The Puck Stops Here

The Canadian Hockey League championships get underway today. This is the Memorial Cup, which is played by juniors, the best of whom are the NHLers of tomorrow. Generally, the Memorial Cup tournament consists of four teams. The champions from the Quebec Major Junior League, the Ontario Hockey League and the Western Hockey League and a host team, which is a good team chosen in advance of the tournament. This season, the tournament will take place in Kitchener, Ontario. That makes the Kitchener Rangers the host entrant. Kitchener is also the OHL champion, so the OHL entrant will be the league's runner up the Belleville Bulls. Here is a quick look at the four entrants:

Gatineau Olympiques This team is the surprise QMJHL champion. They finished third in their division in the regular season, but won the playoffs. The team is led by Claude Giroux, a Philadelphia Flyers draft pick, who was the second highest scorer in the league. Matthew Pistilli, who is undrafted, is also a significant source of offence. Their goaltending from Ryan Mior, also undrafted, is seen as a potential weakness.

Belleville Bulls Belleville might be seen as a darkhorse because they did not win their league. They are in because host Kitchener won the OHL. They were led offensively by Matt Beleskey an Anaheim draftee and Shawn Matthias, who played four games this year for the Florida Panthers. Their goaltending will be provided by undrafted Mike Murphy.

Spokane Chiefs Spokane won a hard fought victory in the WHL. Though they lack a dominant scorer, they are led by Drayson Bowman a Carolina Hurricane draftee and Mitch Wahl who is eligible for the 2008 draft. Another 2008 draft eligible player Dustin Tokarski is their goalie.

Kitchener Rangers The host team and OHL champions. This team is probably the favorite. Undrafted (because he is small) Justin Azevedo is the league's most outstanding player and top scorer in both the regular season and playoffs (an NHL team really should take a flyer on him). Azevedo is the offensive star of the Rangers. Montreal Canadien draftee Yannick Weber leads their defence. Steve Mason, a Columbus Blue Jacket draftee is their number one goalie and the most famous junior goalie today. He was injured in the OHL playoffs. Though he may be able to return in this tournament, Chicago Blackhawk draftee Josh Unice is a more than capable backup.

The round robin portion of the Memorial Cup tournament will be played this week with the playoffs played next weekend.

The so-called World Hockey Championships are underway. The tournament is misnamed because it isn't a true world championship when many players are unavailable because they are still active in the Stanley Cup playoffs and other players chose not to play after a long season, but nevertheless the tournament is played annually. It has a bit more interest in North America this year because it is being played in Canada. Games are being played in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Quebec City, Quebec. Here are the results so far:

Preliminary Round

Group A Switzerland won this group winning all three of their games. Offensively, they were led by Julien Sprunger, a Minnesota Wild draft pick who plays in Switzerland and Andres Ambuhl, an undrafted Swiss player. Their goaltending was provided by Martin Gerber of the Ottawa Senators. Sweden finished second, losing only to the Swiss. Their offensive leaders have been Mattias Weinhandl and Tony Martensson, both players in Sweden with some NHL experience. Their top goaltender was Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers. Belarus finished third with Alexei Ugarov leading their offence and Vitali Koval in goal. Both are undrafted Russian Elite leaguers. France finished last in this group. They were led offensively by Sebastien Bordeleau, a former NHLer now playing in Switzerland and had Cristobal Huet of the Washington Capitals in goal.

Group B This group was won by Canada, who went undefeated. They were led offensively by Dany Heatley of the Ottawa Senators and Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Cam Ward of the Carolina Hurricanes has played the most minutes in their goal. The second place finishers were USA, who lost only to Canada. They have been lead offensively by Phil Kessel of the Boston Bruins and Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks. Their top goaltender has been Robert Esche, the former Philadelphia Flyer who did not play this season. Latvia finished third in this group. Their weak offence was led by Lauris Darzins, a Nashville Predator draftee who plays in the Czech League, until Martins Karsums became available when his Providence Bruins were eliminated from the AHL Calder Cup playoffs. Their goaltending was provided by Edgars Masalskis, who plays in Germany. The last place finisher was Slovenia, who was led offensively by Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings with Robert Kristan, who plays in the Austrian League, in goal.

Group C Finland went undefeated winning this group. They were led by Mikko Koivu of the Minnesota Wild and Teemu Selanne of the Anaheim Ducks. Their goaltending was provided by Niklas Backstrom of Minnesota. There was a three way tied among the other teams with 1-2 records. Norway took second by virtue of having an overtime loss. They were led offensively by Morten Ask and Anders Bastiansen. Both are undrafted by the NHL and play in Sweden. Their goaltending was provided by Pal Grotnes, who also plays in Sweden. Germany was third under the tie breaking rules. They have been led by Christopher Schmidt, who played a few games for the Los Angeles Kings but is now in the German League with Dmitri Patzold of the San Jose Sharks system in goal. Last place in the tie breaker was Slovakia who was led by Lubomir Visnovsky of the Los Angeles Kings with former Nashville Predator Jan Lasak, who currently plays in the Czech league in goal.

Group D Russia won this group. Offensively they have been led by Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin of the Washington Capitals. Evgeni Nabokov of the San Jose Sharks was their goalie, despite his having been born in Kazakhstan. The Czech Republic finished second with Tomas Kaberle of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Patrik Elias of the New Jersey Devils leading the way offensively. Former NHLer Milan Hnilicka, who now plays in the Czech League, provided their goaltending. Denmark was third with former Montreal Canadien draft pick Kim Staal leading the way offensively. Staal now plays in Sweden. Patrick Galbraith, who plays in the Danish League, provided their goaltending. Last in this division was Italy. They were led by Jason Cirone offensively. Cirone is a former Winnipeg Jet draft pick who plays in the IHL. Guenther Hell, who plays in the Italian League, was their goalie.

After the preliminary round, the top three teams in each group were put into two six team qualifying round brackets.

Group E Russia won this group with five wins (two in overtime), with the Czech Republic finishing second. Sweden finished in third. Switzerland fourth. Belarus finished fifth and Denmark last.

Group F Canada went undefeated to win this group. Finland placed second. USA took third. Norway finished fourth, followed by Germany and Latvia.

The top four teams in each then faced off in the first round of the playoffs.

Sweden 3 Czech Republic 2 This was a close fought game that went to overtime. Mattias Weinhandl scored in overtime beating Czech goalie Milan Hnilicka. Anton Stralman of the Toronto Maple Leafs had two assists.

Canada 8 Norway 2 Dany Heatley and Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks led the way with 3 points a piece for Canada in the rout. Anders Bastiensen had two assists for team Norway.

Russia 6 Switzerland 0 Another lopsided game. Evgeni Nabokov had the shutout. Danis Zaripov led the way for Russia with three points. He is undrafted and plays in Russia. Maxim Afinogenov of the Buffalo Sabres scored two goals.

Finland 3 USA 2 A back and forth battle won in overtime when Sami Lepisto of the Washington Capitals beat Robert Esche for the game winning goal. Olli Jokinen of the Florida Panthers and Teemu Selanne had two assists each.

The tournament moves onto the semi-finals now. Russia will play Finland and Canada will play Sweden. These games are on Friday. The bronze-4th game is on Saturday and the gold-silver game on Sunday.

It is always interesting to see the results when NHL players play non-NHLers. Maybe some of the more prominent non-NHLers will appear in the NHL in the future.

The second round of the AHL playoffs concluded last night. The first round summary is here. These are the second round results:

Portland defeats Providence 4 games to 2 Portland is Anaheim's farm team and Providence is Boston's. Portland was led offensively by Bobby Ryan and Andrew Ebbett. Jean-Sebastien Aubin provided their goaltending. Providence was led by Pascal Pelletier and Martins Karsums with Tuukka Rask in goal.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton defeat Philadelphia 4 games to 1 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is Pittsburgh's farm team and the Philadelphia Phantoms are the Flyers farm team. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was led by Tim Brent, who is the top scorer in the playoffs so far and defenceman Alex Goligoski. John Curry provided their goaltending. Philadelphia was led offensively by Stefan Ruzicka, with Scott Munroe in goal.

Toronto defeat Syracuse 4 games to 3 The Toronto Marlies are the Maple Leafs farm club and Syracuse is Columbus's. Offensively, Toronto was led by Kris Newbury and David Ling, with Scott Clemmensen in goal. Syracuse was led offensively by Derek McKenzie and Derick Brassard. Karl Goehring manned their goal.

Chicago defeated Rockford 4 games to 3 The Chicago Wolves are Atlanta's farm club and Rockford is the Chicago Blackhawks farm team. Chicago was led by Jason Krog, who is tied for the playoff lead in scoring and by defenceman Joel Kwiatkowski. Ondrej Pavelec provided their goaltending. Martin St Pierre and Kris Versteeg led Rockford with Corey Crawford in goal.

In the semi-finals, Portland will meet Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Toronto will meet Chicago.

The San Jose Sharks have fired coach Ron Wilson. Wilson was a success as the Sharks coaching for four and a half seasons to a record of 206-135-45 which has been erroneously reported as a .533 winning percentage in many places (including here - it is in fact a .592 winning percentage). Wilson is eighth all time in coaching wins and ninth in all time coaching games. He led the Sharks to the Pacific Division title this year. By all reasonable measures he did a good job as coach. And yet he was fired.

Wilson was fired because San Jose is yet to have significant post season success in his tenure. At least that is the commonly held excuse. In 2004, he led San Jose to the semi-finals. Since then, San Jose has lost in the second round three years in a row. That's right, San Jose has gone two or three rounds into the playoffs in each full season he has coached them. That should be considered successful. The problem is expectation. Because San Jose has been successful, people expect further growth. They expected a San Jose Sharks finals run. I am not sure why they should have expected that. I cannot think of any season where I thought San Jose was the best team in the league or the best team in the West Conference. There were a few seasons where I thought they were one of the better teams in their conference and with some luck might be able to make a deep playoff run. That luck wasn't there. Was it Ron Wilson's fault? I don't see any convincing argument for that, but nevertheless he is blamed. Blamed for what? For coaching a team that was so good that we thought it might make a deep playoff run, but had only (that's a good achievement!) made the final eight in the last three years.

For San Jose to do better, in terms of coaching, next season they will have to find a better coach than Ron Wilson. That isn't an easy task. It looks like the usual suspects on the NHL coaching merry-go-round are available. They can hire Joel Quenneville, Barry Melrose, Bob Hartley, Paul Maurice or some equivalent. In many of those cases it is a significant step downwards.

It is argued, incorrectly, that teams need to fire their coach every now and again because teams "tune out" the coach. That argument is poor. If Ron Wilson was "tuned out" when he led his team to the Pacific Division title, then I cannot see how being "tuned out" is a problem. Most teams are envious of the Sharks success under their "tuned out" coach.

The Sharks will have a change at coach. Change can be good and change can be bad. More than likely, the new coach will be a worse coach than Wilson. In that case change would be bad. That said, San Jose with a slightly worse coach should still be a good enough team that they might have a deep playoff run. Should that happen, I am sure we will all be there to give undeserved credit to the coach who happens to be there and applaud the move to fire Wilson.

Ron Wilson is a top candidate to fill other coaching vacancies in the NHL and a team will do well to hire him. You likely made a mistake if the coach you just fired is quickly hired by another team. The coach you fired should not be the best unemployed coaching prospect out there. That is no way to improve a team.

Finally, I want to speak about the outright statistical lie in the press release about Ron Wilson (that Sharkspage quoted. Ron Wilson had a 206-134-45 record as San Jose coach. The way the NHL calculated winning percentages this is a .592 winning percentage. It is quoted in the press release as a .535 winning percentage. You only get that value if you assume that all the regulation ties in his San Jose career are counted as losses - then he has a 206-179 record. This is not the way the NHL does this calculation. The Sharks or NHL people who released that press release are playing fast and loose with the definition of winning percentage. This is a problem with the way the NHL defines the stat. There is enough fuzziness in the definition to cheat in press release and although you are lying the lie is one that can be defended. However, if the Sharks must lie about Ron Wilson's success to give him a dishonestly low winning percentage, it goes to show how poor the decision to fire him is.

Here is the TSN story on Wilson's firing which also has the dishonestly low winning percentage in it.

The latest poor suspension decision by the NHL was made yesterday. At the conclusion of game two on Saturday, there was a scrum behind the Detroit goal. Mike Ribiero, the Dallas Stars top scorer slashed Detroit Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood over the top of the goal. There is no place for that type of play in the NHL. It was made out of frustration because Dallas had just lost game two 2-1 to fall behind two games to none in the semi-final series. The NHL has ruled there will be no suspension.

I suppose the fear is that it will appear that a suspension helped to eliminate Dallas. The NHL is notorious for not being consistent in their suspensions. When it's a bit player early in the season, such as Chris Simon then of the New York Islanders or Steve Downie of the Philadelphia Flyers they have no problem giving out a long suspension. However, when it is a star player and the game matters (ie. it's the playoffs) the suspension is short or non-existent). Last year, the NHL suspended Chris Pronger of the Anaheim Ducks two times for illegal hits in the playoffs. They were one game suspensions which was the shortest that could be allowed by public opinion. This year, there is no suspension at all for Mike Ribiero.

The NHL should want the appearance that there is justice and no bias toward suspending certain players in certain situations and against it in others, but decisions like this prove that there isn't. A slash on a goalie after the game is concluded should warrant a suspension. In this case, it doesn't because the player is too important to the remaining playoff chances of his team.

Reuters is reporting that the number of Europeans who played in the NHL is down this season. Of the 941 players who played one or more NHL games this season, 243 (or 25.8%) are European. Last season, 942 players played one or more NHL games (basically the same number as this year) and 266 players (28.2%) were European. This is a small loss in the NHL's position as the league where all the best players in the world come to play. About twenty of those players opted to stay in Europe instead of come to the NHL.

Where were those players lost? The easy but incorrect answer is that due to the lack of a player transfer deal with Russia more players staying in (or returned to) Russia. There were 32 Russians who played one or more NHL games this year (compare with 35 last year. The Russian dropoff has largely already occurred and does not account for this player loss. There are a few players choosing to play in the Russian league who are not Russian and would not have been counted. They include Darius Kaparaitis of the Ukraine and Tony Salmelainen of Finland, but there are not enough of them to account for the player loss. For the most part, these are players in other European countries that have chosen to stay home. There has been an across the board decline in the number of European players (or at least drop in the increase of European players) from every significant European nation. The leaders have been the eastern European countries, especially the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These countries tend to have bigger cultural differences with North America and thus will be less likely to come to play if the payoff is not big enough.

The payoff to a young player is not as big as it once was. There is an entry level player salary cap. There are re-entry waivers to keep salaries down in the AHL. A player can often make quite a bit more money playing in Europe than he would in the AHL. This problem is compounded by the fact that the Euro is rising relative to American dollars in international currency markets and by the damaged international reputation of the US under the Bush administration. The NHL is not as attractive a situation as it once was for European players.

Next year, when there is no player transfer deal with European nations look for more players to return to Europe.

While it is hard to argue that any potential NHL superstars are playing in Europe, it is clear that many players who could be valuable on their NHL teams (Aleksey Morozov, Alexei Yashin, Alex Perezhogin for example) are. The more legitimate NHL players chose to play in Europe, the less the NHL will be the one strongest league in the world and the more good players NHL fans will never see. This is a loss to the fan.

For the first time ever, the Bill Masterton Trophy has had three nominees announced in advance of the awards presentation. The nominees are Jason Blake of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Chris Chelios of the Detroit Red Wings and Fernando Pisani of the Edmonton Oilers. This is a positive change to the convoluted Masterton Trophy selection process which should become normalized to be done with a single end of the year ballot like the other NHL awards.

They failed to nominate my choice Owen Nolan of the Calgary Flames a player who most considered retired when he missed two years rehabbing injuries before returning and making a positive contribution to his teams. That is a show of perseverance and dedication to hockey that has been lost by the media. That means that the person I picked to win four of the eight awards I picked nominees for was not even nominated. Am I out of touch with reality or are the NHL award voters?

I think that of the nominees Fernando Pisani probably should win. His recovery from ulcerative colitis to rejoin the Oilers this season is the kind of story that usually wins this award. Nevertheless, he missed half a season and Nolan missed two of them. That would show Nolan overcame a bigger hardship.

I think it's good that the Masterton Trophy is announcing nominees. Now let's hope they move the voting to a single ballot at the end of the season.