mc79hockey.com

This is Kyle Wellwood. It’s been bumpy road for Wellwood so far in his career. Everyone seems to agree that he’s a very talented hockey player but there’s some ethereal thing that holds him back, that prevents him from becoming the hockey player that he’s generally perceived to have the talent to be. What exactly is that?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Canucks-Lightning trade today is an interesting one. Willis, who is miles ahead of some of the other analysis over at OilersNation (I’m wondering whether Gregor really doesn’t see the problem with his some of his analysis or if the Oilogosphere has simply been infected by the worst qualities of sports radio), is bang on, I think, picking the Canucks as the winner. Michel Ouellet’s inclusion in the deal is particularly interesting:

Michel Ouellet’s transformation into AHL-calibre forward is slightly baffling. He played the 7th-toughest competition among Lightning forwards last year, and scored 2.00 PTS/60, while posting 2.88 GFON/60 and 1.92 GAON/60. He should see time in Vancouver this season, if he clears recall waivers.

If anything, I think that Willis is underselling things here. Bill James used to talk about the Ken Phelps All-Stars, defined by Baseball Prospectus as “…an assemblage of players with skills that made them useful, but who were generally not given a fair opportunity to prove their worth in the majors or had been given unwarranted labels they couldn’t shake.” There’s a pretty good argument that Ouellet should be considered as falling in that group.

Read the rest of this entry »