Thehockeydepot.com Tickled Pink

Seeing 230 pound player slash, hack and shoot with a bright pink stick, you may wonder what exactly is going on in the NHL these days! The sticks are used for two reasons during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Firstly to honor those that are perhaps most integral to the sport, those without which we may not have an NHL: hockey moms. Anyone that has been close to the game at the minor league level can appreciate the impact hockey moms have on the game from the grass roots level and even up to the big leagues for some players.

The second, and perhaps more pressing reason, is breast cancer awareness. Most people, including professional athletes, know someone or have been affected themselves by some form of cancer. Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in North America. It is also one of the leading causes of cancer death among women of all races. On average, 64 Canadian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer every day. On average, 14 Canadian women will die of breast cancer every day.

The sticks are inscribed with the player’s name and auctioned off with the proceeds going to breast cancer awareness. A noble cause and more than enough reason to wield a pink hockey stick.

-RC Oaten www.thehockeydepot.com

Flames Need to Set Fire to Roster

The blue-print for NHL success in the post-lockout NHL landscape is heavy on speed, youth, and more speed. Players are dominant at younger ages due to the crack down on interference and other infractions that slowed down the game and made it harder for younger, normally weaker, players to produce. These players can now use their speed to create chances and create havoc for slower defenders. The slow, plodding-but-nasty defenders that used to be a staple on any NHL blue line are now the dinosaurs of the sport. Speed kills.

Somehow the Calgary Flames management groups since the lock-out have missed the memo. Jay Feaster aside, too early to judge (but seems to say what the fans want to hear, but leaning towards doing the right thing with his veteran UFA-to-be roster). He gets the benefit of the doubt at this point as he was handed an over-priced, under-talented roster built for the way the NHL was played a decade ago. The core of the team has not proven good enough to lead the Flames into the playoffs in recent years and GM Jay Feaster is faced with an uphill battle as he is to add the pieces necessary to rejuvenate the Red Mile.

Some of the key veterans will become UFAs in July; in fact, the Flames have only five forwards under contract for the 2012-2013 season. And one of those is 3.5 million owed to Matt Stajan, a key component in the Dion Phanuef trade that appears to be falling out of favor in Calgary. On defense, they have four key veterans signed (when was Jay Bouwmeester ever worth 6.8 million per year again?) and Mikka Kiprusoff, though advancing quickly in age, is still capable of stealing games at 5.8 million through next year.

To sum the financials up, the Flames have twelve players signed for 2012-2013 at a cost of roughly 40 million in cap space. Needing eleven players or so to fill out their roster, assuming the salary cap stays near 65 million the Flames have 25 million available to add those players. Seems like a good opportunity to purge the roster, and spend money during unrestricted free agency period in July, in an attempt to provide support for team leader Jerome Iginla as well as Kiprusoff. The problem with that approach is yet another by-product of the post-lockout era. Impact players rarely make it to unrestricted free agency, making the development of your own players paramount.

This is an area where previous Flames management has failed miserably. The Flames are generally regarded as having one of the worst draft records in the NHL in recent memory. In fact, prospect and draft orientated website hockeysfuture.com has the Flames ranked dead last in the 30 team NHL in terms of NHL prospects. The list of the last several Flames’ first round picks is steeped in mediocrity. Most recently, Tim Erixon who is now patrolling the blue line for the New York Rangers after deciding he wouldn’t make a Flames’ team full of mediocre defenders protected by one-way contracts. Greg Nemisz and Mikael Backlund still have promise, but are looking more like potential role players at this point (something the Flames definitely do not lack). Leland Irving is still plodding away in the AHL, Matt Pelech never accomplished much and is now in San Jose’ system, and Kris Chucko was a bust. Have to go back to Dion Phanuef in 2003 to find a first round pick that has made an impact in the NHL. Since traded of course, in return for the aforementioned Stajan and Niklas Hagman, two players that fit into the over-priced, under-talented category, is all they have left to show for their best first round pick in the last decade.

So with very little options in unrestricted free agency and a terrible developmental track record, where do the Flames go from here? The set fire to the roster, trade the core that has proven to be just not good enough. Bring in young talent that other teams have developed and give Jay Feaster and co. an opportunity to overhaul the player development system. There are more minor hockey leagues to scout than the WHL. Somewhere the Flames forgot that and it has cost them dearly. Iginla, Kiprusoff and Rene Bourque are still highly valued around the league and could net the type of players the Flames need to re-build properly, from the ground up.

It remains to be seen if Flames fans can suffer through a re-build similar to what the Province rival Edmonton Oilers have gone through, but the respective futures of the Alberta teams could not be more different, one full of promise and excitement and the other grasping at past success. Hockey fans two hours up the highway have been passionate enough to survive a complete re-build and are now beginning to reap the benefits of that patience. No reason to believe that Flames fans couldn’t do the same.

R.C. Oaten – www.thehockeydepot.com