A History Of Sniping For The Devils

Known mainly for a defensive style introduced back in the mid-'90s by current coach Jacques Lemaire, the New Jersey Devils have won Cups mainly thanks to that stifling D.

So why is Ilya Kovalchuk ending up on New Jersey really not all that surprising? GM Lou Lamoriello as the cagey post-modern Sam Pollock knows you do need a sniper or two when it comes to building Cup teams.

This article here touches a bit on the impact Alexander Mogilny had on the Devils' Cup in 2000 and the Cup run in 2001 that ended in a Game 7 loss (where have you gone, Alex Tanguay?) to the Colorado Avalanche.

Yet the article really doesn't go far enough. To do that you have to go back to 1991 and the deal for Stephane Richer. Richer was two years removed from a 51-goal season with the Montreal Canadiens. (The deal was also significant for the Habs as they got Kirk Muller in the deal from the Devils and he went on to play a big role in the Habs' Cup of 1993.)

The Habs, though, were fed up with Richer after his goal total fell to 31 the year after his 51-goal season. The Devils then saw him put up seasons of 29, 38, 36 and a prorated 41 (23 goals in 45 GP the lockout-shortened 1994/95 season). Those '95 playoffs saw Richer lead the Devils in scoring with 21 points in 19 playoff games as the trap team upset the mighty Detroit Red Wings in the Final.

Fast-forward to 2000 and Mogilny's on the Devils. We all remember him here in Vancouver. First season with the Canucks--55 goals, 107 points. Here we go! Oh, hold on, that was his contract year. You see, Mogilny had this uncanny ability later in his career to play phenomenally well when in a contract year. The other seasons, not so much.

How did the Nux not win a Cup with these two guys?

That's why after oft-injured 18-goal, 14-goal and 21-goal efforts the Mogil was traded to Jersey in the March 2000 Brendan Morrison deal (which also worked out fairly well for both clubs so Lou really is an equal opportunity GM). The following season Mogil was on fire with 43 goals and 83 points (many assists courtesy of rookie center Scott Gomez) and contributed a decent 16 points in 25 playoff games as the Devils won their second Cup.

The Devils that year led (yes, led!) the Eastern Conference in goals for thanks to the power of Robbie Ftorek's sweaters...which got him to the altar but only to see Larry Robinson take over with eight games left and coach the Devs to a Cup. Robinson's 2001 Cup Finalist team continued the scoring trend as the Devils finished atop the league in goals for (yes, you are reading that correctly, New Jersey led the league in goals for).

Mogilny, of course, left as a free agent after the '00/01 season to sign with the Leafs and promptly dropped to 24 goals in 66 games. So much for 40-goal seasons let alone the amazing 76 he scored in '92/93 with the Sabres.

Now the '03 Devils Cup team did not really have a sniper per se as their own draft pick Patrik Elias was two years removed from a 40-goal season, '02 late season pickup Joe Nieuwendyk had not scored 40 since '90/91 and both Jamie Langenbrunner and Jeff Friesen, who led the Devils in goal scoring in the playoffs, would never be considered snipers by any stretch.

What does getting the Devil sniper-for-hire in Kovalchuk all mean? Well, so far, the Devils have not gone deep in the playoffs since Scott Stevens' hits retired and Scott Niedermayer's playoff beard left for the West Coast. With one of their best puck-moving defensemen, Paul Martin, out for four to six weeks with a broken arm the Devils did need a shot in the arm (all puns intended), they are hardly likely to break that poor playoff run.

Kovalchuk certainly is a huge upgrade on a latter career stage Mogilny or Richer, and as many of you who have seen him play live, he not only has a killer one-timer but can chop wood with the best of a Steve Yzerman. He is physical but in a way that's both dirty and sneaky. This helps create that space for him to wind up and blast those one-timers. Add in that cocky attitude (who can forget his in-your-face goal celebrations against Canada at past World Juniors and the World Championships) and he makes the Devils worth watching despite being coached by the anti-Larry Robinson.

Of course, all this talk that he'll love New York means ...he's signing with the Rangers once his free agency kicks in on July 1? For some reason no one ever says players will love the Garden State when they get traded there. I wonder why that is?

Can't Make Trades In The Cap Era--Phaneuf Said!

Dion Phaneuf! JS Giguere! And now Ilya Kovalchuk is on the block?
Did Mike Keenan and Trader Phil Esposito return to the NHL's GM ranks?

Now supposedly it's difficult to make trades in this salary cap era, but Leafs GM Brian Burke for all his bluster may be a trailblazer. Why not just trade salary for salary to improve your team seems to be his way of thinking. Kudos to him!

The Flames absorbed $4.4 million or so for the rest of the season picking up the four Leafs (and two Rangers in Christopher Higgins and Ales Kotalik). They shed $4.7 million in sending Phaneuf and Fredrik Sjostrom to the Leafs and Olli Jokinen (Check out Olli Jokinen's moves over the years here) and Brandon Prust to the Rangers. Keith Aulie's contract, which the Leafs picked up, does not factor into the equation as he is not playing in the NHL right now.
The Leafs all tolled shed $6.9 million (remember this is just for this season) in the deal with Calgary and sending Jason Blake and Vesa Toskala to Anaheim. They absorb just $4.8 million and, let's be honest, either made their team better or now have one HUGE tradeable asset down the road in Phaneuf.


Did somebody say Rangers?



Going forward Sjostrom is a wash at $750,000 for next year then he' s a UFA at age 28 in 2011.
Giggy is expensive at $7 million next season but he's a UFA at age 33 July 1, 2011, so that's a win-win for the Leafs. Either Giggy returns to form, or worse comes to worse, they trade him next season to some team like Philly who love to rotate goalies on an annual basis, or let him walk after getting soem mileage out of the Conn Smythe winner.

Phaneuf, if you truly believe he's the next Chris Pronger (with his own Web site!), is an expensive version of such being signed through 2013/14 at an average of $6.375 million per. The upside is he's only 24. They'll love him in Tarrana because he's basically a defenceman version of Wendel Clark (who ironically played D as a junior his entire career with Regina). Hey, if Bryan McCabe can be thought of as an all-star and the second coming of Ian Turnbull, what are they going to make of Elisha Cuthbert's boyfriend? Methinks Dion needs to start thinking of opening up a chain of donut shops. Isn't that what Leaf defensemen who are physical specimens do there, Tim Horton?

The Flames rid themselves of a guy who just did not fit into the Sutter system. Really, with Jay Bouwmeester there, do you really need a Dion Phaneuf when you add in a Robyn Regehr (he has his own Web site, too?) who can provide the toughness without taking dumb penalties?

Lastly, Anaheim got rid of Giggy's contract so until the end of the 2010/11 season now save $9.2 million and added close to $4.5 million in Blake and Toskala. The Vesanator is a UFA at the end of the season. So with Ducks' goalie Jonas Hiller signed for a reasonable cap hit of $4.5 million over the next four seasons, look for the Ducks to cut Toskala loose at season's end or sign him dirt cheap. Blake still is an expensive second liner really but he's a servicable player who once outside Toronto should return to his pesky 20- to 30-goal plateau. All in all, the Ducks have some needed cap space to go after free agents in the summer.

So, all I have to say why wait for summer, is bring on the Kovalchuk trade!

Canucks Hit The Road

Finally. NFL season is winding down and I can start paying attention to the situation in Canuckland.

The team has been on a roll obviously helped by a huge helping of home cooking (17 of the last 23 have been at GM Place). Living here amongst crazed Canuck fans can give you blinders to the reality of where the team actually stacks up in the West.

Versus the other seven Western Conference playoff teams so far the Nux are 11 wins and 9 losses--a decent, but not spectacular, record. What is troubling is two of those teams give the Canucks fits.

Firstly, Nashville after not having beaten the Canucks in three years at the Sommet Center had Martin Erat pot 3 for a 4-2 win on Dec. 8. The Canucks managed to get revenge 14 days later on home ice with a 4-1 win, but Jan. 11 the Preds took down the Canucks 3-2 in the Burrows vs. Auger fiasco. In both wins the Preds' netminders be it Pekka Rinne or Dan Ellis were oustanding.

The other bogey team has strangely been Calgary who own a 3W-1L record vs. the Canucks so far. How is that possible? Given the whole Dion Phaneuf-Jay Bouwmeester-Robyn Regehr defence troika has been average at best with the Lames giving up close to 30 shots per game, what is the deal? Well, simply put the Canucks have played poorly vs. the Flames.

On Jan. 9 they were outshot 40-21 and Roberto Luongo was the only reason they snagged a point by shoving the game to the shootout. (Check out shootout winning goal scorer Jamie Lundmark's take on how being on the farm in Abbotsford helped him in that shootout.)

Dec. 27 Mason Raymond was on fire scoring a hat trick and driving Miika Kiprusoff from the Flames' net in a 5-1 win at home.

Back in Oct. the Canucks lost twice to the Flames so we might chalk that up to Luongo being his usual Vesa Toskala in the first month.

The more ominous sign is the team is an incredibly average 10W-11L on the orad having played a fairly normal road schedule up till now. With the Olympics creating this hideous 8-game road trip prior to and the 6-game road trip afterwards, the season really will be made here. Currently the Canucks are 9 points ahead of the 9th-placed Detroit Red Wings.

Realistically, if the Canucks can tread water and maintain their record, or at least lose no more than 4 points in the standings, they should be fine given two-thirds of their games from Mar. 13 on are at home.

The crunch section of the pre-Olympic road trip is the Feb. 11-14 stretch where they play Florida and then the next night have to play Columbus and two days later play Minnesota in an afternoon game. Other than that there are two to three days off between games and all games are against Eastern teams (Canucks being 8W-1L vs. the Least) for the first six games of the trip.

The post-Olympic road trip is the doozy as all are against teams either in the playoffs out West or close to being in. There are two back-to-backs (Mar. 2 and 3 vs. Columbus and Detroit and Mar. 9 and 10 vs. Colorado and Phoenix). Toss in another afternoon game vs. tough Nashville on Mar. 7, two days after playing Chicago and keep your fingers crossed the team survives this trip.

There are positive signs overall, though. Mason Raymond is developing into a potential all-star. Pavol Demitra's return ("For how long?" asks Sami Salo) is also good news especially, if a trade is brewing as essentially Mikael Samuelsson and Demitra are the same player and either one could get the team some depth on the back end given the injury bug there.
Luongo is back to his usual new year's form meaning the glove hand only lets him down the lone game out of ten.
Christian Ehrhoff is a total steal and could finally be the Jyrkki Lumme meets Jeff Brown the team needs to go deep in the playoffs.
The Sedins, as the locals have been trumpeting, are finally truly elite players and they lead a power play that is one of the league's best.
Throw in Alexandre Burrows' scoring, diving and big mouth, and the Canuck drama is definitely worth watching over the second half.
And I haven't even mentioned Ryan Kesler who seems to be lost in the shuffle but is a future captain of this team.

Still there are some troubling signs bubbling under the whole deck of cards.

Coach Yogi Bear needs to play Andrew Raycroft way more mainly to give Luongo the needed rest. Playing your #1 goalie 60+ games is no recipe for playoff success even if Roberto would love to play as much as possible. I can't fathom why, since the playoffs don't have back-to-back games anymore, why Luongo needs to be playing both games of any back-to-backs. Even if the Canucks lose or split ever single back-to-back, in the end it'll pay off come May or June.

Burrows was probably right in pointing out how officials let grudges get in the way, but you just know he's now a marked man. That means he, and maybe the Canucks in general, won't get any marginal (or obvious!) calls, especially in the playoffs.

Which brings us to the undisciplined part of this team--it takes far too many penalties for a good team averaging over 15 minutes in the box a game with an average PK unit (although it has risen from truly terrible back at the start of the season).

Lastly, the team needs to be a lot stronger in second periods. This may be nitpicking but when San Jose and Chicago both lead the NHL in second period goals and Vancouver lies near the bottom, that is worrying. The record shows that when they trail after two, they are 4W-13L. Then again take solace, the Canucks are not the Leafs who are 0W-30L when trailing after two periods and no team in the NHL is close to .500 when trailing after two periods.

Yeah, I admit it's nitpicking but also something the team one hopes could work on during this road trip.

So, fare thee well, road warriors...and we'll see you all back on GM Place ice Mar. 13 vs. the Sens.