PuckUpdate :: The Hockey Blog

A Five-Part Autopsy of the 2012 New York Rangers

2012-05-26T20:38:47Z

Ed Mulholland-US PRESSWIRE

I was so immersed in the Rangers’ surprising playoff run, that I wasn’t even able to process what I was seeing. But now that it’s over, the observations are starting to crystalize. This was a team that did a lot of things right (<cough>goaltending</cough>), but suffered a few mis-steps that ultimately cost the Rangers a shot at the Stanley Cup. I’m cataloging the failures, because the successes are fairly obvious (<cough>goaltending</cough>).

Crazy lines: This is a recurring theme with coach John Tortorella. For whatever reason, he doesn’t like to keep lines together, even though his team had a tremendous regular season run using persistent line combinations. The constant line juggling made it hard for opposing coaches to determine match-ups, but it also forced the Rangers to simplify their play to the point where there was very little east-west movement. Passing benefits from familiarity and the Rangers often looked like a team trying to figure out teammates’ tendencies.
Conservative play: Tortorella coined the phrase and philosophy ‘Safe is death’ back in 2002 while coaching the Lightning, but in the playoffs, his team played a painfully safe game. So safe that it became dangerous. Tortorella didn’t use more than three forwards on the powerplay until the Rangers were facing elimination against New Jersey. The Rangers didn’t push the tempo of any game unless they were losing. In general, the Rangers did a lot of waiting and never really put any team away through all three rounds.
Belief in Carl Hagelin: Tortorella shoveled tons of ice time on the rookie Hagelin (an average of 16:45 per game) and Hagelin had just three assists and a -3 to show for it. Artem Anisimov averaged under 14 minutes per game and had 3 goals, 7 assists, and a +1. Hagelin’s speed was dazzling and he had some fantastic chances, but at the end of the day, he wasn’t finishing. At a certain point, a coach needs to look at performance versus potential. Sure, Hagelin had/has more upside than Anisimov, but if Anisimov is producing, don’t you want him on the ice?

Offensive defense: Much was made of the willingness of the Rangers’ defense to join the play. Much was also made of the willingness of Rangers’ forwards to rotate up when the defense was pinching. And it’s great. Except, then you have your offensive players stuck at the blueline and your defensive players down low. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have your forwards in offensive positions? During the game six elimination game, Marian Gaborik got burned by the Devils when he was up playing the point while a defenseman was down low in the play. So not only is Gaborik essentially out of the offensive play, he’s playing defense, which is something he really can’t do. Ranger forwards were so disciplined about rotating up when the defense pinched, they missed a lot of loose pucks because they were constantly skating back to play defense. I’m all for an active defense, but not at the expense of an active offense. The Rangers needed to leave defense and offense to the respective team experts.
Hurt Boyle: The fortunes of an NHL team shouldn’t rest on the shoulders of a role player like Brian Boyle, but that’s the situation the Rangers found themselves in. He was a key part of the Ottawa series, playing fantastically on both sides of the puck. He went out with a concussion in the first round and came back during the next round against the Capitals. But he was obviously still feeling the effects of the concussion. Every time they cut to Boyle on the bench, he looked downright sick. A healthy Boyle would have changed the complexion of the series, just as he did against Ottawa. Boyle’s size, which he seems to have very recently discovered, would have been especially helpful against the Devils’ dreaded fourth line, which went to town on the Rangers.

The Rangers dramatically overachieved the whole year. It’s easy for fans to be disappointed with the season ending two wins away from the Stanley Cup finals. But for a team built on hits and blocked shots, it was still a pretty impressive run.

A Five-Part Autopsy of the 2012 New York Rangers is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

Julianna Margulies Teaches NHL About Fighting

2012-03-23T13:30:05Z

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come out and say it.

I watch The Good Wife.

I’m not going to make excuses. I’m not going to justify it by mentioning the quality writing or the amazing performances.

I’ve never written about The Good Wife here because it’s never intersected with hockey before.

This week it did.

This week’s episode featured a case about an NHL enforcer whose wife was killed while the enforcer was driving what might have been a defective snow mobile. The episode spiraled into a debate about if the player’s mental faculties were impaired due to his time in hockey, and then slid into the role the fictional hockey league might have played in the accident.

What really matters is that the episode was basically a one-hour indictment of fighting in hockey. Viewers were treated to an overview of the issues. The concussions. The enforcers fighting (literally) to hold onto their jobs, even when they’re hurting themselves. And the tacit approval the league gives to this behavior, even as it talks about protecting its players.

The episode was a huge black eye for the NHL. Instead of an hour of prime time devoted to the beauty of the sport, it made hockey seem like wrestling on ice.

The NHL could write off this episode as meaningless. They could say scripted TV has nothing to do with hockey and ratings. But NBC is promoting the NHL through its sitcoms. So obviously, somewhere there’s data showing that this kind of synergy is effective. If cross-promotion might bring in viewers, whose to say something like The Good Wife won’t cost the NHL viewers?

Of course, without the fighting/concussion angle, The Good Wife probably wouldn’t have done an episode around hockey (noted Canadian Michael J. Fox’s presence in that particular episode notwithstanding), but the league probably would have been better off without the negative attention.

Slap Shot picked up that one night after that Good Wife episode, the Rangers and Devils organized a synchronized fight to start their game.

Stu Hackel followed up with a great post about what a joke those kinds of stage fights are for the NHL.

The frustrating thing is that these kinds of staged fights are allowed to go on, yet players are routinely penalized for clean checks. It’s almost like the league wants to remove all physicality out of the game, except for fights, which more and more have nothing to do with the game being played in the moments leading up to the fight.

The wake up call to just how lost the NHL has become should not come from a legal procedural. But for whatever reason it has. Over 11 million viewers saw an episode portraying the NHL as a bunch of fights punctuated with some skating. Over 11 million people didn’t see breath-taking breakaways or courageous shot blocks, or saves so magnificent, you think they might be CGI.

Instead, over 11 million people saw grown men fighting for dubious reasons.

The league has an image problem. How many millions of people will the league allow to see these negative images before it decides to do something to fix its fighting problem?

Julianna Margulies Teaches NHL About Fighting is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

Ryan Smyth to Rangers Would Have Been Textbook Sather

2012-02-06T10:30:01Z

Of course the New York Rangers were supposedly looking into adding Ryan Smyth as a top-six forward (maybe…). The Rangers need scoring, especially given Brad Richards recent cooldown that some might call positively Drury-esque.

Smyth is more than just offense, though. His strong play in both ends would let him slide right into this current Rangers team.

Too bad Smyth is going to be 36 in a few weeks.

Although, to be fair, Smyth’s advanced age hasn’t hurt his production for a defense-oriented Oilers team. He has 16 goals in 52 games this season. And Smyth would just be a rental, as I don’t think he has any long-term desire to live on the east coast, nor do the Rangers have extended plans to retain a player drafted the same year as their last Stanley Cup win.

Any why wouldn’t Rangers GM Glen Sather want Smyth? He’s the perfect example of a Sather acquisition:

Smyth is a big name
Sather really has two preferred kinds of transactions: big names and fourth liners (that’s why Sather must have loved signings like Mike Rupp and Donald Brashear, as it gave him the chance to sign big-name fourth-liners). There’s really no in-between for him unless he’s trying to dump a big name himself. What is it about stars that gets Sather so excited? It could go back to his time in Edmonton, when Sather couldn’t afford to sign or retain well-known players. Players like Smyth (and Drury and Richards and Gomez…) could be Sather’s Rosebud. Or Sather could understand that in New York City the only way for an NHL team to grab media attention is through flashy trades and signings. The media doesn’t get excited about NHL prospects or potential, no matter how much upside they possess. Plus, Sather’s boss, Jim Dolan loves big-name signings/acquisitions, no matter how ill-conceived or inane they are. The fact that landing Smyth might actually improve the Rangers would just be icing on the cake for Dolan.
Smyth is a big name past his prime
Because Sather gravitates toward big names, he’s always landing players once they’re past their prime. There’s a certain logic to it. Most teams will do whatever it takes to retain a player who’s still developing. But once that development stops, for most teams that means it’s time to part ways. For the Rangers, that means it’s time to break out the checkbook. Big-name players like Smyth are high-risk (although perhaps not even very high risk; I can’t imagine Edmonton will demand much for him)/high-reward.
Smyth’s an Oiler
Even before Sather came to New York, there was always a strong trade pipeline between the Rangers and Oilers. While recently it seems the pipeline has shifted southwest to Phoenix, Sather does seem to enjoy turning to Edmonton as a trade partner. Plus, Sather drafted Smyth, so there’s a shared Oilers history between the two men.

Smyth’s a great storyline
The Stanley Cup playoffs are about storylines as much as hockey. GMs and coaches know you need to keep your team psyched for a grueling post-season. Smyth as a Ranger would be a great story. He would be the grizzled NHL veteran looking to leave his beloved team to make one final run at a Cup. Think Ray Bourque with a mullet. Or an elderly Marian Hossa. Obviously, Smyth still has some offensive skills, but trading for him would be as much for narrative purposes as for on-ice ones. This isn’t so much a Sather move so much as it’s a common NHL GM one.
Smyth takes the spotlight off of the Rangers’ youth movement
For all the talk about this season being the year the Rangers’ homegrown youth take ownership of the team, that hasn’t really been the case. Derek Stepan is having a tremendous sophomore year and Carl Hagelin has been a great surprise, but Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov, two Ranger second-round draft picks, have been tremendous disappointments this season. If either player had lived up to expectations, the Rangers probably would not be interested in renting Smyth. Sather needs Smyth to erase the failures of Dubinsky and Anisimov.
Smyth has the element of surprise
Sather loves surprise moves. He’s managed to move unmovable players, from Erik Christensen to Scott Gomez to Christopher Higgins, without giving anyone a clue anything might be going on. He’s also managed to acquire players no one thought the Rangers could afford, like Marian Gaborik, when Gaborik hit free agency. Smyth is saying no one’s talked to him about a trade to New York. What would be more surprising than getting Smyth to waive a no-trade without Smyth realizing it?

Smyth needs to come to New York if for no other reasons than to give historians an example of the perfect Sather transaction.

History needs Smyth as a Ranger.

Ryan Smyth to Rangers Would Have Been Textbook Sather is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

NHL: There’s Nothing a Regular Season Gimmick Can’t Fix

2012-01-30T10:28:04Z

Sports Illustrated‘s Michael Farber had an interesting look at John Collins, the NHL’s chief operating officer.

Collins came from the NFL and is credited with making the NHL more event-driven, coming up with ideas like hyping the annual outdoor game, starting the season in Europe, and making the All-Star game a sort of real-life fantasy draft.

The article is largely complimentary, but Farber does take issue with aspects of Collins’ philosophy:

You probably don’t know his name, but you do know his signature as the NHL’s P.T. Barnum. While the lawyerly [NHL Commissioner Gary] Bettman generally is about taking things step by step, Collins, the business guy, breathlessly rushes to the next thing, pushing, mining for opportunity and never having a bad hair day. The NHL’s 1,230 regular season games — OK, 1,229, after the Winter Classic — seem to have become an interregnum connecting the new narrative as the league lurches from one special event to the next.

I too have some concerns about what Collins is doing to the league. More and more, mainstream media NHL news seems to be about either one-off special events, like the Winter Classic and the All-Star draft, or horrible violence associated with the game. But the regular season, for the most part, is completely ignored, left for the fans to discuss amongst themselves.

Part of that is because the NHL season is so long and grueling. It’s hard for fans to sustain a level of excitement for 82 games; I’m not sure it’s fair or realistic to expect the local media to maintain it.

The regular season is also often ignored because the post-season is considered to be hockey’s real season. After all, more than half of the league’s teams make it into the playoffs. That’s where the games really begin to count.

But the disappointing thing is that Collins comes from the NFL, where the regular season games are incredibly important (I’m assuming no one from Indianapolis is reading this…). Obviously, that’s because of the much shorter season, but not entirely (team parity is also probably a factor, and that’s something else the NHL is struggling to successfully accomplish). Just about every regular season NFL game is an event, enjoyed by fans of the teams playing, but also non-fans.

The NHL can create that kind of excitement around regular season games. They can do it by building schedules with more rivalries. They can do it by taking serious steps to curb violence in the game, rather than using PowerPoint to craft circular excuses for player misbehavior. They can allow skill to flourish in front of goaltenders, rather than to allow it to be constantly pinned against the boards.

Collins has non-fans talking about the NHL. He deserves credit for that. But he’s doing so at the expense of the regular season. He’s turning the regular season into some European games, followed by the Winter Classic, followed by the All-Star game, followed by the trade deadline, followed by the post-season. The regular season may as well be a montage.

Is Collins creating hockey fans or is he tricking people into watching a few select games, only to return to their non-hockey ways? The NFL season culminates in the Super Bowl, and while a lot of non-football fans watch the final game of the season, the Super Bowl really is about a journey that started in the regular season.

It would be great if Collins could try and do that for the NHL, also.

You know. Rather than trying to talk the league into a regular season game played on roller skating donkeys.

NHL: There’s Nothing a Regular Season Gimmick Can’t Fix is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

How Brad Richards Found Offense Through Defense

2011-12-14T11:01:45Z

Larry Brooks had a nice little appreciation of Brad Richards yesterday.

Brooks also credited New York Rangers coach John Tortorella, who moved Richards off of Marian Gaborik’s line when it became obvious the two just weren’t clicking.

Tortorella deserves a lot of credit for his handling of Richards.

Given Richards salary, it would seem that he belongs on a top line. But given that Richards’ north-south North American style doesn’t seem like it will ever mesh with Gaborik’s more European east-west leanings, Tortorella doesn’t press the issue (at even strength, anyway).

Instead, Tortorella embraced Richards for the player he is. For all of his offensive talents, Richards is really just a solid two-way player who happens to have a great shot. To leave him as a top-line center would have negated some of his defensive strengths.

Tortorella figured that out back in October, when he first separated Richards from Gaborik, putting him on a more physical line between Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky. Richards told the New York Post he appreciated the move:

I’m not seeing the game the way I should be, and when that’s the case and things feel they’re moving quicker than they should, sometimes getting me to grind it out is the best way to get me going, and Torts knows that…Playing with Cally and Dubi, working down low and having zone time, I believe that will be good for me and good for the team.

Playing to Richards’ defensive strengths is a bit of a culture shift for the Rangers. The past few years have seen the team bring in defensive specialists who were expected to perform offensive roles. Chris Drury was the latest victim of that policy, with Bobby Holik coming (and failing) before that.

Surely Tortorella saw what the pressure of needing to live up to a contract did to Drury, often rendering him both defensively and offensively weak. Seeing the same thing starting to happen to Richards, Tortorella decided to have him focus on defense.

And a funny thing happened. Offense came out of defense. Richards became comfortable shooting the puck more. He learned to get comfortable playing down low on the power play. He’s even looked connected to Gaborik when they’ve played on the same power play unit.

Brooks is right that Richards has been good for the Rangers. But a huge part of his success is due to his playing for a coach that plays to Richards’ strengths. Richards is paid like a top offensive player, but his true strength is his versatility in both ends.

Richards season picked up once he was allowed to properly practice his two-way game.

Tortorella deserves a lot of credit for giving Richards that kind of opportunity, despite what it says on Richards’ paycheck.

How Brad Richards Found Offense Through Defense is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

Blues Thought Ahead with Coaching Change

2011-11-28T10:27:40Z

It was a little bit surprising when the St. Louis Blues fired coach Davis Payne earlier this month. The Blues were 6-7. Not great, but certainly not horrible.

It was even more surprisingly when GM Doug Armstrong hired Ken Hitchcock as the new coach, since the rumors had Hitchcock taking over in Columbus.

Armstrong obviously didn’t have much faith in Payne, but he also gave the St. Louis Post-Dispatch an interesting reason for the Hitchcock import:

The reality is, this is a business and we have a number of players that are going to want huge economic rewards over the next 18 months and we need to know what we have in these players. You want to make wise investments and I thought having an experienced coach would give us a better opportunity to know exactly what we had.

In other words, Armstrong felt Davis wasn’t doing enough of a job kicking the tires of guys like TJ Oshie, Chris Stewart, Carlo Colaiacovo, Alex Pietrangelo, and Patrik Berglund, none of whom are under contract past 2013.

It’s a smart move by Armstrong. GMs need to be patient, but too much patience can lead to bad contract situations.

With Payne, Armstrong couldn’t tell if it was the players or the coaches who weren’t performing. With Hitchcock, he’s getting a clearer picture. The Blues are 7-1-2 under Hitchcock and are looking better. Oshie has three goals in that stretch. Defenseman Pietrangelo has two goals under Hitchcock. This data gives Armstrong a clearer picture of where coaching challenges end and talent (or lack thereof) begins.

It’s something more GMs should consider. How can GMs sign players to contracts when they’re not sure what the problem is with their franchise? The Islanders are a great example of this, tearing through coaches, but never establishing if coaching is the issue or if it’s the on-ice personnel (to be fair, the larger Islander issue is management, but even poor management creates on-ice issues that could complicate how to most effectively evaluate players).

I’m not sure Payne needed to be fired, but I respect that Armstrong was thinking long-term with the move. It was decisive, which is always a great quality to see in a GM.

Hopefully, Armstrong will get to stick around after the Blues are sold. Brett Hull is supposedly looking to join the investment group looking to buy the Blues and Hull is also supposedly looking for a role in the organization.

His time as co-GM in Dallas was an Islander-esque train wreck, so Blues fans have to be positively horrified at the damage he might cause in St. Louis. For instance, Sean Avery’s contract ends at the end of this season.

I’d love to see how Hitchcock might kick those tires.

Blues Thought Ahead with Coaching Change is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

Goaltenders Need Protection From Their Teammates

2011-11-16T10:59:34Z

Kerry Fraser had a big piece on TSN about how Brendan Shanahan blew it by not suspending Milan Lucic for his hit on goalie Ryan Miller. Fraser says that without a Lucic suspension, it’s going to be open season on goalies:

Players (and more importantly goalies) would know that the League still considers them endangered and will continue to protect them from full blown body checks. It now appears that hunting season is now open. The license only takes “two minutes” to fill out and can be completed from the penalty box.

Apparently NHL GMs agree to some extent and have vowed to remind their players to protect goaltenders outside of the crease.

The thing is, how common is the scenario that got Miller hurt? How often are goaltenders hurt coming out to play the puck? How often do goalies come out that far to play the puck? You hardly even see goalies playing the puck behind the net anymore.

The Lucic hit was bad and he probably should have let up sooner, but it’s not a recurring NHL problem.

If the NHL is serious about protecting goalies, it needs to look at what teams are doing to their own goaltenders.

How many times have you seen a defenseman shove an opponent into the defenseman’s own goaltender? There’s no statistic tracking this, but it sure happened last night when Islander Blake Comeau (a forward) shoved Ranger Michael Sauer into Islander goalie Evgeni Nabokov. Nabokov writhed around in pain for a minute or two but was able to finish the game.

But who’s protecting Nabokov? Where is the outcry? Is an injury somehow less damaging when it’s inflicted by a teammate?

Players will move heaven and earth to protect their own goalie. If an opponent takes any kind of liberty with him, most teams will take exception and defend their goaltender’s honor. Most players don’t even have to think twice about it.

But put an opponent between a player and his goaltender and that need to protect the goalie evaporates. Instead, the player will be overtaken by an almost pathological desire to shove the opponent into the goaltender.

On the one hand, you can understand how players are trying to intimidate each other. Shoves after the whistle are a fairly standard part of the NHL culture. But an awful lot of NHL players don’t seem to understand that when they push an opponent around the crease, there’s a reasonably strong chance the opponent is going to knock into a goaltender.

The complicated thing about this issue is that it involves a player hurting his own goalie. The NHL goalkeeper interference rule discusses the issue, but doesn’t assign a penalty to it:

If an attacking player has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending player so as to cause him to come into contact with the goalkeeper, such contact will not be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.

Basically, if an attacker knocks into a goalie in the crease, it can be called as a penalty. But if a defender knocks an opponent into his own goalie, nothing is called. And that exception leaves goalies vulnerable to injury, since without a penalty, there’s apparently nothing stopping players from knocking attackers into the defending goalie.

No coach is going to clamor for a penalty against his own team. No goaltender is going to complain about the behavior of his own team. And opponents don’t care if they’re getting knocked into an opposing goalie. They’re not necessarily looking to keep an opposing goalie safe.

Everyone wants to keep goaltenders safe. It’s admirable. But let’s not pretend that goalies are dropping due to injuries from playing the puck out at the circles. Goaltenders are in way more danger playing behind teammates who are constantly shoving attackers into them. If the NHL really wants to keep goaltenders safe, that’s where they want to start.

Goaltenders Need Protection From Their Teammates is a post from PuckUpdate: The Hockey Blog
©2011 PuckUpdate.com

Trapping Isn’t Tantrum-worthy

2011-11-11T10:28:33Z

Like a lot of NHL fans, I’m not sure why people are just now realizing that the Tampa Bay Lightning use a 1-3-1 system.

I’m also not sure why the 1-3-1 suddenly infuriated the Philadelphia Flyers Wednesday night.

But now, there’s talk about the NHL “doing something” about trapping teams.

Obviously, there are things that can be done.

Greg Wyshynski suggested a shot clock, which is an interesting idea.

But if the NHL really wants to kill trapping, they need to talk to their television partners.

Specifically, they need to talk to them about how they shoot NHL games.

Most NHL telecasts follow the puck through the three zones. Sometimes there are some shots from behind the goal up the ice, but for the most part, NHL games are shot like you’re watching above center ice. It makes sense, because viewers want to see the action. But in hockey, a lot of action occurs behind the play, too. And when you can see the whole play, it’s very easy to see what types of systems a team is running.

There’s never been a fan-driven outcry against systems because they’re tough to suss out on TV.

Even while Philadelphia was stalling, it was hard to tell exactly what was going on, because the camera was focused on the Philadelphia defensive zone. It’s only until Versus went to an overhead shot that fans could see the issue with Tampa’s 1-3-1:

But what if the league put pressure on its television partners to make more use of overhead shots? That might shame some teams out of relying so heavily on the trap. Because while it’s painfully obvious when a team is trapping in a live situation, it’s not always as obvious on TV.

But does the league even want to end trapping?

I can’t imagine anyone was happy about Wednesday’s Flyer tantrum, but systems do a lot for teams. They make weakened teams competitive (the Bolts were playing without their top two defensemen, which was part of Tampa coach Guy Boucher’s rationale for sticking with the trap, even after things got awkward).

And perhaps most importantly, defensive systems let players rest. The NHL season is long. Players can’t go all out for 82 games. Trapping lets players rest. It’s not always entertaining, but it’s a necessary part of a physically demanding game.

The Flyers were frustrated, but their trap tantrum wasn’t about protecting the integrity of the game for fans. If the Flyers wanted to make sure the fans got a good game, they shouldn’t have stood around in their own end killing time off of the clock.

Is trapping the NHL’s biggest problem? I’d probably focus on headshots and concussions before I’d worry too much about trapping.

But if the NHL does want to take on trapping, public shame via television might be the most effective way to go.

Put Columbus Coach Scott Arniel Out of His Misery

2011-11-07T10:28:00Z

Scott Arniel has got to go in Columbus.

Not because his coaching is the reason his team has been awful. Not because of this weekend’s embarrassing 9-2 loss to the Flyers.

But because the team has obviously checked out on him.

With just two wins and an overtime loss, the Blue Jackets have five points in the standings, putting them 10 points behind the eighth seed.

If Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson wants to give up, he can keep things as-is and prepare to start dealing talent toward February. Or maybe he can even start earlier, like when stores have a Black Friday sale before Black Friday.

But if Howson thinks he’s assembled a competitive NHL team, it’s time to get rid of Arniel and bring in someone else. But he needs to do it now, before the playoffs fall out of reach.

Yet again.

Last season, the Devils were mired in a similar slump with coach John MacLean, although the Blue Jackets would kill for a slump like that right now, and Devils GM Lou Lamoriello didn’t make a coaching switch until late December. But by then, the playoffs were out of reach. Even though the Devils put together a lights-out second half under coach Jacques Lemaire, who took over for MacLean, there just wasn’t enough time for the Devils to push their way into the playoff picture.

If the coaching switch had been made sooner, the Devils might have made the playoffs.

So while it’s not entirely fair to solely blame Arniel for his team’s lackluster start, ultimately he’s the coach and he is responsible for how his team plays.

Saturday night in Philadelphia, we saw a team that was apathetic. We saw a team that was undisciplined. We saw a team that was lazy.

Arniel just cannot come back from that.

Howson needs to do the compassionate thing for Arniel and put him out of his misery. And he needs to get his team back on track.

There were rumors Ken Hitchcock, a one-time Columbus coach, was waiting in the wings to take over for Arniel, perhaps a nod to New Jersey’s improved second half under their old coach. With Hitchcock taking over in St. Louis, though, his taking a second job in Ohio seems unlikely.

Hitchcock wouldn’t have been a bad choice for Columbus; he’s system oriented and a maniac for discipline, both of which the Blue Jackets desperately need.

And it would have made for a nice symmetry, given that Hitchcock was fired in February 2010, after the Blue Jackets went into a nosedive with him behind the bench. This time, Hitchcock could have been the bail-out specialist.

But was Hitchcock a long-term solution?

Probably not. Hitchcock had trouble connecting to younger players and his defense-oriented style might have been a turn-off to some of his more offense-minded players. But the drama of Hitchcock’s return might have made players sit up and realize that they’re a part of a professional sports league.

Howson has a problem that’s not going to resolve itself. He needs to get a new voice in the room and let his team know he expects them to win more than two games this season.

It seems like a fairly achievable goal.

Sean Avery Might Have Magic Powers

2011-11-02T10:04:53Z

More and more I wonder if Sean Avery has some kind of magical power.

The Rangers traded for him in February 2007, helping to put Avery on a more prominent stage than he had in LA as a King. Avery’s antics and agitating suddenly seemed more noteworthy.

Avery loved it in New York but couldn’t come to a contract agreement with the Rangers, so in the summer of 2008, Avery signed with the Dallas Stars. Avery had a four-year contract, but he wasn’t playing for the team he wanted to be.

In Dallas, he made his infamous “sloppy seconds” comment and the Stars decided to part ways with Avery, whatever it took, whether it meant stashing him in the AHL for the rest of his four years, or simply paying him not to play for Dallas.

But then, the Rangers decided they wanted Avery back and claimed him off of Dallas’ hands, with the Stars on the hook for half of Avery’s salary.

Not only was Avery back in the NHL, he was back playing for the team he wanted to play for.

Magical.

And then, just a few weeks ago, Avery was once again sent to the AHL, told that the Rangers had no place for him. Avery’s NHL career seemed over. Again. Why would the Rangers ever recall him? What would they need Avery for?

And yet, here we are. Avery is once again on his way back to the NHL. As a Ranger no less.

Coach John Tortorella says Avery is needed because fourth-liner Mike Rupp is injured. There’s no guarantee Avery will even crack the lineup. Except you know he will. Because Avery is some kind of wizard who is magically keeping himself in the NHL. How many other NHL vets manage to get recalled to their team by a coach that seems to pretty actively hate them?

Just like horror movies have taught us the importance of the double tap, Sean Avery’s career has taught us never to count him out.

The man is a boomerang. Every time he’s tossed out of the NHL, he returns right back to where he was.

And when he’s done with the NHL (if that ever actually happens), my guess is Avery will coach at Hogwarts. Maybe he’ll show them the spell to screen a keeper.