Preds survive Hurricanes, tornadoes

After defeating the Hurricanes 1-0 on Tuesday night, the Predators and their fans were told that they couldn't leave the arena due to tornado warnings. NHL.com reported that thunder claps and tornado warning sirens were audible. Mid-way through the third, with the game still knotted at zero, there was some talk that perhaps they would evacuate the building and suspend the game.

In my game recap, I mistakenly reported that the Capitals had leapfrogged Carolina into first place in the SE division. What I messed up was that the standings had already been updated. As of now, Carolina still has a tenuous one point lead in the division and the Caps have two (not one) games in hand.

They will use one of those two games in hand tonight against the Flyers. Carolina fans will be reluctantly pulling for the Flyers.

Carolina loses game, LaRose, SE lead

On Tuesday night, the Hurricanes and Preds ended up locked in a goaltending duel. The red light only came on once during the game, and the home team emerged with a thrilling 1-0 victory.

The first two periods were, frankly, mundane. I had very little reason to even stir as I sat on the couch. I could have been reading, or doing my taxes, or working a cryptoquote or whatever. Neither team was able to mount any sustained pressure against the other. Both goaltenders were stopping everything and not giving up rebounds.

In the third period, Nashville had a clear advantage in time of possession and the puck stayed in Carolina's end for nearly the entire 20 minutes. Cam Ward really shone in the final frame, turning aside some high-quality chances.

The impasse ended when the former Sabre JP Dumont finished a three-on-one rush. The time of the goal was 11:59 of the third, and it was assisted by Jason Arnott and Alexander Radulov, who had a six-game goals streak heading into the game.

That goal would be the only one.

The shutout means that Carolina hasn't scored a goal in 111 minutes and 33 seconds. It also means that they are 0-4 on the road against the Central Division. They lost 4-1 to the Blue Jackets, 5-2 to the Red Wings, and suffered the same 1-0 fate at the hands of the Blues. Their chance to save face will be March 12 against the Blackhawks.

Chad "Sharpie" LaRose suffered a freak injury in the first period. On his first shift, he was going hard after a loose puck behind the Preds net. He couldn't stop and went hard, feet-first into the boards the same way Sidney Crosby did. He has suffered a broken leg and will be out for several weeks. Cue Brandon Nolan.

Carolina got one bit of good news on the bad night: Atlanta lost in regulation. However, the Capitals won their game, which puts them one point ahead of Carolina in the standings, and with a game in hand.

Carolina will have a chance to make it better as their five game road swing continues in our nation's Capital on Friday night. They will have the opportunity to climb back into first place. If they lose in regulation, they will fall even further behind.

The three stars of the game Tuesday are pretty easy. The hard part is ordering them. The official stars went to Cam Ward (third), JP Dumont (second) and Chris Mason (first). I'm gonna give my boy more credit than that. The RBH three stars:
THIRD STAR Jean-Pierre Dumont, NAS --- GWG
SECOND STAR Cam Ward, CAR --- 33 saves
FIRST STAR Chris Mason, NAS --- 31 saves, shutout

There is no doubt about it. Carolina is in a "must-win" situation on Friday. Washington will be using their game in hand tomorrow night against the high-flying Flyers in Philadelphia. Obviously, Canes fans will be rooting for the Flyers.

On another note, it was 72 degrees today, but it's still WAY too early to think about planting tomatoes.

Canes visit Bubba

On Tuesday night, the Hurricanes will visit Bubba for the second of five straight road games. They are coming off a 4-1 loss in Pittsburgh on Saturday.

This will be the fourth game in the Central division road game series. So far, Carolina has lost on the road to Columbus, Detroit and St. Louis. While these out-of-conference games are generally regarded as "not as important", Carolina will need a win to avoid falling into second place in the Southeast Division.

The last time Carolina met the Predators was in the year of the Cup. Carolina won in overtime and Tomas Vokoun had a major meltdown afterwards, launching his goalie stick into the protective netting behind him. Of course Vokoun is no longer a Pred, and Josef Vasicek doesn't play for either team anymore.

This will be Scott Walker's first return to Bubba since he left the Preds in the summer of '06.

Speaking of the Preds, some idiotic rumor monger (you know which one) is trying to suggest that the Canes are looking to ship Erik Cole to the Preds for Kevin Klein +. Sorry, but I'm not buying that, unless the "plus" means Martin Erat. Klein, who is most famous for starring in "A Fish Called Wanda", "Dave" and "The Ice Storm", has played in only 16 NHL games. This season, he has appeared in 11 games and has recorded two assists. He has been a healthy scratch for the last 11 games, and was scratched for 24 straight games earlier in the season. Although he sort of falls into the "puck-moving defenseman" category that the Canes are looking for, he's just not NHL-ready. Carolina would have to get much more in the "immediate impact" department to make a Cole trade make any sense. Radulov is right out. There are no other forwards who would make any sense.

I'm just not buying this as a trade deadline thing. Much more likely would be for something to happen with Colorado and J-M Liles.

Nashville will be playing the third of four straight home games, and they have won the last two.

For some excellent Preds coverage, please visit On the Forecheck.

Puck drop will be 8:00 Eastern time, and the game will be broadcast nationally on Versus.

Your 2009 Kansas City Predators???

Just a few weeks after it looked for all the world like the Predators would be sold to Jim Balsillie and moved to Hamilton Ontario, Predators owner Craig Leipold has put an end to that. On Thursday, Leipold sent a big "Up yours, buddy" to Balsillie by saying that he will refuse the $238M offer. Instead, he is prepared to accept a $188M offer from William DelBiaggio, who plans to move the team to Kansas City.
TSN Story here

I love this. Balsillie has proven himself to be a giant bag of Summer's Eve, and deserves this Karmic payback for what he did with the Penguins. Unfortunately, the people of Hamilton will suffer. I feel bad for them, but they have Balsillie to blame.

The shiny new Sprint Center was built in Kansas City, Missouri for the express purpose of luring an NHL or NBA team to the city. It will open this year, and will most likely be the home of an expansion franchise of the Women's National Basketball Assosiation. This arena is ready to go, and would be available if there was an immediate relocation. There would be no need for a temporary home.

Good for Kansas City!

Here's the weird part though. From that same TSN article:

Kansas City, which recently built a brand new downtown arena, has been searching for a permanent tenant and recently made a pitch to try and lure the Pittsburgh Penguins to Missouri. The arena is managed by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which is owned by L.A. Kings owner Philip Anschutz.

DelBiaggio has an agreement with the Anschutz Group to own and operate an NHL franchise in the new arena.

So, in a sort of stretched out way, one NHL team would be paying rent to the owner of a different NHL team. I wonder how the concessions revenues would pay out. The Kings owner profiting from sales of Scouts merchandise? I'm sure they'd work somehing out.

More about the Hamilton Predators.

There has been a lot of noise made on this blog and others concerning the recent purchase of the Nashville Predators by Research In Motion CEO Jim Balsillie. There was also a bit of noise made (mostly by Mirtle) about Balsillie's recent land acquisition near Hamilton Ontario.

At first, I quickly drank the kool-aid on that one. After some careful consideration, though, that land acquisition seems way too small to have anything to do with the construction of an arena. Follow me for a second.

One acre is equal to 43,560 square feet. 25.7 acres is a total of 1,119,492 square feet. Looking around the league at the size of the arenas, most of them are roughly the same size. Using the Bell Centre in Montréal as an example, it is 351 feet by 479 feet, or 168,129 square feet. This refers to just the arena itself. Many other arenas have outbuildings or annexes, but this one is just the single building.

If you built a building like that on the Balsillie plot of land, you're left with 951,363 square feet. That sounds like a lot, but it isn't. At least not if you want to have any parking. According to some research that I've done, you need approximately 325 square feet for every parking space. This accounts for the parking space itself, plus the driving lanes between the rows, and other space necessary to make the parking lot functional. If you slammed the parking lot smack up against the building, that kind of land allows for 2,927 parking spaces. That doesn't allow for any roads on the premises or any landscaping, or any bus parking lots, or anything else. 2,927 parking spaces is not nearly enough. Especially if you're talking about an area that isn't exactly urban.

Parking garages tend to be more trouble than they're worth, and moreso as their scale increases. A garage/garages capable of handling 8,000 cars would be enormous, and would create a world of headache for fans entering and exiting the structure.

None of this talk has even gotten into the other infrastructural things arenas need like landscaping and bus lots and roads.

Could the parcel of land host an arena and an enormous parking deck? Theoretically, yes. Logistically and realistically, no. That land is for something else.

HOWEVER....

Earlier this week, in Gary Bettman's state of the League address, he claimed that Jim Balsillie had no intentions of moving the Predators. We all know this to be false, but reporters somehow spun Bettman's words into the misleading "The Predators aren't going anywhere". Referring to the "cure" clause in the Predators' lease with Nashville, what he actually said was

"If the attendance mark is satisfied, even if it's not, or if the city cures what would then be the default, this team is not going anywhere"

Even still, it's apparent that Balsillie has other plans. On Thursday, it was announced the the city of Hamilton has given Balsillie a thumbs-up to take over the Hamilton Place and Convention Centre (which includes the 17,500 seat Copps Coliseum) if he brings an NHL team there. Hamilton mayor Fred Eisenberger:

He has assured me that he wants to secure a team and he is interested in bringing it to Hamilton.

Quite different from Gary Bettman's quote when asked if Balsillie wanted to move the team:

"He told me that he did not"

Forget about the land acquisition. This is where the Preds would play.

Move the Preds to the Northeast division of the Eastern Conference.

To make up for the Conference imbalance, move the Thrashers to the Central division of the Western Conference. They're further west than Detroit and Columbus anyway.

To make up for the division imbalance, two moves have to be made. Move Boston out of the Northeast and into the Atlantic. Secondly, move Philadelphia out of the Atlantic and into the "Southeast" division. It'll break up some of the traditional division rivals, but there might not be another way to achieve balance. Rename the division. Better yet, rename ALL of the divisions. Ditch the geographic names and go back to the old school.

your 2009 Hamilton Predators???

Rumors were confirmed on Thursday afternoon when Craig Leipold made public his intent to sell the Nashville Predators to Jim Balsillie.

Here is the press release from the Predators. Contained within are audio files of the entire conference.
Here is a letter from Leipold to the Predators fans. He said that he tried to run it like a business, and it is a failing business. Some of his key points, in his own words:

• Our average regular season attendance this past season was 13,589, up from the year before, but still 2,000 below the NHL average. A low turnout, combined with a low ticket price results in a poor financial situation.
  
• While individual fan support has always been strong, we’ve worked aggressively to increase our local business support since Season Four. We’ve tried a variety of approaches with minimal success. Our records show today that corporate support for the Nashville Predators makes up about 35% of our season ticket base. The average in other markets is around 60%. During our first two years, approximately 4,000 businesses owned season tickets. Today, only 1,800 businesses have season tickets.
  
• The Nashville Predators tallied up 216 points in the last two seasons, fifth most in the NHL, yet because of below-average attendance, the team will still have a real cash loss of $27 million during that time. Additionally, that loss is despite receiving the most money in the league from revenue sharing. Over the last five years, the team has lost over $60 million.

Something isn't right about this.

Who told him that owning a hockey team was a money-making venture?

He says he's been trying to sell the team for years, but he could only get minor interest from local groups looking for "partial ownership". This is the first serious "full ownership" offer he's had.

The sale will be completed in July.

What isn't clear is whether the sale will be to Balsillie personally, or to his company, Research in Motion. This is perhaps a very important factor. According to James Mirtle, RIM has purchased a 25.7 acre plot of land in Cambridge, Ontario. Mirtle points to an article in the Cambridge Times a week ago. Apparently, RIM and Balsillie were all "no comment" when asked about this land purchase.

My first reaction was "Wait. Just how much land is that?". Then I did some research about other hockey rinks, how much land they sit on, etc. Of course I looked first at the RBC Center, which sits on a whopping 80 acres of land. Not many others have information available about the footprint of their arenas, but I was able to learn that the Pepsi Center in Denver occupies a 4.6 acre parcel of land. This is definitely big enough, then to house an NHL arena, parking, and lots more.

The land is in Cambridge, but if (as the speculation goes) this land is intended for arena construction, and Balsillie relocates his team there, it's highly likely that they'll use "Hamilton" as their name, or "South Ontario", or maybe just "Ontario".

Naturally, this is putting the horse WAY before the cart. This sale will have to be approved by the league. It will. Any move will have to be approved by the league and its Board of Governors. That might get a little tricky.

For now, let's just speculate.

Preds sold

As of right now, this is unofficial, but by mid-day Thursday, it will be announced that the Nashville Predators have been sold to Blackberry mogul Jim Balsillie. You probably recall that Balsillie had a deal in place to purchase the Penguins, but reneged when he discovered that the team wouldn't leave Pittsburgh. He's found a "plan B".

Despite having one of the best teams in the NHL for two years running, the Preds have drawn really poorly at home. Their average attendance this season was somewhere close to 13,000, but close to 1000 of those were promotional and other "free" tickets. Their paid attendance was said to be nearer to 12,000. There is some discrepancy about the attendance numbers: some figures show their average take to be over 15,000. No matter whose numbers you use, there is little debate that the Preds just aren't a hot ticket in Nashville.

Other teams with poor attendance figures (including Carolina) have long leases with their city, or have too much history to move. The Nashville Predators, however, have an "out" clause in their lease with the city. If the team isn't selling an average of 14,000 paid tickets per game, they can either force the city to make up the difference, or they can leave. Next season will be their tenth, and it's likely that Balsillie will use it as the "cure" season.

The smart money is that Jim Balsillie will take the mustard-clad team out of Nashvegas and send it to Winnipeg, or Quebec City, or Moose Jaw, or Sault Ste Marie, or anywhere in Canada.

Will the fans in Nashvegas respond to a "Save the Preds" campaign? Doubtful. Will they buy enough tickets to "cure" the attendance woes? Possibly, but not in a long-term kind of way. Will the city cough up the money to make up the difference? Maybe.

I still say that the start of the 08-09 season will see a new Canadian team. Hopefully, the relocation will inspire Balsillie to change the name and the colors, too. I'm sure they'll have a new sleek color scheme involving silver and black. There'll be a full QWERTY keyboard embedded somewhere on the new team's sweater.

Depending on where the new team calls home, there might be a call for radical realignment.

holy overtime! playoffs get off to great start

After one day in which two of the four playoff games one went to overtime, all I can say is "Wow!"

Of course I watched the Nucks-Stars game. However, to answer what has been a very popular question today, no. No, I didn't stay up for the entire game. I actually wussed out during the first overtime, but it turned out to be a good call since the game didn't conclude for another couple of hours. By the time Henrik Sedin scored at 18:06 of the fourth overtime, it was 3:30am here. Of course this brings into question the strength of my loyalty to my "second team". I don't have an answer for that.

There is no doubt that both the Nucks and the Stars came ready to play in that one, and is should be a ton of fun to watch this series pan out. It's also clear that they're going to be calling these games tight. Tight, but balanced.

I didn't catch any of the Pens-Sens, but from what I've been told (by a hardcore Pens fan) the Pens are not ready. At least they weren't last night. Will they be able to respond in game two? Are they physically unprepared? Game three should be the real telling game in that series.

Ugh. Preds-Sharks. There were some ugly moments in that game. Chief among them was the kneeing incident involving Scott Hartnell of the Preds and Jonathan Cheechoo of the Sharks. Hartnell was given a game misconduct, but Barry Trotz disagreed with the call. Cheechoo will undergo an MRI (presumably today). He also lost a tooth and bashed up his face in the collision. There's no word just yet on whether there will be additional disciplinary action against Hartnell. According to NHL rules, what happened in the regular season is wiped clean, and your rap sheet starts over with each round.
That game also went to overtime, and the guy who could have been the goat for San Jose ended up being the hero. Patrick Rissmiller, whose turnover late in regulation allowed Nashville to force overtime ended up getting the game winner eight minutes into the second overtime.
If Cheechoo has to miss more than one game, this series will be over very quickly. They played the majority of the game without him last night, but they won't be able to do it for a whole series.

Preds perform dirty trick, Ray Whitney on fire.

On Friday, the Hurricanes exchanged third line centers with the Predators. Both teams had the chance to get rid of a player that just wasn't "fitting in". Nashville coach Barry Trotz explained it just like that, saying that it was a "lateral" change for both players and teams.

Obviously, Carolina knows JoVa very well, and he won't need any adjustment at all in the locker room. There's maybe two guys in the room who he doesn't know.

"The Condor" played with the Canes on Saturday, giving the Hurricanes a Czech connection that has been missing for some time.

Belanger didn't play with the Preds on Saturday. Before he even set foot in the Preds locker room, he was traded to the Thrashers for defenseman Vitaly Vishnevsky. A very dirty trick by Nashville GM David Poile. No team likes to make intra-division trades, especially with the unbalanced schedule. Jim Rutherford doesn't even like trading within the Eastern Conference. This manoeuvre, though, puts Belanger back in the Southeast division. Had this been on the table as a three-way trade, Rutherford would have had no part of it. Poile insists that is wasn't his intention for this to happen, but I just don't buy that. In the long run, it's not likely that Belanger will be able to give away any secrets, but it's still dirty pool. I hope the hockey gods take note of this underhanded tactic and smite the Preds and Thrash appropriately.

Due to excessive drunkenness last night, I didn't see any of the Canes v Wild game. The Canes rallied from a three goal deficit to make a good game out of it, but lost 5-4. Eric Staal had a 3 (1/2) point night and Ray Whitney added a goal and an assist. "The Wizard" is completely en fuego. He's scored seven (4/3) points in the last two games and has 23 (9/14) points in the last 15. After getting a natural hat trick in a stunning 100 second span Thursday night, he told reporters that he was just lucky, but Eric Staal thought otherwise:

"It was one of those nights," Whitney said. "I was the beneficiary of some hard work by the other guys."

"You were on fire," Staal interjected as he walked past Whitney's locker.

"I was on fire," Whitney said. "Let's be honest."

He'll take a four game points streak into Tuesday's home game against the Kings. More on that later.

Another weird hockey dream

I think I need to check myself into a clinic or something. There's something seriously wrong with me. I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm a Canucks fan in Canes fan clothing.
Remember in March when I had a dream about being kidnapped and brainwashed by 'Nucks operatives? Yeah. It was all crazy Manchurian Candidate style. Not the Jonathan Demme vehicle starring Liev Schrieber and Denzel Washington. That was garbage. I mean the John Frankenheimer film with Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra. I was scared, and a bunch of people joked that I was secretly a Canucks fan. Maybe they're right.

On Sunday night, after attending the holiday parties of both of my places of work (read: getting piss babbling drunk), I came home and passed out on my couch sitting upright with my suit still on. I didn't wake up until I was already an hour late for work Monday morning, and I didn't sober up until about 4 pm. During the few hours of drunken sleep, I had the following dream.

(Cue dream sequence harp music)

Keith Primeau was cleared by doctors and decided to come out of retirement. He was picked up by the Canucks. As soon as the news broke, I was really excited. (In real life, I HATE Keith Primeau with burning passion). I wanted to see him play, and since the Nucks don't visit Carolina until 2007-08, I traveled to Nashville to see Primeau and the Nucks take on the Preds.

The Preds were having their way early. JP Dumont had two goals to lead the way for the Preds to take a 3-1 lead in the first. As soon as the second period started, Marek Zidlicky checked Primeau hard into the boards along the players' bench area. Primeau picked himself up and for some reason went after Trevor Linden for retribution. His own teammate! Linden was, of course, stunned, as was every person in the building. Primeau kept swinging at him and eventually, Linden had to retaliate in kind. The two teammates traded punches for several seconds as everyone watched in confused silence. For some reason, even though I was at the game, I was also watching it on television. The play-by-play guy, not knowing what else to say, said "Well... Sometimes this happens." After the "fight" ended, there were several moments of confusion at the scorers' table, and ultimately, Primeau was ejected and Linden forced to sit five minutes in the box.

Wow. I have no idea. I keep having these bizarre whacked out dreams about the Nucks. Either I am a closet Nucks fan, or I really was brainwashed. And Primeau? Seriously? I hate that dude so much.
Of course I consumed enough alcohol that night to kill a small dog. Maybe that has something to do with it. For what it's worth, I have never in my life felt as crappy as I did Monday. All day Monday. Let that be a lesson. There's no such thing as free beer. Even when there's no out-of-pocket expense, that 9% ABV stuff that I was drinking will bite you in the ass one way or another.

Big Joe's homecoming -- Preds 5, Canes 4.

On Friday night, the Hurricanes opened their pre-season with a 5-4 loss to the Nashville Predators. As if it was all written out by a fabulous poet, Josef Vasicek got the game winner on a short-handed breakaway with about a minute and a half to play in regulation. Vasicek was traded this summer from the Canes to the Preds for Scott Walker. The Preds won't play in Raleigh this season, so it will be a long time before we see big Joe again. I missed my chance to wear the Vasicek 63 sweater one last time.

I wasn't able to make it out to the rink, but Chris (aka Penalty Killer)was there, and offers his game recap. This season, Chris and I have seats that are close enough to each other that we could practically share a tub of popcorn.

It's hard to place much, if any, stock in these preseason games, but the word on the street is that Shane Willis, who is one of several players competing for a final spot on the forward lines, played well. He had one goal and one assist. A lot of brows were furrowed this summer when the Canes signed Willis to bring him back into the organization. He had a good season for the Canes in 2000-01, scoring 44 (20/24) points. However, he was literally knocked out of the playoffs by a brutal Scott Stevens hit. Willis wouldn't return to that series, which Carolina lost. The following season, he was traded to the City of Tampa Lightning in exchange for Kevin Weekes. This would prove to be a very good move for the Canes, who made a surprising run to the Stanley Cup finals in 2002 thanks to the outstanding playoff goaltending of Kevin Weekes. That season, Willis scored a total of 24 points (11/13). Since then, Willis only played in 12 NHL contests. Most people say that he was a promising youngster prior to getting laid out by Stevens, and that he lost a good deal of his "game" with the hit. We're hoping that his play last night is indicitive of a return to form.

Kim Staal (no relation) scored two goals for the Preds, while Scott Nichol, Ramzi Abid and the aforementioned Vasicek got the other Nashville tallies.

Ray Whitney scored twice for the Canes, while Andrew Ladd and Willis had the others.

They used the same format as last preseason -- shootouts in all games. All I know is that Vasicek scored and the Preds "won" the shootout.

Tonight, the b-squad Canes and the b-squad Preds square off in Nashville. I'll be listening on the radio as I participate in my on-line draft.