I’m only partly joking.  The cornerstone of sports fandom, especially hockey fandom, is argument.  Who’s better this year, the Caps or the Canucks?  Who’s the best player of all time, Gretzky, Orr, or Lemieux?  While the first question will be easy enough to answer (look at the eventual standings and playoff achievment), the second is just good clean fun.  Corey Pronman, over at Puck Prospectus, has modified a scale used for baseball prospect scouting to break hockey into tools and ratings, called the 20-80 system.

Tools:

• Skating (Acceleration, stride, top speed, turning/edge control)
• Puck Skills (Passing, stick-handling etc.)
• Shot (Accuracy, velocity, release)
• Physical Game(Size, strength, able to handle physicality)
• Hockey Sense (Decision-making, awareness, smarts

and Ratings:

• 20: Can barely perform this skill, there are 13 and 14 year old amateur players who can do this skill better. Think Derek Boogaard’s hockey sense for example.
• 30: Significantly below average (minus minus), isn’t beer league quality but it’s nowhere near the NHL level. Think Georges Laraque’s puck skills or Hall Gill’s skating.
• 40: Below NHL average (minus), this skill isn’t completely out of the league but it’s still a good notch below. Examples are Marc Andre Fleury’s rebound control or Jack Johnson’s hockey sense.
• 50: NHL average, think Marco Sturm’s puck skills, Justin William’s shot.
• 60: Above NHL average (plus), this is an all-star level skill. Examples are Jonathan Toews’ skating, Mike Richard’s physical game, David Booth’s shot.
• 70: Significantly above average (plus plus), this skill is one of the best in the game and is in an elite class. This is a grade rarely given out. Steve Stamkos’ shot, Chris Prongers’, physical game, Nicklas Lidstrom’s hockey sense, and Alex Ovechkin’s skating are examples.
• 80: Generational talent, an extremely rare grade to be given out for any skill. Examples of what an 80 grade is include Bobby Orr’s skating, Al MacInnis’ shot, Wayne Gretzky’s hockey sense.

This could be fun.  Read the article for an example of a rating for a current NHL player, and how one might rate prospects and players.  Also, Corey is now involved in a website called premiumscouting.com, which is currently doing team reports, and hopefully will soon have scouting reports (and ratings) for individual prospects.

Even though I’m not a scout, and have no history of rating players, and no training in doing so, I DO have a blog!  That means I can speak with authority on damn near anything!  I’m going to try and rate Joe Thornton, and maybe that’ll start an argument in the comments.

• Skating – 45.  Joe can get around just fine, but won’t win any speed or agility contests.  He doesn’t pivot on a dime or get around anybody due to his skating, more his body.
• Puck Skills – 65.  I’m only going 65 here because although his passing is maybe the best of his generation, his puck handling isn’t.  He’s able to protect the puck well, but I wonder if that’s  hockey sense and physicality rather than puck skills.
• Shot – 40.  Joe can shoot?  Accuracy is probably about league average.
• Physical Game – 60.  While Joe doesn’t level too many hits, he’s extremely difficult to knock off the puck, and has an incredible reach that he can use on either the forehand or backhand side.
• Hockey Sense – 60.  Excellent at finding the open man and knowing where his teammates are.  Couple that with his passing skills, and you get highlight reel clips fairly often.  What doesn’t make Sportscenter are his turnovers, sometimes in particularly  devastating areas of the ice.  Those happen too often for his hockey sense to be considered ‘elite’ in my view.

Remember I have my dispassionate hockey hat on.  What do you think?  Too harsh?  Too lenient?

After  a few days of rumors, TSN is now reporting the finalization of a deal between the Sharks and Jamal Mayers.  Mayers, a big forward who has played most of his career with the Blues, is clearly meant to be a physical presence on the fourth line, probably with Scott Nichol.  For $600k, this is an upgrade over Brad Staubitz.  Mayers hasn’t played an AHL game since 1999, so those that would want to paint this guy as a marginal NHLer aren’t being accurate.  His best year points wise was only two years ago with St. Louis, 12 goals and 15 assists.  And he has traditionally played quite a bit of PK time, not much this past season, but 1:46/game with the Leafs in 08-09, and 3rd on the team in SH ice time with the Blues in 07-08.

I don’t have any problem with Mayers as a player, and we could use some toughness with Staubitz gone.  But what about Frazer McLaren?  I’m still a big booster of this guy, and desperately hope that this signing doesn’t relegate McLaren to the AHL again this year.  McLaren did have 6 points in 23 games for the big club last year (a slightly better scoring rate than Mayers) and had 15 points in 52 games for the Worchester Sharks, with some PK time as well.  It might not be the move I would make for this team, but it certainly fits Doug Wilson’s pattern of signing character veterans.  Either that or he’s going for the All-NHL Eyebrow team, and McLaren just doesn’t cut it.

DW's secret strategy

Well, it turns out even the $2.75M arbitration award was too rich for the Blackhawks’ blood.  They ditch Niemi and sign Marty Turco for one year, $1.3M.  I guess you could say Doug Wilson’s evil plan of signing Hjalmarsson to an offer sheet really paid off.  The Hawks now have to go with a goaltender who’s last 5 years of save percentage are .898, .910, .909, .898, and .913.  I consider .900 to be the Mendoza line for goaltenders, and .910 is roughly NHL average.

The Hawks are delightfully, wonderfully screwed for goalies.  According to Hockey’s Future, the Hawks have only one goaltending prospect in their top 20, Alec Richards at #11.  Richards posted great numbers his last year at Yale, but has been unable to crack the magical .900 mark in either the ECHL (in a full season) or the AHL (only six games).  A blue chipper this guy ain’t.

The annoying thing about Turco is his ability to play well against the Sharks.  Each of the past three years Turco has posted a better save percentage against the Sharks than his season average.  It’s not statistically huge, but it’s irritating.  I guess the one upside is we are only facing the Hawks four times this year, versus the customary six against Dallas.

New word on Seto, he got one year, $1.8M.  That’s better than we had hoped for, and in line with what Doug said. This is another incarnation of the Ryane Clowe situation from a couple of years ago- we’re not sure if you can take this to the next level, so we’ll give you one year, retain your RFA rights, and see what you can do.  There’s no reason to lock up a guy as inconsistent as Seto has been the last year.  He scored 31 goals two years ago (on a line with Jumbo) but last year, only 20.  Doug Wilson has made two statements in the last week that crystallize his philosophy on this kind of thing.  About Joe: “we want to create an environment where people want to stay,” and about Seto: “we have very high expectations.”  Translation?  You play well this year, meat, and show us you’re a top 6 forward all the time, and we will reward you next year.  Could it be a sign-and-trade like the next guy?  I doubt it.

Second good news- the Ducks trade their second best defenseman, James Wisniewski, who just got a $3.25M arbitration award contract, to the Islanders for a third round pick.  My first reaction- what a terrible deal for the Ducks.  Makes me happy.  I read Sleek’s post, and at least according to him, it’s about cash.  But to me, you don’t give up your second best defensemen for a third round pick.  Stupid.  Now, after Visnovsky, the obvious #1, they have Toni Lydman, Luca Sbisa, Sheldon Brookbank, Brendan Mikkelson, and Danny Syvret.  Think about that the next time you are bitching about the Sharks’ blue line.  Bob Murray may be the best thing to happen to San Jose hockey in a long time.

The one loss is that Antti Niemi got a much lower arbitration award than we had hoped for- only $2.75M.  This is probably low enough for the Hawks to do some more shuffling and fit him in somewhere under the cap.  There’s little doubt that Huet and his $5M+ contract will be dumped in the minors this year, even if Niemi isn’t re-signed.  There’s just no way for the Hawks to afford him, and can you say Huet will really be much better than a minor leaguer?  The Hawks dodged a big bullet here- I though $4M was too much to wish for but over $3M was certainly in the cards.

The fourth piece of news is less polarizing – a two year, $2.5M extension for Jason Demers starting next year.  He will still make $543k this year.  Demers looks like a good young defensemen, one that hopefully will be a bargain a $1.25M a year from now.  But it’s uncertain.  I like Demers, hope he continues to improve, and this contract is movable if he doesn’t fit into the plans.  It’s a safe signing, and not bad for the Sharks, so I call it a small win.

The Dudes tackle this week of scant Sharks news with aplomb, and knock out Steven Zalewski, Alex Ponikarovsky, Alex Frolov, and several listener emails.  Then Mike and Doug try and guess who might be this year’s “Manny Malhotra”, and finish up with an entirely new idea, hopefully listeners will join in!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Now that the Kovy deal has been rejected, and no better description of the NHL’s flip-floppery exists than here, on Deadspin of all places, it’s basically impossible to predict what will happen next.  But my money is on the Devils  restructuring the deal slightly so that the NHL cap guys only chuckle to themselves instead of blow coffee out of their noses.  That appears to be the test that these contracts are subjected to.  A quirky smile means A-OK (Franzen, Ohlund), a girlish giggle will pass (Luongo, Zetterburg), and even a hearty laugh will squeak by (Pronger, Hossa, Lecavalier, Savard).  But a snarf on the keyboard?  Get that $%^! out of here.  As always, behindthenet puts the numbers behind the laughter quotient.

One interesting consequence of these contracts is what it does to the escrow situation, an obscure provision of the CBA, but one that affects all players.  For the ultra-mathy, dig deep into the details with this post by Tyler Dellow, but let me give you the quick-and-dirty.  The salary cap is a hard one- the owners will pay exactly 57% of revenues to the players this season.  However, they don’t know what the actual revenues will be until the season is over, so they do some estimations, and hold back a portion of every player’s salary in escrow accounts.  But here’s the needle- they will pay 57% of the actual salaries, not the cap hits.  So for all of those players that are actually making more than their cap hits (mostly superstars), that drives up the total salary number, which means the escrow withholding is bigger.  And even if the NHL was exactly correct in estimating revenues, the fact that these players made more than their cap hits (calculated based on estimated revenue), that means it’s likely that some or all of that escrow money will go back to the owners.

So the guys that are taking home their cap hit – middle and lower tier players like Scott Nichol – end up with a greater portion of their salary withheld.  These stars are feeding off of the collective, with the idea that they will give back when their salaries eventually are lower than their cap hits.  But we know that these players like Hossa, Luongo, and Kovy will likely retire before they fulfill that part of the contract.  They won’t have to pay the piper at the end, they’ll be on a beach somewhere.  I’ve read some stuff that the escrow number could be as high as 20% under some conditions, and that takes a whole hundred grand off of a guy that’s making the league minimum.  Not cool.

So Kovy signs, and not with the Kings, as Doug and I both thought.  Financial details not yet disclosed, but I heard a rumor it’s a 17-year deal, which if true, is ludicrous.  That would mean he’s under contract until he’s 44, which will be right when Chris Chelios is staging another comeback.  Don’t miss the behindthenet take on this, and click other links in that post for background.

Also, Simon Gagne is traded from the Eastern Conference winning Flyers to the Lightning.  They needed to clear cap space so bad they trade a top-6 forward for Matt Walker and a 4th round pick.  And that cap room they freed isn’t really enough to get the goaltender they said they needed on many occasions.  Also they’re paying Michael Leighton $1.6M now, so whoops!

Just found this on the internets a few days ago (I know, I’m late), but it’s funny, and it fits:

Sweet Lou on the left, Dean Lombardi on the right

From Steve Simmons, via Kukla:

We take you now to the front office meeting of the San Jose Sharks, where the determination is made about how to win the Stanley Cup. “I’ve got the answer,” one voice says. “Let’s sign Antero Nittymaki to be our goalie.” There is applause all around. This is, of course, fictional: Or is it? One of the deepest, strongest teams in hockey lost its No. 1 goalie and replaced him with Nittymaki. And this somehow makes them better? There is but one plausible explanation for this: John Ferguson Jr. works for the Sharks. The same man who traded Tuukka Rask for Andrew Raycroft, believed in Justin Pogge and gave up multiple picks for Vesa Toskala. Must be Fergie. Otherwise, can someone please explain what GM Doug Wilson is thinking?

In the immortal words of Will Hunting, that’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot.  Maybe DW was thinking that it wasn’t too smart to sign a goalie with a mid-20s SV% ranking since the lockout to a multi-year deal worth 5 or more million dollars per year.  Maybe he was thinking that both the Flyers and the Hawks has unproven goalies that weren’t making a lot of money, and yet both made it to the Stanley Cup.  And maybe the scouts (and the GM) were tired of a goalie that made all-world saves in certain situations, but gave up 50-foot wrist shots in others.  That a solid, butterfly style for less money is better than an acrobatic style for more money.  That the real improvement needs to be made on blueline.  Since the trades for Joe Thornton and Dan Boyle happened before JFJ got there, maybe DW is just treating him as another scout- a guy that watches players and evaluates them, making the trade and signing decisions himself.  Nittymaki, after all, didn’t play for Toronto, or even in their division.  If JFJ really had DW in his pocket, wouldn’t the Sharks have traded for Tim Thomas by now?

That Cup won't buy you any cigarettes up in here, but we'll take that pretty boy you got.

Sorry I haven’t posted lately, as we’ve said in the podcast, I’ve been out of town, and all the semi-interesting UFA stuff happened before I got back.  This morning, I get the first juicy news since my illustrious homecoming.  The Sharks have signed another difficult-to-spell person that no one expected.  This time, it’s a different Scanadavian country, and a different position- the Blackhawks’ Niklas Hjalmarsson was signed to a 4 year, $14M offer sheet, per Bob MacKenzie.  Hjalmarsson averaged almost 20 minutes of ice time in the #4 hole, behind Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, and Brian Campbell.  I would be willing to wager (and I imagine DW does too) that Hjalmarsson would not be in that slot for 28 other teams (Philly possibly the only exception).  Assuming this is true, let’s look at at Hjalmarsson’s RFA options from his perspective:

1. Sign with cash-strapped Chicago for a sizable home town discount, even though they have already lost Kris Versteeg, Brent Sopel, John Madden, and Dustin Byfuglien.
2. Get traded by Chicago to a team that offers the best deal to Stan Bowman, which is essentially a crap shoot.  Look where Byfuglien ended up.
3. Have some control over your future, and sign an offer sheet with a decent team for the kind of money that you are looking for.

Clearly Hjalmarsson chose #3, and who could blame him?  Doug Wilson recognized this, and pounced.  Now Stan Bowman, Chicago’s GM, is between a rock and a hard place.  On one hand, he can retain his excellent young defenseman, but will likely have to trade Patrick Sharp or even more to get under the cap again.  On the other hand, he lets NH go (I’m sick of typing Hjalmarsson), gets a 2011 1st 2nd and 3rd round draft pick in return (per TSN), and is in dire need of a #4, #5, and #6 defensemen.  The draft picks will soften the blow, but keep in mind they come from the Sharks, which will likely be late round picks.  No players are left in the upper twenties that are slam-dunk NHLers.  Those picks could easily end up being Matt Pelech and Marc-Andre Gragnani.

This also asks the question- why didn’t the Sharks do this with with Antti Niemi? It’s a good question, but like many, the answer is money.  I think that the Sharks only budgeted $2M or so for a goaltender, and Niemi would certainly want more than that.  We will find out after Niemi’s salary arbitration.

It’s too early to go into the possible Sharks roster ramifications because Chicago could match the deal, and tomorrow will look just like yesterday.  I’d put the chances of that right at 50-50.  Could this spark another GM feud like the Brian Burke- Kevin Lowe dustup?  Lucky for us, we have the first real taste of drama in the Sharks offseason.

What Doug Wilson wants, Doug Wilson gets

Canada Day is done and the Sharks have a new goalie in town, Finnish netminder Antero Niittymaki, who is going to make my spell check crazy for the next two years. This was a shocker, especially since there was so much chatter about the evil Marty Turco and so much hype about former Nashville goalie Dan Ellis. The lesson learned is we all should have listened to Doug Wilson when he said last week that they are looking for a butterfly style goalie – a change of technique from the athletic style of the Franchise Goalie Formerly Known as Nabby. The Sharks signed Niittymaki to a 2 year/4M deal, allowing the Sharks to change styles in net and also not break the bank in the process. Here’s the pros and cons to this deal, as I see it.

PRO: Niittymaki has had a Halak/Niemi type run on the biggest stage in the world by playing out of his mind in the 2006 Winter Olympics, winning a Silver Medal for Team Finland and the MVP of the Men’s Tournament with three shutouts and a 1.34GAA and .951 SV%. This is the type of pedigree I was hoping for in our new goalie – the ability to take over a series. The change of pace/style might be refreshing for this franchise.

CON: Niittymaki has not found this success at the NHL level in consistent stretches and has no real NHL playoff experience. He’s never been the clear #1 goalie and he certainly wasn’t given the title today in San Jose. It sounds like the Sharks will ride the hot hand, which certainly worked for Philly, Montreal and Chicago this season. Doug Wilson was extremely aggressive in signing Niittymaki and I guess gets kudos for getting his target, but given the cash more established goalies like Dan Ellis (2 years/3M in Tampa Bay) and Chris Mason (2 years/3.7M) got later in the day, you would think that DW could have waited and got his man for $500,000 less.

I was shocked earlier today by the move but I think I’m okay with it. I honestly didn’t see what all the fuss was about with Dan Ellis and maybe he’ll prove Yzerman a genius – but that guy peaked in 2008 with his playoff performance against the Red Wings and has been average ever since – and all I can remember about Chris Mason was how the Sharks embarrassed him in the playoffs when he was in Nashville. So, if Doug Wilson and company researched the options and after striking out with Halak, this was the next best thing – I have to trust them. Who’s to say Greiss won’t play the lion’s share of the games or that Alex Stalock won’t be breathing down their necks in training camp. It will be a good old fashioned roster spot battle and that type of fever seemed to work wonders for teams last season.

Manny Malhotra is gone – to Vancouver with a 3 year/7.5M deal. That’s too much cash for Faceoff Master Manny – no thank you. Doug Wilson made the right call here to walk away from the classy Malhotra and I think this is an excellent opportunity to follow another trend that worked this last year – the shutdown pest center. That isn’t Malhotra, he’s too much of a gentlemen and didn’t have the consistent defensive drive that a guy like The Rat Bolland did against the Sharks (notice Bolland is still in Chicago).

We have to all calm down and remember the Sharks Western Conference Finals team roster didn’t take shape until September. I still believe with the 8M of cap room that significant changes will take place and Doug Wilson will add that defenseman we crave, but now via the trade market. Could we see an ironic switch of positions with Vancouver looking to dump the 3.75M contract of Kevin Bieksa on San Jose? Last year the Sharks sent a valuable player in Ehrhoff with the DW special salary dump guy (Lukowich) for two nothing prospects. Could the Sharks get Kevin Bieksa for two prospects we’ll never miss?

So many funny moves today, please chime in with your best and worst deal of the day. So far, I’m taking Darryl Sutter bringing back the poster boy for losing, Olli Jokinen, to Calgary as the WORST contract and a sure sign that Sutter has gone completely bat-$%&# crazy. The best move of the day goes to the Pittsburgh Penguins for getting Z. Michalek on a four year deal worth 4M per season. An outstanding value.