Special teams matchup may decide the series

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images North America

One of the oldest adages of hockey is that to win games, you must stay out of the penalty box.  Nothing revolutionary there, it makes sense that you don’t want to give your opponent too many chances to outnumber you on the ice.

It will certainly ring true in Round One, when the Rangers face Washington’s #1 ranked power play, which converted at a 26.8% rate this season.  The Blueshirts must continue to play disciplined hockey, but that could be tricky; Washington’s offense isn’t just a handful on the power play, the Capitals rank fourth overall in offense and possess the league’s hottest scorer, the resurgent Alex Ovechkin.

You might have heard that Ovechkin was left for dead and then came roaring back with 27 goals in his final 32 games to end up leading the league.  Unsurprisingly, Ovechkin did his most damage on the power play, where he netted 16 goals, a ridiculous six more than the league’s second-most productive player, Steven Stamkos. Read more »

Dubinsky’s Deal and a CBA Must

Brandon Dubinsky is not a $4.2m hockey player. Sorry, but amid all the Dubi love (of which I have plenty myself) it seems to be forgotten that the market is still inflated and the Rangers forward is another grateful beneficiary both in the dollar and length he received.

I must apologise though, as that first line was simply an instigator, inciting comment if you will. Brandon Dubinsky IS a $ 4.2m hockey player in this market. The problem though is that too many secondary scorers are getting a lot of money and insane term. Likely to be even worse than Dubinsky’s deal, will be Ryan Callahan’s new pact. Callahan is a great player for the Rangers; I’m obviously not disputing that. A leader, a defensively responsible, courageous forward but relatively limited offensively. Should ‘intangibles’ warrant a big pay day?

I hate to agree with Brian Burke (there’s only so much I can hear the word truculent) but the Leafs GM is right – to an extent – when he repeatedly bemoans several of the contracts being tossed around the league recklessly; but it does all come back to supply and demand. Dubinsky in particular is a worthy case to discuss. Blessed with size and a healthy dose of skill, as well as a ton of experience at a young age; despite all this Dubinsky still isn’t really a top line player on most teams – fact. However, due to the increasingly limited availability of genuine talent (of which this summer’s free agency period was exhibit A) Dubinsky would have made more this summer had he been available for offers.

As you can see, this post is perhaps less about the generous Dubinsky/Callahan deals and more about the general managers who give out 12 year deals to players such as Mike Richards or 9 year deals to players such as Ilya Bryzgalov… good players but not genuinely elite players. I have always had a preference for shorter terms deals because it keeps an element of pressure on the player to earn the next deal. Even with a legitimately elite center like Brad Richards, my main concern with acquiring him was whether he’d still be hungry half way in to a decade long deal. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I’m not an expert in the business side of the NHL (I guess that’s Suit’s forte) but one thing that I will be watching particularly closely in the next deal is the presence of a maximum contract length. It needs to go further than just a number though. If the Rangers give Ryan McDonagh the maximum 5 year deal when the time arrives to sign him up they should not be able to re-negotiate until at least half way in to the deal, or something on those lines.

What I mean is that there needs to be measures in place to make sure the league doesn’t have free agency periods like this year when good players got great contracts and average players also got far too much. The NHL has a hard time competing with the other major leagues as it is so providing frequent player movement, spectacular trades and free agent signings helps the league elbow itself in to the limelight occasionally. Does anyone outside of hockey circles care that Ville Leino got 4.5m a year from Buffalo? Hell no, but I bet there’d be plenty of website clicks if Sid Crosby or Alex Ovechkin made it to free agency.

Ovechkin Signs with IMG

As per Puck Daddy, Alex Ovechkin has signed on-board with IMG (International Management Group). I see the first question, and to answer it, IMG is simply the largest sports marketing / sports agency in the world. They take athletes that become icons in their respective sports (Tiger, Kobe, Jeter, Federer, MJ, Gretzky, to name a few) and make them world wide icons. Ovechkin, like it or not, has transcended the game in a way that Sidney Crosby never can. Think about it, before the Rangers played the Caps in the playoffs, I loved Ovechkin. He’s electric on the ice, and electric off the ice, and has a great sense of humor.

Most won’t even care to know that Ovechkin has a new marketing company behind him. Alas, you should. Outside of the people who watch hockey, Ovechkin and Crosby are really the only two players that non-hockey fans hear about. Crosby advertisements have saturated mainstream media, and Ovechkin pretty much owns the highlight reels. But, unlike Crosby, and mentioned above, Ovechkin is just having a grand old time, and not caring who criticizes him for having fun. He is, in short, a hilarious superstar, and that is marketable.

So what does this mean for the NHL? Simple, you get the game’s biggest star, someone who can make a casual fan laugh, out into mainstream commercials. This leads to a recognizable face that represents the NHL (each of the aforementioned players represented their respective sport at a particular time. Ovechkin’s on-ice domination and off-ice demeanor draws more fans to the game, at least to see him play. Then a chain reaction occurs. People watch Ovechkin, are entertained by the game, and decide to see a game without Ovechkin. They like it, and become hockey fans. Popularity rises, TV ratings rise. Hockey becomes mainstream again.

Think it’s a tad of an over-reaction? Think one player can’t have that much of an impact on a sport? To that, I have two words:

Tiger Woods.

Alex Ovechkin is Unreal

Did you see that goal last night? Absolutely unreal.

The video is all over TSN.ca and NHL.com. I can’t find it on YouTube, once I do, I’ll embed it here.

But wow, just, wow.

Update: Found it. The goal starts at around 45 seconds.