Western Conference playoff race, 13 December edition

Fascinating week in the West this week.  Someone actually caught the San Jose Sharks, and more teams had less weekly point accumulation than any week I can recall.  Nine weeks until the Olympic break, right?  Time for teams to make a move.

[Note that this edition was written before the conclusion of games played on December 13.  We'll catch them on December 20.]

TOP POINT WINNER OF THE WEEK: Watch out, San Jose, because the Los Angeles Kings piled on 8 points in the past week and pulled into a tie with you...but they apparently have the tiebreaker as NHL.com has them in top seed in the West.  8 points in one week....dang.  I can't remember the last time a team added 8 points to their bottom line.  This is an incredible jump and probably made possible by the compacted playing schedule forced on the NHL by the Olympic break.  Coming in second were Anaheim and Edmonton with 6 accumulated points each.

LOW POINT WINNER OF THE WEEK: With a whopping 2 new points for their bottom lines are Chicago, St. Louis and San Jose.  St. Louis is having a worse season than Columbus, so I can understand their status...but the Sharks and Blackhawks?  Guess everyone's due for an off-week.  San Jose had better get it back in gear, though, as they are deadlocked with Los Angeles.  The teams adding 3 points this week were Calgary and Columbus.  Ah, those Blue Jackets...bad enough to stay out of contention but not quite bad enough to panic over.

So where exactly is the bottom?

It's nearly 24 hours since the Columbus Blue Jackets lost their most recent game, and I'm still cranky.  We all hear about a team hitting rock-bottom before they pick themselves up and right the ship, and I'm fairly certain we haven't hit it yet.  But look at what's happened on the way down...

1. Playing the stiff in the hat trick debut of Dany Heatley in the San Jose Sharks' season opener - the third game of the season.  We lost that one, 6-3.
2. Serving as a speed bump for the Calgary Flames in the Saddledome.  We lost that one, the seventh game of the season, 6-3.  
3. Giving Dustin Penner a platform for All Star (or I guess Olympics this year) status as the Edmonton Oilers cruised over us, 6-4 in the eighth game of the season.
4. Giving Anze Kopitar & Alexander Frolov a venue to engage in target practice as the Los Angeles Kings crushed us, 6-2 in the tenth game of the season.
5. Being systematically dismantled by the Detroit Red Wings, 9-1, in the seventeenth game of the season.
6. Taking our star turn on Broadway and flopping on opening night after a disastrous performance against the New York Rangers, losing 7-4 in the twenty-second game of the season. 
7. The (shudder) game against the Toronto Maple Leafs where we were shellacked, 6-3 - the twenty-eighth game of the season.
8. Yesterday's listless loss to the Western Conference cellar-dwelling Anaheim Ducks, 3-1 in the thirty-second game of the season.  

And those were only the really noxious losses.

10 Thoughts about Game 32: Anaheim

1. The Columbus Blue Jackets largely could not solve the Western Conference-cellar dwelling Anaheim Ducks defense and lost, 3-1.

1a. Here are your highlights (so to speak):

10 Thoughts about Game 31: Nashville

1. Both the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Nashville Predators played 45 minutes of strong hockey on Thursday night at The Arena Formerly Known As The Sommet Center, leading to a 5-round shootout that was won by Nashville.  The final score: 4-3 (SO), Preds.

1a.  Here are your highlights:

More info on the Rosenberger appointment

Columbus' The Other Paper picked up the Coleman appointment of John Rosenberger to spearhead the Blue Jackets/Arena District rescue project and advanced the story quite a bit.

First, they interviewed the gentleman who wrote the Chamber's report.

The news came as a relief to Stephen Buser, the Ohio State emeritus professor of finance who had been commissioned by the Columbus Chamber to research and report a number of possible solutions to help stem the Blue Jackets’ bleeding. That financial framework was released a month ago.

As part of his research, Buser said the chamber “set up a rotation of people for me to speak to.” Among them, he said, was Rosenberger.

“When I saw his name on the agenda I did think, ‘What am I talking to him for?’ Within five minutes, he was able to solve that problem for me,” said Buser. “He was able to spell out, clearly and concisely, how the Convention Facilities Authority would be a natural owner of the arena because of A, B, C and D, and how, if that happened, it could whittle down that current (arena) operating loss of $4 or $5 million (that the Blue Jackets now assume).”

“Of course, neither one of us realized that, four months later, he’d be named the point person of those negotiations.”

Rosenberger again raises the comparison of himself to Henry Kissinger, which I don't care for (sorry, this matter doesn't transcend it issues of racial/religious identity and global geopolitics).  He does, however, have experience in transferring private properties to public use.  He managed the transition of the Columbus convention center from Battelle to the Convention Facilities Authority - a group that has "operate arenas" in its charter.

Great work by The Other Paper and the writer, Eric Lyttle.  The article is on my must-read list.

The DBJ Financial Acuity Index

One element of life in the National Hockey League that I find most intriguing is the stark financial realities that teams operate under. The NHL is a league of "haves" and "have nots," and their salary structures lay out the pecking order.

Sure, there's a salary cap of $56.8 million. But the dirty little secret of the NHL is that the average cap hit absorbed by a given team right now, in the 2009-2010 season, is $55.083 million - almost $2 million below that which the league allows them to spend. In fact, only 12 of the league's 30 teams are at the cap ceiling. (Source: NHL Numbers)

What makes this whole issue fascinating to me is that teams who are playing with literally 2/3 of a deck (salary-speaking) are still extremely competitive - regardless of the opposing team.  This speaks to uniquely talented front office management (including drafting acumen, development of a top-tier farm system and free agency savvy) and coaching that goes well beyond the average.  It also speaks to GMs who pay like drunken sailors in the hopes of getting a Stanley Cup.

Take last night's game.  The Jackets have the 4th lowest salary cap number in the entire league.  (We're #27!)  Florida is the 19th highest - just under the average NHL team cap hit number - and $6.45 million more than the CBJ.  That's like adding RJ Umberger and Fedor Tyutin's salaries to the existing Columbus lineup - and I'm including Freddy Modin, who hasn't played yet this season.    One would think that Florida would have a decided advantage, but the standings aren't playing out that way.  The Jackets have 33 points, and the Panthers have 28 points.  Clearly, the Jackets outperformed the salary market last night.

This little comparison intrigued me, so I took it to the next level.  I created a very simple Financial Acuity Index.  ("Acuity" is defined as "sharpness of vision; the visual ability to resolve fine detail".)  My Index is really simple.  I took the Salary Cap rank of each team and subtracted the league-wide standings rank (not East/West, but all 30 teams).  The teams with positive numbers are, from a financial acuity perspective, outplaying their salary level.  The teams with negative numbers are underperforming.  The magnitude of the index number gives the reader a sense of how far a team deviates from its salary cap position.

The Index could be construed as punishing high-cap teams as they have a harder road to hoe in order to achieve a positive Index score.  Perhaps that's true, but a high-cap team that plays to an equivalent level in the standings gets a zero index score -- no embarrassment there, but not outperforming either.  All you are doing is delivering a return on investment commensurate with expectations.

And here's my first Dark Blue Jacket Financial Acuity Index of National Hockey League teams:




As the standings are updated on a nightly basis, and as player transactions during the season can affect a team's salary cap ranking, I'll have to update this periodically.  I'm thinking monthly right now.  But the lessons from this first iteration are clear:

1. Money doesn't automatically mean success.  4 of the 5 top-ranked teams from a salary cap perspective are 4 of the 5 teams with the lowest Financial Acuity Index scores.  
2. As a slight counterpoint to #1, Chicago and Washington prove that you CAN pay well and still outperform your cap rankings in the league standings.  Note, however, that those are the ONLY two teams in the salary cap top 10 with a neutral-to-positive Financial Acuity Index score.  
3. (I know my Friendly Pens Fan will love this) Note that Pittsburgh is the highest scoring team that is above the league average salary level.  Well-run and well-performing - you'd think they could win Stanley Cups or something...
4. Lou Lamoriello, GM in New Jersey, is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Apparently with good reason...he toes the line on salaries yet always fields a competitive team.
5. Don Maloney, GM in Phoenix, is a genius.  To take a team with a cap number $20 million lower than Toronto and get them to 9th in the entire league...WOW.  
6. No matter how you look at Carolina, they are not a good team.

What do you think?  Is this index a useful way of looking at the relative competitiveness of the NHL?

10 Thoughts about Game 30: Florida

1. The Columbus Blue Jackets, fresh off of two days of practice, played a full 60 minutes of Hitchcock hockey in beating the Florida Panthers, 3-0.

1a. With the win, the Jackets (Salary cap hit: $48.538M) advance to 14-11-5 (33 pts.) and the Panthers (Salary cap hit: $54.989M) drop to 11-14-6 (28 pts.).

1b. Here are your highlights:

CBC on the Rick Nash extension

Sometimes its hard to keep the big picture in mind when your team is wallowing in a slump/identity crisis, but this story from the CBC hits home at the amazing foundation laid for the Columbus Blue Jackets by the Rick Nash contract extension of last summer.



Great piece. As much as I snipe at Nash for the performance of what clearly is his team, I'm still damned glad that he's on our side.

Trouble between the pipes

Of all the articles that have been published about the Columbus Blue Jackets, this was one that I did not expect. Not in the least.

CBJ goaltending coach Dave Rook went on the record with ESPN.com's Scott Burnside (By the way, who knew ESPN was even trying to stay relevant in hockey?) and dropped a couple bombs about his prodigy, goaltender Steve Mason.  He said that "Basically, he had trouble handling the success he had last year. ... Maybe it's not as easy as he thought it was." Rook then went on to say that Mason's still learning on the job and that "He needs to make sure 'he doesn't forget where he is and how much of a privilege it is to be [in the NHL].'"  There's more, but you get the drift.

My thought?  Dang.  This is Mase's hand-picked coach?  I'd hate to see what some coach who he doesn't like has to say.

More seriously, the comments from Rook lead me to think that either of two things is happening (I hope not both at the same time) - neither particularly positive for Jackets fans:

1. Fallout for Mason's poor performance thus far this season is landing on Rook's shoulders, and Rook is covering his rear in the media.  This would be akin to, "If I'm going down, I'm not going down alone."

2. Mason really does have an outsized impression of himself and his abilities.  One would think that a 3.44 GAA and an .886 save percentage would keep him grounded, so holding this attitude despite the facts of the matter make me run for the maalox.  That Rook is taking the media approach in this scenario means that Mason is tuning Rook out at some fundamental level, and Rook is using Burnside to speak to him.  Other approaches could include benching and/or sending Mason to Syracuse for some "conditioning" (you know how those back spasms get), but Rook apparently took the tactic of calling Mason out in public - a little shock value, I suppose.

It's possible that both could be the case.  Let's hope that Mason and Rook can get back on the same page real soon; the CBJ's season might hang in the balance.  Of course, it could all be for naught if Ken Hitchcock can't get the defense in order...no one should be expected to hold up under that pounding.

The brightest light in a dark picture

The fine folks at The Hockey News offer a grim forecast for the NHL's escrow system for this season. For those who don't know about it, here's a brief description:

To ensure the correct revenue split, a percentage of player salaries could be placed in escrow. When total NHL revenues are determined at the end of the season, the escrow account is divided among players and owners to ensure that the target has been met.

As the NHL is so dependent on ticket revenues (without the gargantuan television contracts of the NFL and NBA, for instance), low ticket sales equals low revenue sharing ... equals escrow money being withheld.  THN tells us that a full 18 percent of salary monies are being put into escrow.  Yow!  That $3 million contract might not be worth $3 million, if you know what I mean.  More like $2.46 million.

Despite the rough news on the league-wide front, THN offers a listing of the team-by-team attendance changes on a year-to-date comparison basis against last year.  And wouldn't you know, the Columbus Blue Jackets, with 15,111 average attendance for the first two months of the season, eclipsed last season's 13,822 by an average of 1,289 more rear ends in seats.  That 1,289 is the highest such increase for any team in the NHL this year, and many teams are well below last year's numbers.

This again proves that the fan base in Columbus is hungry for a winner and will support a winning team, even in the hardest of times.  Now, let's work on this defense thing...