Dave Lozo's Bag Skate: Dry Scrape Complaints, Gin Blossoms and Predators Fever

Players complaining about the dry scrape

In an effort to have fewer games go to overtime, some genius over at the NHL decided to have teams switch ends after the third period, creating a longer trip to the bench for changes and having Zambonis give the ice a "dry scrape," which sounds like the worst thing you can get at your waxer but is just a faster way of cleaning the ice.

A "wet scrape," if you will, takes longer because time is needed to let the water freeze.

It takes about five minutes for the Zambonis to do their work, which is about how long it would take for them to clean the middle of the ice before shootouts. Under the new setup, there is no longer a break between overtime and the shootouts.

It hasn't had the desired effect as of yet, as five of six games to go beyond regulation have still gone to a shootout anyway.

But that's not the problem with the dry scrape after regulation for some players—it's that five minutes of standing around before the start of overtime is killing my favorite thing, momentum.

Here's Boston Bruins forward Chris Kelly complaining to Fluto Shinzawa of The Boston Globe talking about the dry scrape.

"

It seemed a bit rusty, to be honest,” Chris Kelly said. “It seemed like they hadn’t done it before. It took a little longer than they anticipated. I think if it continues to be that length of time, I’m not a huge fan of it. If they can make it faster, then I’m for it. They’re just trying to make overtimes faster and trying to get more goals as opposed to going to the shootout. I understand their methods and reasoning for it. It just killed a little bit of the momentum of the game for everyone.

"

Kelly doesn't like sitting around for five-six minutes. It kills momentum. It causes atrophy.

In Boston's 4-0 home loss to Washington on Saturday, Kelly played 16:35. Based on the NHL's time-on-ice reports for that game, Kelly spent at least five minutes sitting on the bench on four separate occasions thanks to television timeouts and whistles. That doesn't include the 17-minute intermissions between periods.

You don't hear too many complaints about how television timeouts hurt momentum, that wonderfully intangible thing that hockey players love to lean on like a crutch for explaining winning and losing. Maybe they don't like the dry scrape because it's new? Just like hybrid icing? And the trapezoid? And the elimination of the red line? And...

Ask a player about longer TV timeouts in the 1990s, and you'd probably get similar answers. 

It's not just Kelly who feels this way; Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman talked about the complaints in his most recent 30 Thoughts.

Quote of the Week: Jon Cooper vs. Darryl Sutter

(Lightning coach Jon Cooper and Kings coach Darryl Sutter are the two most quotable coaches in the NHL. Each week, we will let you decide who had the best quote.)

Sutter, after his team's 4-0 loss in the season opener vs. the San Jose Sharks, via LA Kings Insider's Jon Rosen:

"

Well, you’re not always leading, you’re not always behind, and you’re not always tied. There’s three different things that can happen during a game. It’s always one of those three.

"

Dynamite insight from Darryl. What say you, Coach Cooper, about having to face Ottawa Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson?

I know which way I'm leaning, but you can decide in the comments which coach had the better quote this week. Or can you ignore that idea and talk about how biased I am against something.

And speaking of Karlsson...

Did you "C" what Erik Karlsson did? And then "C" what I did?

Karlsson is the new captain of the Ottawa Senators, which is great for him. But it's not so great for fans who own his jersey, because their jerseys do not have a "C" on them. Fan is short for fanatic, and fanatical people would prefer to have their sports jerseys accurately reflect what the players are wearing.

In stepped Karlsson.

According to a nice lady I spoke to at the Senators team store, each "C" costs $5 Canadian. For those of you who are math-impaired (based on comments I've seen about Corsi and Fenwick percentage, I know that's some of you), Karlsson shelled out $5,000 Canadian, which is about $4,500 in U.S. currency so fans can update their jerseys.

Karlsson is in Year 3 of a seven-year, $45.5 million contract, so $5,000 is a pittance for him, so it's not a big deal, said the cynical human being incapable of feeling joy. But it's $5,000 he was under no obligation to spend, which makes it a really nice gesture.

It's also only a few bucks fewer than the Senators spent on their 2014-15 roster, so maybe Karlsson was trolling owner Eugene Melnyk.

KHL Thing of the Week

(There is some quality hockey that is played overseas that we rarely hear about in North America. This section will highlight that or something else from our friends playing hockey in the KHL.)

It's not surprising that NHL abandoner Ilya Kovalchuk is leading the KHL in scoring with 27 points in 17 games. Kovalchuk playing in the KHL with SKA is like LeBron James deciding he wants play full time in the D-League.

What is surprising is the KHL's third-leading scorer is Stephane Da Costa, who was unable to find an NHL job after playing 12 games with the Ottawa Senators last season.

Da Costa has 23 points in 16 games and is tied for the league lead with Kovalchuk with 14 goals, which maybe shouldn't be all that surprising when you look at his track record. The native of Paris, France, gave up baguettes and berets to play junior in the United States. He had 67 points in 48 games during his final USHL season with the Sioux City Musketeers, then had 90 points in 67 games with Merimack in Hockey East.

The undrafted Da Costa could never come close to that success in the NHL, as he generated seven goals and 11 points in 47 games across four seasons before deciding to ply his trade with CSKA in the KHL. He's just 25 years old, so he may get another shot in the NHL if he continues to dominate the KHL at near-Kovalchukian levels.

Jokes about Gin Blossoms? Hey, that sounds like jealousy

Last week, Andrew Barroway became the majority owner of the Arizona Coyotes. IceArizona, the group that purchased the team last summer, sold 51 percent of the team to Barroway, who was in the mix to purchase the New York Islanders for about $155 million, according to Fox Sports Arizona.

AMEL EMRIC/Associated Press

Flush with cash, the Coyotes did the wise thing and reinvested that money into the product by hiring the 1990s band Gin Blossoms to play a postgame show following an Oct. 28 Coyotes-Panthers game.

Here is the press release from the team. It's fun.

If you're like me, you were wondering what it costs to book Gin Blossoms for a concert, because you were a teenager in the 1990s and want to book them for yourself. According to the website Celebrity Talent International, it costs between $30,000 and $75,000 for a night with Gin Blossoms, who, according to this site which is totally real, are described thusly: "Their blend of Pop & Rock, known as Jangle-Pop, became a musical force that helped define the sound of 90's radio."

Jangle-Pop. 

Gin Blossoms are an Arizona-based band, so it's likely the Coyotes paid the minimum $30,000 to acquire their services. It's nice to see the team making the most of its savings from the Mike Ribeiro buyout this summer. I look forward to that Ugly Kid Joe show after the Capitals game in November.

Goal of the week

If someone told you that you had to see this goal where a guy went virtually end-to-end and cut through two defenders to do so, you probably don't imagine what Ryan Getzlaf did to the Red Wings on Saturday night. It was more strength than skill, but Getzlaf's mix of brawn and hands got the Ducks two points in Detroit.

An honorable mention goes to this Rick Nash goal, less for the goal and more about the ref cam that captured it.

Avs go different route on pregame video

It's really hard to screw up your team's pregame video that gets the fans all lathered up before they take the ice. Turn the house lights down, get some uptempo music playing over highlights, the occasional icy glare from a player/coach, two minutes later, the team takes the ice.

The Avs went by the numbers on that video this year, as you can see here:

Birds, mountains, music and then an avalanche at the end of the video. Get it? Because they're the Avalanche.

All this has simply been an excuse to show this Avs video from last year, which is perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious video in the history of the NHL.

So intense, so tough, so much brooding. So many dragons being imagined. I hope they do a new one with Of Monsters And Men this season.

What am I wrong about now?

(Despite being one of the leading hockey minds on the planet, I'm occasionally wrong about stuff. This section will highlight the latest thing that I am occasionally wrong about every week.)

I'm not being smug, ironic or sarcastic, but through five days of the season, there isn't too much in my preseason predictions that I feel all that wrong about. Check out my points predictions, and you tell me what I'm really off about. I'm usually way off about a half-dozen things by now.

There is one thing I feel I whiffed on—the Blue Jackets. I had them barely missing the playoffs, and my reasoning was a slow start due to the absence of Nathan Horton, Ryan Murray and Boone Jenner and a rusty Ryan Johansen would be just enough to hurt them in a competitive Metropolitan Division.

So far: They are 2-0, and Johansen has three points.

It's early, sure, but they look way better than I thought they'd look in the first week.

Questions and answers

(Got a question? Tweet me @davelozo or e-mail me [e-mail], but please don't call before 9 a.m. I will answer any of your questions about hockey or whatever if it's a good question.)

What a dynamite question. Thanks, Jason.

It's hard to envision a scenario in which the Predators don't pick up 162 points this season. I liked the Predators to be a playoff team before the season, and nothing I've seen in their 2-0 start tells me I'm wrong. Let me recap all my arguments for why the Predators could be a 95-100-point team.

• The Predators had 88 points last season despite Pekka Rinne, a top-five goaltender in the league, missing 50-plus games. He is healthy, and the Predators won't have to hand the reins to a pair of rookies (Carter Hutton, Marek Mazanec) again.

• Seth Jones Year 2 should be an improvement over Seth Jones Year 1, which wasn't all that bad. 

• While Mike Ribeiro, Derek Roy and Olli Jokinen aren't exactly Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, I think it's an upgrade over what they had last season. A slight, tiny, itsy-bitsy upgrade but one nonetheless.

• Barry Trotz was let go, and he's a good coach, but I think Peter Laviolette is a better coach. Laviolette certainly has a short shelf life—he's averaged about four seasons in stops with the Islanders, Hurricanes and Flyers—but he got the Isles to the playoffs, the Hurricanes a Cup and the Flyers a trip the Final. He's very good at what he does. He seriously got the Islanders to the playoffs. 

So, to answer your original question, the Predators will go 82-0. But they'll lose in the first round to Dallas.

I've watched a lot of Adam Larsson here in New Jersey, and it really seems like he's been a victim of unfair and unexpected circumstances.

The Devils missed the playoffs in 2010-11, won the draft lottery and took Larsson with the fourth pick. Larsson was thrown into the fire immediately by new coach Peter DeBoer, and he looked very good for an 18-year-old for long stretches. There were many nights when Larsson was their minutes leader.

Andy Marlin/Getty Images

But a weird thing happened in 2011-12; the Devils got good down the stretch and made a run to the Cup Final. Larsson became a healthy scratch in March and April and played in only five postseason games.

Then the lockout hit. The lack of a normal season affected everyone, but it affected everyone differently. For a highly touted prospect who hit a wall late in 2011-12, a lack of training camp and exhibition season really hurt Larsson's development. After 18 points in 65 games as a rookie, Larsson had just six assists in 37 games in 2013.

Last season was a lost cause, as DeBoer leaned heavily on veterans, and the rookies who were playing better than Larsson—Eric Gelinas and Jon Merrill—had to fight to win DeBoer's approval. Throw in the fact the Devils were on the cusp of a playoff spot until the bitter end, and there wasn't a time to let Larsson go out there and take his lumps.

It's my uneducated, uninformed opinion that Larsson is the epitome of a guy who needs a fresh start somewhere else. His development has been stunted, and it's fair to say his confidence has been shaken, but he's still a very talented defenseman. Larsson plays a position that notoriously can be tough on young players, and few have had it tougher than Larsson.

The light mailbag this week has Predators Fever. I love it.

I think I'm on the record in a friend's Facebook status update's comment section as saying Neal will score 22, but that's not binding. My official prediction is 24 goals in 78 games, and that's not me inflating the total because he had a great start, as he has zero goals in two games.

Neal's smaller goal totals will probably be the biggest reason why the Predators go 81-1 instead of 82-0.

(Update: I just realized I never answered the second half of this question and that my attention span has diminished to the point where I tune out after 70 characters. If Hornqvist plays 80 games, he will score 30 goals.)

All statistics via NHL.com.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @DaveLozo.