My Picks for the 2008/09 NHL Award Winners

Here are my early selections for this years NHL Awards - we'll see how they stand up when the time comes.

James Norris Trophy Best Defenseman 1953
Awarded to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-around ability in the position.
My Pick: Mike Green - Washington Capitals
Closing in on the end of the season, Mike Green is leading all defensemen in points, along with potentially potting a 30 goal season. He's also good at his position, being in the top 10 for defenseman in both plus/minus and time on ice. His solid play this season had also put him onto my list of 2010 Olympic picks back in December and being the Norris Trophy winner going into an Olympic year is a great way to make sure you get yourself on the team.

Vezina Trophy Best Goaltender 1926
Awarded to the goalkeeper adjudged to be the best at his position. Until the 1981-82 season this trophy was awarded to the goalkeeper(s) of the team allowing the fewest number of goals during the regular season.
My Pick: Tim Thomas - Boston Bruins
Yes I know Kipper will once again lead the league in wins; and in second place will be Nabokov with 40ish himself, but Thomas' league best 2.13 GAA and .931% save percentage while playing for the 50 win Bruins is pretty darn good too. And who, at the start of the seaon, would have even thought of Tim Thomas for the the Vezina ? Steve Mason needs to prove himself more before getting more attention.

William M. Jennings Trophy Best Goaltender (statistical) 1981
Awarded to the goalkeeper(s) having played a minimum of 25 games for the team with the fewest goals scored against it.
MyPick: Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez - Boston Bruins
Unless they get blown out in the last few games of the season this trohopy is theirs for the taking.

Jack Adams Award Coach of the Year 1973
Awarded to the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success, by the NHL Broadcasters' Association.
My Pick - Claude Juilen - Boston Bruins
Seriously, how many times could Juilen have one the Jack Adams anyway? 3 or 4? I think this year, with the surprising Bruins, Juilen should be considered the front runner for Coach of the Year. How many times has he taken a bad or mediocre team and mold then into a contender. Even though I don't believe the Bruins will win the cup this year, I hope Boston keeps him Julien around for a couple more years because with the core group they have, and Clever Claude at the helm, Lord Stanley may not be too far away for the Bruins.

Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy Leading Goal Scorer 1998
Awarded to the player finishing the regular season as the league's leading goal scorer.
My Pick: Alexander Ovechkin - Washington Capitals
I'm not really going out on a limb and think that Zach Parise can overtake Ovechkin this late in the season. Actually, even if it was the first day of the season I wouldn't go out on that limb.

Art Ross Trophy Leading Scorer 1947
Awarded to the player who leads the league in scoring points at the end of the regular season.
My Pick: Evegni Malkin - Pittsburgh Penguins
Hold on Evegni... hold on!!!

Lester B. Pearson Trophy Player Choice MVP 1970
Awarded to the NHL's outstanding player as selected by the members of the NHL Player's Association.
My Pick: Sidney Crosby - Pittsburgh Penguins
Just a hunch. (if not Sid, than Evegni)

Frank J. Selke Trophy Best Defensive Forward 1977
Awarded to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.
My Pic: Pavel Datsyuk - Detroit Red Wings
Last year's winner will have some competition from Zach Parise since they've got identical stats at this point, but i think most people consider Datsyuk to be the most defensively responsible of the two, leaving Parise probably to win the Lady Byng.

Lady Byng Memorial Trophy Most Gentlemanly Player 1924
Awarded to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.
My Pick: Zach Parise - New Jersey Devils
Why? Because he's not winning the Selke.

Hart Memorial Trophy Most Valuable Player 1923
Awarded to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team.
My Pick: Alexander Ovechkin - Washington Captials
As much as Malkin is a good/great player, Ovechkin raises the Capitals up by himself. Ovechkin makes the players around him better, and the good players on his team great (see Mike Green and his shiny new Norris Trophy)

Conn Smythe Trophy Playoff MVP 1964
Awarded to the most valuable player for his team in the playoffs
My Pick: Martin Brodeur - New Jersey Devils
This is tough because I have to make a solid determination (guess) on which team will ultimately win the Stanley Cup and then figure out who their best player would have been on the road to the Stanley Cup. I chose Brodeur because a) I like him b) if New Jersey makes it through the East they'll need solid goaltending c) if NJ do win the Cup, it would be a nice piece of hardware Brodeur has never won and cap off his record-breaking season.

Calder Memorial Trophy Rookie of the Year 1933
Awarded to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the NHL.
My Pick: Steve Mason - Columbus Blue Jackets
One heck of a first impression. This should almost be a lock over Bobby Ryan (a.k.a. the guy who got picked 2nd Overall in the 2005 after Sidney Crosby). When you think of it, it just goes to show how good Sidney Crosby is. Sid is almost 400 points into his NHL career (currently 391pts in 284GP) and his fellow draft year selections are just finishing off their first full seasons although Mason was picked in the 2006. And it's not like Bobby Ryan has been floating around in the minors or anything. Jack Johnson, who did play "early" last year was supposed to have his first season of responsibility with the Blues this year; and Carey Price was Montreal's A1 goalie for most of this season for the first time. Steve Mason wasn't even supposed to be with the team this year until Pascal Leclaire got injured. Needless to say, Mason's good play between the pipes cost Leclaire his job and Columbus was able to acquire a pretty solid forward in Vermette to fill out the team further. By the way - Columbus, 6th overall in the West right now despite being in the same division as, and frequently playing, Detroit and Chicago.

We'll see how these picks hold up come June!

2010 Olympics Team Canada (updated)

So a while back I posted a list of players I thought would be selected to the 2010 edition of Team Canada for the Vancouver Olympics. We're still over a year away, but I though this would be a good time to re-visit and provide my suggestions for a gold medal winning team.

Nash - Crosby (C) - Heatley
Gagner - Thornton (A) - Iginla
Lecalvalier - Richards - Getzlaf
Staal - Staal - Doan

Pronger (A) - Phaneuf
Green - Campbell
Weber - Stuart

Luongo
Price
Fleury

Overall - it looks pretty good to me. A talented team able to put the puck in the net, but filled with guys who don't give up on the puck either. I love a potential line of Crosby with Nash and Heatley. Explosive speed, touch and play making will probably make that line the most exciting to watch since Gretzky, Lemieux and Hawerchuck during the '87 Canada Cup. The second most exciting line at the Olympics could be the Thornton unit with Gagner and Iggy. Those two played along side Mario in 2002, and looking at their performances since, they aren't slowing down. That being said, I don't think anyone could make an argument that Joe Thornton isn't the best best passer in the NHL and his abilities to set up opportunities on Canada's second line will make this unit better than most countries top lines. A third line comprising of Brad Richards, Vinny and Ryan Getzlaf will have the chance to put up huge numbers as opposing teams will have to deal with Canada's #1&2 lines. The fourth line of pairs up Shane Doan with Eric and Jordan Staal. While any one of these three players can put the puck in the net, they'll be required to shut down the opponents big gun's (namely Alex and Evegni who I imagine the Russians would put on the same line along with Semin).

A solid defensive core who can move the puck up ice and make sure opposition players don't get their way either. Although the pairings can change with these core six players you can put any two of them together and not have to worry about a thing. Canadian goaltending (historically our strongest asset) is in good shape as well. Although I've left Martin Brodeur off the list we're going to be just fine. Luongo will certainly start all if not most games in the Olympic tournament, but I'm always a fan of having a couple youngsters around to gain experience. Carey Price and Marc-Andre Fleury will be able to learn and pick up tricks in order to lead the way in 2014 and perhaps even 2018.

Election update

I'll put this as simply as I can. In uncertain economic times, only one party can put forth a plan to guide Canada through the rough waters ahead. The Liberals.

Critics call changes in Liberal party direction "flip-flopping", but I call it "just being prudent". That's the advantage of being a centrist party. One day you can present a left-ist leaning socio-economic policy, and the next day, modify it to be more conservative. Or the other way around.

The latest polls are showing the Liberals just 4 points ahead of the NDP and a staggering 15 points behind the mean, sweater wearing Tories. I like Stephane Dion. I like his vision. I will be voting for my party on October 14th - there's no doubt about it. From a public perspective though, the party though needs a low level format.

Green Shift - great idea. Maybe though, the Liberals could have just called it "environmental tax shifting" so that when people google it they find the proven results from it's usage elsewhere in the world. As it stands right now, the "Green Shift" is an unproven idea from an unproven leader. We know it's not though.

Anyway - the substance is there with the Liberals this year, even if the packaging isn't. The Liberals are all steak without that much sizzle. Isn't that what everybody asked for?

what could have been

think about this for a minute if you would...

Canadian Prime Minister Frank McKenna & US President Al Gore


that would have been 4 to 8 years of good times.

Do we really need another fall election... or rather Paul Martin where art thou ?

As has been reported through various media outles, it could be entirely possible that we're heading towards a fall election. Elections are usually my favourite time of year, but I'm not so sure how I will be looking at what will be Canada's 40th General Election. You see, there are a number of issues at hand with this election, the who's, the why's, and the WTF's and most of them are not even based in policy.

First of all, each election costs taxpayers somewhere in the neighbourhood of $300 million. That's a lot of money to throw around. Or at the very least, that's a lot of money that can be better spent. Now everyone (everyone being myself and the intelligent political reporters) seems to believe that the potential result of the 40th General Election will be another Conservative minority government. Other possibilites include a Liberal minority government, with the Tories as official opposition and the last of the "likely" scenarios is a Conservative majority. Nowhere does anyone think that the Liberals will win a majority. That seems to be just about as unlikely as the NDP winning. So this just means we're spending money for no apparent reason - sounds very Canadian to me.

But then, I've said this all before. In 2004 the Liberals were elected with a minority with Paul Martin a the helm (even with the whole Gomery thing going on in the background). The Opposition then defeated the Martin government in the House forcing us to spend $300 million to elect a new government in 2006. It's now 2008 and Harper wants us to do it all over again bringing the running total to close $1 BILLION in 4 years, give or take a couple bucks here and there. Honestly, we were better off with Paul Martin, an intelligent experienced worldly politician, who faced the initial brunt of blame in the Gomery commission head-on; an over-zealous media looking for stories of corruption, backroom deals and off-shore finances; and the Tories who wanted to get him out of office at all costs before he could get his dirty little Liberal hands all over the Canadian government, its finances and its objectives and maybe make things work out positively for a change. Oh and it turns out evidence linking my ol' buddy Chretien to some malicious scheme was false too.... but I'm not bitter.

So there's the extreme costs of elections which could concievably put us right back to where we were in 2004 or 2006. If the Liberals do win it however, it isn't back to 2004 necessarily. It's Stephane Dion this time around and not Paul Martin who's leading the party. It's a guy who is a terrible communicator in both official languages. Seriously, I'm pretty much bilingual and his french sounds very Parisian proper to me - not the rough and touble Shawinigan, or the Montreal and Baie-Comeau accents of recent Prime Ministers. I can't see Dion hanging out with the likes of Gordon Brown, Obama/McCain, or Medvedev and he'd probably stutter his words and shy away like an inexperience teenage boy when trying to speak with Angela Merkel. Good thing for Dion that Hillary can't be President or he wouldn't be able to get anything done with two hot babes at a G8 Summit. He'll try and become buddy-buddy with Sarkozy, but seriously do you think Nicolas would want to hang with Stephane? He's married to Carla Bruni for pete's sake. It would be like high school all over again for these guys with Sarkozy as the captain of the football team, and Dion the captain of the chess team. They may both be captains but that doesn't mean they'll be friends.

Dion just doesn't seem like the strong and confident leader one would expect as Prime Minister. Maybe it's the way the media (read: Rick Mercer) has influenced me, but if Canada were to enter into a military conflict under Dion, I think he would be more concerned with not crushing any flowers with our tanks while driving into enemy territory instead of the well-being of our Canadian soldiers or the overall success of the mission.

Additionally, Dion just doesn't seem to have a grasp of economics - or at least not in the boring, steadfast way you'd expect. What he does have is a passion for the environment and Canada's environment in particular. Dion feels that Canada should be, and can be a leader, in a global effort for improving our environment. I can't say I disagree with him. Anyone in there right mind can see this is important and necessary, but the environment isn't the be-all-end-all of politics. It adds a dimension to policy and desicion making which must be accounted for when passing law, but aside from the very first bills, not all law needs to be about the environment. The environment needs to guide policy, not be policy. [just to be 100% clear - for that to work, there does need to some laws created for environmental protection which would make the environment "policy", but I'm thinking long-term, after things like that are done. how does one govern after the environmental reforms are complete?]

Then there's Harper and the Conservatives. The Tories can't seem to wrap their collective heads around the fact that the market won't solve environmental issues. At least not without outrageous consumer demand, and that consumer demand needs to be led by government. I completely understand the conservative strategy of laissez-faire on these issues, but it needs a damn kick-in-the-ass from the Federal level to start the ball of environmental change rolling. If the Tories feel obliged to re-create or re-vamp a Food Inspection Agency in the wake of poor Maple Leaf's woes, then I don't see why they should back away on Environmental policies.

Harper hasn't even accomplished what Tories generally do best - manage finances. Everyone saw the "credit crunch" coming and the concerns with the US economy make headlines almost every night. Jim Flaherty has even blasted Ontario's Liberal government for not being competitive enough to attract investment, and did so at the most vulnerable time to the Province when large auto makers were cutting back. The only good financial news nationwide since the Tories were elected has been the oil rich resources in Alberta and now Newfoundland. There's nothing Ontario can do about not having any oil, but the Feds can't seem to get Alberta off their minds. Compare apples to apples would ya boys. Flaherty was leading Ontario's economy during a time of relatively inexpensive gas prices and nobody gave a rat's ass about Alberta. Now that there's competition for Ottawa's attention and affection amongst provinces, Alberta is currently the favoured-son. Thanks anyway for the nice Federally paid for roads in Whitby though Jimmy (there are obvious benefits of having high-ranking cabinet members representing your riding!).

My idea has always been to throw a billion dollars at GM and have them re-vamp the Oshawa plants to create fuel efficient vehicles for sale in the European and Asian markets. The automaker, and large employer, keeps its plants open, workers paid and the Canadian government makes back the intial investment in five years from duties charged on exports and the normal income taxes from the regional workers. Plus there are long term benefits if Canada is seen as the perferred manufacturing area for environmentally friendly products. Imagine if all of a sudden there's a world-wide demand for products with consiencious manufacturing techniques and disposal of waste policies. Ontario, and Canada would be the leader initially producing environmentally friendly goods and then migrating to a the service sector again once the manufacturing techniques are stolen by China - sorry, I meant sold to developing countries.

As much as Harper liked to say that thousands of workers from GM/Ford/Chrysler who got laid off earlier this year have found new jobs and are contributing in a new economy, there's a huge loss in tax revenue from someone who was making $30/hr on the line in GM's Oshawa Plant #2 to $18/hr doing construction, repairs or line work in a non-union-heavy factory. Where would I find a billion dollars to throw at GM you ask? From the same place the government is able to find money for three $300 Million (give or a take a few million) elections in four years of course.

So how do I see this all working out? One of two ways:
1. Tories win an election and then the Liberals go searching for a new leader under the premise that "Dion, you had your chance". In comes Michael Ignatieff or another "White Knight" in a non-polarizing fashion to take over the leadership and guide the Liberals to a majority victory in 2010 (or maybe 2011 if it's polite to wait until after the Olympics).
2. Liberals win a minority government and by joining forces with the NDP and Bloc pass legislation that actually makes the government work for whole five years. Stephane Dion would then have the chance at winning a majority in 2013 but probably wouldn't.

Other things that would happen if the Liberals win a minority gov't:

• The Tories would go through a leadership change, maybe even two and may even split up for a while and then come back together. Hopefully by 2013 Peter McKay hasn't screwed things up tremendously and can be a legitamate candidate for his party's leadership.
  
• The NDP may or may not stick with Layton, it really doesn't matter. They aren't going to win. And they won't have more than the 30 seats they have now. Ok, maybe a couple here and there but they won't become the official opposition.
  
• The Bloc are on cruise control already and will probably keep the 50-55 seat total they've currently enjoyed for the past 15 years. That number may drop into the high 40's with a continued Conservative push into Quebec - but if there are two things Quebecers don't like it's wasting taxpayer money and wasting lives in Afghanistan, both of which the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper just doesn't seem to understand.
  

2008 Entry Draft and Mats Sundin

Let's start this off with an interesting question. Is this the last of Mats Sundin with the Maple Leafs?

While I personally don't hope so, it seems Leaf brass are content in getting rid of our captain at any cost. I understand the team needs to rebuild and re-define itself in the league but why would giving away our best (and favourite) player be considered a positive move? Yes Mats is 37, and can't play another 10 years, so then why don't the Leafs offer a similar deal to the one he signed last year (and the year before). Mats has earned the right to take each season as it comes, and Mats has always expressed interest in finishing his career as a Maple Leaf. I fail to see how having a dependable player, one who is a positive influence on our younger players and one who has proven his committment to the Maple Leafs, as a negative. I fail to see having a point-a-game player on your NHL roster at $5mil and change as a negative.

Mats value in the open market, and as a younger player signing a long-term deal would easily be in the $7-$8mil range and although no team will probably offer that kind of money, I don't necessarily think that Mats is interested in that kind of offer either. The Leafs seem intent on shedding some payroll and opening up roster spots to younger players, but by not offering Mats an extension or new one year deal is insulting and doesn't show the kind of committment the organization has to the players who've done so many things for the team in the past. Why would the talented young players commit themselves to a team who doesn't commit itself to them?

For the future of the Leaf's re-building efforts and acquistion of new talent, along with the appearance of just a little bit of class, I surely hope Mats will be back with Leafs.

The second interesting question is, who is Luke Schenn? Toronto traded up in the draft and picked up a defensive defenseman instead of Russian Nikita Filatov. TSN's Pierre McGuire calls Schenn a Franchise Player for the Maple Leafs and someone you can build a team around. I'm not convinced that Schenn will be the Adam Foote type player that he's compared to and will most likely end up being another Luke Richardson for Toronto. You have to remember that the tough stay at home defensemen are only stars on teams that have some scoring punch (unless you're the New Jersey Devil's of the late 1990's). Otherwise they're good players on not-so-good teams.

We'll see how all this plays out. Maybe without Mats and with a whole bunch of youngsters Toronto is making a move to tank for the 2008-09 season and wind up with a shot of grabbing Tavares next year. Who knows.

Thank you Trevor Linden!

Just a quick note here really, after 19 seasons Trevor Linden as more than likely played his last game. A tough competitor who was the heart and soul of the Vancouver Canucks, Linden I'm sure will be missed by his team meats and fans alike. I know there's some people who think that Trevor Linden was the best Canuck ever, and for all I know he could be although I think I'm partial to Stan Smyl or Tony Tanti! Anyway, getting on with things here, Linden's career totals aren't that impressive, but he just knocked Eric Lindros out of the top 100 point getters in NHL history with 867.