Raw Charge

Veikkaaja reports that at least Tampa Bay are interested in JYP G Riku Helenius. Wants 1-way deal....

2012-05-16T17:34:07Z

Veikkaaja reports that at least Tampa Bay are interested in JYP G Riku Helenius. Wants 1-way deal. Also interest from at least 3 KHL teams

Matias Strozyk via Twitter. A one-way contract for Helenius seems like a bit much for a player who was deemed to have peaked in North American hockey back in 2009 (when he was allowed to leave for Europe mid-season).

At the same time, he's earned more than also-ran status. The KHL interest is evidence of that.

Quick strikes and links

2012-05-16T15:00:27Z

As the playoffs wane on, topical stories about the Lightning, well, wane off.

Sure, there's continued conjecture about who the Lightning will bring in in net, what they'll do with all those draft picks, and how on Earth they're going to unload Vincent Lecavalier's contract. But other than that, there's really nothing hockey-related going on with the team.

And sadly, that's the case for most teams this time of year. Pretty soon, all hockey fans will be deliberating about the draft, free agency, and whether or not "it's October yet."

But in the mean time, meaningless banter is all we've got, right?

So, here are your links for the week:

Your Lightning links:

Teddy Purcell has a blog going to keep track of his World Championships. It always cracks me up how these player blogs are always paved with great intentions, and then get shorter and shorter, and fewer and further in between.
According to a Swiss online newspaper, the Bolts have offered a contract to Swiss stud Damien Brunner. That'd be okay. However, there is some question to the validity of this claim.
Would Tampa be a good fit for Rick Nash? Well duh, but I don't think even Stevie is good enough to make those logistics work.

Remember a couple of seasons ago when Vinny Lecavalier took a high stick above the eye, was cut open, finished the shift and scored a goal? Hehe, me too... At any rate, Bolts prospect Richard Panik seems to have wanted to one up him, as he scored the OT winner to propel the Norfolk Admirals into the AHL Eastern Conference Finals after being hit in the face with a slapshot. Yikes.

And your links from the rest of the NHL:

On a note that will surprise no one, Tomas Vokoun's tenure in Washington is over. Begin rumors to Tampa in 3...2...1...
Speaking of finished tenures with the Washington Capitals, Dale Hunter is gone as well. No real shock here, either.
Could the New York Islanders go after Alex Semin if he reaches unrestricted free agency? That's just what they need.
Here's some good news: Ex-Bolt Simon Gagne has been cleared for contact. Could he return during the playoffs?
Well, since the Minnesota Wild like to go on streaks of making transactions with the same team over and over, they're obviously considering how they can lure Zach Parise. Hopefully for them, he likes ice fishing.
This just in: athletes that play for Philadelphia teams will never win with the media. The latest victim? Ilya Bryzgalov. The guy opens up and gives some real emotions, and of course gets chided for it.
And finally, here's a look at a very interesting upcoming NHL draft class.

The NHL's real problem are its defensemen

2012-05-15T13:01:28Z

[Warning: much of this post is sarcastic.]

Shot blocking is the new evil in the NHL. It's apparently preventing teams from scoring, and thus limiting the masses' entertainment value. I guess you've always got to have something to rail against, but this one seems more than a little silly.

Due to that, everything's gone back to the bad-old-days of clutching and grabbing - though, no one's really being clutched at or grabbed. Regardless, it's slowing down the game; it's making the game boring. Or, so they say.

Then there's the whole "defense is killing the game" thing again. Despite the old saying of "defense wins championships" - which we've all seen over and over again as being pretty much true. But, no, that's not good enough. Scoring has to win championships, not boring defense.

And so the hockey media-driven narrative goes on....

How about this for a solution? Let's just eliminate the position of defenseman, since they're not doing anyone any good anyways. Shot blocking? Who needs it. Stopping opposing forwards from scoring? That kills the game. Preventing players from running your goalie? Can't do that because that's "interference" or "holding".

The problem isn't that defense makes the game boring. It's the defensemen make the game boring. So, let's just be done with all of this tip-toeing around the issue and call it like it is. If you want to make the game exciting, then just convert the defensemen to forwards and be done with it.

It's not as if they can do their jobs, anyways. They're not allowed to clear the crease anymore, and they're not allowed to stop opposing forwards coming into their zone. All they can do now is shot-block, but even that's become something that no one wants. So, really, what's left for defensemen to do?

Sure, defensemen are allowed to set up offensive plays and keep pucks in the zone. But that can be a forward's job as well. How many power play units are four or five forwards these days?

It's not that no one wants defense, it's that they don't want defensemen. It's a position that the NHL is gradually chipping away into nothing with their constant rule changes designed to "open up" the game. And for those traditionalists who want to preserve the game as it was when they were kids, that ought to frighten them. But I'm sure that it doesn't.

Most people only see scoring and goaltending, so I'm sure the majority hasn't even noticed how limited the position of defenseman has become over the years. If a team wins, it's often because of the goal-scoring forwards. If a team loses, it's often because of poor goaltending. The defense is usually left out in limbo with little recognition and little interest.

So, really, what's everyone waiting for? Let's just abolish the position entirely since it's obviously helping make games tedious, low-scoring affairs. It's not like anyone cares about them, anyways.

Who needs another Eddie Shore, Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, or Nicklas Lidstrom, after all, right?

Hockey culture, character, and winning: how we choose what we value

2012-05-14T13:00:26Z

"this decision represents an organization making a trade-off between a demonstrable on-ice value (the scoring potential of Kostitsyn and Radulov) and a more nebulous off-ice moral principle (players must all obey the same curfew). Coaches and managers make these kinds of trade-offs all the time in hockey- think Laviolette's Dry Island or Burke's Pre-Deadline Deadline- and in every case they should be questioned. Every time a team decides to put ideology ahead of pragmatism, every time they put something ahead of winning, we should ask why" -Ellen Etchingham, May 2, 2012, What is Team Culture For? (And Six Other Questions for the Nashville Predators)

"In Parityland, the winner doesn't necessarily have a magic formula and the loser didn't necessarily do anything wrong. Winning doesn't necessarily mean being inherently better at hockey anymore. Rather, it becomes a tautology: the winners won because they won, because somebody had to win, and they happened to be ahead when time ran out. " -Ellen Etchingham, April 20, 2012, On Parity

Philosophical consistency is not a strong suit of the human mind. I know I don't have it, not really. It's certainly not prevalent in sports analysis. Even as Ellen Etchingham chastised the Predators for putting character above winning, she recognized the absurdity of labeling individual players as "winners" and worried over the ways that league parity affected how teams have to play to win. And she's not the only writer to be so conflicted about the balance between "going for it" and "doing it right."

You hear it throughout the hockey world. Winning is everything. Winning ought to be the only consideration. Except for all the other considerations. Don't put your petty moralities above winning, unless your morality involves making a statement against defensive trap systems (the wrong way to win), or about the unacceptability of head shots (which should get guys taken out of the game no matter what), or realizing that a good player on a bad team is still a good player.

We actually have a complex relationship with winning. The same person who criticizes a coach or general manager for putting character above winning may also criticize a player or the league for not putting character above winning. Our job isn't to make good men, except when we need our players to be good men, aware of the humanity of the people around them. Teamwork only matters when it's mechanical in nature--players understanding what their teammates are doing on the ice--unless we need players to come together for each other and the fans.

Our language about winning reflects this complexity. We talk about deserving to win, about character wins, about beating ourselves. Sometimes we believe that winning must mean a team did things the right way. Sometimes we believe that their wins jeopardize the soul of the sport. Be tough and you'll win; just don't goon it up. Be skilled to win; just don't get too cute. Win through sacrifice; just don't block too many shots. And above all, have character and show respect for the game, the traditions, other players, the fans.

If we truly valued winning above character, above tradition, above watchability, above all other considerations, we would be unconflicted about a lot of things we actually debate endlessly. If winning were everything, we'd accept bad hits as the price you pay and we'd all understand that suspensions should never occur during the playoffs. We'd accept that any player--gay, straight, black, white, Russian, or (gasp!) female--would be welcome as long as they contributed. The question of European-ness or Canadian-ness in hockey would be a non-issue. There'd be no discussion.

If winning were everything, we wouldn't care about whether the number of goals was increasing or decreasing across the league. We wouldn't care about whether Alex Ovechkin's diminishing ice time makes the Capitals less fun to watch. We'd applaud the 1-3-1 as long as it helped teams win and drop it as soon as it didn't. All of our fears about the return of the so-called "dead puck era" wouldn't be fears at all. A 1-0 win is still a win. We'd be worrying about developing new strategies to win rather than changing the rules to make the game more watchable.

But winning isn't everything. And it never has been. We have lots of other values we want hockey to embody, and sometimes those things conflict with winning. We want fairness. We want passion. We want skill. We want teamwork. We want tough, smart, exciting hockey. We demand that players making ungodly amounts of money for playing a game have some perspective about that. We demand that they respect their franchises, their fans, their opponents, and the sport. We demand that they have their heads on straight and actually not act like sociopaths who can't empathize.

We want our players to be good guys. We just do. Yes, we want them to be tough and hard to play against. And of course we want them to create winning. But we want to think that, in the middle of all of that calculating coverage and angles and things, they're still aware of the other players on the ice being somehow like them, not deserving of that cheap, injurious hit to the head or knees. We want to believe that it takes a team to win, and that our players get that and know better than to coast along on their talent. We want to think that, in hockey, we win the right way.

We demand these things from our fans, too. We prize longevity in fandom. We prize creativity and passion. And we prize loyalty, win or lose. Got a losing team? Buy tickets anyway or say goodbye. Be a real fan. Low attendance has to be as much the fault of the fanbase as it is of mismanagement or poor play, right? For every voice reminding audiences that losing teams don't sell a lot of tickets, someone claims that that (sunny) city is just a bad market. Unsellable. Undeserving.

The league, we claim, must come to grips with the fact that certain actions "have no place in the game." In practice, the league is not there to facilitate winning, but to facilitate right play and we place many demands on it. Take head shots out of the game but preserve the traditions we've grown up with. Prevent large market teams from stockpiling talent and dominating small market teams through the sheer power of their wealth, but don't reward incompetence. Bring speed and scoring back to the game by tweaking the rules, but know when not to apply those rules.

Sell the game better. Defend the game better. Protect and promote the culture of hockey. Be consistent and transparent. Create fairness. Suspend in the playoffs, even in elimination games, like you would in the regular season. If winning were everything, if being great mattered more than being right, what difference would it make if Raffi Torres played? He can help his team win, right?

We do put other values above winning. We always have. And moreover we ought to; we need to. Because sport is a social arena and a moral one. And because, in life, character does matter. This may be a game, but it's real life--real, messy, complex life--not some video game simulation where the players and contexts and contingencies dissolve into electrons once we're done. We are human beings acting in human arenas, and in talking about sport we play out the moral dilemmas of our daily lives. We need sports to be at least in part about character. Because sports are about us.

To those who insist that winning must be paramount to all other considerations, that somehow all teams owe all fans a commitment to winning above all else, I say "who do you want to be?" What kind of person is a hockey person? Shouldn't our teams be doing their best to negotiate the same sorts of ethical dilemmas as we face? Do they not owe it to us and to themselves to take their humanity seriously? Shouldn't they be making thoughtful decisions that reflect the needs of all the varied constituencies that make up a community?

In the end, I don't think I could support a team that placed winning above its costs without even thinking about those costs. I don't think I could be an active member of a sports community that used people--players, fans, managers, everyone--so brutally. The fact that teams are willing to understand that in certain circumstances there is something more important than winning makes the wins better wins, wins I can get behind.

In hockey, winning the right way means something. And I like that it does.

Norfolk Admirals Game 6 open thread

2012-05-11T23:00:06Z

Your Norfolk Admirals take on the Connecticut Whale in game 6 tonight, and this is their chance to close out the series. They lead 3 games to 2 in what has been a back and forth sort of series. It has seemed that they boys come out flat one game then come out fighting the next. Wednesday night saw an aggressive, fast, confident Norfolk team defeat an increasingly frustrated Connecticut team in a neutral site game (at the Bridgeport arena rather than at the Whale's home in Hartford).

Alex Picard (2g), Ondrej Palat (1g, 1a), and Pierre-Cedric "Nacho" Labrie (1g, 1a) all scored on Wednesday, and while Tyler Johnson had only one assist (on Palat's goal) his presence seems to have an effect on the team, even when he isn't hitting the scoresheet. Jaroslav Janus made 22 saves in his first playoff shutout.

If the Admirals win tonight, they will go on to round 3. If not, they have another chance on Sunday, in an early evening game (5pm ET start). The winner of this series will face the winner of the St. John's Ice Caps - Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins series.

Radio: 1021thegame.com Online video: AHL Live. Game starts at 7:00pm ET.

john tortorella would rather stick his finger in his eye than talk to media. He is a master at...

2012-05-11T15:13:09Z

john tortorella would rather stick his finger in his eye than talk to media. He is a master at deflecting attention away from his players...
The more the media focuses on torts press conf, the less they are talking about his team. He's pretty crafty.
Reminds me if 04 when torts got into it with hitchcock and took all the attention off us players and on the coaches verbal battle. Smart:-)

Chris Dingman, via Twitter in defense of his former coach John Tortorella

Question of the week: Which is more important, defense or goaltending?

2012-05-11T13:01:15Z

With all of the focus on goaltending, the defense has been sort of left out in the cold. But, that's fairly typical. When it comes to hockey, people tend think about offense and goaltending, not defense.

Still, that's a bit discouraging. A good defense will make a good goalie look like a Vezina candidate, and a bad defense will make a good goalie look very mediocre. But, as many people just noticed the goaltending and not the defense, they see that a goalie is just good or bad and that's all there is to it.

The two are very much intertwined. Goaltending is not a singular position in that goalies just do their thing and the rest of the team does theirs. The defensemen are the bridge between the forwards and the goaltending, and they interact a great deal between the two. Which is why it often takes a while for defensemen to mature - they have to not only learn what their goalies want them to do, but also what their forwards want them to do.

The standard operating procedure for the Detroit Red Wings for many years now is to have outstanding defensemen, and have good - but not fantastic - goaltenders. With a few exceptions, of course. And the Wings have had the closest to what any would call a dynasty in decades.

Also keep in mind that General Manager Steve Yzerman was a member of that organization as both a player and a member of their front office for 27 years.

Which isn't to say that goaltending isn't an issue for the Tampa Bay Lightning, because it is. But, so is the defense. Would it be easier (or better) to upgrade the goaltending, or upgrade the defense?

So the question of the week is....

There are a number of things that need to be addressed by the Tampa Bay Lightning this offseason, but which do you feel is more important and why - improving the defense, or improving the goaltending?

Clark Brooks - Staff Writer / Ridiculously Inconsistent Trickle of Consciousness

Presuming only one of those areas can be addressed (there's rules to QOTW), this is a real chicken-or-egg scenario.

Can good defense mask bad goaltending? Can good goaltending compensate for poor defense? I'm more inclined to say yes to the first question. If I have to choose my liability, I want to rely on my goalie as a true last line of defense, not as defense Option A.

So for me, I'm upgrading the defense first.

Tina Robinson - Staff Writer

If there has to be a decision between upgrading/improving the defense or the goaltending, I think I'd rather see the defense upgraded first. (I'd rather have both). After seeing the goalies in Tampa struggle mightily this season and how much the defense DIDN'T help out, I'd lean toward fixing the D first. We need to find or promote or otherwise acquire defensemen (more than one) that will be willing to clear out in front of the goalie on a consistent basis.

I believe Matt brought it up in the last QOTW, but I agree, we need a defenseman that will be physical, protect the goalie, clear out the crease when needed and still be ready to move the puck out of the zone quickly and safely. I know some goalies do just fine with an increased number of shots, but I am of the opinion that more shots will eventually lead to more goals and less games won.

If we need an example of this, just look no further than the play of Mike Smith with the Phoenix Coyotes this year. Now, I know there are other factors to be considered as well..he finally appears to be completely healthy and over the concussion problems that plagued him in Tampa and he just needed a fresh start over somewhere, but I sincerely believe than he's playing better because the defense is playing better in front of him.

Upgrade the D and then let's see how the goalie(s) do.

Clare Austin - Staff Writer

I can't make myself choose one or the other because they have to bring someone in for both goaltending or defense simply due to the fact that there aren't enough signed players to fill the roster in both positions. (There are 4 d-men under contract for 2012-13, including Mattias Ohlund, and only one goaltender, unless you assume Dustin Tokarski will back up Mathieu Garon. And that assumption kind of defeats the point of the question in my mind. Anyhoo....)

So, if we take this as a question of where do you invest the most money/assets, defense or goaltending, I have to say defense, but that's as much because they need to sign or promote three or four guys rather than just one.

All the stats show that, aside from the very elite (like Roberto Luongo), having a "hot" goaltender is more important than having a "good" goaltender. That is to say, most goalies in the league vary so much from year to year that predicting their worth to the team ahead of time is impossible. So on goalies you either invest in an elite goalie or you invest in defense. It's less worth it to pick up a pretty good (or even quite good) guy in goal, unless you can do it really cheap, than to get four good defensemen, even at an inflated price.

In the end, I'm thinking that around $13-16M more on defense and $2-4M more in net are probably realistic.

John Fontana - Managing Editor

Goaltending is the last line of defense, and some people believe that you build a team from the net out. I'm of the mind thinking it's the last line of defense - meaning responsibility lies with the five guys in front of the crease firstly.

Upgrading defensive play - not just defesive players - is integral for the Lightning. While we like what a lot of guys currently on the roster bring to the table, there is a serious lacking in faceoff strength and a bad habit of giveaways resulting in odd-man rushes on the Lightning goal by opponents. That's a failing that needs to be rectified by personnel changes and changes to tactics preached by coaches.

Does that mean goaltending isn't important? No. It does mean goaltending shouldn't have to defend as many opponent opportunities as the Lightning have allowed the past season (they gave up, on average, 30.5 shots on goal a night). They do have to make the saves that ought to be made, but those five guys in front of the net have to limit opponent opportunities to begin with.

If you missed it, check out last week's question, Who do you want to see the Lightning re-sign?

The cold war between the NHL and NHLPA

2012-05-10T19:00:41Z

"Now they will tremble again, at the sound of our silence."

-Captain Marko Ramius, The Hunt for Red October

The NHL playoffs are in full crescendo. Not only have the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs been intense, and with plenty of controversy, but they have also been popular as TV ratings and fan buzz shows. Sure, it's been helped by having six teams (the Rangers, Devils, Capitals, Bruins, Flyers and Penguins) from the northeast media corridor in the playoffs, but let's not have that take away from a very competitive and unpredictable playoffs so far.

But even as the conference finals loom large and the Stanley Cup Finals shortly after, there's a hidden malice that stirs. No fan dares give it more than a glancing mention, instead focusing on the triumphs and pratfalls of the 2012 playoffs.

Yet this noxious bane lingers, unseen, waiting for its moment, waiting for the lull of the off-season to unleash its horrors on the idle masses. Waiting.... Waiting....

In 2004, even less attention was being paid toward the forthcoming labor negotiations between the National Hockey League and the NHL Player Association. To some, it was a formality that had to be worked out. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet the work stoppage of 2004-05, a lockout of players by NHL owners, was the most toxic affair for the league and the sport imaginable. It was an argument between the haves and the have-mores of the world. The details of the lockout are close to moot eight years later. The league has moved on, under the new CBA ratified in the summer of 2005. But some of the basic issues remain the same (read: money).

History seems to be repeating itself. Focus is on the playoffs, and little attention is being paid to the silence from NHL Commission Gary Bettman, his right-hand man Bill Daly, and current NHLPA head Donald M. Fehr. Any talk of the CBA negotiations is brushed off, put off... It's homework for later.

There was already a volley, a salvo of vitriol, fired between the NHLPA and NHL owners last winter. If you recall the NHL realignment approved by the NHL Board of Governors, you should also be aware that the Players Association did not approve of the proposal and that the current conference and divisional alignment remains the same for the foreseeable future. Why the rejection? Was it out of spite? Partly, but the NHLPA had concerns while the Board of Governors pressed ahead. Ownership did not consult with the players on the entire plan and the Players Association did not just roll over and accept things with their issues unaddressed

In such a radical change as the proposed realignment was, you would have thought ownership and the players union - a tumulus business partnership, but a partnership none-the-less - would have been in constant contact about hammering out the details and making sure all parties are happy before moving forward...

Or perhaps that is just naive?

Since that rejection, there hasn't been much on the subject of the expiring NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement. A passing article here and there has popped up from time to time, like this Forbes article from May 1^st. In it, a worrisome picture of hardball negotiations looming is painted by writer Tom Van Riper, noting union head Don Fehr's contempt toward salary restrictions via a salary cap. Fehr can indeed play hardball, and he is a veteran of labor warfare - having been steward of the Major League Baseball Players Association during the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike that canceled the 1994 World Series.

Fehr wouldn't dare take a scorched-Earth policy in labor negotiations like that and sacrifice the 2012-13 season, would he?

I do not believe the sentiment he would. From the Forbes article:

Despite his historically tough stances, Fehr ultimately wants the players out there making their living. [Tom] Laidlaw insists. "Donald Fehr is a deal maker," he says. Bettman and Daly have already run circles around the NHL's previous dealmaker, Bob Goodenow. This time, they'd do well just to hang on to what they've got.

Supporting the case for a keep-them-playing approach is the fact Major League Baseball has not had a work stoppage since the 1994-95 walkout / lockout. The last near-walkout occurred in the late summer of 2002 when MLB Players Association and MLB owners agreed to a "historic" last minute deal which Fehr was very much a part of.

The 2002 situation had much more potential for damage toward MLB as any stoppage would have suspended an ongoing season, potentially wiping out the playoffs. In comparison, the NHL's Collective Bargaining Agreement expires around the time NHL training camps begin - the very start of the NHL season... That gives the perception that the season could just be delayed and put off until a later date. That lack of urgency seems to be a guiding force at this point.

And with that lack of urgency, the hidden malice grows in size. With posturing in the media by the Commissioner and a lack of tangible movement on the labor front, the noxious bane's potency becomes more lethal, and an interruption to the 2012-13 NHL season becomes more possible.