The (semi-)return of Ken Hitchcock

Just thinking things through after a long Easter weekend...

The World Championships isn't just about getting Ken Hitchcock back
behind an NHL bench...it might just be his last chance to help
the Columbus Blue Jackets become the team he hoped it would be.

So Ken Hitchcock, still under contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets (I believe?) gets the job as head coach of Team Canada for the World Championships.

He brings in Scott Arniel as an associate coach under the pretense of stocking the talent pool for Hockey Canada with young coaches.  An "investment in the future" or something like that.

In the post-season interviews, Arniel lets slip that he and Hitch have not spoken since Arniel was hired as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets.  He then says that he and Hitch have already agreed to have "a couple cups of coffee."  Surely, they'll be restricting the conversation to Team Canada.

Then it's announced that former NHL winger Arniel will be coaching defense for Team Canada.  Under defensively-minded Hitchcock.  You know, the one who took the same CBJ defensive squad that Arniel had last season and...well...got to the playoffs.  Arniel lets slip that he's pumping Brad Berry for coaching tips because, well, he hasn't coached defense before.

And then the team is announced.  Blue Jackets Rick Nash, Antoine Vermette and Marc Methot all accept invitations to join the squad.  (Steve Mason was invited but turned it down.)  Nash throws out a line about how interesting it'll be to have his current and former coaches on the same staff.  Then Nash is appointed team captain.

And then, Arniel suggests that the CBJ might want to have a second "system" to fall back upon because, well, playing with your hair on fire every night tends to wear the team down.  Especially on back-to-backs.  More or less, he says, "I made a rookie mistake."  And a rather large one at that.

That's a lot to digest, isn't it?

LOFT - The Forwards, Could we really pay too much for Brad Richards?

Continuing a thread we have been following, we are evaluating available free agent talent that could really help the CBJ in the off season.  We are following up on a talent evaluation system, originated over on Light the Lamp and discussed in this previous post here on Dark Blue Jacket, that is affectionately called the LOFT Tiers (Lack of Flippin' Talent).

Working off of the Tiering system suggested in our previous post, the following are the available free agent forwards who would have an impact on the cumulative Columbus Blue Jacket LOFT Tiers:

The Crowdsourced 2011 NHL Awards

I described the Crowdsourced 2011 NHL Awards here, but here's the skinny:

I submit that if the Professional Hockey Writers don't want to do it, then the ticket-buying public should.

And we did.  With no further ado, here are the winners of the Crowdsourced 2011 NHL Awards...

---

THE FRANK J. SELKE TROPHY

"...awarded annually to the National Hockey League forward who demonstrates the most skill in the defensive component of the game..."

Nominees: Ryan Callahan (NY Rangers), Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit), Michael Grabner (NY Islanders), Nathan Horton (Boston)

Winner: Ryan Kesler (Vancouver)

Out of Time (literally?): The CBJ-Fox Sports Ohio rights deal

It's interesting to see how this postseason recap series keeps evolving.  I still want to get to the on-ice performance of the CBJ (Yeah, I'm a masochist like that), but the world of the blogger means you go where the information takes you.

How fitting that today's winds are blowing in the world of television broadcasting, seeing as the NHL and Comcast/NBC just sealed a deal for the new media conglomerate to broadcast (at least?) 100 NHL games per season across its many platforms for the next 10 years...for the cool price of $200 million per year (with all sorts of new money flowing to the franchises).  Among the highlights are an NBC-broadcast NHL game on "Black Friday" following Thanksgiving - the earliest nationwide broadcast NHL game in memory - and national distribution of every single Stanley Cup playoff game.  The deal also gives Comcast/NBC total control of the digital rights to all of the games that they broadcast over every possible device, leaving me to wonder what's going to happen to the 110% awesome GameCenter Live online package or the slightly less awesome Center Ice television package, but that's another issue for another day.

Point is, today's about hockey on television.  And wouldn't you know, I stumbled upon an article today that opened my eyes real wide.  It should do the same for you, too.

LOFT and the Forwards; Audience Participation Please

Again I want to turn my attention to a great post over on Light the Lamp about LOFT or Lack of Flippin' Talent, although LTL pronounces it a little bit differently.  To recreate their Tier system:

Tier   Type of Player      Pts
  I      Generational         5
 II      Elite                        4
III      All Star                   3
IV      Star                        2
 V      Above Average    1

The total points of the CBJ core is about 6 while for the Redwings it is about 16.  Until we get our Tier scoring above 10, we simply don't have the talent to compete in the NHL. 

In our 'Demolition Experts' post we looked at Defensemen who might seriously move our LOFT ranking.  No shocks in that list of free agents.  But we need at least two of them to radically change our cumulative LOFT rating.  Forwards are not so easy.

So I propose that the only thing that really matters to the CBJ is goals.  You can accumulate a bunch of points, i.e. Juice, but what this team needs is the biscuit in the basket.  So I propose:
Generational = Crosby
Elite = 35+ goals
All Star = on the all star team
Star = 25 + goals
Above Average = 20 goals.

Audience participation time.  What do you think of these rankings?  Once I get some feedback, I'll go through the free agent forwards.

GO JACKETS!!

Why Ten Years Isn't a Very Long Time; We Draft as Well as Quebec!

My buddy Bill was playing around with numbers before the 2010-11 season started, mainly for fantasy hockey purposes, and he looked at all forwards who had scored 25 or more goals during the 2007-08, 2008-09, or 2009-10 seasons.  In other words, the player had to score 25 goals or more in one of those three seasons.  This exercise brought out some very interesting facts.

In the data set he looked at:

• The Winnipeg Jets drafted more 25 goal scorers than the CBJ.
• The Quebec Nordiques drafted as many as the CBJ.
• If you want a 25 goal scorer, your best odds for that are to draft in the top 5.
• 47 of the 108 players who scored 25 goals in one of those three years were drafted before the CBJ existed.

Out of Time: Fire up the (assistant) coaching carousel

The pace of news is getting out ahead of me...I want to write my opinion pieces on the different aspects of the Columbus Blue Jackets organization, but things keep happening...forcing me to write more reactive pieces.  And as it relates to the coaching, I actually wanted to target my attention to the two people that I'll discuss today, but there's a lot more that I want to say about the coaches in the days ahead.  So forgive me while I jump to the back of the book and offer up some thoughts that are a tad out of sequence with my intended plan.

DAVE ROOK - GONE!

It is with no small measure of joy that I share with DBJ blog readers a link from the Dispatch informing the world that goalie consultant Dave Rook has resigned from the Columbus Blue Jackets coaching staff.  The public reason is that he now recognizes that the CBJ want him in Columbus more than he wants to be, and he won't move his family down from Canada.

Living in envy of Nashville

I just caught this snip from the CBC's Jeff Marek, host of Hockey Night in Canada Radio and the HNIC iDesk, relative to the Preds' first round, game one, 4-1 spanking of the Anaheim Ducks:

** Have to respect the Preds for exactly what they did last night against the Ducks: Stifled them at every turn. I won't bother to go over all the injuries and adversities that team has been through (we al know the drill) rather just focus on what it is they do with who they have. I spoke to former Pred Dan Hamhuis on our radio show the other day and he talked about how the Preds play systems in all areas of the ice. No matter where the puck is or who has it Nashville knows how to play. Also, next time you watch the Preds count how many players you see in your screen at any given time. In most situations you'll see at least 4 and often 5. They move as a 5 man unit and support each other all the way up and back down the ice. It helps, of course, when you have an all world netminder like Pekka Rinne and a defenseman like Shea Weber who hits like Scott Stevens and shoots like Al MacInnis.

I'll grant that Barry Trotz has had over 10 years to implement his system, and David Poile has had the same amount of time to get the people he needs to implement that system onto the Preds' roster. But gosh, wouldn't it be nice to be able to easily identify with a "Columbus system"? Not to deify Ken Hitchcock, but I think it was a lot easier to identify the Hitch system than the Arniel system.

Even after 82 games (and having watched easily 2/3 of them very, very closely), I'm still not sure I can explain what Arniel's system is all about. There are identifiable pieces, like defensemen who gamble by jumping into (or even leading) the offensive rush, or forwards who have to pass 12 times before shooting on a given rush. But I'm not sure what else there is, which is why I started to refer to the CBJ on-ice play as "Romper Room". Just a bunch of guys skating around, waiting for a random act of a puck going past a goalie.

Perhaps the real Arniel system (and Arniel-style players) will come with time. Until then, I'll just keep living in envy of what Poile and Trotz have created in Nashville.  With fewer salary dollars.

Calling all Blue Jackets fans

No, I'm not soliciting again for the 2011 Crowdsourced NHL Awards with this post.  But you're welcome to go vote, as voting is closed on Saturday night.

Nope, this time it's to solicit you to get involved with the NHL's feedback loop - the NHL Fan Face Off panel.

Should you choose to join this panel, you get access and influence with the NHL's decision-making.  Every now and then, you get an email from the league asking for your opinion about the topic du jour.  I've participated in surveys about the Winter Classic, television packages, Patrick Kane's mullet...OK, not that last one.  But I have been asked about matters of substance related to the NHL.

Apparently, the Columbus Blue Jackets fan representation on this panel is one of the lowest in the league.  They want to hear from you.  Go sign up and have your voice heard!

Out of Time: Thoughts on the talent pipeline

I intend to get to the Columbus Blue Jackets position analyses for the 2010-2011 season soon, but I thought that the next post in this series should address what I consider to be a critical strategic issue for the team.

Despite the suggestions that they have addressed a main problem of the Doug MacLean era, that of rushing young players into the NHL too quickly with too little preparation, the roster doesn't lie:

• Derick Brassard, 23 - 3rd "full" season with Columbus (1 of the 3 cut short due to injury)
• Matt Calvert, 21 - 1st season in Columbus  (I don't think anyone sees him returning to Springfield)
• Jakub Voracek, 21 - 3rd season in Columbus
• Kris Russell, 23 - 4th season in Columbus
• Steve Mason, 22 - 3rd season in Columbus

Has experience not been instructive?  Of the many CBJ draftees since the inception of the franchise, it can be argued that only Rick Nash was able to handle the jump from the draft (and juniors) to the NHL without meaningful time in the minors.