While those of us in Avalanche land are celebrating the return of our aging hero, the fine folks who follow that hockey club in Detroit have some good news of their own: 921-year old Chris Chelios will be back with the Red Wings next year.
For those of you in Denver, be advised that Chelios and the Wings roll into town on December 27th and March 2nd - you might want to steer clear of the early bird buffets on those dates.
It was a dark and stormy night.
Or, perhaps it wasn’t. It was Friday, November 12th, 2004. Colorado’s AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, were in Providence to take on the Bruins. 7,024 fans were in attendance that night. Thankfully, one of them had a camera with them.
The sparks began to fly late in the first period, when heavyweights Dennis Bonvie of Hershey fought with the Bruins’ Colton Orr. Orr, you might recall, would be the recipient of that Dale Purinton eye gouge in a preseason game the following October. Bonvie and Orr would drop the gloves twice more that year as they continued to work out their minor differences. According to this link, in this game Orr dropped Bonvie with one punch.
In the 2nd period, things became a little more heated. I can’t find any “official” links to the Providence Journal story about that night, but someone on the HF Boards has a copy:
The excitement started when the Bears’ Jeff Finger lost his helmet near the P-Bruins’ bench. When Finger was able to retrieve it, it was filled with snow. So he and Providence captain Jay Henderson had words on the bench, and it continued on the ice.
Yes, that Jeff Finger.
The two dropped gloves in front of the Hershey net late in the second period, but it wasn’t much of a fight as both fell to the ice and were pulled apart by the linesmen.
Since there was less than five minutes remaining in the period, the players were escorted to their respective benches and each disappeared down the runway heading to the locker rooms.
In most places, that would have been the end. But at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, the players have to walk through a common hallway to get to the respective locker rooms.
When play resumed, the two players continued to have words in the lower concourse. A couple of Hershey players left the bench and joined Finger. According to Henderson, he had three to four Bears players on him when someone alerted the P-Bruins’ bench. Suddenly, both benches emptied and the players on the ice joined in.
Dunkin’ Donuts Center security guards attempted to break up the brawl, but reinforcements and Providence police officers also were pressed into service.
Now that is a hockey game. But, there’s more. Not only did both benches empty, but the refs also left the ice, leaving just two players - the goalies. Hannu Toivonen and Peter Budaj skated slowly to their respective blue lines, sized each other up and, at some point, decided to go.
Thanks to youtube, you too can see the grainy cam footage. In what seems to fit his personality to a “T”, Budaj soundly defeated Toivonen and then offered him his hand after the deal was done.
Toivonen, Budaj, Henderson, Finger and 90210’s Brendan Walsh (save your letters, nerds, I know the TV Walsh was a Brandon) were all ejected from the game. Henderson was given a 3-game suspension and Finger served a 1-game suspension. Apparently, the game didn’t cause a great deal of ill will between the teams, as the two clubs made a trade on the following Monday.
Here’s the box score from the game. Besides Finger and Budaj, a couple other familiar faces played in that game. Cody McCormick scored a powerplay goal in the game, with Bears captain Brett Clark notching an assist. Johnny Boychuk played in the game, as did Marek Svatos.
2004-2005 would be the last year for Hershey as the Avalanche’s AHL affiliate. The following season, as Washington’s affiliate, Hershey won the Calder Cup under the tutelage of head coach Bruce Boudreau.
The Budaj fight has always been one of my favorites, but I think the most interesting thing about the fight might be the description of Budaj by the Hershey fan at the end of that HF thread:
to date[,] the fight is the highlight of the season for Budaj.
Tommy Lawson seems to have more flashes of skill then Peter does. Its Budaj’s third season here and that usually translates into make or break time. The guy leaves the biggest rebounds in the league and he has problems with in close, short side. But…get the Bears to shootout and Peter is unstoppable.
Does anyone else remember that first season after the lockout? The NHL was introducing that stupid new shootout, and Budaj was expected to have a big advantage because of his AHL experience. As it turned out, his .357 shootout save percentage was worse than 65 other NHL goalies that year. He’s improved a bit (593 the following year, 556 last year), but it’s still one of the biggest weaknesses in his game. But hey, if this goalie thing doesn’t work out for him, I think he could find work as an enforcer.
Consider my day officially made.
EDIT:
per Dater, 1 year, $6 million, No-Trade Clause. If correct, it makes Ryan Smyth the highest paid player on the team…
it also puts the Avs at a cap hit of around $51.85 million. That gives the Avalanche $4.85 million to divide between Mats Sundin and Peter Forsberg.(e4)
(from TSN)
“Just prior to the attack on Moore, Bertuzzi had been on a shift to kill a penalty, had missed the shift change and had remained on the ice for longer than the rest of his line,” states Crawford’s third-party defence.
Assuming this is true (see below), I have a question. What the fuck is Todd Bertuzzi doing killing penalties? I wish I could find some TOI logs for this game, but I’m really curious to hear Crawford’s justification for using Bertuzzi in a penalty killing situation. Surely he was just out there for his defense, right Marc? I mean, you used Bertuzzi a TON that year shorthanded - a whopping 4:24, or about 3 seconds a game. What an amazing coincidence that you’d pick that very game to try Bertuzzi on the kill.
“After being directed to get off the ice, Bertuzzi was on his way back to the bench when, suddenly and without warning, he turned around and skated back in the direction of Moore and attacked Moore.
I wish we had longer video. All we have is about 8 seconds before the sucker punch, with Bertuzzi following Moore around in the Vancouver zone. If he was on his way back to the bench before that, it wasn’t caught in this video. They did managed to get you smirking on the bench like a horses ass, of course, but that was probably just your complete shock at what your player’s “direct disobedience”. Right?
EDIT: I found a box score of the game. The sucker punch happened at 8:41. The previous penalty was to Wade Brookbank at 5:19. For Crawford to be correct, Bertuzzi would have been on a PK shift at 7:19 when Brookbank came out of the box, and then stayed on the ice for an additional 1:12 before becoming afflicted with a major case of dumbassitis. The Avs were up 8-2 at this point, so it’s possible that Bertuzzi was killing a penalty and it’s also possible that he hung around on the ice for a minute and a half to two minutes. I’d still like to see more data…
EDIT#2: The good doctor has found the shift chart for the game and from that you can get the play-by-play and event summary. It looks like Bertuzzi was out for a long shift that did start on the Brookbank penalty. The Bertuzzi “on a shift to kill a penalty” thing is a bit of a stretch, as he had just 6 seconds of SH ice time in the game. There were no stoppages in play from Brookbank’s penalty at 5:19 to the fiasco at 8:41, and it looks like Bertuzzi jumped on just as the penalty was expiring. It’s also worth noting that Bertuzzi was already on the ice when Moore came on. At any rate, the none of the facts directly contradict what Coach Smirkface has said.
Another week of the summer is gone. Here’s a look at Avalanche-related stories from the last 7 days or so.
Joe Sakic continues to dominate the news the way he used to dominate on the ice. He got on one of them old-fangled radio thingies the other day and said stuff. His offseason intentions still aren’t exactly clear. After listening, Terry Fri thinks Sakic’s final decision is either due in weeks…or just really soon. Adrian Dater is pretty sure he’s coming back. Shane’s too polite to say so, but I think even his patience is wearing thin. I could go on - all the hockey sites started picking the DP’s articles, but everything seems to be just variations of the above.
The second-hottest stuff is all the Mats Sundin baloney. Since Sundin once played for the Nordiques, the rumor du jour is that Sundin is just chomping at the bit to come to denver and reunite with Joe Sakic and Adam Foote. This one’s been thrown out as a lazy “what if” by bloggers all summer long, which means at some point Eklund is going to hear about it. Sigh. I don’t enjoy wasting my time debunking Eklund’s lame rumors, so I’ll leave this one to a Canuck blogger, Sean Zandberg. Tom Benjamin gives a nice take on the Sundin Saga as well, while Spector had a decent little article on Sakic, Sundin and Teemu Selanne the other day.
In a hurclean effort, Mile High Joe released not one but TWO Top Avalanche articles. #13 is…#13, Valeri Kamensky. And #12 is Sandis Ozolinsh. I’ve enjoyed reading these almost as much as I’ve enjoyed ribbing Joe for drawing them out ALL FUCKING SUMMER.
There was a bit of news in the prospect front. Jori reports that the under 20 Summer Camp has wrapped. The lone Avalanche there was Kevin Shattenkirk. Meanwhile, the Avs have signed Tom Fritsche and Nigel Williams. I don’t profess to be an expert on the youngsters, but it sure seems like Williams has been generating a bit of buzz lately.
The Avalanche National TV schedule was announced today. I don’t like the Vs games, because when there’s an early game and a late game, the Avs end up getting joined in process. I was going to rant about it, but Shane beat me to it. Seriously, how hard would it be to move the Avs back a half hour? Is the midnight bullriding crowd (all 3 of them) going to be up in arms?
Cammi Granato never played for the Avalanche, but since her brother is the coach and her husband does color commentary for the Oilers, I guess it’s pertinent that she’s going to the Hall of Fame. Seriously, that’s pretty cool. [EDIT: I guess Ray Ferraro is no longer doing color for Sportsnet]
Jibblescribbits has a great rant about the Avs’ notorious Iron Curtain. Puck Daddy (does one put that on a business card?) tapped Dater to fix the mess we like to call the NHL.
The Burgundy and White game is September 22nd. Be there or be elsewhere.
Around the NW, the Oilers will be retiring the #9 of Glenn Anderson. And Black Dog Hates Skunks looks at the (surprisingly) nice job Kevin Lowe did this summer before getting promoted. Former Oiler (and Avalanche prospect) Jaret Stoll is engaged…to Rachel Hunter. If only hockey bloggers had the same pull with the ladies that hockey players do…
Yankee Canuck has started speculating on who will be the first new captain in Vancouver in 8 years. I voted for the current leader, Willie Mitchell.
I haven’t had a chance to read all these yet, but Five Hole Fanatics has a series of write-ups on the Flames - all about new guys and guys with some questions marks. They also make a good argument against drafting goalies. Oh, and it looks like the Flames are in a bit of cap trouble. So, does that mean they can’t sign Mats Sundin?
Have a good week, folks.
Other than yesterday’s discovery, it was a rather dull week in Avalanche land.
To start things off, Joe took a look at Tony Granato. Twice. In somewhat related news, it looks like the Avalanche wanted to interview AHL coach Mike Havelid for a job on Granato’s coaching staff, but the Blackhawks turned them down. Havelid has since been promoted to an assistan job with Chicago. And, just to confuse the hell out of me, Tony’s brother Don Granato is now the head coach of the AHL Chicago Wolves.
It wouldn’t really be summer without updates on the whereabouts of Peter Forsberg. This week, we have Foppa actually skating in Sweden. And golfing. And pitching (okay, that one’s old news). And, apparently he played a little hockey too. Quite well, I should add. Yeah, he’s coming back.
And, if we’re going to talk about Foppa, you know we’ll be talking about that guy no GMs want to sign, Joe Sakic. Shane was shocked to read that Sakic is more likeable than Crosby. But you don’t care about that. You want to know if he’s coming back. And, since he knows when training camp begins, he’s definitely coming back. And, in case that isn’t enough to sway him, he should stop trying to decide and just listen to Steve Yzerman. At any rate, Jori is reporting that Super Joe will be on the FAN on Monday morning. I wonder if any interesting topics might come up. I hope it’s good news, because someone at The Hockey News thinks we’re in big trouble if he doesn’t. (I agree)
Oh, and if you’re into the whole radio, Dater takes a deeper look at the situation, with additional reading here.
Not many other news on the players, unless you count Andrew Raycrofts confusion about his goalie coach. Sheesh. Oh, and Joe finally released another entry in his glacial series on the 19 All-Time Avs. That should be finished up by 2019, for sure.
There’s some minor time-changes for games this year. Also, for you Lake Erie fans, the AHL schedule is out. One guy you won’t see next year is Eric Healey. He’s headed to Europe.
And that about covers it for the Avalanche this week. Around the league, Abel to Yzerman has started an entertaining series to create the Detroit Red Wing rivalry depth chart. Good reading for those of you with thick skin. (Not you, Bob!). The Canucks are losing Byron Ritchie to Switzerland. That’s also where the Wild’s Sean Hill is headed. Do they have better steroids there? And, Mikka Kipprusoff has changed his training habits in an effort to return to his old form.
Have a nice weekend, folks.
While gathering Avalanche-related links for tomorrow’s Avalanche Weekly article, I found an article that has shown me the light. All this time, we thought there were no more available free agents, but a sharp-eyed fan from Ottawa has found one.
It is anyone’s guess why, but I guess class acts like “Captain Canada” don’t interest GM’s around the league these days.
Yeah, I wonder why no one is trying to sign Joe. I mean, he’s still kind of good, right?
To be honest though, few people are actually aware that he’s a free agent, including this writer who only found out a few weeks ago.
Ah, that’s why. I wonder if our GM even knows if he’s a free agent? I bet he doesn’t. Someone should definitely give him a ring. And why do we want Joe Sakic? Well, turns out…
This past year, his twentieth or so with the Avalanche/Nordiques franchise, he recorded his record setting 16th career Game-Winning-Goal in the playoffs. What does this mean? Essentially, he’s now won two of his Stanley Cups’ single-handedly.
I’m not sure I have the heart to break it to a “hockey purist” like yourself, Sean, but those goofy NHL suits recently changed the rules. That’s right, it now takes 16 wins to win ONE Cup. Egads! Perhaps this is why the Senators haven’t been able to win one - they’re still playing under the old rules!
In today’s NHL there’s plenty of room for a guy like Joe in any team’s locker room. He’s the perpetual leader: he does it by example and he does it better then anyone else except maybe Mark Messier.
I just included the Messier thing for Dario’s benefit.
In short, I completely agree with Sean. NHL GM’s really do need to get off their butts and do something constructive. I can’t believe a guy like Sakic has slipped through the cracks like this. How embarrassing.
That’s it. We’ve gone from Skrastins to Smyth over the last two months, and now the grades are in for all 32 players to play for the Avalanche in 2007-2008 (except for Tyler Weiman). I took a much more leisurely pace this year, but I still finished before Joe got past #15 on his summer list. For the record, Tyler Arnason’s entry was the most commented (21), followed closely by Jordan Leopold (19) with Marek Svatos a distant third (9). I believe the tops last year was Joe Sakic with 6, so I guess traffic is up.
I’ll still be plugging away this summer, posting when something interests me. I had some grandiose plans to gussy up the site this summer, but I really haven’t done much at all in that department besides turning on the freaky gravatars in the comment section. Oh, I also hosed most of the ads, at least for now. After earning a grand total of 63 cents in ad revenue, I’ve come to the realization that I’m probably not going to become filthy rich doing this. And that’s okay.
In addition to not improving the website, I’ve also been putting off a couple of other summer projects. I have some really big improvements in mind for the shift charts I started doing last year (and petered out on) and also am aiming to tweak the gamescore metric I started playing with at the beginning of the year (and then abandoned). I do hope to have those ready to unveil by the start of the season, but I kind of need to get cranking. Instead, I’ve kind of been focusing on getting my flabby butt into shape, with the help of sites like this and this.
So, stay tuned. There should be some improvements coming to the site. Someday. Or something.
In a return to something I started during the dog days of last summer, here’s a look at some Avalanche related articles from around the net in the last week or so…
Marek Svatos avoided arbitration by signing a 2 year, $4.1 million deal. Joe Sakic, of course, is still ignoring my prayers. With Sakic still in non-commital mode, the Avs have salary cap room to burn. There’s some recent speculation that the Avalanche might be one of the teams pursuing Mats Sundin. Adrian Dater thinks this is bunk, and I agree with him on that. Oh, and in that same entry, he reiterated his belief that the Avs will stink next year (I’m not sure I’m quite there on that one):
[I]t doesn’t matter whether Sakic comes back or not. Because the Avs as they are presently constituted aren’t going anywhere next year, even if Sakic came back. The forwards are too old, the third-and-fourth lines are going to be in the penalty box all the time and getting scored upon, and the goaltending isn’t good enough. So, take all the time in the world you want, Joe, the end result will be the same.
So, Dater isn’t impressed. Darren Thompson from the Bleacher Report agrees, and predicts we’ll miss the playoffs next year in his NW offseason report. Some new blogger at The Hockey News also thinks the Avs have had a ho-hum summer. Of course, since these are the same clowns who think there are 18 better hockey logos than the Avs, I’m not sure we can really count them. MitchellW is a bit more optomistic than the rest, and offers 8 reasons the Avs will do better. And, just in case they don’t, here’s a list of some of the top UFAs for next summer. Here’s another list, focusing on just the NW.
Andrew Raycroft thinks he still has it. I, for one, hope he’s right.
The Avalanche announced a minor schedule change, moving their December 10th home game against the Kings a day up to December 9th (the article has the original game on December 20th, which is incorrect). They also have a new scout, in Guy Perron.
Recently, our beloved Jibblescribbits had the opportunity to dress up like a fairy princess and took the opportunity to gauge fan popularity in Denver. Speaking of those Denver-based fans, they’ll be listening to the Avs on a different station next year, as the Avs are moving to AM 1510. I’ve never been to Denver, but this move seems to be a shade unpopular. Kroenke also extended some sort of ticket deal thingy that I don’t understand in the slightest.
Around the league, the Wings signed Valtteri Filppula to a 5-year, $15 million deal. I hope he spends some of that money on some new eyebrow dye. While the Wings were locking up blondie, Scott Bowman defected to Chicago.
Back home in the NW division, the Oilers kicked GM Kevin Lowe upstairs and replaced him with Canucks assistant-GM Steve Tambellini. Oiler fans were a tad bit surprised. Canuck blogger Sean Zandberg wonders why Vancouver can’t attract decent free agents. But at least Canucks fans can be proud of one thing: their old Flying V jersey was voted the worst piece of sports clothing in media history. (I happen to own one of my own). And the Wild waived Mark Parrish.
In the former Avs department, former coach Marc Crawford will be joining Hockey Night in Canada next year as an in-game analyst. Our other former coach, Joel Quenneville, had been rumored to be a frontrunner for the vacant Islanders position, but he will instead take a year off for moustache maintenance. And Dan Hinote got married, and a lot of Avalanche players and other celebs were in attendence.
Oh, and apparently the head of the Democratic National Convention landed a sweet prize after the Avs beat the Wild in the playoffs:
for example, when the Minnesota Wild and the Colorado Avalanche were in the NHL playoffs, we had a little bet … fortunately the Avalanche won, and we received a whole mess of Minnesota walleye fish, which we donated to the Denver Rescue Mission.
Yum.
2008 Final Grade: B-
2007 Grade: N/A
Links:
Ryan Smyth (hockey-reference page)
2008 ITCS (aka highly unofficial) Smyth game log
Season Stats: 55gp 14g 23a 37pt -4
Minutes: 1,0788.8 (5th), EV 15:15, PP 3:54, PK :29, ATOI 19:37
1st Half: 36gp 11g 17a 28pt -5
2nd Half: 19gp 3g 6a 9pt +1
Playoffs: 8gp 2g 3a 5pt -1
Best Month: December (12gp 5g 9a 14pt +4)
Positions: LW (55)
Lines: 1st (30), 2nd (13), 3rd (12)
Linemates: Smyth season log
C: Stastny (29), Arnason (11), Sakic (10), Hensick (3), Guite (1), Hlinka (1)
RW: Hejduk (33), Svatos (11), Jones (5), Brunette (2), McLeod (2), Hensick (1), Laperriere (1)
Season: Smyth’s 37 points were his lowest season total since 1998. Over his career, Smyth has averaged about 12 pp goals per year. Last year, he had 2 - the 2nd lowest output of his career.
Report: I know there were a few folks happy to see Joel Quenneville move on, and I’d venture that Ryan Smyth was probably one of them. Smyth never really seemed comfortable in his first year in Denver. Like everyone on the team, Smyth was bounced from line to line and from partner to partner - his longest stretch with the same linemates was 9 games. I personally was expecting Smyth to be a major force in front of the other team’s net, but that never really materialized. Was that coaching? Was it because our point guys don’t shoot well? Was it Smyth? Frankly, I don’t have the answer, but he certainly wasn’t as effective with his game pushed to the sides of the net (and behind it). I think the effort was there, but he didn’t have the points to show for it. Several nights he was one of the best players on the ice, but that wasn’t reflected on the scoresheet. On October 16th he threw 11 shots at the Calgary Flames, and had just a goal to show for it. On December 5th, he had 8 shots against the Blue Jackets. No goals (3 assists, though, and that was also was one of the few games he got under the skin of the opposing goalie). February 27th: 6 shots, no goals. I don’t think any member of the team was more disappointing on the PP than Smyth - his 8 points in 214 minutes was anemic with a capital “nee”. One of Tony Granto’s biggest challenges in 2008-09 will be to improve the powerplay, and finding a way to get Smyth in front of the net instead of behind it would be a great start. Smyth wasn’t used a ton on the penalty kill (29 seconds per game), but he was effective; only Stastny and Jaroslav Hlinka had a better rate of goals allowed per 60 minutes.
Fast Fact: The line of Stastny, Smith and Hejduk contributed an even strength point in 20 of the 25 games together. The trio scored 27 even strength goals in those 25 games.
2007-2008 Salary (and Cap Number): $7,500,000 ($6,250,000)
2008-2009 Status: Smyth is signed through the next 4 seasons. He and John-Michael Liles are the only two Avs currently locked up for that long.
Outlook: $6.25 million is a lot of money to pay for 37 points, and already there’s some grumbling in, um, ‘Lancheland, about his contract. I thought Smyth was a perfect addition to the team and could put up 40 goals in the ugly Avalanche uniform. I still think he can do that. He played well - but not often enough - with Stastny and Hejduk. If Smyth can stay healthy (not a given) and if Granato can turn around the powerplay (not a given, but it can’t get worse) and if we move away from the simple cycle game (I sure hope so), Smyth has a chance to rebound with a big, big year. Even a slightly better year would be a big help to the team.
