Bob McKenzie or Kerry Fraser: You Decide

The guys at PPP asked me to send them a paragraph on where I was during game six of the Leafs - Kings playoff series back in 1993, a game played 16 years ago today. Not being so good with directions, I gave them a bit more than that...

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Believe it or not, I don’t remember much about game six of the Leafs Kings playoff match back in 1993. I know I watched it, but I couldn’t tell you where I was or who I was with.

I’d like to think I was livid at Kerry Fraser for his blown call. I’d like to tell you that Gretzky’s high stick on Doug Gilmour is seared into my memory like some sort of Zapruder film (“back and to the left”), but I’d be lying if I told you it was so.

You see, I was so thoroughly convinced that the Leafs would win game seven that I thought it was best to just put game six behind me. Nothing to see here, just another bad Leaf bounce, just another blown call by the notorious Kerry Fraser. I honestly thought a Leafs-Habs match-up was just too good for the Hockey Gods to pass-up.

It's only with the passage of time and plenty of hindsight (maybe too much) that Fraser's blown call has emerged as the defining event of that series and, perhaps, somewhat sadly, a defining event in the history of the Maple Leafs.

Now game seven I remember. There’s a game that’s seared into my mind like a red hot medallion clutched by the soft pink palm of a Nazi.

I have often dreamt of a Leaf victory in game seven. A dream so palpable that I have stepped out of bed convinced the Leafs did indeed come back and were going on to the Stanley Cup Finals.

But it’s not to be.

And I am a little bitter about that.

But my bitterness is not for Kerry Fraser. No, my bitterness is reserved one for Mr. Bob McKenzie who penned the infamous article headlined: “Gretzky Playing As If He's Got A Piano On His Back”

As if that headline wasn't bad enough, McKenzie went on to say:

Now just one loss away from elimination, the Kings could desperately use some old-fashioned Gretzky pyrotechnics to light up the Leafs in Game 6 at the Great Western Forum and send it back here for Game 7 at the Gardens on Saturday night.

Yeah, that’s exactly what that series needed: some bulletin board inspiration for the opposition. And the media tells us it’s the fans who are to blame for the Leafs’ failures.

As we all know, Gretzky went on to score the overtime winner in game six and net three more goals in game seven, including the winner from in back of the net, bounced in off Dave Ellet’s skate.

The Leafs mounted a late comeback in game seven but it was not enough.

And so we wait.

And when the Leafs get close again, and they will, I may be a little difficult to track down (and there will also be an empty chair on the TSN panel).

In a horror movie when the car won't start you give it one last try

As expected, this has been a pretty dismal season for the Leafs and, given the paucity of talent on this club and the preponderance of injuries, it's been difficult to get a handle on the impact of Ron Wilson in his first year with the team.

Take the Leafs special teams (please).

With such little talent up front it's surprising that their PP is 12th overall. That's a pretty respectable showing when you consider they're running Kubina, Stempniak, Blake, Stajan, and Poni as PP1.

On the PK the Leafs have been dreadful. Earlier this season they were flirting with the lowest PK rate in the NHL in nearly 20 years. I suspect the poor showing on the PK had more to do with Toskala than it did with coaching, players or systems. Gerber has played all of eight games for the Leafs and in that time the club has been killing penalties at an 80.7% clip. It's a very small sample to be sure, but it's still a vast improvement over their 30th place showing at 75%. In fact, if they could maintain their new kill rate with Gerber between the pipes it would put them in 18th in the NHL.

One other, albeit random, improvement from the Leafs this year: the dreaded shootout. If the Leafs win their next shoot-out they'll be .500 in the gimmicky extra point contest under Coach Wilson (7-7). I don't think the Leafs have ever been .500 in the shootout since it's inception, unless you count the days when the club is 0-0.

* * *

It will be interesting to see what supplementary discipline, if any, the NHL takes against Martin Gerber for his outburst late in the Caps game. The NHL has a tendency to approach supplementary discipline with as much order and precision as Jackson Pollack going at a blank canvas. Gerber bumped an official and fired a puck in their direction after a questionable goal by Laich. Under rule 41, that's an automatic game misconduct:

41.1 Game Misconduct – Any player or goalkeeper who deliberately applies physical force in any manner against an official, in any manner attempts to injure an official, physically demeans, or deliberately applies physical force to an official solely for the purpose of getting free of such an official during or immediately following an altercation shall receive a game misconduct penalty.

What remains to be seen is that firing of the puck moves Gerber into automatic suspension territory as per rule 41.3

41.3 Automatic Suspension – Category III – Any player or goalkeeper who, by his actions, physically demeans an official or physically threatens an official by (but not limited to) throwing a stick or any other piece of equipment or object at or in the general direction of an official, shooting the puck at or in the general direction of an official, spitting at or in the general direction of an official, or who deliberately applies physical force to an official solely for the purpose of getting free of such an official during or immediately following an altercation shall be suspended for not less than three (3) games.

At this point in the year, there are certainly worse options than seeing Cujo get the start for two or three games. Maybe one of Reese, Healy or Potvin can come out of retirement serve as his back-up.

Darling don't you go and cut your hair

ESPN.com surveyed 193 NHL players (that's about 20 percent of the league) on a number of topics. This one stopped me in my tracks:

QUESTION 7: WHO IS THE BEST REFEREE IN THE NHL?
TOP VOTE-GETTER: Kerry Fraser (18%).


Man, those NHLers sure do have a good sense of humour...

You're the one for me fatty

I really hope someone in the media calls Jim Schonfield this morning. I would love to get his take on everyone's favourite corpulent porcine beignet consuming official.

Antro gets three games for his post-game actions (I've always been a big fan of the sarcastic post-game clap for bad refs, well played Nick).

Antropov is quickly becoming my second favourite Leaf (and no, I'm not kidding).

Given all of the controversial calls last night, wouldn't it make a nice change if the NHL followed the NFL's Director of Officiating's lead and was actually open and transparent about officiating decisions? Or maybe even an actual response from the "war room" in Toronto explaining why some goals stand and others don't. Imagine that.

Thanks to the work of last nights "officiating" crew, I thought I'd trot out these golden links:

• An economist confirms referee bias
• Pro Sports League's Commitment to Reducing Officiating Errors (MLB, NFL, NBA only)
• Penalty Probabilities in the NHL

The Devil's Advocate

One of the things that I hope this blog offers is an alternative to what you can get in the papers, on sports radio and from the TSN's and Sportsnets of this world.

I'd like to think of it as a really engaging conversation among people who love hockey. And like any good conversation it will have funny parts, controversial bits, occassional lulls (well maybe more than the occassinal one) and even disagreements. I'd also like to think that this space moves above and beyond the two-dimensional qualities and false dichotomies that marr so much sports coverage and so many exchanges (yeah, I know the Leafs suck, thanks for posting).

With that in mind, I really wanted to know what a fan of the Devils made of the Kaberle hit (as Winnie the Pooh says to Tigger in one of my daughter's books, "Good manners are mostly about looking at things from someone else's point of view.") so I fired an email to Tom at The Out Route (he and I have exchanged music tips over at Glorious Noise for years) and asked him if he wanted to send a paragraph or two my way.

He did, and here it is:

OK, let’s get this out of the way: I’m a Devils fan. I’m the enemy.

But take pause, Leafs fans, before you sling your iBarbs into my skin. I know we haven’t been at harmony over the recent years. We dislike you because you remind us a little too much of the Rangers, with your tradition, free-spirited spending, and blue jerseys. You dislike us because we win Stanley Cups and you don’t. Kidding, kidding. I just had to get that one out of the way.

I know that tensions are high after Tomas Kaberle’s injury, and that someone defending Cam Janssen is probably the last person you’d want to hear (read?) from. ANYWAY, I ask that you look at me today not as a Devils fan, but as a beacon of logic.

Was Janssen’s hit illegal? It was, in the sense that it came just a teensy bit too late. When watching the play develop, there seems an eternity between the pass and the check in which anxiety sets in, because you can see disaster ahead and are helpless to stop it. It’s that feeling you get watching a foolish victim in a horror movie open the closet door (the killer is always in the closet) or when a rollercoaster reaches the top of its initial ascent. In reality, it was 1.2 seconds. Certainly late, and certainly illegal by NHL rules.

In my mind, that’s the extent of Janssen’s wrongdoings. Go back and check the tape – the elbow is down, the players are facing each other, Janssen is gliding and not striding. All the benchmarks of a good, clean hit. The rest is circumstantial. Kaberle wasn’t looking and thus had no way to brace himself which, combined with the proximity to the boards, made the hit about 10 times more devastating than it would have been under normal circumstances. Because of the injury, I think a game misconduct or one-game suspension would have sufficed. But honestly, Janssen’s infraction typically costs a player two minutes. Suspensions should come with intended malice, I just don’t see that being the case here. I mean, it wasn’t like he intentionally elbowed Scott Niedermayer in the face at the end of a certain second-round playoff game (cough. cough.).

The logical reader now asks him or herself this: Well, smarty-pants, even if, fundamentally, Janssen’s hit was legal, why did he throw it? It wasn’t necessary in the context of play. That’s a good question. And I know you assume that it was intentional because of the role Janssen plays on the team and because of people’s natural instinct to think their worst of their peers. I’ve got no factual evidence to dissuade you, but I can say with a straight face that Janssen is not a dirty player.

I hate the term “goon.” It’s derogatory towards a group of hockey players that help define the sport. Janssen is a role player. His role is to be physical and to bring energy to the ice. He’s also young and on the periphery of this league. With the new rules, players of his ilk are being eradicated. He’s fighting (literally) for a job, and he gets precious few minutes on the ice to prove his worth. In this instance, he got overzealous and made a mistake. He is not the type of player to deliberately injure a player, and he showed genuine concern for Kaberle’s well-being and contrition after the game. It should be noted he hasn’t protested the check or tried to defend himself. The Devils have always been unapologetically physical, which may or may not be boring to watch, but they’ve never been a dirty team. I wouldn’t support one.

I’ve heard a lot of hyperbole about the hit, using it as a way to blast the NHL – because, I’m sure even we can agree, the only time the U.S. media touches hockey is to complain about its physical nature – and throwing Janssen to the lions. Frankly, I just don’t get it. This isn’t to undermine Kaberle’s injury – I hate to see anyone injured, and I hope Kaberle’s recovery is of the speediest kind. But to me it seems that this pales in significance to the Todd Bertuzzi and Marty McSorely incidents, as well as the one earlier this season that sparked a brawl between Buffalo and Ottawa.

The exaggerated punishment is a clear attempt at further eradicating the physical element of hockey, and that’s something I can’t stand for. Forget about Janssen. Doesn’t everyone love a good fourth-liner? I’m sure the Leafs will want revenge, and though I don’t necessarily believe the hit warrants it, I’m not objecting because I understand that’s the way hockey is, and that’s how I like it.

If we are going to be suspending players for hits with clean intentions, we are changing one of hockey’s core functions. Players will forever be afraid to throw a good body check because of the potential ramifications. That’s worse than bigger nets, shootouts, or tighter jerseys. It’s castrating the sport as we know it. Janssen’s suspension is the starting point on a slippery slope. If we continue on this path, the NHL will lose the roguish charm that attracted us all. It will be run with an iron first, a place where unintentional high sticks are sins and fights are viewed with the same affection as a malevolent tumor. The NHL will become a Nazi state, or something far worse – the NBA.



Feel free to post your comments here or to visit Tom over at The Out Route...

The Hit and the Quip

The Hit

The Janssen hit came 1.33 seconds after Kaberle moved the puck to Cola and the play had clearly moved up ice (I didn't time it, but the low-talking ever quiet Steve Kouleas and his partner Ludzik had telestrated the entire play on the Score).

Janssen barely left his feet on the hit and it didn't look to me like an explicit elbow. Had Kabs not been admiring his pass, he wouldn't have been so vulnerable. The majority of the damage seemed to be done when Kaberle slammed into the boards after absorbing the initial hit.

I wonder what Leafs Nation would be saying this morning if the skates were on the other foot- if it was Wade Belak finishing a hit on Colin White? Would there be calls for suspensions? How would Leafs fans feel about the refs not calling it - a sign of incompetence or further defence for the guy in the blue and white? Would Maurice have put Belak back on the ice for another shift?

I'd like to see Janssen handed a multi-game suspension for this. It might be my Leaf blood talking, but it certainly seemed like a late hit with some intent to injure thrown in for good measure.

There really needs to be a disincentive administered by the league for these late hits before someone is seriously injured - either from the event or the retribution.

**UPDATED** And three games it is for Mr. Janssen...

The Quip

I'm not a huge fan of Jeff O'Neill (although 20 goals for his $1.5M salary is great value) - but I'm hoping JFJ resigns him next year just so we can get some refreshing quotes.

On the Janssen hit,

O'Neill called Janssen a "meathead" after the game, adding: "It's just more proof that some of these younger idiots in our league have no respect for what's going on out there. [Janssen] is probably a classic example, and the best defenceman in the NHL -- I think -- will be out for awhile. It's disappointing."

On the missed high-stick against Sundin:

"It's not like he is not noticeable out there, he's the best player on the ice, he's six-foot-five and he gets high-sticked in front of four referees. It's just kind of weird that there's not a call."

On Kerry Fraser and the myster goal:

"What's concerning to me is I don't know how [Fraser] makes that call with such conviction. It's a terrible call and it's unacceptable at this time of the year. The replay is clearly evident that it's not f---ing goalie interference. If it is goalie interference, call a penalty. We have to answer to people when we screw up, but I don't know what these guys have to do. It's a goddamn joke to be honest with you."

Sure beats the usual tripe we get in post game reports...

A Series of Compounding Errors

When the Leafs played Nashville a week or so ago, Joe Bowen (or one of the Leaf play by play guys) paraphrased Barry Trotz as saying "When teams, like the Leafs, are battling for their playoff lives little things tend to get magnified."

Think missed calls, bad penalties, weak goals - you know all the hallmarks of a typical Leaf game, streak, season, decade, forty-year drought (take your pick).

And so it comes to this...Sundin, inexplicably, gets a goal called back (nice work NHL. I know I ranted about this once before but would a timely explanation or some accountability be too much to ask? And wouldn't it have been the right call for Sportsnet to cite the Fraser call as the turning point of the game?); McCabe (after a horrible pinch) gets called for a very marginal hooking penalty (his stick was on and off that player faster than you could say "bad contract JFJ") and the Isles tie it up on the powerplay.

In OT, Sundin gets taken down like Steve Simmons on a Leaf fan discussion board and there's no call (hey NHL - it's a dive, a trip, or both - even the culprit Satan thought he was headed to the box).

And so it goes into the books as a shoot-out loss.

Oh, and here's more good news: the Isles now own the tie-breaker should they finish the season tied with the Leafs for 8th PPP has correctly pointed out that the Leafs still own the tiebreaker, so we've got that going for us.

My point isn't to bemoan the bad calls in one game (although that's always fun).

My point is this: it's time MLSE iced a team where non-calls and marginal penalties weren't the difference between life and death.

It's time MLSE set about icing a team where one blown call in February didn't loom over this club like some airborne toxic event.

I firmly believe that unless JFJ dramatically changes the composition of this team, I will spend all of next year with the Leafs stuck at .500, anxiously watching this same tightrope walk. Another season wasted on a team that's perpetually one stupid call away from being outside the playoffs once again.

I said weeks ago that I doubted this team has the stuff to make the post-season, never mind make it out of the first round.

But for those Leaf fans who are holding out hope for the playoffs, thinking this year's version of the Leafs might do some damage if they make the post-season dance, consider this: if the Leafs were in a four game series against the Isles, they'd be down 2-0.

Factor in: the recent 3-0 loss against the Bruins, the fact that this team holds a lead about as well as Ashley Simpson holds her liquor, that scintillating sub .500 home record and the fact that no team seeded lower than fifth has ever won the cup and I can't say I'm with you delusional Leaf fans optimists on this one.

And how bad is it that "making the playoffs" remains a stretch for this organization? Over half the freakin' league qualifies and yet the Leafs struggle to even attain that mediocre level of "success"

Sell.

Trade all the UFAs.

Play the kids and any prospects we get back.

Scout the hell out of all the pending UFAs and spend accordingly in the off-season.

From here on out, it shouldn't be about trying to hit that 8th spot, trying to get 2 more home dates for the pension fund, hoping Kerry Fraser isn't going to stick-it to the Leafs again.

Winning one round of the playoffs isn't what I'm after either.

Two rounds won't cut it.

A successful season for Leaf Nation should be winning the Cup. Nothing less.

Isn't it time MLSE started to think the same way?


Oh, and for the record: I hate the shoot-out. Even had the Leafs won, I still think it's an absolutely preposterous way to finish a game. If Bettman and his suits want to entertain the fans, get some TV coverage and have everyone talking at the water coolers he should have Raycroft fight DiPietro at Centre Ice, winner take all...I'm guessing that the Emery tilt will get more coverage than any of the shootout results that went down on the same night. ***UPDATE*** Deadspin, which I love even though they never post about hockey, has already posted highlights of the Emery fight, quickly generating 80+ comments...

äsch nej!

As if Sundin's elbow injury wasn't enough, now Raycroft is out with a pulled groin and Kubina is catching a baby somewhere in the Czech Republic (oh, I've been to Prague)...sometimes I wonder what Toronto has done to so anger the Hockey Gods.

I also wonder if this team is going to need a three-goal buffer each night to stay in the win column...wasn't sure that the Buds were going to pull that one off tonight.

==========
There certainly continues to be a lot of noise over Mick McGeough's blown call in the Edmonton-Dallas game a week ago (see here , here, here and here - for starters).

In terms of refs blowing it, the Sports Economist has offered up quite a few interesting posts and links on home-side bias in referees, the tendency for NHL refs to make even-up calls and the importance of accountability standards to keep sports from evolving (devolving?) into pro-wrestling.

When it comes to league response, I've always thought the NFL does a very good job of holding their officials accountable and owning up rather publicly to their mistakes - for example, issuing a league sanctioned statement whenever there is serious question about a call. The NFL even has a Monday night TV segment called Official Review to address refereeing issues.

Which brings me back to the good 'ol NHL.

While the NCAA has handed out one-game suspensions to officials and the NFL goes out of its way to maintain officiating standards and look into officiating shortcoming, the NHL's response to McGeough's blunder was seriously lacking. If you surf through their news archive there's a near identical CP story and AP story on the matter, but I couldn't find an official release or an official statement issued by the League.

I have seen my share of horrific calls and non-calls over the years, but I don't recall an NHL referee ever being suspended or called on the carpet by the NHL for any of them. It's too late now, but had the NHL stepped up to the plate, shown some accountability and dealt with this as the NFL does - maybe even suspending McGeough for a game - this wouldn't be hanging around like a Keith Primeau concussion.

Which makes me wonder, does anyone know if the NHL ever taken disciplinary action - fines, suspensions, complementary donuts - against one of their refs? I've never seen it, but I think it might be a good idea.

Without a net

As much as 40 years without a cup hurts, here are two more reasons to be glad your heart isn't with Cleveland (or Atlanta, San Diego, or Seattle).

Today's National Post has a great piece by Joe O'Connor - 20 questions with recently retired linesmen Ray Scapinello. Sadly, it's firewalled, but here's a taste:

Q. One referee or two?
RS: Two. The game is so fast, and they've opened it up so much, you need two. When they make that pass to the guy up at the far blue line -- without the red line -- no referee, and I don't care how great of a skater he is, is going to be there to make a call. But with two, the other guy is up there, and he gets to view it.

Q. What's the one call you blew that you wish you could have back?
RS: It was my second game in the NHL. It was in Chicago. Buffalo was leading 2-1, and Punch Imlach was coaching. A Sabres defenceman shot the puck down the ice, and he was going off, and just as he got there his change-guy hops over the boards. But Chicago got the puck, so the defenceman stayed on, and the change-guy jumped back on the bench. It was nothing, right? Well, when the whistle blew, I went over and told the referee, Art Scov, that Buffalo had too many men on the ice. It was a brutal call.

Q. How did Punch take it?
RS: He was livid. He refused to put a guy in the box. So Art Scov gives him the old watch routine [looks at his watch], and he still wouldn't do it. So Scov gave him a bench minor for delay of the game. Finally Punch relented and put two guys in the box. Bobby Hull scored two goals on the power play, and Chicago won 3-2, and the headlines in the next day's Chicago Tribune were: Hull, Scapinello beat Sabres 3-2.

Q. How about the one brawl you wish you missed?
RS: Oh, all through the '70s with the Philadelphia Flyers. Every time there was a whistle you'd look over your shoulder and the benches came. It was second nature. And you could only handle one fight at a time, so you and your partner would go to what you considered was the worst fight and break that up, get them in the box, and then look around and decide who was next. It was constant.

In other news, the Leafs rookies won a four team tournament by beating the Habs rookies 3-2. Good things those mondo oversized nets produced such an outrageous fan pleasing high score. (Which leads me to this thought: You know how baseball fans post giant Ks in the stadium everytime their pitcher gets a strikeout? Somebody needs to start a web-site the posts an image of a giant mustache or comb-over for every bizarro Strachan column that goes wrong...

Drawing Penalties

I didn’t have a dog in the hunt this spring. My post-season dreams were crushed sometime between the ink drying on Allison’s contract and the Buds going 0-9 last January. Yeah, the coup de grace may have slid off the stick of Martin St. Louis around the 80 game mark, but the slab in the morgue was prepped for ’05-06 Leafs a long time ago.

I’ll admit I was pretty damn happy to see the Sens crash and burn (I jumped out my seat and yelled when Pominville lit the lamp) and I was hoping the Oil would make the finals, but I certainly wasn’t living and dying with any of these teams. There was no yelling at the TV, cursing refs, relying on silly pre-game routines to keep a win streak alive (knowing full well that I couldn’t have less to do with the outcome of the game).

On the whole, the notion of supporting a second team strikes me as keeping an eye on a special someone just in case you become a widower.

Other than the lack of ulcers, the best thing for me not having the Leafs in the post-season this spring is the perception that I can watch the games in a more rational, less biased way. For example, in G3 on Saturday night I thought the second period had way too many marginal penalties called. Sadly, I started cheering more for the even-up call than for the play on the ice.

I was talking about this rash of penalties with some pals and we got to wondering why the NHL doesn’t keep stats on penalties drawn (or I guess, more accurately, track those players who cause a player on the opposing team to be penalized).

You could call it PD. It would be incredibly easy to do – the player that got dumped, slashed, hooked or pummeled is way more obvious to the statisticians than a lot of what’s currently being tracked such as hits, takeaways, turnovers and, in some cases, second assists.

Who wouldn’t want to know a player’s penalty +/- rating? To know who causes more powerplays than short handed situations?

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some teams are already tracking this sort of stuff.

On a more psychological level, it would also be fascinating to find out if keeping such stats actually changed on-ice behaviour. Think of the Hawthorne effect or the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

If certain players were near the top of the league in PD, would refs hesitate to make certain calls or would calls go their way? Would we see more diving calls or would players be more likely to dive to pad their PD stats? Would the league leaders in PD be the pests like Ville Nieminen and Matthew Barnaby; stars like Jagr, Ovechkin and Kovalchuk; or some plugger that would surprise us all?

It makes me wonder what other parts of the game can be easily tracked yet remain neglected...


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