The Bench Jockeys » Stanley Cup

Be Careful What You Wish, Commish

Ian Paregol — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:38:52 +0000

Gary Bettman cannot be too thrilled about the looming pairings for the Stanley Cup finals. In the East, Gary better be wearing his Bruins underoos as the puck drops on Boston-Tampa Bay series on Saturday, May 14th. Boston is the only team from the original six and the only large market team left in the Conference Finals. Although the Lightning have a couple players with some fire-power in Steven Stamkos and Marty St. Louis, the Florida market for hockey is one of the leagues weakest – the Lightning and the Panthers round out two of the NHL’s five lowest rated fan bases. The fans in San Jose seem to care about the Sharks, but they might be the only ones. Sharks Defenseman Dan Boyle was San Jose’s lone All-Star and rank and file players like Marleau, Clowe and rookie Couture do not generate a great deal of interest outside of the 408 area code.

If history gives us any indication of where this year’s final may be headed from an outreach and viewership analysis, in 2004 Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals featured Calgary squaring off against Tampa Bay and drew the lowest-rated game for a Stanley Cup Finals since 1990,…and Calgary is a Canadian team. A Vancouver-Tampa Bay series does not bode well for NHL viewership. Even more troubling for positive Canadian numbers is the composition of the Canucks team. Vancouver’s five most productive point-scorers are the Sendin twins (Swedes), Ryan Kessler (American), Mikael Samuelsson (Swede) and Christian Ehrhoff (German). Vancouver does have a few Canadian skaters, but the studs on that team are foreign-born.

So, Commissioner Bettman, rub your lucky rabbit’s foot and hope that your plans to Americanize the NHL by developing small market teams in cities where it never snows does not backfire into a virtually unwatchable San Jose/Tampa Bay Finale.

Goaltending: The Cup’s Net Asset

Ian Paregol — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:50:53 +0000

Two heavy favorites move on to the second round, the upstart Preds surprise the Ducks, 3 lower seeded teams must win at home to stay alive and 2 series (so far) await a deciding 7^th game.

Stanley Cup Playoff hockey is in full swing. The Flyers have cycled through all three of their goalies (Bobrovsky, Boucher and Leighton) in the 6 games with the Sabres thus far. In the other 3-3 series, Roberto Luongo, who helped lead the Canucks to the President’s Trophy and is finalist for the Vezina Trophy has twice been pulled in favor of Cory Schneider. Loungo’s .750 save percentage over the last 40 Blackhawk shots is causing some panic in the mean streets of Vancouver.

If you look at the last 20 years of Stanley Cup history, winning the Cup is about the goalies. Even if one breaks down the all-offense Gretzky era of the 80s, Grant Fuhr’s stats tell the same story. Before you say Fuhr had nothing to do with the Oilers’ dominating reign with the Cup, “Coco” played between a half to almost one full goal better in the playoffs than he did during the regular season. Quick quiz: How many Rocket Richard Trophy winners (awarded for most goals by a player during the season) also hoisted the Stanley Cup during the same season they were goal scoring leader? Answer: 1 – Sid the Kid in 2009. In recent Cup history, Roy, Hasek, Brodeur & Osgood– all won Stanley Cups and all won either the Vezina or the Jennings. Hot goaltenders win the chalice. During the Playoffs, coaches fully acknowledge the magnitude of this holy truth and will try anything to capture lightning in a bottle – if only for the 16 victories needed to be annointed Champs.

Hirsute Up

Ian Paregol — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:14:44 +0000

It’s Spring and it’s warming up (even in Boston) and that’s the logical time to grow a nice itchy beard,… more specifically, a “Playoff Beard.” Denis Potvin and the members of the New York Isles – who owned the Stanley Cup from 1980 to 1983 – take credit for the development of the playoff beard. But when Gretzky’s Oilers wrestled the Cup away from the Islanders stronghold, the beard took a hiatus until the Devils made it a mainstay in hockey post-season culture. So from Vancouver to DC…. hockey fans,…. this is the week that shaving becomes optional (for up to 7weeks), employers consider revising their standards for staff appearance and men sleep alone as hockey fans grow their facial hair in support of their clubs.

There are many rules for the playoff beard but Rule #1 is: The devotee stops shaving when his team enters the playoffs and does not shave until his team is eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup. Grooming is acceptable only between playoff rounds, however, any cultivation is frowned upon by the purists. And there are no style points awarded for goatees; it’s a full beard or it does not count. Some growers invoke the Canucks’ Roberto Luongo exception – where one may trim the beard after a loss in an effort to change the team’s luck – but that’s just garbage.

So put away those razors boys and girls and grow one for the team. The Bench Jockeys tale of the tape suggests that Canucks or Red Wings will be there in the West and that Caps and Penguins will be sporting the ZZ Top look in the East.

Blackhawks Down (and almost out)

Ian Paregol — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:24:57 +0000

With 6 games remaining in the regular season, the Chicago Blackhawks cling to the 8^th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, three points ahead of a Dallas Stars team which cleaned Chicago’s collective clocks on St. Paddy’s Day. Chicago wraps their season up with two games against central division rival Detroit which would surely relish knocking the defending champs out of the playoff picture. Should the Hawks – who days after the 2010 Stanley Cup awards ceremony were chopped up like a 2006 Honda Accord – fall short on their 2011 playoff bid, they will be just the 9^th club since 1915 to fail to qualify for the post-season after winning the Lord Stanley’s Chalice the prior year. As true competition withers into league parity and dynasties dissolve in favor of bottom lines (even in the formerly immune NHL) it is interesting to note that there has not been a back-to-back Stanley Cup winner since the Red Wings in 1997-98 after decades of multi-year championships by the Canadians, Leafs, Flyers, Isles and Oilers.