Bleacher Report - Articles by Steven Ovadia

The Future of the New York Rangers' Defense

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:07:35 -0500

With the Olympics bearing down on the team and the trade deadline right behind it, the Rangers are getting to a point where they need to decide if they'll be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. Will they try and sneak into the playoffs or give up and wait for next year? While this year's team is flawed in many, many ways, the young defense, and the Ranger defensive prospects, do provide a ray of hope for the team, whether they decide to try and make a playoff push or give up and regroup for next year. Let's take a look at the future of the Rangers defense.

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Ilya Kovalchuk Needs To Learn Short Shifts Save Seasons

Steven Ovadia — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:25:36 -0500

The New York Times picked up a great nugget: Newly acquired New Jersey Devil Ilya Kovalchuk takes the longest shifts in the NHL, averaging 68 seconds per shift, having averaged 62 and 72 seconds per shift averages in his first two games as a Devil.

Teammate Zach Parise, who shares the left wing position with Kovalchuk, averages just 47 seconds per shift on average.

This could present several problems for the Devils.

The first one is ice time for Parise. If Kovalchuk is out on the ice, Parise isn't. So the longer Kovalchuk's shift lasts, the less of an opportunity there is for Parise, the Devils' best player, to get on the ice.

In Kovalchuk's first game for the Devils, he finished the game with 21:43 minutes of ice time to Parise's 20:28, comparable numbers.

But in Kovalchuk's second game, this time against the Rangers, Kovalchuk had 25:05 to Parise's 20:06. Plus, Kovalchuk had four minutes in penalties to Parise's two.

If Kovalchuk's shifts continue to go to their epic lengths, Parise is going to continue to see his ice time dwindle. In effect, Parise will go from being the Devils' primary scorer to a second-line secondary scorer.

It kind of defeats the purpose of having two elite wings, if you're only going to really use one of them.

Yet another cause for concern with Kovalchuk's lengthy shifts is that the Devils rely on short, defined shifts to keep players fresh and to keep lines intact. When Kovalchuk lingers on the ice, he's disrupting lines, not just making it hard for Parise to get on the ice, but also for all of the other lines to become synced up.

Also, Devils coach Jacques Lemaire likes to match lines, and that becomes a lot more difficult if you've got a left wing out on the ice overlapping shifts with other lines. In effect, with Kovalchuk out for a long skate, Lemaire can often only match against two-thirds of an opposing line.

Kovalchuk has spent a long time being the best player on an average to awful team. He's always needed to be on the ice as frequently as possible. Most NHLers who came into the league as stars will tell you the biggest adjustment is to the shorter shifts. In juniors, high quality players spend almost the entire game on the ice, carrying their teams.

But in the NHL, where there is more talent, players need to adjust. It's not about spending the whole game on the ice, playing on a relatively even keel to keep your legs fresh for an entire game. Instead, it becomes more about making the most of your shifts, going all out for less than a minute and then coming back to the bench to rest.

The nice thing about short shifts is that they mean you don't have to save energy on the ice. You go as hard as you can, and then come back and wait for the next opportunity.

Kovalchuk has never been surrounded by enough talent where he wasn't needed for 21 minutes a night. Even playing with guys like Dany Heatley and Marian Hossa, Kovalchuk has still needed to do the heavy lifting for teams that were shockingly thin beneath a strong first line.

Now, in New Jersey, he's got a lot more of a support system. It's time for him to take advantage of it.

Not just for his own game, but also for the sake of Parise and the rest of the Devils.

Olli Jokinen Is Not the Game Changer the New York Rangers Need

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:49:31 -0500

The Rangers' acquisition of Olli Jokinen from Calgary does little to improve the Rangers' fortunes.

The trade for Jokinen (as well as enforcer Brandon Prust) can be seen as a victory for the Rangers in that they unload Christopher Higgins and Ales Kotalik, but the move does very little to make the Rangers a better team.

Jokinen is a solid enough player, even if he struggled this season in Calgary. Jokinen's reputation is of a guy who does just enough, and no more, but even with that attitude, he's just four seasons away from a 39 goal, 91 point season.

But sadly for the Rangers, solid is not enough to help a team that's looked lost for the better part of the season.

The Rangers already have solid players. Ryan Callahan is solid. Vinny Prospal is solid. Erik Christensen is solid. They are unexceptional, but they regularly perform their expected roles.

A solid core wins Cups, but not without some exceptional players flying high over the foundation.

The Rangers have Marian Gaborik flying high above everyone else and that's where the game-breaking talent ends.

Teams know they only need to focus on shutting Gaborik down. With Gaborik contained, the Rangers are rarely a threat. It makes playing against the Rangers as simple as a five-on-one game plan.

If you look at the top of the Eastern Conference standings, you'll see teams with more than one difference maker. In Washington, Alex Ovechkin can depend upon Alexander Semin and Nicklas Backstrom to draw some attention from him. In New Jersey, Zach Parise complements Travis Zajac. And while Buffalo doesn't have a true game-breaker, they have a committee of scorers that's just as impressive, with seven players with at least 12 goals this season.

The Western Conference is just as impressive. The Sharks already have two 30-plus goal-scorers in Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley. Chicago has become one of the league's best teams on the backs of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. And the Canucks have always had good luck sticking just about anyone with the Sedins.

The days of a single player being able to carry a franchise are long gone. Coaches have gotten too smart. They've learned how to isolate key offensive players and take them out of games. The only way for a modern NHL franchise to be successful deep into the playoffs is to have other talented players on the ice to divert the attention of the defense and to make coaches think long and hard about who they're going to put their checking line out against.

Will a player like Jokinen change the game that way? Will he force opposing coaches to pay attention to him? Will he divert defenses, freeing Gaborik?

Probably not. Instead, he'll probably be a slightly stronger version of Brandon Dubinsky, serving as a big body in the offensive zone, getting occasional chances, but doing very little to put some space between opposing defenses and Gaborik.

The Rangers might be a slightly better team now, with Kotalik and Higgins gone for good, and Jokinen in the lineup, but this move hardly fixes any of the team's problems. At best, it's a tiny bandage on a gaping wound.

The Rangers don't need more solid players. They need someone exceptional to take the pressure off of Gaborik.

Henrik Lundqvist and Rangers Playing without a Safety Net

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:12:50 -0500

Watching the recent struggles of Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist, including Wednesday's brutal loss to the Hurricanes, one cannot help but wonder how the Rangers would look if Lundqvist weren't Lundqvist.

What if this recent bout of soft goals (Lundqvist has a 5.73 goals against and .805 save percentage in his last three games) weren't an anomaly, but instead a regular occurrence?

For that matter, where would the Rangers be without Lundqvist at all? What if he were injured?

Do the Rangers have a goalie plan?

In a word, no.

The Rangers, already starved for offense and utterly dependent upon Lundqvist, have no Plan B. They have no safety net. Instead, the team's most important player has no understudy.

The Rangers started the season with Steve Valiquette as a backup, but he was waived and sent down to the AHL after just six games, the last one being an 8-3 loss to the Penguins in which Valiquette got charged with all eight goals.

With Valiquette gone, the Rangers have rotated in Chad Johnson and Matt Zaba, both AHL goalies. Zaba has played one NHL game, and Johnson has played just three, and neither has played well enough to make anyone think Lundqvist is disposable, though admittedly it's a small sample of games to work with.

The Rangers also have goalie Scott Stajcer in their farm system, but it seems he's still too raw to be considered a Lundqvist alternative.

If you look at the Rangers' recent history, Lundqvist is really a tremendously lucky find. He joined them in 2005, ostensibly to be the backup to Kevin Weekes, but ended up wrestling the starting job out of Weekes' gloves.

But prior to that, the Rangers struggled with goalies like Mike Dunham and Jussi Markkanen.

And back in the 2002-03 season, goalie Mike Richter went down and the Rangers rode up-and-coming goaltending prospect Dan Blackburn to ruin. They played him endlessly before he was ready for the NHL, the whole thing finally ending with Blackburn injuring his shoulder prior to training camp in 2003, ending a once promising career.

So given the Rangers' recent history of horrible goaltending and Lundqvist's insane workload, coupled with the Olympics right around the corner, you can understand if Ranger fans are a little nervous that the only thing that works on their team might be vulnerable to breaking.

Further compounding a tough situation, the Rangers don't have very much cap space and have a lot of pressing roster issues to correct, so a backup goaltender probably isn't a priority. And it probably won't be until the Rangers find themselves without Lundqvist.

The Islanders have goalie Martin Biron available, but it seems unlikely that two Atlantic division rivals would help each other out. Plus, the Isles are still waiting to make sure goalie Rick DiPietro stays healthy.

The Flyers, another Atlantic rival, also have a spare goalie in Brian Boucher, but he's not much of an upgrade over Johnson or Zaba.

Dallas is rumored to be finally cutting ties with goalie Marty Turco, but he's expensive and doesn't want to be a backup.

Montreal will soon have to make some goaltending decisions, but either Carey Price or Jaroslav Halak might require too steep a price. Plus, like Turco, neither is interested in being a backup.

Tampa has two strong goalies in Antero Niittymaki and Mike Smith, but the team seems to like the flexibility and safety of a two-goalie model.

In fact, most NHL teams like that model. It's just the Rangers who seem to prefer putting all of their eggs in one basket.

John Tortorella Refusing To See the Patterns in the Rangers Struggles

Steven Ovadia — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:59:39 -0500

The job of a coach is to keep a team on track. In sports like football and baseball, the coach has an in-game role, adjusting to schemes and shifts, and actively guiding players to victory and defeat.

In hockey, the job of the coach is a bit more amorphous. There are things that can be done in-game to change the flow of a period, things like line-matching against opponents and shifting players to different lines, but for the most part, an NHL coach uses practice to instill a system and then executes what's been practiced.

A good NHL coach gives his players the tools to succeed during games. Players know what they should be doing in certain situations and merely need to focus on converting the knowledge into action.

Coaches who can't do this soon find themselves out of a job, as their teams are doomed to fail.

And this is where Rangers coach John Tortorella finds himself today: a coach who can't seem to coach him team.

The Rangers 6-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens Sunday really shouldn't have been that surprising. In a lot of ways, it was an archetypal Rangers defeat.

Typically this season, the Rangers have put together a few strong games, notably with the defense chipping in some offense. These games have been followed by shut-outs, with the defense pressing to score, and instead yielding scoring chances.

Toward the end of December, the Rangers had a five-game, 16-goal stretch that ended in a 6-0 loss to the Flyers. The streak began with the benching of defenseman Wade Redden, who eventually was re-inserted into the line-up.

The Rangers rebounded from the Philadelphia loss with just six goals in their next three games. They exploded for five goals against the Dallas Stars and then scored five goals in their next five games, including getting shut-out in back-to-back games.

Then, true to form, the Rangers rebounded with 14 goals in their next two games, only to be shut-out in the following two games.

The pattern is profound.

The Rangers' offense gets rolling, everyone gets cocky, defensive hockey grinds to a halt, and opposing teams take advantage.

The issue isn't talent or effort. Instead, it seems to be preparation.

Tortorella, it seems, isn't getting the Rangers ready for games. Seeing how they've typically fallen apart after high-scoring wins, Tortorella needs to be preaching defense. He needs to see the pattern and warn his team.

They need to know to play more conservatively coming out of wins, because when they don't, they yield goals, they press to catch-up, and then yield even more goals. It's what happened in Montreal and it's what will continue to happen until Tortorella makes his team understand their major weakness.

There's no doubt in my mind that if the Rangers don't have a big game Monday against the Penguins, then they'll have one Wednesday against the vulnerable Hurricanes. And they might even carry the momentum out West when they play the Coyotes Saturday night. But then, confident from a win or two, the defense will once again become porous, the offense will once again refuse to forecheck, and the Rangers will find itself mired in another losing streak.

The pattern will repeat until the team is properly prepared. If Rangers GM Glen Sather is waiting for an extended losing streak before firing Tortorella, he's going to have to wait a long time. The team has just enough talent to avoid a long-term slump. But if Sather is hoping for a long-term winning streak to solidify the Rangers position in the playoffs, he's never going to see that either.

Tortorella is coaching just enough to win sometimes, but not enough to win consistently. And until there's some consistency within the organization, the team will never be a real playoff threat.

In fact, there's no guarantee they'll even be a playoff presence.

Rangers Find They're Losing Games as They Lose Their Balance

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 22:10:02 -0500

Successful NHL teams have a sense of balance. They temper offense with defense. Even defensive teams need some offense, and offensive teams need some defense.

You're not going to win consistently at the NHL level without some kind of balance running through your team.

The New York Rangers are striving to find that balance.

Winners of their last two, with a combined 14 goals, the team seemed to have learned that getting to opposing teams' nets leads to scoring opportunities. More importantly, with the Rangers forwards tying up opponents down low in the Rangers offensive zone, the defense was freed up to take chances.

It made the Rangers tough to defend, providing defense through strong offense.

In other words, the Rangers, who prior to their two-game winning streak had scored just one goal in the previous three games, had finally found some balance.

Going into a penalty-fueled game against the Flyers Thursday night, the Rangers were once again without balance. Their forwards couldn't set up down low. Without that down-low pressure, the Flyers could attack the Rangers defense. That attack turned into scoring chances for the Flyers. And the Rangers ended up losing, 2-0.

The Rangers lost their balance. The offense flailed, causing the defense to fail.

The Rangers are not a deep team. They have one skilled offensive player in Marian Gaborik and a plethora of interchangeable role players.

You can't tell me you can tell the difference between Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan. Are Christopher Higgins and Chris Drury all that different? They even have the same first name. I'm not convinced they're even different people. There's a good chance they're some kind of CGI effect, or perhaps it's a trick done with mirrors.

But with the Rangers so thin in terms of talent, and with a very young, inexperienced defense, there are a limited number of configurations that will allow them to win games.

In their huge wins against Montreal and Tampa Bay, the Rangers committed to a configuration that's proved successful in the past, using a balanced attack in which forwards provided defense and defensemen provided offense.

As a result, they were able to score because they proved so tough to defend.

It's the same strategy that helped them win at the start of the season.

On Thursday night against the Flyers, forwards pressed for offense, shooting the puck in on goal before anyone had a chance to get position on goalie Ray Emery. This forced the defense out of the offensive play and caused the Rangers to look off-balance.

It's sad that the Rangers look so unbalanced when the forwards assume the traditional offensive responsibilities and the defensemen assume the traditional defensive responsibilities, but it's their lot given the way the team is constructed.

Rangers coach John Tortorella needs to remember the formula that's helped the Rangers win. And then, he needs to remind his players of the formula. Whenever the Rangers have deviated from offense through defense, they've lost.

Until the Rangers find a way to consistently play a balanced game, they're never going to be much of a threat to other NHL teams. Their offense and defense might be turned around, but they've managed to occasionally make it work for them.

If they want the wins to continue, they need to make balance more than an occasional event.

New Jersey Devils Poised To Win Despite Injuries and Rough West Coast Trip

Steven Ovadia — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:40:04 -0500

The Devils dropped two in a row during a surprisingly rough West Coast swing that started Thursday in Phoenix and ended in Saturday in Colorado.

The Devils certainly started the season strong. They had a team record first half, earning 61 points in 41 games.

The Phoenix and Colorado games were part of a second-half trip that saw Devils' rookie Mark Fraser deflect a game-winning goal in on Devils' goalie Marty Brodeur in Phoenix, followed by Patrik Elias going down in Colorado.

Elias will be lost for an unknown amount of time to what is believed to be a concussion and whiplash.

Is this the end of the line for the Devils? Are they out of gas and out of luck? Will the team get killed in the second half of the season?

I'm not sure that they will be.

The loss of Elias is certainly bad news, and the fact that he's probably suffering a concussion could represent a long stretch without his services. But, Dainius Zubrus is believed to be close to returning, which will basically allow Zubrus to take Elias' spot in the lineup.

Defensemen Paul Martin and forward David Clarkson are believed to be closer to returning to action, with both said to be at least two weeks away.

That's still a long time, but when they do return, they'll be fresh at a time in the season when most players are pretty gassed.

In fact, the Devils' injuries might prove to be a blessing. They've thrived without key players, like Martin. When Martin, Clarkson, Zubrus, and Elias return, it'll represent a huge infusion of talent, like a trade, except one in which the Devils only get back strong players and don't have to give anyone up.

Speaking of trades, there's always the possibility the Devils will import some additional talent via a trade. The Devils have enough cap space to re-acquire someone like Petr Sykora who, at one-time, was a huge star for New Jersey. Sykora is now languishing in Minnesota, and the Wild would probably be perfectly unhappy to unload him, expecting very little in return.

While Sykora has lost a few steps over the years, he might find himself suddenly scoring more with a return to his former coach and his former team.

And coaching is another way the Devils can survive the second half. Despite coach Jacques Lemaire's reputation as a defensive maven who lives only to clog the neutral zone, he's run a relatively quick system in his return to New Jersey, using lots of stretch passes to keep the puck out of the Devils' own end.

The result is a Devils team with the second lowest goals against average in the league, but even more interesting, a Devils team that is also average 2.72 goals per game, 14th-best in the NHL.

What that means is Lemaire can actually slow things down, sacrificing some offense to compensate for tired players. He can take his foot off of the gas, offense-wise, and should continue to win games.

As always with the Devils, the big variable will be Brodeur and how he'll handle yet another season with an insane workload. We're on record as saying Brodeur needs more rest if he's going to be effective in the postseason.

With no known quantity in goal behind him, if Brodeur gets injured, the wins could very well end for the Devils.

But barring that, the Devils should continue to thrive the rest of the season. There are some injuries, but there are also some options, and options are what allow an NHL team to keep on winning.

Chris Drury Will Be Clutch in the Olympics if No One Expects Him To Be

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:06:32 -0500

Earlier this week, Jamie Langenbrunner was named captain of the U.S. Olympic hockey team, while Zach Parise, Brian Rafalski, Dustin Brown, and Ryan Suter were named alternates.

Chris Drury, supposedly named to Team USA for his leadership, if not his goal production, was noticeably missing from the American Olympic leadership structure.

Team USA GM Brian Burke said Drury didn't need a letter to provide leadership, but people were wondering just why Drury was taking up a roster spot if he wasn't going to be a formal leader.

The explanation is that Burke realizes Drury thrives under low expectations and wilts under high ones. Drury is Captain Clutch as long as he's not a team's focal point.

You can see this reflected in Drury's career. He was always solid in Colorado, a key part of their 2001 Stanley Cup-winning team. But there he was virtually anonymous around a veritable constellation of NHL stars.

He was traded to Calgary in 2002 (along with Stephane Yelle) for Derek Morris, Dean McAmmond and Jeff Shantz. Drury was expected to be the set-up man the Flames have seemed perennially unable to find for Jarome Iginla. Instead, Iginla, put up just 35 goals, down from the 52 he had scored the season before.

With the Drury experiment declared a bust in Calgary (and with the Flames unable to afford to re-sign him), he was traded to Buffalo the next season (along with Steve Begin) for Steve Reinprecht and Rhett Warrener.

Drury thrived in Buffalo because he was once again an anonymous cog. There was plenty of talent around him: Danny Briere, Miro Satan, JP Dumont, Jay McKee, Maxim Afinogenov, and Brian Campbell, to name just a few of the talented NHLers who surrounded Drury during his time as a Sabre. Drury wasn't the go-to guy; he was part of a committee of go-to guys.

With Drury no longer the focal point of a team, he relaxed and could focus on his game. Sometimes that was offense and sometimes it was defense. Basically, Drury could do what needed to be done, without having to worry that he wasn't doing enough. He even shared the team captaincy with Briere, alleviating another level of responsibility.

Drury eventually left Buffalo to sign as a free agent with the New York Rangers. He was signed along with Scott Gomez, and once again, Drury could blend in, hidden by stars like Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan. But as those players left and Drury was given the Rangers captaincy, he seemed to collapse under the attention.

Burke knows all of this and he's counting on Drury to thrive in the anonymity that comes with being the worst player on a team full of stars. And without a formal leadership role, Drury only needs to focus on doing what needs to be done. And that's always when he's been at his best.

Drury will be tremendous for the U.S. team. He'll block shots. He'll kill penalties. And he'll probably provide a few key goals. Frustratingly for Ranger fans, as soon as he's back from Vancouver, he'll probably return to his ineffective form.

Drury is Captain Clutch, but only as long as he doesn't feel expected to be.

Edmonton Oilers Will Lose Much More Than Offense by Trading Sheldon Souray

Steven Ovadia — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:02:46 -0500

Defenseman Sheldon Souray told the Edmonton Oilers he'd be willing to waive his no-trade clause if there's another team interested in him.

Souray isn't asking out so much as he's letting the Oilers know he's flexible. He's trying to be a helpful team player, but he could be laying the groundwork for the further erosion of the Oilers.

The team will be very tempted to move Souray. He's just the kind of player a lot of teams will want for a playoff run. The struggling Oilers should be able to get a nice return for him.

And they need to make sure he finishes the season in Edmonton.

Souray signed with the Oilers in July 2007 as an unrestricted free agent. What's been forgotten is that Souray held off signing with Edmonton, hoping to get an offer from the Rangers. When the Rangers didn't extend an offer, Souray settled for Edmonton.

That same summer, the Oilers thought they had a deal with center Michael Nylander, but Nylander backed out at the last minute and signed with the Washington Capitals.

This was a few months after Edmonton was forced to trade the beloved Ryan Smyth to the Islanders, because they couldn't work out a deal to re-sign him.

All of this happened the summer after Chris Pronger demanded a trade out of Edmonton, eventually winding up in Anaheim.

And you might recall, Dany Heatley, desperately wanting out of Ottawa, vetoed a trade to Edmonton, risking being stuck as a Senator rather than playing as an Oiler.

Do you notice a pattern here?

Edmonton has trouble attracting free agent talent. For whatever reason, players don't want to go there.

The issue isn't winning. While the Oilers are struggling horribly right now, they were in the Stanley Cup finals as recently as the 2005-06 season.

So what's the issue?

As far as the Oilers are concerned, it really doesn't matter. All they need to recognize is that, for some reason, players don't want to play in Edmonton. So they need to make the team seem as attractive as possible.

Players already hesitant to play in Edmonton won't be comforted by Souray being traded—even with his blessing and consent. Players want to believe a team will hold on to them for the duration of their contract. And they'll gravitate toward teams that seem more likely to keep the players they sign.

So, sure. The Oilers can trade Souray and get something decent back in return. But what will they have lost?

In addition to a fine offensive defenseman, they'll have also lost even more appeal with potential free agents. They'll find themselves even further down the free agent desirability depth chart.

As an organization, Edmonton is well within their rights to pretend they don't have a problem attracting free agent talent. But the reality is some high-profile players have chosen to leave or not come at all.

Whatever the reasons may be, if the Oilers want to have any chance of being a destination for proven NHL talent, they need to make playing for the team as attractive as possible. One way to do that is to hold onto the players they actually do get to sign.

The Oilers are a struggling team. The organization feels they have nothing left to lose in trading Souray. But no one is considering the team's reputation with potential free agents. There really is a lot left to lose.

John Tortorella and Mike D'Antoni: Learning the Joys of Defense

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:52:51 -0500

It's really not easy being a big name coach.

When you're a big name, you assume you're being hired for your coaching philosophy, so the tendency is to go straight into your signature coaching style, without really thinking about what's best for the team.

The New York Knicks and the New York Rangers have both fallen victim to this Big Name Coach trap and both teams, and their coaches, seem to be figuring ways out.

Starting with the Rangers, coach John Tortorella was brought in to be the antidote to previous coach, Tom Renney. Renney was all about defense while Tortorella was all about offense.

Knowing he was brought in for his offensive style, that's all Tortorella worked on for much of the season, even as the losses piled up for the Rangers. And why wouldn't he keep pushing for offense over defense? He was thinking he was brought in to coach an offensive system, somehow forgetting he was also brought in to win.

The Knicks were in a similar predicament. Coach Mike D'Antoni was brought in for his uptempo, explosive coaching system. And he stuck to that system, even as the losses piled up. Until, one day, he realized he was also being paid to win, and shifted to a defensive system that wasn't as exciting as the one he ran in Phoenix, but worked for the players on his roster.

D'Antoni let himself forget he was Mike D'Antoni and coached to win, rather than to expand his offensive legacy.

A few weeks ago, I suggested Tortorella learn from D'Antoni , putting aside his reputation as a high-risk, offense-driven coach, and figuring out a system that would work for the players he has.

Tortorella has started to embrace defense, and he's seeing results. The Rangers are 6-2-2 in their last 10. The second half of December, the Rangers only gave up more than a goal in just three of their last seven games. Sadly, for the Rangers, one of those games included a brutal 6-0 loss to the Flyers.

Watching the Rangers recently, you see a lot more action in the neutral zone and more of the third forward staying behind for defensive purposes. It's not Tortorella-style hockey, and it's not always exciting, but it seems to be working for the Rangers.

Coaches, like Tortorella and D'Antoni, can become prisoners of their previous successes. They become defined by systems that worked for them in contexts different from their current ones.

Coaching in New York City is no easy task. You're under a tremendous amount of scrutiny and fans and media are both ready to catalog every misstep. Coaches, like D'Antoni and Tortorella, often feel pressure to prove they're right, so when their initial coaching style didn't work out, rather than moving into something that suited the team, they kept sticking with their style. Something as simple as coaching defensively came to look like a sign of weakness to the two coaches.

Luckily for the Knicks and Rangers, both men are learning to put aside their reputations and to focus on doing what it takes to give mediocre teams a chance to be relatively competitive.

NHL: Winter Classic Needs to Be Open Air AND Open Ice

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:14:57 -0500

How can you not love the NHL's Winter Classic? It's an exciting day, with national TV coverage, pomp and circumstance, all coupled with the beauty of outdoor hockey.

And the massive media coverage makes the Winter Classic feel at least as important as a Bowl game.

It's huge for the NHL.

But taking the media attention and aesthetic beauty out of the equation, the Winter Classic is also a celebration of hockey's outdoor roots. Thousands upon thousands of players grew up learning the game outside. The Winter Classic helps pay tribute to all of the people who don't get to play hockey in rinks.

So why doesn't the NHL finish the tribute?

If part of the Winter Classic is to pay tribute to the spirit of pond hockey, why not open it up, the way pond hockey is open?

Most people playing outdoor hockey aren't playing on a regulation sheet of ice. They're probably playing on a frozen body of water that's much larger. And there's a good change the games aren't played five-on-five. In fact, the number of players on the ice at any given moment depends on who's available to play. It could be seven-on-seven or it could be three-on-three. It could even be one-on-one.

If the NHL wants to capture that spirit, they could use a larger sheet of ice, like what's used in the Olympics. But an easier way to capture the spirit of pond hockey might be to let the players go at it four-on-four, opening up the ice.

Four-on-four hockey makes sense outdoors, because it makes it that much harder for players to clog the neutral zone and slow the game down.

In the last three Winter Classics, we haven't seen much speed, since the condition of the ice and the weather are such huge factors. It's tough for players to maintain control of the puck and get off a good shot, so they focus on keeping the puck flat and pounding in shots from the blue line.

While the 2009 game at Wrigley Field saw 10 goals scored, it seemed mostly because of wind, and not necessarily because of player skill, although the fact that two offensive teams (Chicago and Detroit) were playing certainly impacted the final score.

But just two goals were scored in the 2009 game in Buffalo, which ended with the Penguins winning in a shootout.

This year's Winter Classic featured two defense-oriented teams, and you saw the results in the final score: Just two goals in regulation and one in overtime.

And about that overtime: Philadelphia had the puck on their sticks a few times, right along the Boston goalmouth, but the ice was so bad from the third period, it wouldn't settle.

So rather than putting the game away, the Flyers didn't score—and Boston did, right on the next possession.

On the one hand, you have two teams playing on equally bad ice under equally tough conditions. On the other hand, because of those conditions, you didn't see great hockey. Instead, you saw a lot of missed passes and a lot of guys chasing pucks.

It doesn't make for the most entertaining hockey.

But open things up to four-on-four, as they were during the overtime, and throw in some clean ice, and suddenly the game really is shiny, with action up and down the ice.

The Winter Classic is a marvelous event, but it could be better. If it really is supposed to be a tribute to the outdoor games so many NHLers grew up playing, why not open up the ice via four-on-four and let the fans get even more of a sense of what the game was like before there were linesmen and referees and whistles and franchises?

Fewer players will make speed even more important to victory. Players will actually be able to pass the puck laterally.

And fans will get to see what the game was like for players before they were professionals.

Someone Give Goalie Martin Brodeur a Break!

Steven Ovadia — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:22:32 -0500

There's nothing inherently alarming about goalie Martin Brodeur getting pulled in the first period of New Jersey's eventual victory over Atlanta Saturday night.

Brodeur gave up three goals on six shots and was obviously having a tough time of it. The smart, humane thing to do was to pull Brodeur, who was starting his 13th consecutive game.

But Brodeur's getting pulled does bring up the issue of his workload, which has been considerable.

Brodeur, 37, has played in 32 games this year, having started 31 of them. The Devils have played just 34 games this season.

Now, factor in that Brodeur is projected to be the starting goalie for Team Canada in the Olympics.

Now, factor in that prior to last season, when Brodeur missed months with a freak elbow injury, he hadn't started less than 70 games since the 1997-98 season. And prior to the freak injury, he hadn't started less than 50 games since the 1994-95 season.

Then, factor in Brodeur's playoff games. He's played 176 of them. But don't forget the unlimited overtime in the playoffs. So Brodeur's 10,947 playoff minutes translate to over 182 post-season 60-minute games.

The Devils have never been about the individual player. They've always been about the team and about their system. They've consistently let players leave the team, or traded them away, feeling that no one is irreplaceable.

The one slot where they haven't cultivated this approach is in goal, where they've ridden Brodeur for well over 15 years. There's never been a plan B with the Devils and Brodeur. New Jersey was always going to ride him until he collapsed.

And amazingly, he didn't collapse until last season's injury. And he rebounded back and still finished the season with 31 starts. Even with that scare, the Devils didn't try and bring in a back-up who could possibly start if Brodeur went down again this season. Instead, they went with Yann Danis, who so far in his career has been noticeably average.

Brodeur is aging. All of this ice time is taking a toll. You can see it in the playoffs, where the Devils have been out of the quarter finals just twice since winning the Cup in 2003. And in those two semi-final appearances, the Devils have just two wins.

You can't put all of this on Brodeur, but there definitely seems to be a pattern of the team running out of steam at the end of the season.

On the one hand, you can't blame the Devils for leaning on one of the greatest goalies ever to play the game. He's the NHL's all-time leader in wins and shares the NHL shutout record with the legendary Terry Sawchuk. Eventually, the shutout record will belong to Brodeur alone. Why wouldn't a team lean on a goaltender of Brodeur's caliber?

But the Devils need to understand that Brodeur is human. His body can no longer handle the grind of playing all season and then into the playoffs. They need to take steps to preserve both his body and his legacy.

Step one would be a solid back-up to help with the regular season workload. Even a game off a week could make a huge difference for Brodeur. The Devils either don't trust Danis to start more than a few games a season, or else aren't taking full advantage of a qualified goalie. Neither scenario is a great one, but the former seems to be the issue as before Saturday's game, the very one from which Brodeur was subsequently pulled, coach Jacques Lemaire told the media : "We try to give [Brodeur] the proper rest so he can play all of these games. And if we see at a time that he gets too much work, then we will play the other goalie."

The fact that Lemaire doesn't seem to readily know Danis' name seems to indicate the goaltender is not weighing heavily in the coach's goaltending plans.

Brodeur's getting pulled from one game is hardly cause to pull the panic alarm. But it is cause to think about how many games he's already played, and how many more games he's going to play. And then, you have to wonder if a little rest wouldn't help him last longer into the playoffs.

Hockey is a team game and every player has a role in his team's performance. You certainly can't blame the Devils recent post-season struggles on Brodeur's fatigue, but why wouldn't you want your best and, arguably, most important player as rested as possible for the playoffs?

Flyers Learn That Goalie Depth Is Not a Fad

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:31:33 -0500

This summer was an interesting one in that there seemed to be a surplus of goalies on the market. Heck, the Islanders managed to land two strong starters, whereas in previous offseasons, they might not have been able to afford one.

Now, we're seeing that goalie surplus begin to evaporate, as several teams are finding themselves short a goalie.

In Edmonton, goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, already out for quite some time, is having spinal surgery. No one is sure when he'll return to the ice.

Philadelphia lost goalie Ray Emery for six weeks with a muscle tear.

And Carolina lost Cam Ward earlier in the season, before he came back Dec. 9 against the Devils.

Even the Islanders, with their two starting goalies, plus Rick DiPietro waiting to come back, suffered a setback when DiPietro couldn't finish an AHL start.

Suddenly, goalies are in short supply around the NHL.

The Flyers just grabbed Michael Leighton off of waivers from Carolina and reportedly are in talks to trade for Jaroslav Halak from the Canadiens. The Habs supposedly want a top-six forward, a steep price, but one they know they can extract given the lack of options for the Flyers.

Philadelphia has consistently under-valued the importance of a good goalie. They finished last season with Antero Niittymaki and Marty Biron, both relatively strong, if not ideal, goalies. Instead of re-signing both or just one, Philadelphia decided to roll the dice on Ray Emery, who had played the previous season in the KHL.

Brian Boucher, who hadn't had a starting job in years, was brought in to be Emery's backup.

So basically, the Flyers decided to go high-risk with both of their goalie slots and now they're paying the price, scrambling to find a way to keep themselves in the playoff hunt.

You can see where a lot of NHL GMs made a similar mistake this offseason, trying to go with one good goalie option, hoping that one goalie would hold up. Edmonton gambled big time on Khabibulin and now their goaltending is in the hands of Jeff Deslauriers, a second-year player who's actually stepped-up for the Oilers.

But not every team has had a happy ending. When Ward went down for Carolina, they were forced to bring in Manny Legace, who wasn't even playing in the NHL anymore.

And you can see other teams who are just as vulnerable. The struggling Rangers have no one to backup Henrik Lundqvist. If he goes down, an already awful season somehow becomes even worse. Yann Danis is Martin Brodeur's safety net in New Jersey. He's looked OK in the three games he's started, but could the Devils really survive if Brodeur went down like he did last season? Is anyone comfortable giving Danis the keys to the net?

Teams, like the Flyers, can walk around thinking goalie depth isn't that big a deal. They can hope nothing happens to their starting goalie, but odds are, something is going to happen, at least for a few games. If you don't have talent in your system or a backup who can start, you're going to end up like the Flyers—trying to sign multiple goalies, and hoping one of them will stick.

Matt Gilroy's Demotion Takes New York Rangers from Fragile to Brittle

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:01:28 -0500

The New York Rangers have sent rookie defenseman Matt Gilroy down to the AHL, a sign that GM Glen Sather and coach John Tortorella have no idea how to fix what's wrong with the team.

The Rangers have gradually moved into a more defensive system, as the team has been unable to find scoring beyond Marian Gaborik.

Gilroy's defense could be suspect, but it's hardly surprising given that 1) he's an NHL rookie, and 2) he grew up a forward, converting to defense in college.

More importantly, Gilroy was demoted so that Ilkka Heikkinen could take his spot.

Heikkinen is a veteran of Finnish leagues but has just 24 AHL games and two in the NHL, so he's hardly a dramatic upgrade.

In other words, the Rangers demoted Gilroy just to make a move. There was no plan. There was no goal. Sather and Tortorella just wanted to make some kind of change.

I'm sure the move doesn't seem to have any ramifications to Tortorella and Sather.

Sure, Gilroy is sent down for a while, but he can always be recalled. And perhaps Heikkinen will even turn out to be the strong defensive presence the Rangers have lacked for most of the decade.

But Tortorella and Sather don't seem to have considered what demoting Gilroy means in terms of the other Rangers.

On the one hand, you have a lot of young players who have now learned that they're expendable to the organization. Players like Michael Del Zotto, Artem Anisimov, and Enver Lisin have to wonder if they'll be the next rookies to be sent down when the team as a whole fails again (assuming the Gilroy-ectomy even temporarily fixes the Rangers' woes).

On the other hand, you have a lot of under-performing veterans who have seen that they won't be held accountable for their lack of quality play.

Pretty much everyone who follows the Rangers had the same reaction to the Gilroy demotion: "Why wasn't it defenseman Michal Rozsival?"

It's a fair question; Rozsival is now well into his second season of defensive misadventures. And if fans are wondering this, doesn't it stand to reason that the players are wondering the same thing?

By dodging a bullet, do Sather and Tortorella think Rozsival will step up his game? Because what they've shown him is that no matter how badly he plays, younger players will be the ones to suffer the consequences. It's Psychology 101.

Sather and Tortorella have effectively told the veterans that it doesn't matter how they play. Those jobs are guaranteed for veterans.

In the salary-cap era, there are often only so many moves that can be made to improve a team—especially a struggling team. You can demote players, you can promote players, or you can fire the coach. But any other moves, like a trade, require some degree of cap flexibility.

The Rangers shouldn't be blamed for trying to improve the team using one of their limited options. They should be blamed for making a move that's going to negatively impact several facets of an already failing team.

It's one thing to make a move that ostensibly accomplishes nothing. No harm, no foul. But the Rangers just made a move that's probably going to negatively impact the team and possibly make them even worse.

Demoting Gilroy won't quickly fix the Rangers, but it will slowly break them.

Ottawa Shouldn't Be Surprised Alex Kovalev Is Consistently Inconsistent

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:57:27 -0500

It's funny when a player gets signed and ownership gets upset when the player plays the way that they have their entire career.

It's like getting angry at ice because it's cold.

Ottawa ownership is disappointed in the slumping Alex Kovalev, whose last goal going into Tuesday night's game against Montreal was Oct. 29. Owner Eugene Melnyk has been complaining his top players haven't stepped up enough.

When Ottawa signed Kovalev, they were probably looking at his last two seasons in Montreal, when he had 26 goals and 39 assists in 2008-09 and 35 goals and 49 assists in 2007-08—relatively solid numbers for a 36-year-old guy who entered the league in 1992.

That's always been the book on Kovalev; he can look like an amazing player in two-year increments. But when you look at larger chunks of his career, you really get a feel for its ups and downs.

For instance, if you look at the season before his 35 goal season in Montreal, you find an 18 goal campaign over 73 games, hardly stellar numbers.

And let's be honest. Kovalev's time in Montreal was largely successful. If you look at his second tour of the New York Rangers, you see an even greater study in futility, mainly in the form of just 23 goals and 32 assists in 90 games over two seasons.

And Kovalev's first tour of New York wasn't much more spectacular. Which is how he wound up traded to Pittsburgh during the 1998-99 season.

Kovalev went on to flourish in Pittsburgh, playing some of the best hockey of his career, even putting up a career high 44 goals and 51 assists during the 2000-01 season. In fact, he played well enough for the Rangers to want Kovalev back, which is how he wound up, once again, in New York.

And then, surprise, he wound up getting traded out of New York.

That's the pattern of Kovalev's career. He plays well at one stop but plays horribly at the next. And to add a little variety to his career, even those successful stops are frequently punctuated with awful seasons.

So with all of this data showing a very clear pattern with Kovalev, does anyone in the Ottawa organization really have a right to be mad at him? Or are they really mad at themselves for somehow believing Kovalev would find the consistency, as a Senator, that's evaded him pretty much his entire career.

This hubris of ignoring patterns seems to be a pattern in the Ottawa organization, as they took Jonathan Cheechoo from San Jose as part of the Dany Heatley deal, despite Cheechoo's steadily decreasing production. Three years removed from a 56-goal season, Cheechoo has just three goals in his first 28 games for Ottawa, putting him on pace for his lowest goal total since his rookie season.

Ottawa management saw the goal production dropping each year and still seemed to think they would somehow be exempt from a slump now entering its fourth season.

When GMs think they're better than player's performance patterns, they very rarely, if ever, find success.

Melnyk had every right to ask his stars to start scoring but he might have also asked GM Bryan Murray to step his GM game up, too.

Blackhawks Preserve Toews and Kane's Careers With Contractual Restraint

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:58:02 -0500

NHL GMs are falling in love with the long-term contract.

What's not to love?

Since cap hits are calculated using the average annual value of the contract, superstars can be retained with front-loaded contracts that are relatively easy to buy out toward the end of a career, thus taking the sting out of a hefty superstar salary.

The downside? You're basically saddled with a player who could seriously deteriorate before it's financially viable to buy-out the contract.

That's what makes Chicago's recent signing so very interesting. On the one hand, you had the team holding onto defenseman Duncan Keith with a 13-year, $72 million contract, which works out to a cap hit of around $5.5 million per year.

The length isn't horrifying when you consider how gracefully defensemen tend to age and the annual cap hit is certainly reasonable.

What was even more impressive were the signings of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane to five-year $31.5 million contracts, which turns into an annual cap hit of $6.3 million per year, a high number, but well within the norm for two rising NHL stars.

The lengths of the contracts are what's most impressive, though. For as much upside as the two youngsters seem to have, there is always a huge degree of risk with unproven talent.

We've seen it this season. While Kane is on-track for another 70-odd point season, Toews, captain of the Blackhawks, is struggling with just six goals in 20 games. It could be an aberration or it could be an indication Toews' first two successful NHL campaigns were statistical anomalies.

But the beauty of the relatively short-term signings is that if Toews is on the downside of his career sooner than anticipated, the Blackhawks aren't saddled with his contract for the next decade.

And if, as expected, Toews rebounds in the second half of the season, Chicago has him locked down for a good amount of time, with the option of re-signing him at the end of his contract.

Even better for the Blackhawks, assuming no no-trade clauses were granted, a six-year contract is a lot easier to trade than a 13-year one. Especially a few years into a six-year deal.

One has to wonder if the Blackhawks weren't a bit scared off by the adventures of Mike Richards in Philadelphia. Richards, just a few years older than Kane and Toews, signed a 12-year, $69 million extension in December 2007.

He finished the next full season with 80 points and the Flyers captaincy. He has played well this season, with 11 goals in his first 24 games, but he's come under fire for the Flyers' recent swoon , with fans complaining he's not taking enough of a leadership role.

What happens when Richards gets tired of the backlash and realizes he's still got a decade to go on his contract? Will the security of a 12-year deal begin to feel like a prison sentence?

One has to wonder if the Blackhawks watched this situation carefully and worried about sinking Toews with the pressure of being the team captain, plus the pressure of a huge, long-term contract.

And one has to wonder if the organization worried that by keeping him for 10 or 15 years, they might accidentally crush his spirit and destroy his career.

Long-term contracts are useful from an economic point of view, but not enough GMs seem to consider the psychological toll it can take on a player—especially a young player.

There's definitely some pressure on a player coming up in the NHL with a reputation for being a rising star. The pressure can become oppressive on a player whose team potentially ruined its ability to sign future free agents, or retain players, because it threw the bank at him.

Duncan Keith is going to have some huge expectations to live up to for quite a long time.

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane's relatively short contracts will give the Blackhawks two wonderful gifts: Future flexibility with their roster and a chance for the two forwards to develop without the yoke of a long-term contract holding them back.

Jim Rutherford: Hurricanes GM Must Forget the Past To Succeed in the Present

Steven Ovadia — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:05:53 -0500

Carolina GM Jim Rutherford is watching his team struggle and doesn't seem to know how to fix things. So he's doing what he's always done—he's changing his mind and then changing it back.

You might even call it his signature move.

Monday he complained to the Raleigh News & Observer about the challenges of running the struggling Hurricanes, who have just five wins on the season:

"I do not see any quick solutions...With the cap system, it's hard to make quick changes."

That's a very different tune than Rutherford sang in July 2005, when the NHL ended the lockout that cost hockey the 2004-05 season. Back then, the Carolina GM sounded like a fan of the cap system:

"What we went through was necessary. We had to get some controls on our business and certainly I'm hoping that's what this new agreement does."

So basically, if you're Rutherford, you can be a fan of the cap right up until the moment you don't like it.

And that's the kind of flip-flopping that's increasingly become the defining characteristic of Rutherford's time in North Carolina.

Last season, as the team struggled, he fired coach Peter Laviolette and replaced him with Paul Maurice, whom Laviolette had originally replaced.

So basically, Rutherford went back to the coach he had fired.

In 2008, the Hurricanes traded Erik Cole to the Edmonton Oilers, only to re-acquire him the following season.

Prior to that, in 2006 Rutherford let center Matt Cullen get signed by the Rangers, only to re-acquire Cullen the following season.

Defenseman Aaron Ward had a similar route back to Carolina, getting signed by the Rangers, traded to the Bruins, and then traded back to the Hurricanes.

It's almost like that 2005-06 Stanley Cup haunts Rutherford, instead of inspiring him.

He keeps returning to that team and to those players and to that frame of mind.

As that Cup gets further and further away, going to that team seems less and less of a good idea.

Now Rutherford is well within his rights to change his mind. He would be foolish to persevere in the face of what he now realizes is a bad idea. But one has to wonder why his mind is being changed so frequently.

How exactly does one go from supporting a salary cap to the extent that a season of hockey is canceled and then, a few years later, find himself complaining about that very same cap?

How does a GM expect to move his team forward if he keeps undoing his decisions?

The Hurricanes are struggling for quite a few reasons: Goaltending. Injuries. A slumping Eric Staal.

Rutherford doesn't have a ton of options, but he has cap space and intriguing trade pieces. He has opportunities to make the team better, either this season or in the near future. But his not doing anything while seemingly thinking about 2006 isn't going to help things.

Let's hope Rutherford isn't on the phone, trying to lure Glen Wesley out of retirement.

Rangers Not Scoring Goals: A Tale Five Seasons in the Making

Steven Ovadia — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:04:42 -0500

John Tortorella was supposed to change everything for the Rangers.

Where previous coach Tom Renney coached with a conservative, defensive posture, Tortorella is all about risk and offense.

Where Renney believed players should always be skating backwards, keeping their opponents in front of them, Tortorella demands his skaters always move forward.

Conceptually, the two coaches could not be more different. Yet, realistically, they're both getting the same results.

During the 2005-06 season, the Rangers pushed their way into the playoffs, breaking a seven-year playoff drought, mostly on the strength of Jaromir Jagr, who scored 54 of the 250 Ranger goals that season. In other words, one player accounted for almost 22 percent of the goal production. The combined goal production of Petr Prucha and Michael Nylander, that season's second and third-leading goal scorers, did not equal Jagr's output that season.

Renney funneled the entire offense through Jagr. Everything was about getting him the puck and shutting the other team down. Renney rolled four lines and counted on Jagr to do his damage every four shifts or so.

Now, looking at the current season, we see an almost completely different team (defenseman Michal Rozsival is the lone holdover from the 2005-06 team) under a philosophically different coach. And yet, we see Marian Gaborik with 16 goals on the season, representing 25 percent of the 64 goals scored for the Rangers this year. If you add up the goal totals of Vinny Prospal, Ales Kotalik, and defenseman Michael Del Zotto, the team's second, third, and fourth-leading goal scorers, they're equal to what Gaborik is producing.

Tortorella rides Gaborik, giving him as much time as he can handle and keeping on the ice as frequently as possible.

How can the same team have the same problem, five seasons apart? What is it that makes the Rangers struggle with scoring so often? And lest you think two aberrational seasons were selected here, please take note the Rangers had just one 30-goal scorer in the intervening 2006-08 seasons.

It's hard to blame the players, since there's almost no overlap between the two seasons.

You can't really blame coaching, since there are two different coaches using two different systems, and both getting the same results.

In terms of variables, that just leaves management and/or organizational culture.

Management is certainly a huge factor in the Rangers' problems. Under the NHL salary cap system, GM Glen Sather has tended to shy away from bona fide goal scorers. Sure, he's spent a lot on free agents, but almost all of them have had fatal flaws. Jagr came to the Rangers when it seemed like his career was over. Michael Nylander and Martin Straka were brought in more for Jagr's companionship than ability. Scott Gomez seemed a sure thing, but Chris Drury was better known for his two-way play than his ability to put up numbers. Prospal, Markus Naslund, and Brandan Shanahan were both older players looking to prove they still had a little more gas in their tanks. And Gaborik's injury history made him a huge risk.

So looking at Sather's moves, while some of them worked brilliantly (Gaborik, Prospal, Jagr, Nylander, Straka, and Shanahan), others were OK (Naslund), and others were train wrecks (Gomez and Drury), none of them seemed guaranteed to improve the team.

The free-agent signings that did work seemed more happy accidents than deliberate planning. And for whatever reason, Sather has taken an all-or-nothing approach to free agency, routinely choosing to take the one (or two) best high-risk free agents available, rather than spreading money around on more consistent, if less prestigious, forwards.

At the same time, Sather has not developed much young forward talent. The injured Brandon Dubinsky has just three goals on the season. The healthy Ryan Callahan has the same. Artem Anisimov, playing his first full NHL season and is more of a defensive center, has four goals.

Uneven free agent signings and undeveloped youth make it hard to find scoring—especially across seasons. As the Rangers have seen, it leaves them with no core to count on.

Organizational culture might also play a huge role in the Rangers consistent inability to score. It seems Rangers don't feel the need to play down low, with opposing creases usually free of Rangers jerseys. Meanwhile, goalie Henrik Lundqvist has spent the bulk of this season getting bumped like a broken snack machine. Organizationally, it often looks like players come to the Rangers not expecting to have to fight for position or to stand-up for fellow players. They play like scoring is an option, not a requirement.

Looking at these factors, it's no wonder the Rangers have either failed to score consistently or have had to lean on one player to do the bulk of their scoring. What is surprising is that management has seemed content to let the team suffer the same ills the past five seasons.

Changing players hasn't helped the issue, nor has changing coaches. The Rangers continue to make the playoffs, but never seem in danger of getting very far. Eventually fans and ownership will want more from the team and Sather will have to figure out a way to solve a problem he seems to have been ignoring for quite some time.

Solid Coaching Often Not Sexy Enough for Young NHL Players

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:13:16 -0500

Columbus forward Nikita Filatov left the Blue Jackets, choosing to finish the season playing in Russia.

According to Puck Daddy , a huge part of the issue was coach Ken Hitchcock's defensive system, which apparently felt too constricting to the free-skating, offense-minded Filatov.

Meanwhile, under Hitchcock, the Blue Jackets are off to their best start ever.

Over in New York, coach John Tortorella, who gives his players free reign to take as many offensive risks as they want. The Rangers are 4-6 in their last 10, with the only real offense coming from Marian Gaborik. Rookie defenseman Michael Del Zotto, who started the season brilliantly, has just three points in November and is -5 for the month.

It raises an interesting point: Offensive-minded players like offensive-minded coaches, but it doesn't always translate into wins and/or success. Especially with younger players.

Scott Gordon is pushing a high-risk offensive system on a very young Islanders team, and so far, it's only translated into a lot of ties. It could be years before we see the impact his system is having on the development of his players. He could be producing future offensive giants, but he could just as easily be producing talented skaters who have no idea how to play defense; in essence, human pylons.

The NHL is finally transitioning out of its defense-oriented period. More and more coaches are trying to win with stretch passes. Less and less coaches want battles fought in the neutral zone. But still, we're seeing the value of system-oriented hockey.

Over in Phoenix, Dave Tippett has revived the Coyotes simply by instituting a system that lets his young players know where they need to be and when they need to be there—something the team lacked under previous coach Wayne Gretzky.

And out in New Jersey, Jacques Lemaire has found considerable success, especially out on the road, coaching an interesting defensive system that relies on offense, smart passing, and puck-control, almost like a trap that takes place in the offensive zone.

Younger players, like Filatov, don't seem to appreciate the value of systems and schemes, which is a shame, since a lot of times, system-oriented hockey is what takes a career to the next level. Say what you will about the Devils and their style of play, but their system-driven hockey has produced an awful lot of NHL studs over the years.

There's no guarantee Filatov would have ever played his way into Hitchcock's good graces in Columbus, and perhaps he was right in bailing out of the situation, but it would have been great if he had seen fit to stick it out. What if Filatov had learned more of a two-way game? What if he had learned the comfort that often comes from playing in a system? Hitchcock really could have elevated Filatov's game, giving it more dimensions.

Any young players watching the evolution of their equally young cohort in New York will also have to think about the value of a strong coaching style — especially if the Rangers rookie defensive corps continues its stagnation.

Hitchcock might not be the most fun coach in the NHL, but his coaching style prepares players to survive in the NHL. Filatov might not find that same benefit in Europe.

Filatov will certainly put up more goals in Russia this year, but odds are, his game won't improve by simply embracing a style he already knows.

Does the NHL Have A Future In Europe?

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:32:06 -0500

Whose ears didn't perk up when they heard Markus Naslund was coming out of retirement to play with Peter Forsberg for Modo in the Swedish Elite League? Both are even reportedly playing for free.

Not many fans wanted to see either return to the NHL, with both players past their primes. But there's something exciting about the two playing for Modo, matching up against a level of talent that isn't quite NHL caliber.

More and more players are leaving the NHL for Europe. Some, like Jaromir Jagr, left for money. Others, like Kevin Dallman, left because of a lack of NHL offers . And others, like Forsberg and Naslund, just want to play close to home.

The NHL has largely ignored this migration, assuming that the best players will always want to play in the NHL. Which is true. Most players wanting to prove their mastery of hockey are going to eventually try and break into the NHL.

But what about players who have already proven their worth? What about players who had some kind of NHL following but have left for one reason or another?

The NHL doesn't care about European hockey because it doesn't impact the bottom line or the league's longterm health. But by largely ignoring European hockey, they're missing out on what could be an interesting opportunity—bringing a different kind of hockey to fans.

You might have heard the NHL has a television network, although it wouldn't be surprising to find out you didn't realize that. Right now, the network basically shows highlights and occasionally, re-broadcasts of games. Looking at the schedule, you can see they don't have much going on . There are probably certain test patterns that rate better.

So why not show the Modo games? Why not give fans the chance to see Naslund and Forsberg together again?

League management might not like the idea because of the belief broadcasting European hockey would cannibalize the NHL audience. But how many fans would give up their home team for the Swedish Elite League? The reality is, European games could draw fans whose teams were off that night, thus placing more eyeballs on hockey, if not the NHL.

Broadcasting European league games would also give NHL GMs a small bit of leverage with free agents. Say Ilya Kovalchuk threatens to leave the NHL for Europe. Kovalchuk's defection would be a blow to the league, but the blow is softened knowing that fans will still have access to Kovalchuk and his skills, on the NHL Network.

And perhaps, knowing that even by leaving the league, the league would still own a piece of him in some way, Kovalchuk would be more open to NHL offers.

The NHL has a precedent for this. They've shut down for hockey over the past few Olympics. They've begun the past few NHL seasons in Europe. The league recognizes the NHL isn't just about the NHL in particular, but hockey in general.

Getting more involved in European hockey would be an expansion of this idea, growing the hockey brand outside of the NHL context.

If the TV experiment is successful, what if the league decided to expand into Europe? What if, instead of an Eastern and Western Conference, there were Eastern and Western Hemispheres? Heck. Even an interleague All-Star Game would be pretty cool .

The NHL is desperately trying to maintain a franchise in Phoenix, where no one seems to care about hockey. Meanwhile, there's an entire continent the NHL has yet to fully explore. Players like Jagr, Forsberg, and Naslund see something in Europe. What do these players see that their former league doesn't?

Will Goalie Rick DiPietro Save the Islanders?

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:32:14 -0500

The most telling Islanders statistic is 2-6. That's their overtime/loss record, meaning eight of their first 18 games have gone into extra periods, with six of them losses.

That tells us a lot about the young Islanders. They're good. They're good enough to hang with most opponents for 60 minutes. They just run into problems after the end of regulation.

A lot of this is a symptom of their age. Their three leading point-earners were all born after 1983. John Tavares went straight from the draft to the Isles' top line.

A lot of the overtime trouble is also a symptom of coach Scott Gordon's offense. It's a relentlessly attacking style that has players converging on the net. There's not much backchecking, or defense. It's all about skaters converging on the opposing goalie.

So basically, unless the Islanders get a sudden influx of experienced NHL players, or Gordon decides to alter his coaching philosophy, it's looking like the Islanders are going to continue to survive off of the charity point.

But there is one factor that could prove to be game-changing for the Isles.

The variable that just might change their fortunes?

The return of goalie Rick DiPietro.

DiPietro is the team's star player, signed to a 15-year, $67.5 million contract. He played just eight games last season, and has yet to play this season, as he recovers, very slowly, from knee surgeries.

He's been practicing with the team, and could be just a few weeks away from an NHL return. And he'll be returning to a very different Islanders team. Previous coach Ted Nolan used a methodical, defensive system that never took advantage of DiPietro's two greatest attributes—his athleticism, and his ability to play the puck.

DiPietro is a courageous, occasionally reckless puck handler, unafraid to play the puck, and often brilliant with a stretch pass. A goalie like DiPietro, assuming he's returning in relatively peak condition, could spring the Islanders offense constantly, giving the team more of a lead to work with.

Instead of the forwards waiting for the defense to settle the puck, and then send it out into the neutral zone, DiPietro would allow everyone to take off out of the zone early, waiting for him to hit them before the opposing blue line.

Now the Islanders shouldn't get too excited about DiPietro's potential value. His health has always been questionable, and assuming he'll return relatively healthy is a relatively huge mental leap. Plus, his high-risk style often leads to his creating scoring opportunities for opposing teams.

Forwards and defensemen could end up spending a lot of time, and energy, trying to cover up his mistakes. And with defenseman Radek Martinek, the team's steadiest blueliner, out for the rest of the season, there won't be much of a safety net for DiPietro's puck-playing explorations.

DiPietro's return is by no way guaranteed to make the Islanders a better team, but for a team that really has no other prospects (they're already talking about trading Doug Weight ), DiPietro could be the team's only chance to start winning games in regulation.

Or at least not losing in overtime.

Jean-Sebastian Giguere Doing Everything to Save His Job Except Playing Well

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:32:15 -0500

Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere is upset about suddenly finding himself in a polygamous goalie situation, with he and Jonas Hiller competing for the starting job.

Giguere told the LA Daily News , "I'd rather retire than be a back-up goalie ."

The issue is the remaining $13 million on the final two years of his contract coupled with the emergence of Hiller as a starter.

The wild cards in the equation? Hiller is a free agent after this season and Giguere has a no-trade clause.

Giguere is playing a very sophisticated game. The Ducks know they can't afford two goalies. It's to their advantage to let Hiller and Giguere duke it out. If Giguere wins, they can let Hiller go in the offseason. If Hiller wins, they can trade Giguere and his mammoth salary, getting a nice short-term rental to help them in the playoffs. Perhaps that shut-down defenseman they lost when they traded away Chris Pronger.

By demanding the starting job, Giguere is trying to force Anaheim's hand a bit earlier. If the Ducks buckle, he'll get a solid shot to keep his job. If they don't give in, he might actually retire, and the Ducks lose him for nothing.

But would Giguere retire? Probably not, especially knowing he could start on any number of NHL clubs. Giguere knows if he wants to stay in Anaheim, this is probably his last and best chance to win back the starting job.

Giguere has always been a charmed goalie. The first-round pick of Hartford (13th overall) in 1995, he wound up being traded from Calgary to Anaheim in the summer of 2000 with Anaheim recognizing Giguere was ready to be an NHL-quality starter. And the Ducks were correct as Giguere eventually pushed Anaheim goalie Guy Hebert out of his starting spot.

So Giguere might be more aware than most just how easy it is for a young, hot goalie to push out an established veteran. And Giguere isn't being unduly paranoid about his lack of job security. Hiller has been great for Anaheim, with a .919 save percentage and a 2.76 goals against average. And in 46 games last season, Hiller put up a 2.39 goals against and .919 save percentage. Giguere's numbers have been nowhere near as strong. In fact, they've been downright bloated.

Giguere's back is against the wall and he correctly sees that he's on the fast track to a back-up role. By announcing his dissatisfaction, he's trying to buy a few starts to prove he's still a top NHL goaltender. Since Anaheim probably would love to trade him, assuming he'll waive his no-trade, they might be open to spotlighting him for other teams. Giguere is probably hoping it won't come to that.

Goaltending is a tough job. They succeed and fail in a horribly public way. Giguere can't be blamed for trying to hold onto his starting role, but at this point, it seems like he's playing a very long shot. Plus, it's never a good sign when a goalie finds himself playing management and the media more than he's actually playing the puck.

Speed Won't Kill Leafs, But It Might Not Help Either

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:46:03 -0500

Ron Wilson has tried just about every coaching technique at his disposal to get the Leafs going.

His latest plan? Speed.

Wilson inserted John Mitchell into Toronto's "top" line, putting the fast Mitchell between the quick Jason Blake and the speedy Phil Kessel.

Speed is an important strategy in hockey, but also one of the more misunderstood ones.

Speed for the sake of speed doesn't mean anything in and of itself. Games are won on the number of goals scored. There are no points awarded for the fastest forward on the ice.

So let's look ahead to Wilson's new speed line. He has his top line on the ice and they've caught an opposing team in a change. There's a three-on-one for Toronto crossing into the offensive zone.

The lone opposing defenseman sees three Leafs flying down the ice at him: Kessel, who finished last season with 36 goals, but is just returning from an injury; Blake, who has one goal on the season; and Mitchell, who also has no goals on the season. Who does Wilson think the defenseman is going to play?

He's going to play Kessel and bank on Blake and Mitchell not being able to finish.

And that's the thing about speed: it's just one ingredient in a successful NHL line. If no one can finish, you're no better off than if your forwards are the last ones into the zone.

Pascal Dupuis of the Penguins is a great example of this. He's a fast skater who's never had more than 20 goals in a season. His speed hasn't translated into offense, despite spending plenty of time over the years on the Penguins' top two lines.

John Madden of the Blackhawks is another example. In his prime, he was shockingly fast, but it never translated into huge offensive numbers. To be fair, though, Madden used his speed to play a much more defensive game.

Coaches talk about speed like it's some kind of magical spell. It can put players in a great position, but it only works if players finish their chances.

Not everyone in the NHL enjoys speed, though. Ottawa GM Bryan Murray recently blamed the NHL's injury epidemic on the speed of the NHL game .

While he didn't call for the reinstatement of the two-line pass ban, he did seem to yearn for the NHL's slower, more deliberate days.

But back to Toronto's odd-man rush. Ideally, with the defenseman playing Kessel, either Blake or Mitchell should be able to score. But will they? That's what Wilson needs to worry about.

Wilson sees a problem with his team and he's trying to fix it. But when he watches the Leafs, does he really think the problem is guys entering the zone too slowly? Or is it more that the players in the zone can't get opposing defenses moving out of position?

Will a fast line help Toronto win games? Or will they just get more frequent chances not to score?

Speed probably won't hurt the Leafs, but Wilson needs a better plan to figure out how it will help them.

Vinny Lecavalier Comes Full Circle for Tampa Bay

Steven Ovadia — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:09:26 -0500

Vinny Lecavalier is under siege in Tampa with Rick Tocchet seemingly angrier and angrier with the franchise center.

Twelve games into the season, Lecavalier had a goal and nine assists. He's been demoted from the top two lines. He's been called out by Tocchet. Puck Daddy has a great summary of the drama here .

The only thing that hasn't happened is a benching, and that could happen soon. Don't be fooled by Lecavalier's strong game against Toronto Tuesday night. Lecavalier is struggling.

The question everyone is asking is how this could happen to Lecavalier. But a better question is why hasn't this happened sooner?

People think of Lecavalier and they think of a lot of things. The 2004 Stanley Cup. The 11 year/$85 million contract. The 52 goal season in 2006-07. The 40 goal campaign in 2007-08.

But before all of that, Lecavalier was a huge disappointment in Tampa. Selected number one overall in 1998, he had a solid rookie year, but nothing like the rookies years that would be had by Alex Tanguay, Scott Gomez, and Simon Gagne, all of whom were drafted behind Lecavalier. But Lecavalier went straight from the draft into the NHL and maybe that was too much pressure for him.

By 2000, Lecavalier seemed to have adjusted to life in the NHL. So much so, the Lightning traded away Chris Gratton and made Lecavalier team captain. Lecavalier was just 19, at the time, the youngest captain in NHL history. He would finish that season, his second, with 25 goals and a minus 25 plus/minus.

That would be Lecavalier's best goal production year until 2002-03, when he scored over 30 goals for the first time in his career.

Lecavalier was coasting, refusing to live up to his potential and his leadership responsibilities. He held out before the 2001 season, returning to the team toward the start of the season. The holdout cost Lecavalier his captaincy, though. He wouldn't wear the 'C' again until the start of the 2008 season.

It's easy to look at Lecavalier and see a player who's fallen on tough times. But if you look at his career, the past few seasons we saw a Lecavalier who was uncharacteristically focused and driven. Lecavalier now doesn't seem stuck in a rut, so much as he seems back to normal.

And now the Lightning have to figure out how to get him going again—assuming that's even possible.

Tocchet seems to be taking the same approach coach John Tortorella took with Lecavalier and is trying to publicly berate and shame him into playing better. The good news is that it worked for Tortorella. The bad news is Lecavalier probably developed quite a thick skin over all of those years of benchings and screaming.

Worse yet, the young and impressionable Steve Stamkos, off to a very strong start in Tampa, is getting a ringside seat for this circus. Will Lecavalier's lack of a work ethic soon rub off on young Stamkos?

The Lightning have the ingredients for quite a little disaster. The franchise that thought Barry Melrose could still coach must figure out how to keep their franchise player from spending the next decade wading in mediocrity.

Let's see if the Lightning can find Lecavalier's on-switch one more time.

Injuries Don't Seem To Stop Any NHL Teams

Steven Ovadia — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:22:10 -0400

Evgeni Malkin. Ilya Kovalchuk. Marc Savard. Patrik Elias. Marian Hossa. Simon Gagne. Johan Franzen. Daniel Sedin.

Some of last season's best forwards?

Sure. But they're also players who have already been injured this season.

Some of the NHL's best players seem to be followed by some kind of injury cloud. Malkin is the latest victim, expected to be out for weeks with a shoulder injury.

This season, successful NHL teams will probably have one common trait: depth among their Top-Six forwards. This season isn't about the talent NHL teams have—it's about the talent they have to fill-in for their injured talent.

Injuries are not new to the NHL. And it's a given that goalies are going to be injured, given the nature of their work. But have we ever seen so many top-flight forwards injured so early in the season?

Obviously, no team wants to lose their best player, or even just one of their best players, for any amount of time. But what's been interesting is how well all of these teams have managed to deal with losing major players.

Franzen is out until March with a torn ACL, and while the Wings aren't off to a strong start, goaltending has been more of an issue. Franzen is missed on the second line, but having Todd Bertuzzi as a fill-in is a pretty nice option.

Marian Hossa has yet to play a game for the Chicago Blackhawks and they're 7-4-1. (Rumor has it he wants to make sure they won't win the Stanley Cup before he'll skate with the team.)

And the Penguins will barely have time to miss Malkin with Jordan Staal in the second line center slot.

NHL teams have never been deeper and it's making for a fascinating season. Even in Atlanta, where they lost the irreplaceable Kovalchuk, there's a lot of hope in the play of rookie Evander Kane, who seems capable of holding the fort while Kovalchuk is out.

One positive outcome of the NHL's salary cap is that NHL GMs seem to constantly think about redundancy. Even as some GM sign players to 40-year contracts, other GMs seem to know just about every player can be replaced, and they're constantly trying to figure out how to replace talent in the cheapest way possible.

It remains to be seen how some of these teams will deal without star players over the long haul, but just the fact that a team like Atlanta isn't giving up on its season and seems to think it can make a go of it until Kovalchuk returns to the lineup is a great thing.

As teams see how unheralded players have the potential to step up, perhaps GMs will stop with the crazy-long contracts and the huge amounts of money. Maybe they'll finally see there's more than enough talent in the NHL and you don't have to pay a lot for a well-known name when you can get a comparable player at a much more reasonable price.

Maybe these injuries will show that the NHL has a lot more stars than they thought, and that entire team salaries don't have to be spent on six players. Maybe these injuries will show the NHL that hockey is actually a team sport.

Gaborik Unleashed: How the Minnesota Wild Almost Ruined Hockey

Steven Ovadia — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:30:31 -0400

Watching Marian Gaborik's explosive start to this season (10 goals, 18 points in his first 12 games—Rangers fans have to be hoping this isn't the end of the line for him ), I've had a recurring thought: How does Gaborik not have a 50-goal season?

That thought is usually followed by the realization Gaborik played for the Minnesota Wild for eight seasons, all of them coached by the notoriously defensive-minded Jacques Lemaire. Now playing for the notoriously offensive-minded John Tortorella in New York, Gaborik finally has the freedom to fully live up to his full scoring potential.

It's been exciting to watch, but it raises an interesting question: Is it in the best interest of the NHL for its best offensive players to languish in defensive systems? Would Gaborik's 42-goal season in 2007-08 been 50 goals under a different type of coach?

Hockey is a complex game with a lot of variables. Scoring is key, but so are defense and goaltending and line combinations and special teams. But fans love scoring. It's universally loved by fans and by non-fans. And if you look at the changes in officiating and rules that the NHL has instituted post-lockout, just about all of them are designed to promote scoring.

So if the league wants to see more scoring, how could they let an exciting player be hidden for so long? How could they let a coaching system smother a possible marketing hook?

Gaborik is hardly the only example of offensive talent being smothered by coaching. The Devils have also done this before. Up until last season, the Devils tended to play defense-oriented hockey. But even frequently relying on a trapping style, the myriad of Devils coaches have found ways to keep their offense-minded forwards (usually Patrik Elias) putting up decent numbers. But defensemen have really suffered in the system.

You can see the suffering in the numbers of defensemen Brian Rafalski and Scott Niedermayer, two longtime Devils who eventually left the team to play in more offensive systems.

Niedermayer averaged over eight goals and 28 assists per season as a Devil. As a member of the Ducks, he's averaged over 12 goals and 36 assists per season. And keep in mind, Nidermayer's time as a Duck has been in his later years, where he's well past his prime.

Rafalski averaged around six goals and 38 assists per season with the Devils. With Detroit, he's averaged over 11 goals and 45 assists per season over the past two seasons, meaning Rafalski has nearly doubled his per season goal output in a different kind of system.

So what can the league do about this? Unfortunately, not much. For one thing, for certain players, like Rafalski, you don't realize just how good they are until they're playing someplace else.

But also, the league can't step in and tell coaches to coach differently. That could set a dangerously bad precedent. However, the league can talk to owners about marketing, and how a high-flying scorer can translate into more fans buying tickets, buying t-shirts, and even watching games on TV. And hopefully, owners will share that information with their coaches.

Defense is an important part of the NHL game, and no one wants to see it disappear. But it's best for the league when players play up to and past their potential—either defensively or offensively.

Great players should be allowed to put up great numbers and fans should get to see that.

New York Rangers Attempt To Re-Create 2001-02 Red Wings, Frankenstein Style

Steven Ovadia — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:11:10 -0400

Hot on the heels of the report the New York Rangers offered Chris Chelios a spot on their AHL team , right around the time they offered Mathieu Dandenault an AHL tryout , there's only one logical conclusion to be drawn: the Rangers are trying to rebuild the Cup-winning 2001-02 Red Wings.

Crazy you say? What about the fact that Brendan Shanahan, another member of that Wings team, is skating in New York, trying to catch-on with a Cup-contending team in the area .

New Jersey has already cut him loose once this season. The Flyers are capped out. The Islanders couldn't contend for the Calder Cup, let alone the Stanley Cup. The only other team in the area is the Rangers, where Shanahan played for two seasons.

And while it seems there's no room for Shanahan on the Rangers, at least not among their top nine forwards, let's not forget that it seems to have been former coach Tom Renney who didn't want Shanahan re-signed. GM Glen Sather always appeared to be a big fan of the winger with over 650 career goals.

And if Shanahan were to be re-signed by the Rangers, perhaps he would play on a line with Sean Avery, another member of that Cup-winning Wings team. And while Avery didn't see any playoff time that year, he did play in 36 regular season games for Detroit.

It's not surprising that the Rangers are trying to re-create a Cup-winning team in New York. The organization did so to great success in 1994, when they won the Stanley Cup with a transported version of Sather's Edmonton Oilers dynasty.

Eventually, Rangers management figured out it would save them a few steps to just bring Sather over directly, rather than having him get players for Edmonton and then ship them to New York. In essence, they decided to cut out the middle man.

And now, since Sather's Cup-winning idea well seems to have run dry, he's now trying to transport another franchise over to New York.

What's puzzling is why the Rangers are focusing on such old players. Are they going to try and get Steve Yzerman and Brett Hull out of retirement? Will they spring Sergei Fedorov from the KHL? Is this whole plan some kind of bizarre Ben Gay product-placement scheme?

And most importantly of all, why target the 2001-02 team? Why not try and recreate the 2007-08 Cup-winning team, which is almost 10 years younger? Sure, the core players are all under 10-15 year contracts, but there must be some useful pieces there that aren't locked down for the next few decades.

And for that matter, if you're going to go old, why not just go for it and try and recreate the Islanders dynasty of the 1980s?

The Rangers actually started that project when they signed Islanders great Bryan Trottier to be coach in 2003. What not many people know is that Sather signed Trottier as a forward, while Trottier thought he was being signed as a coach. The whole thing became so awkward, Sather let Trottier coach and canceled his meetings with Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin, declaring the Islanders transplant unviable.

And of course, no one knows the status of the Rangers project to re-animate Rocket Richard.

Tippett and Phoenix Showing The Best Offense Is a Mobile Defense

Steven Ovadia — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:33:26 -0400

The Coyotes have been very interesting to watch this season. And for once, the interest isn't driven by the chaos that seems to envelop the organization.

They're 5-2 under new coach Dave Tippett. Where Tippett is system oriented, previous coach Wayne Gretzky preferred a more freeform coaching style . Or rather, "style."

One huge difference between the coaching philosophies is Tippett's use of defensemen in the offense. Defenseman Ed Jovanovski has three goals, where last season, under Gretzky, he finished with just nine.

Tippett has become a big fan of the active defensemen philosophy :

If your defensemen aren’t involved ... I'm not talking about leading the rush, I’m talking about them finding opportunities to get people pucks at the net, on the power play they have to be involved, that’s the way it is right now.

It’s hard to score goals, and if you’re just going to rely on your forwards to score, you’re not going to get enough. So our defensemen, we’ve pushed them to make sure that they’re active in the offense, that they’re active on the offensive blue line but still defend very well.

More and more coaches are leaning on their defensemen to kick-in some offense. Over in New York, Michael Del Zotto has four goals, more than most of their forwards. And how much of Washington's march to the playoffs was driven by the work of defenseman Mike Green?

Tippett, and coaches like Tippett, have learned that goalies are just too big. You can't get anything past them—even while hanging out around the crease. The only players on the ice who can see daylight between the goalie and the net are the defensemen, who are behind the action. Smart coaches are capitalizing, telling their blue-liners it's OK to join the play. And they're seeing that active defensemen lead to wins.

Of course, the increasing importance of the offensive defenseman raises some interesting questions—like what happens when you lose one? The Penguins are going to be without Sergei Gonchar for six weeks as he rehabs a broken wrist. Last season, the Penguins were fine without Gonchar, while he suffered a dislocated shoulder, but the Penguins are losing an important offensive option that took a lot of pressure off of the forwards in the offensive zone.

Coaches around the league are trying to figure out ways to conquer these roving d-men. One thing I'm looking forward to is when coaches start keeping that third forward high in the defensive zone, waiting to turn a mishandled puck into a breakway. In fact, if this trend continues, the action will get further and further away from the net, until eventually players will be lined up along center ice, taking turns trying to score.

But until then, it's nice to see coaches thinking offense and not safety. It's nice to see players getting the green light to follow their instincts. And it's nice to see all of that paying off.