Is it too late to rename the Northwest Division the “Smythe Division” for the rest of the season?
I once covered an NHL team that won 19 games in a full season, yet finished second in the five-team Smythe and qualified for the playoffs. Those were the 1977-78 Colorado Rockies, who actually were a gritty group led by Wilf Paiement, Paul Gardner and Barry Beck.
In the era of the more balanced schedule, the Rockies went 19-40-21 that season in the era of no overtime or shootouts, and their 59 points put them ahead of Vancouver (57), St. Louis (53) and Minnesota (45) in the dreadful Smythe.
The NHL then threw out conference designations for the playoffs, and the Rockies were the No. 12 seed, facing No. 5 Philadelphia in a best-of-three opening-round series. (The top four seeds got byes.) They took the Flyers to overtime in Game 1 at the Spectrum before losing, then bowed out at home in Game 2. Denver had caught hockey fever, though it wouldn’t last and those turned out to be the only playoff games in Rockies history.
My point?
Maybe it’s time to return to the NHL’s homage-to-tradition division names and make a midseason switch. Hope the heirs of Conn Smythe consider it a tribute rather than a slap in the face.
Actually, after last season’s joke of an NBA result, when the Nuggets “won” the Northwest Division, but didn’t even get the home-court advantage in the first round and meekly exited, sports fans in the real Northwest – Washington, Oregon and Idaho – should feel insulted.
Going into Friday’s games, the gap between the first- and fifth-place teams in the NHL Northwest was only five points. The Avalanche had gone from first to last in about 18 minutes. The Canucks, one of the league’s hottest teams, would have been sixth in the conference without benefit of the “automatic” elevation to the No. 3 spot as a division leader.
The NHL might be hoping for a five-team race to the wire in the division, which will send two or three teams to the playoffs. But it would be better if one team – whether the Flames or the Canucks – would step up and look like a legitimate challenger to Anaheim, San Jose, Dallas, Detroit and (maybe) Nashville.
After some early struggles, the Canucks have been playing well of late, getting solid goaltending from Roberto Luongo. Every time the Flames seem to be waking up, they hit more rough spots. But if they figure out a way to score goals without stepping too far away from their defense-first approach and continue to get great work from Miikka Kiprusoff, they’ll pull away.
But as it stands now, the division has parity, all right.
Collective mediocrity.
Taking the fight out of Iggy
Speaking of the Flames, it turned out that initial reports of Calgary captain Jarome Iginla suffering an injury in his Thursday night fight with Florida’s Bryan Allen were premature.
On Friday, the Canadian network TSN reported Iginla was wearing a knee brace, but walking without a noticeable limp. And indications were that Iginla suffered what the Flames termed a “lower-body” injury when Allen hit him along the boards, shortly before the fight.
But that shouldn’t change the reality: Iginla shouldn’t be fighting.
Iginla has been on a roll, getting back in the hunt for the NHL scoring lead, quite an accomplishment given the Flames’ close-to-the-vest style. But he felt the need to challenge Allen, whose hit had knocked Calgary’s Chuck Kobasew out of the game and who also had hit Iginla along the boards. Iginla served the fighting major, then returned to the Flames’ dressing room and didn’t return to the ice.
Initial speculation ranged from a hand or wrist injury, because both players had their helmets on during the fight; to a knee problem caused by Allen’s hit along the boards. After the game, Calgary coach Jim Playfair at least said the injury didn’t come in the fight. We’ve been told 234,274 times that “nobody gets hurt in hockey fights,” but given many teams’ ridiculous injury disclosure policy, there was every reason to be skeptical.
Iginla is too great of a player to fight. When he suffered a broken finger in a fight with Bill Guerin early in the 2002-03 season it affected him the rest of the season, and the Flames missed the playoffs.
“You don’t want a guy with 55 points breaking his hand, but that’s Jarome – you can’t take that away from him,” said Calgary’s Jamie McLennan, a former Denver Grizzlies goalie who got a rare start against the Panthers.
Yes, you can. If you’re smart.
The tradition of power forwards fighting is well-established. That can run the gamut, from Cam Neely – who was so respected, he didn’t have to fight much – or Brendan Shanahan and Adam Deadmarsh, who probably still would be playing today if his concussion problems hadn’t gotten out of hand following his fight with Ed Jovanovski.
But at some point, the Flames have to drive home the point that Iginla isn’t doing the team any good when he fights too much. In fact, what continues to be portrayed as a “selfless” and “team-first” attitude – which Iginla obviously believes, too – works out to be selfish.
The risk outweighs the potential reward.
Grieving with Chelios
A tip of the hat to Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios for taking what probably will be a brief leave of absence after two of his Detroit restaurant employees were murdered last week, and to the Red Wings management for going along with it.
Fritsche update
Last month, I wrote about the long road back for Avalanche 2005 draft choice Tom Fritsche, a junior at Ohio State. Fritsche, from the Cleveland suburb of Parma, came down with ulcerative colitis last summer, was hospitalized for 26 days, lost 37 pounds, and – in the relatively unimportant – was told he couldn’t play hockey for quite awhile.
After missing the first 18 games of the Buckeyes’ season, Fritsche made it back in the lineup last weekend, getting an assist in each of Ohio State’s victories – over Minnesota-Duluth and Miami, Ohio – in the Ohio Hockey Classic.
Good for him.
Fritsche was one of the Avalanche’s three second-round choices in 2005, along with Paul Stastny and Minnesota’s Ryan Stoa.
PENALTY BOX: THROWING IT DOWN (IN REVERSE)
Miscreants: New York Rangers right wing Colton Orr and Washington Capitals left wing Donald Brashear
Infractions: Giving dinosaurs a bad name as they attempt to justify their continuing residency on NHL rosters. In the third period of the Rangers’ win at New York on Dec. 30, Brashear fought with the Rangers’ Brendan Shanahan, and after that was broken up took a punch at Rangers defenseman Aaron Ward. A little later, at 15:40 of the third, Orr, who has no points and 65 penalty minutes this season, took a cheap-shot, cross-check to the head of the Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin.
Official penalties: The NHL suspended Orr for five games, Brashear for one.
What the penalty should be: Heard of “reverse mortgages”? There should be something called “reverse suspensions.” Rangers coach Tom Renney and Capitals coach Glen Hanlon should be required to play Orr and Brashear at least 22 minutes a game during their “reverse suspensions.”
SPOTLIGHT ON … STATE OF COLORADO HOCKEY
Minnesota likes to call itself the State of Hockey, and the title is well-deserved and indisputable. Youth hockey, high school hockey, college hockey, the NHL – it’s all big. In fact, the popularity of hockey beyond the NHL was cited as one of the reasons the North Stars didn’t draw well at times during the franchise’s stay in Bloomington.
(The real reason the franchise moved to Dallas, though, was greedy ownership.)
But consider the scheduled hockey docket in Colorado on snowy Friday night:
The Tampa Bay Lightning played the Avalanche at the Pepsi Center.
The Wisconsin Badgers and the University of Denver Pioneers, winners of the past three NCAA championships, opened a two-game series at Magness Arena.
The North Dakota Fighting Sioux and Colorado College Tigers played the first game of a two-night series at the World Arena in Colorado Springs.
In the Central Hockey League, the Youngstown Steelhounds faced the Colorado Eagles at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland; and the Arizona Sundogs – co-owned by Eric Lacroix, the former NHL winger and the son of longtime Avalanche executive Pierre Lacroix – played the Rocky Mountain Rage at the Broomfield Event Center. The Eagles continue to be a huge box-office success in Loveland, where co-owner Ralph Backstrom – the former NHL center and DU coach – has a gold mine.
Youth and adult hockey fought for the available ice time at the arenas, many of them recently built, across the state.
The Air Force Falcons were out of state, playing a set against Mercyhurst at Erie, Pa.
With the boom continuing, and DU and CC being able to mine the state for talent instead of relying completely on outside sources, I’ve even heard whispers that the University of Colorado should ponder starting a Division I men’s hockey program.
Seem ridiculous? Why would it be? Think of all the similar state-supported universities – including Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State – with men’s hockey programs.
At CU, the major problem would be the Coors Events Center’s unsuitability for hockey, but it wouldn’t seem out of the question to play in Broomfield.
It isn’t going to happen within the foreseeable future, and it probably would be more suitable to add men’s baseball and women’s softball first, but it’s fun to at least think about it.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
