kinder, gentler Avs blogging

I'm shutting my hole until after the deadline. I think the Avs aren't done trading guys, and I already overreacted to the Andy deal--only AFTER writing my meltdown did it come out that his people (and maybe he) had turned down a two-year 7.5-million dollar extension before this year began. That would have colored my reaction by like a lot.

But then Peter Stastny comes along and unloads the following:

“This young team was ready to challenge, almost, for a Stanley Cup this season. They were so good. All they needed was some more chemistry, and some synergies. Instead, they destroyed the team. I mean, that was a one-way deal. Mr. Armstrong will look like a genius. I don’t know what they were thinking in the Colorado organization. I should not have said this, but I’m so, so mad what they’ve done to this team. They’ve moved the team about two to three years back again.”

As for Stastny the elder, I have two main threads of thought.

One: as the PD article mentions, the guy lives in St. Louis & worked for the Blues. Hasn't had anything to do w/ the Avs in a long long time. Sure, he's entitled to his opinion, but:

Two: if you share your opinion, people should approach it critically. If *I* said:

“This young team was ready to challenge, almost, for a Stanley Cup this season."

I would be laughed at.

With good cause! It is a preposterous statement. If you take each of his claims and examine them naked, you get a bunch of hysterical ravings that don't seem to match up with consensus reality all that closely.

"They were so good."
They had lost 9 in a row when they made the trade.

"All they needed was some more chemistry, and some synergies. "
*If* that means anything, and I'm not convinced that it does, then maybe moving these guys improves chemistry/synergies. By all accounts, Stewart was popular and Shattenkirk had a lot of "leadership", but Peter Stastny has never set foot in the Avs locker room or showed up at a practice, so why again are we supposed to give a flying fuck what he has to say about anything?

"Instead, they destroyed the team."
Wait. We got 2 players and a draft pick. This is destroying? Take a look at what Ron Francis got traded from Hartford for; THAT was destroying a team.

"I mean, that was a one-way deal."
"One-way deal"? We gave up a promising but inconsistent power forward for a promising but inconsistent top-2 Dman; we gave up an offensive Dman--which we have half-a-dozen of--for a decent defensive forward, which we are short of.

And we got a first-round draft pick, which, you know: not too fucking shabby.

(Avs GM Greg Sherman negotiating contracts.)

"Mr. Armstrong will look like a genius."
It's possible. I think the Blues are a smart franchise, and I think they're rebuilding pretty efficiently and intelligently. One piece of evidence I have for this is that they identified a weakness--the need for a power forward--and moved an element of their strength--a stout, deep blue line--to address that weakness.

Why, it's similar to a move Mr. Sherman made, identifying a weakness--small defensive corps--and moving one of his strengths--high-scoring forwards--to address that weakness.

"I don’t know what they were thinking in the Colorado organization."
That is obvious.

"I should not have said this, but I’m so, so mad what they’ve done to this team."
Yeah. They really shoulda stuck with the undersized puckmovers who helped them to that 10-loss streak. Making trades to fill holes is fucking stupid. Unless your name is Mr. Armstrong, I guess.

"They’ve moved the team about two to three years back again."
If true, that would make me sad, because we'd be about to trade Ryan Smyth again and would have to sit through another year+ of end-stage Darcy Tucker and Tyler "The Human Person" Arnason.

But I don't think it is true. Back then, hoes didn't want me. Now I'm hot, hoes all up on me. No, sorry. Mike Jones moment there. What I meant: back then, our team was at the cap limit and old. Now our team is at the cap floor and young. Are we gonna make the playoffs this year? No. But we didn't then either. If you're gonna miss the playoffs in year N, do it with young players and lots of cap space for year N+1. We're doing that this year; we weren't doing it then.

In conclusion Peter Stastny, have another drink & HAVE A NICE DAY.

--Collision, hanging & banging, but broke as a joke

Frisky Dingo pic from the internet.
Mike Jones from buy that shit, homie.
Have a nice day.

HOOF ARTED

tempus fugit
OR
nil carborundum illegitimo

Well, apparently from my poison pen to Greg Sherman's desk. Mere hours after my most recent public meltdown in the face of an Avalanche team that oscillates between "baffling" and "completely fucking inscrutable", Avs GM Sherman banished injury-plagued scapegoat goaltender Craig Anderson to Ottawa, which has been the Graveyard of Goaltending Careers for some years now. "Ottawa Senators goaltending failure" returns 241,000 results on Google.

(Avalanche GM to fans: "The music's over, faggots. Shut the fuck up, turn off the lights, and feel free to lie down and die.")

I'm on record as hoping like a motherfucker that St. Mayor Craig Anderson posts half a dozen shutouts over the remainder of the season, getting himself well and truly paid. The Avs weren't going to do it, and they'll save themselves 350,000 over the rest of this wasted season because of the move. As late as Thursday night, he was still going on record saying all the right things. He wasn't using injuries as an excuse, he was happy to play hockey for a living, he was determined to "make the most" out of his next opportunity.

Personally, I'm sad he didn't say what I think he thought, which would have gone something like

Joe Sacco is a terrible handler of goalies. Yanking me out constantly helped even less than trotting me out there before I was ready.

This organization is on its third goaltending coach in three seasons. It used to be Jeff Hackett full-time. Then there was Jocelyn Thibault part-time.

All he did was help get career years out of me and out of Petr Budaj. so of course they booted him and replaced him with Kirk McLean, who spends all his time in Vancouver, managing his restaurant. He's only with the team a few days a month. And he had never coached except for a little while in intellectual hotbed and notorious source of high-quality goalies Kamloops.

And oh--by the way: there's not one NHL-caliber goalie in the pipeline. Not. One.

That's what I wish Anderson had said.

Of course, that's not what he said. Near as I can tell, he didn't say anything at all. (Brian Elliott, the guy who he was traded for, was said to have refused to speak to the media. So, uhm...welcome to the Avalanche, Mr. Elliott! Hope you don't feel like playing behind professional-quality defenses or working on your game with a full-time goalie coach!)

As far as the media responses go, Dater nails this one. Not surprising, since it's a negative move, and nobody understands the negative like Adrian Dater. (That's not a dig: I think Dater's the best beat guy in the NHL.)

Goalie Guild Ryan, on the other hand, follows up a too-long/stupid-to-even-link-to babblefest about RISING TO THE OCCASION and WORK ETHIC and STAYING POSITIVE with this idiotic horseshit where he repeatedly calls Anderson (6-2, 180) "bigger" than Brian Elliott (6-2, 198). Seriously, why do I even bother following links to this stuff anymore? The guy is a "pro goalie scout" the same way Paris Hilton is a "professional actress": just because somebody stupider than you pays you to do something doesn't mean you're any goddamned good at it. If I want to read stupid heavy-metal routines half-assedly applied to hockey, I know where to look for that.

And I would be remiss if I didn't tip my hat to Mile High Hockey, which echoes my Andy/David Aebischer-are-parallels thoughts and rightly concludes

I think it's an "okay" deal. Anderson was going to be moved and the market for goalies is never incredibly strong, especially goalies who are struggling. It's possible Elliott exceeds expectations, but this is more likely a case of GM Greg Sherman getting the best possible return for a player that was going to be moved regardless.

As a side note, it'd take a better blogger than me to figure out why multiple sources list Anderson's record this year as "13-5-3"; ten losses shy of the actual mark. Good cut/paste work, fellas! And superb proofreading and factchecking!

So what are we to make of this new guy, Brian Elliott? Is he fish, fowl, good red herring? Be he cat or kitten, sheepdog or cowlick?

he was derided too easily and too often in Ottawa after being forced to make significant alterations to his style coming out of college, where he spent a lot of time making half-butterfly saves and playing off angle along the goal line. Those were the calling cards of unorthodox long-time Wisconsin goaltending coach Bill Howard. Elliott began the transformation to a more efficient butterfly style and proper angle and recovery tactics under Mike Valley, who is now the goaltending coach for the Dallas Stars, during summer training sessions with Elite Goalies Schools.

The Senators lack of goaltending depth, however, left him trying to make those adjustments against the world’s best shooters.

That was from InGoal Magazine. So, wonderful. A team too cheap to pay a full-time goalie coach trades for a guy in the midst of changing his style. Also that team has a terrible, terrible corps of defensemen.

(What could go wrong?)

Welp, apparently I really am now calling the shots for the Avs, because the Avs now have two goalies who will, as I advocated, "let in 1 out of every 10 shots consistently". So, Greg Sherman, since I am Pulling Your Strings, please do not dump J-M Liles or Milan Hejduk. Also: Sir Lord Baltimore is fucking great, yeah?

--Collision, off to get very, very drunk indeed

Brian Elliott image from nhlsnipers.com.
Bush-Cheney logo from this country is a pile of idiot assholes.
You want the truth from lolcats.

a modest proposal

Well, fuck.

So the Avs have entered full-on south of heaven mode, with the longest losing streak in franchise history. As usual, Jibblescribbits nails the situation and gets there before I do. If you want sober-sided and clear-headed analysis of OH FUCK WHAT NOW in the aftermath of a 9-1 silent scream of a game, he's gotcha covered:

This team is still young, still learning, and still rebuilding. We, as fans, got our hopes up that the rebuild was going to be quick. That Duchene and Forsberg would come save us and that the Avs would return to glory. Management did too. But rebuilds take time. Pittsburgh and Chicago were miserable for many years before enjoying success. The Avs have a way to go, and have some good pieces to do so.

But what to do the remainder of the year? Are the players live or undead? Have they quit on coach Joe Sacco, no longer marching to his orders? Former unquestioned number-one goalie Craig Anderson has gotten crooked, and been crossed off as the starter for four straight games now; I think it's clear that he at least has given up on Sacco and that he (Anderson) won't be brought back next year.¹

As for Sacco...I'm guessing the powers that be will watch to see if the team completely gives up on him. If they do, he'll probably get shitcanned in the off-season. If they don't, he'll probably come back.

But I'm just frustrated and incapable of coming to a solid conclusion about this team. All year long, I've been pretty sure they were a little worse than they were last year--but when they're good, they're just irresistable. If I could just convince myself they sucked, I could lie back and enjoy the remainder of the season, calling the games development for the younger players, and chalking up each loss as a mandatory suicide with good long-run consequences. But then they look good and I get excited again...then they turn into nightmares on skates, shell-shocked ghosts of war barely bothering to go through the motions against teams I loathe.

So fuck it. Maybe the rebuild hasn't actually started yet. Maybe it's time to put the screws to the management team, read between the lies they're spewing, & make sure we're not falling in love with the best players on an abysmal team.

So here's my suggestion.

They should trade everybody but Budaj², Liles, McLeod & Koci & tank a couple more years, get some draft picks.

Why those guys? Because they are the ones who I have so far seen give a fuck every single night. Nobody else. They don't play well every night, but they actually fucking care every night.

Do I know any way to cleanse the soul other than tantrums and foul language? Not really. So, in this rebuilding year that bids fair to be a lost season, all I can really do to hold on is root for wingnut agitators like McLeod to fly around like dissident aggressors, spill some blood.

--Collision, going in the tank for the rest of the year

¹I want to be very, very clear about this. Not bringing St. Mayor Craig Anderson back will be a major mistake. This year has been a terrible one for him, but his career numbers suggest he'll be good again next year, wherever he ends up. Every year since 2006 he has had a save percentage of .917 or better; I predict next year he will again, and that whoever ends up working for the Avs won't.

²Why keep Boods? First, I'm a huge proponent of stability at the backup goalie position; those are the guys who the team practices with, and they bring a lot to the table when they're liked. By all accounts, Budaj is tremendously well-liked by his teammates, despite a religious background that earned--earned!--him the nickname "Flanders".

Plus, if you want to rebuild, throw a guy out there who'll let in 1 out of every 10 shots consistently. That is how you get a lottery pick, my friend.

Also found this, which is a similar defense of Budaj & his decent stats and excellent helmet work.

Budaj's helmet from http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/264902/.
Meltdown image from the internet.
Self-portrait taken thinking about Andy moving on taken from the internet.

non serviam, motherfucker

1. Struggling to weigh in on Forsberg

(Most of my heroes do appear on a stamp.)

So the Avs have signed a 37-year-old player who had 1 assist in 4 games the last time he played high-level hockey (in this case, the winter olympics). This would ordinarily be a moderately puzzling but forgettable move, a team shoring up its depth by adding a low-level forward, somebody you'd hope would maybe win faceoffs or be really good in the corners or something.

But this 37-year-old is Peter Forsberg. I've had to remind myself how good--in fact, how great--Foppa once was. For me, his incessant injury-plagued comeback attempts, including tragic, depressing turns with the Flyers & the Predators, had ruined his legacy. But that act of his career, though probably still the last act, shouldn't overwhelm the earlier acts. Forsberg is a former league MVP, a guy who put up better than a point a game through the dead-puck era, a guy who once led the league in playoff scoring in only 3 rounds. On the ice, he combined the skills of both Sedins in one man, able to control the puck in a one-man-cycle that I've never seen another player manage. Forgetting what a stunning player he was redounds to my detriment, not to his.

Can he still play? I have no idea. I doubt it. I predict he'll put up a multi-point game his first game back (not tonight, apparently). Probably a three-assist game. And I predict he will play fewer than 20 games in the remainder of the season, and never play professionally again. But whatever. Medical science has completely reshaped the arc of professional careers: if this last brace of surgeries actually fixed his creaky wheels? Maybe his unparalleled hands & vision can make him a significant factor again.

And no matter what, I've talked myself into being happy to see him take the ice again. He was never my favorite player, but the moments I fell for hockey all included him--particularly watching him & Sakic trotted out there on the penalty kill, two sublime talents bending their games to do the dirty work & bail out their team (-mates). For reminding me of that, I'm glad to see the guy back.

2. On a modest proposal from Puck Daddy

(Evidently not in charge of discipline for the NHL.)

In the wake of yet another late hit, Greg Wyshynski proposes the following:

The next CBA negotiation should include the NHLPA allowing for an increase in financial penalties in lieu of man-games lost. The Players Association clearly doesn't want to see any "super suspensions" of its players, but the message has to be sent somehow. And uncapping the amount of fines a player receives on an injurious, illegal play is an effective way to send that message when you already have half the league bitching about escrow.

This is frankly bizarre. As an approach to (ahem) justice, it's a retrograde maneuver that I find utterly repellent in what purports to be a civilized society. To be clear: adding fines is all well and good. But "in lieu of man-games lost"? People, we've agreed that letting people pay fines without other consequences was a bad idea since 15fucking17.

Do I expect my rejection of indulgences for NHL players to gain any traction? Sadly, I don't. Apparently in our society, freedom from punishment can be purchased with money. Again. And neither in hockey nor anywhere else is there much of an audience for the 95 arguments against this horrifying practice.

--Collision, working on justifying the NHL's ways to man

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Other image courtesy of the IIHF.

Collision calls it

1. Where the fuck are we? And where the fuck are we going?
Okay, when even the scrupulously positive Jay Vean admits "I'm just trying to get excited about something besides Duchene", it's time to admit it:
We're 51 games into an 82-game season. The team is what it is; the season is what it is. The defense isn't very good, the goaltending is sub-par, and the team seems to be addicted to giving up quick goals, particularly against trap teams.

I think there's some hope. Stewart put up a goal and an assist last night. And his size and physical game help compensate for the small, soft defense. If he plays the way he did before breaking his hand, the team might stay in playoff contention.

But what "playoff contention" means for this squad? Is maybe--maybe--winning two home games against the number-one seed. Which is going to be Vancouver, against whom the Avs have gone 1-3-1 on the year. So good luck with that.

No, as Jibblescribbits argued yesterday, the defense is not good, but that can't be fixed this year. It's a personnel issue, and top-tier Dmen are in short, short supply. I hate to argue this, but the Avs have to stay the course this year, run & gun, try to outscore everybody, add what I hope will be a lottery pick, and keep building...for next year.

2. Where the fuck are we going? And how the fuck did we get here?

Well, again, my recipe is to try to outscore everybody with whatever forwards are still standing. Injuries have crushed the forwards on this squad, but everybody who's played has put up numbers. Milan Hejduk has been spectacular, putting up the third-best points-per-game numbers of his 12-year career. I particularly like that his best games have frequently come in the team's worst outings--like last night. When the young kids don't show up, Hejduk seems to be there to put in a good night's work. Which I very much wish I could say about Stastny.

This season has been so particularly frustrating because, I argue, of two uniquely frustrating trades:
Wolski for Mueller
Hannan for Fleischmann¹.

Now, Wolski has been poor for Phoenix and the Rangers, and is now on his third team in two seasons, having been traded in each of those seasons. He's apparently turning into a guy who's just attractive enough to trade for, but not valuable enough to keep. So this shouldn't count as much of a loss--except that Mueller hasn't played a single game this year. And that's been quite a lack, because he had been penciled in as a top-six forward. Which, I think, forced the other trade, for Fleischmann.

This move became necessary because forward after forward had gone down and the Avs had to do something to indicate they hadn't given up on the season. I understand the move, and I think Fleischmann was superb for the Avs--8-13-21 in 22 games, with excellent chemistry with Duchene & Hejduk--but now he's lost for the season, and the Avs are desperately in need of a solid defensive Dman with some physicality to his game.

Which is to say they are desperately in need of a Scott Hannan type player.

But they're not going to find one by the trade deadline--and in any case, this year is pretty much done. The die is cast. It's time to sit back and watch some smallish guys fly around and score lots of goals...and give up lots of goals.

--Collision, hoping to get a little more playing time down the stretch

¹I'm not touching Cohen for Hunwick. I don't want to turn into a #blamehunwick guy, but 3 points and a -9 in 25 games isn't something I'm interested in trying to defend.

too dumb to play with themselves part two

0. "piece of shit. walk away."
OR
a lesson Chris Collision can not--will not--learn

If you had access to my email, you'd see that I write a lot of emails to ESPN, emails haranguing and begging in equal measure, special pleas for them to just hire a goddamned proofreader already. Today's brilliant moment was:

Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun look at two teams -- the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings -- that are

While I do applaud ESPN's vault into the existentialist zen mode of sports writing, I do have to insist that that sentence actually feature some ending punctuation.

A little later, LeBrun spews the following:

I spoke with someone this week who figured Gaborik has never been the same player since his hip surgery; or maybe it's just going to take longer to get it all back?

Okay. You talked to a guy. Cool.

But his hip surgery was the one he had in January of 2009. Which, last I checked, was before October of 2009, when the 2009-10 NHL season began...a season when Gaborik tied his career high for goals, and beat his career highs for assists and points (42-44-86).

Again we see LeBrun abdicating even the most basic elements of journalism in favor of blurting out whatever some moron inexplicably in a privileged position happens to spout platitudiously on the fucking phone. Your job--your actual, literal job--is explicitly to say:

"I talked to someone today who figured [absurd idiotic claim goes here], but that claim is false and here is why."

Has Gaborik been good this year? No. But it can't be because he's recovering from a surgery that preceded the best year he ever had in the NHL.

And then, on a different page, LeBrun continues to fondle his drum.

GM Doug Wilson told me point-blank this past weekend that McLellan isn't going anywhere, which is the right decision. This is not a coaching issue; this is about players underperforming.

GUH? Still waiting for that explanation about what exactly coaches do, if not get players to perform...

Collison, rehabbing

1. Who's reading this shit, anyway?

too dumb to play with themselves

0. Ten Seconds to Hell

I don't spend a ton of time on ESPN. I like hockey, and I dislike strained attempts at meme generation, which leaves me pretty solidly outside the target demographic of the Disney conglomerate.

That said, they've got the resources to cover whatever they want, however they want, and I do have to admit that I'm still pretty enthusiastic about listening to Barry Melrose. So I do still check in now and again. And this last time I did so, I found two things that drove me absolutely up the goddamned wall.

1. The Gargoyle Conspiracy

The first thing was a brief meditation that went a little something like

1. People have begun to ask whether San Jose would consider a coaching change.
2. I spoke with Sharks GM Doug Wilson on Saturday and he said no way, that Todd McLellan and his staff were not the issue.
3. The players have underperformed and the team has had key injuries, the latest being to Ryane Clowe.¹
4. McLellan is one of the best coaches in the NHL and I can't imagine how a change there would do any good.
5. This is about the core of this team waking up and playing up to its potential.

Now, I'm just a fan. I'm not an analyst, nor a duly appointed Industry Professional--increasingly weighted in & by the part of our culture that judges business (but oddly not politics)--but...well...if players are underperforming (3) and asleep (5) and not playing to their potential (5), how is that not an indictment of the coaching staff?

To come from another angle, what exactly do coaches do, if not bring players to peak or near-peak performance, wake them up, and facilitate their ultimate reaching-of-potential-reaching?

LeBrun's no dummy, and I think he's actually probably basically right: the Sharks' problems are with players with no guts whatsoever spattering the roster--wait. I hate that fucking guy, pontificating that way. Jock asshole with nothing to offer but date rape and AIDS jokes. Let me rephrase. The Sharks' problems come mainly from slightly substandard team speed, major holes defensively, and a coaching staff that repeatedly trots out the goalie who's playing like shit instead of riding the hot hand--rather than with coaching.

Well. The goalie thing has to do with coaching. And the team is a classic bully squad, playing nervous whenever they're not ahead, and not all that good at holding on when they are ahead. Both of these would seem to lie within the purview of coaching. But mainly & really the Sharks need a Dman to munch minutes in all the zones, like even end-stage Rob (nee Rod) Blake could (21 MPG last 2 seasons), and a half-decent replacement for faceoff machine and stalwart hard-to-play-against-guy Manny Malhotra; they don't need a coaching change, a priest or a shrink.

But LeBrun's not saying any of that shit. Neither is he using his access or insight to say things worth saying. He's standing at the podium, reading a GM's incoherent, prima facie absurd press release and throwing the weight of America's Biggest Media Concern behind what can only be willful self-delusion, a crass attempt at spin, or just plain, old-fashioned ignorant incompetence on the part of some Important Decision Makers.

I know I'm not supposed to get angry when that happens in the sporting press. But fuck. When what's at stake isn't that important, why can't we have some Actual Standards?

2. The Dirty Duck

The second bit that made me angry enough to bite a goddamned hammer, shattering my teeth on tool steel spalled and displaying patination from long focused use, was the insane--and common--phrase:

future Hall of Famer Rob Blake

I've seen this pop up all over the place, and it drives me from zero to baffled+hostile faster than anything in this man's world other than internet comment sections.

Let me establish from the beginning that I like, respect, and esteem Rob Blake. He was a massive contributor to my beloved Avs, stout, as I spouted above, in all three zones, a Dman with big hits in his end, a solid and reliable first pass out, and a beast of a slapshot on the power play and whenever else he got one notch too much room.

But since when is one--one--major award (the Norris) and one--one--championship (in two cracks at it) enough to get a guy in the Hall? One Olympic gold medal probably isn't supposed to count, nor are his 1994 & 1997 World Championships golds, though being a member of the Triple Crown Club might make some hay. Six seasons as a captain, with more probably his portion if he hadn't had four seasons with the Avs, where nobody was gonna fill that slot except Joe Sakic, count for something. Six All-Star games--one first and three seconds--certainly they don't not matter.

So his Hall of Fame case depends nigh-entirely on his numbers. And it's not clear that his numbers are there.

His 240 goals is outstanding for a Dman, particularly one who played most of his career in the trap-heavy dead puck era, but his 537 assists (and 777 points [1270 games]) don't seem to me to rate.

.612 PPG is very good for a Dman, but his playoff rate is only exactly half a point per game (26-47-73 in 146). And even that is padded heavily by 19 points in 23 games in 01; outside that season, he posted a more pedestrian .46 PPG.

And culturally, he never really bestrode the narrow earth. Even as a giant Avs fanboy, I couldn't tell you he should have his number retired. Basically the man was who you got when you couldn't score Scott Stevens (196-712-908 in 1635 [.555 PPG], 26-92-118 in 233 [!] playoff games, 13 ASG, [3 2nds, 2 1sts], Conn Smythe, involved in the 3 cups the Devils will ever, ever win and +393 on his career) and Blake not only didn't have the numbers Stevens did, he didn't have the cultural cachet Stevens had. Which is to say, when Blake left his feet or got his elbows well up to deliver a hit, he actually sometimes got called for a penalty.

Does Blake have a case for the Hall? Sure. He stands decently enough in relation to the cats who're already there.² Of course, he was a minus-four on his career. I personally think his numbers are both inadequate and artifactual--he played a long time, and had 20-season longevity earlier skaters couldn't've dreamed of--but I'm willing to entertain the arguments.

So why is nobody actually arguing? Exactly when did Rob Blake get a free pass to the HoF? Nobody--nobody--ever watched him play and said "that's the game of a Hall of Fame player". Sticking around a long time is great; sticking around a long time doesn't make you great. ESPN pisses me off.

-Collision, taking a bad penalty b/c he got stuck on the ice too long

¹This is actually a factual error. The most recent important injury was to Logan "Fake-Ass Rookie" Couture, yet another example of ESPN's thoroughgoing refusal to employ any editorial staff of any kind whatsoever.
²If all you do is look at the offensive numbers, I grant, Blake looks like a half-decent candidate: 3rd all time Dman in PPG, 11th all-time in goals,
18th in points. If all you do is look at those numbers, Blake smells a lot like a HoF-caliber player; but looking at the names above him, he's not better than a single one, and some of those guys--above him and below--don't feel Hall-worthy.