Rewriting History: The '93 Playoffs

The 1993 NHL playoffs stand out in the memory of every longtime Penguins fan. The Pittsburgh Penguins went into the playoffs that season as two-time defending Stanley Cup champions and had arguably their strongest team yet. The Penguins closed out the regular season with an NHL-record 17 game winning streak and looked all but unstoppable heading into the post-season.

The Pens easily handled the New Jersey Devils in round 1, beating them soundly in five games. In round 2 the Penguins would face an upstart New York Islanders team that had upset the Washington Capitals in the first round, but were without leading scorer Pierre Turgeon, thanks to Dale Hunter. The Islanders gave the Penguins all they could handle (Mario Lemieux missing a couple games with back trouble did not help either) and forced a Game 7 in Pittsburgh. Game 7 was simply epic, and despite being outplayed by the Penguins the Islanders lead for most of the game and then shocked the hockey world by eliminating the Penguins on a David Volek overtime goal.

That Volek goal was easily the most painful moment of my life from a sports fan point of view, and I have always wondered what would have been if the Penguins had scored in overtime to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals against Montreal. Well now thanks to my new friends Paul and Paul over at WhatIfSports.com I have a pretty good idea. They have used their technology to sim the '93 Eastern Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals on the assumption that the Penguins won Game 7 and not the Islanders, and the results were pretty much what I expected.

The results of each game are listed below. Be sure to click on the links to see the full breakdown of each game.

Eastern Conference Finals - Penguins v Canadiens:

• Game 1 (Pens W 4-3)
  
• Game 2 (Pens W 5-3)
  
• Game 3 (Habs W 5-3)
  
• Game 4 (Pens W 2-1)
  
• Game 5 (Habs W 3-2)
  
• Game 6 (Pens W 4-2)

Stanley Cup Finals - Penguins v Kings

• Game 1 (Pens W 5-2)
  
• Game 2 (Pens W 6-4)
  
• Game 3 (Pens W 6-3)
  
• Game 4 (Kings W 4-2)
  
• Game 5 (Pens W 7-4)

Obviously this is not an exact method, but it does help reenforce the theory that the only thing standing between the Penguins and their third straight Stanley Cup was David Volek. And all this time I thought I could not hate him any more. I guess I was wrong.

Pacific Division 2008 Free Agency Preview

As promised, here is the breakdown for what teams in the Pacific Division are looking at in regards to free agency come July 1st. This is the first in a six part (obviously) series that will run through next Thursday. We'll be starting on the West Coast and heading east. Lists are broken up into restricted free agents (RFA's) and unrestricted free agents (UFA's) with their 2007-08 salaries in parenthesis.

Anaheim Ducks

Pending UFA's:

• Doug Weight ($3,500,000)
• Teemu Selanne ($1,500,000)
• Joe DiPenta ($700,000)
  
• Mark Mowers ($475,000)
  

Pending RFA's:

• Corey Perry ($494,000)
• Brian Sutherby ($800,000)
• Jonas Hiller ($850,000)
  

Cap $$$ Committed: $49.8 million
Notes: The Ducks are in pretty bad shape in regards to the salary cap. I have to believe there is a GM out there who is going to make a big run at signing Corey Perry, knowing that there won't be a lot of options for Anaheim to match. One other very interesting thing about the Anaheim roster, they have zero defensemen signed beyond next season. Brian Burke really has a mess on his hands in Anaheim.

Dallas Stars

Pending UFA's:

• Stu Barnes ($900,000)
• Antti Miettinen ($885,000)
• Niklas Hagman ($675,000)
• Brad Winchester ($475,000)
• Johan Holmqvist ($1,000,000)
  

Pending RFA's:

• Loui Eriksson ($650,000)
• Francis Wathier ($475,000)
• Brandon Crombeen ($675,000)
  

Cap $$$ Committed: $46.5 million
Notes: The Stars don't have a ton of cap space, but they already have most of their roster coming back for next season. One big hole to fill will be the recently retired Mattias Norstrom. They may want to explore their options in regards to finding a backup for Marty Turco as well. I think Stu Barnes will be back, but I wouldn't be surprised if Niklas Hagman left for a better offer as he has shown flashes of ability in Dallas.

Los Angeles Kings

Pending UFA's:

• Rob Blake ($6,000,000)
  
• Ladislav Nagy ($3,570,000)
• Scott Thornton ($1,500,000)
• Brian Willsie ($900,000)
• Jon Klemm ($500,000)
• Kevin Dallman ($490,000)
  
• Jeff Giuliano ($475,000)
  

Pending RFA's:

• Patrick O'Sullivan ($650,000)
• Erik Ersberg ($575,000)
  

Cap $$$ Committed: $32 million
Notes: The Kings have plenty of cap space to spend, which should be a good thing for this perpetually rebuilding club. Patrick O'Sullivan should get a healthy raise and Rob Blake will probably be back, but beyond that is anyone's guess. Maybe they could be the club to make a run at cross town rival Anaheim's Corey Perry.

Phoenix Coyotes

Pending UFA's:

• Radim Vrbata ($1,225,000)
• Mike York ($1,000,000)
• Niko Kapanen ($900,000)
• Craig Weller ($475,000)
• Mathias Tjarnqvist ($475,000)

Pending RFA's:

• Marcel Hossa ($780,000)
• Daniel Carcillo ($525,000)
• Joel Perrault ($495,000)
• Matt Jones ($522,000)
  

Cap $$$ Committed: $29.9 million
Notes: Much like the Kings, the Coyotes have a lot of cap space and nowhere to go in the standings but up. Unlike the Kings, Phoenix seems to have a better nucleus of players in place and thus more reason to be optimistic about the upcoming season. I would expect guys like Hossa and Vrbata to be back next season, but it will be real interesting to see how they deal with Daniel Carcillo. Wayne Gretzky seems to think Carcillo has a lot of potential in the NHL, but he has also been frustrated by his continuing lack of maturity. This team would probably do well to try to upgrade their blue line through free agency. If I were them I would probably throw a big contract at Brian Campbell and cross my fingers that he would take it.

San Jose Sharks

Pending UFA's:

• Brian Campbell ($1,750,000)
• Curtis Brown ($700,000)
• Patrick Rissmiller ($595,000)
• Jody Shelley ($650,000)
• Alexei Semenov ($650,000)
• Sandis Ozolinsh ($625,000)
  
• Jeremy Roenick ($500,000)
• Tomas Plihal ($500,000)
• Brian Boucher ($490,000)
  
• Brad Norton ($475,000)
  

Pending RFA's:

• Christian Ehrhoff ($900,000)
• Joe Pavelski ($810,000)
• Marcel Goc ($800,000)
• Ryan Clowe ($600,000)
  

Cap $$$ Committed: $38 million
Notes: The big name that jumps out here is obviously Brian Campbell. The Sharks gave up a lot to bring Campbell at the deadline and though he fit in right away during the regular season, Campbell had a disappointing playoff. The Sharks will undoubtedly try to keep Campbell, but they may have a tough time as they have a few talented youngsters (Pavelski, Rissmiller, and Clowe in particular) up for new contracts who will be looking for significant raises. I think the Sharks may have a fight on their hands to keep Campbell as there should be plenty of teams lining up to sign him. Especially since he came off at the trade deadline as a guy who is more interested in getting the biggest contract than anything else.

Battle Of The Crappy Commercials

The Kings and Penguins may be at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to on-ice performance, but they are running neck and neck for the "Worst Commercial Ever" Championship. The A&L Motors commercial starring Penguins Max Talbot, Colby Armstrong, Sergei Gonchar, and Evgeni Malkin has taken on near legendary status in some circles. Well Kings players Jack Johnson, Dustin Brown, and Anze Kopitar have answered the challenge and taken things to a whole new level. See for yourself:

Superstar starring Max Talbot and friends


Toy Story featuring the Los Angeles Kings

My opinion:

I may be a tad bit biased here, but I think the Kings commercial is way worse. The A&L commercial has a sort of home video, low quality charm to it. Plus the performance by Max Talbot is earth shattering. Take into account that nobody has a clue what Gonch is saying and they don't even let Geno talk and it's easy to see why this is such a classic. The Kings commercial on the other hand is just embarrassing. Watching Kopitar play with his own doll action figure borders on genuinely disturbing. Plus there are actual production values involved with the Kings commercial which in some sad way implies quality. The bottom line is that I laugh out loud every time I watch the A&L commercial, while the Kings commercial just leaves me feeling bad for the players involved.

Who Would Want Ray Emery?

Ray Emery has done it again... for the last time? The Senators netminder was late to a team practice the day after the All-Star game (after spending the All-Star break in Vegas), and the Senators apparently feel that they have had more than enough of Emery's distractions. Senators GM Bryan Murray announced today that Emery will be "fined substantially", and most people around the NHL feel that Emery's time in Ottawa is now all but at an end.

This raises the question, what team(s) would actually be interested in acquiring the embattled netminder? At this point I will mention that I don't think Emery is a very good keeper to begin with, so take that into consideration as you read on. So, how many teams out there would Emery actually be considered an upgrade between the pipes for? For my money, the only teams that really fall into that category are Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, and Washington. Nobody else would be bringing in Emery as a clear cut #1 goalie, but with an annual salary cap hit over $3 million he's getting paid like one.

Let's take a look at the three teams mentioned above and see if it would make sense for them to bring in Emery:

First we'll look at the Lightning. First off, any deal sending Emery to Tampa would almost have to bring Marc Denis to Ottawa in return just to make the cap numbers work. I think Ottawa could probably live with that, but it wouldn't be ideal for them. On the Tampa Bay side of things, they already have Johan Holmqvist and Karri Ramo in net. Holmqvist is wildly inconsistent, but has the ability to be better than Emery on any given night and comes much cheaper (though he will be a UFA at season's end) while the Lightning organization is very high on the 20-year-old Ramo and have pegged him as their franchise goalie of the future. If you take Tampa's current goaltending into account along with their current cap situation, I think we can safely rule them out as a possible destination for Emery.

The Capitals are a more realistic place for Emery to end up. They have plenty of cap space for the next couple seasons and aren't getting any younger in goal. There has been plenty of speculation that this season could be Olaf Kolzig's last and Brent Johnson is not a long-term solution in goal for a young and talented team like the Caps. A Kolzig for Emery swap could make sense for both teams as it would give Ottawa an insurance policy in net heading into the playoffs and Washington would be getting a potential long-term #1 goalie in return. The more I think about it, the more that trade actually makes sense to me, plus seeing the Caps bring in a jerk like Emery would delight me to no end. So it will probably never happen.

Last up, fittingly, are the Kings. On the surface the Kings could definitely use an upgrade between the pipes. Dig a little deeper though and you see that they have 18-year-old prospect Jonathan Bernier waiting in the wings to be their franchise goalie for the next 10+ years. That doesn't mean they couldn't use someone else in case Bernier's development takes longer than expected. If I were Kings GM Dean Lombardi though, I wouldn't even consider bringing in a malcontent like Ray Emery and instead would dial up Kevin Lowe in Edmonton and try to reacquire Matheiu Garon. I would rather have Garon between the pipes anyway, but he also has a much more palatable salary and is more likely to handle giving way to Bernier in a professional manner. I can't see Emery handling that too well. Plus Ray Emery in Los Angeles just seems like a recipe for disaster.

All in all the Senators will be hard pressed to find a taker for Ray Emery (although one can never rule out Kevin Lowe). I can't see many NHL GM's lining up to bring in an overpaid and overrated head case who clearly cares much more about himself than his teammates. If Emery had a slightly better attitude and was making about half as much as he is, then I could see a team willing to take a chance on him. As things stand right now though, Ray Emery is far too big of a risk for any sensible GM to add him to his squad. Don't be surprised if you see Ray Emery on waivers in the coming days. And don't be surprised if he clears waivers. Ottawa may want to be rid of Ray Emery, but that doesn't mean they won't be stuck with him.