ben's Blog

HTML clipboard OK, I admit it. Wrong again. I was seven for seven in the first round of the playoffs (couldn’t get off the fence on the Penguins-Flyers series), then I went ahead and stayed with Anaheim over Detroit in round two. I did pick the Penguins, Blackhawks, and ‘Canes to advance, but the problem wasn’t that I picked the Ducks over the Red Wings; the real issue is that I stayed with my Detroit is Doomed philosophy in the conference finals, as well. Why? Two words: Chris Osgood.

That’s where I have been so far off base. Count me among those that didn’t believe Osgood (should we start calling him Osgreat?) could flip the switch from such a pedestrian performance during the regular season (save percentage of .887) and become the goalie he’s been thus far in the playoffs. Hey, I know he’s been there and done that. I know he’s just 11 regular-season wins shy of the 400 barrier, and I know he’s being talked about in sentences that include the words Hall of Fame.

But for goodness sake, this is a guy that seemed so disinterested at one point during the regular season that he was told to take a leave of absence to refocus. I’d love to know what he did during those few days away from the team, because it should be bottled and marketed to every goaltender playing the game today. He hasn’t just flipped a switch for the playoffs; he’s recharged his game with enough juice left over to reboot the entire Midwest electrical grid if it should ever fail.

One prevailing theory on Osgood - and I plead guilty for subscribing to it - was that he could give his team adequate goaltending but probably would wither if his team uncharacteristically gave up too many good scoring chances. So far the Wings defensive effort has withered far more often that of Osgood. Heck, you could make the case that the Red Wings are in great position to defend their Stanley Cup championship because of the man they call Ozzie, not in spite of him.

At times in all three series thus far, and certainly no more so than early in the Blackhawks series, he has had to be not just solid but spectacular to get his team where it is. And he absolutely has been all of that, and more. The way he’s playing could he end up with his fourth Stanley Cup ring and first Conn Smythe trophy? Yes and yes. He has truly been the Wizard of Oz in this post-season, and this crow is not tasting good. Not at all.

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Odgie, we hardly knew ye. Well, that’s not exactly true. Before we all got to know Jeff Odgers as a broadcaster, we had the privilege of watching him crash, bang, and fight his way into the hearts of Thrashers fans as the player fondly known as the Sheriff. It was a fitting nickname; whenever things got a little dicey for the upstart new Atlanta team in those early years, the Sheriff would ride in with fists ablazin’ and restore order. And it didn’t matter which member of the opposition may have been disturbing the Thrashers’ peace back then. Odgie was an equal opportunity law provider. He was a middleweight physically but a true heavyweight when it came to heart and courage; there was never a physical challenge on the ice he was unwilling to meet. That was his hallmark as an NHL survivor. Through the combination of impeccable work ethic, desire, and toughness, Jeff Odgers was able to carve out a 12-year career at the world’s highest level of hockey in true overachiever’s fashion.

When he was presented the opportunity to enter the broadcasting business just a couple of years ago, Odgie applied those same attributes to the booth. The evening he sat behind a microphone for the first time, his skills may have been raw, but his effort and personality are the qualities that shone. And once he became comfortable in his new setting and was able to polish those raw skills, Jeff Odgers – in my humble opinion – was as entertaining an analyst as there was on any NHL radio broadcast. With his humor, insight, and drive, Odgie had once again overachieved.

In my 22 years broadcasting hockey at the pro level (NHL & AHL), I have been privileged to work with some terrific broadcast partners, who all brought energy, insight, humor, and hard work to the job. Odgie was as entertaining and effective a broadcast partner as I’ve ever been fortunate enough to sit next to in the booth. His humor was infectious, his insight fresh, and his connection with the fans was off the charts. But those aren’t the primary reasons I’ll miss working with Jeff, now that he has decided to move back to Saskatchewan with his two incredible sons, Jon and Dakota.

The number one reason I’ll miss working with Jeff Odgers is the friendship forged over the past two years. It’s been an honor to get to know Odgie the person and be able to consider him a close friend. Once Jeff settled into his new surroundings, every broadcast we did felt like two friends getting together to talk some hockey. To me, that is the kind of in-booth atmosphere that projects best over the air and makes my job one of the most enjoyable I can imagine.

The good news is that Jeff Odgers will be back in Atlanta from time to time and will maintain an association with the franchise, including some probable on-air appearances. That’s the way it should be. Notwithstanding the nine (or so) broken noses during his career (none in the booth), you could make a case that Odgie was the first “face” of this franchise. And who knows, maybe we’ll be adding the voice to the face, somewhere down the road. Best of luck, Odg.

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Leadership comes in many forms, some extremely obvious, others less so. Under the latter category, I place Brenden Morrow’s composure after taking a blatant crosscheck to the face from Kris Draper of the Red Wings in game five of the Western Conference Final. Can you imagine the restraint it took for Morrow to turn away from that cheap shot, which, incredibly, went unnoticed by the referees? That’s what leaders do, though, and that’s why Morrow is one of the great young leaders in the game. He wears the “C” for a reason, and he wasn’t about to think of himself first with his team holding onto a one-goal lead in a must-win game. Morrow’s decision not to retaliate won’t show up in any box scores of that impressive Dallas win, but you can bet it registered with his teammates and the Stars coaching staff. Yes, the Stars ultimately failed to pull off the comeback, but it was an impressive run, and Morrow is an impressive captain.

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It’s months away, but I’m already looking forward to the next head-to-head matchup between Mike Richards and Sidney Crosby. There seems to be genuine disdain there, at least from Richards’ standpoint, and that slash the Flyers’ captain-in-waiting dished out on Penguins’ captain Sid the Kid in the closing moments of game four of the Eastern Conference Final smacked of a message for the present and the future.

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Speaking of the Flyers, for that team to go from the dregs of the league last season to this year’s final four speaks volumes of that franchise’s commitment to winning and to excellence. Finishing as badly as they did last year sat well with no one in the organization, and they went out and made the moves necessary to make sure it was just an aberration. I know the Flyers haven’t won a cup in over 30 years, but it isn’t for lack of effort. It’s an ownership and management team that is clearly focused on doing what it takes to win in the NHL, and that’s as much as any fan should ask. And what the Flyers did prove, too, is that fortunes can be turned around quickly in this salary-cap era.

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There apparently IS kissing in hockey. Trevor Daley of the Stars planted one on the mask of his goaltender Marty Turco after Turco’s remarkable performance in the 2-1 Dallas win in game five against Detroit. That kiss may take more YouTube hits than the gorgeous top-shelf goal Daley scored in the same game. It was a spontaneous, funny moment in a playoff season that has truly sparkled.

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Finally, it turns out Penguins’ GM Ray Shero had a better pulse on his team’s upside than many of us, including me. When he made the deadline deal with Atlanta, I was among those guilty of wondering if he had given up too much and had overestimated Pittsburgh’s chances of making a serious Stanley Cup run. In reality, the Pens were ready for more; they were ready for a Stanley Cup sprint.

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As always, I headed downtown to catch the respective game-day skates, then it was off to the locker room to chat with the players and wait for the scrums with the head coaches. The date was Saturday April 5th and the Thrashers opponent was Tampa. It was the same routine, but at the same time so different. This was the final game of the 2007-08, a season that had begun with such promise and had so many twists in turns. But in the end, it was a year that fell short of everybody’s expectations. There would be no playoffs this season for the Atlanta Thrashers, and that is appropriately the benchmark by which any NHL team is judged.

So now the off-season is here, and for me that always means adjustments and changes. This is the time of the year, for example, when my consumption of chicken wings drops about 65 percent. Don’t ask me why wings are a broadcaster’s staple on NHL road trips; they just are, and I’m not one to complain or question. I just go along for the culinary ride and eat more than my share, on the hot side thank you.

I will wake up most days in the off-season actually knowing what day it is and where I am. During the season that’s not often the case. We don’t have a tough travel schedule in Atlanta, at least not in terms of the distance of most flights. What does get to be a bit dicey, though, is the frequency of our trips. Because Atlanta is a quick flight to most NHL destinations, we tend to take more short trips, so it’s not unusual to be in four different cities in five or six days. Some weeks every day feels like Sunday in Newark, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Inevitably during the off-season I will have a dream that there is a hockey game I am supposed to work, and I’m not there (hold your applause, please). When I shake the cobwebs and realize it’s the middle of July, I’ll be relieved it was just a dream, then disappointed that I’m not headed to a game soon. Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to wind down after a long season, but early-April to September is too long without hockey, at least for me.

As a public service, I should also mention I will get my share of time on the golf courses of Atlanta during the off-season. I apologize in advance if you’re the foursome of ringers I’m holding up while I take my obligatory hikes in the woods. I’m a guy who likes my hockey up and down and my golf courses wide open, but as the great philosopher Mick Jagger once suggested, you can’t always get what you want.

Most of all, though, during the off-season, I will keep track of the moves, the signings, and all the rest of the news coming out of the hockey world, even in July. And I will look forward with great anticipation to the opportunity to watch the promise of September’s NHL training camps unfold to another chase for Lord Stanley’s Cup.

For the Thrashers, may the chase be long and fruitful.

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Of all the fallout and opinions from the NHL’s trading deadline day, the one that stuck with me the most had nothing to do with who was traded by whom and who may have gotten the better end of a particular deal. A few days after the deadline, a co-worker happened to stop by to talk about the various trades around the league and asked me why the NHL doesn’t just suspend all games that day.

Doh.

Why in the world wouldn’t the league give every team that day off? All the NHL has to do is make sure the trading deadline falls on a weekday (preferably Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) and just let the sheer power of the anticipation and reality surrounding all those trades serve as the focal point for fans and media for the whole day. There are plenty of media outlets giving the rumors leading up to the trades and the trades themselves wall-to-wall coverage (trust me, you can find them). That coverage could easily be extended several hours; there truly is that much interest among real hockey fans. Plus – and I don’t mean to sound like Dr. Phil here – wouldn’t it be good for teams that are either losing or gaining players, or both, to have an extra day to absorb it all? Chemistry is a huge intangible for any hockey team and trades always impact chemistry, sometimes profoundly.

But those aren’t the best reasons to fade the games to black for that one day. As it stands now, the games themselves can become anticlimactic to the trades, particularly since players traded to teams playing that same night almost inevitably cannot join their new teams because of travel issues. That in itself is reason enough to suspend games. You think, for example, the Thrashers wouldn’t have liked to have Colby Armstrong and Erik Christensen in the lineup against Montreal right after the trade? Atlanta, like most teams that time of the season, was playing a critical game, and it certainly would have been a plus to have its full NHL roster available. On the other side of that trade, I’m pretty sure the Penguins would have loved to write Marian Hossa’s and Pascal Dupuis’ name into the lineup card when they visited the Islanders a few hours after the trading deadline. Instead, Hossa and Dupuis were dealing with media in Montreal and planning their trip to Pittsburgh for a game two nights later.

There will always be a couple of dozen moves or so and a handful of blockbuster deals made on NHL trading deadline day. It’s time for teams to have the opportunity to put those players they’ve acquired in the lineup the very next game, not a game later. And it’s time for fans to expect no less.

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Just as there is no crying in baseball, there should be no “Roger Clemens-ing” in hockey. You know what Roger Clemens-ing is: you’re a proven veteran, a sure-fire hall- of-famer, so you make your own schedule when it comes to playing or not playing, joining or not joining a team. Time for spring training? Not according to my biological clock. I’m thinking I’ll set my own workout schedule and see if I’m ready or even interested in playing again. If I am, I know someone will sign me, and more than likely it’ll be exactly the team I want. Clemens has done it in the past because he can, and the same is true for Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne this season, although Niedermayer was actually under contract when he worked out his special calendar arrangements. Why does that not feel right to me? Because this is hockey, not baseball.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I think Niedermayer is one of the most productive and talented defensemen I’ve ever seen play the game, and certainly Selanne is among the most electrifying forwards ever to grace NHL ice. That’s not the point; the point is that one of hockey’s greatest strengths lies in its team-first mantra, and this doesn’t fit. Those two veterans aren’t the only guys who have played the game well enough and long enough to have earned the status and financial well being to set their own reporting schedule. What’s to stop the Joe Sakic’s and Nick Lidstrom’s of the hockey world to take a page from the Ducks’ veterans and decide that September is awfully early to be doing any heavy lifting or lung busting exercises? Would the Avalanche or Wings say no, even if it violated contractual obligations?

And does anyone care about the roster ramifications when a prodigal son does decide to return to the fold? You can bet Andy MacDonald and Doug Weight cared about it this season, since each was involved in a trade the Ducks had to make for salary-cap reasons when Niedermayer returned. Now that Selanne is on the Ducks roster, how will the trickle-down effect impact the rest of the team’s wingers, who have done everything asked of them for two-thirds of the season? Hey good to see you, Teemu, here’s my ice time.

I understand how players can suffer burnout and get caught in that gray area, unable to decide between retirement and returning to the grind of a long, difficult NHL season. But it’s always been a “we’re all in this together mentality” in hockey. If this separate calendar for the superstars thing becomes a trend, then the old adage that 50 percent of life is just showing up will have to be tweaked. It’ll be more like 50 percent of a season is good enough in the NHL, as long as you’re good enough to hold those kind of cards.

And that simply isn’t good enough, for the game.

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Since the Golden Globe Awards have been canceled, I thought it might be timely to suggest my Thrashers Mid-season Awards. At the risk of antagonizing the Hollywood Writers Guild, here goes:

Leading Role Award goes to Ilya Kovalchuk. Since the first drop of the puck in October, the kid (yes, he’s still only 24) has taken charge of this team and led by passion, production, and possession, as in he seems like a man possessed. If it’s possible for a player who was already the top goal scorer in the NHL since he entered the league in 2001 to elevate his game significantly, that’s what Kovalchuk appears to have done. He is scoring goals from everywhere on the ice, and some of the prettiest assists we’ve seen this year have been the work of the sniper from Tver, Russia. His playmaking is clearly underrated, and I’m beginning to think his shot may be, too. It seems heavier, faster, and more accurate than we’ve seen in the past, and that can’t be good news for opposing goalies.

In an amazing show of deductional analysis, I’m thinking the Biggest Surprise Award goes to Toby Enstrom. Wow, this kid has been a revelation, hasn’t he? To go from 8^th round pick to a bona fide candidate for NHL Rookie of the Year is a major step for any player, let alone a player learning a new culture as he learns a new league. Enstrom has shown poise and composure far, far beyond his 23 years and his first-year status in the NHL, and he has been rewarded with ample ice time by the Thrashers coaching staff. And now that his confidence level appears to be ramping up with every game, he seems more willing to show us significant flashes of his offensive repertoire. This young d-man from Sweden has been one of the stories of the year in the entire league, not just here in Atlanta. Of all the things I’m looking forward to in the second half, his continued emergence is right near the top.

The Newcomer of the Mid-Season Award is going to be one-timed over to Eric Perrin, who has been a fabulous addition for his faceoff skills and special teams work and is settling in beautifully as a top-two line center. I must also dole out several honorable mentions, including Todd White, who has gone from his defense-first mentality to give the team a potent offensive force and has meshed seamlessly with his eminently talented wingers. The man on his right, Mark Recchi had a lot to prove and felt he had a lot left when he arrived in Atlanta in early December. Thankfully for Atlanta fans, he’s stepped in and given this team exactly what it needed, top-six forward production. And he’s given Kovalchuk a chance to flash his passing skills, because the youngster knows the veteran of 500+ goals scored is either going to go to the net or get the puck right back to him. It’s been a well balanced line, and Recchi has shown his hands and hockey acumen are still in mid-career form. And finally, an honorable newcomer nod also to Ken Klee, who is playing productive, top d-pair minutes, and has helped resurrect the season of his partner, Alexei Zhitnik.

Don’t trip over the red carpet.

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