Barry Melrose? Seriously?

"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step." - Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

These are pivotal days for the Tampa Bay Lightning. The 2004 Stanley Cup Champions are coming off a dismal year on the ice, but won the draft lottery and selected blue-chip Sarnia Sting center Steve Stamkos at number one. Only days before the draft, new and enthusiastic ownership took control of the team. The principal member of the ownership group: Oren Koules, one of the producers of the Saw movies (who, according to IMDB, also appeared in an uncredited role as "Dead Cellmate" in the first installment of the franchise). The Lightning also are reportedly going to announce that Vinnie Lecavalier--the best player ever to wear their uniform--has agreed to a nine-year contract extension for $77 million as soon as the terms of the current CBA allow them to do so. And to replace the fired John Tortorella, the rookie ownership group hired Barry Melrose.

Cue record scratch sound.

Say what?

Melrose had a brief stint as an NHL coach, working behind the bench of the L.A. Kings for a few seasons in the early nineties--a stretch that included that franchise's only appearance in the Stanley Cup finals. After this he probably would've faded into general hockey obscurity had he not commenced a tenure as a hockey analyst for ESPN, a job he has held right up until the present. Among hockey fans he is pretty much regarded as an analyst who was once briefly a coach, not a coach who later became an analyst (although probably he gets the most adulation for stubbornly clinging to the original hockey hair style--the mullet--in a day when such daring coiffures are largely passe).

This move had been rumored to be in the cards since even before Tortorella got fired--indeed, a lot of hockey observers were talking about it like it was a lock--but I have to admit I didn't buy it. Would any NHL franchise actually engage as their coach a guy who hasn't been involved with the league in any way for over a decade--a decade that has seen a roller coaster of change? So when the official announcement came along I was still able to shake my head with disbelief.

As you might guess, reviews have been mixed. (Thumbs up here, thumbs down here). Personally, I have an instinct to think the move is absurd--which is why I never really believed it would happen in the first place. If the Sharks had pulled a stunt like this, I would have blown a gasket. Most of the debate that I've read seems to swirl around the issue of whether Melrose will even be remotely competent behind an NHL bench in 2008. Some say yes, some say no. It begs the question: is there seriously nobody else out there--in the AHL, in junior hockey, or currently serving as an NHL assistant--who could be expected to be better than Melrose? How about Tim Hunter, the former Sharks assistant--yes, he's about to reunite with Ron Wilson in Toronto, but what if the Lightning had called? That's just one name I happen to know...people smarter than me could surely add many more and better names to the list.

I wouldn't characterize myself as a Tampa Bay Lightning fan, but as an advocate of Sun Belt hockey I feel I have a bit of a stake in the outcome of this scheme. The Lightning are a Sun Belt success story--despite a dismal year on the ice last season, the crowds that turned out during and after the Bolts' championship have largely stuck around. (The team ranked eighth in the league in attendance last year). With Lecavalier on the verge of a major commitment to the franchise, and potentially Crosby-esque help on the way in the high-scoring Stamkos, the Lightning might be just a rebound in the standings away from truly planting firm hockey roots in Florida. Is this really the time to take such an extraordinary and bizarre gamble with the head coach?

I dunno. Maybe. Despite the temptation to pillory Koules and his colleagues as clueless, starstruck hockey newbies, they seem to be taking a so-crazy-it-might-work attitude to their entire endeavor. I'm finding myself being won over by their enthusiasm: they seem giddy at the prospect of owning a hockey team, in the way that I expect I would be giddy if I ever owned a hockey team. In an act of gentle human decency that genuinely moved me and a lot of other hockey watchers, they selected David Carle--brother of Sharks' defenseman Matt, and diagnosed with a chronic heart condition that forced him to retire from hockey only days before the draft--in the last round. Koules: "The kid worked his whole life to be drafted in the NHL, and I didn't see a reason he shouldn't be." (Quote is from here, story many other place on the net). And if we're discussing relative competence of NHL ownership, let's remember we're comparing the new boys in Tampa to a group that has demonstrated beyond all doubt their comprehensive incompetence in recent years.

So I say let's give this new bunch a chance. Hiring Merose is no doubt crazy...but maybe it'll turn out to be crazy like a straw.

Honoring Igor

Most hockey fans probably don't think of Igor Larionov as a San Jose Shark, but I do. Larionov, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Tuesday, had more NHL success elsewhere--he won three Stanley Cups as a Detroit Red Wing--and much of his prime was spent playing for Central Red Army and the Soviet national team, in the service of which he won big huge bunches of medals, most of them gold.

However, Larionov was a crucial player on the 1993-94 edition of the San Jose Sharks--the team that made me a fan. Between him and Sergei Makarov, the Sharks boasted two-thirds of the famous Soviet "KLM Line", a fact that seemed to be only a hockey curiosity until San Jose started winning games and commenced a charge that landed them in the playoffs. As you can see from a glance at the season stats, the two Russians were team leaders--Makarov was the Sharks' first ever 30-goal scorer, and Larionov averaged almost a point a game over the sixty in which he played (and finished +20). Larionov also had 5 goals and 13 assists in San Jose's fourteen playoff games that year, which included, of course, the stunning upset over the Wings.

I've always regarded Igor Larionov as the consummate center--a through-the-roof hockey I.Q., strong defensively, and an exceptional passer, almost to a fault (an insane 25% of his shots found the net in the 93-94 season, suggesting that he probably should've shot more). For any fans of baseball out there, I've always thought of him as being a bit like Greg Maddux--never physically imposing or overwhelming, but possessed of such command of his craft that he was one of the most dominant players of his generation. (Plus, like Maddux, Larionov begs to be compared to a mild-mannered literature professor when out of uniform).

But Larionov's greatest accomplishments were off the ice. Along with Slava Fetisov, Larionov was a leader in the rebellion against the draconian Soviet coach, Viktor Tikhonov, which eventually resulted in Russian players being able to play in the NHL. This was back in the late '80s, when NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks were still staring at each other across the Fulda Gap and the guards on the Berlin Wall had shoot-to-kill orders. You can read a bit about it here. Kinda makes the temper-tantrums thrown by today's pro athletes seem a thousand times more ridiculous than they already are, doesn't it?

I was delighted to see Larionov elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. A very hearty congratulations to you, Igor...a well-deserved honor for a brilliant career.

Meet the New Boss

The Sharks have a new coach, and it is Todd McLellan.

McLellan was an assistant coach with this year's championship edition of the Detroit Red Wings, and therefore still has a bit of a whiff of Stanley Cup about him. He has been a head coach at several levels of hockey (including a stint with the Houston Aeros, a team he led to the Calder Cup) but never held the head job in the NHL.

To which I say, "Huzzah!" Praise be to the hockey gods that Doug Wilson did not pick his new head coach from amongst the many who make up the ranks of the recently fired (like this guy, or this guy). I never really believed that Wilson would show such a lack of imagination that he would actually go with a retread, but let's face it, it's impossible to hear the rumors that Joel Quenneville is a candidate to coach your team and not shudder.

As a Sharks fan, I'm feeling pretty happy about this move. Once the Mike Ricci Kool-Aid passed through my system, and I realized that seeing Reech behind the bench would be cool for, like, a day, after which it would be exposed as kind of a bad idea, I pretty much just hoped that Wilson would go outside the ranks of former NHL coaches and pluck someone from the minors, junior hockey, or the ranks of NHL assistants...someone with a ton of energy and some new ideas.

McLellan is exactly the kind of guy I had in mind. And you gotta feel happy thieving someone from the Red Wings--the league's model organization. Yes, he's an untested rookie, but I for one am certainly looking forward to the next season with just a little more optimism than I had before.


He's Used to Robbing Guys, Not Being Robbed!

Well, Bully! to the NHL general managers for awarding Marty Brodeur the 2008 Vezina Trophy on the basis of his reputation. Whatever. Yes, Brodeur's a great goalie, yes, he's a shoe-in Hall of Famer, but Evgeni Nabokov had a better year. You can argue all you want about which stat is more important than another (Nabokov had more wins and a better goals-against average, while Brodeur had a better save percentage), but when you get right down to it what really ought to matter is that Nabby led his team to victories through an entire half-season during which the team in front of him, talented but very green at defense, could (unexpectedly) barely score.

It's that word in parenthesis that's really the difference, because, of course, the Devils aren't exactly known for lighting the lamp, either. But that's the way the Devils are built--they are designed to strangle you with defense and beat you 2-1. The Sharks, coming into this season, were expected by many to blow other teams out of the water with their supposedly potent offense (Cheechoo! Marleau! Thornton!) but it didn't work out that way. The offensive woes of Cheechoo and Marleau were much-discussed, with an ever-increasing amount of panic, by Shark watchers for the first months of the season. The team was frustrated and frustrating, clueless as to its own identity, and seemingly only one solid losing streak from falling apart. Yet they kept winning, largely through the efforts of Joe Thornton and Evgeni Nabokov.

In other words, while the Devils were like a little Honda Civic, puttering their way across the country with a slow-but-steady-wins-the-race philosophy that they executed perfectly, the Sharks were like a Porsche that blew a tire right out of the gate and needed emergency repairs and clever, desperate driving to make it to the finish line.

By holding the team together until it found a groove, Nabokov put San Jose in position to make a charge at the Wings for the best record in the league. You'd think the league's GMs could have recognized this and thrown a little love his way for this extraordinary effort. But I guess not.


Honorary Hockey Player of the Night (Redux)

I was watching "So You Think You Can Dance?" last night, and it transpired that one of the dancers (20-year-old Comfort Fedoke) had dislocated her shoulder during rehearsal. Did this stop her from perfectly executing a tough Jive number? Nah. Didn't miss a shift, as we say in hockey.

Give her some skates!

Congrats to the Red Wings

As you probably know by now, the Detroit Red Wings are the 2008 Stanley Cup Champions, having defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins four games to two.

It's a well-deserved victory for the team that was clearly the best in the league all season long. Sure, there were slips and slides along the way, but the organization stayed calm through it all and one never got the sense that the ship was even in danger of being blown off course, let alone sinking. (In this post from way back in February I took a look at the Wings while they were in the midst of a losing streak, and asserted that there was little for their fans to worry about.)

The Wings have been consistently excellent for the past fifteen years, and the fact that they have won "only" four championships in that time is a testament to just how difficult it is to bring the Stanley Cup home. For fans of teams that have consistently enjoyed outstanding regular seasons only to have difficulty advancing in the playoffs (ahem), it is interesting and perhaps comforting to note that during these stellar seasons the Red Wings, very widely regarded as the top organization in the league, followed division championships with first-round flameouts four times, losing to the Sharks in 1994, the Kings in 2001, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003 (in a sweep, no less), and the Edmonton Oilers in 2006.

Despite their seemingly permanent roost at the top of the standings, I've never really disliked the Wings. Even after they beat the Sharks last year, I didn't summon a grudge against them of the type that I alluded to here. Maybe it's because when you're a fan of something, the way I am of ice hockey, there's always something enjoyable about seeing your sport played with such excellence.

Congratulations also to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who granted all hockey fans a game to remember forever with their extraordinary Game Five rally, sending a series that looked to be a sure sweep to a respectable six games. (And let's not forgot how close they came to tying the score in the waning seconds of Game Six.) Despite the fact that the organization faces some offseason questions, I'm confident this team will be back to the finals sooner rather than later.