Good lord, training camp hasn't even started yet.  We have no clue what the rosters are going to look like yet.  I honestly haven't even seen any ill-devised line combinations floating about anywhere.  But the Blues' official website's already decided to start the season previews with their sneak peek, so what the hell.  I'm also doing my Thrashers preview over on View From My Seats instead of the Blues' preview this season, so I have to use my Magic 8 Ball somewhere... and I figured I might as well use it in an analysis as what the heck the Blues need to do on offense to fix things.

Last season's anti-climatic end of the year was a disappointment to the team and to the fans.  The folks surrounding the Blues had every confidence that the 2008-2009 season was a sign that the team'd turned a corner, and the youth movement was working - and then it stopped.  The team appeared to slack off.at times; whether that was youthful cockiness or a response to Andy Murray's badgering I'm not sure.  Some players, such as Patrik Berglund, played gunshy all season and saw their totals drop off (Berglund dropped from 21-26-47 to 13-13-26, as well as from a +19 to a -5).  Lack of production, arrogance, paranoia, and high expectations combined to leave the Blues in 9th place.  They have to remember this season - what's good enough for a playoff spot in the East is NOT good enough for one in the West.  Time to step it up a bit, boys.

Which one of the Blues is going to be Invisible this year?  And yes, I went there. God, I hope he's not wearing a Walt jersey.

I normally don't write about blogger access for NHL teams.  The Atlanta Thrashers have been outstanding with allowing the bloggers access to the team and getting us media credentials for blogger nights at the arena.  Their program is a class act, and I would never want to be seen as questioning what they do or whining to get more access.

Recently, though, two articles on Puck Daddy (found here and here) were posted regarding blogger access - most specifically, the limitations that some teams feel need to be placed on it.  Some NHL teams are welcoming of the free PR that bloggers bring and others prefer to let the professional journalists in only - each team has their own reasons for it.  The teams who do not credential bloggers are taking issue with the fact that bloggers are getting press access in the locker rooms with said team when that team's the visitor.  They feel that their rules for press access at their home arenas should be respected by the teams that are hosting them as well.  That's understandable.  Just as one state has to respect the laws of another, a NHL team needs to respect the requests of the visiting squad - if they aren't as welcoming to bloggers in the locker room then bloggers shouldn't be allowed back there, end of story.

The real issue comes up with whether or not teams need to treat bloggers more like press and less like hacks with computers.  Proposals were made, according to Greg Wyshynski, that basically wanted bloggers in a holding pen a la creepy autograph hounds until someone graced the bloggers with their presence.  What good that does the bloggers, and by proxy the team, I don't know.  The bloggers only get the company line and they have to deal with the indignity of being treated as unprofessional and being treated as such quite obviously.  What do you think they'll write about when they get home - what the Oilers' assistant video coach had to say for 5 minutes, or the fact that they got nothing out of the experience and would prefer to not be subjected to it again?  It's not good PR to treat bloggers with distain.

(cont. after the jump)

It's almost that time of year again - someone grab Brian a Flowbee.

The American TV broadcast schedules were released yesterday for the NHL, and there's not anything groundbreaking for either Versus or NBC.  NBC's coverage looks like it came from the Department of Redundancy Department, with the usual suspects all over the list of possible games to be broadcast.  They do throw out a few bones by listing teams usually not featured as possibilities, but who thinks that the Sabres versus the Wild will actually get on television?  The big market teams (NY Rangers, Flyers, Blackhawks, Red Wings, Penguins, and Capitals) are featured on the schedule as possibilities in a total of 18 games. Also, the big marquee games (Pittsburgh at Washington on February 6th) are shoe-ins for broadcast.  Why bother to put the Blues (!) at the Bolts up there as a possibility for the televised game?  Unless a meteor falls out of the sky or a sinkhole opens up underneath the Verizon Center, the Pens/Caps game is going to be on the air.

It is understandable.  NBC only has 13 games broadcast on a national network, and NBC would want to make sure as many people as possible are watching those games.  They're not going to put up New Jersey at Columbus when they can get ten times the ratings for the Rangers at Penguins game the same day.  It's a business, and you have to sell your product.  Small market teams don't work.  Teams with HUGE markets and large fanbases across the country are where the money's at.  Out of the multitude of things I can find wrong with their hockey broadcasts, I can't fault NBC for their selection of teams. And hey, that last game broadcast might feature the Penguins at Atlanta, and the Pens can usually make it on TV, so there's a glimmer of hope - or there would be if the other game wasn't the Blackhawks v. the Red Wings.

The Thrashers have re-signed forward Bryan Little to a three-year contract extension, meaning that the only hold-out remaining for a renewal is Niclas Bergfors.  Little, who is 22, will get a nice little payraise - according to capgeek.com, the new hit is $2,383,333 a season.  He'll be making $3 million by the third season of the deal, and after the terms of the contract are up, he'll still be a RFA thanks to his age.  Always helpful when wanting to lock someone in to a long-term deal is the ability to talk with them and them alone about said deal.  The Thrashers and Blues both this off-season have been good about using this strategy to make sure that they still retain the rights to their young stars.

Little is set for a break-out season, especially after the down year he had last year.  His powerplay linemates Slava Kozlov and Todd White are both gone, meaning that Little should be seeing time this year with actual productive players - this should provide a bit of a boost to both little and his presumable line-mates of Bergfors and Antropov.

It's like the Sermon on the Mount, isn't it?

I love Brett Hull.  I do, honestly. His cocksure arrogant smirk was on the front of many hockey cards that I got as a kid, and is on the 50/50 club card that's up on my fridge (solely because I stumbled across it somewhere).  He had a bit of a rep as not being fan friendly and not being able to refrain from speaking his mind, but when you had numbers like he did in St. Louis, who the hell cares?  He made hockey an event in St. Louis in the 1990s, and the franchise owes him for a lot of fans and a lot of dollars.  It was painful to see him walk and more painful to see him raise the Cup with Dallas and Detroit, especially when you look at who the Blues let walk during the '90s and the awful management of Mike Keenan - they had a decent shot at a Cup if people would've stayed in StL.  He might be Dallas' "Ambassador of Fun" (or one of their Executive VPs), but he is synonomous with St. Louis.

Of course, the Blues retired his jersey on December 5th, 2006, right before a pounding from the Red Wings. That was one of the few times the Blues sold out that season other than the free food nights.  The Blues were bad, and this retirement ceremony at least gave the team something to be happy about.

Hull was honored again, both by St. Louis and by Dallas, for his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009.  Nifty pre-game ceremony before a win over the Flames and all, but the highlight was the Dream Team that the Blues asked Hull to put together.  Really drove home all of the people who've left over the years, but it was still an awesome way to say congrats to Hull.

The Blues have said "thank you" with a number retirement and "congrats" with a ceremony.  The third and final part of the Hull Worship Trilogy will come on October 9th, when the Blues will honor him yet again with a statue in front of Scottrade Center to go along with Bernie Ferderko's and Al MacInnis' statues.  Everyone knew this was coming sooner or later, and why not?  The Cardinals have a calvacade of statues honoring their great players, so why not the Blues?  We've had quite a few greats wander through the team over the past 43 years.  I think that it's more than appropriate to honor the guy who is still synonomous with the team by giving him a huge hunk of polished bronze.

I might be one of the few people who don't think that the Hull Worship is tacky or sad.  Listen, very few teams get a chance to have a player of his caliber come through their organization.  Edmonton and LA have Gretzky (I choose to ignore his 10 seconds in STL and the Rangers have scads of others to come before him).  Pittsburgh has Mario Lemieux.  Why shouldn't St. Louis have someone like that?

Upper Deck proves my point.

My main issue is having the ceremony on opening night.  We're not playing a big rival that night (we're playing Philly), and the first home game of the year is a sure fire sellout.  The Blues'll have quite a few of those over the year, so why not dedicate the statue at one where the sell-out isn't a sure bet?  Statue + give away of mini-statue = butts in seats.

For the first time in franchise history, the Thrashers have a goalie consultant to help in development and conditioning.  Yes, I know that we had Steve Weeks for a while, but raise your hand if you actually thought he was even 100 feet away from a goalie, let alone coached them.

*crickets*

Exactly.  Every time we've had goalie issues - Kari's conditioning (or lack therof), Pavelec's "slow development" (open for interpretation), or the elder goalie Jedi always having to coach the younger - the fickle finger of blame has landed squarely on our lack of a dedicated individual helping the guys in the crease get better.  I'm sorry, but as much as I love Johan Hedberg and think that he did a wonderful job in coaching Lehtonen and Pavelec as young goalies, but there's something wrong with having our backup be the coach.  Mentor, sure.  Coach?  We weren't paying Moose to teach Lehtonen how to actually stickhandle.

Clint Malarchuk should be a godsend.  The usual stock NHL press release reminds fans of the fact that he's had to work with goalies such as Roberto Luongo and Steve Mason during the year where he was a rookie phenom, not post-Malarchuk where he was a gaping black hole in the crease, practically sucking pucks into the net.

I do realize that as a Thrashers fan my definition of "godsend" is probably looser than others' would be, but if I had to choose between no goalie coach yet again so Pavs could flail about and allow four goals a game for the whole season and Clint Malarchuk, well gee.  Wonder what I'd pick

Wow. Our coaching staff's starting to look like that of an actual NHL team: Craig Ramsay, John Torchetti, Mike Stothers, and now Clint Malarchuk.  Really, not half bad.

Oh, look, we signed Luke Wilson.

The UFA defenseman, late of the New York Islanders, was signed this afternoon.  "Whaa?" you might think.  "We already have seven defensemen!  Kulda!"  Well, yes.  But we need one of the defensemen to be rough and tumble.  Bogosian was a hitting machine last season, but he had Christoph Schubert to do the dirty work.  Schu's gone, which leaves Boris Valabik. As much as I like Boris, and felt that he was finally fitting in with the team's plan for last season (at least before his leg asploded), his skating skills have never really matured.  That, and he gets a penalty for sneezing on someone.  Meyer's not a point machine, or a set-up man, but he should be perfectly servicable on the 3rd pairing with Sopel (cough hint cough).  Kulda might be the 7th man to be eased into the business.

This isn't going to solve the Thrashers' defensive problems of the last, oh, ten years.  But I have a feeling that something'll work out to improve that GA/game average of ours.

Aaron of Birdwatchers and I got together (well, I wrote the Kovy part when he had to deal with kidney-stone related things) and tried to figure out who we wanted on the Thrashers' entry to the Mt. Puckmore series.

There was a lot of debate about if it should have been Heatley or Kozlov on here, but we figured that the Heatley/Snyder tragedy was pretty indicative of a large franchise shaping event that had reverberations for years afterward. Stefan was going to be up there, but other than the fact that he was unlucky enough to be picked first and then suck, he doesn't represent much of anything to the franchise unless you want to stretch and say his career's a metaphor for the team.

Anywho, Aaron and I tried to have a sense of humor when it came to this thing, because we're Thrashers fans and are kind of touched in the head like that.  It also took a lot for us when looking at former players to keep from opening a bottle of Knob Creek and breaking into tears.  A lot of top talent has come through here - it's a shame that they never could be on the ice at once.  Enjoy!

Ben Wright got a chance to chat up Chris Mason at the Ice Forum the other day.  Aside from the excitement that he's happy to be here and that he saw a semi spin out in the rain (or as we here in Atlanta call that, every freaking day), the interview was the usual niceties and non-offensive answers that the new guy is expected to give. The Beard did unveil his new mask to Ben, though, and it's... wow.  Old school.  Ben mentioned on Twitter than Masonry was trying to go for the old 1970s Canucks style of mask.  I think he does pretty good.

I've never been a huge fan of the bat-bird logo - it's ok as a secondary one, but as the main logo, well, I do consider those jerseys a fail.  I have one, but that's just because it was a $100 game worn Lehtonen from Team Gear.  It's a valid excuse.  I really think that the best part of Mason's new mask is the back of it with the seal of the City of Atlanta on it; I appreciated the incorporation of St. Louis's landmarks, etc. on his Blues' mask.  But as far as the main design goes?  Meeehhhhhh, but I'm sure it'll grow on me as the season goes on.

By now, everyone's seen clips and photographs of the fight that broke out in the bottom of the first inning during Tuesday's Cards/Reds match-up.  Watching it, well, it made me miss hockey season, but it also made me thankful that there's another sport with a code - namely, don't call our team "little bitches."  These eloquent words from Brandon Phillips are what started the whole thing:

"I'd play against these guys with one leg," Phillips insisted before the game. "We have to beat these guys. ... All they do is bitch and moan about everything, all of them, they're little bitches, all of 'em.''

He also was quoted as saying, "I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear: I hate the Cardinals."

Well, thanks.  Your team gets all relevant for the first time since Marge Schott was dropping racial slurs, and Phillips thinks that he can add a little fuel to that match-up and battle for first in the Central.  What he hoped to accomplish with that is beyond me - trying to scare the Cards into submission? "Oooga booga, it's Brandon Phillips!  Gee, I really hope that he doesn't have a huge series and go 2-for-14 or something like that!"  Phillips didn't back his words up.  In fact, he was the ground out specialist of the Reds.

Even dumber than the original statement was him trying to go out and act buddy-buddy with Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina by tapping him on the shin-guards.  Yadi kicked his bat away and told him to stop, Phillips kicked him again to piss him off, and Yadi stood up and told him "I'm not your bitch."  In those four words, Molina showed more team-riling gumption than Philips' national television spew.  Of course, a fifty person fight ensued, in which Phillips couldn't be found. Oh, and the highlight of which was Johnny Cueto, the night's starting pitcher, bicycle kick Jason LaRue in the head.  Cueto got a seven game suspension out of that class move. Seven minutes later, the game resumed, and Phillips grounded out to end the inning.  Molina was first to bat in the second, and he promptly jacked a home run, sucking any good vibes directly out of the Reds. It also showed them that if you have a problem with a team, you deal with it on the playing field where competition takes place, not in the clubhouse behind a microphone.

The original words of this whole incident are what struck me as absurd.  In a league that enjoys presenting itself as the class sport of the nation - "America's Game," if you will - they allowed Phillips to call an entire team "little bitches" publicly and no repercussions were given.  Dusty Baker made no statement trying to smooth the situation over, making him complicit in the trash talk.  Penalties were given after the fight, sure, but that was because of the brawl itself.  What if that fight hadn't happened?

A situation like that in the NHL, such as Sean Avery's now infamous "sloppy seconds" comment, gets you an audience with the commish and a six game suspension.  It's all right, though, for someone to directly use profanity when describing an opponent in nationally broadcast comments?  No statement from Bud Selig, no reprimand, no fine.  It's not a leap to read that as MLB not caring a bit about the comments of its employees, and therefore the image of the game.

Avery's suspension was absurd (Cueto got one more game than Avery did and Cueto could have blinded LaRue with a cleat) and reactionary.  Selig's was apathetic if not oblivious, and his lack of response - as well as a lack of response by the Reds organization - allowed a fight to happen during a game that was, of course, picked up by national media.  How ignorant does this make the Reds look?  The League?  The ignorance of not doing anything is just as off putting as the ignorance of over-punishment.

Molina did the right thing, and what he did is completely expected in hockey.  Someone trash talks your team, or takes runs at your guys, and someone does something about it if no one else will.  Policing yourself is (was, you could argue) a major part of the game, but it kept larger problems like direct retribution hits at bay.  St. Louis Blues enforcer Cam Janssen had this to say regarding the scuffle:

"That was great that Yadi did that," Janssen said. "He's not going to take that from him, and why would he? The Cardinals are a great organization. They've got a great team, and they're classy. If someone was calling the Blues that, there would be hell to pay when they got to Scottrade Center, I'll tell you that."

But Janssen followed by saying, "In hockey, no one would do that because they know there's consequences on the ice. That's why hockey players have respect for one another. If you're going to run your mouth like that, then you're going to be called out on the ice. And I'll tell you what, there's nobody going to be breaking that up for a while."

Cam hits on something important.  Hockey players have respect for each other.  There are guys that you absolutely can't stand on the ice, but you have a code and you follow it.  You can dislike someone and still respect their abilities at your sport, or them as a person in general.  Also, his comment regarding "consequences" is a telling one - if there were stronger consequences - the removal of the instigator penalty, perhaps? - maybe fewer injuries would occur.

A happy medium needs to be found between the NHL and MLB's reaction to an incident of the same vein.  Things can't be allowed to blow up like they did.  But, most importantly, players need to have respect for each other.  That's what Brandon Phillips was lacking.  Nothing negative was said about the Reds after the game - Molina had this to say instead: "They've got a pretty good team. They were in first place, but we showed we've got good talent and we're going to compete. We took good at-bats. That's what we needed to do."

That's how the game needs to be played. Maybe Phillips needs to lace up and learn that lesson himself.