Why Playoff Hockey Offers The Best Entertainment Value

One of the reasons why the NHL continues to grow in popularity, especially in television viewership is the excitement that continues to be brought to the game by a host of fantastic young stars.

While we have seen the tide turning for a few years now, it has not been since the mid-1980′s that the National Hockey League has had as many bonafide young stars as it does today!

Playoff Hockey

What’s more, the NHL playoffs offer hockey fans the chance to see these young stars perform at the peak of intensity and pressure. The best example thus far in the playoffs was, of course, Game 3 of the Penguins vs. Capitals series where both Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin scored hat tricks for their respective teams. But, there is certainly evidence of talented youngsters leading the charge in all of the series’.

Some of the most poignant examples are:

• Ryan Getzlaf, who is tied for the lead in playoff scoring, and Jonas Hiller have led the 8th seeded Anaheim Ducks past the President’s Trophy winning San Jose Sharks and at least to a six game series with the defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings.
• Cam Ward and Eric Staal have put the Carolina Hurricanes on their young, but capable, shoulders and carried the team past the New Jersey Devils and into a 3-1 series lead over the Eastern Conference Champion Boston Bruins.

The Unlikely Hero

Adding to the already exciting story of NHL playoff hockey, it seems that in every playoff year, there emerges an unlikely hero of sorts.

Often, it is a young goaltender that emerges with a fantastic playoff performance, such as Cam Ward did in 2006 on his way to Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe honors. The same could be said for Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy, and Tony Esposito among a few others.

However, the more unlikely heroes are those forwards whose names rarely mark the score sheet during the regular season but somehow when the pressure is turned up in the playoffs, manage to bring their game to new heights.

The Legend of John Druce

The most prolific example of such an unlikely hero is that of John Druce. In the 1989-1990 season Druce managed just 8 Goals and 3 Assists. But it was the playoffs that year when Druce made a name for himself, scoring 14 goals and three assists for 17 points in just 15 games. NHL Director of Corporate Communications, Mike DiLorenzo may have said it best for NY Ranger fans when he noted “That John Druce broke my heart”.

Last season’s unlikely playoff hero was undoubtedly Philadelphia Flyer forward R.J Umberger (Now with Columbus). Umberger notched 10 goals in last year’s 17 game playoff run with Philadelphia after scoring just 13 times in 72 regular season games for the Flyers.

Not to disappoint fans this season, the emergence of an unlikely playoff hero has come to fruition.

Jussi Jokinen of the Carolina Hurricanes was discarded twice by NHL teams this season and manged to score just 7 goals in 71 games split between Tampa Bay and Carolina. However, in just 11 playoff games, Jokinen has scored 6 goals – including 3 game winning goals and 1 game tying goal.

Of course, true hockey fans would watch playoff hockey without the unlikely hero stories or the emergence of a young superstar goaltender, but it is these stories that round out the entertainment value of playoff hockey, start water cooler conversations and deepen fan relationships with their teams.

Is there any better entertainment in the world than playoff hockey?

I think not.

1st Round Impressions and 2nd Round Predictions

With the first round of the NHL playoffs in the books, it’s time to take a brief look back on who impressed, who disappointed, and what’s next.

Thoughts on Round 1

Boston certainly look like a deep, talented and disciplined team. Coach Julien took Coach/GM Gainey to school. Everything Julien did worked out beautifully. Nothing Gainey did worked at all. A long playoff run looks to figure in Boston’s future, while a long summer of upheaval on and off the ice beckons for Montreal.

Washington deserved to win at least the first 6 games of their series with the Rangers, thanks to the brilliance of Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist . In what can only be considered as a cruel twist of fate, the Rangers probably deserved to win game 7, but their anemic offense was not able to generate enough production. Chris Drury, Scott Gomez, and Markus Naslund – hang your heads in shame. Alexander Ovechkin wasn’t at his best, yet the Rangers still couldn’t muster enough to pull the upset.

Who would have guessed that the Devils and Hurricanes would have produced a 7 game series of must-see hockey. Martin Brodeur and Cam Ward were altogether brilliant in their matchup, with each pitching shutouts and posting 40+ save performances. It was nothing short of epic. Everything looked promising for the Devils until there was 2 minutes left in the 3rd. Tim Gleason made a season-saving play at the blue line to keep the puck in. Jussi Jokinen scored shortly after to tie the game, and Eric Staal won it less than a minute later. Needless to say, the Devils (and probably the Canes too) were stunned. The Devils have now been bounced in the first round in 4 of their last 5 playoff appearances. After looking like world beaters when Brodeur came back from his arm injury, this has to be devastating.

The battle of Pensylvannia was also a good series, highlighted by some good goaltending performances from M.A. Fleury. Once again, Philadelphia’s goaltending was not good enough to carry them to the promised land. When will their management learn that guys like Biron, Esche, Cechmanek, Antero Niittymaki and other underacheivers are not the type of goalie needed to win the cup? It’s been their achilles heel for ages, and looks like it will continue to be so.

In what has to be the biggest disappointment of the year, the San Jose Sharks rolled over – yet again when it mattered most. Joe Thornton did his level best, but again it was not nearly enough. He shares an enormous set of goat horns with Patrick Marleau for their tank job. There’s got to be some fallout in San Jose because of this? I wonder what Ron Wilson is thinking right about now? To me, this series was predictable. I didn’t even give the Sharks a chance to make it a 7 game series against the Ducks. Hall of famers Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, not to mention the heroic Jonas Hiller knocked out the President Trophy winners. Again.

What can be said of the defending champs? The Red Wings total dismantling of the upstart Blue Jackets was nothing short of impressive. Were the Blue Jackets just excited to have been there, or are the Wings yet again that good? Can it be both? Chris Osgood, as he promised, was better than he had been in the regular season, while Blue Jackets super rookie Steve Mason fell back to earth after a stunning regular season perfomance. They’ll be back, but for now they’ve got to deal with this piece of humble pie.

Vancouver may have swept the Blues, but they were life & death in doing so. The Blues fought hard in each of their 4 games and probably deserved to win at least 1. That being said, Roberto Luongo looks like a man poised to good deep, and also has his gaze on the #1 role for team Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics. With or without Mats Sundin, beating Luongo 4 times out of 7 is going to be tough for any team.

Personally, the biggest surprise of the first round was the Chicago Blackhawks. I did not expect them to show so much spirit and poise in their first playoff appearance. Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg, Martin Havlat, and the rest of the team showed unusual poise for such a young bunch. As for the Flames…you’ve got to feel sorry for them. They were banged up on the blue line like no other team West of Montreal, but so much more was expected, especially after they acquired Mike Cammalleri, Olli Jokinen and Jordan Leopold.

Quick Predictions for Round 2

Boston Bruins (1) vs Carolina Hurricanes (6)
The top seeded Bruins draw another low seed – but this Hurricane team is not your garden variety low seed. They’ve got chemistry and experience. Perhaps most importantly, they’ve got Cam Ward who continues to fly under the radar. The Bruins are healthy, and remain the deepest team in the East. I expect them to topple the Hurricanes, but it won’t be easy. Early rust will affect them in game 1, but they’ll sail from there. Zdeno Chara will get the assignment of shutting down Staal, and he’ll get that job done. The rest of the Bruins depth, starting with Phil Kessel and Patrice Bergeron will be too much for the Hurricanes to handle.

Boston in 6.

Washington Capitals (2) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (4)
In what can only be described as Gary Bettman’s fantasy, we get a playoff matchup between Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. And the stars don’t stop there. The Penguins will be throwing MVP candidate and Art Ross winner Evgeni Malkin out there, Jordan Staal, Sergei Gonchar, and a plethora of competent supporting talent. Washington counters with Alexander Semin, Niklas Backstrom, Mike Green and their own cast of veteran talent. The wild card in this series is Simeon Varlamov. It’s one thing to beat the Rangers’ paltry offense. It’s another thing entirely to ask a 20 year old to stop 2 of the best hockey players in the world.

Pittsburgh in 7.

Detroit Red Wings (2) vs Anaheim Ducks (8)
How long can the Ducks ride this wave? Did they run in to a collection of playoff chokers, or are they a battle-hardened group of veterans who don’t need the red carpet rolled out for them? We will have our answer after this round. Can round 1 hero Jonas Hiller continue to baffle opposition shooters? Or will the Red Wings collection of championship stars find a way to deflate this guy’s balloon? Playoff goaltending heroics are not rare throughout history, and they can take teams from improbable 8th seeds to the finals (see Dwayne Roloson with the Oilers in 2005), but in this case, my money is going on the champs to continue their roll and send the Ducks packing for the summer. Too much top end skill to be contained.

Detroit in 6.

Vancouver Canucks (3) vs Chicago Blackhawks (4)
This ought to be a fun series to watch. These teams don’t like each other. Each team has what the other team doesn’t. The Canucks have top flight goaltending, while the Hawks have top notch talent. It will be a contest between the Hawks’ young guns vs the Canucks defense corps and Roberto Luongo. Can Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows support the Sedins enough offensively to put them over the top? Can Mats Sundin be the X factor for the Canucks? This is why they acquired him, so it’s time for him to get back in the lineup and show why he should be considered as one of the all-time greats. He’ll never have a better chance at Lord Stanley’s mug than he will this year.

Vancouver in 7.

If I’m right, and I’m usually not, we’ll have conference finals that look like this:

East
Boston (1) vs Pittsburgh (4)

West
Detroit (2) vs Vancouver (3)

I’d love to hear your thoughts and your predictions!

The Karmanos Promise For Carolina

Bubba From Canes Country Submits: 

In a recent report written by beat writer Luke DeCock, the at times “absentee” owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, Mr. Peter Karmanos has promised to be more active in the running of his NHL franchise this coming year. Karmanos is reportedly taking a lesser role at Compuware, his number one business interest and will have more time to devote to managing the Canes.

“I plan to come in and actually help work on both those areas myself two or three days a week starting in July,’‘ Karmanos said this week in a telephone interview from his Detroit office. ( he was referring to sales and advertising).

Also from the report….

The Hurricanes could lose as much as $10 million this season because of the absence of playoff revenue, a larger-than-budgeted payroll, reduced NHL revenue-sharing payments and decreased attendance.

As the NHL’s salary cap increases – from $50.3 million this season to an expected $56.3 million in 2008-09 – the Hurricanes need to bring in more money to keep pace.

Beset by injuries last season, they ended up spending about $49 million on salaries – 11th among the NHL’s 30 teams and at least $5 million more than expected.

“We need to put more people in the building,” Karmanos said. ”We need to do a better job of selling advertising. It’s not so much a cap that we put on (general manager) Jimmy (Rutherford). Its the cap we put on ourselves. We’re just not maximizing our revenue streams.”

Because of his Compuware commitments, Karmanos has been somewhat removed from the day-to-day operations of the Hurricanes during their decade in North Carolina. He has often voiced his preference to become more involved and now thinks he has that chance.

It comes at a critical time for the franchise. Because of the fall-off in revenue from the post-Stanley Cup honeymoon season in 2006-07 to last season, the Hurricanes lost a quarter of their NHL revenue-sharing money when they failed to meet the league’s growth benchmarks.

”We quite frankly need to sell more tickets regardless of the CBA or not. I want our building full because I think it adds to the atmosphere and it’s great entertainment. We’re going to work really hard on trying to increase our revenue.”

I agree with Karmanos on all fronts. It must sting like the dickens to be the owner of a team who just barely missed the playoffs, and the millions that would have come with it. But not only does he take that hit, he loses out on 25% of the revenue sharing money because attendance dropped off? Either Jim Rutherford or someone else dropped the ball on this one.

Don’t they realize that all they had to do was to offer some type of package deal like the old Harris Teeter 4 packs, and they probably would have met their goals? Even if they had to discount their tickets, they still would have made up for the loss by taking in the extra revenue sharing. That quite frankly, is not very smart business. No wonder the owner wants to get more involved.

If this blogger could offer some humble suggestions….

1. Start your own blog Mr. Karmanos, and submit articles daily. Let your fans know what you are thinking about regarding the team, regarding advertising, and regarding the fanbase, or anything else that comes to mind. Ask for and respond to feedback. This would generate interest as well as let the fans know that you care about what they think.
2. Enlist the aide of your blogging empire. There are already a couple of teams in the NHL who recognize the value of having well-informed, popular bloggers spreading the word about the team. You could be number 3, or you could even take it to another level.
3. Bring back the old “family packs” and other popular ticket specials. So what if you give away a couple of free hotdogs, you will make that money back 100-fold because of the lost revenue sharing.
4. Get the faces of the team out in the public more often. They are your best advertisement.

I’m sure that other folk have more ideas of their own, and probably better ones. What do you think, does anyone have anything to share?

Personally, I think it’s great that the owner of the franchise cares enough to get more involved. I have wondered myself if the Hurricanes could ever get to the point when they would sell out every home game and what that might be like. Shouldn’t that be the goal? With hard work and creativity, it could be done.

Chad LaRose Notches Hat Trick To Spark Canes

Bubba from Canes Country articulates: 

First Career Hat Trick

Chad LaRose scored his first NHL career hat-trick and the Carolina Hurricanes dominated the Tampa Bay Lightning last night, 6-2. The win puts Carolina on the threshold of the Division championship as they just need one more win (or Washington loss), to lock things up.

The Canes started this game much differently than the previous night in Washington. Eric Staal took a puck from coast to coast and beat Tampa goalie Mike Smith with a nasty shot just 30 seconds into the game. After the Lightning evened the score with a powerplay goal, Chad LaRose scored his first goal of the night later in the 1st period during a mad scramble for a loose puck in the crease. The period ended with the score 2-1.

Period Two

Chad LaRose opened the scoring in the 2nd period during kind of a weird play when Joe Corvo was actually crosschecked into the net just before Rosie fired the puck into it. Mike Smith wasn’t amused that the goal still counted, but it was 3-1 Canes. Later in the period during a powerplay opportunity, Smith slipped and fell while attempting to play a puck in the corner, and left the net wide open. Scottie Walker took advantage, making the score 4-1 and virtually putting the one-sided contest away.

Period Three

Early in the 3rd period during another powerplay chance, Sergei Samsonov made a beautiful move and passed to Tuomo Ruutu, who rifled in a perfect shot making the score 5-1. Tampa added another powerplay goal of their own, but the game was as well as over. Coach Laviolette moved LaRose up to the first line with Staal and Cole, and everyone knew that they were trying to help Chad get his first NHL “hattie”.

Finally, with a little over a minute left, Erik Cole made a beautiful pass which banked off the boards and hit LaRose right in full stride while he was streaking at the blueline. Rosie broke into the clear and made a perfect skill move on Smith, as he faked to his forehand and shot with his backhand. The hats rained down and some lucky dude won a tractor.

Games Notes

The Hurricanes were much more focused for this game and had 16 shots on goal in the first period alone, compared to the game total of 22 taken against the Caps. If they can put together one more performance like that one on Friday night against the Panthers, they will be celebrating the 4rth Southeast Division Championship in their 10 year history.

Bubba’s Detailed Analysis

Keep Sergei Samsonov and Tuomo Ruutu together! It seemed like they had chemistry together earlier in the year and they looked great together again last night.

Matt Cullen might be rushing things with his comeback. Hopefully, he knows what he is doing.

Ray Whitney looked better last night than he did against the Caps, but he still looks a bit slow and needs his timing. It might take him a few more games to get back up to his normal speed.

Eric Staal looked like a man who was going to do whatever it took not to lose. He had an outstanding game.

Cam Ward had another solid game. I don’t think he stood a chance on the two goals he allowed, so there were no softies tonight.

Laviolette decided to bench Brookbank once again and play Dennis Seidenberg, giving him the 7 defensemen option. John Forslund said after the game that some of the blueliners are banged up. I thought that Seidenberg had a great game.

The defense played well as a whole. Joe Corvo looked more active tonight and had a couple of decent scoring chances.

It’s hard to believe that Mike Smith was the cornerstone in that Brad Richards trade. It’s obviously still too early to tell, but the kid doesn’t impress me at all. That makes two consecutive blowouts in Raleigh for the “rising star”.

Again, congratulations to Chad LaRose for his outstanding game. He now has 5 points in his last 4 games since returning from his injury, (broken leg). If the “Chuck Norris” of hockey keeps working this hard, good things will keep on happening for him.