The Fonz and I - We Be Tight, Yo!

Upon hearing the news of the New York Rangers firing Tom Renney I admit that I wasn't surprised to see that he would be the fall guy for an organization headed up by a dopey owner that hangs on to big name general managers a bit too long.

I digress.

What got to me was who the Rangers named to replace Renney. Mind you, this new coach is going to have to deal with a team that can't score in a whorehouse, has serious issues on defense and the only steady guy is the one getting hung out to dry most often in goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.

You figure after what a wreck Renney was, the Rangers were going to need a taskmaster and a brilliant psychologist to try and right the ship. General Manager Glen Sather called upon Stanley Cup Champion head coach John Tortorella.

You know, the guy that lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Cup the season before Herr Bettman decided not playing hockey was in the league's best interests.

John Tortorella is a great coach, I just can't help but think that by throwing him into this incredible mess of a situation is going to have The Fonz begging to be working for Len Barrie and Oren Koules in sunny Florida again, especially since Glen Sather seems to be doing everything in his power to earn the Rangers a time slot for an MTV reality show.

On Sean Avery, "[Tortorella] doesn't have the history with Sean that we do. I think that over time he could learn to love him like I have." "We'll deal with [Avery] in the next week I'm sure."

Yeah, that'll go over just great. That will be as warm and fuzzy of a moment as it was when Puck and Pedro had it out over peanut butter on Real World: San Francisco.

The great part about this is that this now allows me to say that I've been chastized by the current head coach of the New York Rangers, a guy whose name is etched upon the Greatest Trophy in Professional Sports.

Let me explain and rewind time a little bit, shall we?

It's September 2001, it's a little over two weeks after 9/11 and my friend Dom and I are in Syracuse covering a Tampa Bay-Columbus pre-season NHL matchup for our college television station in Oswego, NY. We're doing pre-game interviews so when we put the game together it'll all make sense when we wanted to air it tape delayed for our campus and sure enough we were able to lock down a talk with Coach Tortorella.

Dom and I are psyched because this is the big time for us getting to do this and Tortorella and the Lightning are a team we both had our eyes on for the future. What wasn't to like? They just traded for Nikolai Khabibulin, they had Martin St. Louis who we loved because he was a tiny guy and he played at the University of Vermont. Brad Richards was on the scene now. Most importantly, they had Vincent Lecavalier on the team.

That night Vincent Lecavalier wasn't going to play - not because they wanted to keep him fresh (a good reason why St. Louis didn't play that night) but because he was holding out on his contract. The training camp rosters were loaded with all sorts of favorites and famous names for us to look at and ask about including former Buffalo Sabres Matthew Barnaby and Dave Andreychuk.

Coach Tortorella comes out to meet with us, we shake hands and get the countdown from our friend and cameraman Justin. We're ready to roll.

Dom starts us off great and we're asking about how camp is going to this point and if he likes what he's seen out of the team so far. We fire out a question about what it will be like to get a full season out of Nikolai Khabibulin in goal after obtaining him from Phoenix at the trade deadline the year before. We ask about the great speed and youth on the team with Brad Richards.

We're flying things couldn't be going better! That is until I probe a little deeper about the youth on the way in Tampa.

I, very foolishly, ask about Alexander Svitov the Lightning's #1 pick from the draft and what he thinks he'll add to this team. Tortorella bristles a bit and winces in returning my serve:

"I have no idea what he'll add to this team, he's staying in Russia so it won't be this year."

Ouch.

Dom kindly picks up my fumble and ensures that I won't be alone in feeling the wrath of The Fonz when he asks about Vinny Lecavalier's absence in camp and about what his status is with the follow-up question to my personnel faux pas:

"I don't know what his status is and I don't care. Fact is he's not here when he should be. I only care about the guys that are in that room right now. That's it."

On that high note, we close out the interview, stop taping, and thank the coach for his time.

He quickly headed back into the locker room to probably mutter about what a pair of meatheads we were and get the team ready to play the Blue Jackets.

Yeah, that felt as awkward as it was to read.

I know for sure that any of the folks as well as Brooke our intrepid sideline reporter that night would vouch for this story and gladly clean up any errors in my memory of that night and I will add to this post anything they refresh my memory about.

That encounter did nothing to hurt my opinion of John Tortorella if anything it helped me like the guy more and I most certainly was rooting for the Lightning to win the Cup in 2004.

That said, is he the guy to throw into this ridiculous situation in New York?

Absolutely.

Why? Accountability.

John Tortorella will demand it from everyone in the Rangers locker room, something that's been severely lacking under Tom Renney. Don't get me wrong here, Renney's a good guy by all accounts and he did the best he could given the platter of guano Glen Sather kept feeding him with. The problem for Tom Renney is that he didn't/couldn't/wouldn't/wasn't able to do that.

John Tortorella demands accountability for actions, doesn't care who you are, how big of a star you are nor how much money you make. Just ask Vinny Lecavalier about that. No, seriously, just ask him about it he'll talk.

Hell, I'm sick of writing "accountability" right now and it's the new buzz word in New York to describe this move. Don't believe me? Check what Google thinks of it.


A lack of accountability shows on a player's face - that or it was a right cross.

If I were one of the Rangers players who busted my hump every night doing my job the best I could, not only would my name be Henrik Lundqvist but I'd feel very secure in my job even though Tortorella had a bad habit of making all of his goalies lose their mind in Tampa Bay.

Everyone else? Look out and get to know a few names of guys in Hartford. Names like Corey Potter and Bobby Sanguinetti on defense and forwards Pierre Parenteau and Artem Anisimov have all played very well for Hartford this year and you can bet that if Tortorella wants to send a message to somone slacking off he'll do it by calling on these guys.

I know that if my name was Wade Redden or Dmitri Kalinin I'd be ready to start butting heads because it will happen with them, it's almost inevitable. Guys that will likely catch Fonz's stink-eye up front though are the likes of Chris Drury and Aaron Voros. It wouldn't shock me in the least to see Voros be the guy who gets designated for assignment once Avery is claimed by the Rangers leading to the Madison Square Garden main event rumble between player and coach.

I'm done talking about Avery for now since I'm not doing a blog focused on the AHL but trust me, I'll be laughing a lot if Avery is claimed by a team with a higher priority than the Rangers when the Stars look to fish him through recall waivers so the Rangers can take him off their hands.

I will laugh a lot at this and might even celebrate with a photo, but I'm not expecting it.

Will this be enough for the Rangers this year? Probably. Despite their terrible play, they're still a playoff team - such is life in the Eastern Conference this year. Care to wonder why so many of the NHLs top scorers can be found in the East? Take a look at the "GA" column in the standings here and look how bad some of the teams there are.

Disgusting.

Will it get the Rangers to the Stanley Cup Finals? Not a freakin' chance, but it will be enough to allow the Rangers to play better and start winning some games again and maybe, just maybe, advance out of the first round in the playoffs.

After all, if the Rangers aren't going to score, they need to keep the other team off the sheet better and Tortorella will get that out of this team come hell or high water.

Stupidity Rewards Me

You can go through the history of the NHL and find any number of terrible mind-bending trades that made you wonder what the hell was wrong with half of the general managers involved in making the transaction.

Since I'm here to mouth off and that's my job, one of the worst deals made during my time here on Earth would be the deal that sent Joe Thornton to the San Jose Sharks for a package of players consisting of forwards Wayne Primeau and Marco Sturm and defenseman Brad Stuart.

For the Bruins, they felt it was important to rid themselves of Thornton who, somehow, was villified after the Bruins collapse against the Canadiens in the 2004 Playoffs when the B's squandered a 3-1 series lead and succombing to their hated rivals.

Thornton, then the captain of the Bruins, played in each game despite being injured. Go figure, a captain trying to shrug off an injury to lead his team to victory - tell me, where have I heard of this before?

The Boston fans and media were relentless on Thornton in the off-season. Thornton was held to no points in the series against Montreal and shouldered the blame for the team not getting that fourth win needed to wrap up the series.

When the NHL returned from the Season Herr Bettman Deemed Not Needed, Thornton was still playing with the black cloud of playoff failure hanging over his head and then Bruins general manager Mike O'Connell pulled the trigger on one of the most lopsided and awful trades the NHL has ever seen.

To this day, O'Connell insists that he would make the deal again and was pressed for this opinion since the Sharks are paying the Bruins a visit Tuesday night. Joy of joys.


This man routinely falls for the "Give me two tens for a five" gag.

Quoting from Kevin Paul Dupont's story on boston.com :

Some three-plus years later, O'Connell figures the trade was justified, and it is one that he would make again, given the same circumstances. As for what he got in return, said O'Connell, there will always be those who say he should have received more.

"That's always the case, even if it's your best trade," said the former Bruins general manager, these days overseeing pro development for the Los Angeles Kings. "But it was like any trade: You take in, rely on what everyone in the organization says - scouts, everyone - and let's not forget there was a money issue here, too, moving Joe with his high [$6.6 million] salary. This wasn't the pre-salary-cap NHL. Like all these deals, the money had to work, too."

I smell backpedaling... Well, backpedaling that smells like a befouled barnyard - is that what we have here?

"What frustrated me was, again, there just seemed to be so much more there," said O'Connell. "How he fit in with our team, the city, the overall picture . . . and in the end, like I say, we thought there were leadership issues. So here he is, the captain, making that money . . . all of that went into our decision to move him."

Ahh, OK, so the guy that was the poster boy centerfold for the next generation of Bruins fans no longer fit into the city. Of course he didn't Mike - because you helped light the torches and hand out pitchforks.

When asked if he felt he was being labeled the scapegoat for the organization, Thornton said, ''You could say that.

''Who knows? Hindsight is 20-20. I don't know what to say about that. I came here to win and we haven't been winning. Whose fault is that? I'm not sure. Obviously, I'm out of here so it must be mine."

Sure, time heals all wounds and all that crap, but O'Connell spreading the blame for making the deal is as cowardly as it gets. Thornton won the MVP in 2005-2006, the same season he was traded by the Bruins. Motivation? Absolutely. Shoving it in O'Connell's, Sinden's and Jacob's collective faces? Hell yes he did.

Just for retrospect sake, let's take a look at how the main components of that deal have done since then (stats accurate as of 12:30 p.m. 2/9/09).

Keep in mind that Marco Sturm is the only one of the three still playing for Boston but is out for the rest of the season with an injury. Primeau and Stuart have both since moved on, Stuart winning the Stanley Cup last season with Detroit after coming over from Los Angeles in a deadline deal with the Kings.

Joe Thornton: 272 GP | 83 G | 276 A | 359 PTS | 198 PIM

Brad Stuart: 247 GP | 24 G | 60 A | 84 PTS | 169 PIM

Wayne Primeau: 195 GP | 19 G | 31 A | 50 PTS | 191 PIM

Marco Sturm: 226 GP | 84 G | 72 A | 156 PTS | 126 PIM

Now here's my favorite part of this exercise:

All Three Players: 668 GP | 127 G | 163 A | 290 PTS

Thornton managed to out-point three players by 69 points since the trade. Apparently O'Connell feels that getting 30 cents on the dollar for a trade is what works best since both teams are now doing great now.

Never mind that new general manager Peter Chiarelli has had to do his best to help cater to the needs of new coach Claude Julien as well as trying to live under the rule of the Stickler's Regime that is life with Jeremy Jacobs - it's a minor miracle the Bruins are doing as well as they are - whether it lasts is another question, of course.

I also ask that you not buy into the spitballing comparison that Dupont makes in his story that dumping Thornton was done in favor of getting Marc Savard and Zdeno Chara. This wasn't O'Connell's grand design and neither Savard nor Chara will be winning an MVP award, they've both also had as much post-season success as Thornton has had in their career.

What folks in Boston (sycophantic media and fans alike) are doing, or at least are attempting to do to stay in favor with the front office (if you're a reporter that is), is to shine up the turd that was the Joe Thornton trade.

It's an easy formula: You take some shots at Thornton, spruce things up by saying getting rid of him helped build the team the way it is today and call it a day. Dupont going to talk with Mike O'Connell to get his take is a welcome twist on a, now, very tired story and it's just as rewarding to see O'Connell continuing to try and save face for making one of the worst trades in NHL history.

Shameless Self Promotion

I've also got a post today over at Hockey Wilderness calling for the head of Doug Risebrough.



Give neide and buddhafisch some love over there, they could all use a hug.

Mea Culpa

I guess some of you thought I over stepped my bounds with one of my photos last week and it was brought to my attention by a dear friend of mine that I should change my focus a bit.

I'm here to say that I will do just that.

Apparently some of you are also die-hard Star Wars fans and objected greatly to my depiction of the most awful Commissioner of our time as being like the Emperor from the Star Wars saga.

To recap, here it is:



I guess showing him as an ultimately evil and über-controlling Sith lord was going over the top.

I should've known better.

To make it up to you, here's my extremely juvenile and even more apropos rendition of Herr Bettman hard at work.



If this reference is lost on you, then I weep for your soul. I'll also throw you a bone to help you youngsters and ignoramuses get caught up.

Gary Knows Best

So Detroit Red Wings stars Nick Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk are missing out on the All-Star Game in Montreal because they're injured.

Some writers around the league are questioning exactly how hurt they are considering they both played in Detroit's last game before the break. Fair enough question I'm sure, but then again, the NHL hasn't gone so far as to make the All-Star Game falsely an exhibition by making it count for something, anything, that would necessitate the best and the brightest be there whether they're injured a little bit or not.

Suffice it to say, the All Star Break allows a lot of players time to rest up, heal up and get ready for the second half of the season as well as the playoffs. You know, since the ultimate goal of the NHL season is to win the Stanley Cup and all, sometimes professionals like to be...professional and make sure their obligations to the team are met and that no one goes and does something profound and silly like getting hurt in a highly publicized exhibition.

Leave it to Gary Bettman to get whimpery and whiny when the big stars would rather tend to business be it with their team or their family. After all, Herr Bettman's mid-season soireè is now mandated from on high to make an appearance at even if you're not going to play.



Emperor Gary shows us his "V."


NHL (Lack of) Disciplinarian Colin Campbell breaks it down:

''We've all got obligations to the fans, the rights holders - this game is being televised around the world,'' Campbell said.

Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk will have to sit out a game next week as punishment for skipping this weekends event. Neither player will lose salary.

''I feel bad for Nicklas Lidstrom,'' said Campbell. ''He's been here how many years now? It's unfair that he gets caught in this web.''

You know, it's not so much a web - it's a couple of guys who are nicked up that would rather sit at home. These weren't All-Stars elected by the fans ,which if you're skipping out on a fan-elected spot, fine - take the heat and chew on a suspension - the game is about the fans after all.

But they weren't - they're reserves and whether you agree with how that came about is another story (thanks to the fans in Chicago and Anaheim for this one). Fact is, the starters are the ones who are deemed most important, they're the ones who are burdened with having to put on the super pretty face for the fans. Reserves? Meh - everyone gets one of those.

What's been amazing surrounding all this hoopla is how talk and conspiracy theories have blown up over at a favored Red Wings spot, Abel to Yzerman.

The Chief is normally ornery with Gary Bettman (a trait that is enjoyed quite a bit here) and the true colors are out in full effect, and one thing he makes note of here is that this occurred last year too and under even more suspicious circumstances for the league to be able to hand down a suspension but deciding not to.

From last January:

Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur has pulled out of the Sunday's NHL's All-Star Game in Atlanta to deal with family matters. Brodeur said he informed Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello of his decision about a week ago, but it was not announced by the NHL until today. Brodeur will be replaced by Boston goaltender Tim Thomas.

"It's a tough decision," Brodeur said. "I've got some stuff going on with the family back home, so it's something I just wanted to make sure I was here to take care of. It's definitely a tough one. It's such a great weekend to miss. That's why I waited so long. I tried to avoid making that decision, but I think it's for the best."

That's fine, I won't take issue with "family matters" even if that means going home to boink your sister-in-law.

What, too soon?

Meanwhile, Puck Daddy makes sure to mention that seven players backed out of last year's All Star Game in Atlanta for any number of reasons, including injury. Of course, they weren't suspended because players were apparently allowed to be taken at their word last season.

Whatever.

As for Detroit this time around? Well, suffice to say, Ken Holland isn't very happy - this from the National Post.

"I'm not going to call Nick and tell him he's got to go to Montreal to sit and talk with the media for a day," said a fiery Holland, who is upset with the NHL's treatment of Lidstrom on this issue.

"Imagine me calling Nick, a six-time Norris Trophy winner, four-time Stanley Cup winner and someone who has gone to the last 10 all-star games and telling him he can't spend the time with his four boys and wife.

"I have too much respect for Nick because I know he's playing in pain. He's shown up at every NHL Awards show he's been nominated for. He's done everything the league has asked him to do.

"He's put in his time and he's paid his dues. I'm backing my player because I know he's hurt."

In other words, Gary:

I got your two All Stars right here Gary!

If you think Holland let things go after that, you're fooling yourself and he took things a step further in reminding Bettman who swings the big stick.

"I don't know exactly what Gary has said, but we've always encouraged our players to go and they have over the years," Holland said. "We played in the Winter Classic when asked even though there was some internal opposition. We gave up our traditional New Year's Eve game.

"We've helped carry the flag for the league for more than a decade. I think we've tried to be good partners in these things.

"I understand the All-Star Game is important, but I'm not going to tell Nick and Pavel to go either."

It's clear that the Red Wings even before the Salary Cap Era began had a contentious relationship with the Commissioner's Office. Herr Bettman didn't care for the Red Wings spending as much money as they did and neither did Gary's poor buddy owners. They shut down the league for a year, get the salary cap they want only to discover the Red Wings are also a brilliant scouting team and can grown their own talent.

The Ilitch Family and Ken Holland have been teaming up to give Bettman the finger for years now and Gary hates every bit of it because the Red Wings keeping getting in the way of his grand schemes of doing what he thought David Stern did with the NBA. Stern got lucky in riding the coattails of Magic and Bird and then having Michael Jordan fall in his lap to take over the world.

Gary saw the same thing with Sidney Crosby and still does. He sees the same kind of thing with the Blackhawks now with super talents Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. He sees all these NBA-like stars in his eyes and the Red Wings keep slapping him into reality and Bettman is too much of a Napoleonic pantywaste to deal with it.

His actions against Lidstrom and Datsyuk do have an awful and disgusting precedence (see Brodeur last year) but that doesn't make it right. If a guy's hurt, let them stay home. Major League Baseball doesn't make their injured guys show up if they don't want and their game means something.

Then again, expecting Gary Bettman to not be petty and to somehow find a way to make a joke out of All-Star Weekend, you know when a joke of a game gets played in the first place, seemed like things even he couldn't do. Everything this guy does turns to crap - leaving well enough alone wasn't good enough and it never will be because either he's the dumbest executive on earth or he's got the world's worst consulting firm giving him really bad ideas.

Disgraceful.

This Is Definitely Not Fraud - Not One Bit

After leaving here for a few months to go stretch my legs on a more "legitimate" appearing website I was amazed to see that the stories out of Nashville about impending doom and gloom and financial armageddon managed to transplant themselves to Phoenix.

What was always part of the side show in Nashville wasn't so much how they're a team that draws poor crowds to their games but more about the financial mismanagement disaster that surrounds this team no matter who the owner ends up being.

The story out of today's Tennesseean seems to say that whether Boots Del Biaggio is there or not, shady things are happening in one form or another.

As they battle to make hockey a long-term success story here, the Nashville Predators' owners might buy thousands of unsold tickets so they can qualify for a full share of the NHL's revenue-sharing plan, the team's lead owner confirmed Wednesday.

David Freeman stressed that he and the other owners haven't made that decision, but with millions of dollars on the line, they've been discussing the possibility and they can't wait too long to pull the trigger.

"We've consistently said that we're here to give everything we've got to make this work," Freeman said.

What I'd like to know is what the other NHL owners think about this. After all, these were the same guys that were rumored to be up in arms when they thought Sabres owner Tom Golisano was purposefully keeping ticket prices low so the Sabres would collect on NHL Welfare.

Nevermind that the Sabres were selling out every game, that just meant, to the other owners anyhow, that he should raise the prices and then cry foul when people don't buy the tickets.

Since, you know, those fans aren't caring enough to spend disgusting amounts of money for tickets to watch the hometown team against the dregs of the league and then pay even more money to watch them against their heated rivals.

Bogus.


What's this? It's a sight never to be seen outside the Sommet Center in Nashville.

Then again, who will be the owner to cry "Foul!" on what the Predators are doing?

Anyone? Anyone?

Until that reaction starts to flow in from the outer reaches of the league, I'll be able to take the owners at least slightly serious. After all, if you're going to break this down with an algebraic equation, it might look like this:

3/4 empty arena with bloated ticket prices that regular people can't afford > full house with reasonably priced tickets that the fans are clamoring for

Doesn't that strike anyone as... stupid?

Well, Well, Well...

Don't think I've come crawling back here to the Blogspot haven I have here.

Don't look at it that way at all.

Look at it, instead, as me finding my way home to where I'm more comfortable.

Thanks to my now former employers cutting me loose for cost-cutting measures, I'm back here where you grew to love me in the first place.



It's a celebration bitches.