My Sports News Digest

There’s no such thing as an honest fortune teller. Most of the ones you’ll run into are like the one from “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” there to empty your wallet like Pee-Wee Herman telling you to find your missing bike in a non-existent basement in the Alamo. The NHL has something that’s actually worked out pretty well though when figuring who just might skate away with the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.

EA Sports’ NHL series of video games have done a remarkably accurate job of picking the winners and finalists over the last few years and they’re at it again with their NHL 12 series this year. This time around, EA Sports’ simulation has the Pittsburgh Penguins beating the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup finals and captain Sidney Crosby skating with the Cup for the second time in his career.

In the previous two seasons, EA’s simulation correctly predicted the Blackhawks would win the Cup in 2010 and correctly picked out that the Canucks and Bruins would face off in the finals last year. Never mind that they had the Canucks winning in seven games, picking out the finalists is pretty good on its own. As for their other projections via video game, EA has some other fun to compare to at the end of the season.

The highlights include:

• Toronto and Minnesota making the playoffs as the eighth seeds.
• Sidney Crosby missing 17 regular season games and still finishing 7th in scoring in the league.
• Alex Ovechkin scores 51 goals and wins the Hart Trophy
• Steve Stamkos scores 53 and wins the Rocket Richard Trophy
• Buffalo edges out Boston for the Northeast Division title
• Florida finishes as the worst team in the league

While those projections might be a bit more far-fetched, their finals predictions have been some degree of money the last two years. We won’t lie, it’d make for a hell of a story to see Crosby bounce back after what he’s dealt with to win the Cup this year. Doing it in Chicago with all the moves they’ve made would only amp up the drama scale to about “eleventy billion” on a scale of 1-10.

What do you think though? Can we trust SkyNet a video game to give us what we’ll see at the end of the year?

(Photo: EA Sports)

New York Rangers forward Wojtek Wolski looks primed to face a fascinating fork in the road in the 2011-12 season. The inconsistent but skilled winger is no stranger to up and down moments, but we could find out a lot about him in the beginning of next season.

Although his golden opportunity might get derailed by a groin injury, NHL.com points to Wolski as the frontrunner for the Rangers’ top left wing spot. First-line minutes are never something to sneeze at, but this could be even more special because of his potential linemates: Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik.

On the positive end, that’s an amazing chance to put up boffo numbers. That being said, if he can’t make it work with those two, it might be time to ship him to a lower-level league where he can float in relative anonymity.

Like many NHL head coaches, John Tortorella is known for going through lineup changes more often than Madonna changes her accent. Brandon Dubinsky, Ruslan Fedotenko and Brian Boyle could also earn time at the left wing spot. Still, for the sake of the team’s balance, things would work better with Wolski on line one.

While Dubinsky would be an amazing fit because he brings some grit (and a right-handed shot) to what would be a finesse-driven line, moving him away from Ryan Callahan would rob the Rangers of a difference-making complimentary duo. Fedotenko and Boyle are probably best suited for lower line duties, although Boyle’s big body could provide an interesting element to the line.

Overall, Wolski fits better by default, but he’ll need to seize the opportunity if he gets it. Wolski shared his thoughts on playing with such skilled forwards.

Tortorella expects Wolski to be ready for Wednesday’s practice at Ericsson Globe Arena. If he’s back doing line rushes with Richards and Gaborik, we’ll have our answer.

“To be able to play with those types of players gives you a better opportunity every night to win, to play well and to be consistent,” Wolski said. “As a forward, I’m supposed to put myself in position where I’m playing among the top-six guys. That’s usually what is counted of me. I have to be creative and I want as much ice time as possible.”

It’s hard to believe that Wolski sports ideal NHL size because of it frequently goes to waste because of his passive style. He would be wise to break those habits and bring that above-average frame to the net for a bounty of garbage goals. Richards’ sublime passes should open up frequent tap-in goal opportunities while Gaborik’s speed and fearsome skills should divert plenty of defensive attention.

If Wolski could ever choose a time to assert himself, this would be it.

Teammates will do almost anything to help each other out, but Leafs prospect Nazem Kadri is doing so in a painful way. Kadri will be out for up to a month with a knee sprain suffered against Ottawa on Tuesday night. The 2009 first round pick was looking to break out this season as a full-time starter for Toronto but now that potential breakout will be put on hold.

On the flip side of that, Kadri’s knee injury opens the door for new Leafs prospect Matt Frattin to show he can cut it in the NHL. Frattin is the Hobey Baker Award finalist from North Dakota who signed with Toronto after completing play in the NCAA back in the spring. Frattin was an electric goal scorer for the Fighting Sioux but in Toronto he’ll get to be a net-crashing forward on the third or fourth line.

It’s an unfortunate setback for Kadri as Leafs fans have been hoping to see him get his chance to fully bust out on a nightly basis in the NHL, but it’s a tremendous opportunity for Frattin to show what he’s got against NHL competition. At 23 years-old after spending all four years at North Dakota, he’s a rookie but an older, more experienced one.

Brendan Shanahan has been the busiest man in the NHL throughout the course of the preseason in hopes of establishing a strict precedent to deter headshots. Apparently, the message hasn’t been sent to all of the players quite yet. Seriously, Brendan Shanahan’s videos are going to be eligible for syndication before the regular season starts—yet players can’t remember what it’s all about.

In a play that is a textbook example of the type of hit the NHL is trying to eliminate this season, Red Wings’ defenseman Brendan Smith’s skated across the ice and made contact with Blackhawks’ forward Ben Smith’s head. Forget the notion of principle contact: the only contact the Wings blueliner made was with the head. The Hawks’ Smith laid on the ice while he tried to collect his marbles and figure out the correct answer to the question “where are you?”

No doubt this type of play will be Shanahan’d by the end of the week. Here’s a handy link for anyone who wants to see the hit in question. (Hit occurs at 0:50 mark)

It’s interesting to see the varying opinions from each team in the aftermath of such a hit. Both Blackhawks’ coach Joel Quenneville and Wings’ headman Mike Babcock had ice-level vantage points for the headshot. Yet in the postgame press conference, the tone of their comments were certainly dissimilar. First, Quenneville’s comments:

“Both referees said that’s a classic example of what we’re talking about — the illegal hit. It was pretty black-and-white.

“This is what we’re trying to get away from. When you’re in open ice, it’s a 1-on-1 play. It’s tough to get a hit like that. I don’t know if you should be protecting your head when you’re basically in a tight area with one guy.”

From the Wings’ locker room, the question was more about Ben Smith’s responsibility to protect himself at all times. Despite Shanahan repeatedly explaining that the onus is on the player delivering the check to avoid contact with the head, Wings’ coach Mike Babcock wondered if the Hawks’ Smith was partially to blame for the situation. Here is Babcock’s perspective of the hit:

“Is there any responsibility on the puck carrier — toe dragging, sliding sideways — to look after himself. I’m not saying our guy isn’t guilty, but you’d better not put yourself in those situations.

“He (Brendan Smith) was trying to make body contact, but their guy did this and left his head there.” Babcock added, while jerking his head to the side to imitate Ben Smith’s motion just before the impact.

A quick disclaimer: Mike Babcock is one of the best coaches in NHL and has been for the last decade. He could win the Jack Adams Trophy every single year and it would be a deserved award. But in this case, Babcock is dead wrong. He asks the rhetorical question “is there any responsibility on the puck carrier?”

The answer: No.

This is precisely the point. The game is changing. The rules are changing, the way it’s being officiated is changing, and how the players are being disciplined is changing. The old-school way most of us were brought up, would say that the player needs to keep his head up to protect himself and avoid any potential injury. The current climate renders that line of reasoning pointless.

The sooner the coaches accept it, the sooner the players will accept it. The sooner the players accept it, the sooner these kinds of hits are eliminated from the game. Apparently we still have a ways to go.

Every once in a while, a person makes an argument that changes the way people look at things. Sometimes that persuasive piece might alter your viewpoints on large issues such as religion or politics, other times a TV show just makes you think less of a rival program.

Just a year ago today (Sept. 27, 2010), Tyler Dellow argued that the Edmonton Oilers should’ve preserved the first entry-level years for promising rookies such as Taylor Hall and Magnus Pajaarvi. To impatient Oilers fans, that idea probably sounded ludicrous, but Dellow’s point shouldn’t be taken lightly – especially since the Oilers were bad enough to earn the number 1 overall pick in a second straight draft.

It might be harsh to call their rookie years a waste, but one can make the unpopular but reasonable argument that the Oilers would’ve been better served saving those two players’ bargain years. Now Hall only has two seasons left until The Dreaded Second Contract, which could be a nightmare.

(I’ll admit there’s one indirect perk to this “plan,” though. Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ contract years will be staggered by at least one summer, so that could allow them to take their second contract lumps in more digestible portions.)

Senators face a similar conundrum

The Oilers aren’t the only struggling Canadian NHL franchise that should think long and hard about expending precious entry-level years, though. The Ottawa Senators should be careful about the way they handle their 2011 first round pick Mika Zibanejad, even if the versatile Swede’s play almost demands a spot on the opening day roster.

The reasoning is simple: the 2011-12 season is expected to be an ugly one for the once-proud Sens. Don’t get me wrong, Craig Anderson could be very good next season. Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza should get a little more luck with their health, while Sergei Gonchar has nowhere to go but up from a dreadful 10-11 debut in Ottawa. Even so, the Senators rank as a long shot, especially considering how much better the Northeast Division figures to be next season.

Zibanejad keeps scoring

Zibanejad isn’t exactly making it easy for the Senators to turn him down, though. He already was making a solid case with two “dazzling” goals going into tonight’s 5-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Zibanejad managed to score one more impressive goal on Tuesday, as you can see from the highlights in that link.

It’s tantalizing to think about, but chew on this: two of the three Calder Trophy finalists played on teams who failed to make the playoffs. Rookie of the year Jeff Skinner’s first season was so sensational that it would be silly to call it a bad move, but the Carolina Hurricanes might wonder – for at least a second – when his payday comes in 2013 rather than 2014.

The Senators will likely make that crucial choice somewhere around Zibanejad’s ninth regular season game, which is the deadline for teams to either postpone that first entry-level year until next year or let it melt away. GM Bryan Murray and head coach Paul MacLean will have a tough choice to make, but if you ask me, they should be fun-killers by sending him down.

What do you think, though? Should they lean one way or just keep an open mind about his chances? Do you prefer instant gratification or slow-roasted goodness? Let us know in the comments.

Every year the NHL plays a preseason game in Kansas City at the Sprint Center. This season, two non-regional teams are dueling in the city of barbecue and blues music in the Los Angeles Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins. While the Penguins won’t be bringing Sidney Crosby and the Kings still don’t have Drew Doughty at their disposal, the game is still a sellout success in K.C.

Officials have declared the game a sellout. Standing-room tickets were to go on sale Tuesday morning for what is expected to be the largest crowd ever for a preseason game in a non-NHL market in North America.

That’s a quantum leap from the turnouts of the first two NHL exhibition games played at the Sprint Center when an announced crowd of 9,792 showed up in 2009 for the New York Islanders and Kings, which was down from the 11,603 for the 2008 game between the St. Louis Blues and a split squad of Kings.

So with a preseason hockey game being sold out in Kansas City and not having a handful of superstars even suiting up for it, that’s going to start up the questions about how viable the city is as a potential landing spot for a NHL franchise and who would even want to go there.

The race to have a place ready for a NHL team is a bizarre one as some cities are ready made for a team (like Kansas City) while others have outdated facilities (Seattle) and others are building new ones to attract a team (Quebec City). The teams that are having financial or arena issues are many and with Kansas City’s arena being ready to host either an NHL or NBA team at any time, Kansas City ends up being the first name thrown around.

Before CONSOL Energy Center was approved, Mario Lemieux threatened to move the Penguins there if they didn’t get a new arena approved in Pittsburgh. The Islanders have virtually always been linked to moving to K.C. and with Winnipeg out of the way, you might start hearing rumblings about the Coyotes departing for Kansas City in the near future. That kind of rumor mongering  might kick up in earnest if they don’t get a new owner or Glendale doesn’t pony up to cover losses again next year. Even Columbus gets tossed into the conversation thanks to their ability to bleed money in Ohio.

It’s a convenient landing spot because of it’s availability but is it one that makes any sense at all for the league? Not at all. Selling out a preseason game is nice but as The Kansas City Star said, it’s a first for the NHL in the city. Moving a NHL team to a city that’s not rabid about the sport is inviting trouble to that franchise.

The Coyotes have struggled mightily in Arizona, the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, and the Avalanche after a great first ten years have a hard time filling the Pepsi Center these days. Winning has a lot to do with this part of things, but taking a struggling team to an area that at the very least is tepid to the sport has the makings for disaster. It’s great to take the game to cities like Kansas City that don’t have a lot of hockey these days and show off how great the game is, but unless the desire is there from the people there to want a team and shell out the big bucks for tickets, it’s a venture better left for preseason games and not taking a gamble on the future.

People who follow the New York Rangers-Philadelphia Flyers’ rivalry should be accustomed to games getting very contentious. That being said, tonight’s preseason match featured more than just bad blood.

There were two incidents that will leave many shaking their heads, but the headline-grabber involved Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds. Simmonds is being accused of making some off-color remarks to Sean Avery less than a week after he dealt with a disgusting display of racism from at least one fan in London, Ontario. Simmonds didn’t really deny making the comments, although he didn’t confirm them either.

Puck Daddy’s Ryan Lambert pointed to a video that indicates that Simmonds made a homophobic comment to Avery. Various sources report that Avery confirmed those rumors, while Simmonds vaguely said that “language was exchanged.” Simmonds said he didn’t recall the specific words he said, a response that left many rolling their eyes.

Here are some quotes from both sides. (For a full video of Simmonds’ comments, click here.)

“To be here now having to answer the questions about what he did is disappointing for me. I’m disappointed for him,” Avery said.

(snip)

“Honestly, we were going back and forth for a while there,” Simmonds said. “I don’t recall everything that I did say to him but he said to me some things I didn’t like and maybe I said some things that he didn’t like. I can’t recall every single word I said.”

The incident gains relevance because it was Simmonds and Avery

It’s naive to assume that these types of comments are uncommon in sports, as sad as that might be. This case is more noteworthy because of the two parties involved, though. Some might lose some respect for Simmonds after tonight, especially after what happened last week. (That seems unfair since Simmonds didn’t make a big deal about the awful banana-throwing incident, but that won’t change the way some feel about this situation.)

Avery is also a notable recipient of that comment for two reasons.

1. Avery has been outspoken regarding the topic of gay rights, although it’s hard to imagine that Simmonds allegedly made those remarks for that reason.

2. On the flip side of the coin, Avery has been accused of troublesome comments of his own in the past. Georges Laraque claimed that Avery called him a “monkey,” although the Rangers pest denied that accusation.

Again, these kinds of comments might be commonplace in trash-talking, but that doesn’t make the situation acceptable. The bottom line is that both scenarios are extremely disappointing.

There’s some talk regarding whether or not NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan should take action. Some fans might insist that the league shouldn’t intervene in trash-talking situations, but Avery’s six-game suspension in 2008 is just one example of the NHL sidelining a player for a remark or gesture rather than an ugly hit. It’s tough to speculate about what might happen here – if anything at all – but there is some precedent to players being suspended for words or gestures rather than actions.

A more straightforward issue

Speaking of handing out suspensions, the Rangers-Flyers game might provide Shanahan with something a little less nebulous to deal with. As you can see from this video, Tom Sestito caught Andre Deveaux with a check from behind. In a twist that might seem fitting to some and stomach-churning to others, Sestito essentially replaced Jody Shelley, a depth player who received a hefty suspension for a check from behind. Sestito seemed worried about a possible similar punishment, while Rangers head coach John Tortorella said that the hit was even worse than the one Shelley delivered.

Jagr shines in an ugly game

The game was flat-out ugly through the first two periods, with the Rangers tallying 38 PIM and the Flyers ending up with 39. That’s not to say that there weren’t moments of beauty, though, as Jaromir Jagr made his home preseason debut a tantalizing one by scoring two goals and one assist in a 5-3 win.

Chances are, that nice output will be forgotten long before the Simmonds-Avery incident, though.

It’s an inevitable part of training camp when players are released, cut, or waived. Today, 40 players were placed on waivers by 11 different teams. Among the notable names are two guys who are necessary for their teams to stay under the salary cap in Chicago’s Cristobal Huet and New York Rangers’ Wade Redden. With those players waived, Huet will head back to Europe to play while Redden is destined for the AHL.

A pair of names from Buffalo that landed on the waiver wire were forward Ales Kotalik and defenseman Shaone Morrisonn. The Sabres are currently over the salary cap by more than .5 million according to CapGeek.com. By putting Kotalik and Morrisonn on waivers with the purpose of sending them to the AHL and get their salaries off the books, they’ll free up .075 million.

Kotalik has a cap hit of million while Morrisonn is set in at .075 million. Life in the NHL isn’t always fair and a spot in the big show is never guaranteed, especially when your job can be done by someone with a much lower cap hit. In Morrisonn’s case, his spot on the blue line can be taken by either Mike Weber or Marc-Andre Gragnani. Kotalik’s spot at forward was the most flexible one to be taken as the Sabres have a host of younger players to fill their needs on the wings on their third and fourth lines.

Both Kotalik and Morrisonn came into training camp hoping to prove they could stick with the big team. With the cap crunch being as hard as it was for the Sabres, both players would’ve needed to show above and beyond in camp that they belong in the NHL. While they might’ve been doing that, getting their salaries off the cap and into the AHL makes too much sense for Buffalo. By dumping those two players into the AHL, the Sabres can now get under the cap by nearly .5 million. It might not be great business, but it’s how life is with the cap.

To see the full list of those who were waived today, TSN has the full list.