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The Journal editoral linked to by Andy Grabia the other day had a fantastic little paragraph buried in the middle:

The building’s owners will, of course, want some of the extra tax revenue generated by all of the downtown businesses that will benefit from having a busy arena on their doorsteps — and they may well have a point.

Really? The NHL owners, during the lockout, didn’t seem too open to the argument that a free market was necessary in part because owners frequently leverage NHL teams for other purposes - real estate developments in Phoenix and Ottawa, for example or related companies servicing the arena - and are willing to invest more in playing talent because it generates revenue for them in ways that extend beyond the team itself. The definition of hockey related revenue in the CBA excludes all of those sorts of things. How can these same people - including the Edmonton Journal - now advance the argument that it’s fair for them to reap the benefits of any increased business activity around the arena (which, no matter what U of A gym teaches say, has largely been shown to be transferred spending as opposed to new spending) because of the presence of an arena? Seems logically inconsistent to me.

Maybe I’ll get my Cup Finals prediction up before that starts but for now, I’m struggling with the timeliness of the whole thing.  7-1 in round one, if you believe the comment that I dropped in Dennis’ post four days after it started about what my predictions would have been.  On to round two…

Buffalo v. New York:  I’m somewhat surprised that anybody really thinks that this might be close.  The Rangers were in a horrible division and got a fantastic draw for the first round.  Matt makes the point at BoA that the Sabres and Rangers put up the same number of points over their final 42 games.  Worthy of note, to be sure, but the Sabres were also riddled by injury during that time, if I recall correctly.  That said, I’ve looked at their GD for that period and it’s comparable.  As I recall, Buffalo had a shooting percentage that bordered on ludicrous for the first part of the season; my guess is that that wore off.  Much as I think that the Rangers blow, I’m willing to concede that this series may well be closer than it appears.  Buffalo in six - eat it, Dave Hodge.

Ottawa v. New Jersey: ESPN’s hockey guy, John Buccigross writes a column on ESPN.com that I read, for reasons I can never recall once I start.  There’s a famous anecdote about Winston Churchill (I think) where he cuts himself shaving or something and lets out a stream of profanity.  His wife is appalled and repeats what he just said in an attempt to shame him.  He replies “My dear, you’ve got the words but the tune is all wrong.”  That’s what I always think reading Buccigross - the guy clearly loves hockey but his writing is just so inconsistent with the way people write about hockey that I can’t get around.  Plus, he writes things like:

“New Jersey is an experienced team with multiple scoring lines.”

Really?  They outscored the Oilers by all of 14 goals.  They’re barely better than the Vaunt, in a year from hell.  Also, they play in the Eastern Conference (sucks), in the Atlantic Division (sucks) and nobody out there feigns the slightest interest in defence.  Personally, I think that they’re a bad offensive team, although their scoring numbers would be expected to be lower, given that they don’t seem to take or draw penalties, as they haven’t for the past 15 years.  I can’t decide whether that’s by design or by officials just wanting to get the hell out of New Jersey as quickly as possible but in any event, “multiple scoring lines” is really pushing things.  Ottawa will  eat them alive.  Sens in six - again, eat it Dave Hodge - due to home ice resting with the Devils.

Vancouver v. Anaheim:  Ducks in five.

San Jose v. Detroit:  The only series where I don’t see a clear fire favourite.  I think it comes down to this: if Detroit can handle San Jose’s PP, Detroit wins.  If not, the Sharks win.  That was the Oilers recipe last year and I figure it will be same.  San Jose is, in a lot of ways, the team that Calgary thinks they are and, given that the pundit consensus was that Calgary may well upset Detroit, I’m going to give San Jose the nod here.  San Jose in seven.

If you haven’t read retired hockey blogger Andy Grabia’s posts about the new arena in Edmonton, go do so. It’s more than a little amazing to me that Battle of Alberta is the highest profile media outlet asking any questions whatsoever about this - one gets the feeling that if John MacKinnon, Gary Lamphier and Jim Farrell were empowered to do so, they’d be roaming the streets of Edmonton right now, taking money panhandled by the homeless and shaking down crack dealers to help fund this thing. I continue to wait for the Journal to clarify its position with respect to ownership of the Oilers - do they still own a chunk of the team? If so, should they be acknowledging it.
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This is just basically a whole bunch of things that I wanted to get around to posting on and I figured I’d bang them out now, what with all the nervous energy I’m trying to burn off before taking in the most exciting game in NHL history since the ‘96 Florida Panthers played an intra-squad contest in September of ‘95. Is that an overstatement? Probably not. Look, Luongo is the real deal but outside of that angle, what else is there really to look for? The Sedins can be quite formidable but from what I gathered from the G1 OT contest, they didn’t even kick their games into gear until the last three periods of that game. Since then they’ve gone sub-zero and that whole team looks poised for collapse with Vigneault losing his patience after G6 and calling out a bunch of his charges. That’s not to say I’m picking Turco to continue to go all “Orel Hershiser in ‘88″ on the Canucks but it’s not like he’s shutting out the ‘27 Yankees either. Though at this point Bob Meusel probably has as much of a chance to score a goal tonight as does say Jan Bulis.

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According to Bob Stauffer on Hockey’s Future:

A well placed source not in the Columbus org, nor the Oilers org; but one that has provided me with exceptional info that came to fruition in the past, told me in late February that the Oil offered Torres for Zherdev, and Columbus countered by requesting for Lupul, which the Oil declined.

They’re both so dumb that it’s funny.

Interesting little story in today’s Edmonton Sun, about things that are wrong with the playoffs.

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Damien Cox has a story in the Toronto Star today about Sean Hill’s drug suspension. The salient pieces of the story:

So while the league can puff out its chest today and cite Hill’s 20-game suspension announced late yesterday afternoon as evidence of a league drug policy that works, the incident may have actually opened up a bunch of new questions.

When was Hill caught?

Should he have been suspended pending his appeal?

How long did the appeal take?

Should that appeal have been heard before the playoffs began?

League officials, citing the confidentiality of the league’s drug program, declined to give any specific answers, but league deputy commissioner Bill Daly acknowledged the timing of the suspension raises some tricky issues.

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TSN story.  I might as well just shut the site down now, having lost both Doug MacLean and virtually the entire Coyotes brain trust within the past month or so.  Thank god Gretzky is still around.

I can’t believe Grabia hung up his keyboard, what with all the interesting things that would drive him nuts at the moment.  First of all, there was a story on CHED today about the new rink:

EDMONTON/630CHED - The goal is to build a four hundred million dollar arena, and not tap into civic tax dollars.   And the most encouraging thing that has happened according to sources is two committees have been struck, one to look at the administration of this project, and the planning… and a second committee to look at financing. For his part, Mayor Mandel is saying nothing. Sources tell 630 ched news, no tax money should mean casino financing.   And a downtown project would include a hotel component. HOK the arena architect firm that drew up renovation plans for Rexall Place is on board.   There is speculation this week’s provincial budget will address money for the planning aspect of this downtown arena proposal.

- Scott Johnston

“I don’t want to go too deep into it but I don’t disagree with your analysis of my comments.”

There’s a computer geek [respectful nod in my brother’s direction] term, killer app, that applies to the web page that Vic Ferrari threw up on the internet within the past few days.  Quite frankly, it’s one of the greatest things I’ve seen.  The site is www.timeonice.com and it is fucking phenomenal.

What it lets you do is check out who played with and against who, for any game including the playoffs.  If you’re interested in what coaches are doing - and I think that most of the people who read this site are - it’s a simply great tool.  It won’t show you a nude Jim Playfair sitting in a hotel room in Detroit, flipping through nudie pics from the Red Mile, drinking rye straight from a bottle and weeping but it does pretty much everything else.

For instance, say that you’re interested in the NSH-SJ series, as I think most of us are.  You’re wondering how the coaches will approach things differently from a tactical perspective as the series shifts to San Jose.  There are all sorts of cool things that you can pick up from this.  You can actually see how the matchups become more favourable for the home team.  For instance, Barry Trotz did some interesting line matching through the first two games of this series - check out Jason Arnott, Shea Weber and Kimmo Timonen.  Then look at them for tonight.  The Preds were able to get the Weber/Thornton matchup consistently but that was about it.  It’s a lot easier to get this from charts like Vic’s assembled than it is from staring at shift charts.

Fantastic stuff.  Anything that allows for facts to be checked quickly is good stuff and this does a lot more than that.  I’m looking forward to playing with it some more in the days to come.