Backhand Shots : CBSSports.com Blogs

For Perry, it's location, location, location

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 13:38:22 EDT

Corey Perry is getting ribbed by his Anaheim Ducks teammates these days because he is scoring a lot of goals lately, and most of them seem to be coming from right in front of the net.

Tap-ins are how Ryan Getzlaf labels the offensive explosion with good-natured derision. They are the finishes to the plays that Getzlaf and his other linemate Bobby Ryan have started with regularity this season, and they have lifted Perry into a tie for the league goal scoring lead. So the joke is intended to imply that the unit’s right winger is letting others do most of the work, while conveniently overlooking the price one has to pay to be in that punishing area.

When I told Ducks coach Randy Carlyle about the big center’s attempt at humor, he retorted that he wouldn’t mind seeing Getzlaf tap in a few of Perry’s shots either. Perry thought his coach was funny, but said he really didn’t mind anyone trying to pigeon-hole the type of goals he’s getting.

Time for Cooke to get the message

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 7:41:32 EDT

Political types like to say you should never let a good crisis go to waste, and it’s a lesson the Pittsburgh Penguins might to do well to learn. They have a mess on their hands named Matt Cooke, and may never get a better opportunity to dump him and all the problems he creates.

Mind you, Pittsburgh won’t have to worry about it at least until the first round of the playoffs end – a potential of 17 games -- because that’s how long Cooke the very stiff suspension handed down by the league for his latest brain-cramped attack on another player’s head will last. And given all the injuries they have, the Penguins will probably be hard pressed to go deeper than that, so the issue could be moot for a while.

But even if the Penguins do manage some sort of playoff run, they will have to think seriously about buying out Cooke after this season ends. It will require paying the veteran a total of $2.4 million over the next four seasons, a price the organization has to be willing to pay given how forcefully owner Mario Lemieux came out against stupidity on the ice a few weeks ago.

GMs charging toward a safer game

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:36:50 EST

BOCA RATON, FL -- This was like a tale of two cities. While Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau was in effect telling fans to ‘love it or shove it’, a thousand miles away the NHL and its general managers were delivering a similar message about their game of hockey, albeit in a far more diplomatic way.

For his part, Boudreau was reacting to a potential protest in Montreal about head shots, organized through a Facebook petition in the wake of a serious injury suffered last week by the Canadiens’ Max Pacioretty from a hit by Boston’s Zdeno Chara. The protest was scheduled to take place Tuesday night outside the Bell Centre where Washington was playing the Canadiens, and when asked about it by reporters after the Capitals morning skate, Boudreau was quick to dismiss any hand-wringing about the dangers of the sport.

NHL diving head-first into concussion issue

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 9:42:20 EDT

BOCA RATON, FL – It was probably just a coincidence that Sidney Crosby skated this morning for the first time since sustaining a concussion while the league’s general managers were gathering to discuss the growing problem those injuries have become.

The absence of hockey’s marquee player has helped make concussions and player safety the league’s biggest hot-button issue of the meetings for the second year in a row, with the reaction to the controversial hit by Boston’s Zdeno Chara on Max Pacioretty of the Canadiens last week adding the kind of fuel to the fire that Matt Cooke’s hit on Marc Savard did last March.

That time, the spotlight pushed the managers into producing Rule 48, a statute that outlawed blind-side hits to the head. And the rule has actually had a positive effect, with NHL’s stats showing that the number of man-games lost to concussions caused by illegal hits has declined by more than half.

Coming up short on big Chara

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:19:35 EST

No one believes Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara wanted to see Montreal ’s Max Pacioretty carried away on a stretcher.

Certainly not NHL operations VP Mike Murphy, who made the decision on behalf of the league not to suspend Chara received for hitting Pacioretty in a way that left the Canadiens forward with a severe concussion and broken vertebrae.

It wasn’t an easy call to make what with the hanging jury crowd beating a loud drum for serious punishment to be imposed on the Bruins captain. They saw Chara’s play as reckless and as it was dangerous and they have a point.

Then again, so do the ‘hockey people’, including a host of ex-players who have weighed in and argued the hit was simply a part of a physical game. Their take is that Chara’s five-minute interference penalty and game misconduct was a sufficient price for a generally routine play that had an unfortunate outcome. To go any further in terms of discipline would be to threaten the fundamental nature of the sport.

Blackhawks undressed to the nines

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:19:50 EST

Turns out it wasn’t another day at the beach for the Chicago Blackhawks.

Mind you the reigning Stanley Cup champs did manage to get in a couple of those because they arrived a few days early for their game against the Florida Panthers. Kind of a reward for putting together an impressive eight-game winning streak and finally starting to look like the well-oiled machine that won the Stanley Cup last June.

But the R&R came with a price for a Chicago team that has been on fire of late. The Blackhawks took the day off after flying down from Toronto on Saturday night, had a quick practice Monday and didn’t skate on the morning of the Panthers game, then forgot to show up for the start of the game. Apparently a little too much sun and sand made it impossible to get very worked up about playing a rebuilding team that essentially dismembered itself at the trade deadline last week.

Guys like Gillies won't get the message

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:57:50 EDT

While a growing number of hockey and football players are willing their brains to research these days, it might be more interesting to get a look inside the one of Trevor Gillies.

Maybe we could find out what compels someone to do something really stupid in his first game back after being suspended for doing something really stupid.

Gillies, the New York Islanders hit man, is going to be suspended by the NHL after a hearing Friday, likely for at least five games and maybe even for the rest of the season which has 19 games remaining for New York. The drum beat for extreme punishment started on national networks not long after Gillies ran Minnesota’s Cal Clutterbuck face first into the glass early in the second period Wednesday night, and has grown loud enough that it is now almost a no-brainer for the NHL.

Niemi proves his worth

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:03:56 EST

This has been a pretty good day for Antti Niemi, who was named one of the league’s Stars of the month for leading the San Jose Sharks back to first place in the Pacific Division.

Even better, the Sharks just announced that they have signed a four-year contract extension with Niemi, who was on a one-year deal after winning the Stanley Cup last season with the Chicago Blackhawks.

The 27-year-old ended up in San Jose because the Blackhawks didn’t have the cap space to re-sign him, but the $2 million salary Niemi ended up with was less than say Jaroslav Halak and Carey Price, neither of whom have a Cup on his resume, signed for last summer.

Niemi had to wait until the end of last summer to get a contract after Chicago walked away from his arbitration award. His patience was rewarded then and even more now, because after a 10-2 February with three shutouts and a .934 save percentage, Niemi has earned his reward. His new deal is worth $3.8 million a season.

Oilers get their price for Penner

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:05:08 EST

Edmonton GM Steve Tambellini had been saying for weeks that he had no problem hanging on to Dustin Penner and Ales Hemsky, but would part with either one for the right return. The Oilers got it for Penner an hour before the deadline from the desperate Los Angeles Kings.

The Kings needed to do something because they are young and emerging and poised to take the next step, especially now that they have seem to have salvaged what started off as a great season. Los Angeles has gone 6-1-2 record in the last 10 games and they have really good goaltending and one of the best young defense groups in the game.

But offense has been a problem, even with Anze Kopitar on pace for an 80-point season. The Kings actually have a pretty good group of forwards with Justin Williams (signed to a contract extension earlier in the day), Dustin Brown and Ryan Smyth, but adding Penner gives Los Angeles a big, powerful net crasher who can score.

Panthers part of last minute rush and more

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:38:21 EST

It’s coming down to the 11th hour (or 1400 military time). Anyway, the trade waters are rustling a little quicker as the deadline approaches, with the Florida Panthers continuing to be busy bees and the Chicago Blackhawks adding a piece for their title defense hopes.

The Panthers have been in strip-down mode for the last week, and made their third deal of the day and their fifth in the last week by sending defenseman Bryan Allen to the Carolina Hurricanes for forward Sergei Samsonov. Florida saves a little payroll for the balance of this season by moving the big, physical Allen to Carolina, and get a player who showed some tremendous skill in his first few NHL seasons.

But that was nearly a decade ago and Samsonov is 32 years old now with plenty of miles on him. But he is in the last year of his contract and Florida still needs some NHL players to finish out a season that has seen them shed most of them.

Jackets end expansion ties by trading Klesla

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:52:46 EST

The Columbus Blue Jackets have finally broken entirely with their past by trading away the last of their originals, Rostislav Klesla.

The 28-year-old defenseman was the very first draft choice for the expansion draft choice, but along with the rest of the franchise, he spent the next 10 seasons getting almost nowhere. Klesla did become a relatively reliable defenseman when he was healthy, which wasn’t that often over the last few seasons, but not what Columbus expected from such a high draft pick.

In Phoenix though, he’ll be an upgrade to Sami Lepisto, who went back to Columbus along with Scottie Upshall for Klesla and minor leaguer Dane Byers in the deal. And Klesla will help help fill a void created by the injury to Ed Jovanovski.

Wideman trade fills a void for Caps

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 19:01:06 EST

Florida Panthers GM Dale Tallon must be licking his chops waiting for this June’s draft.

Tallon was the story of last year’s festivities only a few weeks after he got the job when he came home with three first rounders and six of the top 50 players chosen. In less than four months, he’ll have at least 10 picks in the first three rounds, the latest coming today when Florida traded defenseman Dennis Wideman to the Washington Capitals.

The Panthers received a low-level minor leaguer named Jake Hauswirth in the deal, but more important to them was adding another third-round pick in June. It’s the fourth Tallon has stockpiled, to go a along with a first-round choice and two in the second round, and is part of the rapid-fire reload the general manager has engineering for the long-suffering team.

Phillips deal makes sense for both sides

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 12:07:10 EST

It could be that the offers for Chris Phillips weren’t all that tempting to the Ottawa Senators because there's no doubt GM Bryan Murray had plenty of inquiries for the veteran defenseman. Phillips was one of the more interesting players widely presumed to be up for grabs by the trade deadline and the Senators made it clear they were listening.

Thing is Phillips really didn’t want to go anywhere. He’s been with the Senators since they drafted him first overall in 1996, his wife is from Ottawa and he is very comfortable there despite the trying times they team has gone through this season. But he is also a quality stay-at-home type that playoff-bound teams were looking to pick up on a rental basis, so he was out there.

Thrashers in buying mode with trade for Dvorak

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:23:40 EST

It seemed like Atlanta was thinking about next season rather than this one when they made a deal with the Boston Bruins a couple of weeks ago, but GM Rick Dudley apparently still has designs on a playoff spot now.

The Thrashers, who sent one of their top offensive threats Rich Peverley to Boston for younger players Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart, have won only four times in their last 20 games. In the process, they'v blown a playoff spot they had much of the season and fallen to 11th in the East. Atlanta's owners are desperate to sell too, but the reality is that Atlanta is still only four points below the cutoff.

So Atlanta is still in the mix, and Dudley has pulled off a nice little deal to help the cause by getting Radek Dvorak and even a fifth-round pick from the Florida Panthers.

Sabres become men with deal for Boyes

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 9:03:47 EST

It must feel good for Buffalo Sabres GM Darcy Regier to be a buyer for a change at the deadline.

His new owner Terry Pegula gave him the mandate to spend money to build a winner and Regier wasted little time starting the effort by acquiring sharp-shooting forward Brad Boyes from the St. Louis Blues for a second-round draft pick in a midnight move.

Boyes comes with a $4 million annual price tag and another season left on his contract, a hefty price for someone who has scored only 26 goals in the last year a half, with only 12 of them this season. But the Blues, who have now officially raised the white flag, haven’t exactly been an offensive juggernaut in that time. And Boyes did score 43 and 33 times in the two seasons before that, so maybe a change of scenery will help him regain his touch.

Arnott has one foot out the door

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 6:36:05 EST

Will Jason Arnott’s second tour of duty with the Devils end after New Jersey plays the Florida Panthers this afternoon?

The veteran seems to be hoping so with the trade deadline less than 24 hours away.

“I want to play in the playoffs,” Arnott said in an interview.

That doesn’t seem likely with the Devils despite the fact they have been the league’s hottest team over the last seven weeks. New Jersey has moved 16 points closer to a playoff spot than it was on Jan. 8, but still remains a very large 11 points shy with quarter season remaining.

Panthers continue to de-claw

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 11:54:15 EST

Breaking up ain’t hard to do for Dale Tallon.

The Florida Panthers GM is in full dismember mode now with the team he inherited, making another deal on a day that previously seemed like the calm before Monday’s trade deadline storm. Tallon broke the tranquility, sending defenseman and team captain Bryan McCabe to the New York Rangers for minor-leaguer Tim Kennedy and a third-round draft pick.

It was a little more than I thought Florida would get for the 35-year-old rental who has a $5.75 cap hit, with the young forward being a potentially worthwhile a throw-in to the pick that the Panthers really prized. But the Rangers really needed someone who can quarterback a power play, and that’s the best part of McCabe’s game. He has a big shot.

Stillman back with the 'Canes

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:58:11 EST

Maybe it’s back to the future day in the NHL. First Pittsburgh brings back Alexei Kovalev and now the Carolina Hurricanes have traded for Cory Stillman, who spent the initial post-lockout seasons with them.

At age 37, Stillman has been been a middling performer this season, playing out the string on what may be the final contract of his career, a three-year $10.5 million pact he signed with Florida in 2008. But he won a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006 after winning one two years earlier with Tampa Bay, and when healthy this season, he has shown he’s the kind of veteran who can still help in a limited role for a team on a playoff path.

The Hurricanes are on such a path at the moment, clinging to the eighth spot they have taken over in the East with a much-improved second half. Florida meanwhile, is headed for its 10th consecutive playoff miss and is cost-cutting mode right now as it tries to accumulate assets for the future. The Panthers had to get Stillman to waive his no-trade, but the chance to go to back to Carolina, where he has ties and his young son still plays with an elite travel team, made it easy for the veteran.

Kovalev gets birthday present with trade to Pens

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:41:31 EST

If there’s any team that will get Alexei Kovalev to show up more than he has during the last two seasons, it’s the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The nice thing is it cost Pittsburgh no more than a sixth-round draft pick to get him back from the Ottawa Senators, so there’s not much down side for the Penguins.

Kovalev turns 38 today and for those of you who weren’t paying attention, his age was been less of a concern for the Senators than the fact he tended to disappear with his $5 million pay checks for extended periods with Ottawa after it signed him as a free agent in 2009. But he had some of his best career seasons with Pittsburgh earlier in the decade, the team is still in contention, and Kovalev still has enough left of his rare skill set to make an impact for the injury-ravaged Penguins.

Parity in the Pacific

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:25:59 EST

In the utopian world NHL commissioner Gary Bettman believes is parity, it doesn’t get much better than this season’s race in the Pacific Division where all five teams have a chance to finish first.

Or to miss the playoffs altogether.

The Pacific Division has become the most interesting in the league this season, with a couple of teams in the process of being sold, another presumably entering a rebuilding stage, and two that had high expectations giving no quarter and fighting it out what could be its only playoff spot.

The post season cutoff line in the Western Conference heading into Tuesday’s action was 68 points, a total the Los Angeles Kings, Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks all share at the moment. Factoring in wins and games played though only the Kings would be playoff bound, yet all three teams are within five points of the Pacific lead.

The battle of Southern Ontario

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:09:51 EST

Moments after they lost to the New York Islanders on Tuesday, the Ottawa Senators announced they had traded veteran forward Chris Kelly to the Boston Bruins for a second-round draft pick this June.

And if your wondering why the rush, you probably haven't been paying attention to the long-standing rivalry between the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs. If you had, you might even remember when it used to be about the games between them. These days though the most intense fight between Ottawa and Toronto seems to be which team will have more bragging rights by the time the trade deadline passes.

And they're taking it seriously. In fact both bottom feeders have jumped the gun on the annual frenzy in the last week, moving out notable names who didn’t figure in either’s rebuilding plans in a race to see who stockpile more hope for their futures.

Foppa flops

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:15:34 EST

I guess Peter Forsberg deserves credit for cutting it short. He didn’t look very good in his much-noticed return to the Colorado Avalanche, decided to end his un-retirement before it got worse.

Or before it got embarrassing.

It’s always an ego-driven risk when a player is desperate to go out on his own terms or to prove he can still play. Forsberg was headed down that road and he realized it.

The 37-year-old Swede was arguably the game’s best overall during a couple of his peak years, but that was essentially a decade ago. Back then, Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy and Adam Foote were the leaders of a team that was a league powerhouse for a long stretch.

Lemieux lashes out

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:31:26 EST

Get the feeling that Sidney Crosby’s concussion issues are a lot more serious than anyone thought at first?

The Penguins captain wasn’t his usual optimistic self about returning any time soon when he spoke to reporters this week, and that should have been the first clue. But Pittsburgh owner Mario Lemieux made it even clearer by releasing a pointed statement that smacked of frustration about the condition of his franchise player.

Crosby has been out since Jan. 5, the result of a blindside hit by Washington’s David Steckel in the Winter Classic and being run into the glass by Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman in the following game. But Lemieux waited until the league handed out discipline decisions following the fight-filled game between the Penguins and New York Islanders on Friday that produced 346 penalty minutes, 10 ejections, 15 fighting majors and 20 misconducts. The Hall of Famer called the game a ‘travesty’ and embarrassing to the sport, and went even further to highlight his displeasure.

Mr. Underwood comes home

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 17:38:32 EST

OK, so it took seven months to get done Mike Fisher traded to the Nashville Predators. Deals aren't easy to make in the NHL these days, even when they seem as inevitable this one from the moment Fisher married country music star Carrie Underwood last July. Still it might have taken longer had the Ottawa Senators not imploded this season.

The Senators had Fisher and his $4.2 million annual salary under contract for two more years, but with the team in the very early stages of a much-needed major rebuild, there was no really no point in keeping the two love birds from being together in Music City. More important, Ottawa came back with a much-coveted first-round draft choice in the process, a return that becomes increasingly harder as the trade deadline approaches.

Cooke gets off easy

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 7:38:38 EST

Apparently Matt Cooke doesn’t realize that you lie low right after you’ve gotten away with something.

And in that case, what is a four-game suspension for bulldozing someone into the glass from behind going to mean for him? Especially after he got away with an equally dangerous play on one of the league’s top Stars a few days earlier.

Obviously it doesn't matter to Cooke that the league is more concerned than ever with protecting its athletes from unnecessary risks. It isn’t going to get him to change the way he plays, which is dangerous at best and dirty at worst. Why should it when so many in the hockeysphere are condemning him for ramming Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Fedor Tyutin into the glass from behind and at the same time saying they’d take Cooke on their team.

Flaming in

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:07:00 EST

The trade deadline is only a few weeks away, and a lot of teams are still deciding whether to approach it as a buyer as a seller.

Now you can add the Calgary Flames to that list of fence-sitters after their latest victory -- an impressive one at that over the Chicago Blackhawks, put them over the playoff line. It’s the first time the Flames have been there since late October, having spent most of their interim time in the next-to-last seed in the West, while getting rid of their general manager Darryl Sutter.

But these days they are hotter than their nickname suggests and making life more complicated for interim GM Jay Feaster in the process.

See when Feaster took over in late December, the Flames were going nowhere. Worse, they were watching their last great hurrah fade further in the rearview. That would have been in 2004, when Sutter, in a dual role as coach and GM, took a team that had missed the previous eight playoffs to the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals.

Savard not so savvy about the future

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:50:11 EST

Not sure what was tougher for Marc Savard – shutting it down for the season or having to sit there and tell everyone about it.

Savard often looked like he was fighting back tears as he sat between Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli and team physician Dr. Peter Ansis this afternoon at a news conference to officially announce that his latest concussion would sideline him for the balance of the season and playoffs. It had been something of a given since Savard suffered his second serious blow to the brain in less than a year recently, although the Bruins center kept insisting his biggest struggle is coming to terms with not finishing the season

Still what was lurking on everyone’s mind, including it would seem Savard’s, was whether his career was in jeopardy of a pre-mature end.

Sharp gets his edge

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:49:02 EST

So who gets bragging rights on the flight back to Chicago with Patrick Sharp coming home with the All-Star Game MVP award in a losing cause while his three Blackhawks teammates revel in their victory?

“It’s a good question,” Sharp said. “I think it will be a topic of conversation, definitely I’ll be sure to bring it up a few times.”

Because of the new format that saw captains draft players to fill out their lineups, Sharp ended up with on Team (Eric) Staal, while his Blackhawks teammates Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith found themselves on Team (Nicklas) Lidstrom.

The Lidstroms won the game 11-10. But Sharp collected a goal and two assists for the losers and by a fan vote, ended up with the car as the MVP. It was a nice consolation for some who was not even on the All-Star ballot despite playing a key role in the Blackhawks Stanley Cup victory last spring.

And Z winner is

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 8:25:55 EST

RALEIGH, N.C. – There has been plenty of change during this NHL All Star weekend, but some things always find a way of remaining the same.

Like Zdeno Chara winning the hardest shot contest. Again. And with another record-breaking effort to boot.

Chara highlighted an entertaining, if slightly drawn-out NHL Superskills competition that featured several new twists and helped Team Staal beat Team Lidstrom 33-22 by blasting a shot that registered 105.9 miles per hour. That eclipsed the mark of 105.4 he set two years ago in Montreal and gave him the fourth hardest shot win of his career.

“That’s what we drafted him so early,” Team Staal alternate captain Ryan Kesler laughed. “We figured that he would win that for us.”

No easy answers on concussions

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 7:18:03 EST

The number of concussions has risen again in the NHL again this year, but not as the result of hits to the head, says commissioner Gary Bettman.

In his annual All-Star break state of the league address, Bettman said that preliminary trends reported to the Board of Governors earlier in the day suggest that the increase is the result of in accidental or inadvertent contact, and for the most part did not involved contact with the head.

“That’s not to say that no concussions came from hits to head, but it appears the increase is coming from somewhere else,” Bettman said.

In fact, the commissioner said the number of concussions resulting from blindside hits to the head has decreased since the league banned them by implementing Rule 48 last March at the general managers’ meetings. Instead, Bettman asserted, the increase appears to be coming from a variety of situations, ranging from players hitting the boards, glass or ice after making contact with other players, to fights, even from getting hit by pucks.