NHL Facing Big Year in 2012 at BetLM

NHL Facing Big Year in 2012

So here we are ready to flip the cal­en­dar to 2012 and there is no escap­ing the feel­ing this is going to be one of the most influ­en­tial and impor­tant years for the NHL in recent memory.

The biggest issue con­fronting the league is the con­cus­sion sit­u­a­tion, which is noth­ing short of dire with Sid­ney Crosby, the poster boy for both the league and brain trauma, almost exactly where he was a year ago: out indef­i­nitely, his sea­son and, it’s not too much of a stretch to say, his career up in the air.

The scary thing is, nobody seems to have any answers, though the dia­logue will con­tinue, about treat­ment, about the rules, about how to make the game safer. Just say­ing hockey is a dan­ger­ous game and con­cus­sions are always going to be a part of it isn’t good enough.

The other devel­op­ing story will be the talks for a new CBA, which are expected to get under­way after the all-star game in Ottawa at the end of the month.

If I was going to bet at this point, I would say there will be another lock­out.

As it was put to me the other day by one of the inter­ested par­ties, there are some own­ers of American-based teams who wouldn’t be heart­bro­ken to see the league shut down until Christ­mas. The games from Octo­ber until after the Super Bowl are the poor­est attended in some markets.

Some own­ers would save a lot of dough by not play­ing those games and would put a bit of a hurt on the play­ers as they would lose half their 2012–13 salaries.

That’s what hap­pened in the NBA, which has some own­ers who share sim­i­lar views about their busi­ness as NHL owners.

Hope­fully I’m wrong.

HEAR AND THERE: NBC will use 30 cam­eras for the Win­ter Clas­sic Mon­day, more than dou­ble what they use for an indoor game. They will also have an Air­plane Cam and the Cable Cam over the ice sur­face. The only one I’m inter­ested in is the Torts Cam … Speak­ing of the Win­ter Clas­sic, nice touch by the Philadel­phia Fly­ers alumni to wear a No. 10 patch for their game Sat­ur­day against Rangers alumni to hon­our for­mer team­mate Brad McCrim­mon … Rangers D Marc Staal has been cleared for con­tact after being side­lined by a con­cus­sion incurred last year on a hit by brother Eric of the Car­olina Hur­ri­canes. He appar­ently was unof­fi­cially approved for con­tact when he wres­tled with brother Jor­dan of the Pen­guins in Eric’s kitchen as the clan got together for Christ­mas at Eric’s place.

THE BUZZ: Good line by New Jer­sey Dev­ils D Hen­rik Tallinder after he got hit in the foot by a shot in prac­tice: “It took my mind off my back.” … When the Colum­bus Blue Jack­ets won in Dal­las Thurs­day night, it ended a stretch of 23 games dat­ing back to last sea­son since they had won away from home in reg­u­la­tion time … Some­thing to which we can look for­ward: the Chicago Black­hawks and the Detroit Red Wings play three times in the next 16 days, start­ing Fri­day night in Chicago … Looks like it’s going to be strike two for Matthew Hul­sizer in his pur­suit of an NHL team. Sat­ur­day is the dead­line for him to get a deal done to buy the St. Louis Blues and it doesn’t look like it’s going to hap­pen. He sniffed around the Coy­otes, too.

JUST SAYING: There seems to be some mis­un­der­stand­ing out there about Bob Gainey’s role with the Mon­treal Cana­di­ens. Some are talk­ing about him com­ing back to the team because he has been seen on the road at a cou­ple of games (Win­nipeg and Mon­treal). Fact is, he’s never been away. Since giv­ing up the GM title, he’s still had tremen­dous influ­ence on club deci­sions and reg­u­larly has con­ver­sa­tions with play­ers … Say what you want about Mike Green as a defence­man, but the fact is the Wash­ing­ton Cap­i­tals are 8–0 with him in the lineup and 10–15-2 with­out him going into Friday’s game … Say­ing some­body is the best player on the Wings is say­ing some­thing, so here’s to you, Jimmy Howard.

JUST WONDERING: How crazy is this stat: Min­nesota Wild goal­tender Niklas Back­strom is 16–0 all-time at home against the Edmon­ton Oil­ers. Back­strom almost started a riot when he slashed Oil­ers F Ryan Smyth at the end of the game. “He slashed me four times before that,” said Back­strom. “So I had a lot of things to catch up (for).”

THE LAST WORD: The best coach­ing change that has worked — you could say the only one that has worked (pend­ing how things go with Dar­ryl Sut­ter in Los Ange­les) — is Ken Hitch­cock in St. Louis. Hitch­cock had a rep for being a mis­er­able guy with which to work, but his time away from the game seems to have mel­lowed him a bit. He’s count­ing to 10 these days before say­ing what’s on his mind. He sat out­side the rink in his car for a while the day after the Blues lost to the Wings. “I wasn’t com­ing in until the cof­fee was over. Don’t come in angry,” he said. “If they’re expect­ing me to go postal, for­get it. Too old for that.”

TOP 5 NHL STORIES FOR 2012

1. Sid­ney Crosby. As the cal­en­dar turns, we find our­selves — so dis­ap­point­ingly so — almost right where we were at the begin­ning of 2011: won­der­ing what the future holds for the game’s best player, out again with a recur­rence of con­cus­sion symp­toms. When, or if, Crosby returns will be the big story for the first few months of 2012. The impli­ca­tions are far-reaching for the NHL and the Penguins.

2. The CBA. Talks on a new deal — the cur­rent agree­ment is set to expire in Sep­tem­ber — are set to begin some­time after the all-star game at the end of the month. This is going to be another case of the own­ers want­ing more take­backs and the play­ers hav­ing to take a hair­cut again. How much is too much?

3. Boston Bru­ins. After shak­ing off their Stan­ley Cup hang­over, the champs have been rip­ping it up. Some­thing to con­sider: their power play is up to ninth in the league this sea­son after per­form­ing so hor­ri­bly in the Cup run last spring. You can bet GM Peter Chiarelli will do some­thing to bol­ster the ros­ter, too.

4. The Phoenix Coy­otes. It’s been rel­a­tively quiet on the rumour front, which is usu­ally a good sign. The NHL remains com­mit­ted to keep­ing the Coy­otes in Glen­dale, but after Sat­ur­day they are free to enter­tain offers from poten­tial own­ers inter­ested in mov­ing the team for next sea­son. Expect talk about a move to Que­bec City to heat up if noth­ing has hap­pened by April.

5. Rules. With the recent spike in con­cus­sions, there will be more talk about adjust­ing the rules to try and reduce cir­cum­stances where play­ers are vul­ner­a­ble. The talk will be about putting the red line back in for two-line off­sides and get­ting rid of the trape­zoid to allow goal­tenders to move the puck.

THE GROCERY STICK

Who is, lit­er­ally or fig­u­ra­tively, head­ing for or in that com­fort­able spot on the bench that sep­a­rates the for­wards and the defencemen?

Buf­falo Sabres for­ward Drew Stafford is com­ing off a 31-goal sea­son which saw him rewarded with a four-year, $ 16-million con­tract. So far this sea­son? He has six goals and 19 points going into Friday’s game, which has led to Stafford being one of the Sabres who could use a change of scenery. “I’m com­ing close,” said Stafford. “It all starts with speed. The next part is putting it in. Hope­fully, the next one’s going in.”

SOMETHING SPECIAL

Boston Bru­ins

Power-play sit­u­a­tions: 124

Goals: 24

Per­cent­age: 19.4

Rank: 8

It’s not good news for the rest of the league that the defend­ing Stan­ley Cup champs look like they are improv­ing the weak­est part of their game. The B’s power play was 20th in the league in the reg­u­lar sea­son last year and 14th among the 16 teams that made the play­offs last spring. They won the Cup despite their power play. But it is bet­ter this year by more than three per­cent­age points (19.4% vs. 16.2%) and has moved up to eighth in the league’s regular-season stand­ings. Inter­est­ing to note the Bru­ins power play is the only unit not to have given up a short-handed goal this season.

AMBULANCE CHASING

Injuries that are hav­ing, or could have, a big impact.

Colum­bus Blue Jackets

I know. The Blue Jack­ets. Who cares? But the Jack­ets’ sign­ing of free-agent defence­man James Wis­niewski to a six-year, $ 33 mil­lion deal is a bit of a cau­tion­ary tale and rep­re­sents how off the rails the sea­son has been in Colum­bus. After miss­ing the first eight games of the sea­son with a sus­pen­sion, Wis­niewski now could be out indef­i­nitely after suf­fer­ing a sus­pected bro­ken ankle tak­ing a shot off the stick of Dal­las Stars for­ward Mike Ribeiro. It’s almost like the Wis­niewski sign­ing — frankly, the Jack­ets over­paid — was bad karma. He’s had 17 points in 29 games and, at minus-18, is tied for the second-worst plus/minus rat­ing in the league. What a bru­tal sea­son for Wis­niewski and the Jackets.

GO FIGURE

57

The Boston Bru­ins goal dif­fer­en­tial — on the pos­i­tive side — going into Fri­day night’s games. In 17 of the 24 games they have played since Nov. 1, the Bru­ins have sur­ren­dered two goals or less. As impres­sive as that is, they won’t come close to the record for goal dif­fer­en­tial in a sea­son: the 1976–77 Mon­treal Cana­di­ens were an incred­i­ble 216.

8

The num­ber of teams, since the lock­out, that have made the play­offs with a neg­a­tive goal dif­fer­en­tial. The Ottawa Sen­a­tors hold the record, hav­ing made the play­offs in 2009-10 despite being outscored by 13 goals. Inter­est­ing to note the Sen­a­tors are fight­ing for a play­off spot this sea­son despite sit­ting in ninth place in the East­ern Con­fer­ence at –15 going into Friday’s games.

1

The num­ber of team in the West­ern Con­fer­ence that have made the play­offs with a neg­a­tive goal dif­fer­en­tial since the lock­out. That would be the 2008-09 Colum­bus Blue Jack­ets, who fin­ished sev­enth despite being –4 on the sea­son. The Tampa Bay Light­ning and the Mon­treal Cana­di­ens have each made the play­offs twice in the East with a neg­a­tive goal differential.

1

The num­ber of teams since the lock­out that led the league in goal dif­fer­en­tial and went on to win the Stan­ley Cup that sea­son — the Detroit Red Wings in 2007-08. They were 73. The lowest-ranked team in goal dif­fer­en­tial to win the Cup since the lock­out was the Pitts­burgh Pen­guins, who were ninth (25) in 2009. The last two Cup win­ners were ranked second.

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