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Written by FRE
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Wednesday, 10 February 2010 21:10 |
Edmonton, AB (HO). There are many intriguing and baffling storylines in the NHL these days, but none as curious as the demise of the Edmonton Oilers, who went from a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup finals in 2004-05 season to the worst team in the league in a few short years. Critics and observers alike have pointed to many factors that have led to the Oilers troubles, from Chris Pronger’s sudden departure, lack of a competent scouting department, awful coaching and questionable signings, the list is long, but the answers are all just conjuncture. Hockeyoutsiders has set out to answer some of these questions and basically, our answer boils down to one thing, inadequate goaltending.
General manager, Steve Tambellini sought to upgrade this position in the off-season. The result was bringing in oft-injured, inconsistent and aging Nikolai Khabibulin as a free agent, who had just completed four mostly mediocre seasons in Chicago. The results were predictable. Khabibulin played 18 games for the Oil before he was shelved because of injuries and is now slated for probable season-ending surgery. Thus began the Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers era in Edmonton. Despite being a high second round pick, JDD, has not lived up to his reputation, which clearly shows that goaltending has been at the forefront of much of the Oilers failures.
JDD doing what he does best Hockeyoutsiders, wondered how this was possible, given JDD’s pedigree, twice being the backup for World Champion Canadian juniors teams. A look back at his career does reveal some inconsistencies, but his work in the AHL with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins was remarkable, indicating to us that there must be some other reason that JDD has struggled at the NHL level. This led HO to return to JDD’s hometown of St.-Jean-Richelieu, Quebec where the goaltender grew up crafting his trade. We hoped that our visit would allow us to talk to some people who mentored the young goaltender in his formative years. These people might give us some clues or insight into why JDD struggled to stop short-sided snap shots or shots that went top shelf. Most of these shots even capable ECHL goaltenders are prone to stop on most nights.
It did not take us long, in this small town about 31 miles from Montreal, to figure out the root of the young goaltenders problems. Regulation hockey nets are 72” x 48” in size. The nets in St.-Jean-Richelieu are 52” x 36” which is the size of junior hockey nets. While these nets are modeled after regulation arena nets, their cost is significantly less. To further compensate for the size of the nets, the rink in St.-Jean-Richelieu set their nets off-center.
Said rink manager Antoine Bonenfont; “Our hockey budget for the year is only a couple hundred dollars, which is barely enough to put gas in the Zamboni, never mind upgrade our equipment. Our nets have been around for years and nobody has ever complained about them. We repaint the bars red every couple of years and make sure the netting is not dry-rotted. We keep them off-center so we can get around them with the zamboni. We found that instead of having to do 6 passes around the rink to flood the ice, we can get away with 5, which helps save on gas.”
Most townspeople remember JDD as being a dominant goaltender when he played for the high school bantam teams. "We expected big things out of the big guy, we don't understand what went wrong." lamented longtime Oiler fan, Kayle Thompson.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 10 February 2010 22:21 )
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Written by FRE
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 16:58 |
Calgary, AB (HO). "The Who" rises hauntingly out of the speakers of the small CD player in Darryl Sutter’s office. Behind the big oak desk sits the GM of the Calgary Flames, his dim lit room casting shadows on his face. Our meeting is reminiscent of meeting a Godfather of a crime ring or an overlord boss. We are quietly ushered in and shown our seat, no words are spoken for several minutes. We sit nervously, fidgeting with our notebook as we prepare to interview the evil genius or blatantly ignorant man who just orchestrated another series of blockbuster moves at the “NHL trade deadline” to hopefully shake up his woefully underperforming hockey team.
Sutter contemplates his next move
Now Jokinen is again gone. Departing with him is former Norris candidate, defenseman Dion Phaneuf. In separate deals, both players, once considered future franchise players are off to other destinations as part of a team wide shakeup aimed again at making the Flames Stanley Cup favorites again. In their place, Sutter has obtained underachieving spare parts. It’s hard to follow his line of thinking, maybe it’s that he went the route of finding a superstar at the deadline and that failed miserably, so perhaps he is thinking, stocking his team with five or six guys with potential is the “can’t miss” solution. We can’t be sure and sitting in his stark office at the Flames NHL complex is intimidating to say the least.
Sutter sits there for a few minutes, humming silently, staring off into space. He does not say a word. He has yet to acknowledge our presence. We are unsure that he is even going to offer a justification on his recent moves, especially his acquisition of Ales Kotalik from the Rangers for Mr. Jokinen, the bizarrest of his moves on this day, especially considering he made Jokinen suit up and play hockey last night, almost like a man on death row’s last meal. Flames fans feel they deserve an explanation, but we’re not sure Mr. Sutter believes he owes them one. Maybe this is just all part of his master plan to get Ilya Kolvachuk or maybe Sutter has just lost it, at this point, everybody has a theory.
“No one knows what it's like, To be the bad man, To be the sad man, Behind blue eyes. No one knows what it's like, To be hated, To be fated, To telling only lies”
The lyrics crackle from the darkness; we continue to sit in silence and wish that we had been sent to Dallas to interview the members of Westboro Baptist Church on the evils inherent in the sport of hockey. Yes, we still believe that Gary Bettman is Satan.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 February 2010 17:09 )
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Written by FRE
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 17:32 |
Calgary, AB (HO). Hockeyoutsiders has learned that the Calgary Flames have filed a missing person report today with the RCMP. Details of the report are a little sketchy, but apparently, the big center, who wears #21 for the Flames has been absent from their games for almost the entire month of November, although he was spotted briefly on November 19th in the Flames brutal home loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Said teammate and captain of the Flames, Jerome Iginla, “The last time I really saw Olli, was in the preseason. He seemed to be fine, with no signs of having any [mental] problems. He won a lot of draws and basically threw his weight around. I haven’t really seen him since then.”
Traded to Calgary at the trade deadline, last season from Phoenix, Jokinen immediately made the Flames Stanley Cup favorites. His disappearance is mystifying to even his new coach Brent Sutter. “I’m not sure where Olli has gone too. Maybe he left with Mike Keenan, those two always seemed close. I mean, ever since Mike left Florida, Olli hasn’t been the same person.”
Have you seen me?
In addition, the Flames have released his picture on milk cartons through out Alberta in hopes that Olli will be discovered soon and return to the ice to help them with the last half of the season.
"All we are asking is for the safe return of the Olli that we all knew," said goaltender and fellow Finn Miikka Kiprusoff. "He's so gentle, please don't harm him."
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 November 2009 17:49 )
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Written by FRE
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Thursday, 15 October 2009 19:02 |
Denver, CO. (HO). The biggest surprise of the fledging NHL season is currently the Colorado Avalanche. Many predicted the Avalanche who are supposedly in that dreaded “rebuilding” stage to be downright awful on the ice, however, they just keep winning. Off to one of their best starts for as long as anyone can remember, the secret to their success lays with an Olympic world class skier and chemist by night.
Michelle Roark is a skiing champion, but she also specializes in creating scents for champions. Featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article, Michelle breaks down her theory about creating smells that athletes can wear that invoke visions of championships and translate into winning. It’s currently working for the Colorado Avalanche.
Michelle has the Avalanche playing winning hockey
Sacco and his coaches decided to try Ms. Roark’s scent called “Focus”, which like her other scents is composed mainly of natural rose oil, mixed with fruit scents.
Current budding Avalanche superstar, Paul Stastny was skeptical at first. “The locker room is a sacred place. It’s suppose to smell like hockey sweat, old gym shorts and dirty laundry. It’s a place reserved for men to be men. When coach was like, alright, let’s all put on this perfume and go win some games, most of us were like HELL no, we’re not becoming sissified, but he didn’t give us a choice. So far it’s been working pretty good.”
Joe Thornton, who plays for the San Jose Sharks, who opened the season with a loss to the Avalanche shared his thoughts. “It smelt like a damn flower garden on the ice. At one point, Kyle Quincey came over to face wash me after a scrum at the side of the net and his [expletive] glove smelt like grapefruit. I was like, what the hell are you guys wearing and when did you all become a bunch pansies. It seemed to motivate them though because they beat us pretty soundly.”
Michelle doesn’t know if her idea’s will catch on with the rest of the league, but she’s pretty happy the Avalanche gave her a chance. So far they aren’t regretting it.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 16 October 2009 14:53 )
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