety of other players on the ice. ... You would hope he wouldn't do it again but maybe he can't help himself. I don't know. He's never actually come out and said, 'I will never do this again.'"
Oh really, Mr. Campbell? Where's your concern for other players in the Pronger incident? This guy's done a lot to hurt players over the years: look at the concussion he gave Dean McCammond last playoffs. Playing with skates is a dangerous business: see Zednik, Richard, Perry, Corey, and Bieksa, Kevin, to name just a few. However, he's a star who sells jerseys and draws fans, so he gets the kid-gloves treatment while Campbell muses about ending Simon's career. That's not right, and it's not fair.
I have every bit of respect for Pronger's abilities as a player, but there can't be one standard for stars and one for role players. The Globe's Allan Maki summed that up nicely on the Globe on Hockey blog. "Simon deserved his suspension, no one’s quibbling about that," he wrote. "But letting Pronger go unpunished only raises more incriminating questions, such as: Is the NHL afraid of affecting Anaheim’s playoff push by suspending Pronger? Is the NHL afraid of invoking the wrath of Ducks’ general manager Brian Burke? Is the NHL hiding behind the old bit about not knowing what a player’s true intent is in such heat-of-the-moment moments? Based on what we’ve seen thus far, we certainly know what the NHL’s intent is: suspend the easy targets but let’s not be so hasty when it comes to our superstars."
Another intersting take is from New York Islanders' media relations VP, Chris Botta. Botta hits most of the points I've already elaborated on, but adds this about the initial Simon on Ruutu incident. "I'm going to step out just a bit here and share something that Chris said to me a few times," he wrote. "In all honesty, when he volunteered his thoughts I was torn between being sympathetic and concerned that Chris had lost his way. Basically, Chris felt that on judgment day he was treated differently than other players. I never let the conversation get to the subject of why." What's interesting here is what Botta doesn't say. Clearly, a PR guy wouldn't bring up anything this controversial (I'm impressed that he was so vocal about this in the first place), but one gets the impression Simon might have felt that race could have played a role (Simon is half Ojibwa): there have been suggestions that racism played a role in Islanders' coach Ted Nolan getting blacklisted from the NHL for years after winning the Jack Adams Trophy, and he certainly had to struggle with racist taunts while coaching junior hockey. I really hope that this isn't the case, that our society has moved beyond that, and that Colin Campbell treated Chris Simon the same way he would have treated a white role player (we already know it's not how he would have treated a superstar), but the shadow of possible racism still lingers.
In the league's defence, it wouldn't have been easy to suspend Pronger for 30 games, particularly with the playoffs looming: that would have taken the Ducks from favorites to repeat as Stanley Cup champions back down to the realms of the merely mortal contenders. They did it with Todd Bertuzzi, though, which certainly hurt the Canucks that year. That incident was different, and obviously more serious in terms of its consequences, but the precedent was set that the league didn't mind severely reducing a team's playoff chances via suspension if the situation warranted it. The Canucks of that year took the eventual Stanley Cup finalist Calgary Flames to seven games and overtime in the first round that year: who knows what they could have accomplished with Big Bert? Pronger should have gotten the same treatment as Simon, regardless of where the season was at.
Related:
- James Mirtle's take: interestingly, 77% of respondents to his poll (122 people) agree with me that the suspension was too short.
- Tom Benjamin's take
- Alanah's take
Update: As usual, the Globe's Eric Duhatschek nails this one: "Simon's act may have been slightly more egregious than Pronger's, but it's hard to understand why the sentence was almost four times as long – unless you're prepared to consider that Pronger is a former Hart Memorial Trophy winner and an important cog on the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks, whereas Simon is a fringe player and thus a far-easier target for NHL justice. ... Under the current NHL rule of law, it isn't justice for all. It is justice for some."
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