I’m always frustrated at the lack of creativity when it comes to how annual yearbooks predict potential champions. I’m fairly certain they just use this formula, in three easy steps*:
1. Look up the finalists from last season
2. Say they will meet again*
3. Say the team that won last season will repeat.
*If you are The Sporting News, pick the most tired option in assuming that San Jose will make it to the Western Conference finals even though they’ve been at the top of the league or lead it in points but can’t manage to string any playoff wins together. Of course the Penguins could very well win again, but many predicted Detroit to repeat last year… so you see where this is headed.
We’re already to the Christmas break in the NHL and the Olympics are just around the corner. It kills me to think that I won’t get to see much of them, but I’m secretly hoping to download some of the games afterwards. Although it’s hard to really gauge since I can only follow from box scores, standings and statistics, but I feel like this has been one of the oddest years in recent history.
First, we have to talk about my team. With a huge trade to bring in this year’s predicted “missing piece,” it’s apparent that it will take more than Chris Pronger to take the Flyers anywhere. Losing Knuble and Lupul have certainly hurt. As time passes by, it appears that Simon Gagne is no longer a durable player. Spending so much has left little room for goaltending and the Flyers might really be sunk with Ray Emery on the shelf. Rumors had Jaroslav Halak being offered on a deal, which means that maybe his agent can make Tweets about Ray Emery too in the near future. In my opinion, the Flyers should have thought about Halak and Pavelec last year when the price would have been cheaper both for trading and signing. But it doesn’t matter how good a goalie is if there is little being done offensively, which has certainly been the case. The good news is that, just like when I missed the season in 2006 when I was in Germany, if I’m not there to see them fail, it’s like it doesn’t happen. Call it “distance-induced sports denial,” if you will.
That the Wings have been bringing up the rear is surprising. But that’s not the only eye-popper about the Western Conference standings. The Kings? The Coyotes? Believe me when I say I couldn’t be more surprised or happier about that. Phoenix is not the hockey town it was in its early days when the franchise had a lot of early success. Given the financial situation with home values in Phoenix and the recent failure of the team, it’s not surprising that the situation has become so dire. But on ice success will hopefully help to right the wrongs of poorly thought out overexpansion into unstable and sometimes unnecessary markets.
I continue to be amazed at the length of contracts. Hockey has become so complex during the age of the salary cap. The times were simpler when teams like the Rangers, Wings and Flyers were the highest spenders. The cap has brought an understandably huge collection of numbers with it. Cap hit? Average salary? LTIR (Mike Rathje, where are you?) The amount teams pay for players daily as worked out by their annual salary and the number of days in the season?
But with any system, teams will eventually find a way to push it as far as they can, and the answer to this problem: long, long contracts that lead to “it seemed like a good idea at the time” regrets. Consider it hockey’s idea of a 2 at 10 and a 10 at 2. I want to stab myself when I think that Danny Briere will be a Flyer for a few more years, but at the time it was a necessary signing given the team’s then-status as worst in the league. But you have to wonder how signing players until their late thirties to contracts into what’s increasingly become a young man’s game will do. To that extent, it will be a brave new long-term contract world in about five years or so. The length and amount of contracts also limits the mobility of a player. If you sign someone to a long-term deal and they start underperforming in year two, there is no painless solution to this problem.
For teams like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Washington, these deals are necessary because they overwhelmingly involve young players. Lest we forget, they are commodities in addition to being human beings. Their commitment to stay with the team means all kinds of profits: aside from the most obvious in ticket sales, merchandising accounts for a lot of money. Emerging teams stand to gain so much from locking up young players, even though it’s not without risk. Alex Ovechkin, at 24, has already missed a few games to injury so far this season. The thing that fans love about him might be what plagues him in the later years of his huge deal: his style of play. What happens when you sign young players and they either fizzle or become plagued with injury? In the game of long contracts, I’d still say it’s best to roll the dice on young players instead of signing veterans already on the downturn of their careers.
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