Once a Captain, Now a Director of Forwards Development

"No! It's too early for me to get the hook. I'm not ready!"

On the surface, there are seemingly no hard feelings between the Carolina Hurricanes and former captain Rod Brind’Amour. One gets a very different idea upon realizing just how little the recently named director of Carolina’s forwards development has to work with.

Maybe “being set up to fail” is the wrong terminology. Maybe the ‘Canes are actually hoping Brind’Amour is able to impart the many nuggets of wisdom he’s tucked away for occasions such as this to the team’s forward base. Maybe he will even succeed. But when you’re talking about a team made up of consistent underachievers like goaltender Cam Ward, defenseman Joni Pitkanen, and forwards Tuomo Ruutu, Sergei Samsonov, Erik Cole, and captain Eric Staal, a lack of development is not likely the problem.

Try as he might, I strongly suspect that the work ethic that made Rod “The Bod” so effective as a hockey player doesn’t exactly lend itself to easy learning. Much more likely? Genetics lent at least a helping hand to prolonging Brind’Amour’s 20-year career. And his being grown in a lab should not be completely ruled out either.

At the end of the day, you’re talking about a decent team on paper that at mid-season was last in the entire NHL. The ‘Canes no doubt finished strong, going 25-14-3 in the new year, but that torrid run only led the team to 24th place to end the season. So, the team, which lost top-six forward Ray Whitney but re-gained power-play quarterback Anton Babchuk in the off-season, no doubt has potential to do damage. They could just as easily sabotage their own playoff hopes, though.

Like a group of double agents caught in a perpetual cold war between college basketball and hockey in the Southern United States, the ‘Canes have been in deep cover far too long – for four years, since the team’s Stanley Cup victory – to be as passionate for their sport as they once were. Few can blame them when their efforts on the ice, somewhat invalidated by low attendance over the last few seasons, go unnoticed, at least by the locals. Farther north, however, it’s a different story. For example:

1) Clearly, injuries have taken their toll on Cole, to the point that he hasn’t had a decent season since 2007. That’s a long time spent toiling in mediocrity, even taking into account the time he’s spent in whichever hospital ward he’s grown most accustomed to calling home.

2) Ruutu is playing a lot like his older brother, minus his “shift disturber” status, making him about as worthwhile as a $4-million mansion without the friends to invite over. If you can’t show off, why bother keeping it around? If you’re Ruutu, why bother showing up at all?

3) Eric Staal has had one all-star calibre season in his career, yet continues to be recognized as one of the top players in the league. It kind of makes you wonder where Keanu Reeves would be without The Matrix. Needless to say, I don’t think he would be able to fall back on his “work” experience filming the Bill & Ted movies.

However the ‘Canes finish this year, Brind’Amour definitely has his hands full, especially when it comes to making sure prospects like Brandon Sutter and Zach Boychuk don’t fall into the same bad habits that led any one of the team’s top forwards to let superstardom slip out of their fingers.

Like it or not, Brind’Amour represents the last legitimate all-around all-star the team has had. Yes, his play kind of tailed off in the recent past and he placed second-to-last in +/- in the league last season, an embarrassment to say the least for a player that once won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward two years in a row. But that’s why players retire, because they don’t have it anymore.

In a way, maybe this is some weird form of karmic payback, for leaving the ‘Canes in the lurch, holding the tab on his $3.6-million salary-cap hit this year. But the ‘Canes probably expected as much. They maybe even had that coming their way thanks to them stripping him of his captaincy last year, in the middle of the season no less, as if giving the purely symbolic “C”, which, to the best of everyone’s knowledge, does not possess mystical powers, to Staal would have made a difference to the outcome of their already lost season in late January.

The ‘Canes can say that Brind’Amour gracefully gave up the captaincy all they want and that he had the power to veto the decision if he so desired. But, if you were in Brind’Amour’s skates, you had an inkling that you were going to hang them up at the end of the season, and you wanted to do the classy thing, would you have caused a ruckus? At that point, even if Brind’Amour hadn’t thought of retiring, the not-so-tactful hands of the team were clearly directing him towards the door anyway. Retiring could have been construed as the most logical way for him to save face following what must have been a generally humiliating experience.

Brind’Amour may still be employed by the team, but it doesn’t deserve him. Staal may have been the team’s best player the past few seasons, but the ‘Canes will soon realize it isn’t the captaincy that makes the player... it’s the player that makes the team. And neither is good enough.

Rangers Should Rebound from Shootout Letdown

It all came down to one final breakaway: Failed superstar Olli Jokinen facing failed starting goalie Brian Boucher in the final round of the final shootout of the final game of the 2009-2010 regular season for both the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers. The victor of this one showdown would clinch the last available playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The loser would be destined for an off-season of second guesses, most notably: “Why wasn’t Marian Gaborik on the ice instead of Jokinen?”

At this point, we all know what happened: Jokinen fell short in his attempt to deke out Boucher and backhand the puck into the net.

With that the Rangers, having just gone 7-1-1 in order to put themselves back in playoff contention, suffered a devastating blow. As added insult to injury, they were forced to watch those same Flyers make it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, and think about all the debauched spoils of victory they could have been enjoying given the same chance. Sorry, boys, but the hangovers you sustained were of the self-loathing variety, and justifiably so. Remember, when it comes to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, ninth place just isn’t good enough.

With next season fast approaching, a much needed wave of change has transformed the Rangers from a team that just missed the playoffs into one that will most likely just barely make them. Baby steps, right? But it is nonetheless hard to deny the team’s depth this go-around. Henrik Lundqvist remains the team’s core strength and with Martin Biron signed, it has a solid one-two punch in goal.

Conversely, Jokinen is gone, but he likely only would have served as an unwanted reminder of last season and head coach John Tortorella’s boneheaded decision to not use his premier offensive weapon in Gaborik in the shootout, anyway. The Rangers instead signed former Los Angeles King Alexander Frolov, replacing one overpaid problem child (Jokinen had been making $21 million over four years) with another, but saving several million dollars in the process. You can consider this signing more or less a lateral move.

The Rangers also added enforcer Derek “The Bogeyman” Boogaard, who may end up doing a good job protecting the team’s number-one asset in Gaborik, but at what cost? Oh, yeah, $1.65 million in each of the next four years for a player whose only two goals over his five-year NHL career came in his rookie campaign with the Minnesota Wild. Some may point to this statistic as evidence that his skills have degraded over the past half-decade, but, to successfully make that argument, Boogaard would need actual skills as a hockey player to begin with and not just those of an oversized bouncer on skates.

General manager Glen Sather does get bonus marks for the Rangers’ major coup of the off-season, acquiring center Todd White for wastes of roster spaces Donald Brashear and Patrick Rissmiller. White is only one season removed from a 73-point season with the Atlanta Thrashers, and, while he should be slotted into the team’s third line, he does most definitely give it more offensive flair. Ditto for the recently acquired Tim Kennedy, who can play all three forward positions and proved to have some scoring talent with the Buffalo Sabres last year. All things being equal, New York boasts no less than 11 forwards that can be pushed into a top-six role in a pinch.

And should the incredibly overpaid Wade Redden stay with the big club, it will also have a decent (but expensive) defensive corps. That would of course be contrary to rumours that he’ll be sent down in order to save money and allow him to teach the team’s prospects how they too can make over $6.5 million each year in exchange for just showing up.

As overpaid as Redden and Michal Rozsival ($5 million) are, they’re still unfortunate upgrades over the recently acquired Steve Eminger. The 27-year-old Eminger, of course, can only lay claim to one real accomplishment over his seven-year career: prompting the need for the creation of the term “journeyboy”, with his having already played for six teams. Marc Staal, Michael Del Zotto, Matt Gilroy, and Dan Girardi round out what should amount to an underrated top six.

Really, the team’s one weakness over the past decade has been Sather himself. The Boogaard, Rozsival, and Redden contracts are irrefutable proof of this. But with the game ultimately played on the ice, the Rangers have a great shot at making the playoffs. That is, of course, only if Tortorella remembers to play Gaborik in the shootout this time around.