NHL Off-Season Thread 2010

[Asher]

This column was just posted and is already one of the most popular articles on the Globe:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/olli-jokinen/article1625775/

Olli Jokinen!?

This is why it’s so much fun covering hockey in Calgary.

Olli Jokinen?

Olli Jokinen!

When you ponder the history, under what circumstances could the Flames possibly ever consider bringing back Olli Jokinen?

Consider that two years ago, Jokinen arrived in Calgary from Phoenix, costing them a first-round draft choice that the Coyotes turned into a blue-chip prospect (Moncton’s Brandon Gormley) at last Friday’s NHL entry draft.

When they finally shuffled Jokinen out of town to the only team that would take him on, the New York Rangers, the Flames then had to absorb a contract (Ales Kotalik’s) that they are busily trying to place in Russia, so they don’t have to buy him out.

The Flames were so anxious to move Jokinen out in February that they took on both Kotalik and Chris Higgins from the New York Rangers, one of the few times that GM Glen Sather could ever have been said to get the best of an adversary. On the other hand, Jokinen was the guy who, with the Rangers’ playoff lives on the line, was stopped in the shootout by Philadelphia Flyers’ goaltender Brian Boucher. The Flyers advanced to the playoffs with the victory and didn’t stop until they got to the Stanley Cup final.

The Rangers? Well, they did sign Derek Boogaard Thursday as they bid goodbye to Jokinen.

Still, bringing Jokinen back fits a pattern for general manager Darryl Sutter who has his own view of what’s right and what’s wrong - and doesn’t care what you, me or Pierre McGuire on the TSN panel thinks. Sutter is stubborn. Sutter knows his own mind. Sutter hates to admit mistakes. Jokinen’s first stay with the Flames couldn’t have been any worse; the assumption is that if Jokinen is playing a different role with someone not named Jarome Iginla, it has to be better. That will vindicate Sutter, in his own mind anyway, and get all those critics to grudgingly see the wisdom of his plan, which seems to elude everybody else.

On a day when the Flames also brought back Alex Tanguay at a deep discount and flirted with the possible acquisition of Marc Savard, another of Iginla’s former centres, nothing should ever be a complete total surprise. Not when it comes to Calgary, a team that uses misdirection better than any club in the league. They may not be any better. They may not be worse. But they are different.

[notyoueither]

Maybe Sutter is setting up a tanking? Hard to do with players like Iginla, Bouw, and Kipper.

[Asher]

We don't have a 1st round pick next year (IIRC), so I hope not.

The worst thing in the NHL is mediocrity. The teams that are great today are teams that were awful not too long ago and got those draft picks. (Only real exception is Detroit)

[Asher]

Sutter apparently told Jokinen he should've never traded him.

We traded Jokinen to offload his expiring contract, take on Kotalik's contract (which is for an additional 2 years), then took Jokinen back anyway. ****ing unreal.

[notyoueither]

We don't have a 1st round pick next year (IIRC), so I hope not.

The worst thing in the NHL is mediocrity. The teams that are great today are teams that were awful not too long ago and got those draft picks. (Only real exception is Detroit)

I didn't recall them trading the 2011 first. I checked here and found no mention of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_NHL_Entry_Draft

No second or third though. That sucks as the second and third of 'lottery' teams are more like a low pick of the earlier round than the middle of the nominal round (hope I typed that correctly).

[Asher]

I'm glad to be mistaken then.

Maybe he sees #3 being a WHLer playing for the Red Deer Rebels and he is going to tank.

[notyoueither]

At any rate, like I said it is hard to tank with good players in key positions.

You can't plan on your best players getting injured.

[Asher]

There's still plenty of time to trade those players.

Maybe he'll package Iginla and a 3rd round pick to send to the Rangers for Boogaard?

[notyoueither]

Kurtis Foster signed by the Oilers for 1.8 MM per year for two years.

42 points last year (20th in league for d-men scoring) 17 min per game in Tampa Bay. Essentially a fourth-fifth d-man, power-play specialist as he comes back from a ghastly leg injury.

Pierre McGuire is going off about Edmonton over-paying.

Foster says Tell Pierre McGuire if he mentions I'm overpaid again, to where a helmet between benches this year! (kidding!)

Foster has a very accurate slapper.

[Asher]

I liked the Foster signing, myself...

[notyoueither]

They may be saying 'oh oh' in Anaheim right about now.

They offered Bobby Ryan 5 years at $5 MM. He turned them down because he only wants to sign for 3 years. IIRC, that will put him one year to UFA and they will have to qualify him at $5 MM, so in essence it is his option to make it a four year $20 MM deal that gets him to UFA status.

Ryan Smyth was always a difficult signing in Edmonton, which led to him being traded at the deadline a couple years ago.

[Asher]

http://communities.canada.com/edmontonjournal/blogs/hockey/archive/2010/07/01/moreautalks.aspx

Moreau throws Quinn, MacTavish and Lowe under the bus


Former Oilers captain suggests he was mishandled by the Oilers, but that doesn't fit with the facts

There was a lot of ill will between Edmonton Oilers fans and team captain Ethan Moreau these past few seasons, and not just because of Moreau's poor play. Yes, Moreau did indeed tend to alienate fans by taking so many bad penalties and by failing to create much of anything on offence, but what really started to bother folks was Moreau's post-game descriptions of the game.

Typically, after another loss that might have seen Moreau take a bad penalty at one point, then later making a defensive error resulting in a goal against, he would say something like, "The powerplay has got to get going. Guys have to start making hard plays at the net. We all know that."

Never was there any recognition that he was part of the problem, a big part, in fact. It was always some other part of the team that wasn't performing, not the part he was responsible for.

Moreau started to be known derisively as the "captainethanmoreau" on the Oilogosphere, a sarcastic reworking of Oilers broadcaster Kevin Quinn's fawning play call whenever Moreau touched the puck.

Well, as Moreau leaves Edmonton, he's done it again, handed out some more blame that will be sure to rile up Oilers fans.

First off, Moreau suggested to the Journal's Joanne Ireland that he was mishandled on the Oilers by coaches Craig MacTavish and Pat Quinn.

"It's a good fit," Moreau said of his move to Columbus. "I'll be used the way I'm supposed to be used. It was definitely time to move on. I need a fresh start. I need a team that's going to use me where I'm most valuable and I don't think that was the case the last few years. And my play suffered because of it. But no regrets."Ethan Moreau

Did the Oilers not employ Moreau correctly, as he's suggesting here? Or did advanced age and numerous injuries simply job Moreau of his effectiveness?

Perhaps he's complaining about being shuffled to the fourth line this year, where he played a good chunk of the season with Andrew Cogliano and Zack Stortini. Maybe Moreau felt he should have been used exclusively on a checking line.

The only problem is that Moreau was almost certainly the worst player on that fourth line. For one thing, he was the one who regularly caused the most goals against. Moreau made 34 mistakes this past season that contributed to goals against the Oilers at even strength, while Cogliano made 21 and Stortini just 7. When Moreau was on the ice, the Oilers were certain to be outshot and outshot badly.

That's hardly a player you want out there against Sidney Crosby or the Sedin brothers, even if that player is certain that is the proper role for himself.

It's true that Moreau's play did pick up a bit when he was put on a checking line with Shawn Horcoff and Fernando Pisani near the end of the season, but who was carrying who on that line? It was the improvement in Horcoff's play that drove the short-term, relatively decent results for that line.

More proof that Moreau was no longer a defensive specialist?

On the penalty kill, where one would expect a defensive forward to shine, Moreau was the worst Oilers forward, save for poor Patrick O'Sullivan. In his 162 minutes on the penalty kill, Moreau made mistakes that contributed to 12 goals against, 4.44 goal-causing errors per 60 minutes of penalty kill time. Only O'Sullivan was worse, at 6.21/60.

Compare that to a player like Horcoff, who made just nine goal-causing errors in 183 minutes on the kill, 2.95/60 (and it's worth nothing that many of Horcoff's errors came off of lost faceoffs, something Moreau can't claim).

Things were similarly bad with Moreau on the penalty kill in 2008-09, by the way. In his 199 minutes on the kill that season, Moreau made 17 goal-causing errors, the most of any Oilers player.

Most often these errors came from Moreau over aggressively chasing after the puck and getting caught out of position. He was never one to think the game too well, and when his speed and eye-hand coordination went, he was often a lame duck out there. He had perhaps the slowest and worst stick when it came to blocking passing lanes on the team, and this was the NHL's worst team.

Another area where Moreau harmed his team was in penalties taken. In 2008-09, he led the team by taking 31 minor penalties. No other forward took more than 20 minor penalties on the Oilers that year. This past year, Moreau took 17 minor penalties, more than any other Oilers forward, according to Behind the Net.

Overall, at even strength this season, when you compare the 23 plays where Moreau helped score a goal to the 34 plays where he made a mistake that helped cause a goal against the Oilers, his true plus/minus was -11.

On a per minutes basis, he was the third least effective winger on the team, better than only the feckless O'Sullivan and sick and injured Fernando Pisani.

If the Oilers made any mistake in their handling of Moreau, it was keeping him on the penalty kill this year after his poor play in 2008-09. In fact, an argument can be made that if he were any other player, not the team captain, he would have been benched for long stretches.

In the Columbus Dispatch, Moreau also praised former Oilers Asst. GM Scott Howson, who left the Oilers after the 2006 Cup run.

"I have a ton of respect for Scott Howson," Moreau said. "He was really the architect of that (Oilers) team. He made some key acquisitions that got us to the Final, one period from winning the Stanley Cup.

"I don’t think people realize how much he meant to that run. It's not just a coincidence that things went south when he left."

There may be some truth to this statement from Moreau. But, of course, one of the worst moves that Oilers GM Kevin Lowe made was offering such long-term deals to veterans on that team, players such as Moreau. With all due respect to Moreau for his valiant contributions here from 1999-2007, with his particular combination of marginal NHL talent and reckless style, it was never a good bet he would keep on being an effective player into his mid-30s.

Meanwhile, at the Blue Jackets blog on the Dispatch site, hockey writer Aaron Portzline was asked: How is that Ethan Moreau gets waived by the worst team in the league Edmonton and now's he's projected as a third -line starter for us?

Portzline responded: "You pose a very good question. Here's the theory: One team (EDM) is purging and rebuilding. They waived three or four players yesterday and will likely struggle for at least the next couple of seasons. The Taylor Hall drafting is the first bit of good news in EDM for a long, long time. The Blue Jackets feel like they're still building toward something. They're fine-tuning. They wanted a veteran forward who could provide on-ice intensity and dressing room experience. This is the theory, anyway.

"Moreau is 6-2, 220. He has one year and $1.75M remaining on his contract. He should be a fit on the third line next to Pahlsson. He's regarded as a passionate, hard-working player who plays a significant role in the dressing room."

In the end, it would seem that Columbus has signed a player with a blindspot the size of the Alberta Tar Sands in regards to his own contributions to the Oilers these past few seasons. No doubt, it was that kind of self-confidence that helped make Moreau such a force for so many years in Edmonton, but it's also true in life that our great strengths can also be our great weaknesses.

Perhaps Moreau will show this season that the things written here are a pile of ill-advised garbage, statistical drivel, that kind of thing.

Perhaps he will use all of the invective directed his way by Edmonton fans as a huge motivator.

If he does so, good for him and I certainly wish him well. I'd love to see him somehow get his game back. Most Oiler fans would. Moreau is still admired by many in Edmonton.

But this throwing of his old coaches MacTavish and Quinn and his manager Lowe under the bus, it doesn't sit well.

[notyoueither]

^ Brutal reporting.

In other news, the Smack Attack is back! Steve McIntyre signed by the Oilers from Florida.

Asked how he feels about coming back to Edmonton, he said "Yahoo!"

[Asher]

David Staples has always been a tool. I enjoyed the article, throwing Moreau under the bus whilst complaining about Moreau throwing The BrainTrust(tm) under the bus.

[notyoueither]

Muckraking is a term that comes to mind. Creating stories where there really isn't one.

Moreau is not the brightest light in the house. His comments in Columbus are par for the course for a player trying to be positive about the organization he is joining, but slightly lacking in credibility. Moreau was a third line checker, maybe with an A on the jersey, in the spring of '06. Nobody has ever suggested that Howson was some power behind the throne orchestrating the aquisition of Pronger, Peca, Roloson, and the rest of the trades for players that pushed the Oilers into the playoffs and to the SCF. Moreau was in no position to know something that nobody else does. He is blowing sunshine for the new audience. There is no reason to take offence.

His comments to Ireland about coaching are not news. MacTavish stepped down because the players weren't listening to him anymore and his results were declining. Quinn got pushed aside because he did worse than MacT, even before the flu and injury decimated the team. There were rumblings about Quinn's handeling of the bench since about the 10 or 20 game mark of last season. He wouldn't match lines, he misused players, lack of defined roles, etc. Again, this is not news.

I've heard Moreau speak on various media outlets two or three times now since he got claimed on waivers. He's always been gracious and grateful to the fans and everything else about his time in Edmonton. Not a negative word said.