NHLPA’s Paul Kelly Fired

NHLPA Executive Director Paul Kelly has been fired by the NHLPA Board of Directors. Kelly was rumored to be distant with some of the players in the union and was too close with commissioner Gary Bettman, which led to his demise.

No word on who his replacement will be.

Update 4:50pm: Ian Perry is the new Executive Director.

Naslund: I Liked New York

Jim Jamieson of The Province caught up with the forever-class-act Markus Naslund to discuss his career, his family, and his retirement. His time with the Rangers was addressed, and Naslund had nothing but great words for the organization:

Q: When you signed with the Rangers year ago, had you made a decision it was time for a change or were you still open to returning to the Canucks?

A: I hadn’t made a decision prior to July 1. I was still talking with Mike (Canucks GM Gillis). I was hoping and expecting to have a choice about coming back. But after July came around, more and more I had the feeling it wasn’t meant to be and it was time for a change. Looking back, it was probably the right thing. I had a great time in New York. I was treated like a king there.

Q: Was being in a secondary role in New York a relief in some ways?

A: It was good for me to go to New York and not be the focal point and not have that media attention. I felt I could relax a bit.

While Naslund didn’t live up to some people’s expectations last season, he definitely exceeded mine. I had him penciled in for 15-20-35 while leading the kids. He did all that, and even chipped in ten extra goals to lead the team in that department (sad when the leading scorer put up 24 goals).

Brian Burke offered him a scouting job, it’ll be interesting to see how he would do in that role.

Steroids Hit the NHL

In what is probably not-so-breaking-news, Richard Thomas, a steroid dealer arrested in Florida, has named the Capitals as a team that he has supplied steroids to. Players are not mentioned by name in the article, nor is it assumed that Thomas mentioned anyone by name.

With the steroid issue running rampant in baseball and football, it was a matter of time before hockey was subjected to its fair share of steroid publicity. To be honest, if you thought that the league was clean, I must ask what you were smoking. It takes utter ignorance to not believe that hockey players are doping.

As for the future, I wonder if we will ever see the names, or a tough drug policy. This is an issue that Bettman can use to help recover some of his lost legacy. I wonder if he can go 0/3 (expansion, lockout, steroids) in issues that ruin hockey.

Simmons: NHL is Back

Bill Simmons of ESPN, usually not one known for his hockey love, wrote a very interesting article for ESPN The Magazine about how the NHL is back. Using the Scott Walker incident as his introduction (he’s from Boston), he states how cultural changes in US society had an effect on the NHL diminishing popularity in the 1990s, are having an equal effect in bringing the NHL back to mainstream. He follows this up with how the NBA can learn a thing or two from the NHL.

It’s a fantastic read, and you should take some time to go through it.

If Bill Simmons is writing about hockey, we have turned the corner. Next step: Get the damn games on ESPN! Thorne and Melrose! Please! NHL2Night!

Laraque: GM Suggestions a ‘Joke’

Georges Laraque, enforcer extraordinaire, called out the NHL GMs, saying their proposed restrictions on fighting are a joke. Let’s look at the proposed restrictions on fighting:

• 10 minute misconducts for ’staged fights’ that occur right after a faceoff.
• Instigator penalties for starting a fight with a visor, or starting a fight after a clean hit, or both (4 minutes in the both scenario)

The example cited in the article is the Jason Spezza fight with Dion Phaneuf after Phaneuf laid out Dany Heatley. According to the article, Spezza would have received 19 minutes of penalties (2 for instigating with a visor, 2 for instigating with after a clean hit, 5 for fighting, 10 min misconduct). I’m going to respectfully disagree and say that Spezza would have received 9 minutes, as this wasn’t a staged fight after a faceoff.

I’m not 100% in agreement with these new propsed rule changes. Personally, I agree that staged fights should be gone from the game. They really don’t serve a purpose. I also agree with the instigator penalties (just for the visor and for a reaction to a clean hit).

The only issue I have here is that the instigator rule is such a crap rule, and we see more Todd Bertuzzi cheap shots because of the ability to hide behind the rule. If the ref doesn’t see the initial cheap shot, but then calls a 19 minute penalty because of a reaction, it becomes unfair. Players should have the ability to police themselves, but this becomes annoying when, just as an example, Laraques starts a fight with Ryan Callahan because Callahan made a clean hit on Roman Hamrlik. Those fights need to stop. If Callahan made a hard hit on, say Plekanec or Kostitsyn (the good one), then sure, start the fight; protect your star players. The reason why no one ever messed with Gretzky on Edmonton and LA because they had to answer to people like Messier and McSorley.

Laraque goes further and says that this would essentially ‘eliminate the one dimensional player’. Let me be the first to say that Georges, you’re not helping your argument here. This is what the NHL wants, they want the one dimensional, fighting only, tough guys out of the game. Let’s think about this logically, if you eliminate the Georges Laraque’s from the game, someone with more skill takes his place. This leads to more offense and more exciting plays. The league wants the fighters to be more like Messier, tough guys with skill. Sure, Messier is a bit of an extreme example, but you get my point. To provide a more recent example, Brandon Dubinsky is probably the type of fighter the NHL wants. Dubi is skilled, can skate, pass and shoot, and fights when he needs to.

These proposed changes ride a fine line when it comes to eliminating fighting all together, which would be terrible for a sport about to return to ESPN. The NHL has to be careful with this, and make sure that fighting is not eliminated from the game, officially or unofficially. Fighting keeps players in check. That said, fights should occur as part of the emotions of the game, not some staged bout. This isn’t boxing.

Just an FYI, all proposals made by the GMs must be approved by the NHLPA before going into effect.

GM Meetings

This week, all 30 GMs will be convening in Florida to discuss several changes that can be made to help the game. The biggest topic of discussion: fighting. There have been some isolated, tragic, incidents involving head injuries/death from players hitting their heads on the ice as a result of fighting. None of these incidents occured at the NHL level. The general concensus is that players should be forced to wear helmets during a fight, to prevent such an injury. Further studies will be conducted to see if fighting actually belongs in the game.

First off, if they banish fighting, they will lose a ton of fans. Fighting is a part of the game, deal with it. That said, there are certain types of fights that are ridiculous. The planned fight off the draw is stupid, let the fight come from the emotions of the game or as a result of a dirty hit. I emphasized dirty hit here because I’m so sick of these fights breaking out over a clean hit on a player. The hit was clean, there’s no need to start a fight over that. Start a fight over an intentional knee-to-knee, or a player leaving his feet, or an elbow, or anything of that nature. Those are retaliation fights that are fine by me. This crap you see when Player A starts a fight with Player B because Player B laid out Player A’s teammate (Player C) with a clean shoulder to the chest.

Another topic up for discussion is Brian Burke’s proposal to revise the CBA allow GM’s to pick up a portion of a player’s salary in a trade, much like what you see in baseball. NHL execs are against this because it’s a way of circumventing the salary cap. GMs love it because it helps promote the trading environment, that hasn’t seen many big trades in a few years.

I’m very big into the business of hockey, and personally, I don’t see why NHL execs are against this, as long as the salary being eaten counts against the cap. The example Scott Burnside uses in his article (link below) is one we as Ranger fans can relate to. What if Glen Sather wanted to move Scott Gomez, but because of the cap, couldn’t find a suitor with enough room to take his contract. This clause would allow him to pick up $1 million a year, have it count against the Ranger cap for the remainder of the contract, and trade him to Team A, which now can fit Gomez. The Rangers win, Team A wins, and the fans win because we love seeing huge deals go down at the deadline.

If you could trade Rozsival and his $5 million cap hit for a young player and his $1 million cap hit, plus pick up $1 million a year of Rozsival’s contract (totaling $2 million, instead of Rozsival’s $5 million), wouldn’t you be happy?

Other topics at this meeting include “punishments” for All-Star snubs (Datsyuk, Lidstrom), and revised tiebreaking, can be read in detail at Scott Burnside’s article here.

Update 3:00pm: I was reading through Page 2 on ESPN, and came across DJ Gallo’s take on new fighting rules. Numbers 1 thru 9 are eh, but #10 made me crack up:

Here are 10 rules I think everyone can agree on.

1. When levying insults, the fighters should strive to use formal and respectful terminology such as: “I engaged in coitus with your beautiful mother one evening prior.”

2. Neck punches are welcome, but fighters should avoid punching the voice box so referees can clearly hear pleas for mercy.

3. An opponent’s sweater may be pulled up over his head to punch him in the back of the head only if he does not possess unsightly back hair.

4. Biting is only allowed with the use of a mouthpiece. If a mouthpiece is not used, no biting of the face is permitted.

5. Purple-nurples may be administered for a maximum of 10 seconds.

6. Skate blades may not be used to hack off the limbs of the opponent.

7. Souvenirs — scalps, tooth necklaces, and the like — may only be worn by the fight’s victor until the end of the period in which the fight took place.

8. Penalty box time following fights shall be spent writing an apology note to the other combatant. Sarcasm should be kept to a minimum.

9. Fight participants retain no monetary rights to fight footage sold by the NHL for marketing purposes.

10. All rules can be ignored when fighting Sean Avery.

Prototype Nets Tested

The NHL tested new prototype nets in a Toronto practice yesterday. To sum it up:

Unlike the radically shaped larger goals that were designed several years ago, the new test model relies on differently shaped goalposts to promote scoring.  The frame of the goal remains sized at six feet by four feet, but the familiar round posts are oval-shaped instead. The long, flatter side of the oval is on the inside of the frame. The theory is that the flat surface will allow pucks to bounce in off of them, rather than hit the outside of a round post and bounce out. 

The theory makes plenty of sense. a flatter surface on the inside of the frame will allow the puck to bounce in more often. If it’s a choice between this and the bigger nets, I choose this (because my opinion means a lot to Gary Bettman). It’s a good, slight adjustment that will help the NHL reach its goal of more pucks in the net. Goalies probably don’t like it though, the post will no longer be their best friend. That will be an ugly divorce.

Interestingly enough:

The idea was first suggested by Anaheim Ducks goaltending coach François Allaire five years ago.

François Allaire is Rangers’ goalie coach Benoit Allaire’s brother.

Update 9:50am: I came across this article on Yahoo, and I must say it’s incredibly misleading. The title says “NHL Dabbles in Bigget Nets”, but the article just refers to the 2005 debate for larger nets, then goes into the altered posts. Don’t be misled. This is not a bigger net, just different posts.

KHL Bans Five

The KHL has banned five team executives and doctors, four indefinitely, for their roles in the death of Alexei Cherepanov. Cherepanov, the clear cut #1 Ranger prospect and future top 6 winger, fell to the Rangers at #17 in the 2007 draft. The Rangers were hoping that a transfer agreement between the KHL and NHL could be reached by next year so they could bring Cherepanov over for the 2009-2010 season.

It has been made clear that Cherepanov, who was 19, suffered from a chronic heart problem. In the article by ESPN, the Avengard Omsk doctors knew about Alexei’s heart condition, but did not know the severity, and tried to treat it themselves, hence the “synthetic-doping”.

This is just one step in I guess what can be called justice for the Cherepanov family. Of the 5 banned, the former president and GM of the Omsk was included. This is a horrible stain on the KHL, which was looking for credibility to compete with the NHL.

Cherepanov was 19 years old, and because some team doctor thought he was a cardiologist, he’s dead. It’s horrible, and there should be criminal charges brought up.